Falling for London

by Sean Mallen

  As I made awkward conversation with a couple of the mothers, I saw Julia standing equally awkwardly on the fringes of some of the games. Within minutes she ran over to me in tears.

  “None of them are playing with me!”

  I had no good solution, other than to urge her to keep trying, which she did with all the enthusiasm of a kid going to the dentist. My heart was breaking, watching her by herself, even as my head throbbed. After about thirty minutes, the girls and their mothers started to drift away to go to their other appointments and Julia and I gave up.

  In a weak attempt to make her feel better, I took her to PizzaExpress for supper, but ate little myself as my exploding head gave me little appetite.

  With the help of painkillers, the next day offered more promise. A play date was arranged with Nilla, and we headed off to a playground to meet her and her mother, Ulrika. But the skies were lowering and it had been raining on and off all day. En route to the park, Julia wiped out on her scooter, the wheels slipping out from under her on some wet leaves — a rare event as she was normally very adept.

  “I need to go home to change, Daddy!” she wailed. She had scraped her thigh and her pants were wet and muddy. No choice. We turned around and headed back to the flat. What next?

  After a quick change, once again late, I flagged a cab. When we arrived, Nilla was already busy playing with her older sister, Olivia, with mother, Ulrika, watching. To my relief, Julia readily and easily joined the two Swedish girls.

  But within minutes the drizzle turned into a driving rain. It was pouring — no possible way to continue.

  Ulrika suggested we adjourn to their house, which was close by, so that the girls could have more time together. It was a tall, skinny, plain house with four bedrooms — each floor with a tiny footprint, but collectively much larger than Buckland and about three times the rent.

  While the girls played upstairs, she explained how both she and her husband worked for a pharmaceutical company, but he was on the managerial fast track so she took a leave in order for him to accept the London posting.

  Another “trailing spouse.” But it did not seem to bother her that her career was being set aside in order to further his. She said she appreciated the chance to spend more time with their daughters and to go to the gym and generally to make the best of it. Somehow, although complete strangers, we made a couple of hours pass pleasantly and in the process I succeeded in getting Julia some serious playtime with a girl who seemed sympatico.

  Single parenting was hard work, as if I did not already know it, but we seemed to be coping.

  As I checked off the list of things to do with a kid in London, there was a glaring omission: she had yet to go to the theatre, probably because she had shown zero interest. But I convinced her to give a puppet show a try.

  I suggested to the Canadian mom, Roxane, to join us with her two girls: Zoë (Julia’s classmate, the same girl who offered a helpful hand with our early swimming crisis) and Kayla. The plan was to take a canal boat ride from Camden Lock down to the theatre, grab some lunch, and see the puppet show. Naturally it rained, but at least the boat had a roof.

  As we cruised along the picturesque canal, Julia spent most of her time on my iPhone and taking the occasional picture of herself. She particularly enjoyed the view as we went through a tunnel, taking pics that showed only her reflection in the darkened window.

  Lunch was in a pub across the street from the theatre. As is the way with service in London, the guy took our order in lots of time but the food took forever to come. It finally arrived approximately ten minutes before showtime, meaning that we had to frantically force-feed the children and then run them out the door in order to not miss the beginning.

  The Puppet Theatre Barge, inside a former canal boat now tied up at the dock, is a study in making the most of limited space. Somehow they managed to get several dozen seats into a tiny room in steerage below decks while also leaving sufficient space for a small stage for the puppets.

  Puppetry can be pretty edgy. The first show was all about a character called Captain Grimey, an unwashed sea dog billed as the dirtiest mariner to ever sail the Seven Seas. No one can stand to be within whiffing distance until he meets a Golden Dolphin who teaches him to clean up his act. Second was a retelling of the Three Little Pigs, in which the wolf has a knowing smile that reminded adults of a certain breed of public relations guy. Despite the slickness, he still got his in the end, unlike in real life, where the PR guy ends up with the girl and the big salary.

  Both shows were popular with all three girls. More importantly, I had managed to give Julia an outing with other kids, while also starting to build what turned out to be one of our most profound connections in London.

  Halloween loomed the upcoming Monday, the same day as Isabella’s return. My fatherly duty was to get Julia ready for that most important day for a kid.

  Hampstead is replete with charming and expensive little shops up and down the high street, and on little pedestrian-only pathways like Flask Walk. Isabella had directed me to a fairy store, where I was charged with getting my daughter’s costume. She had been reading a series of fairy books and decided that she wanted to dress up as Trixie the Halloween Fairy. We were on the hunt for a pair of wings. Several options were available in the store, some of which were expensive enough to make me think they would actually get the child airborne. I was able to convince Julia to pick a cheaper option. She in turn convinced me to shell out for a wand and some glitter dust to adorn her face.

  Mission accomplished, we stopped in a coffee shop for a latte for me, a hot chocolate for her, and pastries for us both. She barely touched her drink, because I failed to notice that it was made with dark chocolate, not her preference.

  Julia was regularly losing teeth during this period and I asked her about the status of her latest wiggler. She reached into her mouth to check and out it came, as she laughed uproariously and held it out for inspection while I admired the newest gap in her mouth. I snapped a picture and sent it off to Isabella. Having visited the fairy store, Daddy was now also charged with arranging a visit from the tooth fairy that night.

  My brief feeling of accomplishment was deflated as soon as we returned to Buckland. Julia pulled her wings out of the bag, tried them on and decided immediately that it was all wrong.

  “It’s too much like a baby,” she asserted tearfully.

  “But … but … but,” I responded with fatherly decisiveness.

  “NO, DADDY!”

  Okay, time for a quick readjustment.

  “How about a witch?”

  “A witch?” Sniffle, but tears slowing somewhat.

  “Yeah, sure — a witch. Nothing babyish about a witch!”

  After a few minutes of negotiation, she bought it. Luckily I knew we had something that approximated a witch’s hat that I had bought earlier. Just needed a cape of some sort and we would be good.

  Back on track. For the moment.

  After she went to sleep that night, I did as my parents had always done for me: slipped a few coins (including a pound coin in this case) under her pillow as the gift from the tooth fairy.

  Around midnight, the phone rang. Isabella. She asked about my tooth fairy strategy and was unimpressed.

  “That’s all? Just some coins under her pillow and nothing else?”

  She believed in making it a special experience, with the fairy leaving decorations and notes and a larger amount of money.

  “You just don’t seem very interested,” she said accusingly, which immediately set me off and we were into another one of those angry, transatlantic phone calls.

  “We’ve asked Julia to move away from the little school she loves to another country. She deserves to have a lot more fun.”

  I had no argument because she was right.

  The call ended with a frosty “ciao.”

  Bedraggled and sleep deprived, I at least knew that Julia had something to look forward to the next day because Roxane had come to the res
cue with an invitation for Julia to attend a Halloween party at her flat. Her husband, Dave, was an engineer with an oil company and had a true expatriate deal — that is, they had enough money to sustain a lifestyle similar to home, unlike us. True Canadians, though, they were unfailingly thoughtful, helpful, and without airs.

  Their place on Fitzjohn’s was a spotless, airy, and newly refinished two-bedroom, with access to a garden out back. Likely almost double our rent.

  She was perhaps the most organized mother I had ever met. A chef, she always had healthy food for the kids and had prepared a full afternoon of activities for a handful of girls from the Royal, including a trampoline out back.

  To my surprise and relief, Julia agreed to stay by herself, freeing me for a couple of hours.

  “Don’t worry. Take a break,” said Roxane. A good woman.

  Our circle of friends was starting to grow, giving me hope that Julia could have a play date while her mother and father went out on an adult date. That is, if her mother and father did not divorce.

  I hiked up to St. Dorothy’s Convent on Frognal to get Julia registered for Sunday school. In the house where de Gaulle spent part of the war, I was met at the door by Sister Pauline — a heavy-set woman in her sixties who walked with difficulty, wheezing, ankles swollen.

  In her tiny and cluttered office, I handed over a copy of Julia’s baptismal certificate to prove she was a good Catholic (despite a spotty record of Mass attendance), bought the appropriate textbook for First Communion preparations and asked whether there would be time for my daughter to qualify for the sacrament.

  “We shall see,” said the sister. “She must learn the prayers.”

  Her accent sounded vaguely Germanic, but as it turned out she was born in Malta and had spent many years teaching in Italy, not far from Treviso. She seemed kindly, which was reassuring as I was about to hand over my daughter for her religious education.

  The second Saturday of our daddy-daughter period arrived and I was flat out of ideas. Spent the morning cleaning up the flat, doing more organization, and generally feeling not very good about the world. By midafternoon, I hauled Julia out the door to another attraction: the Museum of London. Her interest was restrained, which is to say she had no interest whatsoever.

  But at least she enjoyed riding the Tube. We were starting to learn the stops on the Jubilee line very well as we hopped aboard at Swiss Cottage heading south. She had quickly learned to mimic the announcement: “The next station is Baker Street. Change here for the Bakerloo, Hammersmith and City, Circle, and Metropolitan lines.” Rendered in her little girl voice in a perfect accent: “The next station is Bakuh Street, change he-uh for the Bakuh-loo, Hammeruhsmith and City, Sih-cul, and Metropolitan lines.” It became our party trick for years to have her show off her English accent for Canadian friends.

  She swung around the poles, hopped up on the pads at the end of the cars where standers can lean, and generally just goofed around. Our Tube rides became one of our most effective bonding exercises.

  The Museum of London is well organized, with plenty of kid-friendly displays, and Julia was utterly bored. Online they were promoting a sixties dance party for kids. We searched all over before finding it, only to discover that we were the only ones who showed up to the party. The facilitator was so desperately pleased to see participants that she ran over with a big smile, offering to dress us in sixties clothing. I opted for a leather jacket and a Beatles cap.

  They played “The Twist” and I tried to get Julia dancing. When I was a small kid and the song was current, I provided endless amusement to adults by shaking my tiny butt in a rough facsimile of the dance. The attraction was lost on my daughter, however, and she stared at me quizzically as I tried vainly with stiff, middle-aged hips to reproduce those magic moments of half a century earlier.

  As we were walking through the museum afterward, my cellphone rang. It was Isabella, so I handed the phone to Julia to talk. The signal was poor and the conversation was brief. I sent an email to Isabella, signing it as Julia, but she responded, writing that it did not sound like her at all.

  Sunday was our final full day together before Mommy’s return, presuming Mommy was returning. I managed to miss the news that the clocks were supposed to roll back an hour, but my new clock radio was smart enough to do it by itself, so we managed to get up at the appointed hour. It was another chapter in the book of religious irony: the agnostic father taking his daughter to Mass and then to instruction for First Communion.

  St. Dorothy’s Convent was a short walk from St. Mary’s, down a steep walkway that led off Holly Walk to Frognal. The parents dropping off their kids were international, impeccably dressed in expensive jeans, and clearly affluent. Scooters lined the small courtyard by the entrance. A frazzled and frowning younger nun herded the kids to the correct classrooms. Julia’s was a large, airy room with large windows that opened onto an internal garden where de Gaulle must have sat and seethed during his exile from France sixty years earlier.

  Julia’s classmates were uniformly grim, clearly indicating that they would much prefer to be somewhere else on a Sunday morning. When Sister Pauline limped in, I made a point of bringing Julia over to introduce her.

  “Ah, you are the girl whose grandparents come from Treviso!” she said in her unidentifiably mid-European accent.

  “Well, take a seat.”

  Julia whispered in my ear, “What is she saying? I can’t understand.”

  “Just do your best,” was my ineffectual advice.

  There was a small lounge with a sofa just outside the classroom and I came equipped with a Sunday Times, which made the hour pass pleasantly.

  When the door opened at the end and the other children ran for the exits, I asked Sister Pauline how Julia did.

  “Very well! She was the only one to put up her hand when I asked what you get at Communion.”

  I raised my eyebrows and looked at my daughter with a mixture of pride and suspicion.

  As we walked out of St. Dorothy’s, Julia’s eyes welled up.

  “Daddy, I can’t understand what she’s saying! How can I learn?”

  “If you can’t understand her, why were you the only one to answer the question about communion?”

  “That was the only thing.”

  “Okay, well maybe you will get used to her accent. Besides, this is the only place we have for you to take the course for First Communion.”

  Problem solved, we hiked back down the hill.

  For some reason I was obsessed with getting the flat utterly spotless, so I frantically vacuumed (or “hoovered,” as I was learning the Brits say) and dusted as though I was expecting a Royal to drop in. Perhaps it was a gesture of love or perhaps a passive-aggressive point about the need to keep our home clean. Either way, I knew it was a futile exercise because it would be a mess within minutes of Isabella’s return. As we went to bed, we knew Mommy would be flying all night across the Atlantic.

  Monday marked not only the return to school but also Halloween. I got Julia out the door to catch the 268 bus just in time. And there was Isabella getting out of a taxi. Julia enthusiastically ran into her arms. My wife and I awkwardly hugged, anger still lingering from the tooth fairy dispute.

  I lugged her three large bags up to the flat and then, sweating and panting, got Julia on the bus to school, somehow avoiding a late arrival, while Isabella climbed into bed to start recovering from her journey. She hated the transatlantic flight and would take up to a week to get her sleep patterns back to normal.

  I chose to walk all the way from Hampstead to the bureau, downhill all the way and a form of meditation that I knew I would always miss when this gig was done.

  It was a historic day. The United Nations declared that the world’s population had reached seven billion souls, symbolically designating a Filipina girl named Danica May Camacho, born that day in Manila, as the seven-billionth baby. Pulling a story together took all day. Dan was off and I had a freelancer filling in, which meant th
at I needed to stay in the office until I was assured that the story had been safely delivered via FTP to Vancouver.

  By late afternoon, I noted that it was already getting dark. I had been warned about the shortness of the daylight hours in fall and wintertime. Hard to believe that London was actually farther north than my colder home in Canada. Isabella always hated the lack of sunlight back home and her anger about being forced to the U.K. would not be assuaged by an even earlier arrival of darkness in her new, unwanted home.

  While I worked, Isabella supervised the all-important Halloween routine. Back home, it is known as one of the worst rush hours of the year as frantic parents desperately scramble back from work to get their kids out the door.

  Somehow the tradition never took hold in London. We did some research, asking other North American parents how it worked in England, and were warned that there were only a few pockets of the city where homeowners would welcome costumed kids at the door demanding candy.

  Isabella took Julia to hook up with an American mom named Adele, who advised that Flask Walk, the quaint lane off Hampstead High Street, was a good place to start. They learned that the London style of shelling out to trick-or-treaters seemed to have been inspired by Scrooge. Those few who would give out candies were invariably miserly, with one small treat per kid.

  Fed up, Isabella advised Julia to grab a couple extra at the next house, reasoning that only someone with a heart of stone could deny a darling six-year-old girl dressed as the world’s cutest witch.

  She was wrong. The pissy Londoner demanded that our little girl put back the excess.

  As Julia’s eyes welled up, Isabella acted to save the occasion, popping into a corner store to buy six bags of her favourite crisps (potato chips for us North Americans) in order to fill her otherwise meagre loot bag. London might have a wealth of history, museums, and theatres, but, as Isabella reminded me, the British capital was a poor place for kids on Halloween.