‘My forgetfulness aggravates your mother far more than it aggravates me,’ Dad says, patting me on the arm just as Mum did.
‘You don’t think you should talk to a doctor?’
‘I had a look at your veg patch, propped up some sagging tomato vines for you. Make sure you keep watering them, there’s not been much rain of late,’ he says, ignoring my question completely.
‘I didn’t even know I had a veg patch, so, thanks,’ I say, flattening one of his coat lapels.
‘You know what I’ve always loved about gardening?’ he asks, and I shake my head. ‘Plants don’t mind who you are, what you’ve done or what you’ve forgotten. If you visit them frequently and look at them properly, you’ll sense what they need. People are the same – you don’t need to know someone’s entire history to know when they need a hug.’ Then he pulls me into his arms.
‘Oh, Dad,’ I say, sinking into him.
‘If I’m going doolally, I’ll go doolally on my own terms, love.’ He pauses, then gives me a questioning look.
‘I’ll be fine,’ I say. ‘Don’t worry about me. I’ve got this.’
It turns out, I have not got this. Not by a long shot.
Amy wakes four times in the night. Once for a nappy change, once because she’s thrown Neckie out of the cot, and the other two times, I don’t even know why, she just grizzles until I pick her up. The only thing that will make her stop is walking around and around the room with her, which is the last thing you feel like doing when you’re shattered yourself. How do people survive off this little sleep? Then Felix wakes up distressed because he doesn’t have Hockey Banjo.
‘Am I looking for a real banjo?’ I ask him.
‘No,’ Felix wails, ‘my armadillo.’
‘I’ll help look. He must be somewhere,’ I say.
‘She’s a she, and she doesn’t like the dark,’ Felix sobs, crawling on the floor to look beneath his bed.
‘She won’t be lost.’
‘How do you know? You don’t even know what she looks like because you’re not real Mummy!’ Felix cries. He’s right. I don’t know what his toy looks like. Maybe she is lost. Maybe Hockey Banjo went through a portal and is now living my old life, drinking bone broth and tequila with Julian and Betty.
Eventually, at four a.m., after pulling apart the playroom, I find a cuddly armadillo that fits Felix’s description and Felix, placated, finally manages to get back to sleep. I do not. I am too wired, too primed for the next disturbance. I resort to unmuting the Fit Fun Fabulous app on my phone and asking it to play me a sleep meditation.
‘I let go of the waking world,’ comes a breathy female voice, accompanied by soft chiming bells. ‘I relish this feeling of stillness. I cherish my journey to sleep.’
Nope. No relishing or cherishing happening, just an intense new hatred for this woman, who sounds incredibly smug about how well-rested she is. I check the time again. I just need to get through to seven fifteen. As soon as Maria arrives, I can make coffee, I can go to work, I can get my head together.
But at seven I get a call from Maria saying she’s developed an infection from her routine micro-needling appointment and isn’t going to be able to come to work. Shit. I’ll need to get the children up, dressed, fed and to school and nursery all by myself, then catch a later train to London. I was planning to wear something nice for my first day back at work, to do my hair, try to look professional. But with two children now shouting for breakfast, I have to make do with throwing on the first outfit I find and pulling my hair into a messy bun.
‘Did you look at the forums? Did you upload my drawing yet?’ Felix asks. Bollocks, I completely forgot about that.
‘Um, not yet, sorry, I got distracted,’ I say, while trying to find ‘the shapey cereal’ he has requested for breakfast.
‘But you’re going to London, aren’t you going to look for the portal?’ Felix asks.
‘No, I’m going to work – to my job.’
‘Do aliens know how to make TV?’
‘I am not an alien. This one?’ I hold up a box of Captain Crisp and he shakes his head. ‘This one? This one? This one?’ I pull all the cereals out of the cupboard, and Felix picks the packet of Weetabix. ‘How are those “the shapey ones”?’ I ask, exasperated. He holds up an oblong wheat biscuit to illustrate how obviously shapey it is.
‘What should I make you for your packed lunch?’ I ask him, pausing to pick up Amy’s milk cup, which she’s lobbed across the room for no reason.
‘Cheese sandwich, please,’ says Felix. Well, at least that was easy. ‘But only if you have the white cheese. I don’t like the yellow cheese any more. And only if we have the long rolls? I don’t like the bread with the green man on the packet, he’s got scary eyes. And if there’s no white cheese, ham, but only if it’s the ham with the edge.’
I should not have consulted him. Grabbing a packet of crisps, a bag of nuts and an apple from the cupboard, I throw a piece of what might be cheese into the only bread I can find and stuff it all into a yellow lunch box that has a cartoon spaceship on the front.
‘Can we upload my picture after school?’ Felix asks.
‘Sure, we’ll do it later – as soon as I get back from London.’ I don’t want to get Felix’s hopes up that his terrible digital drawing might be the solution to all our problems, but it doesn’t sound like he’s going to let it go, and there’s no time for a big conversation about it now.
On the family planner, there’s a list of all the things the children need on a Monday. Under Felix, it says ‘Football kit (top drawer) and spelling homework (ask him)’. After spending ten minutes searching for something I’ve never even seen, which Felix can only describe as ‘a book with writing in’, Felix remembers he might have left it in Simon Gee’s book bag, whoever the fuck Simon Gee is.
We’re so late now, but as I rush everyone out to the car there’s a rumbling sound and the air fills with an ungodly stench.
‘Amy’s done a poo,’ Felix says with a heavy sigh.
Amy gives me a wide, toothy grin. Did she do that on purpose? Can I take her to nursery with a dirty nappy? I imagine it’s frowned upon. But then I’ve been frowned upon before, I’m happy to take my chances. Sitting in the driver’s seat, I let out a long, slow exhale. To think I used to struggle getting to work on time when I only had myself to get dressed and out of the door.
‘Good morning, Lucy,’ says Stanley Tucci. His voice is soothing and sexy, and instantly makes me feel a little less stressed.
‘Hi, Stan,’ I say.
‘Are you going to FELIX SCHOOL?’ he asks.
‘Yes.’ Though now I’m worried about driving this enormous car. I haven’t driven for years, and I never did quite master parallel parking. What if I have to parallel park at the school? But as soon as I press the accelerator, the car silently launches into action, smooth as butter melting off a knife. As I turn left out of the drive, it honestly feels as though the car is driving itself. Is the car driving itself?
When we arrive at the school, twenty minutes later, Stanley says, ‘Have a good day, FELIX.’