by Fiona Gibson
‘Come on, Lols,’ Martin says. ‘Hop in.’
‘OK, Daddy.’ She climbs in, mustering a smile through the window. My heart aches as I smile back. Jake’s too busy chatting to his father to wave back, but I’m treated to a sharp rap on the glass from Travis.
‘Bye,’ I say, pulling a fake grin before turning and hurrying inside. The house always feels so empty when they’ve gone.
So here I am, stuck for forty-eight hours with no work to keep me occupied. I never thought I’d actually miss mild bladder weakness.
Actually, I’m not quite alone. Perched on my desk is Jake’s sea-monkey tank. Sea monkeys sound exotic, maybe a blend of baboon and squid. They’re actually tiny white dots – dandruff-like dots – that drift aimlessly in water. And that’s it. There’s no stroking, no cuddling, no cute tricks. If you expect them to chase a ball or fetch a stick, you’re on a highway to nothing. With a magnifying glass, you might be able to identify miniscule wriggling legs. They’re that interesting. No one shows any interest in the dandruff until they suspect that one has died, at which point Lola declares that each flake had a name and was loved dearly. Not by Jake, obviously; he asked for the tank to be removed from his room, presumably on hygiene grounds. It now lends an air of professionalism to the nerve centre of cutting-edge journalism.
Although seemingly still alive, our latest hatchlings are unlikely to offer much in the way of engaging company on a Friday night. I run through my list of alternatives. Sam? Not an option. He and Harvey are visiting friends in the Lake District. My assorted mummy-friends? All happily un-dumped. On a Friday night, un-dumped parents book a babysitter and go out to dinner, or snuggle up with a DVD at home. And Millie? Not sure I can face another instalment of her scintillating sex life.
I eye the sea monkeys and swear that they’re gloating. Get you, Nora-No-Mates, all alone on a Friday night. Go watch your sad-person’s portable telly. How did this happen? I have lived in London all my life, yet have found myself with no one to play with. I’ve lost touch with most of my old colleagues with whom I’d while away evenings on cheap wine. That’s what happens when you’re the first in your group to have babies. Either I wasn’t able to come out or they’d assume I couldn’t and wouldn’t ask. Anyway, back then, being with Martin and our close circle seemed enough for me. Most of my school friends have relocated to suburban semis or honeysuckle-strewn cottages in the country. Maybe we should have done that – moved on, done something different. I bet none of their husbands have been tempted by after-sales services.
I fish out a soggy Cheerio that Travis must have flung into the tank. God, I hate Friday nights when the kids are at Martin’s. ‘It can’t be all bad,’ Marcia once announced outside school. ‘I guess one good thing about being a single mum is all the time you get to yourself. It’s almost enough to make me want to leave Casper!’ I grinned ferociously, wanting to punch her. I never used to be like this: constantly suppressing violent urges and growling at sea monkeys.
Perhaps I’m turning into my mother.
A copy of Bambino is lying on my desk. I pick it up, open it at Harriet Pike’s page and read:
Dear Harriet,
How can I get my life back on track when it feels so empty? I love my kids and I love being their mother, but it’s not all I want to be. I used to have a fun, stimulating job, but gave all that up after having my first baby eight years ago. Since then I have had two more children. The working world where people have real conversations, not poopy-nappy conversations, seems so distant and for ‘other’ people – people with smart shoes and full diaries. I have what my husband calls a ‘little part-time job’, but it doesn’t fulfil me at all.
What can I do? I want something for me, to make me feel young and alive again. This sounds so selfish – it’s not how mothers are meant to feel, is it?
So how are mothers meant to feel? After all, we’re not just mothers. Beneath the nit-zapping and homework supervising, we’re still the person we once were. Still the young woman who flirted with strangers and got tiddly on wine.
‘I feel so guilty,’ the woman adds.
Well, don’t, I tell her silently. Stop that right now. You’ve invested nearly a decade in your children’s care and it’s time to do something for you. Yes, I know it’s hard. You say you loved your old job – isn’t there some way back into that world? The door may look closed, but I doubt if it’s secured with an enormous rusting padlock. Give it a nudge. Sign up for a course, or blow the dust from your address book and call up every one of your old colleagues. Let them know that you’re not merely alive and functioning beneath mounds of putrefying laundry but are ready to greet the working world with open arms, to grasp it by—
Heck, what am I thinking, assuming I know the first thing about this stranger’s life? I check the name: Searching for Something, Milton Whippet. I have never heard of Milton Whippet, yet I feel as if I do know her, because she could be me. And I suspect that she’s having a pretty crappy Friday night too.
She might even be stuck in the kitchen watching dandruff float by.
Would it really be so difficult to respond to letters like hers? Maybe I’d even enjoy it. Perhaps – my heart quickens at this – it’s the ‘something’ I’ve been looking for. To be Harriet Pike. No, not Harriet. Me. Caitlin Brown, as I was before I married Martin and became Mrs Collins and kind of withered up.
My gaze rests on her name. Searching for Something.
I think I might have just found it.
6
‘I knew you’d change your mind,’ Millie declares in the glass cubicle that separates her from her lowly staff. ‘Don’t worry about Harriet and how popular she was,’ she adds, ‘doing all the radio interviews and talk shows and stuff.’
‘Talk shows?’ I repeat.
Millie flips back her hair. ‘She’s quite a celeb, you know. A childcare guru with her books and DVDs and that slot she had on breakfast TV.’
Fuck. Bollocks. I haven’t watched breakfast TV for years. ‘Are you sure you want me to do this?’ I ask.
She grins reassuringly. ‘All I want is for you to cover for her until she’s better, OK? You’ll be great.’
I gulp down a kernel of self-doubt. ‘So how d’you want it?’
‘Short. Snappy. Don’t blather on too much.’
Words aren’t really Millie’s thing. She prefers to swoon over fashion shoots and check that her ‘team’, as she calls them, are including enough luxury baby socks fashioned from eyelash of yak.
‘I mean,’ I try again, ‘d’you want me to be sympathetic and caring or, um …’ I want to say ‘shoots-from-the-hip-ish’, like Pike, but can’t bear to.
‘Just be yourself. Draw on your life experiences. Make sure there’s a nice mix of problems – an affair maybe, some emotional trauma, some practical stuff, potential suicide perhaps …’ She guffaws. ‘Honestly, Cait, it’ll be a walk in the park. I only need five letters a week.’
I try to exude confidence, but my gaze drops to Millie’s desk. It’s not how you’d expect a glossy magazine editor’s desk to be – i.e. bearing only a vase of cream lilies and a front-row ticket for a Dolce and Gabbana show. Millie’s is a jumble of rival magazines, the nicotine pellets she sucks manically to help her quit cigs and a half-eaten bagel with a curl of salmon lolling out like a tongue.
‘So what do I do?’ I ask.
‘It’s really easy. Just choose problems from the letters and emails that come in. Harriet gets about a hundred a week so there’s no shortage of angst out there.’
‘Really? I can’t answer all of those, Millie. I’d be up all night …’
‘You don’t have to answer them all, dimwit! There’s a line on the page that says, “We’re sorry, but Harriet cannot reply to letters personally.” Were you thinking you’d have to visit them personally? Let them cry on your shoulder? Take them all on holiday with you?’
‘No, but—’
‘No one expects you to be their friend.’
A girl
with tumbling auburn curls pokes her head into Millie’s office. ‘D’you have a minute, Millie? Just wondered if you could settle something with the cover.’
Millie swoops up from her chair. ‘Won’t be a minute, Cait …’
Though the glass walls I have an excellent view of the comings and goings of Britain’s weekly parenting bible. When I’d inhabited the real, working world, rather than the fish-finger-grilling world, I’d had short stints on parenting magazines. Their offices had been chaotic and overcrowded, as magazine offices tend to be, with raggedy posters stuck up haphazardly on every available wall. There’d been teetering piles of baby equipment – walkers, cots, buggies, car seats, high chairs, activity arches, changing mats, sterilisers – which had been called in for consumer testing. So much stuff. It’s a wonder it didn’t put me off having kids of my own. Sometimes a few spruced-up mothers would be clutching their babies for a casting. They’d try to affect a casual air, but you could tell they were desperate for their child to be chosen for a fashion shoot or, better still, the cover.
It’s not like that here. Radio Four burbles in a distant corner, and there’s an alluring coffee aroma, which I’d kill for right now. There are no half-assembled cots, no cries from bored babies.
Millie once explained that Bambino offers an alternative, infinitely more fragrant universe to the poo-smeared reality of child-rearing. ‘We only put in parenting features to stop mums feeling guilty about buying it,’ Millie admitted, which sounded a bit screwy to me (like a man pretending he reads Playboy for the motoring articles). So, once you’ve read some waffle about sandcastle construction, you can get on with drooling over handbags.
‘So,’ I say when she returns, ‘what shall I do with all the leftover letters?’
Millie picks up her bagel, studies it for a moment and jettisons it into the waste-paper bin. ‘I’ve no idea what Harriet does. Throws them away, I suppose.’
All those heartfelt letters? These people are desperate. Surely you don’t spill your fears to a stranger in an unyielding white shirt unless you’re skidding towards the end of your rope? ‘You mean … put them in the bin with the rubbish?’ I ask.
‘Of course.’ Millie laughs. ‘If they’re emails, just delete them. What else would you do?’
I can see her point, but it seems totally wrong. ‘OK,’ I say. ‘Five letters a week. How long d’you think you’ll need me?’
‘Three or four months tops, I’d imagine, until the old trout’s better. Honestly, Cait, I’m so grateful for this. You’re really helping me out.’
I know she doesn’t mean it, and that there are numerous writers who’d be far more suited to this than I am. Millie is being a friend to me, tossing me regular work as a distraction from Martin and Slapper.
It might be just what I need. But can I really advise strangers when I’ve forgotten who I am?
With an hour to myself before I pick up the kids from school and nursery, I rip open the bulging manila envelope that Millie pressed into my hands. There are dozens of letters to Pike, ranging from immaculately word-processed documents to barely legible scrawls. Some are blotted with food – chocolate frosting, perhaps, or runny egg. There’s an abundance of blotchy, leaking biros. I wouldn’t have thought that Bambino readers, with their pomegranate smoothies for babies, would stoop to using biro.
I tip the letters on to the kitchen table and stare at the pile. Heck, at least I’m not the only parent who fears that they’re cocking things up. But where to begin? Closing my eyes, I let my hand hover above them, like that of a medium trying to communicate with the dead.
My fingers find a corner of paper. I open my eyes.
Dear Harriet,
Ever since we’ve had our little boy, who’s now a year old, I have felt as though my husband has become a stranger. He often comes home late after work (via the pub) then settles on the sofa, where he invariably falls asleep. It’s breaking my heart. We were so close and in love before Matthew was born, and had wanted a baby so much. Now my husband won’t lift a finger to help, and I am worn out from alternately nagging and shouting and pretending I am capable of doing everything myself. And then, of course, I seethe with anger. I have turned into an embittered martyr, Harriet, and I hate it. Is it any wonder he never wants sex (mind you, neither do I) when I’m so foul-tempered?
Sometimes I think we’re just clinging together for the sake of our son. I am on the brink of asking my husband to leave, but fear that I’d be making the biggest mistake of my life.
What should I do?
Ginny, Lincs.
Dear Ginny,
How the fuck should I know?
Love, Caitlin
No, that won’t do. I am agony aunt on Britain’s weekly parenting bible, so I’d better dredge up something.
Should she leave him or not? I study Ginny’s elegantly looped handwriting, awaiting inspiration. Nothing. The sea monkeys drift lazily.
Damn, this isn’t going to be easy. Get it wrong and I could be partly responsible for the break-up of a marriage, which, although not rosy-glow perfect, is probably just suffering from a new-parenthood slump. Could Ginny sue me? The defendant, an unqualified jobbing journalist, advised our client to begin divorce proceedings. As a result, she has suffered considerable emotional distress.
I fling down Ginny’s letter and rake through the others for a more trivial problem, but can’t find any. Nadia from Upminster fears that she has obsessive compulsive disorder, often hurrying home from playgroup to check that she hasn’t left a gas ring on. Gutted from North Wales found condoms in her boyfriend’s jeans pocket. Guilt-ridden from Derbyshire is planning to move to Tuscany with her married boss and doesn’t know how to break it to her children. It seems that no one has minor concerns. If they do, they don’t bother writing to Pike about them. These women are on the brink of walking out on their men, of leaving their children, of setting their hair on fire. One woman is sleeping with her sister’s husband: ‘I know it’s wrong, and I hate myself every time I’m with him, but I can’t bear to let go of the one good thing in my life.’
She expects me to tell her what to do?
Fury and misery emanate from the pile. I can virtually smell it. It’s probably impregnating our kitchen table, seeping into the cracks. With half an hour before school pick-up, I gather up the letters and dump them beside my PC. My new file entitled ‘Prob Lady’ will, I hope, lend me an air of efficiency and purpose. I start to type:
Dear Ginny,
I’m sorry to hear that things are difficult for you. Have you tried telling your husband about how abandoned and desperate you feel?
Oh, please. Spare the droopy counsellor-speak. I delete and try again:
Dear Ginny,
It’s quite clear that your husband is an utter pig.
No, no. It may be true, but it’s hardly going to help her.
Dear Ginny,
The first year with a new baby is never easy. You are exhibiting definite signs of post-natal depression.
So I’m a doctor now, am I? Despite having spent not one minute studying medicine, I have somehow become a world-renowned expert on post-partum illness.
What do I know exactly? How to be a secretary in a magazine office and a half-arsed freelance writer? How to paint Lola’s nails, make Travis squeal with delight with raspberry-blows on his belly and apply Jake’s verruca lotion?
I type:
Dear Ginny,
I suggest that you make an effort to meet other women who will understand what you’re going through.
Right, like the hatchet-faced women at Three Bears parent and toddler group, to which I’d hauled Lola for ‘creative play’? I’d decided it wasn’t for me when Chief Bear, a formidable woman in a vast poo-coloured gathered skirt, had emerged from the kitchen bellowing, ‘Caitlin, did you do teas and coffees today?’
‘Um, yes …’ I’d muttered.
‘You used the sugar bowl from the pensioners’ lunch-club cupboard, not the Three Bears cupboard!’
<
br /> I hadn’t known whether to apologise profusely or start weeping, so I’d just shrugged and tried not to look scared.
‘You used the WRONG SUGAR BOWL!’ Chief Bear had thundered.
At which point, to avoid being bound to a rack and having boiling oil flung at me, I’d grabbed a startled Lola and stuffed her into her buggy. As we’d barged home, I’d decided that being trapped in a dingy kitchen with a grumbling fridge had to be preferable to Three Bears.
Anything was preferable to Three Bears.
I re-read Ginny’s letter, trying to glean inspiration by breathing deeply, like bellows. I feel quite light-headed as I type a reply.
My mind is racing when I set out to pick up the kids from school and nursery. I am hopelessly out of my depth with these problems, but isn’t it better to feel scared – to feel something – instead of muddling through each day with a head full of to-do lists and the various ways in which I could inflict pain on Martin and Slapper?
I realise, with a small stab of joy, that I haven’t thought about them all afternoon. And I’ve managed to cobble a reply to Ginny’s letter.
In the street, I spot Sam and hurry to catch up with him.
‘You look pleased with yourself,’ he ventures. ‘Something nice happen today?’
‘I’m not sure,’ I say, proceeding to fill him in on my dazzling new career as we stride towards school.
‘Sounds exciting,’ he says, grinning.
‘I think it could be.’
Yes, I’m a fake, and desperately unqualified to meddle with strangers’ lives. I am also free from writing about tongue fur and the gunk that collects between toes.
Which is a step in the right direction. Isn’t it?
7
‘You’re going to be a what?’ Rachel snorts.
Whoops, I must have inadvertently said that I’m plotting a new career as a pole-dancer or an escort. Rachel is the only woman who talked to me at Three Bears toddler group, consoling me over Sugar-bowl-gate. So grateful was I to see her each Thursday afternoon, we fell into a friendship and soon decided to hang out in the park instead, where no one would tell us off. When Martin left, she invited the kids and me round for numerous suppers and picnics on her lawn. Pummelling some kind of dough on her kitchen table, she is a gleaming example of what might be achieved when I, too, become a Proper Mother.
