petite anglaise

Last night I finally got around to sticking pictures from our holiday in Corsica into the photo album. Tadpole, Mr Frog and I spent a week there in April 2004, when our daughter was at her not-quite-walking stage. Cue lots of pictures of a swollen cheeked, bald creature cruising around the furniture in our holiday flat, and of us walking her, with varying degrees of patience, up and down a number of beaches, holding her outstretched arms.

Sifting through the memories was a bitter sweet way to spend an evening. As I turned the pages, it occurred to me that our pictures plotted the evolution of our relationship with eerie accuracy. In the first flush of romance, Mr Frog and I took many portrait shots of each other. Of ourselves in our first flat, of our friends. Mr Frog’s particular speciality was the arm’s length shot, spurning the timer function built into the camera for something a little more rough and ready, and often endearingly badly framed. These pictures are suffused with a warmth, with a feeling of togetherness. Looking at them filled me with nostalgia.

After a year or two, the portraits gradually give way to impersonal, picture postcard type holiday photos, and shots of other people’s weddings, from which we tend to be conspicuously absent. No longer caught in the glare of the flash, but hiding behind the camera. Our focus had shifted from each other to the outside world, the places we visited, the people we saw.

From Tadpole’s birth in June 2003 onwards, the spotlight naturally shifted to our daughter. There are pages and pages of near identical pictures of the apple of our eye. Sleeping. Yawning. Smiling. Crawling. Walking. At the time, I sincerely believed that every picture of her was a minor miracle, and coudn’t bear to discard a single one. Every sneeze was documented. Now, with hindsight, I see that really she just looked like a baby, and we definitely got carried away. In the nicest possible way.

Occasionally Tadpole is pictured in her daddy’s arms. As for me, I wasn’t over enamoured of my post-partum silhouette, and tended to take refuge behind the lens to avoid being caught on film. I sometimes joke, ruefully, that because of my misplaced vanity, Tadpole will look at these albums one day and wonder whether I was ever there.

The stream of photos slows to a mere trickle from ages one to two. Not because we tired of photographing our daughter’s every move, but simply because Tadpole was now a moving target. Not to mention an unwilling one. Her first instinct on seeing the glint of the camera is to dash towards it at top speed and attempt to grab it, making her almost impossible to capture on film.

Shortly before Mr Frog moved out, on Tadpole’s second birthday, he took one last arm’s length photo, of the three of us together. Ironically, it is the only picture of our little family in existence. Last night I stuck it in the album, ceremoniously, on the very last page.

Today I’ll buy a new album. Let the next chapter begin.

The pre-teen girl was previously an unknown quantity to me.

Being the parent of a toddler means that I have some insight into the contrary nature of the beast known as the two year old, and have not inconsiderable experience in the dark art of heading off/dealing with temper tantrums. I also vaguely remember what one year olds are about: an unsteady gait, an extremely limited vocabulary and the tell-tale rosy cheeks of teething. However, my memories of the first twelve months of Tadpole’s life are fast receding. If someone were to hand me a newborn, I’d be just as reluctant to hold it as I was pre-Tadpole. I seem to have forgotten how. Then there are the things I have blocked out of my mind for a reason, a form of selective amnesia, like the thrice daily expressing sessions I spent hidden in the work toilets. (If you don’t know what I mean by “expressing”, trust me, ignorance is bliss).

Children any older than Tadpole are far beyond the limits of my comprehension. I see Tadpole’s future through a fog of apprehension about coping with a potentially upsetting Barbie obsession, or an unfortunate addiction to the colour pink. So, when I met my lover from Rennes, father of two pre-teen girls who come to stay on alternate weekends, I was understandably nervous. What would they be like? How would I be expected to behave (by both him and by them)? Would they warm to me, and to Tadpole, or resent us for getting in the way on their precious weekends with dad? Seen through their eyes, was I young and cool? Or distressingly old and hopelessly out of touch? How on earth does one talk to an eight or ten year old?

Six months down the line, having spent several weekends in the company of my potential stepdaughters, both with and without Tadpole, I have to say that thankfully my initial fears proved to be groundless.

Reassured by my lover that it would not be a big deal, I decided the best way to play it was to just be myself (albeit with slightly less freedom in my choice of expletives) and let them take me or leave me. Talk to them as young adults, without condescension. Avoid resorting to bribery or bombarding them with questions. Trust in the fact that what we do have in common - love for their father - would prove to be sufficient common ground for us to forge some sort of relationship.

So, on weekends where we all find ourselves in Rennes, the girls do their thing (drawing pictures of ponies, their obsession, performing dance routines to Christina Aguilera songs, making Scoubidou bracelets or watching programmes about animals in danger on Sky TV) and I do mine (grabbing their dad’s bottom sneakily when just out of eyeshot, reading a book in the next room, surfing the internet, or lazing around drinking tea). We co-exist, at ease with one another’s presence, none of us feeling the need to populate our silences with unnecessary nervous chatter. I’d be lying if I said I don’t look forward to the time when they will be tucked up in bed and I can spend some time alone with my lover. But all good things are improved by having to wait.

And so it came to pass that this Tadpoleless Rennes weekend was mostly spent watching a Lemony Snicket film (highly recommended) and playing board games (Cranium Cadoo).

And finding, almost in spite of myself, that it was really quite enjoyable.

I arrive at the park, the stresses of the office and rush hour metro suddenly falling away as I catch sight of Tadpole sitting with her playmates on the grass. I cut across the lawn, my kitten heels sinking deep into the damp soil. The childminder points, “regarde qui est là !”, and Tadpole turns around with an expectant smile. I am already grinning from ear to ear. When I see her after spending a day or more apart, my heart never fails to skip a beat.

Suddenly, Tadpole’s face falls.

“No! I want papa!” she cries, stubbornly. And turns her back to me, arms folded.

I bite my lip but continue smiling, determined not to take her reaction to heart, even if it does smart, like a slap in the face.

Mr Frog had picked Tadpole up the previous evening, and dropped her off this morning. That she might have got her wires crossed about who was coming to collect her this evening is perfectly understandable.

I manage to coax Tadpole into the pushchair, using the effective combination of the sternest voice I can muster and the promise of chocolate at some unspecified time in the future if she complies, and we make our way home.

Half an hour later, I am pottering in the kitchen, making fish finger sandwiches with tomato ketchup (for myself) and soft cheese sandwiches (for Tadpole), when I hear footsteps in the hallway. My daughter appears. She has managed to put her shoes back on, albeit on the wrong feet, and has slung her miffy bag (containing a book, her water cup, two cars and a plastic harmonica) over her shoulder.

“Bye bye mummy, I ready to go to daddy’s house,” she says, with a wave. She motions to the locked front door: “ouvre mummy! Faut ouvrir maintenant!”

I sigh and shake my head, reaching for the telephone. After recounting the evening’s events to Mr Frog, who is tickled pink to be so popular with his little daddy’s girl, I pass Tadpole the receiver. A short, stilted conversation ensues, in which she describes the contents of her bag (still convinced, apparently, that the person at the other end of the line can see as well as hear), then she hands the phone back with a cheerful “à demain, daddy!”

An acrid smell assails my nostrils and I realise that in the process of placating my daughter, I have burnt my dinner.

The sacrifices one must make for one’s children are seemingly boundless.

As we crossed the park, Tadpole singing “Bla Bla Black Sheep” at the top of her lungs, I brought the pushchair to an abrupt halt, struck with the sudden realisation that my keys were in the pocket of my jacket. The very same jacket which was hanging in the cupboard at work, blissfully unaware of my predicament.

Merde.

For once, my little-used mobile phone was charged. I hastily called Mr Frog, who is in possession of a spare set of keys to our former home. He answered on the first ring.

“J’ai fait une énorme connerie,” I wailed. “My boss was stressing me out when I left work, and I’ve gone and left my jacket at the office with my keys in. Is there any way you could come and let us in with your set?”

The alternative would have been a forty minute round trip to where I work on the métro, or in a taxi, with Tadpole, the pushchair, and the bulky bags of shopping I was carrying. Possible in theory, but braving rush hour with a child is not for the faint hearted.

Thankfully, Mr Frog was able to ride valiantly to our rescue on his gleaming white Vespa. I thanked him profusely, and cast around for ideas. How best to entertain Tadpole for the forty minutes prior to his arrival? It was a mild evening, so we could have idled in the park for a while, but we had already left the play area far behind us, and I was mindful of the fact that it would be awkward to keep an eye on both Tadpole and my bags.

Plus, all I really wanted at that precise moment was a nice cold beer and a sit down.

Bad mummy.

Half an hour later, when Mr Frog arrived, Tadpole and I were seated outside our local café in a leafy, cobbled square. I was draining the dregs of my pression, while Tadpole applied herself to positioning stickers on the pages of a hastily purchased kiddy magazine, tongue protruding from between her milk teeth in concentration.

She looked up, and her expression changed from absorbed to overjoyed in the blink of an eye. The sticker book fell to the floor, forgotten.

“Daddy DA-ddy DADDY DADDY!” she cried, breaking into a fit of ecstatic giggles.

I looked from Tadpole to Mr Frog and back again, tears threatening to well up. For a moment I felt overwhelming remorse. What a cruel, heartless, selfish bitch I was to have left him, separating father and daughter. The feeling lasted only a second, because I know that Tadpole and Mr Frog are closer now than they ever were before, the result of long evenings and weekends spent en tête à tête since our separation.

Mr Frog chaperoned us home, explaining to Tadpole that he would pick her up on Wednesday from the childminder’s and take her back to “daddy’s house”. Tadpole nodded, apparently satisfied with this arrangement, and waved goodbye. Mr Frog kissed me gently on the cheek and went on his way.

Our family unit may have splintered apart, but I can’t help thinking we are in pretty good shape.

I feel my hackles rising. Having paid € 21 in entrance fees for the bioparents and I to take Tadpole to the mini-zoo in the Jardin des Plantes, my ungrateful child is not paying the animals any attention whatsoever. And this after chanting “go see the animals!” at least seventy four times during the métro journey to Gare d’Austerlitz.

Granted, the antelopes and wallabies are not very inspiring, lolling listlessly in the grass, not even twitching so much as an ear in our direction. And there are only so many different breeds of owl that one can look at, silently roosting in their cages, without having to stifle a yawn.

Nonetheless it is galling to see that Tadpole is more interested in giving dolly (Tico l’Ecureuil) a ride in her pushchair.

“Look over there!” I cry, in the patronising, over enthusiastic tones of a children’s television presenter, attempting vainly to draw her gaze towards a couple of stampeding ostriches who have just been let back into their enclosure, after being mucked out. “What big birds! Aren’t they funny?”

“Non mummy! I pushing the pushchair!”

My shoulders sag. I decide it is futile to try and show or teach Tadpole anything, and instead we just stroll around the menagerie, enjoying the warm sunshine.

The reptile house is more entertaining, not least because we have to leave the pushchair outside the front door. Tadpole, Tico and I marvel at the snakes, baby lizards, crocodiles, turtles and tortoises. The giant tortoises are a resounding success, reminding Tadpole of the Miffy postcard on her bedroom door. I explain, patiently, that it won’t be possible to ride on the tortoise’s back, regardless of what Miffy gets up to in “Miffy at the zoo”, and I manage to head off a tearful temper tantrum by pulling a banana out of my bag to divert her attention.

Fed up of the animal kingdom, we head up to rue Mouffetard to grab some lunch. The sky is a unlikely shade of azure for the month of October, and as I push Tadpole along the cobbled street lined with stalls selling ripe cheeses and all manner of rustic looking farm produce, manoeuvering past a man and woman who are doing a slow dance in the street accompanied by guitar music outside the café where Juliette Binoche was filmed by Kieslowski in Three Colours Blue, I feel a little stirring of my long dormant love for this city I live in.

That night, I manage to cajole Tadpole into eating a few leaves of iceberg lettuce, “just like the tortoises”.

All in all, it wasn’t such a bad day.

Tadpole is having her bath. I am seated next to her, on the toilet, as there is really no where else to sit in our two and a half square metre bathroom.

“Mummy mummy mummy!” shouts Tadpole, excitedly. “Look mummy!”

I lower my copy of Heat and give her my full attention.

“What do you want to show me?” I enquire, feigning interest.

“Mummy. Regarde! Le bateau, il a chaviré!”

Oh. My. God.

Just twenty eight months old and she is now using French words which I can only understand with the help of a dictionary.

The journey to the airport had been stressful enough, but apparently the gods were not smiling on me last Saturday.

Tadpole, Lover and I were heading to England to visit my best friend and her family. I had been looking forward to this trip for months, my enthusiasm only slightly dampened by the fact that I had woken up that morning only to find that I had almost entirely lost my voice. When I opened my mouth, either a whisper or a squawk came forth. Thankfully, even if I did sound like a cross between Frank Butcher and Dot Cotton, I wasn’t in any pain. But it was hardly an ideal state of affairs, neither for catching up with a friend over a few beers, nor for keeping a willful two year old in check.

First, the bus which would ferry us to Gare du Nord was a long time coming. Second, the ticket vending machines at the station were all either out of order, or preceded by lengthy queues of tourists, many of whom didn’t seem to be able to get them to function, or who went through the whole transaction, only to find that their foreign credit card would not be accepted. Last, but not least, the airport bound RER train which we leapt into just as the doors slammed closed turned out to be a slow train, stopping at every single suburban town between Paris and Charles de Gaulle airport. I started to fear that we wouldn’t be going anywhere, wondering how I would break the news to my friend.

I had an epiphany on that train: on balance, a € 40 taxi fare is a small price to pay for the preservation of my sanity. Austerity budget or no.

We finally checked in just in the nick of time, cleared customs and joined the queue for the baggage scanners and metal detectors.

Now, I know that the people scanning luggage have an important job to do. What I don’t understand is why the French security staff are so much more difficult and unpleasant to deal with than their English counterparts.

I have not-so-fond memories of setting off the metal detector in France while heavily pregnant and being asked to remove my shoes.

“My shoes? I can’t even reach my shoes! It’s my belt buckle which set it off, can’t I just take the belt off?” I said, smiling persuasively. When it became apparent that I was now expected to remove both: “I don’t suppose you have a chair I could sit on?”

“Non.”

Not even a, “Non, je suis désolée Madame”. Just “no”.

Luckily, Mr Frog was on hand to perform the unzipping of the boots, whilst I leaned against a wall, indignantly.

When travelling with a small child and a pushchair, I have encountered similar unhelpfulness on French soil. In England, a member of staff pushes Tadpole through the detector, still wearing her coat and securely strapped in. My permission is sought to search the buggy, and someone half heartedly rummages around, while Tadpole chatters away, turning on the charm.

In France, on the other hand, a slightly less helpful policy is in operation. Tadpole must be released from the pushchair, her coat removed, and the pushchair folded and fed through the scanner along with my bag and coat. On those occasions where I have travelled alone with her, this has been horribly problematic. When Tadpole was too young to walk, I had to enlist the help of a surly and reluctant looking member of staff to hold my baby while I folded the pushchair. Since she learned how to walk (and indeed run), the challenge has always been to stop her absconding. Two hands is never enough.

Sure enough, on Saturday we got the works. No smiles, no help. Tadpole trotted gaily through the metal detector on her own, ahead of me, as instructed. No beep. Mummy and Lover went through immediately after her, and both beeped. I was asked to remove my belt (but thankfully not my trainers) and with a weary “ah là là “, I retraced my steps and went through again. Without beeping, this time. Assuming that a member of staff had been keeping an eye on my daughter.

I looked around.

BLIND PANIC.

WHERE WAS MY CHILD?

Tadpole’s life flashed before my eyes as a block of ice slid down my spine. I tried to call her name, but only managed a pathetic squeak. My eyes scanned the busy terminal building, not really processing what I saw, too panicked to be of any use to me. This was every mother’s worst nightmare. What had I done? How could I have taken my eyes off her, even for a second?

“Oh my god, where is my daughter?” I yelled. Unfortunately, the words came out as a stage whisper. Not even one head was turned.

Lover, who is considerably taller and more level-headed than I, scanned the building and pointed to tiny figure, receding into the distance, far away in the duty free shop.

That’s my daughter. Whenever she sees a window of opportunity, she takes it. And disappears. The lure of the gaudy colours in the brightly lit shop? Of cigarettes and alcohol? Who knows what goes through her tiny little head.

We bellowed her name (or rather Lover did, while I bleated) and Tadpole turned and started running towards me. He fetched our belongings as I dropped to my knees and held her close to me in a vice like grip.

As we made our way over to the gate, tears rolled down my cheeks. Just for a second, I had glimpsed what life without Tadpole would be like.

And it was indescribably bleak.

Despite the fact that I am experiencing an unpleasantly busy Friday afternoon at work, I still find time to type a hasty reply to Mr Frog’s innocent sounding email about arrangements for the weekend. I let him know where Tadpole’s overnight bag is, and add that yes, I will indeed be in Paris myself.

It doesn’t occur to me that something is amiss, and that his second question is, in fact, a loaded one.

A couple of hours later, the penny drops when I read his next email, in which he tells me that due to a meeting being rescheduled at the last minute, he will not be able to pick up Tadpole at 6.30pm at the childminder’s house. Can I please do it? He is not able to say at this stage what time he will be able to come by and pick her up. Or indeed whether he will make it before bedtime. He may even have to collect Tadpole the following morning instead.

I groan out loud, then look furtively around the office to see if anyone heard me. My first lie in since September 4th is in hanging in the balance. And instead of being able to adjourn to the bar with my colleagues for a beer, or do a spot of impromptu shopping, I will now have to race home, just as I do every other night of the week and collect our disappointed daughter. Field her questions about where daddy is. Cook her dinner. Bath her. Read stories and put her to bed. All the while looking at the clock and cursing Mr Frog under my breath, wondering whether at some point he will deign to phone, or to show up and take over.

We may not be together any more, but he still has the ability to back me into a corner and make me shake with that familiar mixture of anger and resentment.

I call him at work. What, I ask, would he have done had I been away? An embarrassed silence. I tell him that whether I am in Paris this weekend or not should be irrelevant: Tadpole is his responsibility on the days we have agreed. She is more important than any meeting. And I am not some sort of glorified babysitter who can take over at a moment’s notice whenever it suits him.

He won’t budge: “I can’t pick her up. I’m sorry. I need you to do this for me. We’ll talk about it later…”

I swear in a low voice, conscious that my boss’s door is ajar. “J’avais des projets pour ce soir. Tu es en train de chier dessus. Ton boulot passe avant tout. Rien n’a changé. Tu me deçois, mais pire encore, notre fille t’attends. Je lui dirai quoi?”

I’m so upset now that I can barely string two coherent words together. But the fact of the matter is, I don’t feel able to refuse him outright. How can I turn my back on my daughter and let Mr Frog trample all over our good relationship with the childminder (who doesn’t do overtime). He knows I’ll give in. What choice do I have?

“Next time, the answer will be no. And I don’t care what the question is,” I say, then slam down the receiver, noticing for the first time the rain falling heavily outside my window.

With a sinking feeling I remember that my waterproof poncho is at home, and not stashed in the basket under the pushchair as it usually is. I took it out this morning. I wasn’t supposed to need it.

I groan again, and this time, I don’t care who hears me.

Tadpole and I get a simultaneous attack of the giggles, strands of spaghetti drooping perilously from our mouths, some sticking to our chins. I like the French phrase for this a lot: un fou rire. Mad laughter.

Catching Tadpole’s eye, I have to suppress a sudden, overwhelming urge to sweep her out of the high chair and into my arms, raining kisses down on her reluctant, curly head. Being a mother sometimes means experiencing such ferocious urges; they literally take my breath away.

Unfortunately Tadpole is not a very demonstratively affectionate child, and doesn’t take kindly to being grabbed and forcibly hugged. It is wiser to wait until she comes to me of her own accord. Especially this close to bedtime, when my toddler appears to suffer from some form of schizophrenia. One minute all is well with the world, the next she is crying theatrical tears and not even she really knows the reason why.

A few minutes later, she zooms into the kitchen on her plastic car, an unbuttered piece of scone in her hand.

“What you doing mummy?” she asks with a frown, craning her neck to look up at the worktop, where I have been caught in the act, liberally spreading butter, raspberry jam and crème fraîche onto my piece of scone with the back of a teaspoon, while waiting for the kettle to boil.

“Mummy’s putting some jam on her scone,” I reply, waving it under her nose, knowing full well that Tadpole will add this to her list of falsely composed compound nouns: strap-on, shoes-on, socks-on, jam-on.

And no, I’m not sure why I talk in the third person to Tadpole either.

“I want jam-on on my scone” she says, eyeing the jar.

“You want some jam?” I repeat, knowing full well that she doesn’t really. She refused to have anything on it the day before, and didn’t even deign to taste mine.

“Jam-on!”

Wearily: “OK, give it to me, and I’ll put some on for you,”

“No!”

Petulantly: “Well don’t have any then!”

“Jam-on!”

I am getting a bit cross. It is 8.00 pm. I have been at work all day. I arrived home with Tadpole at 7.00pm and the preservation of my sanity depends on her being in bed in half an hour. Clearly she has just crossed that invisible line and gone over to the dark side where logic no longer applies and high pitched screaming can erupt at any moment, without due cause or prior warning.

I snatch the scone from her grasp and dab some jam on it, offering it back to her with a triumphant “There!”

“NNNOOOOOOOO!” she screams.

The neighbours probably think I am torturing Tico the dolly.

She makes as if to drop the scone face down on the kitchen floor, so I grab it, scrape off the jam, hold it out to her again.

“NNNNNNNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”

The neighbours probably think I am torturing Tadpole. I wonder idly what the equivalent of Childline is in France.

Something inside me snaps. It’s official: Mummy has now crossed over to the dark side to join her daughter.

I eat the scone.

The screaming starts in earnest.

Only eight months until she turns three. I think I may need medication if I’m to make it that far.