Mad About the Boy

  5 a.m. But it wasn’t only the one night. Roxster and I just hit it off and a week turned into two weeks, and six weeks, and now it has been eleven weeks and one day.

  The thing is, although in theory it was practically difficult with Roxster, it was also been surprisingly easy. Practically it was tricky because Roxster lives with three other boys the same age. So obviously we couldn’t really go back there, with me plunged into some Beavis and Butt-head-type situation, trying to deal with crispy sheets and sinkfuls of washing-up, whilst pretending to be a family friend of Roxster’s mother, who had come to stay with him in his bed in his crispy sheets.

  Equally I didn’t want to introduce the kids to Roxster so soon and certainly didn’t want them to find me in bed with him. But – thanks to the hook on the bedroom door – we found our way. And it was so lovely. It has been so lovely. So lovely having a separate adult life, and meeting in pubs and little restaurants and going to movies and for walks on the Heath and having fantastic sex, and someone who cares about me. Although he hasn’t met the kids, they’ve become part of our dialogue, and part of the texting that is the running commentary on both our lives, what we’re doing, what we’re eating, what time I’ve got them to school, what Roxster’s boss has done now and more about what Roxster’s eating.

  Looking back, I think I’ve been almost delirious, permanently shag-drunk, in a haze of happiness. And now it is five on Saturday morning, I have been awake all night thinking about all these things, the kids will be up in an hour, I’ve got the film meeting on Monday and have done no preparation, I probably have nits and there is still no text from Roxster.

  10 p.m. Still no text, am melting down again. Have left messages and texts for Jude, Tom and Talitha but nobody seems to be there. Jude is on her date with PlentyOfDance or perhaps PlentyOfDoctor Man whilst simultaneously standing Vile Richard up with an imaginary girl. Oh, telephone!

  Was Talitha, coming to the rescue. Refusing to listen to my wails of: ‘It’s because I’m middle-aged!’ She said, ‘Nonsense, darling!’ reminding me how in Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus, it says men of any age need to retreat to their caves sometimes.

  ‘And also, darling,’ she added, ‘you did see him on Thursday night. You can’t expect to have the poor boy every other day.’

  Then just as I got into bed the phone pinged. Leaped at it hopefully.

  Was Talitha again.

 

  Sunday 21 April 2013

  136lb (oh no, this has to stop), calories 2850 (ditto, but is Roxster’s fault), minutes spent playing with children 452, minutes spent worrying about Roxster while playing with children 452 (hope Social Services not reading).

  3 p.m. Still no sex. I mean, text. But feeling much more composed about Roxster today. Calm, Buddhist, almost Dalai Lama-like. When he comes, we welcome. When he goes, we let him go.

  3.05 p.m. FUCK ROXSTER! FUCK HIM! Suddenly doing death-by-texting after all that, that CLOSENESS. It’s inhuman. I didn’t like him anyway. I was just . . . just . . . USING HIM FOR SEX . . . like a, like a TOY BOY. And it’s a REALLY good job the children didn’t meet him – because now it is all over, so at least it won’t affect them. But where am I going to find someone I just get on with like that and who is so funny, and sweet and gorgeous and—

  ‘Mummy?’ Billy interrupted. ‘How many elements are there?’

  ‘Four!’ I said brightly, snapping back into the reality of the messy Sunday afternoon in the kitchen. ‘Air, fire and wood. And um—’

  ‘Not “WOOD”! Wood isn’t an element.’

  Oh. Suddenly realize ‘wood’ came from a book I read about Elemental Design – when I had the fantasy of redoing the house into a Buddhist Zendo – and it said the house had to have water, wood, earth and fire. No problem with the last one anyway!

  ‘There are five elements.’

  ‘No, there aren’t!’ I said indignantly. ‘There are four elements.’

  ‘No. There are five elements,’ said Billy. ‘Air, earth, water, fire and technology. Five.’

  ‘Technology isn’t an element.’

  ‘Yes, it is!’

  ‘No, it isn’t!’

  ‘It is. It’s in Wii Skylanders: air, earth, water, fire and technology.’

  Stared at him in horror. Has technology become another element now? Is that it? Technology is the fifth element, and my generation just don’t understand it, like the Incas just completely forgetting to invent the wheel? Or maybe the Incas invented the wheel and it was the Aztecs to whom the idea of the wheel just never occurred?

  ‘Billy?’ I said. ‘Who invented the wheel? Was it the Incas or the Aztecs?’

  ‘Mummeeeee! It was in Asia in 8000 BC,’ Billy said without looking up.

  He had somehow got onto his iPod without me noticing.

  ‘What are you DOING????’ I burst out. ‘You’ve had your time. Your next time isn’t till four o’clock!’

  ‘But I wasn’t doing Skylanders for the whole forty-five minutes. I was only playing for thirty-seven minutes because it was loading and you SAID you would save my time when I went to the toilet.’

  I grasped my hair and pulled it, trying not to think about the nit eggs. I just don’t know what to do about technology. It’s banned in the week, and at the weekend it’s maximum two and a half hours with no more than forty-five minutes at a time and at least an hour in between, but the whole thing gets like a complicated algorithm of finishing levels, and loading, and going to the toilet, and playing cyber wizards with someone across the road, and it just drives me MAD because it turns them into non-present creatures and I might as well still be in BED as . . .

  ‘Billy,’ I said in my best voicemail voice. ‘You have had your screen time. Would you please hand me the iPad, I mean iPod?’

  ‘It’s not an iPod.’

  ‘Hand it over,’ I said, staring Medusa-like at the evil thin black object.

  ‘It’s a Kindle.’

  ‘I said ENOUGH SCREENS!’

  ‘Mummy. It’s your Kindle. It’s a book.’

  I blinked rapidly, confused. It was technological and black and thin and therefore Evil, but . . .

  ‘I’m reading James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl.’

  . . . it was also a book.

  ‘Well!’ I said brightly, trying to recover my dignity. ‘Anyone want a snack?’

  ‘Mummy,’ said Billy, ‘you’re so silly.’

  ‘OK, I’m sorrreeeee,’ I said, like a sulky teenager. I got hold of him and hugged him perhaps a little too passionately.

  Suddenly there was a ping. Lunged at the phone. Roxster! It was Roxster!

 

  Oh God. That’s right. Roxster had said he was going to Cardiff to watch the rugby this weekend. That was why he wanted to see me on Thursday, when I found out Billy had nits. The Cardiff rugby thing was this weekend!

  Had delicious texting exchange culminating in:

 

  Am going to say no. Have meeting tomorrow and is really important to be prepared, rested and fresh and that is the sort of professional, prioritizing Power Mother I am. After the children are asleep I shall prepare my thoughts for the Power Meeting.

  11.55 p.m. Mmmmm. There is nothing like make-up sex to help you forgive your toy boy for going to watch the rugby and leaving his phone behind.

  POWER MOTHER

  Monday 22 April 2013

  132lb (evaporated through sex), shags 5, minutes spent preparing thoughts for mee
ting 0, ideas of things to say in meeting 0 (oh God).

  11.30 a.m. Film Company Reception Area.

  Oh, God. What was I thinking having sex all night? The whole make-up/break-up thing somehow whipped Roxster and me up into a sexual frenzy and neither of us could stay asleep. Was just actually hanging upside down from the side of the bed with Roxster holding both my legs in the air whilst thrusting in between them when suddenly—

  ‘Mummeeee!’ The door handle started rattling.

  Oh God, it was so difficult to stop.

  ‘Mummeee!’

  Roxster pulled back in alarm so that I crashed down backwards onto the floor . . .

  ‘Mummy! What was that bang?’

  ‘Nothing, darling!’ I trilled, upside down, ‘Comeeeeing!’ at which Roxster whispered, ‘And I’m certainly about to.’

  I tried to turn myself round unladylikely, with my bum in the air, and Roxster started giggling as he hoisted me back up onto the bed, whispering, ‘Please don’t fart.’

  ‘Mummee, where are you? Why is the door locked?’

  I dived over the bed, trying to straighten my slip while Roxster hid over the other side. I undid the hook, opened the door a crack, and hurriedly stepped out, shutting it behind me.

  ‘It’s all right, Billy, Mummy’s here, and everything’s fine. What’s the matter?’

  ‘Mummy,’ said Billy, looking at me strangely, ‘why are your boobies hanging out?’

  Once I’d taken them to school, the morning was complete nightmare trying to sort out complex matrix of pickups and nits and play-date dilemmas with Chloe, blow-drying hair (presumably spraying bathroom with early-cycle nit eggs), and eventually locating navy silk dress in bottom of wardrobe requiring ironing and wiping off of chocolate stain, and now I am here waiting for the film meeting and have not done any mental preparation at all.

  Offices are incredibly scary. Reception area is like an art gallery. Reception desk is like an enormous concrete, free-standing bath, and there is a man lying face-down on the floor – perhaps another aspiring screenwriter whose ‘exploratory option meeting’ had failed?

  12.05 p.m. Oh. Is a sculpture, or perhaps more of an installation.

  12.07 p.m. Calm and poised. Calm and poised. Everything is fine. Just need to remind self of what is actually in script.

  12.10 p.m. Maybe will win BAFTA award for Best Adapted Screenplay. ‘I would like to thank Talitha, Sergei, Billy, Mabel, Roxster . . . anyway, enough about them! I was born thirty-five years ago and . . .’

  12.12 p.m. Look, stoppit. Must marshal thoughts. The important thing is that this updating is a feminist tragedy. The key narrative thread is that Hedda, instead of just being independent like Jude, settles for a dull, unattractive academic, who stretches his budget to buy them a house in Queen’s Park. Then, disappointed by the intellectual honeymoon in Florence, because she really wants to go to Ibiza, and disappointed by the rubbish sex, because she really wanted to marry her hot alcoholic lover, she comes back to find self also disappointed by the dingy, rainy house in Queen’s Park and eventually ends up shooting herself and . . . Gaah!

  5 p.m. Was startled from reverie by a tall girl with dark hair, dressed entirely in black. A shorter youth stood behind her, with hair cut short at one side and long at the other. They smiled over-brightly as if I’d already done something wrong and they were trying to smooth me over before they killed me, and left me like the man on the floor.

  ‘Hi, I’m Imogen and this is Damian.’

  There was a moment of awkward silence as we squashed into the stainless-steel lift looking at each other, through maniacal grins, wondering what to say.

  ‘It’s a very nice lift,’ I burst out, at which Imogen said, ‘Yes, isn’t it?’ and the doors opened directly into a spectacular boardroom looking out over the rooftops of London.

  ‘Something to drink?’ said Imogen, pointing to a low sideboard sporting an array of designer waters, Diet Cokes, coffee, chocolate biscuits, Nutribars, oatmeal biscuits, a bowl of fruit and chocolate Celebrations, and, oddly for that time of day, croissants.

  Just as I was helping myself to coffee and a croissant, to create a pleasing air of a Power Breakfast, the door burst open and a tall, imposing man in large black glasses and immaculately ironed shirt swept in, looking very busy and important.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said in a deep voice without looking at anyone. ‘Conference call. OK. Where are we?’

  ‘Bridget, this is George, the head of Greenlight Productions,’ said Imogen, just as my handbag started making a loud quacking noise. Oh God. Billy had obviously done something with the text alert.

  ‘Sorry,’ I laughed gaily, ‘I’ll turn that off,’ and started grappling amongst the bits of cheese in my bag to try and find the phone. The thing is, though, the quacking wasn’t a text alert, it was some sort of alarm so it kept on going and my bag was so full of rubbish I couldn’t find the phone. Everyone stared.

  ‘So . . .’ said George, gesturing at the chair beside him, as I managed to pull out the phone, wipe off a bit of squashed banana and turn it off. ‘So . . . we like your script.’

  ‘Oh, that’s great,’ I said, furtively placing the phone on ‘vibrate’ and on my knee in case Roxster, I mean Chloe or the school, texted.

  ‘There are some really lovely things in there,’ said Imogen.

  ‘Thank you!’ I beamed. ‘I’ve made some notes for our discussion and—’

  The phone vibrated. Was Chloe.

 

  Mind reeled over Latin-verb-declension-like morass of children’s names – Cosmo, Cosmas, Cosmata, Theo, Thea, Thelonius, Atticarse – and hideous pickup/sick dilemma, wondering what Power Mothers did in similar situations.

  ‘Basically we think the whole tone and the updating of the Hedda story is great,’ Imogen was saying.

  ‘The Hedda character,’ added George tersely. Imogen coloured slightly, seeming to take this as some kind of rebuke, then continued: ‘We think the idea of a woman dissatisfied with her lot, and torn between a sensible-choice husband and a wildly creative—’

  ‘Exactly, exactly,’ I said as the phone vibrated again. ‘I mean, even though it was a long time ago, women are still making these decisions. And I think Queen’s Park has exactly the sort of—’

  Glanced furtively at the text. Roxster!

 

  ‘Right, right, what we’re thinking is – we set it in Hawaii,’ George interrupted.

  ‘HAWAII?’ I said.

  ‘Yes.’

  Realizing this might be a crucial juncture, I gathered my courage, and added: ‘Although, it is meant to be more Norwegian. So like, in November, all dark and miserable, in a dark, depressing house in Queen’s Park.’

  ‘It could be Kauai,’ said Imogen encouragingly. ‘It rains all the time there.’

  ‘So instead of being in, like, a dark depressing house it’s—’

  ‘On a yacht!’ said Imogen. ‘We want to bring in a sort of 60s/70s glamorous feel.’

  ‘Like The Pink Panther,’ interjected Damian.

  ‘You mean it’s going to be a cartoon?’ I said, furtively texting under the desk.

  ‘No, no, you know, like the original Pink Panther with David Niven and Peter Sellers,’ said Imogen.

  ‘Wasn’t that set in Paris and Gstaad?’

  ‘Well, yes, but it’s the feel we’re after. The mood,’ said Imogen.

  ‘A yacht in Hawaii with a Paris/Gstaad sort of feel?’ I said.

  ‘Where it’s raining,’ said Imogen.

  ‘Dark, dark, cloudy skies,’ added Damian.

  I slumped. The whole thing wa
s meant to be about everything being disappointing and shabby. But, importantly, as Brian the Agent says, if you’re a screenwriter you don’t want to be sort of a nuisance.

  The phone vibrated. Roxster.

 

  ‘So . . .’ said George. ‘Hedda is Kate Hudson.’

  ‘Right, right.’ I nodded, writing ‘Kate Hudson’ in my iPhone notes and quickly texting while trying not to think about Roxster’s head up my dress.

  ‘The boring husband is Leonardo DiCaprio and then the alcoholic ex is . . .?’

  ‘Heath Ledger,’ Damian said quickly.

  ‘But he’s dead,’ said Imogen just as Roxster texted:

  ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,’ Damian was saying. ‘Not Heath Ledger but someone like Heath Ledger only . . .’

  ‘Not dead?’ said Imogen, staring at Damian coldly. ‘Colin Farrell?’

  ‘Yup,’ said George. ‘I can see that. I can see Colin Farrell. If he’s on the straight and narrow, which I think he is. So what about the other girl?’

  ‘The friend – the one Hedda Gabbler was at school with?’ said Imogen. The phone vibrated.

 

  ‘Alicia Silverstone,’ said Damian. ‘It should be like Clueless.’

  ‘Nope,’ said George.

  ‘No,’ Damian disagreed with himself.

  ‘You know what?’ George was looking thoughtful. ‘Hedda could be more of a Cameron Diaz. What about Bradley Cooper for boring husband?’

  ‘Mmm! Yes!’ I said. ‘But isn’t Bradley Cooper quite sex—’

  ‘Jude Law in Anna Karenina,’ concurred Imogen, with a knowing smile. ‘Or cast the whole piece older and have George Clooney playing against type?’

  Felt in some strange twilight world where we were just bandying about incredibly famous people, who would have absolutely no interest in being in it at all. Why would Cosmata’s mother think that nits and sick germs could hop from the pavement into the front door and why would George Clooney want to be in an updated version of Hedda Gabbler, set on a yacht in Hawaii, playing against type, written by me?