by Matt Rudd
We are maybe twelve minutes into lunch before I say, ‘Shall we call to check he’s okay?’ and Isabel says, ‘No, he’ll be fine. Mum would call if they were having a problem.’ And it is maybe another seven minutes before Isabel suggests that perhaps a quick call wouldn’t hurt, and it is my turn to pretend I don’t think it is necessary. By the time our main courses have arrived, we have still spoken about nothing but Jacob and can stand it no longer.
‘Hi, Mum. Sorry to call. Just check—…right…right…right. Okay. Speak to you later. Thank you. Bye.’
‘What happened?’ I ask. ‘That sounded bad. Is he all right? Has something happened?’
‘He’s fine. He’s had the milk. He’s had four stories read to him. They’ve taken him for a walk round the block and now he’s asleep. She says there’s no need to rush.’
‘Was it just once round the block?’
‘Yep. Went straight to sleep, she said.’
‘With singing?’
‘Didn’t mention any singing. Now, eat faster and let’s go home and have a cuddle.’
Two things ruined my enjoyment of the remaining time we had free.
First, I could not believe that Jacob had chosen the one time neither of us was looking after him to behave angelically. All the exhaustion, the shuffling through the first two months of parenthood with that haunted, hunted look in our eyes, the desperation, would now seem to Isabel’s parents like we were simply making a meal of things. I could hear it now: ‘Jacob was a little treasure, my darlinks. He is charming. We will look after him again any time.’ Annoying.
Second, the cuddle. She meant it as a euphemism. She was talking about sex, which she now very definitely does want and she says there isn’t time to worry about whether it’s a good idea or not. So we had to race home, take off all our clothes and ‘cuddle’. Really quickly, though, because nipple-pumped milk can only go so far.
Is it fair, with all this going on, to expect me to perform at the drop of a hat or, in this case, a rather stylish pencil skirt? Was it reasonable to demand sudden sex, given that we were worrying about whether Jacob was still all right? Women seem capable of worrying about things and having sex.
What if the scar bursts open?
What if Jacob runs out of milk?
‘I can’t do it,’ I blurt out. ‘I can’t do it in such a small window. I’m not a performing seal.’ And with that, I got up, dressed hurriedly, checked the clock and set off to fetch our son. Now it’s my fault we haven’t done it. I have post-traumatic sex syndrome.
Monday 4 March
Johnson has sixty Facebook friends – three times as many as I have – and I have a syndrome. It’s a terrible start to the week.
Tuesday 5 March
Maybe I should talk to Isabel about it. The syndrome, that is. Not Facebook. I don’t care about bloody Facebook. I know it’s not a real indicator of social importance.
Wednesday 6 March
The new work experience girl with 500 Facebook friends also has 600 followers on Twitter, which she can update from anywhere in the world via her WAP phone. I don’t know what a work experience thinks she’s doing being able to go anywhere in the world. Let alone in possession of a WAP phone, whatever that is. Whatever happened to good honest impoverished workies? Is it possible to have a workie without a double-barrelled name and an ambition to rule the world before their twenty-fifth birthday? Please.
She also has a blog. Johnson, who is Facebook friends with her, says the blog is very funny.
Thursday 7 March
Isabel has only got twelve Facebook friends. Hahahahahaha. But she’s a new mum and she only joined it yesterday. But still, hahahahaha.
Friday 8 March
Isabel now has more Facebook friends than me. I ask her how that’s possible given that she’s always saying she doesn’t have a second to herself at all. She gives me a scary don’t-mess-with-me look, one that is getting much scarier as she develops into a proper mother. We are, I can tell, only months away from a full mum look, the sort of look that can stop a boy spooning yoghurt on to the wallpaper at fifty yards. I decide this is a bad time to discuss the failed attempt at sex and go to work.
The work-experience girl is now on a six-month contract. She has been given her own column to write about technology. I still don’t have a column. I have been here for almost two years and I’ve only had one big interview shot (which didn’t happen because apparently Hillary Clinton had to fly somewhere and host some peace talks, thus simultaneously solving a humanitarian crisis and scuppering my big break). I had a column at Cat World within two months of starting. Yes, it was called ‘Good enough to eat?’ and involved me tasting actual cat food. But you got used to it. And it was a column.
Sunday 10 March
Alex called from Barbados to say how surprised he was that the bath had arrived early and that it was almost certainly a good omen. He and Geoff fly back tomorrow. The team will start on Thursday. The team and the crew.
Monday 11 March
I am now avoiding Isabel when Jacob is asleep, just in case she wants another ‘cuddle’. To the pub at lunch with Johnson. He says he has a friend who looked over the curtain during the Caesarean through some misguided sense of duty. Bursts into tears every time he and his wife start kissing.
If it was him, Johnson says, he would have refused to attend the birth full stop. All you need to do is make the woman think it is a decision based on some spurious ancient tribal nonsense. Women love that sort of stuff.
‘Darling, I’d say. Darling. Sweetness. Sugar pie. About the birth, I was thinking that we should do what the Amazonian tribespeople do. Women in the birth hut. Men outside praying to the gods. I will be there in spirit, but I won’t be there in person. This is because my biorhythms are incompatible with the mystical process of labour. Let’s try it like that and, if you feel you do need me, text me and I’ll be there in ten minutes.’
Sometimes, amid all the dross, Johnson speaks the truth. Only sometimes, though, and usually when it’s far too late to be of any use.
Wednesday 13 March
Isabel, who now has twice as many Facebook friends as me and counting, has also managed to find the time to reorganise our wardrobes. All Jacob’s clothes now occupy the small chest of drawers and all Isabel’s clothes now occupy the top four drawers of the large chest of drawers. My clothes are now confined to the bottom drawer and a large bag which I am to check through before it goes to charity. In it, I find my favourite trousers, bought with my first proper pay cheque ten years ago from Donna Karan, no less. I also find my favourite T-shirt, the one an Australian girl had once said I looked muscly in. There is also my favourite shirt and my favourite jumper, both birthday presents from my mother. This is nothing short of a fashion coup d’état.
‘This is nothing short of a fashion coup d’état,’ I say as Isabel chops carrots and Jacob watches me suspiciously. He is part of it, I know he is.
‘Darling, you never wear any of those clothes.’
She always calls me ‘darling’ when she’s trying to bend me to her will. But I won’t be bent. ‘That’s because you shrank them.’
‘Darling, I shrank one shirt once. And it was that ridiculous Italian one that made you look like a Frisbee.’
She continues with the carrots. And I continue to protest: ‘I love this T-shirt.’
‘Yes, you told me. An Australian girl said you looked muscly in it. And she was right, darling. It’s like a magic muscle T-shirt. But it has holes in it now. It’s almost a metaphor.’
She takes the T-shirt from my hand and stuffs it into the duster drawer to join my favourite pair of pants, which had gone in a previous cull. I’d loved those pants, too. Sure, the elastic had gone and they sagged in all the wrong places and didn’t in all the right ones, but they were comfortable. And comfort is rare in pants. By the time I had noticed, they had already been used to polish shoes. I had cried for those pants. Why should I cry for the T-shirt, too? I begin to protest but she
interrupts, smiling sweetly.
‘Darling, we have limited space. We have to make room for another man in the house.’
Hmmm. Fair enough, I suppose.
‘And besides, we need to tidy up. The television crew is coming tomorrow for a recce.’
Hmmm. Not so fair enough, but Jacob gives me a look that says this conversation is over. I retreat to the front room sulkily, nursing a Scotch and dry in one hand and the T-shirt in the other. I sit in the bath, because this is now the only way I can see the television. I flick through the channels looking for something monotonous to watch, and there are Alex and Geoff in a trailer for their new show. It isn’t called Spruce Up Your House. It’s called Alex & Geoff to the Rescue. I really don’t think our bathroom is that bad.
Thursday 14 March
The producer of the show does. The three of them – he, Alex and Geoff – came round this evening and said lots of nasty things about the bath, the toilet and especially the frosted-glass shaving shelf. It’s not like it’s our choice of bathroom. It was my choice of frosted shelf, but it was only a stopgap until we could get the whole room done. And, you know, we’ve been busy having a baby.
‘They have to talk it up,’ says Isabel. ‘Everything on television is exaggerated.’
‘Yes, but it’s our bathroom. We don’t need the whole world being told we had a horrible bathroom. And I don’t like the way Geoff thinks he’s better than everyone else, just because he has bad taste in home interiors.’
‘You said last week you couldn’t give a monkey’s about the show because no one watches daytime television, anyway.’
Why do women have the facility to file things away like this when I can’t remember what I’ve said from one argument to the next? It’s like making a goldfish argue with a barrister. It’s unfair.
‘I know what they’re going to do. They’re going to make us out to be losers.’
‘Stop being such a grouch. This is exciting for Alex. It’s just what he needs. He’s had a difficult year, what with all the stalking and the coming out. He’s finally doing what he loves with someone he loves and we’re getting a bathroom out of it. All they’re asking in return is that they go for something truly original and that we exaggerate how much we like it at the end.’
‘I’m sorry? What do you mean “original”? I thought we were having a simple, stylish, timeless design.’
‘Well, the programme format’s come on a bit since then. There has to be an element of surprise. We’re in the first show so we’re the, er, guinea pigs.’
I told you nothing good would come of this.
Saturday 16 March
What started out as a typically extravagant baby present has degenerated into a massive pain in the neck. Isabel and I were forced to show Alex and Geoff round the house on camera, pretending we didn’t know them, pretending we were really struggling without a proper bathroom. Isabel really hammed up her bathroom misery – it sounded like she lived in an unplumbed Calcutta slum. This gave Alex and Geoff licence to make cruel jokes about how they bet she wished she’d married someone who was practical around the house. Alex called her ‘babes’ a lot. So did Geoff. I really object to Geoff calling Isabel ‘babes’ on camera. He hardly knows her. It’s overfamiliar. And even though I might not be able to put a bathroom in, I have other practical skills.
OTHER PRACTICAL SKILLS
I can make a paper aeroplane that only three other people know how to make.
I can skateboard.
I can yo-yo.
I can make a vein in my hand do the cancan.
I can eat a whole loaf of Marmite toast in one sitting.
Later, when we have been asked to make ourselves scarce so that Geoff, Alex and the team can get started, I read out my list of skills to Isabel. She points out that everything on the list dates from my childhood. When I look despondent, she tells me I don’t need a list, I’m very good at other things, and she gives me a hug.
I don’t need her pity. Well, okay, I do a bit.
Sunday 17 March
Another day wandering aimlessly around parks with a sling containing a baby while Alex ruins our bathroom.
Monday 18 March
Spend the day trying to find out how one goes about learning a manly martial art – and which one would be most suitable for a timepoor father of one. Karate is obviously out. I don’t have months to paint a fence. Jujutsu is too hardcore. Maybe kick boxing. Turns out there’s a class on Monday lunchtimes at the gym with the stupid name (Avocado) and they have one place left. On the website, there is a video of a man high-kicking another man before flattening him with a quick, brutal one-two. I’m not interested in violence, but Alex and Geoff might stop taking the piss if they know I can render both of them unconscious with one roundhouse.
Tuesday 19 March
That’s four days we haven’t been able to use our bathroom, and there’s only so much washing one can do in a downstairs toilet. You would think they would be out by now, but apparently they’ve had a few technical setbacks. At least the bath is out of the living room so I can return to the luxury of sleeping on a sofa bed. Amazing how similar being a new dad is to being in the doghouse.
Thursday 21 March
‘William. Isabel. Close your eyes. Walk forward three spaces. Now. Tell me. What was the problem with your old bathroom?’ Alex is doing the full Laurence Llewelyn-Bloody-Bowen as the camera rolls.
[Nothing, I think. Relatively speaking, it was fine before you got involved.]
‘It was cramped. It was stressful. Just the atmosphere made our new baby cry,’ says Isabel untruthfully. Or half truthfully – everything made our new baby cry.
‘And what did you want from your new bathroom?’
[A bath in a room. That’s all.]
‘We wanted light and space and a sense of happiness. Anything would be better than what we had, really. Somewhere to start the day positively would be enough for our new family.’ She is completely made for daytime television; I am so disappointed in her.
‘Well, William, Isabel. I am pleased to say that Geoff and Alex have…come to the rescue,’ says Geoff. ‘When I count to three, open your eyes. One, two, th—’
‘Fucking hell.’
‘Cut,’ says the director. ‘Let’s take it again from the top.’
The stupid pink egg bath is in the middle of the bathroom, which is now also shaped like a giant egg, thanks to a rounding off of all the edges. It looks a bit like a hospital MRI scanner with a bath in the middle. When you press a button, water shoots out of hundreds of holes in the ceiling and floor. Water and bubbles.
The sink is behind a recess at the back of the room and Geoff has had his way with the lighting. A dial turns the LED lights from red (‘Sexy,’ says Isabel televisually) to green (‘Soothing,’ she purrs). If you clap your hands, whale-mating music comes on and I am immediately transported back to Isabel’s labour.
Every inch of the room is stencilled with cartoon bonsais.
The taps don’t even look like taps. They look like dildos. You have to squeeze them to turn them on.
It is the most ridiculous bathroom I have ever seen in my entire life. When I say this, the director says ‘Cut’ again, and we all have an enormous row. Then Isabel tells me I’ve woken Jacob so can I go and change him. I ask whether I should change him in the baby room or in the MRI scanner.
Alex calls me ‘babes’ in an attempt to calm me down. I tell him I’m not his babe. Geoff tells me I’m homophobic. I tell Geoff that I am Geoffophobic and then wish I was better at comebacks and storm out.
An hour later, they have all left. Isabel comes into the front room where I am still explaining to Jacob that his mother is mad, her friends are evil and that he must understand, when he’s older, that Daddy never wanted an egg-shaped bathroom with dildos for taps.
‘Let’s just wait until we’ve got used to it, darling. If we still don’t like it then, Alex has promised he’ll come and sort it out.’
Friday 22
March
Bath time is ruined. And bath time was the only time, apart from train time, when I could truly relax. This evening, I sat uncomfortably in an egg surrounded by a larger egg. I had the lighting in red mode because the green made me feel sick. The whale music was playing because neither Isabel nor I have managed to turn it off since Alex and Geoff left. ‘Two claps for on, one clap for off,’ they had said, but one clap only makes the whale mating louder. I closed my eyes and tried to blot it all out, and suddenly I realised why I felt so uncomfortable. This wasn’t a bathroom. It was a womb. Not even three months on from near-disaster in Isabel’s womb department, and Alex and his beardy boyfriend have constructed an ovarian monstrosity. And I am lying right in the middle of it.
Saturday 23 March
Isabel says I am being ridiculous. She says I am sleep-deprived. I need to calm down and think rationally. If I think our bathroom has become a giant uterus, then it’s me that has issues, not the bathroom. I am about to tell her she is absolutely right, I do have issues and the bathroom isn’t helping, but my mum arrives. She has been talking to Isabel’s mum. She is delighted to hear that Jacob is such an easy child. Isabel starts pouting.
I put the kettle on.