More Back Story

Today I am fed up with trying to get people to do things they don’t want to do.

I am tired out by trying to stop Evil from peeing on the sofa,I am tired of trying to get Zac to shave, I am bored to death with telling Maisie to practice her piano, I am exhausted by endlessly telling John to move more and eat less and I am dying to go and live in Panama.

At least Abigail is a fully grown woman and I no longer have to tell her anything because as a fully fledged adult she will no doubt do everything she is supposed to do without my input. Oddly that hasn’t happened with John. John says I give him a hard time, I think I am very nice.

I am not going to tell anyone what to do for the whole of next week.

This morning I vowed to learn this by heart:

“ It matters not how strait the gate,

How charged with punishments the scroll,

I am the master of my fate,

I am the captain of my soul.”

It shouldn’t take long to learn and then I can chant it to myself when I am hanging up the washing. I am not sure what effect this will have but things have to change around here. At the moment I am the cabin boy of my soul, a slave to my fate and I complain endlessly about how ‘strait the gate’ is.

Yesterday evening I bit all my nails off so short that my hands hurt. I don’t know why I did that.

January 28th

Crimes

21 Oranges

Sex

This morning I walked Maisie to school and when we arrived there were five policemen outside stopping any parent from parking their car on the double yellow lines. They were not Community Support Officers but proper policemen. They said they needed to keep the traffic ‘flowing.’

As she parked her scooter in the playground, I said to Maise,

‘Well what a waste of policemen, they should be out there dealing with crime.’

And she said ‘Yes, but we don’t have any crimes in London do we?’

In The Sun this morning there was a headline saying ‘Third Of Men in Fear On Streets’ So the remaining two thirds are probably touting a fully loaded pitbull and have a big fat knife down there sock.

Yesterday John borrowed my car to go to work because his car has a flat tyre. He forgot to lock my car last night. This morning when I got in it, to drive Abigail to the bus stop, I saw that someone had searched the ashtray and looked under the driver’s sun visor. ‘Oh look.’ I said ‘Some tealeaf’s been searching for all my money and my Chanel sunglasses, because that’s where I keep them.’

Abigail said ‘Really? I’m 18 so, if I get a provisional licence, I can go where ever I like. I’m going to tear up all my fake IDs.’

I’m glad Maisie doesn’t think we have any crimes round here.

Tescos delivered this afternoon. I am getting quite friendly with my Tescos delivery man because he’s not allowed to smoke in his van, although he says he does if it’s raining and the Sky man says he does anyway because everyone does.Tescos man has to smoke on my doorstep so we got chatting.

He told me a customer shouted at him the other day for not delivering four bottles of champagne (This area really is coming up). He had a bit of a cough and then he said, ‘What do you want all them oranges for?’

And I said ‘What oranges?’

And he showed me a whole bag full. ‘21 oranges.’ he said. ‘It’s on the order, look.’

‘I didn’t order 21 oranges.’ I said, thinking hard ‘I didn’t order 2 or 1 or 12 . How did I get 21 oranges?’ I think I ordered 6 because Abigail likes them. ‘Why didn’t one of those alert messages come up on the screen when I was ordering? You know, “You have ordered 21 oranges. Are you sure you wanted to order 21 oranges?”

‘Search me’. said Tesco man ‘I haven’t got a computer.’ Then he stubbed out his cigarette and left.

I am a bit annoyed that John doesn’t pester me for sex. Everyone I know only has to have a couple of coffees to get all confiding and to say,

‘Oh God isn’t it so irritating the way they’re always after sex. I mean, I’m just not interested any more, but he’s so keen. He gets quite sulky if we don’t do it every night.’ and they say ‘He likes me to have a Brazilian and it’s so painful and I have to walk about in Agent Provocateur.’

I nod a lot. John doesn’t know what a Brazilian is. We have a Brazilian window cleaner called Edge so if I were to say,

‘Do you like Brazilians?’ he would probably say, ‘They’re OK.’

I wonder why John isn’t more sulky. He doesn’t give me a chance to feel even vaguely pestered. Of course, it is all uncorroborated from the other side, as in - ‘Oh God I’m such a sex pest, I can hardly leave Rachel, Milly, Margaret alone for 24 hours...and I like my chick virtually hairless’ so there is a chance these women are just making it up to make themselves look good...I’ve decided I hate women, you can’t trust a thing they say.

Number of Texts received this morning ; 8.

1. ‘Yay! Of course we will come to John’s surprise 50th birthday party but we can’t stay late’. I love a person really throwing themselves body and soul into something don’t you?

2. ’Have big favour to ask. Can Sylvie come and stay for first w/e of March ? Steve and me both at conferences in USA.’ I must get back to her about that. She and Steve have a PHD, so have many conferences and have written many books. I might go ski ing in March. I don’t know what has happened to my organisational skills. I don’t seem to know when half term is and the Easter holiday is beyond my imagining.

I am pretending that I am going ski ing with Zac but I bet I’m not. Ellis is going next week but he always goes with a huge group and takes a bus to Manchester airport and loses his passport and at least three children and when they get there it’s self catering and a twenty minute walk to

the piste. I just need ski-to -the- door and a chalet girl. and fully catered.

3. ‘Thankyou!!!’ From the editor of John’s newspaper.

4. ‘Shall I organise drinks and canapes?’ from same. I don’t want her to, because I have arranged a surprise party. John doesn’t want a surprise party and he also doesn’t want his paper to know he’s 50. I am much younger than 50 but if I was 50 I would like surprise party and canapes. I

don’t think anyone will arrange that for me though.

5. ’He is very stressed’ from Claire. Claire has a PHD so she is moving to Stalybridge with all her family to pursue a career as a professor. Her husband is very stressed at the prospect. I think Claire will be in Stalybridge on John’s birthday but she says her husband can come as Ellis’ partner. She also said ‘We are mad.’ I texted back ‘Oh well.’

7. ‘What’s your e-mail, it’s just that otherwise I am going to write you a ridiculously long text.’ from Milly across the road. Milly is only 20.

She had anorexia but now she looks normal. I met her in the post office yesterday when I was posting my Ebays and I said

‘Oh I nearly phoned you because I am worried about Abigails eating. She has got very thin.’

Milly said ‘ Umm, I couldn’t really help. I must go.’

And I said ‘Yes of course how silly. Well I didn’t phone you because actually I thought I was being pretty silly, so bye anyway’. But she had gone.

When I got home I found my mobile and texted her ‘Sorry for being so stupid. Maybe we could take Evil out soon, one day, round the park perhaps?’

God I am stupid. I am dreading that E-mail.

‘Are you better yet?’ from Judy. Judy is Zac’s old violin teacher. Now she teaches in a comprehensive in South London. It’s hell. She is also a single mother. We arranged to go to The Tate Modern for lunch and then she will stay Friday night with us and we will chat. She’s going to bring her baby. That’s very exciting. I love Judy, She’s sweet.

8. I’m relly tird and I hav bad bak. Cn U pk me up? From Zac.

Last weekend Zac went to a pile in the country. Private school offers your children such advantages. When he came home in unfamiliar cashmere and trousers I asked ‘So, do these belong to Freddie?’ (Luckily Freddie

is also giant) and he said ,

‘No they’re Otto’s. He’s grown quite a lot recently. We had a food fight on quad bikes so that bag in the hall is full of trifle and trousers.’

I am so annoyed. I have told him about Ozzy Osbourne and Rick Mayal and quad bikes. They weren’t even chucking food about and they still almost brained themselves and Rick has been reduced from ‘The Young Ones’ to

the Andrex puppy voice. For God’s sake this is serious.

Zac wants to be a doctor. I must phone perfect GP doctors down the road and ask them if he can shadow them and wipe old lady’s bottoms in hospital. Apparently this is enormously helpful with one’s application to Medical School, although Ellis, who is part of the NHS Massive, says that

there are no longer jobs for young British-trained doctors in the NHS.

He’s so cynical. I think wiping botttoms would be good for Zac. He is acting in such a privileged way.

Zac says he wants to cut his hair. Hallelujah!! . Zac’s hair is very big and blonde. Zac is probably only 5 FT 10 but measures 6 FT 3 due to his over enthusiastic hair. I had a dream, last night, that Zac had his hair cut and turned into small fat 12 year old with a crew cut. Am I afraid of

cutting Zac’s hair and emasculating him? Cannot remember what Zac looked like before his blonde hair explosion.

Zac says guys at school have accused him of on- going hair dying and and by extension incipient gayness. He dyed his hair in July 2007. In September we dyed it brown but the dye faded and now he has fetching high lights. This does not make him gay. Zac says ‘I am not gay.’

And I say.

‘ If you are gay you couldn’t wish for a more supportive parent.’

And Zac says,

‘But I’m not.’

And I say,

‘Yes of course you’re not, darling. But in the same way as if you had cystic fibrosis and needed the support of your parents, I think that were you gay, or if you felt yourself to be gay in any way, whatsoever, you would have all the help and support you could possibly hope for.

Zac says ‘I’m not gay!’

Maisie says, ‘ Gay means, happy. Aren’t you happy Zac? I’m happy, but I don’t want to kiss any ladies. What’s cystic fibrosis?’

Zac says, ‘Oh for fuck’s sake.’

Abigail says, ‘I remember you wanting me to be gay’.

That is SOO not true! But had she been, obviously, I would have offered her all the help and support she could possibly have wished for.

Abigail says that a girl at her school who is frankly the biggest JP in Europe has just spent £700 on bikinis from Victoria’s Secrets.

31st January. 2008

Judy

Party

Food Moths

9 Wet Towels

Judy came. She brought her baby who is the sweetest baby in the world with blonde hair, chubbly legs and big blue eyes. She is perfect.

We met up at Tate Modern and we admired the crack. What is the crack? I found the depth of the crack more interesting than the length and the way it split of at angles and then petered out quite satisfactory. Is this a comment on London’s housing stock? Some houses in Springfield Road have similar cracks. Claire and Paul have filled in all the cracks in their house with exterior grade polyfilla and now they have been offered the asking price by a cash buying trustafarian. The move to Stalybridge is imminent.

The crack is clearly a fault line. Is it a comment on the Tate itself? On the art establishment? On Irish pubs? We mulled it over and then went to have a rather delicious lunch in the cafe overlooking the Thames. I love The Tate.

John was very pleased to see Judy, so was Maisie. Judy and her baby stayed the night and the next day John and I drove her home to South London.

I understand that some people believe South London has some nice bits but actually it mostly has horrible bits with huge arterial roads bisecting vast areas of bomb damage, interspersed with scruffy little High Streets occupied by people without hope or aspirations. That’s where Judy lives anyway, so I told her to stop being so silly and to get a job across the river where it is much more aesthetic.

After we dropped Judy at her house John and I took Evil for a walk on Blackheath and we had lunch there too. Black heath is not London it is actually Chichester or Guildford. I saw some people wearing Barbours.

Later we came home and lolled about drinking tea before remembering we had to go to a party.

The party was fun. We sat on the sofa a bit and talked to Ellis and to Paul and Claire. Claire is obsessed with the move to Stalybridge and I told her that as it was North we wouldn’t be able to visit her as we only ever go South or West. Claire said she didn’t mind as she would spend lots of time in London. Then I talked to a man from South London and I told him it was horrid and he said ‘Brockley is very nice and North London has The Holloway Road so you needn’t be so superior.’ I have no idea where Brockley is.

I talked to another man who was wearing very high waisted trousers. He keeps bees in his garden. The bees only fly in straight lines and if you get in their way they sting you. The man’s neighbours have to carry special anti histamine pens to inject themselves if they are stung because it has happened so often they are sensitised.

All the women at the party were wearing skirts that were too short for their ages. Claire wore a mini skirt she’d bought in Stalybridge. I was wearing a stupid girly dress from Whistles that was far too short, so fitted in nicely. A band played jazz in the kitchen. They were three teenaged boys and they played very well, When all the women in the inappropriately short skirts started to do drunk dancing the band played looking at their feet.

At 11.30 Abigail came to pick us up because she had been out to a club in Soho and had forgotten her key. She said the party was very embarrassing. I thought it had it’s good points. Ellis stayed until 4 am and the man from Brockley was rude to Claire.

There are food moths in our utility room. The utility room is also our larder. I was hand washing one of John’s jumpers in the butler sink and something fell on my head and wiggled a bit. I screamed and ran into the playroom. Zac looked up from his game of killing to say ‘Oh you’ve got a maggot on your shoulder.’

Much later I went back into the utility room and saw that there were lots of maggots on the ceiling and horrible little food moths on the walls.

Where are they coming from? Why does this sort of thing happen to me? I hoovered up the maggots and threw all the bags of flour and pasta in the bin.

When we lived in our old house there were food moths everywhere but I didn’t know what they were. I fed the children brown rice because we were very healthy in those days and sometimes I would see a dead moth floating in the rice water so I would scoop it out. One day I looked in the rice bag and saw that it was heaving with maggots. Ever since then I have hated food moths.

The day after the party John, Abigail, Maise and me went out for lunch with Ellis and his daughters, Hannah and Hetty. Ellis said he needed an Indian because of the hangover. Abigail said John couldn’t have one because of his diet. We went to a Mexican.

John ordered a steak and Abigail ordered a small bowl of refried beans. Abigail said John’s steak was ‘butters.’ Hannah and Hetty didn’t know what ‘butters’ meant because they go to a selective state school and so are very intelligent and well educated with vocabularies.

Maisie said, ‘I think my nose is my best feature and that one day I will be discovered and I will be famous.’

Hetty told us that every morning the bee man from the party opens his shutters, naked, and stands there with his legs apart. He lives opposite them and his bedroom looks directly into theirs. Hannah said ‘When that happens I just drop to the floor like a stone and crawl out the door so he doesn’t get embarrassed.’ Abigail thought that was ‘butters’ too.