Sophie Hannah: The Wrong Mother

Nancy says, ‘Oh dear. Poor you.’ She might be addressing Nick or either of the children. She and Fergus often look anxious when they see us struggling with Zoe and Jake. Now they probably think something terrible has happened at nursery-a rabid dog on the loose, perhaps. They’d be horrified if I told them this was normal, that tantrums on this scale are a twice-daily occurrence.

By the time Nick manages to lug the kids up to the kitchen, I have put on a load of washing, wiped all the surfaces, spooned some defrosted shepherd’s pie into two bowls and put it in the microwave. My children spill into the kitchen like survivors from the wreck of the Titanic : damp, unkempt and full of complaints. I tell them in a bright voice that it’s shepherd’s pie for tea, their favourite, but they appear not to hear me. Jake lies face down on the floor and sticks his bottom in the air. ‘Bottle! Cot!’ he wails. I ignore him, and continue to talk brightly about shepherd’s pie.

Zoe sobs, ‘Mummy, I don’t want shepherd’s pie for supper. I want shepherd’s pie!’

Nick zigzags around her to get to the fridge. ‘Wine,’ he growls.

‘You’re having shepherd’s pie, darling,’ I tell her. ‘And you, Jakie. Now, come on-everyone sit down at the table!’

‘Nooo!’ Zoe screams. ‘I don’t want that!’

Jake, seeing Nick pouring wine into two glasses, sits up and points. ‘Me!’ he says. ‘Me turn.’

‘Jake, you can’t have wine,’ I tell him. ‘Ribena? Orange squash? Zoe, you don’t want shepherd’s pie? What do you want, then? Sausages and baked beans?’

‘Noooo! I said-Mummy, listen. I said, I don’t want shepherd’s pie, I want shepherd’s pie.’

My daughter is very advanced for a four-year-old. I’m sure none of her contemporaries would think of such a simple yet brilliant way to infuriate a parent.

‘Want dat!’ Jake points again at Nick’s wine. ‘Want Daddy drink! Srittle!’

Nick and I exchange a look. We are the only people in the world who understand every word Jake says. Translation: he wants to sit on the sofa with a glass of wine and watch Stuart Little . I can relate to this. It’s almost exactly what I want to do, give or take the odd detail. ‘After supper, you can watch Stuart Little ,’ I tell him firmly. ‘Now, Zoe, Jake, let’s all sit down at the table and you can have some nice shepherd’s pie, and you can tell me and Daddy all about your day. We can have a nice family chat.’ I sound like a naïve idiot even to myself. Still, you have to try.

Nick picks Jake up off the floor and puts him in a chair. He wriggles off and wipes snot all over Nick’s trousers. Zoe clings to my leg, still insisting that she both does and doesn’t want shepherd’s pie. ‘Okay,’ I concede, moving mentally to Plan B. ‘Who wants to watch Stuart Little ?’ This suggestion attracts an enthusiastic response from the junior members of the household. ‘Fine. Go and sit on the sofa, and I’ll bring your supper in there. But you have to eat it all up, okay? Otherwise I’ll turn the TV off.’ Zoe and Jake run out of the room, and begin to clamber up to the lounge, giggling.

‘They won’t eat it,’ Nick tells me. ‘Zoe’ll sit with hers on her lap, mashing it around with her fork, and Jake’ll throw his on the floor.’

‘Worth a try,’ I call over my shoulder as I race upstairs with a bowl of shepherd’s pie in each hand.

Jake reaches the top of the stairs first. When Zoe’s head appears a second or two later, he smacks her lightly on the nose. She hits him back and he falls into me. I fall too, and spill both bowls of food. When Nick arrives to see what’s happened, he finds Zoe bawling on the stairs, Jake bawling in the lounge doorway, and me on my hands and knees on the carpet, collecting fluffy mincemeat, carrots, mushrooms and lumps of potato to put back into the bowls.

‘Right,’ says Nick. ‘If everybody stops crying right now … you can have some chocolate!’ He’s got a half-unwrapped Crunchie bar in his hand and is holding it as a highwayman might hold his gun, pointing it at the children. I see undiluted desperation in his eyes.

Zoe and Jake are writhing on the floor, demanding both chocolate and Stuart Little. ‘No chocolate,’ I say. ‘Bed! Right now!’ I abandon the shepherd’s pie clear-up operation, pick them up and carry them downstairs to their room.

Utterly determined to complete the task I have set myself no matter what obstacles I encounter, I finally manage to get Zoe into her nightie and Jake into his pyjamas and sleeping bag. I tell them to wait while I get their bedtime milk, and when I come back to their room, they are sitting side by side on Zoe’s bed. Zoe has her arm round Jake. They both smile up at me. ‘I brushed my teeth, and Jake’s, Mummy,’ says Zoe proudly. I notice a pink and a blue toothbrush protruding from under Jake’s cot, and large white smears on the carpet and on Jake’s left cheek.

‘Well done, darling.’

‘Tory?’ says Jake hopefully.

‘Which story do you want?’

‘Uttyumbers,’ he says.

‘Okay.’

I take Dr Seuss’s Nutty Numbers off the shelf and sit down on the bed. I read it without interruption, and Zoe and Jake take turns to lift the flaps and find the hidden pictures. When I’ve finished, Jake says, ‘Gain,’ so I read it again. Then I put Zoe in her bed and Jake in his cot and sing them their goodnight song. I made it up when Zoe was a baby, and now Nick and I have to sing it every night while the children laugh at us as if we’re eccentric old fools, singing a song that contains their names and lots of words that don’t exist.

I kiss them goodnight and close their door. I don’t understand children. If they’re shattered and want to go to bed, why don’t they just say so?

I find Nick sitting cross-legged on the floor, a dustpan and brush idle in his lap. He is watching the news again and drinking his wine, surrounded by small piles of cold shepherd’s pie. Nick loves every sort of news: 24, Channel 4, CNN. He’s hooked. Even when nothing of any interest is happening, he likes to hear all about it. ‘How were they?’ he asks.

‘Fine,’ I tell him. ‘Sweet. Aren’t you going to…?’ I point at the mess.

‘In a sec,’ he says. ‘I’m just watching this.’

It’s not good enough. Not now, not on the day that somebody tried to kill me. Is it possible to push a person under a bus and not be trying to kill them?

‘You could do both at the same time,’ I say. ‘Watch the news and clear up the mess.’ Pointless; it’s the sort of comment someone like Nick doesn’t understand.

He looks at me as if I’m crazy.

‘I’m just saying, it’d be more efficient.’

When he sees I’m serious, he laughs. ‘Why don’t I just go straight to the last day of my life?’ he says. ‘That’d be really efficient. ’

‘I’m going to ring Esther,’ I say through gritted teeth, picking up the phone to take into the bathroom. A warm bath with lots of lavender-scented bubbles in it will make everything all right.

‘Remember to make dinner and sleep and have tomorrow’s breakfast at the same time,’ Nick calls after me. ‘It’s more efficient.’

He is joking, and has no idea that I often do cook and make phone calls simultaneously. I’ve made entire meals one-handed, or with the phone tucked under my chin.

I turn on the hot tap and dial Esther’s number. Hearing my voice, she says what she always says. ‘Have you saved Venice yet?’

‘Not yet,’ I tell her.

‘Damn, you’re slow. Pull your finger out. Decontaminate those salt-marshes.’

I work three days a week for the Save Venice Foundation, which Esther thinks is a hilarious and sensationalist name for an organisation. We have been best friends since school. ‘Talking of slow…’ She groans. ‘The Imbecile is such an imbecile. You know what he did today?’ Esther works at the University of Rawndesley. She’s secretary to the head of the history department. ‘A load of e-mails came through to me that he needed to look at and respond to, right? Six, to be exact. So I forwarded them to him, and-because I know what an imbecile he is-I gave him two options: either he could reply directly, himself, or he could tell me what he wanted me to say and I’d reply for him. Two clear options, right? You understand the choice on offer?’