Madame Doubtfire Read online

  Daniel tested the strength of his imaginary rope, and checked that the slip worked well on his noose.

  ‘Nude modelling is an honourable profession,’ he lectured them. ‘Art is worthwhile, and artists have to learn. If they learn most in what are commonly referred to as “life classes”, then modelling for life classes is both an acceptable and a valuable contribution to a cultured and civilized society.’

  ‘Even without your clothes on?’ Natalie giggled. She was trying to steer her father back as quickly as she could to that aspect of the topic that interested her most.

  ‘Even without my clothes on,’ Daniel repeated gravely.

  Christopher grinned.

  ‘Then how come you didn’t say hello?’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘How come you didn’t say hello to Mrs Hooper at the art class? Three hours, she said, and you never so much as winked or nodded.’

  ‘I didn’t see her!’

  ‘She saw you, every bit of you. She says she was so close, she could have spat on your chest.’

  Daniel drew himself up to his full height, which was considerable.

  ‘The woman’s husband is quite right,’ he informed them. ‘She is disgusting, truly disgusting.’

  ‘She just thinks you could have been a little more neighbourly. She told Mum: “You never know, with people, do you? You live next door to them for years, and spend hours talking to them across the fence about silvery scurf and apple scab and soft rot. Suddenly you’re sitting only a few feet away, and they don’t even say hello!”’

  ‘I didn’t see her!’

  ‘That’s what Mum told her. Mum said you were probably so embarrassed about prancing around stark naked in front of perfect strangers that you couldn’t look anyone in the eye.’

  Daniel gave his imaginary noose a very sharp tug.

  ‘I was not “prancing around”,’ he informed them through gritted teeth. ‘I was standing quite still. I was “Adam in the Garden”.’

  ‘Mrs Hooper says she always fancied that Adam had a bit more flesh on him than you do. She said she saw you more as “The Grim Reaper”.’

  Daniel glowered rather unpleasantly at all of his children.

  ‘Mrs Hooper is a Philistine,’ he told them. ‘So is her husband. So is your mother. Now do you have any further criticisms of me in my new employment you wish to relay, before we drop the topic once and for all?’

  ‘There’s no need to get mad at us,’ said Christopher. ‘Just because Mum disapproves of your new job.’

  ‘She doesn’t disapprove of the job,’ insisted Lydia. ‘She says she quite understands that somebody has to model nude for people who happen to be studying art instead of going out and earning a sensible living. She simply says she can’t for the life of her see why that somebody has to turn out to be her own children’s father.’

  ‘In that case,’ said Daniel, ‘your mother is not only a Philistine, but a hypocrite, too. And not very sensible, either, since I will spend the money I earn paying her your child support a little more promptly.’

  ‘Mum says she doubts it. She says you won’t earn very much anyway.’

  ‘Less in a week than our cleaning lady.’

  Daniel looked puzzled.

  ‘But you don’t have a cleaning lady.’

  ‘Not yet,’ Lydia conceded. ‘But we are getting one.’

  ‘What for? Why does your mother need a cleaning lady? Cleaning things is her hobby. Her house is spotless, flawless, perfect. It actually gleams at people when they walk in. It hurts their eyes. Surfaces keep winking and sparkling, like in the Babycham adverts.’ He paused, remembering ancient battles, and added a little wistfully after a moment: ‘Still, that was the way she always liked it, wasn’t it? Personally, I always found a little bit of clutter more comfortable.’

  He waved his arms about expansively, inviting them to enjoy all the comfortable clutter. The bookshelf in the corner that fell down at one end eight months before unfortunately caught his eye. So did the grubby paper lantern hanging in tatters from the lamp fitting. And the waste-paper basket that hadn’t been emptied of apple cores, orange peel and banana skins for so many weeks that it had formed the delusion that it was a little indoor compost heap, and had begun fermenting gently. Daniel’s proud and proprietorial air gradually dwindled into a look of deepening unease. Thick layers of dust prevented any of his surfaces from even aspiring to gleam, let alone sparkle. The furniture was ill-assorted and ill-arranged. The blind hung awry. Discarded reading matter littered the room to such an extent that when, earlier, he’d ordered Christopher to keep his mess of wood shavings and glue on newspaper, his son had simply slid from the table on to the sea of colour supplements all over the floor, and carried on.

  The room, Daniel was forced to admit, was not far short of a hopelessly lost cause. Even Hetty had withdrawn cooperation from all attempts at natty housekeeping, and kicked most of her stale food and soiled bedding out through the cage bars on to the floor.

  Not for the first time since he became entirely responsible for his own domestic arrangements, Daniel felt a mild wave of depression sweep over him.

  ‘This place could do with a bit of a spring-clean,’ he admitted. ‘I should get down to it.’

  Merely the passing thought of all the hours of drudgery it would entail appalled him. To reinforce resolution, he turned to Lydia.

  ‘Purely as a matter of interest, you understand,’ he began delicately, ‘and not wanting for one moment to pry into your mother’s affairs – one unskilled labourer asking of another, as it were – how much will I be saving, cleaning my own home?’

  ‘Seven pounds an hour,’ Lydia answered him promptly.

  ‘What?’ Daniel was shocked. ‘Seven pounds an hour? For cleaning an already immaculate house? For wiping the odd faint, accidental smear off the odd gleaming mirror? Are you quite sure?’

  ‘The job does include child care,’ Lydia reminded her father.

  ‘Child care?’

  Daniel was mystified.

  ‘You know. Looking after all of us between the end of school and when Mum gets back home from work at half past six.’

  ‘You mean bothering to phone the police if one of you hasn’t turned up by four thirty? Mentioning to your brother that he could hang up his blazer rather than leave it lying on the hall floor? Reminding Natty here when it’s time for Blue Peter? Supplying the odd spelling? Admiring the odd flourish of new maths? That sort of thing?’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘Seven pounds an hour!’ wailed Daniel. ‘Seven pounds an hour!’ For little more than that I stand stiff as a garden rake in public, freezing my cluster to a prune!’

  ‘There is a bit of light cooking,’ Lydia attempted to console him.

  ‘Light cooking? Light cooking? Spreading the odd knife edge of peanut butter over the odd roll! Poaching an egg every now and again! Switching on the toaster! Some woman stands to earn seven pounds an hour for that? I can’t believe it! What can your mother be thinking of, to spend the money I send her this way?’

  Lydia said frostily:

  ‘It probably isn’t your money. It’s probably hers. She’s earning more from The Emporium this year. And Mum thinks it’s very poor economy to pay other people crummy wages – especially other women. She says you get a better job done if you don’t exploit the fact that others pay less. She says it’s this sort of expansive, managerial thinking that’s got her where she is today –’

  ‘The Undisputed Leader of the Empire!’

  ‘Emporium.’

  ‘Able to afford a cleaning lady, anyhow.’

  ‘Housekeeper, really,’ Christopher corrected him, and added carelessly: ‘Mum says her job involves a lot more travelling this year, and she’ll need to leave us with someone dependable.’

  ‘Why can’t she leave you with me? I am dependable. I’m also your father.’

  Christopher’s expression changed. He suddenly looked drawn and tired. A little irritably, h
e answered:

  ‘Because she can’t.’

  ‘Can’t?’

  ‘Won’t, then.’

  Daniel looked at him sharply.

  ‘You asked her, did you? You suggested it?’

  Christopher flushed. He was getting angry.

  ‘Of course we suggested it,’ he retorted.

  ‘And what did she say?’

  ‘Not much,’ he answered flatly, and turned away.

  Daniel took hold of his shoulders and turned him back.

  ‘What – did – she – say?’

  The others watched.

  ‘She said that it would disrupt her routine.’

  ‘Disrupt her routine? Disrupt her routine?’

  His son’s face stayed without expression.

  Daniel curled one of his hands into a fist, and rammed it, hard, into the palm of the other.

  ‘But you did want to come?’ he pressed his son.

  Christopher shook himself irritably, and turned to Lydia for help. She answered for him.

  ‘Of course he wanted to come. So did I. So did Natty. Why should we want to stay there every afternoon with someone we don’t even know, someone who’s always saying: “I’m not sure about that, dear. We’ll just have to wait until your mother comes home, and then ask her.” We don’t. We’d rather be round here with you. Far rather. But it isn’t going to happen, is it? She’s not going to let us, and I’m not going to cry about it!’

  She suddenly looked as if she might, though.

  Daniel said:

  ‘I could ask her.’

  The children were silent.

  ‘It’s a reasonable request.’

  Still no one answered. Their faces, however, said plainly: since when has that made any difference?

  Daniel considered.

  ‘I could try taking your mother back to Court…’

  Lydia shuddered.

  ‘Oh, please, no! Not again! Not after last time! That was just horrible! Horrible!’

  Hastily, Christopher came to his sister’s support.

  ‘And it didn’t work!’

  ‘No,’ Daniel said. ‘It didn’t work. She just started making up better excuses, and wasting even more of our time writing them down in her endless letters.’ The faraway, glazed look came into his eyes. ‘Have to try something else…’

  He turned his back to his children, thinking hard, and drew his purple-spotted handkerchief from his pocket. Wrapping the corners of it around his fingers, he pulled it taut. Then, before he even realized what he’d done, he’d coiled the resulting short tether around the nearest object, a large sliced loaf, and garotted it firmly.

  Slices of bread burst out in every direction.

  The children stared.

  Chapter Three

  A visit from the witch

  While they were still picking bits of bread off the floor, a car horn sounded in the street.

  Daniel glanced surreptitiously at the wall clock. It was barely twenty minutes to seven. Irritated, he affected not to have heard the sharp summons.

  Christopher rose to his feet and wiped the breadcrumbs off his hands. Lydia looked at the mess still scattered on the floor, and hesitated. Natalie piped up:

  ‘That must be Mum.’

  ‘Surely not!’ Daniel pretended brisk disbelief. ‘It can’t possibly be your mother. It’s far too soon. At least twenty minutes too early.’ He tipped the remains of the ruined loaf into the swing bin. ‘It must be someone else entirely.’

  Christopher moved close enough to the window to glance down at the street without being seen.

  ‘Someone else with a Volvo?’ he asked.

  ‘Why not?’

  Helplessly, Christopher looked across at Lydia, who raised her eyes to heaven, and sighed.

  ‘A red one?’ Christopher persisted.

  ‘It happens. It is not unknown,’ Daniel answered stubbornly. With false nonchalance he tossed the dustpan and brush back in the cupboard. ‘There’s more than one red Volvo in this town.’

  ‘More than one with the back piled with Lighting Emporium boxes? More than one with a red-headed lady in the front, losing her temper?’

  The car horn sounded a second time, harsh and peremptory.

  ‘Dad –?’ Natalie begged, with filling eyes.

  The car horn blared. Galvanized by the sheer impatience in the sound, the children began to race around the room, gathering their belongings.

  ‘Stop!’ Daniel shouted. ‘Stop running about like headless chickens! There’s no need for this panic!’

  They stopped in their tracks, hesitant and anxious. Daniel spread out his hands, and argued:

  ‘She doesn’t even know for certain you’re up here. You’re not due to be collected for twenty minutes. We might be at the shops, or in the park. She doesn’t know.’

  ‘She knows,’ said Christopher. He picked up his coat and began struggling into it.

  ‘Take off that coat!’ roared Daniel.

  Christopher stared.

  ‘Take off that coat!’

  Christopher peeled the rumpled sleeve from his arm, and hurled the coat down on the floor.

  ‘You’ll get us into trouble!’ he yelled.

  ‘You will,’ agreed Lydia.

  ‘Please let us go, Daddy,’ pleaded Natalie.

  ‘Listen to me,’ said Daniel. He took a deep breath and tried to keep calm. ‘Listen to me, all three of you. This can’t go on. She drops you off here forty minutes late, and you don’t dare to say a word to her. She comes to pick you up twenty minutes early. She honks the horn, and suddenly not one of you can think of anything but scuttling obediently down there.’

  He pointed.

  ‘Look at poor Natty! She’s terrified already. Two minutes her mother’s been waiting in the car, and Natalie’s nearly in tears.’

  He pointed to himself.

  ‘Look at me! I had to wait a whole week, and then an extra forty minutes. Nobody nearly burst into tears about that!’

  ‘It’s not the same,’ Christopher argued.

  ‘Why not? Why not?’

  ‘You know why not.’

  ‘I certainly do!’ Their father’s self-control was slipping fast. ‘It’s not the same because of that selfish, thoughtless, inconsiderate witch out there! That’s why not, isn’t it?’

  He slammed the side of his hand down, hard, on the table.

  ‘Now this can’t go on. Do you understand? It can’t go on. You’re not just her children, you know. You’re mine, too. She has no right to treat us this way. I was an adequate father.’ He drew himself up. ‘No, I’d go further than that. I was a very good father. I made sure she remembered her vitamin tablets when she was pregnant. I fed her good, wholesome food and made her stop smoking. I did all the heavy shopping, and cheered her up, and brought her endless cups of tea. And whenever she lost her nerve and said that the last thing in the world she wanted was a baby, I promised to take you to the nearest orphanage the moment you were born, and leave you on the doorstep in a box. What man could do more? Then, after each of you was born, I did my best. I fetched you, carried you, bathed you, changed your nappies, diced your food, pinned teething rusks on your woollies, pushed your prams…’

  He was in full blast. Lydia and Christopher stood in sullen silence, while Natalie looked weepy and confused.

  ‘I’ve sat through as many boring old child health clinics and grisly playgroups in church halls as she has, I assure you. I’ve iced your birthday cakes, and wallpapered your bedrooms.’ He banged his chest. ‘I was even the sodding tooth fairy! Oh, yes. Make no mistake, I did as much as she did. You are my children as much as hers!’

  Lydia and Christopher glowered, deeply indignant at the lecture, and smarting particularly under its implications of ownership. Natalie stood with her eyes lowered, inspecting her thumbs. She hadn’t realized that before, about the tooth fairy…

  Sensing their growing resentment at his harangue, Daniel made a massive effort to lower his voice to a tolerable
level.

  ‘Now what are we going to do about this?’ he demanded. ‘What are we to do? I’ve offered to go back to Court to try to stop her carving hours off what was agreed to be my time with you. You all said no. You couldn’t say no quickly enough. Well, that’s all right. It’s your decision, and I can’t say I blame you.’

  He spread his hands, pleading.

  ‘But what about me? Where does this leave me? Nowhere, that’s where. And I can’t stand that any longer.’

  He peered at each of his children in turn, scoured Lydia’s dead-pan face and Christopher’s defensive scowl, then the troubled, tearful look of his youngest.

  ‘So,’ he wound up. ‘If you three won’t allow me to ask the Court to stand up to your mother for you, there’s only one thing for it. You’ll have to learn to stand up to her yourselves.’

  The children stared at him, simply appalled.

  ‘What else can be done?’ he asked softly. ‘Tell me. I’d love to know. What alternative is there to you three learning to stand up to her?’

  In a flash, Christopher replied:

  ‘You could stand up to her yourself.’

  Now it was Daniel’s turn to show dismay.

  ‘Who? Me?’

  ‘Yes. You. You’re quick enough to tell us to do it. You do it first.’

  ‘All right,’ cried Daniel. ‘All right, I will!’ He’d been inspired by his own eloquence. He found he had the courage of Jove. Laying his arm across his son’s shoulders, he assured him with confidence, ‘You are on, Buster! You are definitely on! Now watch this space!’

  Just at that moment, out in the hall, there sounded a demented rattling. It was followed by the most enormous bang as the front door swung open and hit the wall. The sound of ceiling plaster slithering down the walls filled a brief and astonished moment.

  ‘Mum!’

  ‘She’s come up!’

  ‘Fed up with waiting in the car!’

  ‘Oh, Christ!’ muttered Daniel, all his declared valour shrinking into pure funk on the spot.

  As the high heels tapped closer down the hall, Christopher seized the opportunity to exact sweet revenge on his father for subjecting them all to his fiery tirade.

  ‘Now, Dad,’ he whispered, squeezing his arm and lifting a face that glowed with happy and innocent expectation. ‘Stand up to her. Don’t let us down.’