Bea leans over. “And what about getting a fruit crate delivered? My god-sister owns an organic orchard in Somerset. You can get apples and…other fruits. Whatever’s in season. Plums?”
“What’s a ‘god-sister’?” asks Jonathan.
“Claire, make a note,” says Geri, nodding at my pad.
Fruit crate, I write. God-sister. Plums?
“Okay, so! Accounts! Over to Justin, please, with the figures from the second quarter.” Geri passes a sheaf of spreadsheets around. I don’t bother taking one: I never got to grips with the accounts bit, and certainly don’t plan to start engaging now.
“I think we should order the Bumper Scrumper box.” Bea passes her phone to Geri, who flashes a smile of acknowledgment, and dispatches it immediately back down the table. “Shall I just order it now,” says Bea, “while I’ve got all the information here?” She turns to Justin the accountant with an outstretched palm. “Jasper, please may I have the credit card?”
He looks at her, appalled.
“Doesn’t ‘scrumping’ mean ‘stealing’?” I say, to try and defuse the swelling tension.
“Bea, my love,” says Geri, “Claire’s going to look into it after the meeting and we’ll discuss and come back to you later, okay?” The phone comes whizzing down the table to me.
I write, Bumper Scrumper, and note the cost, which justifies the “scrumper” bit: twenty pounds for “an average of 15 apples” is pure daylight robbery.
“Look! The farm’s called B. Organic,” says Bea.
“Take it away, please, Justin!” says Geri.
Justin clears his throat.
“It’s a pun, like as in ‘be organic.’ But also, guess what the B is short for? Claire,” Bea persists in a stage whisper.
I shake my head—Shut up—but she takes it to mean I give up.
She points to herself, and beams. “B-E-A.”
“Column one: you’ll notice gross profit is down on the last quarter,” Justin begins, glaring at me, which is preposterously unjust.
“Isn’t that cool?” says Bea, and I give her a desperate thumbs-up.
“Claire, please,” says Geri. “Sorry, Justin, go ahead.”
At her side, Jonathan’s printout rises too late to disguise his smirking mouth.
Experience
This lunchtime crowd of suited male youngsters teeming from the entrance of my bank’s HQ had better be schoolchildren on a field trip. I may not be sitting on a vast fortune, but I do think it’s fair to expect that the people entrusted with my entire worldly savings are old enough to, at the very least, shave.
Love in the city
Today it seems as though every person I pass is trying to lock eyes with every person they pass, in the hope they’ll recognize the One among the masses; also, that the One will recognize them too.
Baby talk
In a new bar with a halfhearted and confused theme (light-up globes, old wooden tennis racquets, oversize keys) comes bottle after bottle after bottle of white wine, which started off sour and stringent but has developed a mellow pineapple-ish flavor in the drinking. The conversation has tacked this way and that, growing more confessional as sobriety ebbs.
“I’ll tell if you do,” Rachel says.
“No way!” says Lauren. “All right, fuck it. Fifty.”
“As in fifty thousand?” I clatter my glass down with more force than intended, soaking both hands and cuffs with wine. To save money, I skipped dinner and the inevitable consequences are now taking their toll. “As in that’s what you, personally, earn: fifty thousand pounds. To yourself, every year. Wow.”
Lauren clarifies, “Before tax. What, does that seem a lot to you?”
“Are you kidding? Why? What do you make?” I ask Rachel.
She twirls her glass by the stem. “Not as much. Forty-seven.”
I wring my hands to dry them. “Forty-seven!” My voice, shrill with shock, can’t get any higher.
“I earn way less than my school friends, though,” she adds. “They’re all making sixty, seventy plus. Actually, Fran’s raking in seventy, aren’t you?”
Fran nods, blushes, sheepish.
“I don’t want to say what I was making,” I say. “Where did I go so wrong?” I turn to Lauren. “I thought you got paid a pittance like me. When did you start raking in the big bucks?”
“I suppose I just stuck around long enough. Don’t get me wrong — I don’t love it there, but it’s nice to know these years haven’t been wasted, that I’m actually worth something tangible. Does that make sense?”
—
Later (one bottle, two, whatever: keeping track is pointless and boring) the talk turns, inevitably, to babies.
“Rob and I are trying,” Lauren says and clamps a hand to her mouth. “I shouldn’t have said that. We’re not meant to be telling anyone!” she squeaks through her fingers.
I dutifully join the oh-my-God chorus, then Fran leans in. “So are we! I’m not meant to tell anyone either, but”—she clutches fingers with me and Rachel—“I have to tell my girls!”
There follows an onslaught: Since when? How often? Was it weird the first time? How did you know you were ready? et cetera. It’s like virginity all over again; now, as then, I have little to contribute. I don’t even know the right questions to ask.
“You’re very quiet, Claire,” says Rachel. “If you weren’t knocking back the wine, I’d wonder if you were already on the way. When do you think you and Luke will? This could be the perfect time without a job to worry about, no?”
“Except a job is precisely what I’m worried about.”
“Okay, so here’s what you should do: get a job in management consultancy, put in a year or two max, then get pregnant just in time to enjoy your corporate maternity package. Problem solved!” says Fran.
“How does that solve my problem? The whole point is that I want to find a job that means something — and please, before anyone says anything, I know motherhood is meaningful, and I know it’s a job. But is the best use of my skills and time really producing another human who will only grow up to disappoint me the way I’ve clearly disappointed my parents? Aren’t there enough people already?” I exhale and cover one eye with one hand, stare at the table, dab at stray grains of salt with the other. “Oh God, I’ve totally hijacked this. Sorry, sorry, I think it’s lovely you’re ready to start families, honestly. And I don’t not want to have children. I just…” I take a few breaths. “How can I bring another life into the world when I don’t know what I’m doing with my own?”
“Babe,” breathes Lauren.
“Anyway, I’m barren.”
“Oh what?” says Fran. “Shit, sorry. We didn’t know.”
“Well, not officially, but I know. You know? Isn’t it exactly the sort of thing I’d be?”
Someone puts their hand on mine, strokes the back with their thumb.
“We love you, Claire. We’re here for you — you know that,” says Fran, as more hands pile on.
I feel ludicrous, like a sad Disney princess consoled by a coterie of cheerful woodland fauna.
“So, to sum up: babies! Yay!” I shake my fists by my shoulders and look up to a trio of lopsided smiles: everyone’s too far gone to disguise their concern. “Hey! What are you all still doing here? Go on, go home and get procreating!”