Bit of a shocker today. I had a WhatsApp message today from Cam, Flo’s father, while the girls and I were watching an old Death in Paradise and eating pizza. I now know where the expression ‘blood runs cold’ comes from.
When I saw his name appear on my phone I felt the insides of my arms go icy and my heart started pounding so fiercely that I had to make my excuses and hide in the bathroom for a bit as I felt sure the girls would be able to hear it.
I put the lid down and sat on the toilet, staring at the phone cradled in my lap. I didn’t know what to do. Should I read it? Should I delete it without even looking? It’s ten years since we last heard from him. I decided that I couldn’t not read it.
‘Hey Franny,’ it said, ‘how’s things? I’m back in the UK and wondered if you fancied catching up? I’ve missed you. And Flo, of course. Call me. X’
I thought I might cry, but I didn’t; I just took very quick, shallow breaths. I felt numb. My eyes moved from side to side but my head was still. I didn’t know how to move my hands.
There was a knock on the door.
‘Mummy!’ It was Jess. ‘I need a wee! When are you coming out?’
‘I’m coming out now, darling!’ I said, standing up. I put my phone in the bathroom cabinet, behind the countless half-empty bottles of Calpol. I didn’t want it near me.
I went back downstairs and tried to do normal things, in a normal way, until bedtime.
At 2 a.m. I got my phone back out of the bathroom cabinet and the read the message again. And again. And again, until I knew it by heart.
I was mad, now.
How dare he? How dare he be so fucking casual about everything? Like we only saw him a few weeks ago. Like he didn’t leave me a broken mess on the floor of my life, Flo without a father, me without even a sense of who I was any more. And the ‘And Flo, of course’. Always an afterthought. Always someone to think about if it was convenient to him.
According to the hormone app my ‘thoughts are turning to secret crushes. Rising estrogen making you more likely to focus on that special someone’s strengths than their weaknesses.’
Not the time, estrogen, not the time.
Energy surges noted – 0. Episodes of Friends watched – 5. Chocolate digestives – 3.
Hormone app says I should be noticing a ‘significant surge in physical and mental energy today’. I’m beginning to be suspicious of its accuracy.
Horribly long day at work, taking calls from volunteers, promoting a sponsored skydive and ordering toilet paper at the same time as trying to fill out grant application forms.
‘What is the need you have identified; how did you identify it and how will your idea meet it?’
I have a 250-word limit for that question. Stared at it for a while, but realised I didn’t know the answers to any of it. Reluctantly knocked on Steve’s door.
‘Could I have a word?’ I asked him.
‘Of course,’ he said, ‘my door is always open!’ Not true, as I had to open it after I knocked on it, but I let it go.
‘I’m working on some of these funding applications that Angela identified, but I’m not entirely clear on what it is we need the money for?’
‘To run the museum!’ said Steve, doing a weird flourish with his hands, like Willy Wonka or something.
‘Yes, but what, specifically?’ I said. ‘What needs have we identified and how does what we do meet them?’
He looked kind of blank. ‘Isn’t that your job?’ he asked. Is it my job? I don’t think so.
‘I thought perhaps there might be a little bit more strategic guidance?’ I asked, not sure if Steve would even know what that meant. ‘You know, some key objectives, market research?’
‘I trust you to take care of that,’ said Steve, and he started shuffling papers about. Excellent. So Steve has no idea about anything. Super.
Maggie came in with the collection boxes from Sainsbury’s and a slice of double chocolate brownie. I told her about the fundraising issues. She said it sounded like it might be the time for me to find something new. I asked if she was trying to get rid of me.
‘As long as you’re local I can always bring cake,’ she said.
No more messages from Cam and I haven’t replied. Spent all evening watching reruns of Friends and eating chocolate digestives.
Last day of term today and the much anticipated Busy Beavers Easter bonnet parade. This has always been a nerve-wracking time of the year for me, ever since my first brush with bonneting back in 2009 when I made the infamous ‘bonnet of death’ for Flo’s reception class Easter party.
It wasn’t long after the last time we saw Cam and, looking back, I wasn’t perhaps the most together I have ever been. I wanted to do well with the Easter bonnet, with that desperate sort of panic that comes from feeling like you just need this one thing to go well, to make everything else OK.
I bought an old straw hat in a charity shop and lengths of yellow satin ribbon and the night before the party I’d made a huge, ornate ribbon bow and decorated the brim of the hat with some fluffy chicks that I’d saved from the top of some Easter cakes we’d had the week before.
When I’d finished, I stood back to admire it, but it had felt as though something was missing. I hit on the genius idea of making some hard-boiled eggs and gluing three of them in a cluster, surrounded by twigs. I boiled the eggs and put them in the box to cool overnight before gluing them on in the morning.
Flo looked adorable. There were sighs of admiration from other parents as she took her turn on the stage in the school hall. She looked so proud – and for a second it felt like perhaps everything really was going to be OK, after all.
Then she spotted me in the audience and did a little skip of excitement. One of the eggs wobbled and came away from its gluey fixing. It fell to the floor in front of Flo and smashed open, white and yolk oozing out on to the stage. One of the other children screamed.
‘Flo killed a chick!’ yelled a boy who I think was called Kai.
‘The Easter bunny is dead!’ shouted someone else.
Flo started to cry, of course, looking between me and the egg, betrayal in her eyes. Apparently, I’d got a bit muddled and glued the uncooked eggs to the hat, leaving the hard-boiled ones in the box. I do feel the teacher overreacted a little bit, asking me to take Flo home. Once I’d taken the other two eggs off the hat and disposed of them safely there wasn’t anything to worry about. On the plus side, though, we got to have egg mayonnaise sandwiches for lunch.
My point being that you can understand why I was nervous about making Jess a bonnet.
Inevitably, I’d left it until the last minute and when the doorbell rang to signify Jess’s return, the extent of ‘plan bonnet’ was a vague idea involving egg boxes and mini eggs.
I opened the door.
‘Look what I made, Mummy!’ squealed an excited Jess, bouncing up and down on the spot. ‘It’s an Easter bonnet!’
She carefully tipped her head back to peer out at me from beneath what was undoubtedly a bonnet triumph. There were crepe paper daffodils, chicks made of woollen pom-poms and even some real foliage.
‘Oh my goodness,’ I exclaimed, ‘that’s incredible! What a great job you’ve done, Jess!’
‘Daddy helped a little bit,’ she said, ‘but I did most of it all by myself!’
‘What can I say,’ said Ian, shrugging. ‘She’s a pom-pom whizz.’
I didn’t know what to say. ‘Ian, it’s amazing! Thank you so much.’
‘You don’t mind, then?’ he asked. ‘I was a bit worried in case you’d already made something, but Jess didn’t seem to think you had.’ There was a hint of a smile.
‘Oh well,’ I said, ‘I was working on something, obviously, but this is way better. I can shelve what I’ve done for next year. Or, you know, just put the egg boxes back in the recycling.’
No more messages from Cam. I’m trying really hard to concentrate on other things – thinking about him gives me this horrible sense of being out of control, a kind of body-wide panic.
Body parts accidentally eaten – 1. Number of times Jess made me watch her do a ‘show’ – 7. (7 too many.)
Part of a tooth fell off today. I am thirty-seven years old and I am literally crumbling. Parts of me are just falling away like some sort of neglected country house where you aren’t allowed to touch the walls and old trees are propped up with steel rods.
What’s worse is that I didn’t even notice right away. I had been eating nachos and for a while afterwards I thought I just had a bit of salsa stuck between my teeth because it felt a bit weird. And then I realised the tooth felt weird because it wasn’t there any more. I must have actually eaten it, thinking it was a bit of tortilla chip, so I don’t even have it for the dentist to glue back on. (Can they even do that?) I will have to say I swallowed it, thinking it was a snack.
How embarrassing.
It was the side of a tooth around a root canal filling, so it doesn’t actually hurt – I’m guessing the tooth is just dead? It’s very sharp, though and obviously I have to poke at it with my tongue every twenty-seven seconds or so, so that’s not at all annoying. I phoned the dentist but then remembered it’s a bank holiday. This could really cramp my style when it comes to Mini Eggs.
According to the hormone app it’s a ‘great day to try out a new software program’, which seems a very oddly specific suggestion.
Number of times tooth gap poked with tongue – 43,291. Medicinal gins swilled around my mouth – 3 (and swallowed so as not to waste it).
Bit down on the side of my tongue with my snaggle tooth while carefully eating a hot cross bun and scared Jess a bit by issuing forth a rather elaborate scream.
‘The tooth!’ I yelped.
‘God, Mum,’ said Flo, ‘how much longer are you going to go on about that tooth? You know that we can see when you’re poking it? It’s gross.’
‘Half of my tooth fell off Flo,’ I said indignantly, ‘and I ate it. Have a little sympathy.’
‘You said yourself it doesn’t even hurt,’ she said. She made a face and put on an annoying voice that I can only assume was meant to be me: ‘If you keep poking it you’re only going to make it worse.’
As my own flesh and blood clearly have no interest in my health and well-being, I turned to the Internet for support. ‘Part of tooth fallen off on bank holiday weekend,’ I typed into Google. I added the bank holiday weekend bit for drama. Suggestions ranged from gargling frequently with salt water (yuk) to plugging the gap with bubblegum (questionable) with lots of talk of crowns and bridges and other expensive-sounding procedures. Perhaps I could fashion something out of Mini Egg shell?
I’m sure @simple_dorset_life has perfect teeth, brushed twice daily with some sort of organic, hemp-infused toothpaste. She has been doing yoga again on Instagram. Her latest picture is a close-up of her feet – her hands are flat on the floor between them. I was inspired to see if I could do the same, but I couldn’t even bend enough to touch my toes. I’m pretty sure I used to be able to touch my toes. When does your body just seize up?
The caption read, ‘Sometimes you just need to pause, clear your mind, open your heart and breathe deep. Family life can be hectic, but nothing centres me like taking half an hour out of my day to connect with my body and my soul through yoga. I’m so much more tolerant with my children when I’m balanced inside and out. #thatyogalife #blissful #thepowerofthebreath’.
Having had a go at touching my toes certainly didn’t make me more patient with Jess at bedtime. Perhaps I’m missing something.
Injuries sustained in semi-darkness due to own stupidity – 3. Easter eggs accidentally eaten on good side of mouth during hiding process – 8 (had bought extra especially).
Woke up at about 3 a.m. in a cold sweat because I’d forgotten to hide the Easter eggs before I went to bed last night. I got out of bed and put on yesterday’s dress, which was, helpfully, in a heap on the floor where I’d stepped out of it. It took me a little while to remember where I’d put the eggs, what with it being the middle of the night and me having had all those medicinal gins while I watched reruns of Queer Eye.
I poked at the tooth a bit with my tongue to bring me back to reality. The hole was still there.
Having located the eggs I fumbled my way around the lounge and hallway in the dark, trying to feel for suitable hiding places. I cursed myself for not being one of those grown-ups who keeps a torch in the cupboard under the stairs like my gran and grandad used to. I didn’t want to switch on any lights for fear of waking up Jess and shattering the whole Easter Bunny illusion for good.
She’s only three but she already has her suspicions about Father Christmas. During December last year Flo kept picking things up every time we went into Claire’s and saying, ‘Can I have this in my stocking, Mum?’
I had to keep saying ridiculous things in a loud voice like, ‘I’m sure Father Christmas would be happy to get that for you, why don’t I pop it in the basket now and then I can send him a special message to let him know that an elf can come and collect it from me?’ Even I thought it sounded lame.
As I hid the last egg and smacked my toe into the kitchen door frame I remembered about the whole phone-with-a-torch thing.