“You should have a baby, Mum. You’d be good at it”

LAST year was the year of baby James.

He belonged to a friend of mine and I said I’d look after him when she finished her maternity leave and went back to work. James was exactly the right kind of plump, with good, firm fat. His skin was a creamy, olive colour and he had eyes like Cadbury’s. He was placid and in no hurry to walk, so he used to sink into my lap and look at me as if I was a complete find. His eyes would glow, as if lit by tiny little lights from behind the irises.

One of the loveliest things about him was the way he went to sleep. I’d lie next to him in my daughter’s bed and he’d grab both my cheeks. I’d sing him the same Harry Belafonte song, in exactly that position, every time. I wasn’t allowed to move an inch. As soon as he was asleep, I’d carefully disengage by slowly, gently, peeling his hands off my face and tiptoeing out.

A few months into minding him, my youngest daughter, 13 at the time, says: “You should have a baby, Mum. You’d be a really good mum.”

It’s odd the way teenage girls can kill you with a sentence, saying something innocuous and yet carrying a little sting, somewhere hidden. Just like a nettle.

“What do you mean?” I say. “I’ve been a mum for 24 years.”

“I know all that,” she says, her eyes swivelling in their sockets. “You know what I’m saying. You like all that stuff, like singing to babies. They make you laugh and you don’t mind when they’re disgusting.”

“What do you mean, disgusting?” I ask, wondering if I’ve bred a Myra Hindley-type.

“Oh, for god’s sake Mum,” she replies, “dribble, nappies and all that... what I mean is, you’re really nice to Jamie. You’re like, soooooo nice.”

There’s a compliment in there somewhere, but I can’t quite locate it because of that tiny sting somewhere. In the tone perhaps? Or subtext? “I was like that with you, when you were all babies,” I say.

“I know,” she says, “but I can’t remember it, can I? I was a baby.”

“You must remember some things we did, when you were little. What about when I used to teach you the names of flowers on walks? You had that book and I bought you that flower press. You used to pick Celandines in spring time and press them.”

“Did I?”

I try again.

“What about when you were seven and we used to build bonfires in the field at night and I’d make hot chocolate and bring it out to you all?”

“Kind of.”

“Do you remember the Big Bear, Little Bear books?” I ask.

“I remember the books, but I don’t remember you reading them.” She’s nonchalant, waiting for her toast.

This is why we should take hundreds of photographs of ourselves with our children when they’re young. They’ve forgotten about that halcyon era and what a shame, because they would have loved me.

Life then was like Little House on the Prairie and I was like Caroline, the mother, without the pinafores and prayers, but you get the picture. Back then, I was soooooo nice. My children don’t get that picture. The picture they have, indelibly and for posterity, is of me like I am now. This picture hasn’t changed since my eldest son turned 13 and I became less like Caroline and more…umm… rabid.

I didn’t have Gestapo tones back then because I didn’t need them. My children were biddable because I was bigger than they were, and they hadn’t adopted ‘you’re not the boss of me’ as their default position. 1991 was the year they started to back out of rooms if I suggested walks or pressing flowers.

This is so unfair. It’s like taking an exam, doing brilliantly in the first paper and scraping through in the second one. The teacher forgets to look at the first paper, scrutinises the second, you’re given a ‘must try harder’ and a D minus.

I say something along these lines to my daughters at dinner.

My 17-year-old says, “For God’s sake, Mum we haven’t forgotten everything. We know you love us, and all that. But if it’s a grade you want for the second paper, the one on how you’re doing now...”

I brace myself.

“Well... umm... I’d probably give you a C.’

Stung.