My Life On a Plate

by India Knight

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Author

  Praise

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Preface

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Epilogue

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  MY LIFE ON A PLATE

  India Knight was born in 1965. She lives in London with her two children. Her second novel, Don’t You Want Me?, is also published by Penguin.

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  MY LIFE ON A PLATE

  Praise for India Knight:

  ‘Brilliantly funny and knowing … Clara Hutt could eat Bridget Jones for breakfast’ Evening Standard

  ‘With its intelligence, exuberance and its admirable charm, My Life on a Plate is a welcome revival of a tradition of mondaine comedy which seemed to have become extinct with the death of Nancy Mitford’

  Sunday Telegraph

  ‘Almost unbearably funny’ New Statesman

  ‘Knight is brilliant on comic details … and spot-on about relationships’

  The Times

  ‘Tender, tough, schmaltzy, witty and heart-warming all at once. Knight has a great comic touch’ Metro

  ‘Fabulous. Laugh-out-loud funny’ Cosmopolitan

  ‘Knight has a keen eye for delicious detail’ Herald Scotland

  My Life On a Plate

  INDIA KNIGHT

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Penguin Putnam Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

  Penguin Books Australia Ltd, 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia

  Penguin Books Canada Ltd, 10 Alcorn Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4V 3B2

  Penguin Books India (P) Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi – 110 017, India

  Penguin Books (NZ) Ltd, Cnr Rosedale and Airborne Roads, Albany, Auckland, New Zealand

  Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank 2196, South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  www.penguin.com

  First published 2000

  32

  Copyright © India Knight, 2000

  All rights reserved

  Extract from The Sayings of Dorothy Parker by Dorothy Parker, edited by S. T. Brownlow © 1992, by permission of Gerald Duckworth & Co. Ltd

  The moral right of the author has been asserted

  Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  ISBN: 978-0-14-193869-1

  For my mother

  Oh life is a glorious cycle of song,

  A medley of extemporanea;

  And love is a thing that can never go wrong;

  And I am Marie of Romania.

  Dorothy Parker

  1

  What should happen is, I should somehow catch my reflection in a mirror, or a shop window, fifty or so pages in, and describe myself to you that way. Seems a bit contrived to me, that method, besides which if I catch my reflection in shop windows, I tend to scream with horror, rather than tip my head to one side and make measured, composed observations. Also, I always want to know what people look like right at the start, don’t you? You’d feel pretty peeved if you discovered, much later on, that I was a psychopathic two-ton Tessie with flat feet and a moustache, or – worse – some hateful, eating-disordery twig that wafts around in Prada smelling of sick.

  So let’s get things straight. I don’t smell of sick. (That’s my friend Amber, whom you’ll meet later. Her hobbies are bulimia and self-help books. My hobby is being compassionate.) And I don’t weigh two tons, although, as a ripe size 16, I’m hardly what you’d call frail and reedy either. What else? Five nine, dark hair, green eyes – oh look, I’m sounding all sexy, which isn’t quite right. Let’s see. If you asked Kate, my mother, she would shake her head very sadly, as if I were an especially precious kitten that had died in tragic circumstances, and tell you I’ve ‘let myself go disgustingly’. And I suppose she would be right. I mean, I’ve got the man, the house, the children: why not celebrate by tucking into a doughnut or two of a morning? Or an apricot Danish, or indeed a whole tube of Pringles… As a consequence, I favour elasticated waists and loose tops, although I have a sneaky liking for vulgar shoes and organza (which I try to curb, as nobody wants to look like White Trash SlutMum at the PTA meetings). The best way I can think of describing myself is: we’re not talking control pants yet, but we’re not going to pretend that they haven’t struck us as being a pretty damned handy kind of a garment either.

  My name is Clara, which is quite pretty, and my surname is Hutt, which isn’t, although it enables me to think of myself as Jabba the Hutt in my more self-loathing moments. This is useful. I have two children, Charlie, who is six, and Jack, who is three. I have a husband, Robert, who is a mystery (does anybody actually know what goes on in their husband’s head, or is it just me?) but quite attractive. I have a part-time job as a magazine writer, a big house and nice clothes, and friends that don’t smell of sick as well as some that do. I am thirty-three. And some days I wake up with the sneaky feeling that my life isn’t all it should be.

  In the current climate, you probably want to know how I Got My Man. I do feel quite pleased with myself, sometimes, actually. I look at my friend Tamsin, thirty-four, single and desperate, and feel a warm glow of intense smuggery. Sometimes, though, I am so overwhelmed with jealousy – I can’t remember the last time I was out all night, drinking martinis and flirting with strangers – that I feel compelled to initiate lectures, masquerading as conversations, about all the things that might go wrong if one were – perfectly hypothetically, of course – trying to have a child past the age of thirty-five. This is because, despite external appearances, I am a) on the childish side and b) not very nice.

  Getting my man: why, the trick is to be young and attractive. No, not really. The trick is not to look. Robert and I were twenty-five when we got married, which is comparatively young these days, and I weighed three stone less and was a bit of a minx, which helped. I can say it, now that I am an Old Married Lady, with my minxdom very much behind me – rather like my cellulite. I don’t know quite what happened. We met, we fell in love, we got married. It helps not to be desperate, as I’m so fond of telling Tamsin in my meaner moments.

  Anyway, eight years! Isn’t that amazing? And I haven’t strayed. Well, I haven’t got naked. I kissed someone I used to go out with, at a party, two years ago, but I don’t think that counts. Does it? It was only a peck, though it was pecking with intent. I try not to think about it too often. Married women pecking exes with intent is like opening a tiny window and letting in a shaft of light. People in my position really oughtn’t to do it. Or think about why they might have wanted to.
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br />   My mother is on the phone. It’s Robert’s birthday next week and, she says, we ‘need’ to make a plan. What I would like to do is have dinner, in a restaurant, alone with my husband. Life is, sadly, not quite that simple. Mine is the kind of family that likes to involve itself intimately in all aspects of each other’s lives. So on Robert’s birthday we’ll all be having dinner together: me, Robert, my mother, Kate, my half-sisters, Evie and Flo, their boyfriends and my stepbrother, Tom. We don’t actually get on with each other terribly well – my sisters excepted – but, coming from the kind of family we do – ‘fragmented’ is an adjective that springs to mind, as does ‘dysfunctional’ – we like the idea of these get-togethers, in theory if not in practice, and no one more so than my mother, the über-matriarch. The dinners often end in screaming rows, and someone always weeps. One of the things I like about Robert is his composure in these situations, which he seems to find amusing rather than exhausting.

  Anyway, heeeeeeere’s Mummy:

  ‘Clara?’

  ‘Yes, Kate.’

  ‘Don’t sound so resigned, Clara. I am your mother.’

  ‘I know, Kate. You are. Isn’t it bliss?’ I can’t help myself with my mother. I just can’t help it.

  ‘It’s bloody discourteous to put on that bored voice and be sarcastic.’ Kate is getting agitated now. Kate is revving up.

  ‘I’m not putting on any voice, Kate. Anyway, you are bliss.’ And it’s true. She is, sometimes. But not today.

  ‘Christ, Clara. You’re so sly and rude. Just like That Bloody Man. Your genes are coming out.’ This is a reference to my father. Kate and he were married for six months. He was followed by two more husbands, and we’re bracing ourselves for number four, who’s bound to occur sometime soon. My genes are always coming out, apparently. Peepo!

  ‘Kate. Robert’s birthday. Dinner. Where shall we go? Have you spoken to Evie? Flo?’

  There is a pause, during which Kate splutters.

  ‘Do you think I have nothing better to do with my time than chase all of you all over London? Do you think? I have a very busy life. Very busy. The busiest, Clara. I can’t be expected to be your social secretary.’

  ‘I know, Kate. I am busy too – the boys…’

  ‘The boys! Those poor children. Don’t drag them into it.’ My children are always ‘poor’ when Kate mentions them, presumably because they have me as a mother and not Kate. Many men Kate knows are ‘poor’ also, because they have the misfortune not to be married to her.

  ‘Kate, it was your idea, the dinner. But fine. I’ll round everyone up. Since you are so very busy, and since my life is one enormous vacuum.’

  ‘Hola!’ Kate suddenly shouts in my ear. ‘Hola! Up here! In the drawing room! Did you bring the Chanel pale pink? El pinky? Para los fingers? Clara, darling, Conchita’s here for my manicure. Which reminds me. Your fingernails are a disgrace. I shudder to think of them. I practically retch. Call me later.’ And she hangs up.

  2

  I think increasingly about Robert in the bathroom, where his mysteriousness is most apparent. Because my husband defecates in secret, like a very shy cat.

  In eight years of marriage, I have never been aware of his going to the bathroom for evacuation purposes. I’m not complaining as such, obviously – I don’t go a bundle on the whole companionable his ’n’ hers windfest that some of our friends seem to enjoy (‘Better out than in! Hahaha’). And I really wouldn’t be at all happy if Robert decided to have a comfy dump while I was in the bath. It’s not like I long to go into the bathroom and be hit by clouds of air freshener either.

  But I still think it’s odd, the felineness of the, ah, motions. I mean, eight years. Of course, this assumes he has motions – I wouldn’t actually know. Perhaps he never poos. Perhaps he is biologically unique and I should point out his existence to the British Medical Association, and they could send men in white coats round to give him anal probes.

  Sweeeeeeerve. See? Now I’m going to crash the car and we’re all going to die. I mustn’t think about anal probes at school-run time. If I crashed the car, children’s lives would be lost for the sake of one bottom-thought. Not even a sweet, motherly bottom-thought involving, say, Pampers or nappy rash or Sudocrem. A probe thought: a bad thought.

  Sometimes I feel completely isolated, going through the motions (as it were), behind glass. I don’t know my husband at all, I suddenly realize, not for the first time, and the silent bathrooming is a symptom of my lack of knowledge. And while we’re at it, why is my life like this? This morning I ran out of time, again, and am driving the car in my pyjama bottoms, again, with a sweater of Robert’s on top, again. I have no make-up on (speaking of which, surely I’m too old for a shiny nose at 8.42 a.m. I’m thirty-three, not fourteen). But here we are outside school and everybody else seems to be perfectly groomed. Again. There’s Carmel – too much foundation, but at least she’s matt. There’s Jane, looking pristine in her snappy little suit and sexy-but-demure heels. She’s lost so much weight she is beginning to look like a lesbian from the 1930s.

  I’m going to have to get out of the car in my pyjamas any second.

  There is Naomi, looking fresh-faced, though I know that no one looks like that first thing in the morning without the help of expertly applied maquillage.

  ‘Muuuuuuummmeee!’

  ‘Not now, darling, I’m parking.’

  ‘Mummmmeeeeee!’

  ‘I am parking.’

  ‘MUUUUMM…’

  ‘Stop it, Charlie. I am parking. Don’t make me want to break your legs.’

  See, that’s another thing that’s not quite right. I don’t speak to my children like the mummies in books. I mean, Charlie is six and his language is already atrocious; not swearing so much as his vast panoply of hideous, faintly disturbing terms of abuse. ‘You tiresome retard,’ he says to his brother. ‘The devil is going to come and spike your bottom with an enormous fork.’ Or, to some hapless toddler who’s come to play for the afternoon, ‘GOD, you exasperating creature. WHAT IS IT? TALK, for God’s sake. God GOD bloody GOD.’ I have only myself to blame. I started off with the noble intention of not wanting to be one of those women who made stupid noises at their children. But now I keep forgetting that my children are small and even I am appalled by the vigour of their language.

  I park the car.

  ‘What was it, Charlie?’

  ‘I think I’ve got nits,’ Charlie says. ‘My head is all itchy.’ He looks up at me imploringly, with his huge blue eyes. I don’t know where my children’s colouring – fair hair, light eyes – comes from. I feel like their ayah sometimes, or like a swarthy South American nanny.

  Jack drops his teddy with excitement. ‘With legs?’ he asks. ‘Nits with heads and legs and ’normous TEETH and tiiiiiny weeeeny willies?’

  ‘Shut up, Jack,’ Charlie says. ‘You moronic toddler. You are a Barbie.’

  ‘You are a Sindy,’ Jack bats back without missing a beat. ‘Nits! They will poo on your head!’ He is beside himself with delight. ‘They will plop all day. Urgh! Stinky.’

  I feel so tired sometimes, after the school run, even though it’s only 9 a.m.

  *

  This morning, with the hideous inevitability of Greek tragedy, is the morning Naomi chooses to corner me. She suggests we go for a coffee. Naomi has dropped off her three children – all of them immaculate in matching duffel coats, shiny shoes, beautifully ironed chinos (I once had to physically throw myself on top of Charlie, landing on his mouth, as he was telling Linus, Naomi’s eldest, ‘My mummy told my daddy you’re dressed like a poof’). Naomi is examining her French manicure by the gate, waiting for me. Knowing her – and I do, too well – she is secretly doing her pelvic-floor exercises. Hup-two-three-four, and hooooold. She has had a terror of post-partum incontinence ever since a woman at her NCT class explained that sometimes she leaked when she laughed or sneezed. As a result, Naomi herself always looks slightly uncomfortable when she laughs, because she is so busy fretting a
bout ‘accidents’.

  ‘Clara! Darling! Don’t you look fun! Pyjamas again, eh? What’s that on your leg?’

  ‘Jam. We were late,’ I mutter ungraciously, cursing my mother for her absurd dawn-chorus phone calls, and then cursing myself for pretending we’d be at all organized even if she hadn’t called.

  ‘We nearly were too,’ Naomi says, not, I suspect, remotely truthfully. ‘I made waffles for breakfast and we got a little bit delayed.’

  Naomi’s breakfasts are legendary: home-baked rolls, waffles, pancakes, three kinds of freshly squeezed juice… No treasure of hers is going to school on lumpy Ready Brek and chocolate milk. I know about Naomi and the breakfasts – laid at the table, properly, not grabbed on the hoof – just like I know about Naomi and the facials and the bikini waxes, and the permanent diet and the highlights every fortnight, and I shouldn’t really mind, but this morning I do. How can I be friends with a woman who snacks on kiwis, for God’s sake?

  ‘Does Richard poo?’

  Naomi’s subtly but effectively made-up eyes – three shades of brown expertly blended for that natural look – widen perceptibly.

  ‘Clara! What do you mean, does Richard “poo”?’

  ‘I mean, Nomes, does he do Number Twos?’

  ‘I don’t see…’

  ‘I need to know. It’s a perfectly simple question. Does Richard do Number Twos, darling? Does he dump? Does he Make Biggies?’

  ‘Of course he… goes to the loo.’ Naomi is mortified, and faintly cross. ‘What are you on about, Clara?’

  ‘And you have physical evidence of this? Sounds? Odours?’ (A very Naomi word, ‘odours’.)

  ‘Don’t be vulgar, Clara. Stop interviewing me. I was going to ask you for coffee, but you’re being so odd this morning… I don’t know.’

  ‘Oh, God. I’m sorry.’ And I really am. I should be much nicer to my friends and not tease them. I wish I hadn’t tormented Naomi – partly because she is looking red and flushed, really uncomfortable, but also because I suddenly have an unshiftable picture of Richard’s vast arse perched atop a toilet. ‘I don’t know what’s wrong with me,’ I add by way of an explanation. ‘Come on, let’s go. For coffee, and you can tell me all about the dinner party. And then I have to go home and organize Robert’s birthday.’