Annie Lyons - Not Quite Perfect

Ella giggles like a schoolgirl. When Emma brought her mother here for lunch, Simon had her eating out of his hand and Diana kept trying to hook her up with David: ‘What a catch he’d be, Em!’ Emma didn’t have the heart to tell her, but luckily Martin came along and she had another prospective son-in-law to fix her hopes on.

‘Are we in full-scale “don’t be nice to me” mode?’ inquires Ella.

Emma looks up at Audrey Hepburn gazing down at them in that ‘yes, I am more beautiful that you could ever hope to be but I won’t make you feel bad about it and could actually be your best friend if we met’ way. ‘I think we are,’ Emma replies.

‘Right,’ says Ella feeling uncomfortable at the prospect of having to insult rather than hug her friend.

David appears with their order. ‘Here we go. I’ve given you a dollop of homemade vanilla ice cream as well. All on the house today girls.’

Ella sees Emma’s lip begin to wobble and ploughs in. ‘Who wants to publish that kind of fiction anyway?’

‘I do,’ says Emma. ‘Can’t you do any better than that?’

‘OK,’ says Ella unsure. ‘Well it won’t make us any money and will just be a pain in the arse to get off the ground.’

‘Now you sound like Joel.’

Ella looks crestfallen. Emma knows she’s just too lovely for this kind of thing. Then she surprises her. ‘Well you’re a crap editor and it will better off at another publisher.’

‘Ella, steady on!’

‘Sorry, you know I’m not much good at this game. How about “the author’s probably a tosser”?’

‘Actually, that might be true.’

Ella raises her eyebrows quizzically.

‘Well there are the rumours that he’s a ladies’ man and he did seem to enjoy watching me squirm during the pitch meeting.’

‘There you go then,’ smiles Ella, pleased to have found a negative for her friend to cling to. ‘That probably explains why he writes about relationships so well.’

‘Yes, all right. Aren’t you supposed to be telling me about how much better off I am without this man and his novel?’

‘Oh yes, sorry. Well it has its flaws.’

‘Like what?’

‘Well the title’s a bit girly.’

‘Girly?’

‘Yeah, I mean how many blokes want to read a book with a flower in the title?’

‘OK, it’s a viewpoint. What else?’

‘Erm, it’s too long?’

‘Too long?’

‘A bit’

‘Do you think Tolstoy would have created one of the masterpieces of fiction if his editor had told him War and Peace was a bit on the lengthy side?’

‘S’pose not. Do you think you would stop feeling sorry for yourself with a gob full of cheesecake?’

‘Good point.’

Despite a noble effort from Ella and two more pieces of cheesecake, Emma returns to the office with a heavy heart and even heavier stomach. Her phone shows two missed calls from Martin. She calls him back. ‘Lo?’ she says in a flat voice.

‘I take it we’re not celebrating this evening.’

‘Oh Martin, it was bloody awful.’

‘You poor thing. Do you want me and Charlie to go round and sort him out for you?’

‘It’s a kind offer but I’d rather have a hug.’

‘Now that won’t be difficult. Listen, I’ll cook you your favourite tonight and we’ll drown our sorrows. Spaghetti Bolognese is it, madam?’

‘Thanks darling. I love you.’

‘Love you too.’

After a morning of trying children, a nagging mother and cheery singing, Rachel is ready for something far stronger than a skinny latte. However, the coffee shop does offer the next best thing with its promise of grown-up interaction and sugar-infused treats for the children to prolong this grown-up interaction. Despite its coffee chain décor of dark wood tables, fat dark brown sofas and sepia pictures of corpulent grinning ‘roasters’ and couples enjoying the coffees of their lives, Rachel has a fondness for this place. She has come here since Will was a baby and knows most of the baristas by sight. Plus they welcome the mothers of the town and don’t balk at mashed muffin or spilt smoothie. They have circled their buggies like wagons, bought their coffees and the children are distracted with cake. Rachel is recounting the details of last night’s argument with Steve.

‘Edinburgh?’

‘I know!’

‘Wow!’

‘I know!’

‘It’s an amazing city, really beautiful.’

‘Yeah, OK but I’m wallowing in self-pity here and you’re supposed to be helping.’

‘Right, sorry. It is bloody far away too.’

‘Exactly.’

‘And the weather’s shit. Al went to uni there. He loved it but always says the weather was appalling.’

‘Precisely.’

Christa laughs. ‘You English and your weather. It’s a national passing of time, isn’t it?’

Rachel smiles. ‘I just don’t want to bring up my kids so far from my family. Sorry, Christa, that was a bit insensitive of me. You must miss your family terribly.’

‘It is OK, Rachel. To be honest, I do not really get on with my family, not since my mother’s sex change.’

Sue nearly chokes on her muffin. ‘Her what?’

‘ Ja , she was name of Wilhelmina and now she is just Wilhelm.’

Rachel notices Sue ram the rest of her muffin in her mouth to stop herself from laughing.

‘ Mein poor father did not see it coming. I think it was the shock das killed him.’

‘God, that’s awful Christa,’ says Rachel unsure of what else to say.

‘ Ja , that and the prostitute he was with the night he died. His herz was never very strong, you see.’

Rachel doesn’t dare make eye contact with Sue and pats Christa’s arm, trying to look earnest.

‘But I’m so sorry Rachel, you were saying about moving away from your family. Are you very close?’

Rachel thinks for a moment. She adores her father, her mother interferes but means well, and Emma is, well, her baby sister.

‘We’re as close as any family and I just don’t really want my kids missing out on the chance of those relationships.’

Sue has regained her composure. ‘What does Steve say?’

‘Well, he, erm,’ Rachel says, ‘actually, I don’t know. I kind of shouted him down and didn’t really ask him.’

‘Sorry, dear friend, I’m as ready as the next militant feminist to blame men for everything from global warming to why the plughole’s always full of hair, but even I think you need to talk this one through properly.’

‘I know, I know. You’re right. What would you do then, oh wise and rational one? Would you up sticks and go?’

‘No comparison, my friend. The family is all tucked up safe and sound in the North. I’d probably jump at the chance to be honest. I mean, London’s all right, but this south-east corner isn’t exactly Hampstead and you don’t really get the benefit of living in the big smoke with kids. I mean, when was the last time you went to the cinema or a gig?’

‘2003. Duran Duran reunion gig. Bloody fantastic. Anyway, I grew up round here and it’s not that bad. I bet more people get mugged in Hampstead.’

‘Maybe. I just don’t know if I want Joe to be a teenager around here. All those knives and gangs. I say think about it. Rationally,’ says Sue with a grin.

‘You’re supposed to tell me to stay,’ says Rachel crestfallen.

‘Rach, you know I’ll probably just take the kids to the pub and the bookies if you ever leave us, but all I’m saying is think about it.’

Christa is looking wistful. ‘It must be nice to have a husband who is there and who values your opinion. My Rudi is never here.’

‘He works for a drinks company, doesn’t he?’

‘ Ja , he is Russian and spends a lot of time in Moscow. I think he has a mistress.’