Not that the guys at the studio I do most of my work at aren't great with her, on the couple of occasions she's come along. They aren't primarily there to provide childcare, however, and it's not terribly professional of me to ask them to do it. F's happy enough with strangers at the moment, which is horribly alarming for V and me, but she gets cranky and impatient after about fifteen minutes of anything. Which means after fifteen minutes, my takes adopt the higher pitch associated with a forced smile, because I'm trying to ignore my wailing daughter hammering the other side of the glass door to the booth.
Short notice meant I didn't realise I was agreeing to work for a studio I occasionally do stuff for in Stockholm, however.
My contact's name is the same as one of the local sound engineers, so I'm not totally incompetent for getting confused. When he called this morning, though, it was quickly apparent I was in the wrong city. Luckily V's theatre has a studio that wasn't being used, so I managed to arrange using it at lunchtime, so V could keep an eye on F.
Epic failures followed. When I arrived, with half an hour spare to set up and make sure I could manage Skype connections with Stockholm, F was asleep. Ten minutes later, when V got called into an unexpected but unavoidable meeting, she wasn't. I also had
- No script, because the email I'd been sent hadn't turned up for no obvious reason
- No Skype, because there hadn't been time to connect my laptop to the internet and I couldn't work the sound desk to get their Mac speakers playing
- Both arms full of baby
So that was good.
V managed to escape for three frantic minutes, in which she connected me to the internet, suggested putting F in the adjoining music booth so I could watch her through the window, wished me luck, apologised and legged it.
The music room was full of exciting instruments, so looked like a good bet. It had two doors, the outer one of which I couldn't close because only V had a key, and locking F in seemed a bit extreme. One door would probably be fine, and I could keep an eye on her.
Half way through my first take, I kept an eye on her as she opened the door, weeping loudly at the abandonment she'd been put through. Her siren wail moved rapidly down the corridor outside and off into the theatre basement. It wasn't a particularly clean take, all in all.
Once I'd called them back, the clients were very understanding and happy for me to postpone a little. Miserably, I strapped F into her pram and put it in the music room, handing her a recorder and some sleigh bells before leaving her again. I waved and cooed through the window, but she wasn't buying it.
I got the clear after four takes, about ten minutes worth or so, and ran through to console F. Who was very quickly fine and over it, as far as I could see. Especially after parental guilt scored her classy bakery down on the canal. She must have forgiven me, she fed me prawns from her sandwich. After she'd sucked the juice out of them, of course, and I wasn't allowed any chocolate cake. She's probably okay, I figure.
I wasn't, I still feel like a hollow and worthless shell of a man. It's all very well, Larkin making his clear and accurate observations about parenting. He never pointed out the sheer force of fuck-up feedback. I locked my daughter in another room while she was crying! So I could mouth cheerful corporate banalities for money! I am a Monster!
I'll get over it, because, well, I'm over-dramatising it all as usual and anyway, that's what you do. Get on with it and try not to tear too much of the paper from over your cracks in the process. And anyway, F made me read an IKEA catalogue to her yesterday lunchtime, so we're probably about even overall.
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