Authors: Gil McNeil
It’s Friday morning and I’m wedged in the shop window trying to be Artistic with cramp in my arm. I finished knitting the fish last night, with Gran’s help, and now they’re all bobbing around on lengths of nylon thread looking very nautical, especially the stripy ones, which look rather like angel fish, only woollier. I’m stapling some dark-blue net to the pegboard partition on top of the silver net I put up earlier; I’m aiming for an impressionistic wave-like shimmer, but so far it’s all going a bit
Blue Peter.
People keep stopping to wave at me through the glass, which is embarrassing, and I’ve got sand up both my sleeves.
‘I don’t know how on earth we’re going to get all that sand out you know. It’ll be a devil to clean up.’
I think we can safely say that Elsie’s still Not Keen.
‘We can use the Hoover.’
‘You’ll have a job. That old thing can barely suck up a bit of fluff, let alone a a load of dirty old sand. What are these things meant to be then?’
She hands me one of the papier-mâché starfish I made with the boys at the weekend, which probably wasn’t one of my best ideas, especially since there are now bits of newspaper glued to the kitchen floor, the side of the fridge, and the soles of my flipflops. I must try to remember that Art With Small Boys is best
left to professionals, or people with ready access to tranquillisers.
‘They’re starfish.’
She sniffs. ‘I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a purple starfish, but never mind. I’ll make a start on tidying up in the back, shall I? Those pattern books are in a terrible muddle again.’
‘Good idea.’
Christ. Beam me up, somebody; she’s driving me mad this morning, and if she carries on like this I may have to staple her to something to keep her out of my way. I wonder what she’d look like covered in dark-blue net?
Apart from Elsie and her comments, and being stuck in this bloody window, everything else has been going rather well; we’ve been in the new house for nearly a fortnight, and we’ve got a fully functioning telly now, thanks to Billie turning up in her Sky van, with a special belt for holding all her tools and a relaxed attitude to being trailed round the house by boys watching her every move. Although I think she’d underestimated just how much they’d been missing
Sponge Bob Square Pants,
because she went very red when they both kissed her goodbye.
The really good news is that Vin’s arrived, with his new girlfriend, Lulu, who’s been a huge success, not least because the boys think her name is completely hilarious. And instead of spending all day lounging about and looking glamorous, like her predecessor did, sipping water and refusing to eat anything with more than three calories in it, she helped me paint the big wall in the hall yesterday, which was good of her, particularly since she got the dodgy roller with the wobbly handle.
The boys are in seventh heaven in the new house, and if they’re not out in the garden making camps with the clothes horse and most of my sheets they’re on the beach, or campaigning to go fishing in the harbour, where they like to spend hours trying to catch teeny crabs while I lose the will to live. And
there’s definitely less bickering since they’ve gone all Famous Five; I think all the fresh air is knackering them; and if they do start niggling Vin holds them upside down by their feet until they stop, which isn’t a technique I’ve seen in any of the books, but works pretty well, and I’d give it a go if I didn’t think I’d drop them on their heads.
I’m trying to drape a piece of orange nylon fishing net over some driftwood when there’s a loud banging on the window which nearly gives me a heart attack. I’ve been having visions of crashing through the glass and ending up in a heap on the pavement for most of the morning, and it looks like this might be my moment. But it’s the boys, with Gran, and she’s very impressed with the window.
‘It looks so pretty. You’re very artistic, you know. I’d never have thought of anything like this. What are those purple things?’
‘They’re the starfish the boys made.’
‘Well aren’t you clever boys?’
They nod.
‘Morning, Elsie. Doesn’t it all look lovely?’
Elsie sniffs again. ‘I liked it the way it was, but this is nice, too, I suppose.’
Gran turns to me. ‘I better be off, then, love. The match is due to start soon.’
She’s wearing her special blazer and her white pleated skirt; they like to look smart at the Bowls Club, especially when they’ve got a match on, and if you turn up in a velour tracksuit like Mrs Chambers from the baker’s did they make you go straight home again and get changed.
‘Thanks, Gran, and I hope you win.’
‘We left Vinnie in bed, bless him, but we took them in a cup of tea, before we left.’
We wave her off down the road.
Archie starts giggling. ‘When we took Uncle Vin his tea,
guess what, Mum? They were doing kissing, him and Aunty Lulu, they were.’
He makes a series of very realistic retching noises.
Jack puts his hand up, like they do at school.
‘Yes, and Uncle Vin said a swear word. And it was a really bad one. Shall I tell you?’
‘No, thank you, darling.’
‘It was the F word.’
I’m pretty sure I can hear Elsie smirking.
‘I’m sure it wasn’t, Jack, and anyway, grown-ups are allowed to do different things to children, I’ve told you before. They can make their own minds up.’
‘Yes, and it’s not fair. I want to make my own mind up. I might want to do swearing.’
He’s giving me his most determined look.
‘When you’re a big boy you can decide.’
‘Yes, but when will I be a big boy? How long?’
‘When you’re as old as Uncle Vin.’
He gives me a stricken look. ‘I can’t wait that long. I can’t. It’s just ridiculous.’
It’s just ridiculous is one of his new catchphrases.
‘Give me a few more minutes to finish the window and we can go to the beach, how about that? You could both go and stand outside and tell me where things need to go, if you like. That would be really helpful.’
They have a lovely time standing outside gesticulating increasingly frantically while I tip shells into little piles and do another quick spot of net adjusting, until I hear them starting to recite their favourite rude words, presumably as a practice run for when they’re older and can unleash them on an unsuspecting public. Apart from the ubiquitous Willy and Bum, Bugger features pretty heavily in their list, which is probably down to me while I was painting the hall. Mrs Davis comes out from next door with a bucket of chrysanthemums
and gives me a little wave. Christ, she’ll be thinking we’re having a family Tourette’s moment; but she doesn’t seem to notice, and then I remember she’s got four grown-up sons and a staggering number of grandchildren, so she’s probably fairly familiar with the word Bugger.
‘I’ll be off, then, Elsie. I’ll see you tomorrow around one.’
She’s standing behind the counter, pretending to sort through the patterns.
‘It’s no trouble to come in earlier, you know.’
‘No, it’s fine, you have a nice lie-in for a change.’
‘I don’t hold with stopping in bed, I don’t think it’s healthy. I like to be up, getting on with my jobs, and what with Martin being home now there’s always plenty to do; I don’t know what he does with his shirts, I really don’t. They take a lot of starching to get them right; people don’t seem to bother nowadays, but I like to do them properly. But Saturdays can get very busy though, so you just call me if you need any help.’
I’m not quite sure why she thinks I might need back-up. I’ve even been practising opening the till when she’s not looking, and I’m really counting on a nice session in the shop without her breathing down my neck and tutting, so I can finish moving things around. Which is probably why she’s so keen to come in.
‘I’m sure I’ll be fine, but thanks.’
The beach is very hot and crowded when we arrive, and we have the usual sunscreen tussle, with Archie having a mini-meltdown when some goes in his mouth, before they’re off with their buckets and I’m left trying to find the plastic top which has somehow managed to vanish again; it’s vital I find it so I don’t end up filling my handbag with another layer of sun cream like I did last week. I’ve just found the bloody thing when Jack comes back with a bucketful of shells.
‘Look, Mum, my bucket’s nearly full and I’ve got some really good ones. Do you want to see?’
He tips them, along with half a bucketful of wet sand, all
over my legs, which I suppose will save me exfoliating if I try the fake tan thing again; although the last time I tried Nick said I looked like I had a vitamin deficiency or was recovering from terrible burns.
‘Well done, sweetheart, they’re lovely.’
‘Are we going home for lunch?’
‘I thought we could get some rolls from the baker’s and have a picnic’
I’m hoping to give Vin and Lulu a few hours’ peace, especially after their rude awakening earlier.
‘Can we have chips then?’
‘Maybe later, when it’s lunchtime, we’ll see.’
He runs off bellowing Archie, Archie quick, she says we can have chips, and mothers with far more nutritious lunches in mind turn and give me disapproving looks. Damn. I’m starting to recognise a few of them, and was hoping I might get to talk to some of them before we’re all standing in the playground at school doing the vague smiling thing you do when you don’t know anybody’s name but want to look friendly. They’ll all know me as Chip Mum now, and I was hoping for something slightly more upbeat.
I never really managed to crack the school gates routine in London. It was all very cliquey and I never got beyond the cheerful nodding stage; probably because I’m crap at making new friends, unlike Ellen who’d be our best chance of a gold if it ever becomes an Olympic sport, which it definitely should be because it’s a lot more useful than bloody pole vaulting or cycling round in circles wearing weird helmets. I didn’t fit in with any of the groups in our old playground; the working mums were the nicest, but they were always racing to get to work, so we never got beyond the occasional birthday party tea. And the nannies and au pairs who used to meet in the café in the park and do impressions of their employers didn’t like mums joining them. So that left the posh mums, who were
frighteningly glossy, but brittle-looking, chatting into tiny mobile phones and driving massive jeeps with lots of tinted glass, really badly, causing mini traffic jams wherever they went, and I simply didn’t have the right sort of clothes for them: not enough Boden, and far too much Tesco.
There was a brief flurry of interest when one of them spotted me with Nick in Sainsbury’s and promptly invited us round to supper; I think she quite fancied having a real live Television Reporter sitting at her dining table, which would have been fine if he hadn’t been on a flight to Jerusalem while we were starting on the rack of lamb in a herb crust. But she was persistent, and asked us again a few weeks later, when Nick was just back from another trip and completely knackered, so he only managed a brief bicker with a banker called Roger, with a wife who appeared to be called Pod, before he practically fell asleep at the table. And after that my temporary membership of the yummy mummies was rescinded.
The most scary ones were the Alpha Mums: the I used to have a Proper career, but I gave it all up for the children and now I’m quite bored ones. God, they were relentless. Organising birthday parties four months in advance, with the same skills they’d employed in Mergers and Acquisitions, busy networking on the PTA and lobbying to become school governors and racing their kids through after-school programmes that were so complicated they required advanced time management skills just to get to Wednesday. They made me feel like a complete amateur, wildly under-prepared and chaotic, only just managing to get to school on time while they’d been up at six making brioche and fermenting things. And if you had one of their kids to tea they always arrived with special instructions; wheat allergies or a penchant for only eating white food or taking all their clothes off at unusual moments. Or they couldn’t come until five because they had a viola class, or Japanese, or boffin maths, and they’d either
behave so perfectly they were like Stepford Children and made yours look like lumpen yobs, or they were so appalling you longed for someone to come and pick them up. Never anything in between.
I think most of them were secretly desperate for a good nanny and a job that didn’t involve making your own Play-doh, but of course they’d never admit that, so I’m really hoping things will be a bit more relaxed down here; at least there won’t be anyone who used to be earning a six-figure salary before they sprogged, or many takers for Mandarin Chinese for Toddlers. And I’m going to make much more of an effort, so hopefully I won’t end up doing quite so much nodding at the school gates like one of those dogs in the back of cars. But I think I’ll start tomorrow, when the chip thing has died down a bit.
Jack comes running back with Archie.
‘Here you are, Mummy, I got some fabless ones.’
He’s got a tiny bit of sand on his shorts, but is otherwise totally pristine, whereas Archie looks like he’s had a tricky half-hour in quicksand and only just managed to get away.
‘Let’s get you dry, sweetheart.’
‘We’re having chippers for lunch, aren’t we, Mummy? Jack said, and I love chippers. Best of all, I do.’
He’s doing a celebratory dance while I try to de-sand him.
‘Yes, but not yet. It’s not lunchtime yet.’
‘Chips, chips, chips. We’re having chips.’
Oh, good. More disapproving glances.
I retreat inside our beach hut, which I’m loving more and more; we used to make camps in it when we were little, and I’d spend ages sweeping up sand with a pink plastic dustpan and brush and arranging plastic beakers, and making Gran drink lukewarm water with daisies in it, while Vin stood guard with his plastic axe in case of Viking invaders, which was embarrassingly stereotypical when I look back on it, but what we didn’t
realise was quite how brilliant beach huts are for grown-ups. There’s no staggering up and down the beach carrying half a ton of assorted kit, or sitting shivering behind a windbreak being sandblasted and praying for rain so you can go home. And best of all, there’s no more wriggling out of wet swimming costumes under sandy towels or showing your naked bottom to half the beach. It’s just completely brilliant, and the council have painted them all different colours, and ours is a lovely pale blue. I’m having a little therapeutic sand-sweeping moment when the boys come back with a new friend.