Young Wives' Tales Part 2

'Couldn't leave it to you. Could I?'

'No, not really,'I admit.

'Responsibility is only a tad less offensive to you than commitment, isn't it?'

'Easy, mate. That's harsh.'I laugh, sip my pint, take a drag.

'But true.'Suddenly Craig looks stricken with terror. 'What about the speech?'

'Speech?'I play innocent.

The thing is, although I'm truly grateful to Craig for digging me out of a hole in terms of bringing a little organization to the stag weekend, I do fancy owning the Best Man's speech. The thing is I'm funny.

'The thing is you're funny,'says Craig.

'Meaning?'

'Well, I'm more earnest than funny.'

'The aunts would love to hear what you have to say,'I tell him, playing it cool.

'Yes, and they'll probably die of shock when they hear anything you have to say, but even so, the rest of the guests will probably appreciate you more than they'd appreciate me.'

This is one of Craig's many qualities. He's decent. He probably knows I'm desperate to make the speech. Still, it wouldn't be gracious to be pushy. 'We could split it,'I offer.

'Good idea. I'll read the telegrams and cards and you can do the funny man stuff.'

'Deal,'I agree immediately.

But before we can clink gla.s.ses and say cheers, Craig adds, 'I'll have to see the speech before you make it, of course. No cursing, no revelations about Tom's ex-s.h.a.gs and do not mention the time Jenny was wasted and tried to snog you. It was a long time ago.'

'OK, you can trust me,'I grin.

'No, John, I can't. Even you don't trust you,'says Craig. And he's not smiling as he says it. Funny man.

4.

Monday 4 September.

Lucy.

I make an enormous effort to get home early from work; I tell my boss I have an offsite meeting and turn down two offers to eat out, one of which is with a client he doesn't pay for my time twenty-four hours a day but he has bought my soul. Normally we go to dinner together once a week minimum. The man's a bore. He has four jokes which he tells in rotation, on a more or less constant basis. He smokes cigars, which I used to enjoy until I fell pregnant with Auriol, and ever since the smell of cigar smoke has left me nauseous. He drinks heavily and invariably the evening ends with me having to haul his large carca.s.s into a cab. Still, it's part of my job to feign an intimacy with the man so that he continues to give my company hundreds of thousands of pounds to invest. Usually when he's delivering his predictable punchlines I amuse myself by thinking private and important thoughts.

I think about Pete and me taking Auriol to Tokyo's Disney World last April. Obviously I did not entertain the idea of Disney in Paris (weather too unreliable) or America (cellulite too abundant), but I conceded that if we did Disney in Tokyo and we threw in a couple of temples and some cherry blossom trees, the trip would be bearable. Bearable was my benchmark, as we were between nannies, so it was the first holiday we'd gone on without help. It hadn't been our plan to be between nannies (another one left unexpectedly and unaccountably), so we did not have an itinerary of children's clubs as a back-up. To be honest I was thinking of cancelling. What a surprise. I genuinely had a great week in Tokyo with Pete and Auriol. I mean, who'd have thought going anywhere with a four-year-old could be such fun? Not me, certainly. But it's thoughts of Auriol giggling hysterically at Monster Girls and scrunching up her face as she first tried sus.h.i.+ that get me through tedious dinners with colleagues and clients.

At lunchtime I sent Julia, my PA, to buy a dozen helium balloons for Auriol, so I need to take a cab from the office. As I push open the door to our home I'm hit by the smell of something meaty cooking; a ca.s.serole of some description would be my guess. I can hear Radio 4 and Auriol's chatter drift from the bas.e.m.e.nt kitchen. These are good signs. In the past, on the first day home to a new nanny, it has been known for me to be greeted by the nanny already wearing her coat and handing me a letter of resignation. It's not that Auriol is a terrible child to handle, it's just that some of these young girls are not experienced enough to manage her creative temperament.

'Surprise,'I call.

Auriol bounds up the stairs towards me and flings her arms around my waist. I try to stop her putting her hands on my skirt (it's Emilio Pucci) but the manoeuvre costs me my grip on the balloons and they drift up through the stairwell and hover two flights above us. Eva, Auriol and I gaze upwards at the bobbing ma.s.s of pretty pink balloons. I freeze for a moment and wonder if this is going to cause a problem. I often feel entirely at sea with Auriol and have no idea how she is going to react to anything. It astonishes me that I can predict financial markets throughout the world with pinpoint accuracy, I have a widely respected insight into the characters of most people I happen upon, but when it comes to kids in general, and Auriol in particular I'm stumped. I mean, they are so irrational and unreasonable. So emotional and mercurial.

The balloons hover, teasingly, Eva takes the initiative and laughs, Auriol squeals with excitement and I shrug. This time disaster is averted, no scene. Marvellous.

'How was school?'I ask.

I try to kneel because I read that children like you to talk to them at eye level. Princess Diana always did that and she had a great way with children. Unfortunately my skirt is too tight and I'm in Sergio Rossi killer heels so it's not going to happen. I usher Auriol back towards the kitchen. She's bouncing off the walls and chattering about the new teacher, Miss Gibson or Gibbon or something, and the fact that Fran is in her cla.s.s. I tell her to stay with Eva and I go to my bedroom to change.

It takes me about fifteen minutes to decide what to wear because I have resisted going down the lazy mum route which is so depressingly prevalent. I have never been seen in a vomit-sprayed or Weetabix-splodged beige top or baggy leggings. My dry-cleaning bill is enough to buy me a small car every year, but standards have to be maintained. By the time I get to the kitchen I see that Auriol has eaten supper. I'm disappointed.

'I came home early to take you out to a restaurant to eat,'I grumble. 'I wanted to celebrate your first day of school.'

My intention is to reprimand Eva for not reading my mind or at least for not checking my schedule.

'It's not early for Auriol,'replies Eva. 'It was after six o'clock when you arrived home. After a full day at school she is hungry at four in the afternoon. I have made enough beef ca.s.serole for you and Mr Phillips too. It's entirely organic as per your instructions.'

'Oh, I don't eat much red meat,'I mutter, swallowing my irritation. Irritation seems to be sustaining me quite adequately at the moment, that and decent vitamin supplements.

I'm all dressed up with nowhere to go. I slip on to the bench seat next to Auriol and try to engage her. However, she's more interested in the TV which has replaced Radio 4 and is blaring from the corner of the room. I follow her gaze. Some beautiful twenty-year-old girl, dressed as though she's just walked out of a pop video, is being dunked in a pool of custard. When she manages to slither out of the pool, millions of Coco Pops drop from the sky and stick to her. Throughout the experience she is screaming, 'Wicked,'and 'Totally gross man,'in the most awful Birmingham accent. It's unsuitable viewing on every count.

'I don't like the TV on at mealtimes,'I tell Eva.

'Why do you have a TV in the kitchen and dining room in that case?'asks Eva. I think she is genuinely curious rather than just insolent; besides, as I interviewed twenty-two nannies to fill this position I don't want to pick a fight at this early stage, so I give her the benefit of the doubt.

'Peter and I need to keep abreast of the markets. The TVs are used for news channels exclusively.'

In fact I allow Auriol to watch rather a lot of TV at the weekends, but I don't pay a nanny three pounds per hour over the going rate to allow her the same privilege.

'NOT TRUE,'shouts Auriol.

Eva and I both pretend not to hear her and Eva switches off the TV. Auriol bursts into tears and splutters a chorus of 'not fairs'. Eva says she's tired, Auriol that is, and takes her upstairs for a bath.

When they return forty-five minutes later to say their goodnights, Auriol is looking much calmer and prettier. She's wearing powder-blue pyjamas from Mini Boden. She looks cute enough to eat. She could be a child model, only I object strongly to the entire premise. I doubt I look quite so angelic. I have a cigarette in one hand and a gla.s.s of champagne in the other.

'You shouldn't smoke,'says Auriol. 'You'll die and before that you'll look old and ugly.'

'Do as I say, not as I do, Auriol,'I instruct.

I shouldn't smoke and I usually try not to in front of Auriol. But besides finding it quite relaxing, I'm a s.e.xy smoker. I keep my finger at an angle and men often comment on how elegant my hands are. When I take a drag, my lips double in size, whereas other people's lips disappear. It's a tough habit to kick when it's so alluring.

'Rose says you shouldn't drink either. She says you'll come to a nasty end.'

Auriol repeats the sentence in a tone which suggests she has little understanding of the expression.

'That's just her wishful thinking,'I mutter as I stub out the cigarette and slug back the champagne. I really must have a word with Peter. I do my utmost to minimize Auriol's contact with Rose but of course chance encounters do happen. When has she had the opportunity to indoctrinate my daughter with her puritanical thinking? The last thing I need is Auriol joining the thought police. I want my child to be hip and relaxed.

'Come and kiss me goodnight.'

Auriol bobs under my arm and I can smell her clean hair. Unexpectedly I get a lump in my throat.

'Will you read to me?'she asks.

'Only if I get to choose the story,'I reply.

She laughs and I take her to bed, generously telling Eva that she can go home ten minutes early. It pays to keep the staff happy.

5.

Sunday 10 September.

Rose.

It's a wet Sunday; thank G.o.d the boys are with me because I really struggle to fill wet Sundays without them. I rang Peter this morning and told him that they were too tired, after starting back at school, to play football or even visit him today.

'b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l, Rose, they haven't just started reception cla.s.s. A school term isn't new to them. I thought you said it was a good thing to sign them up to the boys'under-eights football on a Sunday morning. You agreed to it.'

'They're mooching round the house, they're quite pale with exhaustion,'I argued.

'They're bored. They need fresh air and a bit of horseplay. You mollycoddle them, Rose.'

A few tense and silent minutes pa.s.s until Peter accepts that I'm resolute. He sighs.

'Well, what will they be doing instead?'

'They won't be bored; Daisy, Simon, Connie, Luke and the children are coming over for lunch.'

I'm small-minded enough to take great pleasure from delivering this choice piece of news. I wonder if Peter ever hankers after the splendid Sunday lunches that I prepared when we were together. The guests have remained the same, my cooking has got even better, the only thing missing is him. Not that I miss him. Well, at least, not always.

Connie and Luke met one another at my wedding. Luke was an usher; he's been a friend of Peter's since their schooldays. Luke then introduced Simon into our group and he married my sis. We were a tightly knit gang. Very close. Too close as it turned out. Lucy and Peter were too close.

Some women say they didn't see it coming. When their husbands stand up and announce their intention to b.u.g.g.e.r off with whoever it may be that has caught their eye, wives are often stunned. I never had that arrogance. I saw it coming.

It wasn't just the numerous late nights at the office and the increasingly frequent business trips that dominated our last year together. It wasn't simply his escalating neglect and the distance between us which was notable in the last six months. I saw it coming before I stepped down the aisle. I knew that Peter would leave me almost the moment I started dating him. Peter didn't belong to me. He was always on loan. Peter belonged with a more startling, more beautiful, funnier, wittier, posher, stronger, firmer, blonder someone. He was always out of my league.

Truthfully, no one could have been more surprised than me when he asked me for a date. G.o.d, the man was stunning. So, so handsome, charming and determined. Everyone liked him. Every girl wanted to be noticed by him, every guy wanted to be his best buddy. Even his bosses sucked up to him. Some people simply gleam and Peter was one of those gleaming types.

When he first asked me out I thought it was a joke or a bet. I wasn't a complete monster by any stretch. I'd always had my fair share of dates. But largely I dated nice boys ones that were a little bit gauche or spotty but earnest and kind.

I met Peter through work. My degree is in accountancy and I'd landed a great job working in the accounts department of a merchant bank. Peter, who is a year older than me, had a far more glamorous position; he was a trader. In fact, if the office gossip was to be believed, he was the trader. He'd already been identified as having something special, he was already making heads and money spin. I guess it was because he was so busy and in demand that he was often late with his expenses. But one day he was so late with the paperwork it looked like he'd have to forgo a reimburs.e.m.e.nt, so he came directly to the accounts department to sort it out. He was very smiley and chatty with me but I a.s.sumed that he was turning on the charm because he needed me to get him out of a hole. He'd be nearly a grand out of pocket otherwise.

After we'd managed to get his cash signed off and the expenses form back into the process, he asked me if I knew a good place to buy a sandwich for lunch. I hadn't a clue why he was asking me after all he'd been working there longer than I had and I a.s.sumed it was because I looked like the kind of girl who enjoyed her food. I gave him directions to the nearest deli, which he carefully listened to, and then I thought he'd get on his way. I started to blush when he dawdled at my desk and I mumbled about there being a decent sus.h.i.+ bar near by if sandwiches weren't his thing.

'I'm really more interested in persuading you to join me than I am interested in the menu,'he said, smiling.

I stared at him. Gormless. Anxious not to misunderstand. My suit must have been flattering, there's no other explanation. I still have that suit, although not the occasion to wear it. So we had a sandwich and then after work we had a drink, then supper. We didn't stop eating and drinking for another eleven years. Eating, drinking and making love. Because yes, of course, back then in the early days, there was a lot of s.e.x.

I could not believe my luck. I would pinch myself. Literally. I had tiny bruises on my arms. Peter, Greek G.o.d, handsome stud m.u.f.fin and all-round good guy, had chosen me. Me! He could have dated anyone and he chose to date me. I considered every day a gift and made the most of having this fab boyfriend. I couldn't wait to show him off. I dragged him home, filed him past all my pals, and I took him to meet Daisy who was still at university. Of course, that's when he first met Lucy. Ironic to think that I introduced them. As expected, he was universally approved of. Mum, Dad, Daisy, my friends, Daisy's friends all liked him and I liked him the most of all. So much so, that I refused to listen to Daisy's gentle and not so gentle warnings that I was in danger of overestimating his worth and underestimating my own.

Sometimes, if I do have a wet Sunday on my own to fill, I torture myself. I've perfected it. After I've done all the housework and ironing and such like, I sit and wonder if he fell for her straight away, the moment he shook hands with her. He must at least have fancied her, he has a pulse. Lord, there are times when I've fancied her, she's fabulous. To look at, that is. I think she's faulty on a number of other accounts, of course. Was he too much of a gentleman to shake me off there and then? Or I wonder if he started to hanker after her when she arrived at our wedding, sans date but with the most enormous hat. She wore lilac and captured everyone's imagination. There was no question, she undoubtedly outshone the bride. Or was it later, when I had the twins and we were too bleary-eyed with sleep deprivation to see one another properly? I've never asked. I don't really think I want to hear the answers. As I said, I never expected to keep him. I like to believe he was mine for the six years we dated, and the five years we were married. I don't want to hear that he wasn't mine for very long at all.

Peter left me when the boys were fifteen months old. I guess my luck had run out. He was recalled. The natural order re-established. I'd had a longer innings than I'd expected. My mistake was getting complacent, allowing a time when I thought maybe it was for real, maybe he was for keeps. I should never have forgotten what I'd first believed, that he'd be with a Lucy in the end. Maybe not Lucy Hewitt-Jones, but someone like her. Someone unlike me.

Lunch is a triumph. The boys actually manage to tear themselves away from their Game Boys and come and make conversation (of sorts) with our guests. Connie's children are too young and the wrong s.e.x to be of much interest to Henry and Sebastian. Connie and I joke about how much that will change when they are teenagers. Fran is four and Flora is eighteen months. The way Luke keeps touching Connie, stroking her thigh, squeezing her hand, etc., I wouldn't be at all surprised if number three wasn't announced in the near future. Sometimes, they behave like newlyweds and when they do it catches me off balance. I have to swallow very hard and very quickly to stop myself...I don't know what I'm stopping. Stop myself crying, laughing, calling out and congratulating them.

I know why their open and easy affection affects me with such poignancy. The thing is, Connie and Luke had marital problems at around the same time as Peter and I did. Connie is the epitome of wifely devotion and the ideal mum now but she once had an affair. Just like Peter. The difference being, they got through it. I used to look at them and wonder what it was that allowed them to survive infidelity, when my world blew apart. I reasoned that Luke could not have loved Connie more than I loved Peter, it's not possible. It didn't take me long to deduce that the difference was Connie loved Luke more than Peter loved me, Connie didn't want to leave. Quite simple really.

Daisy is looking tired and too thin. She's not as happy as she deserves to be. Daisy and Simon have been married for six years and it's an open secret between their nearest and dearest that they've been trying for a baby since their honeymoon. They were OK with their lack of result in the first year of marriage. In fact, back then, Simon used to laugh about how he was so keen on the trying that he thought he might be actively disappointed when they got a result. Simon doesn't joke about fertility any more; neither of them jokes about anything much.

The way I understand it from Daisy, after eighteen months of more or less constant and wonderful s.e.x they introduced thermometers and vitamins. The quality of their s.e.x life, predictably, took a knock. She says that the moment is ruined if immediately after s.e.x you have to lie on the floor with your legs in the air. Besides anything else, they have a tiled floor in their bedroom, it's cold. I suggested that they buy a carpet and keep going for it. A further six months down the line Daisy visited her GP and, three months after that, Simon visited her GP too.

At this point they still had a sense of humour about their predicament because they still had hope. They used to entertain the rest of us with hilarious stories about Daisy calling Simon out of meetings, insisting that he got home within the hour because 'the time was right'. Connie and I even had a go at practising injecting fruit because Simon is a little squeamish and couldn't face sticking needles into Daisy's bottom, which was a necessary part of one of her treatments. We laughed about that at the time, but a series of invasive tests, with inconclusive results, plus three more years of regularly menstruating, has snuffed out all humour. Last month their second attempt at IVF failed and I've run out of plat.i.tudes.

Daisy has always loved children. Perhaps even more than I do. I love my children and the children of my friends and even some of my children's friends, but Daisy isn't so particular. She loves all children. She's a primary school teacher, an ambition she's held since she met her first primary school teacher when she was aged five. She enjoys her work and from what I understand she's respected and liked by the staff, parents and kids alike. The thing that breaks my heart is that whenever Daisy tells anyone she is a teacher one of the plus points she always mentions is that the holidays work well when you have children. And whoever she is talking to will always nod enthusiastically, sometimes unaware that she actually doesn't have children.

It's not Connie and Luke's fault. It's not as though they actively try to flaunt their happily ever after in front of everyone. It just sometimes feels that way. With each ripe, healthy pregnancy that Connie waddles through I can't help but wonder whether I'll ever have s.e.x again, let alone another child, or even someone who is prepared to rub my stockinged feet when I'm exhausted or flat after a busy day. Lord alone knows what Daisy must be thinking.

We don't talk about the failed IVF today and we try to avoid dwelling on the issues of the first week of school. A debate about whether sew-on or iron-on labels are best for naming uniforms is not one Daisy can comfortably fake an interest in. Still, the conversation never falters. Connie has brought along her holiday photos.

'Three weeks in Devon. You are so lucky that you are both self-employed and these idyllic breaks are possible,'says Simon.

'You didn't do so bad for hols this year, Simes,'says Luke. 'Thailand last Christmas, skiing in February. France this summer. Believe me, it's my wife's photography skill that makes our hol look idyllic. Think British summer time and sand in your picnic,'he laughs.

Connie hits him, playfully. 'It was idyllic. OK, camping was perhaps a little ambitious considering I haven't done it since Girl Guides and you've never camped at all.'

'Remind me, how long did you manage in the tent?'asks Daisy.

'One night,'squeals Connie.

We all laugh, as we had spent some time trying to dissuade Connie from a camping holiday; it's so clearly not her thing. We pointed out that there's no hot and cold running water in tents, let alone a jacuzzi, but she'd been seduced by a Sunday supplement with a headline claiming camping was the new Barbados.