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

I CAN GET MYSELF and two children washed and dressed and out of the house in half an hour, I can juggle nine different currencies in five different time zones, I can make myself come with quiet efficiency, I can prepare and eat a stand-up supper while on the phone to the West Coast, I can read Guess How Much I Love You? to Ben scanning the prices on Teletext, but can I get a minicab to take me to the airport?

As part of an ongoing program of cutbacks, Edwin Morgan Forster will no longer send a car to deliver me to Heathrow. I must order my own. Last night I booked a local minicab, which this morning failed to show. When I rang to protest, the guy at the other end said he was very sorry but the soonest they could get a car to me was half an hour.

“It’s a busy time of day, love.”

I know it’s a busy time of day. That’s why I prebooked last night.

Says he thinks he may be able to get me something in twenty minutes. Hotly reject this insulting offer and slam phone down. Immediately regret it as all the other companies I call either don’t have a car available or suggest an even more disastrous waiting time.

Am in despair when I spot a dirty bronze card sticking out from under the doormat. It’s for a taxi company I’ve never heard of: Pegasus — Your Winged Driver. When I dial the number, the guy at the other end says he’s coming right over. Relief is short-lived. This being Hackney, what turns up at the door is Pegasus — Your Stoned Driver. Parked at almost 45 degrees to the curb, Pegasus’s chariot is a Nissan Sunny of impenetrable gloom hung about with veils of nicotine and hash. Climb in, but it’s technically impossible to breathe in cab, so try to roll down window and stick head outside like a dog.

“Window he’s not working,” volunteers the driver, factually and without regret.

“And the seat belt?”

“Not working.”

“You do realize that’s illegal.”

In the rearview mirror, Pegasus shoots me a pitying look that instructs me to get a life.

The cab not turning up made me so tense I had this stupid, stupid row with Richard. He found Paula’s Xmas bonus check, which I’d hidden in Emily’s lunch box. Said he simply couldn’t understand why I spent more on the nanny’s Christmas present than on the rest of the family put together.

I tried to explain. “Because if I don’t keep Paula happy she will leave.”

“Would that really be so bad, Katie?”

“Frankly, it would be easier if you left.”

“Ah. I see.”

Shouldn’t have put it like that. Damned tiredness. Always makes you say what you don’t mean to say, even if you feel it at the time. After that, Rich sat at the kitchen table pretending to have found something fascinating to read in Architectural Digest while managing to look like Trevor Howard at the end of Brief Encounter —all chin-up decency and glittery eyes.

Wouldn’t even look at me when I said goodbye. Then Ben stood up in his high chair and started yodeling for a hug. No. Sorry. Not in a clean suit: the state of him! Smeared with jam and apricot fromage frais , like his own personal sunrise.

The cab stops and starts and stops again along the Euston Road. If this is one of London’s main arteries, then London needs a coronary bypass. Its citizens sit in their cars, hearts furring up with fury.

Once we’re past King’s Cross, I open my post. There’s a card from Mum enclosing a magazine’s Yuletide supplement,“26 Recipes for a Magical Stress-Free Christmas!” Flick through pages in mounting disbelief. How can anything stress-free involve caramelizing a shallot?

We continue to crawl westwards, over the flyover and past the brick-pink semis, like mile upon mile of gaping dentures. When I used to live in a house like that, Christmas was still a pretty simple affair. It was a tree, a pimply turkey, satsumas trapped in an orange net, maybe some dates clinging gummily together in a palm-tree canoe and a bumper tin of Quality Street eaten by the whole family in front of Morecambe and Wise. Your big present was always waiting for you downstairs next to the tree — a doll’s house, roller skates, maybe a bike with training wheels or a bell — and there was a stocking whose thrilling misshapen weight your feet discovered at the end of the bed. But Christmas, like everything else, has moved up a gear. Now it’s productions of The Nutcracker (book tickets in August) and Kelly Bronze. When I first heard the name, I assumed Kelly was one of those inflatable Baywatch babes, but she turns out to be the only kind of turkey that’s worth eating anymore. And once you’ve spent an hour on the phone being held in a queue in order to beg the supermarket to put you on the waiting list for Kelly, you have to get the bird home and stuff her. According to my Yuletide supplement, stuffing, which was once stale bread crumbs with diced onion and a spoonful of fusty sage, has evolved into “porcini butter with red rice and cranberry to revive jaded palates.”

I don’t believe we had palates in the seventies; we had sweet teeth and heartburn that you eased by sucking lozenges the color and texture of gravestones. It’s a good joke when you think about it, isn’t it? Just as women were fleeing the role of homemaker in their millions, there was suddenly food that was worth cooking. Think of all the great stuff you could be making, Kate, if you were ever in your kitchen to make it.

8:43 A.M.Pegasus has chosen a “quick” back route to Heathrow. So, with one hour twenty-two minutes to takeoff, we are sitting outside a row of halal butchers in Southall. Feel my heart revving, foot jammed on an invisible accelerator.

“Look, can’t you go any faster? I absolutely have to make up time.”

A young guy in white cotton pajamas steps out into the road in front of us, a lamb the size of a child slung over his shoulder. My driver brakes suddenly and from the front of the car comes a laconic drawl. “Last time I looked, lady, running people over still against the law.”

Close eyes and concentrate on calming down. Things will feel much more under control if I make efficient use of the time: call KwikToy (“Round the Clock Fun!”) on mobile to complain about no-show of vital Christmas presents.

“Thank you for choosing KwikToy. We are sorry, you are held in a queue. Your call will be answered shortly.” Typical.

Start to work my way through torn-out Yellow Pages list of north London pet shops. It comes as no surprise to learn there is a national shortage of baby hamsters, though there might be one left in Walthamstow. Am I interested? Yes.

When I finally get through to KwikToy, clueless operative seems reluctant to admit they have any record of my order. Tell him I am a major shareholder in his company and we are about to review our investment.

“Awright,” he concedes, “there have been some delivery difficulties owing to unprecedented demand.”

I point out that the demand can hardly be described as unprecedented.

“The birth of the little baby Jesus. Been celebrating that one for two thousand years. Toys and Christmas, Christmas and toys. Ring any bells?”

“Would you be asking for a voucher, miss?”

“No, I would not be asking for a voucher. I am asking for my toys to be delivered immediately so my children will have something to open on Christmas Day.”

There is a pause, a beep and an echoey shout: “Oy, Jeff, some posh tart’s doing her nut on the phone about the Goldilocks porridge set and the push-along sheepdog. Whatmygonnatella?”

9:17 A.M.Arrive at Heathrow with time to spare. Decide to try to make it up to the driver for yelling. Ask his name.