How Hard Can It Be?

by Allison Pearson

  I hadn’t realised how much I counted on that trick working until the time came when it didn’t. We lay side by side in bed, just as we had always done, but there was a vast prairie of distance between us. Awake, sleepless in the dark, eyes wide open and often drenched in night sweats with Richard snoring beside me, I increasingly thought of us not as a couple, but as twin solitudes. Together yet apart. We might as well have lain in separate tombs. The loneliness was far more acute than any I recalled feeling when I was alone. It was easy – all I had to do was reach out and touch his back, but I couldn’t reach out across that nine-inch chasm. The will was there, at least sometimes it was, but my arm would not obey the instruction. I was no longer sure who I would be touching. Yes, that was it. We hadn’t had sex since New Year’s Eve, after the Campbells’ party. And that had been awful – had felt, in fact, like carpentry. When, at last, his wilting penis hardened to the point that he could, he stuffed it inside me with his hand and I cried out because I was dry down there, and it hurt. He was drunk and he hadn’t waited for me to be wet, but why would he when we’d never needed a lubricant before? He hadn’t even kissed me. Kissing would have helped release the juices. But the kissing stops at some point in a marriage, although the sex may go on for a long time after.

  At each thrust, I could feel the vagina walls chafing, being rubbed raw, and my mind strayed to the medicine drawer in the bathroom and what cream I might use in the morning to make it not sore. There was one old sachet of Cymalon, from the time when we made love frequently and I always ran straight to the loo to pee away the bacteria. As my husband moved on top of me, I could picture that creased sachet, tucked in a side-pocket of my Cath Kidston washbag. I could have said ‘Stop’, could have pushed him off me, protested about the lack of foreplay, but it was easier to pretend my cry of pain was pleasure and to cry out some more so he would come quickly, and it would be over.

  *Roy says ‘motiveless malignity’ is actually a description of Iago in Othello, not Macbeth, who was motivated by his wife. Lady Macbeth obvs going through perimenopause and therefore not responsible for violent mood swings, bullying of husband, child murder, etc.

  10

  REBIRTH OF A SALESWOMAN

  The first few days back at work were surprisingly uneventful. Jay-B gave me lots of client reports to do and I was grateful for the monotony and for the opportunity this simple task afforded me to observe my new colleagues; to figure out who might be a potential ally and where I would have to watch my step. As a freelance, I was used to working alone and I’d forgotten what a complex, seething ecosystem an office can be. Last time I sat here, it was as a boss; it was many years since I’d been this low down the food chain. Mine was the Benjamin Button of careers; age and status had both gone backwards. It definitely took some getting used to.

  Within a couple of hours, I’d figured out that Jay-B, lording over the flies like a Banana Republic dictator, was over-promoted. Must have accelerated up the greasy pole when they had a clear-out of the old guys after the crash. He was good, but not nearly as good as he thought he was, which is almost more dangerous than being bad. In a crisis, the only thing Jay-B would save was his own skin, and his hair products; that quiff took serious maintenance.

  Troy was unofficially Number Two on the team. Jay-B should have appointed someone older to balance out his lack of experience and gravitas, but I reckon he relied on Troy’s brashness and trodden-puppy subservience to make himself look good. Classic rookie error. Honestly, when I saw what that kid had done to My Fund I could smite my head on the desk. Smote? Smite? Whichever, it infuriated me, but I wasn’t there to take charge, or to point out their mistakes, just to collect a pay cheque. I decided to adopt a strategy of asking Troy for help when I didn’t need it because Troy was the kind of jerk who enjoyed patronizing the ladies, and it cost me nothing to give him that simple satisfaction. Honestly, Troy could not have been more thrilled with his clueless new sidekick.

  Otherwise, it suited me to say very little. Alice, in the next chair, chatted away, but I made only guarded replies. I wanted to disclose the bare minimum of personal information, until I got used to being forty-two and to never having worked here before. It takes time to get into character, ask Dustin Hoffman. After a couple of easy-peasy days, I did find myself wondering if it had been absolutely necessary to lie about my age and then I overheard Claire Ashley talking to Troy about Phil, a guy in Treasury, who they were thinking of moving across.

  ‘Oh, God, he’s a bit past it,’ groaned Troy. ‘He’s not going to have enough energy and appetite, is he?’

  ‘Hey, Phil’s two years younger than me!’ said Claire, playfully thumping Troy on the shoulder.

  Alice told me Claire was forty-one, so Phil could be described as ‘past it’ at thirty-nine. As I told Sally before my interview, forty-two was practically a Zimmer frame and fifty has a Do Not Resuscitate notice taped to its forehead.

  Tuesday, 1.01 pm: Things are so undemanding in my new role that it is easy for me to switch between a client report on one screen and Emily’s Twelfth Night essay, which I am correcting and expanding, on the other. There was only one sticky moment when Troy appeared at my shoulder and said loudly, ‘Who the hell’s Sir Toby Belch?’

  ‘Oh, thanks, Troy,’ I said, grateful-minion smile on full beam. ‘You spotted a typo. It’s Toby Welch, actually; he’s a big noise at Feste Capital. New outfit. Thought we should try and get to him if we can.’

  Troy’s grin exposed ratty, pointed little incisors, too small for his wide, almost feminine mouth. He was pleased to have taught the new girl another lesson. Once he was a safe distance away, I returned to my argument about how Twelfth Night shows that sometimes deceit is the only way to go. Emily’s essay was coming along nicely, if I say so myself.

  Sod’s Law that Jay-B should then throw my first presentation at me, for this very afternoon. Put it another way: Troy was handed the pitch by Jay-B and Troy has pushed it on to me in what he is pretending is a huge personal favour, but I strongly suspect is a toxic game of Pass the Parcel. Why do the words poison and chalice spring to mind? Ridiculously short notice too, but I can hardly say no. Here’s a chance to prove I’m not just middle-aged desk fodder, but someone Jay-B can send out to firefight if necessary.

  From the little that Troy has told me I have to pitch to portfolio analysts for a Russian family in Mayfair, taking Gareth from Research and Alice, my marketing colleague, with me because no Investment Managers are available. Unclear if any of the Russian family members will be present, also unclear who the competition is – who else will be pitching for this dubious privilege? We were asked to take part in this Beauty Parade at the last minute for reasons no one can quite explain. Maybe someone pulled out, having decided they didn’t much like the look of it?

  Troy’s exact words to me were: ‘We’ve got this Russian, it’s not ideal, but the lawyer says he’s got forty million to invest. He’s been working with him for years and they say he seems fine.’

  Anyway, no use dwelling on the negatives. Here’s a chance to see if the old girl can come out of retirement and show the kids how it’s done. We’ve got half an hour to pitch, including fifteen minutes for questions. No time for thorough research on the client, let alone paying an outside company to do the due diligence and dig up any possible dirt. I set Alice to Googling Vladimir Velikovsky and his family while I call the lawyer who tipped us off about this ‘opportunity’. He’s out to lunch. Pick up the phone to call Compliance in the building, and then it comes back to me. I’m new. It’s always better to see people in person, make them feel more valued, plus they don’t know me or trust me yet. Alice says Compliance is on the fifteenth floor.

  The lifts are busy taking people to lunch, so I take the stairs. Two steps at a time. (Conor would be proud of me!) At the desk, I introduce myself to Laura, the Compliance Manager, and put on my friendliest, most trustworthy face. Then I outline the situation with the Russians. Laura wrinkles her nose, as if she has just opened a
drawer and found yesterday’s tuna sandwich. She says that, as the client is ‘from a higher risk jurisdiction’ (translation: probably total crook), Compliance would like to do enhanced due diligence on this one.

  ‘How much time do we have?’ she asks. ‘Start of next month OK?’

  ‘We have about twenty minutes till the cab comes.’

  Laura is aghast. Says that, under the circumstances, she would say she is ‘marginally unhappy’ about me attending the meeting.

  OK, but ‘marginally unhappy’ is still not a definite ‘No’, is it?

  Presentations were always my forte; I need to grab this pitch if only to prove to Jay-B that I’m not some deadbeat temp just keeping the seat warm for Arabella’s maternity leave. Tell Laura cheerfully that I very much doubt we’ll win. And I really don’t want to let down the lawyer who gave us the tip-off. The lawyer has said that Mr Velikovsky is ‘fine’, which is one up on being ‘marginally unhappy’ with him, I suppose. Although the legal definition of ‘fine’, in these circumstances, may well turn out to mean ‘not hitherto proven to have fed any business associates to his pet shark’.

  2.03 pm: In the taxi on the way to Berkeley Square, Alice shares her Google findings with me and Gareth. Vladimir Velikovsky made an estimated £350 million or more buying gas at a preferential rate from some allies of Vladimir Putin and selling it on at a higher price. There are only two photographs in the public domain. In one, he is posing in the snow, with a Kalashnikov slung over his shoulder, behind a huge, black, dead, and rather cross-looking bear. All I can see of him – the hunter, not the prey – is a pair of mirrored ski-goggles and a voluminous padded parka. The second image shows him beside Mrs Velikovsky, Kristina, a former Miss Belarus, who looks as if she herself has just bagged some big game of her own. You could cut yourself on her cheekbones.

  ‘What did she see in him, I wonder?’ demands Alice. ‘She’s insanely beautiful.’

  ‘Go on,’ chuckles Gareth, ‘take a guess.’

  ‘I’m sure Mr Velikovsky is perfectly charming,’ I say. ‘Have they got kids, Alice?’

  ‘Two boys and a girl, as far as I can tell,’ says Alice. ‘I think the oldest must be about eleven. Oh, and he likes pizza and vodka.’

  ‘The son or the dad?’

  ‘Almost certainly both.’

  A gentleman of exquisite taste, then, Mr V. It’s not much to go on, but it’ll have to do. As we get out of the cab, and Gareth is paying the driver, I get this sharp, crampy twinge in my stomach. Just nerves probably. Come on, silly, it’ll all come back to you.

  Alice has Nurofen to hand, and I throw two of them into my mouth as security men in black leather jackets and dark glasses open the front door. Tom Cruise would have entered through the roof.

  2.30 pm: The meeting is in a ballroom on the first floor of one of those seven-storey London Georgian houses. All of the original features have been painstakingly ripped out and replaced with aluminium industrial staircases, which look like a New York fire escape, and those open, pebble-edged gas-fires that were fashionable for about five weeks and now appear both silly and chilly – the exact opposite of what you want in a fire. The house must be Grade 2* listed, if not Grade 1. The heritage people would have a fit if they saw what’s been done to it, but the owners need not trouble themselves with petty things like listed building consent. With wealth of this order, the world asks you for permission, not the other way around.

  It’s so peaceful up here; the cars in the square below seem to be in a silent movie. It’s the kind of hush that only several billion can buy, outside of a monastery or a tomb. There is a boardroom table with a white Carrara-marble top, and behind the table sits a trio of our would-be clients: non-speaking, non-smiling, and, to judge by their expressions, non-alive.

  The trio goes as follows. Large, Little, Tsar. The one on the left is a bruiser – looks like he spends his evenings and weekends doing some actual bruising. If Russians played rugby, that would be fine, but ask this fellow whether he likes to be hooker or prop and he would thump you. He hunches forward, eyebrows one single line of black thatch. In the middle is a trim, slim, compact figure, who appears to have popped straight out of a box. Crisp cuffs, starchy collar, beady eyes a-glitter behind wire frames. Probably the numbers guy. And so to the Tsar: noble bearing, neatly trimmed beard – looks like he should be sporting the Order of the Silver Sable, First Class, on a ribbon round his neck. A Savile Row suit that costs more than my car. May well be distantly related to British royal family. May well, if I’m honest, be Prince Michael of Kent.

  So, which of them is the dreaded Velikovsky, master of beauty contestants and slayer of bears? My money’s on Prince Michael, although my money carries about as much weight in this room as my degree in History. None of the three rose at our approach, or made any sign of greeting; none has introduced himself yet, nor do any of them, it would seem, feel the urge to do so. Perhaps they are three-in-one, like God. All in all, it’s National Mateyness Day.

  Deep breath. As I’m about to start speaking, I do a double-take. That painting on the wall behind them, of an odalisque lounging around, with her harem pants and her almond eyes – the world’s most beautiful slacker – could almost be a Matisse. The colours are dazzling enough. Then I remember where I am. Don’t be thick, Kate. Of course, it’s a Matisse.

  ‘Good afternoon, gentlemen, it’s great to be here and thank you for giving us the opportunity to tell you a bit about EM Royal. To start with, allow me to give you a little bit of background. At EMR, we have an exceptional research team. Gareth Bowen, our head of Research, is here today to give you an insight into how we do things. My colleague, Alice Myers, will talk you through investment strategy. We are extremely proud of our performance. We’ve got two hundred and fifty million pounds of assets under management. Our fees are very competitive and, believe me, our service is second to none.’

  I soon relax and start to enjoy myself. It comes back to me. You’re good at this, Kate, really good. Compared to the swashbuckling presentations I used to do a decade ago (one, notably, standing on a desk on the 105th floor of the World Trade Center, alas), it’s a cinch. The muscle memory kicks in.

  ‘Gentlemen,’ I say, ‘please look on our fund as a high-performance kicker to run alongside your more conventional investments. Think of us as your Cristiano Ronaldo.’ I can feel Alice stiffen slightly beside me. The trio opposite smiles nervously, wondering where this comparison is going. ‘Well, Ronaldo without the tantrums or the hot-pink shorts.’

  They are still laughing when I feel it happen. Oh, God. Not just bad period pain, not just the trickly inkling that a period has started. More like a melting glacier in one of those time-lapse films that show the history of the Earth in five seconds. It’s as though a land mass has crumbled in my womb and fallen away completely. Something catastrophic is happening down there. I need to get to the loo immediately.

  Luckily, I’ve just reached a point in my spiel where I can hand over to Gareth, so I don’t feel like a complete fraud when I say, ‘Excuse me just a moment. I’ll leave you in the capable hands of Gareth, our legendary research supremo. Gareth and Alice will answer any questions you may have. Gareth, over to you.’

  Gareth and Alice look like I have just handed them a small nuclear device, but I can’t worry about that now. Get up and perform a kind of crab-like skedaddle across the vast room, trying to keep my thighs together in case anything drops onto the paler than pale Danish-wood floor. Thank God I wore black opaque tights because I thought it was just another work day, not the sheer hold-ups I usually wear to look the business for a pitch.

  I stumble through the heavy door into the ladies’ cloakroom. It is the most beautiful I have ever been in. The walls are lined with hand-painted silver chinoiserie paper featuring the palest-pink magnolia trees and darting hummingbirds so lifelike it feels like a bird could fly onto my hand at any moment. The washbasin is a ceramic barge, almost bigger than our entire bathroom at home, and on the windowsill there
blooms a dense field of white orchids. I practically fall onto the loo. Safely sitting down, and with my knickers and tights around my ankles, I get a chance to assess the damage. It’s unspeakable. Who knew this much blood could come out of one person? It’s not just blood either; there are liver-like clots. I feel faint just looking at them. For a moment, I wonder if I’m having a miscarriage. Then, I remember that I haven’t had sex since New Year’s Eve. Can’t be pregnant. Momentary relief. Doesn’t last long. Oh, God, please help me, somebody help me. I feel hot and sick, but I can’t stay here like this, I can’t. This haemorrhage is not in our promotional material, that’s for sure. Come on, Kate, come ON! Time to dump that Loch Ness monster into the toilet and mop myself up.

  Gingerly I remove first my tights and then my knickers, flush as much of the abbatoir mess as I can flick off down the loo, and place a big wodge of loo paper between my thighs. Carefully rising from the toilet, I put my pants and tights in the vast basin, run hot water in a torrent and pump in as much soap as I can get out of the silver dispenser. Swirl around briskly then leave to soak. Allow the loo paper to absorb the accumulated bloody mess between my thighs for a few seconds then flush down the loo. Repeat the process. Flush away again. Repeat process five times till loo paper has run out. Look around for new roll of paper. No roll to be found and I can still feel stuff trickling out of me.

  I check my handbag, even though I know for a fact there’s no Tampax in there. Damn. Periods have been so light and infrequent for months now I don’t bother. Not that a tampon would be any match for the crimson tide. In desperation, I take a beautiful monogrammed linen hand towel, with VV in one corner, hand-embroidered for bear-hunting oligarchs, and fold it into an emergency sanitary napkin. I place that between my legs in a kind of hammock. Now what I need is something plastic for a protective layer, to prevent any leaks – shower cap, bag for disposing of sanitary products, something like that? I look everywhere, down by the side of the loo, under the sink. Nope. All that’s here is liquid soap and about thirty giant orchids. Well, desperate situations call for desperate remedies.