by India Knight
At this point, I let my mind wander. The thing here is, I don’t care about the answer. I don’t give a toss. It’s boring. All this child stuff is boring. I didn’t find it particularly boring the first or second time around – or especially gripping, to be honest, but at least it didn’t make me want to go to sleep. But now – and with such a big age gap between Maisy and her brothers – I know for a fact that the following are demonstrably true, unless of course a child is born with disabilities:
it doesn’t matter if you’re breast- or bottle-fed, or born naturally or by Caesarean
everybody learns to walk
everybody learns to talk
everybody learns to pee and poo in a lavatory
and wipe their own bottom
everybody learns to read and write
nobody gives a crap about when any of this happens. Nobody goes around as an adult saying ‘I learned to walk when I was barely one’ or ‘I was potty-trained exceptionally early.’ (Some people do say ‘I was reading fluently by the age of three,’ admittedly, which pinnacle of achievement kind of tells you everything you need to know about them.)
it’s okay to have sweets or bad additives every now and then
giving your son a toy sword isn’t going to turn him into a serial killer; giving your daughter a dolly doesn’t mean she’ll never read Proust
it’s okay to ignore your children on occasion, if you’re busy and they’re safe but merely a bit bored
in fact, occasional boredom is good for children: it makes them self-reliant
children usually turn out fine, unless of course their parents become demented with all of the above
it is impossible to say any of this to people whose children are younger than yours without sounding unattractively like Old Mother Time, so there’s no point in even trying
which is fine by me, because it’s boring.
God, I think, idly observing Tim stare at Hope’s amazing bosoms out of the corner of his eye while he is pretending to talk to Sam about the school play. It’s such a waste of time, all this lunacy about what they play with, or how they play, or how well they do or don’t do at ‘homework’ when they are five, or how many activities they do after school, or how early they learn to ride their bike without stabilizers, or how they have dried fruit for treats because it has been decreed that chocolate shall never pass their lips. How it bores me to the point of actual despair. It makes me want to tear off my ears and throw them on the floor in disgust so that I don’t have to hear. These children – mine, Sophie and Tim’s – will always be fine. They are lucky, loved, wanted, privileged children. The end. Everything else is bourgeois hysteria.
Sophie is still droning on about the pink girly stuff, as if it were the end of the world rather than mildly irritating.
‘Have some more,’ I say quickly, largely to stop myself saying ‘Oh, do stop talking.’ I also kick Hope lightly under the table and raise my eyebrows at her. She takes her cue immediately and starts asking Tim what he does (something to do with futures, apparently. Good luck to her, with that). ‘And have some raita.’
‘Did you make the yogurt?’ asks Sophie.
‘No. But I did grate the cucumber.’
‘We make our own yogurt,’ says Tim, quite slurrily, from across the table. ‘Well, Soph does.’
‘Why?’ says Tamsin.
‘Why do I make yogurt? Well, you know – it’s nice to be self-sufficient, even if it’s only yogurt and bread and growing a few vegetables,’ Sophie says. ‘It’s empowering. And the children love it. Tim and I are great gourmets, you see.’ She pronounces the word with a strong French accent. ‘We really mind about what we eat. We mind passionately. And the kids eat everything we do.’
‘Yeah,’ says Tim, rather pointlessly. ‘They do.’ He’s quite red, old Timboleeno. He’s drunk.
‘That’s great,’ I say, which it is.
‘My boys were the same,’ Pat says. ‘They ate everything we did. Chips, mostly.’
She hoots with laughter, but I can see Sam practically twitching at the direction the conversation has taken. He is, to all effects and purposes, middle class these days, and he has no issues with most of the aspects of middle-class existence – niggles, yes, but nothing that really tips him over the edge. Except for this one thing: there is a certain kind of approach to eating that sends him absolutely round the bend and that, to him, works as perfect shorthand for everything that is vomit-makingly wanky about the social class he now finds himself occupying. Triggers include: people who say ‘leaves’ instead of salad (see also ‘fizz’, ‘vino’ and every permutation thereof); people who extol the virtues of X or Y cheese for more than one minute, particularly where they say ‘chèvre’ instead of ‘goat’s cheese’ or specify the variety – sourdough, baguette, focaccia – instead of just saying ‘have some bread’; people who have ninety-five different kinds of vinegar but never the one that you’d want on your chips; people who call chips ‘frites’; people who won’t drink tap water, or – worse – people who will only drink one brand of bottled, because they only like the taste of that one; people with ‘allergies’ who are really on diets; people who order off-menu in restaurants; and any kind of over-thought-out, over-fussy arrangement on a plate. He can’t stand wine bores, on the basis that nobody normal can tell the difference between a £10 and a £20 bottle of wine, ergo they’re just pretending to, like the bourgeois ponces they are. His particular bugbear is people who make too much of the fact that their children are omnivores.
Once, in Italy, we were sitting in a restaurant next to an English couple – overconfident, entitled-seeming, red with sunburn, foghorn voices booming over everyone else’s conversation – who said to their toddler, ‘Try it, darling, for num-nums. It’s called Parmigiano. Par-mee-gee-ah-no. That’s right! Come on, try it. You’ll like it. It’s only a tiny bit stronger than Grana Padano, and you loved that, didn’t you? And do you remember the name of the greens you liked yesterday?’
‘Puntarelle,’ the child said.
Sam grabbed the table, his knuckles white like in a story, and started swearing under his breath – ‘Get me away from the cunts, Clara, or kill me. Just kill me.’ He’s so good-natured normally that it was quite amusing to see, and I wasn’t as incensed by the display as he was – actually I was rather impressed with the baby’s command of language. But I know what Sam means: there comes a point, with foodie-ism, where you think, ‘These people are just fetishists,’ especially when they see food as the echt signifier of class and social place. There’s a certain kind of eating that basically says, ‘This is what we do, because we are special and unlike the herd. We are not proles. We make pesto out of ferns and acorns: that’s how evolved we are.’ Sometimes we both pine for the days of casseroles and fondue sets, which were a great deal easier to get your head around when you were eating at someone’s house than having to admire people’s perfect, fantastically elaborate recreations of restaurant food – and not just any old restaurant, but ‘fine dining’, if you please. Besides, as Sam points out, he developed his own athlete’s body on a childhood diet of potatoes, tinned food, salad cream and fluorescent fizzy drinks.
‘Wouldn’t eat this, though.’ Tim points out helpfully. ‘Spicy. Hot. Hot and spicy.’ He leers at Hope as he says this. I silently push the water jug in his direction, trying to catch Hope’s eye, only to find that she’s just as blotto as he is.
‘Nice curry,’ says Jake. ‘Quite authentic. I lived in India, you know. For a couple of years, back in the sixties. Man, what a country. What a place.’
‘I didn’t know that,’ says Tamsin, smiling at him. ‘How cool. You’ve done such cool stuff, Jake.’
‘I know,’ says Jake. I suppose when you get to his stage – he must be in his late sixties, though we’ve never been given a straight answer to the question of his exact age – there isn’t much point in modesty or self-deprecation. ‘I’m rock ’n’ roll, baby.’ This is also true: he is wearing leather trousers, for st
arters. They’re quite nice, as it happens. Worn in, not all stiff, a description that could, from what I hear, also apply to Jake.
‘We should go,’ Jake says, putting his hand on Tam’s thigh. ‘To India. Me, you and Cassie. Take her out of school for a bit. Let her travel. See the world.’
‘Broadens the mind,’ says Pat, who has travelled to England, Greece (once, with us), Calais and to the bits of Spain where you can get a Full English.
‘Exactly, Pat,’ says Jake. ‘Broadens the mind. Very good for children.’
Pat beams at him. ‘India!’ she says. ‘It’s that far away. Mind, you’d have to watch out for the monkeys.’
‘How long would you take your daughter out of school for?’ This is, of course, Sophie.
‘I don’t know – what do you think, Jake? Three months or so?’
‘Three months,’ nods Jake. ‘And if we liked it we could stay longer. Or move on somewhere. Go with the flow, you know.’ He is beaming too now, his lined, weathered face split into a leathery, trouser-matching grin. Have I mentioned Jake’s teeth? He has the most improbable gnashers, a full set of crazy, blindingly white, immaculate veneers, purchased at vast expense and a great deal of discomfort shortly after he met Tamsin. It’s like a bathroom showroom every time he smiles – white porcelain as far as the eye can see.
‘Three months!’ says Sophie.
‘No point going for less,’ says Jake. ‘Maybe we should go for longer, Tam. Maybe we should go for, like, a year. Hang out.’
‘Cassie’ll turn into a little monkey herself, so she will,’ says Pat fondly. ‘A little brown monkey, like a watchamacallit, a gibbon.’
I’m not sure I entirely love the juxtaposition of Indian people and monkeys, but I know from long experience that this is a losing battle. There aren’t any brown or black people where Pat comes from, and she marvels every time she takes Maisy to school with me at the multiculturalism on display. Or, as she puts it, the number of ‘darkies’. We had out first row about this, many aeons ago. ‘Don’t mind me,’ Pat had said. ‘I don’t mean any harm.’ And she doesn’t. However.
‘I don’t think gibbons are little brown monkeys,’ says Tamsin.
‘What are the wee brown ones called?’ Pat asks.
‘Marmosets?’ Sophie suggests, looking confused by the turn the conversation has taken.
‘No,’ Pat says, frowning. ‘Ah, come on, the wee brown ones. Agile, like. They always remind me,’ Pat starts, chuckling affectionately, ‘of Clara’s friend …’
‘Sam!’ I shout across the table in despair. ‘Sam. Darling. Please.’ I flick my eyes to Pat.
‘So,’ Sam says, bang on cue. ‘Who’s coming to see my show on the 27th? I’ve offered you all tickets, right?’
‘He was a lovely wee dancer when he was a boy,’ Pat says to nobody in particular, her mind having – mercifully – wandered away from primates. She takes a genteel sip of her vodka and lemonade. ‘Loved it. Absolutely loved it. His da and I used to joke that he was a pansy, didn’t we? Oops,’ she laughs. ‘Not a pansy. Oh, it’s that hard to keep up with how you talk in this house. What would you say – a gay? We used to think he was a gay.’
‘So you did,’ says Sam. ‘And I’ve always thought you’d secretly like it if I had been.’
‘Ooh yes,’ says Pat, nodding violently. ‘I’d have loved it. Well, not then – I’d have been that ashamed. I wouldn’t have been able to show my face. Oh, I’d have died. It was bad enough having to take you to dance classes – I used to cry about it sometimes. The shame, you know.’ Sam rolls his eyes, having heard this all his life, though the other people round the table look mildly astonished. ‘But I’d love it now. Like in Sex and the City! All the gays. Oh, they have fun, don’t they? They have great fun. They’re that colourful.’
‘Do you know anyone gay, Pat?’ asks Tamsin.
‘No, my darling, I don’t,’ Pat says, looking pretty cut up about it. And then, seamlessly, ‘You’d like a gay, wouldn’t you?’ she asks Sophie. ‘One of your kiddies. I can tell. A wee mammy’s boy. A wee gay dote.’
‘I …’ says Sophie. ‘Good Lord, what an extraordinary thing to say. I wouldn’t mind a … gay. A gay child. I wouldn’t mind at all. But that’s not to say …’
‘Aye,’ Pat says. ‘I knew it. For company.’ As I was saying, Pat occasionally has piercingly acute flashes of insight. This particular one has the welcome effect of temporarily silencing Sophie. Tim, meanwhile, is now howling with laughter – an oddly feminine sound – at something Hope, whose breasts are falling out of her dress, has said, and I feel the first twinge of pity for Sophie. The horrible truth of the matter is, you can home-make all the yogurt you want, but it’s not going to stop your husband’s eye wandering.
‘Have we finished eating?’ asks Jake. ‘Because I think it’s time for a little smoke. A little doobie. A little blow. Mind if I skin up, Clara?’
I don’t know what’s happened to my supper. It sounded perfectly normal in my head: a few friends round, a couple of acquaintances, us, pot luck in the kitchen, two days before Christmas, everyone out by about eleven. Instead, this. It’s not quite the easy, relaxing evening I had in mind. Good practice for the 25th, I suppose, but still. And now Tim and Sophie, both very active in the PTA, are going to go back to all the Reception parents and share the glad tidings that we adore make-up and heels on small girls and like nothing more than a bit of skunk after supper. Though I suppose I could always come back with the news that Tim likes his wine by the pint.
‘Um,’ I say, inclining my head towards Sophie, and then swivelling it around and indicating Pat. ‘The boys are upstairs. I don’t want them to come down and find people smoking.’
‘Maybe now’s not a good time, Jake,’ Tamsin says, putting her hand on his; the effect is of marble next to papyrus. But Jake’s already on his feet and marching up the stairs, trousers squeaking, to see what Jack and Charlie are up to. He comes down triumphantly a minute later. ‘They’re not there,’ he says. ‘They must have gone to bed.’
‘Ooh, let’s have a smoke,’ says Hope.
‘Ganja,’ says Tim, in his idea of a Jamaican accent. ‘GANJA! Yah mon. Takes me back. Takes me back, Hope.’
‘I don’t know,’ I say lamely, ‘that this is quite the night for it, Jake.’
‘I know what cannabis is,’ Sophie says indignantly. ‘I’m not that square.’
‘Well, none for me, thanks – but suit yourself, Jake,’ I say. ‘Though open the window, would you?’
‘Is that drugs?’ says Pat.
‘Medicinal,’ Jake says, pulling a gigantic packet of grass out of his jacket pocket (denim: the leather and denim combo reminds me of the Fonz). ‘Relaxes me, that’s all. Soothes away the aches and pains. So that I can concentrate on the important stuff,’ he adds, giving Tam’s thigh a squeeze. ‘Right, babe?’
‘Right,’ says Tam enthusiastically.
‘Drugs!’ Pat says. ‘Well, I never.’ She picks up Jake’s bag and has a good sniff. ‘Smells nice,’ she says. And then, after a pause, ‘What kinds of aches and pains?’
‘Oh, just the usual,’ Jake says, swiftly constructing an enormous joint. ‘The aches and pains of age, Pat. Though you’re only as young as the woman you feel, eh?’
‘I know all about those.’ Pat nods. She’s looking more interested than I’m entirely comfortable with: I’d sort of have preferred it if she’d expressed abject disapproval. I catch Sam’s eye and wince: it seems to me that neither of us is entirely in control of the situation, but he just shrugs at me and leans back in his chair.
‘You must have smoked, Pat,’ Jake says. ‘At some point in your life. Everyone smoked in the sixties.’
‘No,’ Pat says. ‘That was only on the telly, and we didn’t get one of those till 1969. Dollybirds and parties in London. Such fun, they looked, the swinging sixties. We liked Val Doonican.’ She does a little dancing motion with her arms.
‘Ah, of course. You’re Irish. No Pill for you,’ Jake
says, succinctly. He lights up. ‘I forgot.’
‘I have four kiddies,’ Pat says, laughing. ‘No Pill for me, no. No parties or miniskirts either, mind.’
‘You can make up for it now, Mum,’ Sam says fondly.
‘I’d maybe leave the miniskirts,’ says Tamsin, eyeing Pat’s small, rotund form. ‘That ship has sailed. And Pat’s probably okay on the contraception front.’
‘Ooh yes,’ Pat laughs, winking – yowsers – at Jake. ‘My cuddling days are over.’
‘You’re only sixty-five, Ma,’ Sam says. ‘You never know. But I didn’t mean miniskirts. I meant, have a smoke.’
‘Did you? Right you are,’ says Pat cheerfully. ‘I will, so.’
See, this is what happens. This is the man I live with – my husband – and he still occasionally has the power to absolutely astonish me. I mean, he’s encouraging his mother to smoke weed. What is he doing, and why?
Sam and his mother’s relationship occasionally takes me aback. They’re not close in any obvious way; they never say anything especially nice to each other. They love each other, obviously (though is it obvious? Do we all obviously love each other through the goodness of genes?), but they’re not particularly physically demonstrative, and they don’t stand around saying lovely things to each other. But then, sometimes, you find that they are closer than you’d ever imagined. Once, I came home to find them both in front of Sex and the City, this being Pat’s absolutely favourite programme in the world. Pat was red with mirth and howling with laughter, Sam only marginally less so. ‘Oh, you have to see this, Clara,’ Pat had said, breathless with giggling. ‘It’s that funny.’
I’d seen the episode in question before: it was the one where Samantha has a boyfriend whose sperm tastes bad. ‘Funky’, if I remember rightly. Now. The idea of watching this with my own mother doesn’t bear thinking about, and my mother is a metropolitan, much-married, wised-up sort. The idea of Sam watching it with his totally blew my mind. There they were, huddled companionably together, honking with laughter at sperm-in-the-mouth jokes. I don’t especially think of myself as a blushing flower, but I felt so embarrassed that I went downstairs and tidied the kitchen. When I asked Sam about it later, in bed, he said that Pat was laughing at the alien campness of the programme generally, at the hilarious (to her) out-thereness of the women, rather than at bad-tasting sperm specifically. But I wasn’t so sure. Pat has had four children and, presumably, an active sex life before her widowhood. I couldn’t really take the conversation forward beyond that without causing myself to visualize Pat administering oral sex, so I didn’t. But still. I don’t think she’s quite as unworldly as Sam believes her to be.
