Chapter Thirty-Four

Lydia’s still not answering my calls, or my emails. I’ve tried grovelling, begging, offering any kind of gift or baked enticement. No bites. She’s either working so hard she can’t answer me back, or she’s trapped under a colossal pile of upcycled paperclip necklaces. Or maybe I should face the truth: I have been taking her for granted and now I’m getting the cold shoulder I deserve. I’m going to have to plot something excellent to make this right. I just don’t know what that is right now.

So in the meantime I decide to start my policy of working extra hard on the pregnancy project by flipping through magazines at home. I should write my own business book: Nice Girls Sit on the Sofa, then Get the Corner Office. But, actually, it’s a pretty important part of my task: not just to see what companies are advertising in these pregnancy and new baby magazines, but also to get inside the heads of the readers, women who are genuinely excited and interested in motherhood. As opposed to me, the woman who simultaneously longs to have a baby and also runs screaming from one on the street. A specialist magazine for me would most likely be called Split Personality Weekly, with a special pull out on Disappointing Your Husband and Mother in Five Easy Steps!

So I’m reading a lot of articles about the right kind of plastic and apparently an evil kind of plastic that your child should in no way suck on. But a part of me can’t believe that these new parents can freak out about a small giraffe made out of Lucifer’s plastic and at the same time happily hand their keys over to their chubby little people to chew and slobber over. I’ve seen it a million times in the trendy little cafes in our hood, with parents oh so happy to hand over the key fob to the Civic along with a babychino. Those things are a) sharp b) covered in germs and c) MADE OF METAL, PEOPLE. I might not be Mary Poppins, but I know that pointy sticks of steel with petrol particles on them do not suit ages nought to nine months as a chew toy.

So the plastic thing is worrying me (I’m mentally scanning our flat for offending items – toothbrush? Washing up bowl? Windolene bottle? Our baby might be toxin-free but we’d be left as grubby as a pair of Dickensian street urchins), plus all these pictures of women with big bellies is making me feel odd and somehow lacking. So, like any mature woman, I choose to bury my confusion and distress in food. Because it’s still too early to open the wine. There’s half a pack of Oreos in the kitchen and some Weightwatchers hot chocolate powder which I make up with a big splash of cream to redress the balance.

I’m in a cosy little comfort zone – a round-up of ‘Ten of the Best Fairtrade Teddies!’ softens something in me and before I know it, I’m on my iPad, ordering up a pinky-grey elephant for Emmeline that no one her own age was involved in making.

So I can appreciate that Pete walking in at this moment may be putting two and two together and getting ‘Thank God, she’s finally ready! Pull back the bed sheets! Flush the Pill down the loo!’ And God bless him, his face really lights up in the five-second window as he takes in the sight of me, slouched down on the sofa, feet up on the footstool, Me and My Baby open over my tum, Oreo in one hand, iPad showing a collection of organic zoo animal toys in the other, beatific smile on my face (caused by retail gratification). I think he’s having a Back to the Future-type experience of seeing his life to come, and he likes it. So much so that he wants it to be his life Right Now. I think, though I really don’t deserve it to be true, that this image is all it takes for Pete to fully forgive me for signing away our savings for Rich’s wedding. I pretty much want to sick my Oreos up in shame.

‘Hello darling,’ he says, with a smile like a horny Cheshire Cat.

And I know that we’re due to have The Conversation. And I can’t avoid it any more. This is it.

You know those arguments with a loved one where things are going so badly, and you might as well be speaking Klingon to a Frenchwoman for all the communicating you’re doing, and the world feels like it’s tilting the wrong way, so much so you’ve got motion sickness? Yup. That.

My hands are gripping the rumpled sheets as I sit at the end of the bed, not wanting to get in and lie next to Pete but not wanting to get up and walk away, the fight open and raw between us like a piece of broken glass in your foot. The further I move away, the deeper it will cut. But ignoring it hurts just as much.

I shouldn’t have done what I did. God, I’m an idiot.

He had that smile – lazy and sure and with a hint of hunger – and I knew what was behind it. So when Pete started to kiss me on the sofa, one hand holding the back of my neck and the other moving gently under my jumper, I didn’t pull away. I didn’t say, ‘Wait, I’m not reading this magazine for me, this toy isn’t for us, I still don’t know what I want.’ I didn’t say those things because they were the hard things. The honest things. I let the good feeling from having Pete pressed so urgently against me, the rush of endorphins as he walked me backwards – still kissing – towards the bedroom, knock the reality out of my head. I fooled us both in that moment, and now I don’t know who’s most sick about it.

When it was over, as we moved away and laid back against the pillows, Pete said through his still-fulsome smile, ‘I’m so glad.’

And though I knew what he really meant, I stupidly tried to counter with a joke, ‘Hey, I don’t just do the special stuff on your birthday, you know.’

He rolled his eyes and then leant up on his elbow, to look down on me. ‘Smells, come on. I’m really glad we’re doing this.’ He kissed me on the eyebrow.

And then I had to say, with dredged-up innocence, ‘What are we doing?’

We talked. Well, he talked at me, and asked questions that I couldn’t answer.

‘What were those magazines about then?’

‘When are you going to talk to me about this, Ellie? Properly talk, not joking around.’

‘Why am I the last person to know? When I’m your husband, the person you’re supposed to share stuff with without it being a bloody riddle.’

‘What is wrong with you?’

I don’t think he meant it to come out like that. Dear God, I hope he didn’t. But of course it gave me the spark to let my own annoyance flare up. I sat forwards, snatched up his t-shirt and pulled it over my head. To argue naked with the man who means everything to you is to be more naked than you can ever imagine. Like your cells are naked, your DNA wobbly and without a stitch. Because, out of anyone, Pete can see through me, he can see the truth – and he was finally calling me on it.

‘Are you going to say anything? Eleanor?’

I’m so cold in just this t-shirt, but the half of the bed that was mine seventeen minutes ago is now as comfy as the DMZ line. I’m North Korea, aren’t I? Oh shit.

I have that wet voice, the one you get either directly before or after crying. ‘Honestly, I want to say something. I want to tell you what’s wrong with me.’ He winces. ‘But I don’t know, Pete. I don’t know if it’s me, or timing, or money, or if everyone else feels this at some point but they know better than to ever admit it. I want to say it’s culture or work pressure or my mum or Lyds or you. But honestly …’ I’m smoothing the bed clothes with one repetitive movement. ‘I’m lost. I’m lost, Pete.’

He looks at me, at the tears plopping on to his Atari t-shirt.

The bed clothes stay still, lumpy and out of kilter.

The world tilts again. I’ll either slide off the edge, or Pete will reach out and hold me in one place.

His hand moves across the duvet into No Man’s Land and tugs at the hem of the t-shirt barely covering my chilly bottom.

‘Oh, Ells. Bloody hell. Come here.’ I twist and then crawl across the bed, slipping my head under his chin, my arm across his bare chest, my leg hooking over his, skin to skin. He’s going to have to crowbar me off. I saw a flash of my life without Pete and it’s not the jolly 2015 Marty McFly scoots through. It’s more like 3015, after a nuclear holocaust.

‘I don’t expect you to have the answers right now, OK? Just to know that you’re thinking about it is enough, actually. Because we laugh about stuff, joke about it, I don’t know if it’s really on your mind, if you want the same things. I’m scared to ask you in case you don’t actually want—’

‘I do!’ I break in. ‘I definitely have that … feeling, that I see us as a family at some point. I just can’t fill in the blanks of when or how it happens, and that’s freaking me out.’

‘OK.’ He kisses my mussed-up parting. ‘OK.’

For a few minutes we just stay like that, waiting for the world to find its proper axis again. Stupid world. Ruining everything by letting reality in, bursting my bubble of denial and cake. Huh.

In fact, after a moment I’m not sure if Pete has nodded off. He’s so still.

But he starts talking again, his voice soft but almost raspy. ‘I can give you all the time you like, Ells. I can. But I need to know you are thinking about it, and that if you’re panicking you talk to me. It’s something for us to talk about; not your mum or Jules. Not even Lyds. It’s our thing. Our life. So just be honest. Please?’

Pete’s small patch of chest hair is as welcome to me right now as an oasis to a desert traveller. I want to stick my face right in it.

‘Deal. But what if … what if what I say isn’t exactly what you want to hear? I mean, I have all these thoughts about my career changing forever, not to mention my body, my freedom, my identity …’

Pete’s doing a great impression of staying calm, but nestled on his chest I can see his Adam’s apple bob nervously as he swallows.

‘Then we will talk it through. All of it. But maybe just one thing at a time. Hey,’ he wriggles away a little so he can see my face, ‘you’re it for me, Smells. You’re my world. The … formula in my spreadsheet. So let me in there.’ He pushes his index finger squarely but softly into my forehead. ‘The reason I want a family so much with you is because I think you’re the tops. I want to have a whole houseful of yous.’

I think my pupils maybe dilate at this last bit because he suddenly shuts up and pulls me back into my nestling position.

‘I love you too. And I’m thinking about it, I promise you, like, pretty much hourly. I’m going to think about it and talk to you and have a plan together really soon, promise. Promise.’ I squeeze him with all my might on the last word. But I only get a gentle snore in response. Which I decide not to take personally, in the circumstances.

The morning after our ‘set-to’ (as my gran might politely call it), I finally explain to Pete that I’d been gorging on baby magazines because of this new work project, and that I’m going to now see it as a good way to organise my thoughts, banish some crazy pregnancy myths and sort my head out. I think I might have overshared too soon, though, as at the phrase ‘like throwing a hot dog down a hotel corridor’ he grabbed his backpack and said he was late for work, leaving burn marks on the carpet.

And so in the spirit of getting my marriage and ovaries and career path all going in the right direction, I’m going to set up this interview with Joe. Show the Crumbs team that I’m a bloody dynamo with skills so transferable that they might as well nickname me The Sticker Book. I might work on the nickname, but the drive is there and I’m going with it.

To: Hannah

Hey love, how are you? Laurie not working too crazily, I hope. Do you have Joe’s number, by any chance? Wanted to talk to him about that TV programme for a work thing x

From: Hannah

Sure, I’ll send it over. But you’ll see him in class? Laurie’s good, we’re doing OK. Just wish there was some way to avoid the in-laws over the hols … Eeek.

To: Hannah

You’ll wow them with your amazing mince pies, lady. Suppose I will see Joe in class but need a proper chat about his big TV stardom, sort of one-on-one.

From: Hannah

If you say so. But my chaperoning services are available, if you need them … I’ll bring my mean teacher stare! No one misbehaves around that x

I feel a bit weird about calling Joe on company time – like it’s two worlds colliding and they’re bound to result in a black hole. So I nip out to the coffee shop to make the interview call we’d arranged on text. Though I’m not sure why I feel this creeping guilt – it’s a work project, all for the good of Crumbs and Joe is just a mate anyway. Just a tall, muscly, incorrigible friend. As I sit here and wait, I’m rapidly replying to emails on my BlackBerry like it’s the world’s most delicious Pez machine.

I am working. The editorial bods must do this all the time – meet people, interview them for a feature, enjoy a very fine flat white while they’re at it and all without the littlest wriggle of shame between the shoulder blades. It’s crazy that I’m so twitchy. I’m just working and progressing my career. My foot jumps about in time to an imaginary Happy House track only it can hear.

We planned to do an interview call at 10 a.m. as it was too tricky to find a place that worked for both of us. I dial through to Joe and his breezy tone answers, as easy and confident as ever. I swear you could throw him into an alligator pit with Boris Johnson’s naked aunt and he wouldn’t break a sweat. He’s like a cross between The Fonz, Margaret from The Apprentice and Idris Elba. Which would make for a pretty interesting photofit if he was ever to mug you. Which I’m not saying he would, just because he’s black and from South London. Man, those Cultural Studies modules at university have left me in a permanent state of political correctness paranoia.

‘Hey, Ellie.’

‘Hi Joe! How are things?

‘Good, good. How are you? It’s nice to hear your voice outside of a classroom, for a change.’

‘Ah, thanks. We’re just missing Hannah to complete the set.’

‘Oh, I wouldn’t say that.’ He slurps on something in the background. ‘Sorry, green tea caffeine fix. I need it if I’m going to stay awake till lunch.’

I swig the last of my latte. ‘Yup, caffeine is the business. Can’t live without the evil stuff.’ I fiddle with my pen.

‘What are you drinking right now?’ He’s somehow made that rather dirty-sounding, as if he wants me to describe my underwear.

‘Ha ha. Latte, weirdo. Right, let’s crack on.’

I explain a bit about Crumbs and how a feature on Best Dishes would give me a nice little boost at work at a crucial time, if he doesn’t mind being interviewed.

‘So what would I get out of it?’ He really is a bit of an incorrigible tease, no wonder his sisters wanted him safely locked away in a non-sexual baking class. Mind you, look at Paul Hollywood. A man that can work his buns can have his pick of fawning lovelies. Must not think of Paul Hollywood, it only makes me blush in deep shame.

‘Your lovely mug in a national magazine to show off to your mum or your girlfriend or something. And the good karma of helping out a friend in need. Who knows, the baking gods might be listening and they’ll help you finally bake a carrot cake that doesn’t sink like the Grand Canyon.’

‘Oi!’ he laughs. ‘I still say vegetables have no place in cakes. It’s messed up. Right, let’s get on with it then.’

I swallow a nervous giggle. This is all a bit new. And I like it. ‘I’ll be Julia Sawalha, you be Dexter Fletcher.’

There’s a silence as big and blank as the Journalistic Credentials section of my CV.

‘Press Gang? Hello? It’s only the best children’s show ever made. God, you’re young. I hate you.’

‘No you don’t,’ he replies, with all the cocky surety of someone who is indeed very young. ‘So are you going to tuck a pencil behind your ear and use shorthand while I talk?’

I actually hadn’t thought about how best to record it. So like a truly modern lady I let my iPhone do my thinking for me. I tell him to hang on and quickly download a Dictaphone app so I can type it up later, in the office.

Me: Um, right. Interview with Joe Parks, Best Dishes applicant. With me, um, Ellie from Crumbs.

Joe: Now this feels like a TV show. A cop show. Actually, you remind me of that fit one from Scott & Bailey, the one with the eyebrows.

(muffled sounds and something like a mug clinking against a plate)

Me: Shit. Haha. So that was my coffee, then. Now on my knee a bit. Right, Joe, so tell me what role baking plays in your life?

Joe: Well, to start with, I suppose it all began at Greggs.

Me: I see. So who was Greg? An uncle who inspired you to bake for the first time?

Joe: [pause] No. The guy who makes the steak bakes on the high street. Greggs the Bakers.

Me: Yes. That makes more sense.

Joe: I had a pretty bad Greggs obsession – breakfast, lunch and dinner. My sisters said that if I ever wanted to meet a real woman, a decent girl, I couldn’t light candles and serve her a chicken oval bite, so I’d better sort myself out and learn how to do my stuff in the kitchen.

Me: I see, and what are your favourite things to cook?

Joe: Depends, what’s your favourite thing to eat?

Me: [whispers] Look, you tart, I need this to be about you, for the article. So don’t, um, bring me into it. Thanks.

Joe: Whatever you say. OK, so at the moment I’m really into custard tarts. Big, deep, really rich. Don’t hold back on the cream. That’s like my philosophy right now.

Me: [whispering again] God, that does sound good. [throat clearing] And do you have your recipe sorted for the competition yet?

Joe: Yup, beer bread. Just like you said.

Me: I’ll just edit that bit out later and say it’s a family favourite, if that’s OK? And can you send me the recipe so I can put it in? I might be able to get a brewery to place an ad on the page.

Joe: You’re a bit of a ball-buster aren’t you? You dark horse, Ellie. I will definitely email you. Blimey, are you like in Mad Men or something? If you’re Don Draper, that must mean I’m Betty.

Me: Uh, that’s a weird image.

Joe: It is. Better edit that bit out too. My mum’s going to read it and think I’m a retro drag queen.

[brief laughter]

Me: So, are you nervous about being on television?

Joe: I suppose, yeah. I’ve been thinking maybe it’s not the best idea for me. I might balls it all up.

Me: [high-pitched voice] You have to do it! I mean, it would be such a shame if you missed your opportunity to really get out there, show what you can do. And you’re a great baker. And this is going to be a great feature. Don’t wuss out, you’d only regret it.

Joe: Really?

Me: Absolutely. And you might win some cash or other good stuff. With regifting potential. Now let me see what else I have on my list. Right: what are your strongest memories of home cooking from when you were a kid?

Joe: Ooooh, now you’re just going to make me hungry. My mum’s lasagne, definitely. My auntie’s ginger cake. Man, that stuff was good. I need to know how to make that, now you mention it.

Me: And did baking bring your family together?

Joe: Are you working some kind of Oprah angle here? I’m not going to cry and say we only ever ate Angel Delight after my Dad left and the smell of curried goat makes me sad inside.

Me: No, no no! Not what I was going for. At all. I wouldn’t do that to you. Just a bit of background to how you feel about food generally. Honest. So how about your first baking attempts, any terrible mistakes there?

Joe. I did once try fairy cakes for my niece’s birthday, but forgot the eggs. It was like horrible chewy tiny pancakes in pink cases. Put shitloads of icing on them and she still ate three. Bless her little greedy chops. She gets that from Leanne, her mum—’

[a muffled sound, then a pause]

Joe: Crap, sorry, Ellie. They need me in a meeting for some reason. I’ve got to go. I’ll call you back, yeah?

Me: ‘Course. Speak to you soon. This has been great. So useful. Bye then!

And he’s gone. And the guilt I felt earlier about calling him on work time has only got that little bit deeper and stickier as it was such silly, flirty fun. But still, silliness and flirtiness that I will turn into a great feature for Crumbs and will hopefully be the start of a whole big link-up with Best Dishes. I’ve left messages with a few BBC PRs so far, to see what else we could do. Now I’ve interviewed Joe, maybe I could take it up a notch and interview the host? Oh God, please let it be Mel and Sue. If I meet them I will die happy.

Joe was a peach to do this. He’s going to make some woman very happy one day, what with the good sense of humour, abs and baking skills. I mean, looking the way he does and being a charmer, he probably won’t settle down until he’s forty-three and finds a twenty-one-year-old model to make super cute babies with, but still. She’ll be a very lucky model.

I’m making some notes to myself about how to progress the Best Dishes project. No need to run back to the office, Gina will only be poised to pounce and chase me up for a decision on her Cow & Gate thing. I haven’t read it still and she is barely disguising her annoyance by rearranging the stationery supplies so I can’t ever find my stapler.

My phone starts ringing. It’s a London number – maybe Joe is ringing back on his work line

‘Hello, trouble.’

‘Um, hello. Is that Ellie Redford?’ The female, Home Counties voice that answers is probably not Joe.

‘Yes, speaking.’

‘Oh hi. It’s Zoe from Best Dishes here. I’m not sure if you remember me?’

I wrack my brains. One of the PRs may have been called Zoe, I can’t remember. But it’s more professional to pretend I do.

‘Of course! Very excited about the show.’

Her tone instantly brightens. ‘Oh that’s great, because we didn’t hear back from you after we sent out the email and we want to arrange your audition really soon.’

‘What now?’

‘Sorry?’

I’m blinking madly. What’s going on?

‘Audition?’

‘Yes. You gave us your details at the baking expo and we followed up with an email, as we really want you to try out for the show. We all thought you had … something. I hope you’re feeling OK these days?’

Bubbles of memory are bursting in front of me eyes – that tent at Earl’s Court, Paul Hollywood, the health and safety form … Did I manage to sign up for a TV show without realising?

I can’t go on telly.

Can I?

I look down into my lap at the notes headed ‘Crumbs/Best Dishes work’. It would mean I could make the feature so much bigger, with first-hand insider info. It would be amazing exposure for the magazine – I could really raise our profile and hopefully our revenue. It would make me look pretty darn Creative to Sam. Though I would most likely make a tit of myself on telly, with everyone watching. Right now I’d take that over being an unemployed tit in six months’ time.

I realise I’ve left lovely Zoe dangling in silence.

‘So when’s the audition?’

Oh God, I might be on telly. Baking! I know who should hear this first.

‘Hey Ellie. You again.’

‘Hey, Joe. Yup, me. Anyway, I signed myself up for Best Dishes too. By mistake. Shit.’

‘No way! That’s great, we can hang out together. Hang on, how did you not know you’d signed yourself up? They had that big stand at the show, a big queue of women … and very manly men, too, and you had to sign a mad complicated release. Did you sleepwalk it or something?’

‘Er, sort of!’ I swallow down a burst of manic laughter. ‘It’s good though, isn’t it? I mean, I won’t make a berk out of myself? I don’t want anyone looking at me like we look at Mr Berry.’

‘Never. And what about “Don’t be a wuss, you’ll regret it.” Besides, you are damn straight the best baker I’ve ever met.’

‘Really?’ I cross my legs and lean back into my armchair.

‘Yeah, I even thought at first that you were a sneaky expert coming into our class to show us all up, or spy on us or something—’

The manic cat-lady laugh escapes me. ‘Hahahahaha. Stupid!’

‘Well, you are an amazing natural, you have to admit it. And where’s the ball-busting Ellie gone? If you got on the show, just imagine what a great feature that would be! Insider reporting, backstage gossip, a sneak peek before anyone else.’

‘I suppose. But there’s so much going on with me at the moment, I’ve got loads on my plate and this might just be a bread roll too many.’

‘Like what? What’s going on?’ His voice softens.

‘Nothing. Just … stuff. But it’s no big deal. I’ll figure it out. And it would be an amazing feature. And I would love to shame you on national TV with my mad baking skillz.’

‘Did you just pronounce that like it had a Z? Have you got rabies? I think you need to get back to work, Julia Swhatever.’