Girls' Night In

by Jessica Adams

  Don’t be so soft, came the advice; crying never did any harm, you can’t allow them to run the show or where will that land you? Let them take themselves to hell, those hard hearts who leave their children to cry themselves to sleep alone, and in hell they will have to listen to the sound of a child crying and know that they can never comfort it. That was what Dorrie was thinking as she climbed back up the hill.

  Sarah Ingham

  In a previous life Sarah Ingham was the author of two best-selling rom-coms, Parallel Turns and Kissing Frogs (Hodder). In 2013 she gained a doctorate from the War Studies Department at Kings College London. Her most recent book, The Military Covenant: Its Impact on Civil-Military Relations in Britain is published by Ashgate. She is currently working on a history of the British Army since 1945.

  No Worries

  Sarah Ingham

  Molly’s last night in had been three months ago and twelve thousand miles away. Thursday, September 25th, London. An evening of sobbing and daydreams about napalm.

  ‘You mustn’t get like your coffee. Bitter.’ Deborah had told her on the Wednesday, in a pull-yourself-together voice. ‘This is all very awkward for Angus and me. We don’t want to take sides.’

  ‘You’ve taken sides,’ insisted Molly.

  If Deborah hadn’t been her best friend, Molly would have hated her for several years, not just from that Wednesday. Henna-spiked Debs at teacher training college had gradually morphed into blonde-bobbed Deborah, then into Mrs Angus Sneem. She was now a high-maintenance size eight. Her Mercedes convertible seemed permanently stuck on the double yellow lines outside Prada, but she never got a parking ticket.

  ‘How many more times must one go through this?’ Since her marriage, Deborah had been keen on one and my. My architect, my Pilates, my charity work kept her busy. ‘Angus is Ben’s oldest friend …’

  ‘And where Aberdeen goes, you go. Like Siamese twins.’

  Deborah looked down my surgically sculpted nose, roughly the same vintage as my capped teeth. My tits were newer. My huge sapphire ring reassured her that she’d done well. If well meant a rich ugly husband known as Aberdeen. He was lumbering, red-faced and often on grass.

  ‘Tell me, Debs, Deborah, why can’t you let him out of your sight?’

  ‘So, you’re suddenly the expert when it comes to marriage?’ Her fury could’ve stopped a buffalo stampede. ‘Funny that. Considering how yours fell apart.’ She gave Molly’s homely, tatty kitchen a what-a-dump once-over. ‘Perhaps you should ask Candy for lessons about how to make a place comfortable. And how to cook.’

  ‘Debs and Aberdeen and Ben and Candy. How cosy. You’d better go. And start praying that you’re never, ever in my situation.’

  ‘I wouldn’t be so dumb.’

  ‘Enjoy the party.’

  Molly hadn’t had a summer. May to September had somehow vanished. Ben told her on their anniversary in May – Chelsea Flower Show week. The papers were full of pictures of a gameshow hostess, focusing on her canyon cleavage rather than the rose named after her. Instead of celebrating at a restaurant, instead of ordering asparagus, Ben said he’d met someone else, he was moving out. Sorry. He hadn’t sounded sorry. He looked smug. Clever me, I’ve scored the most glorious bit of totty.

  Was ‘someone else’ the new receptionist at the practice? Poppy? Daisy? Young, as pretty as her name, who still lived with her parents in the Kent suburbs.

  ‘Candy?’ Molly stared. ‘No one’s called Candy. Short for Candida? As in vaginal thrush?’

  No short for Candice, as in Candice Bergen. Ben’s sigh suggested he almost pitied Molly. The world couldn’t really blame him for dumping someone so thick.

  The evenings lengthened and grew warmer. In Molly’s Hammersmith terrace, neighbours’ gardens were full of barbecue smells and laughter. She slumped indoors, staring at her wedding photos – handsome Ben the healer – touching the clothes he’d left in the wardrobe and sleeping on his side of the bed. She was too wretched to eat, the rings loosened on her fingers.

  Almost as shocked by Ben’s departure as she was, Molly’s colleagues became worried about her as the weeks passed. Even winning the staff-room Derby sweepstake failed to provoke her heart-warmingly beautiful smile. She didn’t join in the scrutiny of the Royals’ Ascot hats. Doesn’t the Queen look marvellous?

  Who gives a shit?

  The Head gave her a reluctant talking-to after he found Molly in tears and Year Two in uproar around her, the pets liberated from their cages and being daubed with poster paint. He’d arrived just in time to stop Gary Cray, the world’s most evil six-year-old, lynching Jemima the Gerbil.

  Molly’s friends assured her Ben would tire of Candy, the teenager from Sidcup. Molly and Ben’s friends sounded cagey. They assured her they didn’t want to take sides. Her probing about Candy embarrassed them. She’s very different from you, Molly.

  ‘You’ve met her?’ She suddenly realized they’d all met her. It hurt. She pictured the party – Pimms and pretty dresses – held on the night she’d been burying catshit in the garden. She guessed they all had Ben’s new mobile number too. He’d changed it after her last tiresome tearful call.

  The longest day brought a new New Age Traveller Menace, according to the Daily Mail. Light filled the land. Barren winter entered Molly’s soul. Receptionist? Deborah laughed uneasily. No. Candy was Ben’s patient.

  ‘To be brutal, she could be Liz Hurley’s twin.’ And Candy was about to make multi-millions when her Internet business went public. ‘E-baby. You know. Site for mothers. She’s always in the business pages. The E-baby Babe. Are you OK?’

  Molly wasn’t. She rushed to Deborah’s spa-like bathroom to throw up.

  She didn’t watch Wimbledon that night. She gathered up every bit of Ben’s stuff and put it in the spare room, which she’d always imagined would be the nursery one day. Perhaps she would have checked E-baby. Two summers ago, she’d stood with Ben in the crush around an outside court. No strawberries. Their onerous mortgage meant scrimping and struggle. But, they’d agreed, it was worthwhile. An investment in their future.

  Ben visited for three minutes to collect his post, which Molly had refused to forward to the practice. He looked fit, tanned, happy. A pink badge fluttered from his new blazer. ‘Gay pride? Course not. Henley. Regatta. Rowing.’ Had she seen his black tie?

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Er, Glyndebourne. La Traviata.’

  Molly froze. She’d never even got him to a subtitled film. Glyndebourne? Last year they’d shared a tent at a Somme-like Glastonbury. Ben had still been working for the NHS. She’d been unhappy about his switch to private practice, which had been encouraged by Angus, whose City salary was often mistaken for a telephone number.

  Term ended, with another defeat for England in the Test Match. The whole world seemed to be enjoying a glorious summer. Sun-soaked day followed balmy night. The papers reported record temperatures. Corfu? Cor Phew! Hotter Than Greece!!! Molly stayed inside with her lonely misery and torment for company, the sunshine filtered through layers of grime on the windows. She couldn’t stop shivering. She huddled, bundled up in layers of clothes as if it were November.

  Molly’s friends became fed up with her apathetic weeping punctuated by Ben-the-Bastard rants. They built up a mental identikit of Candy and privately thought that Ben had traded up so stratospherically that he’d never come back. The news that he was sharing Candy’s huge riverside loft in Chelsea seemed conclusive proof that Molly’s cause was lost. It was time she moved on.

  ‘I don’t want to move on. I want to stay put. In my old life. With Ben.’

  No, she didn’t want to go to the beach. ‘When we rented the cottage in Dorset …’ Or to the Proms. ‘We went last year, bet he doesn’t expect Candy to stand in the arena …’

  Ben and Molly’s friends had become Ben and Candy’s friends. They stopped calling her. Ben’s family never spoke to her. Molly was Trotsky after a Stalinist re-write of history. Her marriage had never existed. She’d
never existed. She’d been purged. Deleted.

  ‘You’re getting too thin,’ Ben said on another collect-the-mail visit during Cowes week. The radio announced there’d been a collision in the Solent. His new cream linen suit couldn’t hide the weight he’d put on. Fat and happy, Molly supposed. ‘Get pretty again. Go on holiday.’

  ‘Who with?’

  ‘Viv?’

  ‘She’s filming.’ Molly didn’t need him to remind her that her movie-director sister was the successful daughter. Her mother did it often enough. The mother who told her to show some moral fibre, have some self-respect and put things behind her.

  ‘Your parents? They’re off to France.’ Ben headed for the stairs.

  ‘I’m thirty-one. I’m not going on holiday with my parents.’ She saw herself in the back of the Rover, people wondering if she were special needs. Poor parents, the burden. Route squabbles, map fusses and toll grumbles. She tore up to the bedroom, where Ben was rummaging in the wardrobe. ‘How do you know about France?’

  ‘George came to see me. Where’s my squash racquet?’

  ‘Dad saw you? Why?’ Outraged by his daughter’s treatment, had her father threatened to shoot Ben?

  ‘His back. He wanted a referral to another specialist.’

  ‘What?’ Visions of Ben being beaten to a pulp with a golf-club were replaced by another sick-making sense of betrayal. ‘Are you and Candy going away?’

  ‘Tomorrow. St Tropez, then Portofino.’

  ‘How nice. Walking?’ Last August they’d hiked in the Lake District.

  ‘Driving. I’ve got a new car.’

  Molly went to the window. Parked in the dusty street was a gleaming open-topped silver Porsche. Trembling, she clutched the sill for support. ‘Well done, Ben. You’ve got away with fucking up my life, haven’t you? Even my family’s on your side.’

  ‘Don’t get moody. By the way, I want a divorce. You can petition for adultery. Candy doesn’t mind being cited. We’ll have to sell this place. Shall you talk to the estate agents or shall I?’

  ‘Fuck you. Fuck you both. Just fuck off.’

  He went. Molly rushed out into the street. If you think you look like something out of L’Oumo Vogue, you’re very wrong, because actually, you bastard, you look more like the Pilsbury Dough Boy … Ben sped off, the Porsche’s engine drowned her out.

  Molly called her parents. How could they? Treachery. Traitors. What a victory for Candy. What had about family loyalty? Going behind her back …

  ‘Your father’s back is more important,’ Molly’s mother interrupted her. ‘Do you want him in a wheelchair? What would happen to our golf? Stop being so selfish. Do try and get a grip. Please.’ The Archers’ theme tune started, the line went dead.

  Throughout muggy August, Molly shrivelled to nothing like the flowers in her neglected garden. The curtains stayed closed. She resigned from school, saying she’d be supply teaching from now on. She couldn’t face going out, she avoided everyone. A failure like her couldn’t inflict herself on a world full of golden couples, tanned more golden from their holidays. A loser like her didn’t deserve a place in the sun.

  Bank Holiday brought the Carnival, police uniforms jigging alongside sequinned, feathered head-dresses. And news of the party. A joint celebration of their birthdays, being held on Candy’s decked terrace for three hundred of their closest friends.

  September 25th was Molly’s forty-third consecutive night in. Utter loneliness overwhelmed her. Dreams of napalming the Porsche with Ben and Candy inside it brought no relief. In the bath, she idly watched her engagement and wedding rings float off her skinny finger into the water then she tried to drown herself.

  Viv suggested Molly came to LA immediately. ‘Sell up. Give your solicitor power of attorney. Stay here.’

  Selling the rings bought Molly a round-the-world ticket. First stop, ‘the land of the free and the home of the brave’. Puzzled, she echoed the travel agent, then slowly smiled. Seeing that smile, he promised he’d try and get her an up-grade.

  Viv’s Californian friends talked empowerment psychobabble but actually never once made Molly feel useless for feeling useless. They catapulted her into chi, soul alignment and medicine wheels. Deep down, she knew the vast profit from her house sale did her more good than the macrobiotic diet. By December she wanted to move on, hastened by a reluctance to stick around for Christmas with a smitten Viv and her brand-new partner, Aussie Alice. Alice’s tenants had upped and offed, how d’you like that? Alice’s new tenant, Molly headed across the Pacific to Sydney. She needed a summer.

  ‘You wanted a latte, right? Shit. Sorry.’

  ‘Cappuccino’s fine …’ pleaded Molly.

  ‘I’ll change it. No worries.’ A sunbleached blond in his mid-twenties, the waiter seemed so laid-back that his only worry could be whether the surf was up. ‘Say, are you Molly, the English teacher? I mean, the teacher from England. Dad told me about you.’

  ‘Felice? The maths … ?’ Molly had expected a four-foot cube like his father, Aldo, the café’s owner. Male teaching staff she knew back home were more Jude the Obscure than Jude Law. She gazed into a gaze as blue and big as the ocean.

  ‘Friends call me Phil. You’re not panic-shopping like everyone else?’ He looked round the deserted café. ‘I told Dad it wasn’t worth opening.’

  ‘Aren’t you meant to be away? Up in Wordsworth?’

  ‘Byron,’ corrected Phil. ‘Mate’s van died. Thought I’d better do the old man a favour. Let him have a rest. Enjoying your stay? Been to the beach?’

  ‘Bondi. Coogee. Manly. Balmoral. Tamarama. Bronte. Bondi again.’

  Molly had arrived a week ago. She slept with the blinds open, letting the southern sun wake her up. She’d go out on to the balcony and look across the harbour at the bridge and Opera House and the mini-Manhattan of skyscrapers. She felt like a desert flower after the rains with all the water, warmth and dazzling light around her. She’d have breakfast at the café next door, then explore and sight-see. Every afternoon she lay on some sand and listened to the breakers.

  Had she been to the northern beaches? She should. But it was Christmas Eve, she must have plans. Shopping?

  Molly had done her shopping. Half-bottles of champagne, a stack of books, a new bikini and a panetone.

  That afternoon at Avalon beach, she watched Phil surf. Molly realized she was staring a bit too hard at a body that was one hundred per cent pure Australian beefcake. When he dropped her outside the flat, they talked for hours until he had to leave to go to Midnight Mass with his mother. He’d promised the old lady … Pity.

  Pity, Molly agreed.

  On Christmas afternoon, Phil came round as Molly knew he would. As they kissed and kissed, the phone rang twice. Later that evening, she got out of bed to open another bottle and to check the messages. Her parents calling again, worried about her spending Christmas alone …

  It was Ben. ‘Happy Christmas, darling. I’ve been a bastard. A stupid, stupid bastard, but we can try again. Can’t we? Come home.’

  Molly gazed out at the harbour, glowing gold in the setting sun. Wasn’t she home?

  ‘It’s Debs. Happy Christmas.’ Molly heard prolonged sobbing. ‘Mine isn’t. Happy. Angus has left me. And guess who for? Candy. Please call.’

  Phil wrapped his arms around her. ‘You OK?’

  Molly smiled. No worries.

  Amy Jenkins

  Born and brought up in London, Amy Jenkins went to Westminster and University College London where she read law. She is the creator of the BBC 2 television series This Life, and her other credits include: Blink, a short film for Channel 4 films and Elephant Juice, her first feature shot by Miramax. She is the author of Honeymoon and Funny Valentine.

  Re: The World

  Amy Jenkins

  I am a beautiful woman. My hair is dark and sleek, my face reminiscent of Marilyn Monroe, my body a collection of long luscious curves like some modish ergonomic furniture design. I have to dress cautiously or I stop tra
ffic.

  Nor am I just a pretty face. I have a masters in psychology and I am studying for my doctorate. I am an only child. My mother died of a rare tropical disease when I was thirteen. My father is a brain surgeon. He works although he doesn’t need to work because we have money in the family. We are rich.

  But don’t hate me. Please don’t hate me. If you saw me in the street, you might think I couldn’t fail to be happy, you might think I’m one of those girls who ‘has it all’. Or you might know better.

  You might also think that men were queuing around the block for me. And there you’d be right. There is a motley bunch who line up along the railings outside my house. They are getting quite weather beaten and when it’s really windy they have to cling to the railings like the nannies in Mary Poppins – for fear of being blown away. I am quite used to them by now. Otherwise, it is only the very brash and very handsome who approach. I do not want to spend the rest of my life with the very brash and the very handsome.

  Of course, I dated when I was at university. I had a love affair with a man who fell off a cliff in Cornwall during the summer break. After that I concentrated on my studies. It wasn’t a conscious decision to forgo, but I always found reasons to not go out with men. I was what you might call picky.

  One day I decided it was time to find myself someone to love. This is the story of how I did that and how I found the only man in Europe who wouldn’t want me. The only man in the Western hemisphere. The only man on the planet.

  He took photographs of me. I don’t usually let magazines take photographs of me. I refused to go into modelling when the pressure was on, when I was fifteen. But on this occasion it was different. A collection of designer dresses was to be auctioned for charity. And one of the dresses had belonged to my mother.