Why Mummy Swears

by Gill Sims

  I have at least ticked Natalia and Daddy off the list, with thoughtful, personal gifts of a scarf and a bottle of whisky. What on earth did people give each other before scarves? They are the ultimate default gift. You can even give them to men! Maybe I’ll get Mum a scarf as well, and tell Jessica where to shove her fucking NutriBullet.

  What else do I need to do? Maybe I should make a list. OK:

  Make List

  Buy Presents

  Wrap Presents

  Clean House

  Do All Laundry Ever So Children Do not Look Like Scruffy Urchins in Front of Parentals

  Buy Christmas Jammies to Give Impression We Are a Functioning and Loving Family (Hmmm – would matching jammies for me and Simon make us look like twats or be utterly adorable? Could I even get Simon to wear Christmas jammies? Unlikely)

  Sort Out Understairs Cupboard

  Do Christmas Crafts with Children

  Make Children Write Christmas Cards

  I’m sure there’s a lot more. But at least I can cross off ‘Make List’ so I have achieved something already. Yay me! That has clearly earned me a glass of wine, not because I am a lush, but because it is FESTIVE! Simon has just looked over my shoulder at the list and enquired about the need to sort out the cupboard, do Christmas crafts and make the children write cards. This is because Simon is a Grinch and does not understand the true meaning of Christmas, which is to feel stressed and angry and resentful at everyone around you.

  Friday, 23 December

  We are in Yorkshire. We were up bright and early this morning, the car was packed, there had only been a very minor row, which simply ended in me shouting at Simon that I wanted a divorce, rather than that I would stab him as he slept, which, let’s face it, at Christmas time hardly even counts as a row. Peter and Jane were loaded into the car and plugged into their tablets, despite my cheery cries that we should play amusing car games all the way to Mum’s, which were met with groans of horror from the children and pleas for mercy from Simon.

  ‘But it will be FUN!’ I said brightly (as I looked up from sending one last email before we set off).

  ‘No, it won’t, Mum,’ said Jane. ‘You’ll make us play the Animal Game and then you’ll choose that weird animal that you always choose that none of us can ever remember and crow and call us stupid when we can’t get it.’

  ‘A mongoose is not weird. It isn’t MY fault if you can’t remember what a mongoose is.’

  ‘Or you’ll cheat and choose a rabbit, and then trick us by saying no when we ask if it is native to Britain,’ complained Peter.

  ‘That was a valuable lesson in both history and biology,’ I said indignantly. ‘That is what makes a rabbit such a good a choice. It throws people off the scent, because not many people know that it is in fact indigenous to North Africa and was introduced to Britain by the Romans. You’d know that too if you watched Horrible Histories.’

  ‘Muuuuuum! We KNOW you only watch Horrible Histories because you fancy that one from the Dick Turpin song. You are like sooooooo embarrassing!’ moaned Jane.

  ‘Mmmmm, Mathew Baynton …’ I murmured to myself, as Simon said, ‘Who?’ and I resolved I should probably delete my browsing history.

  ‘Well,’ I tried. ‘What about the Minister’s Cat?’

  ‘Only if it is Rude Word Minister’s Cat,’ said Jane hopefully.

  ‘Errr, no, not the Minister’s Cat then,’ I said hastily, as Jane is distressingly good at Rude Words Minister’s Cat and getting better all the time as her vocabulary increases. Well, her Rude Word vocabulary is increasing; I fear her ordinary one is not. Not that we would ever know, given that each sentence takes so long to get out, what with every second word still being bastarding ‘like’.

  I gave up on the car games after that, as not even I had the strength for the fights over I-Spy that would result from Peter’s idiosyncratic grasp of spelling and his insistence that it was not cheating to pick something we had passed five miles back as his object.

  As we were leaving the end of my driveway, Jessica rang.

  ‘Oh God, Ellen, I’m so glad I caught you!’ she babbled. She sounded absolutely distraught.

  ‘What’s happened, Jess? Is it one of the children? Is everyone OK?’

  Jessica poured out an incoherent torrent of words, the only one of which I could make out was ‘Neil’.

  ‘Is Neil all right, Jessica? Has something happened to him? I can’t understand what you’re saying. You need to calm down, take a deep breath and repeat that slowly. Can you do that for me, Jessica? Stay on the line now, just talk to me,’ I said, feeling rather pleased with my cool head in a crisis and also how much I had learned about how to deal with emergencies over the telephone from watching medical and police dramas.

  ‘NEIL HAS GIVEN THE FORTNUM’S CHRISTMAS PUDDING TO AGNIESZKA! MY STUPID FUCKING HUSBAND HAS GIVEN MY FORTNUM AND MASON CHRISTMAS PUDDING TO THE CLEANER AS A CHRISTMAS PRESENT AND SHE HAS FUCKED OFF BACK TO POLAND WITH IT! I TOLD him that the Aldi pudding was for her. I don’t know how he could have mixed them up, but he has, and I PROMISED Mum that I would bring the Christmas pudding and NOW I HAVE NO FUCKING PUDDING!’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘OH. Is that all you can say? OH. I NEED ANOTHER CHRISTMAS PUDDING, ELLEN! You are going to have to stop at a Waitrose and get a Heston one. It won’t be the same, but it’s the best I can do!’

  ‘What? Why do I have stop at a Waitrose? Why can’t you stop? And how is me buying a pudding the best you can do? Why can’t you just bring the Aldi one?’

  ‘Because I’m DELEGATING, ELLEN! How can I be expected to deal with a supermarket on the 23rd of December in the fragile emotional state I am in? And anyway, we don’t pass any Waitroses, but I’m sure you do.’

  ‘We are going to the same place, Jessica! For the last 150 miles we will be going the same route. You will pass what I will pass. Just bring the Aldi pudding, it will be fine.’

  ‘I can’t bring Mum an Aldi Christmas pudding! Not when St Sarah of Smugness will be there twatting around with her organic artisanal cheeses and crackers handmade by fucking Hebridean magical DWARVES or something, I CAN’T bring a pudding from Aldi!’

  ‘I’m not doing it, Jessica. I’m just not. I don’t know why you just assume you can boss me around and act like you are somehow superior and everyone has to dance to your tune. There is no reason why you can’t go to Waitrose yourself. Is that clear? I am NOT going for you!’ I’m not sure I’d ever said no to Jessica before. It felt amazing!

  ‘How can you do this to me?’ whispered Jessica. ‘My own sister, refusing to help me save Christmas! How can you be so thoughtless, Ellen?’

  ‘I’m not being thoughtless. You are perfectly capable of going yourself.’

  ‘AM I, Ellen? AM I? I’m just trying to save Christmas, and excuse me if I ask for a little bit of help!’ Jessica paused to sniff bravely. ‘I cannot BELIEVE Neil has done this to me. No, Neil, you HAVE ruined Christmas. I’m NOT overreacting. Now kindly shut up, I’m on the phone to Ellen, trying to sort out your mess! Well, if Persephone is crying, GO AND SORT IT OUT! Sorry, Ellen, where was I? Oh, yes, you are very kindly going to pop into Waitrose on the way and get me another pudding. Thank you so much, you’re a star.’

  ‘No, Jess, I didn’t agree to that. I’m NOT stopping, I TOLD you –’

  ‘Anyway, must go, we’ve got a long journey. Thanks again, byeeeee!’ And with that, Jessica hung up. And that is why I don’t say no to Jessica because THERE IS NO FUCKING POINT!

  ‘What was that about?’ asked Simon.

  ‘Apparently, we have to go Waitrose on the way or Jessica is going to cut Neil’s bollocks off and serve them up instead of Christmas pudding,’ I informed him gloomily.

  After five hours in the car, which was approximately twice as long as it should have taken and involved much sitting in traffic jams on the motorway while Simon shouted ‘GO ON YOU PRICK, MOVE! JUST MOTHERFUCKING DRIVE, YOU COCKSUCKER!’ at the car in front every time the car in front
of them inched forward a couple of feet, and much ‘manoeuvring’ between lanes, as Simon is eternally convinced that all the other lanes are somehow ‘better’ than the lane he is currently in, and one stop at Waitrose, at which point I seriously considered not returning to the car at all but just keeping walking, and innumerable pleas to stop for a wee or complaints from my darling children that their sibling was looking at them, we were at Mum’s.

  Mum and Geoffrey came out to meet us, as I snatched the iPads from Peter and Jane, hissing, ‘Stand up straight and for God’s sake just give them a hug and say hello nicely and try to make eye contact. Jane, shut the fuck up about your body autonomy and not having to hug people if you don’t want to, and just HUG THEM or I will never hear the bastarding end of it!’

  ‘Hello, darling,’ said Mum graciously, then, looking me up and down, added, ‘Gosh! You actually finally lost some weight. You look tired, though, darling, I’m not sure it suits you. Do you think this new job might be too much for you? I don’t know why you want to work full-time anyway.’

  ‘Hello, Mum,’ I said grimly, while thinking that this was a new record, even for Mum, to manage to get a dig in about my weight, my job and my general looks before I’d even set foot in the house. And I should have known that after years of nagging me to lose weight, she still wouldn’t be able to say anything nice and instead would manage to come up with something suitably passive–aggressive. ‘Is Jessica here yet?’

  ‘No, not yet, but I’m sure she won’t be long. Now, do my lovely grandchildren have a hug for me? Darlings?’

  I reflected that at least she remembered that they are her grandchildren, after her slip-up about Smugfuck Sarah’s Spawn being the first grandchild for her and Geoffrey.

  Just as Geoffrey and Simon were briskly shaking hands in a manly yet suitably emotionally repressed way, Jessica and Neil’s car pulled into the driveway, driven by Neil, who had the look of a man who if he heard the words ‘Christmas Pudding’ one more time would happily drive off a bridge. Poor Neil must have had a VERY long journey with an outraged Jessica yapping in his ear the whole time.

  As more greetings were exchanged and bags unloaded, Jessica grabbed me and hissed, ‘Did you get it? Did you get the pudding?’

  I dutifully handed her a Waitrose bag and she peered inside. ‘ELLEN! This isn’t the Heston pudding! It’s an Essentials pudding! How could you do this to me? I ask you to do one thing for me, ONE LITTLE THING, and you cock it up!’

  ‘Jessica,’ I said, quite calmly for someone who was entertaining violent fantasies about beating their only sister to death with a Waitrose Essentials Christmas Pudding. ‘That was the only sodding pudding to be had. It was the last one on the shelf. I have literally shed blood, sweat and tears for that fucking pudding, Jessica. I ran a gauntlet of stressed middle-class women intent on filling the boots of their Range Rovers with enough provisions to see them through Armageddon, and I fought an elderly woman in a twinset for that pudding, literally fought her. We wrestled in the aisle and she was surprisingly strong, so that pudding WILL HAVE TO DO!’

  ‘But what will Mum say?’ wailed Jessica.

  ‘Oh, FFS!’ I snapped. ‘Take it out of the box, wrap it in a hanky, tell Mum that you heard that the Fortnum’s pudding wasn’t any good this year, so you managed to get this amazing handmade artisanal pudding at a farmers’ market instead.’

  ‘Do you think that’ll be acceptable to her?’ quavered Jessica.

  ‘Oh, bloody hellfire!’ I said, at the end of my Christmas-pudding tether. ‘Tell her it’s the same pudding as Kirstie Allsopp gets, that’ll shut her up. She may even have the first ever Christmas pudding-related orgasm at the thought of having the same pudding as Posh Kirstie!’

  Saturday, 24 December – Christmas Eve

  Ah, there is nothing like the magical anticipation of Christmas Eve. The magic was slightly dimmed at breakfast this morning (all are bidden to breakfast at 8.30 a.m. sharp at Mum’s house. There is no hope of a lie-in, or slinging sugary cereal at hollow-eyed children sitting with glazed expressions in front of tablets – Mum even has a toast rack), when Persephone and Gulliver were happily babbling about how excited they were about Santa coming, and Jane, despite fervent entreaties from me to SAY NOTHING to Persephone and Gulliver about Santa, scornfully informed them that Santa didn’t exist. Persephone burst into tears and implored Jane to admit she was lying, while I frantically waggled my eyebrows and kicked Jane under the table, only to have Peter join in too.

  ‘Honestly, Persephone,’ he said, shaking his head in sorrowful disbelief. ‘You’re eleven, like Jane! I’m only nine and I know that there is no Santa Claus!’

  ‘It’s not true, it’s not true,’ wept Persephone and Gulliver (Jessica was out of the room, doubtless having another Pudding Crisis and berating Neil about something).

  ‘Honestly, Ellen,’ sighed Mum. ‘Can’t you keep those children under control for one moment? It’s Christmas Eve, hysterical children are not part of my plan for today!’

  ‘I’m trying, Mum!’ I said through gritted teeth, as Jessica swept back into the room, surveyed her weeping offspring in dismay and said, ‘Oh, poppets! What on earth is wrong?’

  ‘Peter and Jane say Santa doesn’t exist!’ sobbed Persephone.

  ‘They say it’s you and Daddy who bring the presents,’ gulped Gulliver.

  ‘Oh no, darlings, they’re just pulling your leg,’ said Jessica firmly.

  ‘Auntie Jessica, it’s wrong to lie,’ said Jane firmly. ‘We’re going to church tomorrow, and if there is a God, then he could smite you for lying!’

  ‘Except there isn’t a God,’ put in Peter. ‘He’s made up, just like Santa!’

  Persephone and Gulliver howled harder.

  Sarah tutted and stroked her bump smugly. ‘Of course, my baby will be brought up to respect all faiths, and acknowledge people’s beliefs,’ she announced, glaring at my agnostic daughter and atheist son, who were still taunting their weeping cousins about the inexorable black void of nothing that exists after death, and also the lack of Santa, which the cousins seemed to be taking rather harder.

  I’m somewhat concerned by Sarah’s presence here, actually – when Mum told me Sarah was expecting, I hadn’t realised she would be fit to pop. It was rather a shock when she waddled in last night and I asked her when she was due, and she said the 5th of January. When I said I hoped she had brought her hospital bag and notes with her, just in case, I was loftily informed that she didn’t need a hospital bag, as she was having a home birth, and when I enquired about the wisdom therefore of being away from home so close to her due date, she gave me a patronising look and informed me that EVERYONE knows that first babies are ALWAYS late. I considered pointing out to her that Jane had in fact been three weeks early, to our surprise (we were at a wedding when my waters broke and Simon was hammered, so it took rather a while to impress the gravity of the situation upon him. I still haven’t forgiven him for the epic hangover he suffered during the delivery, which led to the midwives spending more time fussing over him and bringing him coffee than they did looking after ME, the one who had an actual BABY coming out of her bits. AND he ate my toast afterwards because I was throwing up. Bastard), but by then Sarah had already moved on to explain hypnobirthing me, and to describe how she is totally against the overuse of episiotomies by the medical profession, and how she has been massaging organic coconut oil into her perineum to prepare for birth, but there won’t be any danger of tearing anyway, as she will simply be ‘breathing the baby out naturally’. She asked if I had had an episiotomy, and when I admitted that I had, said, ‘Yes, I thought so. You probably had drugs too. I am planning on completely drug-free, 100 per cent organic birth, just as nature intends. It’s quite usual for women to orgasm during labour, you know, if you do it right, and listen to your body.’ Simon choked on a Brazil nut at the mention of Sarah’s perineum and downed an entire glass of red at the talk of orgasmic births, and I decided that she would learn the hard way soon enou
gh, and spent the rest of the evening muttering darkly to Jessica about how much we hate sodding Sarah. I will say this for her: she does provide something for Jessica and me to bond over. Sadly, however, after this morning’s revelations, even chuntering together over Smug Sarah, the First Pregnant Person Ever, might not be enough to make Jessica forgive me for my precious moppets ruining the Magic of Christmas for her darlings.

  The rest of Christmas Eve was mainly spent peeling potatoes (Sarah being excused such menial tasks due to The Baby, and Jessica being occupied by attempting to convince Persephone and Gulliver that their entire childhoods hadn’t been a lie, and obviously in Mum’s world no men could be capable of peeling spuds, and apparently I was just making a scene when I said I actually just needed to do a couple of hours work before I started on the potatoes – nothing is more important than the potatoes apparently), while Mum told me how I was doing it all wrong and taking off far too much potato with the skin, and didn’t I know that was where all the goodness was (‘Yes, Mum, because you’ve literally told me that every single time I have peeled a potato since I was twelve, yet somehow neither I nor my family has yet died from fucking malnutrition’). Why the fuck do we need so many potatoes at Christmas anyway?