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

“Next Wednesday?”

“Sure. As in the day after tomorrow.”

“Actually, Rod, my nanny is off sick and I have to find a temporary to—”

He cuts me off with a karate slice of the hand. “Are you telling me you can’t make it, Kate? If you can’t, I’m sure Guy can handle it.”

“Nyes. Of course I can, it’s just that—”

“Great. And can you take a look at this for me, sweetie? Thanks.”

I study the photocopy in the lift on the way back to the thirteenth floor. It’s an article from Investment Manager International under the headline THE GENDER EQUALITY PENNY IS FINALLY DROPPING!

Investment management firms are increasingly jumping on the bandwagon of gender equality as they realize that a more welcoming attitude towards women employees makes good business sense. Herbert George and Berryman Lowell have recently won laurels for their efforts in this area. Julia Brooking, a vice-president at Herbert George, says: “The City offers fabulous opportunities for women. More are being promoted every year. Most firms have now appointed diversity coordinators.”

Many institutions lament, however, that while they offer great careers for women, preconceptions of antisocial working hours and macho culture are still deterrents to female applicants.

“Puncturing the stereotype of old-boy cronyism associated with the Square Mile is not easy,” admits Celia Harmsworth, Head of Human Resources at Edwin Morgan Forster.

Well, she should know. Seeing Celia’s name in an article on gender equality is like finding Heinrich Himmler conducting a guided tour of a synagogue.

Harmsworth announced that EMF, formerly considered to be one of the City’s more old-fashioned outfits, has recently appointed a diversity coordinator, Katharine Reddy.

What?

Thirty-five-year-old Reddy, the youngest senior director at EMF, has been tasked with identifying gender-issue obstacles in the business culture.

I notice that Rod has circled the phrase “gender-issue obstacles.” Next to it he has scrawled, What the fuck is this?

To: Debra Richardson

From: Kate Reddy

hello hello from yr borderline psychotic friend. Do you think postnatal depression can last up to 18 months after the birth? If so, when does it go away?

Did I mention we have RATS. One ran across the floor when the in-laws were staying. OH, AND MY CLEANER HAS FIRED ME. Came in to work to discover 61 e-mails, pitch to do in NYC, nanny “sick,” only available temp is close relative of Slobodan Milosevic. Plus I am EMF’s new “Diversity Coordinator.” Have to take urgent steps to redress the firm’s gender imbalance. Any idea where I can purchase some kind of automatic weapon?

Can we PLS do that lunch? name a day xxxx

To: Kate Reddy

From: Debra Richardson

Believe that postnatal depression can last up to 18 YEARS after the birth and then we have a hysterectomy and start watching old episodes of Friends from red rubber old-lady chairs in gated retirement community.

Don’t worry, rats now v. middle class. No stylish home dare be seen without one. Felix has been diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder. Think that’s what his dad suffers from too, but that could be because he’s having an affair???

Too knackered to care. Read in Good Housekeeping that half of all working mothers are worried relationship with husband is suffering because of a terrible “time famine.” What are the other half doing, 30-second blow jobs?

What news of the gorgeous unsuitable Abelhammer? You do realize that, as my oldest friend, your sole role is to give me reasons to envy and disapprove of you.

Lunch nxt Tues or Thurs? xxxxx

6:35 P.M.I collect Emily and Ben from Alice’s house. They fall on me like famished things. Alice’s nanny, Jo, is incredibly nice and says what great kids they are. How thoughtful and imaginative Emily is. Feel a burst of pride and pang of shame simultaneously as I realize how often I see them as a problem to be dealt with rather than something to be enjoyed.

Must appoint a temporary nanny tonight, unless I can persuade Richard to work from home or Paula makes miracle recovery. I have a total horror of asking favors on my own or my children’s behalf — reminds me of when Dad pushed me towards a woman at the bus station in Leeds one Christmas and told me to ask if she could let us have a fiver to get home because we’d run out of petrol. We didn’t even have a car. But the lady was so nice about it; she gave me the money and a packet of Jelly Tots for myself. The sweets stuck inside my hot cheeks like ulcers.

Jo says Ben has been clingy all day and she thinks he has some kind of rash on his chest. Has he had chicken pox? No, he hasn’t. But he can’t have it now. Am booked on 8:30 a.m. flight to New York.

10:43 P.M.I can’t believe it. I stand on the landing outside the bathroom draped in a tiny towel screaming for Richard.

“There’s no hot water.”

“What?” He stands halfway up the stairs from the hall, his face in shadow. “Oh, they turned the water off today when the rat guy was checking the pipes. Must have flicked the switch.”

“I have to have my bath.”

“Darling, be reasonable.” His voice is parched with weariness. “I’ll put it on now and it’ll be hot in twenty minutes.”

“Now. I need a bath now. ”

“Kate—” He stops, looks at me as if about to say something, but then just tightens his lips and stares at me, shaking his head.

“What? What is it?” I snap.

“Kate. We…can’t go on like this.”

“Too right we can’t. I have no hot water. I have rats. I have a house that is a complete tip and no one to clean it. I needed to be asleep an hour ago and I really really really would like there to be some hot water, Richard. I work all the hours God sends and I live in conditions of medieval squalor. Is a bath too much to ask for?”

Rich reaches out an arm, but I bat it away. My tears are alarmingly hot — the temperature of the bath I’m not going to have. Must try to calm down. My husband looks wild-eyed. Why hasn’t he shaved?

Just now, from over our heads, comes a voice. “Roo,” it whimpers. “Roo.”

1:05 A.M.Have you ever thought how much time you waste falling asleep? Falling sounds satisfactorily fast, but you don’t fall, do you? I find I have to sort of sidle up on sleep and ask if it could please let me in, like someone in the queue for a club trying to catch the eye of a doorman who is always looking the other way. Seven minutes of pillow-plumping and hollowing, the obligatory tussle with the duvet (Richard likes one leg hooked outside, which pins it down like a groundsheet and leaves me barely covered), I take a herbal sleeping tablet to summon instant shut-eye.

3:01 A.M.Can’t sleep for worrying that the sleeping tablet is so strong I will sleep through my alarm and miss the flight from Heathrow. I switch on the bedside light and read the paper. Next to me, Rich grunts and turns over. The foreign pages have more on the story of the American chief executive who went back to work four days after her twins were born. She chaired a meeting via speaker phone from her hospital bed. Her name is Elizabeth Quick. No, seriously. Sister to Hannah Haste and Isabel Imperative, presumably. “Liz Quick has become a poster woman for working mothers,” the article says, “but opponents say motherhood will distract her from her job.”

I can feel my whole body crumple. Do people like Ms. Quick have any idea how their valiant effort to act as though nothing has changed can be used as a stick to beat other women?