box, like the ones you get to post a book,’ I say, surprised that she wants to think about this.
‘Remember Addie?’
‘I think it’s a terrier’s poo,’ he said, peering into the box.
I was horrified he’d seen. ‘Adam, really, I don’t think you—’
‘I mean, if you look at its size it’s from a small dog’s bottom.’
Jenny started to smile.
‘Maybe a Yorkie?’ he hazarded.
‘Or a Scottie?’ suggested Jenny, smiling more.
‘No. I know!’ Adam shrieked. ‘It’s a poodle’s poo !
’
And for a few minutes their giggling filled the house.
10
Tara is by the hospital shop, multitasking flicking her hair with texting.
‘D’you think she’s waiting to collar Dad again?’ Jenny asks.
‘Probably.’
She’s like a glossy, pretty vulture waiting for more news carrion.
Through the glass wall of the shop, next to the old fruit and teddies, is a pile of
Richmond Post
s. I imagine people reading the paper and then discarding it in their recycling box on Tuesday; Jenny’s laughing face looking up at the refuse collectors before they empty the boxes into the back of their truck.
‘It’s not fair that she can print this about Silas,’ Jenny says. ‘And there’s fuck all he can do about it. Sorry.’
I find it endearing that she still apologises for swearing. Maybe we should come clean now and tell her we do it behind her back all the time.
She met Mr Hyman when she was working at SidleyHouse last summer but didn’t get to know him well. After all, she was just a lowly teaching assistant. Her loyalty towards him is because of what he did for Addie. I think she flourishes ‘Silas’ as proof she crossed from the pupil to the teacher side of the school. Although us mothers, like our children, always call him Mr Hyman.
Is she naïve to still be loyal to him? But I don’t want to taint her view of the world with my ugly universal suspicion. Not unless I have to.
I never told Jenny or you about confronting Tara in March when she printed her first ‘Playground Plunge!’ piece.
Tara just teased me for calling him Mr Hyman.
‘
Jesus, where are you living, Grace? In a Jane Austen novel?
’
‘
Caught the TV adaptation then
?’ I jibed back. In my head. Ten minutes later.
When I went to the editor, Tara dismissed my defence of
Mr Hyman
as being about me, rather than him. More specifically, me being jealous of her. I was
thirty-nine years old,
with a
part-time
job writing a review page. What wouldn’t I give to be a twenty-three-year-old Tara with her talent as a
real journalist
and her soon-to-be-meteoric career when mine had hit the bumpers so many years before?
Of course she didn’t say that directly; she didn’t need to. Like her prose, she could say what she wanted to, without ever being caught articulating it directly.
And her article was printed.
How could I tell Jenny – or you – that I was such a pushover? Sarah wouldn’t have stood for it for a second. It was around then that my nanny voice became particularly strident.
Because Tara did have a point, of sorts. I did fall intothe job at the
Richmond Post
, and never climbed out again. I used to pretend to everyone, pretty much, apart from Maisie, that childcare costs meant it wasn’t worth me going for a full-time, career-style job. I’d tell myself, and you, that given it was an either/or choice, I chose to be with Jenny and Adam. But my nanny voice would butt in and tell me that it was me who was creating the either/or scenario. ‘
Plenty of other women juggle careers and children and keep different plates spinning
.’
‘
My life isn’t a circus performance
,’ I’d retort, admirably fast, to myself.
But the nanny voice always won by using the list attack. You lack, she told me:
Aspiration;
Ambition;
Focus;
Talent;
Energy.
It’s the energy one that clinched it. I’d hold my hands up. Yes! You’re right! Now I need to go and help Adam with his homework and check Jenny isn’t still on
‘Remember Addie?’
‘I think it’s a terrier’s poo,’ he said, peering into the box.
I was horrified he’d seen. ‘Adam, really, I don’t think you—’
‘I mean, if you look at its size it’s from a small dog’s bottom.’
Jenny started to smile.
‘Maybe a Yorkie?’ he hazarded.
‘Or a Scottie?’ suggested Jenny, smiling more.
‘No. I know!’ Adam shrieked. ‘It’s a poodle’s poo !
’
And for a few minutes their giggling filled the house.
10
Tara is by the hospital shop, multitasking flicking her hair with texting.
‘D’you think she’s waiting to collar Dad again?’ Jenny asks.
‘Probably.’
She’s like a glossy, pretty vulture waiting for more news carrion.
Through the glass wall of the shop, next to the old fruit and teddies, is a pile of
Richmond Post
s. I imagine people reading the paper and then discarding it in their recycling box on Tuesday; Jenny’s laughing face looking up at the refuse collectors before they empty the boxes into the back of their truck.
‘It’s not fair that she can print this about Silas,’ Jenny says. ‘And there’s fuck all he can do about it. Sorry.’
I find it endearing that she still apologises for swearing. Maybe we should come clean now and tell her we do it behind her back all the time.
She met Mr Hyman when she was working at SidleyHouse last summer but didn’t get to know him well. After all, she was just a lowly teaching assistant. Her loyalty towards him is because of what he did for Addie. I think she flourishes ‘Silas’ as proof she crossed from the pupil to the teacher side of the school. Although us mothers, like our children, always call him Mr Hyman.
Is she naïve to still be loyal to him? But I don’t want to taint her view of the world with my ugly universal suspicion. Not unless I have to.
I never told Jenny or you about confronting Tara in March when she printed her first ‘Playground Plunge!’ piece.
Tara just teased me for calling him Mr Hyman.
‘
Jesus, where are you living, Grace? In a Jane Austen novel?
’
‘
Caught the TV adaptation then
?’ I jibed back. In my head. Ten minutes later.
When I went to the editor, Tara dismissed my defence of
Mr Hyman
as being about me, rather than him. More specifically, me being jealous of her. I was
thirty-nine years old,
with a
part-time
job writing a review page. What wouldn’t I give to be a twenty-three-year-old Tara with her talent as a
real journalist
and her soon-to-be-meteoric career when mine had hit the bumpers so many years before?
Of course she didn’t say that directly; she didn’t need to. Like her prose, she could say what she wanted to, without ever being caught articulating it directly.
And her article was printed.
How could I tell Jenny – or you – that I was such a pushover? Sarah wouldn’t have stood for it for a second. It was around then that my nanny voice became particularly strident.
Because Tara did have a point, of sorts. I did fall intothe job at the
Richmond Post
, and never climbed out again. I used to pretend to everyone, pretty much, apart from Maisie, that childcare costs meant it wasn’t worth me going for a full-time, career-style job. I’d tell myself, and you, that given it was an either/or choice, I chose to be with Jenny and Adam. But my nanny voice would butt in and tell me that it was me who was creating the either/or scenario. ‘
Plenty of other women juggle careers and children and keep different plates spinning
.’
‘
My life isn’t a circus performance
,’ I’d retort, admirably fast, to myself.
But the nanny voice always won by using the list attack. You lack, she told me:
Aspiration;
Ambition;
Focus;
Talent;
Energy.
It’s the energy one that clinched it. I’d hold my hands up. Yes! You’re right! Now I need to go and help Adam with his homework and check Jenny isn’t still on
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