The Trials of Tiffany Trott (20 page)

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Canned carols. Hateful holly. Crass cards. Grotty grottoes. Miserable mistletoe. Tedious, tawdry tinsel. Effing fairy on top of the evergreen, plastic tree. Santa and Rufus and sleighbells going
ring ting ling a ling, ring ting ling a ling ling
! Gosh I love Christmas! The Salvation Army band. Piping choristers with apple-cheeks and crisp, pleated ruffs. Sitting by a blazing log fire with the man of your dreams, joking and laughing and . . . oh God oh God oh God—it’s
that
time of year again. The Bleak Midwinter. Jingle Bells. Such a wonderful time for us Single Belles. Deck the Halls with Boughs of Holly, tra la la la la—tra la la la! ’Tis the Season to be Jolly Pissed off, actually. And, of course, Christmas is
[in]
all about babies, isn’t it? Being “in the sixth month” and all that, swaddling clothes and cribs and all the rest of it, and then giving birth in some sub-NHS middle-eastern manger with a steady stream of concerned visitors.

Siii-lent Night. Ho-ooly Night,
droned Bing Crosby in Selfridges today. And the annoying thing was—I mean talk about the potency of cheap music—but the annoying thing was that it really
got
to me. I tried not to let it, but it did. In fact, it was extremely embarrassing.

“Why are you crying, Tiffany?” Alice demanded as we stood in the queue for Father Christmas on the fourth floor.

“DON’T ask her THAT,” shouted Amy. “Tiffany’s CRYING because SHE’S NOT MARRIED. She HASN’T got a HUS
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BAND. She hasn’t EVEN got a BOYFRIEND. THAT’S her PROBLEM.”

“I am
not
crying because of that,” I said indignantly, while wondering what on earth Lizzie said about me to the girls when I wasn’t there. “I’m simply crying because I’ve got some dust trapped under my contact lenses, that’s all.”

“Of
course
you have, Tiffany,” said Lizzie handing me a tissue. “OK Alice and Amy—don’t forget, one request only.”

“Oh
Mummy
,” they wailed.

“Last year they asked for sixty-three things each,” she said. “It was hideously embarrassing. They’d brought a list and refused to leave until they’d got to the end of it. I had to drag them out. Hope it’s not the same man this year. And if he attempts to sit
either
of them on his knee,” she added fiercely, “I’m
suing
.”

“Look, I’ll wait outside,” I said. “There’s no need for me to come in too.” I wandered down to Menswear to get a tie for Dad. I looked through all the different makes. Dunhill, that might do. Lanvin—lovely, but a bit flash for him. Yves St. Laurent—not quite his thing. Ralph Lauren . . . Ralph Lauren . . . that reminded me. It reminded me of the time I bought Phillip a silk tie from Thomas Pink. It was rather nice, silvery-gray with a scattering of tiny scarlet motifs. It wasn’t for his birthday or for Christmas. It was just a present. And I felt quite shy about giving it to him because I hadn’t been going out with him that long—just a couple of months—and I really, really hoped he’d like it and I knew that it would go with his favorite gray suit. But when he opened it, he looked at the label and his face fell, and he said that he wouldn’t accept it because he only wore ties from Ralph Lauren. I bet Seriously Successful wouldn’t have done that, I thought to myself. If I’d given
him
a tie, he wouldn’t have said to me, “Look, I’m sorry, but I only wear Hermès ties.” He’d have said, “How lovely, Tiffany. Thanks very much. I really like it.” And I think he’d have said that even if he
hated
it. Even if he thought it was the most
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hideous tie ever produced in the history of neckwear. Because Seriously Successful may have a wife, and quite possibly a girlfriend too, but he’s also got good manners. I bought Dad a nice tweedy, speckly sort of tie in olive green, and then met Lizzie and the girls in the mezzanine café.

“God it was embarrassing,” said Lizzie as Alice and Amy went up to get some more cake.

“Why?” I said. “Did they ask for too many things?”

“No. It wasn’t that. It was the fact that I knew Santa! I recognized him from drama school. He was the star of my year—he played Romeo. And after that I saw him on TV once or twice and then he seemed to disappear. And here he is—in the Selfridges Christmas grotto.”

“Did you say anything to him?”

“Of course not!”

“Why not—did you think he’d be embarrassed?”

“No. It’s just that the girls
believe
in Father Christmas. How could I say, ‘Hallo, Jeffrey, I remember you from drama school.’ The game would really be up then.”

I caught the number 73 home, while they took a cab back to Hampstead. And I sat staring out of the window, at the tinsel-dressed windows, and the frosted glass, and the bright lights swinging overhead in the stiff breeze, and the souped-up synthesized carols kept circulating in my head.
No crib for a bed . . . lays down his sweet head . . . infant lowly, infant holy . . . he smiles within his cra-adle . . .
a
babe with face so bright.
And I thought about babies, as I often do these days, and wondered whether I would ever have my own special delivery. A sweet little cherub, with downy head and huge blue eyes and bendy little arms and legs and . . . oh God, what a
din
! I wish that baby would
shut up
! I turned round and glared. Some people just let their babies scream their heads off on public transport, don’t they?
Waah! Waah! Waah!
Totally sickening for everyone else. Where was I? . . . oh yes. Babies. The infant Je
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sus. Christmas. And, to make things worse, the forecast is for snow.

That nice man John Kettley was right. Six inches came. Overnight. This morning I walked down to Highbury Fields, my feet crunching into the thick layer of glistening, pristine white. The air was clear and clean. The sky a refulgent blue. Snowflakes drifted down from the trees, and were whipped up by the thin, sharp wind into meringue-like peaks and folds. And the roar of the traffic was dulled by this dense, blue-white blanket. All you could hear was the shrieking and laughter of a hundred children at play. There they were, all bobble-hatted and cherry-cheeked, being pulled along on toboggans, pelting each other with snowballs or building portly, serious-looking snowmen.

“Mummy! Mummy! Faster! Faster!” a little boy yelled as his mother pulled him along behind her on a plastic sled. They were both giggling, almost hysterical. I thrust my hands deeper into my pockets and turned up the collar of my old loden coat. The snow crunched and groaned underfoot, the sharp sunlight stung my eyes. And as I stood watching them I wondered whether I could ever go it alone. On my own. With a baby. Whether I could be a single mother. A lone parent. Like Sally.
Sally!
Of
all
people. I mean, I just couldn’t
believe
it. Of all the women I know, Sally was always the least likely to go down that road. Sally, who just a few months ago said that she would never ever have a baby without a bloke, is intending to do just that.

“I’ve known for sure since mid-October,” she said last night as we sat at my kitchen table, “although I didn’t want to say anything in case it didn’t, you know, happen. But now I know it’s definitely on its way.”

“When?” I asked.

“May.”

“Wow! Well, um, congratulations!” Is that what one said on
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these occasions? Were congratulations necessarily in order when one’s single girlfriends announced that they were pregnant? I wasn’t at all sure. I looked at her—she certainly looked very happy. And she looked different. Her face seemed to shine as if something was radiating her from within. Her eyes were animated and lucent, not red-rimmed from lack of sleep. And she hadn’t got out her laptop all evening. She had sat with me in my kitchen, talking and laughing—though I had wondered why she’d refused to drink, just as she had at the firework party—and then, as we sat down to eat a looping mound of spaghetti carbonara, she had quietly dropped her bombshell.

“I’ve found the way,” she concluded happily as she replaced her fork on her plate. So
that’s
what her bizarre answer phone message was about. “I’ve found the way,” she repeated. “And this is it. At least, for me. Aren’t you going to ask me who the father is?” she added mysteriously.

“No,” I said, “I’m not. Because it’s absolutely
none
of my business. Er . . . is it anyone I know?”

“No,” she replied with an odd little laugh. “It’s no one
I
really know either.” Curiouser and curiouser.

“He was my guide,” she explained. “On holiday, in Rajasthan in August. A well-heeled young English guy working for the company, doing lecture tours of the Mogul palaces. We were all staying in the Lake Palace at Udaipur and, one night . . . well, it’s a very romantic spot.”

“I know,” I said. “That’s where William Hague went on honeymoon. Are you going to tell him? I don’t mean William Hague,” I added quickly. “I mean, your um, your um, father. Not
your
father, though you probably
are
telling your father—I mean the chap. The father of your child.”

“No,” she said. “I’m not.”

“Why not?”

“Because he’s only twenty-two.”
Gosh.
“And he’s about to start a Ph.D. at Oxford in Indian architecture. How could I impose a responsibility like that on him just as he’s starting out?”

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“But he might
want
to know,” I pointed out.

“I very much doubt it,” she said. “And it’s better if he doesn’t. What good would it do? We’re not in a relationship, and we’re never going to be in one. It was just, you know, a moment really. And anyway, it’s my choice to have the baby. Not his. I mean, no one
has
to have a baby, do they?”

“Did you do it on purpose?” I asked.

“No,” she said thoughtfully. “But nor did I take any particular measures to avoid an ‘accident.’ ”

“Nor did he, it seems.”

“I know. But he’s very young. And a bit silly. And he believed me when I said he didn’t have to worry.”

“Oh. Oh. I see.”

“In any case his parents are very pukka, rather uptight people from what he said. I’m sure they’d be absolutely horrified. Just like mine are.”

“
Are
they?”

“Yes. Completely. Can’t accept it at all, though I guess they probably will when they see the baby.”

“But you said your parents would
love
you to have a baby. You said they were always going on about how much they’d like to have grandchildren.”

“Oh yes,” she said, “but not like
this.
I’m afraid it’s gone down like a cup of cold sick at home.”

“But you’re thirty-eight.”

“I know. But I’m still their little girl,” she explained. “And I’m their only daughter. So naturally they’re disappointed that I’m not going to have the white wedding of their dreams to their fantasy son-in-law. Anyway,” she continued, “they’re pretty unhappy about it, and for the time being they don’t want to know. And that’s why I’m telling you, Tiffany.”

“Well, it’s nice of you to confide in me,” I said as I got out the double-chocolate ice cream. “I promise I won’t breathe a word.”

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“No, no, it’s more than that. I didn’t just want to tell you to get it off my chest. I wanted to ask you something.”

“Yes?”

“A favor.”

“Yes. If I can.”

“It’s a big favor.”

“Ask away,” I said as I shut the freezer door.

“It’s a
very big
favor.”

“Sally, I really don’t mind. You know I’d do
anything
to help.”

“OK then. Will you be my birth partner?”

“WHAT?”

“I’d like you to be there with me when I have the baby.”

“Er. Well. I’m terribly squeamish, you know.”

“. . . and I was wondering if you could come to some of the ante-natal classes with me.”

“I’m not sure I’d be much use, really.”

“You see, I need someone to give me moral support . . .”

“. . . just doesn’t sound like my kind of scene at all, Sally.”

“. . . as I don’t have a man.”

“Oh God, oh God.”

“. . . and you’re the only person I know well enough to ask. I can hardly ask my younger brother,” she continued, “my mother’s absolutely anti, and I don’t have any other women friends to whom I feel sufficiently close.”

Gosh. Well. Flattery does work wonders, doesn’t it? But to be honest, I was a bit surprised, because although I like Sally a lot, I really do, I would never have said we were best friends. But it’s
me
she wants. Me! How amazing. “Well,
of course
I will,” I said.

“Thanks, Tiffany. You’re a
brick
.”

And so this morning, it really got me thinking about the whole subject. Babies. I suppose if Fate handed me a card like that I’d probably play it too. But some women—they set out to be single mothers. Deliberately. They have a one-night stand,
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or they ask a friend to oblige, or they pop down to the sperm bank. But that’s always struck me as highly risky because you don’t know what you’re getting, do you? I mean, it would be OK if you could go down there and say, “I’d like some Pierce Brosnan please, or if you’re out of him, I’ll have some Kevin Costner or possibly a little Bill Gates.” But it isn’t like that, is it? It could be any ugly, scrofulous student with criminal tendencies and a genetic predisposition to athlete’s foot. No. No way. I’m not doing that. At least Sally knows what she’s got. And by May she’ll be a mum. Gosh.

Anyway, I arrived back home after my walk in the fields to find the answer phone flashing at me in a cheerful fashion. Ooh goody. A message. Not from Seriously Successful, who appears to have given up on me completely, but from Mungo Brown.

“
Hello,
Tiffany,” he said in his slightly affected drawl. Or maybe he was drunk. “It’s
Mungo
here. I hope you’re
well.
I really enjoyed meeting you at the Oscar
Reeds
gallery last week and, um . . . I wondered
whether
you’d like to come to a little
dinner party
I’m having at my house
in Shepherd’s Bush
on Friday. Just a small do. Just
six
of us. Hope you can make it. Around eight? Give me a ring will you, to let me
know
.”