Authors: Marisa Mackle
complete
opposite. So who makes up the rules? In your own house you are own mistress so I need to remember that. It doesn’t matter what your friends or your mothers-in-law or the nosy neighbour down the road thinks. Mums instinctively know what’s right for their own babies so it’s best to take no notice of women who think they are experts because they’ve done it all before. Nobody knows your little one like you do. How could any expert or author of a book know John better than I know him myself?
Now, tonight is the final book club night for the
summer and I am really looking forward to it. I just can’t wait for a bit of adult company. It won’t resume again until the end of September when the kids are well settled back to school. I’m really not quite sure how I’ll entertain myself without the book-club ladies to tide me over! I’ve been living vicariously through them and all their holiday plans. Joanne is taking her four children to Alcudia in Majorca for a week, and Heather and her husband and child are heading off to their place in Portugal. Yvonne is Connemara-bound with her brood, and Deirdre and her husband who don’t have any children are going to a gourmet cookery school to learn culinary delights for a
fortnight
. Then they’re taking their jeep to England where they plan on driving around the countryside at their leisure. Karen is off to the South of France on a camping trip. Anita seems to be the only one not to have any plans and that’s because she says the hassle of taking her five boisterous boys anywhere is enough to want to make her cry. Anita is separated and her ex-husband by all accounts only takes the boys on Bank Holiday weekends but refuses to ever have them for more than two consecutive nights because they wreck his bachelor penthouse down by the docks and interfere with his love life. Apparently
he
has a string of young girlfriends. Well, he
is
rich!
When anyone asks me what I am doing for the
summer holidays, I remain suitably vague. Sometimes I just say I’m visiting my sister in West Cork. It’s enough to satisfy their fleeting curiosity. They don’t need to know the truth and they certainly don’t need to know that my sister, Ger, has never once invited me to stay in her sprawling mansion in fashionable West Cork where they have a built-in swimming pool attached to the house. Of course they always invite their well-to-do friends down from Dublin to stay in their guest rooms and they seem to have barbeques on the lawn and pop a lot of champagne corks. But there never seems to be enough room for me which is a shame. Mind you, Ger is pretty good at keeping in touch on Facebook and is always posting lovely pictures of herself and her house and her kids online, so I never feel that she is too far away. She sometimes even chats to me on Skype!
I would give my right arm to get away somewhere
sunny this summer. I really would. I sometimes dream of feeling hot sun on my face or paddling at the sea edge with my baby in a cute pair of togs and a sun hat. The apartment is starting to feel a bit claustrophobic as it’s quite small and confined. There’s no garden, only a small back yard, and it’s been raining non-stop for the last few weeks. It’s getting a bit depressing actually. I mean, there have been a few sunny afternoons where I’ve managed to walk the promenade in Bray between showers but overall the sun has remained firmly hidden behind clouds and scorching-hot beach days have been noticeably scarce. Anyway, little John is too small to be taken on a long, unnecessary flight. Holy God, even the thought of having to pack for him, take his pram through security and then face delays, followed by a trip with him on my knee for a few hours doesn’t bear thinking about.
Maybe, if I get the
right au pair, we can go away somewhere nice in Ireland. Perhaps I’ll hire a little house by the sea for a week and invite Mum down too. After all, there are so many gorgeous, unspoiled places here such as Kerry, Galway, Sligo and Donegal. There really is no need to be going away with the baby and have all that fussing at the airport over plastic bottles and having to take off your shoes.
Anyway, the way the economy is going now, we need more
people to holiday at home and get our once-thriving tourism industry thriving again. If only that didn’t mean getting so damn wet!
I have to admit I haven’t quite finished the book that
we’re going to be discussing tonight. Unfortunately it’s one of those dreary, upsetting, but apparently highbrow reads where women are deemed second-class citizens in their own country, and their cruel husbands take younger second wives once they are past their prime, and people are brutally tortured and murdered in the name of religion. Chick lit it certainly isn’t. Sometimes, just now and again, I wish we didn’t take our literary endeavours so seriously. It would be nice to sit down with a chilled glass of sparkling wine and discuss one of the Sophie Kinsella shopaholic books now and then. But I just know if I suggested a chick-lit book I would face looks of complete horror from the literary ladies at the book club.
So now I
have to quickly skim through the book, speed-read the last chapter, read some well-informed reviews on Amazon and pretend I know what I’m talking about later. I reckon I’ll be doing a lot of nodding and agreeing with everybody else’s verdict on the misery-lit book. Mum will be coming around in time to give me a chance to get in the shower and freshen up. It will be my first chance of the day to get out of my vomit-stained pyjamas, which makes me sound like an awful slob I know. It’s magical having a shower and knowing that Mum is in the other room minding John. Usually I have to bring his baby seat into the bathroom with me and can never enjoy more than a quick two-minute scrub-down.
I really wonder what I used to do with my time before
I had John. I mean, I must have wasted hours on Facebook looking at holiday snaps of people I didn’t even know very well. I remember a time I could have easily spent forty minutes in the shower, or a couple of
hours
surfing TV channels with my feet up on the couch. When I lived with Sally, I never remember either of us rising before noon on a Sunday, and even then one of us
would
persuade the other to get dressed and go out to buy fresh croissants, coffees and the Sunday papers. Even that task seemed like a chore at the time. Now I shake my head in wonder when I remember the lazy, spoilt me. Eight o’clock is a lie-in for me these days. Eight thirty is practically a holiday!
Nobody gives you a medal for being a tired, harassed
mum. There are no promotions, pay-related bonuses, or congratulations for doing a good job. And that’s understandable. Nobody cares if you’re up all night with a screaming baby, don’t have five minutes in the day to yourself and are struggling to cope. That’s right, nobody cares and why should they? They have their own lives and day-to-day worries without giving your situation a second thought. But you will not get any thanks for being a martyr. You cannot do it all and you shouldn’t try. There is terrible pressure put on mums to get back in shape, look great, be fabulous cooks and supportive partners if there even are partners, and get back to work as soon as possible. Yet there are still people out there who deride mothers for hiring help when they should be doing everything themselves. “Our mothers did it so why can’t they?” they cry.
Well, it was different back in our mothers’ day. There
were communities back then. People didn’t live in apartment smiles away from their families and not knowing their neighbours. They helped each other. Now we compete against each other. We all have to be doing better and coping better than anybody else. Rubbish to that, I say. No mother should try and be a saint and do everything, nor should she constantly moan about how tired she is
because
nobody wants to know. We’re all tired. Obviously friends and family don’t like being taken advantage of, so you can’t just load babies off on people every time you want to go shopping, and you can’t wait for them to offer because that’s realistically never going to
happen
. Some friends will offer to help you out “any time”. This, you will soon learn, translates as “no time at all” as they think up excuse after excuse not to help you
out
. But others will help now and again if you really need their help. I honestly don’t know what I’d do without my mum’s help.
I read somewhere that the actress, Anna
Friel, recently revealed that she employed two part-time nannies while she worked on set. She came in for a bit of flak after that announcement from stay-at-home mothers. Well, if she can afford the two nannies, why not? I think it makes her a good parent that she is working to provide financial security for her daughter. She is a single mother. She cannot work and look after her child. It’s just not physically possible. I totally get her. I just wish I had her money too!
It didn’t take me too long to walk to the book-club
venue which was in a charming old Victorian house on the seafront.
“Don’t drink too much,” my mother had warned.
She always says that, as though I were some awkward fifteen-year-old going to her first school disco, and not a middle-aged woman going along to another middle-aged woman’s house to discuss a dreadfully depressing book for the best part of two hours. Anyway, I was walking home afterwards and not driving so what was all the fuss about? Mum thinks anyone who consumes two or more alcoholic units in one evening is a raving alcoholic. She’ll be sending me off to rehab if I’m not careful.
Joanne had a fire lit even though it was the beginning
of July. It was fairly chilly outside though and my eyes lit up when I saw the smouldering coals in her fireplace.
“Will you have a glass of wine?” she offered, taking
my coat.
Will I? Are you joking? Of course I will. That’s the
only reason I came!
I kept my sentiments private however. “Yes, please, white wine would be great, thanks,” I said politely, taking a seat by the fire. “Isn’t the weather just the pits for this time of the year?”
“Oh Lord, don’t talk to me about it,” Joanne sighed.
“It’s a nightmare having the kids in the house all day. Thank goodness we’re going to Majorca next week. At least we have a big outdoor pool there to amuse the kids. It’s fabulous.”
I agreed that yes, it must be fabulous. Oh to be rich!
“Tanya? Tanya, a glass of wine for Kaylah, please. And bring in the canapés too.”
My eyes widen
ed. Canapés? Good gracious, Joanne was going all out this evening, wasn’t she? Most people just provided a few crisps and nuts out of packets. And who was Tanya anyway? I thought Joanne had only boys.
The next minute the Tanya in question emerged from
the kitchen holding a silver tray with a single large wine glass on it.
“Madame?” she enquired politely.
I looked back at her in amazement. First of all I could hardly believe that Joanne had gone to the trouble of hiring caterers and secondly, this Tanya one was the double of Claudia Schiffer with sallow skin, vivid blue eyes, long dark eyelashes, wavy blonde hair cascading down her back and legs up to her armpits. Good God!
“Thank you,” I said finally, when I found my voice.
“That’s very kind.”
She gave a sort of nervous smile and scuttled back to
the kitchen. I turned to Joanne, who was by the window fixing her curtains, and raised my glass. “Cheers!”
There was a knock on the door and Joanne went to
answer it. Then Heather breezed in a waft of Chanel No. 5 perfume. She is super-glamorous but married to a rather dull, but wealthy man. She has a glossy auburn bob, fabulous translucent skin and always wears designer clothes. I am in total awe of her.
“Hey, Heather,” I said.
“Oh hi, Kaylah. I’m not late, am I?”
Kiss, kiss.
“No, not at all. I’m the only one here so far.”
“Thank goodness. We were delayed on the golf course.
Longest game ever. I had barely time to shower when I came home. Thank God for the nanny laying out my clothes on the bed. I wouldn’t have known what to wear otherwise.”
“She picks out your clothes?” I was gobsmacked.
Had I heard right?
“Oh, Nanny is like my right hand!” laughed Heather,
showing a perfect set of pearly teeth. “What would I do without her? She even helps me apply my fake tan when I don’t have time to go the salon.”
“Really?
She does all that? I’m surprised she doesn’t shave your legs too!”
My comment caused Heather to chuckle.
“But seriously, how does she manage to do all that and still look after the kids?” I probed, intrigued.
Heather accepted a large glass of wine from Tanya
who had suddenly appeared again with her tray. “Matthew is in school. She only needs to help him get ready in the morning and help him in the evenings with his homework when we go out.”
Oh yeah, I had forgotten that Heather only has one
child. I was still surprised she had a nanny for her school-going son though, considering that she doesn’t even work.
The next minute Tanya was handing around canapés.
I took a little cracker with cream cheese and Heather helped herself to a mini-pizza. Joanne practically shooed Tanya away before she came too close to her with the tray. I always secretly believed that Joanne didn’t eat. Now I was convinced she didn’t. At the moment she was sipping slowly on a glass of