After Ever After (8 page)

I laugh. Camille’s cheerfully fatalistic telling displays exactly what kind of a nightmare she thought it was, a fluffy sort of nightmare that actually qualifies as a dream. A dream boyfriend, that is.

‘How much does that man love you? If you were my girlfriend I’d have sacked you years ago!’ I tell her, banging my palm down on the table.

Camille smiles ruefully.

‘Well, he was pretty fed up, but you know us. Nothing keeps us mad at each other for long. I think it’s because he’s away a lot, it keeps it fresh …’ She diverts her gaze to the middle distance, gently touching her hair. ‘We sure made up good and proper that night. I tell you,
this
was worth every penny …’

Dora and I exchange glances and silently mouth ‘yuck’ to each other.

‘I bet you hide shopping from him too, don’t you? And then bring it out a couple of weeks later and say you’ve had it ages,’ I say mischievously.

Camille is unrepentant. ‘Yeah, of course I do! Don’t you?’ She looks from me to Dora.

‘No fucker to hide it from,’ Dora shrugs, happily lighting up another cigarette with the embers of the last one. ‘And anyway, it’s my money, I earn it, I’ll spend it on what I like as long as I don’t have to go to a bloke in Dalston to get it and it isn’t gonna kill me.’

Camille and I smile uneasily. It has always been Dora’s policy to joke about her problems and sometimes, like now, I feel it’s designed more to make other people squirm than to make herself feel better.

‘What about you, Kits? Now you’re a lady of leisure, do you have to account for every penny to Prince Charming?’

I laugh it off, squirming from the truth.

‘No, don’t be mad. We share things. I mean, I’m not earning at the moment but I will be soon, when Ella’s a bit bigger maybe … Fergus and I have agreed,’ I lie. In fact we have disagreed about it heartily for the last six months. I want to work, not because I want to escape my baby but because I need to; it’s part of me. I’ve always had to look after myself before; a virtual orphan as a child, I dragged myself up.

And that’s the problem. Fergus is obsessed by his mission to make sure that for the first time in my life I don’t have to worry about anything at all. When we first got together it sounded like a dream come true. In fact, the more protective he became the more vulnerable I let myself be. But now I find that I miss getting out there and making a contribution to my world that I can see in hard cash.

Fergus is certain that I’m trying to put a brave face on it and that really I just want to be looked after. And I do, but I want to look after him too. We haven’t had a stand-up row about it, it’s just that every time I bring it up, he puts his arms around me, kisses me on the top of my head and tells me everything’s fine, and it is. But what I don’t think he sees, what I don’t think he realises, is that I feel as if I’m fading from the world, gradually becoming invisible as what used to be me seeps into other people lives.

As much as I love being with Ella, there will be a time when I need to detach myself from the background hum of our lives and be visible in the world as myself again, as an individual, and I’m fairly sure it doesn’t mean I’m a bad mother or a selfish person. I just need to be a person, an occasional individual person, and Fergus can’t see that – not yet.

I find myself nodding like one of those dogs in the back of a car and I force my neck to a standstill. ‘It’s cool. I don’t feel like the little woman or anything,’ I say out loud. ‘You know Fergus: the world’s sweetest bloke.’

‘Yeah,’ Camille agrees. ‘And the world’s fittest bloke. I tell you, I’d let Alex support me any day of the week.’ Her eyes sparkle as she says it.

‘You already do!’ Dora says and we all laugh. Camille glows, and not for the first time in my life I wonder how she stays as much in the first flush of love as if she and Alex had met only yesterday.

‘Dors!’

All three of us turn our heads sharply as two other women enter the room. I squirm uncomfortably in my chair. It’s one thing to feel big and frumpy with your two best mates, it’s another thing entirely when unknown thin people arrive on the scene. They don’t know that I too used to be thin and that I’ve recently had a baby. They’ll think that I’ve always been fat! I suck in my stomach, although it makes no impression, hidden as it is under the voluminous shirt, and I can feel the solid folds that were left behind after Ella’s eviction.

‘Oh, all right!’ Dora raises her cigarette in greeting and turns back to me, lowering her voice. ‘That’s Alice and Karina. Really her name’s Karen but she’s moved to Ladbroke Grove and gone all West London. Alice is a trustafarian, spent all of Daddy’s cash on cocaine. He’s cut off her allowance and now she has to model to pay her rent, poor cow.’

Dora’s smile is paper-thin. ‘Karina is a PR exec, vodka. Her enlightened company forced her to attend NA after she threw up on the CEO’s desk during a board meeting. Personally I think they’re both lightweights, but knowing them helps me keep sight of the big picture.’ Dora’s smile widens as her new friends approach the table.

‘Ladies, how are we?’ she says with a rarely seen charm she reserves only for people she doesn’t like much. I smile at them nervously. Alice looks like she’s been San-Tropezed from head to foot, her skin a tawny gold and her hair streaked with blonde. Karina’s perfectly straight brown hair falls exactly to her shoulder-line and grazes the tops of her rounded shoulders. Why don’t they look like shit? I’ve been off any kind of toxic substance, including peanut butter, for over a year and I look like shit. Where’s the justice?

‘And this is Kits.’

Dora introduces me and I haul myself back into the moment. I sit back in my chair certain that surely I, the married one with the baby and the lovely home, should have the moral high ground over three ex-addicts – four if you include Camille’s kamikaze flirtation with credit – but for some reason I feel as if these walking wounded have left me standing out in the cold, excluded from their fascinating complex of ‘issues’.

‘Oh my God,’ Karina says matter-of-factly as she slips into a chair. ‘I saw Julian last night and … we finally did it!’

I blink as Dora screams enthusiastically and reaches across the table to hug Karina’s modest shoulders with one arm, extending her lit cigarette over the ashtray with the other. Even Camille seems to know what they’re talking about.

‘Soooo?’ Dora plonks back into her chair. ‘How was it?’

‘Please,’ Alice rolls her eyes. ‘Don’t encourage her. I’ve heard every single detail on the tube along with half of London …’

Karina grins smugly.

‘Put it this way, I haven’t felt this sore since my first session of advanced yoga.’ She points her cigarette at her feet and then back to her face. ‘These toes were behind these ears only last night!’ The explosion of laughter washes over me and retreats without sweeping me up in its exuberance.

I brush my hair off my shoulder and lean forward into the conversation.

‘So you’ve got stubble rash where you can’t see, have you?’

Karina smiles fleetingly in my direction and rushes on as if I’m not there. As I listen to her exploits, to Dora’s sweetly sarcastic commentary and Camille’s enthusiastic giggles, I feel jealous, far away and jealous. This used to be me. I used to be Karina, the one who rushed in with the tales of terrible boyfriends and stupid sex. I used to be the person who had my friends in fits of hysteria as I told them about my latest conquest. I used to be the one constantly fluttering like a butterfly, excited and flushed by the promise and the hope of new love. At last Fergus had fulfilled that promise and had ended once and for all that constant edginess, that eternal waiting – yet somehow I miss it. Somehow I thought I could come back up to London and, abracadabra!, I’d still be the same person I was before Fergus and Ella. Somehow, I thought that everything that had changed in my life wouldn’t matter any more, not to the real me, not to my closest friends. But it does. In a flash of understanding, I realise I’m not me any more. I’m not me in my big house and posh kitchen in Berkhamsted, and I’m not even me in a London café with my best friends. I’m not me any more. Karina is, and she’s not even very good at it.

‘Are we ordering food?’ I say clumsily over the conversation so that I look rude and, what’s more, greedy. The waiter has returned to our table about eight times since Alice and Karina have arrived but so far has been unable to get a word in.

‘Oh, God. Food!’ Karina giggles. ‘I always forget food.’

Dora throws me a look, rolling her eyes, and says, ‘Yes, Christ, I’m starving. Bring it on. Kits, what do you fancy?’

I’ve already decided on a spinach and ricotta lasagne, but before I can order, Alice, who has been trying not to stare at my breasts for the last few minutes, interrupts me.

‘Um, Katie, is it? Sorry to butt in, it’s just I think that … well, are you leaking?’

I stare at her for a beat and then down at my shirt. A dark wet flower has blossomed over my left breast and a companion patch is just coming into bud over my right. The waiter politely excuses himself once again and I close my eyes in shame. I had felt them begin to feel a little heavy, but I never imagined that this would happen. It was time for Ella’s last feed about an hour ago, but as I haven’t been anywhere without her in six months I’d forgotten this could happen. I am soaked through and I have nothing to change into. I can feel the heat radiating from my face and I bite back tears.

‘Oh God, I’m so sorry. Oh fuck. Look … Oh God, I’d better go …’ I push my chair away from the table and stand up, for once yearning for the invisibility that usually stalks me.

‘Don’t be mad,’ Dora says, catching my hand. ‘Come on, I’ll take you to the loo and we can stick your boobs under the dryer.’

She smiles encouragingly but I shake my head and the threatened tears begin to run down my cheeks.

‘No, it’ll just stain, I’d better go.’

Dora holds on to my hand, looking at me, silently asking me not to leave. I am acutely aware of Karina and Alice staring at me as if I am the fucked-up one.

‘Please, Dora. I want to go,’ I say in a low voice, and she releases my hand, unable to hide her disappointment.

Camille picks up her bag. ‘I’ll go with her,’ she says to Dora.

‘No!’ I shout, making her jump and stare at me, her eyes wide with surprise. I lower my voice. ‘No, I’ll be fine. I can look after myself, okay. I’m fine. I just need to go. I’ll call you both …’

Dora hugs me briefly, careful not to press her linen shirt against the wet silk of my top.

‘I’m sorry,’ I tell her.

‘Okay.’ Camille looks exasperated. ‘I’ll call you tonight, okay?’ She kisses me quickly.

‘Sorry, I’m sorry,’ I repeat as I gather up my belongings. ‘Just hormones and fatigue and all that. I’m fine. Really.’ I race for the doorway.

Just as I reach the exit a burst of laughter sounds from the women I’ve left behind. I
know
they aren’t laughing at me, but even so I feel like the little girl stuck in the middle of a circle of crowing children all those years ago after Mum was killed. Only this time Dora isn’t here to beat them all up for me.

I look at my surroundings and guess that I am about a five-minute walk from Fergus’s office. I know that I could go home now, holding my bag across one breast and my hand over the other, and try to pretend it has all gone swimmingly, or I could call him and rely on him to make me feel better like he always does.

I fumble for my mobile phone, grateful that lunchtime is over and that the streets are largely deserted.

‘Fergus Kelly, please,’ I say, barely holding on to my composure. As I listen to the ring tone, I pray that it will be him who picks up and not his PA, Tiffany.

‘Fergus Kelly?’

Thank God. ‘It’s me,’ I manage to squeak.

‘Kitty? What’s up? Where are you? Has something happened?’

I gulp for air, angry with myself for wanting to cry but unable to stop it.

‘Um, I’m on Appold Street and it’s nothing really, but, well, I … I … can I come and see you just for a minute?’ I clutch the phone like a last straw.

‘Oh baby, course you can. You walk down to my offices and I’ll come and meet you, all right?’

‘All right,’ I say, and five minutes later everything is all right again. Fergus puts his arms around me and rests his chin on my head before tipping my chin back and kissing me until I feel a slight and familiar movement in his trousers. I push him away, smiling, and raise an eyebrow.

‘Are you pleased to see me, then?’ I manage to joke, even if I am slightly aggravated that even when I am patently in such a state the only thing he can think about is sex.

‘I can’t help it, darling, you always turn me on.’ He takes my hand and begins walking slightly awkwardly, making me smile. ‘Come on, tell me all about it.’

When we walk into his office a few minutes later I do feel better, but embarrassed.

‘I can’t believe I freaked out like that,’ I say under my voice, nodding at the obliviously pert Tiffany who isn’t the fluffy blonde her name suggests, rather a sleek brunette with razor-sharp hips. She returns my greeting with a studied lack of interest, and I can feel her eyes burrowing into my back as Fergus closes the door on us.

I swallow the jealous question that is sitting heavily on my tongue like a fat toad and press on with the conversation. ‘I mean, you know, there are all these women and, except Camille, they’re all fucked-up big time and yet they’re all poised and perfect and there I am red as a beetroot with sodding breast milk all down my front.’

I catch Fergus grinning at me.

‘It’s not funny!’ I say, smiling. But he shakes his head, and runs his fingers through his blue-black hair.

‘Yeah, it is. And anyway, just imagine them licking the toilet floor in desperation ’cos they’ve dropped a couple of granules of coke. At least what you are going through is natural, and it will get better, and you have Ella and me. They have to deal with their problems all their life.’

I nod, sighing heavily.

‘Mind you,’ Fergus continues, ‘you’ll have a rebellious daughter on your hands pretty much for ever.’