William’s Progress. Matt Rudd

only 99.8°C, not 101°C or 102°C. God forbid it gets to 102°C, even though Isabel phoned her doctor mum, who told her that babies get high temperatures and it doesn’t necessarily mean Jacob is going to die a horrible feverish death. ‘It doesn’t necessarily mean’ is not good enough for me. He is still tiny. His little body shouldn’t have to have a temperature. I’m not taking any chances.

      Saturday 16 February

      Not going on holiday today on account of Jacob’s temperature, even though it’s gone down and it looks as if he might survive. The snowstorm sweeping across the country isn’t helping, either. I am not saying ‘I told you so’. It is enough that, for once, I am right about something. She knows it. I know it. Jacob knows it.

      Sunday 17 February

      Still not going on holiday because the snow has turned to black ice and Isabel’s mother and my mother have both phoned and pleaded for us to wait until it is safe to drive. Even the bloody weatherman warns us not to travel anywhere unless it’s absolutely essential. I preferred it in the old days, before the Met Office missed the hurricane. They were more inclined to throw caution to the wind, so to speak. I say, ‘I told you so,’ because I simply can’t hold it in any longer.

      Monday 18 February

      And so, two days late, the first Walker family holiday begins. It will be the first of many. Over the next two decades at least, we will explore the world together. We will drive across Europe in campervans, we will sail narrow boats across England, we will explore exotic cultures in an educational and adventurous way. And we are starting with Devon. If we get that far. We woke at 6 a.m., a lie-in, and I suggested our ETDIAAHP (estimated time of departure if at all humanly possible) should be a very conservative 10 a.m. We left at 1 p.m., which isn’t bad when you consider that we had to take the entire house, the whole of Waitrose and a large section of Halfords with us, and that we’d only had five days to pack.

      Twenty minutes in, against all odds, Jacob fell asleep. For the first time in seven weeks, Isabel and I had a conversation. It was leisurely. It had no sense of urgency about it. It was trivial and no child’s life depended on it.

      ‘Nice coffee,’ I said.

      ‘Do I get points for bringing it, dearest?’

      ‘Yes and no. Which would you like first?’

      ‘I may have to kill you, but purely out of interest I’ll start with the yes.’

      ‘Yes, because you’ve used proper milk, not devil’s spawn goat’s milk, and there’s enough sugar for once and we won’t have to spend £972 on crap motorway service station coffee.’

      ‘Right. And the no?’

      ‘No, because bringing a flask on a car journey is the beginning of the end. Only middle-aged people do that. Have you got some travel sweets in the glove box, too? Oh my God, you have. I rest my case.’

      ‘I hate to tell you this, but you’re already middle-aged, sweetheart. You planned the route three days ago.’

      ‘I didn’t.’

      ‘You did. You phoned Johnson and had a conversation with him about it. Only middle-aged people can spend more than twenty minutes discussing whether the M4/M5 is quicker than the A303.’

      ‘Well, Johnson was talking rubbish. Everyone knows the M4/M5 is best if there aren’t roadworks.’

      ‘I love it.’

      ‘Love what?’

      ‘Being middle-aged.’

      ‘Really?’ For a minute, I’d thought she was having me on, but she wasn’t.

      ‘Yes. We’re settling. We know what we’re doing. We know where we’re going.’

      ‘Do we?’

      ‘Yes. Apart from this whole parenting thing…which I think we’re doing all right at, don’t you?’

      ‘Well, you are. You’ve been brilliant.’

      ‘You’re doing all right as well. I think we make quite a good middle-aged couple, all things considered. And here we are, going on a lovely holiday as a family with our beautiful sleeping boy.’

      She paused, smiling, and looked out the window. I smiled, too, because perhaps everything was going pretty well. And there was no denying it: we were going on holiday. A family holiday. It might even be fun.

      Except then Jacob woke up and needed a feed. The fourteen miles to the next service station were the longest fourteen miles of my life. It’s bad enough listening to babies crying in general, but when it’s your baby, it has an extra piercing quality. It cuts straight into the very centre of your brain. It is almost impossible to do anything but deal with that noise. This is very clever: Mother Nature’s way of ensuring the offspring isn’t left abandoned in its hour of need. Except Mother Nature didn’t take into account the fact that we were going on holiday to Devon in the driving rain of bleak midwinter with a seven-week-old child. And that I might need to be able to concentrate on driving.

      …and breathe.

      THE ZEN PATH TO THE MASTERY OF PARENTING (CONTINUED)

      Step four: you must be able to drive a car at high speed in the rain while a child is screaming and the petrol gauge is on empty and your wife is saying, ‘Hurry, he needs changing and it’s still ten miles to the next service station,’ and you know he needs changing and you know it’s still ten miles to the next service station and, oh Christ, there’s a police car and, oh Christ, he wants me to pull over and, oh Christ, should I keep going because it’s now only five miles to the service station and he can give me the ticket there.

      I pull over. Isabel climbs into the back to feed Jacob while I face an interrogation.

      ‘Good afternoon, officer. Can I start by saying how sor—’

      ‘Do you know what the national speed limit is, sir?’

      ‘Seventy miles an hour, officer. But this is our first-ever—’

      ‘And are you aware of how fast you were travelling?’

      ‘Too fast, officer. But you see Jacob was—’

      ‘Ninety-eight miles an hour,’ he interrupts again, peering into the back of the car at Isabel, who is trying to change Jacob.

      ‘Seriously? Oh God. I’m sorry. We’re new to this whole parenting—’

      ‘How old is your child?’ he interrupts for a fourth time and I begin to wonder whether the police computer is connected in any way to the health-visitor computer because we’re bound to be flagged on the latter so a flag on the former might constitute two flags on aggregate and I wonder how many flags you’re allowed before they take your child away. Probably no more than three.

      ‘Seven weeks,’ says Isabel. ‘And I don’t think we’re going to be doing any more long journeys for a while.’

      The policeman hesitates and shakes his head. ‘Tell me about it. Mine’s three months old and we still can’t make it beyond the M25.’

      ‘If you arrested me and carted me off to prison, I would be grateful,’ I say, in an attempt to build on our shared pain. ‘Anything to escape the nappies.’

      ‘I’d love to, but I can’t,’ he replies. He is no longer a police officer. I am no longer a felon. We are new dads together, trying to make the best of a crazy world, a world of tears and stress and sleep deprivation and a necessity, every now and again, to drive at ninety-eight miles an hour.

      ‘I can only issue a ticket.’

      ‘But—’

      ‘If