My Life On a Plate

by India Knight

  These memories are, fatally, ones I get the distinct impression he doesn’t particularly want reminding of, partly because his parting from Kate redefined the notion of acrimony. Such memories can make a girl feel pretty damned awkward when in her cups around the Julian Armitage dinner table. Which table is problematic in itself, since it is a new and unfamiliar table, and not the table of my childhood. Julian bought the house after his divorce from Kate, so that although it feels like a vaguely known quantity – there are rugs and pots and bits of china that I grew up with strewn around it – it is in reality just a strange house. A house that has nothing to do with me. More than a hotel, but less than a home.

  But I try and push these queries aside. If in doubt, stride through, I always say, taking very big steps and pretending you know exactly where you’re going.

  It’ll be fine. One little baptism party isn’t going to kill me. It’ll be fine. I love Julian. And he, in turn… well, never mind. Robert will hold my hand and it’ll be fine.

  10

  Jack is staring at his porridge with unconcealed hostility.

  ‘Lumps,’ he says. ‘Lumpy lumpy lumps.’

  ‘They give you the grumps,’ says Charlie.

  ‘Yes,’ says Jack, ‘they do. Can I have Frosties?’

  ‘No,’ I growl, slapping pastrami on to seeded bread for Charlie’s lunch box. ‘It took me ages to make and I’d like you to eat it. Or at least try it. Porridge is delicious. It’s muscle food. Batman cries if his mummy doesn’t make it for him every morning.’

  ‘Batman doesn’t have a mummy,’ says Jack. ‘And Batman never cries, silly.’ He starts giggling at the absurdity of the idea of a lachrymose Bruce Wayne.

  ‘Everyone has a mummy, dumbo,’ says Charlie. ‘Everyone comes from their mummy’s tummy.’

  ‘Do they?’ asks Jack, fascinated. ‘Even Batman? Who puts you there?’

  ‘The daddy,’ says Charlie helpfully. ‘The daddy gives the mummy a seed. You were a seed. A little seed.’

  ‘I was not!’ says Jack. ‘You were a stupid seed. I was a cool cowboy baby with cool guns. Mum-mee, Charlie says I was a seed.’

  Both the boys gaze expectantly at me. ‘You were a sort of seed,’ I say, vaguely, wondering if 7.45 in the morning is really the time to go into all this. ‘Everyone was a sort of seed.’

  ‘Like this,’ says Charlie authoritatively, brandishing the jar of ancient sunflower seeds I once bought, emulating Stella – seedies instead of sweeties, so much better for the tooties. Needless to say, these were a spectacular nonstarter.

  I say, ‘Hmm.’

  Both the boys stare interestedly at the seeds, then at my stomach (I must do sit-ups, I must do sit-ups), while I bustle about more theatrically than normal, finding things for their lunch boxes, hoping the general clattering around will suffice to kill this particular line of investigation. Mercifully, Charlie slides off his chair in search of his recorder, and Jack becomes distracted by a Solid Torso Action Man on the back of the porridge box, so that both of them forget to address the seed question for the moment.

  (I learned about reproduction, aged seven, from a book aimed, I think, at older children – or possibly at medical students – bought for me by Kate. Kate, rightly, has a horror of sentimentality, and the book was of the biological textbook variety, with many diagrams of engorged, erect penises, looking, I remember thinking, like very pink, possibly scalded, meerkats. In my book, the act of love was represented by a diagram of the silhouette of a woman [pink] with a silhouetted man [blue] lying on top of her. His membrum virile was shown clearly penetrating her. Being mere outlines, neither of our happy protagonists had faces, and being mere drawings, they failed to convey any sense of how one might comport oneself in a similar situation. Which is how it came to be that, much to the discomfort of Johnny Edwardes, who took my virginity, I always belived that you both lay perfectly still during sex once penetration had occurred. I think I’ll stick to the ‘seed’ explanation for the time being.)

  Ten minutes later, Charlie and Jack are both bundled up into their coats, ready for Naomi, who’s kindly offered to take them to school this morning. I haven’t seen her properly for a week or so, only waved from the car and had the briskest chat on the phone yesterday. She’s looked better, in that this morning she looks like I normally look in the morning, i.e. like her anti-self: sticky-up hair, no evidence of make-up and, in her case, a redness around the eyes that suggests her husband’s infidelity is no longer a secret. She says, ‘How are you, Clara?’ in a sad voice, and I want to hug her. Instead – she may, for all I know, look this way because she has food poisoning, and I’m hardly about to inquire in front of the children – I ask her to come round for lunch with me tomorrow. I’d go for today, but today is Kate and Max day. ‘That would be lovely,’ says Naomi, gathering up the boys. ‘I’d really like that.’

  I was wrong about Naomi. There is nothing stoical about her tottering down the stairs on her skinny legs, holding four lunch boxes and two children per hand.

  I think Robert was joking when I asked him about Somerset this morning. Perhaps I shouldn’t have asked the minute he opened his eyes, but I didn’t get round to it last night and it’s preying unpleasantly on my mind. Anyway, Robert was lying propped up on his pillows, looking coolly around the room, as is his early-morning wont, surveying the old junk-shop paintings that I have leaning against the walls, taking in the antique shawls that are draped around the sofa, the jewellery hanging off the mirror – taking in the mess, basically. So far, I’ve resisted his many attempts at ‘stripping back’ the bedroom by dumping the furniture and painting everything white. Robert says this would turn the bedroom into an ‘oasis’. I say nothing. But the subject is going to come up again and I’m going to have to say something, because Robert can be very determined. I wouldn’t be surprised if he had the bedroom done one day while I was away.

  ‘I spoke to Julian yesterday,’ I said. ‘Wants us to go down for the weekend.’

  ‘I can’t,’ said Robert.

  ‘Robert, listen. It’s Francis’s baptism. There’s going to be some kind of party. You know how odd it makes me feel, going there.’

  ‘Not my fault,’ said Robert. ‘And I don’t quite see why it makes you feel odd – you don’t ever have to lift a finger when you’re there.’

  ‘Robert,’ I said quietly. ‘Please. I’d really like it if you came with us.’

  ‘I can’t, Clara,’ Robert said, getting out of bed. ‘I’m knackered and I’ve got things to do.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Like stuff. Sorry, Clara, but you’re on your own.’

  Aren’t I just? I must give it another go tonight.

  I’m about to go and soak in the bath when the phone rings. It’s Niamh Malone, the woman who’s interviewed Sam Dunphy for Panache. She’s after the newspaper cuttings the magazine sent me. She didn’t need them earlier, she says, since she knew all about him, being a dance fan, but would I mind bunging them in the post now as she needs to check a couple of things? Sure, I say, hunting around for paper on which to jot down her address.

  ‘He’s gorgeous, isn’t he?’ sighs Niamh. ‘Such a charmer.’

  ‘Really?’ I say. ‘You could have fooled me.’

  ‘Oh no, he’s a complete dote. And God almighty, the sexiness,’ says Niamh, sounding, unusually for her, positively kittenish. ‘He gave me an invite to the première of the new show – you know, the London première. I’m going to come down especially. There’s a huge party afterwards. There are a couple for you too. Will I post them to you?’

  ‘A couple of what?’ I ask stupidly.

  ‘A couple of invites,’ says Niamh. ‘I just said, you know, to the show and then the party. If Panache pay me in time, I might even get this beautiful John Rocha dress I’ve seen to wear to it. It’s black, very plain, with…’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ I say, interrupting. ‘Not about the dress, I mean. The dress sounds lovely. But you’ve made a mistake, Niamh. Du
nphy and me, we didn’t exactly hit it off.’

  ‘Did you not?’ says Niamh, sounding astonished that anyone could fail to be seduced – figuratively speaking – by the swoonsome ballerino. ‘Ah well – he gave me these anyway, and said to pass them on to you.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ I ask, somewhat bewildered.

  ‘Oh yes,’ Niamh says. ‘I’ll send them on. I wouldn’t worry about it – I think they’ve invited about 600 people! See you at the show, I guess,’ she chirps excitedly.

  ‘Er, yes. I suppose so. Maybe. See you. Good luck with the dress,’ I say, before hanging up.

  That’s quite odd, I think to myself in the bath. But perhaps Dunphy is under the impression that I am some kind of reviewer or critic (he’s not far wrong there, in that I could excel at personal criticism of him, the stuck-up wanker). Or perhaps he’s just a Billy No-Mates who doesn’t want his little show to feature too many empty seats. Maybe he is an obsessive converter, burning with a missionary zeal to make people like me enthuse about modern dance. Still, I suppose if you’re asking 600 people, the odd undesirable might slip through the net.

  Anyway, Kate. The very thought of my mother’s impending nuptials makes me immerse myself under the scented water and stay there for as long as my lungs can hold out. I very much want Kate to be happy. I want nothing more, in fact. But Kate, like any number of serially married women before her, loves the idea of Love so much that she makes terrible mistakes. (I’ve always thought the serially married were terribly misunderstood. They’re desperate romantics, as a whole, rather than desperate adventurers.) And I can’t say I thrill to the core at the idea of Max, the American seer. She’s a tough nut, Kate, in many respects, but the easiest of pushovers in another. She is an appalling judge of character and responds absurdly well to flattery.

  Still, one of the advantages of being thirty-three instead of six is that you can at least look out for your mother’s interests, I reflect as I get busy with the shampoo. My fraud antennae are better developed than Kate’s, and I will suss this man out and share my findings with her, for her sake as well as mine. And now it’s time for a session of in-depth grooming. Kate would never forgive me if I arrived for lunch looking anything other than pristine. This is why Naomi has taken the boys to school: I scrub up reasonably well, but it takes a minimum of three hours in the bathroom. No wonder I manage the full cosmetic Monty only about twice a year.

  I love the Ivy. I come here for a treat, unlike Kate, who comes here at midnight and gets them to make her egg and chips, as if London’s most perennially fashionable restaurant were a sweet little local caff. I love the way it smells, of success and Eggs Benedict and fun.

  One of the many amazing things about Kate is the way in which she dominates a room. Your eye is just drawn to her, even in here, with the Ivy’s usual smattering of A-list celebs and household names. She is sitting very straight along a banquette, facing the room, while her companion, my new stepdaddy-to-be, has his (considerable) back to it.

  She’s beautiful, Kate, she’s the real thing, with exquisite bones moving beneath her smooth, poreless skin, her huge slanted grey eyes, her sleek gloss of black hair, her generous smile. She always reminds me of one of those Nouvelle Vague French film stars. She’s classy-looking, classic, to die for. If she were any taller – she’s five-five – she’d be terrifying: too beautiful, too poised, too everything. But as she is, you want to protect her, to shield her. Which I am about to do. Because she may drive me completely bloody barking mad, but she is my mother.

  Today, Kate is wearing Jil Sander: a soft, creamy white shirt that looks like whipped froth under an unstructured, floppy navy trouser suit that manages to look sexy, almost too-big, almost dressy-uppy, on her girlish frame (no Chinese lesbian she). There is colour on her fingernails, which are perfect red almonds, and on her mouth. She wears no jewellery, except for the enormous engagement emerald.

  ‘You look fantastic, Kate,’ I say, bending down to kiss her and breathing in a comforting waft of Mitsouko.

  ‘Thank you, Clara. You’re looking lovely yourself,’ Kate beams back. ‘Darling, you do see, don’t you – it’s always worth a little effort.’

  ‘Three hours, actually,’ I reply. ‘Not so little.’

  ‘Yes, well,’ Kate says. ‘It would take much less time if you had regular facials and just looked after yourself every day.’

  I bite my tongue – this is neither the time nor the place for a discussion about the time, effort and phenomenal, frankly unfeasible expense involved in the kind of grooming regime which Kate considers a daily necessity. I turn to Max instead, hand extended. ‘Hello,’ I say. ‘I’m Clara.’

  He looks pleasant enough, I must say. Late fifties, I’d imagine, with a shorn head of white hair that would give him a thuggish aspect were it not for his humorous, sensitive face. He’s wearing a washed-out-looking pink shirt, beautifully tailored if aged, under a faintly battered oatmeal-coloured cardigan that might be cashmere. I can see the tops of his legs as he stands up: conker-coloured cords. Which is a relief, as I was braced for the flowing white beard and matching robes, seers, in my mind, not being entirely physically dissimilar to the druid in Asterix – or, at the very least, braced for the ‘wacky’ shirt and ‘fun’ specs so favoured by ‘crazy guys’ of a certain age. His handshake is firm, and he looks amused, which is always a plus.

  ‘Max Tilby,’ he says. ‘Delighted to meet you.’

  ‘Almost like the hat,’ says Kate, her head to one side. ‘Quite comical. I think it’s such a good idea to shave your head when you’re going bald,’ she adds joyfully, snapping off a piece of breadstick. ‘Don’t you, Clara, darling? Nothing worse than a man with a great thumping widow’s peak. Or a bald pate. Which a former mother-in-law of mine – your granny, possibly, darling, I forget – always pronounced “pâté”,’ she adds absent-mindedly. ‘A bald pâté. What a thought. All pink and moussey, like foie gras.’

  ‘Quite,’ I say, trying not to laugh and peering at Max for signs of discontent, alongside reflecting, not for the first time, on the fact that Kate, though not uneccentric, is more than capable of being a delight.

  Max is roaring with laughter. ‘You’ve put me off my starter, darling,’ he says, reaching for her hand in a way I would normally find quite pukey but in this context suddenly strikes me as deeply endearing.

  ‘So sorry,’ says Kate. ‘Though I do think foie gras an odd choice. Do you not see into the souls of geese, Max? Those poor creatures, so troubled. Perhaps you choose not to see. Very remiss of you. Have the tomato and basil galette, why don’t you? Clear your conscience. Now – a bowl of consommé for Clara, I think.’ Kate stares into my face. ‘About 100 calories a bowl. Just think, darling, you could have thirds.’

  ‘I’m having risotto, actually, Kate.’

  ‘I do wish you’d stop eating like an Italian peasant, darling. Look at what happened to your father.’

  ‘My father?’ I ask. ‘What about him?’

  ‘Well, he turned into one. An Italian peasant, I mean. Within months. Sort of lumpen and coarse, when he used to be so handsome.’ She sighs sadly and shakes her head. ‘Because he ate risotto and mozzarella in carrozza all the time. And you have the same kind of bone structure, darling.’

  ‘Kate! I am having one helping of risotto. It will not turn me into an obese mamma. Christ! Do you think we might stop discussing my diet? Especially in front of your friend here, whom I’ve never met before?’

  ‘Obese mamma, obese papa,’ sighs Kate infuriatingly. ‘What diet?’ she adds rhetorically. ‘There is no diet. And it really is such a shame.’

  ‘Sorry about this,’ I say to Max, before turning to Kate. ‘Why? Why is it such a shame? I don’t think it’s a shame. I’m happy. It’s only a shame for you. But it’s not a shame for me. So leave it, Kate, will you? Just leave it.’

  ‘It is a shame, because you are hiding,’ says Kate very steadily. ‘You are hiding under the food. You are using food as some kind of substitute
, and it makes me sad. It suggests you aren’t entirely happy, darling. That’s all.’

  ‘Spare me the crappy psycho-babble, Kate,’ I say crossly, wrestling with the horrible notion that Kate, maddeningly, is not entirely off-target.

  ‘You asked,’ says Kate. ‘Now, let’s order. Champagne, I think, since we are celebrating.’

  ‘You’re a very good-looking girl all the same, Clara,’ says Max, with great sweetness.

  ‘She’s beautiful,’ says Kate evenly. ‘But that isn’t the point.’

  Turns out Max is only a seer in his spare time. He is not, as it were, omniscient. As far as I can establish, which isn’t very far, since he is thankfully unwilling to discuss this subject in any detail, he is the kind of person that gets a funny feeling before boarding a plane, cancels his seat and then discovers while watching the news that said plane has crashed. Arguably vaguely psychic, we might say, rather than your actual Nostradamus. But apparently Kate does have a ‘beautiful aura’. It’s sort of mauve, he says (Kate: ‘Darling, mauve, imagine! Couldn’t you say pink?’). Which is nice.

  And so is Max, to my surprise. He’s clearly mad about Kate, and she, in turn, is pretty smitten with him. He puts up with the lectures on geese, he laughs delightedly at her slightly off-the-wall jokes, he seems kind… I think Kate might be on to something this time.

  When Max isn’t seeing auras, he is some kind of highflying businessman – something to do with the Internet, if I understood rightly. I know now why Kate wittered on about him being a seer. She has an allergy to the very notion of men in suits doing things in offices, a notion she finds both boring beyond belief and desperately suburban – not to mention faintly humiliating in relation to her. Kate deserves lyre-players and troubadours, she thinks, not droney old pen-pushers. Which is why Julian, for instance, was always described as ‘a farmer’ rather than an industrialist, based on the fact that Kate knew he liked the idea of living in the country one day. Maurice, husband number three, was, to Kate’s friends and relatives, ‘a sculptor’, based entirely on the fact that he liked modelling things out of softened candlewax at the dinner table when he got bored. In real life, of course – as opposed to KateWorld – Maurice was (whisper it) an accountant, all be it an enormously clever and distinguished one. My own father, the improbably named (for a sometime manic depressive) Felix, never actually had much of a job, which explains why I am the only one of my siblings, both blood and step, to actually need to work for a living and to fret about mortgages. Felix, Kate says, was ‘a biker’, which is only a very slight exaggeration.