Having left our children with nana and grandad for three days, the inevitable came to pass. Not only did they go to sleep for them immediately, they remained in their beds throughout two of the three nights, a record we have not achieved in the past six months. There were no tantrums, and our 14-step contingency plan for emergencies relating to bone breakage, kidnapping, fire or flood went thankfully unused. They even remembered how house keys worked throughout this period, doubtless thankful of the reminders I’d given them before we left.
Looking at these updates as they came to us in Ireland, I did feel that mild twinge of annoyance you get when your children behave better for others than yourself, but was overjoyed that we could enjoy Sarah and George’s beautiful wedding without fear of returning to a pile of charred rubble, or a pair of grim-faced in-laws intent on faking their deaths and moving to Peru.
As the Stansted Express bore us home, a WhatsApp message informed us nana and grandad were with our kids in the local park. The message wasn’t from them, mind you, but our friend, Sarah. She and her son, George (yes, they have the same names as the happy couple), had bumped into Sean and Marian an hour earlier, and they were all spending a pleasant sunny Saturday ambling through the playground and eating ice-cream.
This is very typical. The world bends to meet my in-laws and they bend right back. To be with Marian in a restaurant is like attending a gala with a minor royal. People fuss over her as if she’s taken time from her busy schedule to cut the ribbon at a youth centre. Whether it’s an elderly Italian man barraging her with flirty flattery in a Hackney taverna, or a heavily tattooed young woman in a Walthamstow café, her stern exterior dissolved by questions from Marian about the fashion degree she’s doing, and whether she’s enjoying it.
By the time we arrived, they were back at home. O, our children were happy to see us, albeit in a dazed sort of way that suggested they hadn’t thought about us for a while. My daughter ran to her mum with delight but seemed cagier with me, opting initially to hover by the newer, better man in her life: her grandad.
It reminded me of their trip to see us ahead of our son’s birth six years ago. He seemed reluctant to arrive, and so we spent four days waiting in hospital while Sean and Marian sterilised our Stoke Newington flat and went out of their minds with suspense. After two days, still childless, I was dismissed from the maternity ward while my wife slept.
Since the World Cup was on, I took Sean for a pint in our local, telling him on the way that he’d love the place. As the door swung open, the barman waved not to me, but to my father-in-law, and a heavily accented cry of ‘Sean!’ came from across the room. This was Juan, a Uruguayan builder with whom he’d watched the previous two days’ matches and was now firm friends. I, a weekly patron of said pub for the past three years, walked in behind my father-in-law, entirely unremarked.
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