Isabel Wolff - The Trials of Tiffany Trott

‘Wahay – let’s get sloshed,’ I heard Frances say.

‘Yeah – let’s,’ said Emma. ‘Let’s get really plastered. I mean it’s Friday. We work bloody hard. And this is a party. God these canapes are good. Pass me a mini pizza, would you? I had the most horrible lot of fifth-formers today – thick as pig-shit.’

‘Sally, please would you put your laptop away?’ Frances boomed. ‘Relax. The weekend starts here.’

‘I’m sorry,’ I heard Sally reply pleadingly. ‘I just need to have a quick look at Wall Street to see how the pound closed against the dollar – won’t be a sec.’

‘We’re doing the Napoleonic wars at the moment,’ Emma continued, ‘I’ve just been supervising their GCSE project and one particularly thick kid managed to get a nuclear submarine into the battle of Waterloo!’

‘That’s unbelievable,’ said Frances.

‘Quite,’ Emma replied.

I looked at Kit. His black curly hair was a little long, his face appeared tired and strained. He was fiddling thoughtfully with the stem of his champagne flute. Then he turned to me and said, ‘I don’t know what to do, Tiff.’

‘About what?’ I said, though of course I knew. We’d had this conversation many times before.

‘About Portia,’ he said with a sigh.

‘Same problem?’ I asked.

He nodded, mutely. ‘She says she needs more time,’ he explained with a shrug. ‘That she’s just not ready for it. Of course I don’t pressure her,’ he added. ‘I’m just hoping she’ll change her mind. But I’d really love to marry her. I’d love to settle down and have a family. This single life’s a drag.’

‘Hear hear!’ said Catherine, stepping through the French windows. ‘But you’re a rare bird, Kit – a man who actively wants to make a commitment. My God, I’d marry you tomorrow!’

‘Would you really?’ he said.

‘Yes. If you asked me. Why don’t you ask me?’ she added suddenly. ‘I’m sure we’d get on.’

‘Or me, Kit,’ said Sally, following behind. ‘I’d snap you up in a flash – you’d better watch out, Portia, I’m after your man!’ She giggled winsomely, but then an expression of real regret passed across her face. ‘I wish all men were like you, Kit, ready to bend the knee, then girls like us wouldn’t be crying into our hot chocolate every night.’

‘Speak for yourself,’ said Frances. ‘I’m not crying – I’m out clubbing. Much more satisfactory. And the music drowns out the loud tick-tock of my biological clock.’

‘I can’t hear mine,’ said Emma, ‘it’s digital.’

‘Mine sounds like Big Ben,’ said Frances. ‘Except that there’s no-one to wind it up. But do you know,’ she continued, peeling a quail’s egg, ‘I really don’t care; because finally, after thirty-six years, I’ve realised that the vast majority of men simply aren’t worth having. Anyway,’ she added, ‘who needs one? I’d rather go rollerblading in the park on a Saturday morning than go to Sainsbury’s with some totally useless bloke.’

‘I don’t think you really mean that,’ I said. ‘It’s because of what you do – I mean sorting out other people’s ghastly divorces all day would put anyone off marriage.’

‘It’s not just that,’ said Frances. ‘Though after fifteen years of establishing who threw the breadknife at who in 1979 you certainly do get a little jaundiced. It’s simply that most men are boring. Terribly, terribly boring. Except you, of course, Kit,’ she added quickly.

‘Thanks,’ he said, peevishly.

‘I mean why should I go to all the trouble of pinning down some bloke,’ Frances was still going on, ‘only for him to bore me to death!’

‘Or run off with someone else,’ added Emma with sudden feeling. ‘Just like my father did.’

‘There just aren’t any really nice, interesting, decent, suitable, trustworthy men,’ Frances concluded comprehensively. Yes, there are, I thought to myself smugly. And I’ve got one.

‘I’m just facing facts,’ she said with a resigned air. ‘I’ve weighed up the evidence. And the evidence is not in our favour. So no Bland Dates for me,’ she added firmly. ‘I, for one, have decided to give wedded bliss a miss.’

‘Better single than badly accompanied,’ added Emma.

‘Quite!’ said Catherine.

‘Three million single women can’t be wrong,’ said Frances, who always has some handy statistic at the ready. ‘Anyway, why bother when over forty per cent of marriages end in divorce?’

‘And why do they end in divorce?’ asked Emma with sudden vehemence. ‘Because it’s usually the man’s fault. That’s why. It was certainly my father’s fault,’ she added fiercely. ‘He just fancied someone else. Plain and simple. And believe me, she was plain and simple. But she was younger than my mother,’ she went on bitterly. ‘Mum never got over it.’

‘Men get far more out of marriage than women,’ said Frances expansively. ‘Sixty per cent of married women admitted in, a recent survey that if they could have their time over again, they would not have married their husbands.’

‘I’m really not enjoying this conversation much,’ said Kit with an exasperated sigh. ‘I mean it’s so difficult for men these days. Women have made us all feel so … redundant.’

‘You are redundant,’ said Frances with benign ferocity. ‘What can a man give me that I don’t already have? I’ve got a house, a car, a good job, two holidays a year – long-haul – a wardrobe full of designer clothes and a mantelpiece that’s white with invitations. What on earth could a man add to that?’

‘Grief!’ said Emma rancorously.

‘Ironing,’ said Catherine.

‘Boredom,’ said Frances.

‘Acute emotional stress,’ said Emma.

‘Arsenal,’ said Catherine.

‘Betrayal,’ said Emma.

‘A baby?’ said Sally.

‘Oh don’t be so old-fashioned,’ said Frances. ‘You don’t need a man for that. How old are you now?’

‘Thirty-eight.’

‘Well, if you’re that desperate to sprog, just pop down to the sperm bank or have a one-night stand.’

‘Alternatively, you could arrange an intimate encounter with a turkey baster and a jam jar,’ added Emma, with one of her explosive laughs. ‘I hear they’re very low maintenance and you wouldn’t need to buy any sexy lingerie!’

‘Or, if you’re prepared to wait a few more years, you can dispense with the sperm altogether and get yourself cloned,’ said Frances. ‘That day is not far off – remember Dolly the sheep?’

‘I’d love to have a baby,’ said Sally. ‘I really would. My parents would love me to have one too – they go on about it a bit, actually. But I’d never have one on my own,’ she added purposefully. ‘Cloned, turkey-basted or otherwise.’

‘Why not?’ said Frances. ‘There’s no stigma these days. I’d do it myself only I’m far too lazy. All that getting up in the middle of the night would kill me at my age.’

‘For God’s sake, you’re only thirty-six, not sixty-three!’ said Catherine.

‘What, precisely, are your objections to single motherhood, Sal?’ Frances asked.

‘Well, I just don’t think it’s fair on the child,’ she said. ‘And then some poor man always ends up having to pay for it, even if he never gets to see it and it wasn’t even his decision to have it.’

‘Then the silly bugger should have been more careful,’ said Emma triumphantly.

‘Well, yes. But, speaking personally – this is just my point of view, OK – I think it’s unfair and I know that, well, it’s something that I would never, ever do,’ Sally said. Suddenly a high warble began to emanate from her Gucci handbag. ‘Sorry,’ she said, getting out her mobile phone. ‘This’ll be my update on the US Treasury Long Bond. It’s been a bit wobbly lately. Won’t be a tick.’ She stepped back into the dining-room, where we could see her pacing slowly back and forth while she talked, with evident agitation, to a colleague in New York.