The Weekend Away

by Sarah Alderson

  My jaw drops open. ‘Oh my God,’ I whisper. What are you going to do with all that money?’

  She shrugs. ‘I don’t know yet. Buy a house I think.’

  ‘Where?’ I ask.

  ‘Maybe Richmond,’ she says.

  I look at her, astonished. She’s always looked down her nose at any place outside of Zone one and definitely at neighbourhoods she considers rich and rah. Kate’s a city person and likes to be in the bustling heart of things; she jokes that, like a black cabbie driver, she won’t go south of the river. For all her money and lifestyle, Kate grew up working class and scoffs at toffs and posh people, and Richmond’s bursting at the seams with them. I can hardly see her hanging out in her Barbour jacket and Hunter wellies walking her Labradoodle in the park.

  ‘Seriously?’ I ask her. ‘You’d give up living in Zone one and move to the sticks?’

  She frowns at me. ‘Yes,’ she answers. ‘I think it’s time for a change. You can’t live the same way all your life. It’ll be nice to have a house and a garden. I might start growing my own veg.’

  ‘Next you’ll be saying you want two point four children.’ I giggle into my champagne, noticing I’m getting a little light-headed from drinking on an empty stomach.

  Kate summons the waiter with a nod of her chin then turns back to me. ‘I’m starting to think I might,’ she says.

  I almost choke on my champagne and have to set the glass down. ‘What? Want kids? Really?’ I ask, shocked to my core. She honestly couldn’t have said anything more surprising to me, not even that she was quitting the rat race and the male race to enter a nunnery.

  Kate looks wounded. ‘Why’s that so shocking?’ she asks.

  I shake my head, not wanting to upset her. ‘It’s not. It’s just … I didn’t think you wanted kids.’

  ‘I didn’t,’ she says, carefully folding the napkin on her lap. ‘Not until now. And thank God I didn’t have any with Toby. Can you imagine? He’d have been an awful father. What are you going to order?’ she asks, changing the subject and opening up her menu. ‘The octopus sounds good, doesn’t it? But I’ve heard the pork belly’s great too.’

  We order, with Kate choosing the most expensive thing on the menu, oysters, followed by octopus – and me the cheapest, sardines, which I have heard are a local delicacy.

  When the waiter has gone Kate smiles at me and raises her champagne glass once again, to chink against mine. ‘Here’s to being a mum.’

  ‘To being a mum,’ I agree, trying to wrap my head around Kate wanting children. I had always assumed she didn’t want kids. She’s said so multiple times over the years, talking about how she loves her job too much, as well as her freedom, and making it clear how boring she finds those friends who drone on and on about their kids. After hearing her mocking them I made sure to keep my own gushing talk about Marlow to a minimum around her. And though I did make Kate godmother and she did lavish expensive designer clothes and expensive handmade wooden toys on Marlow, I’ve never asked her to babysit or to change a nappy. I know what Kate’s limitations are but I also know – and argued to Rob, who had his reservations about choosing her to be a godparent – that when Marlow grows up Kate will come into her own as a godmother, or oddmother, as she likes to call herself.

  Admittedly I have felt a little pique of envy at the thought that Kate will be the glamorous aunt figure in Marlow’s life, with her glittering career and enviable wardrobe and global travel to film festivals and the like, but until now I have never thought that Kate might be the one envying me. Does she? It feels strange to even imagine it.

  I wonder at her age, forty-one, if it would be likely she’d even get pregnant. I certainly struggled to, though not just because of my age; I also have a duff uterus. But some women conceive at the drop of a hat, and who’s to say Kate wouldn’t be one of them? It would be typical of her. Everything comes so easily her way: men, success, attention. Why not a baby too?

  ‘I froze my eggs,’ she says, out of nowhere.

  ‘What?’ I ask, almost spitting out my champagne.

  ‘A few years ago,’ she answers with a shrug. ‘I decided I might as well. I knew Toby didn’t want kids and I wasn’t sure I did either, but then seeing what you went through I thought I should, just in case I changed my mind later.’

  I stare at her, completely flabbergasted. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

  She gives an apologetic smile. ‘It was when you were going through IVF and having a hard time and I didn’t want to mention it I guess. I didn’t want to upset you.’

  ‘Why would it have upset me?’ I ask, put out that she kept such a big secret from me. Was I that self-absorbed? Would it have upset me? Annoyingly I have to admit perhaps it would have. Any reminder of another woman’s fertility upset me back then, even the sight of prenatal vitamins with a picture of a pregnant woman on the label would send me scurrying in tears from the chemist.

  Kate bites her lip. ‘I don’t know. I’m sorry. I didn’t think it was a big deal. It wasn’t like I was deciding to have a baby. I just put my eggs on ice. Everyone’s doing it these days. It’s the new Botox. People have egg-freezing parties.’

  My eyebrows shoot up. Not in my world they don’t.

  ‘I’m not shitting you,’ she says. ‘It’s all the rage in Hollywood.’

  Hollywood. Of course. Kate lives and operates in a different world to me altogether and sometimes I forget that. I take a sip of water, trying to regain some composure. ‘Do you think you’ll use them?’ I ask. ‘The eggs?’ I don’t know why but for some reason the thought of Kate becoming a mother bothers me.

  ‘Haven’t decided,’ she answers as the waiter lays down a plate of oysters.

  ‘You’d have to give up eating stuff like that,’ I joke. ‘And drinking too.’

  She cocks her head to one side. ‘Are you saying I couldn’t give it up?’

  I shake my head. ‘No of course not, I mean, if I managed …’ I trail off. I hadn’t intended to suggest she wouldn’t be capable of hacking a nine-month pregnancy but maybe subconsciously I actually had. Maybe that’s what’s annoying me about all this. Her decision seems so sudden and so unthought-through, so typically Kate. Does she have any idea how much work is involved in raising a child? How hard it is? It isn’t like deciding to buy a new pair of shoes. You can’t take them back if you decide you don’t like them and you can’t toss them to the back of your wardrobe and forget about them. It isn’t like when she decided to get married on a whim and ran off to Vegas with Toby.

  You can’t just throw kids away when you get tired of them. And how would she do it on her own, without help? I know she has money but even with all the nannies money could buy it’s difficult being a single mother. I have two friends who are and they deserve medals. I couldn’t do it I don’t think, and I can’t see how Kate would ever have the patience for it.

  ‘Have an oyster,’ she says, pushing the plate towards me.

  I shake my head. It would be just my luck to eat one that was off and get food poisoning.

  ‘Go on,’ she says. ‘They’re great.’

  Oh, what the hell. It’s been years since I’ve eaten any shellfish. I was too worried when I was trying to get pregnant of eating anything that might make me sick. I take one, squeeze some lemon on it, and let it slide down my throat, leaving behind the taste of seawater. ‘That was good,’ I say. ‘Thanks.’

  I’m being judgemental. Kate’s my best friend and I should support her whatever her choice is. ‘You’ll be an amazing mum,’ I tell her.

  She smiles. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Do you think you’ll get a sperm donor?’ I ask.

  She slides another oyster into her mouth. ‘Maybe,’ she says. ‘It’s an option. Though I don’t want to be a single parent. Maybe I’ll find a new man. A decent one this time. One who doesn’t sleep with prostitutes and treat me like shit.’

  She puts her fork down and reaches for her champagne glass, which the waiter has been kept busy filling up.
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  ‘Here’s to that,’ I say, picking my own glass up to cheers her.

  She smiles as our glasses chink together. ‘Do you really think I’ll be a good mother?’ she asks and I hear the note of anxiety in her voice.

  I force a nod. ‘Of course. Look how much Marlow loves you.’

  She smiles wider at that. ‘Well, Marlow and I have a lot in common. We both love to guzzle from a bottle and we both like to have someone do everything for us!’

  I laugh along with her, happy to think about Marlow for a moment. I wonder how she and Rob are getting on.

  ‘Anyway,’ Kate says, interrupting my thoughts and sitting back to let the waiter remove our plates. ‘How are things with you and Rob? Are they better?’

  I pause as the waiter replaces the plates with our main course and a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc.

  ‘OK,’ I say. I’ve told Kate something of the ups and downs our marriage has suffered over the last few years but must admit to having put a better spin on it than is perhaps the truth. ‘Improving slowly.’

  I dig into my sardines, which are more delicious than they look, lying grilled on the plate staring up at me.

  Kate saws through an octopus tentacle covered in tiny suckers. ‘Have you got back on the horse?’ she asks. ‘Are you having sex?’

  Straight to the point as always. ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘I mean, not like we used to …’

  ‘What do you mean? How often are you having it? Once a week? Once a month?’

  ‘Probably a couple of times a month.’

  Her eyes go wide. ‘God,’ she says, ‘I’m amazed your hymen hasn’t regrown. How on earth do you manage without regular orgasms?’

  I blush and check over my shoulder that no one around us can hear, but luckily no one seems to be listening.

  ‘I’m so tired,’ I say by way of explanation. ‘What with housework and Marlow the last thing I want to do in the evening is have sex. Besides, you should try it after you’ve had fifteen stitches in your vagina.’

  She winces. ‘No thanks.’

  ‘Well, if you want a baby …’ I say, laughing at her. ‘You better be prepared. They don’t just pop out like the cork from a champagne bottle.’

  ‘Maybe I’ll opt for a C-section,’ she shoots back, laughing.

  ‘That’s not any better,’ I tell her.

  ‘You can have a tummy tuck at the same time.’ She grins. ‘All the celebs do it. That or they hire a surrogate and skip the whole getting fat part altogether.’

  I glance down at my plate; the sardine, sitting beside its nest of potato, looks back accusingly.

  ‘Not that you got fat,’ Kate adds quickly. ‘Besides, I’m only joking,’ she says. ‘I’m not too posh to push.’

  ‘You might become too posh if you move to Richmond.’

  She laughs even louder and pours us more wine, without waiting for the waiter to do it. I hold up a hand to stop her filling my glass because I can feel myself getting quite drunk already, but she bats my hand away. ‘Come on, we’re going to have fun tonight.’

  Reluctantly I let her refill my glass. ‘I just don’t want to end up with my head in a toilet bowl later.’

  Kate has always handled her drink much better than me and now, after giving up alcohol when I was pregnant and breast-feeding, I’m more than a lightweight. I take a small sip and then sigh. ‘Honestly, I just don’t feel like it.’

  ‘Like what?’ Kate asks. ‘Champagne? What’s wrong with you?’

  ‘No, I meant having sex with Rob.’

  ‘Why not?’ she asks. ‘Did you stop fancying him?’

  I shake my head. ‘No. It’s not that.’ Rob’s still good-looking, still in shape from his daily cycling, and we still get on as friends and as partners. We still love each other and I know he wants to have sex with me because he keeps trying to. ‘I just don’t feel in the mood ever,’ I explain. ‘I don’t feel attractive. I think that’s the problem. I don’t want him to see me naked. And he’s a visual guy. He likes the lights on.’

  She smirks. ‘You’ve still got it, what are you talking about? You’re a hot MILF. There’s a guy over there by the bar who checked you out when we came in.’

  I glance over towards the bar but it’s rammed with people and I can’t figure out who she means. ‘Thanks,’ I say turning back to look at her. ‘Most days I feel like a fat, frumpy, middle-aged hag.’

  ‘Well you’re not,’ she tells me. ‘You’re gorgeous. How’s Rob taking the lack of sex?’ she asks.

  ‘Fine,’ I say, though truthfully, I’m not sure. He acts fine and understanding but of course he would because he’s a nice guy.

  ‘Be careful,’ Kate warns. ‘Look at Toby. We had a great sex life and he still played away.’

  My knife and fork hover in mid-air. ‘What do you mean? Rob would never have an affair.’

  ‘I know,’ she says, ‘that’s not what I’m saying. I’m just warning you that if a man doesn’t get sex he’ll start to look elsewhere. Even the nice ones.’ She must see the look on my face as she hurries on. ‘But not Rob. I can’t imagine Rob ever having an affair. He adores you. And Marlow. I’m sorry. I’m just projecting.’

  I put my cutlery down. ‘No, you’re right. It did cross my mind,’ I say. ‘But only because he seemed distant for a time when Marlow was a couple of months old. But we talked it out. He said he was feeling left out, you know, because I was breast-feeding and I got to be at home with the baby while he had to go to work. I think it’s quite common for men to feel like a spare part in the early days – that’s what the books say anyway. But everything’s been good since we talked. I mean, he tells me he loves me all the time and buys me flowers and when we do have sex it’s good. Well, good considering I don’t have much of a pelvic floor anymore.’

  ‘Well then—’ she laughs ‘—ignore me. What do I know about marriage or relationships? I’m a disaster at them. So long as you’re happy, that’s all that matters.’

  I nod and look down at my plate, trying to blink away a sudden welling up of tears.

  ‘You are happy, aren’t you?’ Kate asks.

  I look up, swallowing hard. She’s staring at me, her eyes narrowed. She knows me better than anyone and has seen through my stiff upper lip.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I blurt out. The wine has made my tongue loose and I think to myself I should probably not say anything but the words tumble out of me before I can stop them. ‘I know I should be happy. I’ve got an amazing husband and an amazing child and I’ve got so much to be grateful for but somehow I don’t feel happy. I feel quite down actually, quite a lot of the time.’

  Much to my horror tears slip from my eyes. Why am I admitting all this? Kate stares at me, her blue eyes widening with surprise at this out-of-nowhere admission. Her cutlery clatters to her plate and she reaches across and grabs my hand. ‘Oh my God, why didn’t you tell me?’

  I bite my lip to stop from crying any more. ‘I don’t know. I haven’t told anyone. I just keep pretending everything’s OK, hoping that if I fake it I’ll make it. But I feel so tired and I know I should be happy, so then I feel even worse.’

  Kate looks stunned. ‘I can’t believe you didn’t tell me you’ve been feeling this way! I would have been there for you. Does Rob know?’

  I shake my head. ‘No. He’s seen me cry a few times but he doesn’t understand it. He thinks it’s just hormones. Maybe it is.’

  ‘Do you think it’s postnatal depression?’ Kate asks.

  My lip wobbles. It’s the first time someone has asked me directly whether or not I’m depressed other than the health visitor who I lied to because I was scared of being judged. ‘Maybe,’ I say, feeling like there’s a stone lodged in my throat.

  ‘Have you spoken to the doctor?’ she presses.

  I shake my head. I keep thinking about going but then changing my mind. I’m not that sad, just a bit down. And I don’t want to take any drugs. I want to figure it out on my own. Like Rob says, I’m sure it will pass.

 
; ‘There’s no shame in it you know,’ Kate says, reading my mind. ‘Drugs can help.’

  I nod. If anyone knows it’s Kate. She’s been on and off antidepressants for years.

  ‘Why don’t you make an appointment to see the doctor when you get back? Speak to someone. Get some help.’ She frowns at me in consternation. ‘I really wish you’d told me before now.’

  I nod and with a shaky hand take a big gulp of wine. Having admitted it to Kate it already feels like a weight has lifted off my shoulders. She’s right. I should have admitted it to her before now. I guess I felt ashamed that I was sad after having spent so long striving for a baby and being upset about it not happening. It felt churlish and ungrateful to feel depressed after I got what I wanted and had a healthy, beautiful baby in my arms.

  ‘Talking of drugs,’ Kate says, fishing a little silver pillbox out of her bag with a flourish.

  ‘What is that?’ I ask, my eyes darting to the tables around us because I already know what the little pillbox contains. Or at least, I can make an educated guess.

  ‘Fancy a line?’ she asks.

  ‘Coke?’ I whisper in astonishment.

  She nods. ‘It’ll lift your mood.’

  ‘How on earth did you get that on the plane?’

  ‘Oh, it’s easy if you know how,’ she replies with a wink and a secretive smile. ‘You just pack it in with your tampons. Do you want some?’

  I glance around again, nervously. ‘What? Here?! Now?’

  ‘Yes,’ she says deadpan. ‘I’m going to snort a line of coke off the table in front of everyone.’ She shakes her head. ‘No. I’m going to the bathroom. Are you coming?’

  ‘I’m good,’ I say.

  She narrows her eyes and looks at me with that same sly smile, the tempting devil on my shoulder. ‘Come on,’ she pouts.

  Once upon a time I would have said yes to that and to whatever pills Kate offered up. We never used to go clubbing without first dropping ecstasy or doing coke, usually both. But those days are long gone. ‘I can’t,’ I tell her. ‘I’d be off my head.’

  ‘Exactly,’ she says, her eyes lighting up. ‘Let’s have some fun. Go clubbing. My friend told me about a place—’