ridiculous, nobody judges you for something like this.’
I put down the paints and take a deep breath.
‘That is where you are wrong. If Sam fails, it is a reflection on me. It’s just the nature of mothering in the new millennium,’ I say, jabbing a paintbrush in the air to illustrate my point.
‘Put that down, Lucy. Look what you’ve done to my pyjamas,’ says Tom. They are covered in tiny spots of red paint. Fred puts his hand over his mouth and giggles in that way children do when they sense a parent is losing control.
‘There are people, mostly mothers but some fathers, who will arrive today with their child’s “Artists of the World” project already turned into a PowerPoint presentation on a CD-ROM.’
‘But it’s not the parents’ project,’ he says, taken aback. ‘Anyway, you could never do that. Actually, nor could I.’
‘Precisely. So the very least I can do, the minimum, is to ensure that Sam finishes the project.’
‘We’ll have verisimilitude, because this one here is about to cut his ear off,’ he says, pointing at Fred, who is engaged in some dangerous air cutting.
Then Tom sees the blotches of paint all over his table and on the wall.
‘How did that happen? How do you make such a mess?’
‘We were trying to do Jackson Pollock,’ I explain. ‘Actually, it looks quite good.’ I present him with an earlier work. ‘It could have been worse, Sam could have chosen Damien Hirst.’
‘Pickling the goldfish would have been less messy than this. Lucy, if you wrote these things down it would all be so much easier.’
‘You don’t realise how many things I remember in a day, you only focus on what I forget.’
‘We’re not living in a state of siege, where it is difficult to plan ahead because we might be under attack at any moment, and our food and water supply has been cut off.’
‘You are not, but I am,’ I say. ‘I’m besieged. That’s how it feels.’
‘Surely you are doing the same thing day in, day out? I know it’s a bit of a treadmill, but isn’t it simply a question of repeating the same formula every morning?’
‘You can’t imagine how many things need to get done in a single day just to tread water. You know that you won’t achieve everything and that at any moment the whole thing could tumble like a house of cards.’
‘In what way?’ he asks warily.
‘Fights break out like wildfire, there are spillages,inexplicable illnesses, breakages, losses, eventualities that you can never prepare for,’ I explain. ‘Things that set you back months. Like chicken pox. Remember that? I couldn’t leave the house for weeks. Even worse, there is a part of me that relishes the unexpected, because at least it breaks the routine and adds a bit of excitement to my life.’
He looks taken aback.
‘You mean that an element of latent chaos is appealing to you?’ he asks, struggling to understand what I am saying. ‘There is no hope then.’
He stares at me with this funny sideways look, mouth slightly open as though he is making an effort not to say anything else. This is not something that comes naturally to a man who enjoys having the last word.
Sam wanders in. He is fully dressed in his school uniform and carrying a cricket ball, which he repeatedly throws in the air and then catches. His pockets are stuffed with football cards. I make him toast – jam no butter – and tell him at least five times to stop throwing the ball while he is eating. Then I wonder whether it is perhaps a good thing to encourage a boy to multi-task in the hope that he will grow up to be the kind of man who can cook broccoli, change a nappy, and have a conversation about work all at the same time. After a couple of slices of toast, he obligingly writes a short piece to go with each work of art. I read the one closest to hand.
‘Vincent was a man of great passion,’ it reads. ‘If he had followed the cricket he probably wouldn’t have cut his ear off. Matisse undoubtedly
I put down the paints and take a deep breath.
‘That is where you are wrong. If Sam fails, it is a reflection on me. It’s just the nature of mothering in the new millennium,’ I say, jabbing a paintbrush in the air to illustrate my point.
‘Put that down, Lucy. Look what you’ve done to my pyjamas,’ says Tom. They are covered in tiny spots of red paint. Fred puts his hand over his mouth and giggles in that way children do when they sense a parent is losing control.
‘There are people, mostly mothers but some fathers, who will arrive today with their child’s “Artists of the World” project already turned into a PowerPoint presentation on a CD-ROM.’
‘But it’s not the parents’ project,’ he says, taken aback. ‘Anyway, you could never do that. Actually, nor could I.’
‘Precisely. So the very least I can do, the minimum, is to ensure that Sam finishes the project.’
‘We’ll have verisimilitude, because this one here is about to cut his ear off,’ he says, pointing at Fred, who is engaged in some dangerous air cutting.
Then Tom sees the blotches of paint all over his table and on the wall.
‘How did that happen? How do you make such a mess?’
‘We were trying to do Jackson Pollock,’ I explain. ‘Actually, it looks quite good.’ I present him with an earlier work. ‘It could have been worse, Sam could have chosen Damien Hirst.’
‘Pickling the goldfish would have been less messy than this. Lucy, if you wrote these things down it would all be so much easier.’
‘You don’t realise how many things I remember in a day, you only focus on what I forget.’
‘We’re not living in a state of siege, where it is difficult to plan ahead because we might be under attack at any moment, and our food and water supply has been cut off.’
‘You are not, but I am,’ I say. ‘I’m besieged. That’s how it feels.’
‘Surely you are doing the same thing day in, day out? I know it’s a bit of a treadmill, but isn’t it simply a question of repeating the same formula every morning?’
‘You can’t imagine how many things need to get done in a single day just to tread water. You know that you won’t achieve everything and that at any moment the whole thing could tumble like a house of cards.’
‘In what way?’ he asks warily.
‘Fights break out like wildfire, there are spillages,inexplicable illnesses, breakages, losses, eventualities that you can never prepare for,’ I explain. ‘Things that set you back months. Like chicken pox. Remember that? I couldn’t leave the house for weeks. Even worse, there is a part of me that relishes the unexpected, because at least it breaks the routine and adds a bit of excitement to my life.’
He looks taken aback.
‘You mean that an element of latent chaos is appealing to you?’ he asks, struggling to understand what I am saying. ‘There is no hope then.’
He stares at me with this funny sideways look, mouth slightly open as though he is making an effort not to say anything else. This is not something that comes naturally to a man who enjoys having the last word.
Sam wanders in. He is fully dressed in his school uniform and carrying a cricket ball, which he repeatedly throws in the air and then catches. His pockets are stuffed with football cards. I make him toast – jam no butter – and tell him at least five times to stop throwing the ball while he is eating. Then I wonder whether it is perhaps a good thing to encourage a boy to multi-task in the hope that he will grow up to be the kind of man who can cook broccoli, change a nappy, and have a conversation about work all at the same time. After a couple of slices of toast, he obligingly writes a short piece to go with each work of art. I read the one closest to hand.
‘Vincent was a man of great passion,’ it reads. ‘If he had followed the cricket he probably wouldn’t have cut his ear off. Matisse undoubtedly
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