Matt Rudd - William’s Progress

Andy looks first at Johnson, then at me. He sips his pint thoughtfully and says, ‘Saskia and William. It was almost five years ago. I think we can all assume it’s water under the bridge.’

This is not the case. Saskia is still Saskia. Andy is still Andy. But the pub is still the pub, so after explaining that I’m fine with it as long as I never have to talk to Saskia, I have another quick pint and then another one. Then I suggest they come back because I have beers in the fridge.

‘And a baby in the living room,’ says Johnson. ‘We’ll leave you to it.’

This proves to be a sensible decision. I zigzag home, open the door to the blissful domestic scene of Isabel still trying to make herself dinner, half undressed because she had momentarily given up on dinner and tried to go to bed, Jacob screaming in one arm, a soup spoon in the other, the kitchen looking like it has been ransacked by angry chimps.

‘Forget the coral and the parrots. You’re never going out again,’ she says. And she is only half joking.

Everyone has decided on an egg-shaped bath. Everyone, except me. It will take four weeks to be delivered from Sweden or Denmark or whichever other design-obsessed country it is made in. Alex promises the bathroom will be started mid-March and finished mid-March.

Even though we both disagree with Valentine’s Day, even though it is a stupid American invention designed to keep us as impoverished slaves of the capitalist system, even though I spent eight million quid at Budding Ideas last year (motto still: ‘Flowers for that special occasion or just because you want to say I love you.’ Spew), I have no choice but to return and spend another eight million quid this year on a dozen long-stemmed red roses.

Then we have an argument because twenty minutes after I present them to her, I discover them in a vase in the bedroom…with the long stems cut off.

‘I wanted to use this vase.’

‘The short one?’

‘Yes, the short one.’

‘So you cut off the long stems?’

‘Yes, is that a problem?’

‘Well, I could have saved seven and a half million pounds if I’d known you were going to cut the stems off.’

‘Do you want me to get the stems out of the bin, or can I enjoy the flowers you gave me in the way I want?’

Eight million pounds out of pocket and an argument for my troubles. But I decide to remain circumspect. We are both very tired and very ratty. It is no wonder that little things are triggering arguments more than usual. I must remain calm. I must remain calm because this is the first step on the long Zen Path to the Mastery of Parenting.

Step one:you must remain calm in the face of petty marital discord and not let it develop into a proper argument as it may have done in the time before children. Arguments take energy. You do not have energy. Whereas before, you could afford to spend days bickering about Marmite toast, bathroom usage and unappreciated long-stemmed roses, now you must centre yourself and allow these minor annoyances to wash away.

Step two:you must remain calm in the face of stressful situations as well. If you get a parking ticket, you must accept it and move on with your day. If someone, that someone being Isabel, spills red wine on the expensive white rug you bought for Christmas, you must shrug and volunteer to clean it. If you find yourself in Sainsburys still wearing your pyjama bottoms because you were halfway through getting dressed when your child woke up and started screaming (and if there’s one thing you’ve learned, it’s that you can only stop the screaming if you get to the child in the first ten seconds), but in your head, you’ve finished getting dressed and you only remember you haven’t when the checkout girl gives you a funny look, you must simply close your eyes, imagine a calm place, a garden perhaps, full of recently sprayed orchids, then pay the bill and leave quickly before anyone can call the police.

Step three:you must remain calm, even when it makes no sense to do so. Like when you haven’t slept continuously for more than an hour in six weeks, when you get home from work and have four hours of tidying to do before you can have dinner, which you can’t have because it’s then your turn to take the baby because your wife is exhausted and then you find the only way to get your child to sleep is by jogging around with him in a tight anticlockwise circle while reciting ‘The Owl and the Pussycat’ backwards in the voice of Barry White. For an hour.

I am still struggling with step one.

I have asked Isabel to start packing now for our incredibly ill-conceived trip to Devon on Saturday. She has agreed to do what she can.

This turns out to be very little because Jacob has a fever. Not a wink of sleep – not a single wink – mainly because I can’t stop myself taking his temperature every hour or so through the night to check it’s still only 99.8°C, not 101°C or 102°C. God forbid it gets to 102°C, even though Isabel phoned her doctor mum, who told her that babies get high temperatures and it doesn’t necessarily mean Jacob is going to die a horrible feverish death. ‘It doesn’t necessarily mean’ is not good enough for me. He is still tiny. His little body shouldn’t have to have a temperature. I’m not taking any chances.

Not going on holiday today on account of Jacob’s temperature, even though it’s gone down and it looks as if he might survive. The snowstorm sweeping across the country isn’t helping, either. I am not saying ‘I told you so’. It is enough that, for once, I am right about something. She knows it. I know it. Jacob knows it.

Still not going on holiday because the snow has turned to black ice and Isabel’s mother and my mother have both phoned and pleaded for us to wait until it is safe to drive. Even the bloody weatherman warns us not to travel anywhere unless it’s absolutely essential. I preferred it in the old days, before the Met Office missed the hurricane. They were more inclined to throw caution to the wind, so to speak. I say, ‘I told you so,’ because I simply can’t hold it in any longer.

And so, two days late, the first Walker family holiday begins. It will be the first of many. Over the next two decades at least, we will explore the world together. We will drive across Europe in campervans, we will sail narrow boats across England, we will explore exotic cultures in an educational and adventurous way. And we are starting with Devon. If we get that far. We woke at 6 a.m., a lie-in, and I suggested our ETDIAAHP (estimated time of departure if at all humanly possible) should be a very conservative 10 a.m. We left at 1 p.m., which isn’t bad when you consider that we had to take the entire house, the whole of Waitrose and a large section of Halfords with us, and that we’d only had five days to pack.

Twenty minutes in, against all odds, Jacob fell asleep. For the first time in seven weeks, Isabel and I had a conversation. It was leisurely. It had no sense of urgency about it. It was trivial and no child’s life depended on it.

‘Nice coffee,’ I said.

‘Do I get points for bringing it, dearest?’

‘Yes and no. Which would you like first?’

‘I may have to kill you, but purely out of interest I’ll start with the yes.’

‘Yes, because you’ve used proper milk, not devil’s spawn goat’s milk, and there’s enough sugar for once and we won’t have to spend £972 on crap motorway service station coffee.’