The Seven Year Itch

by Emlyn Rees

  ‘Look, Mumma, look,’ Ben says, running round to climb up the wall again. He’s having a great time.

  ‘Wonderful, darling,’ I say.

  But I don’t mean it. He’s not supposed to be my responsibility. He’s supposed to be Jack’s this morning. Tweedle-Dom and Tweedle-Lee are covering the organic market this week. When I heard Jack wasn’t working, I was planning on having a morning off and maybe a long uninterrupted bath, or just a relaxing lie-in. Anything that would give me a break from dealing with every whim of my two-year-old, much as I love and adore him.

  However, as usual, despite his promises, Jack has failed to get up and now, once again, I’m on the Sunday shift. I know that it’s terrible that I’m keeping count, but this is the seventeenth day in a row that I’ve dealt with Ben in the morning.

  But then, Jack works hard to pay for me and Ben, I remind myself, and therefore it’s only fair that he gets a lie-in. After all, he’s the one bearing the financial pressure of our family. He’s the one who has to get up and do a job.

  But I still feel resentful. Isn’t looking after Ben a job, too? The Daily Mail says it is, but no one else seems to think full-time childcare and housekeeping really count.

  The only way that Jack could possibly understand how I’m feeling is if he’d got up for seventeen days in a row with a two-year-old and looked after that two-year-old all day. Only then would he ever get close to realising how essential . . . vital . . . some time off is.

  But that’s never going to happen. Because if I left Jack to look after Ben for seventeen days in a row, on day two he’d hire a fucking nanny.

  ‘Come on,’ I tell Ben, ‘let’s go and find Daddy.’

  Yes, sod Jack, I think. We’ll go and wake him up anyway.

  ‘No Daddy,’ Ben says. ‘Swings.’

  ‘No. Come on.’

  ‘Swings,’ he repeats.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why no swings?’ He tips his head to the side, his face a picture of disappointment and curiosity. I don’t have the heart to explain.

  ‘OK, we’ll go to the swings, but just for a bit,’ I relent.

  ‘Me. Me. Me,’ Ripley says.

  ‘You’ll have to ask your daddy,’ I tell her.

  ‘I done poo,’ she says happily, clutching her bottom.

  Great.

  I take her over to Ed.

  ‘She needs changing,’ I tell him. The air is turning green around us.

  He looks at me and it’s difficult to tell who’s the toddler, Ripley or her father.

  ‘All right,’ Ed says, sitting up, but he clearly has no idea what to do. It wouldn’t have occurred to him in a million years to bring nappies and nappy wipes with him.

  ‘Well, I’m going to the swings,’ I say. ‘See you.’

  ‘Amy,’ he says, suddenly remembering my name. ‘You don’t have any of the stuff do you? You know? A spare do-dah. Or a – you know – thingy . . .’

  It’s like conversing with a foreigner.

  I check the bottom of the buggy and hand over a pull-up and wipes.

  ‘So?’ Ed asks, ‘Where do you do it? I mean, where are the loos?’ He looks utterly helpless.

  Aha. Not so big and clever now, are you Ed? I think, rather enjoying his discomfort. If only his trendy mates could see him now.

  Then I look at Ripley and she looks at me. Can I really leave her in the hands of a man who clearly hasn’t had any sleep, or any recent practice at changing a nappy? Let alone a pull-up? Ed wouldn’t have the faintest idea that he’d need to take her trousers off and –

  ‘Do you want me to change her?’ I ask.

  For a moment I think Ed might fall on the ground and kiss my feet. ‘Would you?’ he asks.

  ‘Come on, sweetie,’ I tell Ripley, holding out my hand for her.

  Afterwards, we go over to the swings and play for a while. I can see Ripley in the sandpit, whilst Ed lies with his feet up on one of the benches, his baseball cap over his face. I feel furious with myself. I should have left him to it.

  I’m about to leave when I see Jack coming in through the park gate.

  So he read my two-word note, then. It was as perfunctory as I could possibly make it: ‘At Park’.

  ‘Hey, Babe,’ he says, coming to find me.

  ‘Dadda! Dadda! Dadda!’ Ben launches at Jack, as if he’s some kind of an amazing superhero. I sit down on one of the toddler play tables and fold my arms, annoyed at the level of adoration Ben reserves for his lazy father.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ Jack asks me, coming and sitting down next to me.

  ‘Just a bit tired, that’s all.’

  ‘Well why don’t you go back and have a sleep?’

  ‘Because I’m up and I’m dressed. I’m not sleepy now.’

  ‘I thought you just said you were.’

  ‘There’s a difference between being tired and being sleepy.’

  Jack looks at me, confused. ‘Don’t blame me. I thought you were having a lie-in,’ he says.

  ‘So did I.’

  ‘Well, why did you get up, then?’

  ‘Er . . . maybe because our son was up.’

  ‘So? Why didn’t you just leave him?’

  ‘I couldn’t just leave him. He’d already been awake for an hour.’

  Jack lets out a frustrated breath. ‘I can’t help it if you’re going to be a martyr about this.’

  ‘I’m not being a martyr, Jack. I couldn’t leave him on his own to play. He’s two. Besides, he’d have made too much noise.’

  ‘Well I’m knackered. I’m sorry I didn’t hear him, but you could have woken me up if it was really that important to you. I’ve had a very busy week at work and –’

  ‘I know. You don’t have to tell me.’

  We’re interrupted by Ben, who comes over with something gooey and disgusting on his hands demanding a nappy wipe. I clean him up.

  ‘So what do you want to do?’ Jack asks, before yawning.

  There’s no point in having a go at him. With an enormous effort of will, I force myself to try and sound less hostile.

  ‘Well, I suppose now you’re here we might as well all hang out. Have some family time.’

  ‘But family time doesn’t kick in until at least eleven thirty,’ Jack says.

  This is clearly a made-up Jack stat.

  ‘Eleven thirty?’ I check. ‘Family time doesn’t kick in until eleven thirty. How did you work that out?’

  ‘Well look around you. There’s only single parents here.’

  Yes, I want to say. The dads. The mums are in bed.

  ‘There’s no point in us both being here. Not this early,’ he continues.

  ‘OK. Fine,’ I snap, standing up. ‘Go back to bed, if that’s what you want.’

  He grabs my arm and pulls me down next to him on the bench.

  It’s only when I look at him that I see that he’s winding me up, but I’m not in the mood to play along.

  ‘Well? You going?’

  Jack puts his arm around me and sniffs. ‘Nah. It’s not worth it.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I know you too well,’ Jack says in his best Tony Soprano accent. ‘Because you’ll just bust my balls if I leave you here.’

  I bare my teeth at him and make a sudden snapping noise with my teeth. ‘Yes, I bloody well will. I won’t only bust them, I’ll bite them, too.’

  ‘Go on then,’ he says, smiling. ‘I dare you. I could do with some action.’

  Cheeky bugger.

  Calamity And Kate

  My sister-in-law Kate has been in our flat for a week, before I can stand it no more. I’m not sure what sob story she gave Jack, but she doesn’t seem particularly traumatised by the breakdown of her relationship with Tone to me. I’m getting the distinct feeling that we’ve been done over. We’re just her sucker relatives, gullible enough to let her stay for free whilst she waits for some big posh flat-share to come off.

  Jack won’t hear of it, though. He still thinks of her as his ki
d sister and he likes to act like the big protector, but since she’s been living with us, I’ve discovered that she doesn’t need looking after in the slightest. Confident Kate is very much her own modern gal.

  Conversely, I can’t help feeling that, on her side, her estimation of me has gone down rather than up. Sometimes, I catch her looking at me with a kind of horror. It’s clear that I’ve lost my status as funky fashion-industry Amy who married her brother. In her eyes, I have no status at all.

  And I think she blames me for Jack ditching his career as an artist. I can’t be sure. She hasn’t said anything, but there’s something about her manner that makes me suspect that there’ve been family conversations behind my back. I wish she’d just spit the dummy and ask me outright. Because then I’d be able to set her straight.

  I suppose I’m being overanalytical, because, if I’m very honest, I’m jealous of her. She reminds me of myself when I was her age, except, annoyingly, she’s much cooler. She’s got this swanky advertising job in Noho and a wardrobe (Ben’s) full of sassy trouser suits and sexy tops to match. As far as I can make out, she’s dined out in every single one of London’s most exclusive restaurants on expenses and is positively blasé about being invited to join the latest private members’ clubs.

  I find her relentlessly self-absorbed in the way that someone without a partner, kids, or a home to run, can be. She’s obsessed with her social life and seems to be surgically attached to her BlackBerry. She’s not capable of talking to you without receiving and sending at least three emails and texts, most of which are from and to the various men she’s ‘kind of’ seeing.

  Call me old-fashioned, but ‘kind of’ seeing someone sounds confusing, but Kate seems to be in no hurry to settle down and find another permanent boyfriend. Instead, she says she’s happy being choosy for the time being, hanging out with her gang of trendy mates.

  ‘There’s no point in settling down. I’ve got years and years of fun before I need to do the baby thing,’ she told me. ‘Ten years, at least.’

  It’s the trendy mates bit that I’m suspicious of. Kate is still big pals with Sally McCullen, the girl Jack and I nearly fell out over for ever. A girl who’s so slaggy, that if she lived in Wales, they’d turf her.

  OK, so nearly a decade has passed since Jack’s shenanigans with her and now we’re happily married with a family, but having one degree of separation away from Maneater McCullen living with us bothers me – especially since Jack’s intent on playing good-time boy with his sister. He’s usually snoring on the sofa at eleven p.m., but since Kate’s been staying with us, he’s pretending that he’s the life and soul of the party, cracking open a bottle of whisky for a nightcap whenever she rolls in from whatever trendy gig she’s been to.

  It’s Wednesday morning and Jack is still out for the count after the latest late-night session with Kate. I’m about to go to the bathroom and attempt to get dressed, when Kate breezes into the kitchen yawn-talking something about oversleeping and why didn’t I wake her.

  ‘Do you want some toast? I’ve just made some,’ I offer.

  ‘No way. Bread is so bloating, and I’m so fat,’ she says.

  What is she talking about? I look at photographs of me in my twenties and remember how much I used to worry about having a flat stomach. Ha! If only I’d known then what I know now: that that was as flat as it would ever get, I would have treasured it. I’d have worn bikinis all day. I’d have pierced my belly button and hung sparkling jewels from it.

  ‘You’ve got a great figure,’ I tell her, truthfully. ‘Make the most of it.’

  ‘Well I feel fat. Period pain,’ she explains, screwing up her face in pretend agony. ‘Maybe I should take the day off.’

  Period pain? Give me a break. Don’t talk to me about hormones or female problems, because, after forty-eight hours of labour, period pain doesn’t count. Try a dilated cervix. Or an episiotomy. And then you can ask for sympathy.

  ‘I’ve got some painkillers,’ I suggest, helpfully.

  She simply can’t take the day off work. I’m looking forward to my call from Alex Murray. I’m on Jessie’s show this morning talking about people who hoard junk, and since I live with a man who pays for a lock-up because he has so much junk, I think I’m qualified to wax forth about Jack and his inner Del Boy.

  ‘Oh God, no, I’ve got a lunch,’ Kate says, slapping her forehead. ‘I’ll have to go in. I’d better get a move on.’

  I’m about to ask her if she minds me nipping to the bathroom first, but I get distracted by Ben and, when I next look up, Kate’s gone and I can hear the bathroom door locking.

  The minutes tick by. Then half an hour.

  Private bathroom time is a thing of the past for me. I can’t so much as pluck an eyebrow these days without Jack or Ben bursting in to ask me a question.

  So what the hell is she doing in there?

  Please hurry up, I will her. I’m absolutely desperate for a pee. I’ve been up for two hours already. So it’s nearly ten hours since I last relieved myself, and my pelvic floor muscles aren’t what they used to be. I’m not sure I can hold it in for much longer.

  I put my ear up close to the crack of the bathroom door. I can hear faint tuneless humming. Hasn’t Kate got places to go? People to see? I thought she said she needed to get a move on?

  Two minutes later and I’m hopping around the flat. There’s nothing for it. I creep into Ben’s room and ignoring all of Kate’s designer clothes, kneel down and rummage under the bed for Ben’s new potty, which I’m going to start training him on next month.

  I look at the shiny blue plastic. Have I taken leave of my senses? Am I really about to do this? Yes, fuck it, I think. I’m too damn desperate.

  I squat over the potty. Serenity returns and I close my eyes with sheer bliss. As the old saying goes, there’s nothing so overrated as bad sex and nothing so underrated as a good pee.

  ‘Oh my God! Amy? What are you doing?’

  My eyes snap open. Kate is standing in the doorway, wrapped in my new towel.

  ‘I’m just . . .’

  Mortification makes it impossible to continue explaining. I pick up the potty and scuttle past her and bump straight into Jack in the hallway.

  The pottyful of my own pee drenches me.

  ‘Blimey!’ he says. ‘Did the little guy do all that?’

  6

  Jack

  Before The Pastel-Tinted End Credits Roll

  I’m in a buoyant mood as I head off to meet Jessie Kay. Today feels like the beginning of something, like I’m rounding a headland, switching tack, like the fickle wind of fortune has finally begun to blow my way.

  And it’s all thanks to Amy. She’s been on my case for months now, to strike out on my lonesome, work-wise, and now she’s come up with a chance for me to do exactly that.

  Talk about serendipity. Her wanting to call that crappy radio show. Me encouraging her to do it. Me thinking nothing more of it. And then her mentioning the other night that she had called up after all, that they’d liked her enough to ask her to call back whenever she felt like it – you know, with opinions and stuff. So she’s been doing just that, ringing them up from time to time to blather on about – what was it she said? – oh yeah, high-street fashion and other girlie stuff.

  Just what’s all this got to do with me? one might ask. Well, the last time Amy rang, the show’s producer mentioned that this rich Jessie bird was on the lookout for someone to redesign her garden . . .

  Which brings us to here. And now. And . . . Taraaa! Enter stage right, Jack Rossiter, Horticulturist to the Stars . . .

  I should have checked out Jessie Kay’s show, I suppose, before coming here to meet her today. In the name of research, not pleasure – obviously, seeing as the show’s utter dreck and strictly for chicks.

  The trouble is, I’m always at work when the good lady Kay’s show is on, and Rupert, my boss, he’s got a rule about us not listening to music or shows, even with earphones, while we’re meant to be wo
rking. ‘It looks slack,’ he says, and at the prices he charges, I guess he has a point. We should be looking hyper-industrious and professional at all times.

  Which is exactly how I intend to look to Jessie Kay today. Hence my clean-shaven jaw, combed hair and cut fingernails, and ironed trousers and smart clean shirt.

  Hell, I look more like I’m going to meet a date than pitch for business.

  But so what? No effort can be deemed too much effort today, because this is my big opportunity – I can sense it – and I mustn’t fuck it up.

  I mean, what better way can there possibly be for me to start branching out on my own? Come to think of it, Branching Out isn’t a bad name for a gardening company, if I actually do go ahead and set up my own legitimate business.

  Not that what I’m doing right now is strictly legit. I’m currently still working on my boss’s time, still getting my ten quid an hour Greensleeves (or Green slaves, as I more often think of it) flat rate. I told my boss, Rupert, that I was going to see a prospective client (true). What I didn’t tell him was that Jessie is my prospective client, not his. Any proceeds deriving from today’s meeting are going straight into the bank account of yours truly. And why not? This potential windfall did, after all, come to me via Amy. So why should I share?

  From the snazzy address Amy’s scribbled down on a scrap of paper for me, I’m expecting Jessie’s house to be impressive, and I’m not disappointed.

  If Notting Hill really did have a beating heart – as an estate agent I know always likes to claim – then St Thomas’s Gardens could be said to be its pacemaker.

  I turn into it now – one of those broad, tree-lined streets, full of detached Georgian four-storey mansions.

  The houses that I’m passing even have driveways – driveways!– which in this overdeveloped, overpriced part of London is like saying they’ve got runways. It’s almost as ostentatiously moneyed as having a moat, or a helipad, or a private army.

  We’re on Porsche, Bentley and Lexus turf here, and most of the models on show are worth more than our flat (a couple of them actually look bigger than the flat as well).