The Mummyfesto (31 page)

It was safe to say I was not a fan of board games. Actually, that was not true. Proper board games were fine: Scrabble, Monopoly and that thing called Coppit I played when I was a kid were of the first order. It was whoever had invented these ridiculous children’s games that it took longer to set up than to actually play that I had it in for. Take Mouse Trap, for example. Where the hell was the fun in that? You needed a degree in engineering and patience to set it up and within a few seconds of doing so, some cocky sod – usually Paul – got to flush a pretend toilet and knock part
of it down again. There was not an ounce of cunning or strategy involved. Just a quest for a poxy piece of plastic cheese. This probably explained why Mouse Trap was right at the bottom of the toy box in an ‘Oh, what a shame we haven’t got time to get to it tonight’ position. Buckaroo, however, had somehow inexorably worked its way towards an accessible corner and into Alice’s line of vision.

‘Buckaroo,’ she squealed, making a grab for it before I could move anything to cover the box. ‘We haven’t played this for ages.’

Paul appeared suitably amused. ‘Great,’ he said. ‘Mummy will put it together for you. She really likes this one.’

I gave him the look he deserved, took the lid off the box and started trying to get the bucking bronco’s hindlegs set down into the starting position. Five minutes later Paul, still with a smug grin on his face, asked if I wanted any help.

‘It’s OK,’ I said. ‘There’s a knack to it. It’s just fiddly, that’s all.’ I turned it round so the base was facing me and tried to do it from a different angle, bending my face down closer to it as I tried to force the legs into place.

‘Please don’t break it, Mummy,’ said Alice. A second later the legs snapped in and the mule bucked, propelling the base into my face at point-blank range. I screamed as the pain shot through me and instinctively threw my hands up to cover my eyes.

Alice, who was never one to take such things calmly in her stride, screamed too and started shrieking, ‘It’s kicked Mummy’s eye out. Quick, Daddy, do something.’

I heard Paul jump up and dash out of the room, returning a minute or two later. ‘Here,’ he said, ‘I’ve got a warm flannel for you.’ Quite how that would have helped if the mule really had kicked my eye out I wasn’t sure, but at least he was trying. All I was thinking was, ‘Please God, don’t let me have to go to A & E.’ If I needed stitches or my nose was broken I would end up on one of those lists they do of the top ten most stupid or embarrassing injuries people presented themselves with at A & E. My Buckaroo injury would be up there with men who’d had eye-watering accidents with their flies and kids who’d got their heads stuck in buckets. I was afraid to take my hand away in case there was blood – Alice was not at all good with blood – but she was shrieking so hysterically by now that I realised that unless I showed her otherwise, she really would think it had kicked my eye out. Gingerly, I lowered my hands and blinked open my eyes.

‘It’s all right, love. I’m OK,’ I said, trying hard to smile at Alice, although I suspect it came out as more of a squint.

‘No blood,’ said Paul, bending down to take a closer look. ‘And I don’t think your nose is broken. You’d be screaming blue murder if it was.’

I breathed a sigh of relief that I would be spared the embarrassment of a hospital visit.

‘It does look pretty nasty though and I expect you’re going to have a shiner tomorrow.’

‘Oh great,’ I groaned, as the reality of a far greater embarrassment hit me. ‘That’s going to look wonderful on
Question Time
, isn’t it?’

Paul put his head down and started laughing. I wanted to tell him he was a bastard, but I couldn’t with Alice there.

‘Why’s Daddy laughing?’ she asked.

‘Mummy’s going to be on television again tomorrow,’ I said, ‘and I expect I’ll have a great big bruise on my face from playing Buckaroo.’

Alice smiled and started laughing too, I suspected more out of relief than anything.

‘You’ll have to tell them the donkey kicked you,’ she said. ‘He’s a very naughty donkey, isn’t he?’

‘Yes,’ I said, cursing the fact that he hadn’t gone to the great donkey sanctuary in the sky, otherwise known as the Oxfam shop, a long time ago. ‘A very naughty donkey indeed.’

‘Fuck,’ I said, sitting bolt upright in bed.

‘What?’ asked Paul, opening his eyes with a start.

‘The Tooth Fairy,’ I hissed. ‘I haven’t done the bloody Tooth Fairy.’ I looked at the alarm clock. It was 7.30. Alice would wake up at any minute, she was like an alarm clock herself.

‘Bloody hell. I thought it were summat serious,’ Paul said with a yawn. ‘Can’t you say she got held up in traffic, or summat?’

‘That,’ I said as I leapt out of bed and threw on my dressing gown, ‘is exactly why there wouldn’t be a Father Christmas, Easter bunny or Tooth Fairy if men were left in charge.’

I raced downstairs, missing out the two creaking steps as I went, and started rummaging in my purse for a 50p piece. There wasn’t one, of course. Nor was there one in Paul’s wallet. The Tooth Fairy always left a 50p piece. She never asked for change and neither did she deposit a collection of silver and coppers. It just wasn’t Tooth Fairy. In desperation I raided Alice’s piggy bank and found one. I took it, feeling like the kind of sicko who steals charity collection boxes. It was no use replacing it with loose change, it was the 50p she got from the Tooth Fairy last time. And Alice was the sort of girl who knew exactly what she had in her piggy bank.

I then had to rummage around in the wrapping paper bag for some shiny gold paper and a piece of red ribbon, cursing Anna as I did so. It was she who had started all this fairy-scroll business. Esme, who’d been the first of Alice’s friends to lose a tooth, had come to school proudly brandishing a beautiful miniature scroll with the neatest fairy-sized writing imaginable, thanking her for her tooth and telling stories of the far-off fairy kingdom she had come from. Sam and I had looked at Anna with a mixture of awe and loathing as we realised that such souvenirs would now be expected by our offspring for years to come. I’d managed five so far, none as impressive as Anna’s, it had to be said, but all at least passable as fairy missives.

This was clearly going to be the exception.

All of it written in the sort of slapdash handwriting that made it look like her particular Tooth Fairy had been on the alcopops all night.

Unable to find any ribbon, I tied it with an elastic band, ran back upstairs, crept into Alice’s room and began the task of trying to remove Alice’s tooth from under her pillow without waking her. It had long been a mystery to me why the MoD didn‘t target mums of seven-year-olds for their bomb-disposal work. If they were looking for a steady hand, precision timing and nerves of steel, we had it in bucketloads.

Alice, of course, was lying protectively over the very corner of the pillow she had slipped her tooth under, as if guarding it with her life. It was bad enough doing this at 11.30 at night when I knew she should be in a deep sleep; doing it at 7.40 in the morning, when I knew she would wake up at any second, was asking for trouble.

I had just managed to place the 50p and the scroll under her pillow when she stirred. Instinctively I dropped to the floor. I heard her rummaging about under the pillow and then the squeal. I knew what was coming next and there was only one solution. I slid myself under her bed, grateful that we had decided against the under-bed storage drawer. I saw her legs flip down and her footsteps shooting out of the bedroom as she shouted, ‘She’s been, Tooth Fairy’s been.’ I scrambled out from under the bed and tiptoed into the bathroom on the landing, flushed the toilet and strolled as casually as possible back into our bedroom.

‘Mummy, look what Tooth Fairy has left’ Alice smiled, holding up the 50p piece.

‘That’s great. Did she leave you a scroll too?’

‘Yes, but it’s not a very good one. And she forgot the fairydust.’

Paul gave me a suitably reproachful look as I walked around to climb back into bed. It was only now the emergency was over that I realised how sore my face was. Alice started giggling.

‘What?’ I said.

‘Your face looks funny.’ I glanced in the mirror on the chest of drawers and groaned as I saw the extent of the Buckaroo injury. And that was in the dim light of morning. It didn’t bear thinking about what TV studio lights would do to it. David Dimbleby had no idea what he was letting himself in for.

The very fact that I was a panellist alongside Ed Balls, Baroness Warsi, Sir Patrick Stewart and Baroness Shirley Williams was surreal to say the least.

Two baronesses, a knight who was better known as Captain Jean-Luc Picard and a man named Balls who had been the former PM’s right-hand man. It was a lot to get my head around. I suspected they had looked at the list of panellists and thought, ‘Who the fuck is Jackie Crabtree?’ Or a slightly more polite version of that, maybe. I could only presume George Galloway had been unavailable (perhaps a case of cat flu) as the token minority party representative, which was why it was me being shown
into a side room in Bradford Cathedral and smiling awkwardly as I was introduced to the other panellists and David Dimblely himself. I wasn’t sure if they smiled at me because they were being genuinely friendly or because they couldn’t keep a straight face when they saw the state of mine. There was only so much that make-up could cover – and a whacking great bump on my nose and bruise under my eye were not among those things.

‘I had an argument with a mule,’ I said feebly. Dimbleby raised his eyebrows at me.

‘Well I hope he came off worse,’ said Balls.

‘Let’s just say he won’t be bothering anyone again.’

Balls laughed. The rest of them nodded and turned away.

‘We’re just waiting for Sir Patrick,’ said the assistant producer who had introduced me. I resisted the temptation to ask if the starship
Enterprise
had developed engine problems. Sam’s last instructions to me had been not to make any
Star Trek
jokes.

‘If you need the toilets you’ll find them at the back of the cathedral. We’ll be going on set in about ten minutes.’

I nodded and headed off in the direction of the loos, more to avoid any more embarrassing small talk with my fellow panellists than anything. It was only as I deposited my tampon in the bin provided and started rummaging around in my handbag for a replacement that it started to dawn on me that there may not be a spare one. I didn’t usually use this bag, and despite the fact that you’d think someone nearing their fortieth birthday would be able to
manage their own menstrual cycle, clearly it hadn’t yet happened in my case.

‘Shit,’ I said out loud, at which point I worried that I would now be struck down from on high for blaspheming in the house of God. I stuck my head out of the cubicle and checked the walls for tampon machines. Nothing. Obviously the congregation were the type who were either too old to need them or were organised enough to bring their own. I briefly contemplated delving into the sanitary bin to try to fish my used one out before thinking better of it. Clearly there wasn’t time to dash to the shops. There was nothing else for it, I was going to have to ask someone.

I walked back into the side room where I had been waiting. All the BBC people in the room were men. The only other women were Baroness Williams and Baroness Warsi. And I couldn’t ask a Tory: Paul would never forgive me, even if I could forgive myself.

‘Excuse me,’ I whispered in Shirley Williams’ ear. ‘I’m very sorry to bother you with this but I’m having a bit of an emergency. You don’t happen to have a spare tampon on you, do you?’

She looked at me over the top of her glasses, a bemused expression on her face. ‘I’d love to help you, my dear, but I’m afraid when you get past eighty you don’t tend to carry them about with you.’

I shut my eyes and waited for a hole to appear beneath my feet which would swallow me up and save me from the humiliation I had just brought on myself. It didn’t.
‘No, no, of course you wouldn’t. I’m so sorry. I’m clearly not thinking straight. I do apologise.’