We’re an hour into the stationary tail-back. The M40 snakes back through South Oxfordshire; an inert mass of cars filled with would-be shoppers. You know it’s bad when people start getting out of their cars, sitting on the hard shoulder with make-shift picnics and swapping numbers with the family in the Touran next to them. We haven’t done badly so far; forty-seven rounds of ‘three little monkeys jumping on the bed’, a box of raisins each and a bottle of water which has been rolling around the footwell for the last six months. I knew I’d left it there for a reason. The children are in surprisingly good spirits considering lunch is due any moment and we should by now have been at John Lewis enjoying an egg sandwich each.
Despite representations from the back seat, I pause the kids’ nursery rhyme CD to listen to the traffic update. I snap off the radio in disbelief and sit in stunned silence for a second or two. The entire motorway will be closed for another three hours, and we’re in it for the duration. Three hours! Three hours with three toddlers who need food, sleep, lashings of Calpol and a good few hours running around hitting each other, before they will consider it a satisfactory afternoon. I can facilitate none of those things. Not even the nap – damn Gina Ford and her black-out blinds. Why couldn’t I have been one of those mothers who let their children fall asleep anywhere? God I need the loo.
I think wildly of my options; surely they’ll give me priority, like the AA? I could use the hard shoulder, squeeze unobstrusively past the terrible accident at the front, and be on my way. Or maybe they’ll helicopter us out; you know, if it gets really bad and E does that air-raid-siren scream thing she does. Why didn’t I go to the loo before we left? I got in the car over an hour ago already needing a wee – you have no idea how much my bladder hurts now.
I look at the change bag lying innocently on the passenger seat beside me, the edge of a nappy poking out of the top. I couldn’t. Could I? Of course I couldn’t. I’m going to have to. I’ve given birth to twins. Twice. My pelvic floor struggles to make it up the stairs without minor leakage, it’s never going to manage three hours holding back several litres of morning tea. Decisively I pull out the nappy and open it. Hmm, this is going to be a logistical challenge. I’m wearing skinny jeans, I’m in the driver’s seat of a people-carrier and I’m cheek-by-jowl with hundreds of near-stationary vehicles all occupied by bored people looking around for entertainment. Well boy am I about to give it to them.
I loosen my seatbelt and surreptitiously unzip my jeans. I start to feed the nappy down the front of my knickers, whilst simultaneously clenching my pelvic floor to prevent myself weeing on my hand, and giving darting glances in every direction like a paranoid robin. No-one seems to be looking, but I can see a pick-up truck in my rear-view mirror which will have a birds-eye view if it gets any closer…
Once I’ve stuffed as much Pampers as possible down my pants I start to work a hand down the back of my trousers in an attempt to pull the nappy through to cover the critcial area. Oh my God I can’t believe I’m doing this; I’m actually sweating. Just as I grasp the edge of the nappy and start to pull it backwards, the queue of traffic starts to move. Oh holy fuck…. My right hand wedged down my jeans, I put the car into gear and move off one-handed. In the rearview mirror I see the white pick-up move into the lane next to me, which is going at a marginally faster snails-pace than my own. Oh shit shit shit…
My foot hovering over the brake pedal, I grasp the back of the nappy and yank it several times, giving a little jump in my seat each time I do so. The pick-up draws alongside me and the queue grinds to a halt again. I just manage to evacuate my hand from my bottom before the two guys in the truck glance over and smile. Are they smiling because they’re being friendly, or because they think I’m touching myself? For fun? In a traffic jam? Oh God please get me out of this. I really need to go… Oh God I’m just going to have to do it…
You know, it’s a funny thing, trying to pee in a place you’re not supposed to. No matter how desperate you are, there’s a piece of your brain frantically shouting, “what the hell are you doing – you can’t wee there!” I wriggle on my now-padded knickers, desperately trying to relax my muscles enough to relieve my aching bladder, but not wanting to at the same time. I’m trying to calculate the capacity of a nappy, based on the three or four hours of baby-wee it holds. Can it take an adult wee? What if it bursts? Oh God I really need to go…
I’ve got an idea; I won’t have a whole wee, I’ll just let out enough to take the pain away and stop me sweating. Then I’ll hold the rest in till we get off the motorway and I can find a loo. It’ll work. I feel better about it already and I smile gleefully back at the pick-up pair. The passenger smiles back and drops me a slow, sexy wink. Oh sweet Jesus, he’s flirting with me. He really wouldn’t be doing that if he knew what was in my pants. I snap my head back to face front and give in to my poor bursting bladder. Just a teeny bit… I reap the consequences of my Kegel-laziness as the entire contents of my bladder begin to empty into the nappy. I attempt to stem the flow with pathetically weak muscles, but it’s like trying to stop Niagra with a sieve. On and on it comes. I feel the seat frantically, expecting disaster to strike at any moment, but it seems to be holding. I think I’ve risen a couple of inches off the seat, but it’s okay – it’s going to be okay.
And so the last vestiges of my dignity disappear.