Pear Shaped (16 page)

Her response: ‘That can’t be terribly hygienic.’

It is mid-August, a week before Shellii’s due date, and I am round at my grandmother’s, speaking to her upstairs neighbour, Jack, about borrowing his access code to tap into his WiFi. My grandmother is just a bit too old to get into the internet – I think she’d love it. Having said that, my grandmother holds her cordless home phone out in front of her like a walkie-talkie when she speaks into it, and can’t really understand that a voice on an answering machine is pre-recorded.

Jack is an architect, extremely attractive, forty, single and definitely flirting with me. I always thought it was strange that he was unmarried at forty, but being with James, I’ve forgotten how unusual it is for an attractive man to get past his mid-thirties without biting the bullet. If I wasn’t dating James, I might fancy Jack. I’d have dismissed him as being too old for me a year ago, but forty seems positively youthful now. Besides, I never think of James as nearly fifty – he doesn’t look it, he rarely acts it.

‘How’s your grandma doing?’ says Jack. ‘I haven’t seen her in the garden all summer.’

‘She’s okay,’ I say. ‘Ninety-seven takes its toll. I sometimes
think she’s holding out just to see this baby, and then she’ll turn out the lights …’

‘She’s unbelievable for her age though – always quoting poetry. Amazing memory. So, when’s this baby due then?’

‘8pm next Saturday, which is midday Pacific Standard Time.’

‘Are you psychic or is that a Caesarean?’

‘It’s a Leo …’ I mutter. I’m too ashamed to explain that my brother is having a child with a woman who is being unzipped two weeks early to determine her unborn child’s star sign. ‘Anyway, thanks for the code, I promise I won’t download a wealth of German porn between now and then.’

‘Take my number …’ he says, taking his phone from his jeans pocket. ‘Or better still, give me yours, I’ll call you, then you’ll have mine.’

‘Really?’

‘In case you have any problems with the WEP code,’ he says, smiling as I blush.

‘Thank you for helping, it’s very kind,’ I say.

‘Swing by after the call next week and I’ll open a bottle of something fizzy. Not every day you become an auntie …’

‘Thanks, but … I’m not sure when we’ll be done.’

‘No worries.’ He kisses me goodbye. ‘Another time perhaps …’

‘Another time.’

James is out for drinks with the Bonders to talk about the launch of his new business on the Saturday evening when the baby’s due, so I drive round to my grandma’s on my own with my laptop.

She’s been so excited about today, she’s barely slept. She looks so fragile I’m scared to hug her and Evie says she hasn’t been eating much recently.

I hook up to the internet and click on my Skype account. I’m trying to explain the concept of Skype to my grandma, without success, when my brother phones.

His face appears on screen and my grandma looks at me with wide eyes and starts shaking her head. ‘Incredible,’ she says.

‘Hey! How ya doing?’ Nowadays my brother sounds like he’s auditioning for
Entourage
. He was the biggest nerd in his year at St Paul’s and these days he wears jeans that cost £300 and ponces around drinking spirulina health-shots and eating sushi without the rice. I blame Shellii.

He looks ecstatically happy, and waves to my grandma, who turns to me and says ‘Can he see us?’

‘Yes, and hear us. Say hello.’

My grandma clears her throat and shouts at the screen, ‘Hello, Josh. It’s your grandmother! Remember me?’

‘Do you want to see your great-granddaughter?’ he says.

She turns to me and asks what he’s just said.

‘Show us the baby, what’s her name?’ I say.

He holds up a tiny, perfect little girl, wrapped in a pale
pink blanket, and my grandma looks at me again. ‘Whose baby is that?’

‘What’s her name, Josh?’ I say.

‘Say hello to Elektra Dylan Klein,’ he says.

‘Did he say the little boy’s name is Dylan?’ says my grandmother.

‘That’s your great-granddaughter,’ I say. ‘Elektra.’

She reaches out her hand and her fingers tremble as she touches the screen and strokes the baby’s face. ‘My God,’ she says, ‘Sophie, is this real or am I asleep?’

The start of autumn is a golden dream. James and I spend our weekends walking through leaves, drinking whisky and ginger in pubs and cooking bread and butter puddings. When it rains, we have marathon DVD box set nights, play backgammon and look at the weirdos on Chatroulette.com.

One night in early October, we are lying in his bed, legs entwined, drifting into sleep. I can feel James staring at me. I open my eyes and he is smiling.

‘What?’ I say.

‘How would you feel about helping me out with the kitchen?’

‘It’s two in the morning!’ I say into his chest. ‘I’m not cleaning your bloody oven, James, even your cleaner won’t touch it.’

‘No, dummy, I mean helping me choose a new kitchen.’

I raise myself up on one elbow. ‘You’re actually going to do something about that pit?’

‘You’re a good influence on me, Soph. Besides, I can’t have a girlfriend with a nicer kitchen than me.’

‘Wow, alpha male competitive kitchen war … how can I say no.’ I lie back down and bury my face into his chest.

‘So how about I give you the budget, and you just … choose the perfect kitchen. You’ve got great taste, you know kitchens …’

‘But … it’s your kitchen … I’m totally happy to help you, but … why don’t you just go to Wigmore Street and find a designer.’

‘See, Wigmore Street, you know all the places.’ he says.

‘I’ll help but … it should be your taste, it’s your kitchen.’

‘That’s the thing. I was thinking one day maybe it might be our kitchen …’

‘I think he’s asked me to move in,’ I say.

‘What do you mean, you think?’ says Laura.

‘You know how non-committal he is with the words – everything’s always …
maybe … it might … one day …
’

‘What did he say specifically?’

‘I was half asleep. But I think he wants me to choose a new kitchen for his house. He’s giving me a budget, and when the kitchen’s done, he wants me to move in.’

‘Fucking hell. That’s … great, I’m really happy for you. He makes you happy. What did you say?’

‘Well, then we sort of had a row the following morning about the budget …’

‘God, Soph, can’t you just keep your mouth shut? He’ll give you as much as you need, he’s not tight.’

‘No, that’s the point. He wants me to spend like a hundred grand on it, and I won’t. It’s a ridiculous waste of money.’

‘Bloody hell. You are playing this all so wrong!’

‘Laura, it’s not a game. I just don’t feel comfortable wasting anyone’s money. You can get an amazing kitchen for half that. Look, I don’t have a problem buying beautiful things, but I’m not buying a Swarovski-encrusted bloody extractor fan just for the sake of it, it’s bullshit. All I’ve ever wanted is a fridge with an ice machine in the door. If I can have that I’ll be happy.’

James is busy working on the launch of L’Esteeme, and my new range of desserts is progressing well. Will and I have developed 12 products that are at Stage 3: testing the production lines, macrobiotics and nutritionals.

My weekends and lunch breaks are spent sorting out our-‘our!’-new kitchen. I’ve been up and down Wigmore Street and found a lovely independent showroom, ‘LSW Kitchens,’ run by a man called Luke.

I’ve decided on a modern, simple design that isn’t too obnoxiously priced. James is so not bothered about the money, but I am; so unnecessary to spend fifty grand on a kitchen, let alone more. The things that matter to me are a decent double oven, a double sink and a gas hob. Everything else is a bonus. Three days into the process and I wonder how I have managed to live, let alone cook, without a £4,000 steam oven with a plate-warming drawer.

James wants the kitchen fitted by December, and by
the end of September Luke and I have costed out a perfect kitchen for forty five grand. I drive James to the showroom on a Saturday afternoon to talk him through the plans.

‘We’ve looked at grey oak for the breakfast island,’ I say, ‘with the counter tops in pure white composite.’

‘That’s 94% quartz, 6% resin,’ chimes in Luke.

‘Then high gloss white units, keep the look clean. And here’s the oven!’

‘Anthracite on the outside …’ says Luke.

‘But look at the inside!’ I say, overlapping Luke as he smiles at me. ‘Isn’t it beautiful! The pyrolytic finish is the most gorgeous royal blue contrast to the grey exterior. ‘And! It cleans itself! Tell Rosie she’ll never have to worry about cleaning your oven again. And the dial is digital! Digital! How cool is that?’

James grins his approval.

‘And the hob is flush-fitted – it’s one single piece of metal, just like your Maserati,’ I say.

‘Sold,’ says James.

‘And finally the fridge, look, it has an ice maker in the door!’

‘What’s that fridge over there?’ says James, pointing at a mammoth double-doored stainless steel beast in the corner.

‘That’s the Sub-Zero,’ says Luke. ‘State of the Art, NASA technology, comes with a GPS tracking system so that central control know what’s wrong with the fridge before
they send an engineer out. Not that anything ever goes wrong with these fridges.’

I shake my head. ‘James, it’s ridiculous. It’s too big, we don’t need a fridge that big. And it costs more than seven grand.’

‘But it has two compressors, one for the fridge, one for the freezer,’ says Luke. ‘Your vanilla ice cream will never taste of foie gras …’

‘It’d be a result if it did taste of foie gras!’ I say. ‘Water into wine and all that …’

‘And the food stays fresher much longer.’ Luke opens the door to the fridge. On the bottom shelf are lined up nine bottles of Bollinger.

‘Yep, that’s the one,’ says James.

Luke goes into the back office and James grabs me, lifts me on to the kitchen counter and positions himself between my legs.

‘Stop it! He’ll be back in a minute,’ I say, as his hands reach under my top to undo my bra.

‘Won’t take more than forty seconds, love …’ he says.

‘I can’t believe it! You’re turned on by that bloody fridge, aren’t you?’ I say, pushing him away and laughing.

‘Nice, new, shiny toy,’ he says.

‘I am not getting the Sub-Zero fridge, James. It’s a ridiculous waste of money. I’ll look at that fridge and always see in
its place a big pile of cash that could have paid for an amazing holiday or school fees or …’

‘Soph, it’s not either/or. I’ve got the money. I want that fridge.’

‘But what are you paying for, beyond keeping lettuce cold? It doesn’t even have an ice machine in the door.’

‘It has perma-ice in the freezer drawer. You’re paying for state-of-the-art technology. I just like knowing it’s there.’

‘You lived for the last ten years with a mini booze fridge without shelves! Suddenly you can’t live without the NASA engineering?’

‘You’re the only girl I’ve ever been out with who wanted me to spend less of my money on them.’

Why doesn’t that tell him something about those other girls?

‘Soph. Does the ice-machine mean that much to you?’

‘Well … kind of. It’s just the crushed ice part really … margaritas, daiquiris …?’

‘Okay, we’ll get the Sub-Zero and I will buy you the world’s best ice-crusher, and if the Sub-Zero ice cubes are not to my lady’s liking, I will personally crush them smaller for you whenever you click your fingers. How does that sound? Me, James Stephens – your own personal ice crusher. Call Debrett’s and tell them I’m moving up in the world.’

We drive out to Colchester the following Saturday to eat fresh, cheap shellfish at The Company Shed. We sit chatting to the couple squashed next to us who are in their seventies, and who hold hands across the table while they drink a bottle of Cava. They talk about how much joy they get from being grandparents, but how they’re happiest of all when it’s just the two of them, playing cards and listening to the radio.

After they’ve left I say to James, ‘Do you ever think you’ll have what those two have?’

‘Absolutely,’ he says, ‘but I’m not going to marry just anyone.’

I have drunk two-thirds of the bottle of wine we’ve brought, and so although my instant reaction is to take this comment personally, I realise he must be referring to the fact that
that’s why
he’s never been married before.

I pop to the loo and stand by the sink looking in the mirror. I haven’t weighed myself for ages but my face is
looking a little gaunt. Don’t they say that as you get older your face looks better if you’re not too skinny? Typical – I’ve lived my life back to front, spent my youth a dress size over, and now that I’m an ancient thirty-three, I’m finally a dress size under.

My face is quite flushed from the booze and I splash it with cold water. By the time I come out, James is chatting to a new couple seated next to us. They’re already laughing and so even if I wanted to ask James what he actually meant by that comment, I’ve missed my chance.

On the drive home we stop off in Stratford to see my friends Debbie and Dan. Debbie is beautiful but is carrying an extra two stone that she hasn’t lost after giving birth to their second child a year ago. Debbie has mild post-natal depression and Debbie and Dan are having counselling to get them through the bumpy patch. I warn James of this so that he can avoid the subject and not stick his foot in it like he often does.

He is abnormally quiet, probably too scared to say the wrong thing. He watches Debbie closely as she eats a third slice of Victoria Sponge, her finger erasing the last stripe of jam from the plate. In the car on the way home I say I’m a bit worried about their relationship.

‘She should take better care of herself,’ he says.

‘I told you she’s depressed.’

‘She’ll be more depressed when he leaves her for someone thin.’

‘Oi, that’s my friend you’re talking about.’

‘Why are you taking it personally?’

‘Because sometimes people are vulnerable. And they need love and support, not criticism. She put on that weight giving birth to his children.’

‘He’s supposed to be eternally grateful that she’s a lard arse? A wife should make an effort for her husband. She should get down the gym, get on the high heels and suspenders, that’ll sort out their marriage better than some stupid therapy.’