Allison Pearson - I Don't Know How She Does It

Didn’t Mrs. Pankhurst say something about women needing to stop being a servant class for men? Well, we tried, Emmeline; boy, did we try. Women do the same jobs now as men and do them equally well. But all the time, women are carrying around the information. The information that won’t leave them alone. I reckon that inside a working mother’s head, every day, is the control tower at Gatwick. MMR vaccinations (to jab or not to jab), reading schemes, shoe sizes, holiday packing, child care — cunningly assembled from wings and prayers — all circling and awaiting further instruction from air traffic control. If women didn’t bring them safely in to land — well, the whole world would crash, wouldn’t it?

12:27 P.M.The pigeon has laid two eggs. Elliptical in profile, they are startlingly white with a faint blue tinge. The mother and father appear to be taking it in turns to sit on them. Watching them reminds me of the shifts Rich and I do with the kids when one of them is sick.

By the end of today, I need to have written four client reports, sold a vast number of shares (with the markets melting down, company policy is to have more cash) and bought a flock of chocolate ducklings from Thorntons. Plus Momo and I are working on another pitch for an ethical account in Italy. And I haven’t even heard from Jack this morning and I long to see the little envelope appear in the top right-hand corner of the screen that tells me he’s out there thinking of me as I am thinking of him.

(What did it feel like before? Before I was waiting for his messages. Waiting and waiting. Either waiting or reading his last message or composing my reply and then waiting again. No longer in a state of living but in a constant state of waiting. The impatience like a hunger. Staring at the screen to summon the words into existence, willing him to speak.)

To: Jack Abelhammer

From: Kate Reddy

Jack, are you there?

To: Jack Abelhammer

From: Kate Reddy

WHAT ARE YOU THINKING? Speak, dammit!!

To: Jack Abelhammer

From: Kate Reddy

Did I say something wrong?

To: Jack Abelhammer

From: Kate Reddy

Hello?

To: Jack Abelhammer

From: Kate Reddy

What could you POSSIBLY be doing that’s more important than talking to me? xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

To: Kate Reddy

From: Jack Abelhammer

Being your slave, what should I do but tend

Upon the hours and times of your desire?

I have no precious time at all to spend,

Nor services to do till you require.

To: Jack Abelhammer

From: Kate Reddy

OK, you’re forgiven. That’s lovely. Sonnet by Bill Gatespeare, right? But let’s get one thing clear: any more silences that long and you’re in Big Trouble. In fact, you’re a dead man.

That’s a promise xxxxx

To: Kate Reddy

From: Jack Abelhammer

Bill Gatespeare, I find, has the emotional software to fit any occasion. . As far as you’re concerned, Katharine, I’m already in Big Trouble. If killing me means I can look forward to a personal appearance from my fund manager, then I’m prepared to die like a man.

I knew you were going to Disneyland with the kids, so I figured you’d be caught up in the preparations and not welcome my msgs. I try to think of you being happy without me, without letting it make me unhappy.

Nor dare I question with my jealous thought

Where you may be or your affairs suppose,

But like a sad slave stay and think of nought

Save where you are, how happy you make those.

You write so lovingly about the children — Emily’s reading, the way Ben tries to talk to you — that I know you’re a great mom. And you notice so much. My mom stayed home and played bridge and drank vodka martinis with her friends. She was there all day and never really around for the three of us. Don’t go romanticizing the stay-home parent — you can screw up whether you’re near or far.

Because you live in my head, you’re very portable, you know. I find myself talking to you all the time. The worst thing is, I’m starting to think you can hear me. Jack xxxxxxx

To: Jack Abelhammer

From: Kate Reddy

I can hear you.

SATURDAY LUNCH, TOAD HALL RESTAURANT, DISNEYLAND PARIS.Enthusiastic French kiss and passionate hug from a tall dark stranger. Regrettably, his name is Goofy. Overcome with shyness at meeting her favorite cartoon characters, Emily hides behind her mother’s legs and refuses to say hello.

Seconds later, Paula enters the restaurant like a struck gong, reverberating with resentment. She “agreed” to accompany us to EuroDisney in much the same way the British “agreed” to give back India. I just know the short-term relief of having her here to help out will not be worth it for the long-term tactical disadvantage.

I feel I have to spend the entire time apologizing profusely for things I haven’t done. Sorry Ben woke everyone up last night with his snoring, sorry room service is so slow, sorry French people don’t speak English. Oh, and I forgot to apologize for the rain. For that I am truly sorry.

Meanwhile, Paula sits back and observes my mothering skills with the fat contented air of a driving instructor guiding a know-it-all pupil towards the inevitable prang.

After fifteen minutes of queuing for lunch in Toad Hall — mock baronial, gargoyles made of gray polystyrene — we reach the counter and Paula orders chicken nuggets for herself, Emily and Ben. On the grounds that the chicken is more likely to be antibiotics in bread crumbs, I decide to take a stand. Suggest that it might be nice for children to have quiche instead, on the off-chance it will be made of ingredients from a farm rather than a test tube. “If you say so,” says Paula cheerfully.

At the table, when I present Ben with quiche, his tiny almost prim mouth contorts into a gash of grief. He starts those hiccupy sobs where he can barely take in air quick enough. French families sitting nearby, all with enfants in navy or gray linen sitting up straight eating haricots verts, turn and glare at barbarous Anglo-Saxons. After one mouthful, Emily announces that she doesn’t want quiche because it tastes like egg. She wants chicken nuggets. Paula does not say I told you so. Instead, she gives Ben one of those extra-reassuring never-mind hugs and feeds him fries off her own plate.

(Sometimes when I’m with Paula and the kids, I get that feeling I had at school when three girls in my group got closer, apparently overnight. How had I missed it? I, who had always been allowed to link arms on the way home with the fabulous popular Geraldine — Farrah Fawcett blonde, ankle bracelet, breasts — was bumped to the outside of the line, where I was expected to take the elbow of Helga — glasses, alp-tall, Austrian. I was still a part of the group but excluded from the inner core and its giggles, whose target I increasingly, achingly, took to be me.)

“Stop that, Emily, please.”

Em is decapitating paper batons of sugar and pouring them all over the table. We do a deal: she can make a sugar mountain for her Minnie Mouse key ring to ski down, but only if she eats her quiche and three green beans. No make that five green beans. OK?

I wish I could relax more, but a buzzing in my brain tells me I’ve forgotten something. What else? What else?

7:16 P.M.At bedtime, an overexcited Emily wants to discuss the Easter story one more time. She has been obsessed with it since she figured out last week that the Baby Jesus she sang carols about at Christmas grew up to be the man on the cross. It’s one of those occasions when you wish you could press a button and the Fairy Godmother of Explanations would appear and wave her wisdom wand.