Mad Cows (26 page)

‘You lucky tart,' screeched Sonia. ‘The only rash thing about my husband is his eczema. Last week I wore my Janet Reger lingerie with latex rubber trapdoors, dripped honey into my naval and sugar-coated both nipples. Old what's-his-name kept reading his
Telegraph
. “Sorry, what were you saying?” she mimicked her husband's voice. “Something about me not noticing you any more?”'

‘I don't call it “being noticed” when he pounces on you, with the words – “We've just got time to do it,
I've got the bath running
,”' complained Marion.

‘Or arrives with two cups of coffee, for
afterwards
. . .' added Gayle.

The women laughed with guilty gratification. Having recovered, Sonia then turned her attention to Gillian. ‘And what about
you?
' she sticky beaked.

‘Well, that's an interesting question . . .' Gillian,
opening
another bottle of ice-cold Californian Chardonnay, sloshed it liberally into her guests' glasses. ‘I'm your unmarried friend who desperately wants what you all hate.'

‘Call yourself a
friend
?' Sonia scoffed, agreeably acerbic. ‘You never tell me
any
thing any of our
other
women friends have told you in Complete Confidence.'

‘You want to have babies?' Gayle asked, amazed. ‘I always picked you for the total career woman, what with the colour charts and . . .'

‘Actually, it's the reason I've gathered you all here tonight.' Gillian discharged the most engaging smile in her social armoury. It was time to call a spade a penis. ‘I am thirty-seven years old. I am losing skin elasticity. I have a greying mons and bum-droop. Add to that the fact that there are currently three times as many single women as unmarried men in England, and you will no doubt deduce, as have I, that my chances of having a child the conventional way are rather slim. Anorexic, actually. Even if I
find
a partner, oestrogen-mimicking pollutants have produced a sharp drop in sperm counts.'

‘Oestro-what?' quibbled Gayle.

‘I could waste
months
with such a man only to find that we need fertility treatment which we won't be able to get because the NHS upper age limit is thirty-five. A donor is a possibility, but let's face it, dah-lings, the filter which applies to sperm donors is not terribly
fine
. Besides which, it
can
get complicated. The sperm-donor's parents suing for grandparental visitation rights, blah-de-blah. Can you imagine it? Which is why,' – Gillian took a deep breath and zig-zagged the shortest distance between two half-full glasses – ‘
I thought you could lend me your husbands
.'

All three of Gillian's guests centred her in their uncomprehending, goggle-eyed gaze.

Sonia bit down hard. A trajectory of mayonnaise torpedoed out of the end of her canapé. ‘Lend you,' she gasped, ‘
Ray?
'

‘My
Andrew
?' gawped Marion.

‘You want to have Justin's
baby
?' winced Gayle, gulping gratefully at the Chardonnay she'd refused earlier.

Husbands who'd only been referred to as ‘that bastard', ‘toe-rag', ‘scrotum-breath' and ‘old what's-his-name' all evening suddenly acquired names, good qualities –
haloes
even.

‘Well, yes. That's why, out of my many clients, I selected you three. I mean, from listening to you all, I got the impression we weren't dealing with tiny friendship fissures in otherwise perfect partnerships, but Monumental Matrimonial Rifts. I can pay, of course.'

‘Which one did you have in mind?' asked Marion, in an awed whisper.

‘All three,' said Gillian, evenly. ‘It increases my odds, does it not?'

The younger women looked to Sonia for a cue on how to respond. It seemed that Huffs of Moral Indignation were called for.

‘It's preposterous!' Sonia huffed. ‘How could you ask such a thing?'

‘What kind of
mon
ster do you think Justin
is
?' huffed Gayle, crabbing away from her.

‘Marriage for me and Andrew is a life-long commitment,' huffed Marion, on behalf of her genitally incontinent hubby.

HMS Relationships, with the buoyancy of Robert Maxwell only moments before, had been salvaged with astounding alacrity. Into the icy silence whimpered another crackly bleat over one of the baby monitors.

‘It's
mine
!' shrieked the pregnant Gayle, hefalumping to her feet.

‘It's
mine
!' declaimed Marion, springing up the steps two at a time.

‘It's
mine
!' announced Sonia, high-tailing after her.

Gillian flumped on to the ottoman. Well,
that
went over well, she thought to herself. Like Marlon Brando over a bloody pole vault. Through her blur of dejection, she became dimly aware of the doorbell.

The dishevelled shape huddled on the steps in the wintry damp thrust a swaddled bundle into Gillian's arms and shambled over the threshold uninvited. ‘Do you think it's too late for that termination?' it said.

‘Madeline!' Gillian, spluttering in surprise, found
herself
choking. ‘Must be a pubic hair,' she rasped, flippantly.

‘What were you doing?' Maddy joshed, half-way down the hall. ‘Yoga?'

‘Ha bloody ha,' said Gillian, closing the door against the cold. ‘A left over from last night.'

‘Oh, a typical Milton Keynes dinner party.'

‘I'm trying to get pregnant, if you must know.'

Now it was Maddy's turn to choke. Jack, who'd been asleep, woke with a jolt. He lay still, all eyes.

‘Dah-ling, I have spent the last four months, ever since you . . .' – Gillian skewered Maddy on a look of utter betrayal – ‘ab
an
doned me, in the quest for an AI.'

‘AI?' Maddy laid Jack down and shed her coat.

‘Artificial Inseminator.'

‘What?' asked Maddy, siphoning up the remaining eats. ‘How? You just walk up to some guy and say “Hi, would you father my child?” Tell me every detail. Don't leave any genital unturned.'

‘Well, agencies at first. Then those personal ads.' Gillian unravelled Jack and marvelled cluckingly at the changes in him. ‘I've had every oddball known to womankind. I could have had a direct line to Doctor Ruth.'

‘Anyway, you know you never get pregnant when you're
trying
to,' Maddy said between mouthfuls. ‘What you should do is plan a month's scuba holiday, paid in advance. Buy a teeny weenie Yves Saint Laurent bikini. Get the job you've always coveted as a
lab
technician in an X-ray department. Train for a space shuttle mission. Honestly,' – Maddy choreographed her long limbs on the ottoman – ‘you'll be pregnant, pronto.'

Gillian clinched Jack to her breast, cooing and raspberry blowing and chortling ecstatically.

‘But enough about
you
,' sulked Maddy. ‘What about
me?
'

‘Sorry, dah-ling.' Gillian placed Jack on her knee and jiggled him contentedly. ‘How
are
you?'

‘Fine. Me and this rock are just about to bludge the bus fare to the Thames.'

‘Why? What's happened?' Using one hand, Gillian expertly poured Maddy a tumbler of wine.

‘I'm running away from home,' Maddy said, quietly. ‘You were right, Gillian. I – I can't cope.'

‘Of course you can, my dear. It just takes getting used to. That time I had with Jack . . . well, motherhood, I don't know exactly, but it makes you a much more rounded person.'

‘Yeah. In a square world . . . Will you mind him while I go and see Alex?'

‘My God, dah-ling. The desperation of a mother to converse with someone whose nose isn't running is truly tragic.'

‘I'm going to give him the baby, Gill.'

Gillian raised a topiarized eyebrow. ‘You're
what
?'

‘The point is, Alex is rich, well-connected, stable. Jack'll grow up to be happy and well-adjusted—'

‘He'll grow up to write
Daddy Dearest
.'

‘He'll have a much better life with his father—'

‘Maddy,' Gillian said urgently, ‘I know I was insanely possessive. But I'm over it now. I'll have my own baby. We'll bring them up together . . .'

‘How? On what? How long before the owner kicks you out of this place? I'll have to sell myself at King's Cross to psychotic kerb crawlers – except that nobody will want me 'cause of stretch marks. We'll have to eat dung-beetle shish-kebabs and canned dog food. We'll live in a discarded cardboard box under a railway bridge and he'll grow stunted and pneumonic and hate me.'

‘Maddy, how can you just
give away your baby
? What are you going to tell him? That you're at that “awkward age”? That it's just a “phase you're going through”?'

‘I've made up my mind, Gillian. We have to stop being selfish. It's the best thing. For Jack. I mean, put yourself in
his
booties. Where would
you
rather be?' By convincing Gillian, Maddy hoped to convince herself.

The two women looked at each other in glum silence, then at Jack who was happily gumming to death a cardboard drink coaster.

Gillian's body started to vibrate with pent-up laughter; the sort of laughter that usually went with a padded room and a straitjacket.

‘What?' asked Maddy, mournfully.

‘Nothing. I was just thinking – it's the female
dilemma
. All the women I know who are endowed with progeny are sitting in friends' kitchens sobbing that if they
didn't
have children they'd be fulfilled as a female. And all the women
without
offspring are sitting in kitchens sobbing that if only they
did
have children they'd be fulfilled as a female.'

‘Yeah, the other woman's grass is not greener – it's just bloody Astroturf.'

They smiled faintly at each other, pained at the piquancy of their reunion.

‘I've missed you, old thing,' Gillian confessed.

‘Yeah, me too.'

A moment imbued with a dangerous amount of hug-potential was salvaged by the sound of clattering high heels on the uncarpeted stairs. A flurry of scarves and coats, carry-cots and nappy bags, cascaded into the living room. The haughty brigade unplugged baby alarms with disapproving thwacks, and backed, sleeping toddlers draped on overcoated shoulders, into the hall and out the door.

‘Pervert!' came Sonia's parting, mock-righteous hiss.

Gillian held Jack aloft. ‘Res
ult
,' she crowed, ‘dah-lings.'

30

The Nick Of Time

LIFE IS FULL
of mortifying moments. Peeing in a train toilet, when the door is suddenly opened by a man and you're
hovering
. Scales which speak your weight. Asking a friend when the baby's due – and she replies that she's not pregnant. Eating bananas in front of blokes. Discovering, during the over-the-head-thigh-extension exercises in your mixed aerobics class, that there's a hole in the crutch of your leotard. All these things were blush-inducing, but nothing compared to that embarrassment level of having to admit to an enemy that you're wrong.

She had called Alex at the BBC. His new secretary, off-balanced by the genuineness of Maddy's urgency, had revealed his whereabouts at a private clinic. Maddy was surprised at the residue of sympathy
which
welled up inside her at the thought of his hospitalization. Her steps became more and more agitated as she strode up Harley Street. She was shown into a plush private room, with the creamy pink décor of a pastry shop. There, propped up on a bed in a white hospital gown, his face obscured by
The Times
, was the father of her child.

‘Don't make me eat my own words, okay?' she said, bluntly, having barged in on him. ‘I mean, think of the calorie count.'

‘What the—? Oh
no
.' The editorial page wafted on to his lap. This can
not
be happening.'

‘What happened to your
hair
?' A conspicuous fault line of yellow follicles zigzagged across his cranium.

‘Oh, yes.' His hand flew instinctively to his head. ‘Bit of a disaster. A failed attempt to lighten the hair colour so that the grey bits would blend in. Pet's idea. A,' – he searched for the right word – ‘rehabilitation procedure is required, called, I believe, “reverse streaking”.'

Maddy tried to suppress her amusement, but it burst from its seams in a gravelly chortle. ‘Sounds like a naked dash backwards across a footy field.'

‘It's all right for
you
,' Alex sulked, overcome by a gust of absolving self-pity. ‘You're yet to be mugged by time. In fact, now that you're a mother, you have time on your hands. I'm so jealous of you not having to go to work. It's very ageing, you know . . .'

Maddy thought of her hours of vegetable mashing
and
pram pushing, and sighed deeply. People were always asking new mums when they were going back to work.
Back
? As far as Maddy could see, motherhood seemed to involve standing still while
work
came to
her
.

‘So, what “words” were you about to ingest, Madeline? Perhaps you could make it an eat-and-run scenario.'

Maddy looked at Alex, lying there, his supple limbs brown against the sheets. She felt an urgent desire flicker through her body. It didn't seem surprising that she had loved him. There was no doubt that Alex had sex appeal – the trouble was, that he gave generously. She took a tortured breath. ‘I've come to tell you . . .' It was the hardest sentence she'd ever had to utter. ‘I've come to tell you that you can have Jack.'

Her sudden ability to hear the man in the next room trimming his nostril hairs, suggested to Maddy that she had come up against what's known as an awkward silence.