Fay Weldon - The President’s Child

‘So?’ said Mrs Pelotti. ‘So would I if I were him. You talk to him too much. You ask his advice. You forget he’s too young to give it. You treat him as if he were grown-up. He’s only six. Of course he bites. He could never talk his way round you lot. What else is he to do?’

‘Anything else we do wrong?’ asked Isabel.

‘Yes,’ said Mrs Pelotti, ‘you’re always late. Bring him in on time and collect him on time. You and your husband spend so much time discussing whose turn it is that the child gets forgotten. But take him to a shrink if it entertains you, and you’ve got the money. I don’t suppose it will do much harm. If you have things to throw away there’s a jumble sale next week. I have become more a fund raiser of late than an educationalist. I have no choice.’

‘Mrs Pelotti,’ said Isabel, surprised. ‘I’m never late.’

‘One of you is,’ she said. ‘Perhaps it’s your husband. You’re both so busy you never notice anything.’

That over, Isabel went to work. Mrs Pelotti had been unfair. Jason was almost always delivered and collected on time, but Mrs Pelotti’s way was to brisk up both parents and children by brutal overstatement, and send them away with some kind of achievable, practical mission. If you were five you learnt to tie your shoelaces; if you were thirty-five you aspired to get up on time.

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