Life Or Something Like It

by Annie Lyons

  ‘Is that for me?’ demanded Ellie, gesturing at the bear.

  ‘Ellie! Don’t be rude. Say hello to your Auntie Cat.’

  ‘You told me not to talk to strangers,’ said the six-year-old baldly. ‘Who is Auntie Cat?’

  Andrew looked embarrassed but Cat dismissed his concerns with a small shake of her head. ‘You’re very clever to be careful and I’m sorry I haven’t seen you for a while but Daddy is right, I’m your auntie and this,’ she said, handing over the bear, ‘is for you. Happy birthday.’

  Ellie took the bear, which was much bigger than her. ‘What do you say, Ellie?’ coaxed Andrew.

  ‘Thank yoo,’ said the small girl looking up at her aunt suspiciously.

  ‘Andy!’ shouted a voice from upstairs, which Cat recognised as Melissa’s. Andrew glanced up at the frowning face peering over the banisters. ‘Oh hey, Cat,’ said Melissa as she spotted her sister-in-law. Cat could tell that she was surprised and a little irritated by her presence.

  ‘Hey,’ said Cat. ‘I just popped in with a present for Ellie but I can see you’re busy.’

  ‘Oh no you don’t,’ said Andrew, grabbing her arm and pulling her over the threshold. ‘Are you okay, Mel?’

  ‘I need you to come and talk to your son,’ said Melissa with meaning. Cat could hear her ten-year-old nephew rampaging like a wild animal upstairs.

  A shadow of embarrassment passed over Andrew’s face as he glanced at his sister. ‘I’ll be back in a sec. Ellie, take your aunt through to the other room and don’t let her leave, okay?’ He disappeared up the stairs leaving Cat standing in the hall with her four minders.

  She smiled down at them cheerfully. Use your PR charm, Catherine, she told herself. ‘Which princesses are you?’ she asked the three girls. ‘I always used to like Sleeping Beauty.’

  Ellie rolled her eyes. ‘Duh. I’m Elsa and they are Anna,’ she declared, gesturing at her friends. A look of confusion passed over Cat’s face. ‘From Frozen?’ continued Ellie as if she were addressing an idiot. ‘You know – Let it go, Let it go-ooo,’ she sang tunelessly, dancing the gigantic bear round and round. Her two friends joined in and they were soon spinning down the corridor with giggling glee. Cat and the snowman were left staring at one another. She recoiled in horror as a thick slug of snot seeped from his carrot-covered nose.

  ‘I’m Olaf,’ he declared before pushing his tongue up his lip and licking experimentally at the snot. Cat did her best not to gag and looked desperately up the stairs, praying that her brother would come back soon and rescue her. However, Ellie had not forgotten her father’s request. She plonked the huge bear on the floor and spun back down the hallway towards her aunt. Grabbing Cat with one hand and dragging the bear with the other, she pulled her towards the dining room. ‘Come on. You have to meet Finn,’ she said.

  Cat followed reluctantly, expecting to be introduced to another grubby little boy with limited hygiene. She was surprised to find a man, sitting on the floor of the dining room, strumming experimentally on a guitar. The chairs had been cleared to the sides of the room and the table was pushed against one wall. It was covered with pieces of half-chewed pizza, curling sandwiches and what looked like strawberry jelly, all of which made Cat’s stomach flip. She was used to politely nibbled canapés and bento boxes containing neat parcels of sushi. This was cuisine carnage.

  Ellie plonked herself very close to the man, whilst one little girl sat the other side of him and the other stood behind him, wrapping her arms around his neck. He obviously had some sort of magnetism for children. To be honest, Cat couldn’t quite see the attraction. He was heavily bearded with messy hair, a scruffy T-shirt bearing the words ‘I like Biscuits’, and an even scruffier pair of jeans paired with some ancient Converse trainers. He looked so at home on the floor with these pint-sized princesses, almost as if he were one of them. They clearly adored him.

  Ellie put an arm round his neck and looked up at her aunt. ‘This is Finn,’ she said proudly as if she were introducing the Dalai Lama. Finn nodded up at Cat but didn’t seem to see her. He was intent on the chords he was playing, lost in a musical moment. Cat found this quite rude. ‘Come and sit down and we can sing,’ ordered Ellie. Cat looked around her. The floor was worse than the table. It was covered with crushed cheese puffs, squashed fondant fancies and pools of sticky juice. Cat glanced down at her Stella McCartney jeans and picked up what she hoped was a clean paper napkin. She placed it on the floor and sat down next to Ellie.

  She glanced up to see Finn watching her with obvious amusement. For some reason this irritated Cat. How dare he laugh at her? She held out a manicured hand. She wouldn’t stoop to his ill-mannered level. ‘Good to meet you, Finn. I’m Andrew’s sister – Cat.’

  Finn leant over his guitar and took her hand. She noticed how cool his touch was. ‘I didn’t know Andy had a sister. Pleased to meet you.’

  ‘It’s because she doesn’t come over very often,’ said Ellie, rolling her eyes conspiratorially at Finn.

  Finn glanced over at Cat, suppressing a smile. ‘Is that because you’re a right royal pain in the bum, Ellie?’ he laughed.

  Ellie glared up at him and then started to laugh. ‘Finn, you are so funny. I am lovely,’ she squeaked. ‘No, it’s because she doesn’t like children. That’s what Mummy says.’

  Finn raised his eyebrows at Cat. ‘How does the guilty party plead?’ he asked.

  Cat was incensed by his interrogation. ‘I really don’t think this is appropriate,’ she said, trying to keep her cool.

  Finn regarded her for a moment. This man infuriated Cat. Who was he to judge her? She stared straight back at him with cool indifference. His face broke into a knowing grin as he turned back to the children. ‘And now, would Mr Bear like to sing a song?’ he added, gesturing at Ellie’s newest friend.

  ‘He would,’ said Ellie, handing him over.

  Finn reached his arms around the gigantic toy and started to play the guitar, giving a rendition of ‘The Bear Necessities’ in a gruff, teddy bear type voice. The children giggled, hugging themselves with delight.

  Cat was done. This man was a judgemental show-off and she was ready to leave. She had delivered Ellie’s present, put in an appearance. What more did she need to do? She didn’t have children, didn’t want children and going on today’s performance, this would never change. She was about to get up and leave when she felt someone standing next to her. She turned to see Olaf the snowman grinning at her, the plug of snot still very much in place on his top lip. Before she could move, he placed a hand on her knee and nestled down next to her. It was impossible to leave because he was now leaning on her lap and she watched in horror as he rested his head on her leg, leaving a slimy trail of mucous on her pristine jeans.

  She could see that Finn had spotted what was happening, a wide grin of satisfaction spreading over his face. However, he didn’t realise that Cat was an expert at getting the best out of bad situations. She leant forward and whispered into the boy’s ear, ‘Why don’t you see if Ellie and the girls fancy a dance?’ she whispered. At these words, the little boy leapt up and started to bounce up and down with delight. He looked over at Cat who nodded with smiling encouragement. Before long the others had joined in and Cat found her moment to make an escape. She glanced at Finn imperiously but he merely smiled and nodded. She left the room feeling irritated and annoyed that she had allowed a stranger to wind her up so easily. She met her brother in the hall.

  ‘Sorry, Cat, that took a bit longer than expected. Charlie’s been a tad challenging of late. Are you going?’

  Cat looked pained. ‘I have to. I’ve got somewhere I need to be but I’ll call you in the week, okay?’

  Andrew did his best to mask his disappointment. ‘Okay. Thanks for coming.’

  She had smiled and waved as she walked swiftly back to her car, before driving back to her real life without a backward glance.

  Cat felt a similar sense of relief now after ending the call with Andrew. She did worry about her
little brother and was sorry for Melissa. She resolved to get some flowers delivered to Melissa and her mum, send the kids an extravagant present and take Andrew out for lunch next week.

  Family taken care of, Cat made her way back through the bar to Ava and another round of mojitos. She smiled and waved at the various people she knew. She felt at home here. It was full of like-minded individuals – vibrant and creative people, getting on with the important business of life. Cat loved this world and despite Ava’s reservations, she was as happy as it was possible to be. Work hard. Have fun. No drama. That was Cat Nightingale’s mantra and she followed it to the letter.

  Chapter Two

  Cat stood on the platform waiting for her train, phone in hand, flicking through the morning’s news. Checking Mail Online, Cat was relieved that there were no overnight pictures of Alvarro stumbling out of a nightclub or posing with another Page Three model. She took a sip of her coffee and glanced up as the packed Tube pulled in to the station. Tucking her phone in her bag ready for the imminent loss of signal, Cat boarded the train, making her way down to the middle of the carriage where there was always more space.

  A woman struggled aboard behind her with a pushchair, trilling thanks as people stepped back for fear of bruised ankles. The carriage was silent but Cat could guess people’s thoughts as their bodies bristled with irritation at this unwelcome intrusion into their fast-moving, adult world. Who brings a baby onto the Tube at this time of the morning? The woman was breathless with exertion but managed to park her buggy by the opposite door and bundle the fretful baby into her arms.

  A man in his early twenties, neatly bearded and obviously terrified of anything under the age of ten, leapt up from his seat right by where Cat was standing. The woman beamed at him with weary gratitude, flopped down into the vacated seat and planted a reassuring kiss on the baby’s ear. The baby was looking all around, wide-eyed and alarmed by the serious, unsmiling faces surrounding her. Cat did her best to ignore the baby but it started to make an insistent noise and stare at her as if she were the only one who could answer its highly complex gurgling question. Cat had little experience of babies but from the time she’d spent with her brother’s children, she knew that this sound was unlikely to decrease and therefore action was required.

  She glanced down at the baby and gave it a warm smile, something akin to the look she might give a celebrity client who had come to her with an image problem: sympathetic, empathetic and wholly reassuring. It was a look that said: Everything is going to be okay.

  The baby stared into her eyes as if trying to glean the truth, a frown hovering on its brow like a question mark. Cat held her breath. The baby raised its eyebrows and then lifted its mouth in a smile before issuing forth a small giggle.

  The baby’s mother smiled. ‘Oh, have you made a new friend?’ she cooed. Cat assumed she was talking to the baby and hoped that her work was done. The baby giggled again, her eyes fixed on Cat, hungry for more interaction. ‘Aww she loves you,’ said the mother encouragingly, her face open and ready for Cat to say how much she loved her too. Cat looked at the baby. It reminded her of a miniature Winston Churchill but she was pretty sure you weren’t meant to say these things out loud. Besides, she was a PR professional, practised at diplomacy.

  ‘She’s gorgeous,’ she proclaimed with a sincere smile.

  The mother was delighted. ‘How many do you have?’ she asked. And there it was. That presumption. It wasn’t the woman’s fault and Cat was used to it. Barely a week went by without her having to tell someone that she wasn’t married, didn’t have children and had no plans to. It had begun when she’d hit thirty. During her twenties, it was seen as a mistake to have children but as soon as she had reached thirty, opinion began to shift. People started to get married, have babies, and she was left having to justify herself. At first, she had been quite huffy about the whole thing but she soon realised that this was pointless. People had their opinions and you rarely changed their minds. She had various stock responses ready depending on the person she was talking to.

  ‘I’m terrified of childbirth.’ This one worked well on men as it usually nipped the conversation in the bud immediately because they were terrified too, particularly if they had experienced their other half going through the whole eye-popping process.

  ‘It’s fine. I’m going to work for Google and they’ll freeze my eggs for me,’ she would say to anyone who used the phrase ‘biological clock’.

  If she encountered more persistent or belligerent questioning she sometimes used statistics about divorce or an overpopulated world. This was a last resort as it sounded preachy but it usually did the trick.

  However, talking to mothers like the one questioning her now required a different strategy. This woman had assumed that Cat, who had bonded so convincingly with her own baby, had to be a mother. There was no other explanation and Cat couldn’t bear the disappointment and pity she would have to endure if she told the truth. Cat could see that this woman was a fully paid-up member of the motherhood club and she wanted Cat to swear her allegiance too – to pretend blithely that life was better with children, that sleepless nights were good for the soul or that having children completed you.

  Cat didn’t believe this. She liked Hermès bags, not eye-bags and she didn’t think this made her a bad person. Of course, she rarely uttered this sentiment out loud. People who worked in Cat’s world or enjoyed the lifestyle she did were easily dismissed as shallow and superficial. Cat was neither of these things. She simply knew what she liked. She loved her job, the lifestyle it afforded her, her two-bedroom house in a cool but edgy corner of Shoreditch, the weekends away, five-star holidays to the best resorts, first-class travel. She had it all.

  If Cat spoke of her long-held assertion that she needed neither a child nor a man to complete her existence or of the fact that she was happy without either, she knew how it would end. The woman would try to convince her otherwise or worse, she would go quiet and Cat would know that this silence merely shrouded a smug conviction that women in their mid-thirties who had chosen careers over families were missing out. Cat had more sense than to wander down that particular conversational cul-de-sac. She had argued in the past but there was no point. People projected their own lives onto other individuals. It was understandable. It was the only frame of reference that they had.

  The woman was looking at her expectantly now, longing for them to bond over tales of traumatic C-sections and problems with breastfeeding. Cat smiled.

  ‘I have three children,’ she lied. ‘Jean, Paul and…’ don’t say Ringo ‘…Georgie. They’re adorable.’

  ‘Three! Wow, that must keep you busy,’ said the woman admiringly. ‘She’s my first and I’m exhausted. I can’t imagine how you manage with three.’

  ‘You just manage, don’t you?’ Cat smiled. She noted with some relief that they had reached her station. ‘This is my stop. It was lovely meeting you.’ She paused to place a hand on the baby’s big head as she turned to leave. ‘Well goodbye – ’ Winston, Winston, don’t say Winston.

  ‘Winnie,’ said the woman. ‘Named after my granny.’

  Cat choked down a giggle as she reached the door. ‘Goodbye, Winnie,’ she said wearing her best PR smile. As soon as the train reached the station, she stepped off onto the platform and disappeared into the crowd, her mind already fixed on the day ahead.

  She glided along with the flow of commuters out of the station and along the street towards the Hemingway Media offices. It was a short walk to the modern brick building, designed by an overexcited architect who had wanted to give it a minimalist, warehouse air. She recalled the day that she and Jesse had come to view the offices. They had expanded since the company was formed at the start of the noughties and Jesse wanted them to move somewhere more central and happening as opposed to the top floor of his Mews house, which he had inherited from his wealthy grandparents. She had remembered her feelings of frustration as the architect, fresh from college, droned on about conceptual spa
ce and creative oxygen.

  ‘It’s totally designed with the Creative in mind, yes? The space is huge, airy, light and filled with creative oxygen, yes? You can breathe it in and – ’

  Fart out the ideas? Cat had thought. She glanced at Jesse who was lapping it all up like a newborn kitten. That was the problem with Jesse. He got so caught up in an idea that he just ran with it. She had to rein him in sometimes but he loved this. They were a good team.

  ‘And the glass is integral to the creative process, yes? It enables you to look in and out, yes?’

  Yes, thought Cat. Windows tend to do that.

  ‘We’ll take it,’ said Jesse. ‘It’s perfect. Isn’t it perfect, Kit Kat? Don’t you just love it?’ he had cried, throwing out his arms and dancing her round the empty room.

  She had looked into his clear green eyes, bright like a cat’s, and given in immediately. ‘I think it’s great,’ she said only telling a half-lie. For she always gave in to Jesse. She couldn’t help it. She loved him and would do anything for him. She sometimes wondered what would have happened if that ‘moment’ at university had become a reality; would they have stayed together and been happy? She couldn’t picture it somehow but that was just fine. It was academic and this set-up was perfect. They could enjoy harmless flirtation without the complication of a relationship. It was like a perpetual first date with the delicious air of hope and possibility still lingering, unlikely to be quashed by the inevitable reality of sex, feelings and all the drawbacks these threatened to bring. For a woman who kept her heart tucked far away from her sleeve and had stopped believing in romance a long time ago, it suited Cat perfectly.

  She had been sorry to leave their snug little offices though. The new building was drafty and the goldfish bowl meeting rooms energy-inefficient, but it did give them a more professional air in a bid to become real players in the PR world.

  ‘Morning, Stan.’ Cat smiled as she strode with confidence through the revolving doors. ‘How’s Maud doing?’