‘Go on, tell me about “Women Returners”, then?’ I can practically hear the ironic quotation marks Deb puts around my support group.
‘I know you think I don’t need it.’
‘You don’t need it, Kate. You just need to get yourself out there and stop sublimating all that ambition of yours into renovating some crazy old house.’
‘I thought I was bringing life back to a period gem of considerable potential in need of sensitive updating.’
‘Is that you or the house, darling?’
‘Both. Can’t you tell?’
She laughs properly, like herself this time, a warm, generous sound which is incongruous in this fashionable palace of steel and glass. I love Deb’s laugh; it reminds me of so many times we’ve shared.
‘Suit yourself,’ she says. ‘Can’t think of anything worse than sitting in a room with a lot of women moaning that they’re past it and nobody will employ them. Do you want coffee? How many calories in a flat white, do you reckon?’
(Hang on, I read that the other day. Paging Roy. 1‘Roy, can you please get me the number of calories in a flat white? Full fat and semi-skimmed. Roy, hello? You’re not allowed a lunch break by the way. Being my memory valet is a full-time job.’)
Last time I spoke to Richard about finding a position at a good firm in London, he said, ‘It’ll kill you doing that journey twice a day. You’re not as young as you were. Why don’t you find something local like Debra did?’
Is that really what he wants for me? Deb quit her job at one of the top London law firms a couple of years after Jim shacked up with the Asian Babe (who is friendly, tactful, sweet with the kids and super-bright – basically your total nightmare). Felix had become obsessive about not having peas too close to the sweetcorn or ketchup on his plate, and he bit any nanny who forgot this diktat. Finding a form of childcare that was happy to be bitten on a regular basis proved impossible. ‘I did not give up, Kate, I bloody well surrendered to the inevitable,’ Debra booms when she’s had too many, which is quite often lately. In midlife, all the women I know, apart from the ‘My Body is a Temple’ high priestesses, are intimates of Count Chardonnay and his cheeky sidekick Pinot Grigio. Every day, around 6.35 pm, when habit sends me to get wine out of the fridge, I think ‘Empty calories!’ and sometimes I am good and listen to that health warning, but other times it’s easier, and kinder somehow, to grant myself admission to the buzzy warmth and instant sense of well-being. ‘God, I hate it when they call it giving up work,’ Deb always says when she’s onto her third glass.
Me too. So, the legendary, beautiful redhead (think face of Julianne Moore, curves of Jennifer Lopez) with the Cambridge First, on track to become a partner in a London firm earning gazillions, is now festering in a solicitor’s office above Hot Stuff Indian restaurant in the high street of a provincial town, resolving leylandii disputes for homicidal octogenarians and growing big and blowsy from drowning her sorrows. All of Deb’s recent emails begin, ‘Shoot me!’.
I need something better than that. Don’t I?
Debra is growing louder and more belligerent, so I change the subject and tell her about Emily’s belfie. Our disasters are small gifts we can give to our friends who suffer because they believe our lives are easier than their own.
‘Oh, they’re all doing it,’ Deb snorts. ‘Sexting. Some kid in Ruby’s year got himself arrested. Sent a pic of his willy to a girl aged fourteen. Huge hoo-ha at the school – said he was guilty of child abuse or something ridiculous. He’s been suspended, poor thing. The girl didn’t even complain. Teacher saw her laughing and sharing the dick pic with her friends; now it’s this huge deal because she’s underage.’
‘I think I’m pretty broad-minded,’ I say, ‘but can you imagine?’
‘Very easily, darling. If you give kids phones that do all that naughty stuff why wouldn’t they? It’s just too tempting. I mean, I have.’
‘You’ve done what? Deb. No. You haven’t. Please tell me you haven’t.’
‘Only knockers.’ She smiles and cups her breasts in her hands, thrusting them upwards in her straining blouse till they look like two quivering panna cotta. ‘Getting your tits out, that’s pretty entry-level stuff for online dating, Kate darling. Consider yourself lucky you’re off the market and don’t have to display your wares to new suitors.’
‘I feel sorry for them,’ I say, suddenly realizing how helpless and angry I feel about the belfie. ‘Emily and Ruby, they’re supposed to be the freest most liberated generation of girls who ever lived. Then, just as equality’s in sight, they decide to spend every minute slapping on make-up and posing for selfies and belfies like they’re courtesans in some fin de siècle brothel. What the hell happened?’
‘Dunno, beats me.’ Deb tries to suppress a loud burp and fails. ‘Shall we get the bill?’ She turns and flags down a scurrying waiter. ‘I do know Ruby goes out wearing next to nothing then, if some poor guy wolf whistles at her, suddenly it’s, “Oh, no, it’s sexual harassment.” I tried to tell her that the male brain is programmed to respond to certain parts of the female anatomy. Most boys like Felix and Ben can act in a civilised fashion, if they’re properly brought up by women like you and me, but enough boys won’t be civilised and then you’re in big trouble because, surprise fucking surprise, rapist Rob hasn’t read your student guide to inappropriate touching.’
We fall silent for a moment. ‘The kids say I’m from the past,’ I say.
‘We are from the past, thank God,’ Deb booms. ‘I’m bloody glad we grew up before social media, darling. At least when we went home from school we were by ourselves, or with family who treated us like part of the furniture. There was no one poking us every ten seconds to admire their perfect bloody life. Imagine having every little bitch who was hateful to you at school joining you in your bedroom via your phone. I felt crap enough about myself already. I didn’t need an audience, thanks very much.’
‘Probably every generation of parents must feel like this,’ I say cautiously. It’s been so much on my mind, but I haven’t tried to put it into words before. ‘It’s just that this … this … this gulf between us and the kids, their world and the one we grew up in, it’s … I don’t know, Deb, it’s all happened so quickly. Everything’s changed and I don’t think we’ve even begun to understand what’s going on. Or what it’s going to do to them. How is Ben supposed to learn empathy for other people when he spends half his life carrying out drive-by shootings in some virtual-reality world? Did I tell you I found out Emily actually downloaded something to help her bypass the parental controls on their devices?’
Typically, Deb is delighted, not appalled. ‘Genius! She sounds a highly resourceful woman, just like her mummy.’
It’s time to go. She has drained my wine glass and we’ve argued over the bill. (Can’t remember who paid last time. I ask Roy, but he’s still busy looking up the number of calories in a flat white.)
As the guy by the door hands us our coats, I ask Deb to be honest with me. ‘Do you think I can pass for forty-two?’
She grins. ‘God, yes, no problem. I’m thirty-six, darling. If I ever bring a boyfriend to meet you we need to get our stories straight, OK? Or he’ll think “how come these two were in the same year at university and there’s a six-year age difference?” Now, you be honest with me, Kate. Do you think I can get away with thirty-six?’
(No. I don’t. Whatever thirty-six looks like, Deb is no longer it, and neither am I.)
‘Course you can. Never better. Love what you’ve done to your hair.’
Debra is halfway down