Allison Pearson - How Hard Can It Be?

The Borough Press

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

Published by HarperCollins Publishers 2018

First published by HarperCollins Publishers 2017

Copyright © Allison Pearson 2017

Cover design by Claire Ward © HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2018

Hand lettering by Ruth Rowland. Cover illustration by Henn Kim

Allison Pearson asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books

Source ISBN: 9780008150556

Ebook Edition © May 2018 ISBN: 9780008150549

Version: 2019-06-24

‘Revolutionary … Both funny and unflinching’

ELIZABETH DAY, Daily Telegraph

‘Once again, countless women will recognise themselves … Pearson has a gift’

The Times

‘Zesty, razor-sharp and hilarious … Get ready for Kate!’

TINA BROWN, magazine editor and bestselling author

‘Sharply observed and very funny’

Woman & Home

‘Made me laugh, wince, shudder and shed a tear!’

SOPHIE KINSELLA

‘As sharp and witty as ever … hugely enjoyable’

Daily Mail

‘Funny, heart-breaking, wise and delightful’

SOPHIE HANNAH

‘How Hard Can It Be? is that rare thing: a sequel that matches and even surpasses the original’

Daily Telegraph

‘Brilliantly well observed’

INDIA KNIGHT

‘Pearson deftly balances despair-inducing observations with escapist pizzazz’

Mail on Sunday

‘Pearson makes a sharp point about the lack of value and status that society places on the onerous job of a stay at home mother … in these pages, there is a raw honesty’

Financial Times

‘Sparkling, funny and poignant, this is a triumphant return for Pearson and hopefully not the last we will hear of Kate’

Daily Express

‘A cutting edge of its own’

Metro

‘Wildly entertaining’

Reader’s Digest

‘[Pearson] nails the comedy and the pathos of daily domestic life like no one else’

Country Life

‘Poignant and smart takes on the pressures affecting working mothers … laugh out loud funny’

Women’s Agenda

‘[Peason writes] with acid and a daunting determination to tell it like it is’

New Zealand Herald

For Awen and Evie,

my mother and my daughter

Conceal me what I am, and by my aid

For such disguise as haply shall become

The form of my intent.

William Shakespeare,Twelfth Night

Nobody tells you about the balding pudenda.

Whoopi Goldberg

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Praise

Dedication

Epigraph

Prologue: Countdown to Invisibility: T minus six months and two days

1. Bats in the Belfie

2. The Has-been

3. The Bottom Line

4. Ghosts

5. Five More Minutes

6. Of Mice and Menopause

7. Back to the Future

8. Old and New

9. Genuine Fake

10. Rebirth of a Saleswoman

11. Twelfth Night (or What You Won’t)

12. Catch-32

13. Those Stubborn Areas

14. The College Reunion

15. Calamity Girl

16. Help!

17. The Rock Widow

18. The Office Party

19. Coitus Interruptus

20. Merry Christmas

21. The Mere Idea of You

22. Madonna and Mum

23. Never Can Say Goodbye

24. For Whom the Belfie Tolls

25. Cut to the Quick

26. Redemption

27. Guilty Secret

28. 11 thMarch

29. After All

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Also by Allison Pearson

About the Publisher

Funny thing is I never worried about getting older. Youth had not been so kind to me that I minded the loss of it. I thought women who lied about their age were shallow and deluded, but I was not without vanity. I could see the dermatologists were right when they said that a cheap aqueous cream was just as good as those youth elixirs in their fancy packaging, but I bought the expensive moisturiser anyway. Call it insurance. I was a competent woman of substance and I simply wanted to look good for my age, that’s all – what that age was didn’t really matter. At least that’s what I told myself. And then I got older.

Look, I’ve studied the financial markets half my life. That’s my job. I know the deal: my sexual currency was going down and facing total collapse unless I did something to shore it up. The once-proud and not unattractive Kate Reddy Inc was fighting a hostile takeover of her mojo. To make matters worse, this fact was rubbed in my face every day by the emerging market in the messiest room in the house. My teenage daughter’s womanly stock was rising while mine was declining. This was exactly as Mother Nature intended, and I took pride in my gorgeous girl, I really did. But sometimes that loss could be painful – excruciatingly so. Like the morning I locked eyes on the Circle Line with some guy with luxuriant, tousled Roger Federer hair (is there any better kind?) and I swear there was a flicker of something between us, a sizzle of static, a frisson of flirtation right before he offered me his seat. Not his number, his seat .

‘Totes humil’, as Emily would say. The fact he didn’t even consider me worthy of interest stung like a slapped cheek. Unfortunately, the impassioned young woman who lives on inside me, who actually thought Roger was flirting with her, still doesn’t get it. She sees her former self in the mirror of her mind’s eye as she looks out at the world and assumes that’s what the world sees when it looks back. She is quite insanely and irrationally hopeful that she might be attractive to Roger (likely age: thirty-one) because she doesn’t realise that she/we now have a thickening waist, thinning vaginal walls (who knew?) and are starting to think about spring bulbs and comfortable footwear with considerably more enthusiasm than, say, the latest scratchy thongs from Agent Provocateur. Roger’s erotic radar could probably detect the presence of those practical, flesh-coloured pants of mine.

Look, I was doing OK. Really, I was. I got through the oil-spill-on-the-road that is turning forty. Lost a little control, but I drove into the skid just like the driving instructors tell you to and afterwards things were fine again; no, they were better than fine. The holy trinity of midlife – good husband, nice home, great kids – was mine.