Authors: Gil McNeil
Ellen’s the person I call first when I’m having a crisis, and she texts me rude jokes or choice bits of gossip when she’s in the studio, sometimes even when she’s on air and they’re doing the sports or the weather. It was Ellen I called the night Nick came home from another six-week stint in Jerusalem to say he’d got the foreign correspondent job; he was supposed to have been back for Valentine’s Day, but he was two days late, and he’d only had time to give me the highlights before he went up with the boys for bedtime stories, so I texted her while I was clearing up the supper things. They were always the ones to watch, Ellen and Nick, right from when we all first met on the BBC training course. They both had that slight shimmer on camera which natural television presenters always have. Rather than the slightly glazed look that was all the rest of us could manage when we were doing our studio training; I even managed to develop a mystery stutter, and fell right off my chair during one particularly tricky session. But I was much better on the production side, and by the end of the course I could edit a piece better than both of them put together, and we ended up getting the top three marks on the course. Although that all seems like a very long time ago now; like another life entirely.
I was still pottering in the kitchen tidying up and thinking about us having to move abroad for the new job, and whether it would be Johannesburg or Jerusalem, which both felt quite scary, or Moscow, which would just feel freezing, when Nick
came back down from storytime. And I was about to ask him where he thought we’d be going when I realised he had some more news to share, something he was less sure about, and I remember thinking I bet it’s bloody Moscow as he started making some fresh coffee and patting his hair down like he was preparing for a big piece to camera, some crucial bit of breaking news that would change everything. Which as it turned out it did, because the really big news was that he’d been having an affair, for just over a year, with a French UN worker called Mimi. A whole year when he’d been coming home with all his dirty laundry, demanding shepherd’s pie at midnight and saying he was exhausted, and then disappearing into the garden with his mobile. A whole fucking year.
He’d worked up a big speech about how he hoped we could be civilised about the divorce, because it was just one of those things, and he was very sorry, and he hadn’t meant for it to happen, but he was sure we could work something out, and Mimi loved kids and she was really looking forward to meeting the boys. And that was when it got through to me, because I’d been weirdly numb until that point, like I’d been catapulted into a parallel universe where if he’d only stop speaking and finish making the coffee everything would be back to normal. But suddenly I could see my boys being shuffled around airports, and I realised he was serious, and that’s when the shouting started.
I’m not usually very good at shouting, but this time I really gave it a go, and he was so bloody calm, like he was repeating lines he’d been rehearsing in the bathroom mirror, which knowing him he probably had; he kept doing his sympathetic-but-professional face, like he was interviewing someone who’d just had their house blown up with most of their family in it, which in a way of course I had. And he was so controlled and professional, right up until I threw the milk jug at him. The look on his face was priceless, a mixture of fury and panic and a
glimmer of admiration; I don’t think either of us thought I’d ever be the kind of person who’d hurl china about. But God it was worth it, even though it was me who had to crawl around afterwards sweeping all the bits up. And then he got furious and said I was being hysterical, and I said if he thought this was hysteria he was in for a big surprise, and if he thought he was going to be shuttling my lovely boys halfway round the world he could think again, and he stormed off in a huff saying I was being totally unreasonable, slamming the front door so hard one of the pictures in the hall fell off the wall. I was still picking up bits of glass when Ellen turned up, in full studio make-up and clutching a bottle of champagne ready to celebrate the new job.
We were sitting at the kitchen table when the policeman arrived, looking very nervous and fiddling with the hem of his fluorescent jacket, and he didn’t really look at me, but kept talking to Ellen while his radio crackled and he told her there’d been an accident and Nick had been in a car crash and the car had hit a big tree, and I remember thinking I’m always telling him to slow down and maybe now he’ll bloody listen and stop driving everywhere on two wheels, and then the policeman’s radio started crackling again and he went very pale, and Ellen started to cry.
And then she just took over, especially in the first few days when everything went foggy. She came with me to the hospital, to the side room with the curtains drawn and the young nurse who kept asking us if we wanted a cup of tea, and she dealt with everyone who turned up with flowers and cards, the press and all the people from work, and she was the one who sat with Nick’s parents who’d been so proud of him and couldn’t seem to grasp that their golden boy was gone and wanted someone to blame. She was completely stellar.
Mum and Dad came over from Italy and tried to be helpful but pretty much just got in the way, like they usually do, with Mum wanting special attention all the time and Dad looking
for jobs to do round the house and drilling holes in things, and my brother Vin came home and took care of the boys and helped me cope with Mum and Dad. Without him and Ellen I really don’t know how I would have coped. Not that I did much coping. You always hope that you’ll be one of those stalwart people in a crisis, kind and generous and capable, but now I know that in fact I’m crap in a crisis, silent and incapable. The only thing I really seemed to be able to do was sleep. For hours. It was like I was half unconscious, deep heavy numb sleep that left me more tired when I woke up. Ellen and Vin were busy sorting out the funeral and negotiating with Nick’s mum, who wanted something very formal with everyone in black veils and the boys in suits and a Jacqueline Kennedy moment with them stepping forward to salute, with trumpets if we could manage it, and an eternal flame in the middle of a Sussex churchyard. But they kept on going, and avoided the trumpets but arranged for music instead, Mahler and Elgar, and Vin lit candles, hundreds of them, and Archie wanted to know if it was someone’s birthday. Ellen had got a huge bunch of silver balloons for them to release at the graveside, which I wasn’t sure about because I thought there was a strong chance Archie would want to take them home, but it turned out to be very beautiful, and that was when I really lost it and behaved like a proper grieving widow, sobbing and holding the boys too tight, until Gran helped me back to the car, patting my back like she used to when I was little, stroking my hair and telling me it was all going to be all right, while Ellen and Vin took Archie and Jack for a walk.
The boys are showing Ellen how high they can bounce on my bed when I get upstairs.
‘Stop jumping, now, or you’ll break the bed.’
Archie’s bright red and breathless, and still bouncing. ‘You can’t break beds, Mummy. You’re just being stupid.’
Ellen laughs. ‘Don’t be cheeky, Archie, or I can’t give you your present.’
He sits down immediately, and crosses his arms and legs like he does at school when they sit on the mat for storytime.
Ellen’s usually got something highly unsuitable in one of her trendy bags, and today is no exception; she delves into a huge Mulberry leather tote and hands them each a potato gun and a large potato. How perfect. Now we can all dodge potato pellets for the rest of the day.
Jack flings his arms round her waist.
‘Oh, thank you, Aunty Ellen, thank you ever so much, I’ve always wanted a potato gun, for ever actually, but Mummy wouldn’t let me have one.’
He gives me one of his My Life Is Hopeless because of My Dreadful Mother looks (patent pending), and starts poking at his potato with the end of the gun. If I don’t stop him there’ll be bits of potato all over the upstairs landing carpet, and I’m trying to leave the house as tidy as possible for the new people, because Mrs Tewson in particular strikes me as someone who will be deeply unamused at finding bits of potato all over her new landing; she’s already asked me which cleaner I use on the kitchen tiles, which I’m pretty sure was her idea of a subtle hint.
‘Hang on a minute, Jack. Let’s get you dressed and then you can take your guns out into the garden. I wonder if the squirrel will be out?’
This does the trick, because they’re both desperate to vanquish the naughty squirrel who eats the birdfood we have to put out on a daily basis since Jack overdosed on sodding Bill Oddie’s
Bird Watch;
I keep meaning to write and ask them how Bill manages to avoid getting tangled up with marauding squirrels every time he tries to hang his nuts up, but I’ve got a feeling my letter might end up in the loony pile.
‘The squirrel will be very surprised if we get him with our guns, won’t he, Mummy?’
‘Yes, Archie.’
Ellen snorts. ‘He might just collect the bits of potato and go home and make chips.’
Archie giggles, but Jack gives her a rather worried look.
‘Squirrels don’t eat chips, Aunty Ellen, they haven’t got cookers.’
‘Oh. Right.’
‘Yes, they eat nuts and berries. Mostly.’
He looks at me for a spot of maternal approval. He likes confirmation when he’s got something right.
‘That’s right, Jack. Now let’s finish getting dressed, and Archie, please stop doing that, sweetheart.’
He’s jabbing his gun into a black plastic bin bag full of clothes; I’ve run out of suitcases and they’re mostly I’ll-never-wear-this-again-but-it-was-bloody-expensive things. Suits I used to wear to work, and small summer dresses I can’t get into any more, which I like to think I’ll be wearing again one day, when I wake up miraculously three stone smaller with a proper job which doesn’t involve squirrel hunting with potato guns. And that’s another thing: I thought sudden bereavement was meant to make you go all pale and wan and lose vast amounts of weight, but I seem to have done rather the opposite. Possibly because I’ve spent too many consoling hours with the biscuit tin; but it was either that or vodka and at least you can still do the school run when you’ve been mainlining Jaffa Cakes all day.
‘I want to wear my Spiderman outfit.’
‘Not today, Archie.’
I’d quite like to avoid moving house in fancy dress if we can possibly avoid it, but after a fairly concentrated round of stamping and shouting we agree on a compromise; he’ll wear the top and trousers, but not the face mask that he can’t actually breathe in and makes him sound like a mini-Darth Vader. And he’ll wear his wellies to go out in the garden, even
though officially Spiderman wouldn’t be seen dead in a pair of wellies. He’s still huffing and tutting as they go downstairs with Ellen for Squirrel Wars: The Final Revenge, while I try to work out what I need in the bags I’m taking with us in the car.
Our first night in the new house seems like a fairly crucial moment, and I want to get it right, and we’ll need Archie’s nightlight for definite, or he’ll never get to sleep. And Jack’s favourite dinosaur pillowcase with his name on, and warm pyjamas in case the boiler’s as useless as the survey predicted. God, I’m feeling really nervous about this; they’ve both been quite keen on the idea of moving so far, but I think that’s because we’ll be so near Gran, who they both adore, and not just because she tends to slip them bags of fluorescent sweets when she thinks I’m not looking. I think they know I’m more relaxed when we’re there, which means they can relax, too. Gran’s house has always been my place of safety, with summer picnics, and flannelette sheets in winter with a faint hint of lavender and a hot-water bottle, because Gran thinks electric blankets have a tendency to go berserk in the night and boil you while you’re asleep. But given how much more clingy and prone to tears they’ve both been over the past few months, especially Jack, they might change their minds when we get there. Jack hates change of any kind, and even a new cereal bowl can set him off, so I’m thinking a whole new house might be a bit of a challenge.
I’ve already put his old baby blanket in the car, because I’m pretty sure he’ll want it tonight; Archie’s never really gone in for special blankets, although he did get very attached to a yellow plastic hammer for a while, mainly because he liked hitting Jack with it. He even used to take it to bed with him until the magic fairies came and cheekily swapped it for a Captain Incredible outfit while he was asleep. But Jack used to carry his blanket everywhere, and it’s resurfaced over the past few months. I’m knitting him a new one, which was meant to be finished in time for the move, but I’m still
finishing the border, so that’s another thing I’ve failed to organise properly. But at least knitting it has kept me sane over the past few weeks when everything else has felt so out of control. He chose a seaside theme in honour of his new bedroom, so I’ve done pale-blue cotton squares, with a darker sky-blue border, and all the squares have fish motifs knitted into them, some more fishlike than others, but he loves it already so I’m hoping it’ll help him sleep, because he’s been waking up with bad dreams again recently.
I’ve just finished putting the bags into the car when George arrives with what appears to be Starbucks’ entire stock of muffins for the day, carrying in the grey cardboard trays and brown paper bags while the boys hop up and down with excitement at the prospect of a Muffin Mountain.
‘It’s a feast, Mummy, look. A proper feast. And I can have two, or even more, if I like, Aunty Ellen said I could.’
‘Well, let’s have a drink first, and see how you go shall we, Archie?’
I’m trying to divert his attention long enough to get some juice down him before he starts on the muffins, but I don’t know why I’m bothering, because he can eat incredibly quickly when he wants to; he’s like a hamster, he simply bulges out his cheeks so he can fit more in.
Jack’s drinking his juice, looking very chirpy.
‘The squirrel’s hiding up his tree and he won’t come down, so we’re shooting him up the tree, and it’s great.’