Chapter 24
The plan was that on Friday morning I was going to wake up ready for a day carefully divided into house-care, self-care and childcare, resisting the urge to message, call or visit any of the Bloomers or other women I worked with. I did need to spend some time on business admin, but that was a carefully scheduled hour in between a power walk in the forest and lunch in the garden with a book.
Things started off awry when my alarm didn’t go off. I woke up to Isla squeezing my cheeks and asking in a high-pitched wail if I was dead. After a horrified check of the time, I decided a shower could wait until after the school run, along with breakfast and a second’s peace to myself.
Shooing Isla off to get dressed on my way to badger Finn out of bed, I consoled myself with the knowledge that the lunches were made, bags packed and uniforms ready.
‘Mummy, my trousers are yucky!’ Isla screeched down the stairs as I fruitlessly rummaged in the fridge for butter and jam, which didn’t take long due to the shelves being virtually bare.
‘Where did you put your lunches?’ I asked Finn, as he slouched into the kitchen with his eyes half closed, hair sticking up in every direction, before tripping over a robot dinosaur and crashing into a table leg.
The second I’d helped him clamber onto a chair, Isla hurtled into the kitchen in her school polo-shirt and knickers.
‘I said I’ve got no trousers!’
‘We didn’t have time to make lunch because we had a water fight and then Hazel started crying really loud and didn’t stop and then we were really late for bed,’ Finn mumbled, his head buried in his arms, which were folded on the table.
After dragging myself away from Jonah the night before, I’d raced straight to the Bloomers class. A quick call to Toby on the way had assured me that everything was fine and under control.
‘Where’s your summer dress?’ I asked Isla, scraping the dregs of an ancient jar of peanut butter onto her toast.
‘It got wet in the water fight,’ she said, taking one look at the breakfast I placed in front of her and making a gagging sound.
‘And it hasn’t dried overnight?’
‘Well not really but anyway it smells because Finn ran out of water so he threwed some milkshake on it instead.’
‘Did you get the food for Roman Day?’ Finn asked, suddenly springing upright.
‘The what?’ I asked, handing him a plate of toast. He immediately stuffed in half a slice, so I had to wait for him to answer.
‘It’s Friday. We need to bring in Roman food for the Roman Day picnic.’
‘Why are you only telling me this now?’
‘It was on the letter!’
I swapped Isla’s plate for a bowl of cereal. She dipped her spoon in and let the contents dribble back into the bowl, face contorted as if I’d handed her a bowl of maggots. ‘What letter?’
‘I gave it to Grandad on Wednesday.’
‘Well, he never passed it on to me.’
‘But I need some Roman food! I’ll get a negative point for Rabbit table if I don’t bring any!’
‘I don’t want this, it’s disgusting,’ Isla said. ‘I want Roman food! Why does Finn get Roman food and not me?’
‘You don’t even know what Roman food is,’ Finn retorted.
‘Please, enlighten us, because I don’t have a clue,’ I added, searching the cupboards frantically for something to put in packed lunches.
‘Well, I don’t know, do I? That was part of the homework,’ my son scoffed. ‘You’re the adult. You should know.’
At that point, the patio door slid open and Toby stepped in, a screaming, red-faced Hazel with him.
‘Any coffee on the go?’ he asked, slumping into a chair, which, as per the law of babies, only made Hazel scream louder. ‘We’ve had a bummer of a night. I think the fridge might have conked out. It was squeaking and rattling and then an hour ago sort of just stopped.’
Isla dived under the table, hands over her ears and knickered-bottom poking out, which Finn of course found irresistible not to boot with his foot.
There were now two small children crying in my kitchen and I felt more than a little tempted to join them.
‘No, there’s no coffee,’ I snapped, while scooping Hazel out of Toby’s arms and bouncing her on my hip. ‘There’s no milk, unless you want the run-off from Isla’s rejected cereal, which she’s been forced to eat due to there also being no butter or jam. I’ll be sure to brew you a fresh pot as soon as I’ve found Isla a non-existent summer dress that isn’t covered in sour milkshake, rustled up a couple of packed lunches from fresh air and an old packet of rice cakes and created some Roman-themed food for Finn despite none of us knowing what Romans ate. Would you like me to feed and change your baby while I’m at it, or is everything under control?’
‘Um…’ Toby’s eyes darted everywhere but at me. ‘I’ll see if there’s any milk in the cabin fridge that made it through the night.’
I was still standing there, steam tooting out of my ears, when Toby popped his head back through the patio door. ‘Finn could take in some grapes. Or olives,’ he said, before swiftly disappearing again.
Finn ran to the fridge and yanked the door open. There, at the back of the top shelf, was a jar of olives.
Best before date, seven months ago. I grabbed a plastic pot and dumped them in. None of the eight-year-olds were going to eat olives anyway. Especially if Lena’s mum had made one of her over-the-top cakes. Probably in the shape of Julius Caesar, or the Colosseum.
We made it to school a solid twenty minutes late. A week ago, that wouldn’t have felt so bad, but after three days of the new, super-smooth schedule, it felt like a stressful slide back off the wagon. Had mornings really been this draining? As soon as I got home I climbed straight in my clanky old car and headed to the nearest big supermarket. Loaded up with replacement food I couldn’t really afford, including a bottle of wine and a slab of fancy chocolate, because this was supposed to be a self-care day, I chuntered my way home.
I was now two hours, breakfast, a shower, chapter of my book and at least two mugs of coffee behind schedule. The temptation to ditch the tasks on my to-do list and blob on the sofa instead was strong, but that felt like self-pity rather than self-care. I’d start with breakfast and then decide how to salvage the precious few hours until school finished.
I was unloading the shopping when our postwoman strolled down the drive, handing me the single postcard with a sympathetic nod.
On one side, a picture of a Portuguese castle.
On the other, words that sent my stomach plummeting into the bottom of my scruffy trainers:
Having a blast while winding my way back home!
I was still staring at the postcard when the front door opened.
‘I’ll get those,’ Toby said, striding out and grabbing all six bulging carrier bags. ‘You, follow me.’
Feeling too defeated to put up any resistance, I traipsed after him into the kitchen.
‘Here.’ He handed me a large mug of coffee. Not my instant sludge, but a caramel cappuccino from the café in the village. ‘Upstairs next.’
‘Excuse me?’
Assuming Toby must have something DIY related to show me, I followed him to the bathroom. My assumption was incorrect.
‘What’s this?’
He shrugged one shoulder. ‘An apology for last night. And a disastrous morning. I daren’t admit on the phone that I’d lost control about the same time we finished dinner, in case you got mad and kicked me out. My plan was to get up early and sort everything, but then Hazel, and the fridge… and I get that not telling you was worse. Sorry, Libby.’
‘You ran me a bath?’
‘It always helps my mum when she’s having a bad day.’
He moved past me to light the candles dotted around the sink and on the windowsill. The flames were barely discernible in the June sunshine, but alongside the basket containing a face scrub, hand cream and hair mask, the tiny box of chocolates and pile of clean towels, it was like standing in someone else’s bathroom. Someone else’s life.
He dipped one hand in the bubbles. ‘Still hot. Should be good for a decent half-hour.’
‘Half an hour?’ I considered a full five minutes in the shower a luxury. ‘What am I supposed to do in there for that long?’
‘Drink your coffee. Listen to this.’ He clicked on his phone and music started playing from a speaker he’d stuck to the wall. ‘Or read one of those.’ He nodded to a small stack of magazines balanced on the laundry basket. ‘Do whatever you do with the potions and lotions. If Hazel keeps napping, brunch will be served in forty-five minutes.’
‘I can’t believe I’m crying over a bath.’
‘Tissues are beside the books.’
He gave me a wink and left me to it.
By the time I’d eaten a plate of eggs Florentine in the sunniest spot in the garden, Hazel cooing happily beside me while her daddy mowed the lawn, I felt sufficiently re-energised to tackle the business admin with a smile on my face, clicking send on one last email before it was time to fetch Finn and Isla from school.
In the meantime, Toby had taken my gas oven apart, cleaned it until it sparkled and put it back together again.
‘Dirty ignitor,’ he said, turning the oven on and gesturing his thumb proudly at the flames. ‘Common enough problem. I got some dough bases and toppings and stuff, so the kids can have proper pizzas tonight.’
‘Is it weird that I want you to stay forever?’
‘In a big sisterly or cool auntie kind of way?’
‘Well, I’m not sure about the cool, but yes.’
‘Not only is it not weird, Auntie Libby, it’s pretty much inevitable.’
‘A week ago you were a homeless, single dad, and now look at you. Irrepressibly hopeful.’
He turned the oven off and closed the door.
‘Best way to be, I reckon.’
Yeah. I used to reckon that, too.
Friday evening was pretty much perfect. We ate our pizzas in the garden, then played board games, none of which ended up with Finn hitting his sister over the head with a Jenga block or Isla throwing herself onto the floor because she wasn’t winning.
It wasn’t until Isla’s head started drooping that I realised, instead of me counting down the minutes until bedtime, we’d somehow slipped straight past it.
‘Are we seeing Daddy and Silva tomorrow?’ Isla asked as she snuggled into bed.
‘Yes. They’re taking you to the farm park, remember?’ I felt a twinge of apprehension. Farm animals provided Isla with countless opportunities to get scared or upset.
‘Silva said we could feed the ducks but only using the special food. Bread makes them poorly.’
‘That’s right. Do you think you’d like to do that?’
She smiled, eyes closing as she curled around her stuffed unicorn. ‘Yes.’
Wow. No anxious questions. No protests when I’d told her it was bedtime. When a chunk of pepperoni had fallen off her pizza and slid an orangey trail down her favourite T-shirt, she’d laughed and called it a sausage slug.
What was the difference?I mused as I wandered back downstairs where Finn was watching a wildlife show with Toby for his Friday night extra half-hour.
And then my mind flashed back to something Toby had said when we were making the pizza and Finn had dumped all his toppings in a big mound in the middle of his base.
‘We’re not like you girls. Trying to arrange everything all perfectly. You girls are so stressy about everything. It wouldn’t hurt you to try being a bit more like Finn once in a while. Chill out a bit!’
He’d laughed, but the comment had hit home.
I thought about Brayden, a couple of weeks ago, suggesting that Isla’s anxiety was linked to my shambolic parenting.
I’d been happy when I picked them up from school today. More chill than I’d been in ages.
Was Isla not stressing about seeing her dad tomorrow because I hadn’t been stressing about it? It seemed too obvious, far too simple to be true. But it was something.