Going Downhill Fast

The day began like so many in the C household at ten to eight, with a man with a tum and a bag of tools and an insatiable desire for sugar, leaning on the doorbell. I was upstairs, my make-up downstairs: aaargh. He barged in, barged out. Back forward, back forward to the van: door open the while on this cold and frosty morning, heedless that he was letting slip both our precious valuable heat, and our dog.

Still pyjama’d, F9 laboured over, and roared at, his Lego, while T11 counted his Christmas cards. 35. “Mummy,” he shouted, “come and guess who each one is from.”

Downstairs, Steve had set up stall all over the kitchen. I big-stepped round him to make breakfast and lunch. And the requisite tea.
The time he was taking, the muttering, the fiddling, the frequent power trips (all those clocks to re-set) was reassurance enough to flutter hope in the Milla breast that All Might Be Well. That he might be able to fix our brand new cooker and give us the means to prepare Christmas lunch.

He finished. “No can do,” he said cheerily.
While I stood, aghast and silenced, he continued, slathering me with a load of guff about inverters and circuits. “Brought a brand new one, see,” he said, waving at a brown box, “but it’s faulty.”
“Well can you get another?” I said.
“28th.” He said.
“WHAT!” I squawked.
“Yeah, can’t be nothing before then. Busiest time of year this; mind you, we get a lot of blockers, see, people who leave it to the last moment, or who’ve not read the booklet properly, so we’re fully booked.”
I rang the shop I’d bought the oven from not a fortnight before, and garbled down the phone. They had promised me that were the man not able to fix the oven, they would provide me with a new one. Before Christmas.
“31st do you?” said the man.
“31st!!!” I bellowed, before all but sobbing, “you promised me. Before Christmas. You said you had one. It's brand new.”
”Haven’t got one in stock,” he said.
“But you promised me,” I whimpered.
“We could do you an upgrade,” he said.
All my stresses slid from my shoulders. “Ah, an upgrade would be nice.”
“Yeah, that’ll be –“ he tapped on a machine, “another £350.”
Steve let himself out leaving the brown box on the side for me to deal with, and the door open.
We haggled, I got the shop man down, he upped the upgrade and I heard myself spouting VISA numbers at him and put the phone down feeling ever so slightly cheated. I don’t want an upgrade, and I certainly don’t want to spend £150 securing one. And I most certainly, Mrs Wronged Party, don’t want to be polite and say thank you at the end of all this. But I do.

And then I went to a funeral, driving dangerously fast because I’d been blocked in by the skip lorry. Thoughts of a 2 for the price of 1 flashed before my eyes as I careered into the cemetary with scant seconds to spare.
I sobbed at the tribute.
And when I came home, my e-mails told me that the chairs – promised (ha!) for the 21st – were now due sometime after the 31st. Meanwhile, that evening, the freecyclers were about to come and take away our existing table and chairs. Which they did, leaving oil on the driveway.

While I was musing on how to do Christmas now that I had an oven (on a van travelling my way one day) but with no chairs, or for that matter, no table, since its arrival was merely “promised,” the phone rang.
It was Mr J the headmaster, informing me that T11 had been involved in what he always calls “an incident.” Again, T11 had been walloped by a boy who has to weigh 3 or 4 stone more than him.

Up I strode to school, turning in my head oven, chairs, table, funeral and launched myself, on arrival, at Mr J. Telling him that my previous responses to these “incidents” had always been measured; they had been careful not to apportion blame, nor to vilify the boy in question, to try to understand and not to over-react, but that now, 6 years in, my concern is solely for T11. In short, no more Mrs Nice Guy.
I let rip.
He countered with weak blusters of “lines in the sand” and “appropriate measures.”
I blasted back with “everyone has had enough,” “we are all awaiting the call saying that our child is in casualty,” “duty of care.” I reminded him of how this boy had broken a younger girl’s finger the week before.
He blanched at the playground mafia having spread the story – “confidential” being his favourite word.
“That was an accident,” he said.
“It’s always an accident,” I said, “and the accidents have got to stop.”
I spoke of personal responsibility.
My mother is a governor at whatever they call Borstals nowadays and the mantra drummed into these tiny (some are as young as 7) tearaways is Personal Responsibility. There are no excuses.

I think he was glad to see me go. Hell hath no fury like a woman without chairs.
I held T11’s darling head to me, feeling for the marks, wiping away his tears, my heart pounding with fury that one parent’s inability to control his child results in a weekly bashing of one or other of our “nicer” children.

E and I decided that we deserved a treat when I got in (after taking F9 to the hospital – don’t ask – and both to the dentist). So we spent the evening shunting my charity shop sofa from the garage into the house.
It’s getting on for 8’ long – and doors are not that tall.
My how E swore.
Later he apologised for the swearing and praised my patience. I felt that the day had been going on for about 4 weeks and it was glass of wine time.
And today is another day, and the table is due in an hour. About the time I am due at a wee drinks party. I had been told 10.30 – bang goes tennis, thought I – and I’m still waiting at 20 to 2. Ho hum. Onwards and upwards.