I do things my wife can’t take.

1) I let Iris cry.

2) I get cross.

3) I get cross with visitors.

All these are about to happen. Grace (7) has a friend round, and they’re amusing themselves by picking on the younger ones. They’re rolling their eyes and saying: “You two are, like, so sad.” Cassady (6) has a friend, too, and they’re rehearsing a show, which involves bears, ballet and glue. Iris (20 months) is requesting food, by gripping my legs like an amorous puppy, and wailing.

I must make tea, quick, but can’t for the life of me work out what they’ll all eat. I feel like I’ve stepped into a confusing world. I feel like Captain Kirk when he’s on a planet and he has to make a gun out of gunpowder, a pipe and a bra. Fast. But I’ve got no bra. I’ve got a fridge containing only pesto, bendy carrots and some apples. And Iris is screaming. In my head (back on the Starship Enterprise), my wife (Spock) is saying: “Give her milk!” And I’m shouting back: “Then she won’t eat her tea!” And I’m feeling guilty, but determined to nourish them. I make fresh juice with carrot and apple.

I make pesto pasta. I pick up Iris. Then three really annoying things happen:

1) I give everyone juice and the eye-rolling friend says: “No way am I drinking that!” And I put down Cassady’s plate, and she says: “I hate this sauce!”

2) Then Cassady’s friend invites the older girls to watch their show, and they say: “Tuh. As long as you pay us.” They’ve cast themselves in this performance: they’ll be the ladies chucking fruit at the clowns.

3) I put Iris in her chair, and she screams like I’ve scalded her with hot oil. I know, and she knows, that if Mum were here, she’d be allowed to escape, and she could sit on a lap, smacking the food with her little pudgy hand. Which means she’ll learn that you get your way if you cry. And I will get trousers smeared with pesto.

I think that the more children you’ve got, the more authoritarian you must be; when the boundaries aren’t clear, the aliens take control. It must not happen. “This is the only tea I’ve got,” I tell Cassady fiercely. “There’s nothing else.” I turn to the older ones: “I shall watch their show, because I really want to. But you can’t.” “Why?!!” they say, looking outraged, like footballers who’ve been booked for diving. “You’re not being kind,” I pronounce. I take the eye-roller’s juice, and I down it in three cross gulps. All five girls look at me. There’s an astonished silence. Then we all eat. That was good, I’m thinking. Verrrry good. I’m so glad my wife isn’t here. She would be giving me the Vulcan death grip.

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