I Don't Know How She Does It

by Allison Pearson

  “Rich?”

  “Hmmmmm?” The paper slides down onto the bridge of his nose.

  “We have to get Emily down for Piper Place.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it opens so many doors.”

  “You’ve been talking to Angela Brunt again.” His sigh is so big it’s practically a yawn.

  “No.”

  “Katie, that woman’s poor kid is so pressurized she’s going to end up as the neighborhood crack dealer.”

  “But she can play the oboe.”

  “All right, the neighborhood’s oboe-playing crack dealer. Your daughter knows all of Mary Poppins by heart. Give her a break, OK?”

  Richard spent most of Emily’s swimming party in the deep end with Mathilde, mother of Laurent, who is in Em’s class at school. I was in the shallows, pulling ten screaming children round on a snake made of orange tubing. On the way home in the car, Rich sighed and said, “Frenchwomen do keep themselves in good nick, don’t they?”

  He sounded exactly like his mother.

  “Mathilde doesn’t work,” I said crossly.

  “What’s that got to do with it?”

  “After the age of thirty, body maintenance is a full-time job. And I already have one of those, in case you haven’t noticed.”

  For a second, he rested his head on the steering wheel. “It wasn’t a criticism of you, Kate. Not everything’s a criticism of you, you know.”

  After the kitchen is clean and I’ve crawled the length of the hall pinching up orange Wotsit dust with my thumb and forefinger—if I use the Hoover it’ll wake them—I sit down for five minutes to watch TV. An hour later I’m woken by the phone. It’s Barbara, my mother-in-law. “I hope you don’t think I’m talking out of turn, Katharine, but Richard did sound awfully fed up when I spoke to him earlier. It’s not my place to say anything, of course, but let things go in a certain department and before you know where you are—well, the whole shop closes down.”

  “Yes, Barbara, but it’s been Emily’s party and—”

  “Anyway, Richard’s father and I are coming down on Saturday to take in that marvelous show at the Royal Academy.”

  I realize that the pause indicates I should say something. “Oh, that’s nice, Barbara. Where will you be staying?”

  “Now don’t go to too much trouble, will you? You know Donald and me: hot water and a clean bed and we’ll be right as rain.”

  9:40 P.M. Upstairs, Emily is still awake but wild-eyed with tiredness after her big day. She has shucked off both duvet and nightie as usual and lies there on the sheet, her body casting a mother-of-pearl sheen in the darkened room. Over the past year—can it really be a whole twelve months since she turned five?—her distended baby’s potbelly has disappeared; her tummy dips now and rises towards the contours of the woman she will become. More beautiful for not knowing she is beautiful. Want to love and protect and never ever hurt her. Make silent vow to be a better mother.

  “Mummy?”

  “Yes, Em.”

  “Next birthday, I will be seven! Then I will be eight, nine, ten, ’leven, twelve, fourteen, twenty!”

  “That’s right. But you don’t want to grow up too soon, sweetheart.”

  “I do.” She juts that chin of hers. “When you’re a adult you can go to Morantic.”

  “What’s Morantic?”

  She rolls her eyes in incredulity, my world-weary sophisticate of six. “You know, Morantic. It’s a country where adults go out to dinner and kiss.”

  “Oh. Romantic.”

  She nods, pleased I’ve heard of it. “Yes, Morantic!”

  “Who told you about Morantic?”

  “Hannah. And anyway you have to go with boys, only sometimes they’re too naughty.”

  I stand here in the thick hot dark thinking of all the conversations we will have on this subject in the years ahead and of the ones we won’t have, because she will need to have secrets in order to grow away from me and I will need to have secrets to keep her close. As I bend to kiss her, I say, “Morantic is a fantastic country. And you know what? When you’re ready to go there, Mummy and Emily will choose some lovely dresses together and we’ll pack you a bag.”

  Perhaps seeing something sorrowful in my expression, my daughter reaches out and takes my hand in her small one; it triggers a flicker, no more, of holding my own mother’s hand, its coolness, the meshing of its bones.

  “You can come to Morantic too, Mummy,” she says. “It’s not very far.”

  “No, love,” I say, leaning down to extinguish the Cinderella light. “Mummy’s too old.”

  To: Kate Reddy

  From: Jack Abelhammer

  Dearest Katharine,

  Perfectly understand your reservations about our meeting again in this life and appreciate the suggestion that your esteemed colleague Brian Somebody might take over the handling of my business. Weirdly, I find myself unwilling to do without you, Kate. Reddiness is all.

  Good news, however. Found this great restaurant in a parallel universe. No veal and they can do us a corner table. How are you fixed?

  love, Jack

  * * *

  To: Jack Abelhammer

  From: Kate Reddy

  The twelfth of Never looks good for me. Can we sit by the window?

  K xxxxx

  * * *

  Out in the garden, through a night as dense and soft as cloth, I swear I can hear Jack calling to me. When I was young I left men like I left clothes, in heaps on the floor. It seemed better that way. You see, I had figured out that it was hard for someone to leave you when you’d gone already. Emotionally, I always had my suitcase packed. A therapist, if I ever had time to consult one, would probably say it was something to do with my dad walking out on us. Besides, I took the Groucho Marx line: Why would I want to be in a relationship with anyone dumb enough to be in a relationship with me? It took Richard to show me that love could be an investment, something which could silently accrue and promised long-term returns instead of a gamble that would leave you broke and broken.

  Before Richard, and before children, leaving was easy. Leaving now would be nothing but grief. To the kids, Richard and I are an all-purpose love hybrid called mum’n’dad. To split that unit in half, to teach them there are two people they must learn to love separately—I just don’t feel I have the right to ask my children to do that. Men leave their children because they can; women, in general, don’t leave because they can’t. A mother’s life is no longer her own to leave.

  To be with Jack, I would have to go into exile from my homeland. To find the courage to do it, I would need to be so unhappy that staying was harder than jumping. And I’m not there yet.

  MUST REMEMBER

  Debt you owe to your children. Debt you owe to yourself. Figure out how to reconcile the two. Minutes of meeting to be written up (Secretary Lorraine says she’s off sick, but Lorraine always off sick in heat wave). Self-tan must; look like Morticia Adams’s younger sister. Grovel to clients over completely disastrously hideous performance for May (–9 percent versus index of –6 percent). May has wiped out all hard work for previous four months; great results now drowned in sea of red. Suggest to clients that performance is only temporary and am taking measures to address it. Think of measures to address it. Deflate bouncy castle, confront Rod over shameful sexist/racist treatment of Momo. Stair carpet??? Book stress-busting spa day, including protein facial as recommended by ace Vogue beauty woman. Wedding anniversary. When is wedding anniversary? Oh, God.

  30

  The Patter of Tiny Feet

  THURSDAY, 11:29 P.M. Impending visit from the parents-in-law fills the air with apprehension like the thunder of distant wildebeest. “Don’t go to any trouble, darling,” says my husband. “What have you got planned for Sunday lunch?”

  “Don’t go to any trouble, Katharine,” says Barbara, calling for the third time. So then you don’t go to any trouble and she takes one look in the fridge when they arrive, tugs on her string of pearls as tho
ugh it were a rosary and drags Donald out to the car. They return with the entire contents of Sainsbury’s, “So we have a bit in for emergencies.”

  Everything is under control this time, however. I will not be found wanting. There are clean sheets on the guest bed and clean white towels snatched up in M&S at lunchtime. I have even put a nodding sprig of lily of the valley in a bedside vase for that graceful, womanly touch of the sort practiced by Cheryl, my über-housewife sister-in-law. Also I must remember to dig out and display in prominent positions all Donald and Barbara’s presents from down the years:

  Watercolor of sunset over Coniston by “the celebrated local artist Pamela Anderson” (no relation, alas)

  Royal Worcester egg coddlers (4)

  Electric wok

  Dick Francis novel in hardback

  Beatrix Potter commemorative cake stand

  Also—

  There was definitely another also.

  Swab down the kitchen worktop, then check Em’s book bag ready for the morning. Inside, slotted among the pages of Lily the Lost Dog, is a note from school. Could parents please contribute an example of food typical to their child’s cultural background and bring it in for World Feast Day?

  No, parents could not. Parents are very busy earning a living, thank you, and happy for school to do the job for which it is paid. I read down to the bottom of note. Great Feast is tomorrow. All welcome! Next to this threatening injunction, Emily has inscribed in her fiercest pressed-down writing: My Mummy Is a verray gud kuk much betaa than Sofeez mum. Oh, hell.

  Start to search the cupboards. What qualifies as English ethnic for heaven’s sake? Roast beef? Spotted Dick? I find a jar of English mustard, but it has a disgusting rubbery collar of ancient gunge, like Mick Jagger lips, pouting around the lid. Fish and chips? Good, but no fish and never made chips in my life. Could take in McDonald’s large fries wrapped in newspaper, but just imagine the faces of the whole-food Nazis led by Mother Alexandra Law. At the back of the cereal shelf, I discover two jars of Bonne Maman jam. Strawberry preserve is an excellent example of the indigenous culinary arts, except this stuff is made in France.

  Brilliant idea. Boil the kettle. Picking up one jar and then the other, I hold them over the steam till the label wilts and slips off. In the freezer-bag drawer, I find some new labels and on them I write, in rounded bucolic lettering, Shattock Strawberry Jam. Overconfident now, I attempt to draw a luscious strawberry in the corner of the label. It looks like an inflamed pancreas. Glue labels onto jars. Et voilà! Je suis une bonne maman!

  “Kate, what are you doing? It’s gone midnight.” Rich has come into the kitchen in boxers and T-shirt carrying a Furby. I detest the Furby. The Furby is a hideous cross between a chinchilla and Bette Davis in What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? Both Furby and husband squint dubiously at me through the half-light.

  “I’m making jam. Actually, I’m remaking jam, if you must know. Emily’s school is having this ethnic feast tomorrow and she has to take in something English.”

  “Couldn’t you just buy something in the morning?”

  “No, Rich, I couldn’t.”

  His sigh is almost a shout. “God, how many times do we have to go through this? I’ve told you, you have to learn to let go. When women are working as hard as you are, Kate, other people are just going to have to accept that you can’t do all the stuff your mothers did.”

  I want to tell him that even if other people accept it, I’m not sure I ever will. But the Furby gets there before me, breaking the silence with a crooning chirrup, and Rich disappears upstairs.

  12:39 A.M. Too tired for sleep. I put the Furby in a black bin bag and tie a knot in the neck. In the dark kitchen, I open my laptop and sit here bathed in its milky metallic light. I call up the Salinger file. The figures on-screen comfort me—the way they do my bidding so readily, the fact that I cannot lie to them. Whereas at home, I’m a forger, a faker. I’m not ashamed of it; I don’t see any alternative. A good mum makes her own jam, doesn’t she? Secretly, we all know that. When they start naming preserves Jet Lag Maman or Quality Time Mum, when bread comes in wrappers marked Father’s Pride, it will be safe for us bad, exhausted mothers to come out with our hands up.

  * * *

  FRIDAY, 7:10 A.M. Richard raised his voice. I’ve never known him to raise his voice before, only ask me to lower mine. But there we were sitting in the kitchen at breakfast with the kids jabbering away and you should have heard him bite Emily’s head off.

  “Mummy, can I have a baby sister?”

  “No, darling.”

  “But I want one. Daddy, can we have a baby sister?”

  “No, you cannot!”

  “Why?”

  “Because to make a baby sister mummies and daddies have to have time together in the same room.” Rich is watching the TV with the volume turned down, his eyes glued to the crescent pout of Chloe-Zoe.

  “Don’t, Richard.”

  “And your mummy and daddy never have time, Emily. Mummy is just about to go to New York again, so under those circumstances it will be particularly hard to make a baby sister. Or maybe Mummy would like me to get a man in for her. Isn’t that what Mummy always asks Daddy to do when the lights go out? Get a man in.”

  “I said don’t.”

  “Why not, Kate? Never lie to her, isn’t that what you said?”

  “Mu-um, Daisy’s got a baby sister.”

  “And you’ve got a baby brother, Em.”

  “But he’s a boy.”

  8:52 A.M. For once, I drop Emily off at school myself. I called work and said I had to see the doctor; in the hierarchy of excuses, poor health is better than a needy small girl. Em is thrilled to have me there with the other mummies; she parades me before her friends like a show horse, patting my rump and pointing out my good features.

  “My mummy’s lovely and tall, isn’t she?”

  I was hoping to slip in my World Feast contribution unnoticed, but there is a table bang in the middle of the school hall groaning with ethnic offerings. One mother appears to have brought along an entire curried goat. Kirstie’s mum has done haggis clad in genuine stomach. Christ. Quickly hide my strawberry jam behind a crenellated fortress of soda bread.

  “Kate, hello! Have you gone part-time, yet?” booms Alexandra Law, unveiling a trifle the size of an inverted Albert Hall.

  “No. I’m afraid where I work they don’t really do part-time. To be honest, they think full-time is skiving.”

  The other mothers laugh, all except Claire Dalton, senior partner at Sheridan and Farquhar. Claire, I notice, is trying to sneak a small bowl of green jelly onto World Feast altar. She is holding the jelly very still so as not to give away the fact that it is unset.

  12:46 P.M. Candy is keeping the baby. She refuses to talk about it, but her belly has made her intentions increasingly clear. The Stratton wardrobe, always on the challenging side of slinky, is now straining to contain her. So today I have brought in a bag of maternity clothes, one or two nice pieces she can wear for work and a couple of useful sacks for later on. I hand the bag to her without comment over lunch in Pizza Navona. She lifts out a taupe shift dress and holds it up incredulously.

  “Hey, brown-paper packages tied up with string. These are a few of my favorite things!”

  “I thought they might come in useful, that’s all.”

  “What for?”

  “For your pregnancy.”

  “Jesus Christ, what’s this?” Candy takes out a white broderie-anglaise nightie and flaps it like a flag to the amusement of the group of guys at the next table. “I surrender, I surrender,” she pleads.

  “Look, it has an easy opening for feeding.”

  “Why would I want to eat anything wearing a—oh, God, you mean someone feeding off me. That’s sooo disgusting.”

  “Yes, well, it’s been pretty common practice for the past hundred and fifty thousand years.”

  “Not in New Jersey, it hasn’t. Kate?”

  “Yes?”

  “I
t’s not gonna be needy, is it?”

  I study Candy’s face closely. She’s not joking. “No, it won’t be needy. I promise.” Not after the first eighteen years, I should add, but for my friend’s sake I hold my tongue. She isn’t ready yet.

  3:19 P.M. A State of Emergency. Roo is missing. Paula calls and says she knows for definite that he was in the buggy when she took Ben to Little Stars music group this morning, and she’s pretty sure Roo came back with them. But then, when she went to put Ben down for his afternoon nap, they couldn’t find him. Ben was devastated. Screamed and screamed for his toy while Paula searched the house. High and low, but there was no kangaroo to be seen. I can hear Ben hiccuping with grief in the background.

  What was she doing taking Roo out of the house in the first place? I can’t believe Paula could be so stupid when she knows how awful it would be if he got lost. I voice this thought out loud and, instead of snapping back, she just sounds culpable and sad.

  “Do you think we can find another one, Kate?”

  “I’ve no idea what the market in used kangaroos is like, Paula.”

  3:29 P.M. Call Woolworth’s, where Roo came from originally. Assistant says sorry, but she believes they are out of kangaroos. Would I like to speak to the manager? Yes.

  Manager says that kangaroos been discontinued. “There’s been a big trend away from the softer animals towards plastic novelty creatures, Mrs. Reddy. Would you perhaps be interested in a Mr. Potato Head?”

  No. I already work with a dozen of those.