Then I enter the kitchen and my expression dissolves. The devastation in here is the kind that can only be attributed to the recent detonation of a nail bomb, a minor earthquake . . . or alternatively a teenager who has decided he wants to make a cheese toastie. Every item – from a little-used cucumber spiraliser to what, worryingly, looks like it might be the PTA trifle dish – has been removed from a cupboard and is now sprawled across the worktop alongside half the contents of the fridge.
‘For God’s sake,’ I mutter, heading into the hallway. ‘Leo!Will you please get down here to clean up this mess?’
No response.
‘LEO!’
No response.
‘ARE YOU UP THERE, LEO?’
His bedroom door opens. ‘WHAT?’
Ah. The monster lives.
‘Can you please come and clean up your mess.’
He exhales. ‘FINE.’
I return to the kitchen and put the kettle on to set about making myself a cup of tea. By the time I’ve made it and put away the milk, he’s still not down here and the sight of this mess is burning my retinas.
I begin to clear up, amidst a tornado of huffing and puffing. I am acutely aware that I should dig my heels in and wait for him to do it. But I am still apparently compelled by some mysterious force that simply won’t allow me to even look at this.
Once I’ve put the first few items away, it’s very clear he’s wilfully ‘forgotten’ about the whole thing. I return to the hallway and call up the stairs.
‘LEO!’
‘WHAT?’
‘Get down here and clean up the mess.’
‘I’m busy.’
‘SO AM I!’
I try to remember a couple of breathing techniques and remind myself that he’s got a lot on at school this year. Maybe I need to cut him some slack. I count to 10 and tell myself I need to let this go. There are more important things. Just put the stuff away, let him get on with his schoolwork and fight this battle another day. So I do exactly that. Only, just as I’ve cleaned the surface of the worktop, my phone beeps.
Notification: Principal’s detention
Your son has been given a Principal’s detention, for non-attendance of his recent Faculty detention, for failing to submit GCSE Art coursework. Detention must be served on Monday from 15:00 to 16:00. Yours, Mr C Stowell
My eyes begin to blur as I attempt to count the number of times the word ‘detention’ is used and work out exactly how many myson has been given. Then, I head into the hall again and stride upstairs two at a time, before giving three sharp knocks on his bedroom door and opening it.
It’s a complete state, but I’ve seen it all before. Like a scene from a documentary about people with hoarding disorders, only instead of old newspapers, my son is collecting empty Pot Noodle cartons, dirty underpants and a spaghetti heap of USB cables on his floor. I remind myself of a scientific study sent to me by one of the producers ofMy Teenage Bombsitewhich said teens’ bedrooms are messy because ‘as their childhood starts to succumb to the confusion of adolescence, so does their sense of order.’ So they’re not just bone idle then.
‘CAN’T YOU KNOCK?’
I look up at him, crouching at the window, and realise that he’s shouting because he’s panicking. And the reason for that is that I’ve caught him red-handed, surrounded in a halo of melon-flavoured nicotine vapour.
‘What. . .are . . . you . . . doing?’
It’s my Darth Vader voice. Deep, menacing, designed for intimidation.
He starts coughing and spluttering like a backfiring lawnmower. ‘Nothing! I’m not doing anything! What are you doing in here? JUST GET OUT.’
I step forward and hold out my hand. ‘Give me that. NOW. Please.’
‘What?’
