Cristina Odone - The Dilemmas of Harriet Carew

In this fashion I have bought a Donna Karan skirt (£8) a MaxMara jacket (£18) and a Whistles linen dress (£12).

From the cash register, a middle-aged woman, head nodding out of time with the Classic FM on the radio beside her, smiles at me: she recognizes me from previous visits. Depressing or what?

I stop the self-pity when I spot two coats in sizes 12 and 14. As I step into the makeshift dressing room, I ask myself who else knows about my struggle to keep up with my middle-class friends on half their salary? I look in the mirror. Well, does it matter if I can’t keep up the appearance of being self-confident and solvent?

It matters rather less, I decide, than the fact that the size-12 coat, a camel-haired and deliciously cosy number from Ronit Zilkha, is definitely too tight. I’m going to have to start the Modified Atkins that I read about in Vogue at the dentist’s last spring. Why did my mother have to burden me with her classic English pear shape? The coat fits my top but hugs my hips and bottom too snugly. Regretfully, I slip it off and try on the size 14, a navy-blue Jaeger in plain wool: it’s a perfect fit and at £24 it is a steal.

I walk my bargain to the cash register, and as the cashier gives me a complicit smile, I suddenly see, standing ram-rod straight in a boxy designer-looking twill suit, Mary Jane Thompson. She sees me too – and the coat.

‘Harriet! Find anything nice?’ My boss smiles condescendingly. ‘I’m just dropping off two jackets from last winter, a bit worn around the cuffs.’

Shame contracts my throat. Then inspiration strikes: ‘It’s for Alex. They’re doing Bugsy Malone .’ I beam. ‘The drama head at the Griffin couldn’t find anything that fit him.’ I wave. ‘See you in a tick.’

I step outside. Social humiliation avoided – just.

5

‘Oh, what do you care?’ Charlotte giggles when I tell her of the encounter. ‘Maybe if she thinks you’re really hard-up, she’ll give you a rise!’

We’re sitting in my kitchen, a teapot and two mugs on the table between us.

‘Ha! Mary Jane’s idea of compassion is to perform the Heimlich manoeuvre on you when you sneeze and offer you a hanky when you choke.’

Our eleven o’clock coffee has given way to a pot of organic tea. Manic Organic prefers very expensive organic green tea which she buys for me at Nature and Nurture and assures me will make me live longer.

‘I don’t want you to think I’m being ungrateful,’ I moan, ‘but who wants to live longer when you have no money, second-hand clothes, and soon three kids at public school?’

A piercing scream reaches us from upstairs. ‘No-no-no-no, Mr Caroo!’

‘Omigod!’ Charlotte’s eyes widen in alarm.

We hear Guy’s footsteps running down the stairs.

‘She’s barking!’ He comes into the kitchen. ‘Hullo, Charlotte. Our au pair is absolutely barking!’

‘What’s happened?’ I ask. I don’t care if she’s barking; as long as she doesn’t eat children, steal money, or shrink my one and only silk blouse, I want to keep Ilona as long as she’ll have us. ‘Why did she scream?’

Guy holds up his best white shirt, now a dismal shade of pink. ‘I told her if she doesn’t check the children’s pockets for pens, I’m going to ban the computer from her room.’

‘Oh, Guy, that’s cruel,’ I begin.

‘Is she into Internet dating, Facebook, or computer games?’ Charlotte asks.

‘So far we only have evidence of the former. We’ve had a catwalk of Essex men, Cubans, Poles, Russians and one very odd American who claimed to be the reincarnation of James Dean. But I’ve worked out that what she’s really interested in is their cars. Ilona doesn’t do public transport.’ Guy shakes his head. ‘Women are tricky beasts.’ He disappears back into his study.

Charlotte laughs. ‘He sounds like our Italian count, doesn’t he?’

I immediately re-live our trip to Italy when we were nineteen, and our encounter with the Roman count who, seeing us salivate over a menu card outside an expensive restaurant, bought us dinner – at the price of listening to his reminiscences of English girlfriends.

There was also the lifeguard who came to ‘save’ us when we were bathing in the Med, although we had never cried for help and all he did when he reached us was rub his hands up and down our bodies. By the end of our Italian trip, Charlotte and I had sealed our best-friendship, and were relieved to return to the relative safety of Bristol, and our boyfriends – Jack (Charlotte’s) and James (mine).

I study my best friend now, with her glossy dark hair, her carefully assembled casual look and bright eyes. We have different schedules, have married very different men, and see each other no more than once a week. But I cannot imagine life without Charlotte, and her living only a few minutes’ bike ride away has been one of the perks of this shabby house in this run-down area. Which is one reason why her proposed move to Chelsea has shocked me so. But as I watch her, at home in my messy kitchen, among half-empty bottles and tins that haven’t been put away, giggling about our past as she strokes Rufus at her feet, I know that not even an upmarket move will upset our friendship.

I look out of the rain-washed window. The garden looks bare already and the ground muddy and unkempt.

‘Biscuits?’ I ask as I take down a tin from the cupboard. Maisie’s latest autumnal composition comes unstuck from the cabinet door, leaving four little pebbles of Blu Tack.

‘I shouldn’t …’ Charlotte shakes her head as she stretches out her hand for a biscuit.

I notice a big new gold ring on her third finger. ‘Gosh, is that new?’

‘Yes.’ Charlotte smiles down at it. ‘Jack bought it for me. It was for our fourteenth anniversary and …’ She stops, blushes prettily and gives me a quick look. ‘He is soooo romantic, Harriet. He really is a Romeo at heart.’

I ask myself when was the last time Guy acted like Romeo, and decide it was when he stood under my window, slightly the worse for wear, calling up to me in the middle of the night because he’d locked himself out.

‘It’s as if we’re living through a second honeymoon – he’s so considerate and sweet and –’ Charlotte gives me a wicked grin ‘– passionate.’

I sink my teeth into a biscuit.

Charlotte’s and Jack’s very demonstrative relationship has always been a source of amusement for Guy. ‘Flirting with your husband is in bad taste, Charlotte,’ he likes to tease her. But it has always secretly irked me. I can’t help but wonder if the Collinses really do have vast quantities of great sex. How often do they do it a week? Twice? Three times? More? I feel at once envious and guilty. Half the time, when Guy snuggles up with intent, I stop him with an, ‘Oh, darling, I can’t.’ I’m so exhausted by the endless clucking and feeding, answering of children’s questions, office work and shopping that, by the time I make it to bed, the last thing I want is communion with another person.

But surely this is only normal, after fourteen years’ marriage. Isn’t it?

The doorbell stops my dissection of conjugal sex. It’s Lisa, our American neighbour, with her house keys: she sets off for Barbados tonight.

‘Barbados: isn’t she lucky!’ I say to Charlotte as Lisa follows me into the kitchen.

‘You’re lucky not to have to work.’ Lisa never seems to take on board that I do work, even if part-time.

‘I do,’ I object.

‘Oh, I know, I know,’ Lisa holds up her hand to stem my protest. ‘There’s all that picking up after the munchkins and buying enough cotton buds and loo-paper rolls, and checking your husband’s got a clean shirt. I know that’s important, but I have to worry about how China’s exports are doing, and which country has the most solid manufacturing base.’