Mummies never get sick

Friday, October 30 ‘09

There was a book on the playroom shelf called “Mummies never get sick.” It lied because sometimes they did. They just couldn’t take a day off from work to be so. In her nine and a half years as a mother, she had only been bedridden once with flu, up until now. A stomach virus hit her big time, forcing her to crawl on to the sofa in between sudden dashes to the bathroom, which thanks to the completion of Modern Pemberley was now on ground floor level. It lasted 10 days, leaving her with vertigo and very dodgy on her feet. She somehow managed to run a party for eight-year-old Miss Bennet Number Two and her 25 chums thanks to the sterling efforts of Mr. Bennet and his amazing ability to gather the girls in an orderly fashion and get them spitting cola bottles, rolling conkers and eating hula hoops off string. He would make a great party entertainer. Fifteen years ago she fell in love with him while he was riding a unicycle in the midst of a circle of kids in his capacity as a youth leader in charge of a holiday club. It was days like this, when the stuffing had been knocked out of her, she really appreciated her own Mr. Darcy. Not that she had any energy to exert any passion, but it did remind her why she had married him. As the bug co-incided with the entire length of half-term holiday, it meant the little Miss Bennets were home and therefore Modern Pemberley was not quiet. Not that ever was, apart from the two-hour silence Mrs. Bennet enjoyed when Spag and Bol were asleep. Her elder three children had given up their afternoon nap soon after hitting two. At almost two-and-a-half Spag and Bol had no idea their mother wasn’t letting them give up theirs. Happy to lie down in parallel cots, the little Miss Twin Bennets were chatty bedfellows and enjoyed their lunchtime natter before drifting off.
Somehow in between flopping, Mrs. Bennet managed to sit and do beadwork, collage, cakes, play dough, jewellery, painting and maths practise with chocolate buttons. The children didn’t complain. As long as they got out of the house at least once a day, they were happy. And again somehow Mrs. Bennet did, so long as she was back on the sofa within the hour. It had become her new friend. Mr. Latte – who had moved in ever since Mrs. Bennet had bought a life-line sophisticated coffee machine with her 40th birthday money – had to sit quietly forgotten in the corner. She had no desire for him, or anything other than a mug of hot water, nicknamed Mr. Peely Wally in the Modern Mrs. Bennet dictionary.
But she did feel well-off. Ironically it was an enriching experience to be ill. Mrs. Bennet had realised what she had and it was good. She may not always have enough money to pay for their clubs and shoes, but where coffers lacked, the blessings around her more than compensated. Watching Spag and Bol chasing each other from lounge to kitchen to playroom to lounge dressed in fairy dresses and winter hats which were far too big from them, giggling profusely as they did, cheered her no end. Sometimes Mummies did get sick. But they were never lonely.