Chapter Twelve

The Butterfly’s next meeting. May.

IT’S SATURDAY, EXACTLY a week later, and high time the three of us met up again to give each other progress reports. The bad news is that convening in my house is sadly out of the question, on account of Useless Builder, wait for it, actually accomplishing something, even if it is only scraping the stippling off all my ceilings and then plastering them. Don’t get me wrong, I am of course thrilled that he managed to put down the racing pages for long enough to achieve this incredible feat, but the downside is that, apart from my bedroom, there’s not a single square inch of the house that isn’t at sub-zero temperatures, at least for a few days, until the plaster completely dries out.

‘So,’ I patiently explain to Laura and Barbara, ‘unless you fancy contracting TB from the damp and spending the next week coughing and spluttering and sprawled out on a chaise longue like one of the Brontë sisters, maybe we should try to hook up somewhere else?’

Barbara’s flat is sadly even less suitable than before, as her flatmate, Angie, is now in the throes of a mad, passionate affair with probably the only straight make-up artist in the entire acting profession, who has pretty much moved himself into their tiny flat for the duration of said affair. Now, as Barbara says, it’s virtually impossible to get any kind of privacy, ever, in their flat and it’s seriously beginning to drive her nuts.

‘I mean, I can never even get into the bathroom any more, and when I do, he’s used up all the hot water and the loo roll. He eats all our food, runs up our phone bill, then at night, the two of them are snuggled up on the sofa, all loved up watching HIS programmes on TV and there’s me, sitting on the floor cos there’s nowhere else to go, gooseberry of the millennium. I mean, for Christ’s sake, Vicky, if I’d wanted to live with a guy I would have. In fact, this carry-on would almost drive me into moving in with the next fella that asks me, anything just to get out of there.’

Not for nothing have Laura and I nicknamed said flatmate Evil Angie, and not only because of this latest twist. We both have a long list of grievances against her, the main one being that, even though she’s an actress too (so far this year, she’s done two commercials, three voiceovers and a small part in one of those fringe shows where the cast dress in black and cluck around the stage pretending to be chickens), she never ever tells Barbara anything that’s going on, and is for ever sneaking off to auditions then acting all surprised whenever she gets jobs. It’s particularly unfair as poor Barbara always passes on information to her about castings and open auditions, but gets absolutely nothing back in return; and bear in mind that theirs is a profession that runs pretty much entirely on word of mouth.

Many, many margaritas have been knocked back while Laura and I patiently try to point out to Barbara the general horribleness of Evil Angie’s behaviour, but Barbara, loyal soul that she is, will never have any of it. The two of them trained at drama school together and as far as Barbara is concerned, Evil Angie is her closest friend in the acting business. Friend, frenemy, Barbara won’t hear a word said against her. She’s just one of those people. Those she likes can do no wrong.

Anyway, I suggest we meet in a nice discreet restaurant where we can chat/de-brief each other freely and without interruption, but Laura vetoes it on the grounds that she’s smashed broke and can’t afford to eat out, so her house it is. We’ve no choice. Even our failsafe blanket excuse doesn’t work: ‘But don’t you fancy a night off from the kids?’ Her mother’s out to dinner tonight and, as it’s Saturday, she hasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell of getting a babysitter.

I drive Barbara there, and as ever, am amazed at how spotlessly spick and span Laura’s house always looks given the stress that she’s constantly under. Barbara and I shake our heads in wonderment as we park in her perfectly tidied front driveway, every shrub obediently blooming beside her freshly mowed patch of grass, and look at each other as much as to say, ‘How does she do it?’

Her house is right at the end of a modern, suburban cul-de-sac and it all looks very flowery and very Wisteria Lane, that is until a gang of boys start circling around us on bikes as we clamber out of my car, shouting at Barbara: ‘Hiya, sexy, great jugs, what are you doing later?’ She’s just about to shout something suitably obscene back at them (Barbara’s well able to give as good as she gets and, no, before you ask, even being under age is no defence against her sharp tongue), when we realize that one of the be-helmeted yobbos is actually George Junior.

‘This is your godmother you’re talking to!’ she splutters at him as I ring the doorbell. ‘It’s not that long ago I was changing your dirty nappies!’

Laura answers, Baby Julia crying in her arms, looking as tidy and scrubbed as she always does, just very, very tired, God love her. We all hug, and I simultaneously hand her a bottle of wine and take the baby from her as she marches down the driveway to deal with George Junior and his gang of thuggo friends. Now, I don’t know what he says to her, all I can hear, clear as crystal, is her reply. ‘If you speak to me in that tone once more, I will consider it strike one. I do not CARE where all your friends are off to, you’re not going anywhere until you’ve finished all of your household chores. Now get off that bike, wash the car and this time, USE WATER.’

Baby Julia is squealing and trying to wriggle out of my inexperienced child-carrying arms when Laura’s mother comes out of the kitchen.

Oh shit and double shit.

Barbara and I shoot a panicky look at each other, but there’s no avoiding her, given that the hallway is about the same length and width as your average toilet cubicle. ‘Oh, there you are, girls, well, three guesses why I was summoned here this evening,’ she says, crisply putting her cheque book away and snapping her handbag shut. ‘Honestly, there are times when I feel like some sort of cash-dispensing machine.’

‘Hi, Mrs Lennox-Coyningham,’ we both mutter, instantly reverting back to a pair of teenagers. I don’t know why it is, but Laura’s mother just has that effect on us. She’s one of those women who, when you meet them, your accent automatically upgrades to several degrees posher and politer, and you almost feel you should be curtseying, as if they’re minor royalty. She looks a bit like Princess Michael of Kent: tall and imperious, impeccable and be-suited, with a knuckle-duster ring on every finger and a permanent whiff of Chanel No. 5. In fact, no matter where I am – airports, theatres, any public place you can name – all I have to do is get the slightest sniff of that perfume for my ‘fight or flight’ hormones to immediately kick in, and I immediately start darting around looking for places to hide from Mrs Lennox-Coyningham. And I’m thirty-four years of age.

She also has the most intimidating way of looking down her nose at you that just makes me regress to the time, aged about nine, when I was sitting at their vast, scary dining-room table, too afraid not to eat the fish supper, even though I have a chronic allergy, while Mrs Lennox-Coyningham bragged on about how Laura got straight As in her exams, top of the class as usual, and how did I do? ‘Two Cs and 4 Ds and an F,’ I muttered in a tiny, frightened voice. To this day, I’ll never forget the look on her face, it was as if I’d befouled her immaculately polished parquet floor. And I wouldn’t mind, but for me, that was a particularly good result. In fact, my parents celebrated by taking me to McDonald’s and generally acting like they had a Stephen Hawking in the house. Anyway, ever since then, as far as Mrs Lennox-Coyningham is concerned, I’m her daughter’s thick, loser friend. And Barbara is her permanently unemployed, waster friend.

They’re our labels and we’re stuck with them, whether we like it or not.

‘So, Barbara dear, when am I going to see you in something?’ she asks, as usual sensing a weak spot and going in for the kill. ‘Very soon, I hope. It’s been quite some time now, what is it, two, no three years, since that production of Lady Windermere’s Fan which you played the maid in?’

‘Dunno, Mrs Lennox-Coyningham,’ says Barbara, suddenly acting like she’s chewing gum, even though I happen to know she’s not. ‘I’m doing a lot of hard-core porn these days. Tough gig, but it pays the rent, and at least my nights are free.’

Barbara, as you can see, is an awful lot better at handling Mrs L-C than I am.

We’re saved from the misery of having to come up with any more small talk when Laura comes back inside and takes the baby from me.

‘Well, we won’t delay you, Mum,’ she says, pale and stressed-looking. ‘Thanks for . . . helping me out, and I hope you and Dad enjoy the law society dinner.’

‘Oh yes, well we always enjoy an evening with Martha,’ she beams, her mood changing like mercury. I’m not kidding, she’s actually smiling. ‘Her friends are such wonderful, stimulating company, all doing so well for themselves at the Bar, and somehow Martha always manages to get us the very best table at the Inns, you know.’

Martha, I should tell you, is Laura’s sister, younger by a year, rising young barrister and general all-round pain in the face. In school, her nickname was ‘Laura-lite’ because every single thing Laura ever did or achieved, Martha copied. Never as successfully, though, she didn’t have Laura’s natural brilliance, and try as she might, couldn’t live up to her promise; but now that Laura is a full-time mom, her parents have decided that, actually they’d been wrong all along, and that Martha was the horse they should have bet on to pursue a glittering political career and generally keep the Lennox-Coyningham tradition alive.

‘Drippy, boring Martha,’ as Barbara often says behind her back. ‘I’m telling you, if that stupid cow ever ends up running the country, that’s it, I’m emigrating.’

Mrs Lennox-Coyningham lets herself out, saying, ‘Well, I’d better fly.’ A cue to Barbara to mutter something under her breath about how brilliant it must be having a broomstick to get through the traffic that bit quicker. Laura bangs the door behind her, and the atmosphere lightens considerably now that she’s safely out of the way.

‘You know, I can physically see the thought-balloon coming out of my mother’s head every time she mentions my beloved sister,’ she says as we follow her into the kitchen. ‘Martha, the daughter who didn’t turn out to be such a sad disappointment, Martha, the daughter who didn’t ruin her life by getting married to a worthless git when she was barely out of college.’

‘Absolutely not true,’ says Barbara, plonking down at the kitchen table and helping herself to some neatly sliced ciabatta bread. ‘Although it does my heart good to hear you refer to George as a worthless git.’

‘Oh come on,’ I say, defensively. ‘You’re the one who gave your mother four beautiful, perfect, wonderful grandchildren.’

On cue, Emily strolls through the kitchen, with her iPod on, totally ignoring us as she wafts through one door and out another, only stopping to shout over whatever she’s listening to, ‘I don’t want any dinner, Mum, I ate mints and now I feel fat.’

‘I won’t even attempt to dignify that comment with an answer,’ says Laura, turning back to the cooker the minute Emily’s out of the room. ‘Nor will I embarrass you by initiating an argument/screaming match with the little madam and generally turning into Momzilla, but, by God, if I could only afford a decent boarding school, that would soon knock corners off her.’

Dinner is very Laura, that is to say, absolutely perfect. Wholesome, healthy, meat-and-two-veg mammy food, only slightly ruined by Emily picking at the corners of hers (and that only under extreme duress and a lot of grade two nagging from Laura), then telling all of us about her friend in school who cut out all wheat, refined sugar and dairy and managed to lose thirty pounds.

‘Thirty pounds,’ Barbara quips. ‘Wow. That’s like, half a Backstreet Boy.’

‘Who are the Backstreet Boys? Never even heard of them,’ sneers Emily, looking at Barbara like she’s an old, old lady, in a way that only a true pre-teen can really pull off.

‘Never you mind. I’ll give you one tip though, Emily. Guys hate skinny girls. Known fact. They prefer curves. That’s why Kate Moss only ever goes out with complete losers, you know, they’re the only ones who’ll put up with her having no flesh on her bones. So if I were you I’d do what your mother says and eat up. Mints are not a food group.’

Amazingly, this approach actually works, and Emily now grudgingly shovels a few morsels of lamb chop into her mouth, accompanied by a deeply grateful look from Laura. Then she starts going on about how much she wants a boob job for her sixteenth birthday: ‘I mean, come on, Mom, all the other girls in my school are getting one.’ But as Laura calmly and sensibly points out, we’ve a few years yet to pee on that particular fire.

Meanwhile George Junior and Jake manage the feat of wolfing back a full meal in approximately three minutes flat. This is followed by a heated discussion/row between Laura and George Junior, who wants to go back out biking with the thuggo friends. It goes along these lines.

‘I told you I was going back out after dinner, Mom.’

‘You most certainly did not.’

‘I did. In body language.’

Laura sighs exhaustedly, in that way parents have when they recognize that the fight is actually futile. ‘Right then. Back here by ten sharp, or else I’m ringing the police and then your father, in that order.’

Anyway, Jake is dispatched out the back to clean out his gerbil’s cage, Emily wafts upstairs to go on her favourite internet chat room, and finally we have a bit of peace.

‘Do you want to know what my secret dream is?’ says Laura as we help her wash up. (Everything in this house has to be hand-washed before it’s deemed clean enough for the dishwasher. Honestly.) ‘To live in a house with a panic room,’ she goes on. ‘That way, I could either lock them into it or myself if I needed calm.’ Meanwhile Baby Julia gurgles peacefully away, dozing off in her little Moses basket. ‘Never learn to talk properly, my little cherub,’ Laura coos down at her, wiping her hands in a dishcloth. ‘Because the sooner you learn to speak, the sooner you’ll speak back.’

The unusual peace (for this house) continues as the three of us move into the living room, uncork a bottle of wine, dim the lights and light all the little tea-lights dotted on the fireplace. We all sit in a kind of circle, with the baby miraculously dozing away in her little basket beside us.

God, we must look like some weird kind of coven, except with crèche facilities.

‘You’re the hostess, you go first,’ Barbara says to Laura, gently, for her, sensing that she’s had a rough day.

‘Oh, ladies, where to begin,’ she says, tiredly pouring out wine for the three of us. ‘All right then, shameful admission number one, I had to ask my mother for yet another lend of money this evening. And it’s a measure of how little pride I have left that I calmly took the cheque from her, listened to the accompanying lecture, and didn’t even care. All I could think was, thank God, that’s this term’s school fees sorted, and at least I have another couple of months before I have to fret about September and all the usual back-to-school expenses.’

Truth to tell, I kind of copped on when I saw the old dragon with her cheque book earlier, but thought it best to say nothing.

‘Shameful admission number two,’ she goes on, taking a long deep mouthful of wine, ‘the long summer holidays are around the corner and for once, I actually feel sorry for my kids. They have to listen to all their friends going on about trips to Spain and Portugal when they’ll be doing well if I can bribe my parents to let us have their holiday cottage in Connemara for a week. Oh, ladies,’ she says, running her fingers through her fine, neatly cut hair. ‘I sometimes have these road-to-Damascus moments where I look at my life and wonder, how did I get into this mess? I just need cash so, so badly.’

‘Your short story was brilliant,’ I say encouragingly. And for once I’m not even exaggerating, it really, really was.

Barbara and I chipped in with a few, really very few, comments and suggestions about the piece, which she took on board, then emailed off the finished product to Tattle magazine yesterday. So she’s actually the only one of us with her Butterfly Club assignment all done and dusted. Which kind of gives me a brief, momentary flashback to our schooldays, when Laura was always Miss Perfect, Goody Two-Shoes, everything done on time, without any hassle or fuss. Always.

‘Shameful admission number three,’ she goes on, ‘I actually enjoyed writing that story. I found it strangely cathartic. There I was, snatching what little time I could, and for some reason I kept thinking about J. K. Rowling.’

‘J. K. Rowling?’ says Barbara.

‘Was a single mom and wrote the first Harry Potter in a café somewhere, to save on light and heating bills in her flat. What can I say? It’s a tale I can relate to.’

‘And look at her now; she’s, like, richer than the Queen,’ I chip in encouragingly.

‘But, Laura, this is amazing,’ says Barbara, flicking through my dog-eared law of attraction book and stopping at a page she’s turned down. I lent it to her a few days ago and ever since, you should just hear her; it’s all ‘the universe this and the universe that’.

‘Oh please, not that bloody book again. Honestly, you pair treat it like it’s the I Ching,’ Laura says, tiredly.

‘No, hear me out. Yes, here it is. “Imagination is the preview of life’s forthcoming attractions,” she reads aloud, in the voice I happen to know she only saves for doing voiceovers. ‘It’s a quote from Einstein actually, so it must be the real deal. By thinking about J. K. Rowling and focusing on how she turned her life around, you, honey, are creatively visualizing a wealthy fab life for yourself and the kids. You just don’t know that you are.’

‘She’s dead right,’ I say, knocking back a big gulp of wine. ‘We have to train ourselves to see the things we want as already ours. Act as if.’

‘So are you both suggesting that I go to my friendly bank manager, demand a ten-grand overdraft and whisk my kids off to a villa in Barbados for the summer? And won’t my justification just sound fabulous in bankruptcy court. ‘Your honour, all I’m guilty of is acting as if, just as my head case friends advised me to.’

‘You’re missing the point,’ says Barbara, in her assertive, Donald Trump voice. ‘You have to focus absolutely on seeing yourself living your best life. In your dream home, with no financial worries, wondering whether or not you’ll buy the new Lexus jeep or say to hell with the mammy wagon, and treat yourself to a flashy little Porsche.’

‘Pre-paving,’ the book calls it,’ I butt in. ‘It even has all these case studies about people who, when it came down to it, didn’t really know what they wanted out of life. The point is: if you don’t even know in the first place, then how can it ever manifest for you?’

‘Is this some kind of cautionary tale?’

‘Emm, no, I’m just saying, at least you’re very clear about what it is that you do want. It’s a start, isn’t it?’

‘Ladies,’ says Laura slowly, ‘it’s not that I don’t appreciate you trying to help me out, honestly. But when you both tell me that all I need do is think wealth and it’ll just magically land in my lap, I have to say I think we’re in serious danger of straying into men-in-white-coats territory here, and not for the first time either.’

‘You’re focusing on money worries, so all you’re doing is attracting even more of them,’ says Barbara firmly. ‘Here’s a good one,’ she continues, opening the book at yet another well-thumbed-down page. ‘This’ll help. “Attitude is gratitude. Be grateful for what’s already yours, and more of it will somehow find its way to you.”’

Laura is looking intently at her, and I swear I can almost see some witty, cutting riposte formulating at the back of her sharp mind, so in I jump.

‘Four healthy kids is a great start. Come on, I’d be over the moon if I had that.’

‘“And when you begin to feel deep joy about what you do have,”’ Barbara continues, reading aloud, ‘“there is no speedier way to attract your true heart’s desire into your life.”’

There’s a long, long pause as Laura swirls wine around the bottom of her stem glass.

‘Yes,’ she eventually agrees, palming her tired, bloodshot eyes. ‘Of course I’m grateful for my family. And even on the very worst day, when I have to resort to grade one nagging, believe it or not, I love and adore the little monsters and I wouldn’t have things any different. In fact at this stage, my nagging is like a reflex action, and I honestly don’t know why I even bother doing it. It seems to have absolutely no effect on them whatsoever.’

‘Can I just remind you, that if you were practising at the Bar and you’d never married or had kids, right now, you’d probably be the broodiest woman in the northern hemisphere,’ Barbara adds, which is actually a terrific point and I only wish I’d thought of saying it first.

‘And they are fundamentally great kids,’ I offer.

‘You think? You want one?’

‘Stop messing.’

‘All right, ladies, I’ll admit you’re quite right, and I suppose any kind of reality check does me no harm. Do you know, my neighbour down the road was in the A & E the other night with her little boy who has chronic asthma, and yes, I do hear stories like that and just want to hug mine. If they’d let me, that is. All I’m saying is, I would dearly love not to have to worry about money the whole, entire time. It’s wearing me down. And I’m tired, and I’m fed up, and I honestly don’t know how much longer I can keep up the struggle. It’s like I’m constantly moving from one worry to another, and I’m never, ever out of the woods.’

‘Right, then,’ says Barbara in her assertive voice. Clearly, she’s the chairwoman and that’s all there is to it. ‘In that case, your assignment for next week couldn’t be simpler. I want you to write out a list of everything you’d do if money was no object. Take the kids on a summer holiday, pay fees, move to a larger house, change the car, whatever. And then . . .’

‘Staple it to George Hasting’s head?’

‘No, smart arse, then you’re going to really work on visualizing it. In fact, I think we might all do a creative visualization exercise at the end of this session,’ Barbara decrees. ‘If no one has any objections?’

‘Well, as long as the neighbours can’t see in through the windows.’

‘Just tell them we’re doing yoga or t’ai chi or something cool, that’ll shut them up.’

‘Oh, and while we’re giving Laura assignments, I have one to throw into the pot,’ I venture.

‘Yes, dearest?’

‘Keep writing.’ I don’t even know why I’m saying this to her, selfish reasons most likely. I loved reading her short story, and it’s not often I get a chance to read something in my office and crease myself laughing at the same time. ‘Just keep writing,’ I repeat. ‘Offer it up to J. K. Rowling.’

‘Right, then,’ says Barbara, flicking The Law of Attraction open to the chapter on relationships. ‘Moving on to you, Vicky.’

Oooh, great, I’m dying to talk about Daniel Best.

‘Except you’re vetoed from talking about Daniel Best.’

Shit.

There was me thinking I could re-analyse with the girls in fine forensic detail the story of bumping into him on the street with Eager Eddie last week. For about the thousandth time. Not that there’s actually that much to tell: he was his usual laid-back self, chatted affably about the movie they’d all seen, then politely asked where we’d been, whereupon Eager Eddie went on about Eden and how wonderfully romantic the whole meal was, the dirty big liar.

As for me, I can’t be 100 per cent sure, but I think what I came out with might have been along the lines of, ‘Well, err, umm . . . you see . . . yeah, we did have a quick casual bite to eat and now we’re calling it a night. I’m absolutely dying to go home.’ Then, with horror, I realized, as if Eager Eddie and I didn’t already look coupley enough, that I was making it sound as if we were rushing off home together to rip each other’s clothes off. So I back-pedalled, and added, ‘Emm . . . home to my house, that is. Where I live . . . emm . . . on my own.’

Daniel did that slow, lazy smile he has which makes his eyes go all crinkly at the edges, then, as far as I can remember, he threw in something like, ‘Well, I’d better catch up with my gang. Nice meeting you, and safe home, Vicky. To your house, where you live. On your own.’

Then, pretty much all last week, I was in touch with Best’s about the ad campaign which I’ve started working on in earnest, but all I could glean from Amanda was that he’d gone to the States on business and that no one was really sure when to expect him back. Not that I’m bothered, really.

In fact, I don’t even know why his name keeps slipping out.

The thing is, though, I just . . . well, I’d just hate him to get the wrong idea about me and Eager Eddie, that’s all. And Barbara is dead right: I shouldn’t keep going on about him. I should just sit here quietly, hear what she has to say and reap the benefits of her far superior-management skills.

Oh f**k it, I can’t resist.

‘Can I just ask you, oh wise dating guru, one teeny question about Daniel?’

‘NO!’

‘It’ll take you ten seconds to answer it!’

‘NO!’

‘I don’t want him to think that I’m seeing someone!’ I blurt out anyway, what the hell.

‘We’ve been over this and over it, and the fact is . . .’

‘Oh, come on, what is your main objection to him?’

‘For about the hundredth time: one, if you start fixating about him, then you know right well that you’ll end up doing your usual trick of focusing entirely on him while ignoring other lovely guys all around you; and two, you’re going to be working for his company. Bad idea to get involved with anyone you work with, trust me.’

‘You’re always getting involved with actors you work with.’

‘I’m not looking for a life-partner, though, am I?’

She has me there, so I’d better just shut up. Honestly, half of me thinks, yeah, she’s right, I shouldn’t fall back into my sad old way of putting all my eggs into one basket, which let’s face it, has a success rate of zero per cent; but the other half is screaming inside, But I really like this guy! And now he thinks I have a boyfriend, and I bloody well don’t!

‘Could you be ignoring the obvious possibility that maybe Daniel thought you were just out with a friend?’ says Laura, kindly.

‘I appreciate your lovely sentiment, but come on, it was a Saturday night, me and a guy, just the two of us, out for dinner in a restaurant like Eden, which everyone knows is a well-known couples’ hangout . . . I’m sorry, but an intellectually challenged alien newly landed from Mars could have figured out we were out on a date.’

‘Well, in that case, isn’t it a good thing that Daniel realizes that other guys are after you? Shouldn’t that, theoretically, make him keener?’

‘If he was ever keen to begin with,’ says Barbara firmly. ‘Sorry, Vicky, but I’m afraid asking you to join him and a gang of his mates to see some open-air movie isn’t a date. I think we can safely say we’re in the friend-zone here.’

She’s right, and deep down I know she’s right. I just hate hearing it, that’s all.

‘You’re still not off any hooks though, honey,’ she goes on, stretching herself out on the sofa and kicking her shoes off. ‘By the non-negotiable rules of this club, you were required to go on two dates before we met up again. So, technically, you still owe us a date. And then when you’ve done that, we’ll pick another Thursday night and go out trawling the town for single, suitable guys again. Like I keep saying, it’s a numbers game and nothing more.’

‘God, Barbara, in moods like this, you make coffee nervous.’

‘So what about Eager Eddie?’ says Laura, topping up our wine glasses. ‘Any word?’

‘Got the hint. At least I think he did. It’s hard to tell, as he keeps texting me to say thanks for a great night, which proves he’s a filthy liar, as it most definitely was NOT a great night, not by any standards.’

‘You said on the phone today you had other boy news,’ says Barbara, looking at me keenly.

Ooh, yeah, I do. Good news, too, at least I think it’s good news. In fact, I can’t believe it almost slipped my mind. In fact, this probably should have been item one on the ‘project Vicky’ agenda.

‘OK, remember the miraculous night of three guys?’ I say, far more animated now. ‘Well, hang on to your odour eaters, now . . . number two only called me yesterday! Peter. Remember?’

‘Honey, I can barely remember where I was last night, never mind the week before last. Give me a visual.’

‘We met in Pravda, there were two of them, the friend was chatting you up, my one looked a bit like Ralph Fiennes . . .’

‘Oh yeah, yeah, now I have you, my one looked like a baldie Edward Norton. Yeah, gotcha. So, anyway, what happened?’

‘Well, nothing, really,’ I say, starting to hope that I didn’t build this story up too much and now it’ll be a let-down. ‘But we really did have a lovely chat, no awkward silences or long pauses, none of that, and we said we’d meet for a coffee next week. Now, I know it’s only a coffee, but it’s something, isn’t it?’ I look at her hopefully.

‘Right then, missy,’ says Barbara, knees up as she’s sprawled out on the sofa, staring at the ceiling with this really scary glint she gets in her eye when there’s devilment afoot. ‘Now maybe this is coming to me in a vision, or maybe it’s a drunken haze, but boy oh boy do I have the scariest assignment for you. If you’re man enough to take it on, that is.’

‘Shoot,’ I say, thinking, how bad can it be? Go skydiving with him? Introduce him to my messer brothers? Reveal my cellulite in all of its thundering glory?

‘I want you to go on the coffee date with him . . .’

‘Right, yes,’ I say, thinking, easy peasy, so far so good.

‘Then . . . you know your big PR dinner in a few weeks’ time? You’re going to invite him, as your date.’

I look at her, stunned.

‘And, as a sweetener, I’ll even come with you myself, with the baldie friend as my date. We’ll go as a foursome. Now come on, can I say fairer than that?’

‘You have to be kidding me.’

‘Fine, be a bloody coward. Stay single, see if I care. And me and my teenage lover will come and visit you in your old folks’ home when you’re eighty.’

‘Oh Barbara, I’m really not sure, I mean, if I ask him to the do, it might sound like I’m jumping in too fast, like a female Eager Eddie . . . it could end up being a complete disaster . . .’

‘If it does, I’ll be right there for you, with a big margarita in my hand.’

‘And most people don’t even bother bringing partners, I mean, they’d be bored stupid, it’s a work night, it’s a PR dinner for God’s sake, full of advertisers, people are really just there to network . . .’

‘Vicky, you are going, and I’m coming with you, and we’re double-dating and that’s final.’

Right then, nothing for it, but to do what I normally do, i.e., say yes now, then worry about it later. Much later. Like the night before it or something.

Anyway, in what seems like no time, it’s Barbara’s go and I get a little self-important glow as I take the floor. Not blowing my own trumpet or anything, but I really spent ages working on this, and I really think the girls will be blown away about how much progress we’ve made. Plus, in our little Butterfly gatherings, it’s nice to actually be in control for a change, and not be permanently stuck in my usual ‘manless loser’ corner with a big ‘serially single’ label stuck to me.

I make a big show of opening my briefcase and producing a neatly labelled file for each of us.

‘Bloody hell,’ says Barbara, sitting up on the sofa, ‘whenever I see the colouredy folders coming out, I know you mean business.’

‘OK then, ladies, let’s begin by opening the pink file labelled ‘possible directors’.

They both ooh and aah and look suitably impressed, but what neither of them realizes is that I have a bit of a trump card up my sleeve. Barbara works her way down the list, with a pencil in her mouth, muttering under her breath, ‘Slept with him . . . dated him . . . told him get lost at a drunken wrap party . . . I think I might have kissed him . . . he’s definitely gay, had some kind of civil ceremony on a beach a while back . . .’

‘If you’d be good enough to flick to page two,’ I say, ‘and check out the name with a star beside it . . .’ I pause a bit here for dramatic effect. OK, so I am milking it a bit, but it’s just that I cannot WAIT to see the look on Barbara’s face when she sees this. ‘Serena Stroheim . . .’ I say, trying to be as blithe and cool and throwaway as possible.

‘Serena Stroheim?’ says Barbara, now sitting bolt upright. ‘Not THE Serena Stroheim?’

‘The very one.’

Oh my God, you should just see Barbara. It’s hysterical, and I only wish I had a camera; she has exactly the same glazed look that big winners on the lottery get, or else people who’ve just come out top in Big Brother.

‘Sorry, ladies, can you fill me in?’ says Laura. ‘You’ll forgive me for being a little out of touch with the world of culture.’

‘Serena Stroheim . . .’ says Barbara, and I’m not kidding, she’s actually now beginning to stammer, ‘is so, so hot, she’s practically volcanic. She’s won . . . like, a Tony, a Critic’s Circle, an Olivier. You name it, the woman’s sideboard is practically gong central. Actors, and by actors, I mean real A-listers, practically queue up to work with her in the theatre, and by the theatre I mean Broadway, baby. She directed, like, this breakthrough production of The Women of Troy last year and, I’m not joking, the standing-room-only tickets were selling on eBay for, like, a hundred smackaroos.’

‘Well, are you ready for this?’ I ask, almost wishing I came with a drum-roll effect. ‘We, and by we I mean you and I, only have a lunch date with her next Wednesday.’

Laura whoops, and then remembers there’s a slumbering baby in the room and instantly covers her mouth with her hand, while Barbara clutches her chest and gulps for air, like some elderly dame in an Ealing comedy, circa 1950.

‘Tell me . . . tell me . . . tell me everything . . .’ she manages to splutter. You should just see her face, she’s gone snow-white, and now there’s wine actually dribbling on to her white blouse. Oh rats, I really wish I could bask in the credit for this, but, much as I’m enjoying my little moment of being the group miracle worker, I have to own up.

‘OK, so during the week I got Paris and Nicole in the office to cold-call every single director’s name on that list and pitch the idea at them. They were brilliant the pair of them, I made them rehearse first, and I ear-wigged on the calls, and hand on heart, they got everything note-perfect. Shakespeare in the park, three nights only, everyone gives their services for free, and it’s all in aid of the Children’s Hospital.’

‘The Children’s Hospital?’ Laura asks.

‘I heard on the grapevine that they had been doing the fundraising rounds and I thought, who better to be our beneficiary? Now pay attention, Bond, because that becomes critical to the plot in a minute.’

‘Go on,’ says Barbara, still looking at me with the ghostly face.

‘So the girls are working their way down the list and keeping me posted on what response they’re getting. A lot of the directors we targeted said they were “committed elsewhere”, which we reckoned was code for: “Couldn’t be arsed getting involved with a project that’ll take up about eight weeks of my time and that’s not even going to pay me.”’

Laura shakes her head sadly and keeps topping up our glasses.

‘So then Nicole bounces over to my desk, clutching the list and pointing madly at Serena Stroheim’s name. It turns out, she’s only a VBF of her mother’s, apparently they both have holiday homes right next door to each other in the South of France. Although, I think when Nicole says “holiday home” we would probably call it an eight-bedroomed mansion house with a pool and a tennis court and a view right over the Med.’

‘Keep talking,’ says Barbara, who’s knocked back an entire glass of wine in the last couple of seconds alone.

‘So next thing she’s only whipped out the woman’s ex-directory phone number, has actually got her on the phone and is chatting away to her goodo, while I’m sitting at my desk with a face like a slapped mullet. I’m not joking, at one point she actually calls her “Auntie Serena”. Then Nicole hangs up with a big cheerie bye and I could be mistaken, but she may even have said something about seeing her at the Monaco Rose Ball and was it true Prince Albert was bringing a new date? She’s so connected, that girl, I mean you wouldn’t believe some of the names that she drops . . .’

‘Never mind about Prince bleeding Albert,’ hisses Barbara, bristling for me to come to the punchline. ‘Go ON with the story.’

‘Oh right, sorry. So anyhow, the upshot is: not only has the almighty Ms Stroheim got a gap in her schedule, before she goes off to, I dunno, direct Dame Judi Dench or someone like that, with, you know, BAFTAs and Oscars hanging out of them, at the National or somewhere, Nicole told me what she was doing for the autumn and it’s totally slipped my mind . . .’

‘Go ON!’

‘Barbara, I am now pissed to the tune of two glasses of wine, so you’ll just have to bear with me if I ramble a bit. Anyhoo, she loved, loved, loved the idea, said she’d always wanted to direct A Midsummer Night’s Dream in the open air, but here’s the clincher . . .’

‘WHAT!’ Barbara’s on the edge of her seat now and Laura has to shush her a bit so she doesn’t wake the baby.

‘Turns out her granddaughter was a patient at the Children’s Hospital, she had to have major surgery, and apparently they took such amazing care of her, and the child is doing so brilliantly now that Serena said, and this is a direct quote, that she felt the least she could do was to give something back to them. So I do hope you can squeeze us both in for lunch this Wednesday, then, sweetie.’ I sit back and wink at her, if I say so myself, thrilled with her reaction.

‘But do you think she’ll cast me?’ says Barbara in a very small, insecure little voice. ‘I mean, she’s worked with the best of the best, and here’s me, a total unknown. Now unless Joe Public studies the “background artistes” in cholesterol commercials very closely, no one has the first clue who I am or what I’ve done . . .’

‘Honey, you’re attracting panic now, so stop right there,’ I say, holding my palm up to her face like someone on The Jerry Springer Show. Not a gesture I’d ever attempt sober. ‘You, my future Broadway star, are part of this package, and that’s all there is to it. We’ve got the meeting. It’s happening. Suck it up.’

Barbara hauls herself off the sofa and gives me a bear-hug so tight I think I might break. ‘Vicky Harper, I will be thanking you till the day I die,’ is all she says simply. And a bit tearily – unusual for her.

‘Oh, come on, honey, you are gonna be fab and you’re going to steal that show, and I’m going to make sure you get the hottest agent in the business; and in one short year, the sky will be the limit. A guest voice on The Simpsons, a movie role in a blockbuster, anything you can dream of, will be yours for the asking.’

‘Oh, that reminds me,’ Barbara says, the eyes still all sparkly. ‘Come on, girls, a quick creative visualization exercise while this miraculous peace holds out.’

Laura and I just look at her, suddenly silenced, and don’t move.

‘A creative visualization exercise?’ Laura eventually says.

‘Old actor’s trick. It’s like you dress-rehearse what you really want out of life in your head, thereby when your moment comes, you’re ready for it. Come on, if I can visualize myself sitting calmly over lunch with Serena Stroheim, like I meet with scary, hotshot directors every other day of the week, then anything’s possible. Right, shoes off and lie down. This’ll be a terrific way to turn our dreams into reality,’ she says, stretching out and lying down on the floor. ‘The book even says, as you visualize, so you materialize.’

Laura and I look at each other, shrug, then do as we’re told.

‘OK,’ says Barbara, who’s actually sounding remarkably sober. ‘Just concentrate on your breathing, in and out, in and out, tune out all other sounds . . .’

It’s particularly hard as my will to talk is just too overwhelming, but after a few moments of doing just that, concentrating only on breathing, it actually does start to work. In, out, in, out, in and out . . . A few breaths later and I find myself giving an involuntary yawn. As does Laura, I notice.

After all our chat and messing, eventually a long silence falls and now all you can hear is a clock on the fireplace ticking and the distant, muffled sound of Emily on the phone to one of her friends upstairs. It’s lateish now, and the light’s nearly gone, but the candles make the room seem serene and tranquil. Or maybe it’s just the two . . . no, three glasses of wine I’ve just had. Oh well.

‘Just so you know, I’ve been up since six a.m. and there’s a good chance I might fall asleep,’ mumbles Laura. I know exactly what she means. There’s something about the quiet and the baby’s peaceful gurgling in the corner that’s making me a bit drowsy, too.

‘Now, to help us, I want us all to say our worst fear out loud and then focus on the polar opposite,’ Barbara eventually says, sounding exactly like a children’s TV presenter talking to five-year-olds. The exact same soothing, dulcet tone.

‘Easy,’ says Laura. ‘That one of the neighbours will look through the window right now and think I’ve turned lesbian.’

‘You’re not concentrating.’

‘Why do we have to do this? I feel like a right gobshite,’ I say, now that the mood’s . . . slightly shattered. ‘Can’t we just keep drinking, like normal people do on a Saturday night?’

‘Because, you said it yourself earlier, Vick. The trouble with most people is that they haven’t the first clue what they really want. And the one thing we have going for us is that we each are really clear on what we’re asking for. So we’re each going to say our greatest fear out loud, face it head on, then let it go and concentrate on attracting the exact opposite and not worry about how it’s going to come in. The book says something about not worrying about how your dreams will come to you – the universe will, sort of, re-arrange itself to make it all happen.’

OK, I’m getting a bit giddy now, not at what Barbara’s saying, just at the way she’s become such an expert on the law of attraction in such a sort space of time. I look over at Laura, whose head is nearest mine, and figure she must be thinking the same, because I can see her, eyes closed, but doing her slightly lop-sided smile.

‘So come on, who’s first up?’ says Barbara, still in group-leader mode.

‘OK then, my greatest fear is that I’ll end up selling an organ to pay for next September’s school fees,’ says Laura, and I start tittering.

‘Stop messing.’

‘Miss? Miss? Is it my go yet?’ I say, waving my hand in the air.

‘You’re only allowed to contribute if you’re going to take this seriously,’ says Barbara, but out of the corner of my eye, I can see her dying to have a good laugh as well.

‘My greatest fear is that I’m only a step away from being one of those scary old ladies who live alone and scream at kids who ring on their doorbells and then run away.’

OK, now I can see Barbara starting to shake, and this suddenly reminds me of school, when she and I would sit beside each other and I could nearly sense when she was about to go, so I’d keep whispering funny things at her, needling at her weak point until she’d eventually crack up laughing.

‘Oh no, hang on, I just thought of a better one,’ I say. ‘OK, my greatest fear is that I’ll end up in the moratorium section of the lonely hearts’ column.’

Right, now even Barbara is snorting, and it’s too much, the whole mood is shattered as the two of us just roll around the floor, in fits of laughter, while Laura looks on, with her funny, sideways smile.

Not even the sound of a blazing row erupting from the back garden stops the giggles. Laura gets up and calmly goes to the window to see what’s going on. It’s George Junior and Jake bickering over something, God knows what, but the key words of the row are ‘gerbil’, ‘thief’, and ‘stupid arsehole’. The good news is, though, instead of getting all stressed about it, like she normally would, Laura just waves her finger at them and says, ‘Now, now, now boys. You are brothers and just remember that blood is thicker than diet cola.’

Then even she joins in the laughing, and I’m not kidding, just the sight of that alone does me more good than anything else this evening.