Having It All (6 page)

Susie blushed slightly, pleased at the suggestion that she was the hub of the community.

‘I noticed a nice patisserie round the corner,’ Steffi added invitingly, ‘maybe we could go there?’

Susie was supposed to be on a diet but she couldn’t resist the thought of a cappuccino and strawberry tart in Le Gourmet. She had been there occasionally with other nannies, but it was so
wildly expensive they’d given up going. And this woman was offering to pay.

‘OK,’ she agreed. ‘But I’ll have to go and get Jamie first.’ When she went in to get Jamie the teacher made a sharp comment about the time, and Jamie had chosen
this of all days to lose his trainers, so by the time she came out angry and flustered, she didn’t notice that Sophie’s auntie seemed to have forgotten to pick up Sophie.

And it wasn’t till later that evening when she was back home and was watching TV, that it struck Susie for the first time that there wasn’t a Sophie at Miss Sloane’s Nursery
School.

By the time Steffi Wilson arrived the next evening Liz had done four interviews already and she was feeling tired and jumpy. She hadn’t realized what a strain it was
trying to be clever and quotable four times in one day. And she bitterly regretted agreeing to let this wretched woman interview her at home, especially given her reputation for screwing her
interviewees. It seemed so much more intrusive somehow, as though Steffi would have the chance to look in her wardrobe and snoop around her bathroom cabinets. For the first time she understood why
so many of Metro’s stars demanded to be interviewed in faceless hotel rooms. But it was too late now. She could already hear the doorbell ringing.

Liz smiled a small tight smile as she let her in and hoped Steffi couldn’t tell how nervous she was.

Steffi took one look at Liz in her designer suit, smiling that superior smile and decided she loathed her. Claudia might suspect her of pining for the kitchen, but Steffi couldn’t see much
sign of it. To Steffi she looked like another bloody Superwoman. God, they were everywhere these days! A white patch of sick on the shoulder of their business suits, the emblem of late, doting
motherhood, they breezed through life convinced they could Have It All. And then, when the going got rough, they expected everyone to make allowances for them.

Steffi knew the biogs of women like Liz off by heart. They landed on her desk every day now. ‘Chairwoman of ICI and mother of six, Dawn has a hectic life at home and at work . . .’
Blah. Blah. Blah. It made you want to throw up.

As Liz went to fetch a bottle of wine, Steffi glanced round the kitchen taking in the pale yellow dragged units with the family photos Blu-tacked to every available surface. Why was it that
working mothers assaulted you with pictures of their bloody kids as though they were some kind of trophy? Here’s Jimmy stuffed and mounted, we had him in ’83.

Maybe it was because they saw so little of them they couldn’t remember what they looked like? If they loved them so much why weren’t they bloody well looking after them instead of
handing them over to some teenager like Susie who probably force-fed them with
Neighbours
and locked them in their bedrooms while she bonked her boyfriend?

If Steffi had kids, perish the thought, she’d give up work at once. In her view you could only hope to do one thing really well. Fortunately she had no intention of having any.

Her gaze came to rest on a cork noticeboard. Hah! Pinned there in all their glory were the ten commandments of the working mother’s life: babysitting rotas, shopping lists, details of
pickings up and droppings off at music lessons, dancing lessons, tennis lessons. And probably, God help us, Suzuki violin and mini-Mensa.

Jesus, what a way to live! She probably planned her menus three months in advance, booked lunch appointments with her kids and pencilled her husband in for a fuck every other Tuesday.

Looking round her, Steffi decided she’d enjoy bagging a career mother. It was time someone blew the whistle on them and gave them a bit of bad press instead of worshipping at their bloody
feet. She was fed up to the teeth with hearing them preaching the wonders of working motherhood and giving every other poor female who didn’t happen to run a multinational company from her
spare bedroom an inferiority complex. Steffi smiled maliciously. And given who Liz was married to, she’d probably get promoted!

Liz noticed Steffi’s gaze rest on the noticeboard and kicked herself. She’d meant to remove those lists. They made her life look like a military operation, which it was, but she
didn’t happen to want Steffi Wilson to know it. What would the Acid Queen of the
Daily World
make out of those?

Liz watched her fascinated for a moment. She was pure Fleet Street rag-hag: mid-thirties, streaked hair, a lurid mahogany tan from too many sessions recovering from hangovers on the sunbed at
The Sanctuary, make-up Jackie Collins circa 1968, more bangles than an Indian temple dancer, huge rings on each of her blood-red fingers. She probably thought kids should be drowned at birth.

Liz had met the breed before: bitchiness was their stock-in-trade. She was going to have to watch her step.

‘Do you mind awfully if I smoke?’ Not waiting for an answer, Steffi delved in her vast Vuitton duffel bag and took out a pack of gold-tipped Menthol cigarettes and a portable
ashtray.

Smoking was such an endangered habit now that it was safer, in Steffi’s view, to take your own gear. A fellow-smoker had given her the ashtray in onyx with its own push-button lid, saying
it stopped people looking at you like a child molester at a Sunday school outing every time you asked for somewhere to dump your ash.

Steffi took a large gulp of the cold white wine Liz had poured her and opened her notebook. If there
were
any cracks in that smug exterior she’d soon find them. Better ease in
gently and make her feel relaxed. She could put the boot in later.

‘So, Liz’ – she smiled a wide sympathetic smile –‘how does it feel to be the most powerful woman in television?’

OK, thought Liz, we’re starting with the soft pedal. Now, remember the party line:
Being a Mother is an Asset
.

‘Great. I mean the most powerful woman in telly stuff is just media hype. But the job’s wonderful. I’ll be the first woman ever to run a major TV company.’ Liz hoped she
sounded keen and enthusiastic rather than smug and self-satisfied. ‘It’s taken me years to get here but now I can finally make the programmes I believe in. And best of all, it shows it
can be done by a woman with kids.’

‘But can it really?’ Steffi asked quickly. She’d meant to stay off the subject till Liz was more relaxed but she couldn’t resist this heaven-sent opening. ‘I mean
it’s bound to be incredibly tough. Won’t having kids mean constant compromises? Aren’t you afraid of spreading yourself too thinly?’

Sometimes Liz felt like an old elastic band stretched so thin she might break at any moment, but she wasn’t telling Steffi Wilson that.

‘Nonsense,’ she said briskly. ‘It’s all down to organization and delegation. I have a wonderful nanny.’

A wonderful nanny who’s thinking of leaving because you never see your children, thought Steffi maliciously.

‘But a job like that must need total commitment, can you really throw yourself into it one hundred per cent?’

Liz fingered her glass, remembering Conrad’s annoyance the other night when she’d wriggled out of the celebration drinks and raced home to see Jamie and Daisy, and her bitter
disappointment on finding they’d already gone to bed. Just the kind of story you’d love, thought Liz, as Steffi looked at her curiously. The Price of Success. Could she scent blood?
Surely Liz’s wounds were inside, buried deep, away from the prying gaze of Fleet Street hacks?

‘When I’m at work I
am
one hundred per cent committed, I simply close the door on my home life and forget about it.’

Liar, liar, pants on fire. This was treacherous terrain and she didn’t know how much longer she could keep it up. Head her off. Change the subject. Give her a whiff of sexism to throw her
off the trail.

‘Once I’m at work I keep my head down and get on with it. Only essential lunches. No drinks after work. It’s only the old macho ethic that says you’ve got to stay at the
office till ten p.m. every night. Men waste so much time boozing and bragging, bless them, don’t they?’

But Steffi was too canny to take the bait. ‘All the same, you can’t see much of your children. Don’t you miss them?’

Liz said nothing. Steffi Wilson took another large sip of her wine. She wasn’t getting anywhere. Liz was too guarded, too well primed by Metro’s PRs. She saw the interview slipping
away from her, turning out to be not a Stephanie Wilson hatchet job but a predictable profile of a boring career woman anyone could write. Time to put the boot in. The nanny had been very useful
once she’d persuaded her off the cappuccino on to the wine.

‘So how much do you actually see your children?’

Liz thought she detected a subtle change in Steffi’s tone and told herself she must be imagining it. ‘We have an hour together in the mornings when the children come to our bed.
That’s very precious time.’

If they’re lucky, according to your bloody nanny, thought Steffi.

‘How about bedtime? Do you bath them and put them to bed?’

‘Of course I do’ – Liz tried not to feel defensive –‘whenever I can.’

‘And how often’s that?’

‘As I said, whenever I can.’ What was the woman getting at?

‘Once a week? Twice a week?’

Liz started to feel annoyed. ‘Look, this interview was supposed to be about –’

‘You. This interview was supposed to be about you. And it is. So you see your children for an hour in the morning two or three times a week. And what about Sports days, school concerts,
that sort of thing?’

‘Again, whenever I can.’

‘Whenever you can.’ Steffi’s tone had the slightest edge of sarcasm. ‘Yet you didn’t make it to the Medieval Evening, or the Family Quiz Night or the Welly Throwing
Contest in aid of the Under-Fives Library Fund?’

Liz looked startled. How did the wretched woman know all this about her?

‘Tell me, Liz, do you ever feel you neglect your children?’

Liz stood up, furious. ‘This is outrageous. Of course I don’t neglect my children!’

‘That’s not what I’ve heard. What I’ve heard is that they’re lucky to see you at all some days.’

‘How the hell do you know so much about my family?’

‘Just gossip, Liz. Gossip is my territory, you see. Don’t you feel guilty, Liz, at the thought of never seeing your children?’

Guilty! What did that red-taloned harpy know about guilt? It was just a word to her. Liz had lived with it gnawing away at her for months, stuck at work night after night hammering away at their
programme plans, longing to be kissing Daisy’s fat cheeks and reading bedtime stories to Jamie.

Liz started to feel angry. What right did this over-made-up cow have to accuse her of being a bad mother? She had to get away for a moment before she lost her temper and said something
she’d regret.

‘Excuse me a moment,’ Liz said frostily. ‘I’m afraid I can hear my son crying.’ She ran upstairs, furiously angry and bumped into Susie, who was peering down at
Steffi from the landing, looking white-faced and tearful.

‘Liz, who
is
that woman?’

‘She’s the gossip writer on the
Daily World
.’

Watching Susie’s face, Liz began to feel the first glimmerings of panic. ‘Why?’

‘Oh God! Liz, I’m so sorry!’ And Susie burst into tears. ‘She said she was the auntie of one of Jamie’s friends and she took me out for a coffee.’

Liz felt sick. ‘And what did you tell her?’

But Susie was crying too much to answer.

‘OK, Susie. I’ll handle it. Maybe you’d better go back to your room.’

For half a minute Liz leaned with her head against the banisters and weighed up the situation. Steffi Wilson had got her information from Susie, and by the sound of it from other mothers at
school. She was planning a hatchet job, that much was obvious. Cruel mother who puts success before her babies. And it sounded as though she’d done her homework. Liz tried not to panic and
calmly assess her options.

She could deny everything but Steffi would go ahead anyway. She could beg her not to print but Steffi would probably just put that in the piece too. She could threaten her with libel, but Liz
had always thought it was a mistake to sue. The rest of the press just repeated the allegations when it came to court and you got screwed twice.

For a moment Liz couldn’t see a way out. And then it came to her. There was one other option. She could tell her the truth. That she was tired of pretending being a working mother was
easy, sick of glossing over the pain and the panic and the guilt. This was the fifth interview she’d given today, all of them trotting out the party line. Being a mother Wasn’t a
Problem; indeed it added to her Understanding of Everyday Concerns. Except that it was a problem. She never saw her children. Or her husband, for that matter.

Maybe it was time to tell the truth. That women had been sold a pup. Having It All was a myth, a con, a dangerous lie. Of course you could have a career and a family. But there was one little
detail the gurus of feminism forgot to mention: the cost to you if you did. Steffi would probably be thrilled. After all, it was a much better story.

Slowly she walked downstairs and sat opposite Steffi, refilling her glass and pouring another for herself. She was going to need it.

‘You accused me of being consumed by guilt just now and I was about to deny it.’ She took a sip. The wine and the relief of finally admitting to herself the price she was paying for
her success were making her light-headed. ‘But you’re right, of course. The truth is I’m riddled with it.’

Steffi tried not to look excited, but all her instincts were shouting This is it! The tough cookie crumbles! She could smell a scoop. Her editor would be creaming his jeans. Especially at the
thought of how embarrassing all this was going to be for Liz’s husband.