by Gill Sims
On the plus side, it is quite nice to return to British plumbing and actually being able to flush the paper down the loo. I was not so keen on the bins full of shitty loo roll, I have to say. It is also nice to be able to brush my teeth without Simon bellowing, ‘Use the bottled water! Don’t use the tap water!’ And, of course, it is very nice to see my dog again. I did miss the dog dreadfully, and may have messaged the kennels a bit too often to make sure he was okay. And sent him a postcard.
Wednesday, 4 May
Well, I’ll be buggered. I was early for school pick-up today and so I made a rare foray into the playground. Of late I have been avoiding it, by arriving bang on the bell and then walking slowly down the road so I can meet the children as they come out of the gate without actually having to set foot in the playground and talk to the Coven and the other mummies. I know this is very bad and anti-social of me, but I somehow just do not have the strength these days to play the game and dance their dances. My only consolation is that Sam has admitted to doing the same on the days he picks up Sophie and Toby, so at least it is not just me who is an anti-social bitch.
Today, though, I decided to be brave. If Perfect Lucy Atkinson’s Perfect Mummy and the rest of her cronies wished to sashay up to me and enquire if I’d ‘had a good break’, with their sympathetic little head tilt, I could at last turn around and say, ‘Yes, thanks, we just popped over to Corfu for a couple of weeks. Yes, it was magical actually. I know, it does make such a difference if you can get away’ instead of trying to pretend that we’d had a simply fabulous time at Michael and Sylvia’s while the Coven grew wide-eyed at the notion and almost cricked their necks trying to tip their heads far enough over to express the faux sympathy needed for being so poor as to have to go on holiday to one’s in-laws.
The usual mummies were standing around in their usual cliques when I got there, but they were all tapping away at their phones and muttering urgently to each other. ‘Oh fuck,’ I thought. What had I forgotten? Or had some momentous world event happened and I was completely oblivious? They all looked quite chirpy, though, so maybe it was a cheerful momentous event? I wondered if maybe I could just get away with smiling and nodding if someone said ‘Wasn’t it marvellous?’ about whatever had happened.
Right on cue, Perfect Lucy Atkinson’s Perfect Mummy made a beeline for me, followed by the rest of the Coven.
‘Ellen, is it TRUE?’ she shrieked.
Is what true, I thought. What does she know? What? That yes, I am a married woman and I flirted more than I should with Charlie Carhill because I was flattered by the attention? Yes, yes, I am a scarlet woman, but nothing actually happened, we just had drinks and lunch a few times and yes, he is still messaging me several times a day and no, I can’t keep pretending I haven’t seen them, but I am going to sort this whole thing out really, really soon.
Then I thought, of course she doesn’t know about that, how could she? What then? Oh God, I bet someone saw the dog do a poo in the wood behind the park and I didn’t pick it up because I had run out of poo bags and I really meant to go back for it, but I completely forgot! Round here, leaving a dog poo unpicked is pretty much punishable by stoning. I hoped if I kept my startled bunny-in-the-headlights look, perhaps I could brazen it out and deny all knowledge. I grinned inanely and opened my eyes slightly wider.
‘Oh my God, it IS true!’ cried Lucy Atkinson’s Mummy. ‘Look at her face. I TOLD you, Fiona, but you didn’t believe me! Thingy the Au Pair (I just can’t pronounce her name, you know, I have tried) showed me an article about it, and I knew it must be you!’
‘An article?’ Oh shit! I am in the local paper for the dog poo. Named and shamed, no doubt.
‘Oh, in some dreary computer magazine. Apparently she has a degree in something computery from some Ukranian university, so she likes that sort of thing. Anyway, it was about the latest hit “apps” and their developers, and there it was – “Why Mummy Drinks”, developed by Ellen Russell Games Ltd. I knew it had to be you! Fiona said you weren’t clever enough, but I said you were.’
Wow, thanks, Fiona! So much for bonding over our ‘Patricia the Stripper’ routine. I won’t be dragging you up on top of the piano with me again – Lucy Atkinson’s Mummy can join me instead.
‘Um, yes,’ I muttered. ‘That was me. Have you tried it then?’
‘Tried it? Ellen, we love it! We’re all completely addicted to it!’
I realised a small crowd had gathered by now, all making weirdly appreciative noises about ‘Why Mummy Drinks’. Lucy Atkinson’s Mummy was, as usual, the official spokesperson for the playground, though.
‘It’s just so funny, Ellen! And it’s so true. It’s exactly what life is like, but you’ve made it into this brilliant game.’
It’s not what your life is like, I thought, confused. It’s what ordinary mums like Hannah and my lives are like. Not you, with your perfect, swishy, shiny hair and your ‘Thingy the Au Pair’ and your angelic bloody children. But she was still in full flow …
‘Even the bit where you have to avoid the uber mummies at the school gate, it’s just fabulous!’
YOU ARE THE UBEREST UBER MUMMY EVER, WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT, YOU DELUSIONAL BINT?
‘I’ve always felt I had to sort of scurry by the working mums who are looking down their noses at me for not working or having my own financial independence, and I envy you, too, you know, going off to work, getting to have something for yourselves, outside your families. And I do worry about what sort of example I am to Lucy …’
‘But I’ve always felt that I’ve had to scurry past you stay-at-home mums,’ put in TV Alicia. ‘I thought you were judging me for leaving my children, for having a career, for not making my entire world revolve around them. I worry about what sort of an example I am setting for my children by always being busy with work and not baking with them enough or doing crafts.’
‘I fucking hate baking!’ announced Fiona Montague to no one in particular. ‘My life would be perfectly complete if I never saw another bastarding cupcake again. Sodding things!’
Truly, the playground had never felt such a nice and friendly place as it did today, as all the mummies actually joked about how they never felt quite good enough and they all were worried that whether they worked or stayed at home they were doing the wrong thing by their children, and how, however much you might love your children, sometimes being a parent was just mind-numbingly boring and hard graft.
Who knew that everyone felt like that? That even Perfect Lucy Atkinson’s Perfect Mummy has on occasion been tempted to tell St Lucy herself to just fuck off and stop wittering, and that sometimes Fiona Montague locks herself in the bathroom and cries because she can’t face another episode of Peppa Pig, or that super-high-powered TV Alicia found herself singing a Horrible Histories song out loud in a very important meeting the other day?
I was stunned. The app had begun life as a sort of venting mechanism for me, so I threw everything that annoyed me on a day-to-day basis into it as daily challenges to be negotiated. Although I have been loving all the lovely money it has been making, I was baffled as to why it was so popular, as I honestly thought the rubbish mummies, the muddling-through mummies, the just-barely-good-enough-on-a-good-day-if-they-are-lucky mummies, were in the minority. But it turns out we’re not. Most of us are those mummies, even if we give the illusion that we are coping, that we are Super Mum, that our lives are perfect.
Perfect Lucy Atkinson’s Perfect Mummy gave me a hug as we left the playground. It was terrifying.
Tuesday, 10 May
Today, I got a phone call from the school asking me to please come in as soon as possible, as there had been an ‘incident’ involving Jane. Petra, the school secretary, who is usually friendly and jolly, sounded very sombre and restrained and called me Mrs Russell instead of Ellen. She refused to go into any details, saying only that I needed to come in urgently to see the headmistress, and that Jane was unhurt.
Obviously, the main reaction to any such phone
call is major panic. I rang Simon, whose phone went straight to voicemail, of course, so I then rang his office, only to be told he was out at a site meeting and to try his mobile, which was helpful when his first-born child was in untold peril. I may or may not have sobbed that down the phone to his secretary.
I drove to the school in a flap, trying to envisage what on earth had happened to Jane that would necessitate me being summoned to the school in the middle of the day, yet didn’t require her to be hospitalised. I abandoned the car in the strictly-forbidden-to-parents staff-only car park, as this was clearly an emergency, and ran into the school.
Jane was sitting in the office with Petra, looking very pale. She had the set, defiant jaw I knew meant she was on the verge of tears, and that she would rather die than shed them in public. Petra managed to give me a sympathetic smile and an eye roll before Mrs Johnson the headmistress came bustling out of her office.
Mrs Johnson is a self-important old bitch. She is clearly one of those people who went into teaching because it was an easy route to having power over people more vulnerable than herself, rather than because, like most teachers, she wanted a vocation to fill young minds with knowledge and instil a love of learning and wonder at the world around them. Unfortunately, she reminds me all too much of my own headmistress, which means that every time I see her I have to fight the urge to slouch and mumble that I’m NOT CHEWING before running round the back of the bike sheds and lighting a fag and getting off with an unsuitable boy.
Mrs Johnson gave me her reptilian smile that never reaches her eyes and said, ‘Mrs Russell, come through, please’ at the same time as Jane said, ‘Mummy, I need to talk to you!’
I stopped and asked, ‘What’s happened? Is Jane hurt? No one has told me why I am here.’
Mrs Johnson said, ‘If you would just come through, Mrs Russell, I will explain what Jane has done and why you are here.’
Jane said, ‘Mummy, please!’ There was a desperate tremor in her voice that broke my heart, as clearly those tears weren’t going to be held back much longer and Jane hates crying in front of anyone, even me, let alone Petra and Poo-face Johnson.
I took a deep breath and channelled Jessica. In my most frigid voice I said, ‘I think, Mrs Johnson, it would be more appropriate if I spoke to my daughter first, before I hear your explanation of whatever has happened.’
Mrs Johnson’s chilly smile vanished to be replaced by a mouth like a cat’s bum.
‘I don’t think that is appropriate, actually, Mrs Russell. If you would please come through.’
Jane shot me a desperate look.
‘I don’t think so, Mrs Johnson,’ I said, totally being Jessica the time the Waitrose man brought her out-of-date smoked salmon and she had to ring them up and complain about it. ‘I really think I should speak to my daughter before I speak to you, don’t you? Now?’
Mrs Johnson huffed and puffed, but the Angry-Jessica-With-Substandard-Smoked-Salmon Voice will brook no argument.
‘Well, I suppose you can both come through to my office with me,’ was her last stand, only to have Jessica-Who-Has-Been-Offered-A-Non-Organic-Apple snap back, ‘I don’t think so, I will speak to Jane first, and then I would be only too delighted to hear your version of events. Thank you so much for offering to let us use your office, though, that’s terribly kind of you. Come along, Jane!’ and I swept through before Mrs Johnson could say another word – Jane trailing after me, Poo-face mouthing furiously and Petra grinning and giving me a discreet thumbs up (‘Sweeping Furiously Through Doorways 101’ was courtesy of Jessica’s one and only trip to Nando’s when she discovered she was expected to go up to the counter and order).
Once in the office and out of sight of Mrs Johnson and Petra, Jane broke down completely and sobbed her heart out. This was not my brave warrior girl, who ever since she was born has marched to the beat of her own drum and shunned tears as being for the weak and foolish. She sobbed in my arms for a while, and the only words I could make out were the occasional ‘UNFAIR’ and ‘I HATE THEM!’ and something about Oscar and Tilly. Eventually, I managed to calm her down and was relieved to see that she seemed to be crying as much with rage as with misery and she finally choked out what had happened.
It seems that Oscar Fitzpatrick has been remorselessly bullying Jane’s friend Tilly, hitting her and pinching her when there are no staff around, taking her lunch, calling her horrible names and generally being a vicious little bastard. The school have been less than useless – despite many children standing as witness to his behaviour, the most severe ‘punishment’ meted out to the little sod has been that he was made to stay in one lunchtime and choose an activity in the classroom, instead of going out to play. Apparently he chose the Lego corner, so obviously he was deeply chastised by this penance.
Today Tilly brought her new doll to school, which she had been given for her birthday last weekend. She was showing it to her friends, including Jane, when Oscar appeared, snatched the doll from Tilly, wrenched its head off and threw the body over the fence into the road and chucked the head into the bin, all while Tilly and the girls were screaming and trying to get it off him.
Jane then decided to take matters into her own hands and, putting all those Jiu Jitsu classes I sent her to into practice, she managed to throw Oscar Fitzpatrick to the ground (which is quite impressive because he is one of those giant mutant children that towers above the rest of the class). Then when she had him down, she booted him in the bollocks, because, as Jane insisted, ‘He deserved it, Mummy, and we are only supposed to use Jiu Jitsu in defence, but I WAS! I was defending Tilly!’
Unfortunately, one of the teachers, despite never being around to see Oscar tormenting Tilly, happened to see Jane launch herself on Oscar and batter him, thus Jane was summarily marched off to Mrs Johnson to give an account of herself. Jane, showing wisdom I wish she could apply to things like finding her school shoes, then refused to say anything until I was present, because, ‘I have the right to remain silent, Mummy.’
Once Jane had calmed down and I had assured her that of course she had done the right thing and I would be sorting this out for her pronto, I sent her back to Petra and then Jessica-ed up again and called Mrs Johnson into her office while we discussed the matter.
Mrs Johnson appeared to have swelled to twice her normal size with righteous indignation while I was talking to Jane, like an outraged puffer fish, and she bustled into her office with a sharp ‘WELL, Mrs Russell, I assume you see the severity of the situation now!’
‘Absolutely,’ I replied. ‘I completely agree this is extremely serious. I understand your concern; I do see that it reflects very badly on the school that you have been so negligent in preventing bullying that other pupils have to take matters into their own hands to protect their classmates, as they can’t rely on staff to deal with situations when they arise.’
Ha! I actually managed to nonplus the bitch, as she mouthed furiously for a moment before spluttering, ‘I am referring to Jane’s completely unprovoked attack on another child!’
‘A child who has been systematically bullying one of her friends,’ I retorted.
‘Mrs Russell, I cannot comment on other ongoing situations with you, we are only here to discuss Jane’s violent attack on Oscar. I’m afraid that in this scenario we have no choice but to see Jane as the aggressor and therefore the bully, and deal with it accordingly.’
‘And how, exactly, do you propose to do that?’
‘Jane will have to publicly apologise to Oscar, and she will miss her Funday Friday time.’
‘And what will she do instead of Funday Friday?’
‘She will sit in my office and think about her actions.’
The Mother Tiger in me, who had been growling quietly ever since I saw Jane sitting in the office, roared fully into life. I no longer needed to pretend I was my high-achieving sister in order to savage this bitch who was trying to unfairly punish my baby. In fact, she would be lucky if I left without burning her stupid school to
the ground, with her battered carcass within it, if she did not back down and leave my little girl alone. It. Was. On. The tigress’ claws were unsheathed.
‘But when Oscar was allegedly punished for the time he took Tilly’s lunch and threw it in the mud and stamped on it, he just missed lunchtime playtime, and got to choose an activity, he has never been made to apologise or miss Funday Friday,’ I pointed out.
‘Yes, Mrs Russell, but this incident involving Jane was violent, AND was witnessed by a staff member!’ said Mrs Johnson.
‘And every other incident, including today’s and several times when Oscar was violent towards Tilly were also witnessed by several other children who will all corroborate Jane and Tilly’s version of events, but you feel that because your staff member saw the end of an altercation that their solitary version is more reliable than that of multiple children?’
‘Mrs Russell, I really –’
‘Do you think Jane is stupid?’ I interrupted.
‘What?’
‘Do you think my daughter is stupid? Do you think she would actually get into a physical fight with a boy who is twice her size for no reason? Jane is many things but she is not stupid. She was defending her friend and she should be commended for that. She will not be apologising, and she will not be missing her Funday Friday. Because –’ I bashed furiously at my phone, thankful that I had not used all my data faffing around on Facebook, ‘Firstly, and I quote, the education authority defines bullying as a “repeated pattern of behaviour”, so one single, isolated incident on Jane’s part could hardly be described as bullying. And secondly, the council school bullying policy states that they follow a system of promoting positive behaviour, which you are not doing by punishing Jane like this, and that children must be taught to take responsibility for their actions. How are you teaching the children to do this, when you dismiss the repeated word of many different children as being of less importance than the word of ONE staff member who didn’t even witness the full incident? Jane was defending her friend, and you have failed in your duty of care to Tilly and to Jane and to Oscar by failing to provide a suitably supervised safe environment.’