Lessons in Duck Hunting

by Jayne Buxton

  I don’t know what makes me so brave. Perhaps it’s having made the call to Gary this morning, knowing full well that it was nothing to do with faulty electrics but part of a master plan. Perhaps it’s just a general hangover from all of Marina’s assertion-boosting exhortations.

  “Actually, I think I’ve seen you walking along here before. With your little girl,” I say.

  “Yeah,” he replies, smiling warmly. A lovely crease appears on the right side of his face, giving his smile a sort of lopsidedness. “That’s Grace. I take her to nursery every morning so I can get some work done. I’m on my way to pick her up.”

  Aha. Nursery. Work. He’s either living on his own with Grace or is househusband to a powerful-main-breadwinner sort of wife. I can’t see his ring finger, which in any case is wholly unreliable as an indicator of partnership status.

  “Anyway, I’d better get going,” he says. I can’t think of what else to say to hold him here so I just smile and say “thanks.”

  As I stand by my car fumbling with my keys I watch him walk up the street and disappear around the corner. He’s taller than I usually go for, and his hair’s a dirty blond. Could he be my third duck?

  Or might he not be a duck at all?

  CHAPTER 15

  MAKEUP

  This being my weekend with the kids, I’ve not arranged to go out this evening and I have half a thought to spend it sticking pins into homemade voodoo dolls of the parents I’m up against for the places at St. George’s. Once that’s done, I’m going to do some early planning for the packaging meeting next Friday. Marina insists that before getting feedback from other people it’s important to do a sort of self-evaluation. I’ve got the seminar notes propped up in the Perspex recipe-book holder my mother gave me last Christmas, and am stealing glances at them as I prepare sausages and mash for Jack and Millie.

  I’ve read this section once before but I figure it will help to remind myself of the details. First on the list is clothes, which apparently must not be: too baggy or too tight; too sexy or too conservative; too busy; too fashionable (so no Vivienne Westwood then?); too black (not even a Max Mara sweater?); or too businesslike. Needless to say, the tracksuit bottoms with the holes in them are forbidden, even for trips to the post office.

  I realize that self-evaluation may be more difficult than I’d anticipated. I don’t think I’m breaking any of these rules, but I can’t be a hundred percent sure. After all, one person’s fashion-forward statement is another’s “so-last-year it’s destined for Oxfam.” I may have to wait until next Friday for a final verdict.

  I turn the page (always tricky when the papers are in one of these Perspex things), accidentally flicking a blob of mashed potato onto the page (thereby defeating the purpose of the Perspex thing, which is designed to eliminate such culinary mishaps and maintain one’s cookbooks in pristine condition). As I wipe away the mashed potato I spot an edict that I must have missed on the first reading.

  ALWAYS wear an underwire, push-up bra: after thirty you almost certainly need it.

  I hate underwire bras. I discovered long ago that I have an unusually low tolerance for pieces of wire digging into my ribs all day. About three years ago I also discovered that my boobs had lost much of their perkiness. But my solution was never going to be the underwire bra. I opted instead for a marvel called the Uplifter from M&S, a plain white and unashamedly unadorned little Lycra and cotton construction that works wonders on the bosom of the woman over thirty-five who doesn’t think metal and flesh should ever be in close proximity, and who favors a pressing and hoisting action over all that pushing and shoving.

  But you would never call it sexy. It’s not hideous either; more like nondescript. I have a feeling that nondescript is never going to suffice for Marina, and that the three Uplifters in my underwear drawer will have to be temporarily cast aside in favor of a ludicrously uncomfortable construction of wire, silk and lace.

  I skip over the next section, which is on hair. Having opted not to cut my hair short I’ve already satisfied Marina’s criteria in this department. There is a paragraph on color, but I refuse to believe that mine isn’t right, being a lovingly created blend of four different shades of blond, painstakingly applied every eight weeks by a genius wielding a brush and tin foil.

  I’m about to turn to the section on makeup and serve up the sausages when the phone jolts me out of my state of hair complacency. I’m not so involved in the contemplation of my possible shortcomings that I don’t feel a certain nervousness in picking it up. Will it be Gary about the lights, or Alan with a dinner invitation?

  “Hello, is that Ally?” he says, in his well-bred intonation.

  “Yes, this is she,” I say, as if I haven’t been expecting this call all day.

  “Hello there. It’s Alan, you remember from Nick and Kate’s?” says Alan. I’m sure I detect a small gulp at the tail end of this declaration.

  “Oh yes. Of course I remember. How are you?” I reply.

  “Well. Very well. How are you?”

  “Cooking sausages actually, but very well,” I say. I want to be polite, but at the same time I don’t want him to think this conversation can go on forever. I’ve got children to feed, and besides, I’d rather just do the Duck Decoy thing without a long telephonic preamble.

  “Oh sorry. I’ll be quick then. Don’t want those sausages to burn!” There’s a pause while he waits for me to chuckle, or gathers his courage for the words to come, I’m not sure which. “I so enjoyed meeting you and I was just wondering if you’d like to go out to dinner sometime. I was thinking about next week.”

  There. He’s said it. I have got to hand it to him: no audible indications of gulping this time.

  “That would be lovely,” I say. “I could do Wednesday next week.” A weekday is infinitely preferable for a Duck Decoy sort of date, being laden with far fewer expectations than a Friday or Saturday. I know that Wednesday precedes my repackaging on Friday, but I don’t suppose this matters in the case of a date with someone I already know isn’t my type. Anyway, he didn’t seem put off by the way I looked last Sunday; and he’s not going to get even the slightest whiff of my Uplifter so there’s no need to worry on that front.

  “Wonderful. Shall I pick you up or do you want to meet somewhere?”

  Definitely meet somewhere. “Oh, I think it would be easier to meet in the middle, don’t you?” I say.

  “So how about The Bluebird at eight o’clock? I did their fireplaces so they are always pretty good about finding me a table.” I don’t think he has said this to impress me with his table pulling power. I think he is the sort of man who’s fastidious about details, like what kind of fire grate goes with which kind of mantelpiece, and whether or not a popular restaurant on the Kings Road will have a table available on a Wednesday evening.

  “Great. I’ll see you then.” I say, being unable to summon up the warmer and more encouraging “I’ll look forward to it.” The Bluebird will be perfect. Busy, bustling, not too intimate. Far enough from both his place and my place to prevent the suggestion of coffee at anyone’s place.

  “ ’Bye, then. I’ll look forward to it,” he says, hanging up.

  GARY HAMILTON DOESN’T PHONE. Of course, an electrician isn’t going to call after six o’clock on a Friday, or indeed anytime over a weekend (unless he is an industrious six-days-a-week kind of tradesman). But that doesn’t stop me from jumping every time the phone rings. The first two calls are from Kitchens Direct (do I want a free estimate for a new kitchen, and the chance to win £5000 worth of cabinets?) and Thames Water (could you describe your most recent encounter with our customer services team?). The third time it’s a call from my mother. She catches me with one eye on Friends and the other on Marina’s list of the most common makeup mistakes.

  “Hello, darling,” she says. My mother’s voice is the vocal embodiment of a warm embrace.

  “Hi, Mum. I’ve been meaning to call you. How are you?”

  She and I talk for about ten m
inutes about nothing very much. I don’t tell her about the Millie situation as it would only worry her, and what’s the point in that if the whole thing might be resolved on Monday? I definitely don’t tell her about The Proactive Partnership Program, but I do mention the dinner with Alan next week. She has hated seeing me cope alone, and harbors a thinly-veiled desire to see me happily settled down again. If she thinks I am at least in the company of eligible men every once in a while she will sleep more easily.

  Mum and Dad were shell-shocked when I told them David had left. If divorce hadn’t been part of my rosy picture of my future, it had never even been deemed to be within the realm of the possible by them. Married almost four decades, they’d just assumed I would repeat the pattern. Unlike a few girlfriends, whom I now remember dropping hints about David’s roving eye, Mum and Dad never saw anything negative about David. Or if they did, they never shared it with me. Their adoration of him and faith in our future was all part of their optimistic, nonjudgmental view of the world. When I was younger their unwillingness to criticize, to stomp their feet and make a fuss, used to drive me crazy. Sometimes I wonder if I’d have been better off with a little parental skepticism, or even some heavy-handed and strongly resented interference, right about the time David and I decided to get married. I just might have listened to them.

  Even now they don’t judge. They, like me, have decided that David must remain a figure of admiration for Jack and Millie, so there has never been so much as a “what about that naughty scoundrel then?”. They just call me every few days, and turn up whenever invited, offering perfect cups of tea and babysitting without strings. Like a one-woman clippings department, Mum sends me articles featuring marmalade recipes and advertisements for competitors’ marmalade brands, lovingly clipped from Woman’s Weekly or Ladies’ Home Journal, much in the same way she used to send me all manner of cosmetics related bumf. I don’t have the heart to tell her that the agency sends me a comprehensive stack of ads and articles on a daily basis. Her efforts are not totally wasted in any case: about a year ago she taped a radio discussion with regional marmalade connoisseurs that no one else had spotted in advance. It arrived on my desk with a label marked “Marmalade Mch/03, from Mum.” It was horribly scratchy and barely audible— she must have taped it by pushing her old tape recorder right up against the radio—but it was worth listening to for the priceless quotes from a marmalade aficionado living in the Yorkshire Dales. We actually used one of them in the series of ads we ran in the summer.

  By the time I’ve finished talking to my mother, Friends has finished, so the list of makeup mistakes now gets my full attention. Marina’s top five offenses (in ascending order of severity I presume) are:

  Lipstick that’s too bright

  Caked foundation

  Smudged eyeliner

  Mascara that clumps on your lashes

  Pale, ill-defined eyes

  My initial thought is that I’ve seen far worse sins than these five. What about those women in their forties who still wear pale-blue shiny creme eye shadow? Or women whose pressed-powder blusher has been applied like two streaks of war paint across the cheeks? And then there is the unforgivable misapplication of lip liner, which on some people sits like a thin line of putty around the contours of pale, dry lips.

  Set against infractions like these, a couple of ill-defined eyes hardly seem worth commenting on. Caked foundation is, I have to admit, pretty awful. But the occasional bit of smudged eyeliner and a few clumps of mascara? It’s practically impossible to purchase a mascara that doesn’t clump these days; even Chanel’s best at £24.95 goes a little sticky within a month of being opened.

  I feel on reasonably safe ground after reading this list. I don’t wear foundation or eyeliner, and I wipe away any mascara clumps with a tissue the minute I spot them. My lip gloss is transparent with just a hint of pink, so I can’t see how it could offend anyone or clash with my skin tone. The worst you could say about me is that I don’t really accentuate my eyes. I don’t do much with them at all. I’ve been applying the exact same swoop of teal blue pencil under my bottom lashes for almost fifteen years, and can count on the fingers of one hand the occasions when I might have stretched to eye shadow.

  Perhaps this is the issue. Not that I consistently make any horrific makeup blunders, but that my makeup is nondescript, the makeup equivalent of my Uplifter. I’ve never really thought about it before, even during all those years I was trying to convince other people to buy chic cosmetic bags full of expensive makeup, and I’ve certainly never sought a professional opinion. But now that I do think about it, I suppose it would make sense to change the routine I’ve had for a decade and a half. A thirty-seven-year-old face is, it goes without saying, not twenty anymore.

  I wonder if Clara and Lisa have been secretly wishing I’d liven up a bit, experiment a little more? Do they think my makeup is frumpy? Will this all be revealed to me next Friday, along with a hitherto unmentioned distaste for my choices in jeans, sweaters and accessories? Although I’m confident that no one is going to come up with anything truly shocking (along the lines of I’ve been meaning to tell you—you have this jowl thing going on that you need to get fixed), I am beginning to feel a little apprehensive about what I might have let myself in for. It’s entirely possible that I’ve been making a whole host of low-level mistakes for years; things that taken in isolation aren’t all that bad, but the sum total of which is a look that is just a little sad.

  Suddenly I’m fourteen again. I’m sitting in a cinema with my three best friends, and the three boys we’ve come with are seated immediately behind us. It’s sort of a group date—we couldn’t even tell you which girl is supposed to be with which boy. The lights have not yet been dimmed so we are chatting in hushed voices (though not quite hushed enough as I recall; neighboring cinemagoers are fidgeting and casting disapproving glances in our direction). The boys are leaning over the backs of our seats, and we are swiveled around to half-face them. I’ve worn my best jumper and pale blue corduroys, and my hair is freshly washed, with a pale blue clip sweeping up the fringe I’m trying to grow out. I think I look pretty good.

  Then one of the boys (I can’t even recall which one, or whether I was particularly interested in him) says to me, “What are those dark circles under your eyes? You should get something done about that.” There’s a short silence, while we all take in what he has said, and then he realizes he might have said something a little inappropriate, a little cruel even, so he lets out a sort of strangled giggle. I respond with a casual shrug of my shoulders.

  “Oh, I know,” I say, exaggerating the emphasis on the word know to convey collusion. “I just get them when I’m really tired. I was up really late last night.”

  The embarrassing moment is eclipsed by a chorus of me toos, and we all recount the reasons we’d stayed up daringly late the previous night. I have my own story, about a sleepover with Sally Win-scott, during which we stayed up until two a.m. watching The Exorcist. In actual fact we’d been asleep by eleven, but my dark circles needed a good excuse for their existence.

  I don’t think the boy’s comment had any lasting effect on our outing. Pretty soon the movie started, and we girls turned around and began watching. Two hours later when the credits were rolling everyone had forgotten that a gauche teenage boy (undoubtedly with spots and a few dark circles of his own) had said something that had made me want to be swallowed up by a folding cinema seat.

  Everyone except me. I’ve never really forgotten it. From that day forward, a tube of under-eye cover up cream has been a staple of my makeup bag. I absolutely never allow myself to run out.

  CHAPTER 16

  DUCK SHOOT

  Saturday morning is crisp and sunny, with a crystal blue sky. It’s the kind of sky you get in really cold places like the Swiss Alps or the Canadian Rockies, but that you only ever see about three times during an entire English winter. In reckless abandon (I’m still in my pajamas) I fling open the shutters to let the full glory of
the day into my room. I’m amazed not to have been awakened at first light by Jack, so I pad across the hall in search of him. I find him sitting on the floor beside his bed arranging a battle between groups of tiny cowboy and Indian figures, his own cowboy hat tipped slightly forward. An Indian in spectacular headdress is unceremoniously flung across the room by what looks to be an American Cavalry soldier, with Jack providing the soundtrack. “This town’s not big enough for the both of us,” followed by “ughhh, ahhh.”

  I decide not to interrupt, and look in on Millie instead. She’s curled up in bed reading.

  “What’s that you’re reading, Mill?” I ask.

  “Pony in the Paddock. It’s really good,” she says, smiling.

  “What, better than Puppies in the Pantry?” I bend down to kiss her.

  “ ’Bout the same,” she says, dropping her eyes back down to her book.

  Clearly I’m surplus to requirements this morning. How marvelous. I head back to my bedroom intent on crawling back into bed with my own book. This moment of peace may not last long so I’ll have to be quick if I’m to make the most of it. Deciding that the sight of me in blue flannels might be a bit much for Mrs. Lockhart across the street, I go first to the window to pull the shutters across the bottom half of the window.

  And there he is again. Stroller man. He’s pushing his little girl Grace in the same direction he was headed yesterday morning. He can’t possibly be taking her to nursery on a Saturday. So where is he going so early?

  The park. The park is in that direction. Perhaps he’s headed for the park. On his own. Without the mother of Grace or anything resembling a substitute for company.

  In a moment of seminar-inspired initiative I decide to take Jack and Millie out to the park as well. I pull on my knickers and jeans, shouting at the children to hurry up because we’re going to the park for breakfast. What to wear on top? A sweatshirt won’t do, or will it? What is the right look, exactly, for a carefully engineered coincidental meeting in the park? After a few minutes standing topless in front of my dressing table, all the while shouting at the children to hurry up, I opt for a pale gray long sleeved T-shirt with a deep pink V-neck on top.