The Desperate Diary of a Country Housewife Read online

  I wonder if the babysitter will let me interview her? I’m going to ask.

  COUNTRY MOLE

  Sunday Times

  The West Country tourist season has kicked in. Until now our friendly farmer/landlord, who delivers us fresh eggs, free of charge, almost every day, has been keeping the rent artificially low; out of pity, I think, and a sort of knee-jerk support for all reproducing mammals, livestock or otherwise. Sadly, from mid-July his magnanimity is to stop. Prices for our lovely, odour-free holiday-cowshed will skyrocket to a more market-responsive £475 per week, nearly double what I’m paying at the moment.

  He and his wife are feeling the pinch, they say, and they’re blaming Gordon Brown. I, however, am blaming our very expensive pedigree dog. She’s been wandering their farmyard with a post-operative lampshade on her head, a constant reminder to them both of her owner’s Marie-Antoinette-style profligacy. It was the dog, not Gordon Brown, nor even the musical sound of my children yelling at one another on the gravel heap outside their back door, which finally caused the camel to break.

  Not long ago he informed me, full of enthusiasm, that our dog could earn us thousands if we ‘put her to’ (I think it was the expression) one of her own, and sold the resulting litter over the internet. He said he knew of an owner whose pedigree dog, for a fee, would be happy to provide the missing ingredient. Well, at the time I smiled and gasped and pretended to consider the idea. But, honestly, money aside, the prospect of introducing any more juvenile life into our family’s current chaos made me want to grab our wretched dog there and then, sellotape heavy stones onto her pedigree paws and throw her in the nearest river. Animal lovers will be relieved to read, however, that I forbore. The children would never have forgiven me.

  Instead, I took her to the vet and had her womb attended to. It seemed a bit gross, me waddling in there, my own pregnant belly swaying, ordering an end to all reproductive hope in the poor animal. But I’ve come to realise there’s something fairly gross about keeping a dog in the first place. Don’t most dogs make a dash for freedom at the first opportunity? Ours does. She loves nothing better than roaming the open country, sniffing flowers and munching on sheep shit. And yet here she is, forbidden even to breed, asleep from boredom most of the time, and facing a lifetime incarcerated with no chance of parole.

  In any case, the farmer was in our kitchen only yesterday, delivering a fresh batch of his delicious though slightly muddy-looking eggs. He was telling me all about his last-but-one summer holiday, and in daundered the post—operative lampshade. The farmer asked if she’d been in a car accident, and I panicked. Only a week ago he and I had been swaying with excitement at the thought of breeding her million-dollar puppies. What could I say? ‘Well…yes,’ I said. ‘I mean, in a way. I mean, no. What I mean is, we didn’t want any accidents! It’s my husband’s fault anyway. He was absolutely adamant…’ The farmer turned a bit chilly after that. Which saved me from a more detailed description of the Loch Tummel Campsite washing facilities, but saved me nothing else. If I can afford to spay an animal whose single offspring might fetch a fortnight’s peak-season rent on his holiday cowshed, I am clearly in no need of charity. And how can I argue with that? His wife came round this morning, looking apologetic and bearing a printout of usual rental prices for the time of year. She didn’t even glance at the dog.

  So. Come end of July, it’s back to the reeking Dream House, whose nausea-inducing, just-decorated smell (which nobody else notices) is the only remaining symptom of my pregnancy sickness.

  I asked the chemist if there was an odour-nullifying-ointment you could dab under your nostrils, like the one they used for corpse inspections in Silence of the Lambs. But apparently it doesn’t really exist. I’m considering various possibilities now: foremost among them, setting up camp in a tent on the strangely undulating terrace outside our front door. Not especially comfortable, I suspect, with a five and a half month bump. Nevertheless the children are beside themselves with jealousy.

  July 16th

  Got a call on my mobile from a feature’s editor at 94 I wrote an article for her a couple of years ago, and she wasn’t particularly pleasant to work with: haughty and unforthcoming, and needlessly frosty—so much so, in fact, that I didn’t even bother to include her in my round robin touting-for-lunch e-mail the other week (to which, by the way, I have yet to receive a single response).

  I greeted her absurdly warmly, of course. And regretted it immediately: her frosty tone grew very quickly several degrees frostier. In fact, I got the distinct impression she was extremely annoyed to be talking to me at all. Probably because it was in the back of her mind, as it was in mine, that the last time we’d had any contact I had e-mailed her an idea and she hadn’t even bothered to acknowledge it. Snooty cow. Anyway, we brushed deftly over all that. She obviously wanted something from me now.

  I asked after her welfare with the usual arse-licking concern. And while she replied—at surprising length: PMT and everything—I was flicking increasingly ferocious V signs at the children, who were fighting over chocolate biscuits around my feet. They paid no attention, so I slipped out of the cottage and locked myself in the car. The rest of the conversation took place with Ripley and Dora rolling around in the mud beside my front wheel, punching each other’s lights out.

  Anyway—that’s my excuse. Plus I’m out of practice. Pregnant. Living out in the sticks, and so on. In my enthusiasm to find work I’ve gone and got myself into a bit of a pickle.

  She rang because she’d heard on the grapevine that I was incredibly unhappy living in the country and on the point of moving back to London again. She wondered if I’d like to write a piece explaining why…Slightly disconcerting, it was. Where the hell did she hear that from? In any case, I quickly reassured her, and myself, that the family had never been happier and that there were no plans whatsoever to move back to London. Yet. She sounded quite disappointed.

  She said, ‘Oh, well—look. If you do get unhappy, this is my direct line. We’d love you to write something for us.’ And she was about to hang up—but by then, even with the children ripping hair from each other’s scalps in front of me, I had collected myself enough to realise that this was an opportunity not to be missed.

  Hold up, Smartypants! I cried (with my internal voice). ‘Actually Charlotte—sorry, you’re probably in a dreadful rush but would you mind very much—if it’s not too irritating—could I quickly give you a few ideas of my own—if you’ve got a quick minute, perhaps I could…’

  Never, I think, in the history of time, has a single, quick minute been bestowed with such filthy, self-important, rotten grace. Nevertheless. I had it. It was mine, and she was listening—more or less.

  At which point, I have to admit, the mind went a little blank. The Christmas pudding brainwave went clean out of my head. Also, suddenly, the androids theme felt a bit thin. And any idea even remotely concerning farms or farming has yet to formulate…Meanwhile old Smartypants on the other end could barely speak, she was so desperate to get off the telephone. It was wreaking havoc on my concentration. So, in extremis, and without pausing to think it through, I offered up the only idea I had—and she bought it.

  I’m supposed to be filing a 2,000 word interview with the bloody babysitter in six days’ time. Assuming the babysitter agrees, of course. Also assuming she really is off Wife Swap, which in the cold light of day I realise now she almost certainly isn’t. Smartypants was so excited about the suggestion I didn’t have the heart to mention that I hadn’t actually checked.

  She’s going to call the article ‘Reality after “Reality”’, she said.

  ‘Brilliant!’ I cried, lickety-spit. Lickety-lickety-lick. ‘Charlotte, that’s absolute genius!’

  To which she responded, ‘And next time you’re in London let’s get together and do lunch! I think there’s probably loads of country/family-related stuff I’d absolutely love you to do for us.’

  So. A turnaround, perhaps. A window of opportunity.

&
nbsp; The next step would be to telephone the babysitter, of course. I’ve been putting it off all day.

  Oops. Babysitter not amused. She’d never heard of Wife Swap. Didn’t know what a geisha was, and apparently didn’t have any inclination to find out, either. I think, above all, she was disappointed I wasn’t calling to book her for a job, and there’s no doubt I could have managed that aspect of the conversation more tactfully. Still, things only turned sour when, in my stupidity and desperation to hear her answer differently, I asked her the same preposterous question again. I asked her if she was sure. That she wasn’t the geisha off of Wife Swap. Why did I do that? Stupid, stupid, stupid. Of course she was sure.

  In any case, she didn’t like that at all. She accused me of accusing her of being a liar, and I laughed. Which rarely helps. I said, ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ which again wasn’t helpful. ‘Of course I’m not suggesting you’re a liar. I’m just a bit—well—desperate. Ha ha ha.’ The laughter sounded totally phony. It sounded awful, actually. I was beginning to hate myself.

  There was this glum little pause, during which, I suppose, some tiny, dusty corner of her mind must have been fractionally aroused, because she asked, in her dead-pan, dreary way, ‘Desperate for what?’

  I tried to explain—about the awfulness of Smartypants, and about how I was trying to resuscitate my journalistic career—and she hung up on me! One minute she was there, the next she was gone. That was it.

  So. Anyway. That’s that. Disaster. Meanwhile, the search is on for an alternative geisha, I guess. Also, annoyingly, a new babysitter.

  Perhaps I should send her a bunch of flowers or something. I think I may have seriously offended her.

  July 18th

  Finley’s androids have finally left the Isle of Man behind. They’ve set up at film studios just outside London, which means Finley’s finally going to spend a bit of time at home, at least at the weekends.

  In fact he’s taking a day off this Thursday so he can go to Ripley and Dora’s Sports Day. So he can knock everyone for six in the Father’s Race. Very competitive, Fin is. I’ll hardly see him. He’s going back to London that night and I’ll be away most of the day. But it will be lovely for the children to have him around again; and maybe, after everything—all my stupid paranoia, and everything else which followed—we might even begin to feel a bit like a family again. Maybe.

  Also—Great News. Think I’ve tracked down another interview subject. She lives in Bournemouth and she wasn’t on Wife Swap, but I don’t think it matters. She claims she was on some other reality show about a beauty salon. Also—most importantly—she claims to wear geisha outfits to welcome her partner home from work each night. Or, rather, she agreed that she wore geisha outfits (and numerous other things, too) when I tentatively suggested she might, over the telephone yesterday. She thought it was hilarious, in fact. Lovely woman. So my plan is to go ahead and file an interview with the lovely beauty salon woman, without actually mentioning to Smartypants that anything about her original brief has changed. And if Smartypants turns out to be sufficiently on the ball to notice, which she may be (it’s impossible to tell), I’ll just have to lie. I’ll pretend she misunderstood what I was saying when I pitched her the original idea. I can do that. I think. It’s much easier to lie over the telephone. Plus I don’t suppose she was listening that closely, anyway. Too busy pilfering freebies out of the Beauty Cupboard at the same time, I should think, if my memory of magazine life is anything to go by. But we mustn’t be bitter.

  Where was I? There’s only one drawback, so far as I can see. I was hoping the new Geisha Wife might have agreed to talk to me just for the fun of it, but in fact she won’t do it for less than £250, plus another £400 if Smartypants actually runs the piece. Which means, best-case scenario, I stand to make a minor loss out of the whole operation. But never mind. It’s my only commission. The only commission I’ve had in months, if you don’t count the column—and that piece for Wedding Bells Magazine, I think it was, or Big Day or Bride & Groom. God knows. Anyway, I had to do 600 words on White Weddings (Yes or No?). Can’t remember which side I took. And I don’t think they even ran it in the end.

  So. The point is, I’m not giving up on this piece yet. Not giving it up unless I absolutely definitely have to.

  Mentioned to Clare Gower & Co that I was leaving Fin with the children for Sports Day (so I could go to Bournemouth to interview the beauty salon bird). I think they were quite shocked that I wasn’t hanging around to humiliate myself in the Mummies’ Race. Clare actually frowned—or tried to. Couldn’t, of course. She said, ‘Mmmvvvv. The kiddies’ll be ever so disappointed.’

  As it happens, I think Dora is positively relieved. She’s embarrassed enough by the fact that I’m pregnant; the humiliation of me pregnant, and puffing and sweating through an egg and spoon race, would probably kill her. So. Anyway, the next day Clare specifically sought me out at the school gate, which she doesn’t do often, just so she could invite them all over for lunch. She insisted on it, more or less.

  Didn’t quite know what to say. Didn’t like to accept on Fin’s behalf without consulting him first, but the way she put it I felt slightly cornered. She was pretty determined. Prettily determined, I should say. She turned to the children, standing with me at the time, and said, ‘You’d like to come to lunch, wouldn’t you sweeties, while Mummy’s off doing her little thingy?’ And of course they would, what with the extra-zingie chocolate muffins, and the ponies and the swimming pool and the trampoline. Not so sure about Fin, though. I told him about it over the telephone last night, and he sounded quite angry.

  Never mind—it’s only one afternoon. It won’t hurt him. Meanwhile I can hardly wait for my journalistic adventure to begin. Even the thought of it makes me feel like a normal, independent woman again.

  COUNTRY MOLE

  Sunday Times

  Just saw another of those articles about smug, rich, thirty-something metropolitans and their ghastly, healthy ‘kids’, moving out of London for a life of rural bliss and healthy fulfilment in the West Country. Felt a shiver of shame and revulsion. They used to irritate me enough before, when I believed in them. Or us. Nowadays…

  I handed the photographs to my son to draw snot and moustaches on, and considered whether there might be grounds to sue. There ought to be. Because what these meretricious souls always fail to mention, as they parade their family unity inside those big, happy country kitchens, is that life in those kind of kitchens, in those corners of Paradise, does not come cheap. Which means somebody—usually the man in weekend wear at the front of the photograph—has to absent himself from Paradise for long stretches of time, just to scrabble up the money to pay for it. Which long stretches can lead to…Crikey. Where do I begin? More to the point, where will it all end?

  But we battle on. My husband and I communicate mostly by text now. He texts sweet messages claiming he’s missing us, which I find highly suspicious. I text him to f*** off. At least, now that I check, that was the last text I sent, though I can’t honestly remember why. Something to do with my feeling patronised, I imagine, and being left behind in the country to grow old and fat and boring while he continues with life’s adventure. That’s the usual moan. I have to remind myself sometimes that our situation isn’t his fault. No. On the contrary. It’s entirely the fault of those New Ruralites, the metropolitans who went before us, who’ve been posing in their pale green kitchens all this time, acting as if they had found the Answer. I now realise they’re all secretly on the cusp of divorce.

  Well over half the pupils in my children’s school have fathers who spend the week in London. Which means, effectively, and in spite of our marvellous kitchens, our limitless fresh air, proximity to farm shops and so on, the whole ‘happy country families’ show is nothing more than a sham. I begin to suspect that we none of us converge at all unless there’s a lifestyle journalist around to record it.

  Oh, I’m exaggerating, of course. I must be. Last weekend I took the dog and the ch
ildren to the android film set (not on the Isle of Man any longer, but at a studio just outside London) to meet our Primary Breadwinner in person. He was very nice. Nicer than I remembered. We all got on famously, after the initial shyness wore off, and then the dog, the children and I wished him luck with his future money-gathering activities, and took the train back West again. He looked lonely, I thought, as we waved him off.

  Back home, we had already left the station platform when I realised our suitcase was still on the train. I yelled and sprinted back, pregnant belly swaying, dog yelping, children squabbling. Two station attendants ran forward to help. One looked after the dog and the children; the other kept the train in the station while I raced through the carriages, desperately trying to remember where we’d sat. It took ages. The process probably knocked out the entire national network timetable (and I’m truly sorry about that). But when I finally emerged with the wretched suitcase, many carriages up, I was faced with nothing but patient, friendly concern. Ten minutes later a woman I’d never met drew up her car and offered us all a lift home…

  …And there it was: my epiphany, at the taxi rank. The evening was a beautiful one. Still light and warm, and even at the station there was a lingering smell of summer flowers. I thought of my husband, sweating away in London with his disgusting androids, doggedly continuing with the adventure of life, and it occurred to me (briefly) that perhaps it wasn’t me, after all, who was the one being left behind.