ONE
THE MULTIFACETED PORTENT
SATURDAY 24 JUNE
Noon. London: my flat. Oh God. Oh God. Am beyond late and hung-over and everything is absolutely terrib— Oooh, goody! Telephone!
“Oh, hello, darling, guess what?”—my mother. “We’ve just been at Mavis Enderbury’s Brunch Time Karaoke and guess what? Julie Enderbury’s just had her…”
You could practically hear the screeching of tires: like she was about to say the word “fat” to a morbidly obese person.
“Just had her what?” I muttered, frantically putting the remains of a slice of goats cheese log in my mouth followed by half a protein bar to ease the hangover, whilst trying to pull some sort of vaguely christening-friendly outfit from the mess all over the bed.
“Nothing, darling!” she trilled.
“What has Julie Enderbury just had?” I retched. “Her boobs made even more gigantic? A lithe young Brazilian?”
“Oh, nothing, nothing, darling. She just had her third, but what I was really ringing to say was…”
Grrr! Why does my mother always DO this? It’s bad enough anyway careering towards baby deadline without…
“Why are you avoiding the subject of Julie Enderbury’s third?” I rasped, jabbing wildly at the TV remotes for some sort of escape, only to ping up an advert showing an anorexic teenage model with a baby playing with a toilet roll.
“Oh, I’m not, darling,” Mum replied airily. “Anyway, look at this Angelina Jolly. She adopted that Chinese baby…”
“I think you’ll find Maddox was Cambodian, Mother,” I said, coldly. Honestly, the way she talks about celebrities you’d think she’d just had an intimate conversation with Angelina Jolie at Mavis Enderbury’s Brunch Time Karaoke.
“The point is, Angelina adopted this little baby and then she got Brad, and had all these other babies.”
“I don’t think that’s why Angelina ‘got’ Brad Pitt, Mother. Having a baby is not the be all and end all of a woman’s life,” I said, struggling into an absurd floaty peach dress, which I last wore at Magda’s wedding.
“That’s the spirit, darling. And some people have marvelous lives without them! Look at Wynn and Ashley Green! They went down the Nile thirty-four times! Mind you, they were a couple, so…”
“Actually, Mum, for once in my life, I’m very happy. I’m successful, I have a new car with satnav and I’m freeee…” I gushed, glancing out of the window to see—bizarrely—a group of pregnant women walking along the road below the flat, fondling their bumps.
“Hmmm. Anyway, darling. You’ll never guess what?”
“What?”
There were three more pregnant women walking along behind the first lot now. It was starting to get weird.
“She’s accepted! The Queen! She’s doing a Royal Visit on March twenty-third to celebrate the fifteen-hundredth anniversary of the Ethelred Stone.”
“What? Who? Ethelred?”
A veritable throng of pregnant women was now walking along the street below.
“You know? That thing in the village by the fire hydrant where Mavis got her car clamped. It’s Anglo-Saxon,” Mum autowittered on. “Anyway, aren’t you supposed to be at the christening today? Elaine told me Mar—”
“Mum. Something very strange is happening,” I said eerily. “Gotogobye.”
Grrr! Why does everyone try to make you feel stupid about not having babies. I mean, pretty much everybody feels an element of ambivalence about the whole thing, including my mother. She’s always saying, “Sometimes I wish I’d never HAD children, darling.” And anyway, it’s not that easy to pull off in the modern world, as men are an increasingly unevolved primitive species, and the last thing you want is…Gaah! Doorbell.
—
12.30 p.m. Was Shazzer—finally! Buzzed her in, then darted, freaked-out, back to the window, whilst she clopped across the room to the fridge, dressed in a wildly christening-inappropriate little black dress and Jimmy Choos.
“Bridge, come the fuck ON. We’re beyond late! Why are you hiding under the window dressed like a fairy?”
&n