The Displaced Nation

With just weeks to go before the arrival of the twins, Libby is making the most of her life with only one child by finding him a new nursery school and thereby becoming a Lady Who Lunches. But it’s not all Fun, Fun, Fun, she is finding.

“Libby, do stop worrying. Jack will be just fine.” Charlie shrugged off her jacket and draped it over the back of her chair. “I know you had a bad experience with that other nursery, but Helen Flynn’s place is wonderful. He’ll love it there.”

“But suppose he doesn’t? What if it’s a case of out of the frying pan and into the fire for him?” I said, pulling out a chair from under the restaurant table, and sitting down heavily. The chair wobbled. It had a wooden seat, and wasn’t nearly as comfortable as the padded benches in the booths along the walls, but I could no longer squeeze into those, so Anna Gianni had tactfully seated us at one of the Maxwell Plum’s large centre tables.

Anita opened up the black padded menu. “Think about it logically,” she said. “The owner told Caroline to find Dominic another school because his idea of free play was beating up smaller children with whiffle sticks. She’s not going to stand idly by if someone’s giving your son a hard time, is she?”

I opened my own menu. “You’re probably right. It’s difficult not to worry, though.”

“I hate to tell you this, hon, but it only gets worse. Wait until he’s at elementary school.”

I don’t know why some people think you’ll feel better if they tell you things will be even worse later.

“Well, fortunately, I don’t have to think about that,” I said. “By the time Jack’s ready for elementary school we’ll be safely back in Milton Keynes. He’ll be starting Year One at the local Infants and learning how to spell properly instead of missing the U out of all the words.”

Anita and Charlie exchanged knowing glances.

“You say that now,” Charlie said. “But most people stay much longer than two years. Woodhaven draws you in.”

“I’m not most people, and I’m not being drawn in anywhere,” I snapped, banging the menu down on the table. “I agreed to two years, not a bloody life sentence.”

Here’s the thing. Oliver and I have been here barely nine months, and already the people in HR are talking about extending the contract. The initial two years? Fine. I can cope with that. Three? OK — I think. But where does it stop? At what point do I put my foot down, or, worse, at what point does I discover that it’s harder to go back than it is to stay?

“It’s terribly slow service today,” Charlie said, looking around the restaurant. “At this rate we won’t have time for dessert.”

“They’re short-staffed,” Anita said, studying her menu again. “There’s only the owner’s wife. That other loopy woman who works here is nowhere to be seen. I bet she’s out somewhere with a small animal in a pushchair. Last time I saw her, it was a rabbit. Honestly, she’s so many sandwiches short of a picnic—”

“Carla’s a whole loaf short.” Anna Gianni materialised at our table behind Anita, notebook and pen in hand. “But I’ll take her, both minus the Wonderbread and plus small animals in strollers, any day, rather than be the only server on a busy lunchtime. Now — what can I get you, ladies?”

Anita’s face turned a delicate shade of magenta. Charlie bit her lip, either in embarrassment or in an effort not to laugh, and I threw Anna an apologetic smile. She winked at me as we gave her our orders, then glided away to another table, where a couple of businessmen in suits were having a loud, showy-offy conversation about the price of Apple stock.

“You and your big mouth,” Charlie muttered at Anita.

Anita shrugged. Her face was still a bit pink. “It’s true, though,” she whispered. “She’s as nutty as a fruitcake.”

“Must be something in the water.” Charlie picked up her own glass of water and examined it. “Take Caroline.”

Caroline still wouldn’t say whether her new baby was a boy or a girl, and although she had now given it a name, it was the unisex “Taylor”, so we were none the wiser. Her husband, the boss, was equally silent on the subject.

Anna came back with our drinks and appetisers, and Charlie asked her sympathetically if she would be holding the fort on her own for long.

“Only until Saturday.”

“And then Carla will be back?” I asked.

Anna’s tone softened. “Sadly, Libby, no.”

I saw Anita raise her eyebrows as Anna said my name.

“She’s having a bad spell right now,” Anna continued. “Maybe she’ll be OK enough to come back in a few weeks. We’ve ordered her one of those life-like baby dolls to look like the photo of…well, you know. So that will help her, we hope. And me, come to that. I’m tired of looking after a menagerie.”

She bent down to pick up a napkin from the floor — mine, since I no longer had enough lap to keep a napkin secure — then patted me on the shoulder.

“You and I should get together again,” she said. “As soon as—”

“Miss?” One of the loud businessmen waved at her from across the room. “Miss? How much longer before you bring our order? We have a very important conference call at 1pm.”

Anna smiled in their direction. “I’ll be right with you,” she said loudly. Still smiling, she muttered “Never mind gun control in this country — what we really need is to keep jerks like that separated from their BlackBerries.”

“I’ll call you on Sunday after we get the agency staff settled in,” she said to me. “I promise I’ll call.”

She hurried away.

As soon as she was out of earshot, Anita turned to me. “How do you know her so well?”

I explained about Maggie, and how she seemed to know everyone in Woodhaven.

“Maggie?” Charlie asked. “You don’t mean Maggie Sharpe, do you?”

I was surprised. “You know her?”

“I know of her. Everyone knows of her. Or at least, everyone knows about her daughter…what’s her name?”

“Sara.”

“That’s it. Sara. Anyway — according to town legend, she’s the reason Carla Gianni lost her mind. About twenty years ago.”

“What?”

“Small town talk, but it’s what I’ve heard from quite a few people.”

“And…” I fumbled around for words, did a few calculations based on what Maggie had told me about her daughter. “How did someone barely out of her teens make Carla lose her mind?”

Charlie shrugged. “Like I said, there must be something in the water here.” She picked up our water pitcher and refilled all our glasses. I waited. “But the story I’ve heard is — she killed Carla’s son.”

.

Next post: LIBBY’S LIFE #43 – Alone again – naturally

Previous post: LIBBY’S LIFE #41 – Pick & Mix at the Baby Shop

Click here to read Libby’s Life from the first episode

STAY TUNED for Friday’s introduction to Haute Couture for the Dolce-and-Gabbana-challenged.

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Image: Travel – Map of the World by Salvatore Vuono / FreeDigit

Despite Oliver’s best intentions to put Libby in a state of nirvana with hourly facials and pedicures, Libby has decided that the way to mental peace is via a lengthy shopping session in a baby equipment store.

“This is the closest I’ll ever get to shopping for a grandchild, and I’m going to make the most of it.” Maggie manoeuvred our shopping trolley into an aisle stacked with Pampers. “You use the disposable type, I suppose? Everyone seems to now, despite all the fuss they make about saving the environment.”

“I’ll save the environment when the twins are out of nappies, and not a minute before.” I waddled to the section where the smallest sizes were. “How many boxes, do you reckon?”

“Not too many.” Maggie hefted a jumbo-sized box into the trolley. “Babies grow fast. One minute they’re spitting up milk, and the next they’re off to college. And in some cases, that’s the last you see of them.”

I picked up a multi-pack of baby wipes from the shelf, and said nothing. This, I knew, was a reference to Maggie’s daughter, Sara, who left America in her late teens and never came back apart from one unannounced visit a few years ago, for a school reunion. Maggie hasn’t said as much, but she must have been pretty hurt that when her daughter finally elected to return to her hometown, it was to see her old friends rather than her mother.

“I’m never going to be a grandmother now,” Maggie said again. “Not that I can blame Sara for that, of course. I was hardly a good example of motherhood. Barely in my twenties when she was born, and Derek and I divorced before she finished kindergarten…although I’m sure that’s not the only issue. The Max affair has a lot to answer for.”

I raised my eyebrows, willing her to say more, but she turned away and seemed very interested in a rack of burp cloths.

Max Gianni, I assumed she meant: the mysterious dead brother of Frankie, and brother-in-law of Anna Gianni. As far as I could piece together, Max once had something going with Maggie’s daughter, and it hadn’t ended prettily. In my eight months in Woodhaven, I’d heard a lot of half-finished conversations on this subject, all with tantalising missing endings, and I’d have liked to ask Maggie more, except that it was obviously something she didn’t like to talk about much.

I wondered what my own life would be like when I was Maggie’s age, when my children were grown up.

Would I be bitter at the years I’d lavished on their upbringing, only to have them live across oceans, as far away from me as they could? Or would I consider it a job well done, that my children were independent and free of me? A job rather too well done, in fact?

And I wondered what they would say about me in years to come — how would Jack look back on his childhood, the twins on theirs?

Would they view me with affectionate pride, or with contempt and disdain? Would I visit them in my twilight years, knowing they’d be glad to see me return home, when all I wanted was to hold on to them forever?

I thought of Sandra, of how thankful I’d been to see her return to England. I thought of my own mother, whom I’d not seen for eight months, but didn’t really miss.

I thought of how I would feel if my own children viewed me the same way.

And, as Maggie hinted just now, are the sins of the parents gifted upon the children, so that, no matter how hard you try, your offspring make the same mistakes as you did? Or, in recognising your failures, are they forced to break away, severing an invisible umbilical cord by putting thousands of miles between child and parent — and even then, does anything really change?

In other words — would Oliver and I become our parents?

Damn these pregnancy hormones.

“Libby?” Maggie was looking at me with concern. “Are you feeling all right? Do you need to sit down?”

I collected my thoughts and smiled quickly at her. “I’m fine. Just thinking about—”

My sentence was cut short by a pigtailed girl around Jack’s age, who, unlike Jack, was not securely strapped into the child seat of a shopping trolley, and appeared to be unaccompanied by any adult, responsible or otherwise. The child thundered past us, unbalancing me enough to make me throw out my hand to steady myself, and she headed straight for the automatic exit doors. Normally those doors need something at least three times heavier than a truculent three-year-old to make them open; today, however, Murphy’s Law dictated that they be in a particularly sensitive mood. The little girl rushed straight through them towards the busy parking lot, and I watched in slow-motion horror as a huge black SUV came weaving through the parking lot, along the lane that led past the baby shop. I could see its driver clearly: a woman chatting animatedly, obliviously, on a cell phone.

I turned to Maggie, to squeak at her that somebody must do something, but Maggie was no longer there.

Considering Maggie must be in her mid-sixties, she can move fast. Faster than I can at the moment, anyway. She was already at the store’s exit.

She dashed through the automatic doors and, just as the child was about to step into the path of the black SUV, grabbed the back of the child’s pink jacket and pulled her back. Then Maggie took her by the hand and led her back into the store.

“Where’s your mommy?” I heard her ask. The girl shrugged. “Well, what’s your name?”

The girl said something. Maggie nodded, and together they walked to the back of the store, towards the sign that said “Customer Service”.

Soon, a disembodied voice on the loudspeaker informed us that there was a lost child in custody and that the parents should think about collecting her before she was sold or returned to the warehouse, or words to that effect.

Ten minutes later, Maggie returned to me and Jack, alone.

“That’s your good deed done for the day,” I said, patting her on the shoulder.

Maggie shook her head, and carried on shaking it, as if bewildered.

“What’s the matter?” I asked. “Did the parents not come for the little girl?”

“It wasn’t a little girl.”

“But—” You know, I don’t want to stereotype, but when a child is wearing a pink jacket and ribboned pigtails, you kind of assume certain things.

“The mother had a baby, too. Couldn’t have been more than two weeks old, and it’s tough trying to keep hold of one child, never mind look after a baby as well, so I can’t blame her for the girl — or boy — running away like that. Anyway, the baby was all dressed in green and yellow, and I asked the mother if it was a boy or a girl, and do you know what she said?”

“Surprise me.”

“She said, ‘We haven’t decided yet.’ I kid you not. ‘We’re letting our child make its own mind up about its gender.” Maggie shook her head again. “Do you want to know the worst part of it?”

“Go on.”

“This woman was English. I always think of people from the old country being very down to earth and no nonsense, and in five minutes, this woman shattered my illusions.”

A nasty suspicion formed in my mind.

“This woman,” I said. “Was she wearing diamond earrings, by any chance? Big diamonds?”

“Huge.”

“And did the child tell you her or his name?”

“He did, but of course, I got it wrong. I thought he said his name was Dominique. Shame. It’s a pretty name, for a girl.”

Poor Dominic, I thought.

Still, it’s an ill wind.

I suddenly feel much more confident about my own parenting abilities.

.

Next post: LIBBY’S LIFE #42 – Something in the water

Previous post: LIBBY’S LIFE #40 – R&R: ABBA-style

Click here to read Libby’s Life from the first episode

STAY TUNED for Friday’s post.

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Image: Travel – Map of the World by Salvatore Vuono / FreeDigit

As a surprise Valentine’s gift, Oliver has arranged a babysitter (and dogsitter) for a few days while he takes Libby for a well-earned rest at The Health Grange Spa and Resort in New Hampshire. After less than twenty-four hours there, though, Libby is discovering that you can have too much of a good thing…especially when you have other things on your mind.

Frederika adjusted the the towel over me and started to knead the muscles at the back of my neck.

“There. Does that feel good? You relaxed now?

“Mmm-hmm,” I murmured.

Inside my head, a little shopping list began its loop again. Two cots, double pushchair, six sets of sheets, two car seats, two bouncy chairs…

“You’re tensing again.” Frederika gave an extra little push at a muscle, and I winced. Her own arm muscles would rival Arnie’s

“Ouch.”

“Sorry,” she said. “I try to be gentle with you pregnant ladies, but you know, I was professional sports masseuse in Sweden for a long time. Sometimes I forget.”

“I should send my husband to you.” He’d enjoy it as long as he kept his eyes shut. Well — I wouldn’t be recommending her services to him otherwise, would I?

“You do that. If he’s as tense as you, he needs it.”

She continued to rub at my neck, and my shopping list commenced again.

…four packs of vests, babygrows; socks. Nappies! Oh my God, how many nappies do two babies get through?  Shampoo, baby wipes…

*  *  *

“…And Frederika — that’s the masseuse, she’s Swedish — she said her sister-in-law had twins six weeks early, and they weighed five pounds each and were perfectly fine. Six weeks early — can you imagine? It’s only five or six weeks away from where I am now. And I haven’t done a thing with the nursery yet, not even bought a second cot. If these babies were born tomorrow, they’d have to share a bed, or one would have to sleep in a drawer like my granny did when she was born. Although I’m thinking we should buy two new matching cots, because Jack’s old Mothercare cot is much smaller than the standard ones over here and I won’t be able to find fitted sheets that actually fit or — Oliver? Are you feeling all right?”

Oliver put his knife and fork down, his plate of low-fat grilled chicken unfinished, and leaned back in his padded dining chair with his eyes closed.

“Libs. Please stop talking and let us both enjoy our dinner. I brought you here to the Health Grange so you could relax, not so some Scandinavian blonde Amazon could send you into premature labour by worrying over cots and stuff. Do me a favour and request a different massage person tomorrow. Preferably someone who doesn’t speak English.”

A waiter sidled up to our table, eyeing Oliver’s inactive knife and fork.

“Are you still working on that, sir?” he asked, stretching his hand out to take Oliver’s plate.

I held my breath and waited for the inevitable explosion.

“NO!” Oliver sat up in his chair, banged his hand on the table, and sent a butter knife spinning greasily to the floor. The waiter took a couple of steps back in alarm. “Leave it alone. I’m trying to enjoy it, not ‘working on it.’ It’s a plate of poultry, not a bloody PhD thesis.”

Current pet hate of ours — going out to dinner, taking our time over a meal (in my condition, I have no choice but to take my time) and having a waiter hurry us by asking if we are “still working on” our food. As if eating is a chore and not a pleasurable pastime. This particular waiter had already asked me the question twice this evening, and now had just blown his chance of a tip by asking it a third time of Oliver.

“Bring us a bottle of the Chianti,” Oliver ordered, “and don’t come back after that until I ask you to.”

The waiter hovered uncertainly. “The wine…is it for the lady?” He swivelled his gaze at my extended stomach. “Because the Health Grange’s policy regarding serving alcohol to ladies who are—”

“The only policy that concerns you right now, mate,” Oliver said, barely holding on to his temper, “is keeping the customer happy. Either bring me what I ask for, or you explain later to the manager why, rather than adding a tip to the check, I deducted the amount instead.”

Slightly embarrassed by the scene — if anyone needed to relax round here, it wasn’t me — I lowered my head and looked down at my lap.Tried to look at my lap, that is, but I can’t see it any more.

At 29 weeks pregnant with twins, I am as big now as I was at full term with Jack. How I’m going to last another eleven weeks, I can’t imagine — except it won’t be eleven. At my last visit Doctor Gallagher told me, “You can knock off two or three weeks with twins. You won’t want to go the full nine months.”

Too right; although I have a suspicion achieving this will involve elective C-sections and things that would once have appalled me. Now, all I’m bothered about is getting rid of this enormous protuberance. Plus the realisation that we haven’t set foot in a baby shop yet, have nowhere for the twins to sleep, no car seats, no double pushchair — not even enough clothes for them. Those things are starting to bother me a lot.

All this was circling round my mind as the waiter came back with the bottle of wine and nervously set it down on the table.

“Anything else?” he asked Oliver. “Can I take your plate, or are you still work—”

Oliver fixed him with a hard stare, and the waiter blanched. “Don’t even think about saying it again,” he said. “Just bring us the check. We’ll take the wine back to our room.”

*  *  *

Back in our room, I lay on the bed on my side, surrounded by pillows, and tried to get comfortable.

I’m trying to relax during this weekend away. I swear I am, really.

Oliver swims in the resort pool and goes to the weight room and sauna, and keeps himself busy while I “relax.”

I’m dutifully having massages — Oliver made sure we were staying at a place with a specialist in prenatal massage — and herbal facials, and pedicures (although as I can’t bear my feet being touched, these aren’t very relaxing to be honest, but Oliver has already paid for them.)

Am I feeling relaxed as a result?

Despite Oliver’s best intentions, the answer is No. I am not. It all seems a bit forced — “You’re going to relax whether you like it or not” kind of thing — and while the white-coated Frederika is rubbing my back with oil, I’m not so much thinking “Ooh, that’s good” as “You know, we could be spending this time in BabiesRUs.”

Now that I have time away from Jack, the nursery school politics, man-eating landladies, and all the other things that have occupied my mind for the last few months, I can see just how unprepared we are for our imminent arrivals, and it horrifies me.

When I was expecting Jack, I had my hospital bag packed by this stage, my birth plan written, the nursery decorated…

How times and circumstances change.

The birth plan, for example — what a joke that is. As if babies ever read them. My intention, four years ago, was to give birth surrounded by scented candles, essential oils, Vivaldi CDs, and all while floating peacefully in a birthing pool. These fond plans went west when Jack refused to get out of his nice, cosy womb and had to be kick-started with artificial hormones that, after two hours, had me screaming for an epidural while hurling the candles and CDs at Oliver.

So have I bothered writing a birth plan for the twins’ arrival? Of course not. Duh.This is America; I am a “high risk”; the birth will be high-tech; in fact, I get the feeling the people at the hospital would rather I was totally anaesthetised, like they used to do to labouring women in the 1960s.

No wonder I’m tense.

“Libs.” Oliver’s voice cut into my thoughts. “Do you want to risk some wine?”

I shook my head. “Ask me again in three months or so.”

Life was so unfair. The one thing that probably would relax me, and it was forbidden.

*  *  *

“So on the agenda today,” Oliver said next morning, over our room-service breakfast, “you have a facial in the morning, then an hour’s downtime, then lunch, and then another massage in the afternoon.”

I slathered butter on a croissant, and said nothing. When your instinctive reaction at a schedule of massages and facials is “Oh God, not again,” you know the aim of “relaxation” isn’t going to be achieved.

“Do I have to?” I asked.

Oliver looked hurt. “Why? Don’t you like all this pampering?”

“Of course,” I said. “But…you can have too much of a good thing.”

“It seems an awful waste. I’ve paid for it all up front.”

“Well —” Oliver’s feelings were easily hurt, so I had to tread carefully “—why don’t I go this morning, and you see Frederika this afternoon instead? She does guys as well as women.”

A pause, while Oliver tried not to seem too enthusiastic.

“You say she’s Swedish?” he said at last.

I tried not to laugh.Oliver was so transparent sometimes. His view of the world was made up of little stereotypes; it would be good to prove at least one of them wrong.

“That’s right.”

He pretended to consider this option.

“OK then. It would be a shame to waste the appointment.”

*  *  *

“You could have warned me.”

Oliver stood over me, arms akimbo, his face very red.

I looked up innocently from the lounging chair by the swimming pool. So pleasant to be sitting reading by the hotel pool, with the palm trees growing inside, and steel drum music playing on the loudspeakers. If I squinted a bit, I could make believe I was in Barbados instead of New Hampshire.

“Warned you about what?” I asked.

“This Frederika person! She’s brutal! Look —” Oliver turned round and lifted up his T-shirt at the back.

“It looks a bit sore, certainly.” I picked up my magazine again. “Still, no pain, no gain. That’s what you always say.”

“I don’t know where she learnt her massage techniques, but the way she kept pummelling me, I thought she was waiting for the ref to ring the bell while I went down for the count.”

He sat down on the lounger next to me, wincing. “You said she was Swedish.”

“Not all Swedish women look like the blond from ABBA.” I couldn’t contain the giggles any longer. “It’s unfortunate that this one looks more like one of the blokes in the band, though. The one with the beard, at that.”

Oliver sat down on the lounger next to me and winced.

“No wonder you didn’t want to go again,” he said.

“Oh, she’s fine with me. But I’ve had enough of people getting inside my personal space…masseuses, doctors, midwives. At this stage, I think I’d de-stress more by getting stuff ready at home. Nesting instinct setting in, I guess.”

“But we’ve got another full day here. What would you like to do instead?”

I adjusted my sunglasses. I didn’t need them. It just added to the illusion we were in the Caribbean.

“How about a little light shopping this evening?” I suggested. “There’s a BabiesRUs just down the highway.”

Oliver pursed his lips, weighing up the idea of  shopping with another assault by Frederika. “It’s got possibilities. Fancy a steak somewhere while we’re at it?”

“Tell you what,” I told him. “Let’s be entirely bad, go against the philosophy of a health spa, and have dinner in McDonald’s.”

“They won’t torment you with wine, at least.”

“And they will never,” I said, “ask you if you’re still working on that burger.”

.

Next post: LIBBY’S LIFE #41 – Pick & Mix at the Baby Shop

Previous post:LIBBY’S LIFE #39 – Sugar and spice, and all things lice

Click here to read Libby’s Life from the first episode

STAY TUNED for Friday’s post, when we welcome author and “global love” expert Wendy Williams to The Displaced Nation!

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Image: Travel – Map of the World by Salvatore Vuono / FreeDigit

It’s Life, all right, but not as I know it

April 1
Why is it, just as you get Life under control, Life decides you’re too complacent by far and snatches your security blanket away? And not only snatches it away, but rips it down the middle, throws it in a muddy puddle, and stamps around on it for good measure? Then Life hands you back the pieces and says, “How much in control do you feel now, Libby?”

Three months ago, after a Christmas spent pandering to everyone except me and receiving an assortment of kitchen gadgets instead of the anticipated spa- and nail salon gift vouchers, I decided Enough Was Enough.
This year, I vowed, as I stowed away a new banana slicer and mini-vac, I would no longer be merely “Jack’s Mummy”. No longer would I hand Oliver his packet of sandwiches in the morning and brush a hair from his suit collar, as if I were an extra in I Love Lucy.
This year, I promised myself, I would reclaim an identity that vanished three years ago in a maternity ward in Milton Keynes.
This year, I said, Libby Patrick would return.

Until last night, my pre-motherhood persona was making progress in her resurrection. I had my hair cut and my nails done. I chucked out grey nursing bras and went shopping in Debenhams’ lingerie department. I had lunch with my old boss who told me she would personally kill a fatted calf in celebration of my return to the office.
Then, last night, all progress stopped.

“The company wants me to take a job in another department,” Oliver announced over dinner.
Dinner is supposed to be a time when family members catch up with one another, but as any parent of a two-year-old knows, reality doesn’t work that way. While Oliver recited details of which job in what department, I was only half-listening, more concerned with stopping Jack from feeding Marmite toast to Fergus, our gluten-intolerant dog. So my response to Oliver was something like, “Lovely-darling-and-don’t-even-think-about-it-Jack” before grabbing Fergus by the collar and dragging him into the study where, with a bit of luck, he would eat final demand electricity bills instead.
This half-attention is all too common in our house, and it makes me feel guilty. I try not to feel guilty, but as a stay-at-home mother at present, I must be more supportive of my husband. Or that’s what my mother tells me. God knows what she was doing in the 1970s while other women were burning their bras. Out shopping for whalebone corsets, I imagine.
Oliver, naturally, is all in favour of the idea of supportive wives, and unashamedly sucks up to my mother to get her support as well. He once sent me an email, supposedly a page from a 1950s magazine, telling housewives how to treat their husbands properly. You’ve probably seen it. Wives are advised to hand their husbands a G&T the minute they walk through the door, tidy the children up and the toys away – or perhaps it’s the other way round – and to shut up while Hubby speaks because his opinions are more important. Oliver claimed the email was a joke. I told him it might have been, had I been employed and salaried, but right then, with baby-sick permanently welded to my shoulder, it wasn’t funny and Oliver was fooling no one. Millennia of male chauvinism can’t be wiped out by Harriet Harman, whatever she thinks, or by a few charred Cross Your Heart foundation garments.
But back to Oliver’s announcement. Once I was reseated at the table, Oliver said, “You didn’t hear what I said, did you, Libby?”
“Yes, I did.” I handed Jack a fresh triangle of Marmite toast. He mushed it into a ball and chucked it at the window behind me, where it stuck for a second before sliding down, leaving a greasy trail. “HR wants you to transfer.”
Oliver waved his hand around in a circle. “And…?”
I thought. “And you’ll get a pay rise?” I said hopefully. With his pay rise and my new job, we’d be able to go on holiday this year.
“Plus a relocation package.”
I stopped persuading Jack to eat, and stared across the table at Oliver, who seemed satisfied now he’d got a reaction.
“Relocation package? Relocation to where?” Most of the company’s offices are in Britain – with one exception. Please let it be Birmingham. We wouldn’t have to move house because Oliver could commute. Or Liverpool…or heck, even Aberdeen is commutable these days.
“The Massachusetts office,” Oliver said. “We’ll talk about it.”

And that was the point when Life snatched away my security blanket, hurled it in a swamp, and danced the mashed potato on it.

April 5
We’ve spent the weekend talking about this hypothetical move to America. Well. I say “hypothetical” but it isn’t. And I say “talking” although it isn’t really that, either. Oliver appears to have done most of the talking already with the Relocation Manager in his Human Resources department. (What happened to Personnel Departments? Have we come so far down the line of political correctness that we can’t acknowledge we have personalities?)
So when Oliver promised we’d talk about it, he meant we would talk about the after-effects of the decision, not the decision itself. That seems to be settled and all over, bar the shouting.
Bar the shouting wife.
“It’s a great opportunity,” Oliver says. “One of those chances you’ve got to take in life.”
“But what about me?” I say. “What about my life?”
Now I know how Jack feels during his tantrums. I want to lie on the carpet and kick and scream and shout “No! No! Go away!”
“You’ll have a lovely life. All the wives do.”
“But none of them go to work,” I say. “They’re not allowed to.”
“Why would you want to go to work when you can be at home with Jack?”
I think of my new haircut and freshly accumulated wardrobe of crisp work attire, and murmur, “Oh, I don’t know. Dignity. Independence. Self-worth. Stuff like that.”
Oliver stares at me for a while.
“I don’t understand.”
No. I know he doesn’t.
Instead of lying on the floor and shouting at him to go away, I lie on the sofa and cover my face with a cushion. It’s almost as good.

“We’ll live in a little town near Boston,” Oliver says when my rate of used tissues per minute has slowed. “You know Boston. It’s where the Cheers bar is, and where they filmed Ally McBeal. You love both those programmes.”
I tell him that he loves watching EastEnders, but he wouldn’t want to move to Walford.
He gives me a withering look. “Walford’s a made up place. It’s not real.”
“More real to me than Boston.”
“It wouldn’t be permanent,” Oliver says. “Think of it as a two-year holiday.”
This is pretty rich, coming from him. If I had to pick one characteristic in Oliver that I’d happily trade (excluding spur-of-moment, unilateral decisions to emigrate) it would be the homing pigeon tendencies. He gets culture shock if he goes farther north than Leicester. Take him to Spain and he’ll make a beeline for all the restaurants whose menu items end with “‘n’ chips.” We went to Disney World in Florida the year before Jack was born, and Oliver insisted on wearing his Beckham football shirt everywhere. Well, he and the rest of English-accented Orlando.
I didn’t intend to play the trump card so soon in the game, but my options are running out fast.
“You do know,” I say, “that they don’t sell roast chicken-flavoured crisps over there? No Quavers or Skips? No Hula Hoops?”
Oliver opens his mouth as if to say something, then shuts it again. For a moment, he looks uncertain. Is it possible our future teeters upon a specific combination of E-numbers and MSG?
Then he smiles; an indulgent smile, the sort I give Jack when he’s done something unbearably cute and naïve, and I know that even the threat of no Skips or Quavers to satisfy the midnight munchies isn’t going to work.
“Libby, love. It’s Boston. They have their own fantastic food. We don’t need chips.” Chips? Lord help us. He’s into the lingo already. “There’s lobster and crab cakes, and – what’s it called? Clam chunder.”
Not quite into the lingo, then.
“Chowder.”
“Whatever. My point is, who needs crap like prawn cocktail crisps when you can have the real deal fresh from the ocean there?”
I shake my head, resigned, knowing our fate is decided for the next two years. Oliver is basing a three-thousand-mile upheaval on…seafood.
And oh. Did I mention he’s allergic to fish?

April 19
Oliver and I are keeping quiet about the move until plans are definite. We each have different reasons; he doesn’t want to lose face if it doesn’t happen, and I want to pretend it won’t happen at all.
It’s ironic, the way we’ve switched roles. I used to be the one who liked going abroad and trying new food, whereas he’d eat burger-au-E-coli twice a day for a fortnight rather than pollute his digestive system with local cuisine. Once, in Ibiza, I tried to get him to eat a piece of morcilla. “Oooh, no, not that foreign stuff, thank you,” he said, shuddering as if he was a contestant on Fear Factor and I was trying to tempt him with deep-fried cockroach. Thing is, he didn’t realise it was Spanish sausage. He thought it was black pudding. Lancashire black pudding was foreign enough for Oliver.
But now it’s me dragging my heels about going abroad, while he’s suddenly turned into Gordon-bleeding-Ramsay, evangelising about fresh local produce that brings him out in a rash.
Calm. Breathe.
It’s difficult to keep this a secret, though. Take today, when Jack and I are at playgroup.
Carol Hunter corners me as I’m struggling to get Jack’s coat off.
Carol’s the sort of woman you’re glad to leave behind in the office rat race when you go on maternity leave. You think you’re entering a cocoon of babies, teddy bears, and Johnson’s products, unsullied by bossy women with expensive highlights. Then you discover these women have not only infiltrated your baby-powdered haven but established their own Mafia, ruling the playgroup, PTA, and school governing board.
Carol’s the Don of the local ring.
“Libby,” she says in a confidential tone, gripping me by the elbow in case I make a run for it. “Libby. We need to talk about your volunteer record. It’s somewhat…threadbare.”
Oh, hell. Everyone with a child in playgroup is supposed to sign up to help on a regular basis. That’s the idea. But what actually happens is you volunteer once or twice, spend two hours smiling through gritted teeth while Carol or one of her captains micromanages you in the art of finger-painting, and then forever after keep a low profile when volunteers are needed. There’s a lot of Mafia moaning goes on about it, of course. Usually over skinny lattes in Starbucks, while their little darlings sprinkle brown sugar packets on the floor, about how it’s always the same people who do all the work, and how this playgroup wouldn’t survive if it weren’t for Carol and her chums. But you ignore it. These women used to get their kicks playing the office martyr in their pre-baby lives, and they’d hate to be deprived of their sackcloths and ashes now.
“You’ve only done three sessions since last October,” Carol goes on, clamping down harder on my arm. “Can I put you down for the Play-Doh table next week, with Angie? Then two sessions in May, and a couple in June?”
I cough. “All with Angie?” Frankly, I’d rather sign up for evening classes in embalming than for six playgroup sessions with Captain Angie, who can’t go five minutes without dropping into conversation that she went to school with Supernanny’s cousin.
And then it strikes me. “Tell you what,” I say. “Let’s make it easy. I’ll do all of July, twice a week, until the schools finish for summer. Six sessions. How’s that?”
Carol opens and shuts her mouth a few times, but no sounds emerge, which is pretty satisfying. It’s not often she’s lost for words. No doubt she’s been revving up for a big fight about this, probably culminating in a hit job in Starbucks. Remind me to check the cisterns for firearms next time I’m in there.
“Fan-tast-ic,” she eventually murmurs, and wafts off to persecute a new mother of twins.
It’s all I can do to stop myself from shouting, “Because come July, Carol, I will most likely be eating lobster on the other side of the Atlantic, and not even you and your molls will be able to drag me back to the Play-Doh table.”
It’s as good a reason as any to emigrate, I suppose.

Want to read more? Head on over to Kate Allison’s own site, where you can find out more about Libby and the characters of Woodhaven, and where you can buy Taking Flight, the first year of Libby’s Life — now available as an ebook.

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Image: Travel Map of the World by Salvatore Vuono / FreeDigitalPhotos.net