I am sitting in Jemma’s flat and we are both crying. Jemma is issuing tissues and chocolates, and I am consuming both in equal measure.
“You look dreadful, Ali,” she says. “Are you getting enough sleep?”
“I’m living with a sexually rampant twenty-three-year-old whose hormones are currently on lust overdrive and who is constantly, for some inexplicable reason, mad for my body,” I sniff. “Of course I’m not getting enough sleep.”
“Bitch,” Jemma hisses, and we laugh through our tears. “And you’ve lost weight.” She passes me another chocolate and I oblige. “Cow.”
“I’m not eating,” I say, stuffing a chocolate into my mouth. I wipe my snot away again and drag my hair back from my forehead, which feels hot and feverish. “The children were all so horrid today. They were like…like…like…”
“Children,” Jemma supplies.
“Christian hated them. They hated him. They were deliberately obnoxious.”
“Elliott is always obnoxious. With a modicum of training, he could be the next Macaulay Culkin.”
“Except for Thomas, who sat there quietly like he was dying from the inside out.” I start to cry again. “I don’t know what to do.”
“I hate to see you so unhappy,” Jemma sniffed. “Can’t you just go back to Ed and sort this all out?”
“He’s got someone else,” I point out. “That’s why I’m sitting here sniveling.”
“At least you still have feelings for him.”
“You can’t just turn your back on years of marriage. Of course I still l-love him.” I stutter slightly on the word “love,” as if it’s something that’s now an alien concept to me. And I must say that my traditional perception of that giddy state we loosely term love has shifted somewhat recently.
“And he still loves you. He can’t have found someone else.”
“My children are a fairly reliable source of information.”
“They are not. You give them far too much credit. You should know what children are like. They put two and two together and come up with four million.”
“I should have had my suspicions about this Orville woman. Ed’s been talking about her a lot recently. That’s a sure sign of adultery.”
“He’s probably doing it deliberately to make you jealous,” Jemma says.
That makes me brighten considerably. “Do you think so?”
“Oh, Alicia,” Jemma sighs. “You are such a fucking idiot.”
That’s what I like about my sister. She is so supportive.
“It may have escaped your attention, but you’ve just run off with a hunky young toy boy. How do you think that will make Ed feel?”
I can feel my lip pouting involuntarily. “I don’t know.”
“Then try, Alicia. Try. Try thinking about someone other than yourself for once.”
I think that’s very unfair. That’s what I think. It is a little-known fact that solicitors can charge clients for “thinking time” on a case. Two hundred pounds an hour for just thinking. Great work if you can get it. Those of us who have to think on our own time probably do considerably less of it. No one thinks about anything anymore. I don’t. I don’t have time. I don’t have the time to think whether my bum looks big in anything or whether I’m getting the right balance of vitamins in my diet. I don’t have time to think if I’m too tired and emotionally weary to go on. I don’t have time to think about what to wear in the morning, I just open the wardrobe and grab what’s nearest to hand and fling it on. I didn’t even think about this. “This” being my life. And “this” is a fairly big thing to go through without giving it due thinking time.
I think if I did have time to think, there might not actually be anything there that’s remotely useful to think about anymore, and that frightens me more than you’d care to know. I think it’s because all my good thoughts fall off the back of my brain like lemmings as I fill up the space in the front with shopping lists and borderline nutritious menus. I think my brain is frozen. All that is between my ears is Ben & Jerry’s Phish Food. I am taking the lurch-about-from-one-crisis-to-another approach to my life, and there’s no need for you, my sister or anyone else to point it out to me, I know that it isn’t working. What shall I do? I’ll have to think about it. When I get time.
“I reckon this is all down to the fact that you’ve always suffered from unrequited-love syndrome,” says Jemma, who clearly has more time to think than is good for her. This is because she dates married men and spends most of her time alone waiting for them to sprinkle their company on her, but I don’t feel anywhere near brave enough to voice this thought. You wouldn’t think I was the older, wiser sister who has suffered the pain of three children and has a bag full of worldly experiences to her name, would you? “You’ve always had crushes on younger, unattainable men,” she continues blithely, unaware that my jaw is setting. “Now that you’ve actually attained one, you’re not quite sure how to handle it.”
“Lots of women have younger men these days,” I protest.
“Who?”
“Joan Collins, Tina Turner. Probably Ivana Trump. And undoubtedly Cher. They all have younger men.”
Jemma tuts.
So I’m at the cutting edge as far as soap stars, aging rockers and has-been film stars are concerned. Great. And it is a mixed blessing going to bed with someone as acutely young and beautiful as Christian. It makes me feel utterly powerful and sexy and much more aware that my body is falling to bits.
My sister is right, in some ways, although it grieves me to admit it. And, anyway, she prefers the fat stomach and even fatter wallet look in a man, so there’s really no need to throw stones. But I have always mooned over pop stars and movie stars, although not in the bare-bottom “moon” sense. And I’m not talking about the clammy-handed crushes that saw me through my teens either. I’m talking about now. I still do it. Perhaps this is really why I have no time to think about serious things. Set me off musing on what might be up Russell Crowe’s little leather skirt and I am lost in an entirely adult clammy-handed reverie. Am I alone in hoping that Brad and Jennifer won’t last? Robbie Williams has a lot to answer for with his chubby romper suit, biteable bottom and “Angels.” At least I have the pretense of buying teen CDs and magazines with free glitter nail varnish taped to the front for my daughter, who is, for some reason, uninterested in any of Robbie Williams’s anatomy. I hope she’s not a lesbian.
Perhaps there is something deeply unfulfilling about my life that makes me desire these elusive men. I have no idea. Add it to the list of things to think about. Eventually.
“God,” Jemma says. “I’m going to open some fizz—otherwise we’ll both be depressed. Bubbles are just as good in times of crisis as they are for celebrations. In fact, they’re probably better.”
“I have to be getting back.” I think I want to cry again. “I’ve got to face Christian,” I say weakly and reach for my handbag.
“Not yet,” she says. “Not until you’re happy again. Or, at least, drunk.” And she snatches the bag from my reach.
My copy of How To Be a Sex Kitten at Any Age falls to the white ash laminate floor with an embarrassed clonk. I can feel a rash coming up on my neck. Jemma picks my book up and scowls at the title. “Oh, Alicia!”
I sit on my hands and lower my head.
My sister waves the book at me. “Since when have you been reading this brain mush?”
“I’ve only flicked through it.”
“And what useful advice, if any, does it contain?”
“It says I should scatter frozen rose petals on the bed every night to create a sensual ambience,” I mutter into my chest.
“Oh, that’ll make a world of difference!”
She could be right. I have to say that when I pictured rose petals scattered on Christian’s combat camouflage duvet beneath the warring, bleeding soldiers, I thought better of it.
Jemma has opened the book. “‘Drape an item of perfumed lingerie over the table during an intimate lunch.’” Her eyes are wide with horror. “Ali!”
“I wasn’t going to do it!” McDonald’s was hardly the right setting for Estée Lauder–soaked knickers.
“You are not the sister I know and love,” she says sternly.
I wish Jemma’s sofa would eat me.
“Would you be reading this sort of crap if you were still with Ed?”
“No,” I mumble guiltily. Jemma would have made a great headmistress.
“You are clearly not confident in this new relationship,” she pronounces. “It is damaging your self-esteem. I can’t understand you, Alicia. You and Ed are so perfectly suited. I was saying to Neil…”
“Neil?” I look up. Jemma has blushed. Which is a very rare sight, as nothing makes my sister shame-faced. She buries her face in How To Be a Sex Kitten at Any Age. “Ed’s Neil? My brother-in-law Neil?”
“Yes.”
“What were you doing with Neil?”
“We had supper together.”
“Why?”
“Because he’s nice.”
“Did he ask you?”
“No. I asked him. It’s not unusual these days.”
I look at her suspiciously. “Did you have a good time?”
“Yes,” she says. “And we’re going to do it again.”
“When?”
“I don’t know.”
“Oh.” This is all very interesting. “So. What were you saying to Neil?”
“Nothing,” she says, and her pink-tinged face deepens to strawberries, beetroot and tomato ketchup mashed together.
I think I like the sound of this. Or do I?