Sam Binnie - The Baby Diaries

As is tradition, Pamela joined us for the first course, laughing gamely at our rising spirits, then bidding her goodbyes as the plates were cleared. As she came over to leave her company credit card with Carol, she checked that I was keeping well, and not working too hard. I’m so glad I’ve got to know her – not only is she a good person to have on one’s team, she’s also hugely inspirational, a capable woman running this company solo for years before Tony got involved.

After she left, the nice dinner rapidly descended into plate-sharing, drink-spilling, name-calling bunfight (in the best possible way) which I think will result in a) Dan waking up with a very nasty bruise on his left thigh, b) Norman being grateful he has no social media presence, and c) no employee of Polka Dot books ever being permitted back into that restaurant again.

Funny to be so sober. Funny how things change.

If that’s how she wants to play it, that’s how we’ll play it. After finding a half-used box of floss in today’s calendar, I resolved to sneak over to Susie’s at 7 tonight, knowing – with Pete away on some travel agent job somewhere around the world – it would be the most frantic time for her. Between helping her bath the Twins and Frida, finding their pyjamas, telling them stories, brushing their teeth and getting them down, I managed to swap tomorrow’s parcel out of her calendar, replacing it with a similarly wrapped burst balloon. I would be the worst poker player – I could barely contain my glee when I went back downstairs to find Susie putting all the toys away and tidying up the kitchen.

Susie: Thanks so much, Keeks. When Pete’s away this part of the evening is always so unbelievably exhausting.

Me: [feeling slightly bad] But practice makes perfect?

Susie: More like familiarity breeds contempt. Oh, not for them, you shocked face, just for this bloody life. I’m so tired . Yes, they all sleep well and eat well and I love them dearly, but I’m going mad, Keeks. When I wave Pete off on another trip these days, my blood boils. It boils .

Me: Do you tell him?

Susie: Tell him what? That I wonder if we married too quickly? That I wonder what I’d be doing now if I hadn’t got knocked up that night?

Me: [feeling a bit sick] Do you regret it?

Susie: [looking at me] Oh, no, of course I don’t regret it. And your life isn’t my life, and my decisions aren’t your decisions, and you aren’t married to Pete . I’m glad he loves his job, but I wished he loved a job slightly closer to home, so he could put his children to bed more than twice a month, and tidy the house, and remember their school projects and the new socks they need.

Me: [putting an arm around her] Are you happy, Suse?

Susie: [silence] Not really at all, these days. I’m so tired and bored and angry that my emotional resting state is permanently somewhere in the red. Sometimes I just think – maybe I could just go, one day. Just go on holiday and come back after a few months, and see how Pete had got on. He knows what to do. If he had to, he’d be absolutely fine.

I’d not heard Susie talk like that before, although I’ve suspected for ages that’s how she felt. I almost had a guilty twinge for sabotaging her advent calendar.

To try and begin to thank Thom for how supportive and thoughtful he’s been over the last few months, I took us to the new production of an Alan Bennett play at the National. It was fantastic – funny and clever, moving and sparky, and we talked solidly in the interval about how we both wished we came to the theatre more often.

At the end of the play, I felt Thom nudge me.

Thom: Were you … were you asleep ?

Me: No. [wiping drool from side of mouth] Do you have any water, please? My mouth is a bit dry.

Thom: Well, I really enjoyed it. Thank you for the kind thought. And for not snoring.

It’s literally the least I could have done for him, and I managed to stay awake for dinner afterwards. Also, for the after-dinner treat at home. Which was very much worth it.

Pre-Christmas Christmas drinks with Greta. She’s so utterly fantastic – an unexpected surprise when I signed up to be a bridesmaid at a hideous wedding last year, and a woman I would almost certainly have married instead of Thom if she’d been a man.

Greta: Hello there! I haven’t seen you since the early Halloween party. Nice costume, by the way. And Thom looked … good .

Me: Thank you, and tell me about it. I’m debating making him wear that every night in.

Greta: Alright, get a room. Did you manage to get the pumpkin off that guy in the end?

Me: No. He said it had his medication in. Spoilsport.

Greta: So tell me something from the world of publishing. Tell me a celebrity scandal. Make it up if you don’t know any. But don’t tell me you’ve made it up.

Me: I’m pregnant?

Greta: No no no, the tabloids will never care about that. Something about someone actually famous.

Me: I … am?

Greta: No – are you really? Well that, Katherine Carlow, is a nice treat.

Me: Thanks. Do you want to deliver it?

Greta: Noooooo. No, I do not. Do you want me to ask you lots of things about it?

Me: No, I don’t really. But is it going to be a wedge that will come between our new friendship? Are we going to grow apart because the baby has come between us? Is it going to be weird?

Greta: Only if you make me catch it in the maternity ward. Otherwise: couldn’t care less. In the nicest possible way. But I’m pleased for you.

Me: Understood.

So we didn’t talk about it, and I was happy. See? A relationship undefined by this pregnancy! I don’t need everyone to sing and dance about it. Joy!

Which means it is just Eve’s reaction that bothers me.

TO DO:

Pump Greta later to find out if she really doesn’t care, or if she just doesn’t care because she totally hates babies, like any sane person, and will thus never want to see me again after May

Seven months pregnant, Lucie Martel has defied her weeping doctor’s advice to fly over for some pre-publicity stuff, and to meet with all of us. For that alone, I suppose, I have to respect her. I’m already feeling slightly nervous just being away from my bed, but Thom says that’s a latent tendency that’s purely been verbalised with the pregnancy. Rude.

I met Lucie over breakfast at the Charlotte Street Hotel, where she ordered a decaf espresso. I must have been staring at her a little, because she laughed and said, ‘Pathetic, isn’t it? Like ordering a meat-free steak. But it helps to cling to these little things somehow.’ She seemed nice, by which I mean normal, by which I mean she acknowledged that pregnancy seems to be just a desperate battle to cling on to life as it was beforehand.

Since Tony had already negotiated her contract earlier this year, we were free to talk about her publicity, any marketing we might offer, the bookshop deals we were looking at and how long she’d be over in the UK after the baby’s birth.

Lucie: I’m afraid I can only offer you four days for any publicity.

Me: Oh, OK. We thought you were over here for a month …?

Lucie: Well, three weeks, but I don’t think it’s fair to be working all that time when the baby is so young.

Me: No, OK, that’s great! So the baby will definitely be with you?

Lucie: [shocked] Absolutely. He’ll only be five weeks old when you publish over here, and I don’t think Bill will be ready to deal with his son for, what, eighteen to twenty years?