Wife in the North

by Judith O'Reilly

  Wednesday, February 14 2007

  This is an intergalactic emergency

  I have a headache. It is hardly surprising I have a headache, because I just fell down the stairs, six of them at least. Why did I fall down the stairs? Because they were carpeted with slick, shiny wool, I was running and they were there. I was answering the door to the Yorkshire Mother and her husband, who are storing things with us before they leave for sunnier climes. I fell because it is that sort of day.

  I spent all of yesterday driving around with a silver spaceman toy in the footwell of the passenger seat. Just when I thought I was safe from his cultural imperialist tendencies, he would blurt out: ‘This is an intergalactic emergency’ and ‘I am Buzz Lightyear. I come in peace.’ Between the children and their paraphernalia, it is surprising I ever feel lonely. I think the noise pollution put out by toys is worse than the acute feeling of paranoia they can engender. It is not just Buzz. Yesterday morning, I was struggling to find my way to school because I now live in a different house which means I have to drive along different roads. The problem is you drive by different fields which all look the same as the fields you used to drive by. I was running late because that is what I do, and looking for a turn-off which could have been anywhere, when my six-year-old decided to ‘start up’ his orange plastic steering wheel. This engine noise is the sound another car would make if it joined you on the back seat and it distracted me long enough to miss the turn-off. I have to admit I did not say: ‘Oh dear, Mummy missed the turn-off.’ It was definitely one up from the ‘bloody, bloody’ of the weekend. My six-year-old, with the infinite forbearance of a child for his mother, turned off his wheel while I manoeuvred my way back to the turning. Thinking about it, his teacher recently told me how advanced he was verbally. I wonder how advanced he really is. I must remember to teach him that discretion is an underrated virtue.

  I still haven’t finished cleaning out the kitchen before the builders gut it, we still don’t have a working TV in the rented house, apparently the dishwasher is faulty and last night the lights downstairs fused about twenty minutes before my newly installed Internet connection gave up the ghost. Worst of all, I forgot to buy my husband a Valentine’s Day card. Actually, that was not the worst thing: I forgot to buy one and he remembered.

  Did I mention my head hurts?

  Friday, 16 February 2007

  Ding dong

  There are some days so bad that the only thing which could redeem them is a proposal of marriage. Today was one of them. As I hunkered down by my pyjama-clad four-year-old to start cleaning his teeth, he gazed intensely into my eyes. ‘When I’m big, I want to marry you.’ He paused. ‘If you’re still alive.’

  Saturday, 17 February 2007

  A ponytale

  The Yorkshire Mother has packed up her house, her children, her husband, a people carrier and a white van and gone. Phut. Disparu. I went to say ta-ra. I sat on an old black couch in an empty room. She sat opposite me on a beaten-up armchair. She looked tired. A plastic bin bag in the corner; bits and pieces of a family life littering the floor. I kissed her cheek, hugged her goodbye and tried not to cry.

  She is brave, I think, to search for happiness. A casual, civilian bravery; not that of the uniformed and heroic soldier, a gun in either hand, carrying between gleaming teeth a wounded comrade from the bloody, muddy battle-scene. I like that courage, too – who does not like a saviour? But I have particular regard for the everyday, matter-of-fact bravery of the civilian caught in accidental crossfire; the bereaved, the lonely, the mothers of the sick. My cousin has a daughter, elfin-faced with a silken ponytail which slides down her slim back. She is seven and has one missing tooth. I know it is missing because today I saw the gap and looked; the tooth was definitely not there. On a half-term too-quick visit, my Beloved Cousin flicked open her laptop and clicked the mouse to show me pictures of her daughter at three and kidney-sick. ‘Look, no hair,’ she said, and pointed to the JPEGed child. I remember.

  I took her daughter to a village shop. Instead of a ponytail and pink feathered clip, her head was tufted bald and round, the soft hair harvested not by fairies but by chemicals. There is nothing like sporting a child with cancer in your trolley to bump you, spit-spot, to the top of the queue in a supermarket. Other shoppers smile at you and pass you tinned goods so that you do not have to lean too far, and the woman in front says: ‘I’m not in a hurry. You go first,’ as if you might have particular need of that extra minute or two with your trolley child. Your shopping, too, is not mother-wise but a mix of slurpy yoghurts, cheese strings and chocolate bars. The shop a child might do if you said: ‘Buy what you like, darling.’ I had no intention of making a child with cancer scream out loud in a supermarket aisle by saying no to Pringles. Now, my cousin’s lovely daughter is out the other side of pain. For two days, she bounced around my house in screaming fun games with my sons and babe. I held her by the ponytail and thought: ‘Little one, I like your hair this way.’

  Monday, 19 February 2007

  My morning so far

  I am asleep in a large wooden bed, unusually a husband slumbering by my side on a 24-hour stopover. I do not see enough of this bed. I like it. I enjoy its company but somehow we have drifted apart. I have been asleep for nearly two hours. The hands of the Mickey Mouse ticking clock march on and reach their destination. It is 2.40 a.m. The silence lets out its breath and the door opens to reveal my six-year-old caught in the landing light. ‘Mummy, I feel like I’m going to be … bleaurgh.’

  Our rented house has carpets. I sweep the wretched boy into the bathroom, trailing sickness after us, and my husband wrenches himself from the warmth of the bed to fetch a bucket with soapy water for the carpet. My son refuses to go back to any bed but the one in my office, so he and I curl up together with an empty Tupperware box close by in case of emergencies. Best to say ‘No, thank you’ to biscuits when the biscuit tin is full in my house, although I am always very careful to wash it afterwards.

  My poor white-faced, black-eyed child is sick at 3.15 a.m. and again at 4.20 a.m. At 5.45 a.m., his sister wakes up to be fed and I bring her into bed. She is far from happy when she has to stop at 5.55 a.m. when her brother needs the biscuit tin again. I tuck the poorly one up and take the baby downstairs for a cock’s crow breakfast with my husband. At 6.55 a.m., he leaves for London. ‘Bye, sweetheart,’ I say, baby on my hip, waving to him cheerily as he drives away.

  When my four-year-old comes down for breakfast, I pour him a china bowl of strange puffed rice shapes, add semi-skimmed milk and lie on the kitchen floor with a soft woollen jumper for a pillow. The baby comes over to sit down on my head, then crawls away again. As I lie there, slightly chilly, I debate whether curling up on the kitchen floor is a symptom of mental illness and decide no one can see me so who cares. I have to get up when the doorbell rings. A mechanic stands waiting to fix the Volvo, which has stopped working. As ever, I cannot find the keys. I say: ‘Give me a minute,’ and close the door. I clench my fists and beat my head with them to see if that will help me find them. It does – hanging on a hook, where I left them.

  Surprisingly, I had found the china bowl without self-harming. My Beloved Cousin has organized my kitchen with startling ferocity. She talked me through her reasons for putting pots, pans and raspberry jams away. They have been placed around my borrowed cupboards and shelves with the same gimlet-eyed efficiency Wellington would use to deploy his troops in battle. Since I am the sort of general who would be hopping up and down with one foot in his shiny leather boot looking for the other one when the trumpet sounded, I have not got a clue where anything is. Last night, I ate my dinner with a spatula.

  Tuesday, 20 February 2007

  Picking up the pieces

  I broke my six-year-old’s favourite egg cup. This was not good. I was trying really hard at breakfast. I had scrambled some eggs for one of them, boiled an egg for another, made porridge on request, fed the baby, spread three jams (pear and raspberry, raspberry, and strawbe
rry) in stripes on one piece of bread. I had not laid down silent on the crumb-strewn floor and gazed blankly at the ceiling and its beams. I remained upright and mobile at all times. Then I broke the egg cup. Technically, the baby broke it, but really it was me because I said to my eldest: ‘She’ll be fine with it, don’t be silly’ when she grabbed it and he wanted to take it back from her. She looked straight into my eyes to thank me for my trust in her, slowly opened her porridgy fingers and dropped it. The cup, last year’s gift from the Easter Bunny, smashed leaving a yellow spotted cheetah holding nothing but disappointment. My six-year-old gulped, folded his arms together, laid them on the table and buried his head in them. I think his despair was half because of the egg cup and half because of me. I noticed for the first time how closely bitten the fingernails on his hands were. I thought: ‘When did he start to bite his nails?’ My four-year-old came over. He laid a consoling little hand on his brother’s heaving back. ‘Never mind,’ he said, ‘you can share my lion.’

  Thursday, 22 February 2007

  That cabaret life

  Why won’t children let their mothers sing? I like to sing. Admittedly, I can only remember the first line of any song. Still, I like to sing that line and do it tunefully. But children like to keep their songbirds caged and dark. ‘Don’t sing,’ my youngest son dictates from the table where he plays with plastic soldiers, guns moulded and ready. ‘I mean it. Don’t sing.’ He fires a cannon and five men die in friendly fire. ‘Why not?’ I ask, my painted smile slipping as I stand in the spotlit darkness of my kitchen cabaret. ‘Why can’t Mummy sing?’ I lob my question into the blackness and hear my six-year-old’s voice: ‘We like it quiet.’ This from boys who moments before, arms spread wide and mouths a-roar, were jet-screaming round the table. The super trouper flickers and turns off.

  Friday, 23 February 2007

  Bed rest

  Getting up was so difficult today I almost did not bother. If I had been given a choice or my children had shown a degree of compassion, I would be in bed yet. I finessed my sons into the sofa in front of a video in the hope of another couple of precious pillow minutes. The baby, however, is made of sterner stuff. She was awake. I had to be awake. I had brought her in to feed, but after that she was a lot keener to get on with the day than I was. I steadfastly refused to move; eventually, she clambered out of the large carved bed, clinging on to the sheet and lowering herself carefully on to the floor, where she discovered my handbag. I did a mental review of whether she might find an ecstasy tablet, prompting horrified headlines and a visit from my health visitor. I decided it was unlikely since I have never bought an ecstasy tablet. Reluctantly, I opened one eye to check she was still there and had not crawled off to fling herself down the stairs. She was standing by the bed, watching me. Next to me was a pile of money lying on the mattress – every note and coin I had loose in my bag. I felt cheap. I do not think a fifteen-month-old baby should feel she has to bribe her mother to get out of bed.

  I got lost again today. I think that getting lost is becoming a metaphor. It is happening so often, part of me must want to get lost. Maybe if I got lost enough, I would one day find myself on the fringes of London. Then I could ring and say: ‘You’ll never guess what. I got lost. Guess where I am. I don’t think I can find my way back.’ What made it worse was that my children noticed. I hate it when they notice I am lost. I suspect it diminishes their respect for me, which is probably low enough already now they pay me to get up. My six-year-old said loudly: ‘Mummy, you are going the wrong way.’ I denied this. ‘I really think you have gone wrong, Mummy.’ Of course, he was quite right. As I slewed the car round, narrowly missing a horsebox, he said: ‘I was going to say something, but I won’t.’ I pulled back on to the hedged and narrow road. ‘What were you going to say, darling?’ I looked back at him through the rear-view mirror. ‘I was going to say “I told you so”,’ he said. I could see the tiniest smile as he glanced down at his bitten nails. ‘But I decided not to.’

  Saturday, 24 February 2007

  Beach boys

  There are days I feel quite proud of myself for giving this a go and trying to carve out a new life for all of us. Today was not one of them. I just thought: ‘God, this is such an effort’ when I woke up, opened the painted wooden shutters and gazed out on to the foggy village street of stone-built houses. I hate weekends up here when I am on my own. The week is bad enough, but then at least I have help with the children from Girl Friday, who is a godsend, and there is school to give the day some structure. The weekend completely tips me over the edge of darkness; I roll down the scree, leaving pieces of myself along the way.

  I decided it would be better not to be alone – when I say alone, that equals me plus three children – and I turned to my phone book. I list the mothers up here all together. There’s a slightly grey trail down the page of names; the trace you would get if you regularly ran a finger down it slowly, name by name, looking for someone to call. One woman was out; one woman’s husband is only at home at weekends; I rang another woman once before when I felt this teary panic and she sounded so surprised at the call I would rather not repeat the experience; two others have their own domestic difficulties; another I had seen too recently for it to be respectable to call again so soon. I called the Shepherd’s Wife, although I only know her slightly. She invited me round for lunch tomorrow. I think I may have sounded desperate. I still had to get through today.

  In the classic tradition of the unhappy female, I gathered the children up and went out to shop. I hate with a vengeance the supermarket in the nearest market town. My husband goes shopping there with the three children and tells me the shop assistants cannot do enough for him. They do nothing for me. They might occasionally say: ‘Do you want help packing?’ but I do not believe they mean it. They might say: ‘Do you want cashback?’ but I believe they want to ask me: ‘Why did you have three children? You can’t control them.’

  Instead, when I am left to live alone, I prefer to make my own rounds of the butcher, the baker, the grocer, the newsagent, the chemist and the electric shop. When they know you live here and you are not a tourist, small shopkeepers do not seem to mind if you shout at your children. That can come in handy. The rented house is in a village which used to have grocer’s and draper’s shops, inns, a church and two chapels. The church is still there, but the shops have long since been pulled into the fishing village next to it. The main trade here used to be curing herrings, which would then be sent to market by railway, and the export of lime for agricultural fertilizer. It has a timeless feel, making its money from tourists who prefer to take a boat out to the Farne Islands than to fly to the Canaries. It has a main street with a fancy goods and hardware shop and another that sells kettles and TVs, a small supermarket, a magic shop which sells kites to tourists and one of those shops that sells everything and anything to anyone who can find it. It feels ‘complete’ with its second-hand book shop, undertakers, a parlour for beauty and another for ice cream. Visitors come once then come again – they walk the sands and dip in and out of shops to buy memories. They take paper-wrapped fish and chips and eat them on raked benches overlooking the pretty harbour’s lobster pots and bobbing boats. As seagulls wheel and screech, they lick vinegar from their fingers and think: ‘This is like the holidays I had as a child – the sort of place I’d like to live.’

  After the shopping, I took the children to the beach. This is why we live here – one of the reasons anyway. ‘Right,’ I said, ‘we’re going to the beach.’ My six-year-old jutted out his jaw. ‘I hate the beach,’ he said. I was not in the best of moods. ‘I don’t want to live here,’ I replied, perhaps over-hastily and not what the children need to hear, but the words pushed themselves out regardless. ‘We live here so you can go to the beach. We are going to the beach. Whether you like it or not.’ My son shook his head. ‘I’m not going. I’m staying in the car. You go.’ Forced to choose between the beach or straight home to bed without tea, he caved and chose the beach, where
the fog was so dense it obscured even the castle. The boys played in the misted-out dunes, doing what they call ‘adventuring’, and I ploughed the sand with the buggy and a chilled baby. ‘There, you see,’ I told them, the wind so cold it felt like it was tearing strips from my head to hang from its beaded belt, ‘isn’t this nice?

  Sunday, 25 February 2007

  Let’s do lunch

  Today’s expedition for lunch with the Shepherd, the Shepherd’s Wife and their two boys – having inveigled myself some company so transparently yesterday – also involved passing a sign saying ‘Horse-drawn vehicles and animals’ at the second cattle grid on the track. We had already passed the ‘Beware the bull’ sign, which always makes me feel acutely nervous in case he is waiting round the corner with a mask and a pistol. I could see the Cheviot hills stretched out along the horizon, the beasted fields slipping away from their gorse borders. ‘Where are we, Mummy?’ asked my six-year-old. ‘About 1956,’ I told him. The three of us talked sheep and books and the Shepherd’s Wife turned out to be one of these fabulous cooks who can make a Sunday lunch into a miracle on a plate. As I piled muddy children back into the muddy car parked in the muddy farmyard, meal eaten, playdate played out, she said: ‘Do you know, you’re the only people we’ve ever had to lunch who weren’t our parents or my brother and his wife.’ I said: ‘You’re kidding me?’ She shook her head. As I pulled out of the farmyard and headed down the track, I thought: ‘I must have sounded really desperate.’