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‘What about when things go wrong? What about someone to listen to them when they don’t win? What about fun, what about love and cuddles?’
‘Cuddles?’ he said incredulously. ‘Cuddles?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘They’re children – they’re not productivity machines. They need to learn how to manage when things don’t go right.’
‘Get on top of the homework. More important than sitting in the hairdresser’s.’
‘I will have you know,’ I said, drawing myself up to my full height, ‘that I am a professional woman and am writing an updating of Hedda Gabbler by Anton Chekhov, which is shortly to go into production with a movie company. Come along, Billy,’ I said, sweeping him off towards the school gates muttering, ‘Honestly. Mr Wallaker is so rude and bossy.’
‘But I like Mr Wallaker,’ said Billy, looking horrified.
‘Mrs Darcy?’
I turned, furious.
‘Hedda Gabbler, you said?’
‘Yes,’ I said proudly.
‘By Anton Chekhov?’
‘Yes.’
‘I think you’ll find it’s by Henrik Ibsen. And I think you’ll find Gabbler is spelt, and indeed pronounced, with just the one b.’
6 p.m. Oh, fuck. Just googled Hedda Gabbler and it IS by Henrik Ibsen and spelt with one b but ‘Hedda Gabbler by Anton Chekhov’ is now all over the front page of everyone’s script. Never mind. If nobody at Greenlight has noticed it, there’s no point telling them now. I can always pretend it was intelligent irony.
9.15 p.m. Kitchen table is covered in charts. These are the charts as follows:
CHART ONE – DAY HOMEWORK IS ISSUED
e.g. Monday: maths, word problems and suffixes, for Tuesday morning. Tuesday: Indian god colouring and evaluate Craft and Design – bread, mice, etc.
CHART TWO – DAY HOMEWORK IS TO BE DELIVERED
CHART THREE
Possibly redundant chart, attempting to incorporate elements of both Chart One and Chart Two using different colours.
CHART FOUR – WHAT HOMEWORK SHOULD IDEALLY BE DONE ON WHICH DAY
e.g. Monday: draw and colour ‘family crest’ for the ‘ic’ Suffix Family. Colour in Indian god’s arms.
Ooh, doorbell.
11 p.m. Was Jude, in a traumatized state, falling inside and wandering shakily downstairs.
‘He wants me to tell him to lick things,’ she said dully, slumping on my sofa, clutching her phone, staring morbidly ahead.
Obviously I had to stop everything and listen. Turns out Snowboarderguy, with whom it has been going quite well for three weeks now, has suddenly revealed he is into sexual humiliation.
‘Well! That’s all right!’ I said comfortingly, putting a delicate swirl in the froth of her decaffeinated Nespresso ristretto cappuccino, feeling, as always with my new Christmas Nespresso machine, slightly like a barista in Barcelona.
‘You could tell him to lick . . . you!’ I said, handing her the beautifully constructed beverage.
‘No. He wants me to say things like, “Lick the soles of my shoes, lick out the toilet bowl.” I mean, it’s just not hygienic.’
‘You could get him to do useful things like housework. Maybe not the toilet bowl, but washing-up!’ I said, trying to put the gravity of her situation above my own hurt feelings at not having my cappuccino-froth design praised, or at least commented upon.
