by Fiona Perrin
At the other end of the sofa was Wilf, who’d returned that morning from his sleepover and gone straight back to bed for a few hours. Now, he seemed to have recovered from what he’d said was an ‘all-night jam’ and was holding fast onto the remote. Holding it meant absolute power – and at the moment that meant Doctor Who on catch up. Daisy was in the armchair watching it too.
Earlier, we’d enjoyed the pastries from Patrick; the kids had been impressed about this flash breakfast. I texted him.
Thanks for the delicious breakfast, New Bill. You’ve said sorry now, so are we done?
He texted back:
Why would we be done? I like making you feel visible.
My only admirer in years appeared to be a guy who delivered food on a bike. In any other circumstances he might be attractive, and he was certainly generous, but I’d spent enough years with Ralph, who earned very little, and didn’t need another penniless partner – or a partner at all.
In my hungover state, I couldn’t really think about it. Life had to go on. That had meant dropping my folks home after a late afternoon Sunday lunch, which I’d tried to pretend was just like any other. There had been the standard moaning about my home-made gravy: ‘Why do we have to have posh gravy when all we really want is Bisto?’
We’d talked about Seymour House – ‘Sounds cool as, Lorca’ (Wilf); and we’d talked about how Aiden and Lily had gone bowling the night before. I was pleased that she seemed to be following my advice and taking some time out this weekend.
‘Then we came here to Netflix and chill,’* said Aiden. All the kids tried not to giggle as I pretended not to know what this meant. I still found it very difficult to think of my daughter as a potentially sexually active human being, although I’d taken the decision six months ago, when she’d come home and told me that she was on the pill and that Aiden’s mum had said she was cool with her staying round there, to also welcome him, as her long-term boyfriend, to our house.
‘I don’t know if it’s the right thing to do or not,’ I’d moaned to Marvin at the time. ‘I put them in separate rooms but there’s no mistaking it’s probably going on.’
‘Well, where did you go at her age?’ he’d asked, and I’d thought of losing my virginity in the summer house (read, shed with mattress) of my then-boyfriend’s house because I hadn’t wanted to talk to Mum and Dad about sex. I was afraid that Mum would act as if I was being oppressed sexually by the patriarchy and that Dad would try to tell me stuff about his early sex life to relate to me.
‘I was at least a year older than she is, though,’ I’d worried on. ‘She says they’re in love.’
‘You just have to be cool.’
This was easier said than done when your daughter was being ravished two rooms away as you went to sleep.
‘Want to tell me more about the visit yesterday?’ I sat on the arm of Daisy’s chair and stroked her long hair. Perhaps she’d found out something that would help her sister.
‘All right, I’ve seen this one anyway,’ she said. ‘And I want to go to some other meetings this week – our group’s got really good and passionate.’
‘Shhhhhh,’ howled Lily and Wilf.
‘Come in the kitchen,’ I said. ‘I’ll put the kettle on.’
Over a couple of cups of camomile, my oldest – by half an hour – daughter became really animated. ‘There was this really cool guy who came to talk to us and who’s going to be heading up the Resilient campaign here,’ she said. ‘He’s called Sunil.’
‘Where is he from?’
‘This is the cool part,’ she said. ‘He’s been part of the Corbyn campaign in London, but he got disillusioned so now he’s decided to dedicate his politics to helping those who can most make a difference in the future – the young.’
‘That sounds noble,’ I said.
‘No, he really cares, Mum. And he really listens to us all – after the talk yesterday, we all sat and brainstormed how we could really take action to address the lack of funding in youth mental health.’
‘But what about tips to make your generation more resilient?’ I asked. ‘Or what parents should be doing to spot the signs?’
‘He said that parents just need to be available for their kids and let them know they are there,’ she said. ‘Like you’re always there for us.’
I smiled and clasped her hand. If only always being there for them were enough; it didn’t stop the pressures that seemed to be an inherent part of being sixteen today. Having to get brilliant exams and still manage to have decent ‘extra-curricular’ on your CV; getting amazing internships and part-time jobs; being politically correct and coping with a sexual world where boys were raised on porn; having ‘on fleek’† eyebrows, a Kim K arse and skinny waist.
‘All that time you spend on social media doesn’t help, though.’ One of the things I hated most about watching my children grow up was how ‘out there’ they were via Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat (Facebook clearly being for old people like my age group); how they longed for ‘likes’ and counted them; how they all spent so long trying to take selfies with the right filter.
‘You’re right about that, Mum, according to Sunil.’ OK, so Sunil says it and suddenly it counts. ‘He’s really big on IRL‡ social interaction.’
‘OK…’
‘Social media subscribes to a world view that puts beauty above intelligence.’ He might be right, but Sunil did sound a very serious person. Still, if it made my kids spend less time staring at their iPhones, bring it on.
‘He sounds fantastic,’ I said. ‘How old is he?’
‘Oh, old. Like a few years younger than you. But still cool,’ Daisy said, and then added when she saw my grimace, ‘Not that you’re not cool. And he’s going to come round and meet you, so that you know who I’m hanging out with,’ Daisy said. ‘As he’s going to be giving me a lift sometimes to demos and stuff. It’s part of safeguarding.’ Daisy shrugged. ‘Right, do you mind if I go? There’s an online hangout with the kids from the group, talking about reducing screentime.’
She didn’t seem to see the irony in this, so I let it slide.
*
The BBC put costume dramas on Sunday evenings as a service to all us licence-fee payers: if we could be transported to a rose-tinted time in history we would forget about the grim reality of a modern Monday. I settled down to be anaesthetised from my worry by whatever this week’s version was. The kids had all disappeared upstairs.
Then, though, the doorbell rang. Weary and still weak from my hangover, I went to answer it in my old pyjama trousers and a long-sleeved top that had a fading picture of a kitten on it. I pulled open the door on its chain and peered through the gap.
There, not wearing a cyclist uniform, but instead what seemed to be a perfectly normal jumper and jeans, was Patrick aka BiL I felt instantly embarrassed about my make-up-less face and then irritation: he might be trying to make me feel more visible, but just calling round without an invitation wasn’t the way it was supposed to work.
‘Callie?’
‘Umm, yes?’
‘I found this dog outside your gate and wondered whether it was yours.’
I looked down and there, in the gap, was Bodger’s face. His eyes were wide as if he knew he was in the wrong.
‘Oh, what was he doing outside?’ I slid open the chain and he came bounding in and jumped up at me as if he had been lost forever, rather than having gone for a lone, late evening stroll. ‘Bodger? What have you been up to? Oh, thank you.’
Patrick hopped from one jeaned leg to another on the doorstep. He looked bigger somehow without his Lycra on. ‘Least I could do,’ he said. ‘Are you OK? I mean, you seem to still be in one piece.’ He didn’t do anything suggestive or stalkery by looking me up and down, but, given the state of me, I glowered anyway and looked down at my pyjamas.
‘Yep, one piece. Thanks for bringing Bodger back.’ I tried to close the door into the silence that followed.
‘Why’s he called Bodger?’ Patrick as
ked as if he didn’t know I felt ridiculous, standing in the doorway in my gruesome home-alone outfit.
‘He was a mongrel runt,’ I explained. ‘I called him a “bodge job of a dog” and it stuck with the kids.’
‘He’s cute.’ Patrick bent down and gave Bodger a stroke. He responded enthusiastically. He knew he wasn’t cute really – mangy, stunted with stinking breath was a better description – so the unexpected affection was a bonus for the dog; he had to get his compliments wherever he could. ‘Bet the kids love him.’
It seemed that BiL was willing to stand on my doorstep telling blatant untruths about my dog and making polite chit-chat. Didn’t he know that the busy people of Seymour Hill didn’t do doorstep small talk and that there was a BBC bodice-ripper on the box?
I edged the door closer and said cheerfully, ‘They loved the pastries, cheers again.’
‘I’m thinking of giving up the food-delivery business.’ He smiled on. I raised my eyebrow politely. ‘Not sure I excel at it. Two days into it, I knocked you over, so it’s not my best career move. Probably better to stick to the day job.’
Without being rude, I couldn’t now not ask him what that was, although the practical part of me, which worried about how people paid the rent, was pleased he had another source of income. ‘What’s that?’ I mumbled.
‘I’m a teacher,’ he said bouncily. ‘I start at Whitebury in September.’ He was talking about the sink comprehensive in the next town. It wasn’t just in special measures, it had been a frequent backdrop to a segment on Crimewatch. Surely, this had to be the equivalent of teacher hell and damnation.
Despite myself I was interested. ‘You’re going to need a flak jacket to survive a morning in that place.’
‘I take a personal thrill in daily survival,’ he said. ‘And a flak jacket is one up on Lycra. Anyway, this job is a bit of a step up and all that stuff from my last one. I’m going to be Head of PE.’
I looked duly impressed and simultaneously made a note that, in terms of status, having a respectable teacher pay me unsolicited attention was one up from having a food-delivery worker in hot pursuit. ‘Head of PE sounds like a lot of room for personal injury,’ I noted, ‘but I’m sure you’ve done a risk assessment.’
It was clear that this new job was a source of pride. ‘They’ve had a couple of really good athletes in the past. I’m hoping to channel some of the energy from running county lines into running on a track.’ This was a gang/drug reference, and not a bad joke. I smirked and jiggled from foot to foot, worried about whether my nipples were standing up in the cold through my T-shirt. This was turning into the kind of conversation that should warrant a friendly, ‘Fancy a cup of tea?’ but it was Sunday night, I was hungover and exhausted, and I looked like shit. He didn’t seem to notice and carried on chatting away. ‘So that’s why I’ve moved to Seymour Hill. And I just thought, while I waited for the job to start, I might as well earn some money and keep fit but, like I said, it’s not for me.’
I wondered if he was really lonely: he wanted to string out neighbourly conversations on a doorstep; he hadn’t mentioned a partner or kids.
‘Bit of a change from South London,’ he went on blithely. ‘Newly trendy Seymour Hill.’
‘Where in South London?’ And, more interestingly, why had he moved for a job five months before the start of a new term?
‘Balham,’ he said. ‘But Seymour Hill is properly bougie.’
‘It didn’t used to be,’ I said. ‘It’s the impact of Google.’
‘Yeah, it’s geek central here.’ BiL smiled. He was quite funny, I’d admit that much. ‘I particularly like the range of facial hair.’ He rubbed his own clean-shaven chin. ‘I mean, to be really cool now you have to have a full-on fake jihadi.’
‘Do you live on your own?’ I asked, realising that I’d been standing on my doorstep for a good five minutes, probably with my nipples on parade in the light of the streetlight.
‘Yes, now I do,’ he said, and a small cloud passed over his face. ‘I broke up with my long-term girlfriend and changed jobs all at the same time, so it’s a new start for me in newly trendy Seymour Hill. As a hobby, I’m going to start up a craft brewery, I reckon, with fermentation based on obscure Mongolian methods with foraged herbs. It’ll go down a storm here.’
‘The rule is that you’re allowed to take the piss out of the place if you come from here. If not, it’s a no-no,’ I told him sternly, crossing my arms across my chest.
‘You see? I was made to run into you so that you could make sure I know this stuff.’
This was moving into distinctly flirty waters in which I was not prepared to paddle, so I nodded: ‘Thank you for the food and for bringing my dog back.’
‘Swiftly delivered food, I think you’ll agree.’
‘Five-star delivery,’ I agreed.
He turned, giving Bodger a big stroke. ‘I think he knows I’m the guy who’s delivered food. So, he sat outside in the hope for more.’
I swear Bodger gave an almost imperceptible nod. This seemed like collusion to me and I pushed the dog back into the hallway. ‘Thanks again for bringing him back. See you round, BiL.’
*Stay in pretending to watch TV but actually get it on. Come on, you’ve heard this one.
†Eyebrows are the single most important element of teenage girldom. On fleek eyebrows are the ultimate bushy yet groomed arched shape.
‡In Real Life.
9
There were people in life who were lucky enough to love their jobs, who relished every challenging, satisfying hour they spent completing their daily tasks and got paid for it.
Unfortunately, I was not one of them.
My job – Head of HR at a car leasing company– was completely unsatisfying in every sense of the word. I worked in a dingy office at the Angel in Islington. My basic daily tasks typically involved trying to get employees to stay with the firm; refereeing arguments between alpha male managers; and responding to the public who filed daily complaints about our delivery drivers speeding while on their mobile phones and harassing customers and so on. I had a particularly great one to deal with at the moment: one of our workers had been caught snorting cocaine in a customer’s toilet after delivering a new Mercedes C class in Kent. It was the stupidity of it that got me – I could just about get my head round doing Class As at work, but why choose the polished porcelain ledge of a customer’s loo and then leave a white powder residue?
Of course, not everyone who worked at Carter’s Cars was a complete moron, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say that most of them were. It was because of the culture that started with my boss, Eli Carter, who was one up from Neanderthal in terms of evolution. Because he hired people who didn’t challenge him and, indeed, supported his warped, prehistoric world view, the place was full of people who would have been more at home as cave-based hunter-gatherers.
How had I ended up with such a fantastically crap career and why didn’t I leave? Both good questions. The answer was money. Because it was such a terrible role for any self-respecting HR person, it was quite well paid. Back in the days when Ralph and I were bringing up three kids while managing what seemed a mammoth mortgage, and his contribution was, at best, minimal, I’d left my exciting job doing HR in a media company in Soho and, attracted by an extra £10k a year, gone to work at Carter’s Cars of north London. And the money had made a huge difference to our family, despite me hating pretty much every hour of every day, so I’d stuck it out. Then when I tried to leave (which happened every two years or so, when I realised anew quite how awful my job was) Eli Carter would phone me up from whatever golf course he was on and up my salary again. Then I would think about how broke we always were despite everything and decide to stay. And when Ralph had left, any money that he had been contributing had vanished with him, so I’d just got on with it.
I was thinking about having to fire the coke-snorting driver when I arrived at the office on Monday morning. My little team was already there, all three of them,
looking forward to another five days in this daily grind.
I knew it was my job as the boss to rally the team and made a pathetic effort. ‘Good weekend, everyone? And here’s to a great week ahead.’
‘Oh, don’t be so fucking bogus, Cal,’ said Greg, the recruitment manager, who was a dour, potty-mouthed Welshman. He had an online gambling habit and was continually in debt, so through the same mechanism of colleague retention – bungs in his pay cheque – I’d managed to get him to stay for three years now.
‘Another Monday in this hellhole,’ muttered Ayesha, who sat next to Greg. I figured Ayesha would last about another six weeks in the role before she left to go somewhere where she didn’t have to deal with daily racism and hourly sexism.
‘Oh, come on, I’m only trying to get a bit of joie de vivre into the place,’ I said. ‘What about you, Charles? Did you have a good weekend?’ We currently had a young nephew of Eli’s working with us on what had been loosely called ‘an internship’. He was extremely posh, turning up every day in a Prince of Wales check suit, tie, shirt and cufflinks and was very friendly. He was also completely, utterly useless at any task we set him, so we just avoided giving him any jobs. This meant that he spent most of his day on Instagram.
‘I had a fantastic time at the motor racing,’ Charles said. It was the sort of posh thing he spent his weekends doing, so I didn’t look surprised. ‘And now I’m ready for the challenges of the week.’
‘Finding new followers on Insta,’ grunted Greg. ‘Really challenging.’
‘Ha, ha! I would love to help you this week, Greg, and gain some of your valuable experience,’ said Charles, who was immune to sarcasm.
Greg looked absolutely horrified and when his desk phone rang picked it up with alacrity and much more enthusiasm than usual. ‘Hello? Greg speaking.’
If I didn’t have enough on my plate, this was my daily bread and butter.
*
Lucky me. Monday morning was also the operational management meeting. It was the standard dirge. I successfully managed to outsource firing the coked-up driver to one of the regional managers. I was feeling that this was a result when my colleagues – all men, white and in their forties and fifties – started to debate the most important issue of the day: lunch.