by Gill Sims
‘Of course,’ said Simon. ‘How could I forget?’
I glowed. ‘It took me ages. And it made such a mess, I don’t know what on earth possessed me to think that making spinach and ricotta “pancake cannelloni” was a good idea. I blame St Delia.’
Simon said. ‘That isn’t what you made, the first time you cooked me dinner.’
I grew slightly shrill with indignation that he did not, in fact, remember the first time I cooked for him.
‘I DID! They were incredibly fiddly, but I made them especially, because you were a vegetarian then.’
‘I don’t know who you made that for, it sounds disgusting. Not me anyway, because I’ve never been a vegetarian. And the first time you made me dinner was unforgettable because you had tried to brown meat on the stove in a Pyrex dish which exploded, and when I arrived, your kitchen was full of firemen and broken glass and you were having hysterics.’
Ooooh, awkward. Who on earth did I make those pancakes for then? (Simon’s right, they were pretty grim – very soggy as I recall.)
‘Oh. Yes. That does ring a bell.’
‘And then the next time you tried to make me dinner, you managed not to involve the fire brigade, but you’d tried to roast the wrong cut of lamb and it was inedible. At the time I think you were the only person I knew who could cock up a Delia recipe. And then you got a copy of The River Café Cook Book and life became much less dangerous as you only made pasta for about a year. That’s when I decided you might be safe to marry.’
‘Safe to marry? What the fuck does “safe to marry” mean? That’s not very romantic. You married me because I was “safe”?’
‘No, my darling,’ sniggered Simon. ‘No one could call you a safe option. And I knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life with you after that first night. It was just, with your unusual culinary skills, I wasn’t sure how long that life would be!’
I was slightly mollified by this, as I demanded, ‘But you like my cooking now, don’t you? It’s improved, hasn’t it?’
‘Yes, sweetheart,’ he said. ‘You’ve got incredibly skilled at hiding the M&S packaging. You’re a wonder in the kitchen.’
Rude. But I was really quite drunk and sentimental and determined to fish for as many compliments as I possibly could because it was Valentine’s Day.
‘Did you really know you wanted to spend the rest of your life with me that night?’ I wheedled.
‘Of course. I’m not going to ask if you felt the same way, because given you’ve already mixed me up with one old boyfriend tonight, I’m not sure I could trust your answer. I’d fancied you for ages, I just never got a chance to talk to you before then, because either I was too drunk, or you were too drunk, or there was some other dickhead bloke hanging around you. I didn’t think you even knew I existed. And eventually, there you were, one night, on your own for some reason, and there I was and so I thought, fuck it, what have I got to lose? I’m going to go for it; at least for once I won’t have an audience if she knocks me back. And the rest is history.’
‘Yes, even though I put out on the first night, despite all the lectures about boys won’t respect you if you do that. Go on then, what made you fancy me so much?’
(I was shameless. He has told me this before, but sometimes it’s nice to hear it again. Actually, it’s always nice to hear again. I wondered if I could surreptitiously turn on my phone and record him to listen to it next time he’s fannying about in his shed or snoring in front of Wheeler Dealers.)
‘You had cracking tits!’ I tried to hit him. ‘Okay, Okay. You still have cracking tits. And you always looked so happy, like you were just having the best time of anyone in the room. I wish you looked like that more these days, actually. Right then, your turn. It’s my birthday, you should be the one telling me how irresistible and gorgeous I am and how much you want my body.’
So I told him how dark and mysterious I had always thought he was, and how the way his hair fell into his eyes made me think very impure thoughts about him, and how I had assumed he didn’t know I existed either, thinking he would be more interested in fellow dark and moody arty girls, rather than someone as ordinary, as boring as me. And then we went to bed, Simon having rather annoyingly proved himself better at being romantic than me, on account of that stupid vegetarian boy and his sodding spinach pancakes.
Wednesday, 17 February
Sometimes I wonder what the actual fuck is wrong with me. Like a fool, I agreed to a conference call this afternoon, at home, after I had picked up the children from school. What sort of idiot tries to make important phone calls with children in the house?
Despite settling them down with various iPads and all the crisps and snack foods they could possibly desire, making sure they had both been to the toilet so there could be no unfortunate ‘wiping’ incidents like the last time I tried to make a work call at home, even though Peter never actually bothers to wipe any other time, and then tiptoeing away more silently than a mouse, as soon as the call connected, their antennae pricked up and they appeared at the door to shriek and wail and bellow and whine. Thus I discovered, to my chagrin, that trying to emotionally blackmail them into being quiet and leaving me alone because I have very important work to do is basically like a red rag to a bull and they are immediately seized with the desire to make as much noise as they can while plaguing the everlasting fuck out of me.
Attempts to tune them out were unsuccessful, and I actually have no idea what I agreed to do on the call because I couldn’t hear what anyone was saying – hopefully it is nothing too taxing … I thought I had got away with it all by claiming that the howling noise in the background was clearly a bad connection and then brightly suggesting they put everything in a follow-up email so I could still get some gist of what was actually going on. Then I opened the door to demand why my precious moppets had seen fit to spend the duration of the call banging on the door and screaming, despite my hissed threats of what would happen if they didn’t bugger off.
Peter was scarlet and sobbing, but looking slightly sheepish, standing behind an indignant Jane, who was the one who had been attempting to batter down the door.
‘MUMMY, WHY DIDN’T YOU OPEN THE DOOR?’ demanded Jane in outrage. ‘Peter has got a pea stuck up his nose!’
WTAF? Ten minutes. That was all they had to entertain themselves for, but in that time Peter had managed to get a pea stuck up his nose.
‘Why?’ I said. ‘Why did you put a pea up your nose? And where did you get a pea? We haven’t had peas in weeks.’
Peter shrugged. ‘I found it in a corner of the kitchen. I dunno why I put it up my nose.’
Marvellous. Just marvellous. As if being a neglectful mother wasn’t bad enough, now I could add ‘slovenly housekeeper’ to my ever-growing list of crimes for the children to hold against me.
‘FML,’ I muttered.
After much strenuous blowing by Peter, and enthusiastic excavations, the pea appeared to be more firmly lodged than ever and there was nothing else for it but to take yet another trip to the Minor Injuries Unit, while frantically hoping that I hadn’t exceeded the quota of visits you are allowed before they call Social Services. Simon, needless to say, was off somewhere exotic being Busy And Important, so I had to take both children with me.
Even on a minor injuries scale a small boy with an antiquated pea stuck up his nose is not high on the list of priorities, so we had quite a wait to be seen at the hospital. Ignoring my best attempts to entertain them, the children were adamant that grubbing about on the floor was far more interesting, despite me hissing ‘Get up! Get up! You will catch something unspeakable. OMG, your middle-class immune system will never be able to cope.’
Finally we were called through to a cubicle to await the poor overworked nurse with her special pea-extracting tool, who must wonder why she spent all that time and money training to save lives only to be faced with the likes of Peter and his pea. Jane had been unusually quiet for the last ten minutes, but once we were in the cubicle, she m
umbled something at me.
‘Darling, I can’t hear you, you’ll have to speak up. And open your mouth and talk properly, don’t mumble like that.’
Jane opened her mouth and announced, ‘I said, I might have got a paper clip a bit stuck between my teeth.’
Once again, WTAF?
Stunned by this revelation, all I could do was say, ‘How? Why? Where did you even get a paper clip?’
Jane looked defensive and said, ‘I found it on the floor in the waiting room.’
Oh dear God. What is wrong with my children? What would possess someone to put a random item they found on a hospital floor in their mouth?
‘I just wanted to see if it would fit between my teeth,’ Jane added. ‘But now it’s stuck.’
‘What the FUCK did you do that for?’ I exploded.
‘Mummy, you shouldn’t swear at me, it’s not kind. Nice mummies don’t say things like that to their children,’ said Jane primly. Or as primly as one can say anything with a paper clip stuck between one’s teeth.
‘Nice unsweary mummies,’ I thought grimly, ‘do not have children who do things like this.’
The paper clip turned out to be well and truly stuck and could not be dislodged. Thus it was that when the nice nurse came in with her pea extractor, and once she had deftly flicked the pea out of Peter’s nose, I had the shame of then having to ask her if she could possibly perform some similar magic to remove the paper clip from Jane’s teeth. I have never seen such pity in anyone’s eyes as I explained the situation, before she found a pair of pliers and removed the paper clip. I am going to have to find another hospital, I cannot endure the shame of returning there after today.
Fucking fuck my fucking life. And people wonder why I drink? I am beyond the aid of mere wine tonight and have had to resort to gin, while muttering darkly to myself. ‘Enjoy every moment’, they say. ‘They grow up so fast’, they say. ‘Children are such a blessing’, they say. I defy anyone to have enjoyed every second of today with the blessings that are my precious moppets.
I nearly smashed my phone when Simon sent a text asking how my day had been and complaining that he is so tired of restaurant food and can’t wait to come home and have something simple to eat. He means lasagne; he always means lasagne when he suggests something simple. One day he is going to find a lasagne inserted somewhere unexpected. If he has really annoyed me, it might even be a frozen lasagne.
Saturday, 20 February
Simon finally returned last night and drooped most pathetically at my cruel and unreasonable refusal to make him a nice, simple, bastarding lasagne, so I decreed we could each spend the day bonding one-to-one with our precious moppets. I decreed this mainly because I realised this morning that Jane looks like some sort of reject from a workhouse, as she has had a growth spurt and all her clothes are far too small, not to mention somewhat ragged and worn. Since she has recently started to object to what I choose for her to wear, wanting to assert her own style, even though I was still smarting slightly after the whole paper clip/teeth interface, I decided we should have a lovely girly shopping day, bonding and chattering, without Peter tagging along behind us insisting that he is starving and trying to touch anything that looks remotely breakable or expensive. We would have such fun that when Jane grows up she would say things like ‘Oh, my mum was more like a big sister to me!’ Though given that Jane seems to feel that that being a big sister means constantly tormenting Peter and repeatedly attempting to murder him, perhaps that wouldn’t be such a compliment. Maybe she will tell people I am her best friend instead? Sometimes people say that about their mothers. That might be better.
Jane rejected every adorable outfit in John Lewis; all the pretty t-shirts with sparkly bows and kittens on them, the flouncy skirts, the retro pinafores. They were all YUCK, apparently. Ditto Gap, Next and Primark. Yuck, yuck, yuck.
Eventually, as Jane sneered at yet another frock I was waving at her, I sobbed in desperation, ‘Well, what DO you want to wear then?’
‘I want a t-shirt with dinosaurs on it.’
‘A t-shirt with dinosaurs on it? Darling, I don’t think we’ve seen any t-shirts with dinosaurs on them.’
‘Yes, we have. In the first shop.’
‘The first shop. Why didn’t you say so, then?’
Jane shrugged. ‘You didn’t ask.’
We toiled our way back to John Lewis, where I could see no sign of the fabled t-shirt with dinosaurs on.
‘Darling, are you sure this is the right shop?’ I asked in despair.
‘Yes,’ said Jane. ‘It’s over there,’ and she pointed at the boys’ department.
‘But darling, that’s a boys’ t-shirt,’ I said.
‘I don’t care,’ said Jane. ‘I like it. And I like these jeans, not like those stupid ones with glitter on over there.’
In the end, Jane was kitted out exclusively from the boys’ department, but by that point I was beyond caring, I just wanted the soul-sucking hell of Jane announcing everything I suggested was stupid to be over. On the way to the café, I made a very quick detour to the shoe section, because I had spotted a ‘reduced’ sign and I thought perhaps there might be some bargains to be had. I was in luck. One pair of sparkly silver stilettoes later (very good value, reduced from £79 to £23, it would actually have been rude not to buy them) and we made our way to the café.
‘We’re good friends, aren’t we, darling?’ I said brightly, over coffee for me and hot chocolate for Jane, having looked longingly at the tiny bottles of wine and regretfully put them back because I had the car.
Jane looked even more appalled than she had when I suggested she might like a pink, sequinned Hello Kitty t-shirt.
‘No,’ she said. ‘Of course we aren’t friends. You’re my mummy, not my friend. Sophie is my friend, and Tilly and Milly and Lucy-That-Isn’t-Lucy-Atkinson. Not you. People aren’t friends with their mummies!’
‘Some people are friends with their mummies,’ I said indignantly.
‘Hurrumph,’ said Jane. ‘Then those people are weird!’
When we got home, the first thing Jane said was, ‘Daddy, Mummy bought more shoes. I told her not to, I said she had enough pairs of shoes, but she bought them anyway.’
The house looked like a bomb had hit it. There were dirty dishes strewn all over the kitchen and the sitting room, and four, yes, FOUR half-finished glasses of orange squash on the coffee table, along with several empty bottles of beer. A pair of Peter’s pants were tossed on the back of the sofa and there were crumbs and smears of butter and bits of cheese all over the kitchen worktops. An empty crisp packet had been casually chucked beside the bin, which was overflowing.
‘Simon,’ I said. ‘What the fuck has happened here? What have you done all day?’
Simon looked hurt. ‘I have been busy looking after your son!’ he said. ‘We didn’t all get to go shoe shopping and gallivanting round the town today, you know.’
‘Yes, but what have you actually done? You could’ve emptied the bin, or put the plates you used in the dishwasher –’
‘I told you, I was looking after Peter. I made him lunch. And I’m jet-lagged, you know. When was I supposed to find time to do the other stuff, while you were out shoe shopping? And actually, I don’t know why you complain the children drive you mad, Peter and I have had a great time.’
Yes, yes, I’m sure they have, because Simon had ONE child to look after, which meant no fighting and stopping them trying to kill each other because apparently one of them looked at the other one, and he has done nothing else except ‘look after’ Peter, who I will bet has not actually been unplugged from one electronic device or another since I left the house this morning. Simon has not been trying to scrub shit off lavatories or wrangle five loads of laundry into the washing machine or hoovering up Lego or ironing, all while breaking up fights and fielding constant demands for food and for apps to be downloaded, and answering inane questions about who would win in a fight, a robot or a monkey. No wonder they’ve had a
great time and everyone now thinks Simon is Dad of the Fucking Year! And, of course, shopping with his beloved daughter was such complete and utter fun; indeed, I was living the dream, wasn’t I, as she crushed all my hopes and refused to pose for the #girlyday #soblessed Instagram photos, instead lecturing me on how it was violating her human rights to put photos of her on the internet without her consent.
FML. At least I have sparkly shoes. Although the dog looked most unimpressed with them.
Monday, 29 February
Since Sam’s children and my children have now all decided they are best friends, Sophie and Toby came to tea today. As is always the case at my house, they managed to get astonishingly filthy, this time somehow managing to smear themselves with what looked like an entire bottle of tomato sauce each.
In an attempt to mollify Sam about the foul state of his children when he came to pick them up, I offered him a glass of wine, which obviously turned into us finishing the bottle while he told me of the latest astounding pronouncements from Mark. It is all very well going on like that when your new boyfriend is called Mark, but I never got to do the dreamy-eyed name-dropping into every conversation because every time I began ‘Simon says …’ my friends would immediately shout something like ‘Put your hands on your head!’ My friends were rubbish. Sam, however, is still completely loved up and making jokes about which one of them gets to propose in a leap year.
After Sam had gone, feeling slightly blurry on half a bottle of wine and no dinner, I decided once again to be brave and look at my bank account to enjoy the feeling of actually being vaguely in the black and see what pittance would be left to me after various direct debits came off the next day.
I was somewhat perplexed, however, to find that there was about £10,000 more in there than I was expecting. This never happens. £10,000 less, quite possibly, but not £10,000 more. After squinting somewhat at the screen and going back through my transactions, there it was: £10,003 credit. From the app people.