Don't You Want Me? Read Online Free PDF

‘It seems a bit much in the space of five minutes.’
    ‘Oh, Icky,’ Kate says. ‘Oh, Ick.’ Can’t she say anything else, like ‘Sorry’? Why isn’t she metaphorically walloping him around the head for being such a little shit? She turns to me, looking none too pleased. ‘I do hope you didn’t tell him off?’ she asks accusingly.
    ‘Well, I did, actually. Look.’ I show her Honey’s hand, on which the imprint of a trainer sole is coming up in angry welts. There are bite marks on her cheek.
    ‘We never tell Icky off,’ Kate says. ‘We don’t believe intelling off. He is expressing his anger as best he knows and, being a child, that means physically.’
    Zoom, goes my temper. Zoom, and whoosh. ‘I am expressing
my
anger in the only way I know how,’ I tell her, making a gigantic effort to keep my voice pleasant. ‘And being an adult, that means verbally. Though I’m sure I could muster up something a little more
physical
if you insisted.’
    ‘Icky’s just tired,’ Kate says. All the bulgy veins in her neck are showing and she is looking at me with pure hatred. ‘You’re a tired boy, aren’t you? Yes, you are,’ she says, adopting the tone we used to use with our dog.
    ‘Then I suggest you take him home,’ I say, in the same even tone, ‘and put him to bed.’
    ‘Felicity obviously hasn’t explained the playgroup’s Basic Rules to you. Telling children off is very old-fashioned. These days – ’ she looks me up and down: that phrase was a reference to my age, I expect, though she can only be a couple of years younger than me – ‘we don’t believe in disciplining children. They just grow and evolve organically, like, like
herbs
.’ Kate shoots me another filthy look, sniffs furiously and, ignoring my flabbergasted face, stomps away, Ichabod wobbling in her wake.
    Herbs? And the vile nappy smell, I register, is coming from him. Tired, my arse. The absolute mantra of crap, middle-class parenting is He’s Just Tired. Hand grenade lobbed right into your face? Excrement smeared over your walls? Setting fire to hair? Walking up and down the dining table kicking glasses on to the floor? Murdering the baby with a kitchen knife? Aah, He’s Just Tired. Which always begs the question, never satisfactorily answered,
If he’s so fucking tired, why isn’t he in bed?
    I want to scream; ridiculously, my hands are shaking. Honey has calmed down and I put her on the floor again: I really need that cup of tea.
    ‘Hi, I’m Louisa.’ The pretty blonde whose eye I caught earlier has appeared by my side. She pats my arm and smiles as she hands me the milk. ‘Don’t worry about her. She has some fairly peculiar notions about child-rearing. Ichabod isn’t potty-trained, for instance – Kate doesn’t believe in it,’ she says, rolling her eyes.
    ‘I’m Stella.’ We smile at each other. ‘Horrible little fucker.’
    Louisa, to her immense credit, giggles. ‘Isn’t he?’ she asks rhetorically. ‘Absolute nightmare. Not the only one, unfortunately. As you’ll no doubt discover – you’re doing the activities this morning, aren’t you? I’d better let you get off, then. I just wanted to say hello and, you know, don’t worry.’
    ‘Well, thanks for coming over,’ I say, feeling immeasurably better. ‘See you later.’
    ‘I hope so,’ Louisa says shyly. ‘I sometimes feel like I’m in a madhouse when I come here. You – ’ she smiles – ‘have the virtue of seeming reasonably sane.’
    ‘That’s what you think,’ I clumsily joke back, but I am delighted: a friend! Well, a potential friend, anyway: a counterpoint to Udderella in the corner, who’s finally put away her giant breast and is proudly watching little Euan, who has the springy, hunched walk of a teenager, scamper up the indoor climbing frame, a pleased, satisfied, and – yeurch –
bucolic
look spreading across her bovine features.
    OK. Perhaps it’s me. Perhaps it’s just me, and I am weird and have strange