The Weekend Away
As Kate pours the last of the champagne into my empty glass, I unzip my bag and root through the contents: jeans, a sundress, a pair of shorts, a shirt, a hooded sweatshirt, a couple of T-shirts and last of all, my plaid, flannel pyjamas. There’s one semi-glitzy top with sequins from H&M, that I had thought I’d pair with my jeans if we went out to dinner, but I wasn’t expecting Michelin stars. I had figured we’d eat at small local places without a dress code.
‘I don’t know what to wear,’ I say to Kate, feeling frustrated and shoving my H&M top back in my bag. I wish she’d warned me she’d booked a posh restaurant.
‘Do you want to borrow something?’ she asks and before I can respond she’s out the door, shouting over her shoulder for me to follow her.
Her room is no longer an oasis of white but looks like it’s been ransacked by a particularly desperate thief. Clothes and shoes are strewn everywhere. It was the same when we lived together. It used to drive me crazy how she’d leave shoes, coats, bags, dirty plates and mugs lying about the place, as though she had grown up in a stately home and was used to servants clearing up after her, when in fact she had grown up on a North London housing estate.
When we clashed over it, Kate would explain that life was too short to spend time worrying about a bit of mess and would convince me it would be a better idea to go to the pub or out shopping. Eventually my own OCD would win out and I’d have to set about cleaning the place, and Kate, seeing me on my hands and knees scrubbing at the tiles in the bathroom, would grudgingly always join me, albeit grumbling. When she got a promotion and started to earn more, the first thing she did was pay for a cleaner once a week.
Now I watch Kate hastily shove a few things back in her suitcase and slam the lid down, before picking up a dress from the floor and offering it to me. It’s a jacquard blue silk mini-dress and though I love it, I have zero doubt if I tried to get it on over my hips it would get stuck and a comedy skit would unfold of me trying to wriggle out of it like a grub forcing its way out of a cocoon. Kate sees my expression and tosses the dress back on the ground before picking up a maxi-length embroidered dress with a low-cut neckline.
‘Here,’ she says, holding it against my body, ‘try this.’
I take it into the bathroom and shut the door, not wanting to strip in front of her. The dress, by a designer I actually recognise, slides on and much to my surprise looks quite good, though because of the spaghetti straps I have to take off my bra. I assume that will do me no favours, but luckily the empire line of the dress pushes my boobs upwards as effectively as an underwired bra. I have never worn a maxi dress but contemplating my reflection, I start to wonder if I need to rethink my style now I’ve hit forty.
The counter top is littered with serums, bottles, make-up and hair products, and I pick up a hair wand and think about the last time I bothered to do anything to my hair besides wash it and shove it in a ponytail or messy topknot.
Kate pokes her head around the door. ‘Ah!’ she exclaims, walking in. ‘That looks great on you! You have to keep it.’
I start to protest but she cuts me off. ‘No, I insist. It’s much better on you than me. Look at those boobs! They’re like watermelons! I’m so jealous. Maybe I should have a baby.’ She takes the wand from my hand. ‘Do you want me to do your hair?’
‘OK,’ I say. She moves my discarded things aside to plug the wand in. ‘Nice,’ she says, holding up my bra and tossing it to me.
‘Rob bought it for me for Valentine’s Day,’ I say, catching it. It’s a silk padded bra and though it’s a nude colour, which isn’t the sexiest, it is Agent Provocateur. Rob’s never been the best at buying gifts so I had to give him marks at least for that. Normally he gets me socks from M&S or an Amazon voucher or perfume that he’s obviously chosen because it comes in a fancy box, but which smells like something Joan Collins would wear.
As we wait for the wand to heat up, Kate grabs an eyeshadow palette and a brush and starts doing my make-up. This is how we used to get ready before one of our big nights out, with me gamely letting Kate treat me as a canvas as she acted out her Picasso dreams. As she strokes the soft brush over my eyelids I realise how much I’ve missed getting glammed up. When I had a life, before Marlow, I used to spend fifteen minutes each morning following a skin-care and make-up routine; now I’m lucky if I remember to put on deodorant.
After she’s done, Kate turns me towards the mirror and I startle, almost unable to recognise myself. She’s put a burnt orange colour along the edges of my eyes – not a colour I’d ever go for normally, but surprisingly it makes the blue in my eyes stand out. They look almost cobalt and whatever she’s dusted me with has given me a glow that has lifted my ghost-like pallor.
‘Yummy mummy,’ Kate declares with triumph.
I flush a little at the praise. I haven’t thought of myself as sexy or beautiful for a long time – it’s hard to when your breasts are leaking milk and you have stitches in your vagina, but now I’m wondering if all is not lost and I might actually still have it, or if not ‘it’ then something. Standing next to Kate, I might not feel like Cinderella but I no longer feel quite like the ugly sister either.
‘I’ll get us an Uber,’ Kate says, reaching for her phone.
A few minutes later, we leave the apartment and head down the three flights of stairs to the street, Kate clattering in her heels and me following behind in my sandals, checking the door is locked and that I have the address programmed into my phone in case we get drunk later and can’t remember where we’re going.
My sensible mum gene was activated long before I had Marlow. I’m always thinking ahead and worrying about things, whereas Kate refuses to worry about anything that might not happen. Perhaps it’s down in part to personality but it’s also to do with my job. I manage HR for a big housing development company with hundreds of employees, or at least I did before I went on maternity leave, so I have to constantly make sure we’re following rules, that all the i’s are dotted and t’s crossed. Risk assessment is part of my job description and being organised is essential. Whereas Kate spends her life wheeling and dealing, massaging actors’ egos and wooing big-name studio heads. She has to constantly deal with crises and think on her feet.
Thinking about work elicits a rush of excitement, though the excitement is immediately snuffed out by guilt. It feels wrong to admit, even to myself, that I can’t wait to get back to work. I thought I’d love maternity leave and though Rob and I planned for me to take a full year off after Marlow was born, I’m rather wondering if nine months would have been enough. It’s not something you can generally admit to though, that you’d rather be at work than taking your baby to monkey music or baby gym.
I find refuge online sometimes among chat rooms of mums venting about the monotony of being a stay-at-home parent, and it makes me feel less alone, but I’m still not confident enough to share my frustrations with anyone in the real world. I’m afraid they’ll think I’m selfish and horrible, especially after the battle I went through to have Marlow.
As Kate and I pass the door to the apartment below ours, it opens and a man steps out in front of us, blocking our way.
‘Hi,’ Kate and I say.
The man, around thirty-five with thinning hair and wearing round artist-like glasses, looks us both over, unblinking as an owl.
‘Hi,’ he says. He holds out a slender hand to Kate. ‘I’m Sebastian, nice to meet you. I own the apartment you’re staying in.’ He speaks good English with only the faintest trace of an accent.
‘Right,’ says Kate, shaking his hand. ‘I’m Kate, this is Orla,’ she says, indicating me.
‘Nice to meet you,’ I say, shaking his hand.
His gaze dips briefly to my exposed cleavage. It makes me flush a little, both self-consciously and also with a little pride. I can’t remember the last time a man looked at me in that way, not even Rob.
‘It’s just the two of you staying?’ Sebastian asks.
I nod. ‘Yes, just us.’
‘You’re going out?’ he asks, though that much is pretty obvious.
‘Yes, for dinner,’ I say.
‘We better get going,’ Kate adds, impatiently, ‘our Uber’s waiting.’
Sebastian doesn’t move. ‘Well, I just wanted to say hi. If you need anything, anything at all, let me know. I’ll be happy to help. I work from home and I am here all weekend so just come and find me if you need anything.’
‘Great,’ I say. ‘Thanks. We’ll let you know if so.’ I try to get past him but he doesn’t move.
‘If you want me to show you how to use the hot tub …’ he says in his slightly high, reedish voice.
‘I’m sure we’ll manage,’ Kate says with a tight smile, pushing past him.
I smile politely as I squeeze by. ‘Thank you.’
‘Have a nice dinner,’ he calls after us.
In the Uber Kate reapplies her lipstick using her phone camera as a mirror and I stare out the window, taking in the city by night, the illuminated castle on a hill and a dazzling bridge over the river, which looks exactly like the Golden Gate Bridge. There’s no mistaking Lisbon for San Francisco though. Lisbon is distinctly European. The buildings are a mix of baroque and roman and even gothic architecture. I know all this because I read it in the guidebook. The area we’re staying in, Alfama, is the old Moorish part of the city and it’s a maze of cobbled lanes that wind up and down several hills. It’s quite beautiful and I’m rapt by the magical feel of it, with its steep staircases, waterfalls of flowering pink bougainvillea and colourful brickwork. It’s like stepping back in time or into the pages of a fantasy novel.
When she’s done with her lipstick Kate puts her arm around me and pulls me in close for a selfie. She turns to me and kisses me on the cheek, leaving behind a red mark she then has to rub off. After, she takes my face in her hands. ‘You know I love you, don’t you?’ she says, her tone and expression turning uncharacteristically solemn.
‘Of course,’ I say, bemused.
‘Good,’ she answers.
I wonder at the sudden declaration of love and friendship. We do tell each other we love each other all the time, though I suppose not too often recently. She must be drunk. She holds her booze well but I do remember that once she’s two sheets to the wind she can get very emotional. It’s one of the giveaways.
‘You’re my best friend,’ she says. She says it forcefully, as though I might contest it.
‘You’re mine too,’ I say, laughing.
‘Never forget that,’ she says, looking into my eyes in such a strange way that my laughter dies.
Chapter Three
We arrive at the restaurant, a candlelit place with a glass roof and so much greenery it looks like a hothouse at Kew Gardens. Our waiter leads us to a white-linen-clad table in the back but Kate insists on a table in the centre of the room. She always likes to see and be seen, and I roll with it because I’ve decided that tonight I want to make the most of my freedom and have fun.
‘That’s better,’ says Kate, shaking out her napkin with a flourish and ordering a bottle of champagne.
I bite my lip as I scan the menu and notice the prices. The champagne alone is eye-wateringly expensive at almost two hundred euro a bottle. Does it come in a gold-plated bottle? I’d be happy with Prosecco, which is only a quarter of the price and tastes, at least to my unrefined palate, exactly the same.
‘Dinner’s on me,’ Kate says, as though she’s read my mind.
I start to argue with her. She’s already paid for the apartment and she upgraded our seats to business on the flight over. ‘Honestly,’ she says, reaching her hand over and squeezing mine. ‘We deserve it, and besides, Toby’s paying, remember.’ She winks at me and laughs.
‘Are you sure?’ I ask. ‘Won’t he be mad?’
‘Yes, but he doesn’t have a right to be after what he’s done.’ She straightens her shoulders and lifts her chin, scanning the room. ‘And anyway, the lawyer says we’re going to screw him in the divorce so whether he pays now or later doesn’t really matter.’
Toby owns his own events marketing company that stages big launches for brands as well as music events. I’m guessing he earns a very good salary, given the amazing penthouse flat that the two of them used to live in and the five-star luxury holidays he and Kate used to take every year to the Seychelles and the Caribbean.
‘He’s sold his company you know,’ Kate says, as the waiter comes over with the champagne in an ice bucket. ‘To an American agency. He’s going to make millions from it. My lawyer says he’ll have to give me at least half. Half of everything.’
My jaw drops open. ‘Oh my God,’ I whisper. What are you going to do with all that money?’
She shrugs. ‘I don’t know yet. Buy a house I think.’
‘Where?’ I ask.
‘Maybe Richmond,’ she says.
I look at her, astonished. She’s always looked down her nose at any place outside of Zone one and definitely at neighbourhoods she considers rich and rah. Kate’s a city person and likes to be in the bustling heart of things; she jokes that, like a black cabbie driver, she won’t go south of the river. For all her money and lifestyle, Kate grew up working class and scoffs at toffs and posh people, and Richmond’s bursting at the seams with them. I can hardly see her hanging out in her Barbour jacket and Hunter wellies walking her Labradoodle in the park.
‘Seriously?’ I ask her. ‘You’d give up living in Zone one and move to the sticks?’
She frowns at me. ‘Yes,’ she answers. ‘I think it’s time for a change. You can’t live the same way all your life. It’ll be nice to have a house and a garden. I might start growing my own veg.’
‘Next you’ll be saying you want two point four children.’ I giggle into my champagne, noticing I’m getting a little light-headed from drinking on an empty stomach.
Kate summons the waiter with a nod of her chin then turns back to me. ‘I’m starting to think I might,’ she says.
I almost choke on my champagne and have to set the glass down. ‘What? Want kids? Really?’ I ask, shocked to my core. She honestly couldn’t have said anything more surprising to me, not even that she was quitting the rat race and the male race to enter a nunnery.
Kate looks wounded. ‘Why’s that so shocking?’ she asks.
I shake my head, not wanting to upset her. ‘It’s not. It’s just … I didn’t think you wanted kids.’
‘I didn’t,’ she says, carefully folding the napkin on her lap. ‘Not until now. And thank God I didn’t have any with Toby. Can you imagine? He’d have been an awful father. What are you going to order?’ she asks, changing the subject and opening up her menu. ‘The octopus sounds good, doesn’t it? But I’ve heard the pork belly’s great too.’
We order, with Kate choosing the most expensive thing on the menu, oysters, followed by octopus – and me the cheapest, sardines, which I have heard are a local delicacy.
When the waiter has gone Kate smiles at me and raises her champagne glass once again, to chink against mine. ‘Here’s to being a mum.’
‘To being a mum,’ I agree, trying to wrap my head around Kate wanting children. I had always assumed she didn’t want kids. She’s said so multiple times over the years, talking about how she loves her job too much, as well as her freedom, and making it clear how boring she finds those friends who drone on and on about their kids. After hearing her mocking them I made sure to keep my own gushing talk about Marlow to a minimum around her. And though I did make Kate godmother and she did lavish expensive designer clothes and expensive handmade wooden toys on Marlow, I’ve never asked her to babysit or to change a nappy. I know what Kate’s limitations are but I also know – and argued to Rob, who had his reservations about choosing her to be a godparent – that when Marlow grows up Kate will come into her own as a godmother, or oddmother, as she likes to call herself.
Admittedly I have felt a little pique of envy at the thought that Kate will be the glamorous aunt figure in Marlow’s life, with her glittering career and enviable wardrobe and global travel to film festivals and the like, but until now I have never thought that Kate might be the one envying me. Does she? It feels strange to even imagine it.
I wonder at her age, forty-one, if it would be likely she’d even get pregnant. I certainly struggled to, though not just because of my age; I also have a duff uterus. But some women conceive at the drop of a hat, and who’s to say Kate wouldn’t be one of them? It would be typical of her. Everything comes so easily her way: men, success, attention. Why not a baby too?
‘I froze my eggs,’ she says, out of nowhere.
‘What?’ I ask, almost spitting out my champagne.
‘A few years ago,’ she answers with a shrug. ‘I decided I might as well. I knew Toby didn’t want kids and I wasn’t sure I did either, but then seeing what you went through I thought I should, just in case I changed my mind later.’
I stare at her, completely flabbergasted. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
She gives an apologetic smile. ‘It was when you were going through IVF and having a hard time and I didn’t want to mention it I guess. I didn’t want to upset you.’
‘Why would it have upset me?’ I ask, put out that she kept such a big secret from me. Was I that self-absorbed? Would it have upset me? Annoyingly I have to admit perhaps it would have. Any reminder of another woman’s fertility upset me back then, even the sight of prenatal vitamins with a picture of a pregnant woman on the label would send me scurrying in tears from the chemist.
Kate bites her lip. ‘I don’t know. I’m sorry. I didn’t think it was a big deal. It wasn’t like I was deciding to have a baby. I just put my eggs on ice. Everyone’s doing it these days. It’s the new Botox. People have egg-freezing parties.’
My eyebrows shoot up. Not in my world they don’t.
‘I’m not shitting you,’ she says. ‘It’s all the rage in Hollywood.’
Hollywood. Of course. Kate lives and operates in a different world to me altogether and sometimes I forget that. I take a sip of water, trying to regain some composure. ‘Do you think you’ll use them?’ I ask. ‘The eggs?’ I don’t know why but for some reason the thought of Kate becoming a mother bothers me.
‘Haven’t decided,’ she answers as the waiter lays down a plate of oysters.
‘You’d have to give up eating stuff like that,’ I joke. ‘And drinking too.’
She cocks her head to one side. ‘Are you saying I couldn’t give it up?’
I shake my head. ‘No of course not, I mean, if I managed …’ I trail off. I hadn’t intended to suggest she wouldn’t be capable of hacking a nine-month pregnancy but maybe subconsciously I actually had. Maybe that’s what’s annoying me about all this. Her decision seems so sudden and so unthought-through, so typically Kate. Does she have any idea how much work is involved in raising a child? How hard it is? It isn’t like deciding to buy a new pair of shoes. You can’t take them back if you decide you don’t like them and you can’t toss them to the back of your wardrobe and forget about them. It isn’t like when she decided to get married on a whim and ran off to Vegas with Toby.
You can’t just throw kids away when you get tired of them. And how would she do it on her own, without help? I know she has money but even with all the nannies money could buy it’s difficult being a single mother. I have two friends who are and they deserve medals. I couldn’t do it I don’t think, and I can’t see how Kate would ever have the patience for it.
‘Have an oyster,’ she says, pushing the plate towards me.
I shake my head. It would be just my luck to eat one that was off and get food poisoning.
‘Go on,’ she says. ‘They’re great.’
Oh, what the hell. It’s been years since I’ve eaten any shellfish. I was too worried when I was trying to get pregnant of eating anything that might make me sick. I take one, squeeze some lemon on it, and let it slide down my throat, leaving behind the taste of seawater. ‘That was good,’ I say. ‘Thanks.’
I’m being judgemental. Kate’s my best friend and I should support her whatever her choice is. ‘You’ll be an amazing mum,’ I tell her.
She smiles. ‘Thanks.’
‘Do you think you’ll get a sperm donor?’ I ask.
She slides another oyster into her mouth. ‘Maybe,’ she says. ‘It’s an option. Though I don’t want to be a single parent. Maybe I’ll find a new man. A decent one this time. One who doesn’t sleep with prostitutes and treat me like shit.’
She puts her fork down and reaches for her champagne glass, which the waiter has been kept busy filling up.
‘Here’s to that,’ I say, picking my own glass up to cheers her.
She smiles as our glasses chink together. ‘Do you really think I’ll be a good mother?’ she asks and I hear the note of anxiety in her voice.
I force a nod. ‘Of course. Look how much Marlow loves you.’
She smiles wider at that. ‘Well, Marlow and I have a lot in common. We both love to guzzle from a bottle and we both like to have someone do everything for us!’
I laugh along with her, happy to think about Marlow for a moment. I wonder how she and Rob are getting on.
‘Anyway,’ Kate says, interrupting my thoughts and sitting back to let the waiter remove our plates. ‘How are things with you and Rob? Are they better?’
I pause as the waiter replaces the plates with our main course and a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc.
‘OK,’ I say. I’ve told Kate something of the ups and downs our marriage has suffered over the last few years but must admit to having put a better spin on it than is perhaps the truth. ‘Improving slowly.’
I dig into my sardines, which are more delicious than they look, lying grilled on the plate staring up at me.
Kate saws through an octopus tentacle covered in tiny suckers. ‘Have you got back on the horse?’ she asks. ‘Are you having sex?’
Straight to the point as always. ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘I mean, not like we used to …’
‘What do you mean? How often are you having it? Once a week? Once a month?’
‘Probably a couple of times a month.’
Her eyes go wide. ‘God,’ she says, ‘I’m amazed your hymen hasn’t regrown. How on earth do you manage without regular orgasms?’
I blush and check over my shoulder that no one around us can hear, but luckily no one seems to be listening.
‘I’m so tired,’ I say by way of explanation. ‘What with housework and Marlow the last thing I want to do in the evening is have sex. Besides, you should try it after you’ve had fifteen stitches in your vagina.’
She winces. ‘No thanks.’
‘Well, if you want a baby …’ I say, laughing at her. ‘You better be prepared. They don’t just pop out like the cork from a champagne bottle.’
‘Maybe I’ll opt for a C-section,’ she shoots back, laughing.
‘That’s not any better,’ I tell her.
‘You can have a tummy tuck at the same time.’ She grins. ‘All the celebs do it. That or they hire a surrogate and skip the whole getting fat part altogether.’
I glance down at my plate; the sardine, sitting beside its nest of potato, looks back accusingly.
‘Not that you got fat,’ Kate adds quickly. ‘Besides, I’m only joking,’ she says. ‘I’m not too posh to push.’
‘You might become too posh if you move to Richmond.’
She laughs even louder and pours us more wine, without waiting for the waiter to do it. I hold up a hand to stop her filling my glass because I can feel myself getting quite drunk already, but she bats my hand away. ‘Come on, we’re going to have fun tonight.’
Reluctantly I let her refill my glass. ‘I just don’t want to end up with my head in a toilet bowl later.’
Kate has always handled her drink much better than me and now, after giving up alcohol when I was pregnant and breast-feeding, I’m more than a lightweight. I take a small sip and then sigh. ‘Honestly, I just don’t feel like it.’