One more unexpected delight of Black Friday is every merchant I’ve ever bought anything from decides to message me simultaneously. It’s a ghostly rosary, a list of my mortal-spending sins. Suddenly, I spot an email from the supplier of Ben’s PS4. I begin to read:
Good Morning Kate,
You placed an order with us on 1 November for PlayStation 4. Unfortunately, we were unable to process your payment due to a reset password.
I shout back at the screen, despite the fact there’s nobody to hear: ‘NOOOO! But you told me I had to reset my password.’
It is not permitted to use a password previous used.
‘What??? That’s not even English. Previous used? You said the system didn’t recognise my password so how can I not be allowed to use it? What are you talking about?’
Order is cancelled. Please contact Customer Services with any further queries.
‘You have got to be kidding me. Please don’t do this. I need Ben’s present.’
‘Sorry, Kate, is bad time?’
I jump and turn to find Piotr standing just a few feet away from me. Mortified to think of him hearing me raging aloud at invisible Internet cow.
‘No, it’s fine. Come in. Sorry, Piotr. It’s just I bought Ben’s Christmas present and now it’s a disaster because they’re saying they’ve cancelled my order because I used a password I’d used before but they said they didn’t recognise that password so I thought it would be OK to use that password again because if I used a new password I knew I’d just forget it.’
This doesn’t make sense, not even to me, but Piotr nods and smiles. ‘Yes, Kate. Internet not like shop with real person. Try again maybe? Let me help you. Too much open on laptop. See we can close here and here – and here. Now, we can start new.’
Up close his eyes are the green of a rockpool at low tide.
I need to get dressed for work. ‘Thank you, Piotr.’
From: Candy Stratton
To: Kate Reddy
Subject: You
Hey, what’s with the radio silence? I worry when you go quiet on me, honey. Need full update on how you’re dealing with working for that Boy running YOUR fund, the one you set up when he was still in diapers. What happened with Emily’s butt pic?
Breaking news: think I have found solvent male in New York of the opposite sex who doesn’t identify as pansexual, doesn’t repulse me and is not on a Witness Protection Programme. Yay!
XXO C
8.27 am: I am going to be late for work. Hideously late. I called a cab and made it do a detour, via Emily’s school, where I left the final page of her History coursework with Reception. Jumped back in the cab and we headed for the station, but, by then, the traffic had really built up. Every single traffic light turned red as we approached it. Every bloody one. Just my luck, it was RED NOs day.
Am finally on the train. I manage to fight my way to my preferred window seat and take out Parenting Teens in the Digital Age by Dr Rita Orland. The book the kids find so hilarious. Dr Orland says you must not regard this phase as one in which your lovable child becomes an unpredictable monster. ‘Your child is not only good when they’re not doing bad things.’
Closing my eyes, and pressing my head back against the seat, I ask the Goddess of Mothering for forgiveness. I keep losing it with the kids, when I don’t mean to. Ben said I need help, didn’t he? Maybe I do. Perry is turning me into an absolute harridan. As though from a distance, I observe that I’ve started to cry. The two passengers sitting opposite look and then quickly look away again. I sympathise. There’s something so naked about someone crying in public, isn’t there? All this weird random weeping: is it me or is it Perry, or are we one and the same now? I’ve got to stop; it’s becoming a habit.
I think of Emily struggling to print out her History. So anxious and stressed. She’s right, the printer is shitty. All printers are shitty, designed to flash up mystifying symbols indicating they’re out of ink, or jamming paper for no reason. Thinking about what the school day ahead holds for Em, I regret that stupid quarrel we just had, especially my part in it. Sometimes I act, I know I do, like my love for her is conditional – on tidiness, on good behaviour, on improved grades – but that simply isn’t the case. However much she may distress or anger me – and, boy, does Emily know how to press that button – my frustration with her is always to do with love.
Kate to Emily
Hi darling, hope you got to school OK. You left a page of your coursework at home. I gave it to Nicky at Reception – she knows you’re going to collect it. Hope you have a good day. Pls let me know if there’s anything you specially want for Christmas? Love you. xxxx
From: Kate Reddy
To: Sally Carter
Subject: Guilty Secret
Hi Sally, so sorry I had to cancel our walk again. Feeling a bit overwhelmed with the new job tbh. I’d forgotten how tiring it can be. I’m shattered and surrounded by all these kids half my age then I get home and have my own kids to deal with!
I need some advice from someone who’s a bit further along the Motherhood track. Would you be horrified if I told you I helped write Emily’s English essay for her? I know it’s cheating and I shouldn’t do it, but Em hasn’t been herself since that dreadful business with the belfie I told you about. I’m worried that she isn’t coping with her A levels and all the pressures from social media. For the first time since Emily was a newborn, I feel like I don’t know what I’m doing as a mother.
Why do they call it Sweet Sixteen by the way? She’s sour and vile to me most of the time. Plus, big college reunion is looming and I planned to look totally fabulous and successful which now seems unlikely as:
(a) Will probably lose new job as I can’t figure out how to work the ‘dongle’ thing the IT guy gave me, even though he wrote it all down.
(b) Appear to be growing Robinson Crusoe whiskers while the hair on the top of my head is coming out in handfuls. Seriously, what kind of merciful God would make middle-aged women bearded AND bald?
Typing this on my phone on v v crowded commuter train. Hope it makes sense. Please can we rebook dog walk for tomorrow or Sunday afternoon? Lenny will never forgive me!
Kate x
From: Sally Carter
To: Kate Reddy
Subject: Guilty Secret
Dear Kate, please don’t reproach yourself. I can imagine how tiring it is settling into the new routine. Everyone at Women Returners is longing to hear how it’s going. You do realise you are now the Poster Girl for midlife employment!
Can I urge you to book in with that gynaecologist in Harley Street I mentioned? He’s a real lifesaver. I had an undiagnosed underactive thyroid and I felt exhausted and freezing for three years and my hair fell out. Now take thyroxine every morning, but still have to wear lots of layers as you may have noticed.
As for feeling guilty about Emily’s essay, please don’t. Parents doing their kids’ coursework is the middle class’s guilty little secret. In fact, doing the work yourself is jolly noble of you. Oscar said that his mate Dominic’s mother paid a UCL English graduate a small fortune to do Dominic’s A level coursework as he’s thick as a brick, not like Emily. Apparently, none of the Russian kids at St Bede’s would dream of doing their own work. They have a different tutor for each subject. It’s a total racket.
Antonia started being hideous to me around the age of fourteen and didn’t stop till she was twenty-two. She still has her moments! Emily will come back to you, just hang in there. Believe me, you have nothing to worry about with the college reunion. You have achieved far more than most of us. In my experience, those occasions always cause panic and self-loathing and then you go along and rather enjoy yourself.
Kate, I really think you should do something for your fiftieth. I know you want to pretend it isn’t happening, but you may feel miserable and regret it if you don’t. Please say if I can organise something, however small. I’ve got a lot more time on my hands now than you and I would actually enjoy it. I used to be good at
parties in a previous life.
There are some very dark things in the world and I feel we should celebrate the good and the joyful whenever we can.
Coco says Wuff!
Sally xx
11.01 am: Thank heavens for Alice. I texted her to say I’d been delayed and she bamboozled the morning meeting, saying I was at breakfast with a really promising contact. She even texted me the details of the imaginary person I hadn’t met. That girl could really go places.
Lateness apart, everything is going according to plan in Project Undercover Almost-Fifty Woman. Except for the hot flush I just had in Jay-B’s office. Pretended I’d had allergic reaction to the lemongrass perfume sticks on his desk. Am now seeking refuge in the Ladies, pressing a bottle of cold water to my cheeks until the heat has left them.
Come out of the cubicle to find Alice putting on her make-up. I give her a hug to thank her for covering for me. ‘No problem, Kate. Normally, I’m the one who’s late,’ she says.
Alice is wearing the same purple dress and taupe jacket she wore yesterday so obviously stayed over last night with the boyfriend. Been with Max on and off since they were at school, or so she told me. Incredibly handsome, wealthy family, done some modelling, not settled yet to any job in particular, holidays in the Maldives and Val d’Isère with his parents. When she showed me Max’s picture on her phone I knew I was being invited to bow down before his god-like perfection, as Alice clearly does. What I saw was one of those pointlessly good-looking, spoilt public schoolboys who is nowhere near committing to anything, let alone the girl who has worshipped him since they were fifteen.
How old is Alice: twenty-eight? Thirty? With her long blonde hair and candid, searching blue eyes, she’s a dead ringer for her namesake in Wonderland. One of the hardest things about being back at work is seeing all these younger women who I still think of as me. But when I watch Alice in the mirror, I realise with a pang that I am not her, not any more. Her peachy face is untroubled by broken nights or blazing rows with teenagers; her figure is as slender as a reed – as mine once was – and effortlessly so, without need of brutal, twice-weekly gym sessions with Conor and no pudding or cheese. Ever.
What does Alice see when she looks at me? An older woman (she doesn’t know how old) but pretty ‘well-preserved’, I guess. Although she has no idea of the cost of preservation – and why should she? I never gave it a second’s thought when I had a face and body like hers and assumed that youth would last for ever. Please please don’t let me become one of those jealous old baggages like Celia Harmsworth, the head of Human Resources who made life hell for me when I was Alice’s age. Let me lift up my sisters! There are some things I don’t envy, though. Like her on-off relationship with Narcissus and his magnifying mirror.
‘Stayed over with Max last night,’ Alice admits with a rueful smile, as though she read my thoughts.
‘I guessed,’ I say lightly, taking out my own lipstick. ‘Don’t you keep a change of clothes at his place?’
She shrugs. ‘Max is a bit funny about me leaving my stuff there.’
‘Really?’ (Uh oh. Don’t like the sound of that.)
‘Yeah. Normally he stays at mine, but he had tennis this morning.’
‘Have you thought about moving in together? I mean, you’ve been going out a long time?’
Alice rolls her eyes. ‘Oh, Max is hopeless like that. Says he loves me, can’t live without me yadda yadda, but not ready to make the commitment.’
‘You do know what Beyoncé says? If he likes it he should put a ring on it.’
‘Oh, Kate!’ Alice grimaces. ‘You sound just like my mum. Guys now, they’re not like that. They don’t need to settle down.’
‘How about you? You need to think about yourself, Alice.’
That’s the trouble with girls of Alice’s generation. They see an ad on the Tube for freezing your eggs and they think that biology has been vanquished, and pregnancy indefinitely postponed. It’s a con and the fertility clinics are full of its victims, handing over thousands to recreate what Mother Nature provided gratis.
Shall I give Alice the lecture? Oh, what the hell. I tell my young colleague that I’ve seen the pattern too often for comfort. Girl goes out with same guy till their late twenties, hangs in there waiting for him to take it to the next stage. The guy doesn’t bother because he’s getting regular sex and free food, and men don’t initiate anything unless they want sex or food, or a woman insists it happens. Then, at the age of thirty-one, he falls for someone younger, fresher and much more impressed with him. Within seven months, they’re married and expecting twins – it’s always twins – and he emails the old girlfriend saying he’s really grateful that she helped him to grow up and realise what he really wants from a relationship. (Gee, thanks. It was nothing!) The girl now needs to find a new guy to have a baby with. ‘But that won’t happen overnight, and she really has to start trying within the next couple of years in case she has problems getting pregnant. Trouble is, men run a mile from women who are giving off Let’s Make Babies signals,’ I tell Alice, ‘so, basically, it’s Catch-32.’
She drops her mascara wand into the basin, her mouth frozen in that slack ‘O’ girls make when they are concentrating on applying eye make-up.
‘I thought it was Catch-22?’ she says.
‘For men, maybe. For women, it’s Catch-32, the age by which you really should have signed up the prospective father of your children. Or the chances of you having any start diminishing by the month.’
‘Wow. Are you trying to scare me, Auntie Kate?’ There’s mockery in those blue eyes and maybe a flicker of fear.
‘Not scare, Alice. Just giving you the information you need to make good choices, darling. Remember what I said about always doing your due diligence to check out whether someone’s a safe bet?’
‘I thought that was clients, not boyfriends?’
‘Same principle. Men and clients should be assessed for decency, probity and long-term viability before you invest in them. OK, here endeth the lesson. Sorry, Alice, it’s just I’ve seen too many girlfriends left high and dry by bast— Forget I said anything. I’m sure Max isn’t one of those. Shall we go and run through that presentation to Brian the Bolsover-brewery-baron?’
Alice can’t hear me. Her hands are plunged in the new Dyson dryer, so powerful it’s moving her skin around like water. Glance down at the back of my own hands; a lack of elasticity there is one sign of ageing you can’t hide. Ah, hands and neck, the downfall of the genuine fake.
As Alice picks up her bag, she says Jay-B mentioned at the meeting earlier that he wants me to go and woo Grant Hatch, some mega financial adviser. Huge business for us if it came in.
‘Hatch is supposed to be a nightmare. Jay-B must really trust you,’ says Alice with a grin.
For the very first time, I allow myself to think: maybe I can pull this off. Maybe it’s going to be all right.
From: Kate Reddy
To: Candy Stratton
Subject: You
Hi hon, work going OK. Think I am winning The Boy over slowly. They let me do a pitch to Russian oligarch. Poison dwarf. Just your type. Halfway through the bottom fell out of my world or, rather, the world fell out of my front bottom (that’s British for vagina btw). I thought I was dying, or at least having a miscarriage. Scary. Really must book to see gynaecologist. They call him Dr Libido! Maybe he can make me human again. Here’s hoping.
Great news about solvent, non-serial killer boyfriend. It’s been minutes since you had a husband. You know that green satin dress, the one I wore to your last wedding? Well, I was counting on wearing it to my college reunion. Way too tight. Am living on Lite cherry yogurt and Diet Coke.
It’s taking sooo long to shift the damn weight. Menopause really stinks. Any suggestions that don’t involve scalpels?
K xxx
PS Got email from Jack A
From: Candy Stratton
To: Kate Reddy
Subject: JACK’S BACK!!
Katie, are you fucking kidding me? The great love god ABELHAMMER, who could give you an orgasm discussing commodity prices from Cleveland? How could you not TELL ME? What did he say?
To get into reunion dress you need Vaser lipo to zap the fat pouches. No big deal. Get it done over lunch.
Sorry to hear about the haemorrhage at the oligarch’s palace. Yuck. It happens. When I told Larry I was through the menopause he said, ‘Thank God. No more Crime Scene periods.’
Obviously, I divorced the insensitive bastard.
Mail me back NOW. Need to know what Jack said.
XXO C
PS Front Bottom? WTF?
From: Kate Reddy
To: Candy Stratton
Subject: JACK’S BACK!!
I didn’t open Jack’s email. Too dangerous.
From: Candy Stratton
To: Kate Reddy
Subject: JACK’S BACK!!
Open the box, Pandora! What’s the worst that can happen?
From: Kate Reddy
To: Candy Stratton
Subject: A certain American
Well, I could unleash feelings for a certain American which I have been suppressing successfully for 7 years. And I don’t want to feel those feelings because then I’ll realise how little I feel these days which would be unbearably sad and I am nearly 50 and am reconciled to nobody ever fancying me again or kissing me on the lips or having sex again, except at New Year and birthdays which is OK actually. I am not unhappy.
K xx
I sent the email. I know, it was what Emily calls TMI. Too Much Information. But I pressed Send anyway. Old friends are one of the few good things about getting older. You can’t have old friends when you’re young, can you? All the friends worth having have stuck around, and you can tell them practically anything. Candy knows me almost as well as I know my self. But she was wrong about me and Jack. That door was nailed shut. To open it would be madness. Like Lot’s wife, I could not look back.
How Hard Can It Be? Page 20