Growing Pains of a Hapless Househusband (4 page)

Tuesday 29 January

I don't believe it. At 15.56 I received an email from
Dom. When it arrived, my heart fluttered, and when I
read it, it fluttered even more.

Sam
Sorry not to have replied to your (many!) calls and
emails. Been megafrantic editing a doc on fat
people. Still crazee about
Wonderhubby
. When can
you come in and discuss? How about Thursday?
And can you bring the kids? Would be good to show
my colleagues how effective you are as a dad!
Cheers
Dom

The first thing I did was to email Dom right back, to say
that Thursday at 12 would be perfect. The second thing
I did was to forward the email to Sally, with a mildly
triumphant, 'See? Not just a drunken dinner-party
conversation.'

After a few minutes the following pinged back:

Darling
He sounds like a complete berk. Not entirely keen
on children missing school/playgroup to go to some
TV studio, but you must do what you must do. How
are P & D? Hope you managed to get them some
air this afternoon – weather's been glorious, at least
it has in London. I won't need a big supper as ate
well at lunch.
Love you
Sxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

There was something maddeningly dismissive about
Sally's tone, but what really stuck in my craw was the
reminder of my domestic responsibilities. I knew the
subtext perfectly well – 'don't you go getting any ideas,
young man' – and so that evening, over our light
supper, I had it out with her.

'You really don't like this
Wonderhubby
thing, do you?'

Sally put down her fork and studied the particularly
fine mushroom omelette I had made.

'To be honest, I was rather hoping it would go away.'

'Why?'

'Because I think it will come to nothing, and you will
have wasted a load of time and effort.'

'How can you know that?'

'I can't, but if I were to place a bet . . .'

'I wish you weren't so negative the whole time.'

'I'm not!' Sally snapped. 'You always accuse me of
being negative. Just because I'm not like you, and just
because I don't jump in feet first at every opportunity,
doesn't mean I'm negative.'

I didn't reply. I thought she was wrong, but I had
somehow lost the will to argue. I got up and slid the rest
of my omelette into the bin.

'Look,' Sally said. 'I'm sorry, it's just that I can't quite
share your enthusiasm. It's not as if this bloke Dom
emailed you the next day, is it?'

'He was
busy
.'

Sally waved that one away.

'We're all busy,' she said.

'Well, not everyone thinks it's a crap idea.'

'Oh yes? Like who?'

'Well, Emily for one.'

Pin drop silence.

I couldn't believe what I had said. Of all the names I
could have come up with, I said HERS. Fool, Holden,
you sodding fool.

'
Emily?
'

'That's right, Emily,' I said, trying to sound calm
about it. 'She's moved back to the village. Jim's moved
to London and she's renting 50 per cent of the
house off him. I think it's a very good way of doing
things . . .'

'And when did you see her?'

'At the school gates. We chatted a bit, caught up on
news, you know.'

'And you told her about your TV idea at the school
gates?'

Crunch time. Did I mention that I had been round to
Emily's house? Well, I had nothing to hide, and if I did
hide it, then Sally would be bound to find out, and
when she did, she would assume I was hiding something
far worse than I actually was, so in the end, I thought it
better not to keep things hidden. Phew.

'She invited me round for coffee last week.'

'You kept that quiet.'

'Didn't think it worth mentioning.'

'Is that right?'

'Well, I also thought you might get jealous, and I
didn't want that.'

'How very thoughtful,' said Sally. 'But I rather
thought you were the jealous one.'

Immediately my mind flashed back to over a year ago,
when I obsessively chased Sally through the streets of
London while she was ensconced in the back of a car
with ex-beau-cum-close-confidant-and-colleague-who-I-now-know-is-gay
Nick.

'We can all get jealous,' I replied.

Sally sighed.

'I'm not being jealous Sam, I'm just being protective.
The last time we went to her house, she tried to have sex
with you, and kept saying how good-looking you were.
You do remember that, don't you?'

'Just a bit.'

'So it shouldn't surprise you that I might not like the
idea of you going round there.'

'Which is why I didn't tell you.'

'Wrong, Sam. Which is why you shouldn't have gone
round there in the first place.'

'Are you telling me who I should and shouldn't see
during my days?'

'No! But we know what Emily is like, and by seeing
her you're playing with fire.'

'I can keep her under control.'

'You can, can you?'

I was genuinely angry by now.

'Look – I have no interest in Emily. I don't fancy her,
she's not my type. If she still fancies me, then that's her
problem, isn't it? But she's good company, and heavens
above, I could do with some adult conversation during
the day.'

'There are plenty of other people you can see.'

'Like who?'

Sally named some names, names of people that I have
no interest in seeing. I dismissed them all as either
being too boring, or women who clearly didn't like the
idea of a man 'invading' their female-only world of
coffee mornings and lunchtime quiche.

'Well, you do what you want, Sam, you always do.'

'Now you're making me sound like some selfish twat,
riding roughshod over your feelings.'

'You said it.'

With that, Sally went upstairs and shut herself in the
bathroom. When we went to bed, there was a sort of
polite kiss goodnight, a kiss that engendered more
frostiness than had we not bothered.

Wednesday 30 January

I spent much of today preparing for tomorrow's
meeting. I have to confess that I am more than a little
nervous. The last time I did something like this was back
at work, although we used to have weeks – if not months
– to prepare an important pitch. And not only that, we
had secretaries and researchers and all manner of other
support staff. Instead, I have Peter and Daisy, who are
crap at PowerPoint. Nevertheless, I think I've managed
to cobble something together that will be both
convincing and 'sexy'. (I think that's a word these TV
people use a lot.)

Both children have been on particularly revolting
form today, especially Daisy. At lunchtime she refused
to eat her tomatoes, and kept trying to get down from
the table. Under normal circumstances, the slack dad
that I am, I would have let her toddle off, convincing
myself that a few chunks of ham and bread constituted
a healthy lunch. However, today I decided that I would
put my foot down, in a pathetic attempt to exert some
discipline before tomorrow's meeting.

'Don't want them!' she announced. (I think this is
the only sentence Daisy knows.)

'But you like tomatoes,' I insisted.

'Don't want them!'

'Come on, Daisy, you must eat your fruit! Otherwise
you won't become a big strong girl.'

(I briefly wondered how much she actually wanted to
become a big strong girl.)

'Don't want them!'

I picked up half a cherry tomato and held it near her
mouth.

'Come on Daisy – just eat this one and the ones on
your plate and then you can get down.'

'DON'T WANT IT!' (A slight variation. Her language
is definitely improving.)

She started struggling to get down from her chair,
but I forced her to sit. This thwarting of her 'great
escape' served to only make her more furious, and soon
she started to scream, the prelude to a full-on Daisy
tantrum. Still, I tried to play it cool, which went against
my entire nature.

'Come on Daisy. Just. One. Little. Tomato.'

Had she screamed any louder or higher, then I swear
the light bulbs would have burst. She was turning the
same colour as the food I was trying to feed her, and she
was writhing in her chair like a dervish.

'DOWN!' she kept screaming. 'DOWN! GET
DOWN!'

'No Daisy! You stay here until you finish your lunch!'

By now my voice was beginning to rise, partly because
I was getting angry, but more crucially because I wanted
to drown out her tantrum. For the next two minutes,
our screaming increased to the point that I was sure the
neighbours would call the police. What could I do? I
was determined not to let her get down, and I was
doubly determined that she was going to finish her
food.

Options included:

1) Walk away and let her stew. This would have been
hopeless, as she can scream for hours, and that
would have driven me insane.

2) Force the food into her mouth. Clearly too
dangerous.

3) Continue yelling. Tempting, but traumatic.

4) Give her a smack on the bottom. Hmmmmm.
Corporal punishment. Tricky one. I once
smacked Peter on the bottom, and although it
had the desired effect, I've regretted it ever since.
But right then, I came closer than I've been in
ages to giving Daisy a smack. While she carried on
screaming, writhing and doing the full 'terrible
two' tantrum, I caught sight of the two of us
reflected in the kitchen window. I looked so big
next to her, and she so small and defenceless, that
it made me realise that it would be a complete
abuse of my physical superiority.

5) Sit there and ignore it. I've tried that tactic before,
but it doesn't work. Her will is too strong, and
mine is too weak.

6) Pour a glass of water over her. Extremely
appealing – would shock her but not harm her.
Show her that I was very cross. Only downside was
that it might be humiliating, but by then I was
beyond such niceties, so this was the option I
plumped for.

At first, I thought the tactic backfired. Although I
gently sploshed only a finger of water on the top of her
head, she screamed even louder, a feat I didn't think
was possible.

'Eat your tomatoes, Daisy!' I growled.

I stood poised with the glass.

'Otherwise I'll pour more water on you!'

'NO!'

Whereupon she grabbed all the remaining tomato
halves and shoved them in her mouth as though she
hadn't eaten in a month. She chewed them messily, and
the seeds splurged all the way down her white top, but I
couldn't care. The tactic had worked! I decided
immediately that I would include it as part of my
Wonderhubby
pitch.

While her temper subsided, I confess that I felt sorry
for the little thing, and I gave her the most enormous
hug, and told her that Daddy was so happy that she had
eaten her food, and that she was a good girl. She
sniffled and sobbed for quite a few minutes, which
almost made me sniffle and sob as well. Had I been
cruel to her? I don't know, but what I do know is that I
haven't told Sally what I did. I expect housewives don't
confess all their errors to their husbands, so I don't see
why I should be any different.

Anyway, big day tomorrow, very big day. I think I
know what I'm going to say, but what the hell, I can just
make it up as I go along. After all, that's all they do on
TV anyway.

Thursday 31 January

It would have been so much easier without the children.
Everything always is. (In fact, being a househusband
without children would be the best job in the world,
although it wouldn't actually be called a job, it would be
called 'unemployed'.) Peter and Daisy behaved
atrociously. The worst ever. It would have made so
much more sense to have left them at school/
playgroup, but in my boundless confidence, I thought
they would prove to be great examples of the Holden
Childcare Programme (not that it really exists).

The first mistake was taking the train, which,
naturally, was overcrowded and delayed. I had wanted
to sit at a table, but none were available, so the three of
us had to cram into two seats which made those found
on a budget airline look like armchairs in a country
house hotel.

For two minutes – perhaps three – this was fine. Daisy
and Peter coloured in their respective colouring-in
books – Spider-Man for Peter, Little Mermaid for Daisy
– and I even had the opportunity to briefly wonder what
sort of offspring Spidey and Ariel would have in the
event of their getting it together. And then the trolley
came, containing all the crap you never ate unless you
were on a train.

'Daddy, can I have a crisp?' asked Peter.

'Crisp! Crisp! Crisp!' chanted Daisy excitedly,
bouncing up and down on my lap.

'No you can't,' I replied. 'It's not lunchtime.'

They simultaneously let out the sort of whine that
attracted the attention of everyone in earshot, which in
this instance meant the entire carriage. I was aware of
some fairly disapproving scrutiny, and I was determined
to show the world how excellent a father I was by not
caving in.

'Ah, ah,' I went, holding up an admonishing finger.
'No whining.'

'But I want a crisp!' said Peter.

'I'm hungry,' said Daisy.

(Incidentally, Daisy's two-year-old speech is never
quite as fluent as this diary makes out. 'I'm hungry' was
more like 'I ungee', but for the sake of future
generations of Holdens – should there be any reading
this – I feel that it is best to translate Daisy's highly
individual version of English.)

'In that case you can have an apple,' I said, reaching
inside the daybag.

I fumbled in its dark interior, smugly congratulating
myself on being Captain Efficient. Before we left, I had
sliced up said fruit and put it in a Tupperware
container, along with some water biscuits. Very healthy.
Very keen. Very perfect dad. Very out of character.

However, there was one small problem. I couldn't
find the container.

'But I want a crisp!'

'Crisp! Crisp! Crisp!'

I looked up from the bag, catching the eye of the
trolley bloke, who was pouring warmish water into a cup
for the middle-aged woman across the aisle. He looked
at me, no doubt wondering whether I was going to give
in.

'Crisp! Crisp!'

I rummaged in the bag again, noting that I had
usefully brought their swimming costumes and some
towels. Bugger. Completely the wrong bag. Not just no
apple and no biscuits, but no water bottles, nappies, or
anything else that might actually be of some use.

'Crisp!'

'Daisy, stop it!' I barked.

'Would you like anything, sir?' asked the trolley
bloke.

'I'd like a crisp!' Peter informed him.

'He wasn't talking to you,' I said.

'Cheese and onion,' said Peter, almost admirably
oblivious to his father.

'Or do you have salt and vinegar?' he asked.

'Peter!' I hissed.

'Crisp! Crisp! Crisp!' Daisy chanted.

I was desperate for a coffee, but I decided that it
would be unfair if I ordered something and the
children didn't, so I shook my head.

'No thanks,' I said through gritted teeth. 'We're fine.'

Trolley bloke trundled off, much to the annoyance of
Peter and Daisy.

'It's not fair!' moaned Peter.

Daisy started to bellow.

'Ungee! Ungee!'

'Well, it's not my fault you didn't eat enough
breakfast.'

The middle-aged woman looked at me with an
expression that suggested that it was my fault. I just stared
back at her with axe-murderer eyes and she looked back
down at what passed for tea on our train line.

I decided the only way to distract my now apoplectic
children was to resume the colouring, but to no avail.
They weren't going to be bought off so easily. Instead,
they continued to moan about the lack of crisps, which
was not just infuriating, but highly embarrassing. The
'tuts' from our fellow passengers were about as regular
as the text-message bleeps emanating from the teenage
girls behind us, and equally annoying.

And then Daisy went mysteriously quiet. A look of
fierce concentration came across her face, and she then
looked as though she was having some moment of
epiphany.

'Daddy,' she smiled. 'I done a poo.'

I didn't need telling, and within seconds, neither did
teenage girls or middle-aged woman. The former were
giggling, and the latter gave me another foul stare. I
closed my eyes, and tried to think Zen thoughts. Here
we were, ten minutes into a seventy-minute journey, and
I had a son who was noisily bleating for junk food, a
daughter who had just created a small brown Krakatoa
in her pants, and a carriage full of pissed-off people.
Needless to say, nothing in the Holden Childcare
Programme can prepare a parent for such a situation,
so I did the decent thing – and bought three packets of
crisps. When Peter moaned that there was no cheese
and onion, I told him he could get off at the next stop
and stay there. He looked terrified – for the first time
ever, he seemed to have believed one of my threats.

The Daisy nappy situation was sorted when we arrived
in London, although the only nappies stocked in the
chemist at the station were not to Daisy's high
standards. However, her bleating may have had more to
do with the fact that I had to change her on the floor of
one of the cubicles in the Gents. Normally I try to use
the disabled lavatory in these circumstances, but, as
usual, it was locked, and there was no one around who
had a key.

After we emerged, I felt ready to go home. The last
thing I wanted to do was to give a presentation, but I
steeled myself, and thought of the riches and fame as I
tried to hail a cab. Miraculously, we arrived at the TV
company at 12.05, just five minutes late, and I thanked
my all-too-rare good judgement that I hadn't plumped
for the train an hour later, which, if one were travelling
without children, would have left plenty of time.

The reception area was just as I expected – all marble
and steel, with a brace of flatscreens showing the
company's output, and another showing some rolling
news channel. Perched behind some swanky iMac sat a
studenty-looking girl, with red-dyed hair and a pierced
nose, without both of which she might have been quite
attractive.

'Hello,' she smiled. 'Can I help you?'

'Hi – we're here to see Dom Simons. Sam Holden at
twelve o'clock.'

Studenty-girl looked at her iMac and frowned.

'What was the name again?'

'Sam Holden.'

(How hard a name is it to remember?)

'To see Dom?'

'Thassright.'

'Hmm . . . hold on, I'll give him a call. I'm sure
everything's fine, but it just doesn't seem to be on the
screen.'

I briefly closed my eyes. If the fucker had forgotten, I
would kill him, I really would. I listened to Studenty-girl
explain the situation, and then I could make out an 'oh
shit' down the line. So he had forgotten, the bugger. I
sort of collapsed my shoulders and felt pathetically
small. Not a great start to one's stellar TV career. I made
eyes at Studenty-girl that I wanted to talk to him, but she
held up her hand while she listened to Dom.

'OK,' she said, eventually. 'I'll ask him to wait.'

She put the phone down.

'Wait till when?' I asked curtly.

She grimaced, sympathising with the situation.

'Until 12.45. Is that OK?'

'Not really.'

'I'm sorry.'

I tried to calm myself down. More Zen thoughts were
required. (I really need to take up meditation one of
these days. I always think it's for goatee-wearers, but
perhaps it should be mandatory for all those who look
after children.)

'There's a café just round the corner, you could go
there. It's quite nice.'

We did go there. It wasn't nice, at least it wasn't for
me. It wasn't a café, but a caff, which are sometimes all
right, but this one was really dreadful and had that
unmistakable
aire de chip fat rancide
. The children, on
the other hand, loved it, as it only served the beige food
of which they are so fond – chips, bread, egg – which
they munched away on very happily.

As we walked back, Daisy fell asleep in her buggy, and
Peter became ratty, demanding that he watch TV etc.,
and wondering where Necky was. (Necky is our
unimaginative name for his teddy giraffe.) I told him
that Necky had to stay at home in case he got lost, which
caused more whingeing from him, and more shortening
of my temper.

An apologetic Dom was waiting for us in the
reception.

'I'm so sorry,' he said, his eyes doing that bulging
Tube-station-logo thing again, and he sounded as if he
meant it.

'Perfectly all right,' I said breezily as we shook hands.
I wished I had the balls to give him a bollocking, but you
can only give bollockings from positions of strength,
and my balls aren't big enough (yet) to make me feel
strong.

'Bit of a cock-up by my secretary,' he said.
That old one.

'Typical,' I replied, rolling my eyes in faux-empathetic
exasperation.

'Anyway, let's go upstairs and meet the team and you
can give us a little presentation of how you see it, and
then we can have a powwow.'

I gulped inwardly as I wheeled Daisy to the bottom of
the stairs, where I indicated that Dom might help me
carry her up in her buggy.

'So sorry, of course. No kids of my own!'

'Can we go home now?' asked Peter as we climbed
the stairs.

'Not now,' I hissed.

'But I'm tired,' he moaned and then started to lie
down.

'C'mon, get up!'

I paused, and Daisy and her buggy sort of hovered
dangerously in mid-air halfway up the stairs.

'I said, get up!'

Peter pretended that he had fallen asleep, a trick that
he is employing far too frequently these days.

'If you don't get up, I shall leave you there!'

This time, he somehow knew my threat was empty.

'Peter!'

I glanced at Dom, who was clearly uncomfortable, not
just at the lack of discipline, but also at the somewhat
precarious position he found himself in.

'PETER!'

No move, the little sod.

'All right, you stay there while I get Daisy up the
stairs.'

Dom and I manhandled Sleeping Beauty and her
buggy to the top, where we set her down gently, but
evidently not gently enough for madame. She woke up,
looked around and started squealing 'Mummy!' at the
top of her voice.

'It's OK Daisy,' I pleaded. 'Daddy's here.'

'Mummy!'

I closed my eyes, wishing all this away. Here I was,
supposedly about to set myself up as the perfect dad, the
Wonderhubby, and I couldn't get my own children up
a flight of stairs without one of them having a tantrum,
and the other one having a strop. (There is a subtle
difference between the two – some 80 decibels.) The
only place I wanted to be right there and then was on a
sunlit golf course with Nigel, looking forward to a few
sly pints afterwards.

'I'm sorry about this,' I said to Dom, 'they're, um, not
normally this bad.'

Dom nodded unconvincingly. I left Daisy with him
and went back down to pick up Peter, who moaned as I
half-dragged, half-carried him up. Daisy's noise didn't
abate, and as we approached the main open-plan office,
about a dozen sets of eyes looked up from their iMacs to
see 75 per cent of the Holden family burst in. I pulled a
sort of comedy grimace.

'You'd better come in here,' said Dom, indicating his
office. There was a slightly tetchy note in his voice,
which made me think that he too would rather be on
his equivalent of a golf course. He steered us in, and
then shut the door. Peter and Daisy were still moaning
and stropping, although the volume had decreased.

'I want to watch TV!' Peter demanded.

In the corner of the office was a massive flatscreen.

'TV! TV! TV!' chanted Daisy, whose little face lit up at
the prospect.

I looked at Dom.

'Can you get CBeebies on that?'

Dom picked up the remote control.

'We can probably get Iranian CBeebies on this.'

In a few seconds the children were muted, sitting on
a huge leather sofa, sucking their thumbs and watching
Bob the Builder
.

'Phew!' I said.

Dom just raised his eyebrows.

'Perhaps we should have the meeting somewhere
else.'

'It seems wrong to kick you out of your office.'

'Not at all – I think it's for the best.'

I picked up my laptop bag and Dom showed me into
a conference room. There was a projector into which I
plugged my laptop, and within a few minutes I started
to flick through my presentation. By the time Dom
came back with a couple of colleagues the screen was
showing my first slide, which read '
Wonderhubby
–
Applying the Strategies of Management Consultancy to
the Challenges of the 21st Century Domestic
Environment'.

'Snappy stuff!' said Dom as he sat down.

'This is Emma,' he continued, 'and this too is Emma.'

'Hi,' said the Emmas in unison.

'This Emma is head of programme development,'
Dom explained, 'and this Emma is head of programme
acquisition.'