The Seven Year Itch

by Emlyn Rees

  It’s nine thirty and I’m trying to coax some Weetabix into Ben, but he’s sitting in his high chair at the end of our kitchen table, intent on blowing the longest non-stop raspberry of his life.

  At least he looks a little better, I think, feeling his forehead. Since our anniversary last week, the poor little thing has had a shocking cold and has wound up in bed with us every night, which is less than ideal. I would leave him to cry himself back to sleep, but our wanker neighbour upstairs, Passive Aggressive Tim, bangs on the ceiling if Ben so much as whimpers. (It’s his own stupid fault for installing trendy stripped floorboards, which provide no sound insulation and we have pointed this out to him in a carefully worded letter, but that just made his behaviour worse.)

  But my problems are nothing, apparently, compared to Jack’s. I should be able to deal with Ben all night and still be bright, breezy and attentive towards my husband. Yes, even when he’s a grumpy bastard.

  Because, Ladies and Gentlemen, let’s not forget that disturbed sleep is so much worse for a man. Yes. Much, much worse, apparently. In fact, it’s amazing they haven’t done a scientific study to prove that it’s medically damaging men’s health for them to do any form of childcare in the night.

  ‘Amy?’ Jack yells again and I turn down the radio.

  Why should I bloody know where his keys are? Why does he assume that I have nothing better to do than keep tabs on every single item of his personal belongings? I already do that for myself and Ben. Doesn’t Jack realise how much brain space that occupies? Too much is the answer.

  ‘Try your jacket,’ I yell back.

  ‘I have.’

  ‘Laundry basket?’

  ‘Not there.’

  I can tell just from his tone, that he’s standing in the bedroom cursing me. He hasn’t even looked.

  A second later, he appears in the kitchen doorway, staring at me in a frantic kind of way. Having only got to sleep at four a.m., we’ve both overslept this morning and Jack should already be at work. He’s got bits of bloodstained loo roll on his neck where he’s shaved in a hurry. Serves him right for nicking my blunt Venus ladyshave.

  ‘Uh-oh, Daddy’s rumbled me,’ I say to Ben, scooping up a spoonful of goo. ‘You see, Mummy got up in the middle of the night and took Daddy’s keys out of his jacket pocket and . . .’ I lean in close to Ben and raise my eyebrows in a scary, fairy-story kind of way ‘. . . and hid them!’

  Ben giggles, but Jack’s not being humoured. He’s got more furrows on his brow than Jeremy Paxman when he’s quizzing a slippery politician.

  ‘Amy, I’m bloody late.’

  This sentence manages to convey that not only is this somehow entirely my fault, but also that I’m not taking him seriously. Furthermore, his time is more important than mine. Three black marks to Amy.

  However, experience has taught me that there’s absolutely no point in making him look for his keys himself. If I do, he’ll start rampaging through the flat, tearing up sofa cushions and emptying drawers out on to the tables, cursing me the whole time.

  On these occasions, ninety-nine per cent of the time Jack finds the article he’s looking for (usually car keys, sunglasses, phone or his wallet) about his person, or where he last left them – i.e. in his jacket pocket, slung on the floor.

  So it’s a tricky one.

  On the one hand, if I cave into him and find his flipping keys, I’ll not only have reinforced his inability to find anything, but also recommitted myself as a finding things slave. Which doesn’t bode well, considering that Ben is turning out to be Jack’s Mini-Me in this department.

  But on the other hand, if I don’t help Jack find his flipping keys, I’ll have to spend all day tidying up the resultant carnage.

  And the bummer is, that either way Jack will be in a strop.

  I dump the Weetabix on the high chair and, sighing heavily, get up and walk past Jack into the bedroom and straight over to the laundry basket. His jacket lies in a heap by its side.

  I pick it up and check the pockets. No sign of his keys. So I check under the shorts on the top of the laundry basket. As I suspected.

  I hold the keys up for him on my forefinger, expecting an apology, or at least a contrite kiss.

  ‘You see. You hid them,’ he says, triumphantly, snatching them off me. ‘Why would I think of looking there?’

  ‘I said the laundry basket. You’ve got to look under things, Jack.’

  I roll my eyes and head back to the kitchen. He leaves it at that, for once, not demanding the last word. I take it as a thank you of sorts. I wonder, will we still be doing this in five years, ten years, fifty years? Will I be shuffling around on my zimmer frame still searching for Jack’s pension book, or his false teeth? I suspect, I might.

  ‘Mummy, look,’ Ben says, pointing at his bowl of Weetabix, which lies upturned with sludge splattered up the wall. He surveys this curiosity from his throne as if it has absolutely nothing to do with him.

  ‘I suppose I’ll clean it up then, shall I?’ I say, to no one in particular. I turn up the radio.

  ‘What’s this station?’ Jack says, following me into the kitchen, picking up my mug from the table and drinking my tea. ‘It’s crap.’

  ‘I was bored with the other one.’

  This is not strictly true. I’m boycotting the usual station on account of the fact that they kept me waiting on the phone for twenty minutes last week on the afternoon show, when I had all the right answers and could have won a new plasma TV screen – and it pisses me off, because the girl who did win was helped out by the DJ. The fact that we don’t have a wall big enough to put a plasma screen on is neither here nor there. It’s the principle.

  So what’s on your mind, listeners? Time to have a rant. You’ll feel much better for it. Call me, Jessie Kay. We’ll talk to our first caller after this . . .

  Oasis’s ‘Morning Glory’ starts playing.

  ‘Who’s Jessie Kay?’ Jack says. ‘She sound like a right old tart.’

  ‘I think she sounds quite nice. You know, I could ring in,’ I say, dumping a handful of Weetabix-covered kitchen towel in the bin. ‘I’ve got plenty on my mind.’

  ‘Why don’t you, then?’ Jack asks.

  I shake my head and blow my fringe out of my face. ‘Because it’s silly. Who’d want to listen to me?’

  ‘Well, it wouldn’t matter what you say. Only nutters and bored housewives listen to the radio at this time of day. All the real people are at work.’

  ‘Real people like you, you mean?’ I retort, before sticking my tongue out at him.

  He’s deliberately trying to wind me up, but he doesn’t realise how close he’s cutting it. He kisses me and then Ben on the top of the head.

  ‘I’m only joking, darling,’ he says. ‘NSOH, or what. I thought you liked being a lady of leisure.’

  A moment later, the front door slams as I reach for the phone.

  Radio CapitalChat

  Feature: My Rant

  Caller: Amy from West London

  Well, Jessie, sadly I’m not one myself, but I’m all for working parents. You see, my friend Ali is a working parent and I fantasise about being like her. Because every day she wears high heels, not trainers, and foxy little skirts, not yoghurt-stained jogging pants, and her handbag is filled with lipsticks and digital organisers and not nappies and half-eaten biscuits.

  When she gets to her office, people make her cups of tea and tell her lots of juicy, interesting gossip, and people actually value what she has to say so much that they book meetings with her to discuss important issues. Not the frigging Teletubbies or an update of the latest giant poo being performed. Imagine.

  But the problem is that unlike Ali, I don’t have an important career to return to, and now that I’ve been out of the workplace for over two years, I’m also too useless for temping. What would be the point of paying someone to look after my precious two-year-old, whilst I sit and do a reception job for less money than his childcare costs?

  OK, so ther
e’s the local nursery, but it’s not nicknamed The Romanian Orphanage for nothing. But, guess what? I can’t even leave him to beat his head against the padded wall all day because I didn’t put his name down for a place on the waiting list the moment my husband was gurning with his final, conceptive thrust.

  I should have done. I should have grabbed the phone and said, ‘Hang on love, here’s the Kleenex – now, where’s that local nursery list?’

  So I have no choice but to be a non-working parent. And I tell myself that it’s better this way, caring for my child in his formative years.

  So why do I feel so useless? And why do I feel guilty the whole time? Why do I feel as if I’ve given up on all my modern feminist female principles? This wasn’t part of the plan. I’m sorry, but wasn’t I part of the generation who was told we could have it all? Well, let me tell you, it was all a con.

  Maybe the only option is to breed more.

  Aha. But wait! Aren’t I forgetting something?

  Oh yes, we can’t afford another baby, because I’m not working . . .

  Let The Boogalooing Begin

  It’s Tuesday, so it’s Boogaloo Bunnies in Notting Hill. It’s a schlep on the bus, but hey, what else am I going to do? I’ve already had my five minutes of fame for the day. Jessie Kay was right: Having My Rant has made me feel a lot calmer.

  On the bus, I call Jack to tell him about being on the show. ‘How are you?’ I ask.

  ‘What?’

  ‘How are you?’ I repeat. I’m smiling. I want to tell him how much better I feel.

  ‘I’m fine, Amy.’ He sounds both confused and annoyed. I suspect he’s with the guys at work. ‘In fact, I’m exactly the same as I was an hour ago when I left home. Did you want anything specific, only I’m right up to my elbows in shit. Literally.’

  ‘No, it’s nothing.’ Backtracking and trying to keep the disappointment from my voice, I say, ‘I’m on my way to Notting Hill, that’s all.’

  ‘Fine,’ he says with an exasperated sigh. ‘Love you-bye.’

  I growl at the phone. Then I text Ali to tell her that I mentioned her on the radio this morning, but even as I do, I feel like a pathetic saddo. She’s in work. It seems impossibly glamorous and a world away from my pavement-pounding reality.

  I would leave Boogaloo Bunnies, but I’ve paid for a block of sessions and I know from the nannies that I’m not going to get my money back. Besides, it gives me a chance to look in the posh shop windows on Westbourne Grove and play shoe fantasies.

  More importantly, I pass the newsagent’s where I always buy a lottery ticket. This particular newsagent, I know for a fact, has had two big lottery winners. I’m going to be the third.

  When I win, I’m going to buy a big fuck-off house on the hill with an artist’s studio for Jack and a fabulous view over London, and I’ll have a second home on a Caribbean island, where Jack and I will spend most of the year. I’ll have so many staff, Camilla will choke on her cashmere cardigans. I’ll have a sexy personal trainer who’ll whip me into shape, and an amazing nanny for the kids (I’ll have three more). Jack and I will spend our days together, eating lunch that we’ve caught from our jetty that morning and having a siesta and making passionate, unbridled love in our architect-designed treetop suite, where there are no neighbours, except for the exotic birds. And, most importantly, the kids can’t get in.

  I’m just on my way out, negotiating the buggy around the pile of Evening Standards, when Ali calls.

  ‘I don’t know why I came back to work,’ she says, after we’ve swapped hellos and I’ve ascertained that she’s whispering because she’s in the office loo. Even so, I can hear her voice catching in her throat.

  ‘Are you OK, Al?’

  ‘No, I’m not,’ she says with a hefty sigh. ‘I’m so bloody tired. All the time. I get up at six with Oscar, and then there’s the commute and a full day at work, and then I’m treated like a part-timer for leaving at six thirty in the evening. The women at the nursery treat me like scum for picking up Oscar so late, by which time he’s tearful and tired, and I’m so knackered, and then I have the onslaught of bath and bedtime. And after that I have to do paperwork in the evenings to catch up with all the stuff I didn’t get done in the office . . .’

  ‘But I thought you wanted to go back. I thought –’

  ‘I don’t have time to do anything, Amy. I mean anything. I don’t have time to shop, or clean, or wash my clothes, or see my friends. I can’t remember the last time I had sex. My house is a giant pigsty, and I feel guilty all the time. I feel like I’m letting everyone down. I’m crap at my job, I’m a crap friend and a crap wife and a crap mother.’

  I’m stunned by her outburst, and confused too in the light of my rant on the radio this morning.

  ‘Hey, you shouldn’t feel guilty,’ I say. ‘I’m the guilty one. At least you’re being a useful member of society.’

  ‘And fucking up my child, as a result. I don’t know. Enjoy it, Amy. You don’t know how lucky you are.’

  I’m still confused about Ali’s rant as I make my way into the hall. I’ve been to plenty of playgroups in the last two years and they’re all fairly dire. But maybe Ali’s right. Maybe I should let myself off the hook and enjoy hanging out with Ben more. However, one look at the Boogaloo Bunnies crowd and once again it’s patently obvious that I don’t fit in here.

  On the one hand there’s a group of cliquey uber-posh Kensington and Notting Hill mummies. They all wear size six designer jeans and giant knuckleduster diamond rings and have Botoxed foreheads. And then there are the nannies. They all talk Slovakian to one another, but at least they’re friendly (and intelligent).

  Boogaloo Bunnies is run by Trish and her sidekick Magda, whose only job is to operate the music system. She has a dyed Cleopatra bob and a manic expression. I don’t think she’s really all there.

  Trish herself is something to behold. Today she’s in purple Lycra tights. A throwback from her days auditioning for the original cast of Fame – the Musical, no doubt. Her bug eyes are heavily made-up and red lipstick clogs the cracks around her lips. But you can’t fault her dedication to the job.

  Personally, I think you’ve got to be missing the self-conscious gene in order to work with children. There’s a kids’ presenter on the TV who does the bits between the programmes and Ben absolutely loves him. He finds him hilarious, but I look at him every time and think: How do you do that for a day job and then go home and have sex?

  ‘Can you guess where I am, everyone? Yes, that’s right, I’m in bed with my wifey. And look at this lovely pink nipple, just here. Look, you can wiggle it with your finger. I know a little song about a nipple. You can join in if you want: “Wiggle wiggle little nipple, wiggly wiggly woo, wiggle wiggle little nipple, is it nice for you?” ’

  I mean, this guy comes across as an utter berk, but he must have agents and make-up people and accountants. Do they take him seriously? Does he consider it a foot on the ladder to serious TV drama? Does he dream about his big break in Hollywood? Or wowing the critics at the Old Vic?

  It’s a mystery to me how these people – the bloke off the TV and Trish, here in Boogaloo Bunnies – can do their job. I find singing ‘The Wheels on the Bus’ in public excruciating. Every time we’re asked to join in with the kids, I turn into a sulky sixth former. I have to fight every urge I have to run away to stay sitting on the floor cross-legged. I can only just about deal with it by making up alternative words in my head: ‘The Mummies on the bus go, “We want Valium! We want Valium! We want Valium!” The Mummies on the bus go, “We want Valium!” All day long.’

  Magda presses a button and ‘Postman Pat’ blares out at club volume. There’s a bouncy castle set up in the hall and Ben shoots out of his buggy straight on to it. I can tell from the glint in his eye that he’s going to jump as high as he can and, if possible, practise his new skill: headbutting. He’s got his sights on posh Jessica. She’s six months older than he is and has already mastered the double eye fingernail gouge
, so it should be quite a match. I think Ben’s got a score to settle.

  I’ve only just had time to kick off my trainers and scramble across the crash mats to intercept him, but not before he’s bounced Jessica’s mate out of the castle. Her mother gives me a wounded look. As wounded as she can, considering she can’t move her Botoxed forehead. Silly cow.

  There’s twenty minutes for ‘soft play’ before the Boogalooing begins, which involves me trying to minimise the injury caused to the entourage of toddlers my son gathers in a pied-piper-like way to do what looks like rugby squad training with the various padded cylinders. There’s nothing remotely ‘soft’ about it.

  In between the tears and scuffles, us grown-ups attempt to make small talk. Jack thinks that I hang out all day with other like-minded women having a good laugh, nattering and yacking away in an endless stream of amusing banter, but he, like every other man I know, has never been to one of these playgroups. If he had, he’d quickly realise that they’re social Siberia. Adult interaction is pitiful at best.

  There seem to be ludicrously small parameters for conversation. There are no hellos or how-are-yous, for starters. Personal information must be kept to an absolute minimum, even down to names, and since we’re there as carers, we have to appear to be looking after our offspring at the same time and therefore not give any conversational gambits our full attention. And subjects for these are tough. The décor and surroundings are too dull to comment upon, and, as half the women aren’t British, comments about the weather are met with confusion. So that only leaves the kids for conversation.

  ‘So how old is your little one, now?’

  ‘Nearly two.’

  Understanding nod.

  Next.

  These conversations start nowhere and end nowhere. That’s the problem. Even if I did have anything in common with any of these women, I’d never get a chance to find out.

  Trish calls us into a circle.

  She means business. She turns off the air to the bouncy castle and it promptly slumps in the corner like a drunk.

  We all sit dutifully. Trish prances into the middle of the circle.