Allison Pearson - I Don't Know How She Does It

Kirsty and Simon always seem glad to see us, but I think it’s fair to say that their goodbyes are particularly effusive, a prelude I always imagine to their explosion of shared relief as the door shuts on us and they can adjourn to their snot-free sofa. But today they have come to our place, where every piece of furniture is essentially a large handkerchief. Compared to how it usually looks, the kitchen is immaculate, but I see Kirsty direct an understanding smile at the single toy left in the middle of the floor and, quite unreasonably, I want to slap her.

Lunch goes fine and I accept compliments for the M&S tart with surprisingly little shame — well, I did make a huge effort to get it. The Bings’ conversation ranges widely. Was it really a good idea to have the Great Court of the British Museum open in the evening? “A failed experiment,” according to Simon, who would be taken aback to learn that I have forgotten where the British Museum actually is.

Then we’re on to the stagnant state of current cinema. Kirsty and Simon have seen some French film about two girls working in a factory and were totally blown away by it. Rich reveals that he has seen it too. When did he find the time to do that?

“Kate worked in a factory, didn’t you, darling?”

“Oh, how fascinating,” says Simon.

“Not really. Plastic caps for aerosol cans. Very boring, very smelly and very badly paid.”

The mildly awkward silence that follows is broken by Kirsty. “So, how about you, Kate?” she asks brightly. “Seen any good movies?”

“Oh. I enjoyed Crouching Tiger.” I pause. “And Crouching Dragon.”

“Hidden,” murmurs Rich.

“Hidden Tiger,” I say. “I loved the, er, Chinese bits. Mike Leigh’s very good, isn’t he?”

“Ang,” murmurs Rich.

“I like Mary Poppins, ” chimes in Emily, God bless her, running up from the other end of the kitchen, naked except for her Little Mermaid green silk tail. “Jane and Michael go to work with their daddy at the bank. It’s near my Mummy’s work and there’s lots of pigeons.” She begins to sing loudly and tunelessly, with a child’s open-faced fearlessness: “‘Feed the birds, tuppence a bag, tuppence, tuppence, tuppence a bag.’ Do you feed the birds, Mummy?”

No, I try to get men to come and kill them. “Yes, of course, darling.”

“Can I come to your work?”

“Certainly not.”

Kirsty and Simon laugh politely. Kirsty picks at the sliver of orange Play-Doh stuck between the prongs of her dessert fork and wonders whether they shouldn’t be starting to make a move.

Avoid any social engagements which require clean clothes or clean furniture. Packing list for EuroDisney. Bread. Milk. Calpol? Stair carpet. Call Dad. Application form for Ben nursery. Call Jill Cooper-Clark!! Thorntons chocolate ducklings!

WEDNESDAY, 10:35 P.M.Debra calls me at home, which is weird because we scarcely talk these days, only e-mail. Hearing her voice, I know instantly that something’s wrong. So I ask, How’s things? And with one deep breath, she’s off: Oh, just the usual; Jim will be away over Easter tying up some deal in Hong Kong and she has to drive the kids to Suffolk to stay with her family and her father’s had a stroke and her mum’s pretending to cope but can’t, and they don’t like to bother Deb because she’s so busy and important and, of course, she’d like to be bothered but she’s too busy at work where they’re still holding out against giving her a full partnership because that bastard Pilbutt says there’s “a question mark over my commitment” and she’s bloody earned that partnership, she really has, and then Anka, the nanny she’s had since Felix was one, has been stealing from her. Had she mentioned the stealing?

No, she hadn’t.

Well, if she’s honest, she’s known about it since last summer but not allowed herself to know, not wanting to know. First, it was just small amounts of cash she thought she’d left around the house and couldn’t put her hands on. After that, other stuff went missing — a Walkman, a silver picture frame, that dinky digital camera Jim brought back from Singapore. The whole family — well, they’d just joked about their pilfering poltergeist and Deb had some better locks put on the doors. Because you never know. And then, just before Christmas, she mislaid her leather jacket, the lovely buttery one from Nicole Farhi she couldn’t possibly justify buying, and she could swear she hadn’t left it anywhere. Called all the restaurants she’d been to, emptied her wardrobe: nothing. Joked bitterly to Anka that she probably had early-onset Alzheimer’s, and Anka made her a cup of tea with three sugars — no wonder Slovakians have no teeth — and said sweetly, “You are a little tired only, I think. Not mad.”

So Debra would never have found out if she hadn’t popped home one afternoon between client meetings. Fiddling with her keys at the front door, she turned and saw Anka walking down the street pushing her daughter in her buggy and wearing her leather jacket. Said she felt so weak she could hardly move, but managed to get behind the dustbins and hide so Anka didn’t spot her.

Then, last Saturday, when Anka was away, Deb had gone into her room, like a burglar in her own home. And there in the cupboard, not even hidden at the back, was the jacket and a couple of Deb’s better sweaters. In a drawer, she found the camera and her grandmother’s watch, the one with the silver fish for a long hand.

“So what did you say to her?”

“Nothing.”

“But, Deb, you have to say something.”

“Anka’s been with us for four years. She brought Felix to the hospital the day Ruby was born. She’s a member of the family.”

“Members of your family don’t generally nick your stuff and then sympathize with you about it.”

I’m shocked at the flatness of my friend’s voice: all the fight ironed out of it.

“I’ve thought about this, Kate. Felix is anxious enough already, with me being away all the time. His eczema gets so bad. And he loves Anka, he really does.”

“Come off it, she’s a thief and you’re her boss. You wouldn’t put up with it at work for a minute.”

“I can live with her stealing from me, Kate. I can’t live with the children being unhappy. Anyway, that’s enough of me. How are you?”

I take a deep breath and then I stop myself. “I’m fine.”

Debra rings off, but not before we’ve made another lunch appointment we won’t keep. I put her name in my diary anyway, and around it I draw the dumb smiley face Deb always drew in the margin next to mentions of Joseph Stalin in our mutual European history notes in 1983. (One of us got to go to the lecture; the other got the lie-in.)

What is the cost when you pay someone else to be a mother to your children? Has anyone calculated it? I’m not talking about money. The money’s a lot, but how much is the other thing?

THURSDAY, 4:05 A.M.Emily wakes me to tell me she can’t sleep, so now that makes two of us. I check her forehead, but the fever turns out to be excitement over Disneyland Paris, where we are all heading later today, if I can get my jobs done in time. My daughter has wanted to go to Disneyland ever since she figured out that the Sleeping Beauty castle at the end of all her videos was a real place.

Now she climbs into bed beside me and whispers, “Will Minnie Mouse know my name, Mummy?” I say, Of course she will! and my daughter burrows marsupially into the small of my back and drifts off, while I lie here, more awake by the second, trying to remember everything I need to remember: passports, tickets, money, raincoats (obviously, it will be raining, it’s a holiday), jigsaws/crayons/paper in case we get stuck in Channel Tunnel, dried apricots for nourishing snack, Jelly Babies for bribes, chocolate buttons for total meltdowns.