To: Kate Reddy, EMF
From: Debra Richardson
Desperately trying to recruit new nanny. Anka stormed out after I confronted her over the stolen property. Jim’s mum has come up from Surrey to cover for a bit, but she has to go back Friday. Help!!!! Any ideas? Most candidates seem to require a car, all the rest are 37 w severe personality disorder demanding salary equal to editor of Vogue.
Reason to Give Up Work: Because I can’t afford to go out to work anymore!
When do we get to the fun bit of our lives? The bit where you say, “Ah! so this is what the struggle and pain was all for!”
Lunch Thurs?????
PS: Must try to put more positive spin on life. I do know there are people out there living in abject poverty w no shoes etc.
To: Debra Richardson
From: Kate Reddy
Well, I’m GLAD she’s gone. Good for you confronting her. You’ll find someone soon — don’t panic! Aussie girls are very good, I hear. Will send numbers of agencies and ask Paula if she knows anyone looking for job. Today am top dog in office. Total fluke.
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And sell the second as though it were the first
— THEN you can be a Woman, my girl!
And my reward? Trip to Germany on cut-price flight — airline called Go or Slo or No or something.
Auf Wiedersehen, pet. Can we rearrange lunch? Sorry, all love K xxxxx
To: Kate Reddy
From: Candy Stratton
O fuck. Am pregnant.
I immediately look across the office to where Candy sits. Sensing my glance she looks up from her work and gives a little wave. It’s like a child’s wave, funny and sad at the same time.
CANDY IS PREGNANT. Not just late, but pregnant. Four and a half months gone at least, according to the clinic in Wimpole Street where she went yesterday. Her cycle had been pretty irregular for a couple of years — the drugs, most probably — and she hadn’t noticed anything unusual, except a little extra weight and a tenderness in her breasts which she put down to some ambitious sex with Darren, the black-run specialist from Treasury, on her recent skiing trip.
“I’m gonna get rid of it.”
“Fine.”
We are in Corney and Barrow, perched on our usual stools overlooking the arena where the ice rink sits in winter. Candy has a flute of champagne, I have a bottle of Evian.
“Don’t do that agreeing shit when you don’t mean it, Katie.”
“I’m just saying I’ll support whatever decision you take.”
“Decision? It’s not a decision, honey, it’s a fucking disaster.”
“I just think — well, a late abortion, it’s not much fun.”
“And bringing up a kid by yourself for twenty years, that’s fun?”
“It’s not impossible, and you’re thirty-six.”
“Thirty-seven on Tuesday, actually.”
“Well, you’re running out of time.”
“I’m getting rid of it.”
“Fine.”
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“I know your nothings, Kate.”
“It’s just that I think you could really regret it, that’s all.”
She grinds out her cigarette and lights up another. “There’s this place in Hammersmith. Not cheap, but they do them real late, no questions asked.”
“Fine. I’ll come with you.”
“No.”
“Well, I’m not letting you go by yourself.”
“It’s not a baby shower, it’s a fucking abortion.”
I study my friend’s face. “What if it cries?”
“What are you, Katie, some kind of pro-life nut?”
“It has been known for a fetus to cry at that stage of development. I know you’re tough, but that would kill me.”
“Can we get another glass over here?” She gestures to the barman. “So, go on, explain it to me.”
“What?”
“Kids.”
“I can’t. You have to feel it for yourself.”
“Come on, Kate, you can sell anything to anybody. Try.”
The look on her face. Such a Candy look, defiant and bruised at the same time, the look of a seven-year-old who has fallen out of a tree she’s been told not to climb and doesn’t want to cry even though it really hurts. I want to put my arms round her, but she’d bat a hug away rather than let on how much she needs it. The only way to get her to buy anything is to make it sound like an opportunity she’d be a fool to turn down.
“You know the two days when I gave birth to my babies?”
She nods.
“Well, if I could only keep two days from the whole of my life, those are the days I would keep.”
“Why?”
“Awe.”
“Awe?” Candy detonates one of her big bad laughs. “You can’t drink, you can’t smoke, you can’t go out nights, your tits look like two dead rodents, your pussy’s stretched wider than the fucking Holland Tunnel and she offers me awe. Jeez, what are the other highlights, Mom?”
No deal. “I have to go now, Cand. E-mail me the date and time and I’ll meet you there.”
“I’m getting rid of it.”
“Fine.”
25 Back to School
7:41 A.M. “Okay, Emily, let’s go. Quick now. Mummy’s going to be late. Lunch box? Good. Library books? No. No, you can’t have plaits. Just no. Teeth? Oh, for heaven’s sake. Quickly do teeth please. Hurry up. And take the toast out of your mouth first. It’s not toast? I don’t want you eating Easter egg. . Well, Daddy shouldn’t have said that. I am not horrible. OK, let’s go.”
First day back after the school holidays and the children are as bolshie and febrile as ponies before a gymkhana. Emily is using that goo-goo baby talk she regresses to when I’ve been away or am about to go again. It drives me mad.
“Mama, who’s your best character in Bear an da Big Blue House?”
“I don’t know. Er, Tutter.”
“But Ojo is my bestest.” Emily crumples in disbelief at my treachery.
“People don’t have to like the same things, Em. It’s good to like different things. For instance, Daddy likes silly Zoe on breakfast TV, and Mummy really doesn’t care for Zoe at all.”
“She’s not called Zoe, she’s Chloe,” says Rich, not bothering to look up from the TV. “And for your information, Chloe has a degree in anthropology.”
“Is that why she feels the need to go naked from the waist up?”
“But why don’t you like Ojo, Mama?”
“I do like Ojo, Em, I think he’s totally fantastic.”
“She’s not naked, she just has remarkable self-supporting breasts.”
“She’s not a boy. Ojo’s a girl.”
8:01 A.M. I am bundling Em out of the house when Rich, who is still in a T-shirt and boxers, mooches into the hall and wonders when it would be convenient for him to go on a five-day wine-tasting course in Burgundy.
Burgundy? Five days? Leaving me alone with the children and the markets bucking like the Disneyland roller coaster?
“I can’t believe you’re asking me that now, Rich. Where on earth did you get such an idea?”
“You. You gave it to me for Christmas, Katie. My present, remember?”
Oh, God, it’s all coming back to me now. A moment of intense guilt masquerading as generosity. Must learn to suppress those till the impulse passes. I tell Rich that I’ll think about it, smile and file under TO BE FORGOTTEN.