Lies We Tell Mothers: A True Story

by Suzy K Quinn

  Walking with Lexi was extremely slow. We’re talking hours to make a fifteen-minute journey.

  It soon became clear something was missing. Something that would make our lives a whole lot easier.

  Yes, we needed a family car.

  In Brighton, we hadn’t owned a car. All the shops were ten minutes away and, anyway, there was nowhere to park.

  Here, miles away from the nearest McDonald’s, a car would make life a lot easier. Also, Lexi was always very at peace in the back of cars. She’d doze off or babble some little song and there would be no twisting, wriggling or bucking.

  Demi couldn’t drive, but I was sure as we purchased our own family motor vehicle that he would become determined to learn.

  (Demi: ‘I still can’t drive. Ha!’)

  Which car should we purchase? How sensible did we need to get?

  The very thought of purchasing one of those shiny, solid mum-mobiles filled me with dread. Who needs a car that size? And why get something so serious-looking? Where’s the fun?

  When we lived in Brighton, only two of our friends owned cars – Stocky and Alex.

  Stocky owned a beaten-up, circa-1980 Mini Metro that sometimes ran, sometimes didn’t, and required a special technique to get it started (rubbing the key to warm it up). He’d inherited the car from his grandmother and it eventually cost him £٥٠ to dispose of for scrap.

  Alex owned a large, shiny Vauxhall Astra – a family saloon car with sensible features like half-opening windows and child locks. This car had been given to him by his father as a twenty-first birthday present.

  We were all OK with Stocky’s ‘grandma’ car. It was a beaten-up, unpretentious item that served a purpose: taking a twenty-something man, and possibly a few friends, to festivals, on short road trips, etc.

  Alex, on the other hand, was teased mercilessly for his ‘sensible old man’ car. This large, expensive vehicle was beyond our understanding.

  Why would you get a car that’s so BIG? Doesn’t it use more petrol? It’s not as if you can fit more people in it. And why on earth would someone pay thousands for a car when you can get one that runs for a few hundred quid?

  However, as parents, we now fully understood those big hulking family vehicles. We wanted safety. Stability. A decent-sized car that took up a formidable bit of road space and roared at other vehicles.

  Those tiny rattling £250 go-kart cars I’d owned as a teenager? No way. What if we broke down with a child in the back? It would be a nightmare.

  Pre-kids, I had chosen cars based on price and colour. Is it under £300? Excellent. Do you have it in red? I’ll take it. The model? What’s that? Is it different to the make? Does it matter?

  Now we had new priorities.

  Safety. Reliability. Wipe-clean seats.

  I began googling family cars, focusing on safety and reliability.

  The top brand?

  Volvo.

  Of course. The saddest, old man-est car of them all. Could we really do it? Could we be the people with a 1970s family home and a Volvo on the driveway? Didn’t we have a rep to protect?

  Luckily, it turned out image mattered less to us than the safety of our precious daughter.

  (FYI – I’m not saying Demi and I were ever particularly image conscious. If you want proof of that, you can find hundreds of Facebook photos of me in pyjamas and looking rough. Or of Demi in 1980s-shell-suit Arsenal jackets. But the image of ourselves as youthful and fun? That image. We cared more about our daughter than that image.)

  After my usual obsessive Google-searching, I found a second-hand Volvo that sat heavily on the road and almost certainly wouldn’t shake when passing great big delivery trucks.

  The car was on sale at a local car dealership, so Lexi and I took the bus there.

  I took Lexi’s car seat along, pleased at my forward planning. On reflection, it was a terrible way to get a good deal. I may as well have held up a sign saying, ‘Hello! I need to buy a car today, otherwise I’ll have to lug this car seat home on the bus.’

  As we reached the car dealership, the sun glinted on the many shiny cars in the courtyard. The car dealer let me test-drive some vehicles and was kind enough not to laugh when I forgot how to use a clutch and gears.

  A deal was struck: I would pay full price for the car and the dealer would sell it to me.

  As I drove Lexi home, I felt at odds with this sensible family vehicle. But when we hit the motorway, something happened.

  Look at this car go! It was so sturdy. So smooth on the road. Why, it hardly rattled at all. The breaks were effective to the point of paranoid. And best of all, Lexi was protected by side and front airbags.

  Surely no harm could come to her in this big hunk of metal.

  We pulled into our driveway and Lexi and I assessed our new vehicle.

  ‘Like Grandad car,’ said Lexi.

  ‘Yes, it does look a bit like Grandad’s car,’ I admitted. ‘But it’s very safe. And look at all the space in the back. We can throw your buggy in there and a picnic basket. Probably your bike and scooter too. And a dog, for good measure. If your dad would let us get a dog.’

  (Demi: ‘WE’RE NOT GETTING A DOG!’)

  We ignored comments from our childless friends about becoming sad and old and boring and moving to the countryside with a Volvo and a garage full of gardening equipment.

  I mean, they were right. But we ignored them anyway.

  With a car on the driveway, it was time to turn our attention to the house.

  Lexi would soon be having her second birthday and she wanted it at home. When offered alternative (better) suggestions for party locations, such as a nice church hall, the soft-play area or really anywhere but home, Lexi point-blank refused.

  ‘Home party,’ she said. ‘Pisscess’ (princess).

  ‘What about something less gender-specific, like Lego or Star Wars?’ I prompted. ‘We didn’t bring you up to be a sexist.’

  ‘Pisscess,’ Lexi insisted. ‘Pink pisscess.’ Then she sang a song about a pisscess falling down a hole. Or something.

  ‘Feminism is about choice,’ said Demi. ‘Lexi, you can have whatever party you like. A pink princess party at home, it is!’

  ‘But we haven’t redecorated yet.’

  ‘We don’t need to redecorate!’

  ‘We do need to. We always said we would at some point. Wouldn’t it be nice to have everything looking modern for Lexi’s first big party with friends? We didn’t do anything for her when she was one – just invited all our own friends over, ate cake and drank fizzy booze.’

  When Demi and I moved into our house, we had been quite accepting of the 1970s, Joan Collins, old-lady den feel. OK, it wasn’t our taste, but everything was gloriously maintained and had a cosy, retro orange-and-brown quality. Still, I always knew we’d make changes at some point and make the home really ours.

  Remember those walls I told the former owner we wouldn’t knock down? They needed knocking down. We had to get open-plan on this mother. No more small rooms. Modern Californian open space was the thing – especially if we were having a kids’ birthday party with twenty toddlers running around in pink princess dresses.

  ‘Please don’t try and redecorate the house in two months flat,’ said Demi. ‘That sounds very, very stressful. What if it’s not ready by the party?’

  ‘It will be,’ I said, one eye twitching. ‘This is just the deadline we need.’

  Of course, changing the house in time for Lexi’s second birthday party would be a lot of work. But surely we were resigned to that now? Life with kids is hard work. It just is. I’d stopped expecting things to get easier months ago.

  On my insistence, we began visiting hardware stores at weekends.

  I sold these to Demi as fun, family outings. Trips Lexi would thoroughly enjoy (and actually she did, although this was a lucky guess on my part).

  We deliberated over paint colours and finishes while Lexi shouted ‘Pink, pink!’ and held up totally unsuitable colours. We became
those people: the ones obsessed with floor laminate and tiling suppliers and kitchen cupboards. The ones who know about hessian-backed, wool-loop carpet and costs/durability thereof. The ones who understand what a ‘remortgage’ is.

  Even once we’d finally settled on a shade of chalky off-white for our walls (much to Lexi’s dismay), Demi was still renovation-resistant.

  Our house reminded him of his nan, he said, and he loved his nan. He believed ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’. Didn’t I know this about him by now? And while we were on the subject, he hated raisins and yet I regularly bought and offered him Cadbury Fruit & Nut chocolate. Didn’t I know him at all?

  I pointed out that the house was sort of broken. Being from a completely different century, it didn’t fit this day and age. There was only one electric plug socket per room, no USB ports and an old fridge and dishwasher that burned through electricity.

  ‘But what about all the noise and mess and disruption and stress?’ said Demi. ‘What if something goes wrong and the building work gets dragged out and our little angel’s birthday party has to be cancelled? She’ll never forgive us. She’ll be psychologically scarred.’

  ‘Nothing will go wrong,’ I reassured him. ‘People are always ripping out bits of their houses. It happens all the time. Probably it will just take a few weeks.’

  ‘What about fitting the kitchen?’ Demi asked.

  ‘Probably just a morning,’ I improvised. ‘It’s just hanging cupboards.’

  I was sure – with our complete absence of building experience, coupled with no practical knowledge of houses – we’d have no problems whatsoever.

  First on the agenda was ripping out the dated old brown kitchen and putting in a new one.

  I was told by a number of sources that the ‘ripping out’ part was definitely something we could do ourselves, and not to bother wasting money on a skilled professional.

  It was only demolition, after all.

  Demi and I duly invested in a sledgehammer and a skip.

  Lexi was hugely excited by these objects of destruction and kept trying to pick up the sledgehammer and hit things with it. She did an admirable job of lifting it clean off the floor before we launched across the room to stop her smashing the Lego.

  Clearly, Lexi could not be around when we demolished things. She was finding it all far too exciting. Demi and I packed her off to her grandparents for the day and got on with the smashing all by ourselves.

  With Lexi safely away from smashy-uppyness, we took a few tentative sledgehammer swings at the kitchen.

  It didn’t take long to discover that 1970s kitchens are extremely well made. We’re talking solid wood here, none of your chipboard. It was a crying shame, actually, to take apart something so well constructed. But we’d already put a sledgehammer through the wine rack, so there was no going back.

  After three hours of hitting and smashing, the kitchen looked very much the same. You could certainly prepare a spam sandwich or some pineapple and cheese on a cocktail stick if you were so inclined.

  ‘We have to get this finished today,’ I told Demi. ‘The plasterer is due in tomorrow to do the walls. He said he would be booked up until Christmas after that. We can’t have a building site for Lexi’s birthday party. She’ll never forgive us. She’ll be psychologically scarred. You were right. You’re always right. Why didn’t I listen?’

  Demi experimentally hit the breakfast bar with the sledgehammer, making a manly ‘ARRRG!’ noise.

  The sledgehammer bounced.

  ‘This kitchen is unbreakable,’ Demi decided. ‘We need industrial tools.’

  We began to panic.

  We did not have industrial tools.

  ‘What about your dad?’ Demi asked. ‘He’s got everything.’

  True.

  My dad is a massive hoarder. I asked Dad randomly, one Halloween, if he had a cast-iron witch’s cauldron we could borrow. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Do you want small, medium or large? And while you’re at it, do you need a complete Roman soldier’s outfit and/or Tudor gentry gear complete with sword for fancy dress? I’ve got both.’

  ‘That’s a good idea,’ I told Demi. ‘Dad knows about breaking things. He once destroyed an unbreakable car aerial by tugging it vigorously back and forth every time he got out of the car to prove its durability.’

  I gave Dad a call.

  ‘Lexi’s fine,’ said Dad defensively. ‘She’s only had one small bite of seventy per cent dark chocolate and the corner of a lemon meringue pie. And one or two bits of marzipan fruit. Maybe three. Don’t go on at me about sugar – she’s hardly had any.’

  ‘We can’t smash the kitchen,’ I said. ‘What should we do? The plasterers are booked tomorrow and if they don’t come we won’t be able to book them again until after Christmas and we’ll have a toddler running around a building site and it will be awful.’

  ‘What tools have you got?’ Dad asked.

  ‘A really big sledgehammer,’ I replied.

  ‘Where did you get it from, B&Q?’

  ‘Ye-es.’

  ‘They only sell toy tools there,’ said Dad. ‘I’ve got some proper industrial tools. I’ll bring them over.’

  Half an hour later, he turned up with two petrol-fuelled chainsaws and a six-foot sledgehammer. He called these tools ‘the persuaders’.

  By the end of the day, the kitchen lay in splinters at our feet.

  ‘You want to get in touch with whoever put this kitchen in,’ said Dad. ‘And get them to put in your next one. They did a great job. Very solid.’

  We began filling the skip with splinters of 1970s orange-varnished teak.

  As I was throwing the last cabinet door into the skip, the elderly former owner walked past with her dog.

  I tried to hide behind the skip, but she saw me.

  ‘Hello,’ she called out cheerily. ‘Having a bit of a clear-out, are you?’

  ‘Yes!’ I replied, trying to push one of her cabinet doors deep into the skip and out of view. ‘Just getting rid of some bits and bobs.’

  ‘Righty-o,’ she said, chuckling. ‘Give me a shout if you want any advice about the best use of the kitchen cupboards. I always kept baking goods in the tall cupboard by the oven. They fit very well there and keep dry.’

  ‘Yes, thanks!’ I said, neglecting to tell her that the tall cupboard was now in the skip. As was the oven. ‘Bye!’

  The next day, the plasterers came to cover over all the 1970s wedding-cake-icing plaster with modern smooth stuff.

  Lexi was back by then, and it was a nightmare keeping her out of the smashed-out hole of a kitchen. She was fascinated by it and kept toddling over to eat grit from the floor or sing sad songs about princesses with broken houses.

  ‘Don’t worry, Lexi,’ I assured her. ‘We’ll have a nice new kitchen in a few days. Then we can stop eating Coco Pops and have a nice boiled egg and soldiers for breakfast. Look – here’s the builder coming now to get started.’

  ‘Bob the Builder,’ came Lexi’s excited response. ‘Yes we CAN!’

  ‘No, we can’t,’ said the builder. ‘There’s a big problem.’

  If you’ve ever renovated a kitchen (especially if you want things to move quickly because you’re sick of washing up in the bathroom sink and throwing half-eaten bowls of Coco Pops down the toilet and you’re having a party for your daughter in a few weeks), you’ll know there are always problems.

  ‘The plaster is still damp,’ said the builder. ‘We can’t fit a kitchen on damp plaster. You should have booked us in a few days after the plastering was done. Plaster always takes a few days to dry – especially in the winter.’

  Apparently, everyone knows this.

  ‘So what will happen?’ I asked.

  ‘You’ll have to tape off that dangerous concrete area where your kitchen used to be. Stop the little one getting to it. We’ll be back in a few months – we’re booked up until after Christmas now.’

  ‘Do you know anyone else who could fit us in this week?’ I asked
.

  He shook his head. ‘Not at this time of year. People want things finished before Christmas. Make a nice family home for the festive season.’ He eyed up the stained, concrete shell that used to be our kitchen.

  I did what any mother of a small child would do when faced with no kitchen and twenty toddlers coming for a party in a few weeks’ time.

  I cried.

  We’d been living with a huge, concrete hole instead of a kitchen for days now. All our foodstuffs were stacked up in the living room, we had no fridge or oven and I was totally sick of seeing Coco Pops floating in the toilet.

  Lexi kept escaping into the concrete hole that used to be the kitchen and stroking the oil-stained floor.

  ‘Lexi, we might have to rearrange your party . . .’ Demi began.

  ‘Forget Lexi’s birthday party,’ I told Demi. ‘If the kitchen isn’t going to be done until after Christmas, what are we going to do on Christmas Day?’

  ‘Eat Bernard Matthews turkey slices while sat on a roll of kitchen lino?’ Demi suggested.

  I raged about him being unsupportive. He raged back that he’d warned me about potential issues and that relationships were a compromise, not me just charging ahead and doing whatever I wanted.

  As we were shouting at each other, my dad popped round with three Italian cream desserts he’d picked up at the cash and carry.

  ‘That plaster looks a bit damp,’ Dad pointed out. ‘You’ll need to get some industrial-sized heaters on that pronto or they won’t be able to fit your kitchen.’

  ‘Industrial heaters? Is there such a thing?’

  ‘I’ve got three in the lock-up,’ said Dad. ‘I’ll bring them over. They’ll dry your kitchen out in no time.’

  Half an hour later, Dad lugged three wardrobe-sized heaters into our concrete shell of a kitchen. They turned our home into the sunny streets of Italy, glowing blindingly bright orange.

  Lexi put on the little flamenco dancing outfit Grandad had bought her in Spain and danced around in the mock sunshine, singing ‘We’re all off to sunny Spain – olé!’

  Soon all the walls were bone dry and I was fairly sure we’d all caught a suntan.

  The builder returned and prodded the walls speculatively.