by Matt Rudd
‘That’s because it was dangerous. And our neighbours were crazy. And that man with a knife tried to kill me.’
‘A boy who said he had a knife said he might try to kill you. That’s not the same thing.’
‘It is in this day and age.’
‘You’re negative about living outside London.’
‘That’s not true. I love it. I love our suburban existence with our curtain-twitching neighbours, our soon-to-be-ruined bathroom and the relentless commute.’
‘You see, that’s just it. Relentless commute? You told me the last time we were arguing that the commute was the only time you could sit quietly without being ordered around by me or that work-experience girl who is now your boss. You’re negative about everything, even the things you are positive about.’
‘I am not.’
‘You were even negative about our wedding.’
‘Let’s not go there again. I wasn’t negative. I was emotional. It’s not the same thing. The fact that Alex tutted all the way through it was a bit of a dampener. Especially after he turned up with all those horses. You’d think he wouldn’t have bother—’
‘If we are going to survive this whole parenting thing – and we probably should, don’t you think, for Jacob’s sake at the very least – then you are going to have to get a grip.’
‘I have got a grip. You are the one who thought it was a good idea to go on holiday to a bog in February.’
‘Is everything all right?’ It was the chipper farmer, peering out of his probably properly insulated window across the yard.
‘Yes, everything’s fine. Just another power cut. Sorry to disturb,’ I replied, pausing only for the slightest second to marvel at how, even in this terrible crisis, I am still so English that I will apologise to the person largely responsible for it. Would I apologise to a tailgater if he crashed into the back of our car? Would I apologise if someone spilled my pint? Would I apologise to a hoodie for getting his knife covered in my blood? Probably.
‘Can we continue this discussion inside, dearest? I am now soaking wet and I have bronchitis.’
She let me in. How kind. ‘Where were we?’ One thing you become quite good at as a parent is continuing conversations over many interruptions. It works particularly well with arguments.
‘This bog. February.’
‘Oh, yes. Right. Well, I have two things to say: one, we’re never coming to Devon again; two, we’re going home tomorrow. How’s that for negative?’
In the cold light of day, we packed in silence. I thanked the farmer for a lovely stay, apologised for breaking the window and offered him £20 to cover it, which he accepted. I then spent the whole return journey furious with myself for paying someone £20 because their dodgy electrics trapped me outside in the rain at 4 a.m. when I already had early-stage triple pneumonia. The whole journey, that is, minus the time spent driving at ninety-eight miles an hour to a service station because we mistimed Jacob’s feeds again and even the prospect of another speeding ticket won’t make me put up with that screaming a second longer than I have to. And minus the time spent queuing outside the only baby-changing facility on the whole M4. And minus the time spent queuing outside the same baby-changing facility again because Jacob always likes to poo twice when he knows there’s a queue for the changing facilities.
Saturday 23 February
We are all friends again.
Jacob, who hadn’t smiled for a week – and who could blame him – has been grinning away all morning. So much so that, by midday, I was wondering if he was grinning too much. Have they done a Channel Five documentary called The Boy Who Couldn’t Stop Grinning?
Isabel is as relieved to be home as I am. We apologise to each other, we cuddle, we kiss. I can’t remember the last time we kissed…certainly not last week. But that was probably because of the hacking coughs. Maybe the week before. I think we might have done it then.
We haven’t had sex since Christmas Day when she was forty weeks pregnant, frightened and frightening. I do not intend to have anything approximating sex with Isabel until she is completely and utterly recovered from childbirth. My benchmark for this is a full month after the last time she says ‘Owwwwwch’ and clutches her stomach when trying to pick something up. If it takes six months, that is fine. Or a year. Or ten years, even. (Well, maybe not ten years.) But kissing…we always kiss. Or we always did.
HOW MUCH ARE YOU SUPPOSED TO KISS ONCE YOU BECOME PARENTS?
I always assumed that kissing each other good night was the absolute cornerstone of a healthy marriage. Kissing in the morning went out the window soon after the honeymoon, but if you don’t even bother to kiss each other at bedtime, then you may as well accept that your relationship has become entirely platonic. An affair is more or less inevitable.
I assumed wrong. Since having Jacob, kissing, even at bedtime, has become intermittent at best. It is enough to be alive and/or dressed in the daytime. Other things previously considered essential, such as teeth-brushing, tea-drinking, shaving more than once a week, going to the toilet and not falling asleep while standing up, are now very much optional luxuries. Kissing is going this way, too.
Does it matter? When I ask Isabel, she says it hadn’t occurred to her that we hadn’t been kissing although now that I mention it, I’m right. But then again, we have other priorities, like not killing each other. Ha ha. And anyway, we’ll have plenty of time to kiss when we’re in our rocking chairs. Ewww. ‘Darling,’ she says, reassuringly, ‘right now, going to the shops not wearing my pyjamas is a more important target to aim for.’
All the same, we make a point of kissing each other good night. The kiss is awkward, toothy, self-conscious. We bang our noses together. It’s like we’re teenagers again, except with an unmanageable mortgage, a nearly unmanageable baby and a vague memory that we have sworn we’ll spend the rest of our lives together in sickness and in health.
This is my fault. I have ruined kissing. I don’t even need a barn owl to keep me up worrying about it.
Monday 25 February
Johnson says he still kisses Ali at least twice a day, but (a) they don’t have children and (b) the kissing is now so utterly devoid of emotional meaning that he could be kissing the postman. Like he reckons she does every time he goes to work. Not for the first time, I wonder why on earth Ali puts up with Johnson.
I ask my seventeen Facebook friends how much they kiss. Most of them are people I haven’t seen for years and will probably never see again. They are virtual friends and I can ask them virtually anything I like but I immediately wish I hadn’t. The one I used to play clarinet duets with when I was fourteen, who now has three children, a dog, a goldfish and a husband who is in the army, kisses her husband all the time. Except when he’s on tour (and presumably when she is Face-booking, which also appears to be all the time). I Facebook back asking how long he’s away at a time, which is annoying of me. I am being further assimilated into a system of social networking that will ultimately destroy face-to-face human interaction, leaving us controlled by computers, plugged into a mainframe, devoid of legs and fed through tubes.
‘Nine months,’ she Facebooks and then does some random punctuation :( which I’m given to believe is teenage shorthand for a sad face. This is good news. Not for her but for me. I think Isabel and I would kiss all the time if I had been in Afghanistan for nine months. Maybe I should sign up? The adverts look quite exciting. Building bridges out of oil drums, jumping in and out of helicopters and so forth. Of course there’s the shooting and the bombing, too. That’s a given. But it does have its pluses. No nappies to change, for example. Quite a lot of kissing and so forth when I was back. And no unfeasibly young, over-promoted, man-hating boss who still holds a grudge against me because I once, almost accidentally, threw a cup of tea over her. They wouldn’t allow that sort of nonsense in the army.
‘Shouldn’t you be a bit too busy catching up after yet another week off to have time to muck around on social-networking sites?’ says the un
feasibly young, over-promoted, man-hating boss after a particularly fast pass through the office. ‘Everyone else is striving to make Life & Times a great magazine once again. It would be nice if you could at least pretend to help.’
Right, that’s it. I’m joining the army.
No, I’m not. According to the stupid website, I am too old. Even though the army is desperate for recruits, someone in their very early thirties, someone at the very peak of their physical and mental condition, is too old.
To make matters worse, Andy, my only real friend on Facebook, has posted a picture of him and Saskia tonguing each other in Paris. Underneath, it reads: ‘Paris in the winter: it’s like being in a film, a beautiful film. The romance is illicit. You steal each other’s kisses.’
It has always been important to keep Andy grounded when it comes to women. Johnson and I think of ourselves as his emotional anchor. Every time he starts talking rubbish about romance, we have to take him for a pint and suggest that he calms down, cancels his plans to emigrate to Santiago with the secretary from the Chilean Embassy and maybe first goes for dinner with her a couple of times. After that, things usually sort themselves out. Saskia is a different prospect: emotionally manipulative with very long legs. It may prove harder to keep him on an even keel.
Happily, there is a small text box below the photo inviting comments. I type, ‘Pass le sac de vomit,’ and hastily log off before Anastasia can make any more sarcastic comments.
Tuesday 26 February
Andy’s e-mail: ‘I found your comment on my Facebook page upsetting.’
My e-mail: ‘Lighten up.’
His e-mail: ‘You need to get over your hang-up with Saskia.’
My e-mail: ‘I have, but do you really expect to post a cheesy picture of you and my ex on the internet and not get the slightest reaction?’
His e-mail: ‘You didn’t go out with her. You had a fling with her and you dumped her. Callously. You should move on, man.’
I decided not to dignify that with a response. For about five minutes. Then I e-mail back saying how disappointed I am in Andy, that he was there when we discovered what Saskia had been up to with Alex, that I can’t believe he is being so easily manipulated. No reply. Loser.
Wednesday 27 February
THE THREE TERRIBLE THINGS THAT HAPPENED TODAY
Isabel woke up at 5.30 a.m., snuck down to my sofa bed, woke me up and said, ‘Jacob’s asleep,’ before starting naughty kissing. Having been asleep, I was still half asleep when I began naughty kissing back. Then, before I could stop and think what I was doing, Isabel was saying, ‘Gently,’ and we were having post-op sex. Less than two months after the Caesarean. And then Isabel was saying, ‘I think we need to stop. It’s hurting.’ And I suddenly remembered that I wasn’t going to have sex with Isabel until she was a thousand per cent recovered. How had this happened? We stopped and that will be it for a while.
Saskia is trying to become my Facebook friend. I can’t say no because she’ll know and Andy will know and that will seem childish. And I can’t say yes because then I’d be Facebook friends with Saskia.
When I got home from an entirely miserable train journey during which the ginger woman filed her nails and flossed her teeth right opposite me, I found a large half-egg-shaped package in the midst of our living room.
‘Hi, darling,’ said Isabel, as if there wasn’t a large half-egg-shaped package blocking our view of each other.
‘Hi. How are you?’ Was I the only person who could see it?
‘Oh, fine. Jacob is playing up but nothing out of the ordinary.’ Maybe I was imagining it. Maybe I had suddenly developed a half-egg-shaped cataract.
‘Darling?’
‘Yes.’
‘I think I’ve got cataracts.’
‘What?’
‘Either that or the bath, which was supposed to arrive in two weeks’ time, has arrived already.’
‘I know, it’s exciting, isn’t it?’
‘Does this mean we’re going to have a bath in our living room for the next three weeks? Or is there the slightest chance that Geoff and bloody Alex are starting earlier than expected?’
‘No, they can’t, unfortunately. They’re going to Barbados. And they want to be around when the work begins. Because of the filming.’
‘The filming?’
‘Yes. In order to cover the costs of the whole installation, they’re going to have a small camera crew doing a little television thing. It’s only a daytime thing. Spruce Up Your House or something. Geoff and Alex are the presenters. It’s a big deal for them, but it shouldn’t affect us. Didn’t I mention it?’
‘No.’
‘Oh right, sorry. It’s not going to be a big deal, so don’t worry.’
‘But—’
‘I should also mention that there’s been a slight change of plan re the colour.’
‘Why are you talking like someone at a call centre?’
‘It’s lilac.’
‘What is?’
‘The bath.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘The bath is lilac. Only a bit. You’ll hardly notice. It’s like a lilac-white. They just thought it would match the colour scheme better and be more relaxing.’
‘We have a pink bath?’
‘Lilac. Lilac-white. Do you want to see?’
‘No.’
MARCH
‘I think that I see something deeper, more infinite, more
eternal than the ocean in the expression of the eyes of a
little baby when it wakes in the morning and coos or
laughs because it sees the sun shining on its cradle.’
VINCENT VAN GOGH
Friday 1 March
REASONS TO BE HAPPY
I am a father.
I am still alive.
Isabel is still alive.
Jacob is still alive, he is two whole months old already and no longer looks so fragile that he might not make it through the night. According to the health visitor, who appears to have accepted that we are, in spite of everything, not about to end our child’s life at our earliest convenience, he is now above average in height and weight. If we play our cards right, this means he will be a successful rugby player and I will get tickets for Twickenham internationals through his club.
REASONS TO BE UNHAPPY
Due to the pressures of modern life as well as the relentless marketing that children are exposed to from a very early age, we won’t have a chance to play our cards right and Jacob will become one of the nine out of ten children who are morbidly obese by their fifth birthday.
We have a bath in our living room. This means I can’t open the sofa bed. This means I can either sleep back in the bedroom with a fidgety baby and a fidgety wife or I can sleep in the bath.
The bath, due to its annoying egg shape, is uncomfortable to lie in.
And it’s pink.
The ‘present’ Alex and Geoff have given us comes with a television crew attached, so it wasn’t really a present at all.
And I am not talking to my best friend.
Every time I think about sex with Isabel, I feel terrible because she’s the mother of our baby. She’s vulnerable. She wants protecting and looking after and help with the whole mother–baby thing. Not sex. She says otherwise, but I’m pretty sure she’s pretending to make me feel better. It’s confusing.
This is having an effect on kissing, too. And I was already worried about the kissing.
I only have seventeen Facebook friends, only one of whom is a real friend and he’s gone to Sudan for two weeks while we’re in the middle of an argument.
Saturday 2 March
We still have a bath in the living room. It is still pink. I am sleeping in it.
Sunday 3 March
Isabel’s mum has volunteered to baby-sit for a couple of hours to give us a break. This seems very early in Jacob’s life, but frankly, the thought of two whole hours without a child makes it worth the risk. Isabel has borrowed a breast
pump from Caroline. I don’t know how I feel about this. Weird, probably. All the same, it is astonishing how long Isabel’s nipple becomes when she uses the pump. I find myself wondering if the same is true of Caroline’s nipple.
‘Couldn’t we buy our own nipple pump?’
‘I want to try it out first. Some people find they can’t use them. And it’s a breast pump, not a nipple pump.’
‘Right. Doesn’t that hurt?’
‘Yes. Now pack the bags. We need to leave at 12.47 p.m.’
We arrive half an hour late, which is some sort of record. We’ve never done it in under an hour before. Isabel then spends another half an hour filling her mother in on every last detail of Jacob’s life, before handing over the expressed milk. She then asks me to explain how the Bugaboo works to her dad. This is difficult because I don’t fully understand it myself and her dad is too busy giving me a lecture about how, in his day, a pram was a pram, not a designer accoutrement. We then give them nine different emergency numbers and leave.
We are free. And elated. We are late for our lunchtime reservation at our favourite pre-Jacob café, but they have kept our favourite table for us. We order our favourite wine. We smile. We hold hands. And we talk about Jacob. How amazing he is with his little hands and his little eyes and his little smile. How much more amazing he is than all the other children in our baby group with their horrible little hands and pokey little eyes and crooked little smiles. And how lucky we are that he isn’t one of those children that sleeps all day and all night, that although it is, at times, challenging, we are much better off with a child who is expressive.