I am beginning to recognize the expression on my new assistant’s face — a sort of tremulous frown where high principle struggles with a fervent desire to please. “Sorry, Kate, but how do we know Chris Bunce is to blame?”
I swivel my chair away from her to stop me losing my cool. Outside on the ledge, the pigeon family tableau is framed by a crane like a giant set square. How to account for a man who in conversation unconsciously grabs at his crotch, as if to check his manhood is still there, or rubs it in excitement when he thinks he’s about to get the better of someone? Particularly me.
“Look, Bunce is a seat-of-the-pants artist who never does any of his admin and leaves it to conscientious girlies like you and me to do all the boring stuff that satisfies the authorities. If IMRO knew what Bunce got up to they’d be in here with a team of Alsatians. But Bunce is very good at getting away with it because he himself plays a mean game of Musical Memos. Am I making myself clear yet?”
“Sorry,” Momo says, as another person would say OK, and walks across the office, holding the memo out in front of her like a sapper with an unexploded mine.
“Are you going to be able to train her up?”
Candy is standing by my desk wearing a skirt so short it’s practically a text message. I didn’t even hear her come over.
“I don’t know. I’m trying to introduce Momo to the idea that not everyone is a nice person.”
“Omigod. We’re not talking about a functional childhood, are we?”
“’Fraid so.”
Candy shakes her head in wonder and pity. “Poor kid. She’ll never get anywhere.”
11:25 A.M. Determined to get my new personal organizer up and running. The Pocket Memory will revolutionize my life! The Pocket Memory will banish stress! The Pocket Memory will make my time work harder for me!
After ten minutes reading the Starter Pack leaflet, I discover that the Pocket Memory is not compatible with my computer. I call the help line. The school dropout at the other end delivers his prepared script with all the facility of a man translating from the Urdu.
“Have you got a large serial port in the back, madam?”
“Of me or the computer? How the hell should I know?”
“What you need, madam, is a Connect Kit.”
“No, what I need is to make my personal organizer organize.”
“You may order our Connect Kit now, madam. Should you wish to proceed—”
“Excuse me, is this part of your promise to simplify my life? Couldn’t I just go to a shop and get the kit?”
“There aren’t that many available, madam. People order them. It will take from five to ten days to arrive.”
“I don’t have five to ten days. I am leaving for the States in twenty-four hours.”
“I’m afraid we can’t—”
“Can’t is for pussies.”
“I beg your pardon, madam?”
“It’s an old Australian proverb meaning Tell your manager that I have several million shares in his company which are currently under review and that our market research reports are not showing them in a favorable light. Am I making myself clear?”
There is an audible swallow. “I’ll have to have a word with the supervisor.”
TUESDAY, 8:11 A.M. So it’s come to this. Richard and I actually lay in bed last night discussing whether we were too tired to have sex. Couldn’t quite remember what conclusion we reached until I got up this morning and noticed that inner thighs were lightly glued together with glacé icing.
Not a good idea before a major presentation. Sportsmen always say they never have sex in the run-up to a big race or match, don’t they? You never hear women athletes complain about it, but it must be the same for them, if not worse. There can be little to rival the female orgasm for knocking you out cold. Hours after the earth moves, a deep tentacular weariness is still trying to drag you under: coming, I mean really coming, makes you want to go and lie down till Christmas. I reckon it must be Mother Nature’s way of giving the sperm the best possible shot at the egg. (When you think about it, almost everything in female biology is Mother Nature’s way of making us want a baby or, when we have one, of making us want to protect it.) Up until last year, I suffered from mild PMT; not nothing, but nowhere near the crampy hell some women go through. Then, as soon as I hit thirty-five, it was war. Every month now, the hormones are out in the streets jumping up and down, waving placards and shouting “Save Our Eggs!” My body appears to know that time is short and the passing of each egg is mourned like the loss of a precious stone, a pearl beyond price.
But how can I have another baby when I don’t see the ones I’ve got? Have hardly been home these past few days. I look up at the office clock, and if it’s after 8:00 I know I’ve missed the kids’ bedtimes and — well, I figure I may as well push on for the night. Momo orders in a pizza or we have something healthy from the canteen in a Styrofoam box — always inedible — and we end up with our usual midnight feast: a bag of tortilla chips and a couple of Crunchies from the machine washed down with Diet Coke.
Picked up the phone when I finally got in last night at 11:55, expecting it to be Momo with some more figures. And who did I get? Barbara, my motherin-law. Couldn’t believe she was ringing that late.
“Tell me not to stick my oar in where it’s not wanted, Katharine, but I spoke to Richard earlier and he sounded very tired. I hope everything’s all right.”
She thinks he’s tired?
10:07 A.M. In a meeting with Rod, Momo and Guy. We are rehearsing the final for the third time, with Rod and Guy taking the parts of the clients, when Rod’s secretary, Lorraine, bursts in.
“Sorry to interrupt, Kate, but there’s someone for you on Line Three. He says you said it was urgent.”
“But who is it?”
Lorraine appears reluctant to say. She stands awkwardly in the doorway until finally, in a stage whisper, she volunteers, “It’s a Percy Pineapple.”
Guy rolls his eyes so languidly he’s practically looking backwards into his own skull. Momo gazes at her shoes.
“Who the fuck’s Percy Pineapple?” asks Rod amiably.
I decide to brazen it out. “Oh, yes, that’ll be Percy Pineapple, the entertainment stock, part of Fruitscape.com, which is coming to the market. Chairman is coming in to see me to discuss the float. Just his little joke.”
Dear God. Still no entertainer for Emily’s party. Have worked my way through the trusted favorites: Roger Rainbow, Zee-Zee the Clown and Katie Cupcake, who does the most marvelous things with Smarties and an air pump. All have prior engagements in Monaco or Las Vegas or are dancing attendance on some anal-retentive Mother Superior who had the paper plates and napkins picked out for Jocasta’s seventh birthday by the time her waters broke.
I am rapidly sliding down the food chain and have entered the small-ad territory of bearded loons whose mug shots have an uncanny overlap with those printed in the News of the World “Name and Shame” pedophile campaign. There was a flash of hope on Monday when Percy Pineapple of Gravesend said that for a hundred and twenty quid, no questions asked, love, he could drive up in his van and put on a lovely show for the little girl. But Percy’s leaflet came in the post this morning. It shows a chubby homunculus twisting Durex-pink balloons into worryingly priapic dachshunds.
Of course, what Emily really wants is a swimming party, but that is totally out of the question. At the pool you hire for such occasions, the water is tepid, bacteria-rich and, unlike most water, not transparent. Also, would have to take time off for bikini wax: cannot do public nudity with other parents.