Young Wives' Tales (2 page)

‘Or maybe she just moved here to piss you off,’she adds with a grin.

‘Maybe, but she hasn’t. It’s great that the boys are just around the corner from their dad if they ever need him.’

I lie convincingly now. I used to be hopeless at telling the littlest white fib but all skills can be developed with practice.

‘Yes. I guess he can drop in any time,’adds Connie.

I nod and refrain from pointing out that he never has. Instead, I offer her another biscuit and ask if she managed to buy Fran a book bag. They’ve been hard to get hold of – the school outfitter miscalculated demand.

‘Yes, got it. Am I supposed to sew a label on to it or can I just write her name on the flap thing?’

‘You need to sew a label on the handle. It should be initial and then surname, in blue. Times New Roman font,’I reply confidently. My feet well and truly on
terra firma
.

Connie stays for an hour but I can’t persuade her to stay for lunch. She even resists my offer of home-baked bread and soup.

‘Are you sure? It’s organic. Over six different vegetables in it. I made a huge batch for the boys, too huge as it turned out. We didn’t manage to eat it all.’

‘Rose, you put me to shame. Fran and Flora never get to eat like that. My idea of a healthy meal is a bowl of pasta and some frozen peas,’she says. ‘Can we come round for our tea one day this week so that they get a few veggies and something organic inside them?’

I laugh and we agree to have tea together on Thursday. I assume and hope Connie is exaggerating her lack of skills in the kitchen. It’s true that historically cooking has not been one of her talents, but surely she knows that she has a responsibility to the children now. Hasn’t every mum converted to organic produce? I start to tell her how simple it is to make soup, but I don’t even get
as far as explaining the most efficient way to prepare and freeze stock when I see her eyes glaze over.

‘You know, I always just buy the cubes,’she comments, as she hugs me goodbye and makes for the door.

I remember the day when there was nothing easier on this earth than persuading Connie to waste time. She was the undisputed queen of sloth. Of course, that was when she was pretending to be a management consultant. Now she is a photographer and runs her own business. As yet her photography business isn’t making her millions but it’s clear that the job satisfaction she gets from her work is priceless. At least she no longer resents her husband for enjoying his work as an architect.

After Connie leaves I wash the breakfast pots and then clean the house from top to bottom. I congratulate myself as I manage to dust on top of wardrobes and vacuum under the beds. I spend over two hours tidying the boys’bedroom. It is extraordinary how time flies when you’re sorting Lego bricks into different colours and sizes. I do a basket of ironing and put on two loads of washing. One is drying at the moment. I’ll iron that tonight while I’m watching TV. I make a ham quiche and peel the vegetables for tea.

At 3.15 p.m. I put on a dab of lipgloss and set off to school. I feel a bit guilty. I should have made more of an effort with my appearance. Some of the mums always arrive at the school gate with full make-up and the latest high-street must-haves. But, then again, they have men over four feet tall to make an effort for.
I can’t imagine Sebastian or Henry noticing whether I’m wearing the latest fashion statement or an old favourite peach M & S T-shirt; one that’s been comfortable in my wardrobe for a decade. I’m more of a slummy mummy than a yummy mummy.

That said, although it is only a short walk to the school (literally two minutes) and it’s a sunny afternoon, I don’t leave the house without finding a cardigan. The sight of my wobbly, flabby arms is not something I want to share. I’m a size sixteen, or eighteen in the less generous brands. I’ve been this size since I got pregnant and this doesn’t bother me at all. Or at least it doesn’t bother me enough to make me want to do anything about it. I hate diets, and the only exercise I enjoy is walking the dog, which I do regularly. I do this more for the good of my heart than my figure, though. I’ve never been skinny. My wedding dress was a size fourteen and had to be let out a little around the bust. I suppose the difference is in those days my bust made men trip over their tongues, while now my boobs hang so low the only person that’s likely to trip on them is me.

It’s a very pleasant afternoon; rather more summer than autumn because the seasons no longer know when to change. When I was a girl you were guaranteed golden leaves underfoot almost the moment you pulled your school tie out of the wardrobe but it’s not the same now. Everything is topsy-turvy. I saw crocuses sprouting in Hyde Park this August. I sometimes think the whole world is going mad. I hurry along the path
worrying whether the boys are likely to have lost their blazers if they’ve taken them off.

As I approach the school gate I see two or three mums already clustering and my pulse quickens. I like this time of day. In the mornings, at drop-off, none of us have time to chat; we’re all a little too harassed. In the afternoons I get my dose of adult company. I notice that all the other mums have younger siblings with them. Some in arms and strollers, others pulling on skirt hems. My arms feel empty and for a moment I don’t know what to do with them.

We swap pleasantries; catching up on news about where people have been on their hols, comparing which after-school clubs we’ve enrolled our children in this term and suggesting dates for tea visits.

‘Did you get away this summer, Rose?’asks Lauren Taylor. A mum of three, her eldest daughter is in the twins’year. Her middle one’s in reception and the youngest is in the stroller.

‘Yes. We hired a
gîte
in the South of France with my sister and her husband.’

‘Oh, I’m so pleased. I was thinking of you and wondering how you manage over the hols. Six weeks can be a long time on your own.’

People often assume I am lonely. Even relative strangers feel compelled to say, ‘It must be very hard on your own,’cue sympathetic look. Pity is something I’ve become accustomed to. Accustomed to but not anaesthetized. It’s meant to make me feel better. It doesn’t. The exact words may vary marginally; there
might be a seasonal twist – ‘It must be hard to be on your own during the holidays/Christmas/your birthday’– but the sense that they feel sorry for me is the same. I’m always stunned by comments such as these. How can I be considered to be on my own when I have twin seven-year-old boys, a dog, a rabbit, two goldfish, a full complement of parents, out-laws (the fond name I give my ex in-laws), friends, a younger sister, a brother-in-law, a large rambling garden and a small crumbling house? All of whom/which depend upon me for sustenance, maintenance, guidance, a ready supply of opinions (if only to reject them), walking, weeding, painting, cleaning, etc.

Although it is worth noting that I haven’t had sex for over half a decade. This does niggle me from time to time. I comfort myself that there’s no point in lamenting the lack of sex. Even if opportunity knocked, I’m not sure I was ever any good at it and I’m pretty convinced that if I was, I wouldn’t be now. I’ve forgotten what goes where.

Lauren continues. ‘I was tearing my hair out towards the end of the summer and counting the minutes Mark was at the office. The moment he walked through the door I’d yell at him, “Your turn, I’ve had them all day.”’Lauren says this without any intention to be rude or malicious. She’s simply stating what every happily married mother thinks. ‘I can’t wait until Chrissie starts nursery school next year. Last one off my hands. The new nirvana is an empty house.’

‘You shouldn’t wish it away,’I tell her, sourly.

She looks mildly chastised and I’m pathetic enough to feel chuffed by this; it evens the score after her comment about the certainty of my being lonely. I know motherhood shouldn’t be a competition but it often feels as though it is. I do like Lauren a lot, however, so I resist adding that
my
best days are the ones when the boys are around me; days when they are drowning me in their noise and mess, because I know she’ll be floored with guilt.

I feel down as I suddenly realize that today has been the strain, not the holidays.

‘Maybe you could come over for Sunday lunch one weekend. It’s no fun having a Sunday alone,’offers Lauren. And maybe I would have accepted except that she adds, ‘Not this Sunday though, we have Phil and Gail Carpenter and their kids coming over. They have a girl in year one and the boy is in year four. Do you know them? Anyway it might be better if you come one weekend when it’s not all couples. I think you’ll be more comfortable. Maybe when my Mark is working away? What do you think?’

I think I want to punch her but I smile and lie, ‘I’m sorry Lauren. I’m booked up every weekend from now till Christmas.’

Luckily, at that moment I catch sight of the boys snaking their way out of the classroom and across the playground, so I make my excuses and move forward to collect them.

The boys are mortified that I’ve picked them up and point out that they can walk home in minutes and I can
practically see them from my bedroom window if I choose. I incense them further because I waste (their words) precious minutes that could have been spent watching TV (not if I get my way) by chatting to Mr Walker, the head. He’s always visible at dropping-off and picking-up times so that the parents can grab him for a moment’s gripe or grovelling. He also asks about our holiday but without the pity Lauren interjected into the conversation. The boys kick the pavement throughout the brief interlude and I whisper threats about confiscating favourite toys unless they are civil. When we do walk home they insist I trail behind them, keeping a distance of at least ten paces so their friends don’t think they are babies. But they
are
my babies.

As I mosey behind them I consider my lie to Lauren. I know it was motivated by pique. My one bugbear about being single is that married couples never invite you anywhere. They don’t want to draw attention to the fact that you are a spare part, not because it embarrasses the single person but because it embarrasses the cosy couples, who on the whole don’t know what to do with unwanted wives. Where, oh where to put them?

Still, I know Lauren well enough to trust that she wasn’t trying to be offensive in any way, she’s just tactless. I sometimes think I live with shackles of tactlessness. Great iron chains that I lug around with me. These chains grow more hefty, awkward and burdensome as friends, relatives and strangers make unintentionally offensive comments and then I have to live with the emotional weight of their remarks.

But then again maybe I’m just touchy. Maybe I should ring Lauren and tell her that a date has freed up in November. It would be nice to go somewhere different for Sunday lunch. Daisy and Simon come to me about once a fortnight and Connie and Luke invite me to theirs reasonably frequently. Luckily, Luke is a far superior cook to Connie. But they have busy lives of their own and I can’t impose myself on them all the time. The boys are often with Peter on a Sunday and those Sundays are the worst. Relentless. Evil.

Yes, I’ll call Lauren.

I am at my desk by 7.45 a.m. I check the Dow, the FTSE and the Nikkei. I linger on the Bloomberg site to get a measure of what the markets have been doing overnight. The US Stock-Index Futures are little changed ahead of rumours that consumer confidence is down and there’ll be a slowing of personal spending. There’s always rumours, most of which are initiated by traders. The important thing is to be able to effectively, efficiently and faultlessly separate fact from fiction. I keep reading and soon find what I’m hoping to see.
European stocks advanced, led by semiconductor makers, including Infineon Technologies AG, and Micron Technology Inc. – in the US – unexpectedly posted a fiscal fourth-quarter profit after markets closed
.

Unexpectedly for some, maybe, but I’d seen it coming and had taken a punt. I can almost smell my bonus. I calculate that the pleasantly surprising earnings from Micron signal good news for tech stocks, there’s demand out there and the companies could perform better than the market had previously thought. I
immediately check my clients’portfolios and decide what to sell and what to hold on to.

I feel I’m on rock solid ground in the office. I adore my job, everything about it. I like numbers and I like money, which is a good start. But I also relish the fact that I’m a bloody excellent trader and I wield enormous respect among my colleagues; all the more glorious as it is grudgingly given.

I started as a graduate trainee with Gordon Webster Handle, one of the City’s most respected and established institutions. I soon discovered that respected and established are euphemisms for ball-breakingly tough and sexist, but oddly that environment didn’t intimidate me, I found it challenging. Eight graduates started together. All, except me, were Oxbridge graduates. All, except me and one other, were men. The other woman trader no longer works. She married one of the few dotcom multi-millionaires who managed to turn his idea into hard cash just before the dotcom dream turned into a nightmare. One of the other guys has had a breakdown and I understand that he spends his time on a Buddhist retreat in India. The other five are all still trading, although I’m the only one still at Gordon Webster Handle. A couple of them live in NY now, which by all accounts is amazing – pure adrenalin the entire time. Sadly, not a rush I’m ever likely to experience. A move abroad isn’t an option for me now, as Peter needs to live near his sons. Still, I like it here. They appreciate me.

When we used to keep track of such things I regularly
earned the highest bonus among my original gang of trainees. A fact none of us has ever got over.

As Jeremy (the self-appointed cocky bastard in the group) pointed out the first time it happened, ‘Thing is, Lucy, it’s unexpected. You might be the best trader among us but you still have a vag. I thought that alone would cost you twenty or thirty grand.’

‘It is rare to see a case of best man wins,’I laughed, ‘especially when the best man is a woman.’