Misery

Okay, Resi. Keep calm.

Saturday doesn’t count. It would be the weekend anyway, even if Monday and the following two weeks weren’t free.

So I shouldn’t feel depressed when I send Kieran off at nine on Saturday to buy bread rolls — ‘Go and buy something nice for breakfast, here’s five euros — no, take ten instead’ — and while he’s doing that, lay the table and arrange a plate of fruit, and make coffee for Sven, all with that wonderful feeling of being in control and that my life is going well, that it’s Saturday and no one has to go anywhere, and we’ll all have breakfast together, and then see what the day has in store. Sure, we’ll have to go shopping, perhaps clean the bathroom, and most definitely do some washing. I’m wearing my last pair of knickers for the second day in a row, and don’t want to think about how long Jack has had his on. Oh, perhaps it’d be a good idea to go shopping for some basics.

And it shouldn’t surprise me that I feel annoyed when Kieran comes back, stands in front of the fridge, digs a finger into one of the rolls, and squirts ketchup into it, before disappearing into the boys’ room, where Jack is already awake and gaming, despite the rule of no computers before ten o’clock. And, to stop myself getting even angrier, I stick my head around the door of our bedroom and say to Sven: ‘Would you like to get up and have breakfast, darling?’, not in a demanding way, but just as information, and I don’t bother Bea, because I know she’s not mad about rolls for breakfast.

It shouldn’t make me stop and think when I realise that I’m not mad about rolls for breakfast either, and that I can’t remember one single family breakfast I’ve enjoyed, if I’m honest — not with my own parents, brother, and sister, or with Sven and the children. Sven sits there in silence, stubbornly drinking his coffee; Kieran spreads crumbs everywhere, even if he’s sitting at the table; Bea complains that Jack chomps; Jack chomps, and Lynn is too big for her toddler chair and gets her hair in the Nutella. Bea asks why we buy Nutella in the first place, seeing as it’s only made of sugar and palm oil, and I have to assume that she gets this ghastly know-it-all attitude from me, and quickly snap: ‘Let me worry about that.’

My exposure of the Family Holiday Lie doesn’t necessarily mean I won’t fall for the Weekend Lie the next day: the one that says it’s nice to have breakfast together on Saturdays when nobody has to go anywhere, when we can eat fresh rolls with smiling faces, and there’s Nutella, love, and fruit.

But it is a bit strange that I’ve blocked out the fact that I don’t like eating before half past eleven, or feel like talking to anyone, especially to people who don’t feel like talking to me — about what, anyway? And that I think it’s even worse to sit next to each other in annoyed silence, which always prompts me to make plans that consist of my own three points if I’m honest: ‘We have to clean, and do the washing, and then go shopping for new clothes.’

But I understand the problem: The Weekend Lie is persuasive.

It operates with a brutal causality: ‘If I don’t like sitting together with you, then it means that I don’t like you.’

It operates using simple opposites: weekdays are stressful, and now everything is lovely for a change.

It operates cruelly and tenaciously, every five days, all year long, come rain or shine.

The fact that I can’t rebel against the Weekend Lie doesn’t mean that I have to fall for the Family Holiday Lie. I stick to my plan: to stick it out without a plan. To build on the fact that we’re all responsible for keeping our own show on the road, including me.

Sunday.

The boys’ room stinks.

I know it’ll get worse the older they get. Now, it only smells of farts, hot plastic, and metal casing, rotting fruit cores and Jack’s dental brace, which is lying among the half-chewed apples.

‘Get some fresh air in here,’ I say and receive a growl as a reply. Which could mean anything, including ‘yes’, so I close the door again.

I ask Lynn if she wants to play Halma.

‘Do I have to?’

‘No, but I thought you might like to.’

I ask Bea what she’s up to. She’s sitting at her desk.

‘Nothing. Why?’

She covers up whatever she’s doing.

‘A secret? A present for me?’

She groans and rolls her eyes.

‘Sorry. I was only joking.’

None of the kids needs me. I can do what I want!

What do I want?

Bake a cake. Tidy up the flat. Freeze the present moment, extend it into infinity, so that I can be truly free.

I could sleep. Get some rest. It is Sunday, after all!

Sven is sitting in the bedroom, looking at his computer screen.

‘What are you doing?’ I ask.

‘Writing emails.’

‘Will you go for a walk with me?’

‘A Sunday stroll?’

It’s raining. I stare out of the window.

‘I can’t relax.’

‘Why not?’ he says.

‘Because the flat’s a mess again.’

Sven laughs.

‘What’s funny about that?’

‘Nothing.’ Sven looks serious. ‘I thought you’d got used to it. You gave a speech yesterday about how cleaning was a Sisyphean task. You quoted Camus.’

‘That was just waffle. I was showing off in front of the kids.’

‘Come here, I’ll make you feel better.’

‘I don’t want to stop you from working. I’m going to make a cake.’

Sven doesn’t stop me.

I bake a cake. I have absolute freedom to do whatever I want — and I bake a cake.

Will I at least manage to leave all the utensils, bowls, spoons, spatula, and baking tin unwashed in the sink? The flour on the worktop and the crumbs in the gaps between the floorboards?

No. I clean it all up. I wipe the mixer with a damp cloth. I hang up fresh tea towels.

What I manage not to do is to lay the table and call out to anybody who’s listening that it’s time for coffee and cake.

As evening draws on, the screams from the boys’ room get louder. When a chair falls over, I allow myself to knock on the door. ‘Everything okay in there?’ And hear: ‘Go fuck yourself, you fucking motherfucker, fuck you!’

The door opens, and Kieran comes out with that zoned-out expression of his and sweaty hair.

‘I need to kill something,’ he says.

‘I beg your pardon?’

He gives me a nasty look. A very, very nasty look.

‘An animal,’ he says. ‘A small animal I can kill.’

Bea comes out of her room.

‘You do know, don’t you,’ she says, ‘that last summer, Kieran peed on a butterfly until it died. He drowned it.’

‘Yeah,’ says Kieran, ‘and I enjoyed it.’

He goes back into his room and picks up his tablet.

Jack says to him, ‘Just stop.’

Kieran does something on his tablet then starts howling again. No words this time, just animal sounds.

Jack raises his hands. ‘I warned you.’

Kieran thwacks the table and hurts himself as he does. Yells again.

Jack says in a put-on voice: ‘Dude, don’t scream like that,’ and holds his head as if he’s getting a migraine.

Kieran throws his tablet at him.

Now Jack is crying. The corner of the tablet has caught his face.

I don’t know how bad it is, if Jack still has two eyes, if the tablet still works, whether Kieran might be crazy — a real animal torturer, a sadist. Or an animal himself. Or whether they’re all just pretending.

I think of the twenty episodes of Supernanny that I watched years ago, which were always filmed in households with too little money, too many children, too little space, and too many cuddly toys. Those are the kind of people who need help and want to be on TV, who aren’t ashamed to expose themselves, and are connected by walkie-talkie to Jo Frost, who says encouragingly and assertively: ‘Don’t get pulled into this argument. You’re the adult. Check if anybody is hurt, but sort out later what actually happened. Well done. I’m proud of you.’

I see Jo Frost standing on the balcony next to Sven, who’s smoking a joint. She’s standing very close to him, because it’s still raining and the two of them are trying to shelter underneath the balcony above. ‘Yes, Sven, I understand the theory of learning to be effective yourself, and I understand that you don’t want to police your kids.’ I wait for her to add that they have been plugged into their devices since this morning, or since lunchtime yesterday, if we’re honest, and have eaten nothing but sweets all day. But no, not even an insinuated ‘Everybody knows that’ passes Jo Frost’s lips. Instead, she puckers them and takes Sven’s joint.

I want to stand between them up and shout ‘Seriously?’ like the boys, but then I hear Jo’s voice again in my ear, saying I shouldn’t get involved and to only intervene if somebody is seriously hurt — and ‘seriously hurt’ in daytime trash TV means blood and bullet wounds, not disappointed emotions and dented utopias. It’s just a couple of people smoking a joint!

I sit down on the sofa.

It stinks here too, even though I cleaned earlier on.

Sven’s mobile is lying on the arm of the sofa and bleeps at regular intervals, crying out for electricity. I have to stop myself from throwing it on the floor and jumping all over it.

I have to find a way to concentrate on myself and to get in touch with my feelings. Where have my needs gone? I can’t go into my broom cupboard now; there’s no peace and quiet, no analysing things, no writing about myself, no floating above myself, no turning myself into a character, or moving myself around a playing board.

Thank God Jo’s voice is still guiding me, up from the sofa and out to Sven on the balcony, where I become her. I stand next to Sven and smell the rain, the wet city, Sven’s smoke, and the smell of baking in my hair and clothes. I sway a little, gingerly half-sit on the windowsill, and lean the back of my head against the pane. That’s good. I take a deep breath.

Sven rolls me a cigarette.

I smoke.

Sven and I smoke and suffer together in silence.

Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday.

No broom cupboard.

No words.

No opportunity to transform.

I practise existing. I think of meals, of the ingredients for them and whether I should buy them in Lidl or go all the way over to Aldi. I’m glad I have enough money to go shopping. I remind myself that none of us has to starve. I tell myself that none of the kids is hurt in the strict sense of the word — or will be just by hanging around, watching YouTube videos and eating chocolate.

I constantly tidy up but stop myself throwing away cuddly toys or other things that don’t belong to me.

I keep moving and force myself not to be annoyed that I’m always active while others are lying in bed.

I force myself to cook meals just for myself that I eat alone. I only force the others to put their encrusted muesli bowls into the dishwasher.

I keep going.

I force myself to accept that we barely talk to each other.

I practise being silent.

I force myself to accept that my desire is ebbing away.

I practise abstinence.

I fight back wishes and ideas until I no longer know what I want; I practise being disoriented, wander about in a room, forget what I wanted to do there, go on the balcony and smoke.

I am totally exhausted.

I go to bed at the same time as Lynn.

Something in me becomes calmer.

Something in me completely stops working.

I feel like gambling. I play dice games with Lynn and Kieran for hours.

I get addicted to Candy Crush, Farm Heroes, and 2048. I ask Jack to download them on my phone. I like the fact that Jack can do this and the way he looks when he does.

Every single one of my children seems more confident than me.

Lynn lies on her back, practising sucking in her stomach and then ballooning it out as far as she can. Kieran builds a tower made of Lego taller than he is.

Bea says: ‘If I manage not to imagine something, because the image is probably a lie and unattainable anyway, and it only puts me under pressure — like cool holidays, beauty, or a happy life, all that — then how do I know that “living in the moment” isn’t just another construct too? Another way of pressuring me and making me feel small? Huh?’