Teddy ignores me.
Peppa’s mesmerising theme tune is already playing and I am surplus to requirements.
Technology and children are a knotty area of parenting. I have seentwo-year-olds swipe iPhones with an expertise I do not have. Liam is getting a phone for his twelfth birthday. Although plenty of kids his age already have phones – and, no doubt, bookies’ accounts and a string of girlfriends/boyfriends on WhatsApp – Liam is not one of them.
Lexi, who got hers onhertwelfth birthday, has it surgically attached to her person at all times, except at night because I take it at eight o’clock.
Teddy giggles at something Peppa has just done and the large lump in our bed that is Dan stirs.
Speed up, I tell myself.
In the bathroom, I ignore the basic state of the place and also ignore the sight of myself in the mirror. When people – randomers in the supermarket – evince utter astonishment that I, Freya Abalone, am on the telly on the grounds that I look ‘... normal!’, I agree.
After all, I see my face before the tellymake-up goes on. I am a good chef known for simple nutritious food but my appeal – well, this is what Scarlett calls it – lies in my enthusiasm and passion for cooking. This is what the TV people saw when they plucked me from obscurity years ago and gave me a fledgling television series.
Dan tells me I’m beautiful. In fact, he never stops saying it.
But inreal-world,non-Dan situations, I know I am not a stunning woman like my sister, Scarlett, or even classically handsome like my other sister, Maura. I am a tall,pale-skinned blonde, with an open, warm face (this is what my mother says),deep-set eyes, freckles, and generally, have a bit of lip balm still left on my lips and a wonky bit of eyeliner.
‘Yes, I agree. I don’t know why I’m on the telly, either,’ I say to the randomers, who then sometimes helpfully tell me that they hate my cooking show and add that I’m not even a real chef because I never ran my own restaurant, which is true. Unless you are a Type A personality, running a restaurant leads normal people to nervous breakdowns or expensive wine addictions.
Mildred generally agrees with the randomers, by the way.
Looking normal is nothing: what if they find out that you are making this up as you go along?she likes to say.
Today, I shut the bathroom door quietly and begin ripping boxes open with a metal nail file that Dan – who has already unpacked his shaving gear, aftershave, and toothbrush paraphernalia – has laid out.
Several boxes labelled ‘bathroom’ have kitchen things in them.
I was so careful.
You weren’t careful. You were rushing.
Belt up, Mildred.
I do, eventually, find my knickers, some cleanT-shirts and yoga leggings that have not seen yoga since long before Teddy was born. This is immaterial –T-shirts and old yoga leggings are the casual clothes of the working woman.
I rinse my face, slather on the moisturiser I once bought Dan which he never uses but which still lives in his washbag, and finish off with both his toothbrush and aftershave.
Yesterday’s hair elastic lies on my side of the sink so I use my fingers to corral my Arctic blonde hank into my trademark long plait.
I then apply a slick of eyeliner from my handbagmake-up kit and a hastypinkie-finger-swoosh of lip balm, and I’m ready to face the day.
Kellinch House is silent but the floorboards creak as Teddy and I make our way out of the room.
The stairs creak as we go downstairs and into the kitchen where I know the coffee awaits. Dan has unpacked all the things central to our well being. Pride of place is his coffee machine, which we call the Barista Baby because it’s so complicated it looks as if it needs a trained barista to manage it. One double espresso and I will feel human. Meanwhile I get some cereal and milk for Teddy and install her in a chair at the table.
‘Yasss,’ she says joyfully at the sight of the cereal, which is for emergency use only and contains too manyE-numbers and plenty of sugar.
‘Just for today,’ I say.
‘Every day!’ she chants, delighted.
‘Are you going to run the country when you’re older?’ I add, lovingly. You have to be impressed at her negotiating skills.
Teddy beams. ‘Yassss.’
I refuse to feel guilty at giving her cereal because nearly every single day, I cook for breakfast.
