by Dawn French
It was Nell Barlow’s mother who trumped us all in the end though, when she arranged an entire petting zoo to be present including hugging a koala, a boa constrictor experience, and a donkey ride to finish. Plus the kids were all given documents to prove they were now adoptive parents to individual, personally named, specific, orang-utan babies. One each. Bugger. I threw in the party towel there and then. You win, Nell’s mum.
I must banish all these irritating distractions and crack on with my book. I have settled on Teenagers: The Manual, as the title. In order to write it well, I am having to remind myself constantly that I am good at my job. I know fundamentally I am. People recommend me. People return to me. I have, on occasions, worked with two different generations of the same family, so I must be doing something right. I am doing a lot right. You don’t get to be forty-nine without discerning at some level whether or not you are successful. It’s one of the facets of this job that, in time, one gets ‘a nose’ for it. I can often detect the root cause of the trouble within a few sentences.
Of course, I may be proven wrong, but honestly, not often. That may have something to do with my strongly held beliefs that pretty much all toddler and teenage malaise can be rooted in the parents. The parents, of course, don’t want to hear this, so that is always my first hurdle, to reassure them that A. they’ve taken the brave step by coming and B. that it’s not their fault. I am usually telling them by session ten that it is, in fact, their fault. Of course, I don’t use that word. No blame is apportioned in my room. Ever.
Today, I am writing a chapter entitled ‘Time and the Teenage Clock’. I’m hoping to try and explain some difficult neuroscience in layman’s terms. I have been reading up on the teenage brain and finding it fascinating all over again because the adolescent brain differs from the adult in virtually every way. Not only is it not yet fully cooked in terms of development, but it actually seems to have functions that are present only in teen brains. Like the whole idea of ‘teen-lag’, where the night-time troughs and daytime peaks of melatonin secretions occur two hours later than in adults. This puts teens in their own time frame, two hours adrift from the rest of us, hence a possible explanation for the really tricky grumpy mornings, and the very late nights. Although, frankly, with my own teens, their idea of time is aeons out of synch, not just two hours.
Dora is still clattering away on Facebook at two in the morning quite regularly. I wake from sleep and instantly know she is still at it. Of course, I had no such possession as a kid her age. I’m sure I would have found it equally as mesmerizing. I’m grateful it wasn’t an option. The more I think about the time she gives to machines, the more I realize, with horror, that at the root of my constant fury about them, is something like jealousy. It’s as if I am locked out. Locked out of her life. It’s preposterous. I don’t want to be her friend. It’s exactly the advice I most find myself giving to my clients. Parents who wish to be liked by their children are on a doomed route. And yet … I do find myself longing for a closer relationship, where we properly speak and listen and, most importantly, HEAR.
If I’m totally honest I really mean that she properly hears me. After all, nothing Dora says is anything I haven’t heard before, from countless other teens. I am already ten steps ahead of her, I can predict how it will pan out. So easily. The difference in our family is that both Dora and Oscar have access to a mother who is trained to understand teenagers and their problems, who knows that what really counts is to listen to them and give them healthy amounts of quality time, where only THEY matter.
Damn it! Husband is shouting up the stairs for me to come and join them all for lunch. I don’t want lunch, for God’s Sake, I don’t want to talk, I want to press on with my book. When will I get my quality time? Bloody never.
TWENTY-SEVEN
Dora
Had such a weird conversation with Mum. Sometimes she is like so deranged. She shouldn’t be allowed to do her job really, coz how would people feel if they knew how nuts she can be? She’s supposed to be the calm clever one but I swear to God she gets it so wrong sometimes. Mostly it’s coz she’s such a drama queen. Everything is such a big deal. She just can’t seem to chillax atall. She’s gonna like die of a heart stroke or something if she doesn’t chill.
It all started with her telling me that Poo is having puppies. Yay! Me and Dad and Peter have been longing for that for eight years. It’s not fair for her to have the spaying done before she even gets the chance to have just even one little puppy of her own to love and cherish. She doesn’t get a say in anything, stuff just gets done to her, she doesn’t choose at all. We choose her name, her collar, her bed, her food, when she goes out or stays in, everything. Now she’s really struck out for herself. She’s gone and done it with some other dog. We don’t know which one, it could be the manky poodle from the sweet shop, it could be the Labrador from the park – it could be like, any dog.
Apparently they do it really quickly? Maybe that would be the better way for us as well. Meet a guy in a park, look each other up and down, make a quick decision yes or no, have a sniff of their toilet parts … Actually, no not that bit. Then just mate. Over and done with, then walk on without even like looking back. Thank you. Trot on. Very nice. Goodbye. That way you wouldn’t get your whole heart broken in two and made to feel like a big fat loser by Sam Tyler the world’s smallest freakboy. And you could do it with the next one you meet in the park two minutes later, without having to like, get your highlights done and your bikini line waxed and have a bath and get new clothes and stuff. They wouldn’t care. You wouldn’t care. You’d just do it. It’s more honest, to be honest.
Actually, I am like so over being a virgin now. I really want to not be a virgin soon? My eighteenth birthday is coming up and omigod I’m like, still a virgin? It’s so like embarrassing. Omigod.
Anyway, Mum was yapping on about y’know, ‘what’s going to happen with the puppies? Where’s she going to have them? We’ll need to get the vet here so she doesn’t die …’ Blah Blah. Panicking on and on. And me and Dad are like, ‘It’s going to be fine. She will know what to do instinctively. We’ll make a little corner up for her. We can put an ad in the local paper to sell them.’ Like that, but she’s not listening, and suddenly, out of nowhere, she asks me to come and sit at the table. That always means it’s going to be bad if it’s not a meal time. We like NEVER sit down at the table like that. Looking at each other.
She started off pretending this was like some kind of normal girly chat thing like we always do or something? Not. Then, out of bloody nowhere, she suddenly says, ‘You’re not pregnant, are you Dora?’ Like that. Like a bloody gunshot or something. The dog is pregnant, so I must be pregnant? Eh? What is she talking about? Like somehow you catch pregnancy off dogs? What is her bloody planet? And thanks for assuming I’m some kind of slut or something. Doing it all over the place with, like ANYONE. And thanks for like rubbing my nose in it just when I’m feeling so 188% virgin that no one wants to sleep with me anyway coz I’m so bloody fat or something. And thanks for pointing out how much fatter I’ve got that you even bloody think I’m bloody pregnant you bloody idiot Mother.
She makes my skin creep. Why is she my mother? Why couldn’t I have one like Lottie’s who just, like listens and doesn’t say stupid untrue stuff all the time just to bloody hurt you? Why did I get the mad one? Dad just got up and walked out, he was just like, so grossed out.
‘No Mother, you major douchelord, I am not pregnant. Shall we put that in the paper to let people know? Like, “Mr and Mrs Battle are delighted to announce that their daughter Dora is currently unpregnant.” Would that do?’
She went on and on about how she is ‘entitled to ask’ and perhaps if I ‘included her’ more she would feel like she is a part of my life. I don’t want her in my life full stop – never mind telling my private stuff to. I only live with her because I have to. I can’t bloody wait to get away from her. I full on proper hate her. I do. I hate her.
Look what she’s bloo
dy made me do now. I have to eat like this whole packet of Jaffa Cakes to even feel a tiny bit better. So thanks Mum, for all your endless belief in me. Perhaps if you stopped thinking I’m a slag, I might actually like myself a bit more and then I might NOT eat so many Jaffa Cakes? Excuse me. Who is the shrink now?
TWENTY-EIGHT
Oscar
Well, really. Is it my lot to be so unutterably disappointed my whole lifelong? Today I was forced to come to terms with the undeniable notion that even The Enchantings might ultimately prove to be shallow. With the exception of myself, of course. One hopes against hope that one’s choice of members is sound and well judged, and yet …
We convened at the usual hour, in the dingle. Today’s password was ‘Audrey Hepburn’. Hargreaves knew well enough who she was, but Wilson commenced a litany of atrocious transgressions by pronouncing her name to be ‘Angela Hopburn’. What a beautiful fool he transpires to be. He claimed never to have heard of her. Thus followed a full fifteen-minute briefing on the many attributes of said Ms Hepburn. Hargreaves employed words such as: ‘elegant’, ‘tiny’ and ‘posh’. I rather fancy that I was a jot more eloquent, parrying with the likes of ‘gamine’, ‘flawless’ and ‘dainty’. I even dared to posit that very naughty word, ‘pert’. Ultimately I reduced them to a respectful hush with ‘paragon’. Yes, a fitting victory.
We endeavoured to move on to various other topics including the necessary withdrawal of Anton Du Beke from the top ten list of Enchantings’ Icons, due to his recent ill-mannered trespasses, and of course the ever-thorny and controversial issue that is Peter Andre. Hargreaves was generally chatty and willing to contribute whereas Wilson was bafflingly inadequate, revealing himself to be pathetically wanting.
Have I massively overestimated him? Perhaps I have been blinded by his beauty. I suppose if I were charitable I would remind myself that he is, after all, only a Year 9er, rendering him a good couple of years junior to myself and Hargreaves. He simply hasn’t lived as we have. The sheer paucity of his Enchantings-worthy knowledge ought to be excusable, yet I find him to be increasingly irksome.
It could well be that he simply pales in comparison to Noel. I am acutely afflicted with Noelitis, that’s a cert. Even Hargreaves’s hearty attempt to lift my spirits with a breathy rendition of Gershwin’s ‘Someone To Watch Over Me’ didn’t do the trick. My heart remains leaden. I took the opportunity of a willing and captive audience to recite some lines from an Ode to Noel, which I have been working on.
O my racy pulse stops, and a sleepy sorrow starts
My mind, as though of serpent’s sap I had sipped
Or spilled full lull into the dear sweethearts
Of two star-crossed buds, hence been nipped.
Admittedly I owe a certain debt of gratitude to Keats but I feel sure he would commend my attempt. Wilson seemed somewhat saddened when I spoke the lines. Perhaps he guesses that he has been usurped in my heart by Noel. I admit it. I have Noel fever. Help me, doctor.
TWENTY-NINE
Dora
Got a letter this morning. Well not an actual letter, but a kind of appointment card thing to tell me the date – omigod – of the first round of X Factor auditions in London!! This is like, so boom! This is it, baby. Stage one. Passed it. I can continue on in my goal of my dreams towards becoming Britain’s Next Top Singer.
I so cannot tell Mum and Dad about this. They just don’t understand. They are both old and they’ve like totally given up on their dreams now. All they do is their jobs. Whatever they are. Well, Mum does therapy with teenagers and families and stuff and Dad … has a job too. On computers or something?
Not me, I’m not going to waste my life on a bloody job where you just go to the same place 24/11 and die of boringness. I just can’t for God’s sake. I’ve got a talent and it would be oh so wrong not to let it out, not to let other people hear me. How would I feel if I just go to uni, get a degree, get a job, get a family, get a dog, get a house? It would kill me. Proper dead. I want to LIVE. I want to sing, sing, SING! ‘I believe I can fly. I believe I can touch the sky …’
THIRTY
Mo
Interesting day. Am feeling somewhat unsettled, but not unhappy. Little bit muddled. Nothing serious.
I agreed to give some time to Noel at the end of the day, so that he could fire any questions at me. Thus far he has been the perfect shadow – hardly ever in my line of vision and taking up very little of my time. Of course George’s experience with Veronica seems to have been rather different – but then, George is only too keen, isn’t he, to find time to answer the slightest query and to assuage any doubts his needy protégée might have. Ho hum.
Noel is practical and, frankly, more professional. He is fascinated by the fact that I am amongst the very few who still keep session notes in longhand. I have always taken minimal notes during the sessions, otherwise essential eye contact is lost, and frankly it’s just a bit rude. But I don’t think anyone is put off by my occasional scribbles in my lovely battered old pad holder. As long as I write up my notes after each session verbatim, I see no reason to log everything on the computer. I also feel that, ironically, the files are safer in this tangible form, where they are filed out of sight, securely. The computer seems so dangerously accessible somehow. George is constantly telling me that passwords and suchlike are fierce protectors but I prefer to stick with my old tried and tested system. Until someone can prove me wrong, I will continue to do that.
Noel seemed fascinated by all this when we sat down together. I thought for a moment he might be suppressing a scoff, saving up a snigger for later, but I realized I was wrong, he was genuinely interested in my methods, which for a young buck in his thirties is fairly impressive. He was attentive and curious and his subsequent questions proved that he was listening. I suspect he’s a bit frightened of me. George is forever telling me that I am regarded as a Jekyll and Hyde figure – calm and patient with my clients, but rigorous and brusque with everyone else. Fine by me. Totally true. Ask my family – none of them are my clients and consequently I’m sure they’d agree that their mother is chiefly evil Mrs Hyde. A little bit of nominal fear from a trainee is no bad thing, it keeps them on their toes. In Noel’s case, though, he seemed to be bravely battling his misgivings in order to find out more, and so I felt inclined to be helpful. Even though I have very little time.
Actually, I am completely snowed under, a fact I was describing to him when he tentatively asked if I would like to continue our talk in the pub since Lisa seemed to be actively kicking us out of our own offices. She has taken to violently jangling the keys as she stomps up and down loudly announcing the end of the workday. Lisa has assumed the role of warden. More baffling is that we have all willingly assumed the roles of inmates. Or rather, outmates, since we aren’t permitted to be ‘in’ past Lisa’s strict curfews. I’m pretty sure this is the wrong way round.
Anyhoo, I didn’t see much amiss with the idea of a quick drink since George and Veronica are regularly to be found in The Keys after work. Not, it seems, on this occasion.
Noel bought the drinks, I had a half of cider, he had a pint, and we sat by the door on the only available and very draughty table. Initially, he continued his line of questioning about various aspects of work, and he was extremely engaged. There’s no doubt that he is bright and he is definitely confident about his prospects for a career in psychology. He is less of a Jungian than me, more Kleinian, more interpretive, but nevertheless, he’s clever, I think. Even a little argumentative when pushed, which I like. We had quite a rewarding wrangle over confidentiality, and he became quite heated:
‘The fact is, Mo, that if I get a kid in front of me who finally opens up and admits he is feeling suicidal tendencies, what am I going to do? Not tell the parents? Or what about criminal activity? Not tell the parents then? Or the police? Or you? It’s bloody difficult …’
It was really invigorating. Great. It was nearly time to leave when the conversation turned to our own families. He s
eemed amazed that I have been married for twenty-six years. No more amazed than me, I assured him. I genuinely am amazed. Twenty-six years with one man. Even at the altar, when I was happily pledging my whole life, I didn’t really mean as much as twenty-six years. I suddenly realized that I have been married for more of my life than I haven’t been married. I felt alarming, ferocious waves of degeneration. I have been closing down for more years than I was opening up.
Noel said that he ‘admired’ me for ‘sticking with it through everything’. What ‘everything’ does he mean? He doesn’t know me from Eve. He has had no part whatsoever in my ‘everything’ – yet oddly I was grateful for his appreciation. He can’t possibly know any specifics, can’t possibly. Surely he was being general, meaning my general ‘everything’. That must be what he meant. Yet his comment has stayed with me, and I’m wearing his admiration like a favourite cardi.
I’m still enjoying it, now. Why? Maybe it’s because I don’t feel I’ve been admired for a long time. Not ‘admired’. It’s a professional word, I know it, but it’s taken me a little bit by surprise how quickly I wrapped it round me, how pleased I was to hear it. He’s a sweet chap, Noel. Easy to be around and easy to teach. The time whizzed by and before I could ask him anything about his family, I realized it was late and I’d missed picking Oscar up from chess club. I’ll hear about that for weeks no doubt … pretty sure there will be a monumental lack of ‘admiration’ coming at me from that department.
THIRTY-ONE