Page 50 of The Bad Mother's Diary

I wish she wouldn’t sneak in like that.

She raised a skinny black eyebrow and said, ‘Age appropriate?’

I told her all music helped with developmental brain stuff.

Helen winced and said I’d teach Daisy to be ‘a terror’ if I wasn’t careful.

Then she dropped anYves Saint Laurent bag on the sofa, saying she’d bought Nick a new suit.

She looked around the apartment and said, ‘Christ, what a state. Hasn’t Juan been this week?’

I have to admit the place did look a mess.

I’d taken all the cushions off the sofa and made a sort of nest for Daisy. There was mashed-up rice cake all over the floor too.

I wanted to say to Helen, ‘You were a mother once weren’t you?’

But Helen is one of those hideously organised control freak women who lies and says her baby never gave her a moment of trouble.

According to Helen, Nick slept through the night at two months old, ate everything he was supposed to, never cried and ‘appeared to understand concepts far beyond his young years.’

If I didn’t know Nick, I’d imagine him to be a neat-haired child prodigy who bought his mother flowers every week.

Sunday April 26th

Had Sunday lunch with the family today.

Ate it in the pub, because Dad is using the dining table to clean his Lord of the Rings figurines.

Mum asked me what sort of thing she should say in her wedding speech.

She’s already been googling jokes.

I said, ‘Mum. Please don’t make a speech. Let Dad do it. He’ll make a speech straight out ofTalking at Christian Occasions.’

Mum snorted, ‘But it’ll send everyone to sleep.’

I said, ‘Look, Mum. If you HAVE to make a speech, please, please don’t say anything bad about Helen.’

She said, ‘But I’ve got all these brilliant jokes about her nose.’

I told her she couldn’t tell any of them. No – none of them at all.

She got all huffy then and asked if Helen was making a speech.

I said Helen hadn’t mentioned it.

Mum said, ‘Well, she’d better not make any jokes about you. That’s my job.’

I said, ‘Don’t be silly, Mum. Helen won’t make a joke. She has absolutely no sense of humour.’

Monday April 27th

2am

Daisy just won’t sleep.

Thank God Nick’s not home – he’d be so stressed by now.

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