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So as I call out words of artistic encouragement to Lila and she splatters green splodges onto paper at the kitchen table, I check train times online. There’s an earlier train leaving from Bristol Temple Meads and if I can get on that, I should make it to Bath in time. But what about school drop-off? I cannot physically do both. Do I tear off an arm so that Lila still has my hand to hold on the walk to school?
What I really need is back-up.
I pick up my phone and dial my little sister’s number.
Poppy answers instantly and with characteristic enthusiasm. ‘SOPHIE! How do you feel about cruffins?’
‘Erm, ambivalent?’
She sucks in her breath before brushing this apparent slur aside. ‘I’ve got good news for you,’ she chirrups.
I feel bad that I don’t have time for Poppy’s pastry chat or, indeed, her good news.
‘Pop, I’m SO SORRY to do this but could you take Lila to school this morning?’
‘Sure, I’m actually just around the corner from you. At that new bakery? Would you like a coffee cream cruffin or not, sis, because I’m telling you now they look insane.’
‘Well, yes please but only if you can be here in the next … five mins?’
‘Literally at the till now.’
‘Oh thank god! You’re an angel,’ I exhale.
‘Everything okay?’
‘Train delays. Big meeting. Need to get to the station asap.’
‘Okay, take a breath. The cruffins and I will be with you soon.’
My first mistake was leaving Lila unattended with paints while I raced upstairs to throw laptop and work notes into a bag. My second was choosing a dry-clean-only white silk shirt to wear for the meeting. As I rush back into the kitchen, Lila proudly thrusts the artwork at me and I watch helplessly as still-wet paper collides with bright white silk, leaving a smear of sewerage green across my formerly pristine outfit.
‘Messy Mummy,’ Lila tuts as I paw at my ruined outfit.
I’m trying very, very hard not to swear when Poppy, who does not arrive places quietly, bursts into the kitchen.
My little sister stuffs a cruffin into my hand and looks alarmed at my outfit.
‘Please tell me you’re going to get changed?’
‘Mummy made a mess,’ Lila states. The argument that it wasn’t me dies on my lips when I see Poppy and Lila sharing a sage look. Poppy plus Lila equals a force I cannot reckon with.
I roll my eyes, halfway up the stairs already, and I hunt out a clean shirt. Black. Much less risky.
Back in the kitchen, I find the two of them making smiley faces out of blueberries on the table.
‘Are you picking me up from school today, Mummy?’ Lila asks.
‘I sure am.’
‘Sidney’s dad brings sweets to pick-up …’
What a dickhead.
Wordlessly, I proffer the treat tin which is filled with things labelled ‘organic’, ‘natural’ and ‘made from real fruit’, catnip for the middle-class mum market. I buy them even though Lila has questionable opinions on what is acceptable to eat. Crisps off the floor? Sure, why not. Vegetables? Don’t be ridiculous.
‘They taste like mud.’
Says the child who literally consumed mud between the ages of one and two.
