How Hard Can It Be?

by Allison Pearson

  ‘You’ve got so much gotting.’

  ‘Sorry?’ She comes closer, peering at me through the gloom as if I were an exhibit in the zoo. ‘Bit squiffy, are we? One over the nine?’

  ‘Eight.’

  ‘A word of advice, Kate. If you’re serious about getting on now you’re back in the City you’ve got to be in shape. That hamster wheel stops for no man, you know. Or woman.’

  ‘Thank you, Roz.’

  ‘It’s true. Harsh but true. People think boozing goes with the job, but if you really want the job then the booze has to go.’

  ‘S’great. Very wise, thanks.’

  ‘All part of the Pilger service.’ She looks around at the dark walls, the mysterious entrances to staircases, the lawn colourless in the moonlight and as smooth as a billiard table. Roz breathes in, holds it, then out. This is her allotted thirty seconds of nostalgia, I can tell.

  ‘Funny old place. Still, hell of a stepping stone. Got to get on with life, though. Can’t hang around.’

  ‘I was just thinking—’

  ‘Yes?’ She’s getting impatient now, needing to find her driver and her car.

  ‘I was thinking how when I used to do this, and it was with a boy. You know, walking back to my room at night, that feeling of excitement of …’ Why am I telling her this?

  Roz hits that one straight back at me. ‘Well, thank heavens that’s all over.’

  ‘What is?’

  ‘All that malarkey. Boys and sex and all that nonsense. Fun for a bit, but what a waste of that time, when there are so many better things to do.’

  ‘Like what, Roz? What’s better than making love?’

  ‘Golly, you are drunk. Call of the past and all that? Forget it, Kate. Personally, I couldn’t be more thrilled that it’s over and done with.’

  ‘You mean …’

  ‘That whole department. Bed and everything. I shut up shop years ago.’

  Anyone listening would think we were discussing the retail sector.

  ‘Blessing, as far as I’m concerned,’ she goes on. ‘Never quite my thing. More your area than mine. Roger Graham was saying at dinner that, between you and me and the bedpost, you were the naughtiest girl he ever slept with. Randy old bugger, that man. And indiscreet. At his age, too. Anyway,’ she says, heaving a sensible sigh, ‘mustn’t stand here nattering. Good to see you, Kate. Got to find that bloody car of mine. Bye bye.’ And off she marches, the sound of luggage wheels scrolling into the night.

  I stand there a moment, listening, trying not to laugh, and teetering on the brink of tears. Roger lying to everyone about having shagged me – why the hell not? Maybe after a certain age what we wanted and what we did meld into one. Then I turn and walk straight across the lawn – forbidden territory, then as now – to the room where I’ve been put for the night.

  Kick off shoes. Unpeel what is left of stocking and post into teeny swing-bin. Go into bathroom, switch on light, gaze into mirror, switch off light again very fast. Brush teeth in the half-dark. Drink three glasses of tap water. I get undressed, then reach over to my suitcase and unzip the compartment at the side. Laptop. I seem to be acting on automatic now, like Robot Man. Open, turn on. The false moonlight of the screen again, dazzling for an instant. Password; not too pissed to remember that, thank you Roy. Small mercies.

  Inbox. Click, click, click. Reply. I pause, holding my breath. Come on, Kate. Say it to yourself: I will not shut up shop. I will call up the past. I cannot live on the hamster wheel and the grindstone, however they fit together. I can be happy, can’t I, whether it makes me good or not? Screw it, why not not be good and give happy a chance?

  From: Kate Reddy

  To: Jack Abelhammer

  Subject: Us

  Jack. It’s me.

  PS XXO

  15

  CALAMITY GIRL

  3.03 am: Wide awake, staring at cobweb on the ceiling and worrying. If I had a superpower I would be Calamity Girl, blessed with the ability to foresee disaster around every corner. Or do I mean cursed? Getting on the train every morning, the first thing I do is scan the carriage for bombers before figuring out the most direct path to the exit. How likely is it that a terrorist is on the 7.12 am from Royston to King’s Cross? Doesn’t stop me checking, though.

  I know it’s irrational. Believe me, I know. And that’s just one of a hundred different worries blipping across my air-traffic controller’s screen, as I’m sitting alone in the control tower, tensed to avert a collision or note any small deviation from the maternal flight plan.

  Just the usual stuff. North Korea. The kids. How they’re doing at school. Putting too much pressure on kids to work hard at school. The kids not working hard enough at school to get into a Russell Group university. Kids never getting a paid job, being stuck as interns till they’re forty-one. Kids leaving home. Kids coming back to live at home and never leaving again. Emily bringing home a drug addict with blond dreadlocks and a dog on a rope. Our finances. Richard’s health. My health. My job. Not getting my temporary contract renewed. Flu jab. Death. Ben’s toenails. Christmas. Emily’s party. Worrying that I worry so much I will make myself ill. Doctors say stress causes cancer, don’t they? Not going to the gym enough to combat stress and release endorphins. That I cancelled my appointment with Dr Libido the gynaecologist twice already. That my periods are more like bloodbaths. Carbs. Ageing. That I’m not around enough for my mum. Did Lee Harvey Oswald really act alone? What was up with that grassy knoll? My sister resenting that I don’t do my share with Mum. Did I take the wrong tone in my last phone call with Julie? (Got to be so careful.) Richard’s parents. Barbara picking things up like a human magpie, becoming a danger to herself. Donald her dutiful, despairing guardian. Forgetting to order Curcumin tablets to ward off dementia. My weight. Doing well with my diet through the day, then blowing it all on a bloody KitKat at 8.33. House renovation costs. Death. Jack (no, definitely not Jack, stop that!).

  I’m burning up here, hotter than July, nightie drenched in sweat. And still the worries keep coming. What did Jay-B mean in that email when he said ‘you seem to be making your mark on the team’? (Is that good?) Not seeing my friends because work and family is all I can manage. The number of Christmas cards we get almost down to single figures, including one from a lawn-care company. Putting up cards from previous Christmases to make it look like we have more friends. (Sad.) Letting Sally down by cancelling another dog walk. That Emily seems subdued, even defeated, when she’s not yelling at me. (Did she fall again? I saw a cut on her arm.) That Lenny misses me now I’m back at work, waits by the door. That my Experian credit rating is inexplicably low. Would chin lipo change my life? That I keep remembering Cedric the German exchange student then promptly forgetting him again. That Mum needs to see the cardiologist for her check-up. That she tells me not to worry. That I worry. That she needs to stop wearing heels in case she falls. That I must buy Magic Skin highlighter cream for youthful appearance, as featured in Stella magazine. That Ben told me Emily’s Facebook said she had ninety-nine acceptances for her party. But she told me she’d only invited seventy people! That I keep getting this sinking feeling that Emily’s life is like one of those Hollywood sets: all facade for the camera and nothing inside. That this is a pandemic among girls and there’s absolutely nothing we can do about it. That I must remember to carry sanitary towels now in case. That the door is slamming shut on my fertile years and it grieves me, it bereaves me. Even though I knew I would never have another baby, to lose the possibility of another baby. Jack. (I said, NO JACK).

  Constant, low-level feeling of Nameless Dread. Turning fifty. (You’re as young as you feel. I don’t feel young, I feel wrecked.) That I was too scared to get on the down escalator at Bank the other day. Terrified, actually. Stepped back, couldn’t do it, sorry. Sorry. Don’t know what’s wrong with me, all of a sudden. Vertigo? Just step on. No worries, Conor at the gym. No worries, Kate. Need to go to sleep. Must sleep or I won’t be able to cope at work. Can’t sleep. Nameless
Dread. (‘What’s its name? ROY? Please give my dread a name.’) Must stay in control. The kids, always the kids.

  Is this a normal amount of anxiety, do you think? Does every woman feel like she’s by herself on duty in an air-traffic control tower? I mean, I’ve been anxious ever since Emily was born. That’s fair enough, I reckon. What are children except parts of your heart? It’s not exactly ideal to have your heart going to a party, then sleeping over at someone’s house and not texting you because ‘my phone died’. If you could choose someone to carry your most vital organ around, it wouldn’t be a dopey teen who forgets to charge their mobile, would it?

  Lately, though, I notice the worry has really stepped up a gear. Is it being back at work? Is it Perry and the Menopause siphoning all the happy hormones from my womb? Is it this chronic wakefulness at 3 am? Is it the big birthday hurtling inexorably towards me? Uch. I went to a lovely carol service on Saturday and, during ‘Away in a Manger’ I was looking around, figuring out which exit was nearest so I could get the kids out if there was a terrorist attack. The kids weren’t even with me. I was in a church, for God’s sake.

  I don’t want to make too much of this. It’s just that, some days, the fear is almost incapacitating. I’m a teeny bit scared that I’m losing my mind.

  Wednesday, 6.26 am: ‘Honestly, you and your doggy due diligence, Kate!’

  Sally is laughing at me or, more specifically, at my habit of scanning the path up ahead for any dogs that present a clear and present danger to Lenny and Coco. I pride myself on being able to tell from 150 metres which hounds might bite or start a fight. Generally, I admit, that’s based on an assessment of the owner rather than the animal.

  ‘Come on, I was right about those two Jack Russells, wasn’t I?’

  ‘You were,’ Sally concedes. ‘That man was absolutely awful. Saying, “My dogs only want to play” while the big one had poor Coco by the scruff of the neck until you went in with your wellies flying. You were so brave.’

  It’s very early and we have the country park to ourselves. The sky is a delicate, icing-pink, which means rain later, but, for now, it’s like a preview of heaven. The gate was still locked, so we parked across the road and found an opening in the hedge. I told Sally that I keep waking in a sweat and can’t get back to sleep. A fellow insomniac, she told me to text her, any time, and if she was awake she would text back. It really helps.

  We are following both dogs up the glittering, icy track that runs parallel to the main road where we have found some very late blackberries growing in the hedge. We pop them straight into our mouths; smaller and tarter than the ones you find in shops, they have a light dusting of frost and taste like Nature’s own bittersweet sorbet. Sally suggests we come back with a Tupperware to collect berries for a Christmas trifle. I don’t even want to think about all the food I have to prepare and shop for before both sides of the family descend on us. What I really want to talk about today is not Jack Russells but another Jack entirely. Haven’t heard from him since I sent that drunken email at the college reunion. Five whole days ago. Have tried hard not to run every possible reaction Jack might have had, good, bad and indifferent, on a loop-tape through my brain. In this, I have only been partially successful. Entire minutes go by when I manage to think about something else. Why hasn’t he replied? I want to share all my feverish speculations with Sally. Did he get the email? Was he upset I took so long to reply to his? Is he paying me back by taking a while to get back to me (no, Jack’s not childish like that). Should I have said something else? Something more thoughtful or encouraging than, ‘It’s me. PS XXO.’ Oh, God, why did I reply at all and plunge myself into this torture of anticipation?

  Truth is, I’m not sure I know Sally well enough to share this – what is it? Stupid crush? Midlife crisis? Last orders in the Passion Saloon? We’ve both talked about our marriages, with Sally praising Mike’s good nature and speculating on the long hours he spends alone in his shed while I gave an unfair but highly enjoyable account of Richard’s cycling obsession and his constant talk of eco-friendly Svengali Joely and her hideous herby teas. We ended up crying with laughter. Only later did I wonder which was greater: the mirth or the tears.

  When we get to our bench at the summit, and Sally is dusting the sparkling spilt icy sugar off with her glove before we sit down, I can’t resist any longer. I mention an American client who recently got in touch again, a man I had feelings for many years ago, back when I was still working. I jabber on. How having small children made it impossibly selfish and wrong to take it any further (true), how nothing really happened between me and Jack (also true, sadly); anyway, I know the grass is never greener, it only looks that way to a person running a one-woman relay race around the cinder track of working motherhood.

  Sally doesn’t press me for details. She cocks her head, listens and nods, and I think I see her blush beneath her fur-trapper hat. Is her silence frosty or is it just the weather? Sal is a decade older than me, I forget that, and perhaps she takes a more old-fashioned, disapproving view than I expected. I feel so happy in her company, so held and safe somehow, that the thought she might disapprove of me causes my cheeks to redden in imitation of her own. When Lenny comes bounding up, waggily triumphant with another dog’s rubber ball, it feels as if we are both grateful for the interruption. I won’t bring up Jack again.

  On the way back to the car, we discuss Emily’s party, which is this weekend. Sally suggests removing any ornaments or pictures and covering the sofas, just in case. I say that won’t be necessary; it’s going to be quite a small, civilised affair, although I’m starting to have my doubts. The Carters are having a party of their own on New Year’s Eve when I will get to meet Mike and Sal will meet Richard. I tell her about the thing I have christened the Nameless Dread. Mention what happened at the top of that escalator at Bank station the other day. I don’t want to call it a panic attack because panic attacks are for febrile metropolitan types, not sturdy Northern workhorses like me. Why develop vertigo now?

  ‘My mum got through the menopause fine,’ I say. ‘I don’t understand why it’s hitting me so hard.’

  ‘I think it was different for them,’ Sally says, linking her arm through mine as we come to the steepest and widest part of the path. ‘Because we have careers, we start our families later, so we find ourselves going through what they used to call The Change when we still have kids at home. And our parents are old and starting to get ill or need help. I remember my mum was having chemo when Oscar was doing his GCSEs; I was torn right down the middle. And look at you, zooming up to see Richard’s parents and your own mum a few days before you started the new job. Now you’re throwing a party to cheer up Emily when you’re dealing with those awful boys at work. It’s a recognised thing, you know.’

  ‘What is?

  ‘The Sandwich Generation,’ Sally says. ‘It’s in all the magazines. See, if we’d had our babies when Mother Nature intended …’

  ‘At eighteen?’

  ‘Or fifteen even … Well, we’d be grandmothers, even great grandmothers by the time we hit the menopause, wouldn’t we? Not still trying to take care of everyone while holding down a job like you are. Honestly, it’s no wonder you’re anxious, Kate. You’ve got to find a way to be kinder to yourself.’

  Lifting Lenny up and wiping his muddy paws with the towel I keep for that purpose in the boot, I say that I’d love to put less pressure on myself, but that won’t be possible, not while Richard isn’t working. I can definitely see the advantage of being a revered tribal elder rather than the filling in some crazy generational club-sandwich.

  ‘What filling do you reckon I am, Sal? Tuna mayo? Egg and cress?’

  Sally says she’s not sure. ‘But whatever it is, dear girl, you’re very thinly spread. Please go and see Dr Libido, promise me?’

  Once she has driven off, I check my Inbox again. Several new emails, including one from Jay-B, ominously titled: Grant Hatch. Still not the one I want so badly. Where are you? Please speak to m
e.

  7.11 am: Back home, I gently suggest to Ben that maybe he could live without the three-dimensional PlayStation thingy for Christmas. After the password debacle, hopes are fading that I will find one in time. The thought of trying to rescue the situation while dealing with whatever that feral hipster Jay-B throws at me, oh, and organising bed linen and towels for twelve guests, makes me want to check into a padded cell and scream for several hours. I ask Ben casually if there’s something else he would like as his main present from Father Christmas, other than the impossible-to-find, out-of-stock PlayStation.

  ‘How about a new bike, love?’

  He lets his spoon clatter into his Cheerios, splashing milk across the table, and his mouth forms that big, silent ‘O’ from Munch’s The Scream – the face that always signalled he was about to unleash a Krakatoan tantrum when he was little. Unlike my daughter, my son is still emotionally transparent. He lacks the capacity for guile. I can read him like the top line of the optician’s chart. This fact melts my heart.

  ‘Noooo,’ Ben cries. ‘The 3D is so cool, Mum. It gives you migraines and everything.’

  ‘Sounds healthy,’ says Richard, glancing up from his phone. ‘Talking of healthy, Kate, I was thinking maybe we could ring the changes this Christmas food-wise.’

  Uh-oh. *Man Takes Interest in Christmas* klaxon. I stiffen, then say sweetly, ‘What do you have in mind, Rich? Christmas dinner does tend to be pretty traditional.’

  ‘Well, Joely, who has years of experience with this sort of thing, was telling me about Tofurky. It’s a much lighter option.’

  ‘Toe Furkie? Sounds like a foot fetish.’

  ‘Tofur-key actually,’ says Rich, wincing and pushing his glasses further up the bridge of his nose. ‘Non-genetically engineered soya and quinoa. Very tasty and no blood sugar crashes afterwards.’

  ‘Sounds rank, Dad,’ says Emily, who is sitting on the window seat, painting her toenails black. She shoots me a conspiratorial smirk and I think: Ah, good, we’re friends again because I said she could have a party and Daddy didn’t.