The Following, Is An Entirely Fictitious Account And Any Similarity To Any Person, Living Or Dead Is Absolutely Coincidental, Unless I Have Used Their Real Name, Inwhich Case They Will Be Flattered.
Suicide Green
Suicide Green is where I live.
I live with my husband John who is 49 and works on a national newspaper of entirely the wrong sort. We have three children, Abigail aged 17, Zac 16, and Maisie 10. I also live with a spaniel called Evil, a cat called Buddy and a rabbit called Oliver.
We live in North London in a large Edwardian villa with stained glass in the front door and two large marble fireplaces in the sitting room. We renovated the house some seven or eight years ago with the sweat of our brows a dodgy cash-in-hand builder, all our money and lots of antidepressants.
Suicide Green is also a colour. It is duck egg blue or eau de nil. Call it what you will, it’s a colour you will see everywhere round here, on front doors and stair carpets and on that new retro wallpaper with the big flowers that people use for ‘feature walls’ in their bedrooms. Farrow and Ball do a lovely version of Suicide Green and they’ve just opened a shop on the High Street - so convenient. Our front door is painted red, but I confess I was tempted.
Suicide Green is our way of life. We are the desperate middle class, and lots of us went to Cambridge to read English. We work in the media or we are architects or writers or doctors, or all three. Some of us are working actors or designers and lots and lots of us have a PHD.
To our everlasting shame we voted for the Blair government. We did it because we would never vote Conservative.
We grew up in cathedral cities under Thatcher. We watched the love affair between Margaret and Ronald and we vowed to put an end to the ‘special relationship.’ We grew up with the three minute warning, Aircraft Carrier Great Britain and Greenham Common. Every nuclear missile in Eastern Europe was trained on us. As a result, we’re not afraid of Islamic extremists.
When we were young we were political. We joined CND. We freed Nelson Mandela. We craved power and influence and wore grandpa shirts over leggings and came to London to buy Crombies from the Great Gear Market in Kensington. Later we became punks and I think that is part of the problem.
Now, we are very principled. Before we knew about carbon footprints we bought organic green beans from Sainsburys, then we were told the beans were flown in from Kenya and that polar bears were drowning so we stopped. We don’t fare dodge, not even on bendy buses.
For our holidays we hire camper vans and spend August huddled together against the cold, playing Boggle on far flung British hillsides. Or we drive the people carrier to the ruin we bought in an unpopular bit of France that hasn’t much geography and is far from the coast. We don’t fly anywhere. This, we find, is becoming increasingly unpopular with the teenagers.
We send our children to the local comprehensive school in a bid to hang on to our principles, but we have them privately tutored in every subject because which principle is worth our children's’ futures?
We all work really hard and we are all unwell. Secretly we believe that the tap water has been poisoned by the Islamic nazis and that there is a conspiracy of silence. We are not afraid, but how else to explain a soft phlegmy cough that continues for months or the boil that appeared in a neighbour’s armpit over Christmas?.
Our daughters are called Ellie, Ella and Delilah, Abigail, Issy and Lily. Our sons are Zac and Alfie, Oscar and Inigo.
We dream of leaving London for fields and Agas, for L shaped farms in the Cotswolds, for Georgian terraces in Whitstable, for thatched cottages in Suffolk but Ellie and Delilah are such urban creatures. They would die if they lived further than 4 miles from Selfridges and Dom and Oscar have just started their GCSEs and would be totally thrown if they changed schools. Further more Dom’s dealer supplies him with nice, organic, home-grown grass rather than that revolting skunk stuff that people in the country smoke.
So, this is who we are and this is Suicide Green.
17th January 2008.
How did that happen?
Lamp &
Bloody mothers.
Last night we had a lamp delivered. There I was, watching television in the impenetrable darkness of the sitting room when the door bell rang. It shouldn’t have been a surprise as John and I bought the lamp on Monday and arranged delivery for Thursday evening but on Wednesday when the shop called to confirm I had had half a bottle of Voignier and no supper so yesterday I was vaguely questioning myself as to the actual arrangement whilst watching Location Location Location and imagining moving to Harrogate when it arrived.
The lamp is huge. Very very big, it looked smaller in the shop - things do. Anyway I swivelled it about a bit and plonked it in the corner next to the sofa where it lurked casting shadows looking expensive and slightly stupid and called the children to admire.
Abigail didn’t come as she was having one of her hour long chats on the phone with her best friend Ellie and I could hear her on the landing cackling with laughter and saying things like,
‘No!!’
and,
‘That’s so lame’
and,
‘How gay is that?’
Maisie, who I thought was asleep in bed had clearly been lurking in the passageway trying to watch Harrogate through the crack in the sitting room door. She came bouncing into the room scattering golden light from her shimmering princess hair,cast a glimmering blue glance at the lamp and said,
‘Wow!’ And ‘That’s so big!’
Zac, appearing from the playroom where he had spent the evening killing people with a machete and talking at the television, wearing headphones so as to discuss the murder with like-minded 16 year olds (How does that work?) said,
‘What the fuck is that?’
And when I replied, a little testily,
‘It’s a fucking lamp!’
He said,
‘Don’t get all bad tempered. Why are you so bad tempered? it’s a bit big isn’t it?’
and I said,
‘No, it’s meant to be big.’
and he said,
‘Its meant to be in a warehouse.’
and Maisie said
‘It would get all dusty.’
I don’t think she knows that people live in warehouses.
Another whoop of laughter cascaded down the stairs from the landing, followed by,
‘What a noob!’
No wonder Zac had devised a futuristic way of talking about his death cult with his friends, he’d never get near the telephone. I hope they are friends. According to Panorama you can think you’re having a chat with your mate, Otto in Islington, when in fact you’re speaking to Helmut the pervy German in Dortmund and you’d never be any the wiser which I suppose means it doesn’t matter, unless you are Helmut and are enjoying it.
‘Well.’ I said, ‘You can make it higher. It would look a bit better higher wouldn’t it?’
And I adjusted it a little. Zac’s eyes kindled.
‘What else does it do?’ he said, striding across the room in one step. Zac is giant. Standing next to the lamp it suddenly looked in scale. With one enormous bloodstained hand he pivoted the lamp base and with the other, he turned the shade upside down, transforming it into an alien creature. Suddenly it looked as though it should have a name and regular meals.
‘Leave it Zac! You’ll break it.’
‘No I won’t.’ he returned. And without looking at me, he began to fiddle with the shade and I began to wonder how long you had to own something before it was covered by your content’s insurance.
‘Leave it alone!’ I yelped,
‘Let me put it back how it was!’ Maisie began to back out of the room chewing a finger and Evil slunk behind the piano.
‘Why? I’m not going to break it. Why would I break it?’ Zac bristled. A hand rested heavily on the fragile honed aluminium stalk and it bent like a reed in a hurricane. That was it! I hit his arm and hurt my hand. ‘Look.’
I said,
‘I want you to leave it alone. i am watching people moving to Harrogate on television and I have nearly missed the end. I may never know whether Brian and Cath get the five bedroomed, “nicely sized, town centre property” or not, so will you leave the lamp alone and fuck off?’
‘You can watch Teleport Replay.’ said Zac looking hurt.
‘I don’t want to watch telebollocks replay. I want to sit down and watch it NOW so please...’ I took a deep breath
‘GO AWAY. It’s not your room. Go and murder people in the playroom.’
‘I wasn’t going to break the lamp Why would I break it? Zac turned as he left the room and meeting my eyes said,
‘I’ve told you before they’re not people, they’re aliens.’
From the corner of my eye I saw a small copper and gold flash and Maisie was gone. Evil reappeared from behind the piano.
And with that the credits rolled. Did they do up the suburban pile? Did they buy the” town centre flat with the nice sized toilet?” Is Harrogate worth considering? I wrote Teleport replay + Kirsty on my hand in purple felt pen.
This morning my mother rang at 8.30. Bloody nerve ringing someone at 8.30 unless you’re actually on fire and you need to tell them you love them before you are engulfed in flames.
Actually it was John’s turn to take the children to the bus stop this morning so I was drinking tea in bed and reading The Sun when she rang but I could have been up to my ears.
Anyway, my mother rang, just to tell me how her eyes filled with tears as she told Daphne about darling Abigail’s eating disorder, how she was quite willing to pay for a private counceller for Abigail but didn’t see why she should as we were much richer than they were... and how she had hardly slept a wink worrying about my botox as she had read an article in the Times saying that no one knew what the long term effects of injecting things into one’s face might be and how what with all my teenage sun bathing I would most certainly get skin cancer and actually eating nothing all day until six and then opening a bottle of wine couldn’t be a good idea and what kind of example was I setting Abigail? No wonder she was a poor confused little girl. And could I give her that Ottolenghi recipe I had told her about for mango salad as Walter and Barbara were coming for lunch. AAAGH!
Where are my sleeping pills?
Why the fuck are my sheets covered in purple felt pen?
Wrote an e-mail to my mother saying could she possibly stop being so critical. I Sent the Ottolenghi recipe with it.
Sweet winter slaw.
dressing
100 ml lime juice
1 lemongrass finely chopped
3 tablespoons maple syrup
2 tablespoons sesame oil
1 teaspoon soy sauce
1/2 teaspoon chilli flakes
4 tablespoons olive oil.
salad
150 gms macadamia nuts
10 gms butter
2 tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon chilli flakes
7 shredded inner leaves of savoy cabbage
1/2 shredded red cabbage
1 mango peeled stoned and cut into thin strips
1 papaya peeled deseeded and cut into thin strips
1 thinly sliced deseeded red chilli
15 gms fresh mint leaves
20 gms fresh coriander leaves.
To make the dressing put all the ingredients except the olive oil into a saucepan and reduce for five to ten minutes until syrupy. Remove from the heat and leave to cool. When cool add the olive oil.
Put the nuts in a pan and stir about until evenly toasted on all sides. Add the butter and when it is melted add the sugar salt and chilli. Use a wooden spoon to stir constantly so the nuts are evenly coated while the sugar caramelises, Turn the nuts onto grease proof paper and leave to cool. Chop roughly. OR just toast some pinenuts and use them instead. Put
the cabbage in a large mixing bowl with all the other salad stuff. Add the cool dressing, add salt if needed and serve.
It's a nice salad.
18th January 2008???
Fat Alcoholic
I spent most of the day listing CDs on Ebay. Who buys this shit? I mean Matmoth really.. Listing things on Ebay only requires about a fifth of the brain so with the remaining parts I began to worry.
1. I drank two bottles of wine yesterday, by myself, which is very stupid, I hadn’t considered myself to be very stupid but I suppose very stupid people rarely do. Am I an alcoholic? Should I send another e-mail to my mother detailing massive drinking problem and apologising fulsomely?
2. I have had no response from my mother to the e-mail I sent yesterday. This is not in itself very surprising because she doesn’t know how to open an e-mail and if by chance my father has opened the e-mail for her and she actually read it, rather than assuming it was just an Ottolenghi salad recipe, she has probably taken to her bed.
3. Last night Abigail ate some peas and lettuce and then she sat in the sitting room with John and me and retched into a bowl whilst talking about her plans for her 18th birthday.
Is that my fault? Aren’t mothers who over identify with their daughters nauseating? What is the correct response to an emaciated 17 year old retching into a bowl of an evening ? Neither John or I have one. We sat there chatting to her as if it wasn’t happening, John said she looked rather ill and she said,
‘I know. Shall we have the party in that place in Clerkenwell? Or do you think it would be better if we didn’t have a party at all and me and Ellie could go to Paris for a couple of days?
‘I’m very worried about her.’ I slurred drunkenly to John as I fell into bed munching a sleeping pill.
4. My mother definitely has a point if only she could have couched it in more positive terms. For instance she could have said,
‘Darling I know you are a miserable drunken 44 year old drug addict with an anorexic daughter but I absolutely love the way you’ve done your sitting room. You really must tell me where you got that curtain fabric.’ And she could have rung at about 11.30 instead of 8.30.
I checked my e-mail and The Daemon Mailer Server had sent me a message to the effect that my parents’ e-mail has a fatal and inconsolable flaw so my mother won’t have received mine. Hurray. What a narrow escape.
I am going out this evening with my friend Ellis. Ellis is a psychiatrist, he is gay, so his wife, Rose left him and their children to pursue her dream of becoming a writer - in a flat in Walthamstow.
Ellis may know someone who could help Abigail. Abigail is not a person who would take kindly to Haringey Mental Health Services. All that cracked lino and underfunding are not her thing. She’s more of a Harley Street kind of girl. I’ll ask Ellis if he knows any eating disorder specialists with practices in stucco fronted Victorian houses.
Ellis and I are going to see a play in the West End starring Christian Slater, I’m not sure who Christian Slater is. Helen Baxendale is in it too.
Usually, I never go out any more unless I have an invitation to the aftershow party. It can’t be just any aftershow party either. It’s no good if someone from Liberty X is there. It has to be Led Zeppelin, in a box, at the O2 with Jeremy Clarkson and Oasis or a private screening of Phil Daniels’ latest film in a posh hotel with all the actors producers and directors or I’m just not interested. I’m not sure how that happened to me. I think it’s because I don’t like going out and I need proper incentives.
Helen Baxendale is very thin. I wonder if half an hour on the exercise bike in the playroom would make me any thinner before this evening.
I must go and buy Abigail some more peas and salad.
I need to phone the vet about Maisie’s rabbit. She thinks he needs neutering.
Yesterday she was lying on the sofa watching Watership Down on my laptop with her rabbit sitting on her chest when he bit her.
‘I really don’t think Watership Down is very suitable viewing for rabbits.’ She said, ‘He may have been influenced by the violence.’ She stroked his fat brown head and met my eyes with her own clear blue orbs. ‘Could you please take him to the vet and have him mutated. It might make him better tempered.’
Perhaps I should get Zac done at the same time.
18th January 2008 - Getting used to it.
Illegal Taxi Drivers
18th Birthday Party.
Last night was fun. We took a Premier cab to the Vaudeville Theatre on The Strand. The cab was tied together with string and smelt of damp, corrugated iron, mothballs and it’s driver. He was from Africa but he had Satnav. An ambulance roared down Long Acre, sirens blaring and our driver veered into a side street, screeched to a halt, and sat, cracking his knuckles, trying to steady his breathing.
‘It’s ok.’ I said ‘We’ll walk from here.’
The play was called Swimming with Sharks. It was American and Helen Baxendale’s accent didn’t slip once. She really is very thin.
Later we took a cab to a pub in King’s Cross to meet John. The Lord Lucan is the worst pub in the world, so we stayed a while.
John and a PR called Nat had been to a club to see an up and coming singer called Thao. The pub was full of tiny Asian girls and edgy urban musos. Ellis was thrilled by the sheer youngness of the people John hangs out with.
This morning Ellie’s mother rang.
‘What about this party?’ she said.
‘What party?’ I replied.
I never seem to know what is going on.
Apparently Ellie and Abigail are sharing a party in Ellie’s parent’s basement but Ellie’s mother was worried because she had found an e-mail that said ‘The shubs are gonna be late and hot.’ or something and did I know what that meant and where was Abigail?
Abigail had taken a fistful of £20s from my money jug and had disappeared into Covent Garden so I couldn’t help but I said that all Ellie and Abigail’s friends are nice girls who drink diet coke and talk about art so it would probably be fine.
Ellie’s mother said last time they came over for a quiet evening in, they had pushed the garden wall over and an Italian neighbour had come out and threatened them with a baseball bat.
‘They must have been some other girls.’ I said.
You can’t account for neighbours. I wouldn’t want to live next door to me if someone pushed my garden wall over. I think I’ll get baseball bat.
I must talk to Abigail when she comes in.
19th January 2008.
Tate
Today I wanted to go to the Tate. I wanted us all to go to the Tate together, en famille in a lovely, harmonious, artistic way. I knew that this was rather ambitious and that Abigail wouldn’t come home ‘til lunchtime because she would stay the night at Ellie’s after the party and that she would have a hangover. I also knew that Zac would probably want to watch the football or take Evil out but I thought there was a chance I might get there with John and Maisie. I thought it last weekend and the one before but things didn’t pan out.
For the third weekend running the Tate has not been possible.
John says that I’ve been out twice this week so he doesn’t see why I need to go to the Tate. He says that there’s nothing on anyway and that he has a stinking headache actually, quite like a migraine really and that his forehead is quite hot. I say,
‘Take some bloody paracetemol!’ You’ve got a hangover.’
He says,‘That’s a good idea. Where do we keep them?’
Does this man actually live in this house or not? Not! Most decidedly not. He eats the odd meal here and has all his washing done but that’s about it.
I will go to the Tate by myself on Tuesday. Tuesday is a good day because it is the day that Beata comes to clean and I won’t get in her way. Also I feel uneasy about Beata cleaning my house because like me she is too intelligent to spend her days washing other people’s kitchen floors.
Yesterday I sent Zac out with £80 to buy a new pair of Nike hightops because they’re ‘cool’ and because he has played football in the ones he has and they are no longer ‘cool.’ I sent him with Angus from down the road. It’s very difficult for Zac to buy shoes because his feet are so big but I thought they may be able to find something if they really concentrated and didn’t go into Game or Virgin Megastores but it seems they couldn’t avoid it and they came back without any.
Meanwhile John and I took some things to be framed by Steve who frames our things. I took a rather lurid water-colour which my mother had given me at Christmas and John took a front page from the music section he runs in his paper upon which E from Eels had scrawled some witticism in reply to an article John had written about him.
The walls of our house are slowly being covered in the heartfelt thanks of various minor popstars framed tastefully by Steve. I am going to hang the water-colour and forget to hang the page. John doesn’t do DIY so if I don’t hang it, it won’t go on the wall. I have this much power. Although there’s a real possibility that John will pick up one of those Poles who hang around in Wicke’s carpark and get him to do it for a hundred quid and he’ll get a drunk one because he won’t get there early enough to get a sober one and I’ll have to rehang the page anyway.
When we got home Angus’ mother Bella rang to say her children are all too fat and that Fraser said it was her fault for feeding them the wrong food and that her youngest, Morag, was half-witted and would only get a level three in Sats even though she is in year six. And that the computer had frozen and was Angus with us as he’s the only one who could fix it?
I said Angus had gone off with Zac to buy shoes and that she should send Morag to private school and then she wouldn’t know what level his Sats were and it wouldn’t matter. And she said, that they couldn’t because their builder in France had discovered that there was a well under the pigeonier and that it would need underpinning. And that Morag wouldn’t get into a private school anyway.
So I said ‘Come for supper and we can play scrabble.’ Then I drove Abigail round to Ellies with a bottle of fizzy wine and a tray full of exquisitely decorated cupcakes.
Abigail has become the most amazing cook since she stopped eating. As she got out of the car she said ‘Do you like my new jeans? They’re size 25.’
‘Yes.’ I said they’re lovely. I am surprised they make such stylish jeans for children.’
She smiled sweetly and said ‘So my legs don’t look like carrots then? You said my legs looked like carrots in skinny jeans.’
‘Have a lovely time.’ I said slamming the car door and driving off. I did actually say her legs looked like carrots in skinny jeans but that was months ago when she had spent the whole summer eating saffron cake and ice cream in Cornwall and then spent the whole autumn complaining about being fat. I just said ‘Well don’t wear such tight jeans then. They make your legs look like carrots anyway.’ I’m not going to say anything to any of my children ever again.
Fraser and Bella came for supper. We ate Ottolenghi salad We didn’t play scrabble. We talked about music and writing and ski ing and Ottolenghi. They’ve never been to Ottolenghi, imagine! We drank too much wine and talked about drugs and teenagers and their hair styles. Bella said my hair looked very nice and had I had it cut? I said that no actually, back in August I had had it chemically straightened and ever since then it had been randomly snapping off in two inch sections, a process which had left me looking like Ziggy Stardust after he was famous.
‘Well it looks very nice,’ she said. I love Bella and she’s very pretty.
20th January 2008
Period & Book
I woke up covered in blood this morning.
John said that it was like waking up in the middle of a slasher movie and wasn’t there some way that I could manage the whole thing a bit better? He said that he couldn’t really understand how someone could have the same thing happening to them at about the same time every month for thirty years and still be taken completely by surprise every time.
I said, ‘I am not taken by surprise, it’s just that they don’t make Pampers for adults and Allways Alldays Ultra Super Duper With Wings and Tampax Plus Plus don’t seem to work any more and could I have a bit of sympathy as I am obviously bleeding to death?’
After that I went to have a bath but I had to keep letting the water out and refilling it because sitting in blood-red water isn’t aesthetic and I was afraid Maisie would come into the bathroom to clean her teeth with the special Pearl Drop toothpaste Father Christmas gave her in her stocking and be frightened. After the third refill the water went cold and I had to get out.
Apparently today is officially the most depressing day of the year, which isn’t very nice if it’s your birthday or something, but quite good if you die, and everyone is really miserable for ever after on the anniversary of your death.
I looked out the window and saw grey sky above grey naked trees, lining a grey road peopled by scuttling grey-faced neighbours and felt quite ill. I have a lot to do today but will have to do it later due to the blood and an all pervading of gloom.
In February I will have been writing my book for 5 years. John will be 50 Abigail will be 18 and I will still be 44 and my book will not be finished.
I have left all those characters just hanging there in mid-doings since late November so that I could manage Christmas.
I should have a three book deal by now and The Orange Prize For Fiction should be on my wall or mantelpiece or wherever is most appropriate. I could take down one of John’s ‘ Thankyou-From-A-Popstar ’ pictures and put my Orange Prize on the same hook, so there would be no need for drilling, hammering or searching for wall studs or going all the way to Ikea to buy those special little hanging things that go into plasterboard without causing cracks or huge chunks of wall to fall out. I wonder if The Orange Prize For Fiction is actually orange. If it is, I’m not sure that it will go with our decor, I suppose if I get a three book deal we could afford to redecorate.
I got a letter from Zac’s school today to say that we haven’t paid his school fees. We send our two older children to private schools because when I was young, I was set fire to at my comprehensive school and have been highly suspicious of them ever since.
John said I could send the children to school wherever I wanted. I think that sort of laissez-faire attitude comes with a lovely, cosy, private school education. John must have memories of long winter evenings before an open fire in the housemaster’s study, eating Gentleman’s Relish on toast. with the odd light discussion about Great Expectations thrown in for good measure. He must remember larking about with his chums in the school grounds, after prep in the summer. No wonder he’s so able and confident. After he’s had a few drinks, he mutters darkly about cold showers and unjustified beatings but frankly I don’t believe him, he’s just trying to make himself sound interesting.
Anyway it seems that my cheque to the school’s bankers has gone astray, so I spoke to the Bursar at Zac’s school who was very nice and then I phoned our bank to cancel the cheque and got chatting to the girl on the other end of the phone and she said, What do you do?
And I said, ‘I am writing a book.’
And she said, ‘How exciting! Do you get paid for that?
I said ‘No’.
So she said ‘Oh, you’re a homemaker’.
And I said, ‘Yes,’ but I don’t think I am... really.
Basically she was just establishing that I didn’t have to pay tax on our savings account as it is in my sole name. I felt a bit depressed after that.
Then I forgot to cancel the cheque. I will have to ring back later. It’s quite interesting that all that money is in my name. I could run away and never be seen again. I hear Panama’s nice.
20th/21st January 2008. 4 am. Insomnia.
Awake. This is such a pain because I will be too tired to go to the Tate tomorrow.
I didn’t take a sleeping pill last night because I’ve only got three left and I thought I had better wean myself off them but all that’s happened is that I been lying in bed with my eyes screwed shut worrying about stuff for hours and hours.
Just before I turned the light off I checked my e-mails only to find that the ‘fatal and catastrophically incontrovertible error’ effecting my parents Mailer Daemon had ‘conclusively disassociated itself’ or something and that all pending mail had, in fact, been sent after all.
Clicking on my Inbox several times and re-logging in four or five, I found that both parents had e-mailed saying that although my mother had taken to her bed upon receiving my e-mail they had, nonetheless, had a jolly good Christmas and that they were both very proud of me and my curtain fabric and sorry for not mentioning it before. That’s good then.
The other reason I couldn’t sleep was because I have a shocking headache. I have just taken two paracetemol, two aspirins and two neurofen to make absolutely sure all my multitudinous pain pathways are blocked. It takes twenty minutes for pills to work so here’s hoping.
Also Bella phoned just before we went to bed to say that the journalist down the road who works on a proper paper had been burgled last night.
They came in through the back while everyone was sleeping and stole all their passports, laptops and gold. Bella said we should be extra vigilant. I really must get a baseball bat. Apparently it’s illegal to wave a baseball bat about unless you are in the vicinity of a baseball ball, but I expect they come in sets.
Evil would go mad if a burglar broke in through the back. She would roll over, lie down and sit and she may even accidentally trip them up.
Abigail texted me at about 11 to say she was staying at Ellie’s because she felt ill and could I ring her school tomorrow to say she wouldn’t be in? ‘Yes darling’ I texted back ‘sleep well. ’ Then Ellie’s mother phoned to say had Abigail texted me to say the girls were going out to a night club with Brian and was that OK?
I phoned Abigail on Ellie’s mobile because she wasn’t picking hers up and Abigail said she did really feel ill but she was going to a night club in Tottenham Court Road.
John reckons we have lost control of Abigail.
I think I’ll go and stand on the roof terrace and see if I can spot any burglars. You can always tell burglars because rather than switching on the lights when they enter a house at night like a normal person they use torches. It’s a bit of a give away really but useful for vigilant neighbours like me.
There’s a full moon but I didn’t see any. God it’s cold out there. Ooh I think I can hear a spooky creeping noise downstairs.....I’m probably imagining it, perhaps I should get back into bed. My mouth feels really dry...and sort of foamy. We haven’t got anything worth taking down there anyway apart from a lot of Nintendo Gameboy Wii Cubes and slaughter games in the playroom and I would be quite pleased if they were stolen. We could use the insurance money to buy a potter’s wheel and a wood working bench and Zac could learn a whole new way of being. I am definitely going back to bed now, I think the creeping noise is Buddy.
I have just checked the packet for the side effects of my sleeping pills. There’s a huge list: headaches, cramps, dizziness, vomiting, shooting pains, paranoia, hallucinations, dry mouth, foaming mouth, imaginary friends, terrorists and, in the event of stopping too suddenly, sleeplessness. I wish I’d known all that before.
I’m going to take a sleeping pill.
January 21st
Book Group
I feel terrible. Maise got in bed with us at 5.30 because she had a bad dream. I had a bad dream that I was at a funeral at my grandmother’s house and that I was trying to hide a rat in her airing cupboard. It was a very bad dream, much worse than Maisie’s, I am sure. I drove Zac to the bus stop at seven thirty with my eyes closed.
When I came back John was still sleeping, he is so lucky. He took Maisie to school because I fell asleep on the bed with my boots on. He’s meeting Amy Winehouse’s PR for lunch today in the Charlotte Street Hotel. That should be interesting, John thinks the PR might cancel.
I had a dream while I was asleep with my boots on that I was Amy Winehouse and that my legs were hurting because my bones were sticking sharply into the mattress and that my hair was in an uncontrollable beehive. Then I woke up. I must stop reading The Sun.
I have to read Rebecca for book group. It’s book group tomorrow evening and I haven’t read Rebecca. I could speed read it, if I knew how, or I could just try and remember it, I read it when I was fourteen, that’s not that long ago, it’s short term memory that goes as you get older so if I concentrate I should be able to remember all the pertinent details. I can’t not go to book group because I didn’t go last time because I went to the premier of ‘I am Legend’ with Ellis. Ellis has a crush on Will Smith. Tomorrow I could go to a premier as well for Jack Nicholson’s new film, but book group is very important to me because I don’t often get the chance to be intellectual. Also Ellis and I agree that Jack Nicholson is not as attractive as Will Smith.
I can’t remember a thing about Rebecca perhaps my long term memory is going too. Ok I’m going to go and read it now.
It’s a very fat book.
It’s got quite a nice picture on the front, a woman sort of lolling about on a sofa.. I’d like top loll about on the sofa.
I can’t read it, I have to put all these socks away.
Ok I’ve read it, it’s very good, a sort of 1930s Jane Eyre with a dead, mad wife instead of a live one. Excellent. I haven’t finished it but if I’m careful no one will notice and the book group will know I am serious about book group.
I picked Maisie up from school. Where did that whole day go?
I took Maise to piano and then brought her back from piano to have her tutor and then my friend, Rachel, came over to talk about secondary school transfer. Said she was at her wits end because Civic is a horrible school full of strange girls who turned into very stressed lawyers with dysfunctional lives when they grew up and that Daisy just couldn’t go there. She has started taking Daisy to church so she could get into Edgeware, but I wasn’t to tell anyone, especially not Ellis because he would hate her.
She also said that at Daisy’s school the head had decided that because of health and safety all children have to wear hard hats and high visibility jackets outside and that they were not allowed to run in
the playground.
Maisie handed me a school newsletter saying that snow was very dangerous and that if it did snow this winter her school would be closed. I showed Rachel the letter and she cheered up a bit.
January 22nd
Book Group.
I went to book group. We didn’t talk about the book.
January 25th
Dishwasher
FHM
I was just washing everything up this morning, having taken it all out of the dishwasher which hadn’t bothered to wash anything. How can it call itself a dishwasher and not actually wash dishes? I understand that this is pretty much standard behaviour amongst dishwashers. It hadn’t even attempted the cutlery. It’s as if I went around calling myself a wife and mother without being married or having any children.
Anyway I was washing it all up listening to Radio 4. I think I was listening to You and Yours, which ought really to be called Them and Theirs because I’ve never heard them mention anything that has anything to do with me, when I became incredibly irritated.
Why has that woman got such a bizarre accent? All through the programme she kept going on about ‘foonding’ and ‘boodgets’ and ‘pooblic mooney’.
I think she’s doing it on purpose like those people who speak quite normally and then out of the blue they say ‘Newcassle.’ I think she’s doing it so that anyone listening will know she’s gritty and from the North and I think that Radio 4 have not told her not to do it because they like having gritty Northerners on their programmes, as it’s more inclusive and some miners or clog dancers might tune in. So I turned her off.
Last night we went to Zac’s parents evening. All his GCSEs are predicted to be A* but all his mock GCSEs are Cs and Ds.
Zac didn’t do any revision over the Christmas holidays and the physics teacher said that she thought he seemed tired. I said I would frisk him before he went to bed each night, to make sure he didn’t have a phone, Gameboy, ipod or similar concealed about his person. And she said he could probably hide one in his hair like Amy Winehouse’s drugs. And I said perhaps that was why he refuses to cut it. John looked around the hall at the boys who were attending with their parents and said there seemed to be a fashion for sporting big hair amongst his year group. Abigail calls Zac’s hair a Jewfro.
After the parents evening John and I went out for supper. We had Dim Sum When we were walking back down our road we saw Fraser who asked us in for a glass of wine. They are going to France today for Burns Night. They are taking turnips and a small Scottish actor who was falling asleep on their sofa. Bella and Fraser are Scottish actors too.
Fraser and John started talking about quantum physics. John, because E from Eels’ dad was a quantum physicist and Fraser because he read a lot about it whilst hanging about on film sets. The new Bond film is going to be called Quantum of Solace which means I won’t understand what’s going on.
Zac’s school rang up today to say that he wasn’t there which is strange because I dropped him off at 8 this morning and I saw him go in. So I rang him on his mobile and he said he was there Then the school rang again to say he wasn’t, so I said he should go and stand in the school office and because he’s so big they would probably agree he was there. He did that and the school agreed.
Maisie didn’t go to school today. She hardly ever goes for a whole five days in a row because her duvet falls off in the middle of the night and anyway wouldn’t I rather she stayed at home where she would be safe and warm rather than making her suffer?
This morning I came back from taking Zac to school and found her pallidly reading a book in bed with blue hoops under her eyes. Her hair hung limply, a hectic pink flush had spread across her cheeks and she said she had a sore throat like a knife and could barely speak so she wouldn’t be able to answer any questions at school. John was still asleep.
‘Oh my darling little thing.’ I said lovingly ‘You absolutely cannot go to school.’ Maisie flopped back on her pillow, wanly.
Later, she put on a gorgeous outfit of mini skirt, glittery top and Ugg boots, brushed her golden hair still sparks flew out of it and came floating downstairs in a cloud of my Besier Du Dragon.
‘I’m bored, she said can I make a smoothie?’
I hate children.
Tomorrow Abigail is 18 and we are going to Nobu. I said we could only go to Nobu if she eats something but cleverly she is a vegetarian and Nobu is a sushi restaurant so I think I have been outflanked again. After Nobu she is going to the birthday party of some girl from Kings who she doesn’t know.
John and I asked if we could be given some consideration and be involved in her celebrations which are, in some degree, our celebrations too, which is why she suggested Nobu and she has magnanimously invited some school friends round for champagne at 6 as long as we promise to keep out the way and not to be embarrassing.
I am going to be very embarrassing. I think I’ll say how nang it all is that John and I are able to hang with the kids, how antwacky some people’s rents are and how I hope they have a grimy timey at the girl-whirley from Kings’ party.
I just went upstairs to Zac’s room to get his dirty washing and found a stack of FHM magazines under his bed. I don’t know what the etiquette of confiscating your teenage son’s magazine stash is. I am sure they must be keeping him up at night.
Do I remove them and say nothing, remove them and say I recycled them, remove them one at a time without mentioning it, or leave them there because at least they’re not Playboy or Readers Wives. I could ask Abigail but she’d just say ‘Don’t be rank.’ and how typical of Zac to read FHM when everyone knows it’s ‘So rinsed.’
Oh no, Abigail has just told me her friends from school are the super rich from West London. I said ‘Shall we pretend we own the house next door as well? Shall we have cocktails? Do they want a taxi?’ Is our kitchen posh enough or shall we redecorate?’
She said ‘Don’t be so lame.’
27th January
Abigail’s 18th
I Am The Captain of My Soul
Abigail had a lovely birthday. She had lots of money and lots of presents. She drank champagne in Nobu and Ellie came too. Nobu was full of Eurotrash, the food was very good and Abigail ate some. She looked pretty and smiled all through lunch and then she and Ellie went shopping in Selfridges.
When she got home all the West London girls came and danced in the kitchen and smoked in the garden. They had shimmery, swishy hair and glittery dresses and very high heels. After a while, they got two Premier Cabs to the girl from Kngs’ party. Maisie was excited by all the glamour and so were the Premier Cab drivers.
Job done. Now I only have two children.
No comments:
Post a Comment