There's More to Life Than Cupcakes

by Poppy Dolan

  There’s nothing better to lift you out of a self-imposed, self-pitying fug than a dinner party to plan and prep for. I actually seek out recipes that involve a bit of overnight chilling or marinating. I like all the organising, specialist food shopping, fretting about cooking times. I might make out it’s a bit stressy but actually I LOVE the chance to have chopped things in little bowls, ice cube trays already filled in the freezer and – if Pete’s not around – I can do my ‘Let’s pretend I’m on Saturday Kitchen’ routine where I laugh and fawn over an imaginary James Martin while narrating my cooking. That’s why I only do it while Pete isn’t around.

  So I’m really relishing the ministrations for the dinner with Hannah and Laurie: a lamb curry that’s been happily tenderising and perfuming (well, I can say that if it’s just me and James listening) overnight, followed by a frozen hibiscus margarita (sort of copied off Wahaca) for pudding, then some homemade chocolate truffles. Ahh, homemade chocolate truffles: the conman’s confection. I had to re-read my Hope and Glory cookbook when I realised that a truffle was basically melted chocolate, plus cream, left to set and then rolled into small balls with some interesting coating. Chopped nuts, vermicelli, cocoa powder. Done. Put into a fancy mini case if you’re feeling fruity. But this tiny effort – which I’m pretty sure would get you a C- in Home Ec, at most – somehow knocks the socks off grown-ups. ‘Oh my God!’ they almost scream ‘You MADE these, no way! How? Let me bathe your feet and worship in your heavenly shadow!’ I don’t think the poor guys that mapped DNA got as much appreciation as I did in the Christmas of 2007 for my praline chocolate truffles. And those just had the extra step of heating up some sugar, pouring the caramel over nuts, getting crazy with the rolling pin to crush it all up and then using it as topping. Boom. Cheap and easy Christmas presents done.

  I think I am also trilling with pleasure because all these dinner party details have kept my mind off ovaries and work and I am delighting in filling my brain instead with imagined pictures of Laurie. Will he be really tall? No, I can’t imagine Hannah with someone towering over her, actually; she just feels too strong a personality not to at least be at a comfortable eye-level. Maybe a slim, elegant bloke, maybe arty and a bit intense. Hmmm, perhaps. He’s got to have his serious side if he’s training to be a barrister. I bet he’s got that sort of light nut-brown hair that could be dark blonde in certain lights, and I bet he’s clean-cut …

  Ooooh, time to start reheating the curry. Where are those curry leaves?

  Yes, I bet Laurie is quiet, not prone to laughing loudly or telling embarrassing stories, but carefully dissecting his thoughts in a considered way. We probably need a little conversational sobriety round here. After an hour with Pete’s rugby mates and half a bottle of posh cider at dinner, I’m usually screeching my way through the story about how the first time I stayed at my uni boyfriend’s parents’ place – they were really religious – they insisted we sleep in separate rooms. So somehow we thought it would be wise to sneak down to their shed together and use the lawn chairs. He’d forgotten that the security lights were on a timer. And that the shed actually had pretty big windows. I didn’t get asked back after that.

  Hmm, Laurie, Laurie. I can’t wait to meet him and then catalogue all his great features with Hannah the next time we’re alone. I don’t know if men really do swap stories of what girlfriends are like in bed, or how big their boobs are, or whatever (Pete tells me ‘you just don’t do that’ with a girlfriend you’re really in love with. My argument is, ‘Yes, but you don’t know you’re in love with her after the very first shag, do you? By the time you realise she’s The One you’ve already told your friends what her nipples look like.’). But I am absolutely guilty of appraising men when they’re not here. I once met a school friend’s new bloke, who she was super serious about. I excused myself to make coffee; she said she’d help. We danced around the kitchen, Ring of Roses-style, half-singing, half-whispering ‘He’s got amazing hair! He’s got amazing hair!’ He really did have the nicest hair – like a fresh thatched roof, all dense and strong. It was hard to explain our dance when he came in to get the pepper grinder.

  My observations are always positive ones: good dress sense, impeccable manners, thoughtful conversationalist, sexy stubble. With Lydia’s boyfriends I just don’t say very much. Not that we often get to the dinner party stage with them: it gets in the way of her marathon, round-the clock shagging, with breaks for snacks or occasional showers. But I was ready and prepped, like my cucumber and onion raita, to smother Laurie with secret, sweet compliments like it was mango chutney.

  Man, I am ready for this curry.

  And so it seems are they, as the doorbell goes.

  Pete beats me to the door – longer legs giving him the natural advantage.

  I can see Hannah to his left but not Laurie over his shoulder – so he can’t be super tall.

  Pete steps back, welcoming them in out of the hall and I smile, ready to scan Laurie and give him the traditional greeting … but it’s not Laurie. It’s a pretty redhead.

  Oh God, he’s got delayed at work and Hannah’s brought a friend so it’s not a threesome. Poor love. Laurie is always putting work first. How does she live with it? I say my hellos happily and take coats. I bet Hannah will want to vent, so I use the old dinner-party cover: ‘Hey Hannah, will you come and help me carry the starters through? You guys must be starving. Pete, will you pour the drinks?’

  Pete starts prattling to Hannah’s mate about how long we’ve lived in the flat, asking her where she lives, displaying all the good qualities I first analysed about him with my friends: really kind, a great listener, long, strong arms and an arse you could bounce a penny off (hey, I hate to see him go but I love to watch him leave. It’s my marital right!). We nip into the kitchen.

  I turn to Hannah, the scent of a man-moaning session in my nostrils. ‘So, did Laurie have to work late?’

  Hannah looks over her shoulder, towards the living room. ‘Um, no. We got away on time. Unless … sorry, are we late?’

  ‘No, perfectly on time. When did Laurie let you know? Was it a last-minute thing? Who’s she?’

  I nod towards the door.

  Hannah scrunches her eyes. ‘Have you been at the cooking sherry? Who’s who?’

  ‘The lovely redhead.’

  ‘My lovely redhead, you mean?’

  ‘Yup, is she a teacher?’ I lean back against the countertop, ready for the whole shebang.

  Hannah frowns. ‘You know she’s a trainee barrister.’

  ‘Do I?’ If Hannah had mentioned this friend, it had completely left my mind like icing sugar through a sieve.

  ‘Yes,’ she intones slowly and dryly, as if I’m one of her pupils asking if babies grow in cabbage patches. ‘Laurie is a trainee barrister, you know that.’ She folds her arms across her chest.

  And then the realisation hits me with a big solid, wet slap about the head. Like cement through a sieve.

  ‘So Laurie, Ellie tells me you’re a hotshot lawyer.’ Pete wipes his mouth on the ‘for company’ linen napkins.

  ‘Barrister,’ I interject quickly.

  Laurie smiles demurely, brushing the hair from her eyes as she looks down at her onion bhaji (I didn’t make them, OK? That’s crazy talk.). ‘Trying to be, but not sure about the hotshot, more like a hot mess.’

  Hannah puts her hand on Laurie’s shoulder and tsks kindly, but all the while avoiding my eyes. She knows. She knows that I thought Laurie was a man. She knows that I am a big stupid assumer. She probably thinks I’m a small-minded idiot, too.

  Am I a git because I heard Laurie and thought Christian Bale in Little Women?! Yes, the answer is clearly yes.

  Laurie is a cooler version of Laura, I surmise, or maybe Laurel.

  ‘Laurie is such a pretty name – is it short for anything?’ My question is as seemingly innocent as a smoothie wearing a knitted hat.

  ‘Laurel, actually. My granny’s name. But I always found it a bit stuffy, a bit old, so Laurie s
tuck when I was younger. I do use Laurel in legal letters, though, when I want to sound older and scarier than I really am.’

  ‘I wouldn’t mess with a Laurel.’ Pete nods and sweeps his last smear of mango chutney up with his index finger. How is he taking this in his stride? How is he not stewing in embarrassed, regretful sweats like I am?

  There’s only one way to find out.

  ‘OK, so curry time, I think!’ I’m doing my best impression of a nervous Blue Peter presenter who thinks that the show’s dog is about to sniff out the hash in her pocket. I grab Pete’s sleeve without even bothering to ask him for some help. He rolls his eyes indulgently at the ladies and follows dutifully.

  ‘Laurie!’ I hiss, my hands at my temples. ‘Laurie! Fucking … Christian Bale! Little Women! Right?!’

  ‘Is this a code?’ Pete whispers back. ‘Do you think she looks like Christian Bale? I thought she was really cute, actually, petite and cute-looking.’

  I am gobsmacked. So I stick a chunk of cucumber in my gob to help loosen up and un-smack it.

  ‘So you didn’t think Laurie would be, you know, a man?’

  Pete laughs so loudly that on reflex I punch him in the stomach. Regretfully hard. (Remember: recent PMT.) Then he groans and I have to stifle his guttural noises with my hand. This really has turned into Misery.

  ‘I just assumed … I’m not sure she ever said outright … oh my God, she must think I read the Daily Mail! Oh Christ!’ Tears ping into my eyes. This is worse than when I made a Fimo pendant for my best primary school frenemy that was supposed to be the ying and I’d have the yang. Instead she went round the playground showing everyone ‘Ellie’s gross dog-poo necklace!’

  ‘Hey Smelly, come here,’ Pete pulls me into him, so I get a face full of Hugo Boss. ‘You’re not a Daily Mail reader, you just like the website gossip so you can keep track of Miley Cyrus’s foot tattoos. Like anyone would. Just style this out. I bet Hannah hasn’t noticed. And if she has, let’s get them both trollied so we can laugh about it later tonight. OK, sugar tits?’

  ‘It’s not funny when you say it, Pete. Only Ruth Jones. But yes, OK. You drain the rice and I’ll dish out the curry.’

  Pete looks up at the ceiling, his smile wistful. ‘Serving ethnic food to a couple of lesbians. My mother would be so proud of us right now.’

  A half-giggle raises my spirits, but not by much. But I’ve bluffed my way through many a business meeting, date and awkward family lunch. I can fake this. Or if not, buy Hannah the biggest Cath Kidston related product they make. Does she do tents? Swimming pool covers? Hot air balloons?

  As Pete predicted, getting trollied was – as it mostly always is – the answer. The curry was a bit hot and I tactically didn’t refill the water glasses, so wine became the only way out. Mwah ha ha. Those fools; they will be my drunken friends if it’s the last thing they do.

  We’ve shuffled the dining table over to the bay window so we can all flop onto the sofas and see each other.

  ‘Noes! Noes!’ Laurie is cawing like a pissed crow. ‘You DID NOT make these! Truffles, like from Godiva. And you made them!’ She stuffs another one in her little gob, smearing some cocoa powder round her delicate features. Funnily enough, it looks quite lovely against her pale skin and flame-red hair. Hannah leans over – well, she slumps – and brushes off the cocoa with her thumb.

  ‘Slob,’ she says, adoringly.

  ‘Psssht.’ Laurie rolls her eyes at me.

  Pete swills his red wine, dangerously energetically considering he’s sitting in a room with cream carpets. ‘So how did you guys meet?’

  ‘At a club, a—’

  ‘A gay club?’ Pete finishes.

  ‘Um, no,’ Hannah goes on, ‘we were members of the same tennis club, at uni.’

  Pete smacks his palm to his forehead, narrowly missing his left eye with the heel of his hand. ‘And there I was, making a grand assumption about you and your lifestyle. It’s so small-minded of me to assume that. So Daily Mail not to consider all the possibilities of dating, hmmm?’ He looks at me.

  I look at him. Then at Hannah.

  She’s looking at me. Smiling.

  Then we all start laughing, really laughing.

  I can hardly breathe, Pete has tears in his eyes, Hannah grabs at her sides.

  It then gets worse when Laurie pipes up and says, ‘What’s so funny? No, seriously, why … why are you laughing so much?’ Perplexed she bites down on another truffle, ‘God, you’re the best, Ellie. Amazing cook. You’re everything Hannah said you were.’

  And then I nearly did a laughing wee, but made the bathroom just in time.

  After we reluctantly see the ladies out into the hallway and Pete stomps about getting coats, I hug Hannah a goodnight. And very quickly whisper, ‘Love her. Amazing hair. So funny. The best.’

  She nods, and I think I might be forgiven.

  With our guests gone, all that’s left is to clean up, wash up and delete the Daily Mail showbiz page from my internet favourites.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  None in the Oven

  Dear fellow baby-centred people,

  Time for some actual research in the field – not just wittery internet blog words and Google searches of ‘world’s worst mothers’ and ‘fertility in over-thirties’ and ‘Has Lucy Mangan written a really good article about having babies yet?’. I am going to pick up a baby and see if it explodes or not.

  But infantile spontaneous combustion isn’t really what I’m worried about. Or dropping the little thing or exposing her to dangerous materials like cigarette smoke or the literary works of Katie Price. It’s giving her back. There is something that happens to me when I’m within two feet of a baby. Some primeval hormones wake up from a decades-old nap and have me acting nutballs. I see a cute baby in the cereal aisle of Sainsbury’s and those crazy hormones have me wondering how far I could leg it out the doors with that trolley before anyone notices. Or a chubby faced little angel is passed round at a friend’s housewarming and I’m sizing him up – will he fit in my handbag? A plump little cheek, tiny toes all wrapped up in a onesie, that talcy smell that makes my heart and my uterus flutter. It’s mental but it’s there.

  I mean, I’m glad it’s there to a certain extent – it means I’m not dead inside and totally devoid of any maternal feeling. But it’s not fun to feel out of control of your own emotions, your own body. I feel like someone else is pulling the strings, and that person is maybe Dr Spock or Supernanny, and it’s weird. I am a sensible, rational person who remembers the bin days, fills out their appraisal forms properly and can make a decent roux sauce just by sight. I should not be itching to forge a birth certificate and move to Guatemala with my newly pilfered baby. I should not listen to the whispering voice in the back of my head that says, ‘It doesn’t matter that you don’t own a house yet, or that you’re not in the career you’ve always dreamed of, or that you’re just a smidge scared of becoming a domestic drone, just flush your pills down the loo and get on with it! Think of the cute little sprog you’d have with Pete, think of tiny little trainers, a mini trike with ribbons on the handles and cute little first-birthday cake. And all the boxsets you’ll watch on maternity leave!’

  Hormones are not to be laughed at. I once burst into tears after a Snappy Snaps commercial that was selling a phone cover you could have printed with your baby’s photo. The baby on the ad was wearing a strawberry-shaped hat and I lost it. When my other half gently asked what was wrong, I whimpered back ‘I don’t even have a phone cover!’ then ran off to cry on my bed for thirteen minutes. As well as the mood swings and the Kleenex usage, what bothers me about these hormonal baby urges is that they might lead me to make a decision that otherwise isn’t very smart. OK, so hormones make all sorts of organs do all sorts of necessary things inside me. But they don’t have such a great head for figures, career plans, relationship advice or my social calendar. So I’m a little nervous about them deciding the rest of my life for me.

  So let’s hope
one whiff of this little bit of research’s head doesn’t send me sprinting to Boots for some folic acid.

  Wish me luck!

  Sprogless but Hormoneful x

  ‘I totally get it! Laurie, Jo, Marmie, Christian Bale! I would absolutely have gone there.’ Jules forks a decent wedge of cake and happily devours it. ‘God, this is good, thanks hun.’

  ‘Mary Berry Can’t Go Wrong Chocolate Cake. There’s sunflower oil in it, weirdly. And then I nicked this recipe for peanut butter icing off a Notting Hill cafe when my best mate Lyds worked there, sliced some bananas on top. It’s salty and sweet, which I like. But is it a bit much?’

  Jules shakes her head ferociously, like I’ve just asked her if she’d be willing to swap me her baby for a packet of gum. ‘No … is perfick!’ she says, through a sticky mouthful.

  Speaking of the baby, I sneak a look at the plump little wonder, propped up on the navy sofa cushions between us.

  ‘You don’t know what cake is yet, little one, but one day you will and then everything will make sense.’ I pull an exaggerated ‘Yum’ face at Emmeline. She is not amused. ‘So, hey, how’s Josh doing?’

  Jules rolls her eyes and lays down her fork, begrudgingly. ‘Erm, not great, which isn’t a surprise to you, after that car crash of a dinner. He’s become gym obsessed, I think to cover up how lonely he is, and also maybe he thinks brawny muscles will get his wife back. Which I really doubt. But, he’s not weeping so much at random now, we even get the odd glimmer of the old, happy Josh now and again. So it’s something.’

  But Emmeline is not so happy and lets out a mini wail of protest.

  ‘Oh noooo, poppet, don’t grizzle with Aunty Eleanor here, not when she made mummy so happy with all these delicious calories. Sssshhhhhhh sssshhh ssshhhhh.’ Jules soothes expertly without even picking the baby up, still taking her chance to tackle her slice of cake. ‘Don’t think I’m a delinquent parent, I just need ten minutes when I don’t have a small person – or big male person – attached to me. And if she’s not Ambulance-siren wailing, she’s not really upset, just grumbly.’