Why mummy drinks at chri.., p.4
Why Mummy Drinks at Christmas, page 4
‘Sweetheart, I hear what you’re saying. But I just don’t think bankrupting ourselves for two days in a hotel is the answer. Apart from anything else, I think you’d actually hate it.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You know what you’re like. Jane did have a point – you’re a control freak about things like Christmas. You’d hate someone else running it all. You barely cope on the rare occasions we go to someone else for Christmas; you sneak off and start peeling potatoes and polishing already-clean glasses and cutlery to give yourself something to do. You moan and moan about it, but you like being busy and in charge.’
‘I am not a control freak!’ I retorted indignantly. ‘It’s just no one else bothers to take bloody responsibility for anything. Except Jessica.’
‘Yes, Jessica is even more of a control freak,’ Simon agreed.
‘So I have to be in charge. If things are going to be done right. And also, FYI, I have only tried to polish other people’s glasses and cutlery at Louisa’s, and that’s because they looked like they’d been washed in a swamp. But I’d cope just fine in a 6-star hotel with a little man bringing me festive cockingtails to take my mind off the fact that my children are grown and I’ve been abandoned and my life is essentially empty and meaningless!’
‘Right,’ sighed Simon. ‘It’s still an obscene amount of money, though. So maybe you could find somewhere cheaper in which to have your existential crisis?’
I stomped off inside in a huff. It seemed that Simon was not to be swayed, and he possibly did make some valid points about the dogs. Imagine the horror if Judgy bit some vile rich American billionaire or something? And, on reflection, it was ludicrously expensive, and what if we did spend all that money and everyone else staying there was ghastly? I could spend Christmas with my mother and Geoffrey for a fraction of the price if I wanted appalling people expressing politically incorrect opinions to me.
In the absence of my Perfect Christmas, thwarted by parsimonious husbands and obstreperous dogs, I decided to wallow in my so-called existential crisis by sorting through the Christmas decorations and having a good cry over all the hideous glitter-smeared-probably-stuck-together-with-snot monstrosities my precious moppets had presented me with while growing up and insisted on being displayed each year. If they weren’t bothering to come home, why, at least I could transform my home into a tasteful bower of Christmas sparkle, with nary a sodding bog-roll angel wearing an expression suggesting that a shepherd had just made a deeply inappropriate comment to her, or a balding pipe cleaner not-quite-sure-what-it-was-ever-meant-to-be-but-I had-expressed-deep-admiration-and-love-for-it-for-fifteen-years to be seen. And then, after a good cry over the sticky Christmas tat – still managing to shed glitter dandruff everywhere after all these years, because glitter is truly the gift that keeps on giving – I could pop over to the John Lewis website and spend the money from Jane’s returned thermals on some delightful new decorations that had never had a toddler stick a sequin onto them with their own bogeys.
I hauled down the box and started going through everything. Proper decorations in one box, the children’s creations in another that was going straight back in the attic (I wasn’t being quite so monstrous or lacking in maternal spirit as to throw them out – apart from anything else, there’s a certain schadenfreude in the thought of the children having to be the ones to throw out their own tat after I’m dead! Then they’d be sorry they hadn’t come home for Christmas).
Oh look! I pulled out a crumbling lump of grey clay, a bit of plastic ribbon glued to the back and a few stray flakes of glitter still clinging to the surface, which was indented with an unidentifiable shape. Jane’s first Christmas decoration that she made at nursery when she was a baby! It was supposed to be her footprint. Or possibly her hand print, it looked like she had wriggled violently while the impression was being taken. I felt quite choked up, looking at the tiny smudge that had once been Jane’s little hand or footprint. In a fit of emotion, I took a photo and texted it to her.
Look! Isn’t it adorable?
Jane didn’t reply. No doubt too busy planning après-ski parties with Rich Rafferty or trying on her salopettes without sufficient thermal underwear beneath or still angry with me for my attempts at maternal concern or, possibly even, God forbid, now she’s in her third year at university, actually doing some work. I laughed hollowly to myself at this foolish notion as I wrapped the smudged lump of clay back up in its crumpled, faded tissue paper and reflected that actually given the disaster that was Jane’s First Christmas, it was a wonder I had kept anything to remind me of it.
23 December, nineteen years ago
I’d been braced for some kind of tug of love between the two sets of grandparents over who would get to experience the Festive Period with the First Grandchild when Jane was ten months old, but in the end there was no battle at all. My mother was quite surprised when I asked her how she’d feel if we went to Simon’s parents instead of coming to her and Geoffrey in Yorkshire.
‘Why would you think I’d mind?’ she said in surprise. ‘I can’t possibly have you here anyway. Jessica is coming with Little Persephone and Neil, I couldn’t cope with two babies in the house. I only have one travel cot! All that noise, it would upset the cats dreadfully. Not to mention Geoffrey,’ she added as an afterthought.
Oh nice. My own mother had invited my sister and not me, Little Persephone, being six months old at the time, already being earmarked to be the Golden Child. I wasn’t really surprised by my mother’s decision to put her Siamese cats’ welfare above spending Christmas with both her daughters and new granddaughters, and in truth it made it rather easier. Simon’s mother Sylvia had been phoning daily since mid-October, demanding to be informed of our Christmas plans because she had to let the butcher know what size of turkey to order, and it was terribly important for family to be together at Christmas, especially now she had a grandchild, and she really wanted her whole family all together under one roof. She was also very keen we should be there to make an appearance at her Annual Christmas Eve Drinks for the neighbours, though I strongly suspected that was more about showing off her Only Son than about familial tenderness.
So it was that we duly journeyed to deepest, darkest Surrey, arriving at Sylvia and Michael’s house, The Laurels, on Christmas Eve, feeling slightly trepidatious. Jane, precocious at just ten months, had decided to start walking the day before, and although very wobbly on her feet, was determined that nothing was going to stop her. I feared for Sylvia’s antique china collection, as Jane’s progress and directional skills were currently more down to luck than design.
I was dying for a pee when we arrived, Simon having that male mentality that it’s better to piss yourself en route than to stop somewhere and thus fail to ‘beat’ your previous journey time. I got out of the car and heaved Jane from her car seat as Sylvia came rushing out to meet us.
Sylvia was a wafting, scarf-hung creature who took watercolour classes to demonstrate her creativity to everyone. A brief secretarial stint at the BBC before marrying Michael had convinced her that she was practically Mariella Frostrup, and she doted on her Only Son such that every time she mentioned him I could see her mentally capitalising the words. I’m not sure who would have been suitable to be married to the Only Son – perhaps some sort of royalty? – but it certainly wasn’t me.
‘My darling boy,’ she cried. ‘And my wonderful granddaughter. Who is Mamie’s most precious girl?’ she cooed as she snatched Jane off me and clutched her to her scarf-swathed bosom, before her nose wrinkled in disgust.
‘Oh dear,’ she gagged. ‘This child needs changing!’ Jane was unceremoniously thrust back at me.
I hopped from foot to foot as I passed her over to Simon. ‘Sylvia, it’s lovely to see you, but I really do need to go to the loo,’ I gasped, as I dashed into the house. When I returned from the bathroom, Sylvia was standing in the hall, holding Jane at arm’s length, muttering darkly to Simon with a face like a bulldog licking piss off a nettle. Jane, quite clearly, had not been changed.
‘What are you doing, Simon?’ I asked. ‘Why haven’t you changed Jane?’
‘Don’t be silly, Ellen,’ Sylvia sniffed. ‘Of course Simon can’t change Jane. I don’t know what you were thinking.’
‘It’s the twenty-first century,’ I pointed out. ‘He most certainly can change his own child.’
Sylvia gave her special tinkly laugh, the one she only uses when she’s really cross. I remember hearing that laugh a LOT at both our engagement party and our wedding.
‘Simon is exhausted,’ she tinkled. ‘He should go and have a drink with his father, he’s far too tired to change a baby,’ and she plonked Jane firmly in my arms and marched away, calling, ‘Come along, Simon darling!’
‘Really?’ I said to Simon, as he turned to trail after his mother.
He shrugged apologetically. ‘Sometimes it’s easier to just do what she wants.’
‘Right,’ I said slowly, and started up the stairs with Jane, to the Best Spare Room. We had been grudgingly granted the Best Spare Room for the Only Son (and now the Fruit of His Loins) when Simon had put his foot down, after we were married, at Sylvia’s ongoing attempts to banish me to the box room and tuck up her Darling Boy in his childhood bedroom. I had always thought this most unreasonable of Sylvia, until Jane had suggested the boyfriend before Stupid Rich Rafferty could stay in her room and I desperately attempted not to clutch my pearls and shriek, ‘My baby is not Doing The Sex Under My Roof,’ and I realised how difficult it is, after years of trying to protect your children from such Nastinesses, to have to condone them shagging in your child’s lovingly Annie Sloaned shabby-chic bedroom.
Back downstairs, I put Jane on the floor outside the drawing room to try to gain some brownie points with Sylvia by showing off her new clever trick of walking.
After some coaxing, as Jane was more interested in climbing into the hairy and malodorous bed belonging to Monty, Michael’s ancient Labrador, in search of potential snackage, I proudly led her into the drawing room on her feet.
‘Look!’ I said proudly to Michael and Sylvia.
‘Oh!’ said Sylvia in delight, jumping to her feet. ‘CLEVER girl, Jane. You have learned to walk at Mamie’s house! Did you do this just for Mamie? Oh, just wait till all the neighbours see this at the Christmas Eve Drinks!’
Jane, who had now plonked herself on the floor and was investigating the Aubusson for any crumbs Monty might have missed, ignored her grandmother’s fulsome praise.
‘Actually, she started walking yesterday,’ I told Sylvia.
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ said Sylvia coldly. ‘Of course she’s only just started since she got here, she was saving it for me!’
‘No, Mum. She did it yesterday. Really,’ Simon insisted.
Sylvia looked mutinous for a moment, as she tried to work out how exactly to make Jane walking yesterday be about her, Sylvia. Finally, she beamed.
‘Yes,’ she smirked. ‘I expect she was practising because she knew she was going to see me today! I expect she’ll start talking while she’s here too. Can you say Mamie, Jane, darling? Mamie?’
I opened my mouth to object to the many levels of nonsense here, due to Jane being TEN MONTHS OLD and therefore having no concept of time, very little idea of who fucking Sylvia even was (‘Mamie, darling. Say Mamie.’ Why couldn’t she just be Granny or Grandma? Where had she come up with the incredibly pretentious ‘Mamie’? When asked, she vaguely said something about it being French, and much more chic than being a Granny. No doubt she’d soon rewrite history to tell everyone that Jane had come up with the chic et française ‘Mamie’ all by herself, because her Only Son’s Child was Just So Bright). Before I could argue, though, Simon’s father Michael thrust a cocktail into my hand. Michael is the polar opposite of Sylvia, in that he exudes charm and joie de vivre and gives no fucks about anything, whereas Sylvia gives so many fucks she could give Hugh Hefner a run for his money.
‘I made Manhattans,’ he said brightly. ‘I thought we all might need them. Get that down you, my dear, and you’ll soon be feeling no pain.’
I took a slug of what is basically a sociable acceptable way to consume neat booze, and nearly choked. Bloody hellfire, they were strong. Michael was right, though; almost immediately everything was clouded in a lovely pink haze. I slumped happily on the sofa and handed Jane an organic rice cake. From somewhere far away I heard a whimpering sound from Sylvia at this, and a cry of something about the cushions, but Michael shushed her. ‘It’s only a bloody biscuit. We’ve got a Hoover, haven’t we?’
I did suppress a thought that the trouble with Jane and rice cakes wasn’t so much that she dropped crumbs as she tended to suck them into some sort of paste and then smear them over a far larger area than you’d think one rice cake soaked in baby drool could possibly go, but fuck it, this cocktail was lovely, and maybe, just maybe, someone else could take responsibility for Jane for one minute. Like … ooh, her FATHER, perhaps?
I roused myself from my pleasant whiskey stupor to hear Sylvia saying, ‘And dinner will be at eight o’clock sharp, everyone. Beef bourguignon.’
‘Perfect,’ I said. ‘We usually put Jane down at about seven, so that gives us plenty of time to get her settled.’
‘Put Jane down?’ Sylvia blinked at me. ‘As in, put her to bed? But what about her dinner? She’ll miss dinner.’
‘She has her dinner about five o’clock, though?’ I said in confusion. ‘She’s ten months old, Sylvia, she can’t wait till eight o’clock for her dinner. She’s asleep by then.’
‘But I had assumed Jane would just be sitting up and eating with us. Dinner won’t be ready at five o’clock, there’ll be nothing for her to eat.’
‘I’m not sure she’d eat beef bourguignon anyway,’ I said doubtfully. ‘I can do her some scrambled egg or something, and some yoghurt and fruit?’
Sylvia did her best mouth-like-a-cat’s-bum face. ‘MY children always simply ate what we ate, when we ate it. You are making a rod for your own back, Ellen, pandering to that child like that. How do you think it will affect Simon? You need to consider his needs too; it’s going to make life difficult for him as well as you. The key to raising children,’ she went on airily, ‘is that they must fit into your life, not the other way round.’
Simon started laughing. ‘Come off it, Mum. What are you on about? All this “my children ate what we ate, when we ate it” guff? Yeah, we did, when we were about fourteen and you considered us fit to be seen in public. Before that we got baked beans in the kitchen with the au pairs.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ huffed Sylvia. ‘Baked beans indeed.’
‘Anyway, Ma, Ellen’s a great mum and we’re all doing fine. And actually, Ellen, you look knackered, babe, so why don’t I do Jane’s dinner? At five o’clock?’
‘Simon,’ wailed Sylvia, ‘you can’t possibly do that, darling, you work so hard! Mummy will do it for you!’
Through a haze of whiskey I watched all the hard-won notions of feminism and equality and co-parenting I had battled to instil in Simon over the last few years, especially in the months since Jane was born, dissolve at the idea of simply letting Mummy do it for him. I really should say something, I thought vaguely. But I was finding it rather hard to move, other than to allow Michael to remove my empty glass and hand me a full one in its stead.
‘I’d let Sylvia and Simon get on with it,’ he murmured.
Despite Michael’s advice, I was summonsed to the kitchen to oversee Jane’s dinner. I slumped at the table, working my way through a box of mint Matchmakers that Sylvia had offered me. She’d said that her cleaning lady had given them to her, thus implying that they were good enough for me. Sylvia was cooking scrambled eggs with a martyred expression while Simon hovered around looking as manly as a man can look when he’s thirty bloody two years old and his mother is showering him with praise for managing to find a spoon for his daughter’s dinner like he’d just done his first poo in his potty.
‘Oh well done, darling. Clever boy! It’s very good of you to be so hands on with the baby, isn’t it?’
‘Sylvia, stop!’ I yelped as she reached for the salt. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Seasoning it, silly,’ she laughed.
‘You can’t give her salt!’
‘What? But it won’t taste of anything.’
‘I know, but it’s bad for babies.’
‘Since when?’
‘Since always.’
‘I don’t remember that.’
‘That’s because you spent our childhood in a haze of Valium and gin,’ Simon muttered, as I earnestly explained to Sylvia about salt poisoning and how terrible it was for children and dogs (I wasn’t sure how I’d got onto the subject of dogs in my explanation, but I think it might have been to do with the Manhattans. It was a mistake anyway, as Sylvia immediately pointed out that it didn’t do Monty the Labrador any harm, therefore this was just one of those foolish new-fangled scaremongering notions introduced by This New Internet Thingy. Sylvia had a deep-rooted fear of The Internet, also always to be pronounced With Capital Letters, to make clear its Threat).
‘Anyway …’ said Sylvia blithely, waving her Joseph Joseph spatula at me as she merrily tipped half a packet of Maldon sea salt into her Le Creuset pan and I reflected that at least it would be a very middle-class case of salt poisoning for Jane (surely when I explained to the social worker in A&E that it was the finest sea salt flakes afflicting my cherub and not a grain of Saxo had ever passed her rosy little lips they’d understand that I was a good mother and I just had a completely batshit mother-in-law), ‘… the trouble with you, Ellen, is you have an overactive imagination! I expect it’s that broken home again, as you always imagine the worst-case scenario. A tiny bit of salt won’t hurt. Nor will a smidge of pepper,’ she added, grinding away like an overexcited Italian waiter on speed.
