It was only half past eleven and I had already had enough of the day. So here I sat drinking coffee as strong as a donkey’s hind leg, looking out of the café’s window trying to calm down. It wasn’t working. The conversation with the deputy head of Noah’s school kept me in a constant state of baffled, bewilderment and the repeated revision of the conversation I had last week with Mrs Woodwood (the French teacher from hell) was driving me nuts.
I had intended to buy a mag to clear my mind and trivialise life with some light hearted fun but none fitted me or my mood. I found myself looking; with dismay, at the rows of front covers with their fresh revelation of the latest scandal, with tum and bum tucks, face lifts that look good on flat paper but once seen moving become a freak act when on the telly. I wondered what these modern beauties looked like in real life. Perhaps I’m the freak and I should aspire to go under the surgeon’s knife; god knows there are areas of my face and body that could do with it. Four children and Forty eight years have taken their toll. Then, there were what I call the grown up mags that give a journalistic snippet of information that leaves you feeling cheated. No doubt about it, it was my age! It was just as this cloud of elderly attitude; which had darkened my spirits to a greyish black, when I caught sight of the hullabaloo going on outside.
In the middle of a clipboard frenzy was our local MP. I smiled at the shark infested water around him. Laden with seemingly well intentioned help; these sharks would bite in a feeding frenzy of self importance, I felt sorry for him.
His smart shirt, modern tie and his body posture pealed out; look at me, see how in –touch I am with my constituency; perhaps he deserved the sharks after all. I was saddened by my lack of optimism and my new ability to see doom and gloom. The darkened age cloud that hung over me threatened to pour down on my life, if I couldn’t find a ray of sunshine somewhere soon; I was going to turn in to my beloved Gran.
I waited for the media circus to go by. The coffee had given me a real buzz so I decided to escape and take a walk along the river and let the caffeine surge subside. As I walked along the tightness in my shoulders eased and the sun warmed the crisp air. I could smell and feel spring around me, so could the birds; as their excited song rang in the new beginning. Not for the first time, did my thoughts turn to my marriage.
I smiled at myself. Marriage I thought was like learning to ride a tandem, with as many different bikes as there were relationships, I supposed. I once rode independently on a racy little number then I became hitched up and after a while bolted on a couple of child bikes and a carrier for the dog. The image of the whole ensemble ambling along the country roads around where we live; adding the baggage that comes with family life as you go, lightened my step.
At the moment I seemed to be constantly peddling up hill and on my own most of the time. When I was joined by my husband, he peddled so bloody hard that I was exhausted. We never took time out from the business or the children to enjoy life together; he preferred to bike with his head down, blinkered, making a good life, what ever that meant. No marriage isn’t anything like the image I had. I imagined; when I was that sporty little number that it would be like those quadrant bikes you can get on holiday, sitting side by side peddling, talking; as we did in those days about everything. I’ve even forgotten the colour of his eyes.
A chuckle escaped as the image of my over loaded bike and Steve just pulling up alongside me; chatting as he does, without noticing the load I carry giving husbandry lip services to my motherly duties. I don’t know why I find it so funny, maybe it’s because we both know he would be incapable of doing what I do. God if I gave him the bikes, our family tour of this life would be over. With this thought floating in my mind I crashed into someone.
Looking up to apologise, I found myself in the middle of the clipboard sharks as they circled around me, their main attacker homed her killer instinct onto me. I wasn’t paying any attention to her assertive question; I was too busy wondering what her life bike was like. Her wedding ring; of three different bands of gold, closely woven with opulent diamonds surrounding it, I imagined her bike had an engine attached. As I looked into her now animated face I heard a woman as trapped as I, in motherhood and in her beliefs. I hoped she was as sincere as her face portrayed, did she really want my honest opinion?
As I was propelled to meet this eminent MP of ours, I should have felt intimidated but I didn’t. He was a man like many other men I have met in my life; full of empty ideas about the job I do; building on the foundation of our understanding, ready for the next generations ideas to evolve our humanity’s future. So it was with pride and very little thought that I stood exposed on the street. I was asked in a most worldly patronising way (that took me to a red zone where my better judgment had no control) how I felt to be a mother at home. I bit my tongue to correct him. I thought it best let him dig that hole, himself; which he did, expressing a wish to get mothers walking to school, there by introducing exercise in their daily regime and cooking good meals. I smiled at him as his well rehearsed views on this subject freely fell out of his mouth.
It came much as a surprise to me as obviously it did to him as I launched into an attack about private education (I assumed his children were at boarding school) where the house masters give the values to those children rather than their parents, so how could he understand the issues I deal with? This parenting freedom gave him time to go to the gym with his personal trainer, and of course he employs a chef to make pleasant and well balanced meals, cutting out the prep and shopping time. I said this with a sweet as acid voice words spilling out, with out forethought or remembrances. I noted the puzzled expression as he looked me up and down; I was not what he was expecting. His mother should have warned him not judge a book just on its cover but to read a little of the pages inside before taking it down to read aloud in public and assumptions are most definitely bad manners. He didn’t like the assumptions I made.
As a director of my husband’s small business, did he not feel that I supported too many members of parliament and their expenses, while having to justify mine to an over zealous tax man? That being taxed on the turkeys I gave at Christmas to our two employees, a humbug of thing, didn’t he think?
By the time I have got up at six in the morning and finished typing the estimates my husband needs to get in the post, at twelve at night, I too understood the meaning of long days? However my pay doesn’t reflect those hours.
How are you going to help me? I’m the foundation of the pyramid that supports the top wage earners? All you’ll do is take services from me to say that you’re giving choice. That choice makes me an unpaid manager of my pre-school, with all the responsibilities that position holds with none of the experience needed to fill it. I think it was at this point when my pointy finger started to stab the air like a sword and I felt like Boudicca when fighting the Romans, though the Romans feared her, were as he just gave me a glazed fed up expression.
You give me call centres and make me use the internet to help cut jobs, allowing the entire world into my home and say it’s my responsibility to monitor and police the dam thing. I can just about turn the blooming thing on. What about you? Do you understand it all? Or do you have a paid company in to sort it all out for you? How often can you afford to replace them when they are outdated? I can’t and as I’ve four children with their homework all on the internet, I haven’t enough to share round. Not even going to mention Bebo or face what’s a name or parent e-mails., causing un-told arguments of whose turn is it next, then it goes and crashes leading to uproar. Good old Customs and Excise are not going to take Oh sorry my VAT return is late but the computer went wrong again. Just another way of cowboy outfits making money if you ask me. Fixing computers are just like cars as far as I can see; you need them to go so badly at cheep rates you’re willing to pay the minimum amount needed. Then you find out they know as much about it as you do. ’
‘Government have no control over such things as free markets’ He interjected just as I was gaining momentum.
‘Free markets’ Oh this was going to be good, a different soap box to get onto now. ‘Just allow people to employ child labour so the stock exchange can make their profit. All done off the toiled backs of children and then they reason it all out by telling us; that personal feelings have no place in business matters. That the responsibility has to lay with the consumer, that’s me again then.
The thing is they’re talking about countries I will never see and have no control over. Countries that’s as poor as the barren dirt or inner city around them with corruption the only growth. To say this is a free market is plain wrong, it’s a slave market, a pyramid scheme.
If you want to be a leader of this country, lead and make these things the responsibility of all and then perhaps you will gain my trust and respect. Though not the business vote or the ones of those at the top of the pyramid, so you won’t do it! Will you?’ I didn’t wait for a reply.
‘Oh and if you put in an aptitude test for teachers, their and our lives would be much easier. Remember it’s the mothers and the teachers that make the man.’ I looked at him square in the face and saw a little boy that had been found with his sweets and catapult by matron. I did so enjoy the look.
Knowing nothing I said was going to change the world or his views the red zone that had engulfed me subsided and my senses flooded back. It was then I noticed lights and a microphone. I decided it was time for me to go.
As I turned to move on, he asked me if I had ever attended an MP’s surgery and when I replied no he asked why not?
‘Too much like going to the doctors. If you called it a coffee morning, I would probably give it a go, send me a good agenda and I’d defiantly turn up. I’m a sucker for a good agenda.’
‘What would you like on the agenda’ He challenged, but I wasn’t biting that bate.
‘That’s for you to decided I’m an over worked underpaid mother of this country, it’s not too difficult to find something that matters to me’
I could see the challenge in his eyes. Oh lord what if he calls my bluff? Nar he’ll be too busy in the next few weeks. He just wanted to make himself look good. Where as I made myself look exactly what I am, ignorant of politics and just a mum. Thank god I put makeup on; at least I would’ve looked presentable, as my Gran would say.
With one last look at the sharks I turned and left, catching the eye of the MP. Perhaps I saw a spark? Maybe my spiel of my “honest opinion” set one off, but I wouldn’t hold my breath to see a fire ignite. I laughed at myself, at my own self importance, who did I think I was? I comforted myself that our conversation was resigned to the cutting room floor and would soon be forgotten by all. I left the shark pool to meet Mr Dick the deputy Head and the French teacher from hell.
I had gone to town so that I could relax but found myself more agitated. Now tapping the steering wheel with true gusto; as though each tap was going to stop the trains from coming, lift the barrier and release me so I could get to the school on time. Winding myself up even more by trying to get to grips with the text message I had from Noah’s friend and the conversation with the Deputy Head. The message was reassuring me that Noah was OK and to expect a call from the Head. The conversation on the other hand made me feel as though Noah was about to be expelled.
The MP fiasco had awaked the dormant rebel in me. This was not a good place to be when meeting your son’s teachers! I decided that preconceived ideas had to be abolished, I concluded, they just tie you up in knots. I wondered if the MP had got that message or thought I was ignorantly bigoted as he had been. As a foundation, understand things as they are and not as you would like them to be; most impressive I thought, indeed a pearl of wisdom to live by. Good lord I am my Gran!
I must say I was expecting a more comforting reception when I stood in the office; to say it was frosty was an understatement. Surly by now all would have heard what had happened to Noah. Being chased by an eighteen year old baying for his blood must have unsettled him. Still, having not heard from him, I presumed he was coping with it all. He had accused me of over reacting and being too motherly recently so I decided to trust him and stand back. Easier said than done!
As they grow, so you think your freedom will come from the all consuming worry. But freedom is the figment of hopes imagination. That second I received James’s text of reassurance, I knew the ties of my life’s happiness had been bound so tight to that of my offspring and it rested precariously with the joy and health of them.
So looking up to see the youthful yet scornful face of Mr. Pratt, his normal relaxed trendy suited body looked as if a ramrod had been shoved up his spine. With each potential reason flowing through my mind, they then ebbed away as I could not find the right cause to the face. I now was led silently down the corridor to the language department? As we walked in silence I thought on how some teachers are just borne, they command respect from the offset. With a name like Pratt he would have come up against a lot of verbal abuse from students, instead of seeing it as a disadvantage he had told me once that he turned it into a tool in which to gauge his students the way they abused it gave him a clue to how they learnt. He was a very impressive and a dedicated teacher.
As the door opened the dull middle-aged woman looked defiantly cowering. What the hell was going on!
‘We are sorry to call in like this, (my heart dropped and the tension made it silent, I watched Mr Pratt’s mouth intently trying to find some clue to what was going on) but we thought this situation needed our immediate attention’.
‘Bloody hell’ I thought.
Now with Mr Pratt by her side the defiance took on aggressiveness around her mouth and her eyes glistened with anticipation as she moved in her seat and her back also straightened getting ready. I went beyond agitation at this point, I just need to know if Noah was coping but looking at the pair of them I needed to sit and listen to what was to come.
A long pause became uncomfortable and at last Mrs Woodwood illuminated the situation. She found it unacceptable that Noah should swear and walk out of her class. When I asked for clarification of the situation I heard the audible release of breath conveying the ‘I told you so’ the grimace on her face had a certain amount of surprise at my question. Obviously this strengthened the belief that all mothers protected the wrongs of their offspring to teachers.
Remember preconceived ideas are bad manners, keep strong! I told myself.
As she listed the events leading to the report being given, which had caused the outburst from Noah, I looked over to see the frustration that I felt, show on Mr. Pratt’s face. This whole episode was because my son had just given his friend a pen. Like two exasperated parents of a stroppy teenager we looked back at Mrs. Woodwood.
Collecting up my thoughts with my finger on my right temple, I try and shove the indignation I felt back in and to put my mind into working order. There are people with knowledge that should never be teachers; how can we allow those that have no ability to teach let loose in our schools. Mind you they don’t get a lot of training on how to handle children and I don’t think you can teach such an innate thing.
‘Are you asking me to tell my son to drop his manners and not speak to anyone other than the teacher and not help a friend?’
At this point her preconceived ideas about parents rolled around her eyes and hissed in her words.
‘No Mrs Lambert, I do not mean that, he needs to adjust his behaviour so that the class is not disturbed’.
A seemingly reasonable request, I knew Noah could be disruptive in an over friendly way but at the beginning of a lesson as the students were coming in, a little over the top I thought but this was a minor point as the main issue was that for some reason my son, rubbed this teacher up the wrong way. I had spoken to many students passed and present and it seemed to me that she controlled the class by telling off the most liked students, thus, pulling the rest of the students into line.
A balance had to be met but the scales would always be tipped in her favour; as anything I had to say obviously will be deemed to be, just on a mothers view point. I began to loose control of the burning nagging urge to put her straight. Oh lord the metamorphic state is near its completion and soon I will hear my Gran in all I say. She never suffered fools; she would instantly put them right. I hung onto the thought that sometimes my Gran got the wrong end of the stick and would’ve been better waiting a little longer, calmly.
‘So he made a loud entrance and shouted to a friend that he could borrow a pen and you put him on report? This gives credence to the report system? This was as calm as I could make it!
Her mouth opened and shut like a goldfish wondering what to do next.
‘My son had just been chased around the school by a hooded eighteen year old and I thought I was called in, to be reassured that my child is ok! I have received a call from the local policeman who commended my son’s behaviour over the incident but as yet the school hasn’t seen fit to inform me. I quickly glanced at Mr Pratt who was shocked by the news.
If this had happened to a member of staff would they have carried on as my son had done or would they have been given the rest of the day off? So it’s no wonder then, he had reacted the way he had at her pettiness.
What I said though was: -‘You obviously didn’t know what had just happened; as you would’ve offered him time out to recover, like a member of staff would’ve been given. Although I won’t condone my sons swearing, I can’t tell him to take everything that’s thrown at him. Neither do I think its fair for him to make life difficult for the other people around him. Having said that he is only fourteen and he will learn’. I was very pleased with myself as I didn’t say what was on the tip of my tong; what’s your excuse?
I asked for another meeting with Mr Pratt, I felt uneasy about this. I would’ve preferred his immediate opinion about the situation but as I had to run; literally, to pick up three other children at two different schools, I was pushed for time and next week would have to do.
A headache began to form due to all the thinking I had going on and I wondered if Philosophers had to think about what was for tea while mulling over major problems of how people act and react to each other?
‘Soz mum’ broke my thoughts as Noah climbed into the car.
‘Why, what ya done?’ I smiled at him and his face released the anguish.
‘For getting you called into the office.’
‘Mmm, it was a bit inconvenient, what happened?’
As he explained the on going saga with ‘Mrs Deadwood’ (as he called her) I would have like to have stopped the car and taken a moment to take in how grown up he had became and how completely different he was to that of the perception the teacher had had of him. Could I only see the good? Was my boy charming me or were all the myths about the ‘bad teenagers of to-day’ and the dysfunctional society a figment of the journalistic story line and a band wagon for people to jump on. There will always be a few that make life hard work and slightly threatening, as there always have been. As I arrived at the primary school I asked him about the incident with the police.
As we walked, an intricate line of events became unravelled and as he spoke I realised my dyslexic and slightly Dyspraxic son had the ability well beyond his years to recount and set aside my anguish. With true caring he dismissed my fears that this was ever going to happen again. I could see what the policeman had meant and I agreed he would make a very good policeman or diplomat.
Family life started again as I gathered up the children and their joyful banter started. As I opened the front door, bags were thrown and shoes kicked off as all six (two friends had popped in and were staying for tea) flowed through the house and then quietness…. I stood for a second and breathed in. The tyres on my metaphoric bike were flat; a cup of coffee to pump them up a little was called for. The kettle was on and I sat to tackle a pile of correspondences from the three schools on the table ready with the diary and purse (school letters can read like begging letters) while thinking what I could throw together in the half an hour before they start to howl for their now forgotten stomachs. The bloody phone rings. I close my eyes, five minutes, that’s all I ask for in my day……life.
As soon as I hear the voice the mental image of a bicycle with a sparkly engine pops up. I start to make my coffee. Her smooth buttery voice clawed through my mind and I wonder when the punch is coming. When it comes, it winds me.
‘I’ve been a head hunter for Imperial People for the last three years and when I got talking to you a job immediately sprang to mind. Your talents are wasted at home’
‘Your talents are wasted at home’ hung in the air suspended like teeth when kicked out in a fight. She meant to complement me, I know. But she had just condemned my belief and all that I try to achieve with one sentence. ‘Your talents are wasted at home’!
My children are not the most gifted and don’t attend the right schools to change the world for good or bad. Perhaps she was right and all that I have achieved any other child facility would’ve made a better job. All I know is that I want to be responsible for my Childs welfare and the values that they hold are worthy of my time. Everyone speaks of family but there are very few of us left that live that life. I tell her that at the moment it is a very inconvenient time and could she please ring back in business hours. Metamorphism completed, Gran – had spoken!
After I had finished all the motherly tasks of the day I decided to sit and take a breather before Steve comes and hovers with a letter or some such thing that he needed done, though would never asks me to do. He dances like a dragonfly darting across a pond; never resting catching your eye and making you feel restless. To-night I just needed time to put the broken tatty bits of my bike back together and inflate my worn out tires. Steve walks in and by the look of him, his needed pumping up too.
His eyes are blood shot but I can still see a glimmer of the warm caramel centre that gets deeper and warmer when they are full of humour. I had silenced the phone and hidden the mobiles so time was ours, until he realised his ear appendage was missing. The beer I had poured for him invited time to linger and as he sat by my side our tandem turned into a quadrant.
‘Don’t you think Marriage is like riding a tandem?’
I could see a glow and knew he wouldn’t be able to resist my analogy.
‘How?’
‘Well it takes two to ride it and if you peddle together it makes life easier,’ I shrug ‘Ish. A lot of people never take the time to learn to peddle in synchronisation so the bike breaks and becomes two separate ones again. But if you’re really lucky you end up riding a quadrant’
‘What the hell is a Quadrant?’
‘A Quadrant bike, you know, like the ones you had on holiday camps when you were a nipper.’
The puzzled expression made me giggle or was it the second glass of wine. There was a warm glow in his eyes that gave me a mellow feeling which pumped my tires up but I was not happy with that alone.
‘You see, you peddle our tandem so hard that we don’t get time to see what’s around us’
‘If I left it to you, you’d always have the breaks on’
‘Unfair’ I retort back ‘I haven’t got any yet but I’m working on it!’
As we sat there sipping our drinks, I thought of the clipboard shark lady; whose bike had an engine and all the gubbins that was needed to keep it going; child care, cleaners, that sort of thing. Thinking about it; who was going to clean the cleaner’s house? I wondered. This would need to be addressed.
If cleaning was beneath all the people at the top and they promised all of us that we could get to the top by education, who the hell was going to do the cleaning. I say we should salute the cleaners of the world. I rose my glass to all the mothers. That was sexist so I rose another glass to all the cleaners, woman or man!
‘Do men clean?’ I wonder out loud
‘I clean’ He defensively interjected my thoughts.
‘What, the toilets?’
‘No’
‘Wash and put away clothes?’
‘No, but’
‘Carpets and showers and baths?’
‘No’
‘Then what ever you clean don’t count, I’m talking the stuff of pixies, the sort that gets done without anyone noticing’
Oh Gran give it a rest! I’d put him down and he had just started to relax.
A deep heavy sigh exploded as he rubbed both hands over his face.
‘I’ve brought the brake you know, and I’m not afraid to use it!’
He looked up wondering what the hell was coming.
‘I’ve booked us into that show you’ve always wanted to go to and a hotel’
His shoulders sagged at the financial burden I had just placed on them, he turned and smiled at me and patted my knee.
‘Lovely’ he said
‘I’ve paid for it too’
‘Out of which account’ He asked. I knew he would be straight up the stairs to the office to see how much damage that would have done.
‘The Flying Dusters Ltd. account’
‘The what account?’
‘Well you know I’ve been seeing a lot of Sian lately, well we went into business. We are now both directors of a cleaning company called the ‘Flying Dusters’ we offer our clients many services with highly trained and CIB checked Ladies of the rubber glove sort. We can use your own products or we make our own environmentally friendly type with essential oils to give a fresh and calming aroma for when you get home. We can work together or apart and have just employed two other cleaners. I’ve just landed a big contract to day.’
I wasn’t expecting the reaction I got though. Silence exploded into condemnation and I didn’t know whether that was because I was a cleaner or not telling him. I let him rant and rave and free wheeled down the hill/mountain of male controlisum, which was a little scary. When he had eventually burnt himself out, fallen off his bike and picked himself up, I brushed him down. I reminded him that I had mentioned the Flying Duster but at the time he had categorically shouted at me and I quoted his exact words.
‘I don’t give a fuck about the fucking Flying Dusters; I just wanted the bloody part!’
‘Oh!’ He said
‘One thing I can do with confidence and arrange around the children and you is cleaning. Well it’s paid for the day out and a few extra bits. Not going to get rich on it all but it should make life a little easier.’
‘What about when I’ He trailed off. Looked sideward’s and smiled at me. ‘Thought you’d had enough of cleaning, you’re always moaning about it.’
‘I don’t get paid for it here and I’m not treated like a skivvy to able bodied louts when I work but coming home is a little like a busman’s holiday, that’s true. That’s why I thought we needed to take time out and look around us a little. You know apply the brakes and get off our bikes so we can make a little oasis in the desert of life.’
I held up the glass of wine and smiled at his bewildered face and looked into his gentle honey coloured eyes. The beauty of us was deep within that honey; made by the toil of a very busy honey bee!
