chairs the color of black pudding, opposite her desk.
“Not exactly Bliss Spa, is it?” whispers Kate.
“It’s fine, used it once a couple of years ago. Now, what were you saying before we got devoured by the Pekinese?”
“Oh, whinging on.” Kate studies her nails. “Ignore me. What’s been going on with you?”
I take a deep breath. “Oh, er, things have picked up. I was getting to a bit of a loose end, you know, just me and the baby . . .” I have to be careful here. I can’t complain about motherhood. I did once before. I said that I felt a bit lonely. Kate got angry: “How can you be lonely with Joe and Evie in your life?” I didn’t mean to be insensitive. “. . . and I’ve met some new mothers to hang out with. Alice . . . you must meet her. She’s great, really funny, very glamorous. She’s kind of taken me under her wing, God knows why.”
Kate laughs, doesn’t contradict my self-deprecation.
“She has loads of highly entertaining friends. They look like supermodels, have pots of money and armies of nannies. They’ve got motherhood down to a fine art, like shopping.”
“They sound awful.” Kate imagines that when she gets the children she deserves she’ll be an Earth Mother type who’ll want to be with her little darlings 24/7. That will be enough for her. I once told her that Evie was more than I’d ever hoped for but not enough. She looked shocked and didn’t get it.
“I don’t know that many other women with babies.”
The woman behind the desk stands up. She is wearing a white overall splattered with pink, like a butcher’s. A letter has fallen off her white plastic name tag so it reads _rish. “Five minutes.” An umbilical cord of smoke twists from her mouth.
Kate rocks Evie’s pram with her loafer. “What about your old friends?”
“Oh, we chat on the phone, of course. But they’re at work. I can’t really do evenings that easily, and when I do I’m knackered. . . .” Excuses. Why don’t I see other people? Because I’ve got nothing to say. My brain feels like it’s been Hoovered. Easier just to grunt at Joe and coo over the baby. Primitive, self-limiting communication is a lot easier than a conversation with someone who has got a life.
“You see me.”
“You’re different.”
“Don’t your other friends want babies?”
“Not enough to have them right now.” The single ones are still going to drug-fueled parties and on yoga holidays. The more desperate ones are Internet dating. The ones in relationships are agonizing about where the relationship is going and still trying really hard to give killer blow jobs so that the man might consider them settle-down material.
“Silly things. If only they knew. Ovaries wait for no one.” Kate picks up a stained
House & Garden
magazine from the coffee table. June 1999, exactly six years old. She flicks through absentmindedly. “And what about work?”
“Work.” Baffling idea. “Dunno. Got a few months before I have to make a decision, so, well, you know me, I’m sitting on it. Obviously I need to halve my body weight before I start dealing with clients again. Alice, the mother I mentioned, Alice is going to help.”
“You look fine.” “Fine” never sells to me. Kate doesn’t like new people, especially new friends of mine. She made all her friends years ago, mostly at school and university. Anyone she met after the age of twenty-five isn’t easily trusted. “Well, I wouldn’t change too much. Joe likes you as you are.”
Kate and I sit in easy silence for a few moments. The dogs grizzle in the basket.
“When’s he back?” She looks at her watch.
“About seven, eight.”
“Oh shit. That late, really? I’m not sure I can hang around until then.”
Kate sounds disappointed and I wonder if it’s me she ever wants to see. She’s not a woman’s woman, not in the way Alice is. At university Kate was the girl who had her mafia of men friends—gay, straight, bookish. She had one for
“Not exactly Bliss Spa, is it?” whispers Kate.
“It’s fine, used it once a couple of years ago. Now, what were you saying before we got devoured by the Pekinese?”
“Oh, whinging on.” Kate studies her nails. “Ignore me. What’s been going on with you?”
I take a deep breath. “Oh, er, things have picked up. I was getting to a bit of a loose end, you know, just me and the baby . . .” I have to be careful here. I can’t complain about motherhood. I did once before. I said that I felt a bit lonely. Kate got angry: “How can you be lonely with Joe and Evie in your life?” I didn’t mean to be insensitive. “. . . and I’ve met some new mothers to hang out with. Alice . . . you must meet her. She’s great, really funny, very glamorous. She’s kind of taken me under her wing, God knows why.”
Kate laughs, doesn’t contradict my self-deprecation.
“She has loads of highly entertaining friends. They look like supermodels, have pots of money and armies of nannies. They’ve got motherhood down to a fine art, like shopping.”
“They sound awful.” Kate imagines that when she gets the children she deserves she’ll be an Earth Mother type who’ll want to be with her little darlings 24/7. That will be enough for her. I once told her that Evie was more than I’d ever hoped for but not enough. She looked shocked and didn’t get it.
“I don’t know that many other women with babies.”
The woman behind the desk stands up. She is wearing a white overall splattered with pink, like a butcher’s. A letter has fallen off her white plastic name tag so it reads _rish. “Five minutes.” An umbilical cord of smoke twists from her mouth.
Kate rocks Evie’s pram with her loafer. “What about your old friends?”
“Oh, we chat on the phone, of course. But they’re at work. I can’t really do evenings that easily, and when I do I’m knackered. . . .” Excuses. Why don’t I see other people? Because I’ve got nothing to say. My brain feels like it’s been Hoovered. Easier just to grunt at Joe and coo over the baby. Primitive, self-limiting communication is a lot easier than a conversation with someone who has got a life.
“You see me.”
“You’re different.”
“Don’t your other friends want babies?”
“Not enough to have them right now.” The single ones are still going to drug-fueled parties and on yoga holidays. The more desperate ones are Internet dating. The ones in relationships are agonizing about where the relationship is going and still trying really hard to give killer blow jobs so that the man might consider them settle-down material.
“Silly things. If only they knew. Ovaries wait for no one.” Kate picks up a stained
House & Garden
magazine from the coffee table. June 1999, exactly six years old. She flicks through absentmindedly. “And what about work?”
“Work.” Baffling idea. “Dunno. Got a few months before I have to make a decision, so, well, you know me, I’m sitting on it. Obviously I need to halve my body weight before I start dealing with clients again. Alice, the mother I mentioned, Alice is going to help.”
“You look fine.” “Fine” never sells to me. Kate doesn’t like new people, especially new friends of mine. She made all her friends years ago, mostly at school and university. Anyone she met after the age of twenty-five isn’t easily trusted. “Well, I wouldn’t change too much. Joe likes you as you are.”
Kate and I sit in easy silence for a few moments. The dogs grizzle in the basket.
“When’s he back?” She looks at her watch.
“About seven, eight.”
“Oh shit. That late, really? I’m not sure I can hang around until then.”
Kate sounds disappointed and I wonder if it’s me she ever wants to see. She’s not a woman’s woman, not in the way Alice is. At university Kate was the girl who had her mafia of men friends—gay, straight, bookish. She had one for
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