Chapter 11
I give up on the idea of returning to sleep at six, largely because Jacob’s favoured position is horizontal and with a toe up my nose. I flick around on my phone for a while, googling, ‘Is it possible for perimenopause to actually increase sex drive?’ The answer is that – despite its libido-dampening reputation – it’s very possible, if an Australian women’s health website is to be believed. The lengthy explanation can be summed up in one word. Hormones.
I might have known. To read the internet you’d think hormones are responsible for everything from mood swings and blackheads to soil erosion in sub-Saharan Africa. In this case, it’s something to do with the relative rate of testosterone decline versus oestrogen. If the former is going down slower, it ends up being dominant. Hence you feel friskier than you have for years. At least that explains one thing. The fact that Zach Russo – of all people – is the object of my temporary lust remains a complete mystery. No wonder I’ve made so many terrible decisions in my life.
Jacob stirs and pushes me further to one edge of the bed, so I decide to make the best of the situation and start on some of my weekend jobs. Sunday will be devoted to starting my new presentation for Krishna, but I don’t want to work both days if I can help it and I vowed I’d start panelling this living room today if it killed me.
I’d planned to begin weeks ago and have all the gear from B&Q ready and waiting. Only, the dozens of mundane day-to- day tasks I end up doing most weekends – not to mention driving the kids to various sporting venues – suck up time. Housework and laundry are of course necessary evils, but I do hate getting to Sunday evening without anything to show for my efforts. At least with DIY you have something concrete.
Plus, I’m relatively handy around the house these days, on the rare occasions when I get the time. When I bought my first flat in my twenties – back in the day when you could get on the housing ladder at that age – I basically renovated it myself. The work required was more aesthetic than structural, admittedly – mainly stripping the maximalist maroon walls so it felt less like I was living inside a womb. But with a lot of help from Dad (who, despite being an ex-mortgage adviser in his seventies can rewire a semi and plumb in bathrooms), we got the whole thing looking great in no time. Same thing happened when I moved into the house we’re in now.
During my marriage to Brendan, though, we somehow ended up with a very unoriginal division of labour. Despite being a Guardian -reading liberal who liked Suzanne Vega and had a man-crush on Stanley Tucci, he still colonised the garage and considered certain jobs to be his domain. Anything with a drill, basically. He never attempted anything too ambitious, but still liked nothing more than to flex his macho neurological pathways by putting together an IKEA flatpack, after which he’d expect the sort of praise that I’d give the children during an egg-and-spoon race. The thought makes me smile. He wasn’t perfect, but nobody is – and he definitely wasn’t as bad as Rose and my mum would have you believe. But then I suppose they don’t know the sorry story behind our break-up – not the whole of it anyway.
I pick up my measuring tape when I hear a WhatsApp ping, followed by another. I try to ignore it, but their arrival is like the two black crows in The Omen which denote the imminent arrival of the anti-Christ. I glance at the clock and realise it’s 7am and the ‘Do Not Disturb’ setting has been lifted, just as another ping arrives.
I tell myself that just because I forgot to mute them doesn’t mean I have any responsibility to answer them. I don’t even have to read them. Not at the weekend. Not at 7am.
Ping.
I write down a measurement.
Ping.
I stretch out the tape.
Ping.
Oh, who am I kidding? I last four minutes before abandoning my task to pick up the phone. The PTA events committee group is lit up like a Christmas tree.
Can I confirm somebody is on top of the catering roll @lisadarling? asks Denise Dandy, Chair of the PTA. Also, we have apparently sold 94 tickets but only have payments through for 89. Can you explain @lisadarling?
I got involved in the PTA last term, largely because of my guilt at having hitherto avoided it. There was a good and very practical reason for this – namely, I have absolutely no spare time. But every time I said those words out loud I hated the sound of them. It felt like a flimsy, pathetic excuse, so I caved in and joined the ranks, as ‘Communications Secretary’, the perfect role for someone who works in TV.
In some ways, I am an ideal candidate to join the association. People who are creative, hard-working and prepared to roll up their sleeves and get stuck in are exactly what they need. Unfortunately, at the hands of the PTA, this is a lethal combination, as I discovered at the first meeting when I came up with about seven fundraising ideas that everyone enthusiastically agreed were brilliant . . . and then expected me to implement.
The latest of these is the Wine Quiz, of which I have somehow been left at the helm because Denise – aka Our Leader – will be in Paris for her 15th wedding anniversary. It’s not a complicated event. I’ve managed far bigger budgets than this, which is likely to raise less than ￡1,000. Yet Denise, instead of packing her La Perla negligee and booking tickets for the Moulin Rouge, thinks she needs to micromanage me from afar.
There’s another ping as one of the other mums writes: Someone bought tickets yesterday asked what time the food is served. Does this suggest that the poster might not have been clear that it is NIBBLES ONLY and not a three-course meal??
Denise doesn’t miss a beat.
Could we send out a clarification to all ticket holders ASAP @lisadarling?
I feel as if I have joined a cult. I am desperate to get out, but am chained to them for dark psychological reasons that I can’t fully explain. In fact, if you told me that Denise Dandy was not in fact the co-owner of a microblading clinic and mother of a girl in Year 5, but actually the leader of a group that made animal sacrifices and chanted in the woods, I wouldn’t doubt it for a second.