Confessions of a Bad Mother by Stephanie Calman

Author:Stephanie Calman [Stephanie Calman]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780330465946
Publisher: Pan Books

There’s another pressing issue. I’m scared that if I leave it too long, I’ll forget how to work. Or how to be Out There. I want to be Out. I want to go somewhere, be someone again, a Person. I want to go on the tube and have coffee in a paper cup. I ring up a nice script-editor at the BBC, where they are interested in an idea of mine. He invites me to come and see him and the producer. Peter now has our friend Alison working for him, and they offer to mind Lydia while I have my meeting. I wheel Lydia in, to admiring glances, but also realize I am quite nervous. I get back on the tube.

In BBC reception a rather attractive man gives me a big, ‘Are you free tonight?’ sort of smile. He looks a bit familiar, but I can’t place him. I get to my meeting, but it starts late. Then, when the producer does appear, there are building works and we can’t hear what we’re saying. He makes a few calls to find another office, then we set off. When we get there, he gossips and chats with the nice script-editor, but no one mentions my actual script. Eventually they get round to it. It is 4.30 and Maureen shuts down at 5.30. She never works late. I’ve got twenty-five minutes to get all the way back down the Westway and through King’s Cross in the rush hour. If I grab Lydia and drive like a maniac I might, just might, not be late.

‘So how’s the pilot coming along, then?’

Mustn’t be late for Maureen, mustn’t be late for Maureen.

‘Hm? Oh, fine. Fine.’

He tells me to do another draft. Sick with anxiety, I get to Peter and run along the corridors pushing Lydia like a rickshaw driver in the war escaping the Japanese. I reach Maureen with two minutes to spare, and resolve not to have another meeting for a long time, possibly never. It wasn’t just the rushing; I realize I hated the feeling of being so far away. Still, I’ve remembered the name of the attractive man in reception.

‘How was the meeting?’ says Peter.

‘Hopeless. But Gary Lineker smiled at me.’

‘So the day wasn’t entirely wasted.’

I decide to forget about having a career. On Sunday we go for a walk with Julia and her four children on Hampstead Heath, and Lawrence falls face-first into a huge clump of nettles. He is screaming, and in shock. We calm him, and hold him, and all the children gather dock leaves. But what really seems to help is shouting at the Sharp Plants.

‘You’re very naughty!’ I tell them. ‘Now just – Go Away!’

We have been looking for a babysitter, and think we have found one.

Sharon is a cheerful teenager who lives nearby and is instinctively good with kids, possibly because she’s so much nearer their age. Also, being seventeen she doesn’t collapse with exhaustion halfway through the day. Even better than that, she knows

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