Here they come again, those pacifying phrases. Without them, I’d never make it to school — where things turn out to be more serious after all.
Jack and I have barely left the secretary’s office when he starts crying in earnest and shows me his broken braces.
When Jack cries because he’s afraid of my reaction, I’m left with one possible response: to play it down, make light of it.
Maybe his braces used to be worth something. Perhaps I built a wall of threats and sighs, and furrowed my brow bad-temperedly when I was studying the bill from the health insurance in the orthodontist’s waiting room. But this wall collapses the moment I see him bawling his eyes out, his bottom lip quivering. I take it all back. I’ll do and say and pay anything if he please oh please would just stop crying.
And he stops.
Jack goes to bed to sleep off his headache and the shock. I phone an orthodontist and make an appointment.
Of course I can afford new braces. I can also cope with sitting around in the ugly waiting room reading Top Gear for a few more hours, or staring at the fish swimming back and forth inside the green panes of the aquarium, or watching the receptionists creeping about on crepe soles to the break room to take a quick bite from a sandwich or send a text.
During that time, my bad temper will solidify into a new foundation for the next wall of threats, and that’s just mine and Jack’s fate. It’s what connects us: parental concern and childish dependency.
What did I expect, for God’s sake?
‘Everybody knows that a kid will get sick once in a while.’
‘And that dental braces break.’
‘And that waiting rooms aren’t nice.’
Yes, that’s right. And anyhow — we’re talking about my Jack! A poster boy for maternal feelings, with braces on his teeth and traces of tears on his dirty cheeks! A real, living boy — how cool is that!
I’ll save what I wanted to write for this evening. I have to go and pick up Lynn from childcare. The days are short when they’re interrupted by secretaries and orthodontists, eaten into by part-time day-care arrangements—
‘O-U-T spells OUT!’
No one forced me to have children.
Except they did.
But I can’t go into that now. I have to set off from my broom cupboard; there I go, hurrying along the pavement. Parents come strolling towards me with the children they have already picked up, along with baby brothers or sisters in buggies, and then stop at the baker’s where a crowd has gathered.
And I think: thank God I joined the ranks of parenthood. Because who else will buy me a bread roll when I’m old? Or take me by the hand when I have to swerve around crowds? I’d have to risk falling into the gutter with my walker or wait until somebody noticed I wanted to pass.
My kids are my insurance in old age. First, I guide them; later, they’ll guide me.
My kids are my gang. I’m the founder and the leader, and at some point, I’ll be an honorary member when they take over the business.
When I go into the garden at the childcare centre, I feel that this transition is already taking place. Like a shy au-pair on her first day, I stand at the edge and wait until Lynn notices me, tells the nursery teacher on duty that she’s leaving, and takes me to fetch her coat from the cloakroom.
Ten years ago, when I used to pick up Bea from this same centre, things were different. Back then, I marched through to the garden in full possession of my maternal powers, waving wildly, talking animatedly to the other mothers and then stopping off with them on the way home at a nearby playground: a group of tight-knit efficiency, courage, and responsibility for the next generation. When on earth did that change?
‘Friendship and money don’t mix,’ I say to Lynn when we’re outside and she’s unlocking her bike, just to hear what it sounds like. She doesn’t react. Without a story, these kinds of pearls of wisdom don’t stick.
Lynn gets on her bike and coasts off in front of me. Her scarf is hanging so far down that it could get caught in the spokes at any minute. Warnings won’t help in this case either; the accident will just have to take its course — or I’ll have to tell her how Isadora Duncan died. I run after Lynn, catch her up, and wrap her scarf around her neck.
She brakes in front of the crowd at the bakery.
‘Oh, all right,’ I say. Even though the paediatrician warned me at the last check-up to stop giving her snacks, or she’ll fall off the ‘norm’ curve.
Still, there’s no lift in our building, so she’ll probably burn off half a mouthful of her roll just by climbing the stairs.
List to self, to be worked on at the next opportunity:
Define ‘free will’.
Research the psychology of disillusionment.
Find out whether it is a paradox or simply logical that late starters are especially good at teaching third parties the facts of life.
Find out what data is used at children’s health check-ups to establish the ‘norm’ for weight curves.
And, for once and for all, stop referring to our flat as ‘ours’.
I am sorry that everything is so disjointed. I’d like to be stricter, have a more straightforward narrative, and be a comfort for all those in need. But I am who I am, and I won’t pretend that I have the same conditions as, say, Martin Amis.
I can refer to the wooden board that I screwed into the crumbling walls of my broom cupboard with plasterboard screws as a ‘desk’; I can keep referring to ‘my’ broom cupboard and in
