Mummyfesto, The

by Green, Linda

  Jackie and Anna nodded.

  I took a deep breath. ‘Our lives could all be improved by government action. Jackie wouldn’t have to fret about her mum if the government made sure that social services and hospitals looked after people with Alzheimer’s properly, Anna wouldn’t have to worry about Charlotte being bullied if effective antibullying measures had been brought in years ago, and nor would she have to deal with so many screwed-up young people at work if our society cared for them properly. The hospice wouldn’t have to face scaling down its respite provision if all children’s hospices were fully government-funded and we wouldn’t have had to raise thousands of pounds for a powerchair for Oscar if the government had prioritised giving children with disabilities better mobility above stupid things like hiring fig trees for a month for a building in Whitehall.’

  Anna and Jackie were nodding.

  I carried on. ‘The trouble with our government and our society is that the weakest and most vulnerable are treated appallingly because they have no voice. We will give those same people a voice by putting them at the heart of everything we do. We believe that if we put that right, everything else will follow.’

  I glanced at Jackie, who had a smile on her face.

  ‘I like the way you’re saying “we”. You’re sounding like a politician already.’

  Anna, however, did not seem so convinced. ‘So let’s get this straight. You’re actually proposing that we set up an entirely new political party from scratch and run for parliament in the general election in a couple of months’ time?’

  ‘Yep,’ I said, ‘That’s about the sum of it.’

  Anna nodded slowly. ‘And what constituencies are you proposing we stand in?’

  ‘Well,’ I said, ‘I’ve been giving it quite a bit of thought, and obviously you guys get to decide for yourselves, but my suggestion is that you do Calder Valley, Anna, as you live and work here. Jackie does Halifax because she was born and brought up there and I do Huddersfield because it’s got the hospice in it. That way we’d have three adjoining constituencies.’

  ‘That’s supposing that we all got in, of course,’ said Anna.

  ‘Exactly.’

  I turned to look at Jackie. She had a huge grin on her face.

  ‘What?’ I said.

  ‘Just you,’ she said. ‘Being off-your-rocker crazy.’

  ‘Do you not want to do Halifax?’

  ‘I’d love to stand in Halifax. It’s like being asked to a really wacky kid’s birthday party. The one everyone wants to go to and you didn’t think you’d get an invite for.’

  ‘I hate to be the party pooper,’ said Anna, ‘but it will all end in tears if nobody votes for us.’

  ‘Oh they will,’ I said.

  ‘Why are you so sure about that?’

  ‘Because we have a secret weapon.’

  ‘And what’s that?’ asked Anna.

  ‘Mum power.’

  Anna and Jackie both looked at me with somewhat bemused expressions. Clearly I was going to have to explain how it would work.

  ‘Think about how we’d all fight to the death for our kids,’ I said. ‘Then multiply that strength of love by all the mums in the UK. If we can harness that power we can achieve anything.’

  ‘She’s right,’ said Jackie. ‘Look what happened with Shirley. And you see mums like us on the local TV news every night; fighting against knife crime because their child was stabbed or taking legal action against some drug company because of the side effects their child suffered.’

  ‘There was a woman on last night,’ said Anna, ‘fighting for answers from the MoD because her son had suffered post-traumatic stress and gone AWOL in Afghanistan and instead of helping him they’d bloody imprisoned him.’

  ‘Exactly,’ I said. ‘And there are women like that all over the country. We’re going to get some of them to stand for our party in other constituencies and the rest to drum up support for us. On their own they’re one small voice struggling to be heard. If we put them together behind a common cause they can make one hell of a racket.’

  ‘So how exactly do you propose we do that?’ asked Anna. ‘Get the word out, I mean.’

  I smiled at her and raised my eyebrows. ‘You tell me, Ms Mummyblogger of the Year.’

  ‘Are you serious?’

  ‘Anna,’ I said, ‘you have more followers on that blog and on Twitter and Facebook than some political parties have members. It’s an obvious way to spread the word and get other people involved.’

  ‘She’s right,’ said Jackie. ‘And it would be a hell of a lot more effective, not to mention cheaper, than advertising, because those people all feel like they know you. They trust you already.’

  ‘As long as they don’t think it’s an abuse of that trust,’ said Anna.

  ‘Remember who we’re doing this for,’ I said, topping up Anna’s wine glass. ‘It’s for their families as much as ours. We’d give them a real stake in it. Ask women across the country what they’d do if they were Prime Minister.’

  Anna had her thinking face on. Her forefinger circled the top of the wine glass. ‘I bet we’d get a fantastic response to that question,’ she said.

  ‘And we could put all their ideas in our manifesto,’ said Jackie, her big hoop earrings bobbing up and down as she talked. ‘It could be a mums’ charter for change.

  ‘The mummyfesto,’ I said, jumping up and down at the table. ‘It should be called the mummyfesto.’

  Anna stared at me. I think that was the moment we got her.

  Jackie finally put the Pringles down. She appeared to be physically shaking. ‘Yes,’ she screamed. ‘That’s brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. This is going to be so fucking amazing. Number Ten here we come.’

  ‘Hey, let’s not get carried away,’ said Anna. ‘We have to be realistic and this is in danger of entering Richard Curtis “not in real life” territory.’

  ‘And you’re going to be the uptight Kristen Scott Thomas character who always puts a damper on everything, are you?’ enquired Jackie.

  ‘If I have to be, yes. Because let’s face it, Hugh Grant is not about to walk into the room, is he?’

  The door opened and Rob strolled into the kitchen to be greeted by raucous laughter.

  ‘What did I do?’ he said with a shrug.

  ‘You were a master of comic timing without realising it,’ I explained.

  ‘And you’ve just got a part in a Richard Curtis film,’ added Jackie.

  Rob shook his head. ‘As long as it pays well, I don’t mind.’

  ‘There’s a glass of wine on the side for you,’ I said.

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Are the boys OK?’

  ‘Fine. Oscar’s all done. I think he’s actually dropped off. Zach’s asked for a glass of water. Says he can’t sleep because he can hear you talking downstairs and he’s too excited about you running the country.’

  ‘That’s really sweet,’ said Anna.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Rob. ‘Though I thought one potential revolutionary in the family was bad enough.’ He smiled at me as he said it, poured a glass of water and picked up his wine glass. ‘Anyway,’ he said, ‘have you lot sorted out a name for your party yet?’

  ‘We were just going to get on to that,’ I said.

  ‘Well make it a good one,’ said Rob as he headed back upstairs. ‘You don’t get anywhere these days without a decent name.’

  ‘He’s right,’ said Anna.

  ‘I know,’ I said. ‘That’s what worries me. I have a shortlist, but I’m not sure that any of them are any good.’

  ‘Go on,’ said Jackie. ‘Hit us with them. We’ll soon tell you if they’re crap.’

  ‘OK. First one: Family Matters.’

  Jackie screwed her nose up. ‘Sounds like something John Major rejected before he came up with “Back to Basics”.’

  ‘Number two: The Sisterhood.’

  Anna almost choked on an olive. ‘Too sinister. Makes us sound like the masons.’

  ‘Pankhurs
t’s People.’

  ‘Raving feminists,’ said Anna. ‘I do think it should say “family” more than “women”, but without sounding sanctimonious or putting off women who don’t have children.’

  ‘OK. Final offering: Eve.’

  Jackie sniggered. ‘Isn’t that the name of a sanitary towel? It should be, if it isn’t. An extra absorbent one with a faint scent of the Garden of Eden.’

  I started laughing. Anna almost choked on an olive. ‘You’re right, it does,’ I said. ‘I was trying to think of something which conveyed female without sounding too strident.’ I sighed and crossed off all the suggestions on my shortlist. We were in danger at falling at the first hurdle. What chance had we got of winning an election if we couldn’t even come up with a name that wouldn’t make people snigger? Maybe that was the problem. Maybe whatever we came up with people would laugh. Because we were women and because we were trying to do something radical, and the easiest way to respond to people who do that is to laugh at them. The truth was that as much as people said they wanted a change, they only meant a small change, a change of faces at the top. Not some crazy women tearing up the rule book and trying to build something from scratch. I caught Anna’s eye. I suspected that she was thinking along exactly the same lines. We were doomed.

  Rob poked his head around the kitchen door and held out a folded piece of paper.

  ‘What’s that?’ I asked.

  ‘A late entry from Zach. I told him you were trying to come up with a name.’

  I got up and took the piece of paper from him, unfolded it and read it. I knew as soon as I saw it that it was exactly what we needed.

  ‘Come on,’ said Jackie. ‘It can’t be any worse than our efforts.’

  ‘The Lollipop Party,’ I said.

  ‘He said it was because of how you started, with saving Shirley’s job,’ said Rob. ‘And because everyone likes lollipops.’

  I looked around the room. Jackie and Anna both sat there nodding silently.

  ‘It’s bloody annoying isn’t it?’ said Rob, scratching his head. ‘When a seven-year-old comes up with the best idea of the night.’

  ‘What do you reckon?’ I asked, turning to the others.

  ‘It’s certainly family-friendly,’ said Anna. ‘And it will make people smile, which is no bad thing.’

  ‘The boy’s a genius,’ said Jackie. ‘It’s fun, it’s different. And most importantly it does not sound like a sanitary towel.’

  Rob looked at me quizzically.

  ‘You had to be there,’ I said. I picked up a pen and wrote ‘THANK YOU. You’re a star. Now get to sleep! X’ on the other side of the piece of paper and handed it back to Rob. ‘Tell Zach he’s hired as our campaign manager.’ I smiled.

  ‘Oh God,’ said Rob. ‘He’ll be up all night now.’

  I heard Rob go upstairs. Imagined Zach’s grinning face as he told him the news. This was exactly what it should be. If we were going to give children a voice we needed to give them a say in everything.

  ‘I think the precedent has been set,’ I said. ‘Jackie, I’d like Alice to design the logo.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ asked Jackie. ‘It’s likely to be very pink.’

  ‘It’ll be fantastic. And Anna, perhaps one of yours could come up with a slogan for us?’

  ‘You may regret that,’ said Anna. ‘I’m not sure Will’s even on the same planet, most of the time.’

  ‘Well,’ said Jackie, ‘I think this calls for a celebration.’ She picked up the bottle of sparkling wine.

  ‘Hang on a sec,’ I said. ‘I haven’t even asked you both if you’re in.’

  ‘I’m in,’ replied Jackie.

  We turned to look at Anna. ‘It’s probably the craziest thing I’ve ever heard,’ she said. ‘And we really haven’t thought everything out properly and there are a million and one reasons why we shouldn’t do it.’

  ‘Yes, but if you don’t do it and we both get in you’ll be like one of those bitter and twisted people who left the lottery syndicate just before they hit the jackpot.’

  Anna sighed and shrugged. ‘I guess I’m in then,’ she said.

  Jackie popped the cork. ‘To the Lollipop Party,’ she said, pouring us each a glass, although I knew she wouldn’t have more than a sip of hers. ‘And to Number Ten Fountain Street where it all began.’

  ‘I’m afraid,’ I said, taking a sip before putting the glass down straightaway. ‘This does mean we’ll have to knock the girls’-nights-out on the head for a bit. Well have campaign meeting here insteed.’

  The smile momentarilly disappeared from Jackie’s face. ‘But that was our New Year resolution.’

  ‘I know, but so was making a difference and right now that’s far more important.’

  I lay awake that night, my thoughts spinning far too fast to facilitate sleep. The house was silent. The little voice of doubt in my head grew louder. I let it go. It ricocheted off the walls and came back to me, louder than ever.

  Who the hell did I think I was? Some jumped-up university drop-out who’d chucked it all in to go off on some aid mission to the Romanian orphanages. Who’d come back a year later wanting to save the world and ended up covering parish fetes for the Todmorden News. I’d hardly covered myself in glory, had I? Hardly built up a reputation as a formidable political force. At the end of the day I’d got a handful of articles in the Big Issue in the North, and that was pretty much all I had to show for my campaigning efforts.

  I slipped out of bed and padded across the floorboards to the sash window, peeping behind the curtain to look out. The moonlight illuminated the narrowboats moored along the towpath. At some point in my twenties I’d had this crazy idea of wanting to live on one. Permanently, not just some jolly boating holiday. I couldn’t remember exactly why; like so many other things, it had never happened, but I did recall Rob taking me to meet one of his artist mates who lived on a narrowboat.

  It had seen a bitterly cold January day, the canal had been frozen in places. The little curtains inside the boat were frozen to the glass. Rob’s mate had explained that if the canal didn’t thaw soon he’d be in serious trouble because he needed to get to the pumping station to empty the toilet in the next couple of days. Rob hadn’t said anything more about it on the walk back. It wasn’t his style to do so. Besides, he knew me too well to try to talk me out of anything. He was much more subtle than that.

  It was lucky the visit had put me off though, narrowboats being not exactly wheelchair-friendly. That was the thing. You never knew what the future might bring. Rob had never anticipated being a painter and decorator, but when Zach had come along he knew he could no longer afford to hole himself up in an artist’s studio for weeks on end in the hope of producing something that someone a lot better off than him might just be tempted to buy.

  And after Oscar had been diagnosed I’d realised that there would be no going back to speculatively offering articles to the Guardian’s society section in the misguided belief that the odds of them accepting one must surely improve with each one they rejected.

  Parenthood had forced us both to do the sensible thing. To get reliable jobs and a mortgage and put all the crazy stuff permanently on hold. And yet here I was, about to embark on the craziest thing imaginable. What on earth gave me the right to do that?

  I stepped away from the window. As I turned back to the bed I saw Rob’s head lifting up from the pillow.

  ‘You OK?’ he asked.

  ‘Yeah. Couldn’t sleep, that’s all.’

  There was a pause as I got back in bed before he squeezed my hand under the duvet and whispered, ‘I’m dead proud of you, crazy woman. The boys are too.’

  I squeezed his hand back. Somehow, he always knew the right thing to say.

  I got up early the next morning, before anyone else woke. I tiptoed downstairs and opened up my laptop. I searched for every art gallery or restaurant or shop in Calderdale which displayed artist’s work, made a note of the email addresses and composed a letter asking if they had
any space to display Rob’s work. I attached a couple of photos I’d taken of his latest paintings the last time I’d gone down to his studio after he’d lugged them all around Hebden Bridge and been met with a chorus of ‘We like them, but we just haven’t got the space at the moment.’

  Sometimes you had to fight for what you believed in. And for the people you loved. People who had crazy dreams of their own.

  8

  JACKIE

  ‘You’re not serious?’ Sheila looked at me over the top of her glasses. I lowered my voice, the possibility that the Head had bugged the staffroom was something I had not yet discounted.

  ‘I couldn’t be more serious.’

  ‘But what will Frodo say?’

  ‘I don’t give a toss what he says. All the campaigning will be done in my spare time, I won’t name the school in my election leaflet and anyway, I’m not even going to stand in this constituency.’

  ‘Are you sure there’s nothing in your contract to stop you doing it?’ asked Sheila, pushing her large, rectangular glasses further up her nose.

  ‘I’m sure. As long as I don’t bring the school’s name into disrepute, I’ll be fine.’

  Sheila shook her head and blew out.

  ‘Well, rather you than me,’ she said. I tried hard not to smile. Sheila had been at this school for twenty years. She was not exactly renowned for throwing caution to the winds.

  ‘It will make a refreshing change to spend my time slagging off the government instead of Frodo,’ I said.

  ‘You’d miss it terribly though, wouldn’t you? If you got in, I mean.’

  It was only when she asked the question that I realised it hadn’t even occurred to me until that moment. Becoming an MP still seemed such a preposterous idea that I had given no thought at all to the prospect of giving up teaching. And Sheila was right, of course. Because while the likes of Frodo and Gove did my head in, I still loved teaching. And the idea of not doing it actually made me feel quite bereft.

  ‘Yes, but just think how much better I could make it for you guys. Scrapping the National Curriculum and shaking up Ofsted. I’d be the pin-up girl of staffrooms up and down the country. You’d be telling people at the NUT conference that you used to work with me.’