Lessons in Duck Hunting Read online

  “COME ON JACK,”I snap with more than a little impatience. “It’s eight-thirty and we have to leave five minutes ago. You can put your holster back on when you get home tonight and wear it all weekend if you like.” David will kill me for this, but being up against the clock I’ve no other option.

  Jack grudgingly removes his holster and tucks his shirt into his blue school trousers with a painstaking slowness that makes me long to do it for him. I pull his red sweatshirt over his head, hurriedly combing his hair with my fingers as the top of his head emerges. I cannot remember the last time I actually used a brush or comb on Jack’s hair. The only times I remember, or have time to do it, there isn’t a hair implement in sight.

  Millie stands ready by the door, blue coat buttoned up neatly, red school bag firmly in hand. How did I spawn such a sensible and organized creature?

  “Mummy, you’re making us late,” she chastises as she watches me apply lip gloss in the hall mirror. I can hardly see my reflection for all the smudges on the glass, which seem to have multiplied overnight. Ever since I let Rita go, in an attempt to economize, all the mirrors in the house have been disgracefully cloudy. Mirrors seem to be one thing I cannot keep up with, along with bookshelves and the fridge. I am, I have to add in my defense, very strong on counter tops, floors and toilets, which seem to put themselves forward for a regular scrubbing in a way that cannot be ignored. The prospect of visitors peering disapprovingly at a sludge brown ring around the bottom of one of the household toilets is enough to galvanize me into dropping a toilet-duck into each of them once a week.

  If I were to make a list of all the ways in which my life has changed since David left, the state of the house would feature pretty high up on it. Not, you understand, because David ever did any housework. No, the reason the house has been a relative shambles since he left is because, when we were together I could afford to pay Rita to keep the ironing basket in check and the filth at bay. Once it became clear that I would not be in regular receipt of Ivana Trumplike alimony payments and that I faced paying the mortgage single-handedly, Rita became an unaffordable luxury. So I do my best to clean my own house, meaning that the bookshelves are thick with dust and the fridge shelves are thick with congealed Ribena. There is only one category of people with less time for housework than working mothers, and that is working single mothers.

  I am tempted to use my pashmina to wipe the worst of the fug from the mirror, but remind myself that it is the palest of creams and decide against it.

  “Right, everybody ready?” I ask, stretching out my hand to take Jack’s. Millie opens the door, and we are off. I have already decided against walking to school, which we can only ever do when we are unusually organized. So we pile into the car, all of us having to negotiate for our seats with casually strewn mental-math quiz sheets and empty juice cartons.

  Horrid Henry helps us pass the ten-minute drive to school. I’m never entirely sure I’m doing the right thing in letting the children listen to this tape when, without too much effort, I could retrieve Wind in the Willows or Alice in Wonderland from the depths of the glove compartment. Millie is all right; she seems to rise above it. But I worry that Jack will learn too much from Henry. All the raspberry blowing is bad enough, but more worrying is that Jack might emulate Henry’s constant and highly successful campaign to breach every single rule set down by his long-suffering parents.

  Still, Henry does make us all laugh. Jack positively chortles his way to school, and, by the time we arrive, he has forgotten that he’d rather have stayed home playing cowboys all day.

  We manage to park just outside the gates (one of the great advantages of being on the late side: others have long since moved off by the time you arrive) and tumble from the car, falling into line with all the other small red-and-blue figures running toward the front doors. We walk up the front steps and into the comforting smells of freshly sharpened pencils and damp school-shoe leather and I kiss the tops of the children’s heads and send them off with pats on their bottoms. Millie hesitates at the top of the stairs, and turns around to wave good-bye. I detect just the slightest quiver of her bottom lip, which must mean she has remembered Mrs. Williamson and the hair clip incident and fears another day of hard stares. I blow her a kiss and she turns to face the music.

  Jack, meanwhile, is dragging himself upstairs unenthusiastically. Horrid Henry is now a thing of the past, and an entire day of phonics worksheets, sitting still and possibly even eating broccoli looms ahead. I duck out as quickly as possible, knowing that if he turns around he’s liable to run back down and beg to be taken home. And today that is positively not an option as I am due to meet Paul Delaney from the agency. Faced with the challenge of getting the car back home and myself into the office in under forty minutes, I haven’t got time to do more than throw a concerned backward glance in his direction.

  On my way out of the schoolyard I hear a high-pitched shriek behind me. I turn around to see Sally Chambers’s mum (is it Helen or Harriet?) tottering toward me in what look to be a pair of open-toe sandals (In February for God’s sake).

  “Ally, I’m glad I caught you. You know the spring fete is coming up, and you said you’d be prepared to help on one of the stalls? Well, I’ve put you down for the tombola. I hope that’s all right.”

  “Oh, sure. That’s fine”

  What’s a tombola again?

  “Excellent. We’ve decided that this year we should fill the jars with small items, Woolworth-type things. I should think we’ll need three hundred or so. But you’ve got a couple of months to get them together. And I’m sure everyone will be more than willing to help. That okay?”

  Now I remember what a tombola is. Shorthand for an awful lot of effort by a lot of mothers leading to the raising of a very small amount of money. Still, the kids love it, and it’s not rocket science. I must be able to manage it.

  “Fine. I’ll get on to it right away. Sorry, but I have to go now. I’m late for a meeting.”

  “Do let me know if you need any help,” gushes Sally’s mum (Hilary? Hannah?) as I rush away from her.

  It’s only now that I can pay attention to the day that lies ahead of me. And it doesn’t look pretty. Pushing marmalade is not as easy as you might think. The day’s schedule is full-to-overflowing with production meetings, negotiations with suppliers, phone calls to chase late publicity shots and budget discussions too tedious to contemplate in advance.

  And at the end of it, all I have to look forward to is a six o’clock rendezvous that will serve to remind me of just one thing: That my ex-husband is moving on with nary a backward glance, while I am frozen in a life consisting of every other weekend spent alone and absolutely no prospects of a romantic attachment within five thousand miles.

  CHAPTER 3

  HANDOVER

  True to my New Year’s resolution, I walk up the three floors to my illustrious cubicle at Cottage Garden Foods. I always used to think that when I’d climbed the ranks to product manager I’d be given my own office complete with deep, squashy sofa. But by the time I got there, offices were out of vogue and open plan was the thing. Now I’m group product manager, in charge of marketing an entire range of marmalades, but I have to work at a desk located within spitting distance of the water cooler with nothing more than a five-foot-high screen to protect me. I suppose I should count myself lucky that Cottage Garden Foods hasn’t yet cottoned on to hot-desking.

  In my in-box, intermingled with worthy e-mails pertaining to ad campaigns, planning meetings and budget overruns, are thirteen invitations to try one or another form of Viagra, five solicitations to partake of penis enlargement, and two offers to roll up my debt into one easily manageable package. My colleague Lisa, who is to chutneys what I am to marmalades, insists that I must have responded to one of these types of messages in the past, thereby emboldening whomever sends them, but I swear I’ve done nothing to invite this daily bombardment.

  There are also two messages from Mel. Feeling rather fragile, I decide to
go to hers first.

  FROM: [email protected]

  TO: [email protected]

  ARE WE STILL ON FOR FRIDAY NIGHT? COPY GOING BETTER THAN ANTICIPATED, SO COULD BE WITH YOU BY 5:30. HOW ’BOUT IT?

  BY THE WAY, NEED YOUR HELP WITH SOMETHING. COULD EVEN HELP YOU FIND YOUR NEXT HUSBAND. WILL BRING DETAILS ON FRIDAY.

  FROM: [email protected]

  TO: [email protected]

  YOU DO STILL PLAN ON HAVING A NEXT HUSBAND DON’T YOU?

  FROM: [email protected]

  TO: [email protected]

  DEFINITELY STILL ON FOR FRIDAY. WILL NEED INTRAVENOUS SUPPLY OF GIN TO COMMENCE, AS WILL HAVE MADE ACQUAINTANCE OF LEGGY FRENCH BIRD WHO WILL BE WORMING HER WAY INTO MY CHILDREN’S HEARTS ALL WEEKEND.

  WILL BE GLAD TO HELP. WHAT IS IT THIS TIME? NEED A QUOTE FOR A PIECE ON WOMEN WHO’VE FOUND LIFE AFTER DIVORCE, OR ONE FROM A WOMAN WHO CAN’T GET OVER DIVORCE? OR PERHAPS ONE FROM WOMAN WHO WANTS DIVORCE BUT CAN’T GET ONE? WILL TRY TO DREAM UP ADEQUATE SOUND-BITE. WILL ALSO CONFIRM WITH CLARA.

  MEL IS A STAFF WRITER with Me magazine, a monthly devoted to the modern thirtysomething woman who has a lot going on in her life. They don’t use the word “juggle” (so outdated) but it’s nevertheless there, playing a behind-the-scenes role in every issue. Mel writes about what it’s like to have a brilliant career that keeps you away from your children; what happens when your career outshines that of your partner; and what to do when the career goes down the toilet and you’ve still got mouths to feed. That sort of thing. Every piece has an upbeat tone—she always seems to find examples of women who’ve managed to find solutions that “work for them.” After all, a magazine whose mantra is “celebrate and inspire” cannot afford to feature too many articles of the shocking and depressing variety. Me is not Marie Claire, nor ever wants to be.

  Like most feature writers, Mel is often short of interesting interviewees, and the time in which to seek them out. So she comes to me quite regularly, asking if I know “someone who. . . .” On occasion, I’ve been declared a suitable example myself, and have provided quotes directly, though always using a pseudonym. I’m not the kind of person who wants to see her name emblazoned on the cover of a magazine.

  Mel and I go back almost eighteen years. We met in our second year of university, and must have shared five different flats in our twenties. The last time we lived together our flat was directly above Clara and Jonathon’s. Once we overcame the initial noise issue and worked out how to accommodate Jonathon’s almost constant presence, we became more or less inseparable.

  Clara is a tall New Yorker with a mass of thick blond hair that swings just above her broad, confident shoulders. She is a partner in the management consulting firm Peters and Young, where she has worked since joining them as an astonishingly clever but lowly analyst at the age of twenty-four. She earns a minor fortune, as partners in these sorts of enterprises invariably do.

  Where Clara is tall, blond and formidable-looking, Mel is tiny, with long dark hair that seems to swill capriciously around her face, especially when she’s angry. Where Clara is fearsomely clever and logical, Mel is highly strung and emotional, you could say bordering on the wacky. Where Clara earns a six-figure salary bossing around stout, big-bellied men in expensive suits, Mel has scraped together a living writing for magazines.

  But both of them have ended up with slightly offbeat, gentle kinds of partners. (We have, in our baser and more inebriated moments, bemoaned the fact that not one of us fell for a rich investment banker who might have allowed us to live out our days in the manner to which we could easily have become accustomed.) Mel has been living with Dominique, the owner of a small music shop who moonlights as a piano and clarinet teacher, for six years. They haven’t gotten around to getting married or having babies, but they are as tight as two people can be. Jonathon, who married Clara despite the fact that she seemed to come with a couple of female appendages, is an illustrator who sometimes has three projects on the go, and other times has none. He’s quiet and unassuming when you first meet him, but he has a razor-sharp wit and an intensity that takes you by surprise. For all her professional indomitableness, Clara would be lost without him.

  It’s thanks to Mel and Clara that I survived my divorce. They were also the ones who supported me when I swapped the glamour of marketing lipsticks for Chanel in Knightsbridge for the rather more humdrum business of promoting marmalade for a food conglomerate just off Hammersmith roundabout. After the divorce, I needed to increase my salary and reduce my working hours, always a tricky combination. Cottage Garden Foods were rather chuffed at being able to lure someone from the world of prestige product marketing out to their distinctly unfashionable offices near the M4, so were persuaded to raise my previous salary by ten percent for a four-day week.

  So here I sit, on what the Americans once called the Mommy Track. I’m not sure what they call it now, but here we know it simply as trading a potentially brilliant career for a doable job. Whatever it is, it is all I can handle. Friday is my sanity saver. The day when I can do the Tesco run, pay the bills, whip around with the Hoover and replenish the stores of emotional strength required to be the mother of two children under eight.

  But now is not the time to ponder the blessings of a part-time career. I have to scope out an innovative promotion plan for The Cottage Garden Food Company’s most recent innovation: Seville Sunset, a marmalade of Seville oranges with crushed red currants. It is due to be launched in March just after National Marmalade Day, and I am currently trying to engineer a jam-packed week of radio discussions (one, about Literary References to Marmalade, is already in the bag), in-store tastings, and the sponsorship of an exhibit on Edwardian Life at the V&A. The thing that is giving me most grief at the moment is the print ad campaign the agency has been working on for several months, with very little of any merit to show for their efforts.

  I can see the Head of Marketing, Anna Wyatt, meandering through the sea of desks toward me. She is practicing her management-by-walking-about bit, smiling graciously at her underlings while expressing sincere interest in their latest project. I have nothing against her really. True, she is overtly and quite combatively ambitious. (Which begs the question as to why she traded Manhattan for West London.) But she’s fair and straight, and nothing like the monumental idiot who might have become my boss, and who currently sits ten feet away from me grinning into his coffee in anticipation of a desk visit from Anna.

  The only problem with Anna has to do with children. She hasn’t got any, doesn’t want any. I suspect she doesn’t even like them. Being a part-timer with two of the vile little creatures is something of a blot in my copybook as far as she is concerned, so I generally have a lot of making up to do. Most of the time, this means that I endeavor to do an impression of a keen and committed twenty-eight-year-old, much as I did at Chanel. I do not have pictures of Jack and Millie on my desk. I do not say I have to leave early because the babysitter is ill. I do not decline drinks invitations because I have to get home to make a Greek goddess costume from an old sheet. I spend a great deal of time lying, or, as my mother would say, being appropriately economical with the truth. It’s an essential skill. Most working mothers have it.

  Anna is getting closer now. What shall I say when she asks me how the promotion plan for Seville Sunset is going? I certainly won’t tell her that it’s not done because Millie has had a project on rivers and lakes to complete this week, and Jack has developed a new habit of appearing on the stairs demanding some life-critical resource (water; a tissue; Frank the Bear) every ten minutes for an hour and a half after I put him to bed every evening, both of which have rendered me incapable of doing anything other than gaping at Celebrity Big Brother once I have finally settled everyone down. No I won’t say any of this. Ever so economically, I’ll tell Anna about the unbelievable arrogance of the few key retailers who are still dragging their heels regarding the in-store tasting schedule. I expect them to g
et back to me by Friday afternoon, and the plan will be on Anna’s desk by Monday.

  AS IT TURNS OUT, Anna never made it to my desk. She was side-tracked by an urgent call, (something to do with a printing error on the chutney labels) and never resumed her tour. My budget meeting was also canceled because the finance director had gone home with a stomach complaint (or could it be the babysitter?). So I was able to spend two hours on the Seville Sunset master plan, which means I won’t have to spend the entire weekend doing it. Perhaps, this weekend, I will take the time to pamper myself a little. I’ll get the groceries done early on Friday, and maybe even make a trip to the gym.

  Walking to the tube, I am struck by a better plan. I’ll pamper myself right now. I will not rush home, arriving in a bedraggled heap to find my ex-husband and his impeccably groomed girlfriend having tea on the sofa with Millie and Jack. I will, instead, steal half an hour to visit the nail and facial bar on Angel Street, and arrive home with glowing cheeks, French-manicured nails, and with any luck, some semblance of inner calm. Jill can entertain them until I return, and David will just have to wait before embarking on his weekend getaway.

  The nail and facial bar is, it being Thursday evening, rather packed. Not with mothers like me in need of a quick tarting up, but with an array of young things preparing for a night out, on this the first clubbing night of the weekend. It is twenty-five minutes before I’m even called to the chair, and I then face a decision about how late I can afford to be. Do I stay and risk David and the children’s ire when I arrive home very late? Or walk out now and arrive home more or less as planned, but decidedly scruffy and definitely unequal to the challenge of meeting a French babe.

  I compromise with myself, opting for the buff and shine rather than the full French manicure (saving: ten minutes) and the mini-facial rather than the complete works with the neck massage (saving: twelve minutes). With any luck, I’ll be out of here within twenty minutes, and no one will even notice how late I am. With even more luck, David will arrive late as well, and Jill will insist on bringing him up to date on Jack and Millie’s latest exploits. I consider then quickly discard the idea of ringing home to let them all know my whereabouts. I can’t possibly risk the ridicule, and besides, Sally has started on my nails and would be most upset if I ruined them by digging into my bag for my phone. I’m almost certain I detected the beep of the battery dying earlier, so it probably isn’t even working.