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

“Our Five Pillars of Wisdom are (1) pulling together, (2) mutual honesty, (3) best results, (4) client care and (5) commitment to success!”

I can see Dave struggling manfully to suppress a smirk. Good boy. Glance up at the clock. Shit. Time to go. “Now, if there are no more questions—”

Damn. The other girl has her hand up now. At least you can rely on the men not to ask a question — even when they don’t know anything, like this lot, and especially not of someone at my level, when asking a question means admitting that there are still things in the world that are beyond you.

“I’m so sorry,” the young Sri Lankan begins, as though apologizing for some error she has yet to commit. “I know that EMF has — well, as a woman, Ms. Reddy, can you tell me honestly, how do you find working in this job?”

“Well, Ms. — ?”

“Momo Gumeratne.”

“Well, Momo, there are sixty fund managers here and only three of us are women. EMF does have an equal opportunities policy and as long as trainees like you keep coming through we’re going to make that happen in practice.

“Secondly, I understand that the Japanese are working on a tank where you can grow babies outside the womb. They should have that perfected by the time you’re ready to have children, Ms. Gumeratne, so we really will be able to have the first lunch-hour baby. Believe me, that would make everyone at Edwin Morgan Forster very happy.”

I assume that will stop the questions dead, but Momo is not as mousy as I thought. Her coffee skin suffused with a blush, she puts up her hand again. As I turn to pick up my bag, indicating that the session is over, she starts to speak.

“I’m really sorry, Ms. Reddy, but may I ask if you have children of your own?”

No, she can’t. “Yes, the last time I looked there were two of them. And may I suggest, Ms. Gumeratne, that you don’t start your sentences with I’m sorry . There are a lot of words you’ll find useful in this building, but sorry isn’t one of them. Now, if that’s all I really must go and check the markets — winners to pick, money to manage! Thank you for your attention, ladies and gentlemen, and please do come up if you see me round the building, and I’ll test you on our Five Pillars of Wisdom. If you’re really lucky, I’ll give you my personal Pillar Number Six.”

They look at me dumbly.

“Pillar Number Six: If money responds to your touch, then there’s no limit to what a woman can achieve in this City. Money doesn’t know what sex you are.”

2:17 P.M.You can always pick up a cab from the rank outside Warburg’s. Any day except today. Today the cabbies are all at some dedicated Make Kate Late rally. After seven minutes of not being hysterical at the curbside, I hurl myself in front of a taxi with its light off. The driver swerves to avoid me. I tell him I’ll double the fare on the clock if he takes me to Emily’s school without using his brakes. Lurching around in the back as we weave through the narrow, choked streets, I can feel the pulse points in my neck and wrist jumping like crickets.

2:49 P.M.The wood-block floor in Emily’s school hall was obviously installed with the express purpose of exposing late-arriving working mothers in heels. I tick-tock in at the moment when Angel Gabriel is breaking the big news to the Virgin Mary, who starts pulling the wool off the donkey sitting next to her. Mary is played by Genevieve Law, daughter of Alexandra Law, form representative and a Mother Superior — in other words, defiantly nonworking. There is serious competition among the Mothers Superior to secure leading roles in the production for their young. Trust me, they didn’t give up that seat on the board or major TV series for little Joshua to play the innkeeper’s brother in a Gap polo neck.

“A sheep was perfect for him last year,” they cry, “but this Christmas we really feel he could tackle something a little more challenging!”

As the Three Wise Men — a wispy red-haired boy propelled by two little girls — walk across the stage with their presents for the Baby Jesus, the hall door opens behind us with a treacherous squeal. A hundred pairs of eyes swivel round to see a red-faced woman with a Tesco’s carrier bag and a briefcase. Looks like Amy Redman’s mum. As she edges, cringing and apologetic, into the back row of seats, Alexandra Law shushes her noisily. My instinctive sympathy for this fellow creature is outweighed almost immediately by an ugly swelling of gratitude that, thanks to her, I am no longer the last to arrive. (I don’t want other working mothers to suffer unduly, truly I don’t. I just need to know we’re all screwing up about the same amount.)

Up on stage, a wobbly wail of recorders heralds the final carol. My angel is third from the left in the back row. On this big occasion, Emily has the same inky-eyed concentration, the same quizzical pucker of the brow she had coming out of the womb. I remember she looked round the delivery room for a couple of minutes, as if to say, No, don’t tell me, I’ll get it in a minute. This afternoon, flanked by fidgety boys, one of whom plainly needs the loo, my girl sings the carol without faltering over any of the words, and I feel a knock of pride in my rib cage.

Why are infants performing “Away in a Manger” in a headlong rush so much more affecting than the entire in-tune King’s College Choir? I dig down into a bosky corner of my coat pocket and find a hankie.

3:41 P.M.At the festive refreshments, there are a handful of fathers hiding behind video cameras, but the hall is aswarm with mothers, moths fluttering round the little lights of their lives. At school functions, other women always look like real mothers to me; I never feel I’m old enough for that title, or sufficiently well qualified. I can feel my body adopting exaggerated maternal gestures like a mime artist. The evidence that I am a mother, though, is holding tightly on to my left hand and insisting that I wear her halo in my hair. Emily is clearly relieved and grateful that Mummy made it; last year I had to drop out at the last minute when deal negotiations hit a critical phase and I had to jump on a plane to the States. I brought her a musical snow shaker of New York, snatched up in Saks Fifth Avenue, as a consolation present, but it was no consolation. The times you don’t make it are the ones children remember, not the times you do.

Am anxious to slip away and call the office, but there is no avoiding Alexandra Law, who is accepting rave notices for Genevieve’s Virgin Mary and for her own Bavarian Liebkuchen . Alexandra picks up one of my mince pies, jabs a dubious fingernail into the hill of icing sugar on top before pushing the whole lot into her mouth and announcing her verdict through a shower of crumbs. “Sen-say-sh’nul mince pies, Kate. Did you soak the fruit in brandy or grappa?”

“Oh, a dash of this and that, Alex, you know how it is.”

She nods. “I was thinking of asking everyone to make stollen for next year. What d’you think? Do you have a good recipe?”

“No, but I know a supermarket that does.”

“Ha-ha-ha-ha! Very good. Ha! Ha! Ha!”

Alexandra is the only woman I know who laughs as though it was written down. Mirthless, heaving Ted Heath shoulders. Any second now she will ask me if I’ve gone part-time yet.

“So, are you working part-time now? No? Still full-time. Good heavens! I don’t know how you do it, honestly. I say, Claire, I was just saying to Kate, I don’t know how she does it. Do you?”

7:27 P.M. The strain of being an angel has taken its toll on Emily. She is so exhausted that I calculate I can turn over three pages of the bedtime story without her noticing. Must get on with that e-mail backlog. But just as I am skipping the pages, a suspicious eye snaps open.