Chapter Eighteen
Despite being a bit weirded out by comforting my mother about her love life in a very similar way to that which I had done in the past with Layla, it was nice to spend Sunday with her.
She stayed for lunch, which meant I didn’t feel obliged to consume an extra-large portion due to my obsession with not wasting food now we were a family of two, and although the moment of her vulnerability had been brief there was something nice about feeling needed.
I can’t deny that the fact she’d come to me for support rather than Richard made me feel a bit smug too.
Even though I’m sure Mum wouldn’t routinely discuss her romantic entanglements with her only son, he is the default authority on all other matters and in the past, she has sought his opinion on a whole range of topics from global politics to car maintenance to musical trivia.
She always cites his answers as concrete facts – ‘Richard says I should be switching energy providers; Richard says there are too many bureaucrats in the NHS; Richard says you need a soft rind cheese with that Bordeaux’ – despite him having no specific expertise in whichever subject is up for discussion.
As many women have muttered over the years, oh, to have the confidence of a mediocre white man.
I wonder whether my brother, as an authority on all things, suffers from being in a relationship with a demonstrably alpha woman, or whether he finds it a relief to just have Jaqueline tell him what to do.
It’s an odd marriage, and she’s not the type of wife I would have pictured him with, but it seems to work and everyone’s happy – if not hugely relaxed – as demonstrated this evening when they dropped the boys here for their free childcare.
Hugo and Lawrence solemnly wheeled their Louis Vuitton suitcases across the drive and Hugo announced that he was ‘extremely grateful’ to me and Uncle Joe for having them to stay and that he and Lawrence were ‘extremely looking forward to it’.
‘Excellent,’ I said, bending to hug them both. ‘Me too. Why don’t you take your bags upstairs with Uncle Joe and see if the cats are snuggled up on your beds yet?’
Both boys looked excited by the prospect of live animals in the vicinity of their bedroom and broke into a run as they scrambled upstairs, Joe in their wake with a suitcase under each arm.
‘Come in,’ I said to Jaqueline. ‘Have you got time for a cup of tea before you set off?’
‘Sorry, Hattie,’ said Richard. ‘We can’t stop.’ He had a printed document in his hand, which he thrust in my direction. ‘Itinerary,’ he said.
‘What, for your holiday?’ I said, wondering why on earth I needed a detailed account of their luxury accommodation and activities. ‘That’s nice.’
‘Non. It is for the children,’ said Jaqueline, throwing Richard a withering look.
‘The timings of their school activities, the after-school clubs, Nativity rehearsals, music practice…’ She leaned forward to point to the itinerary with a perfectly BIAB manicured nail.
‘You will see here. Hugo has brought his violin, he should be doing forty minutes a day, Lawrence only thirty on the miniature clarinet –’ she smiled at the indulgence of allowing her four-year-old son ten minutes less practice time than his brother – ‘and on Thursday they do extra because of music class at school on the Friday. There is half an hour allocated each day for spellings and handwriting practice, but you can be flexible about this –’ another indulgent smile before her face turned stern – ‘and, Harriet, they are not to have television or screens.’ She turned towards the stairs. ‘We will say goodbye now, Richard.’
‘No TV?’ I mouthed silently at my brother, eyes wide as we followed his wife. ‘No TV at all?’
‘We allow it when we’re both home,’ he said quietly, ‘but Jaqueline doesn’t trust the nanny not to just park them in front of a screen to make her own life easier.’
‘Heaven forbid,’ I muttered.
‘And this,’ he said, indicating the itinerary in my hand, ‘is a copy of what we would usually give Magdalena, so,’ he shrugged, ‘I guess same rules apply.’
‘Good to know that I’ve been given the same instructions as your hired help,’ I said as we reached the landing, enjoying the brief flicker of discomfiture on my brother’s face. ‘How very organised.’
‘My assistant, Amandine, prints out the copies,’ said Jaqueline over her shoulder, oblivious to my tone. ‘She is extremely efficient. We like to have a printout in the kitchen so that the boys can refer to it if needed.’
I studied the itinerary in front of me, wondering whether Lawrence at the age of four could actually read that he had Conversational Mandarin on Wednesdays or whether Hugo had to inform him, presumably in Mandarin.
Jaqueline glanced around the spare bedroom, taking in the two foldout beds and their duvet covers, one in pink gingham and one with a floral design, each with one of Layla’s teddies perched on top of the pillows and a small suitcase carefully stashed beside it.
‘Sorry, boys,’ I said cheerily. ‘The only single duvet covers I had were Layla’s old ones. They’re a bit girly but I didn’t think you’d mind.’
Hugo and Lawrence were in the act of peering under the furthest bed and trying to coax out a dubious Margaret. I could just make out her narrowed eyes gleaming at them through the shadows.
‘We do not ascribe gender to colours in our house, Harriet,’ Jaqueline said dismissively.
‘My sons like pink as much as any of the pastel shades and both appreciate flowers and horticulture just as they would football or racing cars or…’ She shrugged as if unable to even think of another designated ‘small boy hobby’, such was her indifference to narrow stereotypes.
‘Well, that is excellent news,’ I said, unsure of how to follow that comment. I turned back to my nephews. ‘Okay chaps, how about we say bye-bye to Mummy and Daddy and then we can unpack before dinner.’
‘Do we have our book bags and Lawrence’s clarinet?’ Hugo asked Richard, a worried expression on his face.
Rich nodded and lifted his son into a hug. ‘All downstairs and good to go, buddy. Got your violin?’
Hugo nodded back and wrapped his arms around Richard’s neck. ‘Goodbye Daddy,’ he said quietly.
‘Daddy!’ thundered Lawrence holding out his arms for a cuddle.
Jaqueline crouched down to her youngest son’s level. ‘Lawrence,’ she said firmly. ‘You will be a good boy for Aunty Harriet and Uncle Joe, yes?’
He nodded seriously.
‘And you will be kind to their cats and respectful of their rules, yes?’
Another nod.
‘And you know that Maman and Daddy love you both very much?’ She pulled him into a brief hug and kissed his forehead.
‘Yes, Maman. I love you too.’
I could have sworn there was a glassy sheen to Jaqueline’s eye as she relinquished the one son and turned to bestow her embrace on the other, but it may have been her mild allergy to cat dander flaring up (the mild allergy she denies at all times, probably because she’s French and doesn’t believe in anything as ridiculous as allergies).
‘And Hugo, my big boy,’ she said, drawing him onto her lap. ‘You will look after Lawrence for me? And be good at school.’
The same solemn nod replicated from his brother.
‘And work hard on your lessons, yes?’
‘I always work hard on my lessons,’ he said earnestly. ‘I am an extremely hard worker.’
She kissed his forehead. ‘You are.’
I withdrew at this point, assuming that the goodbyes would continue and that Hugo would prefer not to have an audience, but Jaqueline followed me out of the room and down the stairs almost immediately.
‘Do you have a pen, Harriet?’ she asked. ‘There is an amendment.’
‘Oh, yes. Sure.’ I found a biro in one of the pots in the kitchen and watched as she added frankincense (Hugo) to the itinerary for Thursday.
‘The dress rehearsal,’ she said. ‘For the Nativity play. Hugo is one of the three kings. His costume is at school, but he will need to bring in a box or a jar perhaps?’ She gave me a quizzical look. ‘To be the frankincense. You have something he can use?’
‘I’m sure we’ll manage,’ I said. ‘I’ll pull something out of the recycling.’
She wrinkled up her nose a little at the idea.
The voice in my head was telling me not to comment further but I couldn’t stop myself.
‘They do have a very packed timetable, don’t they,’ I said, looking down at the sheet of paper with its new addition.
‘I remember when Layla was at school there was always a whole load of admin and random items to keep track of, but it must be much harder with two. Especially when they have so many activities.’
She gave me one of her piercing looks. ‘I cannot tell whether you are being friendly or perhaps it is a criticism, Harriet?’
‘Oh, goodness, no!’ I said, heat rushing to my cheeks. ‘Nothing of the sort, I simply…’
She held up a hand to silence me. It was surprisingly effective.
‘I do ensure that my sons are fully occupied,’ she said.
‘It is good for them and in your British education system the curriculum is not varied. There is little room for the creative arts and too much room for football and rugby. In general, the discipline is good but the approach to academic attainment is poor. It is all, well done for taking part, you win a prize, you are average, congratulations.’ She made a sort of jazz hands celebration mime.
‘But I say non to this. I say, we will add to the education with tuition at home. We will nurture a desire to compete and to be the best.’
‘They need to have time to play though?’ I suggested tentatively. ‘And some time in the day to relax?’ Lawrence is four years old for god’s sake, I was thinking.
‘You pander to your children much more than we do in France, Harriet. In the UK you stifle them and do not allow them sufficient independence from an early age. This gentle parenting,’ her tone was derisive, ‘pah! It is a nonsense.’
‘Well, I don’t know about…’
Jaqueline cut across me. ‘Do not misunderstand me, Harriet. We French, we are not so perfect at raising our children either, our boys in particular. We have a nation of chauvinists. French men, they say they love women but truly they are misogynists. They treat their wives like prizes. They say…’ she raised her hands, ‘bof it is fine because the French women they do the same, but this is untrue. You English, you think all the French are off having affairs to the left and the right and the centre, that the French woman, she is empowered and sexually liberated, but the reality is that this agenda is driven by the men. It is – argh – how do you say it? Subjugation?’
I nodded – my copy-editor’s brain was always hugely impressed by her vocabulary in another tongue. I wondered how many native English speakers would casually throw the word subjugation into conversation.
‘I do not want this for my boys,’ she continued. ‘For them to be the Billy Big Balls, yes? Non! I want them to be good men and good husbands. And for this they need to be competitive and successful, but they do this along with the women, not against.’
She looked troubled and for a moment I felt her fear.
I knew that Jaqueline’s father had been a serial philanderer who had eventually run off with a younger woman, and I knew that he had left his wife and daughter with very little support, Jaqueline’s mother having to work two low-paid jobs to keep food on the table.
It didn’t take a genius to figure out that this was where my sister-in-law had got her work ethic from, or her attitude towards men generally.
But I felt it was a shame that she couldn’t open her heart a little more to her own boys.
The wall she had built up to protect herself from ever feeling abandoned again was also a barrier to a close relationship with her sons – but I would sooner have prodded a hornet nest than pointed this out to her. Obviously.
By this point, Richard had joined us. I imagine he’s heard Jaqueline’s views on toxic masculinity before because he gave a tiny smile of recognition as he opened the front door.
‘Darling, we need to hit the road,’ he said.
‘I’ve left the boys showing Uncle Joe the books they’ve brought for bedtime reading. ’
Jaqueline leaned in and air kissed me twice. ‘Thank you for looking after them, Harriet,’ she said. ‘I hope they will be no trouble and not cause inconvenience.’
‘I am sure they’ll be delightful,’ I said. ‘As they always are.’
Richard gave me a hug. ‘Thanks. Give us a call if there are any problems.’
‘Will do,’ I said.
As I waved them off, I considered how I would have felt if the situation had been reversed, if it had been me leaving a four-year-old Layla to the tender mercies of her French aunt for a week.
I imagine that our goodbyes would have been more protracted and emotional, but the reality was that I simply wouldn’t have left my daughter for that amount of time as a small child.
It was hard enough doing it now she was an adult.