Mummyfesto, The

by Green, Linda

‘It’s all very well coming up with radical reforms and crazy policies, but in the real world someone’s got to pay for them and we happen to have been left with a huge amount of debt and a financial mess to clean up. We’re taking the responsible course of action by making that our priority. That’s real politics not playground politics.’

  ‘Oh it’s real politics,’ I said, not even waiting to be brought in. ‘And the victims of real politics are real children. Children like a little boy called James whose mum wrote to us this week. His major operation was cancelled with less than twenty-four hours’ notice because beds in the IT unit he was in have been cut from ten to four since you got in. Do you know what James said when his mum told him? He said “I’m not important, am I?” And he’s right you know. In your government’s Britain he’s not important. And nor are the children who come into the hospice where I work. Less than five per cent of our funding comes from your government and you’re still going to cut our grant next year. That’s why we came into politics and that’s why we won’t stop until things change. Because I can tell you that nothing is more important than a poorly or dying child. Absolutely nothing.’

  There was a stunned silence at the other end of my earpiece. I put my arm down, realising I must have been jabbing my finger. I had an overwhelming sense that the Lollipop Party was not going to be belittled and ridiculed again.

  The young woman was smiling as she took my earpiece off at the end.

  ‘Was I OK?’ I asked.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘You were bloody brilliant. I would have paid to watch that. I really would.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I said easing myself down from the stool, ‘please make sure you vote for us then.’

  ‘Do you know what?’ she said. ‘I think I will.’

  I turned my phone on in the taxi on the way home. Jackie had texted me to say I had ‘whipped their arses’ and Anna to say that both I and the Lollipop Party were trending on Twitter.

  Rob grinned at me as I let myself in. ‘Well, turned out the crazy nose-studded, Hebden Bridge woman wasn’t so crazy after all.’

  I smiled at him. ‘I’m just relieved to have survived, to be honest.’

  ‘There is one thing I need to pick you up on, though. I’m afraid our household isn’t actually solvent. We’ve gone a hundred quid overdrawn today. You’re all right though, I won’t tell the papers.’

  I smiled at him again. A tired, apologetic smile this time. ‘We’ll be all right,’ I said. ‘I’m sure we’ll be able to get straight after the election.’

  ‘When we move to Downing Street, you mean?’ It was the way Rob said it which took me back. And the way he looked at me with such a serious face.

  ‘What do you mean by that?’

  ‘I’m just concerned that your head is in cloud cuckoo land and at some point you’re going to come crashing back down to earth with a bump.’ I looked at him and shook my head.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘This is massive. And I think it’s going to get even bigger.’

  ‘Bit like our overdraft,’ he replied.

  ‘I can’t stop this now. Even if I wanted to.’

  Rob shrugged, as if he were already resigned to that fact. ‘I know,’ he said. ‘That’s what worries me.’

  17

  JACKIE

  I stared down at the darkish-red discharge and felt the familiar wrenching and tearing deep inside me. It was stupid really. We’d just had a diagnosis of unexplained infertility after four years of trying and failing to conceive and yet for some reason I was still left inconsolable by the arrival of my next period. I wondered if there would ever be a time when it didn’t have that effect on me, when its coming would be as predictable and unemotional as the passing of the seasons signalling another month crossed off on the calendar. Nothing more and nothing less than the relentless passage of time. Somehow, I doubted it ever would. Far more likely, I suspected, was that the monthly sense of loss would be with me right up to the point where there was no next period. When the loss was no longer temporary but a permanent ache, a constant grief that I would carry with me for the rest of my days.

  I crept back into the bedroom. Paul had his eyes shut. I didn’t think for a minute he had gone back to sleep though. I thought he had chosen to shut them to avoid the situation. He would have guessed from the length of time I was in the bathroom. That and the inbuilt copy of my menstrual calendar which he no doubt carried around with him. He knew he was on a loser if he so much as opened his mouth. He didn’t feel it the way I did. We’d had the conversation enough times to establish that. And because he didn’t feel it that way there was nothing he could say or do to make it better or make me feel he understood, because he didn’t. I didn’t hate him for it. It wasn’t his fault. But sometimes I resented the fact that he got away so lightly. And it was hard to be OK about everything when you were resentful.

  I slid back under the duvet next to him, knowing it would be only a matter of time before Alice woke and we were freed from this impasse.

  ‘I meant what I said. I think we should wait,’ said Paul, still with his eyes closed.

  ‘Wait for what?’ I asked, my eyes still fixed on the ceiling.

  ‘I think we shouldn’t make a decision about IVF until after election. It’s a massive decision. Standing in a general election is a massive thing to do too. And situation with your mum is getting harder day by day. We do one thing at a time. Get election out of way first. See how we both feel after that. No promises, mind. I still don’t want you to put yourself through it. I’m just saying let’s not make a decision now when so much is up in air.’

  I lay there, still staring at the ceiling, hardly daring to breathe. He wasn’t saying yes, but neither was he saying no. Maybe it was just a delaying tactic. Maybe he was stalling for time. But the only thing that was worse than a tiny bit of hope was having no hope at all.

  ‘OK,’ I said. Paul opened one eye and turned his head to look at me.

  ‘What do you mean “OK”?’

  ‘Exactly that.’

  ‘Bloody hell,’ said Paul, throwing the duvet back and swinging his legs out of bed.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Going to get diary to write it in: “Won argument without Jackie saying a word t’other way.”’

  I smiled as he disappeared into the bathroom and stretched out on to his side of the bed, luxuriating in the extra space and starting to work out in my head exactly which day I was likely to be ovulating.

  It was safe to say I was not a fan of board games. Actually, that was not true. Proper board games were fine: Scrabble, Monopoly and that thing called Coppit I played when I was a kid were of the first order. It was whoever had invented these ridiculous children’s games that it took longer to set up than to actually play that I had it in for. Take Mouse Trap, for example. Where the hell was the fun in that? You needed a degree in engineering and patience to set it up and within a few seconds of doing so, some cocky sod – usually Paul – got to flush a pretend toilet and knock part of it down again. There was not an ounce of cunning or strategy involved. Just a quest for a poxy piece of plastic cheese. This probably explained why Mouse Trap was right at the bottom of the toy box in an ‘Oh, what a shame we haven’t got time to get to it tonight’ position. Buckaroo, however, had somehow inexorably worked its way towards an accessible corner and into Alice’s line of vision.

  ‘Buckaroo,’ she squealed, making a grab for it before I could move anything to cover the box. ‘We haven’t played this for ages.’

  Paul appeared suitably amused. ‘Great,’ he said. ‘Mummy will put it together for you. She really likes this one.’

  I gave him the look he deserved, took the lid off the box and started trying to get the bucking bronco’s hindlegs set down into the starting position. Five minutes later Paul, still with a smug grin on his face, asked if I wanted any help.

  ‘It’s OK,’ I said. ‘There’s a knack to it. It’s just fiddly, that’s all.’ I turned it round so the base was facing
me and tried to do it from a different angle, bending my face down closer to it as I tried to force the legs into place.

  ‘Please don’t break it, Mummy,’ said Alice. A second later the legs snapped in and the mule bucked, propelling the base into my face at point-blank range. I screamed as the pain shot through me and instinctively threw my hands up to cover my eyes.

  Alice, who was never one to take such things calmly in her stride, screamed too and started shrieking, ‘It’s kicked Mummy’s eye out. Quick, Daddy, do something.’

  I heard Paul jump up and dash out of the room, returning a minute or two later. ‘Here,’ he said, ‘I’ve got a warm flannel for you.’ Quite how that would have helped if the mule really had kicked my eye out I wasn’t sure, but at least he was trying. All I was thinking was, ‘Please God, don’t let me have to go to A & E.’ If I needed stitches or my nose was broken I would end up on one of those lists they do of the top ten most stupid or embarrassing injuries people presented themselves with at A & E. My Buckaroo injury would be up there with men who’d had eye-watering accidents with their flies and kids who’d got their heads stuck in buckets. I was afraid to take my hand away in case there was blood – Alice was not at all good with blood – but she was shrieking so hysterically by now that I realised that unless I showed her otherwise, she really would think it had kicked my eye out. Gingerly, I lowered my hands and blinked open my eyes.

  ‘It’s all right, love. I’m OK,’ I said, trying hard to smile at Alice, although I suspect it came out as more of a squint.

  ‘No blood,’ said Paul, bending down to take a closer look. ‘And I don’t think your nose is broken. You’d be screaming blue murder if it was.’

  I breathed a sigh of relief that I would be spared the embarrassment of a hospital visit.

  ‘It does look pretty nasty though and I expect you’re going to have a shiner tomorrow.’

  ‘Oh great,’ I groaned, as the reality of a far greater embarrassment hit me. ‘That’s going to look wonderful on Question Time, isn’t it?’

  Paul put his head down and started laughing. I wanted to tell him he was a bastard, but I couldn’t with Alice there.

  ‘Why’s Daddy laughing?’ she asked.

  ‘Mummy’s going to be on television again tomorrow,’ I said, ‘and I expect I’ll have a great big bruise on my face from playing Buckaroo.’

  Alice smiled and started laughing too, I suspected more out of relief than anything.

  ‘You’ll have to tell them the donkey kicked you,’ she said. ‘He’s a very naughty donkey, isn’t he?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, cursing the fact that he hadn’t gone to the great donkey sanctuary in the sky, otherwise known as the Oxfam shop, a long time ago. ‘A very naughty donkey indeed.’

  ‘Fuck,’ I said, sitting bolt upright in bed.

  ‘What?’ asked Paul, opening his eyes with a start.

  ‘The Tooth Fairy,’ I hissed. ‘I haven’t done the bloody Tooth Fairy.’ I looked at the alarm clock. It was 7.30. Alice would wake up at any minute, she was like an alarm clock herself.

  ‘Bloody hell. I thought it were summat serious,’ Paul said with a yawn. ‘Can’t you say she got held up in traffic, or summat?’

  ‘That,’ I said as I leapt out of bed and threw on my dressing gown, ‘is exactly why there wouldn’t be a Father Christmas, Easter bunny or Tooth Fairy if men were left in charge.’

  I raced downstairs, missing out the two creaking steps as I went, and started rummaging in my purse for a 50p piece. There wasn’t one, of course. Nor was there one in Paul’s wallet. The Tooth Fairy always left a 50p piece. She never asked for change and neither did she deposit a collection of silver and coppers. It just wasn’t Tooth Fairy. In desperation I raided Alice’s piggy bank and found one. I took it, feeling like the kind of sicko who steals charity collection boxes. It was no use replacing it with loose change, it was the 50p she got from the Tooth Fairy last time. And Alice was the sort of girl who knew exactly what she had in her piggy bank.

  I then had to rummage around in the wrapping paper bag for some shiny gold paper and a piece of red ribbon, cursing Anna as I did so. It was she who had started all this fairy-scroll business. Esme, who’d been the first of Alice’s friends to lose a tooth, had come to school proudly brandishing a beautiful miniature scroll with the neatest fairy-sized writing imaginable, thanking her for her tooth and telling stories of the far-off fairy kingdom she had come from. Sam and I had looked at Anna with a mixture of awe and loathing as we realised that such souvenirs would now be expected by our offspring for years to come. I’d managed five so far, none as impressive as Anna’s, it had to be said, but all at least passable as fairy missives.

  This was clearly going to be the exception.

  Dear Alice, thanks for the tooth. Must fly, your Tooth Fairy. x

  All of it written in the sort of slapdash handwriting that made it look like her particular Tooth Fairy had been on the alcopops all night.

  Unable to find any ribbon, I tied it with an elastic band, ran back upstairs, crept into Alice’s room and began the task of trying to remove Alice’s tooth from under her pillow without waking her. It had long been a mystery to me why the MoD didn‘t target mums of seven-year-olds for their bomb-disposal work. If they were looking for a steady hand, precision timing and nerves of steel, we had it in bucketloads.

  Alice, of course, was lying protectively over the very corner of the pillow she had slipped her tooth under, as if guarding it with her life. It was bad enough doing this at 11.30 at night when I knew she should be in a deep sleep; doing it at 7.40 in the morning, when I knew she would wake up at any second, was asking for trouble.

  I had just managed to place the 50p and the scroll under her pillow when she stirred. Instinctively I dropped to the floor. I heard her rummaging about under the pillow and then the squeal. I knew what was coming next and there was only one solution. I slid myself under her bed, grateful that we had decided against the under-bed storage drawer. I saw her legs flip down and her footsteps shooting out of the bedroom as she shouted, ‘She’s been, Tooth Fairy’s been.’ I scrambled out from under the bed and tiptoed into the bathroom on the landing, flushed the toilet and strolled as casually as possible back into our bedroom.

  ‘Mummy, look what Tooth Fairy has left’ Alice smiled, holding up the 50p piece.

  ‘That’s great. Did she leave you a scroll too?’

  ‘Yes, but it’s not a very good one. And she forgot the fairydust.’

  Paul gave me a suitably reproachful look as I walked around to climb back into bed. It was only now the emergency was over that I realised how sore my face was. Alice started giggling.

  ‘What?’ I said.

  ‘Your face looks funny.’ I glanced in the mirror on the chest of drawers and groaned as I saw the extent of the Buckaroo injury. And that was in the dim light of morning. It didn’t bear thinking about what TV studio lights would do to it. David Dimbleby had no idea what he was letting himself in for.

  The very fact that I was a panellist alongside Ed Balls, Baroness Warsi, Sir Patrick Stewart and Baroness Shirley Williams was surreal to say the least.

  Two baronesses, a knight who was better known as Captain Jean-Luc Picard and a man named Balls who had been the former PM’s right-hand man. It was a lot to get my head around. I suspected they had looked at the list of panellists and thought, ‘Who the fuck is Jackie Crabtree?’ Or a slightly more polite version of that, maybe. I could only presume George Galloway had been unavailable (perhaps a case of cat flu) as the token minority party representative, which was why it was me being shown into a side room in Bradford Cathedral and smiling awkwardly as I was introduced to the other panellists and David Dimblely himself. I wasn’t sure if they smiled at me because they were being genuinely friendly or because they couldn’t keep a straight face when they saw the state of mine. There was only so much that make-up could cover – and a whacking great bump on my nose and bruise under my eye were not among those things.
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  ‘I had an argument with a mule,’ I said feebly. Dimbleby raised his eyebrows at me.

  ‘Well I hope he came off worse,’ said Balls.

  ‘Let’s just say he won’t be bothering anyone again.’

  Balls laughed. The rest of them nodded and turned away.

  ‘We’re just waiting for Sir Patrick,’ said the assistant producer who had introduced me. I resisted the temptation to ask if the starship Enterprise had developed engine problems. Sam’s last instructions to me had been not to make any Star Trek jokes.

  ‘If you need the toilets you’ll find them at the back of the cathedral. We’ll be going on set in about ten minutes.’

  I nodded and headed off in the direction of the loos, more to avoid any more embarrassing small talk with my fellow panellists than anything. It was only as I deposited my tampon in the bin provided and started rummaging around in my handbag for a replacement that it started to dawn on me that there may not be a spare one. I didn’t usually use this bag, and despite the fact that you’d think someone nearing their fortieth birthday would be able to manage their own menstrual cycle, clearly it hadn’t yet happened in my case.

  ‘Shit,’ I said out loud, at which point I worried that I would now be struck down from on high for blaspheming in the house of God. I stuck my head out of the cubicle and checked the walls for tampon machines. Nothing. Obviously the congregation were the type who were either too old to need them or were organised enough to bring their own. I briefly contemplated delving into the sanitary bin to try to fish my used one out before thinking better of it. Clearly there wasn’t time to dash to the shops. There was nothing else for it, I was going to have to ask someone.

  I walked back into the side room where I had been waiting. All the BBC people in the room were men. The only other women were Baroness Williams and Baroness Warsi. And I couldn’t ask a Tory: Paul would never forgive me, even if I could forgive myself.

  ‘Excuse me,’ I whispered in Shirley Williams’ ear. ‘I’m very sorry to bother you with this but I’m having a bit of an emergency. You don’t happen to have a spare tampon on you, do you?’