The Coming of Age. September Part 1.

2nd September. Poppy has a new man. She rings me up to tell me. Well two actually. It seems a bit over-indulgent if not plain greedy when they are in such short supply. A sudden stab of envy spears its way through me. Is one of them the kind severe man from the tip? No. She met one of the men in a taxi queue at Victoria station.

‘I thought he looked nice so I gave him my e-mail address. That’s quite safe isn’t it?’

The other is a man whose house she has been decorating who is called Nigel.

‘He’s very visually aware Jessica. And I’ve decided that I’m not going to get involved with anyone any more who has no sense of the aesthetic.’

‘What about the man in the taxi queue?’ He is called Jeremy or Gerald or something.

‘Oh,’ she pipes, ‘He was telling me he was going to an exhibition at the National Gallery, so I knew straightway that he was the sort of man for me. Besides he was going to meet his mother for lunch at the Savoy so he must be all right if he is kind to his mother.’

Must be rich too I think, unkindly. I refer darkly to the Bates Motel and the Kray brothers but I don’t think Poppy had heard of either of them.

There is one thing I think of. Roger the taxi driver must now be available. Perhaps he will do for Val? I ring up Val and suggest this but she is not interested. She says he reminds her of a ferret.

Poppy’s news makes me feel like a frumpy failure all day. Spend the evening with packet of liquorice allsorts, re-reading The Colour Me Beautiful Make Up Book. The answer to all my problems is revealed. I have been wearing the wrong colour lipstick all these years and have never worked out how to use eyeliner. Perhaps this is the reason I seem to be invisible to men in taxi queues? Except that I never use taxis and always go on the underground, which is peopled entirely by foreign tourists, young black men with walkmen clamped to their ears or very strange elderly women. Oh God, perhaps I am one of these already?

3rd September. Alex rings up. He’s worried about his best mate Jools. Jools has a new girl friend called Sue. She works in the factory where he does, has a son a few years younger than Jools and is given to throwing things. The town she lives in is full of her relations, Newtown no less, and they are usually all at daggers drawn, fighting and feuding. Jools is not very good at physical confrontation. Alex thinks that Jools would not even win a fight with Sue let alone her ex husband, brothers or father even though they are all, according to Alex, rather odd. One of her brothers has two sets of teeth and two penises and can never wear shorts in the summer.

Sue seems quite normal, says Alex, ‘to look at’.

4th September. Look after Alice and Letitia. Nanny has to go to a wedding. Sarah and Roland have essential meetings. Exhausted.

6th September. Alex is coming for the weekend. I resolve to be prepared this time and buy twice as much food and twice as much beer as I think anyone can drink in two days.

During dinner Alex gets a phone call and starts laughing. I go on serving the lasagne. 'Well, you'll just have to explain to them.' Lots of squawks from the phone.

'They'll know straight away that she is mad. It's just a domestic.'

More squawks and Alex swallows, laughs and sounds serious at the same time. Eventually he puts the phone down.j

'What's the matter? Who was that?'

'It's Jools. He's on his mobile. He wanted some of my professional advice. Sue is on the house phone phoning the police telling them he's abusing her, her niece and her son.'

Apparently Jools has been shut outside Sue's house and her niece, who is five years old, is running down the road. Jools is chasing her as she heads for the by-pass and Sue is shrieking down the phone to the police, 'He's going to kill her, he's going to kill her.'

'Is he?'

'Naw. He told Sue he didn't want to see her any more and she just lost it.'

I say to Alex,'I think he's out of his depth.'

By ten o’clock, there are just a few vegetables left in the frig and all the beer has gone. Alex looks around for more and then decides he has to go out and see if any of his old friends are hanging round the pubs in the town.

I go to bed. I do not hear him come in.

7th September. Very early in the morning there is a call from Russell. Harriet has gone into labour. I wake Alex and tell him he is about to become an uncle again. We abandon plans for pub lunch and drive to the hospital.

By the time we arrive, the baby, to be called Jake, has been born. Poor Harriet looks exhausted but happy. Russell and Alex pass the baby from one to the other, billing and cooing. Mother said my father never even picked my brother and me up. There is a lot to be said for the present generation. Alex is sure Jake will be a footballer or play in a rock band. Russell says he will be a physicist.

I am to go and stay with Harriet for a week when she gets out of hospital in three days time.

10th September. Go to Harriet’s. She seems remarkably fit and baby Jake is sweet. After a desperate search of the fridge and cupboards for some food for us all, I decide the most helpful thing I can do is to shop, cook and fill up the freezer.

12th September. I ring Alex from Harriet’s to catch up with his news and tell him ours: Yes the job’s fine. He might have to move. He’s worried about Jools. Jools is moving in with Sue. Alex thinks it may be a grave mistake. So do I.