Authors: Gil McNeil
‘Well, finish your drink and you can show me, love. Ellen, do you want a muffin? Only I’d get in quick, if I were you.’
‘No, thanks, darling. I might just have a small piece of Archie’s, though.’ She looks at Archie, who crams the remainder of his muffin into his mouth as quickly as he can and tries to smile at the same time. ‘Or maybe not.’
We wander back outside with our coffees, and watch the boys racing around firing at invisible squirrels.
Ellen sighs. ‘This is the closest I’ve been to a bloody potato for months.’
‘Ellen, we had chips last week, on the beach, when we went down to look at the shop.’
‘Well I didn’t have many, and I had to do an extra session with Errol to make up. You know I worked it out once, and I’ve spent weeks of my life on that fucking treadmill. Christ, when did we all decide we had to be so bloody perfect?’
‘When we decided to become a Media Star?’
‘Star, my arse. They’ve taken on another new girl, did I tell you? Alicia something, looks about twelve, legs up to her armpits, and she’s shagging management, I just know she is, only I haven’t worked out who yet. Probably Tim Jensen, but the make-up girls are on the case so we’ll know soon enough.’
The women who do the make-up are a top source of gossip; they winkle out everyone’s secrets while they’re slapping on the foundation, and if you don’t spill the beans they make you look like a drag queen. Whenever you see someone reading the news with a particularly orange face, or pantomime eye shadow, you can be sure they’ve been holding back top nuggets.
‘So that’ll be another bloody nymphet after my job. Christ.’
There’s been a rash of nymphets recently, parachuted in by management without any proper training, and they usually crash through a couple of bulletins before they get sent off to the regions to try and pull themselves together.
‘What happened to that other one? The dark-haired one Brian Winters brought in, who kept going on about what people were wearing on serious stories? The one who said Well, I can tell they’re very upset, Ellen when you were on a live link to Scotland Yard and you asked her how they were reacting to yet another enquiry saying they’d totally screwed up.’
We both laugh.
‘I rather liked the sound of her.’
‘So did Brian Winters, until his wife found out. They didn’t renew her contract, so she wrote Wanker on the bonnet of his car, with bright red nail varnish, Dior Rouge, I think. It was fabulous. Security must have seen her, but they pretended they hadn’t.’
‘How brilliant.’
‘I know. She went right up in my estimation, I can tell you. But no wonder everyone keeps moaning on about young women today drinking themselves into stupors and taking their tops off in pubs. What the fuck’s the point of being all ladylike and refined when you’re up against lying bastards like that? Or saddled with some bloody new man, pretending he doesn’t mind if you earn more than him while secretly he’s fuming? New man my arse. You know Zara’s husband, Adam, who works in the City, thinks he’s God’s gift?’
‘The one with the hair?’
‘Yes. Well she just got promoted to the top job in the last shuffle at LTV, and do you know what? She’s told him she’s been downgraded to executive assistant and she says he’s loving it. She’s earning a bloody fortune, but instead of smuggling in shopping bags because she’s spent too much of his money, she’s smuggling them in because she’s spent too much of her own. Can you believe it? She says he’d have a breakdown if he knew. Honestly, I’d bloody take my top off in pubs if it wouldn’t end up in the fucking papers.’
‘Yes, but at least we’re allowed to earn more than the boys now, even if they do hate it.’
‘Yes, technically, but not if you still want them to speak to you. God, I hate New Men. It was better when they were honest; you could be a typist or nurse or a waitress, and if you made it through in anything else you were a nutter and they left you alone. But now you get all this ball-breaker crap, while they sponge off you and moan about their masculinity being threatened.’
‘Bring back the good old days? When all you had to do was find a nice boy, marry him and stop at home and polish things?’
‘Exactly. Until you finally snapped and woke him up one night by stabbing him in the neck with your nailfile.’
‘I don’t think that happened very much, did it?’
‘It happened to my Aunty Fiona; she got Uncle Brian right under his ear. He was always telling her she was stupid at family lunches, stuff like that. But the worm eventually turned.’
‘Was he all right?’
‘Yes, just a couple of stitches, but I don’t think he slept very well after that.
We’re both cackling as the doorbell rings.
‘Sod it, I bet that’s Mrs Parrish. You know how she kept coming round with food parcels before the funeral. Well, she’s at it again, only now it’s sorry-you’re-moving snacks. She likes to chat and it all takes ages.’
‘Do you want me to go?’
‘Oh, yes, please, that’d be great.’
Ellen comes back clutching a tin-foil tray of brownies.
‘She just wanted to say she hopes you’re very happy in your new home and you’re to ring her, if you want that telephone number. What’s that all about, then? Fixing you up with a hot date?’
‘Hardly. Her husband died a few years ago and she joined some widows’ group, and she keeps trying to recruit me. She’s brought me all the leaflets and everything, and apparently you’re meant to go through stages: acceptance, denial, and anger. Or it might be the other way round.’
‘Well, a group might be good, you know, meeting new people and all that.’
‘Yes. New tragic people.’
‘True. Actually a shag would be much better.’
‘Please, that’s the last thing I need, and anyway I wouldn’t know what to talk about; unless they were into
Spiderman
I’d be in serious trouble.’
‘I wouldn’t worry, darling, they prefer it if you just listen. And nod admiringly – that always goes down well. It’s when you start talking that it tends to get complicated.’
‘It would feel like I was cheating on Nick.’
She gives me a Look.
‘I know, but it would. I can’t explain it. If there was a group for Widows Who Were Just About to Get Divorced I’d bloody join it, I definitely would. It’s absolutely crap; I can’t be a poor widow, mourning the loss of the love of my life, and I can’t be a Just Divorced and Still Fuming, either, so it’s hopeless. You really know you’re in trouble when there isn’t even a support group you can join.’
‘Well never mind, they’re all full of moaners, in England anyway. I bet there’d be one in New York.’
‘Yes, but it’s quite a long way to go on a Tuesday night, isn’t it?’
‘I know, I’ve just had one of my brilliant ideas. I’ll be your group. It’ll be great. I’ll call you up once a week and do my special therapy voice, and you can tell me how you’re feeling and I’ll tell you that you need to get laid and it’s all your mother’s fault. Which is the truth, and it’ll save you a fucking fortune. It’ll be perfect. God, these brownies are great.’
‘She’s such a nice woman, but I do get fed up of talking to people who use that special tone of voice, like you’re some victim of a disaster who might start screaming at any moment.’
‘Well, you are.’
‘Thanks very much, that’s very supportive. I think I may be getting a glimmer of how your new therapist role might work, and I wouldn’t give up the day job yet if I was you.’
‘Well it is a bit tragic, you’ve got to admit; your husband drives his car into a tree just when he’s got a big new job and
you’ll finally start having some proper money to play with, and then you find out the bastard’s taken out a second mortgage without telling you, and you’ve got to sell up and go and live in the middle of nowhere and work in your gran’s bloody wool shop. How much more fucking tragic can you get?’
She’s smiling, but I know she’s half serious.
‘Yes, but I keep telling you, it’s my shop now – we’ve signed the papers and everything – and it’s not the middle of nowhere, it’s only half an hour from Whitstable, and you can hardly move there for Londoners in stripy jumpers. It’s always heaving with them being all nautical and trotting round the fish market every weekend. And anyway you know how trendy knitting’s getting; it’ll be a new start, which is what we need, and I can make enough money to feed us all at the same time. At least, I hope I can.’
‘Yes, in Notting Hill maybe, but not Nowhere-by-the-Sea.’
‘Yes, but I can’t afford Notting Hill. I can’t afford anywhere Hill, not in London, and there’ll be no rent on the shop, so with the money from selling this place and Nick’s work policy I can pay off the mortgage here and get the new house and still have a bit left over to get the shop sorted. I’ve told you, it’s the only thing that makes sense.’
‘Yes, but it’s not a bloody career, darling, twiddling bits of wool about all day. You were a great news producer, and you should come back to work. I could get you back in with us, you know I could.’
‘Yes, I know. Tom Partridge called me a few days ago. Was that down to you by any chance?’
‘No.’
‘Ellen.’
‘Well, I might have mentioned something, possibly. So what did he say?’
‘Oh, the usual: how sorry he was about Nick, and how he always needed good freelance producers, and how family-friendly
they were now, so if I was interested we should meet for a drink.’
‘Family-friendly my arse. He sent Kay Mallow off to do that earthquake story when she was only just back from maternity leave, deliberately, just to make a point. She was stuck there for nearly two weeks, frantically texting lists to her husband, who’s still guilt-tripping her about it. Anyway, Tom’s a serial shagger, everybody knows that. His wife’s on Prozac. I saw her at a drinks thing last week and she’s got the thinnest legs you’ve ever seen, she looks like a really pissed-off whippet. And she never took her eyes off him, all night.’
‘Exactly. So I’d get a few night shifts to start me off, working for a charmer like him, and then if it worked out I’d be back on peak times, full time, late home every night, and working flat out to pay for the nanny. It doesn’t make sense; it’s got to be better to try and make the shop work.’
‘Maybe.’
‘I don’t want the boys to lose Nick and then lose me, too, out working all hours, racing round the shops in a panic about supper, and answering to idiot management who are all ten years younger than me and wouldn’t recognise a good piece of editing if you stapled it to their heads. No, thank you very much. I’d rather work in M&S. At least you get discount on the food. And the people are nicer.’
‘True. But you know how to handle the boys in suits, you know you do.’
‘Maybe, but I’m not sure I want to, not any more. I know the plan was always that I’d go back as soon as Archie was at school, but I’d been thinking about trying something different for ages, retraining or something, and now there’s no money for that.’
‘Well, don’t blame me if you go mad down there and start knitting loo-roll dolls.’
* * *
When I took Ellen down to show her the new house and the shop she managed to find a knitting pattern for loo-roll covers involving crinolines and lots of pink wool, and she still hasn’t recovered; Gran’s a terrible hoarder, and there are boxes and boxes of old patterns, balaclavas and appalling jumpers with birds on, and pram sets and bed jackets – although I quite fancy the idea of bed jackets.
‘Damn. That’s your surprise birthday present ruined.’
‘I just don’t want you so far away that’s all.’
‘Ellen, it’s only a couple of hours drive, and the house has got a phone, you know, the shop has too come to that.’
‘Yes, but I won’t be able to nip round after work.’
‘Ellen.’
‘Yes?’
‘Stop it right now, or we’ll both end up in tears. And I’ve promised myself today is a no-crying day.’
‘All right. Sorry. I suppose you might land a hunky fisherman, and you can knit him a new net and stand on the quayside wearing a black shawl when the weather’s bad; it’ll be like
The French Lieutenant’s Woman
meets
The Perfect Storm.’
‘Yes, and knowing my luck, I’d get swept out to sea and that would be the end of that. Anyway, we haven’t really got a quayside, only the old pier and a couple of boats with huts on the beach where they sell fish. But you have to get up really early.’
‘Well bloody get up early then. It could be a whole new business opportunity. You could be the Rick Stein of Kent, only without the yappy dog.’
‘I think I’ll stick with the wool shop for now, thanks. Less clinging onto trawlers in bad weather.’
‘Mummy, Mummy, tell Jack he’s got to stop shooting me. He nearly got me right in my eye, and I could have been seriously ninjured.’
‘It’s injured, Archie, and Jack, stop it, right now.’
‘He started it.’
‘I did not. Liar liar pants on fire. Pants on double fire.’
Jack is doing what I think the police would describe as loitering with intent, lurking behind a tree and loading his gun with the last bits of his potato; time to go back inside, before we have to make a detour to Casualty for potato pellet removal.
By the time the solicitor calls to confirm that all the money has landed in the right bank accounts it’s nearly three, and we’re on the point of complete hysteria trying to keep the boys from killing each other in an empty house with no telly. They’re still bickering as we drive off, so it’s only me blinking back the tears as Ellen stands waving: she was here on the day we moved in, when we ate fish and chips in the garden and Nick managed to collapse an old deckchair we found in the shed while he was still sitting in it, and we all laughed so much I thought I was going to be sick, or go into labour.
I was eight months pregnant with Archie, and it was a really hot Easter that year, and we were so excited about the house, even though we couldn’t really afford it, but Nick was adamant we could do it up and make a fortune, which turned out to mean I spent hours balanced up a step ladder and the fortune would disappear into a secret second mortgage. Bastard. I scraped off wallpaper, and spent hours sanding all the floorboards and buying endless Smorgflapp door handles from Ikea, while his main contribution was the occasional glance at a paint chart before he was off on another story; I had to paint the kitchen three different shades of pale yellow before I got it right. And now here we are, the three of us, off to live by the sea and make a new life without him.