William’s Progress

Oh, God.

‘Something to mark this wonderful time in your lives.’

This is going to be bad.

‘Your three lives.’

He grips Geoff’s hand, and then Isabel’s. Like he’s Madonna about to walk on stage.

‘Geoff and I would like to design your bathroom for you.’

‘But—’

‘No buts, babes. You wanted it done before Baby arrived, but Willy was too busy at work to do it. We can do it for you. Geoff and I. This country’s newest and hottest interior design team. And I know you’re going to say it’s a bad time, but I promise you won’t even notice the work going on. You’ll blink and it will all be done.’

‘But—’

‘Didn’t I say no buts, babes? You’ve done the nursery yourselves, and look what a mess that is. I simply can’t let you ruin the bathroom, too. Now, here are the catalogues. I’m thinking this bath. And these taps. And Geoff was thinking an LED mirror with a built-in sensor, weren’t you, Geoff? You twenty-first-century designer, you.’

And that was Geoff’s cue. Until then, he’d been uncharacteristically quiet, but he made up for it now with a twenty-five-minute speech on how our bathroom would be the bathroom to set the new standard for all bathrooms. And then he just started saying random words. Light. Space. Air. Movement. Energy. Calm. Length. Girth. Swirling vortex. Drip. Drop. Drip. Movement.

‘You already said movement,’ I point out.

‘Movement. Movement. Movement,’ he continues.

Nothing good will come of this.

Monday 21 January

Don’t tell Isabel. Nobody tell her, for goodness’ sake. This must be our little secret. But, oh my, the joy! The joy of leaving home, of bidding farewell to my beloved wife and my beloved three-week-old child, of strolling to the station on a crisp winter morning, buying a coffee, boarding a train and sitting unmolested for forty-five whole minutes – no, more than forty-five minutes because the train is delayed due to the late running of an earlier service. No crying. No screaming. No panicking.

Bliss.

Let the train be delayed all day. Let me sit here in this railway siding, staring into space, dribbling a bit like a baby but not with a baby that I have to worry about all the time. Even when the pointy-faced little woman sitting next to me still doesn’t move her bag on to her lap when I ask politely, I refuse to let the bliss dissipate. I simply open my paper as unthoughtfully as possible, allowing its pages to encroach on her personal space. I have had enough practice of commuter one-upmanship to remain unflustered in the face of pointy-faced rudeness.

The bliss lasts until the minute I get to work. Even though he only sits two desks away, Johnson sends me an e-mail: ‘Welcome back. And by the way, I don’t know if you’ve been keeping up to speed with the Media Guardian and I’m sorry I didn’t mention this before, though I was being thoughtful because you were having a baby, but did you know that Anastasia has been made Editor?’

‘Corridor. Now,’ I reply.

He isn’t joking. Anastasia, who was work experience less than eighteen months ago, has been appointed the youngest-ever editor of Life & Times magazine. The teenager over whom I once threw a cup of (cold) tea because she was so irritatingly efficient is now the boss. I start strangling the water cooler.

‘Not having anger-management issues again, are we, Walker?’

It’s her: our four-year-old boss.

‘No, no, he isn’t,’ mumbles Johnson. ‘He was telling me how much fun being a dad is. Turns out not much fun at all. Hahahaha.’

‘Johnson, a baby is a lifestyle choice. We mustn’t feel sorry for people who opt to procreate. Even idiots could grasp the fundamentals of a condom if they wanted to. Now, conference in fifteen minutes. And I want some fresh ideas for front of book. It’s looking tired. Tireder than poor Walker here.’

I go back home that evening wondering how best to break it to Isabel. In the end, I opt for the direct approach.

‘Isabel, I’m afraid I have to resign. Anastasia has become Editor.’

‘Oh no, you don’t. You have a family to support. We can’t live on my maternity leave. Now take Jacob. I’ve had him all day.’

And the matter is closed.

Thursday 24 January

It has occurred to me that now I am a dad with a bitch for a boss, the train is the only place where I can relax. At home, I appear to have developed a sensor on my arse that triggers an order from Isabel. Every time I sit down, no matter how gingerly, I set off the sensor: ‘Darling, I’m breast-feeding. Could you pass a muslin?’

I get up, I get the muslin from all the way upstairs, I come back, I sit down and I trigger the sensor again.

‘Sorry, darling. And a glass of water.’

Repeat. ‘And another cushion.’

Repeat.

‘Could you not group your requests in some way?’ I ask. And this makes her apologise and so I feel terrible. But, really.

At work, Anastasia is on my case. She breaks up a group of people ahhing at the new baby photo on my desk. She barks at me every time I look like I’m about to drop off (which is frequently, because the sofa bed doesn’t provide quite the blissful night’s sleep I had initially hoped for). She criticises my poor grammar, even though it isn’t poor at all. Not really.

The train is all I have left. No one can bark at me on the train. And the sensor on my arse is out of range. And this is the reason why I won’t let the pointy-faced woman who keeps hogging one and a half seats on my carriage annoy me. She is short. She is ginger. Life cannot have been easy for her. This is her way of getting her own back on the world. I won’t rise to it.

Saturday 26 January

Today marked our first social occasion as a mobile family unit. It was only lunch at Isabel’s parents who only live a ten-minute walk away, but it was still something of a milestone. We hoped, I think, that it might have gone better, that it might have been enjoyable, but even with military-style planning, it didn’t and it wasn’t.

We asked Isabel’s mum to have lunch ready at midday because, if we have managed to establish any kind of routine – which we haven’t – it was that Jacob tends to need bouncing to sleep from 2 until 3 p.m., or he screams until 8 p.m.

We arrived at 1.20 p.m. because we were about to set off an hour earlier, but then Jacob needed a feed. And a change. And another feed. And another change. Then it started to rain and I couldn’t remember where I’d put the waterproof buggy cover, even though Isabel had expressly asked me to leave it somewhere handy. By the time I did find it, the rain had passed but Isabel had hunger-anger. It comes on quickly in breast-feeding mums. So she demanded toast even though lunch was but a ten-minute walk away. Until, at last we set off.

Frankly, Sherpas bound for the summit of Everest carry less. I had at least nine bags containing everything from nappies and wet wipes to toys, changing mats, breast pads and nipple cream, arnica, snack bars, babygros, backup babygros, backup-backup babygros and a kitchen sink. I walked ten steps behind Isabel and Jacob all the way to the in-laws.

We had roast chicken accompanied by a relentless monologue about timekeeping from her mum and advice on no-nonsense parenting from her dad. Isabel had no appetite because of the toast. Then we set off back to base camp, me with the nine bags plus four Tupperware containers of some kind of Polish stew and, inexplicably, a very large photo album from when Isabel was a baby. By the time we returned, Isabel needed more toast. I needed a lie-down.

‘You can’t lie down. Jacob needs changing.’

‘Seriously, how many times can one human being need changing in one hour?’

‘Darling, you are at work all week. You can’t complain about a bit of light parenting at the weekend.’

It has begun. The thing I had been warned about. Mothers, completely understandably, complaining about how much easier it is for fathers because at least they can escape to the office.

Which, praise be to the Lord, they can.

Monday 28 January

I escape to the office. On the train, the lovely train. Again, the bliss was not ruined by the pointy-faced woman, even though she was sitting opposite me this morning and had a laptop. Even though she then angled the laptop’s screen well and truly into my airspace. And then typed very loudly, as if her laptop was a percussive instrument, as if by typing very loudly she was demonstrating that the thing she was typing was more important than the things the rest of us would be typing when we got to our offices. Even though it wasn’t because I had a peek on my way off the train and she was only playing Tetris.

So I really wasn’t already in a bad mood when I arrived five minutes late and Anastasia told me not to be late again. I may have to confront her: I think she still holds the throwing (cold) tea incident against me.

Wednesday 30 January

First proper argument of parenthood. Isabel wants me to take another week off and rent us a cottage in Devon. This is madness on two counts.

1 I can’t manage a whole week off again so soon after the previous three.

2 2. How on earth are we going to get all the way to Devon if we almost killed ourselves going to visit her parents who live in the same town?

I only mention point two to Isabel, but she reacts badly. ‘We’ll be fine’ / ‘I need a change of scene’ / ‘It’s all right for you. You get to go to London every day’. I react badly back, even though she’s right. I do get to escape on a daily basis, even though it’s only to a horrible office with a boss half my age who hates me. Now that we have both reacted badly, Jacob bursts into tears. ‘Now look what you’ve done,’ says Isabel, and I suddenly realise how tired she looks. So I apologise, spend the rest of the evening feeling like an arse and worrying that we will be the kind of parents who do lasting damage to their offspring by fighting all the time in front of them. I then agree to a week in Devon in just under three weeks’ time. On a farm. In February. Just what the doctor didn’t order.

Thursday 31 January

Anastasia frowns when I ask for a week’s holiday, makes a barbed comment about lack of dedication and storms off to her lunch interview at the Ivy with the Dalai Lama. I storm off to lunch at the pub with Johnson, but I am momentarily perked up by a text from Andy, best friend but strangely busy for the last six weeks. Can he join us for lunch?

‘Hello, stranger,’ I say when he walks in.

‘Congratulations,’ he replies, but he isn’t looking me in the eye, which is unlike him. People say that on becoming a parent, you lose friends, even best friends, because all you can talk about is nappies, sleep routines and birth stories. Friends without children have very little interest in these things. In fact, some of them would rather not hear anything about it at all. They would prefer to remain in denial about the whole messy topic until as late as possible. I assumed that the reason Andy hasn’t been in touch at all since the birth was because he doesn’t want to know what may await him if he ever goes out with anyone long enough to marry them and have children. And I don’t blame him. If he would rather steer clear of me while all I can talk about is Fallopian tubes and nappy rash, so be it.

But here we are in the pub – him, me, Johnson – like old times. And he isn’t avoiding. He’s just oddly nervous.

‘I have some news of my own,’ he says after I’ve tried hard to have a whole conversion without mentioning tubes or rashes. ‘I have a new girlfriend.’

This is hardly news. I’m convinced Andy, an incurable but dastardly romantic, only forged a career in the diplomatic service so that he could fall in love with as many girls in as many different countries as possible.

‘This time, it’s serious. I think she might be the one.’ He has said this before, many times, which Johnson and I point out in unison.

‘Yes, but this is different.’

‘…because you and she share a bond, even though she speaks only Farsi and you speak only nonsense?’ asks Johnson.

‘…because you and she transcend the boundaries of simple geography, even though you live in Tooting and she lives in Islamabad?’ I add.

‘No, because it’s Saskia,’ he whispers into his pint.

FEBRUARY

‘The biggest thing I remember is that there was justno transition. You hit the ground diapering.’

PAUL REISER

Friday 1 February

Punch, punch, punch, punch, first day of the month.

Of all the women in all the world, Andy had to fall in love with the one who very nearly destroyed my marriage. It’s not like he didn’t have warning. She’s not called Saskia, the Destroyer of Relationships for nothing.

She had been the most exciting girl I had ever met. She had strolled into a party several years ago, informed me that we were leaving and then pretty much forced me to have sex with her on Hyde Park Corner. It was every man’s perfect fantasy but, after a few more casual encounters, it turned to a nightmare. The fling finished because that’s what flings are supposed to do. I fell in love with Isabel and married her and thought nothing more about Saskia or her long legs or her short skirts, until the day she coincidentally moved into the flat below ours in Finsbury Park. Except, it wasn’t coincidental: she had joined forces with Alex, back when he wasn’t gay, to help ruin my marriage. He wanted Isabel. Saskia wanted revenge. Apparently, the fling from years before hadn’t been a fling after all…I was the first person Saskia had ever loved, she said, and I’d discarded her without a moment’s thought.

That was how she put it, anyway. She was Glenn Close; I was Michael Douglas. The pet rabbit was my marriage and it very nearly got boiled to death.

Once Alex and Saskia admitted to their plot – and Isabel and I had managed to start trusting each other again – Saskia vanished. And now she was back.

‘What do you mean, “She’s back”? I thought you killed her,’ joked Isabel.

‘She’s, umm, going out with Andy.’

‘What?!’ stuttered Isabel. Jacob, who until that moment had been happily sucking away on a breast, started to cry. Perhaps the milk had curdled.

‘They met by chance in a bar in Islington. Andy was going to avoid her, but she and her friend were getting hassled by a group of yobs. Andy stepped in. The yobs threatened him and got thrown out by bouncers. Saskia and Andy got chatting and now they’re madly in love. The end.’

‘Blimey.’

‘I know.’

‘Can you make me a camomile tea?’

Saturday 2 February

The weekend. It’s hard to say whether it’s worse than the week. Obviously, it doesn’t contain any work-related horror, but equally, it doesn’t contain any work-related loafing, either. It is much easier to give the impression that you are busy in an office than it is at home. You sit at your desk and you do pretend typing. You dial some non-existent telephone numbers and have some non-existent conversations about non-existent articles you aren’t really writing. A whole afternoon can pass with the minimum of brain activity. Not so at home. Pretending to change a nappy, make tea, cook dinner, unload the dishwasher and make decisions about what type of bathroom suite we want is easily detectable by an overly tired wife.

‘Have you unloaded the dishwasher?’

‘Yes.’

‘Are you lying?’

‘No.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘No.’

I’m wondering if they’ll let me go into the office at the weekend as well.

Andy texted to see if I wanted to go out with him and Saskia for a tension-breaking drink. Tonight. Even if we ignore the fact that I have a new baby and a very tired wife and I’m an hour from London, we can’t ignore the fact that my best mate is going out with my worst ex. So no, I can’t.

He texts back: ‘Saskia wants a chance to talk to you. To explain.’

I don’t reply. Instead, I sing soporific nursery rhymes over and over again, right through the Lottery show (my only chance to get the money I need to hire a full-time nanny) and Casualty. Jacob loves my singing. Point-blank refuses to miss any of it by going to sleep.

Sunday 3 February

My parents come round with lots of blue clothes for Jacob. Isabel explains her desire to give the poor chap a non-gender-specific upbringing. Dad rolls his eyes and bites his tongue. Then they leave.

Alex and Geoff come round minutes later. Isabel has failed to dissuade them about the bathroom. They are still promising it will be done in a jiffy and that we will hardly notice and I only just manage to stop myself pointing out that I have already noticed them because they’re here on a Sunday prattling on about bath shapes. And it’s Jacob’s nap, the only time of the day when I can lie catatonic on the sofa and pretend to read the newspaper.

Geoff likes egg-shaped.

Alex likes roll-top.

Isabel is split between the two.

When they leave, at last, I look stroppy. Isabel asks why I look stroppy. I tell her it’s annoying that our Sundays have to be intruded on by Alex and his very overbearing boyfriend.

‘Darling, I know he’s a bit crazy and I know he did all that horrible stuff last year but, well, he’s still trying to make amends. I thought you liked baths. Aren’t you excited about having an egg-shaped one?’

‘No, it will be too steep at the top. I like the one we’ve got.’

‘It’s yellowing and you complain about it all the time.’

‘I’ll paint it.’

‘You can’t paint a bath.’

‘I’m sick of Alex. Why can’t he leave us alone?’

‘Why can’t Saskia leave us alone? At least Alex is gay. And sorry. Which is more than can be said for that tart.’

I give up. ‘Cup of camomile tea, darling?’

Monday 4 February

CONTENTS OF MONDAY MORNING INBOX

1 Three e-mails from Andy apologising for falling in love with the Destroyer of Relationships, but also saying that Saskia is completely misunderstood and isn’t a Destroyer of Relationships at all.

2 Two e-mails from Isabel, the first delighting in the fact that Jacob is sleeping properly, the second, much shorter, lamenting the fact that he isn’t. And that the house is virtually uninhabitable. And can I please get home early, if possible.

3 One e-mail from my mum asking if I could check if it has a virus atta—oh, bugger.

Thursday 7 February

Jacob smiled. And just when I was beginning to wonder if he had the same syndrome as the boy on the Channel Five documentary – the one who had to have nine operations in order to smile, or was it the boy with the face-eating bug who had the full nine? I can’t remember. But the point is, we hadn’t seen a smile yet, and Isabel’s mum’s greengrocer’s daughter’s baby smiled after the first month. I was beginning to wonder whether I’d passed the stress of an unreasonable boss, a traitorous best friend and a psychotic but newly homosexual bathroom designer on to our precious child. But it was definitely a smile. And it came at 4 a.m.

4 A.M.

This used to be the time when you would be sound asleep or possibly clubbing or hosting a terribly good party or, very occasionally, having sexual intercourse. Used to be. Now, it is the hour of the zombie parent. It is said, although no one has reliable statistical evidence to back this up, that at least 20 per cent of traffic on the M25 at 4 a.m. constitutes exhausted parents trying to drive their insomniac babies to sleep. The figure could be far greater. It is certainly the time I am out pushing the goddam four-by-four Bugaboo round the block under the quite possibly inaccurate assumption that cold air makes our insomniac child sleepy. I loop the block twelve or fourteen times, singing nursery rhymes as boringly as possible. Why won’t he sleep? Doesn’t he know I have to pretend to work in the morning? And finally, he closes his eyes.

And then opens them again.

And this is the point, the horrible dark point, in that horrible dark hour, when you think, is this really worth it? Would adoption be such a bad thing? Maybe I could leave him in a cardboard box outside the gates of the hospital? With a blanket, of course.

Then he smiled – a beautiful smile right at me – and it was all worth it a million times over. I had the energy for another few hundred loops of the block. Or the M25.

And when he finally did nod off, I went back inside to find Isabel, anxious, in the front room. She never sleeps properly now when Jacob isn’t with her.

‘He smiled!’

‘Did he?’

‘Yes. A proper smile. It was beautiful.’ And Isabel didn’t look like a zombie parent any more, either. She looked happy, happy for me and happy for Jacob. We hugged and she took him off to bed while I checked the NHS handbook. Three months, they’re supposed to start smiling. Three months! Not five weeks. We have a genius on our hands. Cancel the Channel Five documentary. Phone Channel 4. We’re making The Child Who Smiled Seven Weeks Early.

Friday 8 February

Isabel, having read an article about the plight of the bumblebee, has signed us up as members of the Bumble Bee Conservation Trust. This despite the cost of nappies (the initial outlay for the cloth ones, plus the recurring outlay for the horrible plastic ones that will sit in a landfill for a thousand millennia because, as I had predicted, we really haven’t managed to keep up with the cloth-nappy washing demands), baby clothes, prenatal wardrobe, postnatal wardrobe and the Barn Owl Conservation Society she made us join last year when she read about barn owls being combine-harvested or something.

As sole breadwinner in this house, excluding paltry maternity leave, I have been forced to put my foot down. From now on, barn owls and bumblebees will receive our support and sympathy. All other endangered animals will have to fend for themselves…

Saturday 9 February

…except, perhaps, for coral and red squirrels. And a certain type of parrot that only eats mangetout. I have conceded additional species on the understanding that I can go to the pub this evening, but only between the hours of 7 and 9 p.m.

It was Andy’s idea that they come all the way down to my local pub because I have a baby. He’s clearly trying to get back in my good books. Johnson isn’t. He arrives grumbling about it being a long way to go for a couple of hours, seeing as they both live in London and I live in the sticks. Despite Andy being a bastard and Johnson being miserable, I am delighted. I am in the pub. I am a free man.

The first pint vanishes in twelve seconds. The next two go almost as quickly. I should probably hold back: I am a dad now. But Johnson explains that it is important to wet the baby’s head, even if the baby isn’t here. And besides, I have to leave in an hour and they’ve come all this way, so we have another two pints in quick succession. We talk about nothing in particular, largely because baby talk is boring and talk about women would involve mentioning Saskia, which none of us feel like doing, given that we only have two hours.