There's More to Life Than Cupcakes

by Poppy Dolan

  And just like that, it appears our Sunday won’t involve a lie-in, bagels and a Take Me Out catch-up after all. Oh well, a good excuse to bake. I could try a chocolate and raspberry roulade if I feel like I’ve got the balls. I once did profiteroles on a Mike and Estelle visit and Estelle even lifted an eyebrow in appreciation. She’s the reason Mum gets obsessed with gravy. (Or, if Estelle is visiting, ‘jus’ as Mum thinks we must call it, so that Estelle will know what we mean. Regardless that Estelle speaks better English than my dad.) Estelle can’t help it, but she inspires panic, anxiety and overachieving in others. She can’t help it because she can’t help being beautiful, poised, kind, unbelievably cool and naturally intelligent in every satiny thread of her being. I could talk about her hair for, like, months. Pete once had to tell me it was time to change the subject when she wore her deep brown hair in an amazing topknot one Christmas. ‘But how does she get it right up there?’ I asked, incredulous. ‘Right on the top! Like a yolk in a fried egg! And no wisps coming out, no lumpy bits at the back—’

  Estelle is not, in any Dickensian way her name might suggest, cruel or mean or exacting or nasty. She doesn’t want us to dance around her like lovesick bumble bees, trying to prove our hexagon of honey is better than anyone else’s. She just wants us to sit, be normal, have tea. But we can’t. I have to wear my very coolest clothes, my Mum has her hair blow-dried and Dad leans against the fireplace, like a balding Cary Grant. Then we get out the cafetière and pontificate about politics. It’s exhausting. But we can’t stop. She’s cool and French! We have so much to apologise for, even as she steps over the threshold! Forgive us for being paltry ros bifs, please!

  I think my brother’s natural laissez-faire (sorry, couldn’t help it after Estelle thoughts) was what in fact hooked such a gorgeous and sharp woman. He’s one of the few people who doesn’t act like Helen Mirren and Frank Sinatra’s long-lost lovechild has just walked through the door. He rarely gives a rat’s ass about anything and when he started dating Estelle he applied all that laziness, lack of attention to detail and sleepiness that past girlfriends had come to know and loathe. But for her, it was a refreshing change. Sacré bleu! she must have thought (or perhaps not). For in under a year they were engaged, three months after that married and a year after that strolling nonchalant as you like out of King’s Hospital with a baby each. Job lot. And my brother barely broke a sweat through any of it.

  A trendy mum strides past the stall – legs in thigh-high camel leather boots, furry gilet clasped together with one hand while the other pushes along the NASA-designed stroller with ease. A very fat baby eyeballs me innocently as they pass.

  Dark chocolate and raspberry roulade. Definitely.

  Chapter Eighteen

  ‘Love, you’ve done us proud!’ Dad cuts through the firm but happily yielding sponge and cream layers. I’d been praying to the idol of St Mary of the Berries that I’d get a good whirl of white against brown and not a wonky triangle. Somehow, I’ve pulled it off. Or rolled it up, you know.

  ‘Mmmm! Looks good, sis. Just popping out for a sneaky one, save us a massive slice, please.’ Though my sister-in-law gives him a disapproving look, Mike slips out the sliding lounge doors to the garden. As he sparks up, Pete clears his throat and gets up from the table.

  ‘You know, I’m pretty stuffed from all that lovely lamb, Gail. So I might just join Mike. In the garden.’ As Pete ambles out, I match Estelle’s slight grimace. Pete doesn’t smoke and he doesn’t like getting a faceful of someone else’s Malboroughs, so I have no idea why he’d pass up cake for carcinogens.

  ‘Ooooh, Ellie this is delicious.’ Estelle turns over a very small mouthful behind her lips and smiles. Her French accent, now thicker since her move home, adds extra letters to ‘Ooooh’; there’s a ‘w’ and a few ‘ch’s even thrown in there. ‘Alfred and Agnes, isn’t your aunt clever with her baking? So so clever.’ Alfred and Agnes nod in unison from their seats, chins only just above the table top. Dear God, I wish she hadn’t named them with the same first letter. It makes it worse.

  The children follow suit and take small, sensible bites of the pudding. Eating it slowly and surely, there is an awkward seven minutes when Mum, Dad and I have long since wolfed ours down and the French contingent are still deliberating and cogitating, nodding at each other in foodie delight and exercising what I believe they call ‘Portion Control’. Estelle doesn’t finish hers, of course.

  ‘So full!’ she merrily exclaims. ‘And so now we will walk.’ This is not a question. It’s borderline an order but charmingly done, so there are no complaints. ‘Gail, Steven, you should stay here, talk to Michael. Please don’t let him smoke any more!’ She laughs her sweet trilling laugh after this, but we know the message is clear. Right now, I think Mum would happily sell Mike down the river for Estelle’s nod of approval. Poor Mike.

  ‘Aunty and I will take you to the park now. Shoes and coats, please.’ With another synchronised nod, the twins leave the table dutifully and walk calmly to the hall. It’s like Estelle is some retelling of Mary Poppins, as dreamt up by a French supermodel. Then I realise that she’s looking at me, and I shuffle off to put my own wellies on.

  The countryside in Mum and Dad’s neck of the woods is glistening beautifully in the November frost. I’m starting to feel seriously Christmassy – I honestly prefer to start feeling festive in November, so I squeeze all the silly joy out of the holidays. Plus, the many, varied and fattening baking options can be better explored over eight weeks than four. Unlimited mince pies over two months: oh my word.

  ‘Sadly, we will be in France for Christmas,’ Estelle shrugs, ‘so it will be just you and Pete with your parents. I am sorry you will not get to see Alfred and Agnes open their presents. It is such fun.’

  I watch the two pairs of mittened hands – one pair purple, one green – that are clasped behind two small backs, like mini Poirots pondering a crime as they trot towards the park. No four-year-old should walk like Alfred Hitchcock, even if he is your namesake. I imagine they unpick the sellotape on their Christmas presents carefully, then fold the untorn paper in a neat pile, to ‘be saved’. If the French way of raising obedient children is to basically create small middle-aged people, I’m not sure it’s a method I’m going to try. I wouldn’t want my own toddler lecturing me on my lack of a stock portfolio or advising me to take aspirin to ward off heart disease.

  ‘You and Pete are happy, yes?’ Estelle’s glittering blue eyes turn to me, two slim eyebrows lowered in concern.

  ‘Of course!’ I say quite loudly.

  ‘He thinks of something. I see that. What are his thoughts about?’ Perhaps Estelle’s English isn’t so perfect on the colloquial level after a few years over the Channel.

  ‘Um, maybe work. Work stress. And his brother is having a baby, quite young. So maybe that too.’ I have my eyes on the two toddler detectives pounding the pavement in front, but those glacial Gaul eyes keep their gaze on the side of my face. It’s as if she can see through me, right past my Garnier BB cream, through my upper epidermis, my tissue, through to the DNA. And printed on each strand of the double helix is ‘Pete wants a baby right now and I’m not sure I do so I’ll just keep making chocolate roulades until the answer becomes clear. Sorry. Thanks.’

  ‘Maybe. Maybe. Or, perhaps there is something he is not telling of. Maybe something you are not telling of, to him?’

  Although a part of me would love to crumble like a low-fat breadstick right now and tell Estelle every little odd thought I’ve had about babies, pregnancy, bodies, hospitals, job prospects, family life, cracked nipples, I know that such mental messiness is not Estelle’s way of thinking. She will probably just say something deep and to the point, like a French Yoda: ‘Do it or do not. Your fate is your own.’ And with a hair flick, we’ll be on to a different topic. Plus, she will probably mention it to Mike who will idly ask Mum, ‘So why is Smells so weird about babies?’ And then I will have to peel my mum off the ceiling with her best Vileda mop. This tricky
bit of life planning will mark me out as a baby hater if I so much as whisper it to the already babied-up. In fact, the only people I’ve ever talked to about it properly are … Hannah. And some Internet randoms. How can I ask someone already with a sprog if having a baby will ruin your career/brain/body/sex life/relationships/menu choices for life without sounding as negative, judgemental and preachy as Jeremy Kyle locked in a Baptist church? Sadly, these are the people who might be able to instantly make me snap out of my unfertilised-navel-gazing but I wouldn’t want to damage those friendships by trampling all over their own feelings. And to bother my friends without babies would be about as relevant as asking Prince Harry for tips on stretching a household budget. Lydia would come out in spots, if her chat at the market the other week is anything to go by. And Pete. My Pete. The man who gives me everything and really just wants one thing in return. Well, he is a man, so let’s push that to two, if we’re being honest. I can’t say some of these things to him – it would surely break his very good, very fine heart – and yet I can’t keep him dangling. Even if I can’t make my mind up now, I can’t let things drag on forever. It might tarnish our relationship a little if I turn to him and shriek in surprise, ‘Now! I’m ready to have a baby right now!’ just to find we have two sets of dentures and a false hip between us.

  Seeing Estelle in all her confident, uncomplicated, grown-up glory today, steadies something in me. Not, like, to the point of knowing whether I’m ready to get up the duffers. Hold on, fella! But I am ready to make myself get ready. It’s December 1st tomorrow. Two months and two weeks till Valentine’s Day next year. And if I can’t make up my mind about babies by then, they should take away my driver’s licence and Oasis store card. Because what kind of simpleton can’t make a decision on something as elemental as this after seventy-six days? I’ll blog like mad, I’ll observe in the field, I’ll read Grazia articles, I’ll watch One Born Every Minute on loop. I can’t really be an idiot; I must be able to make up my mind. For once and for all. And for Pete. My Pete. I’m going to focus on being a lot nicer to my Pete.

  Chapter Nineteen

  As part of my ‘Just got on with it, Eleanor!’ baby research campaign, I’m spending a lovely lunch hour in Mamas & Papas near the office, touching gorgeous, delicate baby things and thinking, ‘Really how hard can it be to take control of someone so much smaller than yourself?’ I don’t get wibbly over the idea of having a hamster. I had one when I was eleven, and it lived for a very healthy two years until Mum said he’d run away while she was doing the hoovering and couldn’t hear him escape. Mike said she vacuumed him up, but I choose to ignore that.

  However, my research/browsing expedition is ruined when I clock Sacha from Design by the Bugaboos. Shit. I knew I should have gone to a branch at least three Tube stops away. Or put on a moustache.

  She catches up to me by the breast pumps, and I’m trying to look nonchalant as I examine bumper packs of muslin cloths.

  ‘Elle?’ she floats over, all black jeans and black baggy shirt and smirky ruby-red lips. Everyone in Design calls me Elle, even though I never introduced myself as such. It’s as if they’ve redesigned my name for me, finding plain old Eleanor a bit too clunky or Ellie far too pedestrian. God knows what they’d do to my wardrobe if given an afternoon and a pair of scissors. If you wear anything other than black, grey or red in that department, your regulation funky Perspex glasses are reclaimed and snapped clean in two in front of your eyes.

  ‘Oh hi!’ I bleat.

  ‘Hi! Funny seeing you here! I’m buying something for a baby shower at the weekend. Can you believe some women are sending out gift lists now, like for a wedding?’ She whips out the shower invitation, pastel pistachio and obviously printed at home with a good old PC. I wonder whether she’s annoyed at the notion of the list or the fact that it’s presented in centre-aligned fourteen pt. Helvetica and she would have gone to town with such a commission. Probably Storks-meets-Warhol.

  ‘Wow, that is crazy,’ I giggle nervously. There’s a white stuffed elephant poking its cuddly trunk between us in this unfortunate encounter. She must now imagine I’m impregnated and I must effortlessly disprove this without looking like it could even be a reality in my life. And without looking like a tool in front of one of the uber-cool designers. Nuts.

  ‘I’m here … getting something for my sister-in-law. Who is pregnant. She is having a baby.’

  ‘I believe that’s usually what it means,’ Sacha drawls.

  Casually slinging my arm out over my shoulder, I chatter on, ‘They have so much great stuff here.’

  Her eyes follow over my shoulder to where I’d been desperately gesturing.

  Breast shields. Breast pads. And ‘Realistic nipple teats’. Big nuts. ‘She and I are very close,’ I finish quietly but with faux reverence.

  ‘Hmmm.’ Sacha nods and folds her arms across her skeletal chest. ‘Well, I hope I don’t get stung for a crocheted throw like I did last time. I get that it’s handmade, and Alpaca wool, deadly soft, all that. But do I seriously have to pay two hundred and eighty pounds for the joy of someone else having unprotected sex?’

  Sacha’s clear, hard tones suddenly make me feel very very conspicuous in this shop of preggy women and expectant dads.

  ‘I should get back.’ I smile and hoist my cobalt satchel higher up my shoulder. Maybe the colour pop will startle her designer senses long enough for me to escape.

  ‘What about your sister-in-law?’ she asks pointedly.

  ‘Yes. Of course.’

  And so I now have three breast shields in a range of sizes. I wonder if I could comfortably give them to Skye? What universe would that be appropriate in?

  But as I try to stride off my irked embarrassment on the way back to the office, I realise I have learnt an extra vital nugget on my way to The Big Decision: you can get your mates to buy you fancy baby stuff. Score.

  ‘Nice lunch, Ellie?’ Gina chirrups from behind her desk. She has settled into Crumbs life in record time. Just a few weeks in, and her desk is meticulously organised, she has a To-Do list neatly written up with red strikethroughs for accomplished tasks and she eats her lunch with all the other young types, giggling as they walk out to get their M&S sandwiches to eat in the break room. I’m relieved, and impressed. She’s been every bit as gutsy and sharp as she seemed in her interview. So her unfortunate reward is that I’ve shifted all my admin to her so I can really work on my contacts and press for some bigger ad campaigns. So far, there’s been no obvious eye rolls when I’ve handed her invoices or meeting requests but I think she’s just too smart to let any frustration show. I remember what it was like to be a put-upon junior: I bet I get my fair share of moans as the assistants gab over their crayfish and rocket. But that is the circle of office life: one day you’re grateful to have been picked out of the jungle as a young cub by the elders, then as soon as you get your teeth in you start to crave a little nip at their heels. I get that Gina’s got a brilliant mind and a thirst for success. In her interview she baldly told me she’d be a MD before she was forty. Not that she hopes, not that she’d try: she said she would be. Maybe she’s watched too many episodes of The Apprentice while popping ProPlus in the dark hours of revision nights. Maybe her ambition is just the tiniest bit scary. But for me, I plan to use that Energiser Bunny enthusiasm to the full; she’ll add extra oomph to the department when we need it most.

  I’m just hanging up my coat and wondering whether it’s still too early to call New York and try and work my way in to the Kraft marketing department, when I notice a fuchsia-pink handbag slung on my office chair.

  ‘Um, Gina. Is that yours?’ I point.

  She flicks her rose gold curls over her shoulder. ‘Oh no, that’s Cat’s. Martin needed a desk for her and I said I didn’t know how long you’d be gone for lunch, so she should use yours.’

  I wince. She’s managed to make Martin think I was off taking a supremely lazy lunch break, just when he’s asked me to knuckle down for all our sakes. Nice. Gi
na has a lot to learn about office communications.

  The name Cat doesn’t really ring a bell, but maybe it’s a freelance writer or photographer that needs to login quickly. I put the bag down by my filing cabinet and swivel back to my desk.

  ‘Uh, that’s, like, mine,’ a nasal voice sneers behind me.

  Unless we’re doing a feature on the eating habits of leggy teens, this is no freelancer. In fact, judging by the worrying gap between her long legs, topped off by a micro-mini denim skirt, I’m not sure she knows how to eat at all.

  ‘Daddy said I could sit there, OK? He’s your boss so don’t, you know, piss him off.’ After a scowl, she goes back to her iPhone, obviously waiting for me to move. From my own desk. For her.

  After a slow blink and a deep breath, I turn, still in my chair.

  ‘So you must be Martin’s daughter.’

  ‘Oh, amazing. Total genius.’ Cat catches Gina’s eye but I miss the nanosecond look that passes between them. I feel like a Brown Owl being laughed at by her Brownies. No merit badges for you, Miss Thing.

  After a delicate throat-clearing cough, Gina chimes in, ‘Cat’s here to revise for her AS exams. Martin has a meeting with the accountant he just can’t move, so I said I’d be happy to keep an eye on her.’

  How does Gina know Martin’s ins and outs all of a sudden? The only clue he usually gives that he’s out of the office is that the usual takeaway coffee cup and empty patisserie box are missing from his desk. Tracking him down is like tracking a snacking bear through the woods.

  Talk about keen; this girl is making herself invaluable, which shows she is indeed whip-sharp. If we can’t live without her, we’ll have to start paying her eventually. Clever.

  ‘Right, then. Unfortunately you can’t sit here,’ I wave my hand over my mostly orderly desk, ‘because this is where I work. But I’m sure Gina can find you somewhere else to sit. OK? And if you need anything – pens, paper, help with any of your work – just give me a shout.’