[ebooktalk] And the other one

• From: "David Russell" <david.russell8@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
• To: <ebooktalk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
• Date: Thu, 9 May 2013 09:54:28 +0100

Attached is the earlier Allison Pearson book.

I don't know how she does it
I don't know
how she
does it


A Comedy about Failure, a Tragedy about Success


by


Allison Pearson


CHATTO & WINDUS
London
Published by Chatto & Windus 2002

2468 109 7 5 3
Copyright The Allison Pearson 2002


Allison Pearson has asserted her right under the Copyright. Designs
and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work


This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade

or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without

the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that

in which it is published and without a similar condition including this 
condition

being imposed on the subsequent purchaser


First published in Great Britain in 2002 by

Chatto & Windus

Random House, 20 Vauxhall Bridge Road,
London SW1V 2SA


Random House Australia (Pty) Limited

20 Alfred Street, Milsons Point, Sydney,

New South Wales 2061, Australia


Random House New Zealand Limited
18 Poland Road, Glenfield,
Auckland 10, New Zealand


Random House (Pty) Limited
Endulini, 5A Jubilee Road, Parktown 2193, South Africa


The Random House Group Limited Reg. No. 954009
www.randoiiihouse.co.uk


A C1P catalogue record tor this book
is available from the British Library
ISBN 0 7011 7302 5 (hb)
ISBNO 7011 7373 4 (tpb)


Papers used by Random House are natural, recyclable products

made from wood grown in sustainable forests; the manufacturing processes

conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin


Printed and bound in Great Britain by
Mackavs of Chatham Pic
for evie,
with love
Juggle: v. & n. v. 1 intr. perform feats of dexterity, esp by
tossing objects in the air and catching them, keeping several in the
air at the same time. 2 tr. continue to deal with (several activities)
at once, esp with ingenuity. 3 intr. & tr. (foil by 'with) a deceive
or cheat, b misrepresent (facts), c rearrange adroitly, n. 1 a piece of
juggling. 2 a fraud.

Concise Oxford Dictionary


The wheels on the bus go round and round,
Round and round, round and round,
The wheels on the bus go round and round,
All day long.


The babies on the bus go Waah Waah Waah,
Waah Waah Waah, Waah Waah Waah,
The babies on the bus go Waah Waah Waah,
All day long.


The mummies on the bus go Shh Shh Shh,
Shh Shh Shh, Shh Shh Shh,
The mummies on the bus go Shh Shh Shh,
All day long.

Trad.
Part One
1


Home


1.37 am: How did I get here? Can someone please tell me
that? Not in this kitchen, I mean in this life. It is the morning
of the school carol concert and I am hitting mince pies. No, let
us be quite clear about this, I am distressing mince pies, an
altogether more demanding and subtle process.

Discarding the Sainsbury luxury packaging, I winkle the pies
out of their foil cups, place them on a chopping board and bring
down a rolling pin on their blameless, floury faces. This is not
as easy as it sounds, believe me. Hit the pies too hard and they
drop a kind of fat-lady curtsy, skirts of pastry bulging out at the
sides and the fruit starts to ooze. But with a firm, downward
motion -- imagine enough pressure to crush a small beetle -- you
can start a crumbly little landslide, giving the pastry a pleasing
home-made appearance. And home-made is what I'm after
here. Home is 'where the heart is. Home is where the good
mother is, baking for her children.

All this trouble because of a letter Emily brought back from
school ten days ago, now stuck on the fridge with a Tinky
Winky magnet, asking if'parents could please make a voluntary
contribution of appropriate festive refreshments' for the
Christmas party they always put on after the carols. The note is
printed in berry red and at the bottom, next to Miss Empson's
signature, there is a snowman wearing a mortar board and a shy
grin. But do not be deceived by the strenuous tone of
informality or the outbreak of chummy exclamation marks!!!
Oh, no. Notes from school are written in code, a code buried
so cunningly in the text that it could only be deciphered at
Bletchley Park or by guilty women in the advanced stages of
sleep deprivation.


3
Take that 'word parents, for example. When they write
'parents' what they really mean, what they still mean, is
mothers. (Has a father who has a wife on the premises ever read
a note from school? Technically, it's not impossible, I suppose,
but the note will have been a party invitation and, furthermore,
it will have been an invitation to a party that has taken place at
least ten days earlier.) And 'voluntary'? Voluntary is teacherspeak
for 'On pain of death and/or your child failing to gain a
place at the senior school of your choice'. As for 'appropriate
festive refreshments', these are definitely not something bought
by a lazy cheat in a supermarket.

How do I know that? Because I still recall the look my own
mother exchanged with Mrs Frieda Davies in 1974, when a
small boy in a dusty green parka approached the altar at Harvest
Festival with two tins of Libby's cling peaches in a shoe box.
The look was unforgettable. It said, what kind of sorry slattern
has popped down to the Spar on the corner to celebrate God's
bounty when what the good Lord clearly requires is a fruit
medley in a basket with cellophane wrap? Or a plaited bread.
Frieda Davies's bread, manoeuvred the length of the church by
her twins, was plaited as thickly as the tresses of a Rhinemaiden.

'You see, Katharine,' Mrs Davies explained later, doing that
disapproving upsneeze thing with her sinuses over teacakes,
'there are mothers "who make an effort like your mum and me.
And then you get the type of person who' -- prolonged sniff --
'doesn't make the effort.'

Of course, I knew who they were. Women Who Cut
Corners. Even back in 1974, the dirty word had started to
spread about mothers who went out to work. Females who
wore trouser suits and even, it was alleged, allowed their
children to watch television while it was still light. Rumours of
neglect clung to these creatures like dust to their pelmets.

So, you see, before I was really old enough to understand
what being a woman meant, I already understood that the
world of women was divided in two: there were proper
mothers, self-sacrificing bakers of apple pies and well-scrubbed
invigilators of the twin-tub, and there were the other sort. At
the age of thirty-five, I know precisely which kind I am, and I
suppose that's what I'm doing here in the small hours of 13th
December, hitting mince pies with a rolling pin till they look
like something mother made. Women used to have time to
make mince pies and had to fake orgasms. Now we can manage
the orgasms, but we have to fake the mince pies. And they call
this progress.

'Damn. Damn. Where has Paula hidden the sieve?'

'Kate, what do you think you're doing? It's two o'clock in
the morning.'

Richard is standing in the kitchen doorway "wincing at the
light. Rich with his Jermyn Street pyjamas, washed and
tumbled to Babygro bobbliness. Rich with his acres of English
reasonableness and his fraying kindness. Slow Richard, my
American colleague Candy calls him, because work at his
ethical architecture firm has slowed almost to a standstill and it
takes him half an hour to take the bin out and he's always telling
me to slow down.

'Slow down, Katie, you're like that funfair ride. What's it
called? The one where the screaming people stick to the side so
long as the damn thing keeps spinning?'

'Centrifugal force.'

'I know that. I meant what's the ride called?'

'No idea. Wall of Death?'

'Exactly.'

I can see his point. I'm not so far gone that I can't grasp there
has to be more to life than forging pastries at midnight. And
tiredness. Deep-sea diver tiredness, voyage to the bottom of
fatigue tiredness; I've never really come up from it since Emily
was born, to be honest. Five years of walking round in a lead
suit of sleeplessness. But what's the alternative? Go into school
this afternoon and brazen it out, slam a box of Sainsbury's finest
down on the table of festive offerings? Then, to the Mummy
Who's Never There and the Mummy Who Shouts, Emily can
add the Mummy Who Didn't Make an Effort. Twenty years
from now, when my daughter is arrested in the grounds of
Buckingham Palace for attempting to kidnap the King, a
criminal psychologist will appear on the news and say: 'Friends
trace the start of Emily Shattock's mental problems to a school
carol concert where her mother, a shadowy presence in her life,
humiliated her in front of her classmates.'


'Kate? Hello?'

'I need the sieve, Richard.'

'What for?'

'So I can cover the mince pies with icing sugar.'

'Why?'

'Because they are too evenly coloured and everyone at
school will know that I haven't made them myself, that's why.'

Richard blinks slowly like Stan Laurel taking in another fine
mess. 'Not why icing sugar. Why cooking, Katie, are you mad?
You only got back from the States three hours ago. No one
expects you to produce anything for the carol concert.'

'Well, / expect me to.' The anger in my voice takes me by
surprise and I notice Richard flinch. 'So, where has Paula
hidden the sodding sieve?'

Rich looks older suddenly. The frown line, once an amused
exclamation mark between my husband's eyebrows, has
deepened and 'widened without my noticing into a five-bar
gate. My lovely, funny Richard, who once looked at me as
Dennis Quaid looked at Ellen Barkin in The Big Easy and now,
thirteen years into an equal, mutually supportive partnership,
looks at me the way a smoking beagle looks at a medical
researcher: aware that such experiments may need to be
conducted for the sake of human progress, but still somehow
pleading for release.

'Don't shout,' he sighs, 'you'll wake them.' One candy
striped arm gestures upstairs where our children are asleep.
'Anyway, Paula hasn't hidden it. You've got to stop blaming
her for everything, Kate. The sieve lives in the drawer next to
the microwave.'

'No, it lives right here in this cupboard.'

'Not since 1997 it doesn't. Darling, please come to bed. You
have to be up in five hours.'
Seeing Richard go upstairs, I long to follow him, but I can't
leave the kitchen in this state. I just can't. The room bears signs
of heavy fighting; there is Lego shrapnel over a wide area and a
couple of mutilated Barbies - one legless, one headless - are
having some kind of picnic on our tartan travel rug, which is
still matted with grass from its last outing on Primrose Hill in
August. Over by the vegetable rack, on the floor, there is a heap
of raisins which I'm sure was there the morning I left for the
airport. Some things have altered in my absence: half a dozen
apples have been added to the big glass bowl on the pine table
that sits next to the doors leading out to the garden, but no one
has thought to discard the old fruit beneath and the pears at the
bottom have started "weeping a sticky amber resin. As I throw
each pear in the bin, I shudder a little at the touch of rotten
flesh. After washing and drying the bowl, I carefully wipe any
stray amber goo off the apples and put them back. The whole
operation takes maybe seven minutes. Next, I start to swab the
drifts of icing sugar off the stainless steel worktop, but the act of
scouring releases an evil odour. I sniff the dishcloth. Slimy with
bacteria, it has the sweet sickening stench of dead-flower water.
Exactly how rancid would a dishcloth have to be before someone
else in this house thought to throw it away?

I ram the dishcloth in the overflowing bin and look under
the sink for a new one. There is no new one. Of course, there
is no new one, Kate, you haven't been here to buy a new one.
Retrieve old dishcloth from the bin and soak it in hot water
with a dot of Dettol. All I need to do now is put Emily's wings
and halo out for the morning.

I have just turned off the lights and am starting up the stairs
when I have a bad thought. If Paula sees the Sainsbury's cartons
in the bin, she will spread news of my Great Mince Pie forgery
on the nanny grapevine. Oh, hell. Retrieving the cartons from
the bin, I wrap them inside yesterday's paper, and carry the
bundle at arm's length out through the front door. Looking
right and left to make sure I am unobserved, I slip them into the
big black sack at the front of the house. Finally, with the evidence
of my guilt disposed of, I follow my husband up to bed.
Through the landing window and the December fog, a
crescent moon is reclining in its deckchair over London. Even
the moon gets to put its feet up once a month. Man in the
Moon, of course. If it was a Woman in the Moon, she'd never
sit down. Well, would she?


I take my time brushing my teeth. A count of twenty for
each molar. If I stay in the bathroom long enough Richard
will fall asleep and will not try to have sex with me. If we don't
have sex, I can skip a bath in the morning. If I skip the bath, I
will have time to start on the e-mails that have built up while
I've been away and maybe even get some presents bought on
the way to work. Only ten shopping days to Christmas, and I
am in possession of precisely nine gifts, which leaves twelve to
get plus stocking fillers for the children. And still no delivery
from KwikToy, the rapid online present service.

'Kate, are you coming to bed?' Rich calls from the bedroom.
His voice sounds slurry with sleep. Good.

'I have something I need to talk to you about. Kate?'

'In a minute,' I say. 'Just going up to make sure they're OK.'

I climb the flight of stairs to the next landing. The carpet is

so badly frayed up here that the lip of each step looks like the

dead grass you find under a marquee five days after a wedding.

Someone's going to have an accident one of these days. At the

top, I get my breath back and silently curse these tall, thin

London houses. Standing in the stillness outside the children's

doors, I can hear their different styles of sleeping -- his piglet

snufflings, her princess sighs.

When I can't sleep and, believe me, I would dream of sleep
if my mind weren't too full of other stuff for dreams, I like to
creep into Ben's room and sit on the blue chair and just watch
him. My baby looks as though he has hurled himself at unconsciousness,
like a very small man trying to leap aboard an
accelerating bus. Tonight, he's sprawled the length of the cot
on his front, arms extended, tiny fingers curled round an invisible
pole. Nestled to his cheek is the disgusting kangaroo that he
worships; a shelf full of the finest stuffed animals an anxious
parent can buy and what does he choose to love? A cross-eyed
marsupial from the Woolies remainder bin. Ben can't tell us
when he's tired yet, so he simply says Roo instead. He can't
sleep without Roo because Roo to him means sleep.

It's the first time I've seen my son in four days. Four days,
three nights. First there was the trip to Stockholm to spend
some face time with a jumpy new client, then Rod Task called
from the office and told me to get my ass over to New York
and hold the hand of an old client who needed reassuring that
the new client wasn't taking up too much of my time.

Benjamin never holds my absences against me. Too little still.
He always greets me with helpless delight like a fan windmilling
arms at a Hollywood premiere. Not his sister, though. Emily is
five years old and full of jealous wisdom. Mummy's return is
always the cue for an intricate sequence of snubs and
punishments.

'Actually, Paula reads me that story.'

'But I want Dadda to give me a bath.'

Wallis Simpson got a warmer welcome from the Queen
Mother than I get from Emily after a business trip. But I bear
it. My heart sort of pleats inside and somehow I bear it. Maybe
I think I deserve it.

I leave Ben snoring softly, and gently push the door of the
other room. Bathed in the candied glow of her Cinderella light,
my daughter is, as is her preference, naked as a newborn.
(Clothes, unless you count bridal or princess wear, are a constant
irritation to her.) When I pull the duvet up, her legs
twitch in protest like a laboratory frog. Even when she was a
baby Emily couldn't stand being covered. I bought her one of
those zip-up sleep bags, but she thrashed around in it and blew
out her cheeks like the God of Wind in the corner of old maps,
till I had to admit defeat and gave it away. Even in sleep, when
my girl's face has the furzy bloom of an apricot, you can see the
determined jut to her chin. Her last school report said: 'Emily
is a very competitive little girl and will need to learn to lose
more gracefully.'
'Remind you of anyone, Kate?' said Richard and let out that
trodden-puppy yelp he has developed lately.

There have been times over the past year when I have tried
to explain to my daughter -- I felt she was old enough to hear
this -- why Mummy has to go to work. Because Mum and Dad
both need to earn money to pay for our house and for all the
things she enjoys doing like ballet lessons and going on holiday.
Because Mummy has a job she is good at and it's really
important for women to work as well as men. Each time the
speech builds to a stirring climax - trumpets, choirs, the tearful
sisterhood waving flags - in which I assure Emily that she will
understand all this when she is a big girl and wants to do
interesting things herself.

Unfortunately, the case for equal opportunities, long established
in liberal Western society, cuts no ice in the fundamentalist
regime of the five-year-old. There is no God but
Mummy, and Daddy is her prophet.

In the morning, when I'm getting ready to leave the house,
Emily asks the same question over and over until I want to hit
her and then, all the way to work, I want to cry for having
wanted to hit her.

'Are you putting me to bed tonight? Is Mummy putting me
to bed tonight? Are you? Who is putting me to bed tonight?
Are you, Mum, are you?'

Do you know how many ways there are of saying the
word no without actually using the word no? I do.


Must Remember

Angel wings. Quote for new stair carpet. Take lasagne out of freezer
for Saturday lunch. Buy kitchen roll, stainless steel special polish
thingy, present and card for Harry's party. How old is Harry? Five?
Six? Must get organised with well-stocked present drawer like proper
mother. Buy Christmas tree and stylish lights recommended in Telegraph 
(Selfridges or Habitat? Can't remember. Damn). Nanny's
Christmas bribe/present (Eurostar ticket? Cash? DKNY?). Emily
wants Baby Wee-Wee doll (over my d. body). Present for Richard
(Wine-tasting? Arsenal? Pyjamas?), in-laws book - The Lost Gardens


10
of Somewhere? Ask Richard to collect dry-cleaning. Office party what
to wear? black velvet too small. Stop eating NOW. Fishnets lilac. Leg
wax no time, shave instead. Book stress-busting massage. Highlights
must book soonest (starting to look like mid-period George Michael).
Pelvic floor squeeeeze! Supplies of Pill!!! Ice cake (Royal icing? - chk
Delia). Cranberries. Mini party sausages. Stamps/or cards Second class
x 40. Present for E's teacher? And, whatever you do, wean Ben off
dummy before Xmas with in-laws. Chase KwikToy, useless mail order
present company. Smear test NB. Wine, Gin. Vinsanto. Ring Mum.
Where did I put Simon Hopkinson 'dry with hairdryer' goose recipe?
Stuffing? Hamster???


n
2 Work


6.37 am: 'O, come let us a door him. O, come let us a door
him. O, come let us a door hi-mmm!' I am stroked, tugged
and, when that doesn't work, finally Christmas-carolled awake
by Emily. She is standing by my side of the bed and she wants
to know where her present is. 'You can't buy their love,' says
my mother-in-law, who obviously never threw enough cash at
the problem.

I did once try to come home empty-handed from a business
trip, but on the way back from Heathrow I lost my nerve and
got the cab to stop at Hounslow where I dived into a
Toys'>£I'Us, adding a toxic shimmer to my jet lag. Emily's
global Barbie collection is now so sensationally slutty, it can
only be a matter of time before it becomes a Tracey Ernin
exhibit. Flamenco Barbie, AC Milan Barbie (soccer strip, dinky
boots), Thai Barbie - a flexible little minx who can bend over
backwards and suck her own toes - and the one that Richard
calls Klaus Barbie, a terrifying iiber-blonde with sightless blue
eyes in jodhpurs and black boots.

'Mummy,' says Emily, weighing up her latest gift with a
connoisseur's eye, 'this fairy Barbie could wave a wand and
make the Little Baby Jesus not be cross.'

'Barbie isn't in the Baby Jesus story, Emily.'

She shoots me her best Hillary Clinton look, full of noble,
this-pains-me-more-than-you condescension. 'Not that Baby
Jesus,' she sighs, 'Another one, silly.'

You see, what you can buy from a five-year-old when you
get back from a client visit is, if not love or even forgiveness,
then an amnesty of sorts. Entire minutes when the need to
blame is briefly overcome by the need to rip open a package in


12
a tantrum of glee. (Any working mother who says she doesn't
bribe her kids can add Liar to her CV.) Emily now has a gift to
mark each occasion of her mother's infidelity -- playing away with her career - 
just as my mum got a new charm for her
bracelet every time my father played away with other women.
By the time Dad walked out when I was thirteen, Mum could
barely lift the golden handcuff on her wrist.

I'm lying here thinking things could be a lot worse (at least
my husband is not an alcoholic serial adulterer) when Ben
totters into the bedroom and I can hardly believe what I'm
seeing.

'Oh God, Richard, what's happened to his hair?'

Rich peers over the top of the duvet, as though noticing his
son, who will be one in January, for the first time. 'Ah. Paula
took him to that place by the garage. Said it was getting in his
eyes.'

'He looks like something out of the Hitler Youth.'

'Well, it will grow back, obviously. And Paula thought, and
I thought too, obviously, that the whole Fauntleroy ringlet
thing -- well, it's not how kids look these days, is it?'

'He's not a kid. He's my baby. And it's how I want him to
look. Like a baby.'

Lately, I notice Rich has adopted a standard procedure for
dealing with my rages. A sort of bowed-head, in-theevent-ofnuclear-attack
submissive posture, but this morning he can't
suppress a mutinous murmur.

'Don't think we could arrange an international conference
call with the hairdresser at short notice.'

'And what's that supposed to mean?'

'It just means you've got to learn to let go, Kate.' And with
one practised movement, he scoops up the baby, swipes the
gangrenous snot from his tiny nose and heads downstairs for
breakfast.


7.15 am: The change of gear between work and home is so
abrupt sometimes that I swear I can hear the crunch of mesh in
my brain. It takes a while to get back on to the children's


13
wavelength. Brimming with good intentions, I start off in Julie
Andrews mode, all tennis-club enthusiasm and mad, singsong
emphases.

'Now, children, what would you like for break-fast today?' Emily and Ben humour 
this kindly stranger for a while until
Ben can take no more of it and stands up in his highchair,
reaches out and pinches my arm as though to make sure it's me.
Their relief is plain as, over the next frazzled half-hour, the ratty
bag they know as Mummy comes back. 'You're having
Shreddies and that's it! No, we haven't got Fruitibix. I don't
care what Daddy let you have.'

Richard has to leave early. A site visit with a client in
Battersea. Can I do the handover with Paula? Yes, but only if I
can leave at 7.45 on the dot.


7.57 am: And here she comes, flourishing the multiple
excuses of the truly unapologetic. The traffic, the rain, the
alignment of the stars. You know how it is, Kate. Indeed, I do.
I cluck and sigh in the designated sympathy pauses while my
nanny makes herself a cup of coffee and flicks without interest
through my paper. To point out that in the twenty-six months
Paula has been our children's carer she has managed to be late
every fourth morning would be to risk a row, and a row would
contaminate the air that my children breathe. So no, there
won't be a row. Not today. Three minutes to get to the bus,
eight minutes' walk away.


8.27 am: I am going to be late for work. Indecently,
intrepidly late. Bus lane is full of buses. Abandon bus. Make
lung-scorching sprint down City Road and then cut across
Finsbury Square where my heels skewer into the forbidden
grass and I attract the customary loud Oy! from the old guy
whose job it is to shout at you for running across the grass.
'Oy, Miss! Cancha go round the outside like everyone else?'
Being shouted at is embarrassing, but I am beginning to
worry that a small, shameful part of me really likes being called
Miss in a public place. At the age of thirty-five, with gravity and


H
two small children dragging you down, you have to take your
compliments where you can. Besides, I reckon the short cut
saves me two and a half minutes.


8.47 am: One of the City's oldest and most distinguished
institutions, Edwin Morgan Forster stands at the corner of
Broadgate and St Anthony's Lane; a nineteenth-century fortress
with a great jutting prow of twentieth-century glass, it looks as
though a liner has crashed into a department store and come
out the other side. Approaching the main entrance, I slow to a
trot and run through my kit inspection.

Shoes, matching, two of? Check.

No baby sick on jacket? Check.

Skirt not tucked into knickers? Check.

Bra not visible? Check.

OK, I'm going in. Stride briskly across the marble atrium and
flash my pass at Gerald in security. Since the revamp eighteen
months ago, the lobby of Edwin Morgan Forster, which used
to look like a bank, now resembles one of those zoo enclosures
designed by Russian constructivists to house penguins. Every
surface is an eyeball-piercing Arctic white except the back wall,
which is painted the exact turquoise of the Yardley gift soap
favoured by my Great Aunt Phyllis thirty years ago, but which
was described by the lobby's designer as an 'oceangoing colour
of vision and futurity'. For this piece of wisdom, a firm which
is paid to manage other people's money handed over an
unconfirmed $750,000.

Can you believe this building? Seventeen floors served by
four lifts. Divide by 430 employees, factor in six button
pushing ditherers, two mean bastards who won't hold the door
and Rosa Klebb with a sandwich trolley and you either have a
possible four-minute wait or take the stairs. I take the stairs.

Arrive on Floor 13 with fuschia face and walk straight into
Robin Cooper-Clark, our pinstriped Director of Investment.
The clash of odours is as immediate as it is pungent. Me: Eau
de Sweat. Him: Floris Elite with under-notes of Winchester
and walnut dashboard.


15
Robin is exceptionally tall and it is one of his gifts that he
manages to look down at you "without actually looking down
on you, without making you feel in any way small. It came as
no surprise to learn in an obituary last year that his father was a
bishop with a Military Cross. Robin has something both saintly
and indestructible about him: there have been times at EMF
when I have thought I would die if it weren't for his kindness
and lightly mocking respect.

'Remarkable colour, Kate, been skiing?' Robin's mouth is
twitching up at the corners and on its way to a smile, but one
bushy grey eyebrow arches towards the clock above the dealing
desk.

Can I risk pretending that I've been in since seven and just
slipped out for a cappuccino? A glance across the office tells me
that my assistant Guy is already smirking purposefully by the
water cooler. Damn. Guy must have spotted me at exactly the
same moment because, across the bowed heads of the traders,
phones cradled under their chins, over the secretaries and the
European desk and the Global Equities team in their identical
purple Lewin's shirts, comes the Calhng-All-Superiors voice of
my assistant. 'I've put the document from Bengt Bergman on
your desk, Katharine,' he announces. 'Sorry to see you've had
problems getting in again.'

Notice that use of the word 'again' -- the drop of poison on
the tip of the dagger. Little creep. When we funded Guy Chase
through the European Business School three years ago, he was
a Balliol brainache with a four-piece suit and a personal hygiene
deficit. He came back wearing charcoal Armani and the expression
of someone with a Master's in Blind Ambition. I think I
can honestly say that Guy is the only man at Edwin Morgan
Forster who likes the fact that I have kids. Chickenpox,
summer holidays, carol concerts - all are opportunities for Guy
to shine in my absence. I can see Robin Cooper-Clark looking
at me expectantly now. Think, Kate, think.

It is possible to get away with being late in the City. The key
thing is to offer what my lawyer friend Debra calls a Man's
Excuse. Senior managers who would be frankly appalled by the


16
story of a vomiting nocturnal baby or an AWOL nanny
(mysteriously, childcare, though paid for by both parents, is
always deemed to be the female's responsibility) are happy to
accept anything to do with the internal combustion engine. 'Tire car broke 
down/was broken into.' 'You should have seen the -- fill in scene of mayhem -- 
at the --fill in street.' Either of these will
do very well. Car alarms have been a valuable recent addition
to the repertoire of male excuses because, although displaying
female symptoms - hair-trigger unpredictability, high-pitched
shrieking -- they are attached to a Man's Excuse and can be
taken to a garage to be fixed.

'You should have seen the mess at Dalston Junction,' I tell
Robin, composing my features into a mask of stoic urban
resignation and, with outstretched arms, indicating a whole
vista of car carnage. 'Some maniac in a white van. Traffic lights
out of sync. Unbelievable. Must have been stuck there, oh,
twenty minutes.'

He nods: 'London driving almost makes one grateful for
Network Southeast.'

There is a heartbeat of a pause. A pause in which I try to ask
about the health of Jill Cooper-Clark, who was diagnosed with
breast cancer in the summer. But Robin is one of those
Englishmen equipped from birth with an early-warning system
which helps them to intercept and deflect any incoming
questions of a personal nature. So, even as my lips are forming
his wife's name, he says, Till get Christine to fix a lunch for us,
Kate. You know they've converted some cellar by the Old
Bailey - serving up lightly grilled witness, no doubt. Sounds
amusing, don't you think?'

'Yes, I was just wondering how--'

'Splendid. Talk later.'


By the time I reach the haven of my desk, I've regained my
composure. Here's the thing: I love my job. It may not always
sound like it, but I do. I love the blood-rush when the stocks I
took a punt on deliver the goods. I get a kick out of being one
of the handful of women in the Club Lounge at the airport,


i?
and, when I get back, I love sharing my travel horror stories
with friends. I love the hotels with room service that appears
like a genie and the prairies of white cotton that give me the
sleep I crave. (When I was younger I wanted to go to bed with
other people; now I have two children my fiercest desire is to
go to bed with myself, preferably for twelve hours straight.)
Most of all I love the work: the synapse-snapping satisfaction of
being good at it, of being in control when the rest of life seems
such an awful mess. I love the fact that the numbers do what I
say and never ask why.


9.03 am: Switch on my computer and wait for it to connect.
The network is so slow this morning it would be quicker to fly
to Hong Kong and pick up the Hang bloody Seng in person.
Type in my password - Ben Pampers - and go straight into
Bloomberg to see what the markets have been up to overnight.
The Nikkei is steady, Brazil's Bovespa is doing its usual crazy
samba while the Dow Jones looks like the printout on a do
not-resuscitate patient in intensive care. Baby, it's cold outside,
and not just on account of the fog nuzzling the office blocks
beyond my window.

Next, I check currencies for any dramatic movements, then
type in TOP to call up all the big corporate news stories. The
main one is about Gayle Fender, a bond trader, or rather an ex
trader. She's suing her firm, Lawrence Herbert, for sex
discrimination because male colleagues got far bigger bonuses than she did for 
less good results. The headline reads: 'Ice
Maiden Cools Towards Men'. As far as the media is concerned,
City women are all either Elizabeth I or a resting lapdancer.
That old virgin and whore thing wrapped up in the Wall Street
Journal.

Personally, I've always fancied the idea of becoming an Ice
Maiden - maybe you can buy the outfit? Trimmed in white fur,
stalactite heels with matching pickaxe. Anyway, Gayle Fender's
story will end the way those stories always end: with a No
Comment as, eyes lowered, she leaves a courtroom by a side
door. This City smothers dissent: we have ways of making you


18
not talk. Stuffing people's mouths with 50 pounds notes tends to do
the trick.

Click on e-mails. Forty-nine arrivals in my Inbox since I was
last in the office. Skim down them, sorting out the junk first.

Free trial of a new investment magazine? Trash.

You are invited to a conference on globalisation on the
shores of Lake Geneva catered by the world-famous chef JeanLouis--.
Trash.

Human Resources want to know if I will appear in the new
EMF corporate video. Only if I get my own trailer with John
Cusack tied to the bed.

Will I sign a card for some poor bugger in Treasury who's
been made redundant? (Jeff Brooks is going voluntarily, they
say, but the compulsories will start soon.) Yes.

The message at the very top of the Inbox is from Celia
Harmsworth, Head of Human Resources. It says that my boss
Rod Task has had to pull out of the induction talk for EMF's
trainees this lunchtime and could I please step in? 'We would
be very glad to see you in the thirteenth-floor conference room
from 1 pm!'

No, no, no. I have nine fund reports to write by Friday. Plus
I have a very important nativity play to attend at 2.30 this
afternoon.

With work memos out of the way, I can get to the real emails,
the ones that matter: messages from friends, jokes and
stories handed around the world like sweets. If it's really true
what they say, that mine is the time-famished generation, then
e-mail is our guilty snack, our comfort food. It would be hard
to explain how much sustenance I get from my regular
correspondents. There's Debra, my best friend from college,
now mother of two and a lawyer with Addison Pope, just across
the way from the Bank of England and about ten minutes' walk
from Edwin Morgan Forster. Not that I ever get down there to
see her. Might as well work on Pluto. And then there's Candy.
Foul-mouthed fellow fund manager, World Wide Web whiz
and proud export of Rockaway, New Jersey, Candace Marlene
Stratton. My sister-in-arms and a woman in the vanguard of the


19
latest developments in world corsetry. My favourite character in
literature is Rosalind in As You Like It; Candy's favourite
character in literature is the guy in Elmore Leonard who wears
a T-shirt that says, 'You've Obviously Mistaken Me For
Someone Who Gives A Shit.'

Candy sits right over there, next to the pillar, fifteen feet away
from me, and yet we scarcely exchange more than a few words
out loud during an average day. On screen, though, we're in and
out of each other's minds like old-fashioned neighbours.


From: Candy Stratton, EMF

To: Kate Reddy, EMF

K8,

Q: Why are married women heavier than single women?

A: Single women come home, see what's in the fridge and go

to bed. Married women come home, see what's in bed and go

to the fridge.

How U? Me: Cystitis. Too much SX

xxxx


From: Debra Richardson, Addison Pope

To: Kate Reddy, EMF

Morning,

How was Swdn & NYC? Poor you. Felix fell off table and broke

his arm in 4 places (didn't think there were 4 places to break).

Nightmare. Spent six hours in Casualty. Good old NHS! Ruby

announced ystdy that she loves her nanny, her daddy, her

rabbit, her brother, all the Teletubbies and her mummy in that

order. Nice to know it's all worthwhile, no?

Rmbr LUNCH on Friday? Tell me yr not cancelling.

Deb xxxx


From: Kate Reddy

To: Candy Stratton

Another relaxing few days. Stockholm, New York, Hackney.

Up till dawn forging mince pies for Emily's carol concert -

don't even ask.


20
Plus Pol Pot has given Ben a hideous Nazi haircut and I daren't

complain because I was away and being away means you

surrender all rights to maternal authority. Plus, I have to

remind Rod 'Task' Master that I need to leave early today for

the concert.

Any suggestions how to do this without mentioning the words

a/ child or

b/ leave?

Love K8 xxxx

PS: What is SX? Rings vague bell.


From: Candy Stratton

To: Kate Reddy

hon, U gotta cut domstic goddss crap, look other moms in the

eye & say, I'm Busy & I'm Proud or U will be ded.

tell rod task U have major mens2ruashn si2ashn. Ozzies even

more freakd by womens trouble than Brits.

CUL8R xxxxxx


I glance across the office and see Candy swigging from a can
which she hoists aloft in a cheery toast to me. Until recently,
Candy's diet was confined to coke - the Diet kind and the
other kind -- which left her pencil-thin with prominent breasts:
this got her plenty of lovers, but not a lot of love. A year older
than me, at thirty-six Candy is congenitally single and
sometimes I envy her ability to do the most fantastic things, like
going to have a drink after work or visiting the bathroom at
weekends unaccompanied by a curious five-year-old or
coming into work hollow-eyed after being up all night having
sex instead of coming into work hollow-eyed after being up all
night with the wailing product of sex. Candy did get engaged
a couple of years back to a consultant from Andersen.
Unfortunately, she was so busy working on a final for a German
pension fund that she stood him up three dates in a row. The
third time, Bill was waiting for her in a restaurant at Smithfield
and he got talking to a nurse from Bart's at the next table. They
were married in August.


21

Candy says she's not going to worry about her fertility,
though, until Carrier start making a biological clock.


From: Kate Reddy, EMF

To: Debra Richardson, Addison Pope

DearD

So late in this a.m can't write much now. no way am i cancelling

lunch.

Why is truthful Woman's Excuse always less acceptable than

false Man's Excuse?

Puzzled, K8.


From: Debra Richardson

To: Kate Reddy

Because they don't want to be reminded that you have a life,

stupid.

C U friday.

Dxx


I decided not to approach Rod Task in person over the
question of leaving work early to get to Emily's nativity play.
Better to tag it on casually as a PS to some work e-mail. Make
it look like a fact of life, not a favour. Just got a reply.


From: Rod Task

To: Kate Reddy

Jesus, Katie, only seems like yesterday you had your own

nativity.

Sure, take the time you need, but we should talk c. 5.30. And I

need you to go to Stockholm to hold Sven's hand again. Is

Friday good for you, Beaut?

Cheers Rod


No, Friday is not good for me. I can't believe he expects me
to do another trip before Christmas. Means I will miss the office
party, have to cancel lunch with Debra again and lose the
shopping time I was counting on.

22


I
Our office is open plan, but the Director of Marketing has
one of two rooms with walls; the other belongs to Robin
Cooper-Clark. When I march in to Rod to make my protest,
the office is empty, but I stay a few moments anyway to take in
the view through the floor-to-ceiling window. Directly below
is the Broadgate rink, a dinner plate of ice set in the middle of
the staggered towers of concrete and steel. At this hour, it's
empty save for a lone skater, a tall, dark guy in a green
sweatshirt, carving out what at first I think are figures of eight
but, as he makes the long downward stroke, resolve themselves
into a large dollar sign. With the fog unfurling, the City looks
as it did during the Blitz, when smoke from the fires dispersed,
magically revealing the dome of St Paul's. Turn in the opposite
direction and you see the Canary Wharf tower winking like a
randy Cyclops.

Coming out of Rod's room, I run smack into Celia
Harmsworth, though no injury is done to either party because
I simply bounce off Celia's stupendous bust. When Englishwomen
of a certain background reach the age of fifty, they no
longer have breasts, they have a bosom or even, depending on
acreage of land and antiquity of lineage, a bust. Breasts come in
twos, but a bust is always singular. The bust denies the
possibility of cleavage or any kind of jiggling. Where breasts
say, Come and play!, the bust, like the snub-nose of a bumper
car, says, Out of my way! The Queen has a bust and so does Celia
Harmsworth.

'Katharine Reddy, always in such a hurry,' she scolds. As
Head of Human Resources, Celia is effortlessly one of the least
human people in the building; childless, charmless, chilly as
Chablis, she has this knack of making you feel both useless and
used. When I went back to work after Emily was born, I found
out that Chris Bunce, hedge fund manager and EMF's biggest
earner for the past two years, had put a shot of vodka in the
expressed breast milk I was storing in the office fridge next to
the lifts. I approached Celia and asked her, woman to woman,
what course of action she suggested taking against a jerk who,
when confronted by me in Davy's Bar, claimed that putting


23

alcohol into the food intended for a twelve-week-old baby was
"Avin a bit of a larf.'

I
can still remember the moue of distaste on Celia's face and
it wasn't for that bastard Bunce. 'Use your feminine wiles,
dear,' she said.

Celia tells me she is delighted that I can talk to the trainees at
lunchtime. 'Rod said that you could do the presentation in
your sleep. Just slides and a few sandwiches, you know the drill,
Kate. And don't forget the Mission Statement, will you?'

I make a quick calculation. If the induction lasts an hour
including drinks, say, that will leave me thirty minutes to find
a cab and get across the City to Emily's school for the start of
the nativity play. Should be enough time. Think I can make it
so long as they don't ask any damn questions.

I


i. 0i pm: 'Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, my name is
Kate Reddy and I'd like to welcome you all to the thirteenth
floor. Thirteen is unlucky for some, but not here at Edwin
Morgan Forster, which ranks in the top ten money managers in
the UK, in the top fifty globally in terms of assets and which,
for five years running, has been voted money manager of the
year. Last year, we generated revenue in excess of £300 million
which explains why absolutely no expense has been spared on the fabulous tuna 
sandwiches you see spread out before you
today.'

Rod's right. I can do this sort of stuff in my sleep; in fact, I
pretty much am doing it in my sleep, as the jet lag takes hold
and the crown of my skull starts to tighten and my legs feel as
though someone is filling them with iced water.

'You will, I'm sure, already be familiar with the term "fund
manager". Put at its simplest, a fund manager is a high-class
gambler. My job is to study the form of companies round the
world, assess the going in the markets for their products, check
out the track record of jockeys, stick a big chunk of money on
the best bet and then hope to hell that they don't fall at the first
fence.'


24
There is laughter around the room, the over-grateful
laughter of twentysomethings caught between arrogance at
securing one of only six EMF traineeships and wetting
themselves at the thought of being found out.

'If the horses I've backed do fall, I have to decide whether
we shoot them right away or whether it's worth nursing that
broken leg back to health. Remember, ladies and gentlemen,
compassion can be expensive, but it's not necessarily a waste of
your money.'

I was a trainee myself twelve years ago. Sitting in a room just
like this one, crossing and uncrossing my legs, unsure whether
it was worse to look like the Duchess of Kent or Sharon Stone.
The only woman recruit in my year, I was surrounded by guys,
big animal guys at ease in their pinstriped pelts. Not like me:
the black crepe Whistles suit I had spent my last forty quid on
made me look like a Wolverhampton schools inspector.

This year's bunch of novices is pretty typical. Four guys, two
girls. The guys always slouch at the back; the girls sit upright in
the front row, pens poised to take notes they will never need.
You get to know the types after a while. Look at Mr Anarchist
over there with the Velcro sideburns and the Liam Gallagher
scowl. In a suit today, but mentally still wearing a leather jacket,
Dave was probably some kind of student activist at college. He
read economics the better to arm himself for the workers'
struggle while morally blackmailing all the kids on his corridor
into buying that undrinkable Rwandan coffee.

Right now, he's sitting there telling himself he's just going to
do this City shit for two years, five tops. Get some serious
dough behind him, then launch his humanitarian crusade. I
almost feel sorry for him. Seven years down the line, living in
some modernist mausoleum in Notting Hill, school fees for
two kids, wife with a ruinous Jimmy Choo habit, Dave will be
nodding off in front of Cold Feet like the rest of us, with a copy
of the New Statesman unopened in his lap.

The three other guys are pink-gilled landed types with prep
school partings. The one called Julian has an Adam's apple so
overactive it's practically making cider. As usual, the girls are


25

unmistakably women, whereas the men are barely more than
boys. Between them, EMF's two female trainees cover the
spectrum of womanhood -- one is a doughy Shires girl with a
kindly bun face and a velvet headband, the daytime tiara of her
class. Clarissa somebody. Glance down the list of potted
biographies and see that Clarissa is a graduate in 'Modern
Studies' from the University of Peterborough. Pure back-office
material. Must be a niece of one of the directors; you don't get
into EMF with a degree like that unless you're a blood relation
of money.

The girl next to her looks more interesting. Born and
brought up in Sri Lanka, but educated at Cheltenham Ladies
and the LSE, one of those granddaughters of Empire who end
up more English than the English - the sweetness of their
courtesy, the decorum of their grammar. With remarkable leaf
shaped eyes that gaze steadily out through tortoiseshell specs
and a cat-like composure, Momo Gumeratne is so pretty she
should only enter the Square Mile with an armed guard.

The trainees return my appraising stare. I
wonder what they
see. Blondish hair, decent legs, in good enough shape not to be
pinned for a mother. They wouldn't guess I was Northern
either (accent ironed out when I came to study down South).
They may even be a little scared of me. The other day Rich said
that I frightened him sometimes.

'Now, I'm sure that everyone here will have seen that line
they put in tiny, bottom-row-of-the-optician's-chart print on
your bank and building society accounts? "Remember that the
value of your investment can go down as well as up!" Yes?
Well, that's me. If I pick 'em wrong, the value goes down, so
at EMF we do our very best to ensure that doesn't happen and
most of the time we succeed. I find it useful to bear in mind
when I'm selling three million dollars of airline stock, as I did
this morning, that ours is the only flutter in the world which
can leave a little old lady in Dumbarton without a pension. But
don't worry, Julian, trainees are limited in the size of the deal
they can make. We'll give you fifty grand for starters, just to get
some practice.'

I


26
Julian's cheeks flush from smoked trout to strawberry and the
doughy girl's hand shoots up: 'Can you tell me why you sold
that particular stock today?'

'That's a very good question, Clarissa. Well, I had a four
million dollar holding and the price was up and was continuing
to rise, but we'd made a lot of money already and I knew from
reading the trade papers that there was bad news coming about
airlines. So the job of fund manager is to get our clients' money
out before the price is weakened. All the time, I'm trying to
balance the good things that might happen against the Act of
An Almighty Pissed-Off God that may be lurking just around
the corner.'

In my experience, the biggest test for any Edwin Morgan
Forster trainee is not their ability to grasp the essentials of investment
or to secure a pass for the car park. No, the thing that
shows what you're really made of is if you can keep a straight
face the first time you hear the firm's Mission Statement.
Known internally as the five pillars of wisdom, the Mission
Statement is the primest corporate baloney. (By what freak of
logic did hardcore capitalists of the late twentieth century end
up parroting slogans first chanted by Maoist peasants, who were
not even permitted to own their own bicycle?)

'And our Five Pillars are:

1       /Pulling together!

2       /Mutual honesty!

3       /Best results!

4       / Client care!

5       / Committed to success!'

I can see Dave struggling manfully to suppress a smirk. Good
boy. Glance up at the clock. Shit. Time to go. 'Now, if there
are no more questions '

Damn. That other girl has her hand up now. At least you can
rely on the men not to ask a question. Even when they don't
know anything, like this lot, but especially not at my level,
when asking a question means admitting that there are still
things in the world that are beyond you.

'I'm so sorry,' the young Sri Lankan begins, as though


27

apologising for some error she has yet to commit. 'I know that
EMF has, well, as a woman, Ms Reddy, can you tell rne
honestly how do you find working in this job?'

'Well, Ms -?'

'Momo Gumeratne.'

'Well, Momo, there are sixty fund managers here and only
three of us are women. EMF does have an equal opportunities
policy and as long as trainees like you keep coming through
we're going to make that happen in practice.

'Secondly, I understand that the Japanese are working on a
tank where you can grow babies outside the womb. They
should have perfected that by the time you're ready to have
children, Ms Gumeratne, so we really will be able to have the
first lunch-hour baby. Believe me, that would make everyone
at Edwin Morgan Forster very happy.'

I assume that will stop the questions dead, but Momo is not
as mousy as I thought. Her coffee skin suffused with a blush, she
puts up her hand again. As I turn to pick up my bag, indicating
that the session is over, she starts to speak:

'I'm really sorry, Ms Reddy. But may I ask if you have
children of your own?'

No, she can't. 'Yes, the last time I looked there were two of
them. And may I suggest, Ms Gumeratne, that you don't start
your sentences with I'm sorry. There are a lot of words you'll
find useful in this building, but sorry isn't one of them. Now,
if that's all I really must go and check the markets -- winners to
pick, money to manage! Thank you for your attention, ladies
and gentlemen, and please do come up if you see me round the
building and I'll test you on our Five Pillars of Wisdom. If
you're really lucky, I'll give you my personal Pillar Number
Six.'

They look at me dumbly.

'Pillar Number Six: if money responds to your touch, then
there's no limit to what a woman can achieve in this City.
Money doesn't know what sex you are.'

28


I
2.11pm: You can always pick up a cab from the rank outside
Warburg's. Any day except today. Today the cabbies are all at
some dedicated Make Kate Late rally. After seven minutes of
not being hysterical at the kerbside, I hurl myself in front of a
taxi with its light off. The driver swerves to avoid me. I tell him
I'll double the fare on the clock if he takes me to Emily's school
without using his brakes. Lurching around in the back as we
weave through the narrow, choked streets, I can feel the pulse
points in my neck and wrist jumping like crickets.


2.49 pm: The woodblock floor in Emily's school hall was
obviously installed with the express purpose of exposing late
arriving working mothers in heels. I tick-tock in at the moment
when the Angel Gabriel is breaking the big news to the Virgin
Mary, who starts pulling the wool off the donkey sitting next
to her. Mary is played by Genevieve Law, daughter of
Alexandra Law, form representative and Mother Superior -- in
other words, defiantly non-working. There is serious competition
among the Mothers Superior to secure leading roles in
the production for their young. Trust me, they didn't give up
that seat on the board or major TV series for little Joshua to play
the innkeeper's brother in a Gap poloneck.

'A sheep was perfect for him last year,' they cry, 'but this
Christmas we really feel he could tackle something a little more
challenging.'

As the three 'wise men -- a wispy red-haired boy propelled by
two little girls -- walk across the stage with their presents for the
Baby Jesus, the hall door opens behind us with a treacherous
squeal. A hundred pairs of eyes swivel round to see a red-faced woman with a 
Tesco's carrier bag and a briefcase. Looks like
Amy Redman's mum. As she edges, cringing and apologetic,
into the back row of seats, Alexandra Law shushes her noisily.
My instinctive sympathy for this fellow creature is outweighed
almost immediately by an ugly swelling of gratitude that, thanks
to her, I am no longer the last to arrive. (I don't want other
working mothers to suffer unduly. Truly I don't. I just need to
know that we're all screwing up about the same amount.)


29
Up on stage, a wobbly wail of recorders heralds the final
carol. My angel is third from the left in the back row. On this
big occasion, Emily has the same inky-eyed concentration, the
same quizzical pucker of the brow she had coining out of the
womb. I remember she looked round the delivery room for a
couple of minutes, as if to say, 'No, don't tell me, I'll get it in
a minute.' This afternoon, flanked by fidgety boys, one of
whom plainly needs the loo, my girl sings the carol without
faltering over any of the words, and I feel a knock of pride in
my ribcage.

Why are infants performing 'Away in a Manger' in a
headlong rush so much more affecting than the entire in-tune
King's College Choir? Dig down into a bosky corner of my
coat pocket and find a hankie.


3.41 pm: At the festive refreshments, there are a handful of
fathers hiding behind video cameras, but the hall is aswarm
with mothers, moths fluttering round the little lights of their
lives. At school functions, other women always look like real
mothers to me; I never feel I'm old enough for that title, or
sufficiently well qualified. I can feel my body adopting exaggerated
maternal gestures like a mime artist. The evidence that
I am a mother, though, is holding tightly on to my left hand
and insisting that I wear her halo in my hair. Emily is clearly
relieved and grateful that Mummy made it: last year, I had to
drop out at the last minute when deal negotiations hit a critical
phase and I had to jump on a plane to the States. I brought her
a musical snow-shaker of New York, snatched up in Saks Fifth
Avenue, as a consolation present, but it was no consolation.
The times you don't make it are the ones children remember,
not the times you do.

I am anxious to slip away and call the office, but there is no
avoiding Alexandra Law, who is accepting rave notices for
Genevieve's Virgin Mary and for her own Bavarian
Lebkuchen. Alexandra picks up one of my mince pies, jabs a
dubious fingernail into the hill of icing sugar on top before
pushing the whole lot into her mouth and announcing her


30
verdict through a shower of crumbs: 'Sen-say-sh'nul mince
pies, Kate. Did you soak the fruit in brandy or grappa?'

'Oh, a dash of this and that, Alex, you know how it is.'

She nods. 'I was thinking of asking everyone to make stollen
for next year. What d'you think? Do you have a good recipe?'

'No, but I know a supermarket that does.'

'Ha-ha-ha-ha! Very good. Ha! Ha! Ha!'

Alexandra is the only woman I know who laughs as though
it was written down. Mirthless, heaving, Ted Heath shoulders.
Any second now she will ask me if I've gone part-time yet.

'So, are you working part-time now? No. Still full-time. Good heavensl I don't 
know how you do it, honestly. I say,
Claire, I was just saying to Kate, I don't know how she does it.
Do you?'


7.27 pm: The strain of being an angel has taken its toll on
Emily. She is so exhausted that I calculate I can turn over three
pages of the bedtime story without her noticing. Must get on
with that e-mail backlog. But just as I am skipping the pages, a
suspicious eye snaps open.

'Mummy, you made a mistake.'

'Did I?'

'You left out the bit where Piglet jumps in Kanga's pocket!'

'Oh dear, did I?'

'Never mind, Mummy. We can just start at the beginning
again.'


8.11 pm: The answerphone that sits on the table next to the
TV is full. Play messages. A West Country burr informs me that
KwikToy is returning my call about undelivered Christmas
presents. 'Unfortunately, owing to unprecedented demand, the
items will not now be with you until the New Year.'

Christ. What's wrong with these people?

A message from my mother comes next and takes up most of
the tape. Nervous of the technology, Mum still leaves pauses
for the person at the other end to reply. She rang to say not to


3i
worry, she will manage fine without us over Christmas:
somehow her reassurance is more piercing than any complaint
could be. It's that knockout one-two mothers have perfected
down the centuries: first they make you feel guilty and then
you feel resentful at being made to feel guilty, which makes you
feel even worse.

'I've put some books for Emily and Ben in the post and a
little something for you and Richard. I hope they'll be the right
sort of thing.' She is afraid of not pleasing in this as in so much
else.

After my mother's wan reproachfulness, it's a relief to hear
the voice of Jill Cooper-Clark wishing me a happy Christmas.
Sorry she hasn't got organised with cards this year, been a bit
dicky - laughter - although at least her new specialist looks like
Dirk Bogarde. Sends her love and asks me to give a call some
time.

Finally, I hear a voice so drained of warmth I barely recognise
it: Janine, a former broker friend. Janine gave up work last
year when her husband's firm floated on the stock market and
Graham came into the kind of wealth that buys you a yacht
called Tabitha, once owned by a cousin of Aristotle Onassis.
When Janine was still working, we used to enjoy the battle
weary camaraderie of running a home while trying to make it
across Man's Land avoiding sniper fire. These days, Janine does
afternoon classes at the Chelsea Physic Garden on how to get
the most out of your seasonal windowbox. She has winter and
summer covers for her sofas, which get changed at the correct
time of year, and lately she has arranged all the family
photographs in padded albums, which sit on the coffee table in
her drawing room exuding the mellow smells of leather and
contentment. Last time I asked Janine what she was up to, she
said, 'Oh, you know, just pottering.' No, I don't know.
Pottering and me, I don't think we've been introduced.

Janine is ringing to check if we're coming to their New
Year's Eve dinner. She's sorry to bother us. She doesn't sound
sorry. She sounds spitty with the indignation of a hostess
scorned.


32
What New Year's dinner? A few minutes of excavating the
heap on the hall table -- tandoori leaflets, dead leaves, a single
brown mitten -- turns up an unopened pile of Christmas post. I
riffle through the envelopes till I get to the one addressed in
Janine's careful copperplate. Inside, is a card photo-montage of
Graham, Janine and their perfectly untroubled children plus an
invitation to dinner. RSVP by the 10th December.

I now do what I always do on such occasions: I blame
Richard. (It doesn't have to be his fault, but someone has to be
landed with the blame, or how is life to be tolerated?) Kneeling
on the kitchen floor, Rich is making Ben a reindeer out of
cardboard and what looks like the missing brown mitten. I tell
him we are no longer even capable of turning down the events
we will be unable to attend: our social ostracism is nearly
complete. I am suddenly overcome with longing to be one of
those women who reply promptly to invitations on thick
creamy notepaper with a William Morris border. And in
fountain pen, not in some drought-stricken jade felt tip I have
raided from Emily's pencil case.

Rich shrugs. 'Come off it, Kate. You'd go mad.'

Perhaps, but it would be nice to have the choice.


11.57 pm: The bath. My favourite place on earth. Leaning
over the empty tub, I clear out the ducks and the wrecked
galleon, unstick the alphabet letters which, ever since the
vowels got flushed down the loo, have formed angry, Croat
injunctions around the rim (scrtzchk!). I peel off the crusty, half
dry Barbie flannel that has begun to smell of something I
vaguely remember as tadpole; and then, starting at one corner,
I lift up the non-slip mat whose suction cups cling on for a
second before yielding with an indignant burp.

Next, I ransack the cabinet, looking for a relaxing bath oil lavender,
sea cucumber, bergamot - but I am always out of de
stressors and have to settle for something with bubbles called
Vitality in nuclear lime. Then I run the water hotter than you
can bear; so hot that when I climb in my body momentarily
mistakes it for cold. Lie back, nostrils flaring over the surface


33
like an alligator. I look at the woman rapidly vanishing in the
steamy mirror by my side and I think this is her time, her time
alone, save for the odd, overlooked Barney the dinosaur bobbing
up suddenly between her knees with its serial-killer grin.

The bath is ancient, its porcelain riddled with grey-blue
veins. We ran out of money after doing the kitchen so the
house is in ascending order of crud: the higher up you go the
lower the standards. Kitchen by Terence Conran, sitting room
by Ikea, bathroom by Fungus the Bogeyman. But with my
contact lenses out and in candlelight, the bathroom's leprous
peeling speaks to me of some vestal Roman temple rather than
five grand's worth of absent damp course.

As the bubbles evaporate on my hands, scaly pink islets are
revealed along the knuckles. It's already got behind my right
ear. Stress eczema, the nurse at work called it. 'Can you think
of any way to relieve some of the pressures in your life, Kate?'
Oh, let's see now: a brain transplant, a Lottery win, my husband
being reprogrammed to figure out that things left at the bottom
of the stairs usually need to be carried to the top of the stairs.

Can't see how I can go on like this. Can't see how to stop
either. Can't help wondering if I was too hard on that Sri
Lankan girl at the induction today. Momo Somebody? Seemed
sweet enough. She asked me to be honest. Should I have been?
Told her that the only way to get on at EMF is to act like one
of the boys; and when you act like one of the boys they call you
abrasive and difficult, so you act like a woman, and then they
say you're emotional and difficult. Difficult being their word
for everything that's not them. Well, she'll learn.

If I'd known at her age what I know now, would I ever have
had children? I close my eyes and try to imagine a world without
Emily and Ben: like a world without music or lightning.

I sink back under the water and urge my thoughts to float
free, but they feel stuck to my brain like barnacles.


Must Remember

Talk with Paula outlining firm new approach to children's haircuts/
time-keeping etc. Talk with Rod Task outlining firm new approach to


34
role with clients, ie I AM NOT THEIR EMERGENCY
GEISHA. Pay rise: repeat after me, I Will Not Accept Extra Work
For No Extra Money! Get quote for new stair carpet. Buy Christmas
tree and stylish lights (John Lewis or Ikea?) Present for Richard (How
to be a Domestic Goddess?), in-laws (cheese barrel or alpine plants
advertised in S. Times colour supplement: where did I put the cutting?)
Stocking fillers for E&B. Fruit jellies Uncle Alf. Travel sick sweets?
Ask Paula collect dry cleaning. Personal shopper how much? Pelvic
floor squeeeeze. Make icing for Christmas cake: too late, buy roll-on
stuff. Cards stamps first class x 30. Wean Ben off dummy! Remember
Roo!! Ring KwikToy useless bloody present co. and threaten legal
action. Nappies, bottles, Sleeping Beauty video. Smear test!!!
Highlights. Hamster?


35

3 Happy Holidays

I can get myself and two children washed and dressed and
out of the house in half an hour, I can juggle nine different
currencies in five different time zones, I can make myself come
with quiet efficiency, I can prepare and eat a stand-up supper
while on the phone to the West Coast, I can read Guess How
Much I Love You? to Ben while scanning the prices on Teletext,
but can I get a minicab to take me to the airport?

As part of an ongoing programme of cutbacks, Edwin
Morgan Forster will no longer send a car to deliver me to
Heathrow. I must order my own. Last night I booked a local
minicab, which this morning failed to show. When I rang to
protest, the guy at the other end said he was very sorry but the
soonest they can get a car to me is half an hour.

'It's a busy time of day, love.'

I know it's a busy time of day. That's why I pre-booked the
cab last night.

He says he thinks he may be able to get me something in
twenty minutes. I hotly reject this insulting offer and slam
phone down. And immediately regret it as all the other
companies I call either don't have a car available or suggest an
even more disastrous waiting time.

Am frantic, "when I spot a dirty bronze card sticking out from
under the doormat. It's for a taxi company I've never heard of:
'Pegasus - Your Winged Driver.' When I dial the number, the
guy at the other end says he's coming right over. Relief is
shortlived. This being Hackney, what turns up at the door is
Pegasus - Your Stoned Driver. Parked at almost forty-five
degrees to the kerb, Pegasus's chariot is a Nissan Sunny of
impenetrable gloom hung about with veils of nicotine and


36


i


i!
«
hash. I climb in, but it's technically impossible to breathe in the
cab, so I try to roll down the window and stick my head outside
like a dog.
'Window not working,' volunteers the driver, factually and
without regret.

'And the seatbelt?'

'Not working.'

'You do realise that's illegal.'

In the rear-view mirror, Pegasus shoots me a pitying look
that instructs me to get a life.

The cab not turning up made me so tense I had this stupid,
stupid row with Richard. He found Paula's Xmas bonus
cheque which I'd hidden in Emily's lunchbox. He said he
simply couldn't understand why I spent more on the nanny's
Christmas present than on the rest of the family put together.

I tried to explain. 'Because if I don't keep Paula happy she
will leave.'

'Would that really be so bad, Katie?'

'Frankly, it would be easier if you left.'

'Ah. I see.'

I shouldn't have put it like that. Damned tiredness. Always
makes you say what you don't mean to say, even if you feel it
at the time. After that, Rich sat at the kitchen table pretending
to have found something fascinating to read in Architectural
Digest while managing to look like Trevor Howard at the end
of Brief Encounter - all chin-up decency and glittery eyes.

He wouldn't even look at me when I said goodbye. Then
Ben stood up in his high-chair and started yodelling for a hug.
No. Sorry. Not in a clean suit: the state of him! Smeared with
jam and apricot fromage frais, like his own personal sunrise.

The cab stops and starts and stops again along the Euston
Road. If this is one of London's main arteries, then London
needs a coronary bypass. Its citizens sit in their cars, hearts
furring up with fury.

Once we're past King's Cross, I open my post. There's a card
from Mum enclosing a magazine's Yuletide supplement: '26
Recipes for a Magical, Stress-Free Christmas!' Flick through


37
I

the pages in mounting disbelief. How can anything stress-tree   |Bj

involve caramelising a shallot? 3

We continue to crawl westwards, over the flyover and past       I*

the brick-pink semis, like mile upon mile of gaping dentures.   iw

When I used to live in a house like that, Christmas was still a
pretty simple affair. It was a tree, a pimply turkey, satsumas
trapped in an orange net, maybe some dates clinging gummily
together in a palm-tree canoe and a bumper tin of Quality
Street eaten by the whole family in front ofMorecambe and Wise. Your big 
present was always waiting for you downstairs next to
the tree - a doll's house, roller skates, maybe a bike with
stabilisers or a bell - and there was a stocking whose thrilling
misshapen weight your feet discovered at the end of the bed.
But Christmas, like everything else, has moved up a gear. Now
it's productions of The Nutcracker you have to book tickets for
in August, and Kelly Bronze. When I first heard the name, I
assumed Kelly was one of those inflatable Baywatch babes, but
she turns out to be the only kind of turkey that's worth eating
any more. And once you've spent an hour on the phone being
held in a queue in order to beg the supermarket to put you on
the waiting list for Kelly, you have to get the bird home and
stuff her. According to my Yuletide supplement, stuffing,
which was once stale breadcrumbs with diced onion and a
spoonful of fusty sage, has evolved into 'porcini butter with red
rice and cranberry to revive jaded palates'.

I don't believe we had palates in the Seventies: we had sweet
teeth and heartburn that you eased by sucking lozenges the
colour and texture of gravestones. It's a good joke when you
think about it, isn't it? Just as women were fleeing the role of
homemaker in their millions, there was suddenly food that was
worth cooking. Think of all the great stuff you could be
making, Kate, if you were ever in your kitchen to make it.


8.43 am: Pegasus has chosen a 'quick' back route to Heathrow.
So, with one hour twenty-two minutes to take-off, we are
sitting outside a row of halal butchers in Southall. Feel my heart
revving; foot jammed on an invisible accelerator.


38
'Look, can't you go any faster? I absolutely have to make up
time.'

A young guy in white cotton pyjamas steps out into the road
in front of us, a lamb the size of a child slung over his shoulder.
My driver brakes suddenly and from the front of the car comes
a laconic drawl: 'Last time I looked, lady, running people over
still against the law.'

Close eyes and concentrate on calming down. Things will
feel much more under control if I make efficient use of the
time: call KwikToy ('Round the Clock Fun!') on mobile to
complain about no-show of vital Christmas presents.

'Thank you for choosing KwikToy. We are sorry, you are
held in a queue. Your call will be answered shortly.' Typical.

Start to work my way through torn-out Yellow Pages list of
north London pet shops. It comes as no surprise to learn there
is a national shortage of baby hamsters, though there might be
one left in Walthamstow. Am I interested? Yes.

When I finally get through to KwikToy, a clueless operative
seems reluctant to admit they have any record of my order. Tell
him that I am a major shareholder in his company and that we
are about to review our investment.

'Aright,' he concedes, 'there has been some delivery
difficulties owing to unprecedented demand.'

I point out that the demand can hardly be described as
unprecedented.

'The birth of the little baby Jesus. Been celebrating that one
for 2,000 years. Toys and Christmas. Christmas and toys. Ring
any bells?'

'Would you be asking for a voucher, Miss?'

'No, I would not be asking for a voucher. I am asking for my
toys to be delivered immediately so my children will have
something to open on Christmas Day.'

There is a pause, a beep and an echoey shout: 'Oy, Jeff, some
posh tart's doing her nut on the phone about the Goldilocks
porridge set and the pushalong sheepdog. Whatmygonnatella?'


9.17 am: Arrive at Heathrow with time to spare. Decide to


39
I

try to make it up to the driver for yelling. Ask his name.      M

'Winston,' he offers suspiciously.      jz

'Thanks, Winston. That was a really good route. I'm Kate,       '*g

by the way. Such a great name, Winston. As in Churchill?'       jw

He savours the moment before replying: 'As in Silcott.' '||


9.26am: Barging through a choked departure lounge, I
remember something else I have forgotten. Need to call home.
Mobile not in service. Why not? Try a payphone, which eats
three pound coins and fails to connect me while repeating the
message: 'Thank you for choosing British Telecom.'

Finally get through on credit-card phone next to the
boarding desk, watched by three members of staff" in navy
uniforms.

'Richard, hello? Whatever you do, don't forget the
stockings.'

'Lingerie?'

'What?'

'Stockings. Is there a lingerie angle here, Katie? Suspenders,
black lace, three inches of creamy thigh, or are" we talking
boring old Santa gift receptacle?'

'Richard, have you been drinking?'

'It's an idea, certainly.' As he puts the phone down, I swear
I can hear Paula offering Emily a Hubba Bubba.

MY DAUGHTER IS NOT ALLOWED BUBBLE GUM.


From: Kate Reddy, Stockholm
To: Candy Stratton

Client threatening to drop us on account of worrying dip in
fund performance. Spun them a line about Edwin Morgan
Forster asset managers being like Bjorn Borg - brilliant baseline
stayers playing percentage shots and aiming for consistent
victories over the long term, not flashy burnout artists going
for quick profits and then double-faulting. Seemed to buy it.
God knows why.

Kept popping out of Bengt Bergman boardroom to Executive
Washroom, locking self in cubicle and using mobile to call pet


40
shops in Walthamstow. Up until three days ago, Emily's letters

to Santa made no mention of hamster. But suddenly upgraded

to Number One item.

Swedish clients all have names like a bad hand of Scrabble.

Sven Sjostrom kept spearing rollmops off my plate at lunch

and saying he was a passionate believer in 'closer European

union'.

Trust me to get only non-PC man in Scandinavia.

Yeurk, K8 xxxxx


From: Candy Stratton

To: Kate Reddy

Sven Will I See U Again?

Sven Will We Share Precious Moments?

go for it, hon, it will relax you!

luv Cystitis xxx


From: Kate Reddy

To: Candy Stratton

That is NOT FUNNY. Remember, I am a happily married
woman. Well, I'm married anyway.


From: Debra Richardson

To: Kate Reddy

Have just had unspeakable humiliation at hands - or rather

mouth - of hateful school secretary at Piper Place (i know, i

know, should stop this education madness). Yes, Ruby could be

assessed for a place for 2002, 'But I must warn you Mrs

Richardson that there are over a hundred little girls on our list

and we have a strong siblings policy.'

Do you have any Semtex? These smug cows have got to be

stopped.

What's new??


From: Kate Reddy

To: Debra Richardson

Have not put Em down for school yet. By the time I get round


41
to it, will probably have to have sex with the headmaster to
have any chance of getting her in ... More pressing problem:
two days to wean Ben off dummy cos mother-in-law thinks
dummy is tool of the devil, only used by gypsies or chainsmoking
lowlifes who 'park children in front of the video'.
What else supposed to do with children in Yorkshire?
Have found hamster for Emily. Apparently female hamsters v.
bad-tempered and sometimes bite or eat their young. Now
why would that be?


2.17 am: Blizzard. Flight home delayed. Precious seconds set
aside for last-minute shopping in London being eaten up. Scour
Stockholm airport shop for Christmas presents. Which would
Rich prefer? Wind-dried reindeer or seasonal video entitled: Swedish Teen 
Honeys in the Snow? Still refusing to buy Emily
vulgar, messy Baby Wee-Wee as seen on breakfast TV.
Compromise on the local Swedish Barbie-type doll wholesome
individual, probably a Social Democrat, wearing
peacekeeper khaki.


Christmas Eve, Offices of Edwin Morgan Forster I should have known where my pay 
negotiations were going
when Rod Task came round the back of my chair, air-patted
my shoulder three times like a vet preparing a cat for a jab and
described me as 'a highly valued member of the team'. It 'was
mid-afternoon, the dregs of the day, and the sky over
Broadgate was the colour of tea.

Rod explained that there would be no bonus this year: the
bonus I have been counting on to finish the building work on
the house and for so much else. Times were tough for everybody,
he said, but the really great news was they were giving
me a major new challenge.

'We think you're the person to do client-servicing, Katie,
'cos you do it so damn well. Anyway, you got the best legs.'

A short, burly Aussie, with a voice other guys use to get the
attention of a bartender, Rod first heaved his bulk over from


42
Sydney to join EMF as Director of Marketing three and a half
years ago. Brought in to put some lead in the English firm's
propelling pencil. I really thought that I'd have to leave. There
was his inability to look me in the eye -- and not just because
I'm two inches taller than him -- the way he would comment
on parts of my body as though they were on special offer, his
habit of ending every meeting with an injunction to 'Get out
there and kick the fucking tyres!' After a few weeks, when
Candy sweetly asked Rod for an English translation of this
phrase, he looked perplexed for a few seconds, then gave a
broad grin: 'Screw the client for every penny you can!'

So I was going to have to leave. But then Emily hit the
Terrible Twos and I bought a book called Toddler Taming. It
was a revelation. The advice on how to deal with small, angry
immature people who have no idea of limits and were constantly
testing their mother applied perfectly to my boss. Instead
of treating him as a superior, I began handling him as though
he were a tricky small boy. Whenever he was about to be
naughty, I would do my best to distract him; if I wanted him
to do something, I always made it look like it was his idea.

Anyway, Rod says that from today I assume responsibility for
the Salinger Foundation. Based in New York. Chief Executive
by the name of Jack Abelhammer. Two hundred million dollar
business, needs someone of my calibre. I'll be able to familiarise
myself with the portfolio over the holidays, of course, plus I
will continue to babysit all my old clients while Rod finds the
right person to take over a few of them.

I ask Rod what Abelhammer is like.

'Good swing.'

'I beg your pardon?'

'Short game needs work.'

'Oh, golf

'Whatcha think I'm talking about, Katie, sex?'


The holiday doesn't strictly begin till close of play today, but
the office is practically deserted: unofficially, we are now in the
limbo between boozy lunch and alcoholic tea. When I get back


43
to my desk, Candy is perched on the heater under the window
with her legs stretched out and resting on top of my chair. She
is wearing an amazing cantilevered scarlet blouse, purple
fishnets and there is gold tinsel in her hair.

'OK, let me guess,' she says. 'He took a crap on you and you
offered to wipe his ass?'

'Excuse me.' I grab her ankles and spin her feet off the chair.
'Actually, things went very well. Rod thinks my client
handling skills are a major asset so, as a vote of confidence, they
are giving me this big foundation all to myself.'

'Right.' When Candy laughs you get a glimpse of a mouthful
of enviable American teeth.

'Don't look at me like that.'

'Kate, a major vote of confidence round here always comes
with at least four zeros on the end of it, you know that. What
else'd he say?'

I don't have time to reply because Candy puts a finger to her
lips as Chris Bunce, bastard in residence, sways past us on his
way to the Gents with a long lunch under his belt. A major
cokehead, Bunce manages to look both skinny "and bloated.
Since I made it clear to him, quite politely, that I wasn't
interested in the contents of his boxers, the sexual tension
between us has given way to teasing skirmishes with occasional
rounds of live ammunition being fired when I get a deal that he
"wants. (Guys like Bunce see rejection as an insult that must be
repaid with compound interest, like the Third World debt.)

Candy tips her head towards his retreating figure: 'Lot of dirt
getting into EMF one way and another. D'you offer to clean
the office for them too?'

'What do you take me for? Rod said that no one was getting
a bonus.'

'And you believed him?' Candy closes her eyes and sighs a
smile. 'That's what I love about you, Kate. Smartest female
economist since Maynard Keynes and you still think when they
mug you they're doing you a favour.'

'Candy, Maynard Keynes was a man.'

She shakes her head and the tinsel sends out prickles of light.


44
'He was not. He was a fruit. Way I see it, women have to claim
all the guys in history with a strong feminine side as ours.'


6.09 pm: Packing the car for the journey up North to my
parents-in-law takes at least two hours. There is the first hour
during which Richard pieces together a pleasing jigsaw of baby
belongings in the boot. (Louis XIV travelled lighter than Ben.)
Then comes the moment when he has to find the key that
unlocks the luggage box that sits like an upturned boat on our
roof. 'Where did we put it, Kate?' After ten minutes of
swearing and emptying every drawer in the house, Richard
finds the key in the pocket of his jacket.

After Rich has told me to get the kids in the car 'right now',
there follows twenty minutes of frantic unloading as he 'just
makes sure' he has packed the steriliser which he 'knows for a
fact' he wedged next to the spare tyre. This is followed by a
furious re-packing, punctuated by 'fuck-its!', when items are
squidged on top of one another any old how and the remnants
are jammed into all available foot space front and back. The
Easi-wipe changing mat, the Easi-clip portable high-chair with
its companion piece, the vermilion Easi-assemble portacot.
Bibs, melamine Thomas the Tank Engine bowls. Sleepsuits.
Emily's blankie -- a tragic hank of yellow -wool that looks as
though it has been run over several times. We always travel
with an entire bestiary of nocturnal comforters -- Ben's beloved
Roo, a sheep, a hippopotamus in a tutu, a wombat that is an
eerie Roy Hattersley double. Ben's dummies (to be hidden
from Richard's parents at all costs). Emily's surprise hamster is
stashed in the boot.

Strapped into their seats in the back of the car like cosmonauts
awaiting blast-off, Emily and Ben's contented bickering
soon gives way to hand-to-hand combat. In a moment of
weakness -- when do I have a moment of strength? -- I have
opened the chocolate Santa dispenser meant for Christmas
morning, and given them a couple of foil-wrapped pieces each to keep them 
quiet. As a result, Emily who, fifteen minutes ago
was wearing white pyjamas, now looks like a dalmatian with a


45
dark-brown muzzle around her mouth and cocoa smudges
everywhere else.

Richard, who has a heroic indifference to the cleanliness and
general presentation of his offspring for eleven and a half
months of the year, suddenly asks me why Ben and Emily look
such a mess. What's his mother going to think?

I swipe at children with moist travel tissues. Three hours on
the Al lie ahead of us. Car is so overloaded it sways like a ship.

'Are we still in England?' demands an incredulous voice from
the back.

'Yes.'

'Are we at Grandma's house yet?'

'No.'

'But I want to be at Grandma's house.'

By Hatfield, both children are performing a fugue for scream
and "whimper. I crank up the Carols from King's tape and Rich
and I sing along gustily. (Rich is the descant specialist while I
take the Jessye Norman part.) Near Peterborough, eighty miles
out of London, a small nagging thought manages to wriggle its
way clear from the compost heap that presently comprises the
contents of my head.

'Rich, you did remember to pack Roo?'

'I didn't know I was meant to be remembering Roo. I
thought you were remembering Roo.'


like any other family, the Shattocks have their
Christmas traditions. One tradition is that I buy all the
presents for my side of the family and I buy all the presents for
our children and our two godchildren and I buy Richard's
presents and presents for Richard's parents and his brother
Peter and Peter's wife Cheryl and their three kids and Richard's
Uncle Alf who drives across from Matlock every Boxing Day
and is keen on rugby league and can only manage soft centres.
If Richard remembers, and depending on late opening hours,
he buys a present for me.

'What have we got for Dad, then?' Rich will enquire on the


46
drive up to Yorkshire. The marital we which means you which
means me.

I buy the wrapping paper and the Sellotape and I wrap all the
presents. I buy the cards and a large sheet of second-class
stamps. By the time I have written all the cards and forged
Rich's signature and "written something warm yet lighthearted
about time flying and how we'll definitely be in touch in the
New Year (a lie), it is too late for second-class mail so I join the
queue at the post office to buy first-class stamps. Then I fight
my way through Selfridges' food hall to buy cheese and those
little Florentines that Barbara likes.

And then, "when we get to Barbara and Donald's house, we
unpack the stuff from the car and we put all the presents under
the tree and the food and the drink in the kitchen and they
chorus: 'Oh, Richard, thank you for getting the wine. You
shouldn't have gone to all that trouble.'

Is it possible to die of ingratitude?


Midnight Mass, St Mary's, Wrothly

The grass on the village green is so full of ice tonight it's almost
musical: we clink and chink our way from the Shattocks' old
mill house to the tiny Norman church. Inside, the pews are
packed, the air dense and dank and flavoured with winey
breath. I know that you're meant to disapprove of the drunks
who only come to church this one time in the year, but
standing here next to Rich, I think how much I like them,
envy them even. Their noisy attempts at hush, the sense that
they've come in search of heat and light and a little human
kindness.

I hold it together, I really do, until we get to that line in 'O
Little Town of Bethlehem' when I have to press both gloves to
my eyes:

'Above thy deep and dreamless sleep the silent stars go by.'


47
Christmas Day


5.37 am, Wrothly, Yorkshire: It's still dark outside. The four of
us are in bed together in a sprawling, tentacular cuddle. Emily,
half mad with Santa lust, is tearing off wrapping paper. Ben is
playing peepo with the debris. I give Richard a packet of wind
dried reindeer, two pairs of Swedish socks (oatmeal), a five-day
wine-tasting course in Burgundy and How To Be a Domestic
Goddess (joke). Later on, Barbara and Donald will give me a
wipeable Liberty print apron and How To Be a Domestic Goddess (not joke).

Richard gives me:

1.      Agent Provocateur underwear -- red bra with raised blacksatin spots and 
demitasse cup over which nipples jut like
helmeted medieval warriors peeking above parapet. Also
a suspender/knicker device apparently trimmed with
trawlerman's netting.

2.      Membership of National Trust.
Both fall into the category of what I think of as PC presents:
Please Change. Emily gives me a fantastic travel clock. Instead
of an alarm, it has a message recorded by her: 'Wake up,
Mummy, wake up, sleepy head!'

We give Emily a hamster (female, but to be called Jesus), a
Barbie bike, a Brambly Hedge doll's house, a remote-control
robot dog and a lot of other stuff made out of plastic that she
doesn't need. Emily is thrilled with the Peacekeeper Barbie I
snatched up in Stockholm Duty Free until she opens Paula's
present: Baby Wee-Wee, which I have expressly forbidden.

Risking hysteria, we try to get most of the kids' gifts
unwrapped upstairs so that my parents-in-law will not be
appalled by the reckless metropolitan surfeit ('Throwing your


48
money about') and the outrageous spoiling of the younger
generation ('In my day, you counted yourself lucky to get a doll
with a china head and an orange').

Some things are harder to keep quiet. It's difficult to pretend
to grandparents, for instance, that your child is just an occasional
video watcher when, during breakfast, she gives a word
perfect rendition of every song from The Little Mermaid, adding
brightly that the DVD version has an extra tune. At the table, I
sense another source of conflict when I remind Emily to stop
playing with the salt.

'Emily, Grandpa asked you to put that down.'
'No, I didn't,' says Donald mildly. 'I told her to put it down.
That's the difference between my generation and yours, Kate:
we told, you ask.'

A few minutes later, standing by the Aga stirring scrambled
egg, I am suddenly aware of Barbara hovering by my side. She
finds it hard to conceal her disbelief at the contents of the
saucepan. 'Goodness, do the children like their eggs dry?'

'Yes, this is the way I always do them.'

'Oh.'

Barbara is obsessed with the food intake of my family,
whether it's the children's lack of vegetables or my own strange
unwillingness to plough through three three-course meals a
day. 'You need to build your strength up, Katharine.' And no
Shattock family gathering would be complete without my
mother-in-law pressing me into the African Violet nook next
to the pantry and hissing, 'Richard looks thin, Katharine. Isn't
Richard looking thin?'

When Barbara says thin it immediately becomes a fat word:
hefty, breathless, accusing. I shut my eyes and try to summon
reserves of patience and understanding I don't have. The
woman standing before me equipped my husband with the
DNA that gave him the lifelong figure of a biro refill, and
thirty-six years later she blames me. Is this fair? I rise above such
slights on my wifeliness, what there is of it.

'But Richard is thin,' I protest. 'Rich was skinny when we
met. That's one of the things I loved about him.'


49
'He was always slim,' concedes Barbara, 'but now there's
nothing left of him. Cheryl said as soon as she saw him get out
of the car: "Doesn't Richard look run down, Barbara?"'

Cheryl is my sister-in-law. Before she married Peter,
Richard's accountant brother, Cheryl was something in the
Halifax building society. Since she had the first of her three
boys in 1989, Cheryl has become a member of what my friend
Debra calls the Muffia -- the powerful, stay-at-home cabal of
organised mums. Both Cheryl and Barbara treat men as though
they were livestock who need careful husbandry. No Christmas
in the Shattock family would be complete without Cheryl
asking me if my Joseph cashmere roll-neck is from Bhs, or if it's
really all right that Rich should be upstairs bathing the children by himself.

Peter is a lot less help with the family than Richard, but over
the years I have come to see that Cheryl enjoys and even
encourages her husband's uselessness. Peter plays the valuable
role in Cheryl's life of The Cross I Have to Bear. Every martyr
needs a Peter who, given time, can be trained up not to
recognise his own underpants.

Things I take for granted at home in London are viewed up
here as egalitarianism gone mad. 'Somme,' says Richard in grim
triumph, walking through the kitchen holding aloft a bulging
nappy sack whose apricot scent is fighting a losing battle to
subdue the stink within. (Rich has evolved a classification
system for Ben's nappies: a minor incident is a Tant Pis, an
average load is a Croque Manure, while an all-out, seven-wipes
job is a Somme. Once, but only once, there was a Krakatoa.
Fair enough, but not in a Greek airport.)

'Of course, in our day the fathers didn't pitch in at all,' says
Barbara, flinching. 'You wouldn't get Donald going near a
nappy. He'd drive a mile to avoid one.'

'Richard's fantastic,' I say carefully. 'I couldn't manage
without him.'

Barbara takes a red onion and quarters it fiercely. 'You've got
to look after them a bit, men. Delicate flowers,' she muses,
pressing the blade down till the onion cries softly to itself. 'Can


50
you give that gravy a stir for me, Katharine?' Cheryl comes in
and starts defrosting cheese straws and vol-au-vent cases for
tomorrow's drinks party.

I feel so alone when Barbara and Cheryl are twittering
together in the kitchen, even though I'm standing right there.
I reckon this must be how it was for centuries. Women doing
the doing and exchanging conspiratorial glances and indulgent
sighs about the men. But I never joined the Muffia; I don't
know the code, the passwords, the special handshakes. I expect
a man -- my man -- to do women's work, because if he doesn't
I can't do a man's work. And up here in Yorkshire, the pride
that I feel in managing, the fact that I can and do make our lives
stay on track, if only just, curdles into unease. Suddenly I realise
that a family needs a lot of care, a lubricant to keep it running
smoothly; whereas my little family is just about bumping along
and the brakes are starting to squeal.

Richard walks back into the kitchen, minus nappy, puts his
arms round my waist, hoists me up on to the rail of the Aga,
rests his head in the crook of my neck and starts to twiddle my
hair. Just like Ben does.

'Happy, sweetheart?'

It sounds like a question, but really it's an answer. Rich is
happy here, I can tell, with the womanly bustle and the fug of
baking and me not on the phone every five minutes. 'He's a
real homebody, Richard,' says Barbara proudly.

I tell Rich, and I'm only partly joking, that he would have
been better off marrying some nice Sloane with a super line in
mince pies.

'Well I didn't, because I would have died of boredom.
Anyway,' he says, stroking my cheek and tucking a stray tendril
of hair behind my ear, 'if we need mince pies I know this
incredible woman who can fake them.'


After Christmas lunch with the Shattocks I just want to cuddle
up with Leonardo DiCaprio in Titanic on the TV, but instead
end up shadowing Ben round the sitting room as he hauls
himself up on to spindly occasional tables, chewing on lamp


5i
wires or snatching fistfuls of silvered almonds. I weigh up the
danger of denying him silvered almonds, thereby risking an
embarrassing tantrum ('Can't she even control her own
child?'), or allowing him to go ahead and choke, thereby
endangering his life and Barbara and Donald's Wilton carpet.

I manage to escape while Ben is having his nap. Lying on the
bed with my laptop, I compose an e-mail to another world.


From: Kate Reddy, Wrothly, Yorkshire
To: Debra Richardson
Dearest debs, how was it 4 U?

All the elements of the traditional English Xmas here: sausage
rolls, carols, subtle recriminations. Mother-in-law busy preparing
emergency food parcel for son neglected by callous City
bitch (Me).
You know that I always say I want to be with my children. Well,
I really want to be with my children. Some nights, if I get home
too late for Emily's bedtime, I go to the laundry basket and I
Smell Their Clothes. I miss them so much. Never told anyone
that before. And then when I'm with them, like I am now, their
need is just so needy. It's like having a whole love affair
crammed into a long weekend - passion, kisses, bitter tears, I
love you, don't leave me, get me a drink, you like him more
than me, take me to bed, you've got lovely hair, cuddle me, I
hate you.

Drained & freaked out & need to go back to work soonest for
a rest. What kind of mother is afraid of her own children?
Yrs Wrothly,
K8 xxxxxxx


I am about to hit Send, but instead I press Delete. There's
only so much you can confess, even to your dearest friend.
Even to yourself.


52
5 Boxing Day


well, we made it through the season of goodwill all
right. Except for Boxing Day lunch. I forget the
derivation of Boxing Day, but the feeling of wanting to invite
your loved ones outside one at a time and punch them in the
face, does that come into it somewhere?

Anyway, it was all my fault, Richard said, and he wasn't
\vrong exactly, but I plead gross provocation. Whenever we're
at my in-laws' house, I feel as though the children have turned
into hand grenades. Any second the pin may work loose and
they'll explode all over the eau-de-nil chaise longue or take out
an entire cabinet of Royal Worcester egg coddlers. Rich and I
scurry after them, lunging at falling ornaments, fielders in the
dying light of a doomed Test match.


12.03 pm: Today is the Shattocks' annual drinks party.
Barbara has put me on nuts duty -- cashews, pistachios, peanuts
for the older kids. Donald's money is new, he owns a chain of
sporting goods shops across the North, but he makes every
effort, as Englishmen will, to make the money look old. Like
growing moss on a freshly laid path. The boys were the first
Shattocks to go to public school, but they went to the best.

As I pour nuts into the family's little crystal finger bowls, I
think how grateful I am to be useful, while a more complicated
feeling brings a pain to my chest. Like heartburn, only I haven't
eaten yet. Christmas at the Shattocks' is hard for me: here I am
in the bosom of a relatively functional family and every Yule
from my childhood reverberates in my bones. I only have to
hear Harry Belafonte singing 'Mary's Boy Child' on Radio 2
and I'm there, with Dad lurching into the kitchen, back from


53
the pub, bearing some peace offering for my mother -- a frothy
lace nightie in the wrong size, a gold watch he'd had offa mate
on the market. My father always made an entrance like a movie
star, sucking up all the available air in the room. Julie and I were
left breathing shallowly behind the settee, praying that she'd
forgive him again, that she'd have him hack so we could have
the kind of Christmas that families were meant to have, the
kind Richard's family has.

I take some nuts through to the big L-shaped sitting room
with the french windows on to the garden. A beaming Donald
takes my arm and presents me to one of his golf chums.
Somewhere in his sixties, the man is wearing a sports jacket and
red shirt with a tie only marginally less busy than the test card.

'Jerry, can I introduce my daughter-in-law Katharine.
Katharine's a career woman, you know. Kept her own name.
Very modern.'

Jerry perks up: 'Do you travel with your work, then,
Katharine?'

'Yes, I go to the States a lot and . . .'

'So who looks after Richard when you're away?5

'Richard. I mean Richard looks after Richard. And the
children. And we have a nanny who looks after the children
and . . . Well, it all works somehow.'

Jerry nods distractedly as though I'm bringing him news of
some Minoan aqueduct. 'Oh, that's marvellous. Do you know
Anita Roddick, love?'

'No, I -'

'You've got to hand it to her, haven't you? All that hair. Very
striking for her age. And not a spare ounce on her. They often
let themselves go at that time of life, don't they?'

'Who?'

'Italians.'

'I didn't know Anita Roddick was Italian --'

'Oh, aye. There's a woman up our road, spit of the young
Claudia Cardinale before the macaroni cheese got to her. What
line did Donald say you were in?'

'I'm a fund manager, sort of investing money on behalf of


54
pension funds and companies in--'

'Can't go far wrong with the Bradford and Bingley, I always
say. Thirty-day deposit account instant access.'

'That sounds good.'

'I suppose it's your lot want us in the ruddy Euro, is it?'

'No--'

'Before you know it, Katharine, Gordon Brown'll have us
going down the Feathers with a pocket of Krautmarks. What
did we win the war for? Answer me that.'

There is a point during these conversations when the person
you are for the rest of the year, struggling to come up for air
through the layers of wrapping paper and saturated fats, finally
bursts out like the alien from John Hurt's chest.

'Actually, Jerry,' I say more loudly than I intend, 'entry to the
Euro will depend on the level of fiscal imbalances, progress in
supply-side reform and the state of the Capital Account.
Anyway, the global economy is run by Alan Greenspan and the
Federal Reserve, so really our focus should be on the US rather
than Europe.'

Jerry rears up and backs into the china cabinet which tinkles
like sleighbells. 'Well, it's been lovely talking to you, love.
Richard's a lucky lad, isn't he? I say, Barbara, your Richard's
done well for himself. Your Katharine could go on Countdown, she's got that 
good a head on her shoulders and a lovely little
face with it.'

Clutching a tumbler of medium sherry, I let myself out
through the french windows and fall gratefully into the garden's
biting air. Lower myself on to the rockery. Come on, Kate,
why did you put down that good-hearted old boy in there just
now? Showing off. Showing him I wasn't just another blonde
in a twinset. He didn't mean any harm. How's poor Jerry
supposed to know what manner of woman I am, what strange
new species? Back in London, at Edwin Morgan Forster, they
think I'm deviant for having a life outside the office. Up here,
people think I'm a freak for having a job instead of a life.

Yesterday, I told Barbara that Emily loved broccoli. I've no
idea if that's true. At EMF, on the other hand, I pretend I read


55
the FT's Lex column every day before work, although if I
actually did I wouldn't sometimes snatch those thirteen minutes
on the bus with Emily, testing her spellings, chatting, holding
hands. Double agents lie for a living.


3.12 pm: The entire family -- Donald, Barbara, the rest of the
grown-ups and assorted grandchildren - is crunching across a
field, picking its way between Friesians. A heavy frost has
turned the cowpats into doilies; the children jump on them,
liberating the evil green liquid beneath. Sky like a Brillo pad -- scouring 
clouds suddenly pierced by implausible, am-dram
spotlight of sunshine. Am just admiring the warmth it casts on
the facing hills when my mobile rings. Cows and Barbara
simultaneously open long-lashed eyes wide like Elizabeth
Taylor told to play shocked.

'What is that dreadful noise, Katharine?'

'Sorry, Barbara, it's my phone. Hello? Yes, helloT

A man's voice bounces off a satellite into the Dales. It's Jack
Abelhammer, the American client Rod gave me as a
consolation prize for not getting a pay rise. The voice is full of
Waspish scorn (Yanks can't believe the lazy Brit habit of taking
an entire week off between Christmas and New Year). I have
yet to meet Mr Abelhammer, but he sounds like he's capable of
living up to his name and I'm the one about to get nailed.

'For Chrissake, Katharine Reddy, there's no one in your
office. I've been trying for two hours. Have you seen -what's
happened to Toki Rubber Company?'

'I think I must have missed that, Mr Abelhammer. Just
remind me.' Play for time, Kate. Play for time.

EMF recently bought a big slug of shares for Abelhammer's
fund in Toki Rubber of Japan. Now it turns out that the genius
who struck the deal failed to spot that Toki Rubber owns a
small US company which manufactures cot mattresses. The
same mattresses which have been withdrawn in the States after
scientists established a possible link to cot death. Sod. Sod. Sod.

Abelhammer says that when the market opened in Tokyo
yesterday, the price collapsed by 15 per cent. Cratered. Can feel


56
my stomach plunge now by equal percentage.

'That stock came highly recommended by you,' snaps
Abelhammer. I picture him, a scowling silver tycoon in some
New York tower. 'What exactly are you going to do about it?
Miss Reddy, can you hear me?'

Spooked from their daydreams, a couple of Friesians have
wandered over for an exploratory nuzzle of my borrowed
Barbour. Whatever happens, I must not let my most important
client know I am being licked by a cow.

'Well, Mr Abelhammer, sir, what we must avoid here at all
costs is a knee-jerk reaction. Clearly, I need a few days for
further analysis. And obviously, I'll be talking to our Japanese
analyst. As you're probably aware, Roy is the best in the
business.' (A lie: analyst is Romford cokehead currently on
shag'n'vac in Dubai with pole-dancer he picked up in
Faringdon Road. Chances of getting appalling little runt out of
bed: nil.) 'And I will be calling you with a considered plan of
action.'

Across the field, into Abelhammer's chilly transatlantic
silence floats my mother-in-law's voice, clear as a cathedral bell:
'Really, these Americans, absolutely no sense of tradition.'


7.35 pm: Back at the house I am swabbing dung off Emily's
Mini Boden trousers. Lilac needlecord. (Paula seems to have
packed for a week in Florida not Yorkshire. Should have done
the suitcase myself.) Cheryl comes into the utility room and
pulls a face. Her kids were wearing brown drip-dry polyester.
'I find it terribly practical.'


2.35 am: A figure is stooping over our bed. Sit up, reach
blindly for light switch. It's my father-in-law.

'Katharine, there's a Mr Hokusai on the telephone, calling
from Tokyo. Seems very anxious to talk to you. Could you
kindly take it in the study?'

Donald's voice is frighteningly calm, as if withholding all the
things he could possibly say. As I stumble past him in my
nightie, he raises a silvery eyebrow. Catch sight of myself in the


57
hall mirror. Realise am not wearing nightie. Am wearing Agent
Provocateur bra.


3.57 am: Emily is sick. Excitement, I think: too much
Tweenies chocolate plus large and unaccustomed helping of
Mummy. I'm just off the phone to the Japanese rubber
company and slipping into bed next to a snoring Richard when
there is a cry from the neighbouring room, as though an animal
were being hunted in a dream. I go in and find Em sitting up
in bed, cupping her left ear. There is sick everywhere: over her
nightie, her duvet - oh God, Barbara's duvet - her blankie, her
sheep, her hippopotamus, even her hair. She looks up at me
with beseeching horror: Emily hates any loss of dignity.

'I feel sick, Mummy, don't let me be sick again,' she pleads.

I carry her across the landing to the bathroom and hold her
over the toilet, arching her clear of the rim as my mother always
did for me. I feel my palm cool on her forehead; feel her
stomach stiffen suddenly and then relax as what's left in there
comes out. Then, when I have undressed us both, we take a
silent bath together and I comb the cranberries from her hair.

After finding clean nightwear, changing the bed linen and
tucking Em in, I scrape the Russian salad gunk as best I can
from Barbara's duvet cover which I leave to soak in the bath,
then I lie on the floor next to my child's bed and estimate the
losses if Abelhammer is so furious that the Salinger Foundation
quits Edwin Morgan Forster. Two hundred million dollar
account. Heads will roll. And my head is not even highlighted.
No time. Emily presented me with a drawing of myself
yesterday.

'Oh, is Mummy wearing a lovely brown hat?' I exclaimed.

'No, silly, the top of your hair is brown and the bottom is
yellow.'

I'm surprised to feel big little-girl tears start to roll down my
cheeks and drip warmly into my ears.


8.51 am: Surface. Feel like a diver in lead boots. Emily is still
asleep. Touch her forehead; much cooler. Downstairs, Barbara


58
is tight-lipped in Wmdsmoor and shooting charged glances at
the kitchen clock.

'Katharine, I hope you don't think I'm speaking out of turn,
but you want to put a bit of make-up on before you come
downstairs. You don't 'want Richard thinking we've stopped
making an effort, do we? They soon cotton on to that sort of
thing, do men.'

I tell her I'm sorry, but that I've been up half the night with
Emily and I haven't really slept. I sense her eyes on me: that
cool, appraising stare she gave when Rich first brought me
home: the way you might look at a heifer in a show-ring.

'Oh, I know you're peaky at the best of times, love,' she
owns cheerfully. 'But a spot of rouge can work wonders.
Personally, I can't speak too highly of Helena Rubinstein's
Autumn Bonfire. Cup of tea?'


I didn't mean to describe myself as the main breadwinner at
Boxing Day lunch. It just came out that way. There was a
general conversation around the table about New Year's
resolutions and Donald - upright but wistful, like Bernard
Hepton in Colditz - said perhaps Katharine could work a bit
less in the coming twelve months. That would have been fine
-- gallant, sweet, caring even -- if my sister-in-law hadn't added
with a snort, 'So the kids can pick her out in an identity
parade.'

Ooqff. Clearly Cheryl had had one glass of red wine too
many, and what was required of me was to rise above it. But
after three days of enforced "wifely humility, I didn't feel able to
rise above anything. And that was when I began a sentence
with the words, 'As the main breadwinner in our house ..." A
sentence I would never finish as it happens because, when I
looked at the startled faces round the table, it seemed safer to let
it die away like a bugle call.

Donald pushed his specs up his nose and helped himself to
parsnips, which I know he can't stand. Barbara put her hand to
her throat as though to cover the puce flush of shock spreading
beneath. It couldn't have been worse if I had announced breast


59
implants or lesbianism or not liking Alan Bennett. All upsets in
the natural order.

Rich, meanwhile, was making valiant efforts to pretend I had
said bread sauce instead of breadwinner and was dispensing
lumps of that porridgey glue to his relatives. 'The trouble with
you, Kate,' he told me later in our room as he sat on the bed
while I packed a bag for my crisis meeting in London, 'is you
think that if people have the correct data they will buy your
analysis. But they don't want your data. People - parents - they
get to an age when new information is frightening, not helpful.
They don't want to know that you earn more than me. For my
father it's literally unthinkable.'

'And for you?'

He looks down at his shoelaces. 'Well, to be honest, I have
a pretty hard time with it myself


1.06 pm, 27 December: The heating has bust on the train
down to London, the windows of the empty carriage are iced
up; it's like travelling inside a giant Fox's glacier mint. I join the
queue at the buffet. My fellow Christmas refugees are all eager
for alcohol. Either they have no family or are in flight from too
much family, both of them lonely and exhilarating conditions.

I purchase four miniatures - whisky, Bailey's, Bailey's, Tia
Maria. Back in my seat for just a few seconds when I hear the
mobile chirrup in my bag. I can see from the number that it's
Rod Task. Before answering, I take the precaution of holding
the phone away from my ear.

'OK, can you explain how we bought this shitload of stock
in some fucking Jap outfit that makes fucking mattresses that
fucking kill kids? Jeezus wept, Katie. Do you hear me?'

I tell Rod that I wish I could hear him, but sadly he's
breaking up and the train's about to go into a tunnel. Press
Cancel. As I'm mixing the second Bailey's 'with the whisky, it
occurs to me that maybe the reason I got Salinger as a client was
because someone knew that Toki Rubber was about to go
belly-up and unloaded it on to me. Naive, Kate, naive.

A few seconds later, Rod rings back so that he and I can have


60
a conference call with the appalling Abelhammer in New York.
Delivering the customary reassurances to a client three and a
half thousand miles away, I watch my words rising up in steamy
rings of hot air. With a gloved finger, I scratch one word on the
frosted glass: RICH.

'Hoping for a Lottery win, are you, love?' the Scouse steward
says, pointing at the window when he comes along later to
collect my empties.

'What? Oh, Rich isn't money, I say, 'he's a man. Rich is my
husband.'


Must Remember: New Year's Resolutions

Adjust work-life balance for healthier, happier existence. Get up an
hour earlier to maximise time available. Spend more time with your
children. Learn to be self with children. Don't take Richard for granted!
Entertain more - Sunday lunch & so on. Relaxing hobby?? Learn
Italian. Take advantage of London -- theatres, Tate Modem, etc. Stop
cancelling stress-busting treatments. Start a present drawer like proper
organised mother. Attempt to be size 10. Personal trainer? Call
friends, hope they remember you. Ginseng, oily fish, no wheat. Sex?
New dishwasher. Helena Rubinstein Autumn Bonfire.


61
6 The Court of Motherhood


aliense, churchy hush fills the oak-panelled room. In
the dock stands a blonde in her mid-thirties dressed in a
white cotton nightie with a red bra clearly visible underneath.
The woman looks exhausted yet defiant. As she faces the gentlemen
of the court, she tilts her head like a gun dog that has got
the scent. Occasionally, though, when she scratches behind her
right ear, you could be forgiven for thinking she is close to tears.

'Katharine Reddy,' booms the judge, 'you appear before the
Court of Motherhood tonight charged with being a working
mother who overcompensates with material things for not
being at home with her children. How do you plead?'

'Not guilty,' says the woman.

The prosecuting counsel jumps to his feet. 'Can you please
tell the court, Mrs Shattock, I believe that is your correct name,
can you tell the court what you gave your children, Emily and
Benjamin, for Christmas?'

'Well, I can't remember exactly.'

'She can't remember,' sneers the prosecution. 'But it would
be fair to say, "would it not, that presents approaching the value
of 400 pounds were purchased?'

Tin not quite sure --'

'For two small children, Mrs Shattock. Four. Hun. Drud.
Powwnds. Am I also to understand that, having explained to      |

your daughter Emily that Santa Glaus would buy her either a
Barbie bicycle or a Brambly Hedge doll's house or a hamster in
a cage with a retractable "water bottle, you then went ahead and
gave her all of the three aforementioned items plus a Beanie
Baby she had expressed interest in during a brief stop in a petrol
station outside Newark?'


62
'Yes, but 1 bought the doll's house first and then she "wrote
to Santa and said she wanted a hamster . . .'

'Is it also true that when your mother-in-law, Mrs Barbara
Shattock, asked you if Emily liked broccoli you said that she
absolutely loved it, even though you were at that time unsure
of the answer?'

'Yes, but I couldn't possibly tell my husband's mother that I
didn't know whether my child liked broccoli.'

'Why not?'

'It's the kind of things mothers know.'

'Speak up!' demands the judge.

'I said mothers know that kind of thing.'

'And you don't?'

The woman can feel her throat constricting and when she
swallows she gets no moisture in her mouth, but a thin card
boardy coating. This, she thinks, is what it would taste like if
you were forced to eat your words. When she starts to speak
again, it is very softly.

'Sometimes I don't know what the children like,' she admits.
'I mean, the things they like change from day to day, hour to
hour even, Ben couldn't stand fish and then suddenly . . . You
see, I'm not always there when they change. But if I told
Barbara that she'd think I wasn't a proper mother.'

The prosecution turns to the jury, his long, pale face
twitching with a tight little smirk: 'Will the court please note
that the defendant prefers to tell a he rather than suffer any
embarrassment.'

The woman shakes her head fiercely. She appeals to the
judge. 'No, no, no. That is so unfair. It's not embarrassment,
Your Honour. I can't describe it. It feels like shame, a deep,
animal shame, like not being able to pick out your own hands
or face. Look, I know there's no way that Richard, he's my
husband, well there's no way that Richard would know
whether Emily liked broccoli or not, but him not knowing
seems normal. A mother not knowing feels unnatural . . .'

'Quite so,' says the judge jotting down the words 'unnatural'
and 'mother' and underlining them.


63
'Obviously,' the woman says quickly, fearing she may
already have said too much, 'obviously, I don't want to spoil
my children.'

We see her stop speaking. She appears to be thinking. Of
course, she wants to spoil her children. Desperately. She needs
to believe that, in this way at least, they're better off for her not
being with them. She wants Emily and Ben to have all the
things she never had. But she can't tell the men in the court
that. What do they know about turning up on your first day at
junior school in the wrong shade of grey jersey, because your
mum bought yours at the Oxfam shop and everyone else in the
class was in the new gunmetal range purchased from Wyatt &
Moore? Nothing. She knows they know nothing about what it
is to have nothing.

Clearing her throat, the woman attempts to find the cool,
unemotional register that experience has taught her the men
will respect: 'Why do I work so hard if not to buy my children
things that give them pleasure?'

The judge peers over his half-moon glasses: 'Mrs Shattock,
we are not concerned here with the realms of philosophical
speculation.'

'Well, maybe you should be,' the woman says, rubbing
fiercely behind her right ear. 'There's more to being a good mother than an 
in-depth knowledge of vegetable preferences.'

'Silence! Silence in court!' says the judge. 'Call Richard
Shattock.'

Oh no, please don't let them call Richard. Rich wouldn't testify
against me, would he?


64
Part Two
I


1
«l
7 Happy New Year


Monday, 5.57 am: 'Aaaannnd open the world. Aaaand close the
world. Open the world aaand close the world.'

I am standing in the middle of the living room, legs wide
apart and arms above my head. In each of my hands I hold a
ball, one of those squidgy ones that feels like a giant octopus
head. With the balls, I am required to draw a circle in the air.
'Aaaaaand open the world, aaaaand close the world.'

The person telling me to do this is a loopily cheerful fifty
something woman with a crystal on a chain round her neck; she
probably runs a protection league for animals that everybody
else would be perfectly happy to see run over -- rats, bats, stoats.
Fay is a personal trainer hired to help me with my intensive
new year relaxation and exercise programme. I got her over the
phone from the Juno Academy of Health and Fitness. Not
cheap, but I figure it will save me a lot if I can get back into my
pre-pregnancy clothes. Plus, it must work out less expensive
than joining gyms that I never have time to visit.

'The only exercise you ever get, Kate, is lifting your wallet
with all those health club membership cards in it,' says Richard.

Unfair. Unfair and true. According to conservative estimates,
my annual swim at the most recent health club, sneaked
between lunch at Conundrum and a new business pitch in
Blackfriars, worked out at ^47.50 a length.

Anyway, there I was expecting Cindy Crawford in pink
Lycra and what do I find when I open the door but Isadora
Duncan in green Loden. A windblown faery creature, my
personal trainer was sporting the kind of double-decker cape
previously only worn by Douglas Hurd as Foreign Secretary.
'The name's Fay,' she said and, from one of those carpet bags


67

that Mary Poppins keeps her hatstand in, she produced what
she called 'my Chi balls'.

Rotating the Chi balls in slow, patient circles is not exactly
"what I
had in mind. I ask if we could possibly move on and do
some work on my stomach. 'You see, I had a Caesarean and
there's this overhang of skin which just won't go away.'

Fay shivers at the interruption, fastidious as a greyhound at a
sheepdog trial. 'My approach is to the whole person, Katya. I
may call you Katya, mayn't I? You see, once we have freed up
the mind, we can move on to the body, gradually introducing
the various parts to each other until we establish a harmonious
conversation.'

'Actually,' I tell Fay with as much harmony as I can muster,
'I'm incredibly busy, so if we could just say, Hello, stomach
muscles, remember me? that would be terrific.'

'You don't have to tell me you're busy, Katya. I can see by the
weight of your head. You really have a very heavy head. A poor
stressed head. And the neck ligaments. Loose! Looose! Loooose! Barely 
supporting your poor head. And this in turn is bringing
truly intolerable pressure on to the lower lumbar region.'

And there I was thinking you paid these people to make you
feel better. After thirty minutes of Fay, I feel as though my next
appointment should be with an embalmer. Now she suggests I
lie flat on my back, extend my arms over my head and pretend
I'm lying on a rack. My mind flicks to thoughts of traitors
having secrets dragged out of them in the Tower of London at
25 quid an hour by ye olde personal torturer. According to Fay,
this exercise will realign my spine, the spine that is one of the
saddest and most misshapen Fay has ever seen.

'That's it, that's it, Katya, excellent,' she beams. 'Now, bring
your arms slowly forward over your head and repeat after me,
If we com-pete, we are not com-plete. If we com-pete, we are
not com-pleeete.'


1.01 am: Departure of Fay. Truly intolerable pressure lifts
immediately. Treat myself to bowl of Honey Nut Loops: I
cannot do exercise and self-denial in the same morning. Sitting


68

I
at the kitchen table am suddenly aware of unaccustomed sound,
a dry scratchy wireless hiss. Look round the room for its source.
It takes a few seconds to track it down: silence. The sound of
nothing is shouting in my ears. I have five minutes to myself,
drinking it in, before Emily and Ben come whooping through
the door.

After the holidays, I always sense a special edge to the
children's neediness. Far from being satisfied by the time we've
had together they seem famished, as ravenous for my attention
as newborns. It's as though the more they have of me, the more
they're reminded how much they want. (Maybe that's true of
every human appetite. Sleep begets sleep; eating makes you
hungry; fucking stokes desire.) Clearly, my kids have not
grasped the principle of Quality Time. Since we got back from
Richard's parents, every time I go out the door it's like the
Railway Children seeing their father off to jail. Ben's face is a
popped red balloon of anguish. And Emily has started doing
that hideous coughing thing in the night - she hacks and hacks
until she makes herself sick. When I mentioned it to Paula, for
reassurance, she said, 'Attention-seeking,' with a quiet note of
triumph. (Implying that attention is lacking, obviously.)

Then there are Emily's non-stop requests for me to play with
her, always at the most inconvenient times, as if she was testing
me and at the same time willing me to fail. Like this morning,
when I am desperate to get to a doctor's appointment, she
comes up and hangs on my skirt.

'Mummy, I spy with my little eye something beginning with
B.'

'Not now, Em.

'Oh, pleeeze. Something beginning with B.'

'Breakfast?'

'No.'

'Bunny rabbit?'

'No.'

'Book?'

'No.'

'I don't know, Emily, I give up.'


69
'Bideo!'

'Video doesn't begin with B.'

'It do.'

'It does.'

'It does begin with B.'

'No, it doesn't. It begins 'with V. V for van. V for volcano.
V for violent. If you choose the right letter, Emily, it saves an
awful lot of time.'

'Katie, give her a break, she's only five years old,' says
Richard, who has ambled downstairs, hair still damp from the
shower, and is now carefully cutting out a Cruella De Vil mask
from the back of a Frosties packet.

Glare across the table at him. Trust Rich not to back me up.
He is so bad at presenting a united front.

'Well, if I don't correct her, who's going to? Not those all
spellings-are-equally-valid mullahs at school.'

'Kate, it's I-Spy, for God's sake, not Who Wants To Be A
Millionaire?'

Rich, I notice, no longer looks at me as though I am merely
mad. A certain sideways flicker to the eyes and corrugating of
the brow suggests he is now weighing up how long he should
leave it before calling the ambulance.

'Everything's a competition for you, isn't it, Kate?'

'Everything is a competition, Rich, in case you hadn't
noticed. Someone wanting to smash your conker, someone
wanting a prettier special-edition Barbie, someone wanting to
take your biggest client away just to prove you couldn't handle
it.' As I unload the dishwasher, I think of Fay and her daft
mantra. What was it? 'If we compete, we are not complete.' She
should try that one in the offices of Edwin Morgan Forster. 'If
we do not com-pete, we are out on the str-eet. In the sheet.'

'Mummy, can I watch a bideo? Pleeeeze can I watch a bideo?'
Emily has climbed up on to the granite worktop and is
attaching a Barbie slide to my hair.

'How many times have I told you, we don't watch bideo,
Jesus, video, at breakfast time.'

'Kate, seriously. What you need is to slow down.'


70
'No, Richard, what I need is a helicopter. I've got an
appointment at the doctor's for which I am going to be ten
minutes late, making me even later for my conference call with
Australia. The Pegasus minicab number's on the board, can you
ring? And tell them not to send that weirdo in the Nissan
Sunny.'


richard is a nicer person than I am, anyone can see
that. But in suffering, in bitter experience, I am his
superior and I carry that knowledge like a knife. Why am I so
much tougher on Emily than he is? Because I guess I'm scared
that Rich would bring up our children to live in an England
that doesn't exist. A place where people say, 'After you' instead
of The first', a better and a kinder place, for sure, but not one
that I have ever lived in or worked in.

Rich had a happy childhood and a happy childhood is a
terrific preparation, indeed the only known apprenticeship, for
being a happy adult. But happy childhoods are no bloody good
for drive and success; misery and rejection and standing in the
rain at bus stops are the fuel for those. Consider, for instance,
Rich's tragic lack of guile, his repeated undercharging of clients
he feels sorry for, his insane optimism up to and including the
recent purchase of erotic underwear for a wife who, since the
birth of her first child, has come to the nuptial bed in a Gap
XXXL T-shirt with a dachsund motif.

Children do that to you. He is Daddy and I am Mummy and
finding the time to be Kate and Richard - to be You and Me
- well, it slipped down the agenda. Sex now comes under Any
Other Business, along with parking permits and a new stair
carpet. Emily -- she can barely have been three then -- once
found us kissing in the kitchen and turned on her parents like
Queen Victoria discovering a footman with his finger in the
port.

'Don't do that. It gives me a tummy ache,' she hissed.

So we didn't.


7i
8.17 am: Despite my specific request, Pegasus Cars has once
again sent round the Nissan Sunny. The back seat is so damp
you could start a mushroom farm in here. Tensing both thigh
muscles and buttocks and hoiking up my Nicole Farhi grey
wool skirt, I do my best to squat an inch or two above the
mildew.

When I ask the driver if he could possibly find a quicker
route to the surgery, he responds by turning the volume on the
tape-deck so high my cheekbones start to shiver in gale-force
music. (Is this gangsta rap?)

After my attempt to be friendly to Winston before
Christmas, I have no plans to talk to him again. But as I am
fighting my way out of the car door, he turns round and, on an
exhalation of yellow smoke, says: 'I hope they got something
strong enough in there to treat you with, lady.'

Bloody cheek. What does he mean by that? Things don't
improve when I get in to see the GP and ask for my annual
supply of the Pill. Dr Dobson taps his computer and the screen
starts to flash a green hazard light as though I am some devious
criminal mastermind -wanted by the CIA.

'Ah, Mrs Shattock, I see you haven't had a smear test for . . .
How long is it now?'

'Well, I did have one in '96 and you broke the slide. I mean,
they wrote and said it had broken in transit and could I come
in again. But, obviously, I'd already been in and time is very
tight, so if I could please just have my pills?'

'And there has been no time in the last four years when you
could drop in for another test?' A basset hound in human form,
Dr Dobson has that wet-eyed solicitude common to dogs and
caring professionals.

'Well, no. I mean you have to ring for an appointment and
hang on for ages because they never seem to answer the phone
and . . .'

His finger moves to a date halfway down my notes. 'And on
one occasion you failed to cancel. The 23rd of March of last
year.'

'Taiwan.'


72
'I beg your pardon?'

'I was in Taiwan. Hard to cancel when it's the middle of the
night in another hemisphere and you haven't got an hour to
hang on the phone hoping the receptionist in Drayton Lane
will pick up out of idle curiosity.'

The doctor tugs anxiously on his tie -- it is beige and
apparently woven from Shreddies. 'I see, I see,' he says, clearly
not seeing at all. 'Well, I don't think it would be sensible for me
to prescribe you another year's worth of Microgynon until
you've had your smear, Mrs Shattock. The Government, as
you may have heard, is taking a very pro-active role in cervical
health.'

'The Government thinks it would be better for me to have
another baby?'

He shakes his head sadly: 'I wouldn't put it that way. The
Government is merely keen to encourage women to avoid a
life-threatening illness with a simple test.'

'Well, if I have another baby I really will be dead.' God, I
can't believe I just said that. What do you mean by that, Kate?

'There's no need to get upset, Mrs Shattock.'

'I am not upset,' I insist, rather too shrilly. 'I'm just a very
busy woman who doesn't need any more children right at the
moment if you don't mind. So if you could please let me have
my pills.'

The doctor takes a slow, careful note with an ancient biro
that has a clump of ink snot on its nose. It gives every word it
writes a pre-smudged outline. He asks me if I have any other
symptoms.

'But I'm not ill.'

'Are you sleeping properly, how is your sleep?'

For the first time since Loopy Fay arrived at six this morning,
my features relax enough to form a smile. 'Well, I have an
eleven-month-old son with teeth coming through. Sleep
doesn't really go with the territory, does it?'

Dr Dobson returns my look, but with wary creases at the
edges - creases that act like inverted commas around the smile.
I realise that the expression on his face can properly be


73
described as long-suffering. Who is long in suffering if not a
doctor? The amount of pain he must see. Anyway, he tells me
to come in any time I feel I need to. Any time at all. Says he
will ring down to the nurse right away and see if she can fit me
in for a smear now. 'You can surely spare ten minutes?'
I surely can't, but I do.


Offices of Edwin Morgan Forster, 9.06 am

Arrive late and dying to go to the loo. Will have to wait. Need
to submit seven fund reports having talked to twelve different
managers by Wednesday. Also must present in-depth briefing
on Japanese Toki Rubber Company fiasco by Wednesday.
Then Rod Task pitches up at my desk and tells me I have to go
and salvage my career by giving blowjob to Jack Abelhammer
in New York on, why, Wednesday. Not sure the term blowjob
was actually used, but he definitely said 'on your knees, honey'.


From: Kate Reddy

To: Candy Stratton

Terrific start to the day. Smear test. Like having sex with the

Tin Man. Can't they make that damn probe out of rubber, or

would they just get sad women like me queuing up to have it

done twice a week?

Get in here sixteen minutes late and Guy is at my desk telling

everyone he's Almost Certain that Kate will be in At Some

Point. Felt like Mummy Bear and wanted to growl, Who's

been sitting in my chair? Said nothing. Wouldn't give the little

creep the satisfaction.

Plus I have to go to NYC to 'placate' client. Have never met

Jack Abelhammer, but I H8 him already.


From: Candy Stratton

To: Kate Reddy

Dear Desdemona, U shd watch Guy 'lago' Chase. Don't drop

that handkerchief, honey. He wants yr job so badly his gums

ache.


74
PS: Have fckd brainless Scarecrow and Cowardly Lion (Sat
night, Nobu), but never tried Tin Man. Able Hammer sounds
prmsng tho.


From: Kate Reddy

To: Debra Richardson

Glad to hear you're still alive after Xmas. Not sure I am. (How

can I tell?) Sorry about Felix's knee and Ruby's ear infection.

Can someone pis coin new word for holiday with children that

doesn't imply

a/ holiday

b/ rest

c/ pleasure.

helliday?

K xxxxx


2.35 pm: Just as I am going into European Group meeting,
Paula calls. Says she thinks she may have caught the sick bug
Emily had over Christmas. Is it all right if she leaves early today?
Think: No, that is Absolutely Out Of The Question, this is
your first day back at work after two whole weeks off.
Say: Yes, of course, you poor thing, you sound terrible.

I ring Richard at the office. He is in a meeting about
designing some Peace Pagoda for British Nuclear Fuels. Leave
urgent message asking if he can get home and hold the fort
soonest.


8.12 pm: Squeak home in time for Emily's bed. Bump into
Pvichard in the hall. Says no, he hasn't sorted out the new parking
permit yet. Yes, they both had their hair washed. Run upstairs.
Am desperate to make it up to her after this morning's harsh
words over I-Spy. All milky warmth, my daughter curls my hair
round her finger. 'Who is your favourite Tweenie, Mama?'

'I don't know, sweetheart.'

'Milo is the biggest.'

'Ah. What did you do at school today, love?'

'Nothing.'


75
'Oh, I'm sure you did. What did you do, Em?'

'I spy with my little eye something beginning with W.'

'Window?'

'No.'

'Wallpaper?'

'No.'

'Well, what could it be, I wonder. Wecorder?'

'Yesssss! You are clever, Mummy.'

'I try, darling. Really I do.'


Must Remember

Thank You letters. Dismember Christmas tree and hide in rubbish
bags from binmen who won't take trees away (Not part of our job,
love). Cheque for Bouncy Babies class (94 quid a term - cheaper to
enrol in astronaut training). Emily new ballet leotard (blue not pink).
Find osteopath to check out 'heavy head'. Ring Mum, return call from
sister or she will be confirmed in view am posh cow who has lost touch
with her roots. HIGHLIGHTS! Passport expiry please God no. Ask
cool friend what is gangsta rap. No cool friends. Make cool friend.
Downstairs ballcock Richard? Babysitter Sat/Weds. Pay newspaper
bill/read back issues of newspapers, call nanny temp agency if Paula
still ill. See amazing new kung-fu film -- Sitting Tiger? Sleepy
Dragon? Trim Ben's nails. Name-tags, dentist appointment, ringjuno
Academy of Fitness and book personal trainer who will contract stomach
instead of trying to expand soul. Ben birthday Teletubbies cake where?
Pelvic floor squeeeze. Return Snow White video to library! Emily
school applications GET ORGANISED. Be nicer, more patient
person with Emily so doesn't grow up to be needy psychopath.
QUOTE FOR NEW STAIR CARPET. Call Jill Cooper-Clark.
Social life: invite people Sunday lunch -- Simon and Kirsty? Alison
and Jon? Think about half-term plans. What already? Yes, already.
Swimming party on Sunday for 'Jedda' -girl or boy find out? Empty
bladder more frequently. Prepare to meet Jack Abelhammer.


76
8 Teething Troubles


Tuesday, 4.48 am: There is a scream from Ben's room. A
Hammer Horror scream. Third time tonight, or is it fourth?
Teething again. And we're already over the legal Calpol limit.
I'll probably be exposed in the News of the World as Monster
Mum Who Doped Tot For Kip. They're right to call it a
broken night -- cracked and unmendable. You crawl back to
bed and you lie there trying to do the jigsaw of sleep with half
the pieces missing. Perhaps he'll go back by himself. Please let
him go back. It's always around now, when the dark is silvery
with the first inkling of light, that you start cutting desperate
deals with God. 'Oh God, if You'll just let him go back to
sleep, I'll . . .'

I'll what? I'll be a better mother, I'll never complain again,
I'll savour every grain of sleep I get from now until my dying
day.

No, he won't go back. Benjamin's experimental are-you- there? yelps have given 
way to full-throated Pavarotti aria. (Nessun Dorma means None Shall Sleep, 
doesn't it?) The book
tells you to leave baby to cry, but Ben hasn't read the book. He
doesn't understand that after forty minutes or so of continuous
crying, baby will settle. The book says that Ben may have
attachment issues: I think he's just figured out that the Mummy
who isn't here in the day is available for nocturnal cuddles.

Brain is willing to get out of bed, but my body lags behind
like a morose teenager. Next to me, Richard lies on his back,
hands folded across his chest, exhaling king-size sighs.
Sleeping like a baby. (Where the hell did that expression
come from?)

Climbing the stairs, my legs feel encased in callipers.


77
Through the landing window I can make out the terrace of
houses at the bottom of our garden with their spooky sightless
eyes. An early riser turns on a kitchen light and the room
ignites with a saffron flare like a match. The windows offer a
pretty good view of the wealth of the people inside: our area
lies to the north-east of the City, so plenty of astute financial
types like me have moved in here and ruined ourselves doing
up damp and peeling Victorian wrecks. Our houses are the
ones with no covering at the window, their owners preferring
to rely on expensively restored shutters while our poorer
neighbours still comfort themselves with proper curtains or
hide their business behind nets like veils. In the Seventies,
couples like us tore out all the old Victorian fittings --
fireplaces, cornices, baths with a beast's gnarled claw at each
corner - in the name of modernity and now we, in the name
of a newer kind of modernity, have paid a fortune to have
them put back again. (Is it coincidence that we spend far more
than our parents ever did on the restyling and improvement of
our homes -- homes in which we spend less and less time
because we are out earning the money to pay for French
chrome mixer taps and stripped oak floors? It's as though home
had become some kind of stage set for a play in which we one
day hope to star.)

Upstairs, I find Ben rattling the bars of his cot. He grins and
extrudes a thread of spittle that bungee jumps off the end of his
chin right down to the crotch of his sleepsuit and shimmers
there, twirling in the dark.

'Hello, you. What time do you call this, eh?'

I hoist him out and, overcome by the joy of our reunion, he
tries a brand-new incisor on my neck. Oiv.

I never wanted a boy. After Emily, I suspected my body
could only make her kind and, anyway, I was more than happy
to have another girl -- beautiful, self-contained, intricate as a
watch. 'Boys are like so over,' Candy announced to a lunch for
female colleagues this time last year. My bump was so big the
wine-bar manager had to fetch a chair, because I couldn't slip
inside the booth with everyone else. We all laughed. Nervous,


78
insubordinate laughter, but tinged with triumph: the laugh of
the Celts when they knew the Romans' time was nearly up.
But then, three days later, they handed him to me in the
delivery room. Him! Something so small, faced with the vast
and implausible task of becoming a man, and I loved him.
Loved him like a shot. And he couldn't get enough of me. Still
can't. A mother of a one-year-old boy is a movie star in a world
without critics.

He's so heavy suddenly, my baby: that lithe body is filling out
with boyness. Thighs as dense and plump as a boxer's glove. I
carry him to the blue chair, hold his hand and begin to croon
our favourite song.

'Lavender's blue dilly dilly, lavender's green,

When I am King dilly dilly, You shall be Queen.'

Mothers have been singing it for centuries and still no one
has the faintest clue what it means. The singing of lullabies is a
bit like motherhood itself: something to be done instinctively
in the dark, although its purpose feels magically clear.

I sense every part of Ben relax, his weight shifting inside the
Babygro like sand until he is evenly distributed across my chest.
You have to judge the moment just right, you have to guess
\vhen doze has deepened into dream. I stand up and move
stealthily towards the cot, not letting him drop down until the
very last second. There. Hallelujah! Then, just when I'm
thinking I've got away with it, his eyes snap open. His bottom
lip trembles for a few seconds like Rick glimpsing his lost lisa
in Casablanca, then the whole mouth forms a tremulous O and
the lungs fill for a reprise of the scream.

(Babies never extend any credit. They have a tyrant's disdain
for fairness. They grant no time off for cuddles received, no
parole for long hours spent nursing in the dark. You can answer
that cry a hundred times and on the 101st they'll still have you
court-martialled for desertion.)

'All right, all right. Mummy's here. It's OK, I'm still
here.'

We go back to the blue chair, I hold Ben's hand and begin
the sleep ritual over again.


79
5.16am: Ben finally flat out.


5.36 am: Emily asks me to read a book called Little Miss Busy. No.


7.45 am: Paula back today and feeling much better, thank
God. Ask her to remember Teletubbies cake for Ben's birthday
on Friday, oh, and candles. And go easy on the biscuits in case
the other mums are crazy Sugar Ayatollahs. (Last year, Angela
Brunt issued a fatwa on raisins.) Paula asks me for a large amount
of cash, sufficient to cater Buckingham Palace garden party, but
don't dare query.


8.27 am: So out of it by the time I get to Broadgate that I pick
up two double espressos at Starbucks and down them like vodka
shots. I read somewhere that people suffering from sleep deprivation
are in what's called a hypnagogic state, a sort of purgatory
between sleeping and waking, where surreal images drift across
the brain. Like being permanently stuck in a David Lynch movie.
This could account for the fact that Rod Task is ceasing to come
across as a merely annoying Aussie bully and is starting to
resemble unblinking Dennis Hopper with madman's laugh. I sit
at my desk wearing the old pair of glasses I keep in the drawer to
give an impression of intense cerebral activity, then I select the
most mindless task available, one where making mistakes will
matter least. So long as I don't buy or sell anything I should be
OK. I have twenty-nine e-mails. Can hardly believe the first one.


From: Jack Abelhammer, Salinger Foundation

To: Kate Reddy, EMF

Katharine,

I can't tell you how relieved I am to have worked the problem

we ran into over the holidays. Clearly it was a bad time for you

too.

It's great news about Toki Rubber and the patenting of the

unbreakable prophylactic. Amazing recovery of stock. I admire

your coolness under pressure. Maybe we can celebrate when


80
you get here on Thursday? Terrific new lobster joint down the

street.

Best, Jack


From: Candy Stratton

To: Kate Reddy

What say we hit Corny & Barrw for bottle or 2 so we can get

arrestd for disordly cnduct & miss fckg stratgy mtng?

U look wreckd.

C xxxxx


From: Kate Reddy

To: Jack Abelhammer

I don't have to be drunk to be disorderly. Need to go to bed for

a week.

love and kisses K8 xxxxxx


From: Kate Reddy

To: Candy Stratton

URGENT! Tell me you just got that msg.


From: Candy Stratton
To: Kate Reddy
Wot msg?


From: Kate Reddy

To: Candy Stratton

About being drunk and disorderly. Quick. HURRY!


From: Candy Stratton

To: Kate Reddy

Srry, hon. U mst have sent to some other lucky gal.


From: Kate Reddy

To: Candy Stratton

To client in New York actually. Am dead woman. No flowers

please.


81
From: Candy Stratton

To: Kate Reddy

Holy shit. Snd anothr Right This Minute.

Dear Sir, my evil, depraved twin, also calling herself Kate

Reddy, has just sent U a crazy and offensive e-mail, please

ignore.

Anyway, don't worry. Abelhammer's American, right?

Remember we have No Sense of Humour.


3.23 pm: Team leaders start to file in for strategy meeting in
Rod Task's office. My eyelids are closing like a doll's. Only
thing keeping me awake is the thought that Jack Abelhammer
will sue for sexual harassment. Yanks are obsessed with
'inappropriate behaviour'. Still no e-mail back from him.
Hopes that he will put mine down to charming British
eccentricity are fading as fast as the daylight. Lost in a nightmare
reverie, I fail to notice the approach of Celia Harmsworth.
Extending one bony finger, the Head of Human Resources
prods the place where Ben sank his teeth in this morning. Feels
at least three life times ago.

'Something on your neck, Katharine?'

'Oh, that. The baby bit me.'

A couple of guys seated at the table start to snigger into their
Perrier. Celia gives the wintry smirk you see on the face of
the Wicked Queen when she's handing the apple to Snow
White. Make my excuses and shoot to ladies' room pursued by
Candy. Lighting is terrible in here, but the mirror reveals what
appears to be a love bite left by a teenage vampire halfway
down my neck. Try foundation. No use. Try face powder.
Damn. Bite looks angry and foaming, like an aerial view of
Mount Etna.

Candy conies in waving Touche Eclat concealer and starts to
dab it on my neck.

'Hey, did Slow Richard give you a hickey? That's terrific,
honey.'

'No, the teething baby did. My darling husband slept
through it all. But I nearly bit him to wake him up.'


82
Back in Task's office, my male colleagues are doing what they
like doing best: they are having a meeting. If this meeting goes
really well, if they drag it out long enough, then they can
reward themselves with another meeting tomorrow. With
luck, the lack of progress in Meeting One can be reviewed in
Meetings Three, Four and Five. When I first arrived as a trainee
in the City, I assumed that meetings were for making decisions;
it took a few weeks to figure out that they were arenas of
display, the Square Mile equivalent of those gorilla grooming
sessions you see on wildlife programmes. Some days, watching
the guys manoeuvre for position, I reckon I can actually hear
the bedside whisper of David Attenborough commentating on
the beating of chests and the picking of nits:

'And here, in the very heart of the urban jungle, we see
Charlie Baines, a young ape from the US Desk, as he approaches
the battle-scarred head of the group, Rod Task. Observe
Charlie's posture, the way he indicates his subservience while
desperately seeking the senior male's approval

Most women I know around here have a very low tolerance
for this kind of politicking. For obvious reasons, we miss out on
the willy-waving that goes on at the corporate urinals, and
seeking out some dandruffed drone to flatter him in a wine bar
after work does not appeal. Frankly, who has the energy? Like
the good, diligent girls we were at school, we still think that if
we do our very best and get our work done on time, then

a/ merit will have its own reward and

b/ we can be home by seven.

Well, it doesn't. And we can't.

A light vibration from the phone in my jacket pocket tells me
a text message has landed. I press View. It's from Candy.


Q: Hw many men

ds it tk

to scrw in

a lightbulb?
A: One.


83
He just holds it
& waits for the
world to        *

revolve arnd him.       e


»
3

My snort of laughter attracts hostile stares from everyone
around the table except Candy, who is pretending to take
furious notes on Charlie Baines's suggestions for something he
calls organisational amelioration.

The review of monthly reports goes on and on. I'm losing
my battle with unconsciousness again when I suddenly notice
that Rod's computer is still displaying his Christmas screen
saver. It shows a snowman gradually disappearing in a blizzard.
I think how restful it would be to be buried in snow, how
delicious to slip into its cold, accepting nothingness. Think of
Captain Gates at the South Pole: 'I am just going outside and
may be some time.'

'You've only just come back in, Katie,' snaps Rod, aiming
his Mont Blanc pen at me like a dart.

Realise that I must have spoken thoughts aloud like crazy
woman who wanders streets dressed in bin bags, giving running
commentary on her paranoid inner world.

'Sorry, Rod, it's Captain Gates. I was just quoting him.'

A roomful of fund managers swivel eyes in unison. At the far
end of the table, within licking distance of Rod, my assistant
Guy's thoroughbred nostrils flare appreciatively at the first
whiff of humiliation.

'You remember Captain Gates,' I prompt my boss, 'the one
who walked out of a tent to certain death on the Scott
expedition to the South Pole.'

'Typical bloody Porn,' snorts Rod. 'Meaningless self
sacrifice. What do they call that, Katie, honour?'

They're all looking at me now; wondering how I'm going to
get out of this one. Come on! Kate to brain, Kate to brain, are
you receiving me?

'Actually, Rod, the South Pole expedition is not a bad
management model. How about we apply it to our worst84
performing fund? The one that's sapping our resources? Maybe
the worst fund needs to take a walk in the snow.'

At the suggestion of cost-cutting, Rod's eyes take on a
viscous piggy gleam. 'Huh. Not bad, Katie, not bad. Look into
it, Guy.'

Eyes swivel away. That was a close one.


7.23 pm: Crawl home only to find Paula in a huff. A nanny
huff can descend as suddenly as sea mist and be twice as
treacherous. I can tell this is a bad one because she is actually
clearing up the kitchen. What I really want to do is collapse on
the sofa with a glass of wine and figure out if any characters I
recognise are still alive in EastEnders, which I haven't seen since
June, enough time for entire dynasties to have fallen in Albert
Square and for Phil Mitchell to have spawned at least two more
love children with his late brother's ex-wives. Instead, I have to
navigate with extreme care around the events of the day. I
praise the nutritious contents of Emily's lunchbox, I promise to
pick up some name-tags tomorrow, saying it's really no trouble
(as if); then I try a blatant cultural suck-up by mentioning a soap
star who has just given birth and is featured across seven whole
pages in Paula's new copy of Hello!

Two pregnancies have wrecked my short-term memory, but
left me with freakish, instantaneous recall of the names of all
celebrity babies. Knowing the offspring of, say, Demi Moore
and Bruce Willis (Rumer, Scout, Tallulah) or Pierce Brosnan
(Dylan, also the name of the Zeta-Jones/Michael Douglas first
sprog and of Pamela Anderson's second) may not be of any
immediate professional use, but it has lifted my stock with Paula
on several critical occasions.

'Dylan's getting to be a very popular name now,' observes
Paula.

'Yes,' I say, 'but think of Woody Allen and Mia Farrow's
little girl. She was called Dylan and ended up wanting to
change her name.'

Paula nods: 'And they called the other one something stupid
too, didn't they?'


85
'Satchel!'

'Yeah, that's it.' Paula laughs and I join her: the limitless folly
of stars being one of the great democratic pleasures. Can see the
huff is starting to lift when I stupidly push my luck and ask
Paula if she managed to find a Teletubbies cake.

'I Can't Remember Everything,' she says and sweeps out
with a swish of her invisible black cape. While the front door is
still reverberating, I discover the cause of the hufFlying open on
the worktop. The Evening Standard has a story about how much
London nannies are paid and their incredible perks - top-ofthe-range
car, private healthcare, gym membership, use of jet,
use of horse.

Horse? Thought we were doing OK by letting Paula use my
car while I take the bus. Whatever happens, I am not going to
be blackmailed into paying out more money. We are at our
absolute limit already.


8.17 pm: Tell Richard we will have to give Paula a pay rise.
Plus possible riding lessons. A terrible row follows in which
Rich points out that, after we have paid her tax and National
Insurance, Paula actually gets more than he does.

'Whose fault is that?' I say.

'What do you mean by that?'

'Nothing.'

'I know your nothings, Kate.'


Over supper, we sit within a few centimetres of each other at
the kitchen table, simmering quietly. Richard has cooked
spaghetti and put together an avocado and tomato salad. We
start a cautious conversation about the children - Ben's huge
appetite, Emily's new fixation with Mary Poppins - and I am
starting to like him again when, twiddling some spaghetti on to
his fork, he casually mentions that he made the pesto himself
this afternoon. This is simultaneously admirable and horribly
demoralising. I can't bear it.

'How did you find time to make pesto? And the plates? I
suppose you'll be taking up pottery next. Why the hell can't


86
you do something that needs doing? How about replacing the
parking permit for instance?'

'The new parking permit is in the car,' he says, 'if madam
would take a few seconds out of her schedule to look.'

'Oh, we are the ideal husband, aren't we?'

There is a screech of metal on wood as Rich scrapes his chair
away from the table: 'I give up, Kate. You ask me to do things
to help out and then when I do them you despise me for it.'

Somehow I can't formulate a reply to this. It seems both an
incredibly brutal thing to say and impossible to argue with.
Women often joke that they need a wife to take care of them,
and they mean it: we all need a wife. But don't expect us to
thank the men who assume the role of homemaker for taking
it away from us.

'Kate, we have to talk.'

'Not now, Rich, I need a bath.'


still out of bath oils. I find an old packet of lavender salts
at the bottom of the airing cupboard. It promises to 'soothe
and motivate': I add some of Ben's Pirate Pete bubbles, which
turn the water school-uniform navy.

I climb into the scalding blue lagoon and lie back with my
favourite reading matter -- in recent years, let's be honest, my
only reading matter. Better than any fiction, Jameson's Country
Property Guide is a glossy brochure crammed with photographs
of desirable properties for sale around the British Isles. We
could exchange the Hackney Heap for, say, a converted mill in
the Cotswolds or a pocket-size castle in Peeblesshire. (Where is
Peeblesshire? Sounds a bit far.) The pictures are fabulous, but
what I really like are the specifications. On page 18, there is a
house in Berkshire boasting an annexe study with a barrelled
ceiling and gardens full of mature fruit trees. What is a barrelled
ceiling? I'm not quite sure, but I want one. And mature fruit
trees! I picture myself wafting through a wood-panelled library
where there would be freshly cut blossom in tall vases on the
way to the country kitchen boasting a blend of traditional


87
cupboards and up-to-the-minute appliances. Standing next to
the Aga - not for cooking in, I would be using the Neff
double-oven for that - I would write dates on the labels of the
jelly made from apples picked from mature fruit trees in
extensive gardens while my children played contentedly in the
recessed nook upholstered in tasteful fabrics.

'Kate's porn.' That's what Richard calls the Jameson's
brochure when he comes across a copy stashed guiltily under
my side of the bed. He's got a point. All the mouthwatering
pictures, laid out for my viewing pleasure, allow you to take
possession of those lives without having to go to the trouble of
actually leading them. The more depressed I get in my own
house, the more consuming my property lust.

Thinking of Rich reminds me of our pesto fight and I wince
at my part in it. His very kindness and sanity are enough to
inspire the opposite in me. Why? Richard thinks that I indulge
Paula, that I let her get away with things no employee you
reward with generous pay and conditions should be allowed to
get away with. He thinks she's a reasonably bright twenty-fiveyear-old
girl from Kent who, while being pretty nice to our
kids, tries to take us for every penny she can. He thinks she
deliberately shrinks his socks if he asks her to do anything
outside her job description. He thinks she has too much power
in our house. He's right. But Rich doesn't worry about
childcare the way I worry: men think about childcare with
their wallets, women feel it in their wombs. Phones may have
become cordless, but mothers never will.

Me, I look at Paula and I see the person who is with my
children all the hours I'm not: a person I have to rely on to love
and to cherish and to watch out for the first symptoms of
meningitis. If she leaves the place in a mess, if she makes a petty
point of not putting the dishwasher on because it contains adult
as well as junior crockery, if she doesn't give me the correct
change from the supermarket and 'loses' the receipts, then I'm not going to 
make a fuss.

People say the trouble with professional women of my
generation is that we don't know how to behave with servants.
Wrong. The trouble with professional women of my generation
is that we are the servants -- forelock-tuggingly grateful to
any domestic help, for which we pay through the nose, while
struggling to hold down the master's job ourselves.

When I first went back to work, I put my daughter into
daycare. There's a nursery about ten minutes' walk from us,
and I liked the sunny, resilent Scotswoman who ran it. But,
gradually, things started to get to me. The Baby Room was
small and lined with twelve cots: I'd persuaded myself it was
cosy when we first went to look round, but every day I
dropped Emily off it looked more like a Romanian orphanage
styled by Habitat. When I asked Moira how the little ones
could take a nap with all the noise from the big kids next door,
she shrugged and said, 'Och, they get used to it in the end.' And
then there were the fines. If you picked up your child any later
than 6.30 from Children's Corner, they charged you 10 quid
for the first ten minutes, ^50 for any longer. I was always later
than 6.30. Shame sloshed around like bile in my stomach on the
sprint from the Tube to collect her.

Surrounded by thirty other kids, Emily picked up every
infection going. Her first winter cold ran from October
through March and her baby nose was encrusted with verdigris.
Having provided the bacteria for the infection, the nursery was
always extremely keen that you keep your sick child at home,
with no reduction in fees. I can remember hours on the phone
in work talking to temp agencies, pretending to be calling
clients, or begging help from friends. (And I hate asking for
favours: hate the feeling of being indebted.) Then, one bitter
morning, I had to drop a feverish Em off at the house of someone
who knew someone in my post-natal mother and baby
group who lived in Crouch End. At the end of the day, the
woman reported that Emily had cried constantly, save for an
hour, when they had watched a video of Sleeping Beauty that
seemed to comfort her. That day my daughter formed her first
sentence: 'Want go home.' But I was not there to hear it, nor
was I at the home where she so badly wanted to go.

So, no, Paula may not be ideal. But what is ideal? Mummy
staying at home and laying down her life for small feet to walk
over. Would you do that? Could I do that? You don't know
me very well if you think I could do that.


I get out of the bath, apply some aqueous cream to scaly pink
patches on hands, back of knees and ears, wrap myself in robe
and go into the study to check messages before bed.


From: Jack Abelhammer

To: Kate Reddy

Katharine, I don't remember mentioning drink, but disorderly

sounds great. Bed for a week could be a problem: may need to

reschedule the diary. Perhaps we should make it an oyster bar?

love Jack


Love? From a major client? Oh God, Kate. Now see what
you've gone and done.


Must Remember

Cut Ben's nails, Xmas Thank You letters? Also letter bollocking
council about failure to remove Christmas tree. Humiliate ghastly Guy
in front of Rod to show who's boss. Learn to send txt messages. Ben
birthday - find Teletubbies cake. Ballet leotard (pink not blue!).
Present -- dancing Tinky Winky or improving wooden toy? Dancing
Tinky Winky AND improving wooden toy. Emily shoes/schools/
teach her to read. Call Mum, call Jill Cooper-Clark, MUST return
sister's call -- why Julie sounding so pissed off with me? Only person in
London not seen brill new film -- Magic Tiger, Puffing Dragon? Half
term when/what? Invite friends for Sunday lunch. Buy pine nuts and
basil to make own pesto, cookery crash course (Leith's or similar).
Summer holiday brochures. Get Jesus an exercise ball. Quote for stair
carpet? Lightbulbs, tulips, lip salve, Botox?


90
9


The First Time I Saw Jack


7.03 am: I am hiding in the downstairs loo with my suitcase
to avoid Ben. He is next door in the kitchen, where Richard is
giving him breakfast. I am desperate to go in, but tell myself it's
not fair to snatch a few selfish minutes of his company and then
leave an inconsolable baby. (The book says children get over
Separation Anxiety by two years, but no age limit given for
mothers.) Better he doesn't see me at all. Squatting in here on
the laundry basket, I have time to study the room and notice
swags of grey fluff drifting down the window, like witch's
curtains. (Our cleaner, Juanita, suffers from vertigo and, quite
understandably, cannot clean above waist height.) Also the
mermaid mosaic splashback was left half-tiled by our builder
when we refused to give him any more cash, so is all tits and no
tail.

Through the closed door, I can make out muffled brumbrums
followed by Ben's gluey, Sid James cackle. Rich must be
pretending that spoonfuls of Shreddies are advancing cars to get
him to open his mouth. A honk from outside announces the
arrival of Pegasus.

I'm slipping out of my own house like a thief when there is
an accusatory 'Woo-hoo' from the Volvo parked across the
street. Angela Brunt, ringleader of the local MufEa. Face like a
Ford Anglia. With protuberant headlamp peepers set in a triangular
skull, Angela is heroically plain. It's barely seven
o'clock, what's she doing out? Probably just back from taking
Davina to Pre-Dawn Japanese. Give Angela thirty seconds and
she'll ask me if I've got Emily into a school yet.

'Hello, Kate, long time no see. Have you got Emily into a
school yet?'


91
Five seconds! Yes, and Angela has beaten her own world
record for educational paranoia. Tempted to tell her we're
considering the local state primary. With any luck \vill induce
massive on-the-spot coronary. 'I think St Stephen's is still a
possibility, Angela.'

'Really?' The headlamps do a startled circuit of their sockets.
'But how are you going to get her in anywhere decent at
eleven? Did you read St Stephen's latest Ofsted report?'

'No, I--'

'And you do realise state school pupils are two point four
years behind the independent sector after eighteen months,
rising to three point two by age nine?'

'Gosh, that does sound bad. Well, Richard and I are going to
look round Piper Place, but it sounds a bit pressurised. What I
really want is for Emily to, you know, be happy while she's still
so little.'

Angela shies at the word happy like a horse at a rattlesnake.
'Well, I know they've all got anorexia in the sixth form at Piper
Place,' she says brightly, 'but they do offer a terrific, well
rounded education.'

Great. My daughter will become the world's first well
rounded anorexic. Admitted to Oxford weighing five and a half
stone, she will rise from her hospital bed and take a dazzling first
in PPE. She will then do a job for six years, become a mother,
give up work because it's all too much and spend her mornings
in Coffee Republic decoding the entrance requirements for St
Paul's over skinny lattes with the fluent Japanese-speaking
housewife, Davina Brunt. Jesus, what is the matter with these
\vomen?

'Sorry, Angela, gotta run. Plane to catch.'

I'm still struggling to pull the minicab door to on its gouty
hinges when Angela fires her parting shot. 'Look, Kate, if
you're serious about getting Emily into Piper Place I can give
you this psychologist's number. Everyone's using him. He'll
coach her to give the right answers, draw the right sort of
picture at the interview.'

I take a deep, grateful breath of the sweet ganja-rich air in the


92
back of Winston's cab. It takes me back to mellower days, a

time before children when being irresponsible was almost a

duty.

'And \vhat does the right sort of picture look like, Angela?'
The Brunt woman laughs: 'Oh, you know, imaginative, but

not too imaginative.'


god, how i despise myself after conversations with
Angela Brunt. I can feel Angela's maternal ambition
getting into me like a flu bug. You try to fight it, you try to
stick with your hunch that your child will do perfectly OK
without being force-fed facts like some poor little foie gras gosling. But one 
day your immune system's a bit low and, BarnI , Angela's in there with her 
league tables and her average
reading scores and her psychologist's phone number. You
know what's really pathetic? In the end, I'll probably put Emily
down for Anorexia High: fear of what insanely competitive
schooling will do to my child is outweighed only by fear of
holding her back, of her somehow falling behind and its being
my fault. And the race starts earlier every year: there's actually
a kindergarten in our borough with a wall devoted to the
Impressionists. The mothers have reluctantly come round to
the idea that money can't buy you love, but they think that
money can buy you Monet, and that's good enough for them.
Exhausted working mothers enrolling their girls in academies
of stress. Maybe it's the only way we understand any more.
Stress. Success. They even rhyme.


9.28 am: 'What's that lady's problem?'

'What?'

Winston is studying me in the rear-view mirror. His eyes, so
brown they're almost black, are flecked with laughter.

'Angela? Oh, I don't know. Urban angst, frustrated woman
living vicariously through her kids, insufficient oral sex. The
usual.'


93
Winston's laugh fills the cab. Deep and grainy, it reverberates
in my solar plexus and, just for a moment, calms me.

Traffic on the way to the airport is so heavy I have plenty
of time to dwell on the forthcoming ordeal of meeting
Abelhammer. When I talked to Rod Task last night he said:
'Jack seems pretty excited about meeting you, Katie.'

'That'll be because of Greenspan's half per cent interest-rate
cut,' I improvised. I could hardly tell my boss that I have sent
my client an e-mail promising disorderly conduct and a week
in bed, not to mention love and kisses.

I can't seem to stop scratching. I washed my hair last night
with a new shampoo: allergic reaction maybe? Or perhaps I've
picked up some lower life-form in the back of Pegasus: like a
swamp, the prehistoric cab could easily be a breeding ground
for any number of invertebrates.

On the other hand, the music swirling round it hails from the
opposite end of human development. The hot blare of
trumpets and the syncopated snap of the percussion remind me of Rhapsody in 
Blue.

'Is that Gershwin, Winston?'

He shakes his head. 'Ravel.' My cab driver listens to Ravel?

We are passing the Hoover factory when the slow movement
starts. It's the saddest thing I've ever heard. Halfway
through, a flute comes in and just sort of breathes over the
piano; when I close my eyes I see a bird hovering over the sea.


New York Office of Salinger Foundation

3.00 pm, East Coast Time: Arrive with a spinning head at the
office of the Appalling Abelhammer just round the corner from
the Wall Street Center. Accompanied by my assistant Guy,
who shows no sign of jet lag. On the contrary, Guy is hideously up to speed and 
knows the Nasdaq fluctuations better than his
own pulse.

I've picked out suitably offputting outfit for the presentation
to Abelhammer. Chaste, charcoal, below the knee; Sicilian
widow's shoes: the look is Maria von Trapp before she cut up
those bedroom curtains.


94
My resolve to keep the tone of meeting a couple of degrees
below zero melts when Jack Abelhammer walks in. Instead of
the grey-haired Brooks Brothers patrician I had imagined, here
is a languid, close-cut jock, around the same age as me with a
slow-release George Clooney smile that reaches his eyes before
the mouth is fully engaged. Damn. Damn.

'Well, Kate Reddy,' says the Appalhng Abelhammer, 'it's a
real pleasure to put a face to all those figures you've been
sending me.'

Huh. I update Salinger on the performance of the fund over
the past six months. Everything easy-peasy until one of Jack's
junior consultants - a scowling Agent Scully redhead - pushes
her wire specs up bridge of nose and says: 'Can I ask, if your
forecast returns for Japan are so low, why are you overweight
in Japan?'

'Ah, now that's a very perceptive question. One for you,
Guy, I think.'

Graciously deferring to my assistant, I take a seat and sit back
to watch the little creep try to wriggle his way out of that one.
Casually check mobile.


Text Message from Paula Potts to Kate Reddy

Emly snt hme

frm skool with

NITS, hole famly

mst be treatd.

U2!

cheers paula


I can hardly believe what I'm reading. I've travelled across
the Atlantic importing lice like Colorado beetles. Excusing
myself from meeting, I hurtle to the loo. In the seasick green
light of the Executive Washroom, I try to examine my hair,
pulling strands away from head. What do nits look like? Can see
a cluster of eggs near parting, but possibly dandruff. Frantically
comb hair.

It is impossible to get out of pre-arranged dinner with


95
Abelhammer. Can hardly use emergency pest control as excuse.


Brody's Seafood Restaurant

7.30 pm: Over dinner, I sit very upright like Queen Mary and
some distance away from the table. I have a vision of busy nits
abseiling into the client's clam chowder.

'Can I offer you a lift back to the hotel, Kate?' asks Jack.

'Um, fine, but can we stop at a drugstore. I need to get
something.'

His eyebrows raise in expectation.

'I mean shampoo. I have to wash my hair.'

'Now? You want to wash your hair right now?'

'Yes. Get London out of my hair.'

Attagirl. Imaginative, but not too imaginative.


Reasons Not to Have Affair with Abelhammer

1       /Have not had legs waxed since Hallowe'en.

2       /Nits could parascend on to immaculate Harvard Business School
buzz-cut.

3       /Major client, ergo unprofessional.

4       /Am married.


Shouldn't these points be in a different order?


96
10 Birthday


Friday, 6.02 am: Today is my son's first birthday and I am
sitting in the sky over Heathrow. The plane is much delayed:
poor visibility, crowded airways. We have been doing this
for fifty-three minutes now, the altitude equivalent of
treading water, and it's making me nervous. Can feel my
shoeless feet flexing under the blanket to try and keep us
aloft. I think of all those jumbos whispering past each other
in the fog.

Over the PA comes the voice of the pilot. One of those
chummy, Call-me-Pete types. Heart sinks. At moments like
this do not want pilot to be called Pete. Urgently want pilot to
be chap named Roger Carter from Weybridge, Wing
Commander, ex Battle of Britain, mistress in Agadir, good
friend of Raymond Baxter from Tomorrow's World. Sort of cove
who could bring us in to land with one hand tied to his
handlebar moustache if necessary. You see, I have to stay alive.
I am a mother.

Pilot tells us we will have to head for Stansted. We are
running low on fuel. No cause for concern. No, none at all.
Today is Ben's birthday. I need to land safely to collect a
Teletubbies cake from the bakery, also to dress my son for his
first party in burgundy cords and soft cream shirt before Paula
can put him in the Desert Storm khaki grunge she favours. My
dying is totally out of the question. For a start, Richard could
never bring himself to tell Emily about periods; he would
delegate to his mother and Barbara would give Em a brief talk
about 'personal freshness' before producing something called a
sanitary napkin. And she would refer to sex as 'that department'.
As in 'there's nothing amiss between Donald and me in


97
That Department, thank you'. (In the great universal stores of
life, I believe That Department is to be found on the floor
between Ladies Separates and Domestic Appliances.) No, no,
no. I have to live. I am a mother. Death wasn't really an issue
before; I mean, obviously you wanted to avoid it for as long as
possible, but ever since having children I see the Unsmiling
Man with the Scythe everywhere and I jump higher and higher
to avoid his swishing blade.

'Everything all right for you, madam?' In this, the dimmest
possible cabin light, the stewardess has become a letterbox of
lipstick around an ice-white smile.

I address myself to the teeth: 'Actually, it's my baby's first birthday today 
and I was hoping to be home by breakfast.'

'Well, I promise you we're doing all we can. Can I get you
some water?'

'With Scotch. Thanks.'


Stansted Airport

8.58 am: Refuelled plane still sitting on the tarmac. 'Pontius'
pilot says it's not his fault, we have to go back to Heathrow.
Oh, this is just marvellous. As we gain height, two empty
whisky miniatures skitter off my tray nearly landing in the lap
of the woman across the aisle. She bestows a languorous smile
on me, adjusts her mint-green pashmina, opens a Gucci travel
bag. Then she takes out an aromatherapy bottle and dots
lavender on to her pulse points, and applies face spritz before
taking thoughtful sips from a large bottle of Evian. Then lets
her lustrous nit-free head sink back on to a dinky grey cashmere
pillow. I want to reach over, tap her on the arm and ask if I can
buy her life.

Once I'm sure the goddess is safely asleep, I furtively open
my own bag. Contents:


Two emergency sachets of Calpol

Unwashed white medicine spoon withjammy rim

Spare knickers for Emily (swimming)

Nit comb purchased for self in NYC


98
Lone grubby Tampax

Hideous puce Pokemon toyjrom last weekend's 'crisis'

McDonald's visit
Orange felt-tip minus top
Pongy Percy the Puppy book
Wad of Kleenex all dyed orange by felt tip
Pack ofBanoffee-flavour, limited edition Munchies (disgusting, but

only three left)

Coco Chanel miniature Eau de Toilette (atomiser broken)
Little Miss Busy book which Emily pressed on me for the journey


Between my wallet and a wad of dried-out Pampers wipes, I
find Jack Abelhammer's card with his home number and a
message scrawled on the back, 'Any time!'

At the sight of his handwriting, I get a sensation of claws
scuttling across the floor of my belly. The sensation of far-off
teenage crushes, of sex when it was still as much a puzzle as a
thrill. Over dinner in New York, Jack and I talked about everything
-- music, movies, Tom Hanks (the new Jimmy Stewart?),
the poetry of Emily Dickinson, Gate Blanchett's Elizabeth I, Apollo 13, jelly 
beans, Art Tatum, Rome versus Venice, the
mysterious allure of Alan Greenspan, even about the stocks I
am buying for him. Everything except children. Why didn't
you mention your children, Kate?


2.07 pm: Back from Heathrow, dash into office to show my
face. Create impression of intense activity by piling books and
financial journals on my desk, then call my landline from my
mobile and keep it ringing. Pick it up and have animated, can
do conversation with myself about hot new stock before
hanging up. Tell Guy I have to pop out and collect some vital
research. Hail cab and get driver to take me to Highbury
Corner and wait outside bakery while I leap out to pick up
Teletubbies cake. Not bad: Po a little po-faced, perhaps, and
Laa-Laa more mustard than yellow. Ten minutes later, pulling
into our street, can see a blue balloon tied to the front door. As
I walk into the house, Ben waddles into the hall, gives a yowl


99
of recognition and starts to cry. Fall to my knees, gather him in
and hug him tight.

This time last year, he was minutes old, naked except for a
buttery coat of vernix. Today, dressed by Paula, he is in an
Arsenal strip with Adams emblazoned on the back. I do not let
on how much this upsets me. Instead, when she leaves the
kitchen, I calmly hand Ben a carton of Toothkind Ribena and
watch as he upends it, drizzling purple flood from neck to
navel.

'Oh, dear,' I say loudly. 'Not juice all over your lovely
football kit. Better go upstairs and get changed.'

Yesss!


4 pm: Ben's party is full of Paula's nanny friends with their
charges, many of whom I don't recognise. They are part of his
life without me. When these unfamiliar girls say his name and
my son lights up with pleasure I feel a twinge of -- what? If I
didn't know better, I'd call it remorse.

In the sitting room, a handful of non-working mums are in
animated conversation about a local nursery school. They
hardly seem to notice their kids whom they handle with an
enviable invisible touch, like advanced kite-flyers, while the
Mothers Inferior like me over-attend to our clamorous
offspring.

There is an uneasy stand-offbetween the two kinds of mother
which sometimes makes it hard for us to talk to each other. I
suspect that the non-working mother looks at the working
mother with envy and fear because she thinks that the working
mum has got away with it, and the working mum looks back
with fear and envy because she knows that she has not. In order
to keep going in either role, you have to convince yourself that
the alternative is bad. The working mother says, because I am
more fulfilled as a person I can be a better mother to my
children. And sometimes she may even believe it. The mother
who stays home knows that she is giving her kids an advantage,
which is something to cling on to when your toddler has
emptied his beaker of juice over your last clean T-shirt.


100
Here in the kitchen, though, I find solace in the company of
a handful of familiar women, the tattered remnant of my
original post-natal mother and baby group. Amazing to think
we've known each other for more than five years now. Judith,
the plump brunette over by the microwave, used to be a patent
agent. Went back to work for a couple of years, but then one
day she discovered dog hairs in the back of the family Peugeot.
Trouble was they didn't have a dog. Told herself it was nothing
to worry about, until the gnawing sensation in her stomach
drove her to slip out of work. She parked outside her own
house and trailed the nanny to a flat off the Holloway Road.
Inside the unlocked door, she found Joshua fenced in a corner
behind a fireguard, watched over by an Alsatian, while the
nanny, Tara, amused herself in the next room with a boyfriend
who had a Metallica tattoo on one of his pumping buttocks.

We all told Judith it was just incredibly bad luck. A single
rotten apple in the wholesome nanny barrel. 'But, what if he saw something, 
Kate?' she sobbed down the phone.

'Josh didn't see anything, Judy, he's not even three. And they
don't remember a thing before they're five.'

But Judith never risked childcare again. We knew that she
tortured herself with the thought of the dog's jaw so close to
her baby's face because, back in those early days, we lacerated
our consciences every time we got home and found a new
bump or graze on our own infants. These things happened; it
was the fact they happened off your watch that seemed to hurt.
And then there was the secret, never-to-be-spoken conviction
that you "would have got there sooner. Got to the table corner
before her forehead struck, to the tarmac before his tiny knee.
Awacs, isn't that what the Air Force calls it? Nature gives
Mother an advance-warning system and Mother is convinced
that no minder or man can match her for speed or anticipation.

Judith didn't object when her husband Nigel said that, as he
was under such pressure at the bank, he would need to take a
skiing holiday while Judith got on with the relaxing business of
being at home with three children under four. (The twins
arrived soon after the nanny left.) The Judith I first knew would


101
have told hubby where to get off, but that Judith had long
disappear ed.

The rest of us held firm for a while to the conviction that we
had been educated for something better than the gentle warming
of Barbie pasta. But then, one by one, we gave up. 'Giving
up', isn't that what they call it? Well, I'm not calling it that.
Giving up sounds like a surrender, but these were honourable
campaigns bravely fought and not without injury. Did my
fellow no-vice mothers give up work? No, work gave them up,
or at least made it impossible for them to go on. Karen - she's
spooningjelly into Ella's mouth -- found herself sidelined at her
accountaacy firm after it was made crystal clear - by the opaque
route of nod and wink - that after having Louis she was no
longer considered partnership material. Taking her eyes off the
Career Path for a few months, she had found herself on the
Mummy Track. (The Mummy Track has the appearance of a
through road; you can travel for many hundreds of miles along
it before you notice you're going nowhere.) Karen thought she
could do hier job in four days, one of those days at home; her
boss agreed, and that was the problem. If Karen managed, he
said, it would create 'an unhelpful precedent'.

Funny tiling is, when I was starting out I assumed that
babyhood would be the hard part, that if I could just butch my
way through those fuzzy first weeks then everything would
return to normal. But it gets worse: at least at six months of age
they can't tell you it's you that they want.

Five and a half years after the birth of our babies, and only
three out of our original group of nine still have jobs: Caroline
is a graphic designer who works from home, so she gets to
squeeze all her work in round Max's school times. She couldn't
make it today because she's putting the finishing touches to a
brochure for IBM. Alice -- cute face, raven bob, leather gilet,
over there by the sink - went back to being a director of
documentaries that won awards for rooting out corruption in
high places and a particularly plangent kind of sadness in low
ones. Every night when she got in late from the editing suite,
Alice carried a sleeping Nathaniel into her bed. When else


102
r

i

would she get to hold him? It was only for a little while, only
while he was little. But Nat didn't grasp that his lease on
I       paradise was short: soon he was lying across the width of the

bed, forcing his mother and father into narrow coffins at each
side. When Jacob came along, Alice took him into bed too.
Soon afterwards her partner, Don, left home, citing a nineteen
year-old researcher and irreconcilable sleeping arrangements.

I look at Alice now, gaunt as an addict. From a distance, she
looks as youthful as when we first met, but up close you see
how motherhood has stolen her bloom: the boys seem to have
literally sucked her blood. She may have a Bafta, but her sons
are even needier by night than the talent she corrals by day, and
how would she find the time to meet a new man, even if there
was one out there willing to take on the bolshy scions of
another male? Reading my thoughts, she says with a tight smile,
'My only fix now is the boys, Kate.'

I place my hand on the golden orb of my own boy's head. A
clump of chocolate Rice Krispies is nesting in his left ear. Time
to sing Happy Birthday. Paula produces a Zippo from her
pocket to light the candles (Christ, she's not smoking now, is
she?). I carry the cake to the table. Ben's eyes are watery with
wonder, mine with regret: is this the last time I'll see a baby of
mine turn one? And how much of that first year have I actually
seen?

'Oh, Kate, you shouldn't have gone to so much trouble,' says
Alice, eyebrow raised and gesturing at the Teletubbies icing.

'Bad mother,' I mouth silently at her across the table.

Laughing, she whispers back: The too.'


Must Remember.
Nits, cheese, Valentine's card.


103
11


Reason Not the Need


it's hard to explain how my relationship with Jack began.
I really wasn't looking for anyone. I wasn't happy, but I
"wasn't unhappy either; I was in the grey survival zone where I
imagine most of us live most of the time. When a badly injured
patient gets admitted to Casualty, the hospital staff do what they
call triage. Triage is the assignment of degrees of urgency to
decide the order of treatment of wounds. I first heard the term
one night when I was -watching ER -- it was that riveting period
when we were all wondering how things -would -work out
between Hathaway and Doug - and I thought how much
triage sounded like my life. Daily existence was a constant
assessment of who needed my attention most: the children, the
office or my husband. You'll notice I leave myself out of that
list and that's not because I'm a good and selfless person. Far
from it. Selfishness just wasn't an option: no time. Most
weekends, on the drive home from the supermarket, I would
look through the steamed-up windows of a cafe and see a
couple, fingertips touching over cappuccino, or a lone man
reading a newspaper and I would long to go in there and order
a drink and just sit and sit. But that was impossible. When I
wasn't at work, I had to be a mother; when I wasn't being a
mother, I owed it to work to be at work. Time off for myself
felt like stealing. The fact that no man I knew ever felt that way
didn't help. This was just another area in which we were
unequal: mothers got the lioness's share of the guilt. So the last
thing, the very last thing I needed was someone else to love:
and then the e-mails started.

In the weeks that followed our first dinner in New York,
Jack e-mailed me, first daily and then hourly. Sometimes we


104
would reply to each other within seconds and it felt like one of
those rallies in a tennis match where a great return spurs the
other player to an inspired lob. I was cool at first, but he was so
playful and persistent that natural competitiveness took over
and I was soon running to the back of the court to retrieve the
ball and return it with some topspin. So, no, I didn't need him,
but he created a Jack-shaped need in me; a need that only he
could satisfy. Does the woman in the desert know how thirsty
she is till they press the bottle to her lips? I started to look
forward to the name Abelhammer dropping into the Inbox
more than I have looked forward to anything in my life.


From: Jack Abelhammer

To: Kate Reddy, EMF

Nasdaq hit like Pearl Harbor, heavy casualties, client seeks

considered professional opinion of respected British fund

manager: should I shoot myself now or wait till after lunch?

Jack


From: Kate Reddy

To: Jack Abelhammer

Rest assured respected fund manager has you constantly in

mind. Awaiting interest-rate pronouncement from Al Mighty

Greenspan.

Professional opinion: long-term recovery inevitable. Don't

shoot.

Unprofessional opinion: hide under desk till shelling stops, go

out and see if any stock left standing. Eat turkey club

sandwich. Then shoot.

Katharine xxxxx


From: Jack Abelhammer

To: Kate Reddy

did you know Alan Greenspan's wife said he was so oblique

that when he asked her to marry him she didn't even notice?

that guy's harder to read than Thomas Pynchon.


105
Hey, shouldn't you be in bed? Middle of the night there, right?


From: Kate Reddy

To: Jack Abelhammer

I like the night. More time in it than the day. Why waste it in

bed?

Kxxxx


From: Jack Abelhammer

To: Kate Reddy

Bed not invariably a waste of time, do you know that speech

where the guy tells his lover he wishes that seven years were

rolled into one night, must be Shakespeare, right?


From: Kate Reddy

To: Jack Abelhammer

Seven years in one night sounds just about enough hours to pay

off my sleep debt. Not Shakespeare. Marlowe, I think. That's

the unfair thing about Shakespeare, though - everything

beautiful belongs to him whether he wrote it or not. He's the

Bill Gates of emotional software.

How come you read Marlowe anyway? Did the Wall St J

predict a resurgence in Renaissance playwrights?


From: Jack Abelhammer

To: Kate Reddy

Unfair, milady, unfair, don't judge a man by his portfolio. Was

once a poor struggling English major but had to find a way of

financing my first-editions habit. Some guys buy boats, I buy a

first edition of Ulysses. What's your excuse?


From: Kate Reddy

To: Jack Abelhammer

Was once a poor struggling English minor. Poverty, when it's

not being boring, is really quite scary. I didn't want to be

scared all my life. In Britain, there are plenty of people who

will tell you money doesn't matter: these are the people we call


106
the middle classes.

Owning first editions such a boy's own thing, respectfully

suggest, Sir, you should spend your money on something really

important, like SHOES.

K xxxxxxxxxxx


From: Jack Abelhammer

To: Kate Reddy

Do you realise you have now sent me exactly 147 kisses and I

have not sent you a single one?


From: Kate Reddy

To: Jack Abelhammer

It had crossed my mind.


From: Jack Abelhammer
To: Kate Reddy

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107
I


7.01 am: Ben has discovered his penis. Lying on the changing    jj

mat, he wears the rapt, triumphant expression of a being who    3

has just found the on-off switch for the solar system. Small    g

fingers curled tight around the original joystick, he is absolutely     *|

outraged and sheds fat, warm tears when I confiscate his
favourite new toy by trapping it in a Midi Pamper and hastily
sealing the Velcro flaps on each side.

'No, there's a good boy. We have to put it away now and go
downstairs and have our Shreddies.'

What is the correct mother-of-the-world attitude to an
infant son's sexuality? Delight that the penis works, of course.
Amazement that I could, in my own female body, have grown
this caterpillar-sized miracle of plumbing and pleasure. But also
strange shyness at evidence of early masculinity with all that it
implies - tractors, soccer, other women. One day Ben will have
females in his life who are not me and already a splinter of ice
in the heart tells me how that will feel.

Downstairs, I pick my way across the debris on the kitchen
floor. Over by the bin, there is a hill of raisins: surely can't be
the same raisins that were there before Christmas? Must tell
Paula to stop kids dropping them. (No use asking cleaning lady:
Juanita has problem with cartilage and cannot kneel down.) I
find Richard bowed in worshipful attitude before the TV.
Unshaven, my husband is at his shaggiest and most primitive,
like Ted Hughes left in a tumble-drier. Suspect he has
developed a crush on children's TV presenter - Chloe? Zoe? and
when I ask how come he had the kids' show switched on
before either of ours was even awake, he murmurs 'very
educational' in a gruff, not-now-woman manner. Don't think
he has forgiven me since the Great Pesto Row.

I can't help noticing that Chloe-Zoe is dressed for a Geordie
hen night rather than a fierce February morning. She wears an
orange sleeveless vest with How About It? picked out in pink
sequins over small but inquisitive breasts. When did children's
presenters start looking like jailbait rather than, say, the
estimable Valerie Singleton?


108
'Richard?'

'Yes.'

'Ben keeps fiddling with himself. I mean, he's only just one.
Seems a hit early. Do you think it's normal?'

Rich doesn't even look up. 'Happiest form of entertainment
known to man. A lifetime's pleasure ahead of him. Plus it's
free,' he says, cocking his head on one side and returning
Chloe-Zoe's gruesome chipmunk grin.

A gurgle of pleasure across the room makes me turn round.
Ben has crawled over to the fridge, yanked open the door and
stands there upending an economy bottle of Toothkind Ribena
over a pair of my shoes. Blackcurrant haemmorhaging all over
the place. Dive into action, attempting to staunch the slick like
exotic yet authoritative Nurse Hathaway. Call for more kitchen
roll. There is no more kitchen roll and Ben is now sitting in a
puddle of purple glucose. He squeals when I pick him up by the
collar of his pyjamas and hold him under the tap.

I ask Richard how he could have failed to get kitchen roll as
per my underlined (three times) request on Friday's shopping list.
Rich explains he was unable to find the specified Kitten Soft in
the supermarket and simply couldn't bring himself to ask for it.

'I don't understand.'

'There are certain words a grown man cannot be expected to
say, Katie, and Kitten Soft are two of them.'

'You won't say Kitten Soft Kitchen Roll?'

'Not out loud, no.'

'Why on earth not?'

'I don't know. I just know I'd rather eat a soft kitten than ask
for one. Even thinking those words . . .'

With a theatrical shudder, Richard turns to the TV and
makes a silent appeal to the melting chocolate-button eyes of
ChloeZoe.

'But we don't have any kitchen roll, Rich, and, as you may
have noticed, we have the Exxon Valdez going on here.'

'I know, but I wasn't sure if Kitten Thingy was the only
option or if Absorbent Luxury Three-Ply Cushion stuff would
do instead.' He lets out a moose-sized groan. 'It's no good,


109
Kate . . . Don't make me.'

For future reference, I ask my husband to give me some
other words grown men cannot be expected to say. In no
particular order they are: Toilet Duck, glade-fresh, rich aroma,
deep-dish, filet o' fish, Cheezy Dipper, wash'n'go, Bodyform,
Tubby Custard, pantyliner.


8.01 am: Got to dash. Major presentation to EMF directors
today. A make or break career opportunity. A chance to
impress with cool authority, matchless knowledge of world
markets etc. Swipe Ribena glaze off my shoes, leave note for
Paula asking her to buy kitchen roll and PLEASE return Snow
White video to the library. The fine now exceeds production costs on the 
original Walt Disney movie. Grab my bag and air
kiss sticky Ben who hurls himself at me like Daniel Day-Lewis
bidding farewell to Madeleine Stowe in The Last of the
Mohicans.

'Mum, what's a suffer jet?' Emily is blocking my path to the
door.

'Don't know, darling. Have a nice day. Bye now.'


3.26 pm: Presentation is going brilliantly. The Managing
Director, Sir Alasdair Cobbold, has just praised my grasp of the
problems of European integration. Up here in the boardroom
on the seventeenth floor, with London spread out like a Lego
village beneath me, for one giddy moment I feel as though I am
mistress of all I survey.

I am just moving into the closing sequence when there's a
cough at the door. I look across and see Celia Harmsworth
hovering in that fluttery, don't-mind-me way people who
pretend they're unimportant have of making themselves the
centre of attention. 'So sorry to interrupt, Robin,' she simpers,
'but there's a drunk in reception causing a few problems for
security.'

Robin Cooper-Clark raises an eyebrow: 'And what has that
got to do with us, Celia?'

'The thing is, he says he's Kate's father.'


no
12 Meet Kate's Dad


the pattern of meetings with my dad has not altered
much in the last twenty years. For months on end I don't
hear from him, except for reports passed via my sister of
scandalous excesses and a list of ailments you thought had died
out with Lord Nelson - lockjaw, scurvy, Vesuvian boils. Then
one day, when I've given up on him, when the tug that feels
like a bell-pull on the heart has eased, he pitches up and
launches into a conversation that draws on a relationship we
never had. My dad has always confused sentimentality and
intimacy. As far as he's concerned, I'm still his little girl,
although when I was a little girl he asked things of me that
demanded a woman's strength. Now that I'm grown he wants
a child's docility and is quick to anger when he doesn't get it.
Sometimes he has been drinking, you can never be quite sure;
but always, always, he wants money.

In the chrome and white lobby of Edwin Morgan Forster,
Joseph Aloysius Reddy stands out like a creature from a more
provisional, primitive age. Visitors in suits can't take their eyes
off him. The disbelief he arouses is so strong he might as well
be a bad smell. With a third-hand herringbone coat and a skein
of grey hair, he's like a tinker come to sell his pots and pans to
the crew of the Starship Enterprise. Two security guys with
crackling walkie-talkies are trying to persuade him to move,
but Joe is planted mulishly on one of reception's perforated
steel benches, a white plastic bag slumped at his feet. He has the
drunk's huffy dignity. Catching sight of me, he uncrosses his
arms and points a triumphant finger: 'There. There's our
Kathy. What'd I tell you?'

'Thanks, Gerald,' I say quickly to the guard. 'My dad's not


in
himself today. I'll take over now.' Steer him to the door,
making sure to look straight ahead to avoid the pitying smiles
that have been the Reddy family's constant companions for
almost as long as I can remember.

Once we're safely outside, I mention a Cheapside coffee
shop far out of the orbit of my colleagues, but Dad pulls me
down the steps towards the King's Arms. A pub that Dickens
knew, it has sawdust on the floor and a teenage barmaid with
white skin and a studded tongue. We sit at a corner table under
the portrait of a red-cheeked earl; my father with a double
Scotch and a maxi pack of peanuts, me with a bitter lemon.
Bitter lemon was always my mum's drink. First it was a nonalcoholic
beverage; only later did it become a state of mind.

' 'Owse little Emma then?' asks my father. His breath is a
powerful mixture of Johnnie Walker and boiled eggs.

'Emily.'

'Aye, Emily. Must be going on seven now.'

'Six. She'll be six in June, Dad.' He nods decisively, as
though six is close enough to seven to make no difference.

'And the little lad? Julie says he has a look of me* about him.'

Jesus, there really is no parent so bad or so absent that he can't
get a kick out of his genetic legacy. I stare furiously into my
sour fizz. The mere idea that some ribbon of DNA with Joe
Reddy printed on it is unfurling inside my darling son.
'Actually, Ben looks like me, Dad.'

'Well, we were always alike, you and me, Kathy duck. Both
lookers, good with figures, both with a bit of a temper on us,
eh?' He snatches a swallow of whisky and throws a handful of
peanuts into his mouth - everything in immoderation, my
father; in that at least we are the same.

'Well, aren't you gonna ask your dad how he's going on,
then? Come all this way to see you.'

The accent is Northern, so thick you could cut it like fruit
cake, but there is an echo of a lilt from his mother's native
Cork. Did I really use to talk like that? Richard says that when
he first met me I sounded like something out of Monty Python.
That was when I still said ball for bath; before I learnt that class


112
rhymes with arse. Although no one says arse down here: they
say bum or bottom. I say bottom to my children now and each
time I falter on its plump, prissy contours. My tongue feels like
that barmaid's: heavy with foreign objects.

Dad wants rne to make it easier for him to ask for what he's
come for. But I won't make it easy. I can still remember him
standing outside the Abbey National in Holborn when I'd got
my first pay cheque and licking his finger to count the tenners
I handed him. My own father. If he wants my money let him
ask for it.

'Same again?' The barmaid has come over to clear our
glasses.

'No.'

'Aye, same for me and get one in for yourself, love.'

Dad smiles and the girl flushes and straightens up in a way I
have seen women do before in his presence. He was once a
beautiful man, my father -- beautiful rather than handsome, and
therefore doomed not to ripen but to rot. 'Tyrone Power,' my
grandmother used to murmur fondly when she saw him and I,
being young and not knowing any old Hollywood stars,
assumed that Tyrone Power was the electric effect my father
had on people rather than a proper name. An unruly but
irresistible force of nature. I look at him now and try to see
what others must see: face the shape of a swollen heart, the nose
and cheeks stippled with red routes like the delta of some rusty
river. Long lashes fringing what my mother claims were the
most remarkable blue eyes you ever saw: indigo pools where all
that charm and intelligence drowned. A ladies' man, my first
boyfriend called him. 'Your dad's a bit of a one for the ladies,
Kath. Should have seen him down the club with that Christine
on Saturday night.' How I flushed to hear mention of his sex
life so close to mine.

'See what you reckon to this.' My father fumbles under the
table and out of his carrier bag produces a black box file and
from that several well-thumbed sheets of graph paper. There is
a drawing of something snouty and padded with squared-off
wings at the side. Pigs might fly? I turn it the other way up.


"3

'What is it?'

'The world's first biodegradable nappy.'

'But you don't know anything about nappies.'

'I do now.'

My dad, you should know, has a history in this area. One of
the world's great undiscovered inventors, there is very little that
he himself has not discovered. When Julie and I were still small
he cooked up moon rocks, powdery lumps of resin that were
sold as souvenirs from the Apollo 11 landing off a market stall
in Chesterfield. 'Just think, madam, your hand is holding the
very rock that Neil Armstrong held in his!' They went like a
bomb, did the moon rocks, and later, when space travel lost its
lustre, they had another incarnation as fancy pumice stones for
the hard skin of the ladies of Worksop.

Next came a catflap that prevented pets bringing prey into
the house: a good idea, but the cats kept getting garrotted in the
springback mechanism. Sometimes Dad's inventions had been
invented already, like the blindfold he devised for in-flight
passenger naps without ever having been on an aeroplane.

'Joe,' said Mum cautiously, 'I understand that they have eye
shades on planes,' but he refused to let such womanly nitpicking
get him down. In our house, Dad was the one for the broad
sweep; Mum picked up the bits with a dustpan and brush. On
his card, my father describes himself as an entrepreneur.

As I skim through his business plan for Reddy's biodegradable
nappy, he says happily: 'I've had a lot of interest,
you know. Derek Marshall at the Chamber of Commerce says
he's never seen anything quite like it. But I'm a bit stuck for
capital, love, and that's your line of work. What do they call it,
adventure capital?'

'Venture capital.'

'That's the one.'

Dad says we're not talking big sums this time; seed money,
that's all.

'How much?'

'Just enough to get production up and running.'

'How much?'


114
'Ten grand plus development costs, then there's packaging.
Say thirteen and a half. I wouldn't ask, love, only cashflow's
that tight at the minute.'

I'm not aware of my expression having altered, but it must
have done, because he shifts in his chair in a manner which, in
another man, you might take for discomfort. For a moment, I
think it must have occurred to him how sick these transactions
make me feel. He reaches across the table and places his hand
on mine. 'Don't worry, love,' he says. 'If you're pushed I'll take
a cheque.'


I leave my father at Moorgate station. From there, he can get the
Northern Line directly to King's Cross and take a train home. I
give him money for the fare -- a crazy amount, it's cheaper to fly
to Boston than to go to Doncaster these days - and extra for a cab
at the other end. Dad is a bit vague about where he is living at
the moment - for which read who he is living with - but he
promises me that he will go there directly. I stand outside the
station, round the corner by the photo booth. When I look back
inside a few minutes later he has engaged a young busker in
conversation. Casually, magnanimously, he flicks one of the
tenners I have just given him into the boy's open guitar case,
removes his coat, lays it gently over the busker's sleeping dog and
now, oh dear God, he is going to sing.


'The water is wide, I cannot get o'er
And neither have I wings to fly.
Bring me a boat that can carry two
And both shall row, my love and I.'


It's his favourite ballad, a Reddy standard along with 'Down
by the Salley Gardens'. The passing suits, scurrying for the
escalator, stop and turn their heads, startled by the beauty of the
tenor voice, the thwarted yearning Dad does so well. A woman
in a camel coat bends to deposit some coins in the case and my
father tips an invisible hat to her.

I can hear my mother's voice now, an angry descant piercing


US
the sad tune. 'He can wrap you round his little finger.'

'No, he can't.'

'Yes he can. Always could. If he's so bloody marvellous, your
father, go to him. Go on, go to him.'

'I don't want to go to him, Mum.'

'You always were his. Daddy's girl.'


I plunge back into the noise of the street, buy a copy of the Standard to have 
something to hold in my hands, and head in
the direction of the office.

A child's love for a parent is well-nigh indestructible, but
down the years the drip, drip of disillusion can corrode it. The
first feeling I remember having for my father was pride, a
soaring, burst-your-lungs gratitide that he was mine. Better
looking than anyone else's dad, he was so clever he could do
any sum he liked in his head and recite the football results back
as soon as they'd been read out on the telly on Saturday
afternoon without a single mistake. Sheffield Wednesday,
Partick Thistle, Hamilton Academicals. Saturday mornings,
Julie and I would be allowed to accompany him to the bookies,
where we would cling on to our hero's legs. I remember the
sense of being small down there in the forest of trousers and the
smell of felt hats in from the rain. Years later, at university, I
watched the middle-class fathers trudging back and forth from
their family saloons carrying tea chests and kettles and china
mug sets hanging from pine trees, and I longed for their dull
embrace.

One "winter, it must have been '75 or '76, Dad took us
sledging out in the Peak District. Other families had shop
bought sledges: raised off the ground with a lattice of wooden
struts to sit on, they had the grandeur of an old-fashioned sleigh
ride. Our sledge lay flush with the ground: Dad had hammered
it together out of split logs and had added metal runners on the
underside which he ripped from the lip of an abandoned car
door. 'Give it a bit of go!' he said, rubbing his hands together.

On the first run, Julie fell off right away and the sledge
completed the descent by itself. Dad told her not to be such a


116
baby. Now it was my turn, and I clung on, determined to prove
that our sledge, the sledge our dad had made, was as good as
anyone's. But halfway down the hill, it hit a ridge and veered
sharply to the right, slicing towards a steep drop fenced off by
a low curtain of barbed wire. The metal strips, added to give a
bit of go, made the sledge unstoppable; it slammed under the
fencing and the two front prongs dangled over the drop while
I lay at the back, two feet from the edge, tangled in wire.

He was panting so hard when he got to me I thought he
would die, but he knelt down on the end of the sledge to hold
it in place and picked the wire thorns out of my anorak, out of
my hands, out of my hair. As the last piece of wire was
unsnagged, he pulled me clear and the sledge shot forward. It
was a couple of seconds before we heard it crack on the road
beneath. I used to think that I remembered that day so well
because he had saved my life; now I think it's because it was the
only time in our years as father and daughter that he did
anything to protect me.

But Dad was my first love and I always took his side even
when my mother's hazel eyes disappeared in big racoon circles
and she started wearing those brushed-nylon Keep-Out
nighties and laughing in the wrong places. One day at the VG
stores, a man knocked over the pyramid display of Ideal Milk,
the little blue and white cans went tumbling everywhere, and
Mum laughed and laughed until Linda behind the counter had
to fetch a glass of water from out back. But daughters don't
want to pick up the signals of their mother's unhappiness; it
might mean their father isn't perfect.

Years after it became clear that Joseph Aloysius Reddy was
an unsuitable crush, I still couldn't break it off. How much
evidence did I need? There was the day he brought the sheets
home from the bed he shared with his new girlfriend for Mum
to wash. And the night he carried me downstairs, blinking from
sleep, to tell the copper standing in the front room that he,
Joseph Reddy, had been at home on a date I had to swear I
could remember. And I swore.

'She's got this photographic memory, has our Kathy,' said


117
Dad to the policeman. 'Haven't you, love? Now where's that
lovely smile?'

A father is the template of a man that Nature gives a girl, and
if that template is broken or disfigured, well, what then?

Walking through the front door of Edwin Morgan Forster, I
am grateful for its cool echoing spaces, for the clip-clop of
marble underfoot, for the way the lift welcomes me without
protest to its mirrored interior. I prefer not to look at the
woman in the reflection: I don't want her seeing me like this.
When the door opens on the thirteenth floor, I have my
excuses ready, but Robin Cooper-Clark is standing right there.

'Excellent presentation, Kate,' he says, placing a hand awkwardly
on my shoulder. 'Absolutely first class. Just need to tie
up a couple of loose ends. No hurry. In your own time. No real
problems with the family, I trust.'

Hard to imagine what the Director of Investment would say
if I told him the truth. The Cooper-Clarks have become friends
since Jill and I bonded in horror at a corporate pheasant shoot.
Richard and I have been to their place in Sussex several times,
but I have never mentioned my father to Robin: 1 want his
respect, not his pity. 'No. Everything's fine.'

'Splendid. Talk later.'


The screen tells me that in the three hours since I last looked,
the FTSE is up 50, the Dow is down 100 and the dollar 1 per
cent. So steadily, and with great deliberation, I make the calculations
I need to make to hold my funds on course.

All I knew was that I wasn't going back there: to the scams,
the evasions, the holding your breath in the dark hall.


118
13 Shopping


jet lag has its own micro-climate; grey, sticky,
Singaporean. Just back from a lightning hop to Boston, I
move through the stinging February rain with almost tropical
lethargy. Step out into Long Acre, straight into the path of a
courier. Through the visor, I can see eyes full of hatred.

'Yeww stew-pid cow,' he spits. 'Cancha fuckin' look where
ya goin'?'

Fourteen minutes to spare before Rod and I have a meeting
with consultants in Covent Garden, just off the piazza. Enough
time to run into LK Bennett 50% Shoe Sale.

I think I've forgotten how to shop for pleasure. No
lingering foreplay for me, no harmless flirtation with chenille and silk before 
getting off with aloof linen or gorgeous,
cuddly alpaca. These days, I shop like a locust: famished,
ruinous, hoovering up anything I need and things I definitely
won't need but deserve, anyway, because I never have time
to go shopping. I grab a pair of fudge pencil heels -- good for
treading on Guy's toes -- and calf-length, Caramac-soft boots.
As an afterthought, I pick up some black slingbacks patterned
with so many punch-holes it looks like braille for foot
fetishists. Funny how two pairs of shoes feels extravagant, but
three's a bargain.

Across the shop, I glimpse a glossy brunette, a triumph of
Botox over gravity, swaddled in dove grey cashmere. She is
considering each shoe like a judge at a flower show. You can
tell she has time as well as money on her hands. I see a whole
day of browsing stretching ahead of her - a prairie of possibility,
dotted with skinny lattes and a delicious light lunch. I notice
her eyes land on a pair of zebra mules on the size 6 rack. She


119
must be stopped. Execute Charlie's Angels pirouette and get to
them just in time.

'Excuse me, I was picking those up.' Her voice is peevish as
aggrieved as someone that languid will allow herself to be.

'Sorry I was here first,' I say, jamming toe into zebra.

'No need to be aggressive,' she smiles and trails away leaving
a slipstream of Jo Malone Tuberose. Is she not fragrant?
Certainly. Does one not want to strangle her eerily wrinkle
free neck? You bet.

At the till, the assistant pauses when she gets to the zebra
mules and turns them over. 'These aren't your size, madam.'

'I know, I'm taking them, anyway.'

The credit-card machine chunters busily and then gags.
'Sorry, madam, your card has been rejected. I'll have to make a
call.'

'I don't have time for you to make a call.'

The assistant smirks. 'Shall we try another card?'


10.36 am: Six minutes, thirty-five seconds late for meeting.
Enter room full of suits, trying to hide gleaming carrier bag
behind knees. Rod Task looks up from his notes with a shark's
grin. 'Ah, when the going gets tough the ladies go shopping.
Good of you to join us, Katie.'


12.19 pm: Four days to go till Emily's half-term, but am way
too busy to have booked a relaxing break. And Paula is off to
Morocco for the week. When I tentatively enquired this
morning if there was any chance of her ever taking a holiday to
coincide with ours, she shot me her Joan-of-Arc, put-thosematches-down
look. So I offered to pay for her flight. Weak,
Kate, very weak.

Pretend to be checking fund valuations while making call to
travel agent. How about Florida?

Hyena cackle at the other end of phone. 'Fully booked since
October, sorry.'

'Disneyland, Pans?'

Non. Eurostar apparently groaning -with loathsome forward


I2O
planners. It would be wise to book for Easter now, the agent
says: he still has a few spaces left for Easter.

'Have you thought about Centerparcs, Mrs Shattock?' Yes, I
have thought about Centerparcs: like going to hell in a
Tupperware container.

I try Cornwall, Cotswolds and the Canaries. All full.
Eventually get through to some firm called Cymru Cottages.
Valda says, miraculously, she has a cancellation outside St
David's. 'On the cosy side, mind, but you can't go wrong with
an open fire, can you?'

I'm just getting ready to leave for lunch when the postroom
lad arrives at my desk looking rather sheepish: he is carrying
two bunches of Valentine's Day flowers. One -- gardenias, lilies,
white roses as big as a hand - looks like Grace Kelly's wedding
bouquet; the other consists of garage-forecourt tulips padded
out with funeral-director fern. Open the cards. The tulips are
from my husband.


From: Debra Richardson

To: Kate Reddy

Meant to tell you, don't be freaked out about nits. Nits are now

very middle class. Felix's school just had Nits Day to 'remove

the stigma of nits'!

How was your Hammer man in New York?

The only good thing about our situation is that we are Far Too

Knackered to Commit Adultery.

Lunch thursday, right?

Deb xxxx


From: Kate Reddy

To: Debra Richardson

Good to know nits have become oppressed minority group

with their own EU funding, rather than pest you have to comb

out of groaning child's hair every night. (Tried tea tree oil stank,
but no use - now on to chemical stuff brewed by Saddam

Hussein. But will it kill the kids before it kills the nits?)

Sorry, can't do lunch: forgot it was half-term.


121
Think the Hammer man just sent me major Valentine's
bouquet.


From: Candy Stratton

To: Kate Reddy

Bad news, hon. Slow Richard rang while U wre out and stoopid

secrtry said, 'Oh, your flowers are SO much nicer than those

tulips she got.'

pretend U have florist stalker. Prefrbly GAY florist stalker.

PS: Thnx for crazy zebra shoes. Did you shoot them yourself?


From: Debra Richardson

To: Kate Reddy

Kate, we are too tired for adultery, AREN'T WE? xxxxx


From: Debra Richardson

To: Kate Reddy

Don't do anything disgusting and amoral.

Without telling me EVERYTHING.

D xxxx


i.21 pm: Half an hour for lunchless lightning browse in
gleaming electronics emporium near Liverpool Street. The
atmosphere in the shop is delirious, malarial. Everyone in here
has too much money and not enough time to spend it. I spot a
guy from our tech team reverently cupping a digital camera as
if it were a chunk of the True Cross.

It only takes a minute to find exactly what I'm looking for.
The latest, dinkiest personal organiser. A truly gorgeous thing
- implausibly light, but with a pleasing scientific heft and witty
too, like a Fifties drinks coaster. The Pocket Memory comes
with an impressive raft of promises:

It will simplify your life!

Banish stress!

Pay your bills!

Remember your friends' birthdays!

Have sex with your husband while you finish that great Carol


122
Shields novel you started some weeks into your first pregnancy!
I say I'll take it. I don't even ask how much. One way and
another I've earned it.


2.08pm: Rod Task approaches my desk like a marine storming
a beach. 'Katie, I need your help!' he hollers. Then, ominously,
he parts his lips and clenches his teeth to form what he thinks is
a smile. (Rod is only really scary when he's trying to be nice.)

Playfully cuffing a daffodil in the vase on my desk, he tells me
he wants me to do a final for a $300 million ethical pension
fund account. Finals are a sort of beauty contest in which rival
investment managers vie to convince a prospective client that
they are the most responsible gambler in town. Oh, and Rod
forgot to mention the final when he heard about it, so I only
have twelve days to prepare, although this is now my fault,
because if it wasn't my fault it would mean Rod made a
mistake. And Rod is a man, so that can't be right.

I can hear myself starting to protest a long way off- a watery
wail of injustice - but Rod bulldozes on. 'They want us to field
a team that reflects EMF's commitment to diversity,' he says.
'So I reckon that's gotta be you, Katie, and the Chinky from
research.'

'I beg your pardon?'

'Moma, right?'

'Momo is not Chinese. She's Sri Lankan.'

'Whatever,' he shrugs. 'She looks pretty fucking diverse to
me.'

'Rod, I simply can't. Momo has absolutely no experience.
You just can't '

My boss has the daffodil by the neck now, and the dejected
bloom is weeping yellow ash on to the grey carpet.

'Hey, we don't do can't, sweetie. When did -we start doing
can't? Can't is for pussies.'


w


as i shocked by the way Rod talked to me? Actually,
you'd probably be shocked by how unshocked I was.




123
Chauvinism is the air I breathe -- a bracing blend of Gucci Envy
and salty gym residue. Like one of those cuboid amber air
fresheners Winston hangs in the cab, the smell stuns you as soon
as you enter the City; it lays waste to your septum before
curling into your brain. Soon it becomes the only smell in the
world. Other odours - milk, apples, soap - seem sickly and
teeble by comparison. When I first came to the City I smelt the
smell and recognised it immediately as power.

Truth is, I don't mind: let them comment on my legs if those
legs help keep me and my children in shoes. Being a woman
doesn't get you what you want within Edwin Morgan Forster,
but it enables the firm to get what it wants outside -- accounts,
a reputation for 'diversity' -- and they owe you for that. It's the
oldest trade of all and it's good enough for me. Sometimes I
mind for other women, though. For the older ones, like Clare
Mainwaring in Operations, whose grey hair puts them among
the firm's Disappeared, and for the kids like Momo who think
that having an MBA means that guys won't look up your skirt.

Round here, there are only three kinds of women. As Chris
Bunce once explained to me over a drink in Corney and
Barrow, back in the days when he was still hoping to get into
my knickers: 'You're either a babe, a mumsy or a grandma.'
Back then I qualified as a babe.

And the equal-opportunities legislation? Doesn't make it
better; just drives the misogyny underground, into the dripping
caves of the Internet. We make jokes about men on the Net all
the time - wry, helpless, furious jokes - but the stuff some of
the guys send: well, a gynaecologist would need to go and lie
down. Let them pass as many laws as they like. Can you
legislate for the cock to stop crowing?

The way I look at it, women in the City are like first- generation immigrants. 
You get off the boat, you keep your
eyes down, work as hard as you can and do your damnedest to
ignore the taunts of ignorant natives who hate you just because
you look different and you smell different and because one day
you might take their job. And you hope. You know it's
probably not going to get that much better in your own lifetime,


124
but just the fact that you occupy the space, the fact they had to
put a Tampax dispenser in the toilet; all that makes it easier for
the women who come after you. Years ago, when I 'was still at
school, I read this book about a cathedral by William Golding.
It took several generations to build a medieval cathedral and the
men who drew up the plans knew that not even their sons, but
their grandsons or great-grandsons, would be around for the
crowning of the spire they had dreamed of. It's the same for
women in the City, I think: we are the foundation stones and
the females who come after us will scarcely give us a second
thought, but they will walk on our bones.

Last year, during the photoshoot for EMF's corporate
brochure, they had to 'borrow' workers from the sandwich
place in the basement to fill in the blank spaces where the
women and ethnic minorities should be. I sat in a fake meeting
opposite a Colombian waitress, who was wearing Celia
Harmsworth's red Jaeger jacket and was instructed to study a
fund report. The photographer had to turn it the right way up.

Later, going downstairs to pick up a bagel, I tried to catch the
waitress's eye across the counter, to share a look of girly
complicity - Men! What can you do? But she didn't even
glance up from her tub of cream cheese.


4.53 pm: Got to start work on the pitch for the ethical fund,
but distracted by thoughts of Jack's Valentine bouquet, and
then there's Emily's birthday. Three and a half months to go
and my daughter is already counting the seconds. (The desire
to get to a birthday when you're five is as urgent as the desire
to miss one when you're thirty-five.) Feeling like a proper
organised mother for once, I put in a call to Roger Rainbow,
a clown of high repute among the Muffia. Roger's
answerphone informs me he is absolutely checker every
weekend, but still has some slots left for Hallowe'en. Bloody
hell, it would be easier to book the Three Tenors. Trust me to
become a parent in the era when birthdays finally became a
competitive sport.


125
'Oh, I'm sorry. Excuse me, Kate Reddy?'

'Yes.' I look up and standing by my desk is the beautiful
young woman who pressed me so hard at the trainees'
induction before Christmas. Now, as then, she is blushing but
there is nothing frail or floundering in her shyness: her
reticence seems to have been cast from some fine but resilient
metal.

'Sorry,' she says again, 'but I understand that we're going to
be working together on an, um, final. Mr Task said he felt I had
an important contribution to make.'

I bet he did. 'Oh, yes, Momo, it is Momo, isn't it? Well, I
didn't imagine we'd be working together so soon and it's
certainly going to be a real challenge.'

Come on, Kate, give the poor girl a break. It's not her fault
she's been dumped on you. 'I've heard so many good things
about you, Momo.'

'And vice versa,' she says gratefully, taking a seat. 'We all,
well, all the women' - she gestures across the sea of suits - 'we
don't know how you do it. Oh, is this yours?'

Disappearing under my desk for a second, she comes back up
holding a daffodil.

'Oh, I'm so sorry, it's broken.'


Must Remember

Thank You letters, ring Mum, ring sister. HIGHLIGHTS!
Complete IMRO forms. Momo List 'to do'. See amazing new film -- Sitting Tiger? 
Sleepy Dragon? Trim Ben's nails. Ring Juno Academy
of Fitness and book new personal trainer, Pelvic floor SQUEEEZE.
Emily school applications GET ORGANISED. Father-in-law's
65th birthday- tickets for Ayckbourn? Call Jill Cooper-Clark. Social
life: invite people Sunday lunch - Simon and Kirsty? QUOTE FOR
STAIR CARPET! Note for Juanita. Packing for half-term: Roo!!,
extra towels, nappies, bottles, Calpol, portacot, wipes, wellies.


126
14 Half-Term


iTT^ATE, I am not having an argument with you about

X\_ wellies.'

'Well, I'm having an argument with you about wellies. Emily
is soaking wet. Just look at the state of her trousers. I have to
remember everything. Every single thing. And I swear to God
there's no room in my brain for any more information,
Richard. I remembered to ask you to check the wellies were in
the car.'

'I'm sorry, I forgot. It's not a big deal.'

'No, you're not sorry. If you were sorry you'd have
remembered.'

How much do you think the human brain can bear in the
way of remembering? I read somewhere that our long-term
memory is basically this giant storehouse where all the people
and places and jokes and songs we've ever known are laid down
like wine, but if you don't visit a memory often enough the
route to it is lost, briared over. Like the approach to Sleeping
Beauty's castle. Is that why all fairy tales are about trying to find
the way back?

Anyway, my memory's not what it was since I had the kids, but I have to try to 
remember. Someone has to. What's that
awful word? Multitasking. Women are meant to be great at
that. But Rich, if you ask Rich to hold more than three things
in his head at once you can see the smoke start to come out of
his ears: the circuits have blown in there. I've heard women on
the radio arguing that guys play up how useless they are in order
to avoid doing stuff. Unfortunately, extensive scientific trials in
the Shattock home have revealed that the inability to
remember the dry cleaning and the dishwasher tablets plus the


127
film for the camera is, in fact, a congenital defect, like colour
blindness or a dicky heart. It's not laziness, it's biology.

On the endless drive down to Wales on Saturday, I was
watching Richard, observing the way he can screen out the
kids when he needs to, when there is a destination he has in
mind. Life is a road for a man; for women it's a map -- we're
always thinking about side roads and slip roads and doubling
back, while they simply plough on in the fast lane. Their only
diversion is an occasional brilliant idea for short cuts, most of
which turn out to be longer and more treacherous than the
original route.

Is that why men can live in the moment so much better than
we can? Posterity is full of men who seized the day, while the
women were planning for a fortnight on Tuesday.

So many of the rows Rich and I have nowadays are about
remembering, or forgetting. Like the one we had when we got
to the beach in Pembrokeshire that first afternoon of the half
term holiday, and it turned out that Rich hadn't packed the
children's wellies. I don't know what made me go so berserk.
Yes, the kids' feet were soaking, but they were having such a
lovely time.


swaddled in three layers of clothing, Ben and Emily
play contentedly by the milk-chocolate channel that
emerges from the hillside at the back of Whitesands Bay and
foams over stones down to the sea. She has been building a
castle with water gardens and a fountain made out of a razor
shell, while he picks up a pebble, carries it to the water's edge,
drops it in and then goes back to fetch another. They are as
happy and intent as I've seen them. But the weather has got
\vorse. Of course the weather has got worse. We are on holiday
in Wales, why didn't I remember? Wet Wales. The sun broke
through earlier, just long enough to see the freckles begin to
swarm over Emily's face, but now the sky is pewter with rain.
We decide to cut our losses and take the kids back to the
cottage I have rented a few miles inland. Getting them out of


128
the water and into the car takes roughly fifty minutes: requests
give way to threats and, when they don't work, we fall back on
bribes.

I promise Emily that Mummy will finally get around to
reading Little Miss Busy to her, so after I've stripped off their
wet clothes, given them their tea, bathed them in the tiny
freezing bathroom with the wall heater that smells of burnt air,
and persuaded Ben to he in his portacot, my daughter and I
settle down next to the open fire -- two resentfully smouldering
logs.

' "Little Miss Busy loved nothing more than to be hard at
work, keeping herself busy. Every day she would get up at
three o'clock in the morning. Then, Little Miss Busy would
read a chapter from her favourite book. It was called: 'Work Is
Good For You'.'"

'Can't we read something more fun, Em?'

'No. I want that one.'

'Oh, all right. Where were we? "Miss Busy wasn't happy
unless she was busy working." '

'Mummy, you came to Ben's birthday party.'

'Yes, I did.' I can see her thinking. All five-year-olds'
thoughts are naked; they haven't learnt to cloak them yet. This
one ripples across Emily's brow like a breeze over a dune.

'Did the teacher say you could leave early?' she asks at last.

'No, sweetheart, Mummy doesn't have a teacher. She has,
well, she has a boss, this man who's in charge. And she has to
ask him if she can leave.'

'Could you ask that man if you could come home early other
days?'

'No. Well, yes I could, but I can't do it too often.'

'Why?'

'Because Mummy has to be in the office or ... otherwise
people might get cross with her. Let's finish the story, Em.
"Little Miss Busy -" '

'Could you come home early and take me to ballet on
Thursdays? Please can you, Mama?'

'Paula takes you to ballet, darling, and she says you're really,


129
really good at it. And Mummy promises to try and come to

your show at the end of term this time.'

'But it's not fair. Ella's mum takes her to ballet.'

'Emily, I really haven't got time to argue with you now. Let's

finish the story, shall we?'

' "And Miss Busy didn't rest all day long, not for a minute,

not even for a second." '


When they were both asleep upstairs, Rich accused me of not
being relaxed and I got incredibly upset. I'd done three solid
hours of Lionel Bart's Oliver! in the car on the way down,
hadn't I?

' "Wh-e-e-e-e-e-ere is love? Does it fall from skies above?" '

Does it hell. And Mark Lester was so desperately beautiful as
Oliver and I read the other day that now he's an osteopath in
Cheltenham or somewhere. I mean, that can't be right, can it?
Like the breaking of a magic spell.

And after Oliver!, we sang twenty choruses of 'The Wheels on
the Bus', which I did most cheerfully, even though that song
drives me absolutely nuts. Then, when Ben threw up in the car
outside Swansea, I got him into the service station, washed him in
the basin, dried him somehow with the one dry paper towel and
changed him before buying all the basics we'd need when we got
to the cottage - teabags, milk, sliced bread for toast. I was doing a
pretty good impersonation of a mummy on holiday, wasn't I?

But Rich was right. Thoughts of the upcoming final that
Rod had sprung on me were keeping me awake at night. I'd
left Momo to do the research into the ethical pharmaceutical
sector while I was away, but she simply didn't have the
experience to hack her way through the material in time.
Twice a day, I called her from a phone-box in a high-hedged
lane or by some rasping pebbled shore, my mobile signal
coming and going like the tide. And, of course, I told Momo
what warning signals to look for, how to compare screening
criteria, and a dozen other things, but it was like asking a skateboarder
to dock a space station. I had specifically instructed
Guy to help her out too, but while I was away he would be


130
otherwise engaged, having his bony Machiavellian arse
measured for my chair. No way was Guy going to do anything
that would put me in a good light.

Plus, as the cottage's phone connection was practically
steam-powered, I couldn't pick up my e-mails. Being out of
contact with Abelhammer for four days made me realise how
much I relied upon him as a safety valve; without his soothing
attentions I was ready to explode.


Thursday, A car park, St Davids Cathedral

3.47 pm: Am unloading Ben's buggy from the boot of the car
when the downpour starts; joke rain, crazy rain, Gene Kelly
Singing-in-the-Sodding-Rain rain. Try to wrestle the baby
into the buggy straps - his body stiffening as my impatience
grows. I feel like an asylum orderly putting a straitjacket on a
madman. Richard has fetched the raincover and hands it over;
it's a fiendish combination of clingfilm and climbing frame.

Boldly loop big hoop over Ben's head and try to fasten the
clips, but I cannot get them round buggy handles so attach to
the fabric instead. Seems OK, but I'm left with two elastic
loops. What the hell are they for? Drape remainder of cover
over the baby's feet, but the rain snatches it and whips it up into
my face. Damn. Start again.

'Come on, Kate,' says Richard, 'we're getting soaked here.
Surely you know how to put that cover on.'

I surely don't know. How would I know? Only contact with
wretched thing was handing over Visa card in John Lewis
thirteen months ago and, when the assistant tried to demonstrate
the raincover, snapping at her, 'I'll just take it, thanks.'
(Can hardly call Paula in Morocco and ask how to use own
child's equipment.)

Ben is howling now. Drops of rain join the tributary of snot
running over his lips to form a cataract of misery. Have you
noticed how all baby equipment comes with the promise of
'easi-assembly'? This is industry shorthand for: only those with
NASA training need attempt.


131
'For Chrissake, Kate,' hisses Richard, who will put up with
anything except embarrassment in public.

'I'm trying. I'm trying. Emily, don't go near the cars. EMILY,
COME HERE THIS MINUTE!'

A coach has pulled up alongside us and disgorged a tour party of 
seventysomethmgs. Ladies of the Valleys with freshly baked
perms and short padded coats that give their sturdy trunks the
appearance of boilers lagged to save on fuel. As one, they dive
into their handbags and produce those slithery packets that
open out into instant, see-through sou'westers. There they
stand, twittering companionably and observing my struggle.

'Aww, poor dab,' says one, gesturing towards my bawling
son. 'Getting wet izz 'ee? Nevah mind. Mammy'll 'ave yew
right in a minute.'

My fingers are blunt with cold. Can barely hold the bloody
clip let alone open it. Under the wrong piece of plastic, an
enraged Ben is as puce as packaged beetroot. I turn to the ladies.
'New pram,' I say loudly. And they all nod and smile, eager to
be drawn into womanly complicity against the hopeless manmade
machine.

'They make stuff so stiff now, don't they?' says one woman
in check trews, taking the raincover from me, nimbly flipping
it over the buggy and fastening it with practised clicks. 'My
daughter's juss the same as yew,' she says, briefly laying a hand
on my shoulder. 'Doctor up Bridgend way now, she is. Two
little boys. Hard work, mind. Yew don't get no holidays do
yew?'

I shake my head and try to smile but my lips are rigid with
cold. The woman's hands are red and bony. A mother's hands
- one who did the washing-up three times a day, peeled the veg
and stirred the Terry nappies in their scummy cauldron. Hands
like that will die out in another generation along with waist
pinnies and the Sunday roast.

Bowed double against the rain, Richard pushes the buggy
along the little road to the cathedral. Emily is so drenched she
has made the transformation from child to 'water sprite.
'Mummy?'


132
'What is it, Emily?'

'Baby Jesus has got a lot of houses, hasn't he? Is this where he
comes on his holidays?'

'I don't know, sweetie. Ask Daddy.'


cathedrals are built to inspire awe. Sacred fortresses,
they always look as though they have been lowered from
heaven on to a hill. St Davids is different. It sits on the edge of
a small Welsh town - a city in name only - hiding its virtues in
a valley so perfectly designed it feels like an engraving. Cattle
graze almost up to its walls.

I love this place. The ancient chill that fills your lungs when
you push open the door - the trapped breath of saints, I always
think. Must have been seven or eight the first time I came here,
candyfloss from Tenby on my lips. Licking them now I can still
taste its cobwebby sweetness. I have seen grander cathedrals
since: Notre Dame, Seville, St Paul's. But the greatness of this
church lies in its smallness; it's barely bigger than a barn. You
wouldn't be surprised to find an ox and an ass by the font.

St Davids is one of the few places that bids me be still. And
here in the nave I realise that, these days, stillness is an unaccustomed,
even an uncomfortable sensation. The cathedral is
timeless, and my life . . . my life is nothing but time. Rich has
taken Emily and Ben to explore the gift shop. Left alone, I find
rny mouth forming words no one can hear: 'Help me.'

Asking a God I'm not sure I believe in to get me out of a
mess I don't understand. Oh, very good, Kate, very good.

On the far -wall, there is a slate tablet commemorating a local
grandee. In memory of Somebody Thomas and of his relict
Angharad. Relict. Same as relic? Will have to ask Rich, he's
good at Latin. Had a proper education, not the comprehensive
shambles I had to put up with.

Outside, a vertiginous, gingerbread staircase links the
cathedral to the tiny city on the hill. I haul the buggy backwards
up the steps, feeling each bump in my lower vertebrae. Rich
carries a squally Emily on his shoulders. She and Ben need their


133
I

tea. Guilty bad mother. I always forget children are like cars;

without regular injections of fuel they judder and stop.        «i

We walk down a street full of cafes and peer through the
windows, inspecting each one for child-friendliness. Is there
room for the buggy? Are there older people in there who
would rather not share their toasted crumpets with a dribbly
Ben? Britain is still no country for young children: venture too
far away from Pizza Express and you find the same resentful
sighs I remember from when Julie and I were kids.

We settle on a chintzy establishment full of other holiday
parents, as jumpy and unrested as us, and make for the farthest
corner. Draped over the backs of chairs, our wet coats steam
like cows. I read out the menu and Emily announces loudly
that she doesn't want anything that's on offer. She wants pasta.

'We can do 'oops from a tin, like,' offers the kindly waitress.

'I don't want hoops,' wails Emily, 'I want pasta.'

Metropolitan brat. All my fault for giving her everything so
young. I didn't taste my first pasta till I was nineteen years old.
Rome. Spaghetti alle vongole -- clammy in both senses, a
shaming ordeal of alien shells and unmanageable strands.

Sometimes I worry that I've travelled this far, done this well
in life, only for my kids to grow up as jaded and spoilt as the
people I was patronised by at college.

As Rich cuts up the children's Welsh rarebit, there is a little
twiddly beep from my mobile. It's a text message from Guy.


TurkE crisis.

Rod & R C-C away.

Devaluation?

Turk shares collapsing.

Wot do?


Oh, hell. Jump up, barge past other families, stand on
Labrador, run into street. Try mobile, but this time it's making
another kind of beep telling me the battery is low. Can't get a
signal. Of course I can't get a signal, I'm in Wales. Run back
into the cafe.


134
'Have you got a phone I can use?'

' 'Scuse me?' The waitress looks blank.

'A payphone?'

'Oh yes, but it's not working like.'

'A fax?'

'Facts?'

'A facsimile machine. I need to send an urgent message.'

'Oh. They might 'ave one over the paper shop.'

Newsagent has no fax, he thinks chemist has fax. Chemist
does have fax. Fax needs paper. Back to paper shop. About to
close. Bang on door. Beg. Have to buy brick of 500 sheets, of
which I need precisely one. Back to chemist. I scrawl a note to
Guy using the prescription pen which is tethered to the
counter:


Guy, MUST weigh up risk of Turkish trade failing and being
charged interest rates of 2000 per cent -- could cost us shedload
of money -- versus loss in value of shares if currency devalues.

1       / How much have we got in Turkey?

2       /What's market doing - knock-on effect other regions?
Answers on my desk tomorrow 8.30am. Coming back Right
Now, Kate.


9.50 pm: There are huge jams in both directions on the M4.
The headlights form a three-mile diamond necklace. From the
driving seat, Rich shoots me inquiring, sidelong glances. I am
grateful for the dark: it means I don't have to pick up his distress
signals until I feel ready.

Finally he says: 'I still think it's a bit odd, Kate. You sending
yourself those flowers on Valentine's Day. Why did you do it?'

'As a morale boost. I wanted people in the office to feel I was
the kind of person who got flowers on Valentine's Day. And I
wasn't sure that you'd remember. Pathetic really.'

Easy to he when you try. Easier than saying that the flowers
came from a client with whom I have recently dined, a client
who has since occupied much of my conscious mind as well as


135
rudely gatecrashing my dreams. Time to change the subject.

'Rich, what's a relict? I saw it on a tomb in the cathedral
today. "And his relict Angharad." '

'Widow. It means literally what is left behind.'
'So the wife was the remains of the husband?'
'Exactly, Kate.' He laughs. 'Of course, in our marriage, I'd
be what was left of you.'

It's said with enough love really to sting. Do I really make
him feel that way? That small? Over the miles to come, I
embroider any number of plans, strategies to make things better
between us. Put things right. But three hours later, as we pass
Reading, I start to feel the gravitational pull of London, and the
resolve to change my life burns up on reentry.


Reasons to Give up Work & Go & Live in Country
I/ Better quality of life.
2/ Can buy mansion with en-suite minstrels' gallery for cost of

Hackney heap.
3/ Chance to be real mother who has time to love husband, learn

secret of children's hearts and discover how buggy bloody

raincover works.


Reasons Not to Give up Work & Go & Live in Country
i/ Would go mad.
2/ See above.
3/ See above.


136
Part Three
15 The Pigeons


where is a bird of prey when you need one? Since early
this morning, two pigeons have been sitting on the ledge
outside my office window. On their first date, apparently. For
an hour or so, the male seemed to be bowing to the female,
making polite little waiterly dips in front of her. Well, I assume
that's the male, because the other one is the colour of dishwater
and lowers her head in a coy Princess Di way, while he has this
magnificent ruff of feathers round his neck, emerald and purple
with a petroleum sheen.

It wasn't so bad when the male was whispering sweet
nothings, but now he's strutting about with his tail spread out
in a fan, hissing and whistling to attract the female's attention.
The noise is unbelievable. I give several sharp raps on the
window to scare the birds away, but the courting couple only
have eyes for each other.

I call over to Guy and tell him to get the Corporation on the
phone right away and ask for some guidance on pigeons.

Guy puts on his Jeeves face: 'Do you want me to arrange to
have them shot, Kate?'

'No, Guy, they've got a hawk to take them out. Can you ask
them when he's making his next visit?'

It's a little-known fact that the City of London employs a
falconer who brings his sparrowhawk along every so often to
control the pigeon population. Last time he was here, Candy
and I were on our "way to lunch and my unshockable New
York friend was astonished to see a large countryman with a
single leather gauntlet, launching a feathered missile into the air
above our heads.

'If you've ever wondered why the City has such clean


139
pavements compared to the rest of London, there's your
answer,' I said.

'Oh, I get it,' grinned Candy. 'That way they keep all the shit
on the inside.'


From: Dcbra Richardson
To: Kate Reddy

How ARE YOU? Me so stressed after 3 days of half-term
wanted to check into the Priory. Do they do a work-withdrawal
programme for sad junkies like us? We went to a 'child
friendly' hotel in Somerset. Felix got us banned after fusing
electrics in the breakfast room. Plugged his Thunderbirds fork
into the communal toaster and the whole place went dark.
Ruby says she hates me.

Are we just causing our children short-term damage, do you
think, or will there be major lawsuits later on?
Lunch on Wednesday, right?
Yrs in D-nial xxx


From: Jack Abelhammer

To: Kate Reddy

Subject: Japanese Banking Crisis

It is with some concern that your client notes the continuing

upheaval in the Far Eastern sector. I understand Origami

Bank has folded, Sumo Bank has gone belly up and Bonsai

Bank has plans to cut back several smaller branches.

can I get some direction on this, Ma'am? xxxxx


From: Kate Reddy
To: Jack Abelhammer
Subject: Japanese Banking Crisis.

Don't you have a business empire to run, Sir? Jokes about the
plight of our Oriental friends are in v. poor taste, although I did
hear shares in Kamikaze Bank have nose-dived and 500 back
office staff at Karate Bank got the chop.
Katharine, xx


140
From: Jack Abelhammer

To: Kate Reddy

Hey, I missed you. I've grown accustomed to your pace. How

was the vacation? Hot and relaxing, I hope.

Saw this great movie the other night about a guy who lost his

memory, so he has to write all the stuff he needs to remember

on his body. I thought of you - you said you always had so much

stuff to remember, right?

Jack xx


From: Kate Reddy

To: Jack Abelhammer

Not hot and not relaxing exactly. Still cold here - passed a guy

on the ice rink outside the office this morning; he was doing

these cool loops and swivels, as though he was writing his name

on the ice. Or even someone else's -- how romantic is that?

Correct about the movie, though. Most of my body is covered

in detailed notes already, but I've kept a spot for you behind

my left knee.


From: Jack Abelhammer

To: Kate Reddy

I skate a little - do you? We could try a few moves on thin ice

one day.

As for the left knee, be right there. Just feathering my quill.


10.23 am: Now the damned pigeon has started clapping his
wings together. As though he's giving himself this big round of
applause for being such a great lover. The female, meanwhile,
is doing the birdy equivalent of lying on her back and waving
her legs in the air. Completely intolerable. I manage to open
the window and try to shoo them away. But love, it turns out,
is deaf as well as blind.

So much to do I am surprised that my head is not lolling to
one side with the weight of activity in there. In two days, I will
be attending a final in the US for a $300 million ethical pension
fund which I will be presenting with a twentysomething


141
graduate trainee who has all the qualifications for the job -- not
white, not male - except being able to do the job. Between us,
Morno Gumeratne and I will signal EMF's passionate commitment
to diversity, a commitment whose finest hour till now
has been the inclusion of tacos on the cafeteria menu. Also, I
have still not secured the services of an entertainer for Emily's
birthday party. Also, I must pick up clothes for the final from
the dry cleaners. Also, there was definitely another also.

Damn. That's all I need. A memo on my desk from
Robin Cooper-Clark says there's an internal investigation into
some stock EMF sold that we didn't actually have. I push the
memo across the desk to Momo and tell her to go and put it on
Chris Bunce's desk. 'But make sure he doesn't see you, OK?'

The leaf-shaped eyes curl up at the corners as she scans the
paper. 'We sold stock we didn't have and now there's a claim
against us and Robin wants to know who is responsible?'

'Correct.'

'So, we find out whose fault it is?'

'No, Momo. The aim is to keep passing the buck until you
wear the others down. Are you familiar with the game Musical
Chairs? Yes, well, this is Musical Memos. The last person left
holding the paper is in deep shit. So, if you could just deliver
that to Bunce's desk. Now?'

I am beginning to recognise the expression on my assistant's
face: a sort of tremulous frown where high principle struggles
with a fervent desire to please. 'Sorry, Kate, but how do we
know Chris Bunce is to blame?'

I swivel my chair away from her to stop me losing my cool.
Outside on the ledge, the pigeon family tableau is framed by a
crane like a giant set-square. How to account for Chris Bunce,
a man who in conversation unconsciously grabs at his crotch as
if to check his manhood is still there, or rubs it in excitement
when he thinks he's about to get the better of someone?
Particularly me.

'Look, Bunce is a seat-of-the-pants artist who never does any
of his admin and leaves it to conscientious girlies like you and
me to do all the boring stuff that satisfies the authorities. If


142
IMRO knew what Bunce got up to they'd be in here with a
team of alsatians. But Bunce is very good at getting away with
it because he plays a mean game of Musical Memos. Am I
making myself clear yet?'

'Sorry,' Momo says, as another person would say OK, and
walks across the office, holding the memo out in front of her
like a sapper with an unexploded mine.

'Are you going to be able to train her up?'

Candy is standing by my desk wearing a skirt so short it's
practically a text message. I didn't even hear her come over.

'I don't know. I'm trying to introduce Momo to the idea that
not everyone is a nice person.'

'Omigod. We're not talking about a functional childhood,
are we?'

' 'Fraid so.'

Candy shakes her head in wonder and pity. 'Poor kid. She'll
never get anywhere.'


11.25 am: Determined to get my new personal organiser up
and running. The Pocket Memory will revolutionise my life!
The Pocket Memory will banish stress! The Pocket Memory
will make my time work harder for me!

After ten minutes reading the Starter Pack leaflet, I discover
that the Pocket Memory is not compatible with my computer.
I call the helpline. The school-leaver at the other end delivers
his prepared script with all the facility of a man translating from the Urdu.

'Have you got a large serial port in the back, madam?'

'Of me or the computer? How the hell should I know?'

'What you need, madam, is a Connect Kit.'

'No, what I need is to make my personal organiser organise.'

'You may order our Connect Kit now, madam. Should you
wish to proceed --'

'Excuse me, is this part of your promise to simplify my life?
Couldn't I just go to a shop and get the Kit?'

'There aren't that many available, madam. People order
them. It will take between five to ten days to arrive.'


U3
'I don't have five to ten days. I am leaving for the States in
twenty-four hours.'

'I'm afraid we can't--'

'Can't is for pussies.'

'I beg your pardon, madam?'

'It's an old Australian proverb meaning tell your manager
that I have several million shares in his company which are
currently under review and that our market research reports are
not showing them in a favourable light. Am I making myself
clear?'

There is an audible swallow. Till have to have a word with
the supervisor.'


Tuesday, 8.11 am: So it's come to this. Richard and I actually
lay in bed last night discussing whether we were too tired to
have sex. Couldn't quite remember what conclusion we
reached until I got up this morning and noticed that my inner
thighs were lightly glued together with glace icing.

Not a good idea before a major presentation. Sportsmen
always say they never have sex in the run-up to a'big race or
match, don't they? You never hear women athletes complain
about it, but it must be the same for them, if not worse. There
can be little to rival the female orgasm for knocking you out
cold. Hours after the earth moved, a deep, tentacular weariness
is still trying to drag you under: coming, I mean really coming, makes you want 
to go and lie down till Christmas. I reckon it
must be Nature's way of giving the sperm the best possible shot
at the egg. (When you think about it, almost everything in
female biology is Nature's way of making us want a baby or,
when we have one, of making us want to protect it.) Up until
last year, I suffered from mild PMT; not nothing, but nowhere
near the crampy hell some women go through. Then, as soon
as I hit thirty-five, it was war. Every month now, the hormones
are out in the streets jumping up and down, waving placards
and shouting: 'Save Our Eggs!' My body appears to know that
time is short and the passing of each egg is mourned like the loss
of a precious stone.


144
But how can I have another baby, when I don't see the ones
I've got? I've hardly been home these past few days. I look up
at the office clock and if it's after eight I know that I've missed
the kids' bedtimes, and, well, I figure I may as well push on for
the night. Momo orders in a pizza or we have something
healthy from the canteen in a Styrofoam box, always inedible,
and we end up with our usual midnight feast: a bag of tortilla
chips and a couple of Crunchies from the machine washed
down with Diet Coke.

I picked up the phone when I finally got in last night at
11.55, expecting it to be Momo with some more figures. And
who did I get? Barbara, my mother-in-law. I couldn't believe
she was ringing that late.

'Tell me not to stick my oar in where it's not wanted,
Katharine, but I spoke to Richard earlier and he sounded very
tired. I hope everything's all right.'

She thinks he's tired?


10.07 am: In a meeting with Rod, Momo and Guy. We are
rehearsing the final for the third time, with Rod and Guy
taking the parts of the clients, when Rod's secretary, Lorraine,
bursts in.

'Sorry to interrupt, Kate, but there's someone for you on line
3. He says you said it was urgent.'

'But who is it?'

Lorraine appears reluctant to say. She stands awkwardly in
the doorway until finally, in a stage whisper, she volunteers:
'It's a Percy Pineapple.'

Guy rolls his eyes so languidly he's practically looking backwards
into his own skull. Momo gazes at her shoes.

'Who the fuck's Percy Pineapple?' asks Rod amiably.

I decide to brazen it out: 'Oh, yes, that'll be Percy Pineapple,
the entertainment stock, part of Fruitscape.com, which is
coming to the market. Chairman is coming in to see me to
discuss the float. Just his little joke.'

Dear God. Still no entertainer for Emily's party. Have
worked my way through the trusted favourites - Roger


145
Rainbow, Zee-Zee the Clown and Katie Cupcake who does
the most marvellous things with Sinarties and an air-pump. All
have prior engagements in Monaco or Las Vegas or dancing
attendance on some anal-retentive Mother Superior who had
the paper plates and napkins picked out for Jocasta's seventh
birthday by the time her waters broke.

I am rapidly sliding down the food chain and have entered
the small-ad territory of bearded loons whose mugshots have an
uncanny overlap with those printed in the News of the World 'Name and Shame' 
paedophile campaign. There was a flash of
hope on Monday when Percy Pineapple of Gravesend said that
for 120 quid, no questions asked, love, he could drive up in his
van and put on a lovely show for the little girl. But Percy's
leaflet came in the post this morning. It shows a chubby
homunculus twisting Durex-pink balloons into worryingly
priapic dachsunds.

Of course, what Emily really wants is a swimming party, but
that is totally out of the question. At the pool you hire for such
occasions, the water is tepid, bacteria-rich and, unlike most
water, not transparent. Also, would have to take time off for
bikini wax: cannot do public nudity with other parents.


liA9 pm: Arrive home to discover the Pocket Memory
Connect Kit on the hall table. Richard is shipwrecked on the
sofa watching the Arsenal game. He has left me some pasta in
the oven: it has the texture and smell of baked toes.

'Would it be totally out of the question for anyone except
me to take stuff left at the bottom of the stairs upstairs?'

Rich doesn't look up from the TV: 'Ah, the great She
returns. Is it that time of the month already?'

'Are you accusing me of having PMT?'

Rich yelps and drops the remote. 'God, Kate, I look back to
your pre-menstrual tension with nostalgia. These days, we have
post-menstrual tension, inter-menstrual tension. We have 24-7
tension. Can you switch off when you eventually come to bed
or will you be issuing instructions in your sleep?'

I open the dishwasher and notice that the supposedly clean


146
dishes have a tide-mark of grey sediment. Damn machine must
be on the blink. 'It may have escaped your notice, Rich, but I
have a major presentation--'

'For it to have escaped my notice, I would have to have been
embalmed in Ulan Bator.'

'I do this for us, you know.'

'What us, Kate? The kids haven't seen you since we got back
from Wales. Maybe you should become a TV presenter: at least
they'd catch you once a day on screen.'

Standing in the doorway, watching my husband's baffled
misery from a long, long way off, I think how I know this
situation so well and I know the ways out of it: either leave for
the airport in the morning with a frost on the ground and hope
it has melted by the time I get back, or take my clothes off right
now and remind both of us that love is something you can
make. I'm so exhausted my body feels like a carcass; no, it feels
like a living body carrying a dead one on its back. But I can't
bear to leave him like this and some kinds of sex take less time
and energy than others.

'Please be on my side, Rich,' I say to him as I get to my feet
a few minutes later. 'It's me by myself in the office, against
them: I can't be on my own at home as well.'


1.01 am: Have almost finished transferring all the information
I need into the Pocket Memory when there is a cry from
upstairs.


4.17 am: Emily up three times already. Wrestling with her
duvet, damp hair drying in crusty tendrils on her pale cheek.
Can't tell me what's wrong. How can she do this to me tonight
of all nights? When I have to leave for the airport in three
hours. Immediate stab of guilt for even thinking such a
thought. Then, just when I've decided this is a preemptive
punishment for leaving her - like a cat, Emily senses a departure
before the suitcase is brought down - she finally moans,
'Mummy, my wee-wee hurts.'

I pour her a large cup of cranberry juice and spend the next


147
twenty minutes on the phone trying to get through to an
emergency doctor. He suggests I give her Calpol and take a
urine sample into the surgery first thing. Downstairs, I try to
find the nearest thing to a specimen bottle - something
watertight, but big enough for her to pee into. Only thing I can
find is Barbie flask. It will have to do. Back upstairs, kneeling
next to the toilet, I have no luck coaxing a wincing Em to
perform into the flask.

'Mummy?'

'Yes, love.'

'Can I have a swimming party?'

'Of course, sweetheart.'

The flask is instantly filled to the brim.


Noon, JFK Airport, New York: A hulking Customs inspector
bearing a strong resemblance to Sipowicz in NYPD Blue rifles
through my hand luggage. Totally unconcerned, I look on as
he takes out my mobile, spare tights and Pongy Percy the
Puppy book. Dips his meaty hand in a side pocket and brings
out the Barbie flask. Omigod. Was supposed to leave that on
the kitchen table: if flask is here, where is Pocket Memory?

Customs inspector unscrews Barbie container and sniffs:
'Ma'am, how would you describe this liquid?'

'It's my daughter's urine.'

'Ma'am, I think you'd better come with me.'


Must Remember
Absolutely Bloody Everything.


148
16 The Final


Wednesday, Fairweather Inn, Shanksville, New Jersey

Awake since 4 am, trapped in the revolving door of jet lag.

Room service doesn't start till six so I get a rank metallic coffee

from machine in the hallway and add a slug from a miniature in

the minibar. Whisky gives a sustained top note to the hellbrew.

Catch sight of an old woman in the bathroom mirror and look

away.

This morning, I dress for battle in full Armani armour. It is
incredibly comforting pulling on a crisp white blouse and a
digestive-biscuit-brown jacket and skirt with seams so sharp
you could take out an appendix with them. I wear the fudge
coloured LK Bennett pencil heels with white stitching and a
groin-piercing toe. The look I'm aiming for is Katharine
Hepburn Kicks Ass.

Two hours before the final and Momo joins me in the room.
She is wearing a blue silk suit and her dark hair is scraped back
and pinned up. She may be nervous within, but she looks so
mysteriously serene that a religion ought to be founded in her
name.

Today, though, I have to be confident for both of us,
exuding the gale-force bonhomie of a gameshow host who
knows his contract is up for renewal. We've been through the
presentation fifty times already, but there's no harm reprising all
the Don'ts.

'If they offer you a drink don't take it, OK? Don't call them
by their first names whatever you do. This is an ethical fund;
these people like to think of themselves as the kind of people
who like to be Gregged and Hannahed, but if you try it they'll
suddenly realise how much they prefer to be deferred to.


149
They're thinking about trusting us with an awful lot of money,
so it's Sir and Ma'am all round. And remember, we are the
suitors.'

Momo looks surprised. 'It's a flirtation?'

'Yes, only we don't flirt. It's like courtly love.'

'The one "who was married to Kurt Cobain?'

'Courtly love, Momo. Courtly. Did you ever read any
Chaucer at school?' She shakes her head. God, what are they
teaching them these days?

'No, well, we protest our undying devotion. Desperate to
please the beloved, we'd walk a million miles for one of their
files, that kind of thing. And the key is to keep reminding them
that although we have hundreds of white guys behind us who
practically invented banking, we also have an unparalleled
commitment to diversity. Ethical funds want decent returns:
they want diversity, but they don't want Third World. So we
can give them the best of British with a rainbow gloss, which is
where you and I come in.'

'Isn't that sort of unethical, Kate?'

Weeks of exposure to my radioactive cynicism and she can
still ask that question? What am I going to do with this child?
'If we told the truth, Momo, we'd lose, which would have the
virtue of being extremely ethical. But if we bluff our way
through and we win, then two women -- one of them not
white -- will have landed a $300 million account for Edwin
Morgan Forster, which means that diversity really does pay and
that means that one day, instead of being window-dressing, we
may get a crack at running the store. Which will be altogether
ethical and also mean we can buy ourselves a lot of excellent
shoes. Next question.'

'So, lying in a final isn't wrong?'

'Only if you do it badly.'

Momo gives a laugh that is too big for her slight frame; it
propels her back on to the bed and one shoe slips off and
thumps on to the floor. (Must remember to do something
about her shoes: navy flatties, they do nothing for her feet,
which are as tiny and articulated as a ballerina's.) Lying there on


150
the swirly orange counterpane, she looks up at me and sighs: 'I
don't understand you, Kate. Sometimes I think you think it's
all the most terrific bullshit and then it seems as though you
really really want to win.'

'Oh, I really, really do. Just watch me. When I was little I
used to hide a Monopoly hotel down my sock. If I landed on
Park Lane, I'd smuggle the hotel out. My dad caught me one
Christmas and hit me with the nutcracker for being a cheating
little cow.'

I can see Momo struggling to place this Dickensian episode
in the polite, well-ordered childhood that is the birthright of
every middle-class girl. She hasn't worked out that I'm
travelling on a false passport. Why would she? These days even
I'd struggle to spot myself as the impostor in a City lineup.

When she responds, it's as though the sun were in her eyes.
'That's awful,' she says. 'Your father. I'm really sorry.'

'Don't be. Be sorry for the losers. Now let's run through that
part where you hand me the list of clients again.'

The phone rings and for a second neither of us recognises its
plaintive foreign bleat. It's Rod with a few last-minute suggestions.
When I've hung up, I turn to Momo.

'All right, guess what he said.'

She furrows her brow and pretends to be thinking before
answering in her best crystal Cheltenham Lady: 'Go out and
kick the fucking tyres?'

Suddenly I feel a lot less worried about her. 'OK, you got the
job. Rod's not bad, you know, once you learn how to handle
him. If you make him think everything you want to do is his
idea, he'll be happy as Larry.'

Momo frowns. 'When you talk about the men at work,
Kate, it's as though we were their mothers.'

'We are their mothers. I have people hanging on to my skirt
in the office and then I have them hanging on to my skirt when
I go home. You'd better get used to it. Right, let's try the
opening one more time.'

The phone rings again. It's Paula, just calling to say she located
my personal organiser in the salad drawer. Ben has started hiding


I5i
things in the fridge. All the information I have needed over the
past twelve hours has been with the celery. Mean-while, Emily is
on antibiotics for her urinary infection. Her temperature is still
up, but she'd like to talk to me, if that's OK.

Emily comes on the line, at once pipingly eager and breathily
shy. Whenever I hear my daughter's voice on the phone, I feel
as though I'm hearing it for the first time: it seems implausible
that something I grew inside myself so recently should be able
to converse with me, let alone bounce off a satellite.

'Mummy, are you at America?'

'Yes, Em.'

'Like Woody and Jessie in Toy Story 2?'

'Yes, that's right. And how are you feeling, sweetheart?'

'Fine. Ben got a bump. There was loads and loads of blood.'

At this, I feel my own blood just stop; as if someone took a
flash photo of my whole being. 'Em, can I speak to Paula again?
Please ask Paula to come to the phone now, there's a good girl.'

I try to keep my voice calm and raise the matter of Ben's
bump casually when what I feel like doing is appearing in a ball
of fire in my own kitchen with maternal fangs glittering and a
headful of hissing snakes.

'Oh that,' Paula says dismissively. 'He just hit his head on the
table.'

The metal table with the retina-perforating corners I
specifically said must be banished to the cellar in case Ben fell
on it? That's the one. Hey, but these things happen, Paula is
telling me and, her tone says, anyway, you weren't here so who
are you to criticise? Besides, she doesn't think Ben needs
stitches.

Stitches? My God. I clear my throat and try to find that sweet,
liberal register where an order sounds like a suggestion. Perhaps
Paula could take Ben to the surgery? Just in case. A deep sigh
and then suddenly she is telling Ben to put something down. At
this distance, my children's carer sounds sardonic, detached.
Most distressing of all, she sounds like someone who is not me.
I can just about hear Ben - he must be over by the window making
those yelps which sound like pain but are just his way


152
of recording the fierce pleasure of discovery. Paula is saying
there was something else. Alexandra Law called about a Parent
Teachers meeting at school. Will I be attending?

'What?'

'Can you go to the PTA meeting?'

'I really can't think about that now.'

'So I'll tell her no?'

'No. Tell her I'll call her ... after.'


From: Debra Richardson

To: Kate Reddy

Q: Why is it difficult to find men who are sensitive, caring and

good-looking?

A: They all have boyfriends already.
HowU?


From: Kate Reddy

To: Debra Richardson

Completely mental. Literally. Life of the body a distant

memory. Am now just brain on a stick. About to pitch for

$$$$$$ account with terrified trainee who thinks Geoffrey

Chaucer is rap artist. Plus Emily sick and Ben nearly

decapitated while Pol Pot busy listening to Kiss FM.

Don't want to be grown-up any more. When did we start

having to be the grownups?

Kxxx


2.57 pm: Our prospective client's offices are decorated in a
style I immediately identify as Corporate Cosy. Plaid wing
chairs, a lot of teak and ethnic hangings bought by the mile.
The look says we mean business but, hey, you can do a yogic
headstand in here if the mood takes you.

Momo and I are shown into the meeting room by the largest
female I have ever seen. Carol Dunstan is clearly a major
beneficiary of Workplace Diversity, Fattist Section. The walk
from the lobby has made her breathless; just looking at her is to
wonder what manner of distress it is that requires so much


153
comfort eating. She makes the introductions, taking us through
the eighteen faces round the table. I hear Momo decline a
drink. That's my girl. 'And last, but certainly not least, our
distinguished colleague from the Salinger Foundation. Mr
Abelhammer sits on the state board of trustees, Ms Reddy.'

And truly there he is. In the furthest corner, marked out from
the other suits by a posture of almost insolent relaxation and a
broad grin. Simultaneously, the person I least want to see and
the only person I want to see. Jack.


The presentation goes well. Too well, maybe. Halfway through
and I can practically taste the healing sting of gin and tonic on
the plane home. I have tried to ignore the fact that my email
lover is actually physically here in the room, although I have
felt his presence as you feel the sun on your skin.

I talk our prospective clients through the booklet containing
mugshots of the guys who manage portfolios back in London.
It's a gallery of City types pretty much unchanged for 300 years:
well-lunched Hogarth squires, thrusting runts. Men whose last
wisps of hair have been blown dry to form a spun-sugar web
over a pink saucer of scalp. Heart-attack candidates, their eager
prep-school faces buried in the landslide of middle age. Young
men with the waxy, stunned look that comes from long,
obedient hours in front of a screen. With particular pride, I point
out hotshot hedge fund manager Chris Bunce, whose coke habit
has given him the eyes of a laboratory rat and the manners to
match. At the front, there is a photograph of Robin Cooper
Clark, tall as a birch, quizzical, half-smiling. He looks like God
would look, if God had his shirts made at Turnbull & Asser.

Carol Dunstan clears her throat: 'Ms Reddy, New Jersey has
recently signed up to the McMahon Principles. Would that be
a problem to your asset allocation?'

OK, Kate, let's not panic. Let's think. Think! 'No. I'm sure
that if we were given a list of stocks that were governed by the,
Me - um - Mahon Principles ..."

'We don't have a list, Ms Reddy,' says the big woman curtly.
'Naturally, we would expect Edwin Morgan Forster to provide


154
a list that abides by the McMahon Principles. Principles with
which you are, of course, familiar.'

Eighteen faces in the room fixed on me. Nineteen, including
Momo, who looks up with trusting spaniel eyes. I have never
heard of McMahon or his sodding principles. Seconds which
normally pass silently, modestly, happy to go unnoticed, are
suddenly long, loud and merciless. I can feel the blood surge to
my throat and chest: a raspberry flush that can only be triggered
by sex or shame. The exhalation of the air-conditioning unit
sounds like a woman parted from her lover. No. Don't think
about lovers. Think about McMahon. Whoever he is. Probably
some self-righteous little Celt wanting to take his revenge on
the Anglo-Saxon capitalist oppressors. I avoid looking down
the far end of the table where Jack is sitting.

Carol Dunstan's prim drawstring mouth is just opening again
\vhen a male voice speaks: 'I think we can feel confident, Carol,
that with Ms Reddy's wide experience of ethical funds she
would be up to speed with the employment practices of
companies in Ireland.'

Sudden rush of gratitude as heady as oxygen. Jack has flipped
the emergency hatch and given me a way out. I nod in eager
agreement. 'As Mr Abelhammer says, we have a team which
screens for employment policies. On a personal note, I'd like to
add that I am fully behind the McMahon Principles, being Irish
myself.'

There is a crash behind me. Momo has dropped a file, but
this calamity is lost in the general murmur of appreciation for
my ethnic credentials. On a tide of goodwill, I move straight
into the close. The close is the bit where you say, Give us the
money. But politely. And without mentioning money.


5. li pm: Momo and I are failing into the cab when there is a
squeak of leather behind us.

'I'd like to say what a pleasure it was to witness such a
performance, Ms Reddy.'

'Why, thank you, Mr Abelhammer. I was most grateful for
your interjection.'


155
I

Caught in the static between Jack and me, Momo looks    $

slightly perplexed.     .

He rests his hand lightly on the rim of the car door. 'I was    i

wondering whether I could interest you both in a drink. *

Perhaps take in the sights of Shanksville. I see the Sinatra Inn        S

does a cocktail called Come Fly With Me.'       ...

'Actually, Ms Gumeratne and I are very tired.'

He nods his understanding. 'Another time. Take care now.'

On the way back to the hotel, Momo says, 'I'm sorry, Kate,
but do you know that guy?'

'No, I don't.' A truthful answer. I don't know Jack
Abelhammer, but I may be in love with him. How can you be
in love with someone you don't know? It's probably easier,
isn't it, all things considered. A blank screen you can type all
your longings on.

'He looks like George Clooney,' sighs Momo. 'I think we
should have that drink.'

'No. It would be unprofessional before they've made their
decision. Anyway, we should have our own drink to celebrate.
You were a complete star.'

'I'm sorry, Kate, but you were the brilliant one. I couldn't do
what you just did.' Momo permits herself a smile and I
suddenly see how tense her face has been. 'I didn't know you
were Irish.'

'Just a little. On my father's side.'

'Like McMahon?'

'Yes, only without the principles.'

She giggles. 'What does your father do?'

'Same line of work as me.'

'He's a fund manager?'

'No, but like us he gambles a lot on fancied horses, pretends
it's scientific and hopes to God they'll come home, and when
they don't, he leaves town.'

'Good heavens,' says Momo, so shocked she forgets to say
sorry for the first time since I met her. 'He sounds like a
colourful character.'


156
whenever i talk about my dad to other people I hear
myself adopting a different voice: detached, breezy,
ironic. A voice you tell funny stories in. Colourful characters are wonderful 
in Dickens or as bit-parts in movies, when they're
played by bloated ex-matinee idols who can be carried all the
way to Best Supporting Actor on a wave of public sympathy; you
just don't want one in your life if you can possibly help it.

'Pretend we've got plenty of cash, Kathy duck,' Dad once
instructed me. We were sitting in a pub garden at the fag-end
of a long grey line of Northern towns. Julie and I sat on a bench
with half-pint glasses of Dandelion & Burdock, a drink that
tastes like Pepsi mixed with creosote, but was believed by us to
be the chosen nectar of sophisticated ladies. I was twelve years
old, too dizzy from moving town every six months to know
what stable behaviour was, and far too much in thrall to my
father to protest. Of course there wasn't any money, and when
there was, it would be spirited out of my mum's purse by Joe
for one of his schemes.

But I pretended we had money. Even then I think I could
smell the disappointment settling like damp on my father and I
wanted to protect him from it. Disappointment unmans a man
so. The women around him have to go on pretending they
can't smell it, with him sitting there, hand shaking and using the
other one to steady the glass and insisting that there's
everything still to play for.

Now here's a funny thing. All the women I know in the City
are Daddy's Girls one way or another. (Candy's dad walked out
when she was five and I think she's been trying to find him ever
since; Debra's ran a motor company in the West Midlands and
"was occasionally sighted by Deb and her sisters between rounds of
golf at the weekend.) Daughters striving to be the son their father
never had, daughters excelling at school to win the attention of a
man who was always looking the other way, daughters like poor
mad Antigone pursuing the elusive ghost of paternal love. So why
do all of us Daddy's Girls go and work in a place so hostile to
women? Because the only real comfort we get is from male
approval. How sad is that? How fucking sad is that?


157
I

I close my eyes and try to banish thoughts of my own    JB

wayward sire. Since he turned up at the office with that nappy

design, he has called most days. The other night, he left a     |

message on the answerphone, saying that the money wasn't        *

enough. |

'How much did you give him?' asked Rich, his face       -

draining.

I mentioned a figure that was about a third of the cheque I
wrote that day in the pub and Rich hit the roof.

'Christ, when will you learn, woman?'

A good question. There's no statute of limitations on pity, is
there?


8.18 pm: Must have lain down on the bed and fallen asleep.
Woken by the phone. It's Richard. He sounds incredibly pissed
off. Says he can't find the detergent ball for the washing
machine. Paula called in sick and Ben was running round without
a nappy and there was an accident on the duvet. So he's got
the cover off and into the machine, but he can't fine! the ball.

I tell him the ball will probably have got tangled up in the
sheets; he should try the ironing basket.

'Where's the ironing basket?'

'The ironing basket is the basket full of clothes next to the
ironing board. Rich, aren't you even going to ask me how it
went?'

'What?'

'The final.'

'I need you.'

'Oh, come on, Rich, you can manage the washing just this
once.'

'Kate, it's nothing to do with the washing, I just need you.
Why can't you fly home tonight?'

'I just can't. Look, I'll be on the first plane tomorrow.'


The phone again. I let it ring and ring. Richard asking about
hamster food, presumably, or the location of the microwave or


158
his children's ears. Eventually, thinking there might be a
genuine problem with the kids, I pick up.

'I was glad to learn that you're Irish. For a moment there I
was in danger of confusing you with the Katharine Reddy who
runs my fund and told me she was French.'

'I did not say I was French, Jack. I said I had French blood in
me.'

He laughs: 'What next? Cherokee? You are a piece of work,
Kate.'

Now, I hear a voice, a responsible, sober "woman's voice,
telling her client quite firmly that under no circumstances does
she want to try the Come Fly With Me cocktail in some cheesy
roadside diner.

His reply comes straight back over the net: 'No problem.
They do a great Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered.'

A line from that song pops into my head and I sing it:
'Horizontally speaking, he's at his very best.'

Abelhammer lets out a low whistle: 'So, it's true, you do
know everything.'

'I don't know the way to the Sinatra Inn.'


159
17 Night and Day


the sinatra inn has the determined gaiety of a fading
showgirl. Red velvet booths line the walls; fifty years of
elegant dining have rubbed shiny saddle sores in the scarlet
plush. The back wall is given over to photographs of the local
boy made good (Frank came from Hoboken, just down the
road). There is a picture of Sinatra with Lauren Bacall, Sinatra at
a rakish angle with the Rat Pack, Sinatra standing at a piano,
caught in a cone of light, his skinny tie at half mast, his neck
straining for some long-lost note. And Sinatra with Ava Gardner
in the Fifties, him looking famished, her insatiable: I can never
see those two together without imagining them in bed.

Each booth has its own mini jukebox where you put in your
quarter and take your pick of Frank's Greatest Hits. So many
titles, so many featuring the word You. Jack Abelhammer and
I choose the corner seat under the poster of Frank as Maggio in From Here to 
Eternity. To the waiter, an eager, harassed man
with a lot of veal to get rid of, we must appear to be a regular
couple having fun over the cocktail list. (Witchcraft looks evil,
so I opt for a Night and Day.) In fact, Jack and I are in trouble.
Like returning astronauts, we are struggling to make the switch
from the weightless world of e-mail, where you can say what
you like and mean it or not mean it, to the real world where
words, being earthed by gestures, by arms and lips and eyes,
have their own specific gravity.

I have never seen Jack out of a suit before. The effect is only
slightly less alarming than if he were entirely naked. I laugh and
drink and laugh and feel a needle of doubt threading through
me. I know Jack Abelhammer the way I know a fictional
character. I need him to exist to make reality more bearable,


160
not to complicate it.

'So, -what's it to be, signora?' Jack is examining the menu.
'Veal with marsala, veal with mascarpone or veal with our
delicious chopped veal? You don't likea da veal? OK, so we
have a very gooda scaloppina a la limone.'

He slots a quarter into the jukebox, and his ringer reaches out
to press 'Where or When'.

'No, not that one.'

'But it's beautiful.'

'I'll cry. When I heard Sinatra died I cried.'

'Hey, I love Frank too, but he was real old when he died.
Why d'you cry?'

I'm not sure how much I want to tell this most familiar
stranger. The version with the colourful character or the true
story? My dad had a cache of Sinatra 78s he kept in the sideboard,
filed in their brown-paper sleeves in a big toast-rack thing. Julie
and I were fascinated by them when we were kids. The brown
paper smelt like old people, but the records themselves made
everyone seem so young. They had that ebony lustre a cockroach
has and a fabulous label in mauve with silver writing like an
invitation to a ball. My father always did a great Sinatra
impersonation at family get-togethers - standing on a table and
spitting out 'Schick-kargo, Schick-cargo, that toddlin' town!'
But the songs he liked best were the sad ones. 'All the Way' and
'Where or When'. 'Frank's the Patron Saint of Unrequited
Love,' Dad said, 'will you listen to that voice, Katharine?'

'Kate?'

'Frank could make my parents happy,' I say, studying the
menu. 'Sinatra was always the truce music in our house. It was
safe to come out if my dad put on "Come Fly With Me". I
think I'll try another cocktail instead of the veal. What d'you
think would happen if you mixed a "Love and Marriage" with
a "Strangers in the Night"?'

Jack grabs the tip of the knife I am playing with, so we each
have one end. 'Nothing too terrible. Maybe a strange taste in
the mouth. I'd say the worst was a bad case of remorse in the
morning. What's a bouncy castle?'


161
'What bouncy castle?'

'A bouncy castle. You have it written on your hand. I haven't
seen a girl write on her hand since eighth grade; Kate, you really
should look into these great new things called diaries.'

I look down at the spider of biro across my knuckle, a
reminder about Emily's birthday. So, here's the rub: to tell him
or not to tell him that I am a mother (surely, the only context
in which this could be a shameful revelation).

'A bouncy castle is ... It's a blow-up castle you bounce on.
For my daughter's birthday party, I need to remind myself to
hire one. I mean, it's not for ages, but by the time I get round
to remembering it's usually too late.'

'You have a child?' He seems interested, not appalled.

'Two. Or so they tell me. I don't see as much of them as I'd
like. Emily will be six in June, she thinks she's Sleeping Beauty.
Ben is one and a bit and you can't get him to stay still he's . . .
Well, he's a boy.'

Jack nods solemnly: 'Amazing they're still making us.
Strictly, we men should have been phased out with the stegosaurus.
But a few of us wanted to stick around and see what the
place would be like when you were running it.'

'I'm not terribly good at being laughed at, Mr Abelhammer.'

'That'll be the German in you, Ms Reddy.'

Later, after the veal - a flannel wrapped in a loofah of cheese
- there is tiramisu, like shaving foam flecked with almonds.
The food is so transcendentally terrible that we are already
relishing the shared joke it will become. And then there is
dancing. A lot of dancing. I seem to remember singing too, but
that can't be right. What kind of a state would I have to be in
to sing in public?

'Still a voice within me keeps repeating, You You You.

Night and day, you are the one,

Only you beneath the moon and under the sun.

Whether near to me or far, it's no matter darling where
you are

I think of you. Night and day.'


162
2.34 am: 'Wake up, Mummy, wake up, sleepy head!'

Sit up in blind panic. Cover breasts with hands, then realise
it's dark. Emily? Here in New Jersey? Takes a few seconds to
find the light switch, a few more to figure out the voice is
coming from the alarm clock, the travel one with the recorded
message that Emily gave me for Christmas. It must be getting
up time back in London. 'Come on, Mummy, lazy bones,
you'll be late.' Emily's voice is tinged with pride in her
assignment: when she's bossy she sounds exactly like her
mother.

I peer around the room for signs of adultery. My dress is on
a hanger; shoes under the chair, underwear in a neat pile on
top. Jack has carried me back, undressed me and put me to bed.
Like a child. Suddenly, I think how unbearable it would have
been if he'd been here when Emily's voice sang out in the
darkness, stopping us in our Oh,
God, my head. Must get water. Into the bathroom,
switch on light. Light like a drill. Switch off light. Drink one
glass of water, then another. Not enough. Climb into shower
with mouth open and let water gush in. On the way back to
bed, I see that the top page of the hotel stationery has
something on it. Switch on desk lamp:

'Some things that happen for the first time,

Seem to be happening again,

. . . But who knows Where or When?'

Sleep well, love Jack


10.09 am: Newark Airport: The plane is delayed for ever. I
am stretched out across a bank of seats in the Club Lounge. The
fog outside the window is matched by impenetrable gloom
inside my head. I think of last night while trying not to think
of last night. Infidelity Reddy-style: all the guilt and none of the
sex. Brilliant, Kate, just brilliant.

You get drunk with a client who carries you back to your
hotel room, removes all your clothes and then politely takes his
leave. Hard to know what to feel: outraged at the sexual
invasion or mortified by the lack of it? Perhaps Abelhammer


163
was repelled by the non-matching bra-brief combo, or maybe
he fled at the sight of the Reddy stomach which, after two
pregnancies and an emergency Caesarean, resembles one of her
grandmother's nee puddings -- the top-skin puckered over the
granular slush beneath. One problem with being unconscious
in the presence of a prospective lover is the inability to pull
one's belly button to spine as advised by personal trainer.

At the thought of Jack undressing me, my whole being feels
like a stocking silkily descending a leg.

'Kate, are you, OK?' Momo is back with black coffee and the
British papers.

'No. Terrible. Anything in the news?'

'Just the Tory Party killing each other. And working mothers
all cracking up. It says that 78 per cent would give up their job
tomorrow if they could.'

'Ha! Can't be accurate. Those of us who are really stressed
out don't have time to fill in stupid surveys. What are you
thinking, Momo?'

She is doing that cute wrinkly thing with her nose: 'I'm
sorry, but I'm not going to have any. Kids. I really"don't know
how you do it, Kate.'

'Compartments, that's how. They go in one compartment,
work goes in another: and you have to stop them leaking into
each other. It's tricky, but not impossible. Anyway, you must
have children. You're beautiful and intelligent and there are
enough gruesome morons reproducing out there.'

Momo shakes her head. 'I like kids, I really do, but I want to
go on with my career and you said yourself how the City sees
mothers. Anyway,' she says coolly, 'I'm overeducated for
looking after small children.'

How to explain to her? So many women of Memo's age
look at the likes of me, driven crazy by our double lives, and
decide to put off having kids for as long as possible. I've seen it
in my friends. They get to their mid-thirties, panic, pick the
wrong guy -- any sperm donor will do by then -- find they can't
get pregnant, embark on IVF, painful and ruinous. Sometimes
it works; mostly it doesn't. We think we've outwitted Mother


164
Nature, but Nature isn't called Mother for nothing. She has her
way of slapping us down, making us feel small. The world is
going to end not with a bang, but with a woman staring
through a glass panel at her frozen eggs and wondering if she'll
ever have time to defrost them. I try to shut out the noise of the
airport arid think of what Emily and Ben mean to me, then I
gather what remaining strength I have and let Momo have it.

'Children are the proof we've been here, Momo, they're
where we go to when we die. They're the best thing and the
most impossible thing, but there's nothing else. You have to
believe me. Life is a riddle and they are the answer. If there's
any answer, it has to be them.'

Momo reaches into her bag and passes me a tissue. Is it the
thought of the children that's made me cry or the thought that
last night I didn't think of them at all?


Flight from Newark to Heathrow, 8.53 pm: Adrenalin always
gets you through a job, but on the way home the fact that I've
been away kicks in like a hangover. Home. I feel both vital to
it - how will they manage without me? - and painfully
peripheral: they manage without me.

When I'm abroad, I sit in my hotel room in front of the
laptop and call up my e-mails using Remote Access. You hear
it dialling a long way off, somewhere at the far end of the
universe. It takes a few seconds of bronchial static, then the bips
do a tapdance off a satellite and come bouncing back. Remote
access. Isn't that how I communicate with my children?
Dialling them up when I need to, but otherwise keeping them
at a distance. If I'm ever with Emily and Ben properly, for a few
days and nights, I'm always struck by how shockingly alive they
are. They're not the shyly smiling girl and boy in the picture I
just showed Momo, the one I keep in my wallet. Their need
for me is like the need for water or light: it has a devastating
simplicity. It doesn't fit any of the theories about what women
are supposed to do with their lives: theories written in books by
women who never had children, or had children but brought
them up as I mostly bring up mine - by Remote Access.


165
Children change your heart: they never wrote that in the
books. Sitting here in the front row of Club, nursing a large gin,
I feel that absurd organ inside my chest, swollen and heavy as a
gourd.

Morno is right next to me. Since the tears at the airport my
assistant has been anxiously attentive; unnerved by this wistful
stranger talking about the meaning of life, Momo wants normal
Kate service to be resumed as soon as possible and I'm pretty
keen to get it back myself.

'Kate, I'll swap you my Harvard Business Review for your Vanity Fair.' She 
offers me a supplement with a sober grey
typeface.

'Does it have any pictures of Johnny Depp?'

'No, but there's a terribly interesting article on The Dos and
Don'ts of Kinesthetic Presentation. Guess what Point One is?'

'Undo two more blouse buttons than is strictly respectable?'

'No, Kate, seriously. "Ensure that your physical moves signal
your intentions to the client."'

'Like I said. Two blouse buttons.' (Why do I feel compelled
to relieve this lovely, solemn girl of her illusions? Perhaps I feel
it's better I get in first, before the men take them away.)

Across the aisle from us, a harassed brunette in a baggy pink
sweater is trying to quiet a yelling baby. She stands up and
jiggles her. She sits down again and attempts to pull the baby's
thrashing head into the cave of her shoulder; finally, she lifts her
sweater and tenders a breast. The suit in the neighbouring seat
takes one look at the mammary boulder and makes a dash for
the toilet.

There is a little-known Universal Law of Infant Crying: the
greater the mother's desperation and embarrassment, the louder
the volume. Even without looking round, I can gauge the
effect the mechanical howling has on my fellow passengers.
The cabin crackles with the static of resentment: men who are
trying to work, men who are trying to get some rest, women
who may be savouring their last few hours of freedom and
don't want a reminder of what they can get at home, women
away from their own kids and pricked by guilt.


166
The mother has a look on her face I know all too well. It's
two parts manic apology ('Sorry about this, everyone!') to three
parts defiance ('We've paid for our seat, just like the rest of you
and she's only tiny, what do you expect?'). Baby can't be more
than two or three months old; a pre-hair furze, fine as
dandelion down, forms a corona around a skull that has the
tensile strength and beauty of an egg. When she screams, you
can see the pulse jump in the blue hollow at her temples.

'No, Laura, no, sweetie, that hurts,' the mother chides as the
infant tugs furiously on her long dark hair. I get a sudden deep
pang for my Ben. He does that when he's overtired too: a
baby's frustration at not being able to enter sleep is that of an
alcoholic locked out of a bar.

Momo looks on with a twentysomething's horrified incomprehension.
Under her breath, she asks me -why the woman
can't shut the kid up.

'Because the baby wants to go to sleep, but the pressure in her
ears is probably really hurting. The only way you can equalise
the pressure is to get her to drink something, but she won't latch
on to the breast because she's too exhausted to suck.'

At the word suck, Momo gives a fastidious little shudder
inside her Donna Karan grey wool. Says she finds the whole
idea of breastfeeding deeply weird.

I tell her that it's the opposite of weird. 'In fact, it may be the
only time in your life when your body makes perfect sense to
you. I sat there in the delivery room and Emily rooted around
and the milk started flowing and I thought, I am a mammal!'

'Sounds gross,' Momo says.

'It wasn't gross, it was comforting. We spend our whole life
overruling what remains of our instincts and this one - how
does that Carole King song go? - "Oh, you make me fee-eel
like a nat-u-ral woman."'

Shouldn't have started singing. Pink Sweater overheard and
clearly thinks I am being sarcastic about her doing the Earth
Mother bit in public. I try to make amends by giving her a
conspiratorial, Don't-worry-I've-been-there! smile. But I have
forgotten that I'm in uniform. Seeing the suit and the laptop,


167
she obviously mistakes me for the childless enemy and shoots
me a twelve-bore glare.

I must try and get some sleep, but the thoughts are sparking
in my brain like an electrical storm. When I think about Jack,
I feel, what do I feel? I feel idiotic - who is he, anyway, and
what does he want with me or I with him? But mainly I feel
excited, I feel ambushed. There are forces gathering around my
heart and shouting at me to come out with my hands up.
Sometimes I want to surrender. And then I think about my
children, waiting like those owl babies in Ben's book for their
mummy to come home from hunting. I know the damn thing
off by heart.

'And the baby owls closed their eyes and wished their Owl
Mother would come. AND SHE CAME. Soft and silent, she
swooped through the trees to Sarah and Percy and Bill.
"Mummy!" they cried, and they flapped and they danced, and
they bounced up and down on their branch.

' "WHAT'S ALL THE FUSS?" their Owl Mother asked.
"You knew I'd come back."'


'Momo, d'you think we can get some more gin over here? I
appear to still be in radio contact with my conscience.'

With the Atlantic below, I try to compose a message to Jack
that will make things right again between us.


1.05 pm:

From: Kate Reddy

To: Jack Abelhammer

Unaccustomed as I am to being undressed by a strange man

while drunk No.
Too flippant. Delete. Try business-as-usual approach.


l.llpm:

From: Kate Reddy

To: Jack Abelhammer

Further to our recent meeting, I have been thinking of


168
increasing the turnover of the fund temporarily. Should you

have any further desire Should
you need me I
am most eager You
know I would bend over backwards --

I have been considering some options which need to be put to

bed


Oh, hell.


1.22 pm:

From: Kate Reddy

To: Jack Abelhammer

Jack, I just want to say how entirely out of character my

behaviour was last night and I hope that temporary aberration

will in no way alter our professional relationship which I value

so highly. My memory of events is a little vague, but I trust that

I was not too great an embarrassment when you kindly

returned me to my hotel room.

Obviously, I hope that this will in no way affect your future

dealings with EMF for whom you remain a most esteemed

client.

yours faithfully, Katharine


And that's the one I send, as soon as I get home.


From: Jack Abelhammer
To: Kate Reddy

In the United States, when a woman kisses you on the mouth
and invites you to join her on a desert island of your choice this
does tend to 'alter the professional relationship' somewhat,
although maybe this is now part of standard client management
techniques on your British MBA program?
The Sinatra Inn was a great evening. Please don't be
embarrassed about the hotel room: I kept my eyes closed at all
times, ma'am, except when you asked me to take out your
contacts. The left eye is greener.


169
When I got back to the apartment, Butch Cassidy was on TV. Kate, do you 
remember the end when Sundance and Butch are
holed up with the Mexican army waiting outside? They know
it's no good, but they run out all barrels blazing anyway.
For a moment there, I thought we were in trouble.
Jack


Must Remember Children, bouncy castle, rabbit moulds for blancmange, husband.


Must Forget
You, You, You.


170
18 The Court of Motherhood


whenever she appeared before the Court of
Motherhood, the woman never seemed to do herself
justice. It was hard to figure out exactly what went wrong.
There she was, all the arguments on the tip of her tongue, the
perfectly good reasons why she went out to work, the way it
benefited both her and the children, the killer quote from
Gloria Steinem about how no man has ever had to ask for
advice on how to combine fatherhood and a career. And then,
the minute she was standing in that dock, the justifications
turned to ashes in her mouth.

She thought it was something to do with the way they always
summoned her at night, when she was asleep, so obviously she
wasn't at her brightest. The courtroom didn't help either.
Airless, oak-panelled and lined with mournful wigged figures in
black, it was like testifying in a giant coffin while the
undertakers looked on, waiting for you to dig your own grave.
And she loathed the judge. Must be at least sixty-five and very
hard of hearing.

'Katharine Reddy,' he booms, 'you appear before the Court
of Motherhood tonight charged with leaving a sick child in
London while you flew on business to the United States of
America. How do you plead?

Oh, God, not that. 'I left Emily in London with a temperature,
that's true, Your Honour. But if I'd pulled out of the
final at such short notice, Edwin Morgan Forster would never
ever have let me do another big pitch.'

'What kind of a mother leaves her daughter when she's ill?'
demands the judge, peering stonily down at her.

The, but--'


171
'Speak up!'

The, Your Honour. I did leave Emily, but I knew she was
getting the proper treatment, she was on antibiotics and I did
speak to her every day I was away and I am planning on
organising a swimming party for her birthday and I do
genuinely believe women should be role models for their
daughters and ... I do love her so much.'

'Mrs Shattock,' the prosecuting counsel is on his feet now
and pointing at her, 'This court has heard how you confessed
to your colleague, a Miss Candace Stratton, that you felt a surge
of what you termed "almost orgasmic relief" at leaving your
family after half-term and returning to the office. How do you
answer that?'

The woman laughs. A dark, bitter laugh. 'That's incredibly
unfair. Of course, it's nice to be in a place where you're not
being followed around all the time by someone shouting,
"Mummy, poo!" I don't deny that. At least people in the office
can see that you're busy and don't ask you for toast or lollies or
to pull their knickers up. If it's wrong to find that a relief, then
I'm sorry: guilty as charged.'

'Did you say guilty?' The judge has perked up.

'In my defence,' she continues, 'I'd like to have it taken into
account that I did build three sandcastles at St Davids and I did
let Emily plait my hair with the bits of crab she said were
mermaid's jewels. And I did all the songs and all the sandwiches.
I made two kinds every day, even though they only
ever eat the crisps --'

'Mrs Shattock, could you please confine yourself to the
charges,' roars the judge. 'Guilty or not guilty? Seaside activities
are not the business of the Court of Motherhood.'

The woman cocks her head to one side and you can see
something mischievous, almost mutinous, enter her eyes. 'Is
there a Court of Fatherhood, m'lud? Stupid question, really.
Think how long it would take to process the backlog of cases.
All those blokes who just popped into the pub on the way
home and didn't make it back for the bedtime story for, what
shall we say, two thousand years?'


172
'Silence! Silence, I say. If you continue in this manner, Mrs
Shattock, I shall have you taken to the cells.'

'Sounds lovely. I could get some sleep.'

The judge pounds his gavel on the bench. He is getting larger
by the minute and his old white face suffuses with scarlet like a
syringe taking in blood. The defendant, meanwhile, is growing
smaller and smaller. No bigger than a Barbie doll, she scrambles
up on to the edge of the dock and balances there precariously
in high heels. When she starts to shout at the judge, her voice
is a gerbil squeak:

'All right, you really want to know the truth? Guilty.
Unbelievably, neurotically, pathologically guilty. Look, I'm
sorry, but I have to go now. For heaven's sake, just look at the
time.'


173
19 Love, Lies, Bleeding


can you smell treachery on your lover? I am convinced
Richard can. He's been all over me since I got back from
New Jersey, perching on the edge of the bath while I tried to
soak away the journey, insisting on washing my back, complimenting
me on a hairstyle that hasn't changed in three years.
And staring and staring, as though trying to place something he
can't quite put his ringer on, then looking quickly away when
our eyes meet. For the first time, there is a shyness between us;
as carefully polite as dinner-party guests, we will have been
married seven years at the end of July.

While Rich is locking up downstairs, I jump into bed and
simulate deep slumber to avoid reunion sex. Lying next to him
with my eyes closed, a montage of guilt, work, desire and
shopping flickers across my lids: bread, rice cakes, Jack's smile,
canned tuna, check cash level of funds, apple juice, Alphabite
potato thingies (ask Paula), spreadsheets, the word kiss spoken
in an American accent, cucumbers, blancmange rabbit, green
jelly for grass.

At first light, when Rich and I finally make love, as the
children are starting to stir in their beds overhead, there is
something driven and possessive about it, as though my
husband were acting out some deep territorial impulse to plant
his flag and reclaim me. And, in a way, I am grateful to be
reclaimed; less scary than setting out for a foreign land with its
curious habits, its unknown emblems.

Richard is still collapsed on top of me when the children
come shrieking into the bedroom. Emily's first reaction on
seeing that I'm back is of uncomplicated joy, complicated
seconds later by a pout and an Othello-green stare. Ben is so


174
delighted he bursts into tears and plumps down on to his
nappy-cushioned bottom; that small body barely able to
support the strength of his feelings. When the two of them
climb on to the bed, Emily straddles Rich's chest and Ben lies
in the damp cruciform his father has left on my naked body.
Face level with mine, he starts to point at my features one by
one: 'Ayze.'

'Eyes, good boy.'

'Nows.'

'Nose, that's right, Ben, clever boy. Have you been learning
words while Mummy's been away?'

His index finger, slender as a pencil, comes to rest between
my breasts.

'And that, young man,' says Richard leaning over and gently
removing his son's hand, 'is the female bosom, of which your
mother has a particularly lovely example.'

'Mummy looks like me, doesn't she?' demands Emily,
climbing aboard and budging Ben down on to the belly whose
soft dome still bears the memory of carrying them both. The'
chimes Ben happily. The, Me, Me,' the children cry as the
mother disappears under her own flesh and blood.


any woman with a baby has already committed a kind
of adultery, I think. The new love in the nest is so
voracious that all the old one can do is to wait patiently, hoping
for any crumbs the intruder does not consume in its cuckoo
greed. A second child squeezes the adult love even harder. The
miracle is that passion survives at all, and too often it dies in
those early, early-rising years.

During the hours and days after I first get back from a trip, I
always promise myself it's my last time away. The story I live
by -- that working is just one of a range of choices I could make
that will not affect my children - is exposed for what it is: a
wishful fiction. Emily and Ben need me, and it's me that they
want. Oh, they adore Richard, of course they do, but he is their
playmate, their companion in adventure, I'm the opposite.


175
Daddy is the ocean, Mummy is the port: the safe haven they
nestle in to gain the courage to venture further and further out
each time. But I know I'm no harbour; sometimes when things
are really bad I lie here and think, I am a ship in the night and
my children yell like gulls as I pass.

And so I get out my calculator and do the sums again. If I
stop work, we could sell the house, clear the mortgage and the
home-improvement loan that ran out of control when we first
found rising damp and a bad case of descending house. ('You
need underpinning, love,' said the builder. Damn right I did.)
Move out of London, buy a place with a decent garden, hope
Rich could pick up some more architectural work, see if I
could work part-time. No foreign holidays; economy-size
everything, bring the shoe habit to heel.

At times, I can almost be moved to tears by the picture of the
thrifty, responsible homemaker I could and would become.
But the idea of not having an income after all these years makes
me so scared. I need my own money the way I need my own
lungs. ('What your poor mum never had was Running Away
Money,' Auntie Phyllis said, dabbing my face with'her hankie.)
And how would I be, left alone with the kids all day? The need
of children is neverending. You can pour and pour all your love
and patience into them and when is it all right to say when?
Never. You could never say when. And to serve so selflessly,
you have to subdue something in yourself. I admire the women
who can do it, but the mere thought makes me sick with panic.
I could never admit this to anyone, but I think giving up work
is like becoming a missing person. One of the domestic
Disappeared. The post offices of Britain should be full of
Wanted posters for women who lost themselves in their
children and were never seen again. So when my two bounce
on the body they sprang from shouting, Me, a voice within me
keeps repeating, Me, Me, Me.


7.42 am: Complete hell trying to get out of the house. Emily
reports that all three changes of clothes I have offered her are


176
unacceptable. Yellow is her new favourite colour, apparently.

'But all your clothes are pink.'

'Pink's silly.'

'Come on, darling, let Mummy pull your skirt up. Such a
pretty skirt.'

She swats me away: 'I don't want pink. I hate pink.'

'Don't talk to me in that tone of voice, Emily Shattock. I
thought you were going to be six next birthday, not two.'

'Mummy, that's not a very nice thing to say.'

How are you supposed to deal with a child who within
twenty seconds can drop her impersonation of John McEnroe
in favour of the ethical rigour of Dame Mary Warnock? On the
way out, I shout up to an invisible Rich, asking if he can get a
man to take a look at the dishwasher. I hand Paula a list of stuff
we need plus all of my cash and make sure to say please four
times. Then, just as I reach the door, Emily crumples into tears
at the foot of the stairs. From this end of the hall, she looks less
like a winged fury than a very small sad girl. Feel my anger
deflate into remorse. Go back and cuddle her, removing jacket
first to avoid snail-trail of snot.

'Mummy, did you go to the Egg Pie Snake Building?'

'What?'

'I want to go to the Egg Pie Snake Building with you. It's at
America.'

'Oh, the Empire State Building. Yes, love, Mummy will take
you one day, when you're a bigger girl.'

'When I'm seven?'

'Yes, when you're seven.' And her face clears as fast as the
sky after a storm.


From: Jack Abelhammer

To: Kate Reddy

Big consultants pow-wow here in May. Stop.

Urgently require presence of amazing British fund mgr. Stop.

Great oyster bar Grand Central Station. Stop.

Can you swallow a dozen oysters? I can't. Stop.


177
2.30 pm: At King's Cross, I board the train to York for a
conference. Am only allowing myself to think about Jack twice
an hour, an act of incredible self-discipline slightly compromised
by the fact that I have used up my allocation before
we have even pulled out of the station. When I remember
kissing him and him kissing me back at the Sinatra Inn, it has a
molten effect on my core. I feel full of gold.

The train shudders and groans from its berth and I spread my
stuff out on the table: for once I have a chance to sit down in
peace and relax with the papers. Headline on page 2: why a
second baby can kill your career. Definitely not
reading that. Since Emily was born, I swear to God that every
month there's been some new research proving that my child
wrecks my work prospects or, more painfully, my work wrecks
my child's prospects. Every way you look, you stand
condemned.

I turn to women's page instead and start to fill in something
called a Stress Quiz.


Do you find you suffer from any of the following?
a/ Sleeplessness?
b/ Irritability?


For God's sake, what is it now? Damn mobile. It's Rod Task
from the office.

'Katie, I hear the final with Moo Moo went great.'

'Momo.'

'Right. Think you girls should stick together; go after some
more ethical accounts.'

Rod says he needs to access a Salinger file. But he can't get
into my computer. Wants my password.

'Ben Pampers.'

'Pampas? Didn't know you had a thing for the Argies, Katie.'

'What?'

'Pampas. South American grasslands, right?'

'No, P. A. M. P. E. R. S. , it's a kind of, er, cosmetic.'


178
When did you last find time to read a book?
a/ Within the last month?
b/ Not since --


Mobile again. My mother. 'Is it a busy time, Kath love?'

'No, it's fine, Mum.'

I lie back on the headrest and prepare for a long conversation.
I can hardly tell my mother that busy no longer means
what busy meant in her day. Busy isn't a morning with the
twin-tub and a cheese and pickle sandwich for lunch before
collecting the kids from school. Busy has got busy since my
childhood; busy has gone global.

My mother thinks that if I don't return a phone call from her
within twenty-four hours then something bad has happened.
It's hard to explain that the only chance to return the call will
be when something bad isn't happening. Stormy being the prevailing
climate with surprise outbreaks of calm.

Mum says she just rang to check how Emily's getting on at
school since her friend Ella left.

Bad moment. I had no idea Ella had left. Haven't been into
school since I started preparing for the final. 'Oh, fine. Really,
she's been great about it. And she's doing brilliantly at ballet.'
Enter a tunnel. Line cuts out.

The tightening knot in my stomach makes it hard to focus
on the Stress Quiz. When did I start lying to my mother? I
don't mean the obligatory daughter-mother falsehoods -- 'Eleven at the latest, 
never tried it, three Cokes, but everyone's wearing them, he slept on the 
floor, yes, a friend of Deb's, no, not overdrawn, in the sale, yes, an absolute 
bargain, fine,
couldn't be better.'

No, not those lies which are simply mutual protection.
When you're young your mother shields you from the world
because she thinks you're too young to understand and when
she's old you shield her because she's too old to understand -- or to have any 
more understanding inflicted on her. The curve
of life goes: want to know, know, don't want to know.

What I'm talking about here is the lies to my mother about


179
being a mother. I tell her Emily has coped well with the
departure of her best friend, even though I haven't heard about
it. I'd rather Mum thought I was a failure at work than a
stranger to my children. She thinks that I have it all and she's so
pleased for me. I can't tell her, can I? It would be like finding
out that after Cinderella got to the Palace, the Prince put her
back on hearth-cleaning duty.


The Cloisters Hotel, York, 7.47 pm: I ring my mother back.
She sounds breathless. With a little gentle prompting from me
she admits that, yes, she has been feeling a bit under the weather
lately which, translated from Mother Speak, means she has lost
all feeling in her limbs and her vital organs are shutting down.
Oh God.

I don't even bother to replace the handset before keying in
the number of my sister Julie, who lives just round the corner
from Mum. Steven, Julie's eldest, answers the phone. He
reports that his mum's watching 'The Street', but he'll get her.

Julie's tone still takes me by surprise: the adoring lisp of my
little sister has been supplanted in recent years by something
tense and grudging; whenever we speak these days, she seems
to be spoiling for a fight about a grievance that's too painful to
have a name.

I got away and Julie didn't. Julie fell pregnant and got
married when she was twenty-one and had three kids by the
time she was twenty-eight and I didn't. Julie's husband is an
electrician and mine is an architect. Julie lives a mile away from
our mother and tries to look in every other day and I don't.
Julie, who is good with her hands, brings a bit of extra cash in
by making tiny curtains and bits of furniture for a local doll's
house company and I, who am good with my head, don't. (In
fact, I probably invest my clients' money indirectly in the Far
Eastern sweatshops that are driving Julie's employer out of
business.) Julie has been abroad once -- Pvimini, unlucky with
the weather -- whereas it is not unknown for me to go twice in
a single week. And none of this is anybody's fault, but we exist
now, my sister and I, in an atmosphere of guilt and blame.


180
I ask Julie if she thinks Mum should go and see a doctor, and
her sigh blows across the Pennines, flattening trees in its path.
'Mum won't listen to me,' she says. 'If you're that bothered
why don't you get up here and tell her yourself?'

I'm explaining what my schedule has been like when Julie
jumps in: 'Anyroad, it's not physical. She's had some bother
with men coming round to the flat. Said they were after money
Dad owed them.'

'Why didn't you tell me?'

From my sister's living room floats the mournful theme tune
of Coronation Street. Julie and I both loved the soap when we
were kids: there was a period when we fought furiously over
the affections of Ray Langton, a mechanic with dark wavy hair,
until he got squashed under one of his own cars. I haven't seen
it in twenty years.

'I've left a couple of messages on that machine, Kath,' says
my sister, 'but you're never there, are you?'


8.16 pm: The conference is for dot.com entrepreneurs, or
what's left of them. The guys who persuaded the City that they
could read the future turned out to have been talking crystal
balls. You wouldn't believe how much venture capital was
thrown at firms who were going to sell designer clothes on the
Net. But, guess what? People prefer to go to shops and try stuff
on. (Women fund managers were a lot less badly burned in the
meltdown. Better at evaluating risk-reward, we spent far less on
untried stock than our male colleagues. People said we were
lucky; I don't agree. I think it's innate: we must like to have
some reliable staples in the cupboard, to keep those small
mouths fed when the sabre-tooth tiger is blocking the entrance
to the cave.)

Unpacking my suitcase before going down to dinner, I find
a large envelope marked 'Do Not Open Till Sunday!' in
Richard's handwriting. I open it. My Mother's Day cards. One
is a print of Ben's hands in red paint. I half-smile, half-grimace
at the thought of the mess that must have attended its making.
Emily's has a drawing of me on the front. I am wearing a crown


181
and holding a green cat and I am so tall that I dwarf my nearby
palace. Inside, she has written: 'I love my Mummy. Love is
speshal it makes my hart sparKle and tresha appea.'

I can't believe it. I've forgotten Mother's Day. Mum will
never forgive me. Dial reception. 'Can you get me a number
for Iiiterflora?'


From: Jack Abelhammer

To: Kate Reddy

Will you come to NYC? Or should I. Stop.

Thinking about you. Stop.


From: Kate Reddy

To: Jack Abelhammer

Don't. Stop.


Must Remember

Get dishwasher fixed. Stair carpet? Fund transitions to be arranged -
nofuck-ups! Call Jill Cooper-Clark. Application form for nursery for
Ben? Emily schools find out NOW! Cheque for ballet. Remind Rich
to get cash out for babysitter. MONEY FOR JUANITA! Change
computer password. Paula's birthday -- BMW? George Michael concert
tickets? Spa treatment, aromatic relaxation pillow. Call Dad and tackle
about his debts. Find time to visit Mum. Buy Sinatra CD. Ginseng
for better memory or Gingko thingy?


182
20 The Way We Were


3.39 am: Woken by the doorbell. It's Rob, our neighbour
from three doors down. Says he heard a noise and saw a group
of lads by our car, but he shouted and they ran off. Richard
goes out to inspect the damage. Side window completely
smashed in, forked-lightning crack across the back one. Of
course, the car alarm didn't go off. The car alarm, usually
triggered by a cat's breath, is hopelessly mute when there's
actual burglary taking place.

Rich goes out to tape up the windows while I get on the
phone to Prontoglass 24-Hour Service.

'Sorry, your call is held in a queue. Due to demand. Please
hold while we try to connect you.'

Demand? What demand? It's four o'clock in the bloody
morning.

'If you know the extension you require, please press one. If
you wish to speak to an operator, please press two.'

I press 2.

'Please hold while we try to connect you, your call will be
answered shortly. Thank you for choosing Prontoglass! If you
wish to speak to an operator, please press three.'

I press 3. 'Sorry, your call cannot be taken at the moment.
Please try later!'

I think of all the time that must be wasted every day in those
echoing antechambers where calls wait. Hell is not other
people: hell is trying to get through to other people while
listening to seven minutes of Vivaldi played on pan pipes. I
decide to get dressed and crack in early to some work. This is
a good time of day to talk to Tokyo. But as I'm fumbling with
my blouse buttons in the still dark bedroom, there is a yell from


183
above. When I go up, Ben is standing in his cot remonstrating
with the monster who has dragged him from sleep. He jabs a
debater's accusing forefinger at his invisible assailant.

'I know, sweetheart, I know, some bad men have woken us
all up.'

Ben is so spooked he won't go back to sleep. I lift him on to
the sofa bed which is just next to the cot and lie down beside
him.

'Roo,' he moans, 'Roo.' So I get up and fetch the scruffy
little kangaroo and tuck it under his arm.

Babies have this magic spot between their brows. If you
stroke your finger down over it, and along the ridge of the
nose, their eyes close automatically: the human roller-blind.
My boy hates sleep; it separates him from the life he relishes,
but he starts to drift off, the indigo eyes emptying of thought. I
lie there contemplating the cracks on the ceiling around the
light fitting where bits of plaster are starting to peel off. Even
my ceiling has stress eczema. I imagine a finger stroking my
own brow and, clothes wrinkling around me, I tumble into a
crowded dream.


6.07 am: Richard comes into Ben's room to relieve me. The

baby is splayed flat out on his tummy like a puppy. We talk in

whispers.

'I did say buying the Volvo was a bad idea, Kate.'
'Some little bastards break into our car and it's my fault?'
'No, just that round here it's clearly a provocation, isn't it?'
'Come off it, Rich, even Tony Benn doesn't think

property's theft any more.'

He laughs. 'And who was it who once said crime is the just

punishment for an unjust society?'

'I never said that. When did I say that?'

'Shortly before taking possession of your first open-top Golf,

Mrs Engels.'

My turn to laugh. Encouraged, Rich starts kissing my hair

and puts an exploratory hand down the front of my nightie.

Even when you're not in the mood, startling how quickly


184
nipples stiffen to Iced Gems. Rich is just pulling me down on
to the Winnie the Pooh rug when Ben sits bolt upright, gives
his parents a how-could-you look and then points to himself.
(Did I mention that babies are anti-sex too? You'd think they'd
have some nostalgia for the act that made them; instead they
appear to have an alarm to see off the threat of rivals, wailing
on cue as though their cry was wired up to your bra-clasp.)
Rich sweeps up his son and goes down to an early breakfast.

I try to doze off again, but I can't sleep for thinking how
Richard and I have changed. First time we met was fifteen years
ago at university; I was picketing Barclays Bank and he was
opening an account there. I shouted something about South
Africa - How dare you invest in brutality? - and Rich walked
over to our righteous huddle and I handed him a leaflet, which
he studied politely.

'My, that does sound bad,' he said before inviting me for coffee.

Richard Shattock was the poshest man I had ever met. When
he spoke, he sounded as though Kenneth Branagh had
swallowed Kenneth More. Forearmed with the knowledge that
all public schoolboys were emotionally stunted berks, I didn't
know what to do when it became clear that this one was
capable of more affection than I had ever known. Rich didn't
want to save the world like my idealistic friends; he just made
it a better place simply by being in it.

We made love for the first time six days later in his college
room under the eaves. The sun was falling in a dusty gold
column through the skylight as he solemnly unpinned my
Cyclists Against the Bomb badge and said, 'I'm sure the
Russians will sleep more soundly, Kate, for knowing you have
passed your cycling proficiency test.'

Had I ever laughed at myself before? Certainly the sound that
came out that night was rusty with lack of use, a stopped-up
spring gurgling into life. 'Your Bournville laugh,' that's what
Richard called it, 'because it's dark and bitter and Northern and
it makes me want to eat you.' It's the sound I still like best: the
sound of when we were us.

I remember how much I loved his body, but even more I


185
loved the way my body felt in relation to his -- for every straight
edge a curve; the vertebrae down his back like rocky steps into
a cave of pleasure. By day we cycled across the Fens and
shouted 'Hill!' whenever we felt the slightest incline, but at
night we explored another terrain.

When Rich and I first started sleeping together - I mean
actually sleeping, not having sex -- we -would lie in the middle
of the bed, face to face; close enough to feel the gusts of each
other's warm, night-time breath. My breasts would be pushed
against his chest and my legs, I still can't figure this out,
disappeared over and under his like a mermaid's tail. When I
think of us in bed back then, I think of the shape of a sea-horse.

Over time we began to face outwards. You could probably
date that, our first separation, to the purchase of a king-size bed
from Heal's in the late Eighties. And then, with the arrival of
our first child, the battle for sleep began. Bed became a place
you sank into rather than dived into. We who had slipped in
and out of consciousness as easily as we slipped in and out of
each other were now jealously guarding our place of rest. My
body shocked me by bristling at anything that threatened to
take away its remaining strength. A stray knee or elbow was
enough to spark a boundary war. I remember starting to notice
how loud Rich's sneezes were, how eccentrically articulated.
Har-CHEW! he went. Har-CHEW!

When we were still students we had travelled round Europe
by train and one night we wound up in a small hotel in Munich
where we collapsed in hysterics on the bed. It looked like a
double, but when you pulled the cover back it turned out to be
two mattresses, divided and united by a thin wooden strip
which made meeting in the middle an effort rather than an
inevitability. It all felt so Teutonic. 'You be East Germany and
I'll be West,' I remember saying to Rich as we lay there on our
separate halves in the light of the street lamp. We laughed, but
in time I came to wonder whether the Munich arrangement
was the true marriage bed: practical, passionless, putting
asunder what God had joined together.


186
7.41 am: After breakfast, Ben, wearing a bib like a Jackson
Pollock, is terribly clingy. Paula peels him off me when
Winston arrives to drive me to work. 'All right, sweetheart, it's
all right,' I hear Paula say as I pull the door behind me.

Sitting in the back of Pegasus, I try to read the FT to bring
myself up to speed for my presentation, but I can't concentrate.
There is music playing, a jazz piano arrangement of something
I can almost place - 'Someone To Watch Over Me'? It sounds
as though the pianist has smashed the tune into a thousand
pieces and keeps throwing them into the air to see which way
they land. The riffs are like a man shuffling a pack of cards.
Winston hums along, holding the main line of the tune and
occasionally letting out a little whoop to salute the pianist for a
particularly cunning resolution. This morning, my driver's ease
and pleasure feels like an insult, a rebuke. I want him to stop.

'Do you think we could avoid the New North lights,
Winston, and cut round the back? I'm not convinced this is the
quickest way.'

He doesn't answer for a while, but allows the track to finish.
Then, with the final chord still thrumming in the air, he says:
'You know, lady, 'where I come from it takes a long time to do
things suddenly.'

'Kate, my name is Kate.'

'I know what your name is,' he says. 'Way I see it, rushing
around just a waste of time. Fly too fast, lady, and you pass your
nest.'

The laugh I laugh sounds darker than usual. 'Well, I'm afraid
that is the more leisurely perspective afforded to the driver of
the minicab

Winston doesn't bite back at my snottiness, he just gives it a
long gaze in the mirror and says thoughtfully: 'You think I
want to be you? You don't even want to be you.'

That's it. 'Look, I don't pay you for psychotherapy. I pay you
to get me to Broadgate in the shortest time possible, a feat
which seems increasingly beyond you. If you don't mind, I'll
get out here, it's quicker to walk.'

As I hand over the twenty and Winston digs into his pocket


187
for change, he begins to sing: 'There's a somebody I'm longing
to see/I hope that he/Turns out to be/Someone to watch over
me.'


8.33 am: Shoot out of lift straight into Celia Harmsworth.

'Something on your jacket, dear?' smirks the Head of
Human Relations.

'No. Just back from the cleaners, actually.' I glance down at
my shoulder to see a smeary mess, an epaulette of Ben's banana
porridge. No. God, how can You do this to me?

Tm amazed how you manage this job, Katharine,' coos
Celia, clearly delighted at further proof that I can't.

(Celia is one of those spinsters who adored being the only
woman in a man's world: it was a licence to feel pretty before
girlies like me showed up and ruined her monopoly.)

'Must be such a struggle with all those kiddies,' she offers
helpfully. 'I was saying to Robin Cooper-Clark when you
were away for -- half-term, was it? -- I don't know how she does
it.'

Two.'

'I beg your pardon?'

'Two. All those kiddies. I have two of them. That's one less
than Robin has.'

Turn on my heel, walk over to desk, shrug off stained jacket,
shove in bottom drawer. Incredible noise from the window.
Out on the ledge, the pigeons have decided to move in
together. The male is sitting there with a twig in his mouth
looking faintly foolish. I recognise the expression. It's the look
Rich gives when I bring home a flatpack of shelves for self
assembly. The female, meanwhile, is busy forming a heap of
small sticks into a raft-like structure roughly the size of a dinner
plate. Oh, this is great, now they're building a nest.

'Guy, did you get on to the Corporation about the hawk
man? Damn pigeons are about to start a breeding programme
out there.'

I check my neck in handbag mirror for any Ben bites - no, all
clear - and then I stalk coolly into a meeting with Robin Cooper188
Clark and other senior managers to begin my presentation. It goes
remarkably well. All eyes in the room are glued on me, especially
those of the bastard Chris Bunce. Am obviously starting to
command serious respect: the tactic of behaving like a man, never
mentioning the children etc., is clearly paying off.

As I switch from slides to overheads, it suddenly occurs to me
that I am the only person in the room without a penis. Not a
good thought to have right now, Kate. Can we not think about
dicks in a gathering of seventeen men? Talking of which, do
they have to stare at me quite so intently? Look down. Am
wearing red Agent Provocateur demitasse bra under white
voile shirt, grabbed from chest of drawers in half-dark at 4.30.
Oh Jesus, I look like Pamela Anderson at the Oscars.


11.37 am: I'm sitting in the ladies' loo, with my cheek
pressed up against the cubicle wall to cool the furious blush.
Tiled in black marble riddled with white stars, the wall is like a
map of the universe: I feel as though I'm being sucked into
deep space and more than happy to go there. How about
disappearing into a black hole for a few millennia till the
memory of public humiliation fades? I used to smoke in here
when things got desperate; since I gave up, I sing under my
breath. 'I am strong. I am invincible. I am Woman.'

It's a Helen Reddy song from when I was at school. I loved
the fact that she had the same name as me and she sounded, well,
just so full of it, so confident that women could deal with anything
life threw at them. At college, when Debra and I were
getting ready for a night out we used to play the record over and
over to psych ourselves up. Dance round the room, playing catch
with Deb's Action Man. (After his leg broke off, Deb said we'd
have to call him Inaction Man 'after all our useless blokes'.)

'Oh, yes, I am wise,

But it's wisdom born of pain,

Yes, I've paid the price,

But look how much I've gained!

I am strong. I am invincible.

I am Woman.'


189
Do I believe in equality of the sexes? I'm not sure. 1 did once,
with all the passionate certainty of someone very young who
knew absolutely everything and therefore nothing at all. It was
a nice idea, equality; noble, indisputably fair. But how the hell
was it supposed to work? They could give you good jobs and
maternity leave, but until they programmed a man to notice
you were out of toilet paper the project was doomed. Women
carry the puzzle of family life in their heads, they just do. Every
night on the way home from the City, I watch the women
scurrying along in the Lucozade light of the street lamps, bags
of shopping balancing briefcases, or twitching at bus stops like
over-wound clockwork toys.

Not long ago, my friend Philippa told me that she and her
husband had drawn up a will: Phil said she wanted a clause
stipulating that in the event of her death, Mark would promise
to cut the children's fingernails. He thought she was joking.
She wasn't joking.

One Saturday late last year, I got back from a Boston trip to
find Pvichard in the hall, all set to take our two out to a party.
Emily, hair uncombed, appeared to have a duelling scar on one
cheek - it was ketchup from lunch. Ben, meanwhile, was bent
double, wearing something very small and dotted in apricot
that I didn't recognise. On closer inspection, it turned out to be
an outfit belonging to one of Emily's dolls.

When I suggested to my husband that our offspring looked
as though they "were going out to beg on the Underground,
Rich said that if I was going to be critical I should do it
myself.

I was going to be critical. I would do it myself.


From: Kate Reddy

To: Candy Stratton

Simply marvellous day so far. Have just shown breasts in error

to head of investment & the troops. Chris Bunce came up to

me afterwards and said:

'You were a total pro in there, Kate, with knobs on.' Laughed


190
like a drain and said something about putting me on his

website. WHAT WEBSITE??

Plus Abelhammer has invited me for SX rendezvous in New

York.

Why men all bull and cock?


From: Candy Stratton

To: Kate Reddy

Hon, don't worry, U have trrifc tits. Penis Envy is So Yesterday.

Hallo Boob Envy!

Bunce is piece of shit. His website will be Jerkoff Central.

Hope U R going to meet up with the Hammer Man in NYC, He

sounds Gr8.

I H8 U when U act British.

Candida Thrush xxx


1.1\ pm: Lunch with Robin Cooper-Clark and a new client,
Jeremy Browning, at Tartuffe. Located in the penthouse of a
building overlooking the Royal Exchange, the restaurant has
the kind of hush that, outside a monastery, only money can
buy. This must be the silence they call golden. The low seats
are scooped out of toffee leather and the waiters arrive on
castors. The menu is my least favourite kind: chops for chaps
with no concessions to the female palate. When I ask our waiter
if there's a salad I could have he says, 'Mais oui, Madame,' and
offers me something with gesiers in it.

I nod uncertainly and Robin gives a little cough and says,
'Roast throat, I believe.' How can anyone swallow a throat?

I say that I'd like the salad, but could they please hold the
throats. On Robin's lips there is an Alec Guinness ghost-of-a
smile, but the waiter is not amused. Red blood is the currency
of the neighbourhood.

'Any relation to the Worcestershire Reddys?'Jeremy asks as
Robin consults the wine list. Our client must be in his early
fifties, but he's in good shape and he knows it: ski-bronzed
from the neck up, gym-bulked shoulders, succulent with
success.


191
'No. I shouldn't think so. I'm from a bit further north.'

'The Borders?'

'No, more Derbyshire and Yorkshire. We moved about.'

'Ah, I see.'

Having established that I am no one worth knowing and no
one who will know anyone worth knowing, our new client
feels safe to blank me. Over the past decade, my country has
become a classless society, but the news has been slow to reach
the people who own it. For men like Jeremy, England still ends
at Hyde Park, and then there is Scotland, where they go to kill
things in August. The North, that great expanse of land
between SW1 and Edinburgh which is best crossed by plane or
at night in the sleeper car of a fast train, is a foreign country to
them. Jeremy Browning's forebears may have conquered India,
but you wouldn't get them going to anywhere as remote as
Wigan.

Robin would never -- could never -- treat me as Jeremy does,
but then Robin's spent the last twenty years with Jill, who
knows in her bones that snobs are a joke and that, in every
sense, women mean business. I get a real kick out of watching
my boss on these occasions. Convivial, clubbable and effortlessly
smarter than any of his clients, he nonetheless has a way
of making them feel as though they're the captain of the
winning team. Seeing me sidelined by the Browning version of
events, he gentry but firmly tries to draw me back into the
conversation: 'Now, Kate will be the senior manager on your
fund. She's the one to consult on the structure of your
portfolios and so forth. She can even explain the mysterious
workings of the Federal Reserve.'

And then, a few minutes later, when our guest has a mouth
full of squab: 'Actually, Jeremy, Kate's funds delivered our best
returns in the past six months, at what's been a pretty bumpy
time for equities by any standards, wouldn't you say so, Kate?'

I love him for it, but it's no use. There are some men who
will always prefer to deal with another man, any man, rather
than a woman, and Jeremy Browning is one of them. I can see
him struggling to place me: I'm not married to him, clearly I'm


192
not his mother, I didn't go to school with his sister and I'm sure
as hell not going to go to bed with him. So what, he must be
asking himself as he chews on his pigeon, is this girl doing here?
What is she for?

I've been observing this for more than ten years now and
still I'm not sure I understand. Fear of the unknown? After all,
Jeremy was packed off to a boys' school at the age of seven,
he went to one of the last all-male colleges, his wife, Annabel,
stays home with the sons and heirs and, privately, he thinks
anything else is some kind of crime against the natural order
of things.

'Sorry, could I possibly have my wine back?'

Jeremy is tapping me on the sleeve. I realise that I have been
pushing my neighbour's glass towards the centre of the table to
prevent accidental spillage: a reflex from mealtimes with Emily
and Ben.

'Gosh, I'm terribly sorry, when you have children you
always think people are going to knock things over.'

'Oh, you have children,' he says.

'Yes, two actually.'

'Not planning any more, I hope.'

This hangs in the air, this presumption that my fertility is part
of his fiefdom, that he's paying me to be his alone, not to be
carrying the young of a rival male. I feel like returning the
compliment and kicking him so hard under the table that he's
unable to have any more kids of his own. But the phrase
'Crushed balls' tends not to look good on the client report.

'Naturally,' I say, clearing a throat from my lettuce, 'you will
be my top priority, Jeremy.'


From: Jack Abelhammer

To: Kate Reddy

Further to your communication on borrowing limits, I attach

some thoughts on LOANS. Not my thoughts, I'm afraid,

although they come pretty close to some of my own about the

person who manages my fund.


193
It is no gift I tender,
A loan is all I can;
But do not scorn the lender;
Man gets no more from man.
Oh, moital man mav horrow
What mortal man can lend;
And 'twill not end tomorrow.
Though sure enough 'twill end.


I f death and time are stronger,
A love may yet be strong;
The world will last for longer,
Hut this will last for long.


From: Kate Reddy

To: Jack Abelhammer

Thank you for your thoughts about the LOAN. As your fund

manager, I should point out that the value of your investment

can go up as well as down. The market is quite depressed at the

moment, but I will be in the US soon and may be available to

discuss raising levels of exposure.

It's a beautiful poem.

K xxxxx


3.44 am: Have left the children alone asleep in the house and
just popped into work. Stuff to do. It can't wait. I won't be
long. Twenty minutes, maybe forty tops. They won't even
notice I'm gone.

The office is silent except for the sighs and shunts of
machines making machine love to each other in the half-light.
With no distractions, I work with great efficiency; figures
swarming beneath my hands, an army of ants marshalled into
platoons. File quarterly fund report, put screen to sleep and steal
back out of the building. Outside, the City is in a post-nuclear
dawn -- a warm gust of wind, some dancing litter, sky the
colour of saucepan. Spot a cab, fuzzy yellow light on the
horizon. I wave as it approaches. It does not stop. Another cab
sweeps past, blank as a hearse. Frantic now. Third cab nears.
Step out into the road to make it stop. He swerves to avoid me
and I see his big pocked mushroom face mouthing through the


194
glass, 'Yeww stew-pid cow, lie spies. 'Cancha tuckiu look
where ya going?'

I'm sitting on the kerb, weeping with frustration and self
pity, when a fire engine streaks up the street with an inconsolable
wail. The engine stops and the guys let me clamber
aboard. I'm so grateful for the lift, I forget to tell them where
I'm going, but we move swiftly through familiar roads till we
reach my own. As we get close to our house, I can see a knot
of people standing outside.

Smoke purls out of a bedroom window. Emily's window.

'Stand back, Miss, we'll handle it,' a man says.

I am slapping my hands against the door. I am calling the
children's names, but I can't hear for the siren. Can't hear
myself scream. Turn the siren off. Please could somebody
please turn that fucking siren off--

'Kate! Kate, wake up. It's all right. It's all right.'

'What?'

'It's all right, darling. You've had a bad dream.'

I sit up. My nightie is a shroud of sweat. Inside my ribcage,
there is a bird scrabbling to get out.

'I left the children, Rich. There was a fire.'

'It's OK. Really, it's OK.'

'No, I left them by themselves. I went into work. / left them.'

'No. No, you didn't leave them. Listen, that's Ben crying.
Listen, Kate.'

It's true. From upstairs, comes the siren call - the inconsolable
wail of a teething baby, a one-man fire brigade.


195
21


Sunday


the day of rest, otherwise known as day of ceaseless
manual labour. I start by chucking out extinct ready-meals
from fridge. (Or 'Reddy meals', as my sister-in-law likes to call
them.) Swab down curious, algae-like residue from glass
shelves. Discard knuckle of Parmesan which smells of old
people's home. Get rid of disgusting Happy Chicken Shapes
that Paula feeds the children and make sure to hide them right
at the bottom of bin-bag. For my vulnerable young, only free
range. How many times must I tell her?

Fill and empty washing machine three times. Juanita, because
of chronic back problem (three and a half years) cannot be
expected to carry heavy laundry around the house. Adult washing
is outside nanny's duties, although Paula does occasionally
break strict demarcation to put in one of my hand-wash-only
sweaters. (I always consider complaining about this, but file
instead under Pending Paula Grievances: Volume 3.)

Today, I have invited Kirsty and Simon round for a 'relaxing'
lunch. It's important to see friends, remember there is more to
life than work, weaving the social fabric that strengthens sense
of community, etc. It's also important for the children to see
Mummy at ease in a domestic context, to build up glowing
childhood memories, instead of a woman in black running out
of the door yelling instructions.

Everything is totally under control. The recipe book is open
like a bible under the clean plastic lectern, ingredients are in
pleasing formation. There's a very dinky bottle of olive oil with
Sienese silk ribbon. I'm wearing charming Cath Kidston apron
with retro floral print which gives an ironic nod to the role of
Fifties homemaker while signalling jokey distance from


196
appalling domestic servitude of women like my mum. Possibly.
Also have planned casual weekend hostess outfit to change into
seconds before guests arrive: Earl jeans, pink cashmere Donna
Karan. Try to follow instructions for salsify, leek and blue
cheese filo tart, only Ben keeps rock-climbing up my legs,
using his uncut nails as crampons. Every time I put him down,
he gives his fire-engine wail.

There are those who make their own filo pastry, but they are
like people who go in for bondage in the bedroom: you admire
the effort and technique without necessarily wanting to do it
yourself. I unwrap the pastry from its packet and brush one sheet
with melted butter. Then I place another sheet on top. Very
restful. Enter Emily with bulbous lower lip: 'Where's Paula?'

'It's Sunday. Paula doesn't come in today, sweetheart.
Mummy and Emily are going to make some lovely cookies
together.'

'Don't want to. I want Paula.' (The first time she said that I
swear I could feel the skewer going into my heart, and there is
still nothing to rival it, the pain of your firstborn's infidelity.)

'Well, I'd really like you to help me with the biscuits,
darling. It'll be fun.'

Through her great grey eyes, Emily weighs up the sight of
her mother playing at being her mother. 'Daddy said I could
watch Rugrats.'

'All right, you can watch Rugrats if you put your blue dress
on by the time Kirsty and Simon get here.'


11.47 am: Everything under control. Return to recipe. 'Stir
lemon juice and olue cheese into cold bechamel sauce.' What
bechamel sauce?

Turn page. 'For bechamel sauce recipe see page 74.' What?
Now they tell me. Mobile rings: It's Rod Task. 'Bad time,
Katie?'

'No, absolutely fine. Ow/Ben, don't do that. Sorry, Rod. Go
on.'

'I'm faxing through details of tomorrow's meeting, Katie.
We need you to be up to speed on performance, asset allo


197
cation, attribution and strategy outlook. Your kind of stuff.
Young Guy was singing your praises Friday night, said how
great you managed, considering.'

'Considering what?'

'Oh, you know how guys get talking over a curry.'

No, I do not know. Would love to go out with Rod and the
team for the Friday-night Indian, if only to keep that creep Guy
from stalking my job, but I had to get home to read Harry Potter.

There's a sudden, ominous smell from the oven. 'Don't
worry, Rod. Everything's under control. See you tomorrow.'

'Take it easy, sweetie!'

I open the oven door to reveal disaster. The filo pastry case
has become a petrified forest. Don't panic. Think, Kate, think.
Run out of door yelling instructions. Can Richard please dress
Ben and tidy the kitchen?


12.31 pm: Back from the supermarket. Ben is dressed, but the
kitchen looks like a scene from Disney Goes to Dresden.

'Richard, I thought I asked you to tidy up?'

He looks up from the paper, amazed. 'I have been tidying up.
I've already put the CDs in alphabetical order.'

Kick Brio train track under sofa, hurl rest of toys into utility
room and jam the door shut with a drying rack. Substitute
M&S spinach quiche for salsify and Gruyere catastrophe. Now
to make the dressing. Dinky bottle of olive oil has immovable
crimson wax stopper. Try to pull out stopper with bottle
opener, but merely shreds flakes of red rind into baby leaf salad.
Use teeth. No use. Bugger. Bugger. Attack stopper with sharp
knife. Miss bottle and slash back of hand instead. Looks like
drunken suicide attempt. Search first-aid drawer. Can only find
one plaster: Mister Bump. Run upstairs to change into relaxed
hostess attire. Wriggle into new jeans, but no sign of Donna
Karan pink cashmere jumper. Why is Nothing Ever in the
Right Place in This House?


12.58 pm: Find jumper. Paula has hidden it at the back of the
airing cupboard, and no wonder. Plainly it has only just


198
survived kids' wash. Now so shrunken would only fit Mrs
Thomasina Tittlemouse or Ally McBeal. Go downstairs to
discover Ben posting remaining blue cheese into the video.
Emily screaming because Rugrats has jammed. No sign of
Richard. Doorbell rings.

Kirsty and Simon Bing are architect friends of Richard. The
same age as us, they have no children but one exquisite grey
blue cat that drifts like smoke through the Japanese porcelain in
their Clerkenwell loft. When we go to visit the Bings, I spend
a lot of time shouting as Ben crawls up the open-plan staircase
without any banister and peers gleefully into the abyss. There is
an unspoken strain between the childless and those of us bowed
down with infants. Before Emily was born, we rented a villa
outside Siena with Kirsty and Simon, and our cooling relationship
is occasionally warmed by memories of that week in the
sun. These days, Rich and I, if we socialise at all, tend to hang
out with people with kids. Because they understand. The sudden
need to produce pizza and tissues, often simultaneously; the
unpredictable smells and naps. The moods that arrive like tanks.

Kirsty and Simon always seem glad to see us, but I think it's
fair to say that their goodbyes are particularly effusive, a prelude
I always imagine to their explosion of shared relief as the door
shuts on us and they can adjourn to their snot-free sofa. But
today they have come to our place, where every piece of furniture
is essentially a large handkerchief. Compared to its usual
state, the kitchen is immaculate, but I see Kirsty direct an
understanding smile at the single toy left in the middle of the
floor and, quite unreasonably, I want to slap her.

Lunch goes fine and I accept compliments for the M&S tart
with surprisingly little shame - well, I did make a huge effort to
get it. The Bings' conversation ranges widely. Was it really a
good idea to have the Great Court of the British Museum open
in the evening? 'A failed experiment,' according to Simon,
who would be taken aback to learn that I have forgotten where
the British Museum actually is.

Then we're on to the stagnant state of current cinema. Kirsty
and Simon have seen some French film about two girls working


199
in a factory and were totally blown away by it. Rich reveals that
he has seen it too. When did he find the time to see that?

'Kate worked in a factory, didn't you, darling?'

'Oh, how fascinating,' says Simon.

'Not really. Plastic caps for aerosol cans. Very boring, very
smelly and very badly paid.'

The mildly awkward silence that follows is broken by Kirsty.
'So, how about you, Kate?' she asks brightly. 'Seen any good
movies?'

'Oh. I enjoyed Crouching Tiger.' I pause. 'And Crouching
Dragon.'

'Hidden,' murmurs Rich.

'Hidden Tiger,' I say, 'I loved the, er, Chinese bits. Mike
Leigh's very good, isn't he?'

'Ang,' murmurs Rich.

'I like Mary Poppins,' chimes in Emily, God bless her,
running up from the other end of the kitchen, naked except for
her Little Mermaid green silk tail. 'Jane and Michael go to work
with their daddy at the bank. It's near where Mummy works
and there's lot of pigeons.' She begins to sing" loudly and
tunelessly, with a child's open-faced fearlessness: ' "Feed the
birds, tuppence a bag, tuppence, tuppence, tuppence a bag."
Do you feed the birds, Mummy?'

No, I get men to come and kill them. 'Yes, of course,
darling.'

'Can I come to your work?'

'Certainly not.'

Kirsty and Simon laugh politely. Kirsty picks at the sliver of
orange Play-Doh stuck between the prongs of her dessert fork
and wonders whether they shouldn't be starting to make a move.


Must Remember

Avoid social engagements which require clean clothes or clean furniture.
Packing list for EuroDisney. Bread? Milk. Stair carpet. Call Dad.
Application form for Ben nursery. Call Jill Cooper-Clark!! Thorntons
chocolate ducklings!


200
22 How Much Does It Cost?


Wednesday, 10.35 pm: Debra calls me at home, which is
weird because we scarcely talk these days, only e-mail. Hearing
her voice, I know instantly that something's wrong. So I ask,
How's things? And with one deep breath, she's off: Oh, just the
usual; Jim will be away over Easter tying up some deal and she
has to drive the kids to Suffolk to stay with her family and her
father's had a stroke and her mum's pretending to cope but
can't, and they don't like to bother Deb because she's so busy
and important and, of course, she'd like to be bothered but
she's too busy at work where they're still holding out against
giving her a full partnership because that bastard Pilbutt says
there's 'a question mark over my commitment' and she's
bloody earned that partnership, she really has, and then Anka,
the nanny she's had since Felix was one, has been stealing from
her. Had she mentioned the stealing?
No, she hadn't.

Well, if she's honest, she's known about the stealing since last
summer, but not allowed herself to know, not wanting to
know. First, it was just small amounts of cash she thought she'd
left around the house and couldn't put her hands on. After that,
other stuff went missing - a Walkman, a silver picture frame,
that dinky digital camera Jim brought back from Singapore.
The whole family, well, they'd all joked about their pilfering
poltergeist and Deb had some better locks put on the doors.
Because you never know. And then, just before Christmas, she
mislaid her leather jacket, the lovely, buttery one from Nicole
Farhi she couldn't possibly justify buying, and she could swear
she hadn't left it anywhere. Called all the restaurants she'd been
to; emptied her wardrobe. Nothing. Joked bitterly to Anka that


201
she probably had early-onset Alzheimer's and Anka made her a
cup of tea with three sugars -- no wonder Slovakians have no
teeth - and said sweetly, 'You are a little tired only, I think. Not
mad.'

So Debra would never have found out if she hadn't popped
home one afternoon between client meetings. Fiddling with
her keys at the front door, she turned and saw Anka walking
down the street pushing Ruby in the buggy and wearing the
leather jacket. Said she felt so weak she could hardly move, but
managed to get behind the dustbins and hide so Anka didn't
spot her.

Then, last Saturday, when Anka was away, Deb had gone
into her room, like a burglar in her own home. And there in
the cupboard, not even hidden at the back, was the jacket and
a couple of Deb's better sweaters. In a drawer, she found the
camera and her grandmother's watch, the one with the silver
fish for the minute hand.

'So what did you say to her?'

'Nothing.'

'But, Deb, you have to say something.'

'Anka's been with us for four years. She brought Felix to the
hospital the day Ruby was born. She's a member of the family.'

'Members of your family don't generally nick your stuff and
then sympathise with you about it.'

I'm shocked at the flatness of my friend's voice: all the fight
knocked out of it.

'I've thought about this, Kate. Felix is anxious enough
already with me being away all the time. His eczema gets so bad
. . . And he loves Anka, he really does.'

'Come off it, she's a thief and you're her boss. You wouldn't
put up with it at work for a minute.'

'I can live with her stealing from me, Kate. I can't live with
the children being unhappy. Anyway, that's enough of me.
How are you?'

I take a deep breath and then I stop myself. 'I'm fine.'

Debra rings off, but not before we've made another lunch
appointment we won't keep. I put her name in my diary,


202
anyway, and around it I draw the dumb smiley face Deb always
drew in the margin next to mentions of Josef Stalin in our
mutual European history notes in 1983. (One of us had to go
to the lecture; the other got the lie-in.)

What is the cost when you pay someone else to be a mother
to your children? Has anyone calculated it? I'm not talking
about money. The money's a lot, but how much is the other
thing?


Thursday, 4.05 am: Emily wakes me to tell me she can't sleep.
So now that makes two of us. I check her forehead, but the
fever turns out to be excitement over Disneyland Paris, where
we are heading later today, if I can get all my jobs done in time.
My daughter has wanted to go to Disneyland ever since she
figured out that the Sleeping Beauty castle at the end of her
videos was a real place.

Now she climbs into bed beside me and whispers, 'Will
Minnie Mouse know my name, Mummy?' I say, of course she
will, and my daughter burrows marsupially into the small of my
back and drifts off, while I lie, more awake by the second,
trying to remember everything I need to remember: passports,
tickets, money, raincoats (obviously, it will be raining, it's a
holiday), jigsaws/crayons/paper in case we get stuck in
Channel Tunnel, dried apricots for nourishing snack, Jelly
Babies for bribes, chocolate buttons for total meltdowns.

Didn't Mrs Pankhurst say something about women needing
to stop being a servant class for men? Well, we tried,
Emmeline, boy did we try. Women do the same jobs now as
men, and do them equally well. But all the time, women are
carrying around the information that "won't leave them alone.
I reckon that inside a working mother's head, every day is
Gatwick airport. MMR. vaccinations (to jab or not to jab),
reading schemes, shoe sizes, holiday packing, childcare
cunningly assembled from wings and prayers - all circling and
awaiting further instruction from air traffic control. If women
didn't bring them safely in to land, well, the whole world
would crash, wouldn't it?


203
12.21pm: The pigeon has laid two eggs. Elliptical in profile,
they are startlingly white with a faint blue tinge. The mother
and father appear to be taking it in turns to sit on them.
Watching them reminds me of the shifts Rich and I do with the
kids when one of them is sick.

By the end of today, I need to have written four client
reports, sold a vast number of shares (with the markets melting
down, company policy is to have more cash) and bought a flock
of chocolate ducklings from Thorntons. Plus Momo and I are
working on another pitch for an ethical account in Italy. And I
haven't even heard from Jack this morning and I long to see the
little envelope appear in the top right-hand corner of the screen
that tells me he's out there thinking of me as I am thinking of
him.

(What did it feel like before? Before I was waiting for his
messages. Waiting and waiting. Either waiting or reading his
last message or composing my reply and then waiting again. No
longer in a state of living, but in a constant state of waiting. The
impatience like a hunger. Staring at the screen to summon the
words into existence, willing him to speak.)


From: Kate Reddy

To: Jack Abelhammer

Jack, are you there?


From: Kate Reddy

To: Jack Abelhammer

WHAT ARE YOU THINKING? Speak dammit!!


From: Kate Reddy

To: Jack Abelhammer

Did I say something wrong?


From: Kate Reddy

To: Jack Abelhammer

hello?


204
From: Kate Reddy

To: Jack Abelhammer

What could you POSSIBLY be doing that's more important

than talking to me?

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


From: Jack Abelhammer
To: Kate Reddy


Being your slave, what should I do but tend
Upon the hours and times of your desire?
I have no precious time at all to spend,
Nor services to do, till you require.


From: Kate Reddy

To: Jack Abelhammer

OK, you're forgiven. That's lovely. Sonnet by Bill Gatespeare,

right? But let's get one thing clear: any more silences that long

and you're in Big Trouble. In fact, you're a dead man.

That's a promise xxxxx


From: Jack Abelhammer

To: Kate Reddy

Bill Gatespeare, I find, has the emotional software to fit any

occasion ... As far as you're concerned, Katharine, I'm already

in Big Trouble. If killing me means I can look forward to a

personal appearance from my fund manager then I'm

prepared to die like a man.

I knew you were going to Disneyland with the kids, so I figured

you'd be caught up in the preparations and not welcome any

msgs. I try to think of you being happy without me, without

letting it make me unhappy.


Nor dare I question with my jealous thought
Where you may be, or your affairs suppose,
But like a sad slave, stay and think of nought
Save, where you are, how happy you make those.


You write so well about the children -- Emily's reading, the way
Ben tries to talk to you - that I can tell you're a great Mom.


205

\

And you notice so much. My Mom stayed home and played
bridge and drank vodka martinis with her friends. She was
there all day and never really around for the three of us. Don't
go romanticising the stay-home parent - you can screw up
whether you're near or far.

Because you live in my head, you're very portable, you know. I
find myself talking to you all the time. The worst thing is I'm
starting to think you can hear me.
Jackxxxxxxx


From: Kate Reddy

To: Jack Abelhammer

I can hear you.


206
23 Easter


Saturday lunch, Toad Hall Restaurant, Disneyland Paris Enthusiastic French kiss 
and passionate hug from a tall dark
stranger. Regrettably, his name is Goofy. Overcome with
shyness at meeting her favourite cartoon characters, Emily hides
behind her mother's legs and refuses to say hello.

Seconds later, Paula enters the restaurant like a struck gong,
reverberating with resentment. She 'agreed' to accompany us
to EuroDisney in much the same way the British 'agreed' to
give back India. I just know the short-term relief of having her
here to help out will not be worth it for the long-term tactical
disadvantage.

I feel I have to spend the entire time apologising profusely for
things I haven't done. Sorry Ben woke everyone up last night
with his snoring, sorry room service is so slow, sorry French
people don't speak English. Oh, and I forgot to apologise for
the rain. For that I am truly sorry.

Meanwhile, Paula sits back and observes my mothering skills
with the fat, contented air of a driving instructor guiding a
know-it-all pupil towards the inevitable prang.

After fifteen minutes of queuing for lunch in Toad Hall -- mock baronial, 
gargoyles made of grey polystyrene -- we reach
the counter and Paula orders chicken nuggets for herself, Emily
and Ben. On the grounds that the chicken is more likely to be
antibiotics in breadcrumbs, I decide to take a stand. Suggest that
it might be nice for the children to have quiche instead, on the
off-chance it will be made of ingredients from a farm rather
than a test-tube. 'If you say so,' says Paula cheerfully.

At the table, when I present Ben with quiche, his tiny almost
prim mouth contorts into a gash of grief. He starts those


207
hiccupy sobs where he can barely take in air quick enough.
French families sitting nearby, all with etifants in navy or grey
linen sitting up straight eating haricots verts, turn and glare at
barbarous Anglo-Saxons. After one mouthful, Emily
announces that she doesn't want quiche because it tastes like
egg. She wants chicken nuggets. Paula does not say, I told you
so. Instead, she gives Ben one of those extra-reassuring, nevermind
hugs and feeds him fries off her own plate.

(Sometimes when I'm with Paula and the kids, I get that
feeling I had at school when three girls in my group got closer,
apparently overnight. How had I missed it? I, who had always
been allowed to link arms on the way home with the fabulous,
popular Geraldine -- Farrah Fawcett blonde, ankle bracelet,
breasts -- was bumped to the outside of the line, where I was
expected to take the elbow of Helga - glasses, Alp-tall,
Austrian. I was still a part of the group, but excluded from the
inner core and its giggles, whose target I increasingly, achingly,
took to be me.)

'Stop that, Emily, please.'

Em is decapitating paper batons of sugar and pouring them
all over the table. We do a deal: she can make a sugar mountain
for her Minnie Mouse key-ring to ski down, but only if she eats
her quiche and three green beans. No make that five green
beans. OK?

I wish I could relax more, but a buzzing in my brain tells me
I've forgotten something. What else? What else?


7.16 pm: At bedtime, an overexcited Emily wants to go over
the Easter story one more time. She has been obsessed with it
since she figured out last week that the Baby Jesus she sang
carols about at Christmas grew up to be the man on the cross.
It's one of those occasions when you wish you could press a
button and the Fairy Godmother of Explanations would appear
and wave her wisdom wand.

'Why did Jesus get killed?'

Oh, God. 'Because, well, because people didn't like the
things he was saying and they wanted to make him stop.'


208
I can see Emily searching her mind for the worst crime she
can imagine. At last, she says, 'They didn't want to do sharing?'

'In a way that's right, they didn't want to share.'

'After Jesus died he got better and went to Heaven.'

'That's right.'

'How old was he when they crossed him?'

'Crucified. He was thirty-three.'

'How old are you, Mummy?'

'I'm thirty-five, darling.'

'Some people can be a hundred years old, can't they,
Mummy?'

'Yes, they can.'

'But then they die, anyway?'

'Yes.' (She wants me to tell her I won't die. I know that's
what she wants. The one thing I can't say.)

'Dying is sad because you don't get to see your friends any
more.'

'Yes, it is sad, Em, very sad, but there will always be people
who love you . . .'

'Lots of people are in Heaven, aren't they, Mummy? Lots
and lots.'

'Yes, sweetheart.'

As Sunday lie-in agnostics, Richard and I decided that when
we had children of our own we would not give them the false
consolation of a guaranteed afterlife. No angels or archangels,
no harps, no Elysian Fields full of those people you couldn't
stand at college in dodgy footwear. That resolve lasted, oh,
approximately three seconds after my daughter first said the
word 'die'. How could I, who wouldn't let her have Roald
Dahl stories on the ground that they were too cruel, open a
furnace door and invite her to contemplate the extinction of
everyone she would ever know and love?

'And the Easter Bunny is in Heaven?'

'No, the Easter Bunny is not. Absolutely not.'

'Sleeping Beauty is, though.'

'No, Sleeping Beauty is in her castle and we're going to see
her tomorrow.'


209
Emily's questions often shock me, but not as much as the fact
that I'm allowed to give her any answer I like. I can tell her
there is a God or that there is not a God, I can tell her that Oasis
"were better than Blur, although by the time she's old enough
to buy albums there won't be albums anymore and Madonna
will be as distant as Haydn. I can tell her that Gary Grant is in
a dead-heat for the title of Greatest Englishman with William
Shakespeare, I can encourage her to support a football team or
I can tell her sport is incredibly boring, I can advise her to be
careful who she gives her virginity to or I can give her brisk,
early advice on contraception. I can suggest she starts paying a
quarter of her annual income into an index-linked pension as
soon as possible or I can tell her that love is the answer. I can
tell her any damn thing I like and that freedom feels both
amazing and appalling.

When they sent a baby girl home from the hospital with us
almost six years ago, they forgot to hand out a Meaning of Life
manual. I can remember Richard carrying her in from the car
in her little seat with the big handle and setting her down with
extreme tentativeness on the living-room floor. (At that stage,
we still believed we might break her; not knowing it was more
likely to be the other way round.) Rich and I looked at our
daughter and then at each other and we thought: 'What now?'

You needed a licence to drive a car, but with a baby you
were expected to pick it up as you went along. Becoming a
parent was like trying to build a boat while you were at sea.

What the hospital did give us was a thin booklet in a blue
plastic binder with several cartoons to the page, each starring
two stick-figure parents. There were stick-figure parents tentatively
dipping their angular elbows into baths or trying out the
temperature of milk on the back of their stick hands. There was
a feeding timetable, tips on the transfer from formula to solids
and, or so I seem to recall, a list of common rashes. But there
was definitely no word on how to prepare your child for the
fact of your own death.

As I look down at Em's face, at once radiant and perplexed,


210
I get that breathless feeling you get every so often as a mother,
the pressure of hundreds of millions of mothers before you, all
fighting tears as the child poses the most ancient of questions.


'Are you going to die, Mummy?'

'One day I will. But not for a very very long time.'

'How long?'

'Not for as long as you need a mummy.'

'How long?'

'Not until you're a mummy yourself. Quick now, Em. Eyes
shut.'

'Mu-um?'

'Go to sleep, love. Sleep now. Exciting day tomorrow.'


Well, did I handle it right? Is that how you tell them? Is it?


Sunday, 3.14 ptn: Emily and I together on the circus roller
coaster, our screams riding shotgun with our stomachs. I close
my eyes and take a Polaroid for my memory: I am having fun
with my wonderful child. Her hair in the wind, her hand tight
in mine. But even here I can't escape: there's something about
this ride that says work. Equity markets going up, up, up, then,
whump; the trapdoor in your belly opens.

Oh, Kate, you stupid, stupid, unbelievably brainless . . .
woman . . . God, no ... Forgot to place trades on Thursday.
Needed to sell 5 per cent of fund -- Edwin Morgan Forster
house policy is to have more cash, less equities with the markets
melting down. As we crest the hill, northern France and my
entire career flash before my eyes. EMF already has a recruitment
freeze. Redundancies next. And who will be prime
candidate? Step forward the fund manager who forgot to sell
her clients' shares because she was buying chocolate bloody
Easter ducklings.

'I'm sacked.'

'What?' Richard is there to meet us as we clamber out of the
little train.


211
'I'm fired. I forgot. I was trying to remember everything and
I forgot.'

'Katie, slow down. Just tell me slowly.'

'Daddy, why is Mummy crying?'

'Mummy's not crying,' says Paula, who has appeared out of
the crowd and picked Emily up. 'Mummy's having such a great
time she laughed till the tears fell out by themselves. All right,
who wants to get a crepe? Do you want jam or lemon? I'm
having jam.'

'OK if I take them, Kate?' Paula asks quickly. And I nod
because, obviously, I can't speak. And with Ben in the buggy,
and Emily skipping along beside her, Paula takes the children
away. How would I manage without her?


4.40 pm: Calmer now. The calm of the condemned woman.
Absolutely nothing to be done; it's a Bank Holiday. Can't sell
anything till Tuesday. No use spoiling the rest of our trip. I am
climbing out of one of the Mad Hatter's Dancing Teacups,
when I notice a man in the queue trying to place me. It's
Martin, an old boyfriend. You know that weird" sensation
seeing an ex can induce? I feel it now. The ghost of a passion,
a silk handkerchief being pulled out of the heart. I turn away
quickly and secure Ben's already tight buggy straps.


First Thoughts: Reasons Not To Be Recognised by Ex
a/ Am wearing yellow plastic rain poncho, purchased from Disneyland
Universal Stores, which is decorated with Mickey Mouse logo
and smells of lightly rolled condom.

b/ My hair, dried this morning with gnat's buzz of a hairdryer in
the hotel bathroom, lies basted to my skull like threadbare helmet of
old lady in retirement home.

c/ Am about to be fired, therefore poorly placed to show how
sensationally well my life has gone without him.


Second Thought

a/ He doesn't recognise me. HE DOESN'T EVEN RECOGNISE
ME. Am hideously changed and shrivelled and no longer


212
desirable to man once sexually obsessed with me.


Across the pastel blur of spinning teacups, I meet the eyes of
the man. He smiles at me. It's not Martin.


8.58 piu: We take the Eurostar home to London. Ben is lying
on his back across me. His eyelashes are long, his hands still
chubby baby hands, the dimples along the knuckle like air
bubbles in batter. When he's big, I won't be able to tell him
how much I loved his hands. Maybe I won't remember. I
stretch to reach my laptop, but the baby turns and sighs as if to
wake. I don't want to check my e-mail, anyway: there's probably
a nuclear bollocking from Rod and gloating 'commiserations'
from the ghastly Guy. I'll prepare for my fate as a
penniless stay-at-home mother, purchase penitential Gap
sweatshirts in khaki. And try to remember the words to 'Incy
Wincy Spider'.


So, you see, that was why I didn't pick up the e-mail from Rod
that evening. The one that told me everything was OK, the
one that told me things were much much better than OK.


From: Rod Task

To: Kate Reddy

Kate, WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU? Fed cut the rate

again. Rest of team liquid up to their necks. You the only one

who didn't sell. What's your secret, genius? Are you shagging

Greenspan?

Push the old guy off you and come back. Buy you a beer.

Cheers Rod


213
24 Kate Triumphant


Offices of Edwin Morgan Forster

Tuesday, 9.27 am: Hallelujah! I am a guru. My superb market
timing -- otherwise known as forgetting to place several trades
and being saved by a surprise rate cut -- has granted me
temporary office goddess status. I hang around at the coffee
machine receiving tributes from grudgingly awed colleagues.

'You must be the only person to have anticipated the Fed cut and the market 
recovery, Kate,' marvels Dandruff Gavin. I
compose my features into what I hope is an impersonation of
humility and quiet pride.

'Shit, I was 6 per cent liquid. That cost us a few basis points,'
groans pink-faced Ian. 'And Brian was 15 per cent liquid.
That's another nail in his coffin, poor sod.' I nod in sympathetic
condescension and say casually, 'I only had 1 per cent cash,
actually.' Tasting success, enjoying its champagne tang on my
tongue.

Chris Bunce walks past on the way to the Gents and can hardly
bear to meet my eye. Momo comes up and gives me a dry little
kiss which lands on my cheek around the same time that Guy's
look harpoons into my shoulder blades. Across the office, I see
Robin Cooper-Clark approaching with an amused smile as if he
were a bishop and I were a jammy young curate.

'And on the third day she rose again,' says Robin. 'Well,
well, Miss Reddy, who says Easter is drained of all meaning?'

He knows. He knows. Of course, he bloody knows.
Brightest man in the solar system.

'I was extremely fortunate, Robin. Alan Greenspan rolled
the rock from the tomb.'

'You were very fortunate, Kate, and you're very good. Good


214
people deserve their good fortune. By the way, did Rod tell
you we need you to go to Frankfurt?'

When I sit down at my desk, I'm so buoyant I practically
don't need a chair. Scan the currencies, check the markets, then
call up my e-mails. Smile when I see that, at the top of the
Inbox, are two from my dearest friends.


From: Debra Richardson

To: Kate Reddy, EMF

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 any more!

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.


From: Kate Reddy

To: Debra Richardson

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


215
From: Candy Stratton
To: Kate Reddy
O fuck. Am pregnnt.


I immediately look across the office to where Candy sits.
Sensing my glance she looks up from her work and gives a little
\vave. 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 lives 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, Kate.'

'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


216
this place in Hammersmith. Not cheap, but they do them real
late, no questions asked.'

Tine. 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 foetus 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.'

'AweT 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.'


217
25 Back to School


8.01 am: 'OK, Emily, let's go. Quick now. Mummy's going
to be late. Lunchbox? 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? Well, 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 bolshy 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.

'Mamma, 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, Mamma?'

'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 & girl.'


218
8.32 am: I am bundling Em out of 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 rollercoaster?

'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.

In the car, Em kicks the back of the passenger seat with
absentminded fury. No point telling her off; she barely knows
what she's doing. Sometimes a five-year-old's feelings are
simply too big for their body.

'Mamma, I gotta idea.'

'What's that, sweetheart?'

'How about if da "weekends were weeks and da weeks were
weekends?'

As I wait for the lights to change, I have a scratchy sensation
in my chest, as though a bird were in there trying to escape.

'Den all da mummies and daddies could be wid dare children
more.'

'Emily, will you please talk properly. You are not a baby.'

In the rear-view mirror, I catch her eye and look away.

'Mummy, my tummy hurts. Mummy, will you put me to
bed tonight? Are you putting me to bed tonight?'

'Yes, I promise.'


I cannot imagine what I was thinking of when I let
Alexandra Law, Abbess among the Mother Superiors, sign
me up for the Parent Teachers Association. No, that's not true,
I know exactly what I was thinking of: I was thinking that just


219
tor one hour in some underlit, overheated classroom I could
pretend that I'm like any other mother. When the chair makes
a reference to Roy, the absentee caretaker, I want to give a    i

knowing little smile. I want to groan when someone brings up    I

the matter of the summer fete -- that time of year again already!       ?!

-- and I want to breathe that fuggy companionable air. And      J

afterwards, when we've voted on a computer levy and plans to
improve the sports facilities, I want to clasp my fingers round a
white plastic cup containing a boiling orange beverage and I
want to refuse a Hob Nob, patting my waist significantly, and
then I'll say, 'Oh, go on then!' as though succumbing to a
chocolate biscuit was the most reckless, heady thing I'd done
for a very long time.

But, realistically, what were the chances of my making the
PTA meeting at 6.30 on a Wednesday night? Alexandra
described 6.30 as 'after work', but what kind of work lets you
go before 6.30 these days? Teaching, obviously, but even
teachers have Himalayas of marking to do. When I was a child,
there were fathers who still came home in time for the family's
evening meal, dads who, in the summer months, would mow
the lawn while it was still light and "water the sweet peas in the
dusk. But that age -- the age of working to live instead of living
to work - feels far away in a land where district nurses arrived
by Morris Traveller and televisions glowed like embers. I don't
know anyone at the office who eats with their kids in the week
now.

No, it really wasn't realistic to sign up for the PTA, and three
months after joining I have yet to attend a single meeting. So
when I drop Emily off at school I try to avoid bumping into
Alexandra Law. Easier said than done. Alexandra is harder to
avoid than the NatWest Tower.

'Oh, Kate, there you are -' She barrels across the room. Her
dress this morning is so densely floral it looks as though she has
run into an armchair at speed. 'We were thinking of sending
out a search party. Ha-ha-ha! Still working full-time? Gosh. I
don't know how you do it. Oh Diane, I was just saying, we
don't know how she does it, do we?'


220
Diane Percival, mother of Emily's classmate Oliver, extends
a thin tanned hand with a sapphire the size of a sprout on the
second finger. I immediately recognise the type. One of those
wives, tensed like longbows, who have a full-time career
keeping in shape for their husbands. They exercise, they get
their hair done twice a week, they wear full make-up to play
tennis and when that is no longer enough, they willingly
submit to the surgeon's knife. 'Those rich stay-home mums are
jogging for their lives,' Debra says, and she's right. These
women are not in love, they are in fear: fear that the husband's
love \vill slip away and land on some replica of their younger
selves.

Like me, they are in asset management, but my assets are
most of the world's resources and their asset is themselves -- a
lovely product, but threatened with diminishing returns. Don't
get me wrong. When the time comes I'll probably have my
neck lifted to the back of my ears and, like the Dianes of this
world, I'll have it done to please someone; the difference is, that
someone will be me. However much I sometimes don't "want
to be Kate, I really really don't want to be Diane.

I have never actually spoken to Diane Percival before, but
this does not stop me going cold at the very thought of her.
Diane is the mother who sends notes. Notes to invite your
child to a play-date, notes to thank your child for coming to a
play-date. (It was nothing, really.) Last week, in a spectacular
burst of note one-upmanship, Diane actually sent a note from
Oliver thanking Emily for an invitation to tea. In what kind of
life is it possible to send a note acknowledging an event of
almost no significance, which will feature fish fingers and peas
and has yet to take place? Deprived of office hierarchies, many
of the mothers at my daughter's school have set about inventing
meaningless tests whose sole purpose is that other mothers with
better things to do can be seen to fail them.

'Thank you for your thank-you note, I look forward to
receiving your note acknowledging receipt of my note. Thank
you and get lost.'


221
Novalis Hotel, Frankfurt, 8.19 pm: Shit. I won't be able to put
Emily to bed tonight after all. The meeting with the German
client was brought forward and I had to get on the next plane.
It went as well as can be expected. I blagged and blagged and I
think I bought us a couple more months by which time we may
have been able to turn around the fund's performance.

Back at the hotel, I pour myself a large drink and have just
got into the bath when the phone rings. Christ, what now? For
the first time in my life, I pick up the bathroom extension: a
cream phone in its cradle on the wall next to the towel rail. It's
Richard. There is something different about his voice.
'Darling, I'm afraid I have some sad news. Robin just rang.'


222
26 Death of a Mother


jill cooper-clark died peacefully at home in the small
hours of Monday morning. She was forty-seven. Diagnosed
just after the children broke up from school last summer, the
cancer swept through her like a forest fire. The surgeons went
in first, and after them a SWAT team of pharmacologists and
radiotherapists, all trying to contain the blaze. But the cancer
was unquenchable -- breasts, lungs, pancreas. It was as though
Jill's energy - she was the most prodigiously energetic person
I've ever met - was being used against her; as if the life force
itself could be hijacked and redeployed in the fell purposes of
death. The last time I saw her was at the Edwin Morgan Forster
party, a zillion-dollar bash on an Arabian theme with real sand
and an angry camel. Wearing a turban to hide her tufted
baldness, Jill was, as usual, making me laugh.

'Slash and burn, Kate, you'd hardly believe how bloody
primitive the treatment is. I feel like a medieval village they're
razing to the ground. Only one would rather be pillaged by
Vikings than an oncologist, don't you think?'

Before the treatment, Jill had dense, springy auburn hair and
that Celtic top-of-the-milk skin with a sprinkling of cinnamon
freckles. Three babies -- all hefty boys -- had not managed to
weigh down the coltish body of the sometime netball Goal
Attack. Robin said that to get the full measure of his wife you
had to see her tennis backhand: just when you thought it was all
over, when there was no possibility of the ball being returned,
she would uncoil and whip it down the line. I watched her do it
at the Cooper-Clark place in Sussex two summers ago, and when
she struck the ball, Jill let out a defiant, joyous, 'Ha!' I think we
were all waiting for her to pull that stroke on the cancer.


223
Jill is survived by her three sons and by her husband, who has
just stepped out of the lift. I hear the smart rap of his black
Lobbs across the central square of beech that might be used for |

tea-dancing if this was another, gentler kind of business. We are       I

both in the office appallingly early: Robin to catch up, me to  S

get ahead. He rustles around in his room; coughing, opening
and closing a drawer.

I take him in a mug of tea and he starts. 'Oh, hello, Kate.
Look, I'm so sorry, leaving you to manage alone. I know how
much hassle it is and on top of the Salinger stuff. But after the
funeral, I'll be all yours.'

'Don't worry. Everything's under control.' A lie. I want to
ask how he is, but that early warning system of his, the one that
sees off painful personal questions, is on red alert. So I ask
something else. 'How are the boys?'

'Well, we're luckier than a lot of people,' says Robin,
switching smoothly into Head of Investment mode. 'You
know Tim's at Bristol now, Sam's doing GCSEs and Alex is
nearly nine. It's not as though they're little boys any more who
really, um, need a mother in the way that younger boys do
actually need their mothers.' And then he makes a noise that no
one has ever heard in the offices of Edwin Morgan Forster
before. Halfway between a bark and a moan, it is barely human,
or maybe all too human and I never want to hear it again.

He pinches the bridge of his nose for a few furious seconds
and then turns back to me. 'Jill left this,' he says, handing over
a sheaf of paper. Twenty pages of neat, handwritten script, it
bears the title 'Your Family: How It Works!'

'Everything's in there,' he says, shaking his head in wonder.
'She even tells me where to find the bloody Christmas
decorations. You'd be amazed how much there is to
remember, Kate.'

No, I wouldn't.


Friday, 12.33 pm: If I leave the office now, I will make it to
Jill's funeral in Sussex at three o'clock with plenty of time to
pick up a sandwich on the way to the station. Momo and I are

224
going through some stuff for another final. Momo asks if I
knew Mr Cooper-Clark's wife and I tell her Jill was an amazing
person.

Momo looks doubtful. 'But she didn't work, did she?'

I look at Momo's face. What is she - twenty-four, twenty
five? Young enough not to know what women put up with
before her; young enough to take her own freedom for
granted. Calmly I say, 'Jill was fast-track Civil Service until
Sam, her second, was two years old. She'd have been running
the Home Office by now, but she decided to run her own
home instead. She just didn't think that she and Robin could
both have ball-breaking jobs without the children being
affected. She said she tried to believe it was possible, but her
heart wouldn't let her.'

Momo bends down to put something in the bin, and out of
the window I can see the pigeon, her feathers puffed out like a
crinoline over the eggs. Daddy pigeon is nowhere to be seen.
Where is he?

'Oh, how sad,' says Momo. 'I mean, what a waste to end up
doing nothing with your life.'


1.11 pm: If I leave the office right this minute, I should make
it to the train.


1.27 pm: Am running out of the office when Robin's
secretary hands me Jill's family memo: he's forgotten it. I sprint
to Cannon Street. By the time I reach the river, lungs are
hoarse, beads of sweat cascading over my breasts like a broken
necklace. Stumble on steps to the station and gash left knee of
tights. Damn. Damn. Dash across station concourse, skid into
Knickerbox and grab first pair of black tights I see. Tell startled
girl to keep the change. At the barrier, the guard grins and says,
'Too late, love.' Swerve round the barrier, board accelerating
train pursued by guard. Through the window, London recedes
with surprising speed, its grey circuitry soon blurring into deep
country. I can hardly bear to look at the spring; so ear
splittingly green, so childishly hopeful.


225
I buy a cup of coffee from a passing trolley and open my
briefcase to take out some work. On the top of the pile is Jill's
family memo. I shouldn't read it, but I really want to read it. I
want to hear my friend again, even if it's only her words written
down. Maybe if I just look at one page?


When you supervise Alex's bath, don't forget to do in between
his fingers, there's usually a load of black fluff in there and the
odd raisin! MUST put Oilatum (turquoise bottle, white writing)
in the water for his eczema. Please pretend it's bubble bath, he
hates being reminded about his skin.

Alex will tell you he doesn't like pasta. He does like pasta. So
persist. Persist gently. Yes, he can have a Cheese Whirl -- hideous, Day-Glo, 
no cheese -- but only if he eats a real piece of
cheese as well. No, he can't live on sweetcorn. Suggest family
switch to Red Bush tea (cancer prevention, apparently).

I promised Sam he could have contact lenses for his 15th
birthday. Whenever you're about to shout at him, count silently
to ten and think 'testosterone'. He won't be revolting for long, I
promise. Remember all the grief we had with Tim and how well
he worked out? Timmy's current girlfriend is Sharmila -- lovely,
v. bright from Bradford. Her parents disapprove of slacker white
boy - ours - so could you invite them to the house and do your
charm thing? (Father, Deepak, is keen golfer: both parents
vegetarian.) Tim will pretend to hate it when you ask him, but
be chuffed when it happens.


birthdays: Your mother's favourite perfume is Diorissima.
Tapes are always a good bet. Anything by Bryn Terfel, except Oklahoma! which we 
gave last year. Also Alan Bennett books
and Turkish Delight. My mother likes anything by Margaret
Forster or Antonia Fraser. You might like to give Mummy my
rings, or maybe you should hold on to them as one of the boys
might want for an engagement ring in due course?


godchildren: Your godchildren are Harry (Paxton), Lucy
(Goodridge) and Alice (Benson). Their birthdays are marked on
the calendar next to the fridge. In the present drawer, bottom of


226
study filing cabinet, are gifts marked with their initials which
should take you through to the Christmas after next. Simon and
Clare's marriage is a bit shaky, so you might take Harry out and
let him know you're there if he needs you. Don't forget Lucy's
confirmation in September.


ANY OTHER PROBLEMS

1       /How to work washing machine. In emergencies, you may need
to know this. See Brown Book. NB: temperature for your wool
socks.

2       /Bin-bag sizes. Ditto.

3       / Cleaner - Mondays and Thursdays. 7 pounds an hour plus we
help Jean out with bigger bills and holidays. Single mother.
Daughter is Aileen. Wants to be a nurse.

4       / Babysitters - numbers in Green Book. NOT Jodie who had
sex with boyfriend in our bed while we were at Glyndebourne.

5       / Arnica for bruises (bathroom cabinet).

6       /Ignatia for grief (yellow bottle, my bedside table).

7       /Postman called Pat (really); paperboy is girl (Holly).
Dustmen come Tuesday morning; won't take garden stuff. Xmas
tips in Brown Book - be generous!

8       /After the funeral, the boys could see Maggie, counsellor at the
hospice. A bit alternative for your taste, but I think the boys
would really like her and they may say things to her that they
wouldn't to you for fear of upsetting you, my darling. Kiss them

for me and don't stop just because they get taller than you, will
you?


It's all there. For page after page. The minutiae of the
children's lives, the rhythm of their days. I wince "when I think
how badly qualified I would be to write such a memo for
Richard. On the Birthdays Page, there is a stain the size of a
cup. Something oily with a scab of flour. Jill must have been
baking as she wrote.

I want to read on, but am prevented by a blur of tears. I pick
up the Daily Telegraph instead and flick to the obituaries page.
Today, there is an eminent biologist, a man who ran IBM in
the Sixties and a platinum showgirl, name of Dizzy, who


227
'romanced' Douglas Fairbanks and the Aga Khan. No Cooper
Clark to be seen. Jill's kind of life doesn't get recorded for posterity. What 
was it Momo called it: 'a waste'? How can all
that love be a waste?


2.57 pm: In doll-size tram loo, I remove my laddered tights
and execute a Houdini wriggle into new black pair. Back in the
corridor, I'm surprised to attract a whistle of approval from the
steward. Looking down I see that the black tights have Playboy
rabbits picked out in diamante up back of my legs. I swear I can
hear Jill laughing.


St Botolph's, Greengate, 3.17 pm: I arrive in time to hear the
vicar invite the congregation to thank God for the life of Jillian
Cordelia Cooper-Clark. I didn't know she was a Cordelia. It
suits her, principled and defined by love.

I can see Robin and the boys in the front pew. Robin has
to stoop right down when he bends to kiss his youngest son's
auburn head. Alex is trembling slightly in his new suit, his first
suit. Jill told me they'd come up to London together to pick
it out: she must have known when he'd wear it for the first
time.

We sing 'Lord of All Hopefulness', her favourite hymn. The
tune has a Scottish melancholy to it I hadn't noticed before. As
it fades away, there is an outbreak of suppressed coughing and
the vicar, a birdlike man with a crest of fair hair, asks the
congregation to spend a few moments in silence remembering
Jill.

I close my eyes and rest my hands on the back of the pew in
front and instantly I'm back in a wood outside Northampton.
August. Two months after Emily was born and James
Entwhistle, who was my boss before Rod, had organised a
shoot on some country estate for clients. He insisted that I
attend, even though I can't shoot and I was barely capable of
remembering -where Germany -was, let alone schmoozing a
bunch of Frankfurt bankers. By lunchtime, I felt as though I
had burning rocks strapped to my chest. Breasts screaming to be


228
emptied. There was only one loo, a portable thing hidden in
the trees. I locked myself in the cubicle, undid my blouse and
started to squirt the milk into the toilet. Breast milk is different
from cows' milk, finer, less creamy, it has the bluish aristocratic
pallor of porcelain; "when mine hit the green chemical in the
steel bowl it made an opaque soup.

But at first the milk was reluctant to come. To keep it going
I had to visualise Emily, her smell, her huge eyes, the touch of
her skin. Hot and panicky, I became aware of coughing on the
other side of the door. A queue was building up and I hadn't
even emptied the left side and the right still to do. Then I heard
a woman's voice speaking quite briskly, a voice which derived
authority from its warmth: 'Well, gentlemen, why don't you all
run along and avail yourselves of the bushes outside? That's one
of the natural advantages you enjoy over us ladies. I suspect that
Miss Reddy's need of the lavatory is greater than yours. Thank
you so much.'

When I got outside about ten minutes later, Jill Cooper
Clark was sitting on a log in the clearing. Seeing me, she waved
and from a coolbag produced a bag of ice which she held aloft
in triumph. 'I seem to remember this is the best thing for sore
boobs.'

I had noticed her before at corporate events -- Henley
Regatta, some rain-soaked beano at the Cheltenham Gold Cup
- but I had taken her for just another golfing wife. The sort
who buttonholes you about tennis-court maintenance or how
hard it is to get a little man round to deal with the swimming
pool.

Jill asked about my baby -- the only person connected with
work to have done so - and then confessed that Alex, who had
just celebrated his fourth birthday, had been her present to
herself. Everyone said it was crazy to go back for a third when
you were finally clear of all the nappies and broken nights, but
she felt she'd missed out on Tim and Sam's babyhoods by being
in work. 'Oh, I don't know, I felt that time had been stolen from me and I 
wanted it back.'

Because we were in confessional mood, I told her that I was


229
afraid of letting myself feel too much. I didn't know how I
could go back to the job without hardening my heart.

'The thing is, Kate,' Jill said, 'they treat us as though they're
doing us a great favour by letting us go back to work after
we've had a child. And the price we pay for that favour is not
making a fuss, not letting on how life can never be the same for
us again. But always remember it's we who are doing them the
favour. We're perpetuating the human race and there's nothing
more important than that. Where are they going to get their
bloody clients from if we stop breeding?'

There was a sound of gunshots and Jill laughed. She had this
wonderful liberating laugh: it seemed to blow away all the
stupidity and mean-mindedness of the world. And you know
something else? She was the only person who never said: I
don't know how you do it. She knew how you did it, and she
knew what it cost.

'Dearly beloved, let us say together the words which Jesus
taught us: Our Father, who art in Heaven.'


jill's grave is at the bottom of a hill that falls away sharply
from the back of the church. At the top are the towering
Victorian headstones - plinths and tombs and catafalques heavy
with attendant angels; the farther you crunch down the gravel
path and the nearer to the present you get, the smaller and more
modest the memorials become. Our forefathers knew they had
a reserved seat, even a box, for the afterlife: we put in a
tentative request for any returns.

Jill's spot looks out across a valley. The hills opposite have
mascara smudges of fir trees along their ridges, and in the green
bowl beneath hangs a dense silver vapour. As the vicar intones
the liturgy, and Robin steps foward to drop a handful of earth
on his wife's coffin, I look away quickly and with washed eyes
focus on the headstones all around us. Devoted son. Father and
grandfather. Precious only child of. Beloved wife and mother.
Sister. Wife. Mother. Mother. In death, we are not defined by
what we did or 'who we were, but by what we meant to others.


230
How well we loved and were loved in return.


Must Remember

All things must pass, mankind is grass.
Kissing a child's cold cheeks.
Return phone calls.


231
27 A Change of Heart


Courtship takes place during the spring and summer, and in Europe
breeding continues from April to late autumn. During courtship, the
males coo loudly, display before the females, and indulge in display
fights. Pigeons can live to 30 years of age. They are monogamous
and tend to mate for life, a feature remarkable in birds so strongly
gregarious.

A pair of courting pigeons may be silent for hours on end, while
one of the pair, usually the male but sometimes the female, gently
runs its beak through the feathers of its mate.

For about five or six months, before it is fully adult, the cooings
of the male have a dull and melancholy sound, these having replaced
the feeble and rather nasal calls of the adolescent. 'The cooings
eventually take on a richer quality when the bird is mated.

From The Habits of the Pigeon


It's quiet out here on the ledge. You can hear the hoots and the
snarls of the City below, but they are muffled by height,
smothered in a duvet of air.

I am very near the pigeon now. I can see her and she can see
me. She is making a low chirruking sound and there is a fierce
shuddering in her neck. Every instinct is telling her to fly away;
every one except the one that tells her to stay with her chick.
One of the eggs hatched while I was in Sussex. It was hard to
see the baby from inside the office, but this close I get a good
view. You simply can't believe that this creature will ever be
capable of flight. It doesn't look like a bird, more like an
anguished sketch towards a bird. Shrivelled and bald, like all
newborn things it seems ancient, a thousand years old.

I did try to open the window and reach out, but there's so


232
much triple-glazing you can't budge any of the panels near the
nest: there was nothing for it, I would have to climb out
through the next window. So now, on hands and knees, I edge
my collection of big books along the ledge. The volumes have
been carefully chosen for size and durability:


The Square Meal: a Guide to the City's Restaurants

Brokers' Predictions for 2000

CFBC's Global Directions for 1997, 98 and 99

A Review of the Pharmaceutical Industry

A Linguarama book for the Italian course I started and

never finished Tlie Warren Buffet Way
The Ten Natural Laws of Successful Time and Life Management:

Proven Strategies for Increased Productivity and Inner Peace.


The birds can definitely have that last one. Just in case these
are not up to the task, I have included A Handbook of Financial
Futures, a manual with all the depth and interest of a breeze
block. The idea is to build a protective wall around the pigeon
and her nest. On the way back from Jill's funeral, I got a call
from Guy. Good news, he said, a man from the Corporation
had returned his call and told him that the falconer would be
along tomorrow. I was the one who insisted that the hawk
show up and now I very urgently want him to stay away.

Down in the piazza, thirteen floors below, I'm attracting a bit
of a crowd, the first commuters pointing up at the woman on
the ledge. Probably wondering if I'm a casualty of the recession
or of the heart. A broker threw himself under a train at
Moorgate the other morning and he missed: fell into that pit
under the rails instead and got pulled out by an emergency
team. Everyone kept saying what a miracle it was, but I
wondered what it would be like to feel so bad you try to end it
all and then to fail at that too. Would it feel like a rebirth or a
living death?

Behind me, from inside the office, floats the voice of Candy,
droll as ever but streaked with anxiety.


233

'Kate, get back in here.'

'I can't.'

'Honey, these things are often a cry for help. We all love
you.'

'I am not crying for help, I
am trying to hide the pigeon.'

'Kate?'

'I've got to help her.'

'Why?'

'There's a hawk coming.'

I actually hear Candy's snort. 'There's always a fucking hawk
coming. I can't believe we're having this conversation about
some stupid bird. Get in here this minute, Kate Reddy, or I'm
gonna call security.'

Through the glass, a group of EMF colleagues are monitoring
my progress, giving an ironic little cheer as another volume
is shunted into position. As I pick up Warren Buffet, I catch
sight of my hand, its wedding ring glinting, the ridge of eczema
across the knuckle, and I think of what would happen to it if I
fell -- tendons, skin, blood. No, don't think about it, let's just
finish the fortification with The Ten Natural Laws of Successful
Time and Life Management. Edging back along the ledge, ahead
I can see Candy leaning out of the window and Guy hovering
behind her. My assistant's face is touched not by fear, but
something that looks like hope.


From: Debra Richardson

To: Kate Reddy

Jim is away for second weekend in a row. Not sure if I'll

murder the kids before they murder me. Has left me to

organise his 40th birthday party - told me to invite 'the usual

suspects'. How come he can clear his head of everything to do

with home when he has a big deal on and I can't?

As I think you will have gathered am just a teensy bit fucking

pissed off with him. Know any gorgeous single men? . . .

NO DON'T ANSWER THAT QUESTION

I


234
From: Kate Reddy

To: Debra Richardson

Q: What should you do if you see your ex-husband rolling

around on the ground in pain?
A: Shoot him again just to make sure.

You have got to take Tough Line with Jim - tell him your job is
not a hobby. Must do his share etc. Mind you, Richard is very
helpful, but I end up having to do everything again after he's
done it... so maybe better to do it yourself in first place???
Am worried about you. Am worried about Candy too. Did I tell
you she's pregnant? Won't even talk about it. Pretends it's
not happening to her. Been feeling pretty crazy myself since
Jill's funeral. Have just consolidated reputation as office
madwoman by climbing out on window ledge to save baby
pigeon.
What is Meaning of Life? Please advise soonest xxxxxxxxxxx


12.17 pm: So Momo and I did it. Rod got the news late last
night. We won the New Jersey final. Momo is so excited that
her feet leave the ground. Like Emily, she literally jumps for joy.

'You did it, Kate, you did it!'

'No, we did it. We. You and me together.'

Rod takes the whole team out to lunch to celebrate at a place
in Leadenhall Market. It's changed a lot since I was here before.
Limestone was clearly last year's material; now it's all opaque
glass forming faux Japanese bridges over streams full of gaping
carp, who can't decide whether they're art or lunch.

Rod hauls himself on to the stool next to me; Chris Bunce
is opposite Momo. I don't like the look he gives her, avid, sly,
lip-moistening, but she seems to be enjoying herself flirting
with him, trying out the power that her new confidence brings.
I find myself mentioning the Salinger Foundation several times,
just for the pleasure of saying Jack's name aloud. I love hearing
and seeing his name - on the side of vans, over the front of
shops. Jack Nicholson, Jack and the Beanstalk, Jack of Hearts.
Even the Foreign Secretary has become a more attractive man
since he was called Jack.


235
'Katie, what's with the fucking pigeon?' demands Rod as the
lobster arrives. 'You gonna race it or roast it?'

'Oh, it's a kind of ethical fund action. Part of my new brief
to be friendlier to the environment.'

'Jeeez,' my boss says tearing a granary roll in half, 'taking
things a bit far, aren't you?'

By the way, Rod says, he has some business he wants Momo
and me to pitch for. Stone something. 'One Stone with two
birds, geddit?'

I say fine, but I will need more resources.

'Can't increase the head count, Katie,' says Rod. 'You just
gotta get out there and kick the fucking tyres, kid.'


236
I


28 What the Mother Saw


So i rush home from work and when I get through the
door I call out, but there's no reply. There are squeals
coming from the sitting room and my first thought is pain --
they're in pain -- and my heart flubs over and I go in and there's
Paula on the sofa with Emily and Ben. All snuggled up together
with Toy Story on the TV and giggling uncontrollably.

'What's so funny?' I say, but they're laughing too much to
answer. Emily's laughing so much she's crying. And seeing the
way they are, so snug and happy there, I suddenly think, You're
paying for this, Kate. You're literally paying for this. For
another woman to sit on your sofa and cuddle your children.

So I ask Paula if she hasn't got something better to be getting
on with, and I hate the sound of my voice: priggish, pious, lady
of the bloody manor. And they all look at me, eyes widening
in amazement, and then they start giggling again. Can't help it.
Giggling at the silly lady who's come in and tried to stop the
fun. As though you could turn fun offjust like that.

Sometimes I think Paula's too close to them, it's not healthy.
Mostly, I'd do anything for her to stay. Paula told me she's
known mothers who sack the childminder every six months.
So they don't get too attached. I mean, how selfish can you get?
Denying them a familiar loving presence just because you want
it to be you and it can't be you.

Of course, I sometimes find myself worrying that she doesn't
talk to the children as I would talk to them. When I was a kid, I
used to say dinner for lunch and tea for dinner, but now I've
joined the professional classes I teach my kids lunch and dinner,
and then Paula comes along and teaches them dinner and tea. I
can't complain, can I? Pochard corrects them. 'Loo,' he says


237
firmly as Emily demands once again to go to the toilet; but to be
honest I feel more comfortable with the words I learnt myself. I
know Paula lets them watch quite a bit of TV, but in other ways
I can see she's much better than I would be - consistent, more
patience. After a weekend with them, I'm screaming to be let out
the house, but with Paula, it's steady as she goes. Never raises her
voice. A lot that's good in their characters comes from her.

When I went into school for a meeting with the teacher the
other night, the headmistress took me aside and she said that if
Emily was going to have any hope of getting into Piper Place
she would need - how to put this? - more of the right kind of
stimulation at home. Children with mothers who didn't go out
to work were being taking on regular visits to museums, they
had a broader perspective. Even if they ate Alphabetti
Spaghetti, it was always in sodding Latin. Whereas homes with
both parents out at work. 'Well, there can be a tendency to rely
on the te-le-vis-i-on,' said Miss Acland, getting five syllables
out of the dreaded word.

'Emily,' she said, 'seems to have a quite remarkable
knowledge of the cartoon films of Walt Disney.'

This was her way of telling me Paula wasn't good enough.
'Emily,' continued Miss Acland, 'will need to show a wide
range of interests to secure a place at a good secondary school.
Competition in London is very fierce as you know, Mrs
Shattock. I suggest an instrument -- not the violin, too common
now; perhaps the clarinet, which has plenty of personality -- and
you could consider one of the more unusual sports.' Rugby for
girls, she believed, was gaining in popularity.

'Emily needs a CV at the age of six?'

Maybe I should have tried to keep the incredulity out of my
voice.

'Well, Mrs Shattock, in certain home situations where
neither parent is present these kinds of things can, shall we say,
slip. Did you learn an instrument yourself as a child?'

'No, but my father sang a lot to us.'

'Oh,' she said, the kind of'Oh' that kind of woman holds in
a pooper-scooper.


238
Hideous money-grubbing education witch.

In her last job, the one before us, Paula worked for a family
in Hampstead. Julia, the mother, said the kids weren't allowed
to watch TV.

'And Julia worked in telly making all this crap for Channel
5,' Paula told me one day, laughing loudly at the memory. 'And
it's like her kids weren't allowed telly because it's evil!' At the
weekends, Julia and her husband Mike stayed in bed -while the
kids were downstairs watching videos all morning. Paula found
this out because Adam, the youngest, told her one Monday
when she was trying to switch the TV off. When I think of that
story, I can feel myself redden. Aren't I guilty of the same
double standard? I tell Paula that Ben must have water not juice
and then, at the weekend, if he asks me for apple juice I give in
quickly to buy myself some peace and quiet. I want my nanny
to be a better mother than I would ever be: I expect her to love
my two like they're her own, and then, when I come home and
find her loving them like they're her own, they're suddenly My
Children and to be loved by nobody except me.

As I unload the dishwasher and start to wash by hand all the
plates that aren't properly clean, I can see Paula looking at me
from the other end of the kitchen. She's brushing Emily's hair
and really looking at me. I wish I knew what she thought. She
said to me once that she would never have a nanny if she had
kids; she knew too much about what went on -- the girls who
suck up to the mums and then, as soon as they're out the door,
it's on the mobile.

Emily lets out a cry as the brush encounters a tangle. 'Hush
now,' Paula chides, 'princesses have to have their hair brushed
a hundred times every night, don't they, Mummy?' She looks
across the room, seeking an act of conciliation and consent.

No. I don't want to know. If I knew what she really thought
it would probably kill me. Still, a part of me wishes I knew what
she thought.


239
Part Four
29 The Supermarket Shop


emily's birthday always means the start of summer for
me. When my waters broke six years ago and I took a cab
to the hospital, there were people sitting at cafe tables on the
pavements and spilling into the street and it felt as though the
whole city was in carnival for the arrival of my child.

The day before her party, I do the supermarket shop with
Ben. The supermarket shop. Who could imagine that such a
small phrase could contain so much pain; an Oresteia of suffering.
First off, I try to liberate one of the extra-wide trolleys
which is in coitus with another trolley outside the store: I pull
and pull and push with one hand, holding on to a runaway
toddler with the other.

An aviary on wheels, the extra-wide trolley is roughly as
manoeuvrable as the Isle of Wight. I try to persuade Ben to sit
in the baby seat. He declines, preferring to ride in the cargo
hold where he can eject any purchase he disapproves of. In
desperation, I crack open a box of Mini Milks and give him
two: while both his hands are full of lolly, I slip him into the
seat and snap the clips. (Bad, bad, bribing mother.) Now, all
that remains is to track down the thirty-seven items on my list.
After I threw the radio at him this morning, Richard said he
thought the whole birthday thing was perhaps stressing me out
a little. Why didn't I take a break and he'd do the supermarket
shop? Impossible, I said, he would buy all the wrong things.

'But there's a list, Kate,' he reasoned in his man-ina-white
coat voice, 'how could I possibly go wrong?'

What every woman knows and no man can ever grasp is that
even if he brings home everything on the list, he will still not
have got the right things. Why? Because the woman truly


243
believes that if she had gone to the supermarket she would have
made better choices: a plumper chicken from a more
luxuriantly pastured region of France, a yummier yoghurt, the
exact salad leaf she had yearned for and whose precise name
had, until the epiphany in front of the Healthy Eating cabinet,
eluded her. Men make lists to order the world, to tie it down;
for women, lists are the start of something, the co-ordinates by
which we plot our journey to freedom. (Don't get me wrong
here: I'm not claiming that any of this is fair. When a woman
buys an item not on the list which turns out to be inedible, this
is called 'an experiment'; when a man does the same thing it is
'a waste of money'.)


3.31 pm: Join the checkout queue. Am sure I have forgotten
something vital. What?


3.39 pm: Oh great, Ben has a dirty nappy. Just wondering
how long I can hang in here and defy the astounded nostrils of
nearby customers when my son puts his hand, the one holding)
what's left of the second Mini Milk, down his shorts. When he
withdraws the hand it is marbled with ice-cream and
excrement. I want to faint with misery. Instead, holding the
boy aloft like a grenade with the pin out, I sprint the length of
the store to the baby-changing facility.


4.01 pm: Rejoin queue. Sixteen minutes. Estimate Ben has
now eaten at least one-twelfth of the party food. As he munches
contentedly, I grab a magazine from the rack by the till and try
to lower my blood pressure by reading my horoscope.


Jupiter is now transiting your 9th house, which is truly one of the
most beneficial things it can do for you. Your consciousness is lifted
and your perspective grows. You find yourself imbued with loving

feelings towards everyone -- even children who have been impossible
to control. The most positive effect of this moment is that your rage
level sinks to an all-time low. The trick will be to hold on to this

feeling of serenity once the euphoria wears off.


244
'Excuse me, madam?'

I look up, expecting that it's my turn to put items on the
conveyor belt. Instead, the checkout girl informs me that I have
been queuing in a regular aisle through which the Isle of Wight
cannot pass. 'Sorry, madam, if you could just move to one of
the designated wider aisles.'

'Sorry? Sorry doesn't exactly cover it, does it?' For five seconds I go
very quiet, then drive my fist into a twelve-pack of Hula Hoops.
The bang brings a security guard vaulting over the barrier. Ben
bursts into tears, as does every other child in the immediate area.
I am imbued with loving feelings towards everyone.


4.39 pm: The checkout person is so slow she may as well be
underwater. Even worse, she is helpful and friendly.

'You know if you buy another one of those you get one
free?'

'Sorry?'

'Fromage firais, doncha want one free?'

'No, I don't.'

'Having a party, are ya?'

No, I am buying eighty mini sausages, twenty-four Barbie
chocolate rolls and a bumper bag of Iced Gems for my own
consumption because I am a deranged bulimic.

'My daughter. She's six tomorrow.'

'Ah, lovely. Gotta Reward Card?'

'No, I--'

'You want one with this lot, doncha? Save yourself a bit,
love.'

'Actually, I haven't got time to--'

'Cashback?'

No, really, I just have to go--'

'Inshee lovely?'

'Sorry?'

'Your little gel. Inshee lovely!'

'He. He's a boy.'

'Oh, wouldn't know it with all them curls. You wanna tell
your mum to getcha 'air cut, little man.'


245
Why can't supermarkets designate a Working Mother Aisle
where you can be served by surly, super-efficient androids? Or
French people. The French would be perfect.


9.43 pm: Everything is under control. Both children are in
bed. Pass the Parcel took a mere one hour and forty-five
minutes to assemble. Debra warned me that you're not allowed
to have just one gift in the middle like we used to have when
we were little. These days, there has to be a present in each
layer in an attempt to convince kids that life is fair. Why? Life
is not fair; life is layers of wrapping with one broken squeaker
in the middle.

Next door, Richard is filling party bags in front of the TV.
(In theory, of course, I disapprove of the escalation of gifts that
kids expect to take home: like the arms race, it can only lead to
mutually assured ruination. In practice, I am too cowardly to
hand over the balloon and piece of cake I feel would be more
than sufficient. The Muffia would take out a contract on me.)

Unfortunately, the supermarket was unable to swap the
pink-iced birthday cake I had ordered for a yellow one at short
notice. Pink used to be Emily's favourite colour, then it became
yellow. When I ordered the cake, pink was once more in the
ascendant, but yellow made an overnight comeback while I was
away last week. Never mind, I have bought a Victoria sponge
and will now ice it myself in a wobbly but loving manner: the
mother's touch that means so much. Oh shit, where is the icing
sugar?


iiA2 pm: Find the box wedged at the back of a cupboard
under a weeping bottle of soy sauce. A year past its sell-by date,
the icing sugar comes out of the packet in one piece. It looks a
lot like one of those Apollo moon rocks my dad cooked up
thirty years ago. Or ,£50K of crack cocaine. Luckily it is not the
latter, otherwise would consume entire piece by myself and lie
down on kitchen floor awaiting merciful instant death.

It should be just enough to cover the cake, anyway. It takes
eight minutes to pound the icing rock to dust. I'm careful not


246
to add too much warm water, then eke in the teeniest drop of
yellow colouring. This produces a shade of pale lemon: a bit
mimsy, a bit - how can I put this? - a bit head boy's mother's
dress at prep-school speech day. Need something cheerier for a
birthday: egg-yolk yellow, Van Gogh yellow. Emboldened, I
add a couple of drops more. The colour is now both watery and
intense like a rank urine specimen. I add a further two drops
and stir furiously.

I am tearfully contemplating the contents of the basin, when
Rich comes into the kitchen talking about some documentary
on child development. 'Do you know that babies identify their
gender roles from three months? Probably why Ben spends all
day sitting on the potty reading the sports pages. Like father
like-- Christ, Kate, what's that?'

Rich has spotted the icing. The icing is now a colour which,
if you were being kind, could be described as Safari Yellow. It
is disturbingly reminiscent of one of Ben's more challenging
nappies.

Richard laughs. That unforgivable, liberated laugh that
escapes when you're just so fantastically grateful someone else
screwed up, not you. 'Don't worry, honey,' he says, 'let's work
the problem. We have icing the colour of dung, so we will
make -- a cow cake! Got any white chocolate buttons?'


Sunday, 7.19 pm: The party went pretty well, if you discount
Joshua Mayhew throwing up in the hall and the moment when
I brought in the cake and started the singing: 'Happy birthday
dear Emily, happy birthday to you!'

'But, Mummy, I don't want brown icing,' she wailed.

'It's not brown, darling, it's yellow.'

'I don't want yellow. I wantpmfe.'

When all eighteen guests have departed, I set about clearing
up the debris --juice cartons like collapsed lungs, Barbie paper
plates, thirty-six untouched egg sandwiches (there to make the
parents feel better; no self-respecting child would even nibble
anything so free of additives). Earlier today, I sent an e-mail to


247
Jack Abelhammer suggesting that, under the circumstances, it
might be better if I handed over his fund to a colleague. My
feelings for him -- it started as a minor crush and now I feel as
though I'm lying under a steamroller - have made our professional
relationship hard to handle. The tone of my message
was friendly but firm. For a couple of hours afterwards, I felt the
steady glow of having acted responsibly, the brightest bulb in
the maternal firmament. Since then, though, the bulb has
blown. Either that, or I have tripped over the lead and
unplugged myself from the mains: no juice, no flow of energy,
certainly no current affairs. I've already checked my Inbox five
times for his reply. Come on, Kate, grow up; stop acting like a
lovesick teenager.

In my self-denial, have so far eaten two chocolate Barbie
rolls, a bowl of Twiglets and poured a half-bottle of gin into the
home-made lemonade I bought at Marks & Spencer then
decanted into a pink jug to pass off as my own.

It's a hot night: viscous, thirsty for rain. The fan I dug out
from under the stairs is no use: it sits on the kitchen table,
sluggishly stirring the soupy air. There was an attempt at
thunder earlier, just as we were leaving the swimming baths
around four, but it was more like a ripping of brown paper than
the full-throated roar we need to scare off the heat. Christ, the
heat. And the smell. I am out in the garden scraping the rug
over which Joshua Mayhew threw up. The oatmeal vomit is
studded with the pastel minarets of Iced Gems.

I did notice Josh looking pale and clammy during Pass the
Parcel and managed to get him out into the hall, but as I was
struggling with the front door he deposited his birthday tea on
the runner. When his mother turned up, she shrieked, 'What
has happened to poor little Joshie?'

I managed to suppress the obvious reply: what has happened
is that little Joshie has carpet-bombed .£500 worth of
Uzbekistan kelim. If it had been the contents of my child's
stomach, I would have been down on my knees preferring a
chequebook. But Imogen Mayhew, a person so wholesome her
entire being seems to have been woven from camomile, just


248
demanded to know if Joshua had been allowed to have 'excess
sugar'.

I laughed a tinkly hostess laugh and said that sugar was a
traditional staple of birthday parties, but Imogen did not join in
the laughter. She left with a look which suggested I can expect
imminent litigation against my Nigella fairy cakes. Then, as
soon as she was out of the door, I had another encounter with
Angela Brunt who was kneeling by the coats and scraping
strawberry Frube off Davina's green velvet. 'Have you got
Emily in anywhere yet, Kate?'

'Ygno.'

'Well, Davina has a guaranteed place at Holbrook House,
but her second interview at Piper Place is on Thursday and
that's the one we're holding out for because it opens the door
to so many other things, doesn't it?'

'Yes, doesn't it.'

After washing my hands to try and remove the smell of
vomit, I go into the sitting room where Pvichard has crashed
out on the sofa, a Sunday review section tented over his face.
Every time he breathes out, he inflates the breasts of Madonna,
whose picture is on the cover above a feature entitled: 'From
Virgin to Blessed Mother.' Perhaps I should call Madonna for
a mum-to-mum chat about how to sponge vomit from a
kelim? Presumably at her daughter's parties she has a designated
sick wrangler. How much do I hate the celebrity Having It All
Mother who boasts about how fulfilled she is when you just
know she has a fleet of substitute mothers doing it all for her?

'Rich?'

'Hmmmmm?' The paper slides down on to the bridge of his
nose.

'We have to get Emily down for Piper Place.'

'Why?'

'Because it opens so many doors.'

'You've been talking to Angela Brunt again.'

'Ygno.'

'Katie, that woman's poor kid is so pressurised she's going to
end up as the neighbourhood crack dealer.'


249
'But she can play the oboe.'

'All right, the neighbourhood's oboe-playing crack dealer.
Your daughter knows all of Mary Poppins by heart, so give her
a break, OK?'

Richard spent most of Emily's swimming party in the deep
end with Mathilde, the mother of Laurent who is in Em's class
at school. I was in the shallows, pulling ten screaming children
round on a snake made of orange tubing. On the way home in
the car, Rich said, 'French women do keep themselves in good
nick, don't they?'

He sounded exactly like his mother.

'Mathilde doesn't work,' I said crossly.

'What's that got to do with it?'

'After the age of thirty, body maintenance is a full-time job.
And I already have one of those in case you haven't noticed.'

For a second, he rested his head on the steering wheel. 'It
wasn't a criticism of you, Kate. Not everything's a criticism of
you, you know.'

When the kitchen is clean and I've crawled the length of the
hall pinching up orange Wotsit dust with my thumb and
forefinger - if I use the Hoover it'll wake them - I sit down for
five minutes to watch TV. An hour later I'm woken by the
phone. It's Barbara, my mother-in-law. 'I hope you don't think
I'm talking out of turn, Katharine, but Richard did sound
awfully fed up when I spoke to him earlier. It's not for me to
say anything, of course, but let things go in a certain department
and before you know where you are, well, the whole
shop closes down.'

'Yes, Barbara, but it's been Emily's party and--'

'Anyway, Richard's father and I are coming down on
Saturday to take in that marvellous show at the Royal
Academy.'

I realise that the pause indicates I should say something. 'Oh,
that's nice, Barbara, where will you be staying?'

'Now don't go to too much trouble, will you? You know
Donald and I, hot water and a clean bed and we'll be right as
rain.'


250
9.40 pm: Upstairs, Emily is still awake but wild-eyed with
tiredness after her big day. So hot she has shucked off both
duvet and nightie and lies there on the sheet, her body casting
a mother-of-pearl sheen in the darkened room. Over the past
year - can it really be a whole twelve months since she was five?
- her distended baby's pot belly has disappeared; her tummy
dips now and rises towards the contours of the woman she will
become. More beautiful for not knowing she is beautiful. I
want to love and protect and never ever hurt her. I make a
silent vow to be a better mother.

'Mummy?'

'Yes, Em.'

'Next birthday, I will be seven! Then I will be eight, nine,
ten, 'leven, twelve, fourteen, twenty!'

'That's right, but you don't want to grow up too soon,
sweetheart.'

'I do.' She juts out that chin of hers. 'When you're a adult
you can go to Morantic.'

'What's Morantic?'

She rolls her eyes in incredulity, my world-weary sophisticate
of six: 'You know, Morantic. It's a country where adults
go out to dinner and kiss.'

'Oh, Romantic.'

She nods, pleased I've heard of it: 'Yes, Morantic!'

'Who told you about Morantic?'

'Hannah. And anyway you have to go with boys, only
sometimes they're too naughty.'

I stand here in the thick hot dark thinking of all the conversations
we will have on this subject in the years ahead and of the
ones we won't have, because she will need to have secrets in
order to grow away from me and I will need to have secrets to
keep her close. As I bend to kiss her, I say, 'Morantic is a
fantastic country.'

Perhaps seeing something sorrowful in my expression, my
daughter reaches out and takes my hand in her small one; it
triggers a flicker, no more, of holding my own mother's hand,
its coolness, the meshing of its bones.


251
'You can come to Morantic too, Mummy,' she says. 'It's not
very far.'

'No, love,' I say leaning down to extinguish the Cinderella
light, 'Mummy's too old.'


From: Jack Abelhammer

To: Kate Reddy

Dearest Katharine,

Perfectly understand your reservations about our meeting

again in this life and appreciate the suggestion that your

esteemed colleague Brian Somebody might take over the

handling of my business. Weirdly, I find myself unwilling to do

without you, Kate. Reddiness is all.

Good news, however. Found this great restaurant in a parallel

universe. No veal and they can do us a corner table. How are

you fixed?

love Jack


From: Kate Reddy

To: Jack Abelhammer

The twelfth of Never looks good for me. Can we sit by the

window?

Kxxxxx


Out in the garden, through a night as dense and soft as cloth,
I swear I can hear Jack calling to me. When I was young I left
men as I left clothes, in heaps on the floor. It seemed better that
way. I had figured out that it was hard for someone to leave you
when you'd gone already. Emotionally, I always had my
suitcase packed -- a therapist, if I ever had time to consult one,
would probably say it was something to do with my dad
walking out on us. Besides, I took the Groucho Marx line: why
would I want to be in a relationship with anyone dumb enough
to want a relationship with me? It took Richard to show me
that love could be an investment, something which could
silently accrue and promised long-term returns instead of a
gamble that would leave you broken and broke.


252
Before Richard, and before children, leaving was easy.
Leaving now would be nothing but grief. To the kids, Richard
and I are an all-purpose love hybrid called mum'n'dad. To split
that unit in half, to teach them there are two people they must
learn to love separately. I just don't feel I can ask my children
to do that. Men leave their children because they can; women,
in general, don't leave because they can't.

To be with Jack, I would have to go into exile from my
homeland. To find the courage to do it, I would need to be so
unhappy that staying was harder than jumping. And I'm not
there yet.


Must Remember

Debt you owe to your children. Debt you owe to yourself. Figure out
how to reconcile the two. Minutes of meeting to be written up (Secretary
Lorraine says she's off sick, but Lorraine always off sick in heatwave).
Self-tan must: look like Morticia Addams's younger sister. Grovel to
clients over completely disastrously hideous performance for May (--9%
versus index of--6%). May has wiped out all hard work for previous
four months: great results now drowned in sea of red. Suggest to clients
that performance is only temporary and am taking measures to address
it. Think of measures to address this. Deflate bouncy castle, confront
Rod over shameful sexist/racist treatment of Momo. Stair carpet???
Book stress-busting spa day, including protein facial as recommended
by ace Vogue beauty woman. Wedding anniversary. When is
wedding anniversary?


253
30 The Patter of Tiny Feet


11.29 pm: Impending visit from the parents-in-law fills the
air with apprehension like the thunder of distant wildebeest.
'Don't go to any trouble, darling,' says my husband. 'What
have you got planned for Sunday lunch?'

'Don't go to any trouble, Katharine,' says Barbara, calling for
the third time. So then you don't go to any trouble and she
takes one look in the fridge when they arrive, tugs on her string
of pearls as though it was a rosary and drags Donald out to the
car. They return with the entire contents of Salisbury's, 'so we
have something in for emergencies'.

Everything is under control this time, however. I will not be
found wanting: there are clean sheets on the guest bed and
clean white towels snatched up in M&S at lunchtime. I have
even put a nodding sprig of lily of the valley in a bedside vase
for that graceful, womanly touch of the sort practised by
Cheryl, my Murfia sister-in-law. Also I must remember to dig
out all Donald and Barbara's presents from down the years and
display them in prominent positions:


Watercolour of sunset over Coniston by 'the celebrated

local artist Pamela Anderson' (no relation, alas)

Royal Worcester egg coddlers (x4)

Electric wok

Dick Francis novel in hardback.

Beatrix Potter commemorative cake-stand.


Also, there was definitely another also.

I swab down the kitchen worktop, then check Em's bookbag
ready for the morning. Inside, slotted among the pages of Lily,


254
the Lost Dog, is a note from school. Could parents please contribute
an example of food typical of their child's cultural background
and bring it in for World Feast Day?

No. Parents could not. Parents are very busy earning a living
thank you and happy for school to do the job for which it is
paid. I read down to the bottom of note. Great Feast is tomorrow.
ALL WELCOME! Next to this threatening injunction,
Emily has inscribed in her fiercest, pressed-down writing: 'My
Mummy Is a verray gud kuk much betaa than Sofeez mum.'
Oh, hell.

I start to search the cupboards. What qualifies as English
ethnic, for heaven's sake? Roast beef? Spotted dick? There's a
jar of English mustard, but it has a disgusting rubbery collar of
ancient gunge, like Mick Jagger lips, pouting around the lid.
Fish and chips? Good, but no fish and never made chips in my
life. I could take in McDonald's large fries wrapped in newspaper,
but just imagine the faces of the wholefood Nazis led by
Mother Superior Alexandra Law. At the back of the cereal shelf
I discover two jars of Bonne Mamanjam. Strawberry preserve
is an excellent example of the indigenous culinary arts, except
this stuff is made in France.

Brilliant idea. Boil the kettle. Picking up one jar and then the
other, I hold them over the steam till the label wilts and slips
off. In the freezer-bag drawer, I find some new labels and on
them I write in rounded, bucolic lettering: Shattock Strawberry
Jam. Overconfident now, I attempt to draw a luscious strawberry
in the corner of the label. It looks like an inflamed
pancreas. Glue labels on to jars. Et voilalje suis une bonne maman!

'Kate, what are you doing? It's past midnight.' Rich has
come into the kitchen in boxers and T-shirt carrying a Furby.
I detest the Furby. The Furby is a hideous cross between a
chinchilla and Bette Davis in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? Both Furby and 
husband squint dubiously at me through the
half-light.

'I'm making jam. Actually, I'm remaking jam, if you must
know. Emily's school are having this ethnic feast and she has to
take in something English.'


255
'Couldn't you just buy something in the morning?'

'No, Bach, I couldn't.'

His sigh is almost a groan. 'God, how many times do we have
to go through this? I've told you, you have to learn to let go. If
women are working as hard as you are, Kate, other people are
just going to have to accept that you can't do all the stuff your
mothers did.'

I want to tell him that, even if other people accept it, I'm not
sure I ever will. But the Furby gets there before me, breaking
the silence with a crooning chirrup, and Rich disappears
upstairs.


12.39 am: Too tired for sleep. I put the Furby in a black bin
bag and tie a knot in the neck. In the dark kitchen, I open my
laptop and sit bathed in its milky, metallic light. I call up the
Salinger file. The figures on screen comfort me - the way they
do my bidding so readily, the fact that I cannot He to them.
Whereas at home, I'm a forger, a faker. I'm not ashamed of it;
I don't see any alternative. A good mum makes her own jam,
doesn't she? Secretly, we all know that. When they start
naming preserves Jetlag Maman or Quality Time Maman,
when bread comes in wrappers marked Father's Pride, it will be
safe for us bad, exhausted mothers to come out with our hands
up.


Friday, 7.10 am: Richard raised his voice. I've never known
him to raise his voice before, only ask me to lower mine. But
there we were sitting in the kitchen at breakfast with the kids
jabbering away and you should have heard him bite Emily's
head off.

'Mummy, can I have a baby sister?'

'No, darling.'

'But I want one. Daddy, can we have a baby sister?'

'NO, YOU CANNOT!'

'Why?'

'Because to make a baby sister mummies and daddies have to
have time together in the same room.' Rich is watching the TV


256
with the volume turned down, his eyes glued to the crescent
pout of ChloeZoe.

'Don't, Richard.'

'And your Mummy and Daddy never have time, Emily.
Mummy is just about to go to New York again, so under those
circumstances it will be particularly hard to make a baby sister.
Or maybe Mummy would like me to get a man in for her. Isn't
that what Mummy always asks Daddy to do when the
dishwasher's broken? Get a man in.'

'I said don't.'

'Why not, Kate? Never lie to her, isn't that what you
said?'

'Mu-um, Daisy's got a baby sister.'

'And you've got a baby brother, Em.'

'But he's A BOY.'


8.52 am: For once, I drop Emily off at school myself. (I called
work and told them I had to see the doctor: in the hierarchy of
excuses, poor health is better than a needy small girl.) Em is
thrilled to have me there with the other mummies: she parades
me before her friends like a show horse, patting my rump and
pointing out my good features.

'My Mummy's so lovely and tall, isn't she?'

I was hoping to slip in my World Feast contribution
unnoticed, but there is a table bang in the middle of the school
hall groaning with ethnic offerings. One mother appears to
have brought an entire curried goat along. Kirstie's mum has
done haggis clad in genuine stomach. Christ. Quickly hide my
strawberry jam behind a crenellated fortress of soda bread.

'Kate, hello! Have you gone part-time, yet?' booms
Alexandra Law, unveiling a trifle the size of an inverted Albert
Hall.

'No. I'm afraid where I work they don't really do part-time.
To be honest, they think full-time is skiving.'

The other mothers laugh, all except Claire Dalton, senior
partner at Sheridan and Farquhar. Claire, I notice, is trying to
sneak a small bowl of green jelly on to the World Feast altar.


257
She is holding the jelly very still so as not to give away the fact
that it is unset.


12.46 pm: Candy is keeping the baby. She refuses to talk
about it, but her belly has made her intentions increasingly
clear. The Stratton wardrobe, always on the challenging side of
slinky, is now straining to contain her. So today I have brought
in a bag of maternity clothes: one or two nice pieces she can
\vear for work and a couple of useful sacks for later on. I hand
the bag to her without comment over lunch in Pizza Navona.
She lifts out a taupe shift dress and holds it up incredulously.

'Hey, brown paper packages tied up with string. These are a
few of my favourite things!'

'I thought they might come in useful, that's all.'

'What for?'

'For your pregnancy.'

'Jesus Christ, what's this?' Candy takes out a white broderie
anglaise nightie and flaps it like a flag to the amusement of the
group of guys at the next table. 'I surrender, I surrender,' she
pleads.

'Look, it has easy opening for feeding.'

'Why would I want to eat anything wearing a-- oh, God,  ?

you mean someone feeding off me. That's 5000 disgusting.'       *

'Yes, well, it's been pretty common practice for the past       *

hundred and fifty thousand years.'

'Not in New Jersey, it hasn't. Kate?'

'Yes.'

'The baby. It's not gonna be needy, is it?'

I study Candy's face closely. She's not joking. 'No, it won't
be needy. I promise.' Not after the first eighteen years, I should
add, but for my friend's sake I hold my tongue. She isn't ready yet.


3.19 pm: A State of Emergency. Roo is missing. Paula calls
and says she knows for definite that he was in the buggy when
she took Ben to Little Stars music group this morning and she's
pretty sure Roo came back with them. But then, when she


258
went to put Ben down for his afternoon nap, they couldn't find
him. Ben was devastated. Screamed and screamed while Paula
searched the house. High and low, but there was no kangaroo
to be seen. I can hear Ben hiccupmg with grief in the
background.

What was she doing taking Roo out of the house in the first
place? I can't believe Paula could be so stupid when she knows
how awful it would be if he got lost. I voice this thought out
loud and, instead of snapping back, she just sounds culpable and
sad.

'Do you think we can find another one, Kate?'
'I've no idea what the market in used kangaroos is like,
Paula.'


3.29pm: Call Woolworths where Roo came from originally.
Assistant says sorry, but she believes they are out of kangaroos.
Would I like to speak to the manager? Yes.

Manager says that kangaroos have been discontinued.
'There's been a big trend away from the softer animals towards
plastic novelty creatures, Mrs Reddy. Would you perhaps be
interested in a Mr Potato Head?'

No, I already work with a dozen of those.


3.51 pm: Try Harrods. Surely, they must have a Roo. They
have everything, don't they? A woman in the toy department
says she may have something, she'll just go and check in the
next room if I can hang on. When she gets back, she describes
something, but it sounds all wrong.

'No, I can't have one with a baby. It's an emergency.
Australian, yes. I need one about eight inches long for tonight.'

'Kate, I didn't know you cared.' I look up to see Rod Task
leering down at me. Oh God. 'Sorry, Rod, I'm just looking for
a kangaroo.'

'Great. I never thought you'd ask.'

There is a nasty snicker from Guy two desks away. When
Rod is out of earshot, I tell him to get on to the Internet and
start researching toy marsupials right away.


259
9.43 pm: It takes two hours and forty-three minutes to persuade
my son to go to sleep. All the substitute comforters I offer
-- lamb, polar bear, purple dinosaur, each of the Teletubbies in
rotation - are hurled in a fury out of the cot.

'Roo,' he wails, 'Roo.'

To get him to settle, I have to let him hold my electric
toothbrush and then we sit in the blue chair with him
sprawled over me, clutching my shirt like a baby monkey. At
the bottom of each boy breath there is a sticky catch, like a
tiny gate being opened in his lungs. Please God, let me find
another Roo.


everything was going well during Barbara and
Donald's visit; suspiciously well, I see that now. To the best
of her ability, Barbara had complimented me on the kitchen.
'I'm sure it will be lovely when it's finished,' she said. But I
smiled graciously throughout, even during tea with the
children when Barbara turned to Donald and said: 'Isn't it
funny, Emily looks like Richard when she smiles and Kate
when she frowns!'

For dinner that night, we were having Italian. I had washed
and dried a pile of rocket, the red peppers had been charred and
then peeled with the same lavish care I used to devote to a scab
on the knee in infants school. At the top of the oven there was
a leg of lamb, and down the bottom the potatoes, suffused with
rosemary from my very own garden, "were hunkering down
nicely. I had even squeezed in a bath after the kids' bedtime and
put on a clean blouse and velvet skirt over which I wore the
wipeable Liberty print apron the in-laws gave me for
Christmas.
Yes, I thought, surveying the scene at dinner, this is one of
those rare times when life approaches the condition of colour
magazine. The domestic goddess entertaining her admiring
parents-in-law in her lovely stylish home. Barbara had just
asked me for the peppers recipe and then I saw it. Moving
across the oak floor, the plump suede rear of a rat.


260
Etiquette books are unnaturally silent on the subject of rats at
dinner parties. Do you:


a/ Laugh gaily and pretend the rat is a treasured pet?

b/ Exclaim, Ah, there's the main course! Nigel Slater says
rodent's the coming thing. Very good done the Vietnamese
way, apparently?

c/ Invite your guests to adjourn upstairs, ply them with as much
drink as possible and put on a Burt Bacharach CD to drown
out the sound from the kitchen where your husband is pursuing
the rodent with your daughter's Mary Poppins umbrella?


Richard and I went for c.

Downstairs, the rat holed up in the playpen, perhaps
hoping to pass for a soft toy. Before long, though, it was doing
frisky circuits of the kitchen. Barbara said that, come to think
of it, she remembered feeling something running across her
feet: she would need to take some aspirin immediately and go
and lie down. Nobody was in the mood for my amaretto
peaches in raspberry coulis. I suddenly had a very bad feeling
about the clumps of raisins that had been appearing on the
kitchen floor.

'Don't get hysterical,' said Richard after he had got the rat
out of the patio door and into the garden. 'Remember they're
more afraid of you than you are of them.'

This seemed unlikely. The rat triggered what I can only call
rat dread, that back-flip of the stomach every time you open a
cupboard, not knowing whether you will come face to face
with a face. That night, whiskers and paws scurried through my
dreams.


Monday, 9.38 am: I have been fired by my own cleaner. In
the annals of domestic humiliation, how high does that rate?
When I came down this morning, I found Barbara and Juanita
in an accusing huddle. My mother-in-law was tutting audibly
as my cleaner mimed a rat scurrying along the worktop and
pointed to parts of the kitchen made impassable by newspapers


261
and toys. 'It's no wonder,' said Barbara. Although my mother
in-law is not a Spanish speaker, she was able to communicate
with Juanita in the international female language of
Disapproval.

'The rat man is on his way,' I announced loudly to alert them
to my presence, and to stop them exchanging further examples
of my sluttishness.

At the sound of the pest's name, Juanita unleashed a
machine-gun-burst of woe.

'If you leave food out, it will attract vermin,' volunteered
Barbara.

'I do not leave food out,' I said, but she was already out in
the hallway where Donald was assembling the luggage. He gave
me a rueful little wave.
When they had gone, Juanita told me she was very sorry, but
she couldn't take it any more. All of this communicated via
operatic arm gestures and sobs. Here at long last was my chance
to point out that one of the reasons the house was in such a
mess was because my cleaner had been unable to clean it for the
past two years, owing to a succession of ailments which I had
reacted to with enormous sympathy because - oh, probably
because I am from a background where you don't expect to
have anyone else tidying up after you and some sneaking shame
is attached to the fact that you're a woman who can't keep her
own house clean. ('Kate may be a whiz with figures,' my sister
in-law once said, 'but you should see the state of her skirting
boards!')

So did I give Juanita a piece of my mind there and then? Not
exactly. I gave her all the cash I had in my purse, promised to
send more in the post and said I would recommend her to some
friends in Highgate who were looking for a cleaner.


Must Remember

Chase RAT MAN! Hire new cleaner! Replacement Roo MUST.
Proxy voting policy to be agreed with clients. Complete quarterly
performance questionnaire. Meeting minutes do myself (Lorraine still
off sick). Prospect for gaining client in final just done with Momo blown


262
by bloody awful June performance. Check competitors' performance -- perhaps 
theirs even worse? Conference call with Japanese office to
discuss stocks. Sandals for Emily -- or will be questioned by NSPCC
over foot cruelty. Sugar Puffs, Panadol. Cancel spa day.


263
31 Nanny Crisis


6.27 am: It's still very early, but out here in the garden I can
tell it's going to be a hot day. The air is glassy with the promise
of heat. When I was away in the States, no one took care of the
plants, so the snails have hoovered up my hosta and the pansies
in the terracotta pots are all dried up. If you touch one it turns
to purple ash. I planted that kind especially too because I loved
the name: it's called heart's-ease. One day, when I have time,
the garden will be beautiful. I am going to grow lobelias and
camellias and a bay tree and sweet swags of jasmine, and there
will be carved stone troughs overflowing with heart'sease.

I hear a yelp escape from a window high up the house. Like
me, the children are finding it hard to sleep these warm nights.
Ben woke screaming around five when I was in the middle of
some awful dream. You even dream differently in summer:
fever dreams that sweat out thoughts you'd rather stayed buried.
Anyway, when I went into his room, he was slithery with sweat,
poor baby; slid through my arms like a seal pup. I took him into
the bathroom, sponged him down - he's suddenly afraid of his
Piglet flannel for some reason -- then changed him. When I
offered him a beaker of water, he was furious. 'App-ul,' he
demanded, 'app-ul!'

How many times have I told Paula that he's not allowed
juice? In my mind, I composed a major nanny bollocking, but
Paula has been complaining of 'women's trouble' lately so
could easily pull a sickie and the holidays are the worst possible
time to find cover. Damn. Damn.


7.43 am: I could tell right away from Paula's voice that she
wasn't coming in. And me chairing the Global Asset Allocation


264
Committee today because Robin Cooper-Clark's away with
his boys and Emily and Ben with no school or nursery to
occupy them and the nanny's not coming in. Great.

Traditionally a period of pleasure and relaxation, the summer
holidays are the very worst time of the year for a working
mother. Warm weather and careless days act as a constant
rebuke. There are outings you wish you could join, cool
paddling pools you would like to slip off your shoes and step
into; ice-cream cones whose vanilla tributaries you would be
more than happy to lick.

Paula exhales a long, complicated sigh. Says that she's not
been feeling that well for a while and the rat thing, of course,
has been very upsetting. But she didn't want to worry me
because I Know You're Busy, Kate. A classic nanny tactic this,
landing a pre-emptive strike before your own more powerful
grievance has a chance to leave the ground. Even as I murmur
rnmm's of sympathy, I am riffling through my mental Rolodex
searching for someone who can take the children just for today
(Richard is away presenting plans for a Sunderland crafts yurt).

First thought: Angela Brunt, my neighbour and leader of
local Muffia. I start dialling her number, but suddenly picture
Angela's Ford Anglia face, headlamps on full gleam, when it
becomes clear that the 'high-flyer' across the road is emerging
from the burning fuselage of her own selfishness begging for
help. No. Can't possibly give her the satisfaction. Instead, I call
Alice, my TV producer friend and ask if I can beg a favour.
Could her nanny Jo possibly have Emily and Ben? I wouldn't
ask only I have this big meeting and, anyway, taking time off
from EMF is practically illegal and--

Alice cuts me off with a raucous, I've-been-there yelp. Says
it's fine so long as I have no objections to Jo taking the kids
swimming with her boys. At this point, I have no objection to
Ben and Emily going parascending in Borneo so long as I can
get into the City and start preparing for my meeting.


7.32 am: I call Pegasus Cars. Winston answers the phone
again. Why? Doesn't Pegasus have any other drivers? I'm


265
starting to wonder what kind of racket he's running.

Winston says he'll be fifteen minutes; I tell him I need him
in four.

'See "what I can do,' he says coolly.

I have a sudden and impossible longing to climb on to the lap
of a large, comforting person and be held there for -- oh,
twenty-five years should probably do the trick.

'Mummy?'

'What is it, Em?'

'Heaven's a nice place, isn't it?'

'Yes. Heaven's a very nice place.'

'Is there a McDonald's?'

'Where?'

'In Heaven.'

'God, no. Now, I need to pack Ben's wings.'

'For Heaven?'

'What? No. Water wings. You're going swimming. You
remember Nat and Jacob, don't you?'

'Why doesn't Heaven have McDonald's, Mum?'

'Because. I've no idea. Because dead people don't need to eat
anything.'

'Why don't dead people eat anything?'

'Ben, no. No, Benjamin. SIT DOWN. Mummy will fetch
you that juice in a-- Not on my dress.'

'Mummy. Can I have my next birthday party in Heaven?'

'Emily, WILL YOU PLEASE BE QUIET.'

7.44 am: Pegasus has pulled up outside the house in a new
chariot, new to him anyway. The Nissan Primera is hidden
behind a cloud of its own dirt, but at least when you open the door it doesn't 
rain rust on your clothes. I load the children into
the back, clasp Ben on my knee and with the free hand call a
nanny agency on the mobile. A Sloaney girl, her voice designed
to carry across stag-rich moors, says she would really like to
help, but it's a particularly bad time for temps.

'It's the school holidays, you know.'

Yes, I know.


266
Everyone's been snapped up ages ago, only she does have this
new girl on the books. Croatian. Eighteen. English not her best
thing, but really keen. Likes children.

Well, that's a start. I rack my brain trying to remember which
side Croatia was on in Balkan massacres. I think they sided with
the Nazis in the war and are the good guys now, or maybe it's
the other way round? I say, OK, I'll interview her tonight.
What's her name?

'Ratka.'

Of course it is. Must remember to call rat man. Why didn't
he show up? Emily pats my leg urgently. She has been deep in
conversation with our driver.

'Mummy, Winston says the nice thing about being in
Heaven is if you're hungry, you can lean over and bite off a bit
of cloud. Like candyfloss. The angels make it.' She looks far
happier with this explanation than any I have managed to come
up with.

Alice lives in a gentrified house on the edge of Queen's Park:
she bought in the area before a four-bedroom terraced cost
more than Colorado. Once inside, my daughter wanders off
happily to play with Nat and Jake, but Ben takes one look at
the unfamiliar Brio set and clings to my right leg like a sailor
lashing himself to the mast in a Force 10. I need to get out of
here fast, but I have to spend a few minutes humbling myself
before Jo the nanny. I can see her eyeing the hysterical toddler
and wondering what she's got herself into. End up having to
shake him off me and run out of the room with his screams at
my back.

Sitting in the back of Pegasus, I try to read the FT to get up
to speed for the meeting, but I can't concentrate. Shake my
head fiercely to dislodge memory of Ben's tears. I can see
Winston studying me in the rear-view mirror. We are at the
Old Street roundabout before he finally speaks:

'How much they paying you, lady?'

'None of your business.'

'Fifty? A hundred?'

'Depends on my bonus. But this year there isn't going to be


267
any bonus. After June's performance I'll be lucky to keep my
job, frankly.'

Winston bangs the sheepskin steering wheel with both
hands. 'You gotta be kidding. They got you every second of
every minute of every day. You their slave, girl.'

'I can't do very much about it, Winston. I'm what's technically
known as the main breadwinner.'

'Whoaa.' He stamps on the brake to avoid a nun on a zebra
crossing. 'How your man feel about that? Kind of thing tend to
make the guys feel a little small in the Johnson department.'

'Are you seriously suggesting that the size of my salary is
shrinking my husband's penis?'

'Well, it would account for why no one out there can't make
no babies no more, wouldn't it? Fertility rate was doing just
fine till women went out to work.'

'I think you'll find that's down to oestrogen in the water.'

'I think you'll find that's down to oestrogen in the office.'

Even from the back seat, I can tell he is grinning broadly
because his cheeks are stretched so taut they have rumpled up
the skin under his ears.

'For God's sake, Winston, this is the end of the twentieth
century.'

He shakes his head and a sprinkling of gold dust fills the cab.
Like a fairy godmother, Emily said when she saw it. 'Don't
matter what century it is,' he growls, 'the clock in men's head
always set to the same time. Pussy Time.'

'I thought we'd all grown up and got over that caveman
nonsense.'

'That's where people like you got it all wrong, lady. The
women they outgrew it and the guys they just went along with
it so they could keep getting the women to have sex with them.
The guy, he just ask himself, what tune she want me to play
now and he play it. Here, try one of these.'

Winston chucks a tin at me. I recognise the round bronze
container from childhood: travel sweets. Julie and I preferred
the frosted pears, the ones that tasted the way bells would taste
if you licked bells, but we always got given these - barley


268
sugars. Mum swore that barley sugars kept motion sickness at
bay. So for me the taste of barley sugar is now the taste of being
sick -- the paper bag with its grim cargo, the lurch on to the
roadside, the wiping your hands on the dead brown grass.

We have entered the City proper now, sweeping through
the glass canyons where the heat hangs in a lilac haze. I open
the sweet tin. Inside are six neatly rolled joints. Clearing my
throat, I adopt the tone of a Radio 4 announcer: 'Company
policy is quite clear that the consumption of any illegal drugs
on the premises of Edwin Morgan Forster is specifically forbidden.
And . . . we're nearly there, so I'd better hurry up.
Have you got a light, Winston?'


11.31 am: Research for my meeting is hampered because the
typeface of the Wall Street Journal refuses to keep still. All
squirmy black lines, the Market Returns Page looks like the
Ugly Bugs' Ball.
Completely pathetic. Feel as woozy as a maiden aunt after a
schooner of vicarage sherry. Motherhood - or abstinence
brought on by motherhood -- has wrecked my capacity to enjoy
drugs of any kind except the occasional desperate slug of Calpol.
I manage to walk into the meeting room OK, but once inside the
\valls keep receding into infinite reflections of themselves, like an
Escher print. Every time I stand up to change a slide, I have to
grab the edge of the table and tip my head slightly to one side to
steady the horizon. Feel like a human spirit level.

When I open my mouth to address the twelve fund managers
around the table, the voice that comes out sounds confident
enough. But then I discover I have only a vague idea who's
talking and none at all about what she's going to say next. It's
like being a ventriloquist of myself. Nonetheless, a profound
feeling of relaxation enables me to disregard the opinions of my
colleagues and make the investment choices that will become
policy for the entire company from tomorrow.

Bonds or equities? No problem. UK or Japan? Hell, only a
fool would hesitate over that one.

Halfway through the meeting, Andrew McManus -- Scots,


269
rugger bugger, shoulders like a Chesterfield sofa -- gives a self
important little cough and announces that he hopes all present
will forgive him, but he has to slip away early because Catriona,
his daughter, has this swimming gala and he promised her that
Daddy would be there. Everyone around the table reacts as
though this is the most normal thing in world. The younger
guys who think they may one day get around to having kids,
but only when the Porsche Boxster comes complete with a
nappy-changing shelf, don't flinch. The other fathers bask in
conspiratorial, new-dad smugness. I see Momo, who knows no
better, mouth, 'Siveeeet.' Even Celia Harmsworth composes her
Wicked Queen features into an approximation of a smile and
says, 'Oh, how marvellous, Andrew! You're so hands on,' as
though McManus had singlehandedly driven the Dow up 150
points.

Observing that I am the only colleague not to join in the
cooing approbation, Andrew shrugs helplessly and says, 'You     ']

know how it is, Kate.' Slips into his jacket and out of the room.       j

Indeed, I do know how it is. Man announces he has to leave
the office to be with his child for short recreational burst and is
hailed as selfless, doting paternal role model. Woman
announces she has to leave the office to be with child who is on
sickbed and is damned as disorganised, irresponsible and
Showing Insufficient Commitment. For father to parade
himself as a Father is a sign of strength; for mother to out herself
as a Mother is a sign of appalling vulnerability. Don't you just
love equal opportunities?


From: Kate Reddy

To: Debra Richardson

Just chaired meeting where fellow manager announced he had

to leave to attend daughter's swimming gala. Practically

knighted on the spot for services to parenthood. If I tried that

Rod would have me executed and my dripping bloody head

stuck on the ramparts of Bank of England as a warning to other

women slackers.

It's sooooo unfair. Am coming to conclusion that career-girl


270
bollocks is one-generation-only trick. We are living proof that

it can't work, aren't we?

Forget higher education. Think we should send our girls to

catering college where they can learn to make decorative floral

centrepieces and a delicious supper for two, then they can

marry a man who will pay for them to stay at home and have

pedicures.

URGENT: Pis remind me what was drawback to that way of

life again???


From: Debra Richardson

To: Kate Reddy

Once upon a time, in a land far away,

a beautiful, independent, self-assured princess

happened upon a frog as she sat contemplating

ecological issues

on the shores of an unpolluted pond

in a verdant meadow near her castle.

The frog hopped into the Princess's lap and said:

Sweet Lady, I was once a handsome Prince,

until an evil witch cast a spell on me.

One kiss from you, however,

and I will turn back into the dapper young Prince that I am.

Then, my sweet, we can marry

and set up house in yon castle

where you can prepare my meals,

clean my clothes, bear my children,

and forever feel grateful and happy doing so.

That night, dining on a repast of lightly sauteed frogs' legs,

The Princess chuckled to herself and thought:

I don't fucking think so.


men today can only be better fathers than their fathers.
Simply by knowing how to change a nappy or figuring
out -which hole you stick the bottle in: these things mark them
out as more capable parents than any previous generation. But


271
women can only be worse mothers than our mothers and this
rankles because we are working so very very hard and we are
doomed to fail.

At Edwin Morgan Forster, the desks of men with children
are dense with photographs of their offspring. Before you get
to the computer and the blotter, you have to negotiate a three
day-event course of family portraits - leather frames, mottled
crocodile frames, double steel frames with a copper hinge,
witty Perspex cubes. A missing tooth here, a soccer goal there;
that skiing trip in February where Sophie wrapped her red scarf
around Dad's neck and they both turned to face the camera
with Stein way smiles. A man is allowed to advertise the fact that
he is a father. It's a sign of strength, a sign he is a good provider.
The women in the offices of EMF don't tend to display pictures
of their kids: the higher they go up the ladder, the fewer the
photographs. If a man has pictures of kids on his desk, it
enhances his humanity; if a woman has them, it decreases hers.
Why? Because he's not supposed to be home with the children:
she is.

I used to have a photo of Ben and Emily on my'desk. Rich
took it just after the baby had learnt to sit up. Em was at the
back, clutching Ben round the middle with fierce pride. He
was bubbling up as though life was one big joke and he'd just
heard the punchline for the first time. I kept the photo on my
desk for a few weeks, but each time I caught the children
looking at me I had the same thought: you are providing for
them, but you are not bringing them up. So the picture's in the
drawer now.

Last year, I went to a lecture by an American chief
executive at the London Business School. She said she was
going to train her daughters up as geishas: the real future for
women was as nurturers and men-pleasers. There was nervous
laughter in the room: she was joking, wasn't she? She was
beautiful and she was incredibly smart and I don't think she
was joking.

All I knew was that I didn't want my mother's life: I didn't
need a role model to teach me that being dependent on some


272
man was debilitating, maybe even dangerous. But will Emily
want my life? When she looks at her Mummy, who does she
see? If she ever sees her Mummy. Back in the Seventies, when
they were fighting for women's rights, what did they think
equal opportunities meant: that women would be entitled to
spend as little time with their kids as men do?


12.46 pm: Chowzat! is the hi-tech cafeteria installed by EMF
last year in the basement as part of its attempt to look less like a
bank and more like a nightclub. The cafe is meant to have a
funky, post-industrial ambience, but the effect is a lot like an
airport coffee lounge. I am still lightly stoned after Winston's
joint this morning. What could I have been thinking of? As I
was getting out of the car, Winston invited me to join him at a
concert a fortnight on Sunday. Might find it not totally my
scene, he said, the music was a bit overwhelming, but he thinks
it would do me good. As the proud-fortress fund manager composed
her polite but frosty refusal, I opened my mouth and out
fell the word yes. Presumably, I now have a date at a rave with
my new drug dealer. What the hell am I going to tell Richard?

As the weed wears off, I feel both nauseous and ravenous. I
weigh up the rival merits of the jumbo blueberry muffin and its
dainty, lo-cal sister, lemon and sesame seed. Buy both. I'm
stuffing alternate fistfuls into my mouth when I look up and see
familar brick-red features glowering down at me.

'Jesus, Katie. You're not eating for two, are you? Got
enough trouble in that department with Candy.'

Rod Task.

'Ygno,' I splutter, shooting blueberry bullets across the table.

Rod tells me he needs me to go to New York on Wednesday
to do a pitch to some brokers. Wants me to give them 'a little
TLC'. This information followed by a grotesque wink.

'Wednesday?'

'Sure. As in tomorrow.'

'Actually, Rod, my nanny is off sick and I have to find a
temporary to--'


273
He cuts me off with a karate slice of the hand. 'Are you
telling me you can't make it, Kate? If you can't, I'm sure Guy
can handle it.'

'Nyes. Ygno. Of course, I can, it's just that--'

'Great. And can you take a look at this for me, sweetie?
Thanks.'

I study the photocopy in the lift on the way back to the
thirteenth floor. It's an article from Investment Manager
International under the headline: the gender equality


PENNY IS FINALLY DROPPING!


Investment management firms are increasingly jumping on the
bandwagon offender equality as they realise that a more welcoming
attitude towards women employees makes good business sense.
Herbert George and Berryman Lowell have recently won laurels for their efforts 
in this area. Julia Salmon, a vice-president at Herbert
George, says: 'The City offers fabulous opportunities for women.
More are being promoted every year. Most firms have now appointed
diversity coordinators.'

Many institutions lament, however, that while they offer great
careers for women, preconceptions of anti-social working hours and
macho culture are still deterrents to female applicants.

'Puncturing the stereotype of old-boy cronyism associated with the
Square Mile is not easy,' admits Celia Harmsworth, Head of
Human Relations at Edwin Morgan Forster.


Well, she should know. Seeing Celia's name in an article on
gender equality is like finding Heinrich Himmler conducting a
guided tour of a synagogue. 'Harmsworth announced that EMF,
formerly considered to be one of the City's more old-fashioned outfits,
has recently appointed a Diversity Co-ordinator, Katharine Reddy.'

WHAT?

' Thirty-fwe-year-old Reddy, the youngest senior director at EMF,
has been tasked with identifying gender issue obstacles in the business
culture.'

I notice that Rod has circled the phrase 'gender issue
obstacles'. Next to it he has scrawled: 'What the fuck is this?'


274
From: Kate Reddy

To: Debra Richardson

hello hello from yr borderline psychotic friend. Do you think

post-natal depression can last up to 18 months after the birth?

If so, when does it go away?

Did I mention we have RATS. One ran across the floor when

the inlaws were staying. OH, AND MY CLEANER HAS

FIRED ME. Came into work to discover 61 e-mails, nanny

'sick', only available temp is close relative of Slobodan

Milosevic. Plus I am EMF's new 'Diversity Coordinator'.

Have to take urgent steps to redress the firm's gender

imbalance. Any idea where I can purchase some kind of

automatic weapon?

Can we PLS do that lunch? name a day xxxx


From: Debra Richardson

To: Kate Reddy

Believe that post-natal depression can last up to 18 years after

the birth and then we have a hysterectomy and start watching

old episodes of Friends from red rubber old-lady chairs in

gated retirement community.

Don't worry, rats now v. middle class. No stylish home dare be

seen without one. Felix has been diagnosed with Attention

Deficit Disorder. Think that's what his Dad suffers from too,

but that could be because he's having an affair???

Too knackered to care. Read in Good Housekeeping that half

of all working mothers are worried relationship with their

husband is suffering because of a terrible 'time famine'. What

are the other half doing: 30-second blow-jobs?

What news of the gorgeous unsuitable Abelhammer? You do

realise that, as my oldest friend, your sole role is to give me

reasons to envy and disapprove of you.

Lunch nxt Tues or Thurs? xxxxx


6.35 pm: I collect Emily and Ben from Alice's house. They
fall on me like famished things. Alice's nanny, Jo, is incredibly
nice, and says what great kids they are. How thoughtful and


275
imaginative Emily is. I feel a burst of pride and pang of shame
simultaneously as I realise how often I see them as a problem to
be dealt with rather than something to be enjoyed.

Must appoint a temporary nanny tonight. Unless I can
persuade Richard to work from home or Paula makes miracle
recovery. I have a total horror of asking favours on my own or
my children's behalf -- reminds me of when Dad pushed me
towards a woman at the bus station in Leeds one Christmas and
told me to ask if she could let us have a river to get home
because we'd run out of petrol. We didn't even have a car. But
the lady was so nice about it; she gave me the money and a
packet of Jelly Tots for myself. The sweets stuck inside my hot
cheeks like ulcers.

Jo says that Ben has been clingy all day and she thinks he has
some kind of rash on his chest. Has he had chickenpox? No, he
hasn't. But he can't have it now. Am booked on 8.30 am flight
to New York.


10.43 pm: I can't believe it. I stand on the landing outside the
bathroom draped in a tiny towel screaming for Richard.

'There's no hot water.'

'What?' He stands halfway up the stairs from the hall, his face
in shadow. 'Oh, they turned the water off today when the rat
guy was checking the pipes. Must have flicked the switch.'

'I have to have my bath.'

'Darling, be reasonable.' His voice is parched with weariness.
'I'll put it on now and it'll be hot in twenty minutes.'

'Now. / need a bath now.'

'Kate --' He stops, looks as if he's about to say something.
But then just tightens his lips and stares at me, shaking his
head.

'What? What is it?' I snap.

'Kate. We . . . can't go on like this.'

'Too right we can't. I have no hot water. I have rats. I have
a house that is a complete tip and no one to clean it. I needed
to be asleep an hour ago and I really really really would like
there to be some hot water, Richard. I work all the hours God


276
sends and I live in conditions of medieval squalor. Is A BATH
too much to ask for?'

Rich reaches out an arm, but I bat it away. My tears are
alarmingly hot - the temperature of the bath I'm not going to
have. Must try to calm down. My husband looks wild-eyed.
Why hasn't he shaved?

Just now, from over our heads, comes a voice. 'Roo,' it
whimpers, 'Roo.'


277
32
/ Went Back Too Soon


1.05 am: Have you ever thought how much time you waste
falling asleep? Falling sounds satisfactorily fast, but you don't
fall, do you? I find I have to sort of sidle up on sleep and ask if
it could please let me in, like someone in the queue for a club
trying to catch the eye of a doorman who is always looking the
other way. Seven minutes of pillow-plumping and hollowing,
the obligatory tussle with the duvet (Richard likes one leg
hooked outside, which pins it down like a groundsheet and
leaves me barely covered). I take a herbal sleeping tablet to

summon instant shuteye.

i


3.01 am: Can't sleep for worrying that the sleeping tablet is

so strong I will sleep through my alarm and miss the flight. I  I

switch on the bedside light and read the paper. Next to me,

Rich grunts and turns over. The foreign pages have more on      i

the story of the American chief executive who went back to      *

work four days after her twins were born. She chaired a »

meeting via speakerphone from her hospital bed. Her name is     I

Elizabeth Quick. No, seriously. Sister to Hannah Haste and      t

Isabel Imperative, presumably. 'Liz Quick has become a poster   v

woman for working mothers,' the article says, 'but opponents

say motherhood will distract her from her job.'

I can feel my whole body crumple. Do people like Ms Quick
have any idea how their valiant effort to act as though nothing
has changed can be used as a stick to beat other women?

God knows, I can't talk. I went back to work too soon after     * j

Emily. I didn't know. How can you? That this new life will be   1

almost as strange to you as it is to them. Mother and baby:
newborns both. Before Children -- my life is divided into BE


278     >J
and AC -- when I still had tune to go to the National Gallery
on Sunday afternoons, I used to like to sit in front of that Bellini
Madonna, the one where she's in the foreground of some kind of farm, baked by 
the sun, gazing down at the lovely infant in
her lap. I'd always thought it was serenity in her eyes. Now, I
see only exhaustion and mild puzzlement. 'Christ, what have I
done?' Mary asks the son of God. But he's sleeping, full of milk,
one plump arm flung in abandon over his mother's blue dress.

I 'was the first woman on the investment floor at Edwin
Morgan Forster to get pregnant. Six months gone when James
Entwhistle, Rod Task's predecessor, called me into his office
and said he couldn't guarantee there would be a job for me
when I got back from maternity leave. 'You know how fast
things move on with clients, Kate. It's nothing personal.'

Civilised, erudite James. I suppose I could have quoted the
legislation at him, but there's nothing they hate more than
being reminded of their family-friendly policy. (EMF's family
friendly policy exists so they can say they have a policy, not so
people with families can invoke it. No man would ever use it,
anyway, so neither can any woman who wants to be taken
seriously.) 'Of course, the baby won't make any difference,
James,' I heard myself saying and he made a note on the jotter
with his gold Cartier pen. 'Commitment?' he wrote and
underlined it twice.

Would I be wanting to scale back my foreign clients? Of
course not.

I didn't know.

At thirty-two weeks, I went to see the consultant at
University College Hospital. Routine appointment. I'd missed
the last one. (Geneva, conference, fog.) The consultant steepled
his long white fingers like a cardinal, and told me he was
signing me off work because I was under too much pressure
during the crucial weeks of foetal brain development. I said that
was out of the question: I planned to work up to my due date
so I could have some time at home with the baby afterwards.

'I'm not really worried about you, Mrs Shattock,' he said
coolly, 'I worry about the child you're carrying and the damage


279
you could cause it.' I was crying so much when I stepped out
on to Gower Street that I was nearly run over by a milk float.

So, I took it easy. I took it easier. Technically, I had to stop
flying at seven months, but a taupe shift dress saw me through
till eight. The bump got so damned big by the end I had to do
a three-point turn to get out of the lift. Jokes were made in
meetings about needing to reinforce the office floor to support
Kate's weight and I laughed louder than anyone. Every time I
walked past the dealing desk, Chris Bunce used to whistle the
Elephant March from Jungle Book: 'Hup two, three, four, Keep
it up two, three, four!' Bastard.

Sitting at the computer one afternoon, stomach so taut my
skin felt it was crawling with ants, I had a few Braxton Hicks,
those practice contractions that sound like a retired colonel
living in Nether Wallop. By the end, I used to dream of
Colonel Hicks coming to my aid. He would carry my briefcase
and, when I was standing at the bus stop on City Road nearly
keeling over with exhaustion, he -would hold out a hand and
say, 'Will you step aboard, madam?'

I did enrol in an ante-natal class, but never could make it
there for the 7.30 start. I ended up going to a birthing weekend
in Stoke Newington run by Beth: oat biccies, whale music, a
pelvis made out of a coat-hanger and a baby from a stocking
pulled over a tennis ball. Beth invited us to have a conversation
with our vaginas. I said I wasn't on speaking terms with mine
and she thought I was joking. She had a laugh like a moose
down a well.

Richard loathed the class. He couldn't believe he had to take
his shoes off, but he liked the bit with the stopwatch. You
could swear he was going to be officiating at the Monaco
Grand Prix.

'Knowing you, Kate,' he said, 'you'll have the fastest
contractions in history.'

Beth said if you did those panting little breaths she taught us
it was a way of mastering the pain. So I practised them
religiously. I practised them secularly - at checkouts, in the
bath, before bed. I didn't know.


280
My waters broke on the escalator at Bank, splashing the
Burberry of a Japanese futures analyst who apologised profusely.
I cancelled my client lunch on the mobile and took a cab
straight to the hospital. They offered me an epidural, but I
didn't take it. I was the bitch who had endangered her baby's
brain development: not having drugs was my way of showing
how sorry I was, showing the baby there was something its
mother would bear for it. There was an ocean of pain and I
dived into it again and again. The water was as hard as wood.
It smacked you like a wave hitting a deck and each time you
got to your feet it smacked you again.

After twenty-five hours of labour, Rich put the stopwatch
down and asked the midwife if we could see a consultant.
Now. Down in the operating theatre, during my emergency
Caesarean, I heard the surgeon say, 'Nothing to worry about,
this will feel a bit like I'm doing the washing-up in your
tummy.' It didn't. It felt like the baby was an oak being pulled
up by the roots from claggy, November earth. Tug and wrench
and tug again. Finally, one of the junior doctors climbed on to
the operating table, straddled me and yanked her out by the
heels. Held her up like a catch, a thing from the sea, a mermaid
marbled with blood. A girl.

Over the next few days a number of bouquets arrived, but
the biggest came from Edwin Morgan Forster. It was the kind
of baroque arrangement that can only be commanded by war
memorials or a City expense account. There were priapic
thistles, five foot high, and giant lilies that filled the air with
their pepper and made the baby sneeze. A card was attached
with a message written by a florist who couldn't spell: 'One
down, free to go!'

God, I hated those flowers; the way they stole our air, hers
and mine. I gave them to the day midwife who slung them over
her shoulder and took them home to Harlesden on her scooter.

After thirty-six hours, the night midwife - Irish, softer, more
musical than her daylight counterpart - asked if she could take
baby from me so I could get some rest. When I protested, she
said: 'Part of being a good mum, Katharine, is having enough


281
energy to cope.' And she wheeled away my daughter, who
furled and unfurled those frondlike hands in her little Perspex
aquarium.

Headlong, I fell down a mineshaft of exhaustion. It could
have been hours later - it felt like seconds - that I heard her
crying. Up till that moment, I didn't know that I knew my
baby's cry, but when I heard it I knew that I would always know
it, would be able to pick it out from any other cry in the world.
From somewhere down a brown corridor, she summoned me.
Hitching the catheter over one arm and guarding my stitches
with the other, I started to hobble towards her, guided by that
sonar which had come as a free gift with motherhood. By the
time I got to the nursery, she had stopped yelling and was
staring, enthralled, at a paper ceiling lantern. I had never
experienced joy and fear in such a combination before:
impossible to tell where the pain stopped and the love began.

'You'D have to name her,' the smiling midwife chided. 'We
can't keep calling her baby, it's not right.'

I'd thought about Genevieve, but it seemed too big for the
intended owner. 'Emily was my grandmother's name, she
always made me feel safe.'

'Oh, Emily's lovely, let's try it.'

So we tried it and she turned her head towards her name, and
it was settled.

Three weeks later, James Entwhistle rang and offered me a
job in strategy. A nothing job going nowhere. I accepted it
gratefully and put down the phone. I would kill him later.
Later, I would kill all of them. But first I had to bath my
daughter.

Nine weeks to the day of the Caesarean, I was back in the
office. That first morning my mind was so disconnected that I
actually dialled a number and asked if I could speak to Kate
Reddy. A man said he didn't think Kate was back yet. And he
was right. I reckon she wasn't really back for a year and the old
Kate, the one Before Children, never returned. But she did a
great impersonation of being back and maybe only a mother
could have seen through her disguise.


282
I was still breastfeeding - taking a cab home in my lunch
hour to feed her. But five days later, they told me I had to fly
to Milan. All weekend, I tried to get Emily to accept a bottle.
Coaxed and pleaded and finally paid a woman from Fulham a
hundred quid to come and wean my daughter off me. I can
remember the baby yodelling, lungs raw with fury, and
Richard standing out in the garden smoking.

'She'll take the bottle when she's really starving,' the woman
explained and, yes, she herself would prefer cash. Sometimes I
think Emily has never really forgiven me.

On the drive to the airport, the cab radio started playing that
Stevie Wonder song. 'Isn't she lovely . . .' The one where you
hear the baby crying at the start. And my blouse was soaked
suddenly with milk.

I didn't know.


283
33 Tlie Note


Sherbourne Hotel, New York, 11.59 pm: Unbelievable. Plane
got in on time and I took a cab to the Herriot off Wall Street.
The plan was to swot up for tomorrow's presentation and get a
decent night's rest before strolling across the road to the Wall
Street Center. I should have known. The reception clerk hopelessly
young, trying to give himself a little authority in a
cheap, shiny blazer -- was having trouble meeting my eye.
Finally he said, 'I'm afraid we have a problem, Ms Reddy.' A
conference. Overbooking. 'I am happy to offer you free
accommodation at the Sherbourne, mid-town, great location
opposite our world-renowned Museum of Modern Art.'

'Sounds delightful, but I'm here to do business,' not get a
headache staring at early Cubists.'

I ended up yelling at him, of course. Totally unacceptable,
frequent customer, blah blah blah ... I could see his eyes
darting around for a superior to save him from the crazy Brit.
As though I were mad, and I'm not mad, am I? It's these people
driving you crazy with their inefficiency, wasting my precious
time.

The manager was incredibly apologetic, but there was
absolutely nothing he could do. So, by the time I got to the
new hotel, it was nearly midnight. Called Richard, who was
ready with a list of queries. Thank God, Paula's better, so we
don't have to get a temp. It's Emily's first day back at school
tomorrow.

Had I done the name-tapes?

Yes.

Had I got new gym shoes?

Yes. (In her navy gym bag on the peg under the stairs.)


284
Where would he find her reading books?

(Red library folder, third shelf of bookcase.)

Had I bought a new coat, the old one now comes up to her
waist? (Not yet, she will have to make do with Gap raincoat till
I get back.)

Then I dictated the contents of her lunchbox -- pitta bread,
tuna and corn, no cheese, she's decided she hates cheese -- and
told him to remember the cheque for ballet, the amount's
written in the diary. And he needs to give Paula money to get
Ben some new trousers, he's just had a growth spurt. Richard
tells me that Em was upset going to bed: she said she wanted
Mummy to take her to school because it's a new teacher.

Why does he feel he needs to share that with me when
there's absolutely nothing I can do about it? Says he's had an
exhausting day.

'Tell me about it,' I say back and ching down the phone.

No time to go through notes for my presentation, so I'll have
to wing it. Tomorrow's shaping up to be a total nightmare.


From: Debra Richardson

To: Kate Reddy

Just got yrs to say you're cancelling lunch. AGAIN. The first 49

times it was funny. I realise you have the most disgustingly

demanding job on the planet, but if we don't make time for

friendship what hope is there?

Are we next going to meet after our deaths? How is the

afterlife looking for you, Kate?


Oh, hell. No time to reply.


Wednesday, 8.33 am: Been standing outside the hotel for at
least fifteen minutes now. It's impossible to get a cab and the
journey downtown will take at least twenty-five. Am going to
be late. Still, my senses quicken at the prospect of seeing Jack
tonight; it's months since I last saw him and I'm having trouble
calling his face to mind. When I think of him all I get is a broad
smile and a general impression of ease and happiness.


285
It's a fabulous morning, one of those glittering New York
days that hurt your heart. Incredible rain last night has given
everything a remarkable windscreen-wiped clarity. As we reach
the bottom of Fifth, I see the buildings of the financial district
quiver with the slight watery shimmer that comes from the play
of humidity and light and glass.

8.59 am: Brokers Dickinson Bishop are on the 21st floor. My
stomach does an Olga Korbut flick-flack in the elevator on the
way up. Gerry, a beaming fellow with a broad Irish face and
straggly red sideburns, meets me at the landing. I tell him I need
forty-five minutes and a place to show slides.

'Sorry, you got five, lady. Things are pretty crazy in there.'

He heaves open a thick wooden door and unleashes the
sounds of an average day at the Colosseum, plus phones. Men
bawling into receivers, fighting to make themselves heard, or
shouting instructions across the room. Just as I'm wondering
whether to make a run for it, a message comes over the PA:
'OK, listen up, you guys, in two minutes Miss Kate Reddy of
London, England, will be talking to you about international
investing.'

About seventy brokers gather round, mastiff-necked New
Yorkers in those terrible shirts with the white collars and the
marquee stripes. They lean back against the desks, arms crossed,
legs apart. The way that kind of man stands. Some carry on
trading, but pull down their headpieces to lend me half an ear.
There is no way I'm going to be seen or heard down here, so I
take a split-second decision to stand on a desk and shout my
wares.

'Good morning, gentlemen, I'm here to tell you why you
MUST BUY MY FUND!'

Cheers, whistles. The closest I'll ever get to being a pole
dancer, I guess.

'Hey, Miss, anyone ever tell you you look like Princess Di?'

'Is your stock as good as your legs?'
What strikes me about these Masters of the Universe is how
hopelessly, helplessly boyish they are. Fifty years ago, they


286
would have been landing on the beaches of Normandy, and
here they are gathered round me as if I was their company
commander.

I give them my big speech about the Money - the way it's
awake when I'm asleep, the 'way it moves around the world, its
amazing power.

Then, they fire questions at me. 'Whaddya think about
Russia, ma'am? Isn't Russian money the pits?'

'Did you see a Euro yet?'

It's gone well. Unbelievably well. At the lift, a grinning
Gerry tells me the guys normally only get that fired up for a
Knicks game. Now I should really go back to the hotel and pick
up my messages, but I walk for a while along Wall Street,
feeling charged up, plugged into the power supply. On the
corner of Third and Broadway, I hail a cab and take it uptown
to Barney's for some post-traumatic shopping.

The store has an immediate consoling effect. I take the little
lift to the top floor where I spot an evening dress. I don't need
an evening dress. I try it on. Black and floaty with a fragile braid of 
diamante fixed down each side and in a plunging V under
the bust, it's the kind of dress they once danced the Charleston
in. I just about have the figure for it: I just don't have the life.
My life is the wrong size; there's no room in it for a dress this
beautiful. But isn't that part of the thrill? Buying a dress and
hoping the life to go with it will follow soon like a must-have
accessory? When the girl at the till hands me the chit to sign, I
don't even check the amount.


3 pm: The hotel room is like a hundred I've stayed in before.
The wallpaper is beige embossed on beige; the curtains, in bold
contrast, look like an explosion in a herbaceous border. I check
the minibar for emergency chocolate and then the drawer of
the bedside table: there is the Gideons' Bible and - a more
contemporary touch -- a collection of sayings from the World's
Great Religions.

I check my watch. If I call home now, it should be around
the kids' bedtime. I'm expecting to hear Richard's voice, but


287
it's Paula at the other end. She says Rich has asked her to stay
over a couple of nights until I get back and left a note for me
that he made her promise to deliver in person.

I ask Paula to open the note and read it to me. Just look at
the time. Where the hell is he? I think of all the things my
husband could be doing to help out while I'm not there as our
nanny starts to speak his words aloud.

' "I've been trying to talk to you for a while now, but I find
it increasingly hard to get your attention." '

'Yes, but does it say what time he'll be back?'

' "Kate, can you hear me. Are you listening?" '

'Of course I can hear you, Paula.'

'No, that's Pvichard. In the note. He says, "Kate, can you
hear me. Are you listening?" '

'Oh, right, sorry. Go on.'

' "I am so sorry, my darling, that we have reached this terrible
imp--

'What imp?'

'--ass.'

Oh, for heaven's sake. 'How do you spell it?'

Paula announces each letter carefully. 'I. M. P. A. S. S. E.'

'Oh, impasse. I see. It's, you know, French . . . well, anyway,
what else?'

Paula sounds dubious. 'I'm not sure I should be doing this,
Kate.'

'No, please carry on. I have to know what his plans are.'

'He says, "If you need to get hold of me I will be staying at
David and Maria's for a few nights until I find a place of my
own." He says, "Don't worry, I'll still go and pick Emily up
from school."'


So it really can happen. In real life. A thing you've seen in bad
TV drama and turned over because it's so implausible. Only
this time there is no turning over. And maybe no turning back.
One moment, the world is pretty much as it should be - rocky
and a little barren, perhaps, but still the world as you know it -- and then 
suddenly you have the sensation of the ground giving


288
way beneath your feet. My husband, Richard the rational,
Richard the reliable, Richard the rock has left me. Rich, who
in the letter he gave me the day before our wedding wrote, 'I'm
Ever and You're Reddy - here's to longlife, my darling', has
walked out. And I have been paying so little attention that our
nanny has had to break the news.

During the long pause, Paula's breathing has got heavier;
there is a wheeze of anxiety coming down the line. 'Kate,' she
asks, 'are you OK?'

'Yes, I'm fine. Paula, you can sleep in the spare room - or in
our bed' -- as I say the words it occurs to me that it may be my
bed now, not ours -- 'the sheets are clean. I know this is asking
an awful lot, Paula, but if you could just hold the fort. And if
you can please tell Emily and Ben that Mummy will be back as
soon as she can tomorrow.'

Paula doesn't reply at once and I think if she lets me down
now I don't know what I'll do. 'Is that all right, Paula?'

'Oh, sorry, Kate, I've just seen there's a PS on the other side.
Richard says, "I know I can never stop loving you because,
believe me, I've tried."'

There is no possible reply to that and into my silence, Paula
murmurs: 'Don't worry, I'll take care of everything here. Ben
and Em will be fine. It's going to be all right, Kate, really it is.'


After I've put the phone down, I forget how to breathe for a
few seconds. Suddenly the mechanics of taking in air seem
complicated and strenuous; I have to heave my diaphragm up
and then pump my chest out, heave and pump again.

When I'm a little steadier, I call Jack and leave a message on
his mobile cancelling dinner. Then I get undressed and take a
shower. The towels are that hopeless Italian kind; thin and
frugal as an altar-cloth, they pat the water round your skin
rather than absorbing it. I need a towel that can hug me.

Catching sight of myself in the bathroom mirror, I am
startled to see that I look much as I did the last time I looked.
Why isn't my hair falling out? Why aren't my eyes weeping
blood? I think of my children asleep in their beds and of how


289
far I am from them, how unbelievably far. From this distance,
I see my little family as an encampment on a hillside and the
winds are lashing round them and I have to be there to tie
everything down. I have to be there.


The water is wide, I cannot get o'er
And neither have I wings to fly.


I climb into bed, between the stiff white sheets, and I move
my hand over my body. My body and for so long Richard's
body. With this body I thee worship. I try to think of the last
time I saw him. Saw him properly, I mean, not just the way you
see the blur of a person in the rear-view mirror. In the past few
months, I go out and he takes over or he leaves and I take over.
We swap instructions in the hall. We say Emily has eaten a
good lunch, so don't worry too much about her tea. We say
Ben needs an early night because he wouldn't take a nap this
afternoon. We say bowel movements have been successful or
are still pending and perhaps some prunes would help. Or else
we leave a note. Sometimes we barely meet each other's eyes.
Kate and Richard, like a relay team where each runner suspects
the other of being the weaker link, but the main thing is to
keep running round the track so the baton can be exchanged
and the race can go on and on.


O, Love is handsome and love is kind,
And love's a jewel when it is new.
But when it is old, it groweth cold;
And fades away like morning dew.


'Mummy, I know why you get cross with Daddy,' Emily
said to me the other morning.

'Why?'

'Because he does wrong things.'

I knelt down beside her, so I could look straight into her eyes.
It felt important to set the record straight. 'No, sweetheart,
Daddy doesn't do wrong things. Mummy just sometimes gets
very tired and that makes her not patient with Daddy, that's all.'

'Patient means wait a minute,' she said.


290


I pick up Sayings of the World's Great Religions from the
bedside table and flick through it. There are sections on Belief,
Justice and Education. I pause at the one on Marriage.


'I have never called my wife "wife", but "home".'

The Talmud


Home. I look at the word for a long time. Home. Hear its
rounded centre. Picture what it means. I am married but am
not a wife, have children but am not a mother. What am I?

I know a woman who is so afraid of her children's need for
her that rather than go home after work, she sits in the wine bar
to wait until they're asleep.

I know a woman who wakes her baby at 5.30 every morning
so she can have some time with him.

I know a woman who went on a TV discussion programme
and talked about doing the school run. Her nanny told me she
barely knew where her kids' school was.

I know a woman who heard that her baby boy took his first
steps from a babysitter down the phone.

And I know a woman who found out her husband left her
from a note that -was read out to her by a nanny.

I lie there for a long time in the bed, maybe hours, waiting
until I start to feel something. And finally it comes. A feeling
both intensely familiar and shockingly strange. It takes me a few
seconds to know what it is: I want my mother.


291


34 Home to Mum


however hard i search, I can't come up with a
memory of my mother sitting down. Always standing.
Standing at the sink holding a pan under running water,
standing by the ironing board, standing at the school gate in her
good navy coat; bringing in plates of hot food from the kitchen
and then clearing them away again. Common sense suggests
there must have been an interval between bringing the plates in
and taking them out when she sat down and ate with us, but I
don't remember it. Dishes, once they were let out of
cupboards, became a mess to my mother, and a mess needed
clearing up. You could still be in mid-forkful, but if the plate
looked empty Mum would whisk it away.

My mother's generation was born for service; it was their
vocation and their destiny. The gap between school -- routine,
things you do because you must, bad smells -- and motherhood -- routine, things 
you do because you must, bad smells -- was a
matter of a few years. Those Fifties girls had a window of
freedom, but the window was seldom wide enough to climb
through and, anyway, what would become of them if they got
out? Women like my mum didn't expect much of life and, in
general, life did not disappoint them. Even when the men they
served ran out on them or died too early from strokes and
disorders of the stomach, they often stayed at their posts, preparing
meals, hoovering, grabbing any ironing that was going
from their children or grandchildren and never sitting down if
they could possibly help it. It was as though they defined
themselves in doing for others, and the loss of that definition
left them blurred, confused; like those pit ponies who kept their
tunnel vision long after they had been let loose in a field.


292


For my generation, coming to it later and sometimes too late,
motherhood was a shock. Sacrifice wasn't written into our
contract. After fifteen years as an independent adult, the sudden
lack of liberty could be as stunning as being parted from a limb;
entwined with the intense feeling of love for your baby was a
thin thread of loss, and maybe we will always ache like an
amputee.

What my mum still calls Women's Liberation had just about
taken off by the time I was born, but it never reached the parts
where my parents lived and, to a remarkable extent, still hasn't.
One summer, my mother grew her perm out and had her hair
cut short in a feathery style that flattered her elfin features. Julie
and I loved it, she looked so pretty and cheeky, but when my
dad came in that night he said: 'It's a bit Women's Lib, Jean,'
and the style was grown out without fuss, without any more
needing to be said.

As I entered my teens, it occurred to me that things were not
what they seemed: although the men round our way took all
the leading roles, it was the women who -were running the
show, but were never allowed to be on stage. It was a
matriarchy pretending to be a patriarchy to keep the lads happy.
I always thought that was because where I came from people
didn't get much of an education. Now I think that's what the
whole world's like, only some places hide it better than others.


in the playground, the children's cries fill the air like
starlings. The school is a red-brick building, with tall churchy
windows, dating from an era when people had faith in both
God and education. Over in the far corner, next to the
climbing frame, there is a woman in a navy three-quarter coat
bending down. When she straightens up, I can see she is
holding a handkerchief which is attached to the bloody nose of
a small girl.

My mother is a nursery school assistant. She's been here for
years and, basically, she runs the place, but they still call her an
assistant. Because they can get away with it -- Mum doesn't like


293


to make a fuss -- and because it means they can pay her less. The
money's terrible. When she told me how much, I shouted with
dismay. I could blow it on cab fares in three days. But if you
use words like exploitation, my mother just laughs. Says she
likes the job, it gets her out the house. Besides, she has a way
with children. If your three-year-old had a bleeding nose,
believe me, you'd want my mother to be the one holding her
hand. Jean Reddy is one of those souls who exude comfort like
a human hot-water bottle.

When she looks across the yard, she knows it's me instantly,
but it takes another second before the pleasure floods into her
face. 'Oh, Kathy, love,' she says coming over with the
wounded tot in tow, 'what a lovely surprise. I thought you
were in America.'

'I was. Got back a couple of days ago.'

When I kiss her cheek, it's apple cold. 'Now, Lauren,' my
mother says, addressing the sniffing child, 'this is my little girl.
Say hello!'

The ringing bell signals the end of Mum's shift and we go
indoors to fetch her bag from the staffroom. In the corridor, she
introduces me to Val, the headmistress. 'Oh, yes, Katharine,
we've heard so much about you. Jean showed me the cutting
in the paper. You've done so well for yourself, haven't you?'

I'm eager to get out of here, but my mother enjoys showing
me off. The hand she puts on my arm as she steers me between
colleagues reminds me of Emily at World Feast Day parading
Mummy in front of her friends.

Parked in front of the school, the Volvo is filled with kids'
stuff. 'How are they?' Mum asks as we climb in. I tell her
they're fine and with Paula. On the drive to the flat, we pass my
old school and she sighs. 'Did you hear about Mr Dowling?
Terrible.'

'He took early retirement, didn't he?'

'Yes. A lass. Can you imagine a young lass doing something
like that, Kath?'

Mr Dowling was my head of history twenty years ago, a
blinky soft-spoken man with a vast enthusiasm for Elizabethan


294


England and the poetry of the First World War. A few months
ago, some little cow in the fifth form punched his glasses into
his face and he took early retirement soon after. Mr Dowling,
an archetypal grammar school boy, had become one of the
casualties of the comprehensive system - a doctrine of equality
which means that all the kids round here who want to learn
something are in classes with kids who don't.

'They'll expect you to have read widely, Katharine, but
we've very little time,' Mr Dowling said to me when he was
preparing me for Cambridge entrance. I was the only one in my
year, the only one for as long as anyone could remember except
Michael Brain, who got to Oxford to read law and was now at
the Bar, which we were told had nothing to do with pubs. It
was after school, in Mr Bowling's room off the library with the
electric fire on. I loved being in there with him, reading and
hearing the click of the filaments. We did the Chartists in a day,
the First World War over a weekend. 'You won't know
everything, but I think we can give an impression of you
knowing the ground,' my teacher said. But I had the famous
Reddy memory: England under the Tudors and Stuarts, the
Ottoman Empire, witchcraft. I had the dates of battles down
pat, the way my father memorised the pools. Corunna,
Bosworth, Ypres. Raith Rovers, Brechin City, Swindon
Town. We could wing anything, Dad and I, if we thought it
would pay. Walking up the steps to take my seat alone in the
exam room I knew I could do it, if I could only hold the
knowledge in there for long enough. Must remember.

'Nice cup of tea. And I'll do some sandwiches, shall I? Ham
all right?' Mum is busying herself with the kettle in the kitchen
of the flat. More an alcove than a kitchen; there's only room for
one person in there.

I never want to eat the sandwiches, but a couple of years ago
I had one of those maturity leaps when I realised that eating
wasn't the point of my mother's sandwiches. They were there
to give her something she could do for me, when there is so
much she can't do any more. Overnight her need to be needed
seemed more important than my need to get away. I sit down


295


at the Formica table with the fold-down flaps, the table that sat
in all the kitchens of my childhood: it has a black scab gouged
out of the side by a furious Julie after a row with Dad over
finishing her swede. As I eat, Mum puts up the ironing board
and starts to work her way through the basket of clothes at her
feet. Soon the room is filled \vith the drowsy, comforting smell
of baked water. The iron makes little exasperated puffs as it
travels the length of a blouse, or gets its snout into a tricky cuff.

My mother is a champion ironer. It's a pleasure to watch her
hand move an inch or so ahead of the small steam train,
smoothing its path. She smooths and smooths and then she
snaps the cloth taut like a conjurer and finally she folds. Arms
of a shirt folded behind, like a man under arrest. As I watch her,
my eyes go swimmy: I think that after she's gone there'll be no
one who will ever do that for me again -- no one who "will iron
my clothes taking such infinite pains.

'What's that over your eye, love?'

'Nothing.'

She comes over and lifts my fringe to get a better view of the
eczema and I blink back the tears. 'I know your nothings,
Katharine Reddy,' she laughs. 'Have you got some cream off
the doctor for it?'

'Yes.' No.

'Have you got it anywhere else?' 'No.' Yes, in a flaming
itching belt around my middle, behind my ears, behind my
knees.

In my pocket, the mobile begins to thrum. I take it out and
check the number. Rod Task. I switch the phone off.

'What have I told you about looking after yourself? I don't
know how you manage with work on at you the whole time'
-- Mum jabs her finger in the direction of the mobile -- 'and the
kiddies as well. It's no life.'

Back behind the ironing board, she says, 'Anyway, how's our
Richard keeping?'

I give a crumby mumble. I've come all the way up here to
tell her that Rich has gone. I hated the idea of leaving the kids
with Paula so soon after getting back from the States, but if I


296


put my foot down I can do the journey here and back in a day.
And I didn't want Mum to find out that Richard and I were
separated, as I did, down the phone. But now I'm here I can't
quite find the words. 'Oh, by the way my husband left me
because I haven't paid attention to him since 1994.' She'd think
I was joking.

'Richard's a good man,' she says, trapping a pillowcase on
the curved end of the board. 'You want to hang on to him,
love. They don't come much better than Richard.'

In the past, I have taken my mother's enthusiasm for my man
as a sign of its opposite for me. Her exclaiming over another of
his supposedly miraculous virtues (his ability to make a simple
meal, his willingness to spend time with his children) always
seemed to draw attention to my matching vices (my reliance on
cook-chill food, my working weekends in Milan). Now, sitting
here in my mother's home, I hear her praise for what it is: the
truth about someone who has Mum's gift for putting others
before themselves.

We had tea in this room the first time I brought Rich back
to meet her. I was so determined not to be ashamed of where
I came from that by the time we got here, after a hot and
clogged drive from London, I had stoked myself up into a
defiant, take-us-as-you-find-us mood. So, what if we don't
have matching cutlery? What if my mother says settee instead
of sofa? Are you going to make something of it, are you, are
you?

Rich made nothing of it. A natural diplomat, he soon had my
mother eating out of his hand merely by tucking into heroic
quantities of bread and butter. I remember how big he looked
in our house - the furniture was suddenly doll's furniture - and
how gently he negotiated all the no-go areas of my family's
past. (Dad had walked out by then, but his absence was almost
as domineering as his presence had been.) Panicked by the idea
of Kath's posh boyfriend, my mum, who always goes to too
much trouble, had, on that occasion, gone to too little. But
Rich volunteered to go to the shop on the corner for extra milk
and came back with two kinds of biscuit and an enthusiasm for


297


the hills whose sooty shoulders you could glimpse from the end
of the street.


'Julie said that some men have been round here asking for
money that Dad owes them.'

With one hand my mother pats her helmet of grey curls: 'It's
nothing. She'd no need to go bothering you with that. All
sorted now. Don't go fretting yourself

I must have pulled a face because she adds: 'You shouldn't be
too hard on your father, love.'

'Why not? He was hard on us.'

Chuuuussh. Chuuuuussh. The iron and my mother chide me
simultaneously with their soft sighs.

'It's not easy for him, you know. He's that bright but he's not
had the outlets, not like you. In your dad's family, there was no
question of going on to college. Always liked the sound of
medicine, but it was years of studying and there just wasn't the
money.'

'If he's that clever why does he keep getting himself into
trouble?'

My mother always ends conversations she isn't keen on with
a non-sequitur. 'Well, he was very proud of you, Kathy. I had
to stop him showing your GCSE certificates to everyone.'

She folds the sleeves behind the last blouse and adds it to the
basket. There is no sign of the two I bought her last year in
Liberty's for her birthday, nor of other gifts. 'Have you worn
that red cardigan I got you, Mum?'

'But it's cashmere, love.'

Since I've been working, I've bought my mother lovely
clothes. I wanted her to have them, I needed her to have them.
I wanted to make things all right for her. But she always puts
everything I bring her away for best. Best being some
indeterminate date in the future when life will at long last live
up to its promise.

'Can I get you some cake?'

No. 'Yes, lovely.'

On the sideboard, next to the carriage clock purchased a


298


quarter of a century ago with Green Shield stamps, there is a
photograph of my parents taken in the late Fifties. A seaside
place, they're laughing, and behind them the sky is flecked with
gulls. They look like film stars. Dad doing his Tyrone Power
thing, Mum with her inky Audrey Hepburn eyes and those
matador pants that end at the calf and a pair of little black
pumps. When I was a child that photograph used to taunt me
with its happiness: I wanted the mother in the picture to come
back. I knew that if I waited long enough she would come
back. She was just saving herself for best. Next to the picture is
a silver frame containing one of Emily on her second birthday.
She has just seen the cake and is lit up with glee. Mum follows
my glance.

'Gorgeous, isn't she?'
I nod happily. No matter how battered family relations, a
baby can make them new. When Emily was born and Mum
came to see us in hospital and laid her hand, speckled with age,
on the newborn's, I understood how having a daughter could
help you to bear the thought of your own mother's death. I
wondered then, but never dared ask, whether it helped Mum
to bear the idea of leaving Julie and me.

There is a clatter of pans from the kitchen. 'Mum, please
come and sit down.'

'You just put your feet up, love.'

'But I want you to sit down.'

'In a minute.'

I can't tell her about Richard. How can I tell her?


julie lives five minutes' drive from my mum. Streets in
this type of estate were always named after plants and trees, as
though that might in some way make amends to the natural
environment that had been torn up to build them. But Orchard
Way and Elm Drive and Cherry Walk look like cruel taunts
now, pastoral notes in a symphony of cement and reinforced
glass. My sister's house is in Birch Close, a horseshoe of Sixties
semis hemmed in by properties from the succeeding decades, all


299


full of good ideas from town planners for restoring a sense of
community so carefully destroyed by town planners.

As I pull up in the Volvo, a group of kids who are kicking
around on the pavement let out a noise between a cheer and a
jeer, but as soon as I climb out and glare at them they scarper;
even the thugs lack all conviction up here. The front garden of
Number 9 has a circle of earth carved out in the centre of the
lawn "with one skinny rhododendron surrounded by clumps of
that tiny white flower I always think of as being England's
answer to Edelweiss. Parked with one wheel on the ribbed
concrete drive is a trike that must have been abandoned when
Julie's kids were small: in its rusty yellow seat, there is a dark
compote of leaves and rain.

The woman who answers the door is already into middle
age, with a listless pageboy haircut, although she is three years
and one month younger than me, a fact I will never forget
because my very first memory is of being carried into my
parents' bedroom to see her the night she was born. The
wallpaper was green and the baby was red and wrapped in a
white shawl I had watched my mother knit in front of the
Rayburn. She made funny snuffling sounds and when you gave
her your finger she wouldn't let go. She was called a sister. I
told Mum that her name should be Valerie after the Blue Peter presenter. So, 
thinking they might be spared some jealousy if I
had an investment in the new arrival, my parents christened her
Julie Valerie Reddy and she has never let me forget it.

'You'd best come in, then,' my sister says. Spotting the car
over my shoulder, she tuts and says: 'They'll have the tyres off
that. Do you want to bring it up the drive? I can clear this stuff.'

'No, it'll be fine really.'

We squeeze through the narrow hall with its white wrought
iron stand overflowing with spider plants.

'Plants are doing well, Julie,' I say.

'Can't kill them if you try,' she shrugs. 'There's tea in the
pot, do you want a cup? Steven, get your feet off the settee,
your Auntie Kath's here from London.'

A good-looking small boy trapped in the body of a lunk,


300


Steven lollops through to greet me while his mum fetches the
cups.

I am bringing the news that my husband has left me as a gift
to my sister, as a peace offering. Julie grew up wearing my
clothes, overheard teachers comparing her with the other
Reddy girl, the one who got to Cambridge, and has never ever
had anything nicer than I have in her whole life. Well, now her
big sister has failed to keep her man and in this, the oldest
contest of all, I can concede defeat.

'Place is a tip,'Julie says by way of description, not apology,
before she clears some magazines off the settee and kicks
Steven's soccer kit towards the door.

She sits me down in the armchair next to the gas fire. 'Come
on, then, what's up with you?'
'Richard's left me,' I say, and it's the first time I've cried since
Paula told me on the phone. There were no tears when I
explained to Emily that Daddy would be living in a different
house for a while, because there was no way I wanted to share
my distress with a six-year-old whose idea of men is founded
on the prince in Sleeping Beauty, and no tears either when, last
night, Richard and I had a civilised exchange on the doorstep
about arrangements for the children. We are always discussing
arrangements for the children, only the conversation usually
ends with me running out the door and saying I have to go; this
time it "was Richard who walked down the steps and away,
yanking over his shoulder the grey sweater I bought him to
match his eyes two birthdays ago.

'Well, a right useless bugger he turned out to be,'Julie says.
'All that you've got on your plate, and he hops it.' Without my
noticing, she has knelt down in front of me and has an arm
around my neck.

'It's my fault.'

'Like hell it is.'

'No it is, it is, he left a note for me.'

'A note? Oh, that's great that is. Bloody men. Either they're
too clever to feel owt or they're like our Neil and they're too
thick to say owt.'


301


'Neil's not thick.'

When Julie laughs, the little girl I once knew is there in the
room, full of fun and not afraid. 'No, but you'd have more clue
how the hamster's doing than Neil, quite frankly. Has he got
another woman, then, your Richard?'

It hadn't even occurred to me. 'No, I don't think so, I think
it's me that's another woman. The one he married isn't there
any more. He said he couldn't get through to me, that I don't
listen to him.'

Julie smooths my hair. 'Well, you're "working too hard to
keep him in pencils.'

'He's a very good architect.'

'It's you who keeps the show on the road, though, paying all
the bills and whatnot.'

'I think that's hard for him, Jules.'

'Aye, well, if the world was run according to what men
found hard to take we'd still be walking round in chastity belts,
wouldn't we? Are you having sugar?'

No. 'Yes.'

A little later, Julie and I go for a walk up to the^ recreation
ground at the top of the estate. The path is choked with ferns
and there is a burnt-out Fiesta threaded with foxgloves. When
we get to the swings, we find a couple of schoolgirl mothers
sitting there on the bench. Teenage pregnancy ranks as a hobby
round here. These two are pretty typical: waxy with tiredness
and caked in make-up, they look like cadavers with their young
jumping up and down on them, full of rude life.

Julie tells me that the breathlessness and the pains in our
mother's chest date from a few months back, when a couple of
Dad's creditors turned up at the door. Mum explained that
Joseph Reddy didn't live there any more, had not in fact lived
there for many years, but the men came in anyway and looked
over the furniture, the carriage clock, the silver frames I'd given
her for the children's photographs.

Not cursed with the elder child's desperate need for approval,
Julie managed to stay outside the immediate blast-area of Dad's
charm and for most of our lives has observed him coldly and


302


without fear of side-effects. I tell her about the day he came to
see me at the office and she explodes with indignation.

'Bloody typical, that is. Not worried about embarrassing you
in front of your boss. What does he think he's playing at?'

'He's designed a biodegradable nappy.'

'Him? He's never seen a baby's bum in his life.'

And we both start to laugh, my sister and I, great snorts of
laughter escaping through our mouths and our noses and finally
running in tears down our cheeks. From a corner of my coat
pocket, I produce a hanky crusty with use; Julie volunteers one
in a similar condition but spotted with blood.

'Emily's carol concert.'

'Steven's rugby match.'

We turn and look out across the town. Its ugliness is draped
in a ludicrous Vivienne Westwood sunset, all knicker-pink
tulle and scandalous purples. The skyline is dominated by giant
chimneys, only a few still active: they let out quick, small puffs
like furtive smokers. 'You didn't give Dad owt, I hope,' Julie
says, and when I don't reply, 'Oh, bloody hell, Kath, you're a
soft touch.'

'City Ice Maiden,' I announce in my Radio 4 voice.

'Ice Maiden that melts pretty easily,' snaps my sister. 'You've
got to get over Dad, you know. He's not worth it. There's
millions of crap dads out there, we're nothing special. Remember
the way he used to send you to the door when they came
round asking for the rent money. You remember that, don't
you?'

'No.'

'You do remember. I know you do. That's no way to treat
a kid, Kathy. Getting them to lie for you. And he thumped
Mum when things weren't going his way.'

'No.'

'No? Who was it that went downstairs to distract him when
they were beating the shit out of each other? Little girl name of
Katharine. Ring any bells?'

'Jules, what were those ice lollies with the hundreds and
thousands on them called?'


303


'Don't change the bloody subject.'

'Do you remember?'

'Course I do. Fabs. But you never had them. Always saved
your pocket money and bought the Cornish Miwi. Mum said
you always had to have the best of everything from when you
could stand up. "Champagne tastes on beer money, that's our
Kath." So you went and made the money for champagne,
didn't you?'

'It's not that great,' I say studying my wedding band.

'Bubbly?' Julie looks at me as though she really wants to
know.

How can I tell my sister that money has improved my life,
but it hasn't deepened it or eased it? 'Oh, you spend most of
your money trying to buy yourself time to make money to pay
for all the things you think you need because you've got
money.'

'Yes, but it's better than that.' Julie gestures across the
recreation ground to the child mothers. She speaks angrily, but
when she says it again it sounds like a blessing: 'It's got to be
better than that, love.'


there was a Mr Whippy van that used to go round our
estate playing a hectic version of'Greensleeves'. One day during the summer 
holidays, Annette and Colin Jones were
buying an ice-cream from the van when their kitten ran out
and got caught in the back wheel. We yelled out, but the driver
didn't hear us and the van started pulling away. I remember it
was boiling hot, the tarmac was rearing up in the road and it
stuck in clumps on the bottom of our sandals like rabbit        >,

droppings. And I remember the way Annette screamed and I
remember the music and the sense of something infinitely
gentle being broken as the wheel spun round.

The Joneses lived two doors down from us. Carol Jones was
the only mother we knew who went out to work. She started
off doing some bar work for pin money and soon after she got
a full-time job in the accounts office of a metals factory.

304


Dissecting their neighbours over elevenses, my mother and Mrs
Frieda Davies decided that Carol spent her wages on going to
the hairdresser and other things that came under the category
of'enjoying herself. They couldn't have been more delighted
when Annette failed her Eleven-plus. Well, what can you
expect with no one at home to get the poor child a cooked tea?

Me, I remember Carol wearing lipstick and laughing a lot
and seeming younger than my mother, whose birthday she
shared.

The day of the accident, Mum heard our screams and ran out
and took us all inside while the Mr Whippy man tried to clear
up the mess. I had dropped my strawberry Cornish Miwi on
the road. Mum calmed Annette down, made orange squash for
everyone and found Colin a plaster (he had no graze or cut, but
he needed a plaster). And then she gave the Joneses their tea
while we all waited for their mum to get home from work.

Carol arrived late and flustered with shopping bags. She had
got Mum's phone message, but she had been unable to get
away any quicker. When I think back to how it was when
Carol came into the kitchen, and us all sitting at the Formica
table, I can remember the heat hanging there like wet towels
and Colin spilling his squash and how Annette wouldn't look
at her mum, but I can't remember if it went unsaid, the thing
everyone was thinking.

Did anyone say it? 'But if you'd been here, the kitten
wouldn't be dead.'


305


35


No Answers


6.35 pm: 'And, furthermore, there is a good deal of evidence
that mixed-gender teams are critical to effective team
functioning.'

'Jesus, Katie, I never thought I'd hear you say anything like
that.' Rod Task is unimpressed, and he's not the only one; the
place is full of people -who'd rather be in the wine bar than
being addressed by me in my new capacity as Diversity Coordinator.
I feel like a vegan at an abattoir.

Chris Bunce lies back in his chair with his feet up on the conference
table. 'I'm all for mixing genders,' he says, picking his
teeth.

'Can we get the hell out of here now?' asks Rod.'

'No,' says Celia Harmsworth, 'we need to produce a mission
statement.'

As the room groans, there is an answering thrum from the
phone in my pocket. A text message from Paula.


Ben ill
come now.


'I've got to go,' I say. 'Urgent call coming in from the States.
Don't wait for me.'

I call Paula from the cab on the way home. She fills me in.
Ben fell downstairs. 'You know that dodgy bit of carpet near
the top of the stairs by his room, Kate?'

Please God, no. 'Yes, I do.'

'Well, he caught his foot somehow and he fell and bumped
his head this morning. It came up a bit, but he seemed fine.
Then he was sick a bit ago and he went all limp.'


306


I tell Paula to keep him warm. Or should she be keeping him
cool? Numb, my fingers feel like stumps as I dial Richard's
mobile number. I pray for it to be him, but it's the voice of that
damned announcer saying, please leave a message.

'Hello. I don't want to leave a message. I want you to be here. It's me. Kate. 
Ben's had a fall and I'm going to take him
to the hospital. I'll have my phone with me.'

Next, I call Pegasus Cars and ask Winston to be waiting
when I get home. Need to get Ben to hospital.


8.23 pm: How long is too long to wait for your child to be
seen? Ben and I are told to take a seat in the rows of grey plastic
chairs in Casualty. Next to us are a couple of public school boys
who are off their heads on something. Ecstasy, probably. 'I've
got no feelin' in my fingers,' wails one over and over,
pretending he has no idea why. I don't care: I want to tell him
to get back to whatever swamp he came from and expire
quietly. I want to slap him for wasting hospital time.

Winston, who has gone to park Pegasus, returns and
approaches the reception desk. Seeing my expression, he stands
in and becomes the pushy one. 'Excuse me, Miss, we got a baby
here needs some attention. Thank you kindly.'

After an eternity -- maybe five minutes -- Ben and I are
ushered in to see the doctor. Half-slept and unshaven since last
Thursday, the young houseman is seated in a cubicle cut off
from the busy corridor by a thin apricot curtain. I start to
explain Ben's symptoms, but he silences me with a hand while
he studies the notes on the desk in front of him.

'Hmmm, I see, I see. And how long has the little boy had a
temperature, Mrs Shattock?'

'Well, I'm not entirely sure. He was very hot up till an hour
ago.'

'And earlier today?'

'I don't know.'

The doctor moves to put his hand on Ben's forehead. The
baby mews as I relax my grip on him. 'Sickness, vomiting in the
past twenty-four hours?'


307


'I think he was sick yesterday afternoon, but Paula thought,
she's my nanny - we thought that it was just a bad tummy.'

'Bowel movement since then?'

Tin afraid I don't know.'

'So you didn't see him at all yesterday?'

'Yes. No. I mean, I try to get home in time to put him to
bed, but not last night no.'

'And not the night before.'

'No, I had to go to Frankfurt. You see, Ben fell down the
stairs this morning and he seemed to be fine but then Paula got
really worried and he became limp so--'

'Yes, I see.' I don't think he sees. I must try to talk calmly and
slowly so he sees.

'Can you undress baby for me?'

I slip him out of his Thomas the Tank Engine sleepsuit, undo
the poppers at the crotch of his vest and pull it over his head.
Ben's skin is so fair it's almost translucent and through the rack
of ribs you can see the tiny bellows of his lungs.

'And the baby's weight. What does he weigh now, Mrs
Shattock?'

Tin not entirely sure. He must be about 28, 30 pounds, I
think.'

'When did you last have him weighed?'

'Well, he had his eighteen-month check, but you know he's
my second and you're not as worried about things like weight
with the second so long as they're '

'And at the eighteen-month check, his weight was?'

'As I said, I'm not sure, but Paula said he was absolutely fine.'

'And Benjamin's date of birth - you are familiar with that, I
presume?'

The insult is so biting that the tears jump to my eyes as if I
had walked out into snow. I do really well in tests. I know the
answers, but I don't know these answers and I should know. I
know I should know.

Ben was born on the 25th January. He is very strong and very
happy and he never cries. Only if he is tired or if his teeth hurt.
And his favourite book is Owl Babies and his favourite song is


308


'The Wheels on the Bus' and he is my dearest sweetest only son
and if anything happens to him I will kill you and then I will
burn down your hospital and then I will kill myself. 'The 25th
of January.'

'Thank you, Mrs Shattock. Now, little man, let's take a look
at that chest.'


12.17 am: I don't know how I would have managed without
Winston. He stayed all the time with us at the hospital, fetching
sweet tea for me from the machine, holding Ben when I had to
go to the loo and only showing any sign of distress when I
offered to pay him for his time. As he helps me and the sleeping
baby out of the cab, I can just make out a figure standing on the
steps of our house. I think that if it's a mugger I won't be
responsible for my actions, but a few steps nearer and I realise
that it's Momo. Can't bear to see anyone from work. Not now.

'Whatever it is, surely it could have waited till the morning?'
I say, stabbing the key in the lock.

Tin sorry, Kate.'

'Sorry doesn't really cover it, I'm afraid. I've just got back
with Ben from the hospital. He's been under observation. It's
been a long night. If the Hang Seng fell 10 per cent I don't give
a shit frankly and you can tell Rod that in those precise words.
Oh, God, what is it?'

In the blade of light that the opening door casts into the
street, I suddenly see that Momo has been crying. It's a shock
to find that perfect face puffed up with misery.

'I'm sorry,' she says, and can say nothing else because
speaking has triggered a fresh bout of crying. I get her inside
and sit her in the kitchen while I take Ben up to his cot. A viral
rash, the doctor called it. Unconnected to his fall, and definitely
not meningitis either; we just have to be sure to keep baby's
fluids up for the next twenty-four hours and keep an eye on his
temperature. Turning the corner to the flight of stairs that leads
up to the kids' rooms, I see the patch of worn carpet where Ben
tripped. I hate that bloody carpet, I hate the fact I didn't get a quote for a 
new one, I hate the fact that finding the time to call


309


someone out to measure my stairs seemed like an impossible
luxury when it was a necessity all along. Triage. The order of
urgency. I got it wrong: things that could harm the children
come first, everything else can wait. Looking in on Emily, I
find her curled around Paula, who has fallen asleep on the bed.
I go in and switch off the Cinderella light and cover them both
with the duvet.

Back downstairs in the kitchen, I make a pot of mint tea and
try to get some sense out of Momo. Ten minutes later, I
understand why she is having trouble explaining the problem:
she simply doesn't have a vocabulary crude enough to describe
what she has seen.

After work tonight, Momo went to 171, a bar opposite
Liverpool Street with a bunch of people from the US Desk.
Later, she dropped by the office to collect some files for our
forthcoming final. Chris Bunce was there with a group of guys
all gathered round his screen, laughing and making raucous
comments. They included her friend Julian, who joined EMF
the same day Momo did last year. The men didn't hear her
come in and they didn't notice until too late that she had come
over to look at what they were looking at.

'Pictures of a woman, you know, Kate, wearing nothing, I
mean worse than nothing.'

'But they download that stuff all the time, Momo.'

'You don't understand, Kate, they 'were pictures of me.'


2.10 am: I have helped Momo upstairs, found her some
nightclothes and tucked her up in the guest bed. Floundering
in my Gap XXXL T-shirt with the dachsund motif, she looks
about eight years old. Calmer now, she manages to tell me the
whole story. Apparently, she screamed at the top of her voice
when she saw the pictures on the screen, demanding to know
who had done this.

Bunce, naturally, toughed it out. Turned to Momo and said:
'Well, now the real thing is here, perhaps she'd like to show us
what she can do, guys?'

They all laughed at that, but when she started crying they left


310


the office pretty quickly. Only Julian hung around and tried to
calm her down. She yelled at him until eventually he told her
Bunce had taken headshots of Monio from the EMF website the
ones the firm was using in its brochure to illustrate its
commitment to diversity - and digitally spliced them on to
other women's bodies that are freely available on the Net.
'Bodies with no clothes on,' Momo repeats, and her primness
makes it doubly painful.

Momo says she stopped looking when she saw her own head
giving head. There were captions to go with the pictures, but
she found it hard to make them out because she dropped her
glasses and they cracked on the dealing floor.

'There was something about Asian Babes, I think.'

'There would be.'

'What are we going to do?' she asks, and the we feels both
presumptuous and entirely right.

Nothing is what we're going to do. 'We'll think of
something.'

I put the main light out and leave the bedside lamp on. Next
to it in a vase is a desiccated sprig of lily of the valley, left over
from Donald and Barbara's visit.

'I don't understand, Kate,' Momo says. 'Why would Bunce
do that? Why would anyone want to do that?'

'Oh, because you're beautiful and you're female and because
he can. It's not very complicated.'

For a second, she ignites with anger. 'Are you saying what
Chris Bunce did to me was nothing personal?'

'No. Yes.' I feel exorbitantly tired, as though my veins were
filled with lead. The terror of there being something wrong
with Ben, and now this. Why do I always have to explain
things to Momo, important things, when I'm at my most
stupid? I lay my hand on her cool brown one and will the
words to come. 'I'm saying that there was all history and now
there's us. There's never been anything like us before, Momo.
Century after century of women knowing their place and
suddenly it's twenty years of women who don't know their
place and it's scary for men. It's happened so fast. Chris Bunce


3"


looks at you and he sees someone who's supposed to be an
equal. We know what he wants to do to you, but he's not
allowed to touch any more, so he fakes pictures of you that he
can do what he likes with.'

Under the duvet, she shakes; the shudder of a still fresh
shame, and tightens her grip on my fingers.

'Momo, do you know how long they reckon it took for early
man to stand upright?'

'How long?'

'Between two and five million years. If you give Chris Bunce
five million years he may realise that it's possible to work alongside women 
without needing to take their clothes off.'

I can see the opal precipitate of tears in her eyes. 'You're
telling me we can't do anything, Kate, aren't you? About
Bunce. I just have to put up with it because that's what they're
like and there's no use trying to change anything.'

That's exactly what I'm saying. 'No, I wouldn't put it quite
like that.'


As Momo sighs and winces her way to sleep, I go downstairs to
switch off the lights and lock up. I miss Richard all the time,
but this is the time that I miss him most. Locking up is his job
and the bolt feels less safe when I draw it across, the creaking in
the window frames more ghostly. As I close the shutters, I keep
thinking of what will happen over the next few days. In the
morning, Momo Gumeratne will make a formal complaint
about the behaviour of Christopher Bunce to her line manager,
Rod Task. Task will refer the complaint to Human Resources.
Momo will then be suspended on full pay pending an internal
inquiry. At the first meeting of the inquiry, which I will be
invited to attend, it will be publicly noted that Momo
Gumeratne is of previously impeccable character. It will be
silently noted that Chris Bunce is our leading performer, who
last year made ^10 million for the company. Quite soon, the
offence against Momo will be referred to as 'a bad business' or
simply 'that Bunce business'.

After three months at home -- enough time for her to start


312


feeling anxious and depressed - Momo will be called into the
office. A financial settlement will be offered. The Cheltenham
Lady in her will stand up straight and say she cannot be bought
off; all she wants is to see justice done. The inquiry panel will
be shocked: they too want justice to be done, it's just that the
nature of the evidence is -- how shall we say? -- problematic.
Casually, imperceptibly, it will be implied that Momo's career
in the City could be over. She is a young woman of exceptional
promise, but these things have a way of being misinterpreted.
No smoke without fire, all tremendously unfortunate. If news
of the pornographic computer images, say, were to get out to
the media . . .

Two days later, Momo Gumeratne will settle out of court
for an undisclosed sum. When she walks down the steps of
Edwin Morgan Forster for the last time, a woman reporter
from the TV news will poke a microphone in her face and ask
her to give details of what happened. Is it true that they called
her an Asian Babe and ran porno pictures of her? Lowering her
lovely head, Momo will decline to comment. Next day, four
newspapers will run a story on page 3. One headline reads:
asian babe in city porn pics storm. Momo's denial will
appear in the second-to-last paragraph. Soon after, she will
take a job abroad and pray to be forgotten. Bunce will hold on
to his job and the black mark against his character will be
erased by a steady tide of profits. And nothing will change.
That much is certain.

As I'm reaching for the light switch, I notice a new picture
stuck to the fridge under the Tinky Winky magnet. It's a
drawing of a woman with yellow hair; she is wearing a stripy
brown suit and her heels are as high as stilts. The glare from the
light means it's hard to make out the writing in pencil
underneath. I go up close. The artist is Emily and, with the help
of a teacher, she has written: 'My Mummy goes out to work,
but she thinks about me all day long.'

Did I really say that to her? Must have. Can't remember
when, but Em remembers absolutely everything. I heave open
the freezer and force my face into its arctic air. The impulse to


313


get in and keep walking is immense. I'm going in now; I may
be some time.

Back upstairs, I look in on Momo. Her lids are closed, but
the eyes beneath them flutter like moths. Dreaming, poor baby.
I'm turning the lamp off when the eyes open and she whispers,
'What are you thinking, Kate?'

'Oh, I was just thinking about what I said to you the day we
first met.'

'You said that I had to stop saying sorry.'

'Too damn right you do. And what else?'

She stares up at me with that trusting spaniel look I saw at the
final all those aeons ago. 'You said that compassion, although
expensive, is not necessarily a waste of money.'

'I didn't say that.'

'You did.'

'God, how appalling. I'm such a cow. What else did I
say?'

'You said that money can't tell what sex you are.'

'Exactly.'

'Exactly?' she echoes uncertainly.

'Where does it hurt them most, Momo? Where can we hurt
them most?'


All that night, I couldn't sleep. I kept creeping into Ben's room,
checking his breathing as I used to check Emily's when I first
brought her home from the hospital and I worried she would
never wake. Ben slept on and on, but there was nothing to be afraid of. He was 
sleeping like a baby.

Richard rang about two. He was in Brussels pitching for a
Euro grant for a Northern arts centre, and had only just got my
message. He asked me if I was OK and I said no. He said we
needed to talk and I said yes.

At 5.30, I rang Candy, who I knew was being woken early
these days by the baby kicking her in the ribs. Told her about
the pictures of Momo on the system. I had no idea what we
could do about it, but I thought that she might, with her
technical know-how and her background in Internet


314


companies. Between 5.50 and 6.30, she wrote a program that
would seek and destroy all files containing references to Momo
Gumeratne.

'It'll be hard tracking down any stuff that's gone out of the
building,' she said, 'but I can nix anything still held in the EMF
system.' We agreed that she should keep one copy of the
pictures for evidence.

At six, Momo came into the kitchen and held something up.
'I found this in my bed. Does it belong to anybody?'

I went across and hugged her. 'That's Roo. He's a member
of the family.'

I gave her a cup of tea to take back to bed, then I walked up
with her and went into Ben's room. Still fast asleep. I tucked
Roo next to his cheek. In a very short time one little boy was
going to be happier than Christmas.

Going into my own bedroom, I opened the wardrobe and
ran my hand along the rail until I got to my finest Armani
armour. A crow-black suit. From the rack beneath I chose a
pair of patent heels with snakeskin toes -- heels it was impossible
to walk in, but -walking wasn't really the point of them today.
As I got dressed, I went though all the resources I could draw
on, the forces I could muster. I wanted Richard to come home
and I knew now that I would do whatever it took to make that
happen, but first Mummy had to finish her work.


Must Remember
Destroy Bunce.


315


36 The Sting


it was generally agreed that the business plan for Power's
Biodegradable Nappy was an exceptional document. Over
thirty handsome pages of A4, it featured details of the target
market for the miracle new nappy and the projected growth
rate. There was an impressive rundown on the competition, a
review of the environmental advantages and a detailed implementation
plan. The figures were excellent without being
unduly optimistic. The CVs of the management team were
first-rate, particularly that of the inventor himself, Joseph R.
Power, who, it was noted, had enjoyed connections with the
Apollo space programme and subsequent lucrative spinoffs.
The patent for the biodegradable nappy was still pending, but
the patent application which described the product in such
crystalline detail left you in no doubt of its success. It seemed a
pity that only one person would get to see the document. The
target market for Power's Biodegradable Nappy was not a
billion leaky babies, but a Mr Christopher Bunce.

Bunce had just been made head of EMF's Venture Capital
unit. This was good news in two ways. First, it made it easier
to get him to take a huge punt on my dad's crappy nappy:
gambling on exciting new products before anyone else got to
them was part of the job. Second, Veronica Pick, the number
two on Venture Capital who had been expecting to get the top
job herself and was furious at having to make way for a novice
in the area, could be relied upon not to steer her new boss clear
of any minefields -- might, indeed, be persuaded to guide him
towards one with a friendly smile.


316


The Suckling Club, Friday, Noon

'OK, so let's go through this one more time.'

Candy is not even attempting to hide her scorn. 'Your dad,
a guy who can't remember the name of his own kids and has
never, to anyone's knowledge, seen their tushes, has invented a
diaper that's gonna change the face of world diaperdom, except
that we know the diaper doesn't work because you have tried
the prototype on your son Benjamin and when Benjamin took
a--'

'Candy, please.'

'All right, when Ben needed to go to the bathroom, the
diaper fell apart. So what we're gonna do is we're gonna sell
the diaper project to the new chief of our own Venture
Capital unit who, being an arrogant cocksucker and knowing
even less than your dad about the asses of little kids, will invest
thousands of dollars in the Great Diaper Adventure and
will then lose all that money because . . . Remind me of the
because, Kate.'

'Because my father's company is heavily in debt and the
money EMF invests will be claimed by his creditors and the
nappy company will immediately go into liquidation and
Bunce will lose his shirt, his socks and his poxy boxers and be
exposed for the appalling chancer he is. Do you have any
problem with the plan, Candy?'

'No, it sounds great.' She sniffs the air as though testing a
new perfume. 'I just need to hear from you how we are gonna
keep our jobs when I'm about to become a single mom and,
until Slow Richard returns to the Reddy ranch, you are a de
facto single mom.'

'Candy, there's a principle at stake here.'

She looks momentarily alarmed. 'Oh, I get it. It's our old
friend Oates.'

'Who?'

'The snow man. The one you told Rod about? Pardon me,
gentlemen, I'm goin' out now, I may be some fucking time.
That's not a plot, Katie, that's a noble act of meaningless self
sacrifice. Very British, but you know in the States we have this


317


really weird thing where we like the good guys to be alive at
the end of the movie.'

'Not all self-sacrifice is meaningless, Candy.'

My friend detonates her big laugh and everyone in the club
turns to stare at the crazy pregnant woman. 'Whoa,' she says.
'You're beautiful when you're ethical.'

'Look, there will be nothing to link you to the nappy deal, I
promise.'

'So all roads will lead to Reddy? You know that after this no
one's gonna employ you ever again, Kate. Nobody. You're not
gonna get hired to change the fucking fax paper.'

With this dire warning, Candy reaches across, takes my hand
and guides it on to the swell of her bump. Through the drum
taut skin, I feel the unmistakable jab of a heel. This is the first
time she has acknowledged the baby as something permanent,
not disposable, and I know better than to say anything mushy.

'Is it kicking a lot?'

'Uhuh. When I'm taking a bath, you can see her going crazy
in there. It's like some goddam dolphin show.'

'It's not necessarily a girl, Cand.'

'Hey, I'm a girl, she's a girl, OK?' Candy clocks my smile and
quickly adds: 'Course, I can still get her adopted.'

'Of course.'


I seem to recall it was Candy's idea that seven women meeting
in secret in the City would look less conspicuous in a lap
dancing club than in, say, a restaurant where people were
wearing clothes. Sitting here, I wish I had a Polaroid camera to
capture the expressions on the faces of my friends as they enter
the venue. In the case of Momo, good breeding immediately
conquers shock and she sweetly enquires of the blonde at the
desk, 'Oh, how long have you been open?'

We are not the only women in the Suckling Club, a gentlemen's
entertainment emporium located within easy reach of
the world's premier financial district, but we are the only ones
with unexposed breasts. Everyone who has turned up this
lunchtime has important work to do. I already knew that Chris


318


Bunce was greedy and ambitious enough to plough some
money into a project without running it by anyone on his team: why would he 
want to share the credit if he could take it
all himself?

But I also knew that we would have to do a highly
professional job on the biodegradable nappy to get him to buy
it. Dad's drawing of a winged pig had to be upgraded: there
needed to be a brochure, knowledge of the market and production,
plus input from a top commercial lawyer. When I called
Debra, I was scared she would say no -- our string of cancelled
lunches over the past year had stretched our friendship to
twanging point -- but she didn't need to be asked twice.
Without ever having met or heard of Chris Bunce, Deb knew
instantly what manner of man he was and what we had to do
to him.

So, our merry band consists of Candy, me, Debra and
Momo, and Judith and Caroline from my old Mother and Baby
group. We're still waiting for Alice. (It was vital for Alice,
who's a TV producer, to help us, but I didn't hear back from
her, so I assumed she wanted no part in it. Luckily, she phoned
this morning. Said she'd been away filming, and she'd be
delighted to join us, although she'd be late.)

A patent agent before becoming a full-time mum, Judith has
written the patent application for the nappy and made it so
convincing I want to order a truckload for Ben immediately. In
her cool marshalling of language and science, I see a side to
Judith I have never known. Caroline, the graphic designer, has
come up with a brochure which stresses the nappy's eco
friendliness and features an irresistible picture of her own baby,
Otto, sitting on a potty made of lettuce leaves.

Debra tells me that EMF will have no comeback against my
father. 'Look, this isn't fraud. It's naughty, but it's not illegal.
It's a clear case of caveat emptor-- if the buyer doesn't take care
over what he's buying, then that's his lookout.'

Deb will be acting as my dad's lawyer during the meeting he
will need to have with Chris Bunce; we have arranged for it to
be held in a suite at the Savoy.


319


'You have no idea how brilliant I am at this,' Deb exclaims
as she takes me through the documentation. 'What are we
going to call ourselves: the Seven Deadly Sisters?'

'Deb, this is serious.'

'I know, but I haven't had so much fun since Enid Blyton.
God, Kate, I've missed fun, haven't you?'

Momo has been given the task of researching the global
nappy market. In a few short days she has become an incredible
bore on urine dispersal and olfactory containment. Tin sorry,
Kate, but are you aware of how many insults the average nappy
can sustain?'

'I can get that stuff at home, thank you.'

My assistant looks anxious: 'It won't work, will it?'

The plan?'

'No, the nappy.'

'Of course it won't.'

'How can you be sure, Kate? If Bunce made a killing, I
couldn't bear it.'

'Well, my dad designed it, so it's an odds-on catastrophe.
Plus, I took a prototype home and put it on Ben.'

'And?'

'It's so biodegradable it falls apart at the first poo.'

Alice arrives late at the club from a meeting with the BBC at
White City. Over the throbbing music, she points at the girls
on stage and mouths: 'Are we auditioning?

Alice's role begins after Bunce has invested in the nappy. It's
a pincer movement of the kind deployed by generals in all
those battles I used to know the names of: attack him on one
flank and then cut off his route of escape. Evidence that Bunce
has recklessly thrown away money on a duff product won't be
enough on its own to get Edwin Morgan Forster to sack him;
if he can say embarrassing things in an interview which Alice
records and gets into print, then he'll become a liability with
the clients and after that he's hanging from a meat hook in
Smithfield.

Shouting over the bass track, Alice tells us she has already
called Bunce and invited him to appear in a major BBC2 series


320


called 'MoneyMakers' - the City made sexy for the person on
the sofa.

'How did he take it?' asks Momo, who is more nervous than
anyone.

Alice grins. 'He practically came down the phone. I don't
think I'll have any trouble persuading him to talk.'

I try to call the meeting to order, but I am competing with
'Mamma Mia' on the speakers. Instead, I hand round a photocopy
of what everyone needs to know, plus a picture of Chris
Bunce which Candy has lifted from the EMF website. I excuse
myself and head for the ladies' room.

In the corner booth at the back, next to the exit, is a dark
haired figure I vaguely recognise. A little closer and I know
exactly who it is.

'Jeremy! Jeremy Browning!' I greet my client with a warmth
and volume that will sing in his soul for ever.

'Well, Jeremy, fancy seeing you here,' I enthuse. 'And this
must be ... it's Annabel, isn't it?'

The girl sitting on my client's left thigh gives a look that is
smirk, sneer and smile combined. It says that unfortunately she
is not Mrs Browning, but wouldn't say no if offered the
chance.

I extend a friendly hand towards the girl, but it is Jeremy who
grasps it eagerly. 'Gosh, Kate,' he says, 'I didn't expect to see
you here.'

'Well, I'm doing some research into expanding my leisure
portfolio. Maybe you can give me some pointers? This sector is
new to me. Fascinating, isn't it? Well, must go, lovely to meet
you . . . ?'

'ChereUe.'

'Lovely to meet you, Cherelle. Look after him for me.'
I walk away, confident that I have at least one man in my
power for all eternity. When I get back to the table, Candy is
busy pointing out which of the girls on stage she believes to
have had a boob job, and how successful it has been.

'Christ, look at the poor kid with the red hair. I thought they
were gonna remove all nuclear weapons from British soil.'


321


'You should have seen the state of my boobs when I had
twins,' says Judith, who is on her third Mai Tai.

I watch in horror as the dancer in question leaves the stage
and advances upon us, cupping her breasts in the way a dog
breeder holds up puppies for inspection.

'Now, that's what I call juggling,' shouts Alice. 'The work
life balance - what d'you reckon, Kate?'

'Her pelvic floor must be in good shape,' says Caroline,
pointing to another dancer, who is making Mr Whippy
motions as though trying to give birth to an ice cream.

'What's the pelvic floor?' ask Candy and Momo together.

When I explain, Candy, who thinks ante-natal classes are all run by Communists, 
doesn't hide her disgust. 'But the pelvic
thingy goes back into place after the birth, right?'

And the dance floor shudders, and the mothers around the
table laugh and laugh and the men in the club look uncomfortable
in the way that only women's laughter can make them
uncomfortable.

I raise my glass. 'Screw our courage to the sticking place and
we'll not fail!'

'Die Hard 2?' asks Momo.

'No, Lady Macbeth.' What are they teaching them these
days?


322


37 Lunch with Robin


when robin cooper-clark is ill at ease, he looks like
a man trying to arrest himself, one arm clasped tight
around his own chest, the other hooked around his neck. This
is how uncomfortable he looks on our walk to Sweetings, three
days after the meeting in the Suckling Club. The restaurant is
quite a distance from the office, but Robin is absolutely
insistent that we eat there so, as he marches out with his seven
league stride, I scurry along, taking three paces to his one.

Sweetings is a City institution. A fish place that wants to look
like a fishmongers, lots of cheery shouting, bustle, marble slabs
- a Billingsgate for the moneyed classes. There are counters at
the front where people can sit on high stools and pick at crab
and at the back there is a room with long tables like a school
canteen. If privilege is another country, then Sweetings is its
corner cafe.

Robin and I are seated at the far end of one of the long
communal tables.

'Bad business, this Bunce thing,' he mutters, studying the
menu.

'Mmm.'

'Momo Gumeratne seems a good thing.'

'She's terrific.'

'And Bunce?'

'Toxic.'

'I see. Now, what are we going to have?' The waiter stands
there, pen at the ready, and for the first time I notice what a
mess Robin is: the right wing of his shirt collar is furrowed like
a brow and there are commas of shaving foam in his ears. Jill
would never have let him out of the house looking like that.


323


'Ah, yes. I think something ferocious with teeth for the lady
and an endangered species for me. Turtle soup, perhaps, or is it
cod that's been fished to death by the bloody Spaniards? What
d'you reckon, Kate?'

I'm still laughing when Robin says, 'Kate, I'm getting
married again,' and it's as though the noise in the room is
turned off at the tap. The diners around me mouth mutely like
the fish they're about to consume.

And suddenly I know why he's brought me here, to this
restaurant, to this room. It's a place where you can't shout in
anger or cry out in pain: a place indeed for Sweeting, for bonhomie, for a mild 
bollocking at worst, a man's kind of place.
How many souls have been grilled at these tables with a smile,
how many politely encouraged to step down or step aside over
a surprisingly decent glass of Chablis? Now I feel as though it's
Jill Cooper-Clark who's been let go and I who have to do the
decent thing. Look interested, pleased even, instead of
upending the table and leaving the men gaping with their
napkins and their bones. Only six months dead.

I become aware that Robin has started to tell me about
someone called Sally. Lovely, incredibly kind, used to boys got
two of her own. Not quite Jill's speed, but then who is?
Helpless shrug. And she has so many qualities, this Sally, and
the boys need - well, Alex he's just ten - he still needs a
mother.

'And you,' I say, finding some words in the dry vault of my
mouth, 'you need her?'

'Mmmh. I need a woman, yes, Kate. We're not much good
on our own, you know. I can see how you might find that' -- he waves away the 
preferred tartare sauce 'What?'


'Feeble, I suppose.' He lowers his glass and pinches the
bridge of his nose. 'No one can ever replace her, if that's what
you're thinking.'

Then why replace her, if she's irreplaceable? That's what I'm
thinking. I feel caved in with sadness, as I did that day at Jill's
funeral. I always knew where to find Robin, he always seemed


324


so rooted and so reliable; looking at him now across the table,
it's a shock to see a lost boy. Men without wives might as well
be men without mothers; they are more orphans than
widowers. Men without wives, they lose their spines, their
ability to walk tall in the world, even to wipe the shaving foam
from their ears. Men need women more than women need
men; isn't that the untold secret of the world?

'I'm so glad for you,' I say. 'Jill would be really pleased. I
know she couldn't bear the idea of you not managing.'

Robin nods, grateful to get the news out of the way, glad to
pull up the drawbridge once more. With the plates cleared
away, we turn to the menu again and study it like an exam
paper. 'How about a treacle tart with two spoons?' says Robin.
'Have you heard they're looking for a new name for spotted
dick, Kate?'

'Chris Bunce.'

'Sorry?'

'Spotted dick. Bunce is the venereal disease champion of the
office. Ask any of the secretaries.'

Robin dabs his mouth with his napkin. 'It makes you very
angry, doesn't it?'

'Yes, it does.'

For a moment, I consider telling him about the plan. But as
my superior he would be obliged to veto it and as my friend
and mentor he would probably do the same. Instead I say, 'I
don't think someone should be allowed to go on being a shit
because it's not convenient to stop him.'

Robin semaphores to the waiter for the bill. 'Jill always said
that you can get a man to do anything so long as he doesn't
notice he's being made to do it.'

'Did she do that to you?'

'I never noticed.'


3.13 pm: I leave Robin at the corner of Cheapside. Next, I
call Guy on the mobile and tell him I won't be back this afternoon:
I have an urgent appointment with conkers.
'Conquers?'


325


'It's a leisure group I'm thinking of investing heavily in.
Need to check out the consumer angle.'

When I get home, the kids are so startled to see me they
don't react at first. I tell Paula to take the rest of the day off and
I get Emily and Ben into their coats and we walk to the park.
Or at least Em and I do: Ben refuses to walk anywhere, preferring
to run until he falls over. It's been an Indian summer and
the leaves, still green in many cases and stippled with apricot,
look mildly surprised to find themselves on the ground. We
spend - I honestly don't know how long we spend - kicking
around in them.

Ben likes rushing into the leaves just for the rustle, for the
pleasure of the noise. Emily loves to tell him off while clearly
finding him adorable. The deal between my girl and boy is that
he can be naughty so she can enjoy being good. Watching them
screech after each other, I wonder if that isn't a variation on the
game that boys and girls have always played.

Further along the path, we find the conkers. Some of the
spiky cases have split on impact and we prise the glowing nuts
from their pithy hollow.

'You can make the conkers harder,' I say to Em.

'How?'

'I don't know exactly, we'll have to ask Daddy.' Damn,
didn't mean to mention him.

Emily looks up in bright expectation. 'Mummy, when will
Daddy come back to live in our house?'

'Daddy,' chirps Ben, 'Daddy.'


Back at the house, I put Ben down for his nap and let Em
choose a video while I start to prepare a bolognese sauce for
dinner. I can't find the garlic press, and where is the grater? I
suggest watching Sleeping Beauty, which was always the great
sedative "when Em was little, but I am way out of date. My
daughter is talking about something with a warrior princess I
have never heard of.

'What's warrior, Mum?'

'A warrior is a brave fighter.'


326


'Do you know what Harry Potter's, about?'

'No, I don't.'

'Harry Potters about braveness and witches.'

'That sounds good. Have you decided what "we're
watching?'

'Mary Poppins.'

'Again?'

'Oh please, Mu-um.'

When I was Emily's age, we saw a film or two a year, one at
Christmas, one in the long summer holiday. For my children,
the moving image will be the main vehicle of their memories.

'She's a suffer jet.'

'Who?'

'Jane and Michael's mummy is a suffer jet.'

I'd forgotten that Mrs Banks was a suffragette. It's not the bit
of the film you remember. I put the sauce on low, then go over
and curl up on the sofa with Em. And there she is on screen,
the lovely daffy Glynis Johns, back from a rally and marching
up and down the great white house singing: 'Our daughters'
daughters will adore us, And they'll sing in grateful chorus,
Well done! Well done, Sister Suffragette!'

'What's a suffer jet?' I knew that was coming.

'Suffragettes were women, Em, who a hundred years ago
went out and marched in London and protested and tied themselves
to railings so that they could persuade people that women
should be allowed to vote.'

She sinks back on to me, nestling her head in under my
breasts. It's only when Mary and Bert and the kids have jumped
into the chalk picture on the pavement that she says: 'Why
didn't women be allowed to vote, Mum?'

Oh, where is that Fairy Godmother of explanations when
you need her? 'Because back then, in the olden days, women
and men were -- well, girls stayed at home and people thought
they were less important than boys.'

My daughter gives me a look of furious astonishment. 'That's
silly.'

We lie back together. Em knows every song; she even


327


breathes when the actors breathe. Watching it as an adult, Mary
Poppins looks so different. I had forgotten that Mrs Banks, who
wants to make the world a better place for women, is dizzily
oblivious to her own children. That Jane and Michael are sad
and rebellious until the nanny shows up and brings consistency
and excitement into their lives. Mr Banks, meanwhile, works
too hard -- his name alone tells you that this man is his job -- and
is a stranger to his children and his wife, until he gets sacked and
is confronted in his own drawing room by Bert the chimney
sweep, who warns him in song:


You've got to grind grind grind at that grindstone,

Though childhood slips like sand through a sieve,

And all too soon they've up and grown,

And then they've flown,

And it's too late for you to give . . .Just a . . .


'. . . spoonful of sugar to help the medicine go down.'

Emily and I join in, our voices twining round each other in
a silvery helix. Suddenly, I have the most disturbing feeling that
the film is talking to me and it's then that Emily announces:
'When I have babies, Mummy, I'm going to look after them
myself till they're a adult. No nannies.'

Has she made me watch Mary Poppins so that she can say that?
Is it her way of telling me? I search her face, but there is no sign of 
calculation; she doesn't appear to be watching for a reaction.

'Maaa-aaaa.' The baby monitor crackles into life. Ben must
be waking up. Before I go upstairs, I sit Em on my knee.

'I thought you and I could go on a special outing together
one day, would you like that?'

She wrinkles her nose the way Momo does when she's
excited. 'Where?'

'The Egg Pie Snake Building.

'Where?'

'The Egg Pie Snake Building. Do you remember that's what
you called the Empire State Building?'

'I didn't.'

'Yes you did, love.'


328


'Mu-mmy,' says Emily, dragging out my title with
maximum scorn, 'that's a baby way of talking. I'm not a baby
any more.'

'No, darling, you're not.'

It goes so quickly, doesn't it? One day they're saying all those
funny little things you promise yourself you'll \vrite down and
never do, and then they're talking like some streetwise kid or,
even worse, they're talking just like you. I will my children to
grow up more quickly and I mourn every minute I have missed
of their infancy.

After I have fed them and bathed them and dried their hair
and read Owl Babies and gone to fetch her a glass of water, I
finally come downstairs and sit by myself in the dark and think
of all the irretrievable time.


From: Kate Reddy

To: Debra Richardson

This afternoon was spent in Illicit Mummy Time. The most

profitable few hours of the financial year to date. How much

per hour do you think I can bill clients for kicking leaves and

watching Mary Poppins?

Sneaking time with the kids feels like what an affair must feel

like: the same lies to get away for the tryst, the same burst of

fulfilment and, of course, the guilt.

Think I have forgotten how to waste time and I need the kids

to remind me how to do it.

Don't hate me if I stop work, will you? I know we said how we

all need to keep going to prove it can be done. It's just that I

used to think that maybe my job was killing me and now I'm

scared I died and I didn't notice.

Our daughters' daughters will adore us and they'll sing in

grateful chorus, well done, well done, well done, sister

suffragette!

all my love K xxxxxxxxxxxxx


329


38 Tire Waterfall


7.54 am: As I wait for the knock at the door, I realise how
much I have been looking forward to telling Winston about the
plan. Finally, here is something I can impress Pegasus with;
proof that I am not just some blinkered lackey of the capitalist
system. But after I've blurted out all the stuff about Dad's nappy
and Alice's interview with Bunce, Winston doesn't say anything
except a curt, 'You gotta remember you got two babies
to feed.'

Five minutes later, though, when we're stuck in our usual
jam, he asks me if I know the story of Scipio. I shake my head.

'OK, so there's this Roman general Scipio he had a dream.
And in the dream he found a village which was built "right next
to this big waterfall. The noise from the waterfall, it was so
bad you had to shout to make yourself heard. "How do you
live with that sound all day?" Scipio asked the head of the
village over the roaring of this water. "What sound?" the old
guy said.'

Pegasus shudders forward a couple of inches and when
Winston hits the brake there is a moan like a cow dying. 'And
the moral of the story, please, sir?'

In the mirror, I see his grin, sly and full of relish. 'Well, it's
like I think we all of us have this background noise and we're
so used to it we can't hear it. But if you move far enough away
you can hear again and you think, Jesus, that waterfall "was
making one hell of a racket. How did I live with that noise?'

'Are you saying I have a waterfall, Winston?'

He lets out that deep grainy laugh that I love. 'Kate, you got
Niagara fucking Falls.'

'Do you mind if I ask you a personal question, Winston?'


330


As he shakes his head, the cab is filled with that gold dust
once more. 'Am I your main client?'

'You the only one.'

'I see. And how many drivers does Pegasus Cars have? Let
me guess. You the only one?'

'Yah. Gonna finish cabbing soon, though. Got my exams to
do.'

'Mechanical engineering?'

'Philosophy.'

'So, you're by way of being my chauffeur, my very own
winged horse?'

He honks the horn in joyous acknowledgement that this is
so.

'Did you know that chauffeurs are tax deductible and
childcare isn't, Winston?'

Another honk on the horn startles a group of suits on the
pavement; they scatter like pigeons. 'It's a crazy fucking world
out there, man.'

'No, it's a crazy fucking man's world out there. Have you got
change?'

As I'm walking away from the cab, I'm just thinking how
much I'm going to miss him when I hear a voice shout after
me. 'Hey, you need a getaway car, lady?'


10.08 am: A call from Reception. They says there's a man
called Abelhammer waiting for me and my heart actually tries
to punch a hole through my chest wall. When I get downstairs,
he is standing there with a large grin and two pairs of skates.

I'm shaking my head as I move across the floor towards him.
'No. I can't skate.'

'Yeah, but I can. Enough for the both of us.'

'Absolutely not.'

Later, when we are making our fourth circuit of the rink,
Jack says, 'All you have to do is lean on me, Kate, is that so
hard?'

'Yes. It's hard.'

'Jesus, woman. If you just lean on me here: remember your


331


John Donne, think of us as a pair of compasses. I'm holding still
and you're sweeping round me, OK? You're not gonna fall,
I've got you. Just let go.'

So I just let go. We skated for an hour and I'm not sure what
we wrote on the ice. You'd have to be a bird -- one of my
pigeons -- or sitting high up in my boss's office to see what we
wrote that day. Love or Goodbye or both.

He wanted to buy me a hot chocolate, but I said I had to go.

The smile never faltered. 'Must be an important date?'

'Very. A man I used to know.'


it's surprising how quickly you can forget how to hold
someone, even your husband. Maybe especially your
husband. It takes a certain absence from touching to make you
fully appreciate the geometry of the hug: the precise angle of
your head in relation to his. Should it be roosted in under the
neck, as pigeons do, or nose pressed to his chest? And your
hands - cupped in the small of his back or palms laid flat along
the flanges of his thighs? When Richard and I met that lunchtime
outside Starbucks, we both meant to deliver a peck on the
cheek, but it felt too silly, the kind of kiss you could only give
to an aunt, so we splayed awkwardly into the hug. I felt as
gauche, as painfully observed, as when my dad first took me
shuffling round the floor at a dinner-dance. Richard's body
shocked me by being a body: his hair and its smell, the bulk of
shoulder under his jumper. The hug wasn't that dry click of
bones you get holding someone when the passion has drained
away. It was more like a shadow-dance: I still wanted him and
I think he wanted me, but we hadn't touched in a very long
time.

'Hey, you're glowing,' Rich says.

'I've been skating.'

'Ice skating? On a work morning?'

'Sort of client liaison. A new approach.'


Rich and I have arranged a meeting to talk things over. We


332


have seen each other almost every day since he left. As he
promised, he has collected Em from school and then often
stayed to have tea with both children. Starbucks feels like the
right sort of place to negotiate a peace, a modern No Man's
Land, one of those businesses which dresses itself up to look like
the home that we're all too busy to go to. It's surprisingly quiet
in here, but the meeting has all the anxieties of a first date -- will
he, won't he? -- only now they're attached to divorce. Won't
he, will he?

We find a couple of big squashy velvet chairs in a corner and
Rich goes to get the drinks. I have requested a skinny latte; he
comes back with the hot chocolate I want and need.

The small talk feels unbearably small: I am impatient to get
on to the big talk, so it can be over, one way or another.

'How's work, Kate?'

'Oh fine. Actually, I may soon be leaving my job. Or rather
my job may soon be leaving me.'

Rich shakes his head and smiles. 'They'd never fire you.'

'Oh, under certain circumstances they might.'

He gives me that man-in-the-white-coat look. 'We're not
talking about meaningless self-sacrifice, Mrs Shattock, are we
by any chance?'

'Why do you ask that?'

'Just that I'm old enough to remember your Cyclists Against
the Bomb phase.'

'I've given the firm everything, Rich. Time that belonged to
you and the children.'

'And to you, Kate.'

Once I could read his face like a book, now the book has
been translated into another language. 'I thought you'd
approve, Rich. Breaking away from the system.' He looks
younger since he left me. 'Your mother thinks I've let myself


g°-'

'My mother thinks Grace Kelly let herself go.' We both

laugh and for a moment Starbucks is filled with the sound of
Us.
I start to tell Rich about the story Winston told me.


333


'Who's Winston?'

'He's the one from Pegasus Cars, but it turns out he's a
philosopher.'

'A philosopher driving a minicab, that sounds safe.'

'No, he's fantastic, really he is. Anyway, Winston told me the
story about this general who tound a tribe by a waterfall and the
head of the tribe--'

'Cicero.'

'No . . .'

'Cicero, it's by Cicero.' My husband breaks a cookie in half
and hands one piece to me.

'Let me guess. Someone dead for a long time that I've never
heard of because I went to a crap comprehensive, but who
forms a vital part of every civilised person's education?'

'I love you.'

'So, you see, I was thinking of moving away from the
waterfall to see if I could hear better.'

'Kate?'

He pushes his right hand across the table so it's near mine.
The hands lie next to each other as if waiting for a child to draw
round them. 'There's nothing left to love, Rich, I'm all
hollowed out. Kate doesn't live here any more.'

The hand is on mine now. 'You -were saying about moving
away from the waterfall?'

'I thought if I, if we moved away from the waterfall we could
hear again and then we could decide if--'

'If it was the noise that stopped us hearing or the fact that we
didn't have anything to say to each other any more?'

Do you know those moments - the sheer merciful relief of
there being someone in the world who knows what you're
thinking as you think it? I nod my grateful acknowledgement.
'My name is Kate Reddy and I am a workaholic. Isn't that what
they have to say at those meetings?'

'I didn't say you were a workaholic.'

'Why not? It's true, isn't it? I can't "give up" work. That
makes me an addict, doesn't it?'

'We need to buy ourselves some time, that's all.'


334


'Rich, do you remember when Em tried to save Sleeping
Beauty? I keep thinking about it.'

He grins. One of the best things about having children is that
it enables you to have the same loving memories as another
person: you can summon the same past. Two flashbacks with
but a single image: is that as good as two hearts that beat as one?

'Daft kid. She was so upset that she couldn't reach that stupid
princess, wasn't she?' Rich says, with that exasperated pride Em
provokes in us.

'She'd really like you to come home.'

'And you, how about you, Kate?'

The option to say something proud and defiant hangs there
waiting to be picked like a ripe fruit. I leave it hanging and say,
'I'd like to come home too.'


Sleeping Beauty was always Emily's favourite, the first video she
really noticed. When she was two years old she became
obsessed with it, standing in front of the TV and shouting,
'Wind it, wind it!'

She always shouted at that part where Aurora, with her
stupefied doll face, makes her way up the long staircase to the
attic pursued by a raven's shadow and a bad fairy cackle. For a
long time, Richard and I couldn't work out what was making
Emily so furious, then it clicked. She wanted us to rewind the
tape so that the Princess wouldn't make it to the attic, so she
never would prick her finger on the old -woman's spindle.

One day, Emily actually tried to climb inside the TV set: I
found her standing on a chair attempting to insert her red
shoed foot through the screen. I believe she had plans to grab
the hapless Princess and stop her meeting her fate. We had a
long talk - well, I talked and she listened - about how you had
to let things like that happen, because even when you got to a
scary bit the story knew where it -was heading, and it couldn't
be stopped no matter how much you wanted it to be. And the
good thing was you knew it would turn out happily in the end.

But she shook her head sadly and said, 'No. Wind it,
Mummy, wind it!' Soon after, my daughter transferred her


335


allegiance to Barney the Dinosaur, which featured no deeds of  M

darkness that required her personal intervention.

Adults want to rewind life, too. It's just that along the way
we lose the capacity to shout it out loud. Wind it, wind it.


336


39 Endgame


A


n article from the November issue of Inside Finance:




Edwin Morgan Forster, one of the City's oldest financial
institutions, triumphed at the fifth annual Equality Now awards on
Tuesday night, winning the category for Most Improved Company
for its commitment to diversity.

The firm scored highly in an annual benchmarking survey conducted
by Equality Yes!, an organisation committed to gender parity
whose members include 81% of the FTSE 100 companies.

The judges were particularly impressed by the volume of business
generated by Katharine Reddy, EMF's youngest female manager,
and Momo Gumeratne, a 24-year-old Sri Lankan graduate of the
London School of Economics. Unfortunately, the two women were
unable to attend the ceremony, but the award was collected by Rod
Task, EMF Head of Marketing. In his acceptance speech, Task
said: 'There is a good deal of evidence that mixed-gender teams are
critical to effective team functioning. EMF is at the forefront of
bringing women into major roles in the financial community.'

Striking a less positive note on the evening, was Catherine
Mulroyd, chair of Women Mean Business. 'These awards are not
telling the whole story,' said Mulroyd. 'It's hard enough to reach a
position of real influence as a woman in the Square Mile without
wrecking your career by opening your mouth to criticise the culture.
Equality for women remains a marginal issue for most City firms. It
seems pointless for banks to spend vast sums on training female
recruits, only to lose them because they do not have flexitime or any
of the things that could keep mothers on board.'

Asked if the old boy culture was a thing of the past, Task pointed


337


out that he was from Australia and was therefore very much part of
the new boy network: 'Tlie girls have done just great this year and
I'm proud of them.'


my father gave the performance of his life during the
presentation to Chris Bunce of the biodegradable nappy.
Debra, who was present throughout in her capacity as legal
adviser, told me that Dad was not only sober but clearly relished
the part of maverick inventor. His master-stroke, Deb said,
came when Bunce offered to write a cheque there and then and
Joe, who had spent a lifetime trying to wheedle cheques out of
people, said that he and his lawyer would be meeting a number
of interested parties over the coming days, but, naturally, they
would keep EMF informed.

I had explained to Dad that I thought I had found some
venture capital for his invention, but it would require him to
pretend to be someone else and to be rather creative with the
truth. In almost any other father-daughter relationship, this
would have been a bizarre exchange, but for us it felt like the
natural culmination of years of pretence, an admission that
forgery is woven into the Reddy DNA along with blue eyes
and a facility -with numbers.

'He's a brilliant guy, your dad,' said Winston, who acted as
chauffeur for the nappy entrepreneur, in a black BMW with
tinted windows that he had borrowed from a man he described
as his uncle. 'Joe's a really great tipper.'

'Yes, with my money.'

Three days later, Bunce signed over the cash. Swaggering in
from lunch that afternoon, he told his deputy, Veronica Pick,
that she should pay attention to his amazing coup: this was
where men scored over women, acting decisively, scenting a
great opportunity and not getting bogged down in the fine
print.

'Oh, you did your due diligence, did you?' asked Veronica
sweetly.

'What d'you mean?' said Bunce.


338


'Due diligence,' said Veronica. 'You know, checking the
directors' credentials, sussing out plant and production viability,
veracity of bank references . . . But I'm sure I don't need to tell
you about any of that.'

'If I need your advice I'll ask for it,' said Bunce.

Nor could he resist gloating to me the next morning as we
gathered in the conference room, one hand massaging his
manhood as though it were Aladdin's lamp. 'Found this
brilliant new nappy product, Kate. Gonna make us a shitload of
money -- geddit? Shitload! Just your kind of thing, Mum, pity
I got there first.'

I bestowed upon him my most understanding maternal
smile.

The money Bunce invested was enough to cover the
business's debts and therefore to pay off my father's creditors.
No sooner had it landed in JR. Powers's account than it was
gone. As I had predicted, neither that nor Memo's formal
complaint of sexual harassment was quite sufficient to sink
Bunce for good at EMF.

That was taken care of a few days later when an interview
that Edwin Morgan Forster's Head of Venture Capital had
given to the investigative TV journalist Alice Lloyd appeared in
a tabloid newspaper under the headline: porn again! (how

CITY'S MR BIG KEEPS IT UP).

Alice had taken Bunce to a favourite media haunt in Soho.
After ingesting quantities of drugs legal and illegal, he became
very forthcoming and the sighting of a young soap star across
the room sent him over the edge. 'I'd like to have her on my
website,' he told Alice. 'Actually, I'd like to have her anywhere
she likes it.'

Boasting about his ability to pick winners, Bunce cited a
recent investment in a certain biodegradable nappy which he
reckoned was 'gonna be bigger than fucking Viagra'.

The City can always act to neutralise bad smells within the
Square Mile, but when the stench reaches beyond, to the
sensitive nostrils of clients and opinion-formers, then retribution
is swift and merciless.


339


The morning after the article appeared, Candy and I stood
and watched as Chris Bunce was called into Robin Cooper
Clark's office, escorted by two security guards to his desk,
\vhich he was given three minutes to clear, and then finally
marched out of the building.

'Anybody got that falconer's number?' shouted Candy.
'There's a rat in the street.'

In the ladies' washroom a few minutes later, I found Morno
Gumeratne crying, her face buried in the roller-towel. 'Happy
crying,' she insisted between hiccups.

And me? I was glad he "was gone, of course. But without
noticing it, I had started to find Bunce more sad than bad.


At lunchtime, Momo and I took a cab to Bond Street. I told
her it was important, work-related business, which it was.

My assistant was puzzled. 'What are we doing in a shoe shop,
Kate?'

'Well, we're looking for a glass slipper that can take the
highest possible pressure per square millimetre and doesn't fall
off at midnight. Failing that, we'll take these, and these, oh, and
those brown boots are great. Excuse me, do you have these in
a four?'

'Are your feet size 4?' asks Momo dubiously.

'No, yours are.'

'But I can't possibly.'

Twenty minutes later, we were standing at the cash desk
with four boxes. Faced with the choice between the tan kitten
heels and the navy slingbacks, we chose both. And then we
took the black stilettos because they were too beautiful not to
own and the toffee boots, which were a total bargain.

'I love the black ones,' she says, 'but I can't actually walk in
them.'

'Walking isn't really the point, Momo. Walking tall is the
point. And if the worst comes to the worst you can always use
one of the heels to puncture Guy's carotid artery.'

The smile vanishes: 'Where will you be?'

'I'm going away for a while.'


340


'No,' she says, 'I don't want a goodbye present.'

'You're going to be fine.'

'How do you know?'

'Hey, who trained you? . . . Anyway, you've stopped saying
sorry, so I know you're ready.'

'No,' says Momo. And she looks at me sideways. 'Only one
of us can ever be Reddy, Kate.' Then she puts a hand on my
shoulder and kisses me quickly on the cheek.

On the way back in the taxi, a mountain range of shoes at
our feet, she asked me why I was leaving and I lied. Told her I
needed to move to be nearer my mother, who was ill. Some
things you can't say even to the women you love. Even to
yourself.


Reasons to Give up Work
I/ Because I have got two lives and I don't have time to enjoy

either of them.

21 Because 24 hours are not enough.
3 / Because my children will be young for only a short time.
41 Because one day I caught my husband looking at me the way

my mother used to look at my father.
51 Became becoming a man is a waste of a woman.
61 Because I am too tired to think of another because.


the next morning, before I resigned, I had a bit of
tidying up to do. The pigeon family was long gone -- the
two chicks finally flew the nest when spring was easing into
summer -- but the books that had hidden mother and babies
from the City hawk were still in place. This time, I didn't risk
the ledge. I called Gerald up from security to give me a hand
forcing open the window. The books had all survived quite
well, except The Ten Natural Laws of Successful Time and Life
Management: Proven Strategies for Increased Productivity and Inner
Peace. It looked like the floor of a cave, with little stalagmites of
pigeon shit obscuring its uplifting cover slogans.

When I went into Rod's office, I found him sitting at his


341


desk behind the Equality Now! trophy: a set of scales with a
tiny bronze female figure in one of the pans. In the other, Rod
had put a handful of jelly beans.

He took the news of my leaving pretty badly. So badly, in
fact, that the noise travelled through the wall to Robin
Cooper-Clark next door.

'Katie's doing a fucking runner,' Rod announced as the
Head of Investment put his head round the door to establish the
source of the roar.

Robin called me into his office, as I knew he would.

'Is there anything I can do to persuade you to change your
mind, Kate?'

Only changing your world, I thought. 'No, really.'

'Maybe part-time?' he ventures with that ghost of a smile.

'I've seen what happens when a woman tries to go part-time,
Robin. They say she's having her days off. And then they cut
her out of the loop. And then they take her funds away from
her, one by one, because everyone knows that managing
money's a full-time job.'

'It is hard to manage money less than five days a week.'

I don't say anything. He tries another tack. 'If it's a question
of money?'

'No, it's time.'

'Ah. Sedfugit interea, fugit inreparabile tempus.'

'If that means you shouldn't waste fourteen hours a day
staring at a screen, then yes.'

Robin comes round to my side of the desk and stands there
with that awkwardness they call dignity. 'I'm going to miss
you, Kate.'

By way of reply, I give him a hug; perhaps the first ever
administered in the offices of Edwin Morgan Forster.

Then I go home, taking care to run across the grass.


342


40 The Court of Motherhood


she was not afraid of the court any more. They had
nothing left to throw at her. Nothing they could charge her
with that she hadn't accused herself of a thousand times. So
there she was, feeling quietly confident, and then they said the
name of the next witness and, suddenly, she knew it was all
over. Her time was up. As she swayed forward, feeling slightly
sick, her hands clutched the oak rim of the dock. Here was the
one person in the -world who knew her best.

'The court calls Mrs Jean Reddy.'

The defendant was upset at the sight of her mother entering
the witness box to give evidence against her, but there was
something about the older woman's appearance that she found
oddly cheering. It took her a few seconds to place it: Mum was
wearing red cashmere, the cardigan Kate had given her for
Christmas, over the Liberty's floral blouse she had bought her
for the birthday before last. The things kept for best were
getting their first outing.

'State your full name, please.'

'Jean Katharine Reddy.'

'And your relation to the defendant?'

'Kath - Katharine's my daughter. I'm her mother.'

The prosecuting counsel is not just on his feet, he is standing
on tiptoes with excitement. 'Mrs Reddy, your daughter is
accused of putting her job before the welfare of her children. Is
that an accurate description of the situation you have observed
at first hand?'

'No.'

'Speak up, please,' bellows the judge.

Mum tries again. Clearly nervous, she is tugging on her


343


charm bracelet. 'No, Katharine is devoted to her children and
she is very hard-working, always has been. Keen to get on and
better herself.'

'Yes, yes,' snaps the prosecution, 'but I understand she is not
presently living with her husband, Richard Shattock, who left
her after he said that she had "ceased to notice he was there"?'

The woman in the dock makes a low moaning sound. Kate's
mother doesn't know that Richard has left her.

But Jean Reddy takes the news like a boxer taking a blow
and fires magnificently back: 'No one's saying it's easy. Men
want looking after and it's hard for a woman when she's got her
work as well. Kath's got that many calls on her time, I've seen
her make herself ill with it sometimes.'

'Mrs Reddy, are you familiar with the name Jack
Abelhammer?' says the prosecution with a quick, tight smile.

'No. No!' The accused has climbed over the side of the dock
and is standing in front of the judge in an XXXL Gap T-shirt
with a dachsund motif. 'All right, what do you want me to say?
Guilty? Is that what you want me to say? There really are no
lengths you won't go to in order to prove I can't live my life,
are there?'

'Silence!' booms the judge. 'Mrs Shattock, one more interruption
and I will find you in contempt of court.'

'Well, that's fine, because I am in utter contempt of this court
and every man in it.' And then she starts to cry, cursing herself
as she does so for her weakness.

'Jean Reddy,' resumes the prosecution, but the witness is not
listening to him. She too has left her box. She moves towards
the weeping woman, whom she gathers into her arms. And
then the mother turns on the judge: 'And how about you, Your
Honour? Who'll be getting your tea tonight. It's not you, is it?'

Tor God's sake,' splutters the judge.

'People like you don't understand anything about women
like Katharine. And you think you can sit in judgment on her.
Shame on you,' says Jean Reddy quietly, but with the force that
generations of children had heard in her voice when she was
rebuking a playground bully.


344


41 Baby, It's You


on the day that Seymour Troy Stratton entered the
world, a coup in Qatar sent oil prices spiralling and
equities plunged around the globe, helped by an unprecedented
rate hike from the mighty Federal Reserve. In the UK alone,
_£20 billion was wiped off the value of the FTSE 100. A minor
earthquake outside Kyoto caused further shock waves in an
already shaken global environment. None of this had an
adverse effect on mother and baby, who dozed peacefully in
their curtained cubicle on the third floor of the maternity wing
off Gower Street.

As I walk down the corridor towards them, I am returned
powerfully to my memories of this place - the midwives in
their blue pyjamas, the grey doors behind which the great first
act of life is performed over and over by small women and tall
women and a woman whose waters broke one lunchtime on
the escalator at Bank. Place of pain and elation. Flesh and
blood. The cries of the babies raw and astounded; their
mothers' faces salty with joy. When you are in here you think
that you know "what's important. And you are right. It's not the
pethidine talking, it's God's own truth. Before long, you have
to go out into the world again and pretend you have forgotten,
pretend there are better things to do. But there are no better
things. Every mother knows what it felt like when that
chamber of the heart opened and love flooded in. Everything
else is just noise and men.

'I just want to look at him,' Candy says. Propped up on
pillows, my colleague has undone every button on my white
broderie anglaise nightdress to give her son access to her breasts.
The nipples are like dark fruit. She uses the palm of her right


345


hand to cup his head while his mouth sucks hungrily. 'I don't
want to do anything except look at him, Kate. That's normal,
right?'

'Perfectly normal.'

I have brought a Paddington Bear rattle for the baby, the one
with the red hat that Emily always loved, and a basket of
American muffins for his mom. Candy says that she needs to get
the weight off right away and then, because her hands are full,
I feed morsel after morsel into her unprotesting mouth.

'The baby will suck all the fat out of your saddlebags, Cand.'

'Hey, that's terrific. How long can I keep nursing? Twenty
years?'

'Unfortunately, after a while they come round and arrest
you. I sometimes think they'd send the social services in if they
knew how passionately I feel about Ben.'

'You didn't tell me,' she rebukes me with a tired smile.

'I did try. That day in Corney and Barrow. But you can't
know until you know.'

Candy lowers her face and smells the head of her son. 'A boy,
Kate. I made one. How cool is that?'

Like all newborn things, Seymour Stratton seems ancient, a
thousand years old. His brow is corrugated with either wisdom
or perplexity. It is not yet possible to speculate on what manner
of man he will grow up to be, but for now he is perfectly happy
as he is, in the encircling arms of a woman.


346


Epilogue: What Kate Did Next


I think an ending may be out of the question. The wheels
on the bus go round and round, all day long.

A lot happened, though, and some things stayed the same.
Three months after Seymour's birth Candy went back to work
at EMF and put the baby into a daycare place near Liverpool
Street that charged more than the Dorchester. Candy reckoned
each diaper change cost her $20. 'That's a hell of a lot for a
dump, right?'

On the phone, she sounded like the same old Candy, but
I knew that that Candy, the Candy Before Children, had
gone. Sure enough, the long, brutal hours she had worked
uncomplainingly all her adult life soon seemed to her stupid
and unnecessary. She minded that when she tried to leave at
5.30, Rod Task called it 'lunchtime'. She minded not seeing
her son in daylight. When Seymour was seven months old,
Candy walked into Rod's office and told her boss she was
very sorry, but she was going to have to let him go. She was
having some problems with his level of commitment: it was
too high.

Back in New Jersey, she stayed for a while with her mom
until she found a place of her own: Candy said Seymour had
made her understand what her mother was for. Soon after, she
spotted a hole in the booming mail-order market and established
a business which in a short time saw her tipped as one of Fortune magazine's 
Faces To Watch. All Work and No Play was
a range of sex toys for the female executive who has everything
except time for pleasure. A box of samples was shipped to me
in England, and it was opened on our breakfast table during a
visit from Barbara and Donald. Richard, in what many consider


347


to be the finest half-hour of our marriage, pretended the
vibrators were a range of kitchen utensils.

My beloved Momo stayed on at EMF where she flew up the
ladder, barely touching the rungs. That touch of steel in her
nature I had noticed at our first meeting proved invaluable, as
did her ability to listen and absorb what clients wanted.
Occasionally, she would call me for advice in the middle of the
day from the ladies' washroom, her whispers half drowned by
flushing. In the summer, she snatched a couple of days off and
came up to stay with us. For the first time in her life, Emily was
impressed with me: at long last, her mother had produced a real
princess. 'Are you Princess Jasmine from Aladdin?' Em asked
and Momo said, 'Actually, more Sleeping Beauty. I was sort of
asleep and then your mummy woke me up.'

Debra discovered that Jim was having an affair with a woman
in Hong Kong. They got divorced and Deb arranged to work
a four-day week at her law firm. Soon, she found some of her
biggest clients were taken away from her, but she let it pass.
The time for fighting back, she told herself, would come when
Felix and Ruby were older. Deb and I are planning a weekend
break together at a spa and so far we have only cancelled four
times.

Winston went on to take his degree in philosophy at the
University of East London and his ethics dissertation, 'How Do
We Know What Is Right?' achieved the highest mark in the
year. To pay his final-year fees, he sold Pegasus, which seamlessly
entered a new career in stock-car racing.

Flourishing a guilty, and therefore glowing, reference from
me, Paula landed a job as nanny to the B-movie action star
Adolf Brock and his wife, a former Miss Bulgaria. The family
lived for a while at The Plaza in New York, until Paula, whose
room overlooked Central Park, announced that she was feeling
cramped, whereupon the Brocks moved obediently to Maine.

After that morning on the ice rink, I never saw Jack
Abelhammer again. I changed my e-mail address because I
knew that my willpower was not strong enough to stop me
returning a message from him. I also knew that my marriage


348


would have a fighting chance only if I let go of my fantasy
lover: if Jack was the place I went to play, what did that make
Richard? Even so, every time I log on part of me still expects
to see his name in the Inbox. People say that time is a great
healer. Which people? What are they talking about? I think
some feelings you experience in your life are written in
indelible ink and the best you can hope for is that they fade a
little over the years.

I never went to bed with Jack - a regret the size of a
continent -- but the bad food and the great songs in the Sinatra
Inn were the best sex I never had. When you've felt that much
about a man and he disappears from your life, after a while you
start to think it was just some foolish illusion on your part and
that the other person walked clean away, no scar tissue. But
maybe the other person felt the same. I still have the last
message he sent me.


From: Jack Abelhammer

To: Kate Reddy

Kate,

I didn't hear from you in quite a while, so I'm working on the

theory that you took up conkers and motherhood full time. But

I know you'll be back. Hail the conkering heroine . . .

Rod at EMF said you left London. Remember what your Dad

called Sinatra? The Patron Saint of Unrequited Love.

The great thing about unrequited love is it's the only kind that

lasts.

yours forever Jack


Richard and I sold the Hackney heap, moved up to
Derbyshire, near my family, and bought a place on the edge of
a market town with a view and a paddock. (I'd always wanted
a paddock, and now I had one I had no idea what to do with
it.) The house needs loads of work, but there are a couple of
good rooms and the rest can wait. The kids love having the
space to run around in and Richard is in his element. When
he's not working on the new arts centre, he's building a dry349



stone wall, and every five minutes he asks me to come and look
at it.

Not long after I resigned, I got a call from Robin Cooper
Clark asking if I'd come in with him on a hedge fund. Part
time work, minimal foreign travel, all promises that I knew
would be scorched away in the heat of the chase. It was
tempting: with the money he was offering I could have bought
half the village and things are pretty tight for us with just
Richard's income, but when Emily heard me say Robin's
name, she stiffened and said, 'Please don't talk to him.' Cooper
Clark was a name she associated with the enemy.

I know my daughter a little better these days. A couple of
months after leaving work, I realised that all those carefully
timetabled bedtime chats had told me nothing about 'what was
really going on in Em's head. That stuff comes out spontaneously,
you can't force it. You just have to be around when
it happens. As for her brother, his sweetness grows in direct
proportion to his capacity for mischief. Recently, he discovered
Lego, with which he builds a wall, and every five minutes he
asks me to come and look at it.

Richard and I took both kids down to meet Sally Cooper
Clark. She was as kind and warm as Robin had described and I
could see how she gave him back his ease and elasticity, not to
mention his immaculate shirts. On the drive back, I left Rich
and the kids in a pub garden for ten minutes and I walked across
to the church and down the hill to Jill Cooper-Clark's grave.

Weird, isn't it, how you want to seek out the physical place
where someone is buried? If Jill is anywhere now she's everywhere.
But I stood there anyway, in front of the neat white
headstone with the soft grey lettering. At the bottom it says:
She was well loved.

I didn't actually speak aloud -- this "was Sussex, for heaven's
sake - but I thought all the things that I wanted Jill to know
about. They say that women need role models and I suppose
we do, but high achievement is not confined to high-flyers.
There is a currency that we were never called upon to trade in
at EMF, and in that Jill was the richest person I've ever met.


350


And me? Whatever happened to me? Well, I spent some
time with myself, a pretty unsatisfactory companion. I loved
walking Emily to the local school and standing at the gate to
collect her; the puddles are iced over this time of year and we
like to stand on them and wait for the creak before the crack.
During schooltime, Ben and I pottered around the house and
hung out at coffee mornings "with other mums with small kids.
I was bored to the point of manslaughter. My eczema cleared
up, but my cheeks ached from trying to keep my face looking
friendly and interested. Queuing in the local bank, I would find
myself sneaking looks at the foreign exchange rates. I have a
feeling they thought I was planning a robbery.

Then a couple of days ago, I got a call from Julie. It was a
crackly mobile, but I could tell she was in tears. For a second I
thought, Mum, and my stomach went down a mineshaft, but
it wasn't that; the factory where Jules does piecework had gone
bust. Manager done a bunk; receivers called in. They were
putting padlocks on the doors. All the women who had still
been at their machines were now shivering out in the yard.
Could I come down?

No, I said. Ben needed his lunch and, besides, I really didn't
know what use I could be. When Julie answered, it was in a
voice I recognised from childhood, the one my little sister used
when she asked if she could get into bed with me as the raging
voices of our mother and father came through the floorboards.
'But I've told everyone you're a businesswoman, Kath, and
you'll be able to tell us what's what.'

Combed my hair, put some lipstick on and dug out Armani
jacket from the wardrobe in the spare room. I wanted to look
like the woman Julie had described to her colleagues. When I
slipped the jacket on, it was like being back in uniform: the
grey wool impregnated with the smell of power, of money
being made and things getting done. I wrestled Ben into the
baby seat -- seat's getting too small, must get a new one -- and drove down to 
the industrial estate. It wasn't hard to find Julie's
place. The notice on the fence said Traditional English Doll's
Houses and over that was a sticker: Liquidation Sale: Every351



thing Must Go! In the yard, there were about forty women:
seamstresses, many wearing the most amazing saris. They parted
as I arrived and it was like walking through a flock of tropical
birds. I waved my old Platinum Amex at the guy standing by a
side door, told him I'd come up from London and was looking
to buy some stuff. Inside, the doll's houses were abandoned in
mid-decoration: tiny sofas, footstools, velvet pelmets, porcelain
toilets awaiting their wooden seats, grand pianos the size of a
powder compact.

'What can we do, Kath?' asked Julie when I came out.

Absolutely nothing. 'I'll try and find out what's happened.'

The next day, I dropped Em at school, left a delighted Ben
with his equally delighted grandmother and got the train down
to London. Cab across town to Companies House: it didn't
take long to get the doll's house people's accounts for the last
five years. You should have seen them. The business was a
wreck - disappearing margins, no investment, piles of debt, a
complete financial basket case.

On the train back up North, I tried to read the paper, but the type wouldn't 
stay still. There were plenty of ethical funds out
there under instruction to invest in women-only companies, I
knew that better than anyone. Money for the taking, really. But
when the train shuddered to a halt at Chesterfield, it shook
some sense into me.

Kate Reddy, I can't believe you are even having this
thought. Take on something like that? You'd have to be out of
your mind, woman. Out of your bloody mind.


7.37 pm: Bedtime. Brush teeth, 2 readings of Tlie Cat in the
Hat, 4 recitations of Goodnight Moon, 3 Owl Babies, visits to the
bathroom (4), attempts on potty (2), time taken till lights out:
48 minutes. Must improve.


8.37 pm: Call to Candy Stratton in New Jersey to discuss mail
order market and distribution with view to global doll's house
business.


352


'I knew it,' she hollers.
'I'm making enquiries for a friend.'

'Yeah, right. Tell her to wear that red bra of hers when she
goes to get the financing.'


9.11 pm: Call to Gerry at Dickinson Bishop in New York.
Sussing out funds specifically designated to invest in women
only companies. Gerry says it's a steal: 'Ethical's the new
Viagra, Katie.'


10.27pm: Ben has accident in bed. Change sheet. Try to find
pull-up nappy. Where are nappies?


11.48 pm: Wake Momo Gumeratne at home to talk about
possibility of wooden doll's house frames being made by
workers employed by Sri Lankan aid agency she's been advising.

'Kate,' she says. 'Can I do it with you?'

'I'm not doing anything. Go back to sleep.'


Midnight: Take glass of water up to Emily. The great grey
eyes stare up at me in the dark.

'Mummy, you're thinking,' she says accusingly.

'Yes, love, it's allowed, you know. How would you like to
help Mummy build a palace?'

'Yes, but it's got to have a tower where Beauty sleeps.'

'It absolutely does.'


1.01 am: Still time to go over the figures from the factory.
What is required is a proper marketing plan and some diversification.
How about a range of buildings instead of the
traditional Georgian townhouse? A New York brownstone,
maybe? A cottage, offices, castles, ships, Emily's palace.
Richard could design them.


1.37 am: 'Kate, what do you think you're doing? It's two
o'clock in the morning.'

My husband Richard is standing in the doorway of the


353


kitchen. Rich with his acres of English reasonableness and his
invincible kindness.

'Darling,' he says, 'it's so late.'

'I'm just coming.'

'What is it?'

'Nothing.'

He squints curiously at me in the light. 'What kind of
nothing?'

'Oh, I was just thinking about, you know, homemaking.'

He raises an eyebrow.

'Don't worry. Warm my side of the bed, I'm just coming.'

The kiss he plants on my forehead is a question as much as a
gift.

Seeing my husband go upstairs, I long to follow him, but I
can't leave the kitchen in this state. I just can't.

The room bears signs of heavy fighting; a small defensive wall
is under construction and there is Lego shrapnel over a wide
area. In my absence, three apples and three satsumas have been
added to the big glass bowl, but no one has thought to discard
the old fruit beneath and the pears at the bottom have started
weeping a sticky amber resin. As I throw each pear in the bin,
I worry about the cost. After washing and drying the bowl, I
carefully wipe any stray amber goo off the other fruit and put it
back. All I need to do now is get Emily's lunchbox ready for
the morning, check the time for Ben's appointment at the
surgery, see if I can get from there to the bank to talk to my
manager, convene a meeting of workers at the factory, call the
Receivers and still get back in time for school pickup.
Chicken out of freezer. Chicken out of PTA meeting. Emily
wants horse. Over my dead body. Who will end up cleaning
out the stable? Rich's birthday -- surprise dinner? Bread. Milk.
Honey. And there was something else. I know there was
something else.

What else?


354


Acknowledgements


this book could not have been written without Miranda
Richards, who taught me not to be afraid of the Dow
Jones and so much else.

I want to thank Hilary Rosen for the brilliant e-mails which
made me laugh out loud whenever life got too Kate-like.
There are many Kate Reddys out there who offered up their
disasters with incredible good humour: they know who they
are and I salute them.

Episodes from / Don't Know How She Does It first appeared in
the Daily Telegraph. I am indebted to Sarah Sands for getting
Kate started and to Charles Moore for his forbearance and
kindness.

I was very fortunate in my agents, Pat Kavanagh in London
and Joy Hams in New York, and in my editors - Alison
Samuel, Caroline Michel and Jordan Pavlin. Norman North at
PFD and Miramax's Lola Bubbosh ensured that one day Kate
will have a second life on the big screen, while Nicki Kennedy
at ILA sold her around the world with reckless enthusiasm.
Others offered moral support and practical criticism: Nicola
Jeal, Adam Gopnik, Martha Parker, Anne McElvoy, Kathryn
Lloyd, Claerwen James, Philippa Lowthorpe, Prue Shaw,
Tamsyn Salter, Justine Jarrett, Naomi Benson, Richard Preston,
Quentin Curtis and Niamh O'Brien.

A book about mothers naturally owes a great deal to the
writer's own. I want to thank my mother for her precious time,
the value of which I am only just starting to appreciate.

The character of Ben would not have been created without
the lovely hindrance of Thomas Lane. Emily's observations were
inspired by the wit and wisdom of Eveline Lane, Isabella and


356


Madeleine Urban and Polly, Amelia and Theodora Richards.

Finally, I send all my love and gratitude to Anthony Lane, who
can take credit for most of the commas in this book and for all of
the semi-colons. While the fictional life of a harassed working
mother was being created in our house, he loaded the washing
machine, cooked dinner, read Owl Babies three hundred times
and even found time to write the odd movie review. I don't
know how he does it.

Allison Pearson
London, April 2002


CREDITS


Extract from Owl Babies text © 1992 Martin Waddell.
Illustrations © 1992 Patrick Benson. Reproduced by permission
of Walker Books Ltd., London.

'I am Woman' (Reddy/Burton) © 1971 Irving Music, Inc.,
lines used by kind permission of Rondor Music (London) Ltd
and Irving Music, Inc.

Lines from Little Miss Busy © The Hargreaves Organisation,
reproduced by kind permission of The Hargreaves Organisation.

Excerpt from the song lyric 'A Spoonful of Sugar' words and
music by Richard M. Sherman and Robert B. Sherman © 1963
by Wonderland Music Company, Inc. Excerpt from the song
lyric 'Sister Suffragette' words and music by Richard M.
Sherman and Robert B. Sherman © 1963 by Wonderland Music
Company Inc.

Excerpt from 'Where or When' © Chappell & Co., Warner
Bros. Excerpt from 'Night and Day' © Harms, Inc., Warner
Bros. Excerpt from 'Someone to Watch Over Me' © WB Music
Corp., Warner Bros.


357




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