“You’ll have to name her,” the smiling midwife chided. “We can’t keep calling her baby, it’s not right.”
I’d thought about Genevieve but it suddenly seemed too big for the intended owner. “Emily was my grandmother’s name. She always made me feel safe.”
“Oh, Emily’s lovely — let’s try it.”
So we tried it and she turned her head towards her name, and it was settled.
Three weeks later, James Entwhistle rang and offered me a job in strategy, a nothing job going nowhere. I accepted it gratefully and put down the phone. I would kill him later. Later, I would kill all of them. But first I had to bathe my daughter.
Nine weeks to the day of the cesarean, I was back in the office. That first morning my mind was so disconnected that I actually dialed a number and asked if I could speak to Kate Reddy. A man said he didn’t think Kate was back yet, and he was right. I reckon she wasn’t really back for a year, and the old Kate, the one Before Children, never returned. But she did a great impersonation of being back, and maybe only a mother could have seen through her disguise.
Five days later, work told me I had to fly to Milan and I was still breastfeeding. All weekend, I tried to get Emily to accept a bottle. Coaxed and pleaded and finally paid a woman from Fulham a hundred quid to come and wean my daughter off me. I can remember the baby yodeling, lungs raw with fury, and Richard standing out in the garden smoking.
“She’ll take the bottle when she’s really starving,” the woman explained and, yes, she herself would prefer cash. Sometimes I think Emily has never really forgiven me.
On the drive to the airport, the cab radio started playing that Stevie Wonder song, “Isn’t She Lovely?” The one where you hear the baby crying at the start. And my blouse was soaked suddenly with milk.
I didn’t know.
33 The Note
11:59 P.M. SHERBOURNE HOTEL, NEW YORK. Unbelievable. Plane got in on time and I took a cab to the Herriot off Wall Street. The plan was to swot up for tomorrow’s presentation and get a decent night’s rest before strolling across the road to the World Financial Center. I should have known. The reception clerk — hopelessly young, trying to give himself a little authority in a cheap shiny blazer — was having trouble meeting my eye. Finally he said, “I’m afraid we have a problem, Ms. Reddy.” A conference. Overbooking. “I am happy to offer you free accommodation at the Sherbourne — midtown, great location, opposite our world-renowned Museum of Modern Art.”
“Sounds delightful, but I’m here to do business, not get a headache staring at early Cubists.”
Ended up yelling at him, of course. Totally unacceptable, frequent customer, blah blah blah….Could see his eyes darting around for a superior to save him from the crazy Brit. As though I were mad — and I’m not mad, am I? It’s these people driving you crazy with their inefficiency, wasting my precious time.
The manager was incredibly apologetic but there was absolutely nothing he could do. So by the time I get to the new hotel, it’s nearly midnight. Called Richard, who was ready with a list of queries. Thank God Paula’s better, so we don’t have to get a temp. It’s Emily’s first day back at school tomorrow.
Had I done the name tapes?
Yes.
Had I got new gym shoes?
Yes. (In her navy gym bag on the peg under the stairs.)
Where would he find her reading books?
Red library folder, third shelf of bookcase.
Had I bought a new coat? (The old one now comes up to her waist.)
Not yet; she will have to make do with Gap raincoat till I get back.
Then I dictated the contents of her lunch box — pita bread, tuna and corn, no cheese; she’s decided she hates cheese — and told him to remember the check for ballet, the amount’s written in the diary. And he needs to give Paula money to get Ben some new trousers, he’s just had a growth spurt. Richard tells me that Em was upset going to bed; she said she wanted Mummy to take her to school because it’s a new teacher.
Why does he feel he needs to share that with me when there’s absolutely nothing I can do about it? Says he’s had an exhausting day.
“Tell me about it,” I say back, and ching down the phone.
No time to go through notes for my presentation, so I will have to wing it. Tomorrow’s shaping up to be a total nightmare.
To: Kate Reddy
From: Debra Richardson
Just got yrs to say yr canceling lunch. AGAIN. The first 49 times it was funny. I realize you have the most disgustingly demanding job on the planet, but if we don’t make time for friendship what hope is there?
Are we next going to meet after our deaths? How is the afterlife looking for you, Kate?
Oh, hell. No time to reply.
WEDNESDAY, 8:33 A.M. Been standing outside the hotel for at least fifteen minutes now. It’s impossible to get a cab and the journey downtown will take at least twenty-five. Am going to be late. Still, my senses quicken at the prospect of seeing Jack tonight; it’s months since I last saw him and I’m having trouble calling his face to mind. When I think of him all I get is a broad smile and a general impression of ease and happiness.
It’s a fabulous morning, one of those glittering New York days that hurt your heart. Incredible rain last night has given everything a remarkable windscreen-wiped clarity. As we reach the bottom of Fifth, I see the buildings of the financial district quiver with the slight watery shimmer that comes from the play of condensation and light and glass.
8:59 A.M. Brokers Dickinson Bishop are on the twenty-first floor. My stomach does an Olga Korbut flick-flack in the elevator on the way up. Gerry, a beaming fellow with a broad Irish face and straggly red sideburns, meets me at the landing. I tell him I need forty-five minutes and a place to show slides.
“Sorry, you got five, lady. Things are pretty crazy in there.”
He heaves open a thick wooden door and unleashes the sounds of an average day at the Coliseum, plus phones. Men bawling into receivers, fighting to make themselves heard, or shouting out instructions across the room. Just as I’m wondering whether to make a run for it, a message comes over the PA: “OK, listen up, you guys, in two minutes Miss Kate Reddy of London, England, will be talking to you about international investing.”
About seventy brokers gather round, mastiff-necked New Yorkers in those terrible shirts with the white collars and the marquee stripes. They lean back against the desks, arms crossed, legs apart, the way that kind of man stands. Some carry on trading but pull down their headpieces to lend me half an ear. There is no way I’m going to be seen or heard down here, so I take a split-second decision to stand on a desk and shout my wares.
“Good morning, gentlemen. I’m here to tell you why you must buy my fund!”
Cheers, whistles. The closest I’ll ever get to being a pole dancer, I guess.
“Hey, miss, anyone ever tell you you look like Princess Di?”
“Is your stock as good as your legs?”
What strikes me about these Masters of the Universe is how hopelessly, helplessly boyish they are. In 1944 they would have been landing on the beaches of Normandy, and here they are gathered round me as if I were their company commander.