Rocked

Suddenly there’s a thud in the background of our lives. It causes ripples of tears. Close to they flow large and plentiful and will do so for many years. Further away, where we are, they hit late and with less force. But still we are affected.

A friend has died, a father, the father of one of Eldest’s friends now living overseas: a lovely man. We are stunned and saddened more than I can say. I cry for him and for his wife and for the son I know well and the younger son I hardly know at all. I cry for everyone and find I can’t stop crying. Why?

Because his untimely death puts everything under a microscope of introspection and makes me watch. For days after all I do is watch. I watch as we eat and as we argue, as we each try to be heard above the others, as we sometimes smile but more often bicker and mostly just are. I watch as we hug, kiss, love, hate, dress, sleep, slump together in front of the TV, take turns to wash, make a huge mess and as I try to tidy it all up.

And as I watch I see us take each other for granted and I think of him and of those he left behind. I vow we won’t do this anymore. We will be careful with one another. We will be thankful for what we have. But I know we won’t. This reverberating shock will slowly fade. Until next time.

Peace at Last

You know that picture book by Jill Murphy where Mr Bear goes from room to room looking for peace and can’t find any? It’s like that in our house at the moment. Gunfire staccatos from the basement, guitar music ricochets round the attic, cars screech in the living room, feet crash on stairs, drills wail in the bathroom, hoovering drones in the office, the washing machine climaxes in the cellar, the dishwasher beeps in the kitchen and the front door slams again and again and again. Noise. Noise. Noise. With three boys there’s always a lot of it but even by our deafening standards it’s gone up a notch lately with a new Brazilian cleaning duo and three builders to refit a bathroom. And we both work at home most of the time...it’s a joke.

I add to it just a little too if I'm honest, the noise that is, as with my odd pair of girl's knickers thrown atop the enormous man/boy washing pile. God knows what our peaceful Hindu neighbours think of my screaming. And possibly I reached a nadir on Wednesday evening with Husband away on business and Middle One and Eldest about to have a fight at the dinner table (“I’ll stab you with this knife!” “Oh yeah! I’ll smash your face in!”), when I chased Eldest up the stairs to his room shouting, “Don’t you dare behave like that… I hope you fail all your GCSEs!” (I think it hurt me more to say that than it did him to hear it). I noticed too late that his row of Velux windows were open wide to the street but I didn't much care. The threat of violence from someone now so much bigger and stronger than me, even when not directed at me, was deeply unnerving. And perhaps I shouldn't worry unduly about adding to the racket where we live, it’s already a cacophony of car alarms, sirens, fox screams, smashing bottles and wheelie suitcases trundled along pavements at five o’clock in the morning. I’ve had so many sleepless nights lately the bags under my eyes feel like friends.

Even when the drilling and vacuuming stops and the children finally go to bed, the broken boiler hums so loudly from below stairs it’s like our terraced house has snapped free from its moorings: a giant throbbing ship ploughing away through the night. By Friday evening we were desperate for some peace at last - and it almost looked like we might get some. The builders gone until Monday, the cleaners done with their weekly frenzy, the cellar door shut against the worst of the humming, if Eldest could just curtail his lengthy ablutions in the bathroom and turn the wretched tap off (it’s on a pump) we might actually be able to close our eyes and… but what’s that? Drip, drip, drip (I told you it was like the picture book). The builders had left a bucket under the newly installed leaking shower nozzle creating a bespoke Chinese water torture. How kind. No matter, simply shut the door against that too and then... at last... close eyes and... finally… sleep. But only for a short while because Youngest appeared at the doorway, his ghostly wheezing figure swaying before our bleary eyes, telling us he couldn't breathe.

Turns out he has a nasty chest infection so we’ve spent the last two nights lying in bed listening to a rhythmic rasping. If there wasn’t snow on the ground right now I might consider sleeping in the car. Well it worked for Mr Bear.

Fish Cakes

“Is that a cod fish cake?” The old woman standing next to me in the chip shop wants to know. “I dunno, love,” says the Turkish lady behind the counter, “we buy them in, innit.” She turns to her husband, busy shovelling chips into slit paper bags, and flicks her head towards the sorry article, “It's cod, is it?” He shrugs, “mix, probably”. There’s a pause. The old lady looks undecided.

I’m tempted to try and talk her out of it for so many reasons, not least because the food in question is bright orange and limp and looks like it’s been lying under glass and a glowing hot lamp for a very long time. I’m about to say, in the spirit of friendly small talk, that of course we shouldn’t really be eating cod, but then I remember the last time I said that in the chippie and the nice Turkish lady had looked taken aback. Why not? she demanded. Well, she owns a fish and chip shop, I thought, surely she knows about dwindling fish stocks. “You know, because it’s running out...” “Oh no dear," she answered emphatically, “don’t worry, there’s always plenty come in when I order it.”

So now we stick to talking about our children. You could say we’ve bonded over the subject. She tells me about her feckless, lazy daughter, still living at home at 25, “but this is the Turkish way, dear.” And I tell her, every time, that I have three sons and every single time she gives the same response (I think that’s why I tell her): a sharp intake of breath with a smile and a shake of the head. In fact, now I think about it, I get that sort of response a lot: raised eyebrows, low whistles, slow head shakes. “Hard work!” “You’ve got your hands full, then!” And usually I go along with it. “Yes!” I might add, “I don’t know what I did wrong in a previous life!” When really I’m pleased as punch that I have three boys. I adore them. I’m so proud. I don’t think my life is particularly hard - not anymore. So why do I do that? It’s just the role I’m meant to play, I guess.

So here I am playing my usual role in the fish and chip shop on this dark, cold January evening and the Turkish chippie-lady smiles and laughs as I talk about exam revision and how Eldest didn’t do any for his mocks (not quite true), and she chips in (excuse the pun), telling me that her son can’t do anything for himself and he’s 19 now. We're both playing our parts I suppose, to pass the time, as you do, until the old lady who I had forgotten about for a minute there, suddenly makes up her mind. “Well so long as it isn’t whale or shark or something, I’ll have it,” and I turn to look at her.

She is small, much smaller than me, only coming up to my shoulder, and she obviously doesn’t have much money because she’s wearing an old cream anorak with a tatty shopping bag clutched, anxiously, to her body and this fish cake decision is a big deal. Her face is framed with curly white hair, slightly messy, and she has a sharp chin and a smatter of lipstick and bright, sad little eyes. So I smile at her and turn back to the Turkish lady to I carry on where we left off, as salt and vinegar is added rather too liberally to my order and then hurriedly I scoop up the warm, plastic bag from the counter, full of fish and chips for Husband and three boys waiting back home, and turning to the old lady I say, brightly, “Enjoy your fish cake,” and suddenly she grabs my arm. “You shouldn’t moan about them, you know,” she says, those bright, sad little eyes fixed intently on mine. “I lost my only one in 2004 and there’s nothing worse in the whole world than losing your child.”

“I’m so sorry,” I stammer, “I…no, I mustn’t, you’re so right, ” and she shakes her head, relaxing her grip. “No, you shouldn’t moan about them…” she repeats quietly to herself and I have to get out of the chip shop as fast as I can because I think I’m going to cry.

Let the train take the strain

We’ve had a fabulous Christmas with my parents in York and now it’s time to go home. Coming up on the train on Christmas Eve was a pleasure: an almost empty concourse at Kings Cross, a quiet carriage sparsely populated with cosy little family groups all smiling benignly, but now it occurs to me that the journey back might not be so relaxing, especially when I read in the paper that Tuesday will be the busiest day by far – and we’re travelling on Tuesday.

I thought I was so clever having Amazon deliver the presents up north but of course there’s no delivery service to get them back… only us. I spend a couple of fraught hours packing, shouting up and down the stairs to boys and Husband as I remove gifts from packaging before crushing and bending them into the enormous suitcase - and still there's Middle One’s telescope to contend with, its huge cardboard box looming in the hallway, taller and wider than Youngest, and Eldest’s full size acoustic guitar in its new hard case…

Approaching York station we get the first whiff of trouble: traffic backed up so far we can’t turn off the road. We consider jumping out in the middle but judge it too dangerous, what with luggage to wrestle out of the boot and three children. So we spend precious, sweaty minutes watching the hands on the elegant Victorian clock face make their slow but inevitable progress until finally mother squeezes the car through a gap and we jump out. The train leaves in four minutes.

We throw everything on the pavement: bulging suitcase, enormous telescope box, guitar, family rucksack full of packed lunch, three more rucksacks, one for each child, Penguin suitcase Youngest takes everywhere with us, my handbag, and the children of course. Youngest removed his shoes in the back of the car so more valuable minutes are wasted as he fumbles to get them back on.

We run for the train, trailing children and grandparents behind us and this is when the horror hits: it’s already there by the platform, like a black and bloated corpse, its entrails hoards of people spewing from every orifice. Great. As we run husband spots a luggage carriage with doors open and flings the gargantuan suitcase and telescope box into it. “They’re not labeled!” I shout and now we’re committed: we have to get this train. The whistle blows. My heart pounds. Middle One and Youngest search our faces for reassurance - and find none.

Desperately and inelegantly we push our way on, Eldest holding the guitar case above his head, me wedging Youngest with Penguin suitcase and bag out in front like barricades. We have reservations but when we finally inch our way to them (ten minutes out of the station) other travellers are sitting there (of course). Thankfully when politely challenged they move without a fight and we flop down, hot, trembling and exhausted. Less fortunate passengers, clutching small animals and bags and cases and rucksacks, tower above and around us like brooding sentinels.

After a few minutes I pull out the packed lunch and that’s when I remember the beer - I grabbed a bottle from my parent’s fridge at the last minute. “Do you have that bottle opener you got in your Christmas cracker by any chance?” I ask Eldest. He pulls it from his rucksack with a flourish. Thank God.

Spinal Tap

Tiny beads of sweat are running down the back of Husband's neck. He's bent double, trying to get This is Spinal Tap to play as ten twelve year-old boys (and one thirteen year-old and a nine year-old) leap and twirl across the floor behind him. One boy picks up an empty plastic water gun and hits another over the head with it. Like a pair of clammy hands on a steering wheel, we are in danger of losing control.

I look at my watch: 5.10. Can the party really have began only ten minutes ago? The parents won’t be back to collect the little darlings for two hours and fifty minutes and I didn’t plan any games. (Middle One, whose party it is, says they are ‘way too old for games ’.) I always plan games. Lots of them. Usually back to back activities to take up every single minute. I have a great line in marshmallow and dry spaghetti sculptures. Now I'm beginning to regret saying they could, “just hang out, watch a movie, have pizza and eat pop corn…"

I ring Eldest, who has inconveniently gone out. “Where are you? We need you to get the DVD to play in your X Box.”

“I’m at D’s house. Surely one of those boys knows how to do it?”

“You would think so.”

He asks to speak to Husband. Husband says, “what the hell are you talking about?” and, “I already tried that,” over and over again down the phone. Then he abandons trying to get the X Box to play the DVD and tries to get the DVD player to play the DVD instead. We need a scarp lead, apparently (he is muttering this to himself). Or is it a scart lead? I have no idea. I dash over to friends, who live opposite. “Do you have a scarp lead?”

“You mean a scart lead,” says unflappable friend (he’s Australian). At this point I really couldn’t care less what the last consonant is, I have nothing with which to entertain ten 12 year-old boys and a desperate desire for alcohol.

When I get back with said scart lead the DVD is finally playing and order, of sorts, has been restored. Thank God. But then it starts glitching. “The DVD is glitching,” says Middle One, stating the bleeding obvious.

I ring Eldest again. “Now it’s glitching.”

He sighs."It only glitches if it’s an old or damaged DVD."

But the DVD is neither old nor damaged. It is brand new. It was one of Middle One’s birthday presents.

I run over to friend’s house again and stand, panting, in their hallway, noting how peaceful it is with hardly anyone around, only two little boys, quiet and motionless as freeze-frames, watching a DVD in their front room - ironically.

“Have you got This is Spinal Tap?” We start to look for it in their collection, then I realise I left our front door open so dash home to close it. Then friend’s daughter appears on the doorstep with the DVD and I scramble downstairs at top speed to the basement clutching it in my sweaty little hand. Half way down I am hit by an auditory wall of hooting and wailing.

“I have another one!”

“Another what?” asks Husband.

“Another copy of This is Spinal Tap.”

“Why?”

“Because it was glitching.”

“It’s not glitching, it’s fine. What are you panicking about?”

I look at my watch. Only two hours and forty-five minutes to go.

A Tale of Two Suppers

1. A rubbish meal

We’re on an economy drive, trying to use everything in the freezer. It’s one of Husband’s peccadilloes. He says we use the freezer as some sort of food purgatory until it’s too old and we throw it all away. And he has a point.

I go along with it for a quiet life (I go along with a lot of things for a quiet life), and now we’re down to the last few chicken breasts. Husband is getting ready to go to an evening work thing while I decide how to cook the defrosted chicken.

There are some vegetables kicking around but not much else so I decide to fry the chicken in red onions and peppers, then I lob in some tinned olives along with some stock and a bit of fresh thyme and some lemon and garlic and seasoning and it’s all coming together rather nicely. At the last minute I add a bit of leftover cream cheese I found lurking at the back of the fridge and have a taste. It’s bloody marvellous. I decide we’ll have it with pasta. I’m feeling pleased. Husband will love this when he get back from the do.

But as I’m filling a large pan with water I hear a strange popping/groaning noise coming from the hob. I ignore it (big mistake) and as I’m carrying the pan over there’s a very loud bang and the glass lid on top of my wonderful chicken concoction shatters into a million tiny pieces. I freeze, staring at my lovely dinner. The lid is still in one piece but now there's a fragile crazy paving barrier between us and the food.

Eldest and Middle One arrive. Eldest pulls gently on the metal handle and we all watch, horrified, as the shattered glass rises up and back again like bendy plastic. We can’t get the lid off like that so instead I use a pallet knife to gently slide it away as Eldest and Middle One, and Youngest too (who has just arrived to view the spectacle), bellow contradictory instructions. I manage to get the lid off and on to the worktop - but have any tiny bits of glass gone in the food?

Eldest and I run our fingertips across top and bottom: it feels gritty. I stare lovingly, you might even say wistfully, at the dinner... then throw the whole lot out and spend £26 ordering pizza. The boys are delighted, and at least there’s no washing up.

2. Cauliflower cheese

It’s early Sunday evening and I’m making cauliflower cheese to go with the roast. Eldest has requested it. He loves cauliflower cheese. But before I start I have to clean up his pancake mess from earlier. I’ve asked him to do it three times and can’t be bothered to ask again as it will involve climbing three sets stairs to his room where he’s busy ‘doing his homework’.

I’ve forgotten what a faff cauliflower cheese is, there are so many processes. I get on with part 1: steaming. Eldest bounds in. “Where’s the Pritt stick!” he thunders. “There’s never a Pritt stick in this bloody house! I need one for Art.”

“It’s wherever you left it last time I gave it to you,” I say, looking for the flour somewhere in the back of a high cupboard.

“You didn’t give it to me, we had some old ones but they’ve all run out. We never have a decent Pritt stick.”

“No, I bought a new one, a big one, in W H Smith this week. You can’t have used all that already.” I’m well into part 2 now: melting butter…

“I have.”

“I don’t think you have.” Adding flour…

“Where is it, then?”

“It was in the Perspex pencil box on my desk last time I looked.” Some milk and a little grated cheese… “Where I keep it.”

“In the what?”

“The Perspex pencil box.” And now a bit more milk…

“What the hell is a ‘Perspex’ box?”

“Perspex is a type of plastic, you know what it is; it’s see-through.” I’m becoming increasingly frustrated as I stir the sauce. I season it and add more cheese. “I bet it’s still there.” I prod the cauliflower with a knife: it’s done. I take it off the hob and look for a large oven-proof dish to put it in.

“Well I can’t find it, “ he says, “and I really need it for my Art homework.”

“Oh God,’ I sigh, arranging the vegetable in the dish, “Just give me a minute and I’ll come upstairs and look.” I add more milk and turn the sauce down, very low, and stamp up to the office with Eldest behind me attacking the stairs several at a time.

He’s right of course, there is no sign of the Pritt stick in my Perspex pencil box. “Well it was here, ” I say, rooting around. “Someone has had it.”

“Not me,” says Eldest, folding his arms.

“Really?” I tramp up to Eldest’s room. He is hard at my heels, forcefully protesting his innocence. He hasn’t had it, he doesn’t know where it is; someone has obviously taken it... I push things around on his desk - it’s an absolute tip - all the while ranting and moaning and complaining about pancake mess and cauliflower cheese and things never where they should be and then I see it, the Pritt stick, large as life, the one I just bought in W H Smith last week, sitting under his art folder, the art folder he has just been using.

I yelp. I scream. I am so frustrated that I really want to hit him - especially when he says he didn’t put it there - but I mustn’t so I jump up and down and shout, very loudly (it hurts my throat) and he laughs. He actually has the nerve to laugh so that I have to laugh too, just a bit, despite myself.

Then I leave the room to go back to the kitchen, to my burning cheese sauce, and I hear him muttering, “You. Are. So. Mad.”

Help!

“Help!” Comes an urgent voice from upstairs. I can hear water running. “Help! Mum! Dad!" It’s Eldest in the shower. What’s happened to him? Is he scalded? Has he slipped and broken something? A thousand different disasters flash through my mind, I’m nothing if not imaginative when it comes to possible catastrophes to befall my children. Home a bit late from school? Obviously abducted by one of those drunks who hangs out by the dried up pond on the common - no matter that they don’t have the coordination to pee in a straight line, let alone to steal a child. Still asleep at an unnaturally late hour on a Sunday morning? It’s one of those rare older child cot deaths, or meningitis - like with Michael Rosen’s son (so unbelievably tragic).

No, I’ve guessed it: he’s got trapped somehow, like my father did all those years ago. He was just taking a shower at home prior to flying off somewhere to a conference. He was alone in the house and the shower door jammed. Imagine it: naked and freezing with a sheet of impenetrable glass between you and freedom. I think he remained like that for some time until he managed to scramble his lanky six-foot frame up and over the top, squeezing between the tiny space and the ceiling with the knowledge that it could all crash beneath him at any moment. It didn’t, thank goodness.

So, lying in my bed first thing this morning, clutching the cup of tea Husband has kindly brought for me (as usual) and listening to the whole world going to hell in a handbasket on Radio 4 (as usual) that’s what I decide has happened to Eldest. He’s trapped in the shower. But hang on a minute - it’s an over bath shower up there, there’s no door…

“Help!” Comes the desperate voice again, “I need help! It’s urgent!”

“What!” Husband calls, dashing to the rescue as I scramble from under the duvet, grabbing at the dressing gown strewn on the floor (can’t appear naked in front of eldest son any more, he’s 15). I get to the landing just in time to meet husband coming down again from the top floor. There's a grim look on his face.

“What’s the matter? What is it? Is he okay?”

“He’s fine,” he says. “He’s run out of shampoo.”