Why Mummy Drinks

by Gill Sims

  I digress. That is how much I don’t want to deal with emotions or any sort of direct confrontation. There is no need for it, a quiet mutter under one’s breath followed by pretending nothing has happened at all should be sufficient. Anyway, this is what Charlie had to say for himself:

  Hi Ellen,

  I can’t help but feel you’re avoiding me? Have I done something to upset you? If so, maybe we could meet for a drink and talk about it?

  Charlie xx

  Arrrrrrgh! OBVIOUSLY I cannot reply ‘Well, Charlie, the thing is, when I bumped into you I was a bit fed up because my husband was being a bit of an arse, and I generally felt underappreciated and so it was awfully nice popping out for drinks with you, and generally being flattered by your attention and feeling as though I had recaptured a bit of my lost youth, and I did think you might still fancy me a bit, which was also quite an ego boost, but actually, I’m getting on much better with Simon now, and I’ve made potloads of cash and I’m going to buy a holiday cottage in Norfolk or possibly an ISA but more likely the cottage, maybe in Wells-next-the-Sea, have you been?, apparently it’s lovely, so anyway, I’m awfully sorry I led you on again, and that I keep getting pissed and messaging you, which is a very bad and irresponsible thing for me to do, but I’m not actually going to shag you, on account of the whole husband thing, so soz again for being a shameless Jezebel … lol!’

  Instead I send this, because one of us has to be British about things, if Charlie insists on being rude enough to address issues head-on:

  Ha ha ha, no, of course you’ve not upset me and I’m not avoiding you. I’m just a bit busy at the moment! Ellen x

  But Charlie is not to be thwarted. Why not? What is wrong with him?

  Good, I’m glad I’ve not done anything to upset you. So let’s have that drink anyway, if you’re not avoiding me. What are you doing next Friday night?

  WASHING MY HAIR!

  Oh, that’s such a shame, I’m actually doing something next Friday. Some other time?

  Saturday then?

  Ellen? Did you get my message about Saturday? For someone who is not avoiding me, you seem to be doing a good job of avoiding me, lol!

  Oh fuck. I’m going to have to go for a drink with him now or he will think I am avoiding him, even though I am totally avoiding him, but he mustn’t know I am avoiding him or that would defeat the purpose of avoiding him. I wish I was French; if I was French I could just shrug and say ‘Boff! Oui, I am avoiding you’ and blow a sardonic stream of Gauloises smoke in the air and laugh a wry laugh while sipping my pastis and that would be an end to it. Sometimes being British is rubbish. I put on my big girl pants and message him back:

  Yes, Saturday night would be great, if you fancied a quick drink?

  Argh, why did I use the word ‘fancied’? Will he read something into that? Too late, it is sent. I can stare at the screen and jab at my phone all I like in a twenty-first-century version of getting my hand stuck in the postbox while trying to retrieve a letter sent in error, but there is nothing I can do about it now.

  There is also the small matter of me somehow still forgetting to mention to Simon about meeting up with Charlie, who he thinks is just a Facebook friend and not living round the corner and having cocktails with his wife on Saturday night. Actually, note to self: do not drink cocktails on Saturday night, because that will result in me getting trollied and possibly even talking about my feelings. A single glass of dry white wine will suffice. Maybe a large one, though.

  Tuesday, 14 June

  So I came home from picking up the children from school today to find Simon’s car in the driveway along with a battered wreck that looked suspiciously like Louisa and Bardo’s camper van. Why were they here? Why wasn’t Simon at work? And why hadn’t he said anything about them coming?

  When I walked in, I wasn’t even sure at first that anyone was there, as the house was surely too quiet to be containing Louisa and the hordes, but when I stuck my head into the sitting room I was greeted by a sea of small, grubby faces, although curiously they were staring transfixed at the TV and appeared, from the debris scattered around them, to have been eating ham sandwiches.

  Were these really Louisa’s children? Weren’t they gluten-free vegans who were forbidden from short-circuiting their precious neuro-networks by rotting their brains with TV? I must confess that there were so many of Louisa’s offspring I had never really looked at them properly, and probably wouldn’t actually be able to pick any of them out of a line-up of similarly grubby children, so for a moment I feared we had been broken into, only instead of taking the TV, we had been left a load of kids, which was bizarre to say the least, but probably the sort of thing the Daily Mail would blame on immigrants. Then the cleanest one waved and said, ‘Hello Auntie Ellen, we’ve come to stay for a few days’. I recognised Coventina, who still appears to be the only one with a semblance of manners or normal behaviour.

  Peter and Jane bridled somewhat at this invasion, having neither forgotten nor forgiven the attempts made to steal their beloved iPods by Cedric, but the hypnotic glow of the TV was too strong for them to resist after a whole day of education and they slid in to assume the same slack-jawed, catatonic poses as the other children, while I went in search of Simon and the ruffians’ parents and some answers about what they were all doing here.

  A clue was offered outside the kitchen door, as there were very soggy sounds coming from the other side, so clearly someone was in there. I did hesitate for a moment before I went in, because I couldn’t help but worry, given the moist nature of the noises, which were interspersed with the odd yelp and whimper, that there was an excellent chance that Louisa and Bardo, with their customary disregard for boundaries and hygiene were having sex on the kitchen table, while Simon cowered in the garage, protecting his power tools from Bardo’s thieving habits, but I decided that surely not even Louisa and Bardo would just turn up unannounced and start shagging. I hoped not anyway.

  There was no sign of Bardo in the kitchen, just a heaving, gasping Louisa, sobbing pitifully in Simon’s arms. Judging by the number of tissues scattered over the table, the state of Simon’s shirt – the front of which was drenched (I presumed with Louisa’s tears and not that he had been taking part in some sort of wet t-shirt competition when she arrived) – and the fact that Louisa’s face seemed to have disintegrated into a bellowing, beetroot blob, smeared with snot and tears while her eyes (always rather small) were now so swollen with sobbing that they were almost invisible, she appeared to have been crying for some time.

  Simon, given his fear of weeping women, was attempting to console her as best he could, by patting her shoulder clumsily and muttering, ‘There, there! Maybe you could cry a bit less now, and have a cup of tea? Hmmm? Nice cup of tea? There, there.’ The dog was hiding in his bed, as he shares Simon’s horror of emotional females.

  Simon looked deeply relieved to see me and ceased his shoulder patting to say, ‘Look, sis! Ellen is home. SHE’LL know what to do. Why don’t you tell her all about it, and I’ll … errrr … I’ll make some more tea? Yes, more tea. Or what about a nice drink? Yes! A drinky. Excellent plan. Do you want a G and T, Lou? Ellen?’

  Louisa just sobbed, which suggested that plying her with gin was possibly not one of Simon’s brighter ideas. ‘I think just some tea for now, darling,’ I said firmly, as I gingerly attempted to find a seat that was not strewn with Louisa’s snot rags.

  Gradually, amidst much hiccupping and wailing from Louisa and awkward mumblings from Simon, I managed to piece together what had happened.

  It seems that Bardo, as part of the full package for the ‘past-life regressions’ he performs on gullible, insecure women, has been providing his own ‘special therapy’ in the yurt as well. Some ‘extras’, if you will. Louisa, meanwhile, had been blissfully unaware that he was merrily dipping his unwashed wick wherever he could, until things got rather out of hand with his latest ‘client’, a rich and clearly bonkers American who had come to Scotland to have her theo
ry proved that she was the reincarnation of a Celtic warrior queen, which Bardo obligingly did, and then promptly obliged her in several other ways as well.

  The loopy American then decided that Bardo was her soulmate; the one that she had been searching for across the centuries (she may have watched too much Highlander) and that they were meant to be together.

  Bardo was not averse to this idea, probably because as part of her quest to find her one true love she had been divorced three times, amassing larger and larger settlements each time, and was prepared to give him access to all her cash.

  Therefore, he and Sgathaich (formerly Carol) had gone to Louisa and suggested that they should all live together, with Louisa and the loaded bonkers woman being ‘sister-wives’ to Bardo. One must, at least, give Bardo some credit for his sheer brass neck in trying to have his cake and eat it. A lesser cad would simply have buggered off with the rich divorcee.

  Louisa, in a fit of fairly justifiable outrage, had responded to this suggestion by loading the six children into the dilapidated camper van, along with whatever possessions she could fit around them, walking out on Bardo and Sgathaich/Carol and the retreat and high-tailing it to fling herself on the mercy of her big brother, who she was now entreating to go and fight for her honour while Simon made excuses of distance and the fact that Bardo is quite a big bloke.

  So now it appears that Louisa and the children are to be installed here for the foreseeable future. Quite where they are to be installed I am not entirely sure. It is one thing having them here for a few days over Christmas but Louisa has declared that she is never returning to Bardo or the retreat.

  I suggested a hotel, but Simon feels it would be very unkind to dump her and the children on their own when Louisa is so fragile. I am less convinced, but on the other hand, as it turns out Louisa also has no money and we would be footing the bill, perhaps it is for the best that she is here, draining my wine rack rather than draining the mini bar while the fiends rampage round ordering room service and stealing anything that isn’t nailed down.

  Eventually Louisa rallied a little and mumbled she thought she might be able to manage a tiny glass of wine. I took advantage of the hiatus in the howling to nip up to the bathroom and hide my newly purchased bottle of Penhaligon’s bath oil. As I was doing so, I found Peter and Jane doing the same with all their electronics and looking gloomy at the prospect of a lengthy visit from their cousins.

  It could be worse. Louisa has at least declared that she will be known as Louisa again and not Amaris, as she wants no reminders of that ‘bastarding twat Kevin’ (although I am not sure how she is going to manage that, given she has six larger-than-life reminders of him sitting in front of my TV) and, hurrah, for she has finally ordered the floor shitters to use the lavatory instead.

  Friday, 17 June

  My house is mayhem. There are children everywhere. I feel like I am living in some sort of hideous commune. Or possibly an orphanage, as Louisa’s urchin children are lurking in every corner. Louisa has obviously had a dreadful shock, not least because the prospect of life as a single mother to six children must be rather daunting and I am trying to be understanding, really I am, but I can’t help but feel that it wouldn’t bloody kill her to shove the hoover round while I am at work, or even just pick up some of the trail of destruction that her children leave behind.

  Yesterday the baby ate my Crabtree & Evelyn soap from the downstairs loo that I only put out when we have posh visitors that I want to impress, and then he vomited foam all down the stairs. Louisa just looked at it, sniffed bravely and said, ‘Oh, the poor fatherless mite.’

  It has not escaped my attention either that, despite her wallowing in the slough of despair, she still has sufficient wits about to her to have started making covetous noises about the items of furniture we inherited from Simon’s grandmother.

  As well as the still-ruined sideboard, there are some other rather nice bits that she has been eyeing up, while muttering that she doesn’t know how she would even start to manage to furnish a home of her own, and she had always so loved Granny’s ottoman, a few good pieces of furniture make all the difference you know … And this from the woman who, until recently, had been fond of announcing that all we owned was our souls, and in fact when offered some of Granny’s furniture after the old dear popped her clogs, declared she had no interest in possessions and instructed Michael to sell what he didn’t want and give her a share of the money instead. I have several tins of chalk paint left and I am not afraid to use them if it stops Louisa getting her grubby paws on our furniture.

  I am also not sure that it is entirely necessary for her to hurl herself on Simon with quite such drama when he walks in the door at night and start again on her sobbing, ‘Woe is me’ routine, given that until she hears his key in the lock, she is quite happy to lie dry-eyed on the sofa, heckling CBeebies and ignoring her children’s requests for food, instructing them to go and ask Auntie Ellen, because Mummy has a headache.

  FML is more my mantra than ever, as I crash around loudly, tidying up and stage-muttering (is stage-muttering a thing? If it’s not, it should be) that no, NO, don’t worry about clearing up the children’s lunch, Louisa, I’ve only been at work ALL DAY. No, of course I don’t expect you to wipe down the counter tops or put the cheese back in the fridge or the bread in the bread bin, and don’t worry AT ALL that your children have eaten ALL THE YOGHURTS for the packed lunches, I’ll just GO AND BUY SOME MORE, will I, THAT’S FINE! Louisa pays no attention at all to any of this and just droops tragically into another room.

  Saturday, 18 June

  I nearly cancelled my drink with Charlie, as I wasn’t sure I could stand any more drama, or talking about feelings, with Louisa flopping hopelessly around the house and wailing, but after a full day of her weeping loudly for Simon’s benefit, the thought of actually getting away from it for a couple of hours was very appealing.

  When I went into the kitchen to say goodbye, Louisa was in her now customary nightly position of sobbing face down on the table, lifting her head periodically to take another enormous slug of wine (a rather nice Barolo that I had bought for a special occasion, I couldn’t help but notice), while Simon cowered on the other side of the table, his major contribution to getting Louisa to man the fuck up being to manage to stop her actually crying on him.

  There is a niggling part of me that can’t help but feel Louisa is rather enjoying her role as distraught, abandoned woman and milking it to the max. She knows there is no point in crying at me, because the first time she tried it, I got out my iPad and cheerfully suggested we made an appointment for her with the local Citizens Advice, so she could get some legal advice and find out where she stands, whereas she knows perfectly well that Simon will be so paralysed with horror at the sight of her hysteria that he will let it run, for fear that saying anything of practical help will make matters worse.

  I gestured at the calendar and mouthed ‘I’m going out. It’s on the calendar!’, because everyone knows you cannot argue with something that has been written on the calendar, it may as well have been written on tablets of stone.

  Simon frowned at me and said, ‘Are those MORE new shoes, Ellen? Jesus, how many shoes do you have now?’

  I staunchly denied that my brand-new shoes were in any way new at all, while Simon looked disbelieving. He is possibly disbelieving because my shoe collection has now reached critical mass and can no longer be contained under the bed. This is another reason why I would quite like to get rid of Louisa because then I could keep my shoes in the spare room. Of course, if Simon would only listen to reason and let me buy my adorable holiday cottage in Wells-next-the-Sea, I could keep some of my shoes there. Simon insists that my plan to buy a house just to keep my shoes in is in some way unreasonable, but clearly he is wrong.

  Louisa heaved her head off the table and looked at me through brimming, bloodshot eyes. ‘It must be nice to just go out for the night, Ellen, not a care in the world,’ she quavered pathetically. I almost fel
t sorry for her until she added a pointed, ‘And in new shoes, too! I can’t remember the last time I bought new shoes, you know.’ FFS, she is shameless! Louisa has been hinting a lot about how our feet are practically the same size, but they are not, hers are a good size bigger than mine and she is not getting her (still distressingly grubby) paws on any of my preciouses.

  ‘Maybe you’d like to go, too, Lou?’ suggested Simon desperately. ‘I could babysit. It wouldn’t take you long to get ready. Splash of water on your face, quick hair brush, job done. Ellen could lend you something to wear and some shoes. Might do you good.’

  Bloody hell, Simon must be desperate to get a few hours free of his demented sister if he is volunteering to babysit EIGHT children on his own! But I was the one who had cunningly arranged to escape and I was not being thwarted that easily, only to have to sit in public with Louisa ranting about how the bourgeois capitalists have ruined her life and stolen her youth.

  Also, it would take more than a quick brush to get through Louisa’s mop, which I think last saw scissors or a comb sometime around when Tony Blair was still Prime Minister. ‘You will have to do better than that, Simon,’ I thought grimly, as I caringly patted Louisa on the shoulder (pushed her back into her chair) and said, ‘Don’t be silly, Simon, of course Louisa’s not ready to go out yet. She’s in the middle of a very distressing time, the last thing she wants to do is go to some noisy pub full of strangers. I’d stay in if I could and be with you, Louisa, but I just can’t get out of this, sorry!’