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

Alice’s role begins after Bunce has invested in the nappy. It’s a pincer movement of the kind deployed by generals in all those battles I used to know the names of: attack him on one flank and then cut off his route of escape. Evidence that Bunce has recklessly thrown away money on a duff product may not be enough to get Edwin Morgan Forster to sack him; but if he says embarrassing things in an interview which Alice records and gets into print then he’ll become a liability with the clients, and basically he’s hanging from a meat hook in Smithfield’s.

Shouting over the bass track, Alice tells us she has already called Bunce and invited him to appear in a major BBC2 series on MoneyMakers — the City made sexy for the person on the couch.

“How did he take it?” asks Momo, who is more nervous than the rest of us.

Alice grins. “He practically came down the phone. I don’t think I’ll have any trouble persuading him to talk.”

I try to call the meeting to order, but I am competing with “Mamma Mia.” Instead, I hand round a photocopy of what everyone needs to know, plus a picture of Chris Bunce which Candy has lifted from the EMF website. I excuse myself and head for the ladies’ room.

In the corner booth at the back, next to the exit, is a dark-haired figure I vaguely recognize. A little closer and I know exactly who it is.

“Jeremy! Jeremy Browning!” I greet my client with a warmth and volume that will sing in his soul forever. “Well, fancy seeing you here,” I enthuse. “And this must be…it’s Annabel, isn’t it?”

The girl sitting on my client’s left thigh gives a look that is smirk, sneer and smile combined. It says that unfortunately she is not Mrs. Browning but wouldn’t say no if offered the chance.

I extend a friendly hand towards the girl, but it is Jeremy who grasps it eagerly. “Gosh, Kate,” he says, “I didn’t expect to see you here.”

“Well I’m doing some research into expanding my leisure portfolio. Maybe you can give me some pointers? This sector is new to me. Fascinating, isn’t it? Well, must go, lovely to meet you…?”

“Cherelle.”

“Lovely to meet you, Cherelle. Look after him for me.”

I walk away, confident that I have at least one man in my power for all eternity. When I get back to the table, Candy is busy pointing out which of the girls onstage she believes to have had a boob job — and how successful it has been.

“Christ, look at the poor kid with the red hair. I thought they were gonna remove all nuclear weapons from British soil.”

“You should have seen the state of my tits when I had twins,” says Judith, who is on her third Mai Tai.

I watch in horror as the dancer in question leaves the stage and advances upon us, cupping her breasts in the way a dog breeder holds up puppies for inspection.

“Now that’s what I call juggling,” shouts Alice. “The work-life balance — what d’you reckon, Kate?”

“Her pelvic floor must be in good shape,” says Caroline, pointing to another dancer, who is making Mr. Whippy motions as though trying to give birth to an ice cream.

“What’s the pelvic floor?” ask Candy and Momo together.

When I explain, Candy, who thinks prenatal classes are all run by Communists, doesn’t hide her disgust. “But the pelvic thingy goes back into place after the birth, right?”

And the dance floor shudders, and the women around the table laugh and laugh and the men in the club look uncomfortable in the way that only women’s laughter can make them uncomfortable.

I raise my glass. “Screw our courage to the sticking-place, and we’ll not fail!”

“ Die Hard 2 ?” asks Momo.

“No, Lady Macbeth.” What are they teaching them these days?

WHEN ROBIN COOPER-CLARK is ill at ease, he looks like a man trying to arrest himself — one arm clasped tight around his own chest, the other hooked around his neck. This is how uncomfortable he looks on our walk to Sweetings, three days after the meeting in the Suckling Club. The restaurant is quite a distance from the office, but Robin is absolutely insistent that we eat there, so as he marches out with his seven-league stride I scurry along, taking three paces to his one.

Sweetings is a City institution. A fish place that wants to look like a fishmonger’s — lots of cheery shouting, bustle, marble slabs — it’s like a Billingsgate for the moneyed classes. There are counters at the front where people can sit on high stools and pick at crab, and at the back there is a room with long tables like a school canteen. Looking around, it strikes me that there are men in here who have moved from prep to public school to Oxbridge and then on to the City or the Bar and never had any contact with the world as everyone else knows it. If privilege is another country, Sweetings is its corner café.

Robin and I are seated at the far end of one of the long communal tables.

“Bad business, this Bunce thing,” he mutters, studying the menu.

“Mmm.”

“Momo Gumeratne seems a good thing.”

“She’s terrific.”

“And Bunce?”

“Toxic.”

“I see. Now, what are we going to have?” The waiter stands there, pen at the ready, and for the first time I notice what a mess Robin is: the right wing of his shirt collar is furrowed like a brow and there are commas of shaving foam in his ears. Jill would never have let him out of the house looking like that.

“Ah, yes. I think something ferocious with teeth for the lady and an endangered species for me. Turtle soup, perhaps, or is it cod that’s been fished to death by the bloody Spaniards? What d’you reckon, Kate?”

I’m still laughing when Robin says, “Kate, I’m getting married again,” and it’s as though the noise in the room is turned off at the tap. The diners around me mouth mutely like the fish they’re about to consume.

And suddenly I know why he’s brought me here, to this restaurant, to this room. It’s a place where you can’t shout in anger or cry out in pain: a place indeed for sweeting, for bonhomie, for a mild bollocking at worst, a man’s kind of place. How many souls have been grilled at these tables with a smile, how many politely encouraged to step down or step aside over a surprisingly decent glass of Chablis? Now I feel as though it’s Jill Cooper-Clark who’s been let go and me who has to do the decent thing. Look interested, pleased even, instead of upending the table and leaving the men gaping with their napkins and their bones. Only six months dead.

I become aware that Robin has started to tell me about someone called Sally: lovely, incredibly kind, used to boys — got two of her own. Not quite Jill’s speed, but then who is? (Helpless shrug.) And she has so many qualities, this Sally, and the boys need — well, Alex, he’s just ten — he still needs a mother.

“And you,” I say, finding some words in the dry vault of my mouth. “You need her?”

“Mmmh. I need a woman, yes, Kate. We’re not much good on our own, you know.” He waves away the proffered tartar sauce. “I can see how you might find that—”

“What?”

“Feeble, I suppose.” He lowers his glass and pinches the bridge of his nose. “No one can ever replace her, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

Then why replace her if she’s irreplaceable? That’s what I’m thinking. I feel caved in with sadness, as I did that day at Jill’s funeral. I always knew where to find Robin; he always seemed so rooted and so reliable. Looking at him now across the table, it’s a shock to see a lost boy. Men without wives might as well be men without mothers; they are more orphans than widowers. Men without wives, they lose their spines, their ability to walk tall in the world, even to wipe the shaving foam from their ears. Men need women more than women need men; isn’t that the untold secret of the world?