Today, after sheltering in the rain and feeding J in a lovely cafe in Lambs Conduit Street, I went to St*rbucks to use the baby changer and have a wee in their disabled toilet. As they have only one toilet of course I queued for a while, treating the customers to a little need-a-pee dance. I smiled a knowing parent-to-parent smile at the guy who came out carrying his tear-faced toddler, who had been heard screaming from inside the loos as she endured having her nappy changed.
It was then my turn and I wheeled in the pushchair happily. J was still asleep so I took my pee, writing a text-poem to my boyfriend about leaving the toilet search to the last minute and having do the need-a-pee boogie. Midflow J woke up and commenced the screaming. I hurried to re-dress myself, cursing at my choice to put on a belt this morning, and got the changing stuff out of the bag. J as well as screaming opted to perform her trick of timing her own wee to that split second when I had whipped off one nappy and was reaching for the next. So I had to dig around for spare clothes, undress her, wipe everywhere, put on clean nappy, redress her, etc, all the while to a chorus of screams from my daughter who was as keen to get out of there as I was. Just as I was strapping her into her buggy, I heard a rap on the door. I ignored it at first, just as I had ignored it when the door handled shifted upwards, being tried from the outside.
The knock came again, louder, this time with a hello? I opened the door, thinking that my flustered face and the pushchair visable from the doorway would embarrass this voice into silence. It didn't, and I was met by the face of a woman in her sixties, a smart woman with a good haircut and rimless glasses, who informed me that I had been in there for a long time. I said, yes, I was sorry (I was sorry, though not apologising) but I was changing my daughter and I had had to change all her clothes. This I thought would also embarrass her into silence but instead it was met with another helpful reminder that I had been in there for a long time. I shut the door, adjusted the rain cover, put on my coat and pashmina and headed out, feeling embarrassed. I left the cubicle, anticipating shrinking out of the door being stared at in silent pity/contempt by a few pee-needers. In fact what I received was a 'Sorry', but not a real sorry, but a 'sorry-but' afixed with another needle at having taken too long in the toilet.
Zadie Smith in 'White Teeth' employed the device of supplying a choice of endings to her novel. Like all embarrassing social situations, as I wheeled J out of the Brunswick centre towards the bus home, I mulled over clever retorts which I could have shot back at this smug toilet taunter, the alternative endings to switch this uncomfortable scene into a display of clever one-upwardness. I could have reminded the woman that it wasn't my fault that Starbucks had only one toilet. I could have told her that it wasn't my fault that J had a special talent for weeing on her clothes. I could have lied and said it wasn't my fault I had IBS and had to spend painfully long periods in the toilet. In a reworking of the actual events I could have pulled the woman into the toilet mid nappy change, to confront her with a bare bottommed baby and suggest that she sort out J more expediently. There were lots of clever things I probably could have said, so clever I couldn't have even conjured them up on the bus on the way home.
So this is the story that I decided to open my blog with. N, my boyfriend, commented on that fact that this story wasn't quite interesting or funny enough to deserve such a grand, wordy retelling. But it is these small encounters, the network of micro disasters where I just don't quite get it right, that characterise the life of my new alter-ego, the impromptu mummy. When people ask me how I am or what I have been up to recently, of course I don't reply with 'a woman shouted at me in Starbucks for talking too long in the toilet' or 'I caused an avalanche of handbags in the charity shop' or 'I have left my keys in the front door twice this week.' But these events do stay in my mind, determining my mood and distinguishing a good day from a bad day. Today was almost a bad day, because of the toilet woman, but then it became a good day overall because J smiled a lot this evening and N cooked a nice risotto and we watched the IT crowd on line.
Its a wonder some post natal women are so keen to get back to work.
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