he did do stuff. It’s the little things, you know – like having someone open a bottle of wine for me after a bad day. Someone to warm my feet on in bed. Judgy won’t let me, in fact he growls at me when I try. I don’t need a knight in shining armour to rescue me, but occasionally I’d so like someone to bring me a glass of wine after a long day.’
‘Well,’ said Sam, ‘in the meantime, remember you’ve always got us. You’re not on your own.’
Monday, 16 April
And at last the children have returned to school after the Easter holidays or the Spring Break or whatever the fuck they call it these days. I thought things would be easier when they were in secondary school. I thought as they got older they’d get more self-sufficient, they’d be able to get themselves up and out the door in the mornings, they’d not need me to find all their stuff (though why I thought that age would bring them the magical ability to locate lost items, I don’t know, given that it had never bestowed that gift upon their father), they’d be able to make their own lunches and breakfasts and possibly even their own dinners sometimes too. Oh, what a poor, sweet fool I was! Trying to get teenagers out the door is possibly even more stressful – more reminiscent of banging your head endlessly against a brick wall – than trying to get bloody toddlers out the door.
The happy fun joy started with trying to get them TO bed last night. I’d duly packed them off at a decent hour, reminding them that they needed their sleep, that they had to concentrate at school today and also that they were still growing, for which I was rewarded with the same whinges about how everyone else gets to stay up as late as they like that I’d been hearing for the last ten years, and which fell upon deaf and unsympathetic ears. Then there had been the arguments from Jane that it was not fair that she had to go to bed at 10 pm, just like Peter, when she was a whole two years older and so should be allowed to stay up much later, to which my only counter-argument was that she bloody well had to go to bed because I was going to bed, followed by me having to sit in the kitchen and guard the fridge until I was sure Peter was safely in bed to stop him downing three pints of milk before retiring for the night and then complaining when there was nothing to put on his vat of Weetabix in the morning. Then there had always been Simon’s role – after I’d shouted in vain at them to go to bed, he’d finally wade in to the argument and bellow that they were to go to bed NOW and they’d be so surprised by him shouting at them, that they’d go. Now that it’s just me shouting, I think they simply tune out.
THEN, when their lights were still on at 11 pm, despite increasingly furious bellows from me, I had to go downstairs and switch the router off, which resulted in further furious bellows from them because Peter had been number one on Fortnite and about to win the battle and Jane had been having a like, really, like, important chat with Millie and Sophie on Snapchat and now her life was ruined. Neither of them seemed the slightest bit concerned that these things had been happening when they were supposed to be sleeping – it was still all my fault according to Jane because Simon apparently let her stay up as late as she wanted over the weekend.
So, after all that, it was no bastarding surprise when the little fuckers showed no signs of wanting to arise from their fetid pits this morning. I banged on the doors, I shouted and I shrieked, all while trying to get myself ready for work. I eventually threatened to go in and dump a bucket of water on them. But all to no avail. Someone needs to invent a special bed for teenagers, so that when their alarm goes off, if they’re still in bed after five minutes they get a mild electric shock. If they STILL don’t get up, the shock increases in intensity, and so on and so on until they finally deign to arise. Some might say this is harsh, and probably contravenes the Geneva Convention, etc, etc, but those people clearly have never had to get a bloody teenager out of bed in the morning …
Jane finally emerged from her room half an hour before we had to leave, and locked herself in the bathroom. This immediately set alarm bells ringing, because Jane is incapable of spending less than an hour in the bathroom at the best of times.
I banged on the door and shouted, ‘What are you doing?’
‘I need to wash my hair,’ she screamed back.
‘But you washed it last night before bed,’ I pointed out.
‘Well, I need to wash it AGAIN, don’t I, Mother,’ she snarled.
‘But we need to go in half an hour at the most if you want a lift to the bus stop,’ I wailed. ‘And if I don’t give you a lift to the bus stop you’ll miss the bus and be late for school and then you’ll get another detention and I’ll probably be summonsed to see your head of year and made to feel like a shit mother because you were late again, when actually it’s not my fault, but Mrs Simmons won’t see it like that, she’ll judge me for being an incompetent single mother and probably have you taken into care because when she starts giving me her judgy look I’ll revert to being a sulky teenager too and huffing and rolling my eyes, and last time I had to go and see her she actually asked me if I was chewing and Jane, please, just be ready in time.’
There was no answer, probably because Jane had her head under the rubber shower attachment I’d purchased as the solution to her hair-washing woes. Jane had looked at it in disgust. ‘WTF is that, Mother?’ she’d enquired in scathing tones. I’d explained that it attached to the taps, to wash your hair with, and that everyone had them in their bathrooms when I was her age. She gave me the same look of blank incomprehension as when I tried to explain to her about telephone boxes. In fairness, I’d forgotten how rubbish those shower attachments were, and despite brightly telling Jane that it was just the same as a real shower, it really wasn’t, not least on account of its ability to choose the most inconvenient time to detach one side from the tap and spray water all over you.
Meanwhile, Peter finally emerged from his room and shuffled downstairs. I abandoned trying to prise Jane out of the bathroom and ran downstairs, as he slouched over the kitchen counter shovelling Weetabix into his mouth.
‘Peter, how many Weetabix have you got in there?’
Peter considered my question as he crammed another shovelful into his mouth.
‘Six?’ he finally offered.
‘And is there any milk left for your sister’s breakfast?’
‘Oh yes,’ Peter assured me virtuously. ‘I put two bananas in as well, so I wouldn’t need as much milk.’
I was unconvinced by his logic, especially when I looked in the fridge and found the milk carton had been put back in empty.
‘PETER! You’ve finished all the milk again!’
‘No, Mum, I haven’t,’ he insisted, ‘Look.’ He took the carton and tilted it, so a tiny dribble ran into one corner. ‘There’s still some left.’
‘No. No, there isn’t. That was a full two-litre carton last night.’
‘Was it?’
‘Well, maybe Jane can just make do with orange juice and toast then.’
‘Oh yeah. I meant to say, Mum, we’re out of OJ.’
‘HOW? That was another full carton last night.’
Peter shrugged. ‘I dunno. I only had a couple of glasses. And now there’s none left.’
I sighed in despair. I’d been fretting for years about how I was going to feed Peter as a teenager, and now the reality was upon me, I was genuinely fearful I might have to remortgage the house.
