<How late were you this morning, my precious? Shall I hop on the bus tonight and bring round a shepherd’s pie?>
Gaaah! Cannot have Roxster coming over when we have to nit-comb everyone and wash all the pillowcases. Surely it is not normal to be thinking of an excuse to cancel your toy boy because the entire household has got nits? Why do I keep getting myself into such a mess?
5 p.m. We burst back into our terrace house, with the usual jumble of backpacks, crumpled paintings, squashed bananas, plus a large bag of nit-combing products from the chemist, and clattered past the ground-floor ‘lounge/office’ (increasingly redundant apart from the sofa bed and empty John Lewis boxes) and down the stairs into the warm messy basement/kitchen/sitting room where we spend all our time. I settled Billy to do his homework and Mabel to play with her ‘Hellvanians’ (Sylvanian bunnies) while I put on the spag bog. But now am in total fug about what to text Roxster about tonight, and whether I should tell him about the nits.
5.15 p.m. Maybe not.
5.30 p.m. Oh God. Had just texted <Would love you to come, but have to work tonight, so better not> when Mabel suddenly sprang up and started singing Billy’s least favourite song at him, ‘Forgeddabouder money money money!’ Then the phone rang.
Lunged at it, just as Billy jumped up, yelling, ‘Mabel, stop singing Jessie J!’ and a receptionist’s voice purred, ‘I have Brian Katzenberg for you.’
‘Um, could I possibly call Brian back in—’
‘Berbling, berbling!’ sang Mabel, chasing Billy round the table.
‘I have Brian on now.’
‘Nooo! Can you just—’
‘Mabel!’ wailed Billy. ‘Stop iiiiiiiiiiiiiiit.’
‘Shhh! I’m on the PHONE!’
‘Heyyyyyy!’ Brian’s brisk cheery voice. ‘So! Great news! Greenlight Productions want to take out an option on your script.’
‘What?’ I said, heart leaping. ‘Does that mean they’re going to make it into a film?’
Brian laughed heartily. ‘It’s the movie business! They’re just going to give you a small amount of money to develop it, and—’
‘Mummeee! Mabel’s got a knife!’
I put my hand over the receiver, hissing, ‘MABEL! Give me the knife! Now!’
‘Hello? Hello?’ Brian was saying. ‘Laura, I think we’ve lost Bridget . . .’
‘No! I’m here!’ I said, flinging myself at Mabel, who was now hurtling after Billy, brandishing the knife.
‘They want to have an exploratory meeting on Monday at noon.’
‘Monday! Great!’ I said, wrestling the knife off Mabel. ‘Is the exploratory meeting like an interview?’
‘Mummeeee!’
‘Shhhh!’ I hustled the two of them onto the sofa, and started struggling with the remotes.
‘They just have a few issues with the script they want to talk about before they decide to go ahead.’
‘Right, right.’ Suddenly felt hurt and indignant. A few issues with my script already? But what could they possibly be?
‘So, remember they’re not going to—’
‘Mummeee. I’m bleeeeeding!’
‘Shall I call back in a while?’
‘No! All fine!’ I said desperately, as Mabel yelled, ‘Call de ambulance!’
‘You were saying?’
‘They’re not going to want a first-time writer who’s difficult. You’ve got to find a way to go along with what they want.’
‘Right, right, so not to be sort of a nuisance?’
‘You got it!’ said Brian.
‘My brudder’th going to die!’ sobbed Mabel.
‘Er, is everything—’
‘No, fine, super, twelve o’clock Monday!’ I said, just as Mabel shouted, ‘I’ve killed my brudder!’
‘OK,’ said Brian, sounding nervous. ‘I’ll get Laura to email you the details.’
6 p.m. Once the furore had been dampened, the minuscule snick on Billy’s knee covered in a Superman plaster, black marks placed on Mabel’s Consequences Chart, and spag bog placed in their stomachs, I found my mind flashing through multiple matters, like that of a drowning person, only more optimistic. What was I going to wear for the meeting and was I going to win an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay? Didn’t Mabel have an early finish on Monday and how was I going to pick them up? What was I going to wear for the Oscar ceremony and ought I to tell the Greenlight Productions team that Billy has got nits?
8 p.m. Nits found 9, actual insects 2, nit eggs 7 (v.g.)
Just bathed the kids and nit-combed them, which turned out to be brilliant fun. Found two actual insects in Billy’s hair and seven eggs behind his ears – two behind one and a magnificent crop of five behind the other. It’s so satisfying seeing the little black dots appear on the white nit comb. Mabel was upset as she didn’t have any, but cheered up when I let her nit-comb me to reveal I didn’t have any either. Billy was waving the nit comb, crowing, ‘I got seven!’ but when Mabel burst into tears, he sweetly put three of his into her hair, which meant we had to nit-comb Mabel all over again.
9.15 p.m. Kids are asleep. Wildly puffed up re meeting. Am professional woman again and going to a meeting! Am going to wear navy silk dress and get hair blow-dried in spite of Mr bloody Wallaker’s supercilious take on coiffeurs. And in spite of gnawing sense that increasing female blow-dry habit is turning women into those eighteenth (or seventeenth?) century men who only felt comfortable in public situations when wearing powdered wigs.
9.21 p.m. Oh, though is it morally wrong to get a blow-dry when I may have undetectable nit eggs at the start of their seven-day cycle?
9.25 p.m. Yes. It is morally wrong. Maybe Mabel and Billy should not go to play dates either?
9.30 p.m. Also feel should tell Roxster truth about nits, as lies are bad in a relationship. But maybe, in this case, lies better than lice?
9.35 p.m. Nits seem to be throwing up unfeasible number of modern moral dilemmas.
9.40 p.m. Gaah! Just went through entire wardrobe (i.e. pile of clothes heaped on exercise bike) plus actual wardrobes and cannot find navy silk dress. Have nothing to wear for meeting now. Nothing. How is it that have all these clothes stuffed into wardrobe and navy silk dress is only one that can actually wear for anything important?
Resolve in future, instead of spending evenings shoving grated cheese into mouth and trying to avoid glugging wine, to calmly go through all clothes, giving anything that have not worn for a year to the poor, and organize everything else into mixy-matchy ‘capsule wardrobe’ so that getting dressed becomes a calm joy instead of hysterical scramble. And then will go for twenty minutes on exercise bike. As exercise bike is not wardrobe, obviously, but exercise bike.
9.45 p.m. Though maybe it is all right to wear navy silk dress all the time in manner of Dalai Lama and his robes. If I could find it. Presumably Dalai Lama has several sets of robes, or on-call dry-cleaner, and does not leave robes in bottom of wardrobe full of outfits he bought but does not wear from Topshop, Oasis, ASOS, Zara, etc.
9.46 p.m. Or on exercise bike.
9.50 p.m. Just went up to check on children. Mabel was asleep, hair all over her face as usual, so that her head looked back to front, and clutching Saliva. Saliva is Mabel’s dolly. Billy and I both think she has mixed the name up with Sabrina the Teenage Witch and Sylvanian bunnies, but Mabel considers it to be perfect.
Kissed Billy’s hot little cheek, all snuggled in with Mario, Horsio and Puffles One and Two, at which Mabel raised her head, said, ‘Lovely weather we’re havin’,’ then lay back down again.
I watched them, touching their soft cheeks, listening to their snorty breathing – then, the fatal thought ‘If only . . .’ invaded my head without warning. ‘If only . . .’ Darkness, memories, sorrow rearing up, engulfing me like a tsunami.