Why Mummy Swears Read online

  I cannot enter the hallowed portals of the actual play park because I brought the dog with me, so we lurk outside while toddlers’ mummies glare at us in case we make a break for the gate so Judgy can do a shit in the sandpit and I can rub it in their cherub’s eye and BLIND THEM FOR EVER! Obviously, I know dog poo can be very dangerous, and of course I don’t condone people who let their dogs crap in children’s play parks. I just resent the hisses of horror from the mummies whenever a dog ventures within a hundred feet of the gate. Luckily, Peter and Jane are now old enough that they don’t need close supervision in the park anymore. Peter is perfectly capable of trying to break a limb on the monkey bars all by himself, and Jane is more interested in taking selfies with Sophie on the old iPhone she cajoled out of me and now insists on taking everywhere with her despite me pointing out that she doesn’t actually need a phone at the park.

  While the children played, I had a quick look through my emails, where there was nothing of much interest – another Nigerian general just needed my bank account details to transfer his millions (I wonder if I could invent an app that somehow spams back the spammers?), Gap had another sale (when does Gap not have a sale? Does anyone ever buy anything full price in Gap? Maybe I could make an app for Gap, for all their sales. Oh, they already have one. Bugger), and one more email from the recruitment company I had signed up for. I almost deleted the recruitment company’s email, as despite carefully filling in the forms telling them my qualifications, my interests, the fields I wished to work in and the salary I was looking for, so far they had sent a steady stream of jobs that were nothing to do with my expertise, were located five hundred miles away and paid approximately a third of what I previously earned. However, mainly so I could look like I was doing something important – and thus avoid catching the eye of any of the other parents and having to engage in conversation – I opened it, and lo and behold, IT WAS ONLY MY DREAM FUCKING JOB!

  It was perfect. I’d be working for one of the hottest new tech start-up companies of the last five years, who occupied a sexy, shiny, modern, glass office block, instead of a grey building on a grey industrial estate, yet was only about twenty minutes’ drive from my house.

  I have often passed the office building and metaphorically pressed my nose against the glossy mirrored-glass windows. Apparently, it’s just as cool inside (yes, I might have googled it. Repeatedly), with light and space and acres of white desks and Beautiful People. OK, maybe I am imagining the Beautiful People, but I am pretty sure everyone who works there is super-cool and trendy and probably wears hipster glasses and ethical trousers. They probably have Whatsapp groups to discuss things instead of insisting on pointless two-hour meetings to resolve something that could have been sorted with one email, and if they do have meetings they sit on … oooh … I dunno, beanbags or something. Actually, do I want to work somewhere with beanbags? I’m almost forty-two. Could I manage to get up off a beanbag with dignity? They probably don’t have beanbags, it’ll be fine.

  And I’d actually be doing something quite stimulating and challenging and interesting, unlike the old job where the best thing I got to do was tell Dodgy Ed in Accounts that actually, no, it wasn’t possible to eradicate all traces of the hardcore porn that he had ‘accidentally downloaded’ from his laptop (in a fit of malice I also claimed that, in fact, the internet tracks everything you do and so even if he bought a new laptop and threw that one in a river, the internet would know about the porn and so his wife would still be able to see what he had been watching).

  The pay is really good, too. Which would be awfully nice, as the redundancy money has almost run out, and I hate the idea of not having my own money. I know it all goes into the joint account anyway, but I’ve always contributed to that, and the idea of being ‘dependent’ on Simon sticks somewhat in my throat. The only downside is that it would be a full-time position.

  I suppose I should really have discussed the whole full-time thing with Simon first, but I was so excited about my perfect job coming up pretty much right on my doorstep (and mentally I had also spent most of my lovely new salary already) that I just went ahead and told the agency to put me forward for it. Oh, what bliss it would be if I got it! And now the children are at school most of the time, the extra money would easily cover any increased childcare costs, and then some. I am crossing my fingers and toes and legs and … what else can one cross, apart from eyes? Maybe I am still a bit of an optimist.

  Saturday, 20 August

  I am rested, recharged and raring to go after my wonderful, relaxing family holiday with my darling children and beloved husband. Oh, what a splendid time we had! Oh, how we frolicked! And the japes. The japes! One day the children will look back on those golden sun-drenched days, and they will smile fondly at the #happymemories created as they laughed and ran along those sandy Cornish beaches in tasteful knitwear, the wind in their hair and their youth before them. Or at least they will if they look at my Instagram account, which reports on the holiday I would like to have had, as opposed to the holiday I actually had, which mainly consisted of doing laundry, attempting to play an ancient game of Mousetrap that was missing half the pieces, trying to cook in an unfamiliar kitchen and swearing because every damn knife in the place was blunt. Incidentally, why are knives in holiday houses ALWAYS so blunt? Is it because they are concerned that under the pressure to have a marvellous time and keep those #happymemories coming that someone might crack and try to murder their family if they have to listen to one more whine about how everyone else goes to Center Parcs and why do we have to go to Cornwall (because we are middle-class, darling, and also slightly pretentious), and can we go to Center Parcs next year? (No, sweetie, because your father hates People.) Then there’s the moaning about why is there no wifi (because we’re here to talk to each other, poppet, and have a lovely time, not stare at our tablets, and yes, I did go outside to get a 4G signal, but I needed to upload my photographs to Instagram because how else will anyone know we are having a lovely time? We ARE having a lovely time. YES, WE ARE! WE ARE HAVING A LOVELY TIME BECAUSE I FUCKING WELL SAY WE ARE HAVING A LOVELY TIME! No, you can’t borrow my phone to play Pokémon Go. Because there aren’t any Pokémon in Cornwall. No, of course I’m not lying to you, why would I lie to you?).

  Were it not for the fact that I am just as adept as the next person at lying on social media, I would be convinced that every other child in the country spends the entire summer holidays in some sort of sun-drenched, golden Enid Blyton world, laughing and frolicking on beaches, skipping through wildflower meadows, flying kites and building sandcastles with their loving parents, but according to Facebook and Instagram, with a little help from a few filters, my children had done exactly the same all summer long.

  Anyway, we are home now, everyone is exhausted after the long and hideous drive, we appear to have brought most of Cornwall’s beaches back with us in the car and the suitcases, and there are vast mounds of laundry to be done, and frankly, I don’t actually know why we bother going on holiday, when you need another holiday to get over going on holiday. But anyway, I do at least have some lovely photos, even if the children did keep complaining that I took too many photos of them and whining about why did I need so many photos and I snarled that I needed the photographs for my dotage, when I was old and grey and they had grown up and left me and all I had to remember their childhood was these photos. I even got a nice photo of Simon, which is miraculous as usually he just pulls stupid faces when I point a camera at him. I suppose at least I know where the children get it from!

  BUT, on the way back, I got a phone call to say that the Dream Job want to see me for an interview! Simon was somewhat dismissive, pointing out that an interview is very different to being offered the job, sighing deeply and telling me not to get my hopes up, but fuck him. It’s a step in the right direction, even if Simon is insisting on pissing on my chips as ever. Just for once, it would be nice if he could be positive about something I do and encourage me, instead of always seeing the dark si
de and predicting dire results. Just a little bloody faith, that’s all! Is that too much to ask? Anyway, much more important than Simon Misery Pants FartFace, is the question of what I am going to wear?

  Astonishingly, Peter’s plant is still alive, despite being abandoned for a week.

  Friday, 26 August

  How many weeks has it been? It feels like forever. Will they ever go back to school? I am starting to lose hope the holidays will ever end. The only bright spot at the moment is the upcoming interview, and the potential to become a high-powered, corporate Proper Person, instead of a dispenser of snacks and referee-er of fights. I suggested today that building a den in the garden might be a fun way to pass the time. The children looked at me as if I had proposed that they should shit in their hands and then clap. Instead, since it was sunny, they demanded to have a water fight instead. Much against my better judgement, as I am firmly convinced that water fights are nothing more than a fast track to A&E with a broken limb, or at the very least some blood and nasty bruising, but lacking the strength any more to argue, I agreed.

  For at least ten minutes they were outside hurling water and screaming before they decided they were bored and cold and instead it would be far more fun to tramp mud and water and grass through the kitchen, use an unfeasible number of clean towels, get dressed in a whole new set of clothes to the ones they were wearing earlier, and then, just as I had mopped up the swamp from the kitchen floor, request to play on the Slip’N Slide.

  I denied them the Slip’N Slide, as we had been fortunate enough to get through the water fight without anyone being maimed, so I was not tempting fate by getting out the plastic Mat of Doom that should really be renamed the Slip’N BreakYourNeck. I pointed out the many wholesome activities available to them in the garden: they could jump on the yellow and blue monstrosity that has destroyed any tasteful Zen vibes in my garden, they could play with the swingball, they could read a book underneath a motherfucking tree, but they were not coming inside on a glorious summer’s day to stare at a screen and nor was I taking them anywhere or spending a single penny on their entertainment that day. They were playing in the garden – and that was final.

  With that, I retreated inside to stare at a screen under the guise of work. Well, I told them I was ‘working’. In actual fact I was googling ‘cool interview outfits’ (all of which seemed to involve alarming high heels and very thin people in amazing jackets that I don’t think I could get my tits into) in an effort to present myself as ruthlessly professional but also Down With the Youth at my interview. I was also fretting because all the women in the photos were carrying takeaway cups of coffee – is this now a required accessory? Might they not take me seriously if I don’t turn up clutching a cardboard cup of a grande soy latte? Is that even the order the words go in? Also, I thought all the big coffee chains were frowned upon as unethical tax dodgers. Maybe if I bring the wrong sort of coffee I’ll be off the shortlist before I’ve even opened my mouth. Perhaps I should just take the free coffee from Waitrose. Is Waitrose considered ethical? I DON’T KNOW! I only know it is middle-class! All these, and other worries, were swirling around in my head when after half an hour or so, I realised I could hear something terrifying. Silence. There is never silence from my precious moppets unless Something Bad is happening. I flung open the back door to find a disconsolate Jane trying to disentangle a yoyo string.

  ‘Where’s Peter?’ I demanded.

  Jane shrugged. ‘I dunno.’

  ‘Well, isn’t he out here with you? Didn’t you notice him going somewhere?’

  Jane shrugged again, and mumbled he was probably inside and that wasn’t fair, if he was on his iPad then, she, Jane, who had not defied my instructions, deserved EXTRA iPad time to make up for Peter’s getting time just now and also even more extra time to reflect her obedience. I cut short Jane’s lengthy argument about her screen time and dashed inside to look for Peter. I bellowed and shouted, to no response. He wasn’t in his bedroom, he wasn’t in the sitting room, he wasn’t in the loo, he wasn’t even in Jane’s bedroom stealing things to annoy her.

  ‘JANE!’ I shouted. ‘Are you SURE you didn’t see where he went?’

  Jane insisted she had not, adding a hasty disclaimer that whatever fate may have befallen Peter, it was definitely not her fault.

  That icy dread started to grip me. My rational brain was churning out statistics, reminding me that the chances of him being absolutely fine were really very high, while the rest of me was screaming silently inside because my baby boy was missing, and I didn’t even know what he was wearing to give a description to the police because he had changed clothes so many times today already due to bloody water fights.

  WHY hadn’t I just let him play on the Slip’N Slide? Better an afternoon at A&E with a mildly mangled limb than the scenarios now playing out through my head – the treacherous ponds; the unmarked vans screeching to halt and speeding off again, unseen by anyone; the boy racer, flying down a suburban street slightly too fast to stop for the small figure darting out to chase a ball. For a fleeting second, I wondered whether there were any disused mine shafts around that he could have fallen down. Would Judgy Dog be able to track him? Probably not. He hates Peter with a vengeance, and the feeling is mutual.

  By the time all those thoughts had run through my mind I was out on the street, yelling Peter’s name at the top of my voice and trying not to sound too hysterical. He could only have been missing for fifteen minutes at the very most – it was too soon to call the police, I told myself. Hearing me shouting, my neighbour and kindred spirit Katie appeared from across the street, and I gabbled out what had happened.

  ‘Oh God!’ she said. ‘I’ll help you look. Let me grab my girls, then I’ll go down that way and you go down the other way, and if he doesn’t hear us shouting, we’ll start knocking on doors. We’ll find him, Ellen, don’t worry.’

  I nodded, too afraid I would cry if I had to actually speak, and set off, bellowing for Peter, Jane trailing behind (I could not let her out of my sight. It was bad enough I had mislaid one child; to lose another would doubtless cause Lady Bracknell-esque pronouncements upon my parenting).

  I got to the end of the street, still shouting, and was working my way back up, my voice now hoarse and the fear held at bay by the thinnest of threads, when Karen Davison at number 47 opened her door, looking surprised.

  ‘Peter’s here!’ she said. ‘Didn’t you know?’

  ‘No!’ I choked. ‘I thought he was in the garden and then he was gone.’

  ‘He’s here, playing on that bloody Slip’N Slide with my grandsons,’ said Karen. ‘He was playing in your front garden when we came past on the way home from the shop and the boys asked him if he wanted to come over. I told him he had to check with you first, and he went inside and came out with his swimming trunks and said it was fine, so I assumed he had told you.’

  I was too relieved at finding Peter alive and intact and not trapped down a collapsing mine shaft to even be angry at him for buggering off without telling me. I grabbed him and hugged him tightly (a bad move in hindsight, as he was soaking wet), and then rather embarrassingly burst into tears and sobbed, ‘Don’t you EVER, EVER do that again. I was so worried!’

  ‘I’m sorry, Mummy,’ said Peter. ‘I thought it would be OK because I wasn’t going very far. I didn’t mean to scare you.’

  ‘I was only scared because I love you,’ I wept.

  ‘I love you too, Mummy. I won’t scare you like that again, I promise.’

  Oh God, I nearly lost my son because I was too busy worrying about what sort of coffee to take to an interview! What sort of mother am I? Maybe I should give up all thoughts of going back to work full-time and just become an earth Mother, and do crafts with them – even though I hate crafts – and devote every moment of my existence to them to make up for my previous abject failings, in the hope that they are not too scarred by my selfishness. I mean, they seem unscarred – the only person who seemed to be traumatised by this afterno
on is me, but maybe the damage is deeper and will only be revealed in their thirties when they enter therapy and realise that everything that is wrong with their life can be traced back to my dubious parenting?

  Both Jane and Judgy Dog were unimpressed by Peter’s safe return.

  SEPTEMBER

  Monday, 5 September

  Argh! The job interview is THIS FRIDAY! I still have nothing to wear, but I think I need to stop worrying about that and start thinking about what I’m actually going to SAY. I haven’t been to a job interview in years. What do I tell them? Oh God, I’ll have to pretend to have hobbies and be a proper person and try not to gabble at length and fall back on my favourite conversational gambit of telling people about the interesting fact that otters have opposable thumbs. I’m pretty sure the only reason one could have to legitimately discuss otters in a job interview is if one was applying for a job as an otter wrangler or something. (Actually, that really would be my dream job. I love otters and have frequently expressed a desire to keep one in the bath. Simon does not even dignify this suggestion with a response, but I have seen Ring of Bright Water many times and think keeping an otter in the bath would be perfectly feasible – I could get reduced red label salmon from the supermarket for it to eat. And tangents like this are exactly why I get so nervous about interviews.)