Why Mummy Drinks

by Gill Sims

  ‘– Mrs Russell, I’d like to say –’

  ‘– I AM STILL TALKING!’ roared the Mother Tiger. ‘And I would like to say that I suggest you drop all these ludicrous threats and allegations against my daughter right now, or I will be only too happy to place the entire affair in the hands of the local authority and let them investigate how you have failed ALL the children involved in this disgraceful episode. Do I make myself clear?’

  ‘Mrs Russell, I really don’t think there’s any need to take this to the next level, do you?’ babbled Mrs Johnson nervously. ‘I think perhaps this could be resolved quite easily. I possibly was a little heavy-handed with Jane –’

  ‘– And would like to apologise?’ I suggested.

  ‘Of course, if I have inadvertently caused Jane any distress, I am very sorry that she felt that way.’

  It was a cop-out of an apology, but in all honesty I was astonished that I had even got that much out of her, but while I had her on the ropes, I thought I might as well make the most of it. ‘And of course you will not be expecting her to apologise or miss Funday Friday?’

  ‘No, no, I suppose not!’ panted Johnson, who was an unpleasant shade of puce. I hoped she wasn’t about to have a heart attack, after I had so roundly trounced her. I decided to quit while I was ahead, so I stood up and said as graciously as I could, ‘Well, I’m so glad we’ve sorted out this silly misunderstanding, Mrs Johnson. It was very nice to see you, do feel free to give me a ring if there’s anything else at all that you would like to discuss. Obviously, I’ll be taking Jane home for the rest of the day, as she is quite shaken by the whole thing. Goodbye!’ And I hurriedly did the Jessica Nando’s sweep out of the office before she could keel over, lest I be blamed.

  I marched out to the car park, Jane trailing in my furious wake.

  ‘Mama?’ said Jane. Jane hasn’t called me Mama since she was about three. ‘Are you angry with me, Mama?’ she said in a small voice.

  ‘Of course I’m not angry with you, darling!’ I said. ‘I’m angry with Mrs Johnson and Oscar and the school, but I’m not angry with you. You did a good thing, standing up to him like that, especially when he’s so much bigger than you. I’m really proud of you; you defended your friend, even though you might have got hurt too, but you weren’t scared, you just did it anyway. You should be proud of yourself too, because that was a really brave thing to do.’

  ‘Oh good,’ said Jane. ‘Do you think we could go and get ice cream on the way home then?’

  I gave a sigh of relief. Jane’s pragmatic determination to now milk the situation to her own advantage seemed to suggest that for her, normal service had been resumed.

  ‘And maybe a comic?’ she added.

  Later, Tilly’s mummy rang me to say that Tilly had told her the whole saga of what was now being billed as an epic David and Goliath-style battle between Jane and Oscar, and she asked me to thank Jane for intervening like she did, and I nearly cried with pride, even though Jane had shamelessly managed to fleece me of £15-worth of treats when we stopped for ice cream on the way home.

  As is always the case with any sort of confrontation, I spent the rest of the evening stomping round the house mumbling, ‘AND ANOTHER THING!’ to myself, as more and more cutting, scathing remarks occurred to me which would have crushed Mrs Johnson like a flea.

  Friday, 20 May

  It’s Fuck It All Friday again! I wish could say ‘already’ but the gaping chasm between Monday and Friday seems to widen each week. I hurled the frozen pizza down the precious moppets and went to get ready for a bijou pop to the pub with Hannah and Sam.

  I was feeling quite pleased with myself for managing to squeeze into a pair of white jeans that I felt were very summery, and was attempting to put on my mascara when Jane wandered into the bedroom.

  ‘Are you wearing that, Mummy?’ she said in a horrified voice.

  ‘Well, yes!’ I said. ‘What’s wrong with what I’m wearing?’

  ‘I just didn’t realise how big your bottom is, that’s all,’ said Jane.

  Have a baby, they said. It will be fulfilling and life-affirming, they said. I was trying not to cry at Jane’s pronouncement on the size of my arse, and wondering if I should change or if I should just say ‘Fuck it!’ when Peter came in and announced he wanted to give me a hug before I went out. Peter’s hug mainly consisted of wiping his chocolatey hands and face over my white jeans, which at least solved my dilemma about whether to change or not, as once he had finished with me, I looked like I had soiled myself. Oh yes, having children is just bloody marvellous! Who doesn’t like having their soul crushed or being used as a human napkin by a small, sticky creature?

  Once I finally got the pub, slightly late due to the entire outfit change while shrieking for Simon to come and bond with his precious moppets, please, it turned out that Sam is out of love. He has decided Mark is not for him; that he was just a bit of a roll in the hay to help him get back on the horse, so to speak. Also, he said, apparently Mark seems to think I am a homophobe.

  ‘I mean, why would he say a thing like that?’ said Sam indignantly.

  ‘Ah, I think I might know …’ I said, going somewhat scarlet. ‘It was all a very unfortunate misunderstanding between his sister and me, but I thought we had cleared it all up.’

  ‘Ellen,’ Sam looked at me with his eyebrows raised. ‘What on earth did you say or do to make Mark’s sister think you were a massive homophobe?’

  ‘Weeeeeeell,’ I mumbled. ‘I was at a party, and it was quite noisy and I’d had a couple of glasses of wine and I didn’t really know Alison that well, and we were having that polite conversation where you ask inane questions about each other, and I asked if she had brothers or sisters and she said she had one brother and I asked if he was married, and I THOUGHT she said, “No, he’s dead” because it was very noisy! And she was very matter-of-fact about it, but I thought I should be sympathetic, and so I did the whole, “Oh, I’m so sorry about that!” and she just sort of looked at me, and so I said, “Was it sudden?” and she said no, she’d always sort of known, so I assumed he had had some sort of long-term illness. So then I said, “Oh well, that doesn’t make it any easier though, does it?” and she just looked at me again. And then, because I thought maybe I wasn’t being sympathetic enough, I said, “And how did your parents cope, because I suppose you never really get over something like that happening to your child, do you?” Then she got very huffy at me and said she was surprised at me, and she had thought I was more broad-minded than that, and the way I was carrying on anyone would think her brother was dead, not gay! But I thought she had said he was bloody well dead, and she was just some cold-hearted weirdo being all blasé about her sodding dead brother. I did explain about the mistake and how I only said all that because I did think she had said he was dead, and I really thought we had cleared it all up, but obviously not. Why would she say that? She came to my party with her undead gay brother and now she’s going round telling everyone I’m some sort of bigot.’

  Sam was in tears of laughter. ‘You utter fuckwit!’ he cackled. ‘I can’t believe you said “How did your parents cope?” You tit! I wouldn’t worry too much. I expect Alison told him that story and he got the wrong end of the stick, he isn’t very bright. Pretty, though. You have cheered me up about dumping him, at least.’

  Hannah, meanwhile, was gloomy because the ‘Please Shag My Mate’ website she had signed up for had not yet resulted in a single date, let alone bringing about a meeting with her kindred spirit to share the rest of her life with, and so clearly she was going to be alone forever.

  Sam tried to cheer her up by pointing out that at least she hadn’t had any more dick pics, but she just sank further into despair, groaning, ‘I am too much of a withered hag for anyone to even want to send me photos of their penises. I am a crone. The children will grow up and leave me and move to Australia to get away from me. Even the cats shall abandon me and I will have no one to talk to but a wilting pot plant. It will probably be w
ilting because it is trying to die, just so it doesn’t have to listen to me either. I WILL BE ALL ALONE!’

  ‘You will still have us,’ I suggested, in the hope of cheering her up.

  ‘Nooooo,’ Hannah wailed. ‘No, you will be going on Nile cruises with Simon, and Sam will be off getting loads of cock and I will be ABANDONED!’

  ‘Or you could just lay off the gin, babe?’ offered Sam. ‘I think you’ve just got the Fears.’

  Nile cruises? What sort of a bloody geriatric does she think I am going to be?

  Thursday, 26 May

  Sports Day. I hate Sports Day. Peter and Jane have both inherited my sporting prowess, which is to say they have the grace and co-ordination of Bambi on ice, combined with the speed and elegance of a baby hippopotamus. They are also resolutely lacking in team spirit and sportsmanship, managing to sulk both if they don’t win and if they get a ‘Well Done On Taking Part, Even Though You’re A Bit Shit’ sticker. Jane especially resents the ‘Everyone’s A Winner Awards’, muttering darkly under her breath as we stand for hours while every child in the school goes up to get their medals. Last year she threatened to stage a boycott and had to be bribed with many packets of Haribo not to make a scene.

  Apart from the ineptitude of Peter and Jane, I always feel mildly cheated by Sports Day. Sports Days should take place in glorious sunshine, the mummies should be clad in tea dresses of eau de nil silk, with hats wreathed in flowers, while the daddies should wander about in cream linen suits and panama hats. There should be strawberries and cream in the Quad, though I am not entirely certain what a Quad is, and lashings and lashings of Pimm’s, and maybe even champagne. Winners should be acknowledged with a polite round of applause, and perhaps the odd ‘Hurrah’ or two. Picnic hampers involving chicken sandwiches and salmon mousses may feature. Male teachers ought to be in cricket whites, with nice cable-knit jumpers, and female staff in some sort of fetching tennis attire.

  It is possible that I have confused Sports Day with some sort of Merchant Ivory mash-up.

  Instead, we have a bleak sports pitch, with hordes of children in violently hued nylon vests that I am sure must be a fire hazard if they run fast enough, though obviously that is not something I need to worry about with my children. These luminous bibs denote what house they are in, for all the sports are done by house, so no one is a loser.

  Despite this helpful piece of political correctness by the school, all the children persist in jeering ‘LOSER! LOSER!’ at the child who comes in last, as what the school and political correctness have failed to grasp is that children are inherently cruel and have a pack mentality towards the weakest. Fortunately, due to a combination of low cunning and downright cheating, Peter and Jane generally manage to avoid coming completely last, which probably makes me prouder than I would be if they were actually good at sport.

  The teachers trudge around shoe-horned into ‘sporty’ outfits that range from skin-tight Lycra for the pert young probationer teachers, which cause several of the daddies’ eyes to bulge in a way unbecoming in a man of middle age, to a sturdy tracksuit for Miss Briggs the R.E. teacher, which only comes out once a year if the vague whiff of mothballs is anything to go by.

  The most terrifying sight, though, is Mrs Johnson the headmistress, who, despite being a stout lady of a certain age, likes to cram her most ample bosom and backside into similar garments to the skimpy skin-tight ensembles donned by the young probationers. The advantage of this is that any lustful thoughts that might have been kindled in the daddies’ minds by the acres of firm, prancing, youthful flesh on display from the young teachers are immediately doused with horror as Mrs Johnson waddles into view, her loudspeaker clutched in one pudgy trotter and her air-horn in the other.

  Usually, despite my best attempts to avoid her, Mrs Johnson manages to corner me and makes me feel like a naughty schoolgirl, but after the incident with Jane a couple of weeks ago she contented herself with just glaring at me from across the sports pitch, which, frankly, was an unexpected bonus.

  The other mummies are divided into the working mummies who are looking hot and a bit flustered in their work clothes because they have come straight from the office, and the Coven mummies and their ilk, who are also poured into sportswear because they are going to ace the Mummies’ Race. There was a terrible scene last year when Perfect Lucy Atkinson’s Mummy was disqualified for wearing running spikes, which were ruled to give her an unfair advantage, and so her unbroken record of winning every Mummies’ Race since Lucy started school was spoilt.

  The daddies are mainly wandering about trying to prove who is the busiest and most important, by seeing who can shout the loudest on the phone to the office about busy and important things, and also by competing to see who has the biggest camera to capture their precious moppets’ glorious moments of triumph.

  This year, I decided to rebel, and wore a suitably floaty frock to Sports Day. I tried very hard to persuade Simon into a panama hat, but he loftily informed me that he was not the Man from Fucking Del Monte. So then I tried to persuade Sam that he could be all dapper and dashing in a panama, but got a similar response. Who knew the nation’s small boys had been so emotionally scarred by an advertisement about tinned pineapple?

  I also added to the revolution by stashing a large bottle of Pimm’s in my bag. Initially this was intended just for Sam, Simon and me, but word spread and soon mummies from a variety of years were sidling up to me and hissing, ‘I hear you have booze!’ I felt rather like a drug dealer, dispensing my contraband to the favoured few. Even Lucy Atkinson’s Perfect Mummy limped up after the Mummies’ Race, her winning streak well and truly over after a well-timed shove from Fiona Montague saw her come in in second place. Denied a Stewards’ Enquiry into the result, she settled for consoling herself with warm Pimm’s.

  The Pimm’s made the interminable hell of Sports Day pass much faster, even when we had to endure an Olympics-style ‘Closing Ceremony’ which involved various unco-ordinated children flapping pieces of ribbon about while some pan pipes played in the background. Instead of muttering ‘Kill me now,’ I felt all warm and fuzzy about the little darlings giving their all to the ribbon waving. I wish I had thought of taking filthy booze along years ago!

  JUNE

  Wednesday, 1 June

  I have been a little despondent recently because the lovely emails telling me how many people have bought the ‘Why Mummy Drinks’ app have not been coming quite so regularly, nor have the numbers contained within been so fabulously startling. I suspect it has run its course and this is the beginning of the end. I know it has made more money than I ever dreamed of and I shouldn’t grumble, but I do love the happy feeling of those emails plopping into my inbox. Quite a lot of shoes have also happened as a result of those emails, and several pairs of boots, and one or two handbags, and I don’t want my supply cut off. It has been divine going into nice shops and just saying ‘I will have that’ instead of stroking and coveting and hoping for a really good sale.

  Simon and the children have been less impressed with my generosity towards them. I thought I was being such a kind and loving wife buying them glorious designer dresses and shirts and jackets, but Jane declared the outfits I had bought her to be ‘stupid’ and refused to be parted from her beloved dinosaur t-shirts and Simon first announced that he wasn’t wearing that because it made him look like a pimp and then recoiled in horror at the price tag. Peter at least did agree to wear the clothes I had bought him, because he is a small boy and doesn’t really notice what he wears, but he managed to spill Ribena on a brand new t-shirt the first time he wore it, and it wouldn’t come out, which I suppose serves me right for spending £75 on a t-shirt for a filthy urchin child. There was a suggestion that if I wanted to buy expensive gifts for my family then the latest and dearest electronic devices would be more acceptable than overpriced clothes, but I declined, as the children do not need anything to feed their screen addictions any further and Simon certainly does not need any more bastarding gadgets to ma
ke my life more difficult under the guise of making it easier.

  Tonight, Simon spent the evening faffing about on his laptop while I for once had control of the big TV and after pressing eleventy billion buttons on eleventy billion remotes for the eleventy fucking billion gadgets he has already connected to the TV because he is a massive bastarding Gadget Twat, I actually managed to get the TV to work and, even more impressively, got the iPlayer thingy to connect to it through one of the wretched gadgets so I could catch up on EastEnders, which was about as much excitement as one can really hope for on a Wednesday night.

  So I was a bit annoyed when Simon decided to come in and start wittering at me about money, because Sharon was swishing her hair at Ian Beale in a particularly dramatic way about something and I wasn’t really in the mood for another lecture about ISAs or pension plans. However, Simon was determined that what he had to say was more important than Ian Beale’s fruit and veg stall, and he insisted I turn off the TV before announcing that he had been going over all the figures for ‘Why Mummy Drinks’ and even after all the tax owing (the man is obsessed with tax, I swear to God he has missed his calling as a tax man), it had made enough money to pay off the mortgage!

  ‘Mortgage-free, darling! It’s the middle-class dream come true.’

  ‘No,’ I corrected him. ‘The true middle-class dream is being mortgage-free in a house with a Smallbone kitchen and a massive duck-egg-blue Aga. But that is still pretty bloody marvellous! Oh my God, can we give up work?’