Lessons in Duck Hunting

by Jayne Buxton

  “Yes, that would be a good idea. Can you make it anytime this week? Say, after school today for instance?”

  I peer at my diary, noting an hour’s briefing by the PR agency and a scheduled conference call with the chaps in the factory to discuss progress on the clumping issue. I quickly decide to skip the former and delegate the latter.

  “Yes. I can make that. I’ll leave now,” I say.

  I tell my P.A. Philippa that an emergency has arisen, and ask her if she could please make my excuses to the PR firm, and please ask the junior brand manager, Nicki, to take my four p.m. call. Philippa is glad to help, being the sort of person who blossoms at the hint of a drama requiring her intervention.

  A meeting designed to help make me more attractive to potential partners now feels all wrong. While I have been organizing it, someone I love more than life itself (someone who really is my number one priority, Marina. Are you listening?) has been bullied and belittled and made to feel she hasn’t a friend on this earth. And like most things that happen to my children, it is probably, somehow, my fault.

  CHAPTER 13

  THE RESCUE

  Last year the school hosted a seminar about building children’s self-esteem. Having read so many scaremongering headlines insisting that children of divorced parents suffer low self-esteem, I was probably oversensitive about the whole subject. It seemed to me that self-esteem would be hard enough to nourish without throwing a parental split into the mix. I wasn’t exactly sure what esteem was, but I was certain that, in the modern age, it would be deemed essential, vulnerable and precariously dependent upon the actions of us poor misguided parents.

  The evening turned out to be enlightening and entertaining— apart from a couple of intensely irritating interventions by two mothers who clearly saw themselves as having cracked the challenge of parenting in its entirety, never mind the self-esteem bit. (You know the type. The Professional Mother. She invariably has a gaggle of children—two would never be enough—and exudes a noisy confidence about the way she is raising them. There is nothing about parenting on which she doesn’t have an opinion—an opinion shared in a tone so casually smug you would happily thump her in front of the head and the entire PTA. It is a mistake to think she is always a homemaker, because she isn’t. The Professional Mother who’s chief executive or city banker on the side is arguably the worst offender.)

  I learned a lot about self-esteem that night. One thing I remember clearly is being told that we should support our children, but never rescue them. Supporting them in dealing with a problem builds their self-confidence; rescuing them renders them fearful and dependent. Mrs. Davis has obviously remembered this rule as well, because she pronounces it to me as I sit across from her on a slightly wobbly chair with a worn, brown seat in her office. Her head appears to be framed by the giant patch of dingy, flaking paint on the wall behind it.

  Mrs. Davis’s view on the gym kit incident is that we should give Millie better “coping strategies” to enable her to withstand the “unwanted attention” of the “stronger and more assertive” girls in her class. She acknowledges that Millie’s class is “particularly difficult, seeming to be more rife with nastiness” than she would expect. She also, by the way, has some helpful suggestions for the removal of banana and honey stains. She has nothing to say about chewing gum.

  I listen to Mrs. Davis and consider accepting her recommended line of action, but find myself unable to summon the required respect for her authority. Instead, I give her my take on the matter, which is that Millie’s class seems to contain a disproportionate number of troublesome bullies who appear to be able to perpetrate small acts of torture on a weekly basis without any consequences. To my knowledge, their parents have not even been called about the gym-kit-smearing incident, or indeed any others involving Millie. I cite them all: blasphemous phone messages from anonymous but easily identified callers; repeated exclusion from play; framing for hair clip theft; framing for netball ruination; and finally this.

  “I’m sorry you feel that way, Mrs. James. You have to understand that bullies are generally insecure individuals themselves. They need our support if they are to learn appropriate behaviors,” she says with a calmness that infuriates me.

  “So let me get this straight,” I say, doing an imitation of calm through clenched teeth. “Millie is persecuted on a weekly— sometimes twice-weekly—basis by a bunch of girls you acknowledge to be bullies in a class you say is ‘rife with nastiness.’ But you want me to help Millie to help herself so that you don’t have to confront these girls or their parents. Have I got that right?”

  “Mrs. James, I don’t think that is what I said. I merely think that the best way to help Millie is to help her help herself. She needs us to help her to be more assertive.”

  I’ve never heard the word “help” uttered so often by someone so obviously hell-bent on not providing it. This woman is so lacking in imagination and genuine empathy that she is reduced to living life by numbers. I’ve never liked her.

  Sod it. If there were ever a situation requiring a parental rescue mission, this is it.

  “Well, thank you for those insights Mrs. Davis. I’ll be writing to you shortly about withdrawing Millie from the school. In the meantime, I would appreciate it if you could contact the parents of the girls responsible for this latest mess to notify them of their share of the cost of replacing Millie’s gym kit.”

  I stand up purposefully, knocking the wobbly brown chair to the ground in the process. I decline to pick it up. That parents are offered such a filthy, uncomfortable relic to sit on is an insult I am glad to avenge.

  “The trainers were from John Lewis and cost £20,” I add sharply as I walk out the door.

  I am just in time to collect Jack and Millie at the gates. Millie is dragging her blue gym kit; I can see a dark patch where the banana has started to seep through. Millie and Jack are surprised and delighted to see me. Jill is just surprised. “What’s wrong?” she asks. “Did you think I’d forget them?”

  “Of course not,” I reply. Then, kneeling to hug Millie, I say “I just wanted to come to tell my special girl that I love her and that I don’t give two hoots about her filthy gym kit. She won’t be needing it for much longer anyway.”

  CHAPTER 14

  PROSPECTING

  I might have made a mistake. Hazlecroft, where Jack and Millie go to school now, is one of just two decent schools in the area. Both schools are reputedly full to bursting, with long waiting lists. In a fit of parental righteousness I have effectively stranded Millie in academic no-man’s-land.

  I call Clara, who reassures me that I’ve done the right thing. “What else could you do, Ally? The woman clearly has a heart of stone—except where future young offenders are concerned—and the judgment of a wallaby. She would never have done anything about this problem, and you’d have had to haul Millie out of there sooner or later.”

  Then I call David, who is somewhat less sympathetic.

  “Jesus, Ally. How could you do that? What if the other school won’t have her? We’ll probably end up having to pay for private education. You’ll just have to go back and apologize. Tell Mrs. What’s–her-name you’d like to give it another chance.”

  If it were only my pride at stake, I might be able to crawl back to Mrs. Davis, swallowing it. But it isn’t. Millie’s happiness, and, dare I say it, her self-esteem are what’s at stake. And I am as certain as I’ve ever been about anything in my life that if she stays in that place, with that head and those girls, she will wither. Jack seems fine now, but it’s probably only a matter of time before he starts to feel the impact of leadership that’s wetter than a machine full of shirts before the spin cycle.

  Today I’ve set myself the task of persuading St. George’s to take both Millie and Jack. Or rather, I’ve set myself the task of launching the lengthy campaign I suspect will be required to obtain them places. The hurdles I expect to have to deal with along the way include being told that the catchment area has been redr
awn and we now live just outside it, and that the school is full and has a waiting list of three hundred. But I refuse to be daunted. If fifty phone calls is what it takes, fifty is how many I shall make. I’ll treat it like a marketing campaign. If it can work for marmalade—and for finding a husband—it can work to secure my children’s academic future.

  Prepared as I am for a lengthy crusade, you can imagine my surprise when the head of St. George’s, Celia Harris, tells me over the phone that, yes, they happen to have two places as a family has just this week informed her that they are moving away from the area. She does need to offer the places to a few other families on the waiting list first, but should be able to let me know the outcome by early next week.

  I hang up the phone feeling torn between optimism and mild despair, and searching for something to distract myself, I decide to call Nick and tell him I’d be happy to hear from Alan after all.

  The thing that has turned me around is the Duck Decoy exercise, the one that’s supposed to “show you that there is more to someone than meets the eye.” Of course I know there’s more to people—and everything else—than meets the eye. I must have repeated this mantra to Jack and Millie a thousand times, with the same persistence that I apply to telling them to say please and thank you. You do these things in good faith as a parent, knowing that one day, perhaps when they are eight or nine but certainly by the time they are twenty, they are going to say “thank you” to someone completely unprompted, and you will be able to congratulate yourself on having raised a civilized human being.

  But however much I know that there is more to people than meets the eye, I must confess I’ve never applied the theory to men. I’ve never dated anyone I didn’t fancy immediately. And I haven’t strayed from type since the age of twenty-one. Before that, I had no idea what my type was, and I went out with all kinds of boys, just for the fun of it. There were a few disasters, but I suppose they all served a purpose: helping me figure out what my type was.

  And that type was dark, slim, not too tall. A little mysterious. Exotic even. Not average. Definitely not average. Like David. And before him Eddie. Eddie turned out not to be so exotic in the end. In fact, he ended up being far more average than any of the guys my friends were going out with—a graphic designer with long hair and soulful eyes who secretly wore socks to bed. But David, he was the real thing.

  So I’ve decided to go on three dates with men who are absolutely not like David. Three men who are not my type. I haven’t yet come up with the third name, but I know who the first two are going to be.

  “Nick, hi, it’s me,” I say.

  “Ally, hi. Listen, I got your e-mail on Tuesday. I’ve been waiting to call Alan, but I was just about to.”

  “Well, that’s why I’m calling actually. I’ve sort of changed my mind. I think I was just feeling slightly stressed by everything. Millie’s having trouble with bullies at school and I’ve hauled her out. Now I have to wait and see if she’ll get a place somewhere else. But then I thought, it’s only a date right? I mean, he doesn’t expect anything does he?” This is a euphemism for “will he want to sleep with me immediately after the pudding wine?” but I have to be gentle with my brother.

  “Oh. No, of course not. He’s a really nice guy. It will be fun. It can’t hurt, can it?” he says.

  “Okay, then. You can give him my number. Tell him I’ll look forward to his call.”

  “Righto, kiddo. I’ll get right on it. So how do you think the school thing will work out?” he adds.

  “So far, so good. There’s a place at St. George’s. If I hound the head enough, I might just get it.”

  “Good stuff,” he says supportively. “You always were a person who could get what you wanted when you set your mind to it.”

  I was?

  MY NEXT DUCK DECOY is a stroke of genius. Not him, but the idea of him.

  Before Christmas I noticed that all the lights in the front hall and sitting room were flickering. When I mentioned it to Nick he gave me his considered (and probably correct) opinion that it must all be down to faulty transformers.

  “What’s a transformer?” I’d asked, hoping it was something I might be able to replace with a new one from B&Q without too much effort.

  “It’s the thing that controls the dimmers for the lights. They are very temperamental and they don’t last very long. You’ll need an electrician to look at it.”

  Oh, damn.

  “Do you want me to see if I know anyone in your area?” he added, ever helpful.

  “That would be great,” I’d said. “I wouldn’t know a quality electrician if I fell over him.”

  Two days later Nick e-mailed me the name and number of reliable and reasonable electrician: Gary Hamilton, of Hamilton and Sons. Gary turned up with his father Bob, and they repaired my transformers for a mere £75. I remember taking them each a cup of coffee as they stood pondering a mass of colored wires dangling from an open wall socket. Gary turned to me as he took his coffee with a ring-free hand, and gave me a truly beautiful, inviting smile. Not the kind of smile you dish out if you are happily involved with someone else. Gary is my man.

  He’s a perfect Duck Decoy. All I require of a duck is that he have a little something that I recognize as my type, and in Gary’s case it’s his smile. The rest of him is so far from what I think of as my type that he is probably a better duck than Alan. He’s an electrician, ergo probably not exotic. I’d bet my life on the fact that he doesn’t read books. He’ll be an avid football fan who spends every other weekend traveling the length of the country to watch his team.

  Of course, he’s never going to ask me out, so I will have to ask him. But even this is all right. According to Marina, it’s okay to break the femininity rule once and ask someone out. All I have to do now is dream up an electrical problem for him to come and fix.

  I start wandering around the house trying to identify said problem. I don’t have to look very hard. I soon realize that this house is an electrical disgrace. The extractor fan above the stove hasn’t worked for months; the washing machine is plugged into a socket about ten feet from where it sits because the socket immediately behind it doesn’t seem to emit electricity; and there must be two or three malfunctioning ceiling lights (some of them dangling down from wires in imitation of cheap ceiling decorations) in each room of the house. They are the kinds of ceiling lights with bulbs that are impossible to change without a degree in astrophysics and the dexterity of a heart surgeon, so I will probably need an electrician to fix the lot. The challenge will not be finding Gary enough to do, but shortening his job list to a length I can afford.

  I decide that I can live without a functional fan (I’ve never really had a problem with the fumes from boiling pasta and peas rising unchecked to the ceiling) and continue to put up with the washing machine power lead stretched across the length of the utility room. So it will be the lights, which have, I now realize, been driving me quietly crazy.

  I call the number on the card that Bob gave me months ago: “Hello, this is Bob of Hamilton and Sons. Gary and I are on a job or on the phone right now, but please leave a message and we’ll try to fit you in.”

  “Hello, hi, this is Ally James,” I say after the beep, in a voice I’m certain is a dead giveaway of my ulterior motives. “You did a job for me a couple of months ago, on Rosemere Road. Well, there are a couple of other things that I need sorting out, so I’d appreciate it if you could call me back. Thanks.”

  Damn. I forgot to leave my number, and they may not have it. They didn’t strike me as electricians with a quality record keeping system.

  “Hi, this is Ally James again. Sorry, forgot to leave my number. Its 0208 623 5657. Thanks.”

  There. With two of my three Duck Decoys practically in the bag, all I have to do is wait. And do the Tesco shop. Car keys and black bin bag in hand, ready to be deposited outside, I am momentarily delayed by a call from Philippa, who needs to arrange a conference call with Paul Delaney for two o’clock this afternoon.


  Isn’t it supposed to be the client who decides when the meetings are, at her convenience? I think.

  “Yes, of course I can make it,” I say, knowing that it will mean forgoing the planned trip to the gym before school pick up time. Again.

  I walk out the door and dump the bin bag in the dustbin, which is so full I can’t press the lid down. If I’m lucky, the dustbin men will collect it before too long. If I’m not, the foxes will get there first and scatter the rubbish all over the road, but aligned closely enough with my front door for it to identify me as the person responsible for clearing it up.

  Still concerned about a potential midafternoon rubbish clear up, I glance back at the bin as I step onto the pavement, and bump straight into the poor unfortunate person who happens to be passing by at the time. The impact knocks my bag to the ground, and sends me tumbling back against the brick wall. I mutter profanities under my breath, but I know it’s my fault so I can’t actually direct them at anyone else. All I can do is pick up my bag with a pretense of good grace.

  But I’m not quick enough, so the passerby does it for me. As he hands me the bag, I recognize him immediately as the man with the stroller. Only today, he is stroller free. He is also charming, rushing to apologize when both he and I know that I was the klutz who wasn’t looking where she was going.

  “Are you all right?” he asks in the unmistakable tones of the American South. “That was quite a thud. I’m really sorry.” He’s gently cupping my elbow as if to prop me up.

  “No, no. It was my fault. Not looking where I was going, as usual,” I say rolling my eyes.

  “Your bag’s a little marked I’m afraid. There’s a big wet patch here where it fell.”

  “Oh, you’re right. Never mind. It’s an old bag, and it will recover.”

  I avert my eyes from his, which are a soft gray-green and oozing sympathy and concern. He drops his hand from my elbow, which is a shame as I was rather enjoying it. My stomach dips a little, as if I’ve just gone over the first hump of the flume at LEGOLAND.