The four of them had had such a ball in Clearwater, swimming and kayaking in the Gulf, taking endless walks along the powdery sand, and enjoying sunset barbecues on the patio of the beach house they’d rented for their two-week stay.
The frowning man sitting in front of Madeleine now was a million miles from the one laughing and splashing in the water with the kids by day, and strumming Willie Nelson tunes on guitar as the sun went down over the Gulf of Mexico.
Back to reality.
“What ever happened to just learning the letters instead of pronouncing the sounds?” Tom complained. “That teacher of Jake’s has a lot of nerve, too. Look at what she wrote on his math homework from last week—he actually got points off even though he answered the bloody question correctly. All because he didn’t do it with the ‘new’ standards. A load of crap, if you ask me. All these lazy pencil pushers in the Department of Education who know nothing about education making nonsensical new rules that we don’t need.”
Madeleine rolled her eyes good-naturedly at yet another diatribe from her husband on why the “newfangled” ways of learning were ridiculous—totally different to howtheydid things back in their day. A contrarian by nature, it wasn’t unusual for Tom to rail against the status quo, but times moved on and she was sure the teachers knew what they were doing. In truth, Clara was a lot further on in reading than Madeleine had been in her very first year at school. However, it was late and she didn’t have time to discuss this just now, especially since she knew what hisnextpoint would be.
“This is why we should be thinking again about homeschooling them. Because of this palaver. I’ve told you, Maddie, it’s seriously worth looking into—”
“Not now,” she said, cutting her husband off, irritated that he seemed to have forgotten the fact that, like him, she had a job, so where on earth would she get the time?
But her “job”—a popular blogging channel for mums that was rapidly growing in popularity and reputation—was all too easily overlooked. To Tom,Mad Mumwas just a frivolous hobby and a means for Madeleine to entertain herself while the kids were at school. How quickly he’d forgotten that she was once a marketing executive at the top of her game, before giving it all up six years ago and in some fit of madness (the blog wasn’t just a play on her name) taking early redundancy to be a stay-at-home mother. Madeleine grimaced. She adored Jake and Clara but God knew (as did so many ofMad Mum’s fans) that she was never going to be a candidate for Mother of the Year.
Though to be fair, Tom was an amazing dad; brilliant with the kids (way better than she most of the time) and a wonderful husband. He was senior management in a top Irish bank and related job pressures meant that she’d always borne the majority of the child-care load.
All well and good while the kids were younger, but now that they were both in school, was it really that terrible for Madeleine to want to get some of her own life back?
She supposed she shouldn’t blame him too much, though; her husband had just become so used to the current family dynamic that he’d forgotten the fact that she needed something other than parenthood to define her. AndMad Mumfilled that role very well.
Madeleine had originally started the blog as a means of blowing off steam while alone in the house with the kids all day, bemoaning the day-to-day trials of motherhood in a good-natured but deliberatelynon-mumsy way. At work, writing compelling copy for various campaigns had always come naturally to her, so this felt like a natural extension. And by outlining her frustrations and “warts ’n’ all” experiences with her newfound domestic role, it was, she supposed, an attempt to rail against the holier-than-thou and somewhat smug how-to guides for mums already out there, and she sensed an appetite for some down-to-earth straight talking.
Still, she’d been taken aback by the overwhelmingly positive response her ramblings had received, and very quickly her visitor numbers and social media following spiked to remarkable heights. Ever the marketeer, she quickly realized that she had, quite by accident, amassed a captive and thus potentially very valuable demographic, one that admired and trusted her.
But it was really only when Clara started play school a couple of years ago, freeing up Madeleine’s mornings, that she’d taken steps to turnMad Muminto an actual business.
And while Tom had always been supportive of her endeavors, over the last year or so, she’d gotten the sense that he was a little taken aback by the business’s increasing drain on her time as she set determinedly about securing advertising and sponsorship. Of course he didn’t yet have a true inkling of exactly what those efforts were achieving.
But her beloved would get one hell of a surprise at the meeting they’d scheduled with their accountant next week when he realized Madeleine’s “little” media business might actually end up pulling in something close to his salary soon. Thanks to the blog’s burgeoning visitor numbers, avid social media followers, as well as recent TV appearances, her profile was on the rise, and the site had already pulled in some heavy-hitter online advertising partners.
No way was she going to cut the power from under all that by going back to having the kids at home all day. In truth, Clara starting proper school last year and thus Madeleine getting her life back had been a godsend, and the additional free time the impetus she’d craved to get her business plan into high gear.
“Hon, we don’t have time to talk about it now,” she told Tom, glad of an excuse to put him off. She loved him and they’d always been a great team, but there was no denying that middle age (and no doubt parenthood) was turning her once laid-back and easygoing husband into a grumpy old man. Such a pity that their next family holiday wouldn’t be until the summer; though she could help Tom recapture some of that relaxed Gulf Coast vibe by plying him with the odd margarita now and then, she thought wickedly.
After grabbing her handbag, Madeleine checked her freshly curled and newly lightened tresses in the hallway mirror, and once again tried to hustle her errant family out the door.
Hopefully, the bouncy do would hold up well enough for tomorrow’s TV appearance. Madeleine had only gotten the call from the Channel 2 producer immediately after lunch and had just managed to snag a last-minute appointment with her trusty hairdresser before picking Clara up from school. She wanted to look her best for her slot onMorning Coffee,a popular lifestyle show featuring an ever-changing panel of female guests chatting about interesting topics of the day.
Tomorrow they would be discussingMad Mum’s latest blog post—a controversial piece by Madeleine, which had very quickly gone viral, about why maternity leave was a Very Bad Thing. She smiled, looking forward to the inevitable public outcry and debate, something her profile thrived on.
While most of her posts about motherhood were often deliberately tongue-in-cheek, this was a topic she actually believed in wholeheartedly. If it wasn’t for maternity leave, and how it neatly assigned all the earliest and most difficult child-rearing responsibilities onto the hapless mother—setting up a lifelong “default parent” and allowing Dad to take a less active role—then she and Tom wouldn’t be evenhavingthe homeschooling conversation.
Placing his pen down, her husband conceded, “All right, maybe we can talk about it later. I’m just sick to the teeth of civil servants telling us how to live our lives, Maddie. I know howIlearned math and look at me now. What’s wrong with kids learning things the old-fashioned way?”
“I know, I know, it’s all so different these days,” she soothed, kissing him on the head. “But get your ass in gear—we’ll be late at your mum’s.” Not that Harriet Cooper would mind. Tom’s mother was as laid-back as they came and, unlike Madeleine’s own late mum (who before she died two years ago was routinely scandalized by the forthright opinions her daughter laid bare in public), a big supporter ofMad Mum.
Tom got up and followed her into the hallway where their children waited, lost in their own conversation.
“Clara, for goodness’ sake, stop sniffling and just blow your nose. Go on, the two of you, get in the car,” Tom chided them good-naturedly, as he helped Madeleine on with her coat, a sand-colored cashmere Ralph Lauren number she adored.
Another major benefit to earning her own money again; she could once more afford the beautiful things she’d had to forgo when they were just a single-earner family. She wrapped a colorful silk scarf around her neck and pulled on her leather gloves. She’d picked out a gorgeous DVF top for her TV stint tomorrow, something patterned to try to compensate for the fact that the camera added ten pounds. Which reminded Madeleine to see about maybe arranging weekly group running sessions with some of her friends. Now pushing forty, she knew she needed to try harder to keep herself in tip-top shape.
The couple followed their children out to Tom’s BMW, which sat parked in the driveway of their five-bed faux-Georgian house, about half a mile from Knockroe village. Both kids were now loaded in and sitting dutifully in the back seat, already enraptured with the DVD screens on the back of the front seats. She and Tom did attempt to keep in check the amount of screen time they seemed to default to, but there was no denying that the darned things kept them quiet.
Might write a piece about that soon, she thought wickedly, her mind racing. Something irreverent and completely contrary, sure to send the do-gooders into convulsions.
Tom started the engine and backed out of the long pebbled driveway, just as Clara began a heavy fit of sneezing. He made a face. “Here we go. Did you see that note from school today? About the girl in Clara’s class sent home earlier.”
