Mad About the Boy

by Helen Fielding

  I made my excuses and left, thinking, really, after a certain age, people are just going to do what they’re going to do and you’re either going to accept them as they are or you’re not. Unsure, however, if should altogether leave the children in Daniel’s charge again, at least until he’s been back to rehab, or can conclusively distinguish a fork from a hairbrush.

  LET’S FACE THE MUSIC AND TEA-DANCE

  Saturday 29 June 2013

  Just set off for Hampstead Heath and had to come back as seemed like giant bucket of water was being emptied on our heads. Weather has been disgusting this summer. Rain, rain, rain and freezing cold, as if there is NO summer. Is completely intolerable.

  Sunday 30 June 2013

  Gaah! Is suddenly boiling hot. Don’t have sunblock or hats and is too hot to stay outside. How are we supposed to manage in this unbearable heat? Is completely intolerable.

  Monday 1 July 2013

  6 p.m. Right! Am going to stop being so sorry for myself lest I end up accidentally drinking Fairy Liquid. The end of the school year is almost here with its absorbing matrix of plays, school trips, pyjama days, emails about presents for the teachers (including a very strict one from Perfect Nicolette about everyone sticking to chipping in for the John Lewis vouchers and not buying their own Jo Malone candles), and – generating the most unfeasible number of mass emails of all – Billy’s Summer Concert. Billy is going to play ‘I’d Do Anything’ from Oliver! as a solo on his bassoon. The concert has been organized by Mr Wallaker, who seems now to be including half the music department in his military-style takeover, and is to be held at sunset in the grounds of Capthorpe House, a stately home up the A11.

  Presumably Mr Wallaker will be dressed as Oliver Cromwell and his ‘so nice to meet someone with a real face’ wife will have had four pints of extra filler put in her face to celebrate. Oops, back in the knife box, Miss Sharp. Must read more of The Little Book of Buddhism: ‘We do not possess our home, our children or even our own body. They are only given to us for a short time to treat with care and respect.’

  Oh, no! I still haven’t made the dentist appointment for Billy and Mabel. The longer I leave it, the more I daren’t, since clearly their teeth are now riddled with holes, they will end up like extras in Pirates of the Caribbean and it will be all my fault.

  But at least am treating own body like a temple. Am going to Zumba.

  8 p.m. Just back. Usually love Zumba, with young, dark, long-haired Spanish couple, taking it in turns to lead ‘numbers’, flinging their hair about, stomping angrily like horses, transporting one into a world of Barcelona or possibly Basque-coast nightclubs, and firelit Gypsy encampments of undetermined national extraction.

  But this week, the thrilling duo were replaced by a zingy-pingy woman with blonde fringe, a bit like Olivia Newton-John in Grease. Exotically sexual Zumba moves were strangely juxtaposed with gay, determined grin, as if to say, ‘Super-dooper, nothing sexual or dirty about this at all!’

  On top of that, the grinning woman made us do not only hand-rolling moves, but also ‘imaginary shaking-off-water-from-wet-hands’ moves, not to mention ‘starbursts’. As whole Catalan nightclub fantasy collapsed like house of cards, looked around to realize class was peopled not by wild Gypsy youths, but a collection of women whom members of an unenlightened male-dominated patriarchal society might describe as ‘middle-aged’.

  Have sinking feeling that very concept of attending Zumba may be linked to attempt to relive long-gone days of sexual possibility – as evidenced by St Oswald’s House: even there, Zumba has entirely replaced the concept of ‘tea-dancing’.

  Staggered upstairs to somewhat galling sight of tall, thin-without-Zumba Chloe cradling children like Leonardo da Vinci’s Madonna and reading The Wind in the Willows. Children looked up excitedly for usual post-Zumba spectacle of me crawling up, red in the face, on verge of heart attack.

  As soon as Chloe left, Billy and Mabel dispensed with The Wind in the Willows, to egg self on into hilarious game of throwing contents of laundry basket down stairs. By time had got them to sleep, cleared up overexcited vomit, etc., was so exhausted that stuffed down two giant fried turkey croquettes (cold) and a three-inch wedge of banana cake. Resolved to enrol in proper salsa or meringue class as soon as possible because, actually (airily), it is the purer form of Latin dance which interests me. Merengue, I mean. Not meringue.

  GETTING ONLINE

  Tuesday 2 July 2013

  133lb (thank you, Zumba/tea-dancing), dating sites investigated 13, dating profiles read 87, attractive dating profiles read 0, dating profiles set up 2, number of disastrous relationships Jude has formed online 17, number of promising relationships Jude has formed online 1 (encouraging).

  11 p.m. Jude, who is STILL going out with Wildlifephotographerman, just came round after the kids were asleep, determined to make me get online.

  I watched her clicking on dating sites with messianic frenzy and making lists: ‘Scuba-diver’, ‘Likes Hotel Costes’, ‘Read A Hundred Years of Solitude’ – yeah, right. ‘You see, you have to make notes, Bridge, otherwise you’ll mix them all up when you message them.’

  ‘Don’t you ever want to just, like, give up?’ I said.

  ‘No, or I would have ended up sucking lollipops with a faraway look in my eye.’

  Realized with embarrassment I had picked up a lollipop and was sliding it in and out of my mouth.

  ‘The thing is, Bridge, it’s a percentages game.’

  Jude, having burst through the ‘glass ceiling’ of the financial world, is, I suppose, bound to see it in these terms.

  ‘You can’t afford to take anything personally. You’re going to get stood up, you’re going to get eighteen-stone people whose pictures are of someone else. But with enough experience – and skill! – you’ll weed through that dross.’

  We then went into a Greatest Hits medley of the online dross Jude had successfully weeded through to find Wildlifephotographerman: Sexualhumiliationman (of course!), Marriedwithbabyman – who took Jude out, snogged her, then included her in the global text saying his wife had had a baby – and SkydiverGraphicdesignerman – who did turn out to be a graphic designer, but also, it emerged, a devout Muslim who didn’t believe in sex before marriage, but, bizarrely, also liked to spend his weekends Morris dancing.

  ‘And somewhere,’ Jude said, ‘somewhere out there, it’ll just take one click, and you’ll be home.’

  ‘But who would want a fifty-something single mother with two small children?’

  ‘Take a look,’ she said, signing me in for a free trial on SingleParentMix.com. ‘They’re just normal people like you and me. They’re not weirdos. I’ll put forty-nine.’

  A column of photos popped up of strange men in wire glasses and striped becollared shirts hanging over the folds of their stomachs.

  ‘It looks like a line-up of serial killers,’ I said. ‘How can they be single fathers? Unless they’ve murdered the mothers?’

  ‘Yes, well, maybe that wasn’t a very good search,’ Jude said briskly. ‘How about this?’

  She opened up the profile she’d made for me on OkCupid.

  Actually, when I looked, there were some really quite cute ones on there. But oh, the loneliness – the profiles giving away months or maybe years of heartbreak and disappointment and insult.

  Someone who’d actually picked as their username ‘Isthereanyoneout_there?’ had as their profile:

  I’m a nice normal guy who just wants a nice normal woman. If your photo is from 15 years ago, then MOVE ON! If you’re fucked up, married, desperate, passive-aggressive, not a woman, shamelessly gold-digging, emotionally sadistic, superficial, self-obsessed, illiterate, just looking for quick sex, just looking to indulge in endless streams of messaging then not meet, just looking to get a date to massage your ego and stand me up because you can’t be bothered, then MOVE ON!

  And then there were the profiles from married men quite openly saying they want uncomplicated sex.

 
‘Why don’t they just go on MarriedAffair.co.uk?’ sniffed Jude.

  Wednesday 3 July 2013

  8.30 a.m. Billy’s football comic just dropped through the letter box and I took it downstairs saying, ‘Billy! Your Match.com’s arrived!’

  KBO

  Wednesday 3 July 2013 (continued)

  133lb, negative thoughts 5 million, positive thoughts 0, bottles of Fairy Liquid drunk 0 (you see? Could be worse).

  9.15 p.m. Right. Super! Is school concert tomorrow and is going to be perfectly fine. Mabel is staying at Rebecca’s so I don’t have to worry about keeping tabs on both of them at the same time. Of course, many, many of the fathers will be away on business, or perhaps busy tapping away on MarriedAffair.co.uk! And even if Roxster was still around, he wouldn’t have come to the school concert, would he? He’d have felt ridiculous with all those people who have children and are so much older than him.

  9.30 p.m. Just looked at news online. Whole royal baby frenzy is not helping: perfect young couple of Roxster’s age, starting life, doing everything perfectly, in the perfect way and at the perfect time.

  9.45 p.m. Went up to check on Billy and Mabel.

  ‘Mummy,’ said Billy, ‘will Daddy know I’m doing the concert?’

  ‘I think so,’ I whispered.

  ‘Will I do it all right?’

  ‘Yes.’

  I held his hand till he was asleep. There was a full moon again and I watched it over the rooftops. What would it be like now if I was going to the Summer Concert with Mark? He would have leaned over my shoulder the way he used to, whizzed through the mass picnic emails, deleted them and simply replied: ‘I will bring the hummus and the black bin liners.’

  I would be one hundred per cent looking forward to it. It would be a one hundred per cent lovely thing. Oh, come on. Brace up. Keep Buggering On.

  THE SUMMER CONCERT

  Thursday 4 July 2013

  We roared up through the landscaped parkland. We were late, because Billy was trying to map the route on the iPhone and we came off at the wrong junction. Clambered out to the smell of cut grass, the chestnut leaves hanging heavy and green, the light turning golden.

  Staggering under the weight of the bassoon case, the rug, my handbag, the picnic basket and a second basket with Diet Cokes and oatmeal cookies that wouldn’t fit in the first basket, Billy and I headed towards the path marked: ‘CONCERT THIS WAY’.

  We came out into the open and gasped. It looked like a painting: a gracious, wisteria-clad house, with an old stone terrace and lawns leading down to a lake. The terrace was laid out like a stage, with music stands and a grand piano, and rows of chairs below. Billy held my hand tightly as we stood wondering where to go.

  Boys were running around setting up the instruments and music stands, all excited. Then Jeremiah and Bikram shouted, ‘Billy!’ and he looked up hopefully at me. ‘Go on,’ I said. ‘I’ll bring the stuff.’

  As I watched him go, I saw the parents laying out their picnics on the lawn next to the lake. No one was alone. They were all in lovely couples which had presumably not been formed on Match.com or PlentyofFish or Twitter, but in the days when people still did meet each other in real life. Started disastrously imagining being there with Mark again, on time because he’d driven the car and operated the satnav, carrying a modest amount of stuff which Mark would have edited before departure, all holding hands, Billy and Mabel between us. And we’d be together, the four of us, on the rug instead of—

  ‘Did you bring the kitchen table?’

  I turned. Mr Wallaker looked unexpectedly glamorous in black suit trousers and a white shirt, slightly unbuttoned. He was looking towards the house, adjusting his cufflinks. ‘Want a hand with all that?’

  ‘No, no, I’m fine,’ I said as a Tupperware box fell out of the basket, spilling egg sandwiches onto the grass.

  ‘Leave it,’ he ordered. ‘Give me the bassoon. I’ll get someone to bring the rest down. Got anyone to sit with?’

  ‘Please don’t speak to me like I’m one of your schoolboys,’ I said. ‘I’m not Bridget No-Mates Darcy and I’m not helpless and I can carry a picnic basket and just because you’ve got everything under control, and all lakes and orchestras, it doesn’t mean—’

  There was a crash on the terrace. An entire section of music stands fell over, sending a cello bouncing off the terrace and down the hill, followed by a shrieking bunch of boys.

  ‘Totally under control,’ he said, giving a little snort of amusement as a double bass and a tuba crashed over next, bringing more music stands with them. ‘Better go. Give me that.’ He took the bassoon and set off towards the house. ‘Oh, and by the way, your dress,’ he called over his shoulder.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Slightly see-through with the sun behind it.’

  I looked down at the dress. Oh, fuck, it was see-through.

  ‘Good effect,’ he shouted, without looking back.

  I stared after him, indignant, confused. He was just . . . just . . . sexist. He was reducing me to a helpless sex object and . . . he was married and . . . just . . . just . . .

  I started to pick up the basket when a man in a waiter’s outfit appeared and said, ‘I’ve been asked to carry these down for you, madam,’ and another voice called, ‘Bridget!’ It was Farzia Seth, Bikram’s mum. ‘Come and sit with us!’

  It was fine, because the husbands all sat on one side talking about business, so we girls could gossip, occasionally shoving food into overexcited offspring who swooped on us like seagulls.

  When it was time for the concert, Nicolette, who was, naturally, Chair of the Concert Committee, started the proceedings with an astonishingly sycophantic speech about Mr Wallaker: ‘Inspiring, invigorating,’ etc., etc.

  ‘Arousing. Ejaculating. She’s changed her tune a bit since he came up with the stately home,’ muttered Farzia.

  ‘Is it his stately home?’ I said.

  ‘I dunno. He fixed it, anyway. And Nicolette’s been completely up his arse ever since. Wonder what the orange wife makes of it.’

  As Nicolette finally drew to a close, Mr Wallaker jumped onto the terrace and strode in front of the band, silencing the applause.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said with a slight smile. ‘I must say I agree with every word. And now – the reason you’re here. I give you – Your. Sensational. Sons.’

  And with that he raised his baton, the Big Swing Band burst into an enthusiastic – if slightly out of tune – flourish, and they were off. It was actually completely magical, the light softening, the music ringing out over the grounds.

  The performance of ‘The Age of Aquarius’ by the recorder ensemble did not, it’s true, entirely lend itself to six-year-olds on recorders. We were all giggling helplessly, but I was glad to be giggling. Billy was one of the littlest ones, on near the end, and by the time it got to his turn I was beside myself with nerves. I watched him walk over to the piano with his music, looking so small and scared, and I just wanted to go and scoop him up. Then Mr Wallaker strode over, whispered something to Billy and sat down at the piano.

  I didn’t know Mr Wallaker could play. He started with a surprisingly professional jazz introduction, and nodded to Billy to begin. Although there were no words, I could hear every one of them as Billy puffed his way painfully through ‘I’d Do Anything’, Mr Wallaker gently following every wrong note and wobble.

  I would, Billy, I would do anything for you, I thought, tears welling up. My little boy, with all his struggles.

  Applause broke out. Mr Wallaker whispered to Billy and glanced at me. Billy was bursting with pride.

  Fortunately Eros and Atticus were taking the stand to perform their own adaptation of ‘The Trout Quintet’ on their flutes, bending and swooping in a pretentious manner which pulled me back from self-congratulatory and existentially despairing tears to suppressed hysteria again. And then it was all over and Billy rushed up, beaming, for a hug and then ran off with his little gang.

  It was a warm, liquidy night: beaut
iful, romantic. The other parents drifted off, wandering down to the lake hand in hand. I sat on the rug on my own for a bit, wondering what to do. I was desperate for a drink, but driving. I realized the bag with the Diet Cokes and oatmeal cookies had got left behind. Glanced at Billy. He was still tearing around with his gang, all biffing each other over the head. I headed up to the bushes, found the bag and looked back at the scene.

  Slowly, a huge, orange harvest moon was rising over the woods. Couples were laughing together in their evening clothes, hugging their joint offspring, remembering all the shared years which had brought them there.

  I stepped into the bushes where no one could see and wiped away a tear, taking a giant slurp of Diet Coke and wishing it was neat vodka. They were growing up. They weren’t babies any more. It was all going so fast. I realized I was not just sad, but scared: scared of trying not to get lost driving in the dark, scared of all the years ahead of doing this alone: concerts, prize-givings, Christmases, teenagers, problems . . .

  ‘You can’t even get plastered, can you?’

  Mr Wallaker’s shirt looked very white in the moonlight. His profile, half in silhouette, looked almost noble.

  ‘You all right?’

  ‘Yes!’ I said indignantly, wiping my fist across my eyes. ‘Why do you keep BURSTING up on me? Why do you keep asking me if I’m all right?’

  ‘I know when a woman is foundering and pretending not to be.’

  He took a step closer. The air was heavy with jasmine, roses.

  I breathed unsteadily. It felt as though we were being drawn together by the moon. He reached out, like I was a child, or a Bambi or something, and touched my hair.

  ‘There aren’t any nits in here, are there?’ he said.

  I raised my face, heady with the scent of him, feeling the roughness of his cheek against mine, his lips against my skin . . . then suddenly I remembered all those creepy married guys on the websites and burst out: