The Mummyfesto (23 page)

‘You need to be more controversial then,’ I said.

‘Oh believe me, I’m trying. I’ve got an exhibition opening at Linden Mill of nude pensioners.’

I started laughing. ‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘I’m imagining strategically placed bus passes.’

‘Damn, I wish I’d thought of that. I can assure you that it’s all tastefully done though.’

‘I bet the sittings were fun.’

‘They were. Never let it be said that an octogenarian isn’t capable of flaunting her wares.’

‘What’s all the hilarity about?’ asked Sam, entering the kitchen as I was bent double laughing.

‘Rob tells me you’ve been letting him consort with disreputable ladies of a certain age.’

‘And disreputable men, too,’ Sam said. ‘You should go and have a look, get an insight into what we’ve got to look forward to in thirty years’ time. You could take David. Get Charlotte or Will to babysit and go for a meal afterwards. Make a night of it.’

I smiled at her. How could I possibly begin to explain that the thought of spending an evening alone with David at the moment did not exactly fill me with joy? She couldn’t possibly understand. She had Rob. She had a soulmate.

‘Right. I’d better go and get Oscar sorted out,’ said Rob, smiling at me. ‘See you all later when you’ve put the world to rights.’

‘Any more policy suggestions?’ Sam asked.

‘A better deal for pensioners,’ he said. ‘They are a force to be reckoned with and you need them on your side. Preferably clothed, of course.’

He left the room. Some of his warmth stayed behind, though. I could see it forming a Ready-brek-style glow around Sam. I pulled my sleeves down, suddenly feeling the cold.

‘So, how’s you?’ Sam asked.

It was tempting sometimes to tell her. Until, that is, I remembered what she had to cope with with Oscar. At which point my problems appeared so small that they hardly seemed worth mentioning.

‘Fine, thanks,’ I said.

She put the kettle down and looked at me. Maybe there’d been a tell-tale quaver in my voice.

‘Any progress with Charlotte?’ she asked.

‘No. The school don’t want to know.’

‘That’s appalling,’ she said.

‘I know. If it was down to me I’d pull her out.’

‘Does David think she should stick it out then?’

‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Something like that.’ I was saved from having to say anything more by Jackie’s arrival. She was one of those people who never made a quiet entrance. On this occasion, I was very glad of it.

‘Sorry guys. Mum had been doing other people’s gardening again. I had to stop her from deadheading next door’s still-blooming daffodils and Alice was having a meltdown because her tooth is wobbly and she thinks she’s going to swallow it in her sleep and miss out on a Tooth Fairy visit. Apart from that, everything’s fine and dandy. How about you two?’ She looked at both of us in turn.

‘Fine, thanks,’ I said.

‘How did you get on with Freeman?’

‘Not good. They’ve washed their hands of it, basically. Our problem, not theirs.’

Jackie shook her head. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘It’s so bloody typical that the person who denies there’s any bullying going on at our school should be the biggest bully of all.’

‘I can quite believe it,’ I said.

‘Look, if there’s anything I can do. If you want me to have a word with the girls involved I’m happy to do so.’

‘Thanks. We’re going to have to work out where we go from here.’

‘Well obviously I’ll keep an eye on Charlotte as much as I can, but I only see her in class once a week, and like you said, they’re far too savvy to do anything in front of a teacher these days.’

‘I know. But thanks anyway.’

‘Will keeps an eye out for her, doesn’t he?’

‘Yeah. Best he can in the circumstances, anyway.’

Jackie turned back to Sam. ‘And how’s things with you?’

‘Pretty good,’ said Sam. ‘Oscar saw the physio again today and she said he’s still maintaining the same range of movement as six months ago.’

‘That is good,’ said Jackie.

I nodded, though I knew that it was simply a case of holding the deterioration off for as long as possible. The one thing that wasn’t in doubt was that he would never get better.

‘Right,’ said Sam, ‘we’d better get started. We’ve got loads to get through if we’re actually going to be ready for next week.’

‘I’ve booked Eureka for the launch,’ I said. ‘Though I’m still not sure it’s such a good idea.’

‘Of course it is,’ said Sam. ‘If we’re putting children and families at the heart of this then we need to show that right from the beginning. And what better place than a children’s museum?’

‘You’ll regret that when there’s a kid having a tantrum outside during the press conference,’ said Jackie.

‘It’s OK, it’s after closing time,’ I said.

‘And the good news is the
Times
has already confirmed they’ll be there,’ added Sam. She actually managed to keep a straight face for a second afterwards until Jackie elbowed her. ‘Well, OK,’ she said. ‘It’s the
Hebden Bridge Times
, but you’ve got to start somewhere, haven’t you?’

We sat down at the table. Sam held up a wodge of A4 paper. ‘Right,’ she said, ‘I have here, drumroll please, the draft mummyfesto.’

Jackie whooped and clapped.

‘Tell me it doesn’t read as ridiculously idealistic as I fear,’ I said.

‘It reads brilliantly,’ said Sam. ‘The words radical, reforming and revolutionary spring to mind.’

‘Don’t tell me this is going to be the Hebden Bridge spring,’ groaned Jackie.

‘Well, we’re not far from Bradford, maybe it’s heading our way.’

‘As long as Galloway isn’t heading our way with it,’ Jackie said, grimacing. ‘I still gag every time I see a cat lapping milk.’

‘Anyway,’ said Sam. ‘Back to the mummyfesto. I’ll run through what’s in from all the Twitter suggestions. We’ve got OAP playgrounds in parks, term-time school hours working available to all, boarding schools to be banned for children under thirteen on the grounds that a child is for life not just for the cute toddler bits, we stop putting the clocks back in autumn on the grounds that children are more important than farmers, all school playgrounds
to be covered with that spongy stuff they use under the swings in parks, in order to cut A & E bills, breast-feeding to be recognised with national awards screened live on TV and badges saying ‘I did my best so don’t give me dirty looks’ given to all mums who tried but have now stopped, and last, but by no means least, children’s party bags replaced with ‘thank you for coming and just be grateful you were invited’ stickers in order to teach them about the true meaning of friendship and to cut down the amount of plastic tat ending up in landfills.’

Sam paused for breath and looked up. ‘All those in favour?’

Jackie and I both raised our hands.

‘So what’s out, then?’ asked Jackie.

‘Well, I’m afraid we aren’t going to be calling for the monkey translator, as used to broadcast unspoken thoughts in
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs
, to be fitted to all men.’

‘Damn shame,’ said Jackie.

‘And heavily subsidising all sanitary products with the proceeds from a menstrual lottery which men will be too embarrassed to buy a ticket for – that didn’t make it either, I’m afraid.’

‘Another big loss, if you ask me,’ said Jackie.

‘But necessary if we want to look credible,’ I added. ‘I’m still concerned we’re a bit lightweight in some areas.’

‘What do you mean?’ asked Sam.

‘Well, “don’t start any wars” is hardly a comprehensive defence policy, is it?’

‘It would keep us out of trouble, though,’ said Jackie. ‘And save the country a hell of a lot of money.’

‘And what about the foreign policy?’ I asked. ‘Remind us what it says, Sam.’

Sam flicked through the pages and read, ‘
Apply the playground mantra for foreign affairs: play nicely with everyone and if someone isn’t playing nicely report them to the teacher and go and play with someone else
.’

‘Do you really think that’s going to stand up to scrutiny?’ I asked.

‘I don’t see why it has to be any more complicated than that,’ replied Sam. ‘It should be about getting on with everyone, and if we didn’t let religion and the male quest for world domination get in the way we’d all be a hell of a lot better off.’

I smiled at her. She had a wonderful knack of being able to convince you that her somewhat simplistic way of looking at the world was actually the right one. And while I loved her to bits for it, I also knew that it lay us open to accusations from people like David that we were not a serious party.

‘OK. Well I still think we should concentrate on domestic policy, that’s clearly where our strength lies.’

‘Anything we should add to it?’ asked Sam.

‘I think it should be a living mummyfesto,’ I said.

‘What do you mean by that?’ asked Sam.

‘We launch it with this next week, but it’s just a starting point. It keeps on growing throughout the election campaign as people suggest things to us. Essentially it’s like a tree and we can keep on adding branches and leaves to it as it grows.’

‘I love it,’ said Sam.

‘Me too,’ said Jackie. ‘For a Londoner, you can be very Hebden Bridge sometimes.’

‘I’ll take that as a compliment,’ I said.

‘Right then,’ said Sam. ‘Let’s go through all the arrangements for the launch and make sure we’ve got all the admin stuff sorted out for the party. Everything properly registered and all forms completed and signed. And Anna can show us the fabby website.’

‘After that,’ said Jackie, ‘does anyone fancy going out for a skip?’

‘Were they all too poor to buy clothes, Daddy?’ asked Oscar. ‘Like the Africa children on the news.’

I glanced at Rob, unable to suppress a smile. Trying to explain about his rather avant-garde approach to art clearly wasn’t going to be easy.

‘No, they’ve got clothes,’ said Rob, crouching down to Oscar’s level. ‘I just asked them to take them off before I painted them.’

‘Isn’t that a bit rude?’ asked Zach.

‘Not if they were happy to do it, which they were,’ explained Rob. ‘They’d all volunteered, you see.’

‘Is there anyone we know?’ asked Oscar, manoeuvring his powerchair to get a closer look, as if he might recognise someone’s wrinkled left buttock.

‘No, love,’ I said. ‘Daddy didn’t know any of them.’

‘So they were all strangers who you asked to take their
clothes off?’ asked Zach, who was clearly perturbed by the overfamiliarity of it all.

‘Yep,’ said Rob. ‘Sometimes if people don’t know you, they’re more natural when they’re sitting for you.’

‘
He
wasn’t sitting,’ said Oscar, pointing to one of the paintings. ‘He was standing up and you could see his willy.’

‘Er, yes,’ said Rob, scratching his head.

‘And that lady’s showing you her boobies,’ Oscar added for good measure.

‘Anyway,’ I said, sensing that the conversation might be about to veer into even more awkward territory. ‘We’d better be getting back.’

‘I’ll be a little while yet,’ said Rob. ‘I’ve got some more sorting out to do here to get everything ready for later.’

‘You do remember I’ve got my hair appointment at two?’ I said.

‘Have you?’

‘Yeah, I told you. You said you’d be OK looking after the boys.’

‘Did I? How long’s it going to take? Will you be done by half past?’

‘No. Sorry. It’s a proper cut.’ By that I meant I was going to the most expensive hairdressers in town. You got a bloody good cut, but most of the time I couldn’t justify the expense. I’d agreed with Rob that I would go there once a year and have a couple of cheap rubbish haircuts elsewhere in between. It wasn’t that he’d said I couldn’t go to the expensive one any more than that, simply that I knew I would feel too guilty if I did.

‘OK, then,’ said Rob.

I suspected it wasn’t OK, though. ‘It’s just that it’s too late to cancel it now,’ I said. ‘I’ll ask them to be as quick as they can.’ I didn’t want to mention the fact that I also wanted to make myself look half presentable before the Lollipop Party launch. It was bad enough thinking it, let alone saying it out loud.

‘Right,’ said Rob. ‘But I’ll need to come back here directly afterwards.’

‘I know. That’s fine.’ It wasn’t really fine. I had stacks of work to do on the launch, and work from the hospice that I’d ended up bringing home with me.

‘OK then, you two,’ said Rob, looking at the boys. ‘What do you fancy doing for an hour or so?’

‘Cinema,’ Oscar shrieked.

‘The pirates’ film is on,’ said Zach. ‘I saw it on the board when we came past.’ Rob looked at me. I knew exactly what he was thinking. We couldn’t afford it. And it was going to last longer than an hour.

‘Take them,’ I said, knowing I would disappear under a tidal wave of guilt if I said no. ‘I’ll come straight to the cinema when I’m done. We’ll ask if they’ll let me take over your ticket when you go.’

Rob looked at me doubtfully. I tried to think of the last time we had been to the cinema together, all four of us. I couldn’t actually think of one. Having said that I couldn’t think of the last time Rob and I had been to the cinema alone – or anywhere else for that matter. I delved into my
bag and managed to find a couple of chewy bars and packets of raisins amongst the debris.

‘Save having to buy popcorn,’ I whispered as I handed them to Rob.