How Hard Can It Be?

by Allison Pearson

  Well done, Em. I can never remember who wants to get off with whom. Usually I end up doing a drawing with arrows in it.

  Whether this means that the characters are perseptive—

  EMILY! CHECK YOUR SPELLING! AND IF YOU MUST SPELL A WORD WRONG, TRY NOT TO PICK A WORD THAT IS SPELT CORRECTLY IN THE TITLE OF THE ESSAY. Honestly. The idea that a child of mine, my own flesh and blood, cannot learn to spell properly, or, worse still, cannot be bothered to spell … She would probably say I don’t know how to text properly. That I write essays on text when you’re supposed to send five words at most, three of them abbreviations and one of them an emoji. And she’d be right.

  —are perceptive, however, is open to question. Even Olivia, who is not in disgiuse—

  EMILY!!!

  —not in disguise, is worried that she is fooling herself and letting her feelings get out of control:

  ‘I do I know not what, and fear to find

  Mine eye too great a flatterer for my mind.’

  As for Viola, even though she is an expert at pretending, she criticises herself and her gender—

  Bloody gender. When did people stop calling it sex?

  —for being weak and vulnerable to being made fools of:

  ‘Disguise, I see, thou art a wickedness,

  Wherein the pregnant enemy does much.

  How easy is it for the proper-false

  In women’s waxen hearts to set their forms!’

  This is quite sexist in my opinion because it says that women are like victims when it’s men as much as women who get taken for a ride—

  This is an A level essay, darling, not an episode of Holby City.

  —who are taken in by deception. In fact, the men are even bigger fools in the play. Orsino is much higher in society than Malvolio, but both of them are equally duped.

  Probably the cleverest person in Twelfth Night is Maria, the maidservant of Olivia. She does not come up with the idea of taking the piss out of—

  For God’s sake. Please.

  —making fun of Malvolio just for the sake of it but (a) because he has been spoiling the fun she has with Sir Toby Belch and Sir Andrew Aguecheek and (b) because she knows exactly how to get at Malvolio. She is clever and she analyses his personality and says that he is ‘the best persuaded of himself’ and believes that ‘all that look on him love him; and on that vice in him will my revenge find notable cause to work.’ It is exactly because she knows where Malvolio is at that she gets him to look like such a loser.

  Not great, but I’ll let it pass. Can’t stay up all night. I’ve got my paid job to go to in the morning.

  This is backed up by the other smart people in the play. Viola recognises that she and the Fool are very similar because both of them have used their wits to have a laugh at other people’s expense. This talent, like all intelligence, does not match people’s status in society. Feste is called the Fool, but is not a total dork;

  DORK? Please. Never use that word!

  —Feste is called the Fool but is actually very bright and one posh person (Viola) wears a sort of cammerflarge—

  Nice try.

  —a sort of camouflage that successfully fools two posh people (Orsino and Olivia). In fact, although there are loads of characters in the play Viola is probably the heroine because right from the beginning just after she lands in Illyrria,—

  Nearly. Ilyrria? Illirya? (*‘Roy? Help!’)

  —in an unfamiliar country, she realises that it’s only by becoming somebody else that she will get anywhere in life:

  ‘Conceal me what I am, and be my aid

  For such disguise as haply shall become

  The form of my intent.’

  And there the essay grinds to a halt. Attagirl, Em. Not bad at all, sweetheart. Plenty of shrewd insights to make up for the dodgy spelling. She really should have more confidence in herself, but girls like Emily set themselves impossibly high standards so they never feel good enough. What was it she said to me? ‘I’m not the cleverest, I’m not the prettiest, I’m not the anythingest.’ It’s the disease of the day. Wish I could wiggle my nose, like Samantha in Bewitched, and make her see how irrelevant most of the things that worry her will be in a few years’ time. Sadly, the one gift you can’t give your child is perspective.

  I read Emily’s last paragraph again. Does my daughter know, or at any rate sense, that by now she is hardly writing about Shakespeare at all? That she is, in fact, writing about her own desperate attempts to fit in, that all teenagers must put on ‘motley’ to be in with the cool kids? That Emily’s daily make-up tutorial on Instagram is teaching her how to contrive a cat-eyed mask, to disguise herself and her gripping fear that she is not perfect. And making her think that being imperfect is somehow not OK, rather than the human condition. And what will future historians make of the fact that, at the start of the twenty-first century, when Feminism seemed to have won the argument, girls like Emily tried their hardest to look like the courtesans of a previous age when women had almost no power except their looks and the ability to attract a man of status? What the fuck is that about, actually?

  Let’s not even mention her menopausal mother, who, for the sake of a job, in new and hostile territory, must disguise her age as if it were her sex, in an effort to become, if not a man, at least one of the boys, and a forty-two-year-old boy to boot? Forsooth.

  The essay needs an ending. Let me put on the cammerflarge of my beloved child and, God (or the teacher, Mr Young) forgive me, while I add something that Emily probably doesn’t know.

  All this must be set in the context of a time when women were not even allowed to appear on stage. So, all their parts were taken by boys. This means that the Cesario who was watched by spectators in 1602 was in fact a boy pretending to be a woman pretending to be a man. And Olivia, who fell for him, was a male actor, falling for a male played by a female played by another male. Perhaps Twelfth Night still speaks to us four hundred years after it was written because, in many ways, we still haven’t figured out what girls are allowed to be, or how they are allowed to look, or if the only way they can be taken seriously is to act like a man. If that seems confusing, maybe it’s because it really is confusing, and we are still confused at the start of the twenty-first century. If William Shakespeare was alive today, I don’t think he would be shocked that so many young people say on their Facebook page that they ‘identify as bisexual’. In conclusion, that is why, as Ben Jonson said, Shakespeare was ‘not of an age, but for all time.’

  1.12 am: Finished. It’s crazy late, but at least Emily will have something to hand in tomorrow. Today, actually. She wouldn’t speak to me when I got in from work – no change there – but maybe doing this essay for her will help. If I can’t give her the confidence she lacks, then at least I can get her out of a detention.

  The period drama seems to be over, thank goodness; only some light spotting now, although I really must go and talk to someone about it. (‘Roy, what happened about the gynaecologist? Did we call yet? Please can you remind me?’)

  I run the hottest bath I can bear, then, from the cupboard under the sink I take out the Jo Malone Lime Basil and Mandarin; barely an inch left at the bottom of the bottle. I’ve been saving it for a special occasion; its glorious scent reminds me of better, stronger days; days when I took so much for granted, such as a well-behaved womb and being able to afford my favourite bath oil. When I climb in, the water is so hot my body momentarily mistakes it for cold. Lie back, and start soaping myself. Pubic hair is stuck together in matted clumps by the dried blood. I am pulling each clump apart, teasing out the rusty residue, separating the individual hairs, when one finger comes to rest on my clit. I try an experimental circular motion, then press down hard, just to see. Anybody there? Making myself come was never a problem, particularly if I thought of a certain strapping American. There was a song Jack played me on the jukebox at the Sinatra Inn all those years ago. ‘The Very Thought of You’. How true, that song. The mere idea of him was enough to make
my nipples stiffen, my body convulse. How can someone do that to you when they’re not on the same continent? I think of Jack’s email waiting patiently in my Inbox. I can’t open it. I mustn’t open it. Even if he thinks he wants to see me, that woman he cared for, she’s a ghost; her invisibility date is fast approaching. I want him to remember me as I was.

  ‘How easy is it for the proper-false in women’s waxen hearts to set their forms.’ Love’s a delusion, Kate, forget it.

  *Illyria. Roy belatedly supplies the proper spelling.

  12

  CATCH-32

  6.09 am: Black Friday. Sounds like the anniversary of a terrorist attack but, no, it’s supposed to be merry, merry, merry! ‘The day when Christmas really begins’, according to hideously chirpy woman on the radio. Am up early to get some shopping done online because, sadly, I no longer believe in Father Christmas. There is no Father Christmas. Nor is there a crack team of present-wrapping elves and eight non-pooping, flying reindeer. There is just me – one disillusioned mother of a Christmas – and a very knackered Mastercard. (‘Roy, did you figure out what happened with my credit rating? Urgent!’) The thing is, Christmas always feels ages away then, one morning, you wake up and it’s careering towards you like a carjacked Nissan Sunny in a high-speed police chase.

  That’s what Black Friday’s for: a call to arms for Mother Christmas. And even though my kids are bigger now, no longer spending their entire year in a countdown to the Big Day, Christmas always takes me back to that feeling of dread that I might let my chicks down. Get your bargains right now, madam, says every single ad on Earth, or you are doomed to flounder in full-price, gift-less purgatory and disappoint all your children, who still want to believe in Santa Claus, even though their dad’s sole contribution is to ask, at 8.27 pm on 24th December: ‘What have we got for Emily?’

  Thank God I’ve already ordered Ben’s PlayStation 4. It’s so popular, apparently, that it’s impossible to get one now. Totally sold out. For once, I am ahead of the game like proper organised mother. Ben told me it’s the only thing he wants because it offers a dualshock wireless controller. Me neither.

  Yes, I am aware that I should not be feeding my son’s electronics habit, but I’d just got my first pay slip in seven years – Hallelujah! – and this new sense of agency made me want to buy Ben and Em something special to celebrate. When the kids were little, and I did a lot of business trips, I always brought them home a guilt gift. Emily ended up with Barbies in the national dress of thirteen different countries, mainly because I had no time for shopping and used to snatch one up at the airport when I was running for Departures. Not long ago, when we were getting ready to move house, we donated the entire Barbie collection to the charity shop and Em said they made her feel weird, probably because she knew each Barbie meant Mummy was absent. I confessed I felt the same; the dolls were symbols of the guilt I could never quite shake when I was trying to live two lives simultaneously. Looking back, I don’t know how I did it: the breakneck switching between international flights and needy toddlers, the dark business suit dodging sticky hummus hands. The person who managed all that seems remote from me now, like an actress in a film. I both miss her terribly and feel relieved by my narrow escape.

  ‘The UK is bracing itself for seven days of hot hot deals!’ hollers hideous chirpy woman. I switch her off, pat Lenny who is eager for breakfast (‘Just a minute, boy’), open a tin and put a saucepan of water to boil on the Aga when I hear furious bellowing from upstairs. What now?

  7.12 am: ‘We are not going to find it any faster if you shout at me like that, young man. EXCUSE ME, what did you call me?’

  The Zika virus is swarming across the Americas, we are either going to be killed by airborne plague or bearded jihadist nutters, but what matters, what really matters, is that Ben’s left football boot is missing. And this is my fault. Because, in my given role as Mother of Teenagers I’d Cheerfully Murder, everything is now my fault, even things I have never seen nor heard of or simply forgotten – which, let’s face it, is increasingly likely. (‘Roy, have you seen Ben’s football boot?’)

  ‘I put it here,’ Ben says, gesturing furiously at the floor, or where the floor should be if it weren’t covered in stuff. My son is apparently engaged in a competition with his sister to see whose bedroom can have the least visible carpet area.

  ‘Ben, I tidied and hoovered in here on Sunday.’

  ‘D’uh! Well, that’s why I can’t find anything,’ he protests, shrugging his shoulders and simultaneously raising his outstretched arms to the ceiling like Chandler, his hero from Friends. (Both my kids baulk at learning a foreign language, but they speak fluent US sitcom, a flip sarcastic tongue against which mere reason is powerless.)

  ‘Please don’t say “D’uh” to me, Benjamin. I am trying to help. If you would only keep track of your—’ My domestic sermon is interrupted by more furious bellowing. This time, it’s from downstairs.

  7.17 am: ‘CRAP, why does this SHITTY printer never work?’

  ‘Emily, please don’t swear.’

  ‘I’m not. I’ve got to print my sodding History coursework. SHIT!’

  ‘Did you hear me? I said, don’t swear.’

  Emily narrows her eyes dangerously. ‘You’re such a bloody hypocrite, Mum. You swear. Daddy swears.’

  ‘He does not.’

  My daughter gives one of her most contemptuous equine snorts. If she had hooves, they’d be pawing the ground. ‘Every time Dad hits his head on the beam by the back door, which is literally like seven times a day, he says, “Fuck this bloody house.”’

  ‘EMILY!’

  ‘Emily said fuck! Emily said fuck!’ chants Ben, who has descended from his room to revel in his sister’s disgrace.

  ‘Benjamin, what is that you’re playing?’

  ‘Mortal Kombat,’ he mumbles.

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘S’not violent, Mum,’ he adds hastily.

  ‘“Mortal Kombat” isn’t violent? Do you think I’m stupid or something? Get off that thing now. Give it to me! I said, give it to me. Right, young man, all your technology privileges are withdrawn for one week.’

  ‘She’s been reading that book again,’ Emily smirks at her brother.

  ‘Yeah. Parenting Teens in the Digital Age,’ says Ben with unwelcome accuracy.

  My squabbling, obnoxious children have a rare moment of truce, united in mirth against the common enemy. Me.

  ‘Did I miss something funny?’ Richard has appeared in the doorway carrying a wicker basket of what look like nettles. Here comes Mrs bloody Tiggy-Winkle.

  ‘Mum’s losing it over nothing,’ says Emily.

  ‘Yeah, she needs help,’ adds Ben.

  ‘Well, Mummy’s got a lot on her plate with the new job,’ says Richard soothingly, pecking our hideous, foul-mouthed daughter on the cheek and ruffling Ben’s hair. ‘I’ll give you both a lift to school and we’ll let Mum get her train, shall we?’

  Here we go again. Daddy gets to be the good cop. Mostly, I accept that’s the deal, but this morning I could throw the coffee machine at Rich for not backing me up.

  Furious now, and overwhelmed by the unfairness of the kids making me the enemy, when I was the one up at dawn buying their Christmas presents, I turn on them. ‘Hey, I have news for you two. Copernicus rang. He says you’re not the centre of the universe.’

  Ben looks at his sister. ‘Who’s Copper Knickers?’

  Emily runs out, across the hall and into the kitchen, slamming the door behind her. I hear the loose brass lock clatter to the floor. Again.

  ‘EMILY? Emily, come back, please. You left a page on the printer.’

  7.43 am: After I’ve fed Lenny and remembered to fill his water bowl, I notice the voicemails from my mother. Three within the space of thirteen minutes. Oh, here we go again. Mum has already started fretting about the arrangements for Christmas. As I listen to the first message, my heart sinks.

  ‘Shall I book Dickie into kennels, Kath? I don’t
want to bring him and be a nuisance.’

  I know that she wants to bring her little dog so, in conversation after conversation, spread over weeks, I will assure her that it’s fine to bring Dickie, it would be a pleasure to receive the doubly incontinent Dachshund for our Yuletide festivities. (‘Oh, I don’t think so, love. I don’t want him spoiling your carpets.’

  ‘Really, it’s OK, we haven’t got any carpets he can spoil, Mum.’)

  The phone calls will go on and on, eating up hours I simply don’t have. My mother is very happy to talk through every possible permutation of the arrangements before changing her mind: and her indecision is final. When you’re getting on, as Mum is, your world contracts, so an event which is several weeks away, like going to stay with your daughter’s family for Christmas, fills your every waking thought. For me, it’s just another hurdle in the calendar; for Mum it’s like climbing K2. The elderly require the same patience you give to small children – gentle encouragement, repetition, endless reassurance – only, what feels endearing in the young can be plain irritating in the old. With both to attend to simultaneously, you are the squished ham in the sandwich, piggy in the middle. I think that’s why I’ve kept Roy so busy lately, sending him to hunt down words I can no longer pull up. Between the pitched battles with cursing children and the monotonous loop of conversation with the elderly, I struggle to complete a single thought of my own.

  I decide to call Mum back later. Piotr will be in soon. He’s starting really early these days, finishing late, and walking Lenny for me until I can find a dog-walker. The man’s a saint. I look forward to seeing him because it means that we really will have a functioning kitchen for Christmas, just like I promised Richard.

  Speaking of which. Need to order turkey at upmarket organic butcher as highly recommended by Sally. (‘Roy, can you remind me to order a KellyBronze, please?’)

  Settle down at the laptop only to find Inbox flooded with Black Friday reminders. ‘Deals you won’t want to miss!’, ‘4 Magical Days of Offers’, Black Friday up to 50% off and free delivery!’ ‘For a Christmas less ordinary get your decorations and tealights now!’ Unscented tealights. Ten-hour tealights. Bumper shimmer tealights. Midwinter Night’s Dream tealights. How on earth did humanity manage before the tealight came to brighten our lives and, by way of a bonus, burn down half our homes?