‘Have you thought about which societies you want to join yet?’ he asked her as we clinked our glasses (half for me as designated driver – bit annoying, if I’d known Richard was paying for limitless champagne I’d have booked a taxi and really got amongst it).
‘Uhm, I thought maybe hockey? But I’m not that good so…’
‘Hmm, yeah, hock-soc always did run a fantastic bar-crawl – it would be good to get in with them. Out on the lash every night.’ He gave her an expansive wink, and I suppressed a cringe. ‘Do you know when their team selection takes place? Probably you’ll find out at Freshers’ Fair. Have you got the date for that?’
‘Somewhere in the online welcome information, isn’t it?’ I said, examining the bewildering array of fruit-infused waters available on my tiny phone menu and wondering when we had just stopped calling thissquash. ‘Did I see you looking at it on Instagram?’
‘Uhm, I thinkyouwere the one scouring all the university related Instagram accounts, Mum,’ said Layla, laughing. ‘I expect you know more about Freshers’ Week than I do.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ I said loftily, moving further down the menu to peruse the extortionate artisanal sharing platters as a new member of waiting staff placed anopen-weave hessian sack of bread rolls in front of me. ‘Anyway, it’s all very exciting, isn’t it?’
This was Layla’s cue to launch into a lengthy discussion with her uncle about how much she was looking forward to university, all the different things we’d bought to make her transition to student accommodation as easy as possible, and how generally I was being the perfect student parent – involved, yet totally relaxed and chill about everything – but before she could begin Jaqueline’s voice cut across the table.
‘Hugo,’ she hissed. ‘Non!’
Hugo had spotted the bread sack and reached across his father to help himself to a warm roll. Not unreasonable given that he was six and probably quite hungry.
‘Oh, that’s fine,’ I said, pushing the sack in his and Lawrence’s general direction. ‘I think they’re to share. You boys help yourself.’
‘Non.’ Jaqueline’s tone brooked no argument. She glared at her small son and then glared at me. ‘He must wait until he is asked, Harriet.’ Jaqueline never calls me Hattie. I think she finds the name faintly ridiculous. Like a lot of things. ‘He knows this. He is just being greedy. Aren’t you Hugo?’
Hugo looked down at his empty plate with a sorrowful expression.
‘He’s probably starving,’ I said. ‘It’s fine.’ I lifted up the side of the ridiculous sack and angled it towards him as about a million crumbs fell between the gaps in the weaving and showered the rough-hewn beams of the oak tabletop. ‘You help yourself sweetheart.’
He looked longingly at the bread for a moment, glanced at his mother and thought better of it. I realised I had overstepped the mark. Fair enough. I’d probably have been furious if Jaqueline had undermined any of my parenting rules, not that I really had any.
‘Sorry,’ I mouthed at him.
About ten awkward minutes later Jaqueline asked both boys if they wanted a roll and they accepted with full solemnity, although I imagine by this time the bread was cold. Richard had stayed well out of the exchange. I wondered, not for the first time, how their roles are defined as parents. Clearly Jaqueline is the disciplinarian, but does that make Richard the indulgent one? Seems unlikely. Maybe the way that the two of them parent is normal, and it’s me and Joe who are the indulgent ones? Who knows. And who knows whether it makes any difference in the long run. Children seem to grow into functional adults almost irrespective of parenting trends and perhaps the only noticeable difference is for the parent themselves, how hard they make their own lives. Layla is now a genuinely lovely, polite, considerate human being but I don’t have to cast my mind too far back to recall the sullen, prickly and frankly obnoxious individual my daughter was during those years when her hormones kicked in and her rebellious streak kicked out. Looking at my nephews sitting bolt upright in their seats, hair swept into side-partings, chinos pressed and clean, Hugo’s charcoal quarter-zip looking suspiciously like cashmere, Lawrence (aged four) wearing a polo shirt without a single stain or thread awry – I couldn’t really imagine either of them becoming teenage delinquents. But then, you never know.
‘Actually, Jaqueline and I were wondering,’ said Richard, when our starter arrived. ‘Whether you might like to have the boys for a few days. You know. Once Layla’s gone?’
‘Uhhm…’ I began, a little surprised by the request.
‘This is not true, Richard,’ Jaqueline’s voice cut across the table. ‘We were not wondering about it – you and I.Youwere wondering. On your own. But, yes, in principle, I have no objections to the boys going to stay with their aunt and uncle when we go to Rome.’ She poked her fork at an elaborateconstruction of pesto mousse. ‘But also, I have no objection to them staying with your mother, or Magdalena, or the house-sitter, as before.’
‘Who’s the house-sitter?’ I said, momentarily distracted from my own calendar being arranged for me. I knew that Magdalena was the boys’ nanny. She’d been working for Jaqueline since Lawrence was born. But they evidently had more staff at their disposal than I’d realised.
‘From an agency.’ Jacquline shrugged Frenchly.
‘A stranger?’ I said. ‘You’ve left the boys with a complete stranger?’
‘Sometimes.’ She slid a morsel of parmesan and pesto into her mouth. ‘Maybe for a weekend if Magdalena is away. Maybe longer.’
‘We usually ask Mum,’ Richard interjected quickly, seeing my expression. ‘We have used a professional sitting service once or twice, but only for the odd night.’
Jaqueline raised an arched eyebrow very slightly but chose not to add anything.
‘Well, you absolutely should have asked me,’ I said, feeling a little distressed by the idea of my nephews languishing under the care of some zero-hours-contract worker whose only qualification was the ability to stop a house being broken into. ‘I’d have been happy to have them. We’d have enjoyed ourselves, wouldn’t we boys?’
Hugo and Lawrence looked nervous and nodded politely.
‘Oh, that’s really kind of you, Hattie.’ Richard cut into a tiny rectangle of grey pastry, which I assumed was his woodland mushroom velouté. ‘It’s just for a few days in November. We’ve booked this gorgeous hotel, haven’t we darling.’ He looked at Jaqueline, who nodded imperceptibly. ‘And we thought. Well –Ithought – that it might be nice for you to have some kids aroundthe place once the house is empty. Stop you feeling gloomy.’ He gave me a sympathetic smile.
‘You are worried about being lonely,’ Jaqueline said, completely matter of fact. ‘The empty nest, yes? It is an English thing.’ (I can’t convey just how dismissive the tone was on ‘English’). ‘But a mother’s sadness when a child grows and leaves the home – it is not fear for the child that makes the mother sad. It is much more about the mother than the child. Her own fears. Her concern for herself.’
‘Well, not entirely,’ I began.
