Why mummy drinks at chri.., p.24
Why Mummy Drinks at Christmas, page 24
‘Do? Well, you’re going to that ice hotel place, aren’t you?’
‘I can’t go by myself.’
‘Why not?’
‘I have children! I can’t travel alone with children.’
‘People do.’
‘I don’t know how. I’ve seen them in airports, all frazzled and cross while the children run amok on those hideous Trunki things, breaking people’s ankles. It’s awful. I can’t, I simply can’t. People might think I’m a single mother. And I tried to get Marie-Christine, my nanny, to come with me, but she’s going back to Geneva and refused to change her plans, quite rudely actually, and I’ve given the cleaners the week off too, and they also said they weren’t changing their plans and coming into work, and even Alejandra the au pair – we went Spanish this year, it’s one of the few languages the children haven’t been exposed to, because I’m just not a Spain sort of person – well, even she has refused to stay on and help out, so what am I going to do?’
‘I still don’t understand the problem, Jessica.’
‘Isn’t it obvious? I’m going to be left alone with my children for at least a week, and I don’t know how I’m supposed to cope!’
‘But you always cope, Jessica. That’s what you do! You’re a coper! An organiser. The person who gets things done!’
‘No,’ wailed Jessica. ‘No, I delegate. I organise other people, that’s how I cope. I can’t do it myself. How can I keep track of both children in the airport without Neil to help? What if one of them gets kicked in the head by a reindeer in Lapland and has to be airlifted to hospital and there isn’t room for the other child in the helicopter and I either have to abandon one child to their fate with vicious marauding reindeer or else leave my wounded baby alone with the Lapland medical service while I stay behind to fight off the rabid reindeer?’
One thing about Louisa and Jessica, I reflected, was that between them they made me feel very normal. Louisa made me feel like you could definitely be too relaxed and chilled out, and Jessica made me realise that I could ratchet my own catastrophising up several notches and still not even be close to her.
‘Please, Ellen, you need to help me!’ Jessica pleaded.
Ooooh, I thought. Maybe she was going invite me to the swanky Lapland ice hotel thingy. I mean, it sounded bizarre and brutally cold, but it also sounded better than spending a week with Louisa and the six feral fiendlettes she now had in tow. Simon, I was sure, would understand that my sister needed me, and would cope just fine with his own sister and family, and Jane and Peter. I thought gleefully that an ice hotel would probably be a really good place to drink martinis, because they wouldn’t get warm. I could pretend I was the Snow Queen (I always thought she was very misunderstood). Though if I was in Lapland being the Snow Queen, I’d miss out on a vital opportunity to swank as the Festive Queen. But also Snow Queen. And a man to make me martinis. I could probably cope.
But no. Jessica had a much better idea than that.
‘I thought I could come and stay with you,’ she whimpered. ‘It would be so nice for the cousins to spend some time together and get to know each other properly.’
I knew once Jessica had made up her mind about something, much like Louisa, there was little option but to do what she wanted. Still, I reasoned, it might be fun! The more the merrier! After all, what was the worst that could happen? Really, you’d have thought I’d have learned by then to stop tempting fate like that.
‘When were you thinking of coming?’ I asked resignedly, casting my mind over Fanny’s instructions for guests, including biscuits and books for spare rooms, writing paper and envelopes and stamps for some reason (Fanny was alarmingly obsessed with stamps), and jigsaws to occupy children after meals – I feared I’d be letting Fanny down horribly as I’d be cramming people in as and where I could, on sofas and floors and airbeds and not a scrap of writing paper to be found. As for the jigsaws, last year I tried to get Jane and Peter to do a Christmas jigsaw and Jane rammed a corner of the Nativity stable up Peter’s nostril; we only narrowly avoided A&E by my ad hoc expedient of fishing the ice out my gin and hastily slapping it onto his bleeding nose. The electronic babysitter would suffice, the price of stamps was extortionate so they could buy their own, and if Jessica and Louisa wanted jigsaws, they could supervise and minister to the injured ones. But still, I conjured a jolly image of familial bliss, of rosy-cheeked, laughing cousins, of merry games of Monopoly and Scrabble (actually not Scrabble, my children were too good at the rude-word version and Jessica might faint if they taught Persephone and Gulliver any of their extensive vocabulary), and Dickensian feasts and charades.
I realised Jessica was still on the phone, and squawking. ‘Ellen? Are you still there? I said I was going to come tomorrow! Neil is leaving first thing for his flight, then I’ll drop Marie-Christine and Alejandra at the airport once the children are up and dressed and packed and ready to go, and we’ll come straight on to you after that. We should be with you by mid-afternoon.’
‘Right,’ I said, still trying to work out where everyone would sleep. ‘See you then!’
‘Don’t worry!’ said Jessica brightly. ‘I’ll bring the pickled beetroot and my Fortnum’s Christmas pudding.’
‘Why do you even have a Christmas pudding if you were going to Lapland for Christmas?’
‘I was going to take it with me. And the beetroot. For tradition,’ Jessica said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world to go all the way to Lapland with a jar of pickled beetroot and a Fortnum & Mason Christmas pudding in your hand luggage.
‘Right,’ I said again. ‘Of course. Well, see you tomorrow!’
I looked around the house, wondering where on earth we were going to put everyone. Still, I reasoned, it was only for a few nights. We’d manage. Somehow. Jessica might have to sleep on the sofa, which she’d be unimpressed by, but she’d just have to make the best of it. I was putting Louisa and the three smallest urchins in the spare room on the basis that I could burn the sheets on their departure, but I couldn’t really burn the sofa. At least Jessica was hygienic. The other children would all have to bunk down in Peter and Jane’s rooms as best they could on a selection of airbeds and camping mattresses and old duvets.
It would be fine, I told myself. It would be better than fine! Imagine all those happy, glowing little faces opening their stockings beside my (really very tasteful and quite fucking magical) Christmas tree! What could be better than two children opening their stockings? Why, ten children opening stockings! Ten? Were there really going to be ten children? Oh bollocks. Ten children? Fine, I reminded myself. It’ll be fine. Ten children, four adults, still only fourteen people, still fewer than there had been at Ty’r Ywen, and that had been fine, even though all those people had been adults and none of them had been Louisa. But it would be fine!
Simon was less convinced.
‘Seriously? Jessica can’t cope with her children on her own for a few days?’
‘Apparently not.’
‘So why does she need to come here? Why can’t she go to your mother’s? She’s the Golden Child, after all.’
‘They’re going to Lady Rosalind’s.’
‘Who?’
‘I dunno, but Mum practically orgasms every time she mentions her name.’
‘What a hideous mental image.’
‘Don’t be mean, it’s probably the only ones she’s ever had since she met Geoffrey,’ I said, honour bound to defend Mum.
‘But why can’t Jessica go on this doubtless very expensive trip they’d planned?’ Simon wanted to know.
‘People might think she’s a single mother.’
‘Oh, the humanity.’
‘Well, there’s only three of them. There’s seven from your side, with all Louisa’s children, so your family is still adding double the number of people,’ I pointed out.
‘Yes, but now we have both extremes of the batshittery spectrum descending on us. Halle-fucking-lujah!’ Simon threw himself off the sofa and picked up his car keys.
‘Where are you going?’
‘Majestic. We’re going to need a LOT more wine!’
Louisa and fiends arrived first, their arrival heralded by the traditional cloud of black smoke and bangs from the backfiring exhaust of her latest clapped-out camper van, which I was not convinced was legal, MOTed, taxed or insured, since apparently Louisa had bought this one from a man in a pub for cash as it was ‘untraceable’ and thus the robot birds wouldn’t know how to track it.
They piled out of the van and trailed up the path. Louisa froze halfway and eyed a pigeon in horror.
‘That’s one,’ she hissed under her voice. ‘Quick, children, look away, don’t make eye contact, they scan your retinas’.
The children were rapidly hustled into the house and the door slammed against the innocent and surprised pigeon, who’d been happily chewing down the remnants of a Ginsters cheese and onion pasty someone had abandoned in the gutter.
‘You’ve got to be on your guard constantly,’ Louisa told me. ‘It’s been an exhausting journey. Have you noticed the hawks hovering over the motorways?’
Baby Boreas, the last blessing of Louisa’s womb before Bardo’s betrayal of it with Carol the rich American divorcee, was now in a sling on Louisa’s hip, although he looked to be around two. The other children milled around mutinously, gazing in awe at the light fittings, the radiators and the TV.
‘It’s hot in here,’ announced one of them, discarding several layers of grubby rags.
‘I know, darlings,’ said Louisa, ‘it’s really not healthy. Ellen, can we get some windows open or something?’
‘But then the pigeons will be able to hear you,’ I pointed out, glad of such an easy excuse to keep my lovely central-heated air in my nice cosy house. ‘Louisa, did you all leave your shoes in the van?’
Louisa looked down at fourteen filthy bare feet. ‘Oh no. We don’t wear shoes now. We live the barefoot life. It’s so much better for you, so grounding, and it really makes it easy to feel the ley lines running below you. You simply can’t pick up that sort of energy with your shoes on. I’m standing on one now, actually, it’s really rather erotic.’
‘But it’s December,’ I said in astonishment. ‘Surely you don’t go out and around the place with no shoes on?’
‘Oh yes,’ said Louisa. ‘Cedric, don’t eat that,’ she put in to her eldest who was excavating something out his ear with a black fingernail. ‘Doesn’t matter the time of year. Actually, it’s better in winter. More primeval, y’know. Try it!’
‘I’m OK, thanks. Anyway, do come through.’
‘Don’t look at the TV, kids,’ Louisa urged her offspring as they trudged past the living room and into the kitchen. ‘That’s another way they scan your retinas.’
‘Look,’ I said smugly, ‘I’ve got organic, gluten-free vegan mince pies for you all, as a lovely festive treat to celebrate your arrival.’
‘Oh dear, no, processed sugar. It’s poison, Ellen, pure poison. Coventina, stop! Spit it out. Oh no, you’ve swallowed it. I’ll have to cleanse your aura later. Ellen, I’m concerned about the microwave.’
‘What about it?’
‘It emits death rays. Can’t you get rid of it?’
‘No. If you don’t like it, you can go back to France for Christmas.’
‘I can’t,’ said Louisa sulkily. ‘Mummy called in the exterminators to my house when she heard I was coming here for Christmas. I told her the mice and the black beetles have a right to life, but she wouldn’t listen. I insisted they’re not to use chemicals and only humane traps and lemon juice, but they still said I can’t be in the house for seven days.’
The doorbell rang, and I left Louisa anxiously scanning the kitchen for anything else that might be trying to kill her or spy on her – might the Magimix be in the pay of Big Food Processor?
Jessica stood on the doorstep looking stressed, with Persephone and Gulliver, a mountain of luggage and a small, white puffball.
‘I finally made it!’ she cried triumphantly, implying her journey had been something akin to Hannibal crossing the Alps rather than a couple of hours down the motorway in a Mercedes 4×4.
‘What’s that?’ I asked, nodding at the puffball.
‘That’s my dog. BooBoo.’
‘BooBoo?’
‘The children named her.’
‘When did you get a dog?’
‘About three weeks ago.’
‘She doesn’t look like a puppy.’
‘No, she’s about eighteen months old. I got her from Carl at work; he was moving to the Cayman Islands for tax purposes and couldn’t take her, so we were incredibly lucky to get her. They’re very rare.’
‘What is it?’
‘She. She’s a cavacockajackasprackapoo.’
‘A fucking what?’
‘A cavacockajackasprackapoo. Haven’t you heard of them, Ellen? I thought you knew about dogs. They’re a special hypoallergenic breed.’
‘They’re bloody mutts!’ I said.
‘They are not mutts. She cost me four grand.’
‘Mutt! Why didn’t you tell me you were bringing a dog? What about Judgy?’
‘But dogs love playing with other dogs.’
‘He’s not “other dogs”. He’s a Border terrier,’ I reminded her. ‘Well, it’s too late now. We’ll just have to hope they get on. You’d better come in. Louisa’s already here,’ I said, looking doubtfully at the huge heap of bags. ‘Um, do you really need all that stuff, Jess? Can’t some of it stay in the car?’
‘No, I need it all,’ she insisted, filling my small hallway with her goods and chattels, half of which appeared to belong to BooBoo, but this was a battle for another day and at least Louisa seemed to be travelling quite light (if you didn’t count the six children and the emotional baggage).
To my relief, Judgy seemed quite taken with BooBoo, though she was so hairy I wasn’t sure which end he was sniffing. BooBoo seemed less enamoured with Judgy, but the main thing was he hadn’t turned her into a snackapoo.
I decided, after everyone had been fed according to their varying dietary requirements (hurrah for Fanny’s coping strategies) and Jessica had also rejected the mince pies on the same toxic sugar grounds as Louisa (how much simpler my life had become once I’d given up such notions and realised the fine bribery potential of such toxins), that board games would be a good, wholesome way to while away the rest of the afternoon until Simon got home from work and I commenced #OperationFeedTheFiveThousand Round 2. Jessica lobbied hard for Scrabble for educational purposes, but fearing just how educational it might be, I told her that Peter had eaten all the vowels. This was a lie, of course, as he had only eaten an ‘X’ and an ‘R’, but Jessica believed me. I put on my Now That’s What I Call Christmas! CD and exhorted the children to have festive fun, while I opened us a bottle of festive cheer.
Despite Louisa’s handwringing over the plastic peril, she found a ley line that told her she could detox the children back in France, and a delightful game of Twister was embarked on. The children played several rounds of this, getting hot and sweaty and up in each other’s faces, and generally laughing and tumbling and having fun. I was starting to think this might not be the worst way to spend Christmas, when I noticed Persephone scratching her stomach.
‘What’s that rash on her tummy?’ I asked Jessica.
‘Oh, it’s probably just stress with saying goodbye to Marie-Christine and Alejandra. Oh, and Neil,’ said Jessica.
Jane, ever the keen hypochondriac, was on the case, though, and examining her cousin’s stomach.
‘Chickenpox,’ she announced with satisfaction.
‘What?’ I said in alarm. No, no, no. Pox was not in my Grand Festive Plans. At no point had I considered this. Fanny gave no coping instructions for pox ridden children. Perhaps I could stick a stamp on them and post them elsewhere?
‘Definitely chickenpox!’ said Jane.
‘How do you know?’
‘I googled it last week when I had a rash. I hoped it might be chickenpox and I could stay off school.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me you had a rash?’
‘Because I googled it, and it wasn’t chickenpox. But this is chickenpox, I know what it looks like. So now we’ll all probably get chickenpox too, because Persephone has breathed over all of us and she’s still infectious.’
Jessica was on her phone, also googling feverishly. ‘It is chickenpox,’ she wailed. ‘Oh, my precious baby. Gulliver, come here, let me have a look at you.’
Gulliver, it transpired, was also poxy.
‘How didn’t you notice?’ I demanded.
‘Marie-Christine and Alejandra got them dressed this morning. And you didn’t notice when Jane had a rash last week. Oh God. Do you think I should take them to A&E?’
‘For chickenpox? When they’re totally fine, apart from a few spots? I don’t think so,’ I said in my most reassuring tones.
‘What about an out-of-hours GP, then? I’ve got BUPA, we can go privately.’
‘Again, probably not really necessary?’
‘Can I at least phone 111 to check what I should do?’ begged Jessica.
‘I think what you should do is take them home,’ I suggested. ‘If they haven’t infected the others by now, they definitely will if you stay and there’s really not room to keep them all separated to stop it spreading.’
Jessica clutched my arm in panic. ‘No,’ she said in horror. ‘No, Ellen, you can’t send me home. You know you can’t. It’s Christmas. There’s no magic in a Christmas alone with chickenpoxy children! I need the magic, Ellen.’
‘I’m not sure there’s going to be much magic here, with said poxy children, Jessica! And it’s not just my kids, is it? I mean, if it was just them, I’d say fine, they’re bound to get it at some point and it might as well be now. But what about Louisa’s kids? If they’re not already infected, she might not want them to be exposed.’
