Do You Want to Know a Secret? (20 page)

‘Thirty pounds,’ Barbara quips. ‘Wow. That’s like, half a Backstreet Boy.’

‘Who are the Backstreet Boys? Never even heard of them,’ sneers Emily, looking at Barbara like she’s an old, old lady, in a way that only a true pre-teen can really pull off.

‘Never you mind. I’ll give you one tip though, Emily. Guys hate skinny girls. Known fact. They prefer curves. That’s why Kate Moss only ever goes out with complete losers, you know, they’re the only ones who’ll put up with her having no flesh on her bones. So if I were you I’d do what your mother says and eat up. Mints are not a food group.’

Amazingly, this approach actually works, and Emily now grudgingly shovels a few morsels of lamb chop into her mouth, accompanied by a deeply grateful look from Laura. Then she starts going on about how much she wants a boob job for her sixteenth birthday: ‘I mean, come on, Mom, all the other girls in my school are getting one.’ But as Laura calmly and sensibly points out, we’ve a few years yet to pee on that particular fire.

Meanwhile George Junior and Jake manage the feat
of
wolfing back a full meal in approximately three minutes flat. This is followed by a heated discussion/row between Laura and George Junior, who wants to go back out biking with the thuggo friends. It goes along these lines.

‘I told you I was going back out after dinner, Mom.’

‘You most certainly did not.’

‘I did. In body language.’

Laura sighs exhaustedly, in that way parents have when they recognize that the fight is actually futile. ‘Right then. Back here by ten sharp, or else I’m ringing the police and then your father, in that order.’

Anyway, Jake is dispatched out the back to clean out his gerbil’s cage, Emily wafts upstairs to go on her favourite internet chat room, and finally we have a bit of peace.

‘Do you want to know what my secret dream is?’ says Laura as we help her wash up. (Everything in this house has to be hand-washed
before
it’s deemed clean enough for the dishwasher. Honestly.) ‘To live in a house with a panic room,’ she goes on. ‘That way, I could either lock them into it or myself if I needed calm.’ Meanwhile Baby Julia gurgles peacefully away, dozing off in her little Moses basket. ‘Never learn to talk properly, my little cherub,’ Laura coos down at her, wiping her hands in a dishcloth. ‘Because the sooner you learn to speak, the sooner you’ll speak back.’

The unusual peace (for this house) continues as the three of us move into the living room, uncork a bottle of wine, dim the lights and light all the little tea-lights dotted on the fireplace. We all sit in a kind of circle, with the baby miraculously dozing away in her little basket beside us.

God, we must look like some weird kind of coven, except with crèche facilities.

‘You’re the hostess, you go first,’ Barbara says to Laura, gently, for her, sensing that she’s had a rough day.

‘Oh, ladies, where to begin,’ she says, tiredly pouring out wine for the three of us. ‘All right then, shameful admission number one, I had to ask my mother for yet another lend of money this evening. And it’s a measure of how little pride I have left that I calmly took the cheque from her, listened to the accompanying lecture, and didn’t even care. All I could think was, thank God, that’s this term’s school fees sorted, and at least I have another couple of months before I have to fret about September and all the usual back-to-school expenses.’

Truth to tell, I kind of copped on when I saw the old dragon with her cheque book earlier, but thought it best to say nothing.

‘Shameful admission number two,’ she goes on, taking a long deep mouthful of wine, ‘the long summer holidays are around the corner and for once, I actually feel sorry for my kids. They have to listen to all their
friends
going on about trips to Spain and Portugal when they’ll be doing well if I can bribe my parents to let us have their holiday cottage in Connemara for a week. Oh, ladies,’ she says, running her fingers through her fine, neatly cut hair. ‘I sometimes have these road-to-Damascus moments where I look at my life and wonder, how did I get into this
mess
? I just need cash so, so badly.’

‘Your short story was brilliant,’ I say encouragingly. And for once I’m not even exaggerating, it really,
really
was.

Barbara and I chipped in with a few, really very few, comments and suggestions about the piece, which she took on board, then emailed off the finished product to
Tattle
magazine yesterday. So she’s actually the only one of us with her Butterfly Club assignment all done and dusted. Which kind of gives me a brief, momentary flashback to our schooldays, when Laura was always Miss Perfect, Goody Two-Shoes, everything done on time, without any hassle or fuss. Always.

‘Shameful admission number three,’ she goes on, ‘I actually
enjoyed
writing that story. I found it strangely cathartic. There I was, snatching what little time I could, and for some reason I kept thinking about J. K. Rowling.’

‘J. K. Rowling?’ says Barbara.

‘Was a single mom and wrote the first Harry Potter
in
a café somewhere, to save on light and heating bills in her flat. What can I say? It’s a tale I can relate to.’

‘And look at her now; she’s, like, richer than the Queen,’ I chip in encouragingly.

‘But, Laura, this is amazing,’ says Barbara, flicking through my dog-eared law of attraction book and stopping at a page she’s turned down. I lent it to her a few days ago and ever since, you should just hear her; it’s all ‘the universe this and the universe that’.

‘Oh please, not that bloody book again. Honestly, you pair treat it like it’s the I Ching,’ Laura says, tiredly.

‘No, hear me out. Yes, here it is. “Imagination is the preview of life’s forthcoming attractions,” she reads aloud, in the voice I happen to know she only saves for doing voiceovers. ‘It’s a quote from Einstein actually, so it must be the real deal. By thinking about J. K. Rowling and focusing on how she turned her life around, you, honey, are creatively visualizing a wealthy fab life for yourself and the kids. You just don’t
know
that you are.’

‘She’s dead right,’ I say, knocking back a big gulp of wine. ‘We have to train ourselves to see the things we want as already ours. Act as if.’

‘So are you both suggesting that I go to my friendly bank manager, demand a ten-grand overdraft and whisk my kids off to a villa in Barbados for the summer? And won’t my justification just sound fabulous in
bankruptcy
court. ‘Your honour, all I’m guilty of is acting as if, just as my head case friends advised me to.’

‘You’re missing the point,’ says Barbara, in her assertive, Donald Trump voice. ‘You have to focus absolutely on seeing yourself living your best life. In your dream home, with no financial worries, wondering whether or not you’ll buy the new Lexus jeep or say to hell with the mammy wagon, and treat yourself to a flashy little Porsche.’

‘Pre-paving,’ the book calls it,’ I butt in. ‘It even has all these case studies about people who, when it came down to it, didn’t really know what they wanted out of life. The point is: if you don’t even know in the first place, then how can it ever manifest for you?’

‘Is this some kind of cautionary tale?’

‘Emm, no, I’m just saying, at least you’re very clear about what it is that you do want. It’s a start, isn’t it?’

‘Ladies,’ says Laura slowly, ‘it’s not that I don’t appreciate you trying to help me out, honestly. But when you both tell me that all I need do is think wealth and it’ll just magically land in my lap, I have to say I think we’re in serious danger of straying into men-in-white-coats territory here, and not for the first time either.’

‘You’re focusing on money worries, so all you’re doing is attracting even more of them,’ says Barbara firmly. ‘Here’s a good one,’ she continues, opening the book at yet another well-thumbed-down page. ‘This’ll
help
. “Attitude is gratitude. Be grateful for what’s already yours, and more of it will somehow find its way to you.”’

Laura is looking intently at her, and I swear I can almost see some witty, cutting riposte formulating at the back of her sharp mind, so in I jump.

‘Four healthy kids is a great start. Come on, I’d be over the moon if I had that.’

‘“And when you begin to feel deep joy about what you
do
have,”’ Barbara continues, reading aloud, ‘“there is no speedier way to attract your true heart’s desire into your life.”’

There’s a long, long pause as Laura swirls wine around the bottom of her stem glass.

‘Yes,’ she eventually agrees, palming her tired, bloodshot eyes. ‘Of course I’m grateful for my family. And even on the very worst day, when I have to resort to grade one nagging, believe it or not, I love and adore the little monsters and I wouldn’t have things any different. In fact at this stage, my nagging is like a reflex action, and I honestly don’t know why I even bother doing it. It seems to have absolutely no effect on them whatsoever.’

‘Can I just remind you, that if you were practising at the Bar and you’d never married or had kids, right now, you’d probably be the broodiest woman in the northern hemisphere,’ Barbara adds, which is actually a terrific
point
and I only wish I’d thought of saying it first.

‘And they are fundamentally great kids,’ I offer.

‘You think? You want one?’

‘Stop messing.’

‘All right, ladies, I’ll admit you’re quite right, and I suppose any kind of reality check does me no harm. Do you know, my neighbour down the road was in the A & E the other night with her little boy who has chronic asthma, and yes, I do hear stories like that and just want to hug mine. If they’d let me, that is. All I’m saying is, I would dearly love not to have to worry about money the whole, entire time. It’s wearing me down. And I’m tired, and I’m fed up, and I honestly don’t know how much longer I can keep up the struggle. It’s like I’m constantly moving from one worry to another, and I’m never, ever out of the woods.’

‘Right, then,’ says Barbara in her assertive voice. Clearly, she’s the chairwoman and that’s all there is to it. ‘In that case, your assignment for next week couldn’t be simpler. I want you to write out a list of everything you’d do if money was no object. Take the kids on a summer holiday, pay fees, move to a larger house, change the car, whatever. And then . . .’

‘Staple it to George Hasting’s head?’

‘No, smart arse, then you’re going to really work on visualizing it. In fact, I think we might all do a creative visualization exercise at the end of this
session
,’ Barbara decrees. ‘If no one has any objections?’

‘Well, as long as the neighbours can’t see in through the windows.’

‘Just tell them we’re doing yoga or t’ai chi or something cool, that’ll shut them up.’

‘Oh, and while we’re giving Laura assignments, I have one to throw into the pot,’ I venture.

‘Yes, dearest?’

‘Keep writing.’ I don’t even know why I’m saying this to her, selfish reasons most likely. I loved reading her short story, and it’s not often I get a chance to read something in my office and crease myself laughing at the same time. ‘Just keep writing,’ I repeat. ‘Offer it up to J. K. Rowling.’

‘Right, then,’ says Barbara, flicking
The Law of Attraction
open to the chapter on relationships. ‘Moving on to you, Vicky.’

Oooh, great, I’m dying to talk about Daniel Best.

‘Except you’re vetoed from talking about Daniel Best.’

Shit.

There was me thinking I could re-analyse with the girls in fine forensic detail the story of bumping into him on the street with Eager Eddie last week. For about the thousandth time. Not that there’s actually that much to tell: he was his usual laid-back self, chatted affably about the movie they’d all seen, then politely asked
where
we’d been, whereupon Eager Eddie went on about Eden and how wonderfully romantic the whole meal was, the dirty big liar.

As for me, I can’t be 100 per cent sure, but I think what I came out with might have been along the lines of, ‘Well, err, umm . . . you see . . . yeah, we did have a quick casual bite to eat and now we’re calling it a night. I’m absolutely dying to go home.’ Then, with horror, I realized, as if Eager Eddie and I didn’t already look coupley enough, that I was making it sound as if we were rushing off home together to rip each other’s clothes off. So I back-pedalled, and added, ‘Emm . . . home to my house, that is. Where I live . . . emm . . . on my own.’

Daniel did that slow, lazy smile he has which makes his eyes go all crinkly at the edges, then, as far as I can remember, he threw in something like, ‘Well, I’d better catch up with my gang. Nice meeting you, and safe home, Vicky. To your house, where you live. On your own.’

Then, pretty much all last week, I was in touch with Best’s about the ad campaign which I’ve started working on in earnest, but all I could glean from Amanda was that he’d gone to the States on business and that no one was really sure when to expect him back. Not that I’m bothered, really.

In fact, I don’t even know why his name keeps slipping out.

The thing is, though, I just . . . well, I’d just hate him to get the wrong idea about me and Eager Eddie, that’s all. And Barbara is dead right: I shouldn’t keep going on about him. I should just sit here quietly, hear what she has to say and reap the benefits of her far superior-management skills.

Oh f**k it, I can’t resist.

‘Can I just ask you, oh wise dating guru, one teeny question about Daniel?’

‘NO!’

‘It’ll take you ten seconds to answer it!’

‘NO!’

‘I don’t want him to think that I’m seeing someone!’ I blurt out anyway, what the hell.

‘We’ve been over this and over it, and the fact is . . .’

‘Oh, come on, what is your main objection to him?’

‘For about the hundredth time: one, if you start fixating about him, then you know right well that you’ll end up doing your usual trick of focusing entirely on him while ignoring other lovely guys all around you; and two, you’re going to be working for his company. Bad idea to get involved with anyone you work with, trust me.’