‘And work hard on your lessons, yes?’
‘I always work hard on my lessons,’ he said earnestly. ‘I am an extremely hard worker.’
She kissed his forehead. ‘You are.’
I withdrew at this point, assuming that the goodbyes would continue and that Hugo would prefer not to have an audience, but Jaqueline followed me out of the room and down the stairs almost immediately.
‘Do you have a pen, Harriet?’ she asked. ‘There is an amendment.’
‘Oh, yes. Sure.’ I found a biro in one of the pots in the kitchen and watched as she addedfrankincense (Hugo)to the itinerary for Thursday.
‘The dress rehearsal,’ she said. ‘For the Nativity play. Hugo is one of the three kings. His costume is at school, but he will need to bring in a box or a jar perhaps?’ She gave me a quizzical look. ‘To be the frankincense. You have something he can use?’
‘I’m sure we’ll manage,’ I said. ‘I’ll pull something out of the recycling.’
She wrinkled up her nose a little at the idea.
The voice in my head was telling me not to comment further but I couldn’t stop myself. ‘They do have averypacked timetable, don’t they,’ I said, looking down at the sheet of paper with its new addition. ‘I remember when Layla was at school there was always a whole load of admin and random items to keep track of, but it must be much harder with two. Especially when they haveso manyactivities.’
She gave me one of her piercing looks. ‘I cannot tell whether you are being friendly or perhaps it is a criticism, Harriet?’
‘Oh, goodness, no!’ I said, heat rushing to my cheeks. ‘Nothing of the sort, I simply…’
She held up a hand to silence me. It was surprisingly effective.
‘I do ensure that my sons are fully occupied,’ she said. ‘It is good for them and in your British education system the curriculum is not varied. There is little room for the creative arts and too much room for football and rugby. In general, the discipline is good but the approach to academic attainment is poor. It is all,well done for taking part, you win a prize, you are average, congratulations.’ She made a sort of jazz hands celebration mime. ‘But I saynonto this. I say, we will add to the education with tuition at home. We will nurture a desire to compete and to be the best.’
‘They need to have time to play though?’ I suggested tentatively. ‘And some time in the day to relax?’Lawrence is four years old for god’s sake, I was thinking.
‘You pander to your children much more than we do in France, Harriet. In the UK you stifle them and do not allow them sufficient independence from an early age. Thisgentle parenting,’ her tone was derisive, ‘pah! It is a nonsense.’
‘Well, I don’t know about…’
Jaqueline cut across me. ‘Do not misunderstand me, Harriet. We French, we are not so perfect at raising our children either, our boys in particular. We have a nation of chauvinists. French men, they say they love women but truly they are misogynists. They treat their wives like prizes. They say…’ she raised her hands, ‘bof it is fine because the French women they do the same, but this is untrue. You English, you think all the French are off having affairs to the left and the right and the centre, that the French woman, she is empowered and sexually liberated, butthe reality is that this agenda is driven by the men. It is – argh – how do you say it?Subjugation?’
I nodded – my copy-editor’s brain was always hugely impressed by her vocabulary in another tongue. I wondered how many native English speakers would casually throw the wordsubjugationinto conversation.
‘I do not want this for my boys,’ she continued. ‘For them to be theBilly Big Balls, yes? Non! I want them to be good men and good husbands. And for this they need to be competitive and successful, but they do thisalong withthe women, not against.’
She looked troubled and for a moment I felt her fear. I knew that Jaqueline’s father had been a serial philanderer who had eventually run off with a younger woman, and I knew that he had left his wife and daughter with very little support, Jaqueline’s mother having to work two low-paid jobs to keep food on the table. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that this was where my sister-in-law had got her work ethic from, or her attitude towards men generally. But I felt it was a shame that she couldn’t open her heart a little more to her own boys. The wall she had built up to protect herself from ever feeling abandoned again was also a barrier to a close relationship with her sons – but I would sooner have prodded a hornet nest than pointed this out to her. Obviously.
By this point, Richard had joined us. I imagine he’s heard Jaqueline’s views on toxic masculinity before because he gave a tiny smile of recognition as he opened the front door. ‘Darling, we need to hit the road,’ he said. ‘I’ve left the boys showing Uncle Joe the books they’ve brought for bedtime reading.’
Jaqueline leaned in and air kissed me twice. ‘Thank you for looking after them, Harriet,’ she said. ‘I hope they will be no trouble and not cause inconvenience.’
‘I am sure they’ll be delightful,’ I said. ‘As they always are.’
Richard gave me a hug. ‘Thanks. Give us a call if there are any problems.’
‘Will do,’ I said.
As I waved them off, I considered how I would have felt if the situation had been reversed, if it had been me leaving a four-year-old Layla to the tender mercies of her French aunt for a week. I imagine that our goodbyes would have been more protracted and emotional, but the reality was that I simply wouldn’t have left my daughter for that amount of time as a small child. It was hard enough doing it now she was an adult.
Chapter Nineteen
The boys continued to be absolutely angelic, but also atiny bitexhausting over a sustained period. On Sunday Joe and I took them to the trampoline park in town, where Hugo ended up sitting on the edge of the ball pit in deep conversation with an older woman (an eight-year-old girl) about the merits of friendship bracelets, while Lawrence bounced uncertainly on his own in a corner until I offered to join him. This was something I regretted almost as soon as I set foot on the sprung runway, small children cannonballing into me from every direction. I gamely attempted to stride between them without losing my footing or the contents of my bladder, which was no mean feat, although from what I could see from the expressions of the other accompanying mums, I wasn’t alone on that score. There is a sort of universal panicky ‘pelvic-clenching’ grimace that we share when faced with gravitational challenges to our continence – the last time I’d seen it was at Farah’s fortieth birthday party when all the women at our table had got up to dance to House of Pain’s ‘Jump Around’ after consuming half a dozen bottles of the complimentary house white.
I had anticipated Sunday evening being quite calm, given the energy expended at Mega Power Bounce and the excitement of the subsequent McDonald’s, but I hadn’t banked on the inordinate amount of organisation required to get two small boys with multiple scheduled activities ready for school on Monday. The itinerary informed me that they both had breakfast club starting at eight, which meant walking out of the house at seven on the dot, which, in turn, meant havingabsolutely everythingprepared and ready to go the night before. There was still enough residual mummy memory tucked away in my brainfor me to know this as an essential truth, even if you are dealing with the most helpful and organised little boys the world has ever beheld. Thus, bookbags were checked twice; PE kit for tag rugby (Hugo) and judo (Lawrence) was checked thrice; duffle coats, scarves, hats, gloves and outdoor shoes were laid out in the kitchen like two small people who’d had an altercation with a steam-roller; indoor shoes were placed in the Liberty fabric bags provided by Jaqueline; and water bottles were prepped and refrigerated along with the specified apple, blueberries and mango chunks for snack time.
