Atlantic Books - From the Front Desk of Publishing

Bystanding

noreply@blogger.com (Writer in Residence) — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 14:48:00 +0000

Despite all subsequent activity, since new man and I went our separate ways (and yes, hair gel did play its sticky part) the weekend that I didn't spend in The Halkin passed idly at home in the void that is the life of the recently single.

It goes like this:

You've let your friends slip a little bit to accommodate romance, and so, on Friday, though you've arranged for your daughter to stay out in anticipation of a torrid evening, it now looks like consisting of you, cheese on toast and the boxed set of Grey's Anatomy. In the afternoon, you're sitting in the kitchen in the last wash of sunlight fighting its way through the grime of the window. The table, for once, is so clean it looks like it has been licked, the dishwasher is empty, the washing machine is empty, the dryer is empty, the whole house is empty and it's just you, laptop open, the click of the keys measuring the seconds, and work - trying to make a sceptre flit across the webpage instead of a cursor - isn't working so that the only hotspot in your life is the one you've created in Flash.

Did you hear a loud, thundering boom?

You can't remember. You may be torturing yourself, but you just can't remember, and yet - later it haunts you - that fleeing feeling that there was a tumultous crash and that maybe, idly, you listened, wondering what it was, and heard nothing further, and so went on - click, click, clicking, reloading the page, refreshing the image, click, click, click.

In fact, in the evening, you did go out. You wandered round to the local Tapas bar with friends, forgiving enough of your neglect, to take pity on you, where you ate Serrano ham and tortilla and lamb chops and washed it down with a couple of glasses of the red wine that you haven't been drinking for the last 21 days, but which, tonight, damn it, you think you need.

You flirt with a short Spanish man who comes up to your armpits, even when you're not towering above him on a bar-stool, who talks as though he's had his jaw wired shut, and whose gentle lithping lulls and comforts you into pleasure, in spite of yourself. And later, you walk home in the frost and let yourself in to the dark, gloomy house that seems to mock you with the unexplored possibilities of its emptiness. You double lock the door.

Next day you rise early, just to spite yourself, and carry on click, clicking until you decide you should to go to the supermarket for food that you're not going to eat, cook, or need, but nevertheless buy, store in the fridge in which everything is at right angles, and will probably throw out untouched before the end of the week. The afternoon turns to evening, broken only by a visit to the National Gallery to see The Sacred Made Real where you marvel at homoeroticism through the ages, before you while the evening away watching people pretend to be even more miserable that you, but with better figures and medical degrees.

At eleven o'clock, you're are still sitting there. The hotspots are no longer hot and the laptop has crashed. You've written emails you haven't sent (because who wants to advertise that they are sitting at home on a Saturday night) and forlornly called your youngest daughter who never goes across the threshold when there's the hint of squeaking bed springs, but has now just announced she is spending her second night out and may be back some time tomorrow, but only for a change of clothes.

The house is as quiet as a grave.

Your phone hasn't rung once.

You lock all the internal doors before you go to sleep, which you do fitfully, but for once, the floorboards and old walls are merciful and don't advertise their creaking, aching limbs while you lie awake, in the middle of the bed, which doesn't really fool anyone into making it feel occupied.

By Sunday, you're sick of the bloody website, and think Doctor Dreamy Derek is a wet prat, and you sling on your wellington boots and plod through the mud on Wormwood Scrubs where people look at you oddly because you are not accompanied by a dog. Damn it, even here you feel single. Back home, you walk up the red tile path and let yourself back into the house which fails to notice your arrival. You don't even glance at the house next door which cuddles up to yours, separated only by one flowerpot which your neighbour tends. Why should you? Unless the door is standing open, which has happened once or twice, or the burglar alarm has gone off, which has happened two or three hundred times, why would you look next door? Did you look when someone broke in through the side window and robbed the place? Did you look when another opportunist climbed over the back wall and let themselves in the bedroom window and stole all her mother's jewellry? Did you look the day that the woman who has lived there for the last 23 years set fire to her blouse and calmly called the ambulance herself, although you were at home and could have helped?

No. No. And no.

You did look the night the neighbour's daughter tried to kill the mouse with a brush and woke you up in the middle of the night screaming. The walls between you are so thin, you used to able to listen to the Today program in the morning without turning on the radio. They're so thin you can hear everything.

Can't you?

In the evening you go to the theatre with someone from work and get lost on the drive back, not getting in to bed until almost midnight. Daughter is in her bedroom. Her bag is slung across the kitchen table. Son is in his bedroom. His bike is poleaxed in the hall. There is a knife smeared with peanut butter on the kitchen counter.

Signs of life as we know it.

The office next morning feels like going to a holiday camp.

And then at the end of the day you park the car outside the house. It's dark. You notice a light on next door, not in itself unusual, but half of one window seems to be gone, and the other has a crack in it that's been mended with black electrical tape. Your heart sinks. Damn it, she's been burgled again. And your eyes immediately swing to your own front door, wondering if you've been hit too. But your son's bike is still in the hall so, no - even if he's fighting demons in the Land of Ork all day, he probably, might have, would have, surely, heard someone breaking in. You are about to turn the key in the lock when you hesitate. Your good neighbourliness kicks in and overrules your fear of intruding and you bang on the door.

Which is when, finally, you see your neighbour lying on the floor at the bottom of the stairs.

Quite dead and bloodied.

Where, apparently, the police think she has been since Friday.

Less than six feet from where you sat around all weekend - both of you, home alone by yourselves.

But it's only later that you start to pick at the scab of your memory and convince yourself that perhaps you heard her fall.

And did nothing.

To beard or not to beard

noreply@blogger.com (Writer in Residence) — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 13:34:00 +0000

Then Sales, who is also sporting a - say - 2 o'clock shadow, asks me if he should shave or not because he has a date tonight with the guy who facebooked him after selling him a couple of tickets at the theatre last week. Ah the modern world, huh?

'Mmm, well is he clean-shaven, I mean if you rub your chins together are you going to ignite?'

He gave me the haughty stare that he seems to reserve mainly for me and deigns to initiate me into whether or not tonight will be a meeting of chins. 'No, he's smooth.'

Very, if he can chat you up on Facebook after meeting you once.

'Shave,' I say. But I'm a middle aged woman. I don't think my preferences hold much sway in boy circles, so I think again. 'Or maybe not.'

'That's very helpful...' He says. 'How was I the other night?'

'What other night?'

'When we went to the theatre together?'

'I don't remember.'

'Oh come on, you were with me, why can't you remember? Cast your mind back and think!'

I can't. It's a blank. All I can remember is the mystified look on the young woman (and her mother) who we ran into in the foyer as she wondered who the hell the old matron was who was accompanying her gay friend , though this was a problem I had anticipated with a little help from my frenemies at work.

'But what will people think when they see you?' Chief Sales had asked when I mentioned that young Sales and I were going out for a night of culture. (Look, he asked me...)

'That I'm his mother, or his aunt or something... Surely!'

She looked sceptical.

There was rhyming slang in there. I just know it.

May the Stubble Be With You

noreply@blogger.com (Writer in Residence) — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 13:15:00 +0000

We're having a Beardathon at work. Well, by we I mean Editorial, Receptionist, Corvus and Contract. All came in clean shaven on February 1st with the aim of seeing who can grow the biggest beard by the end of the month. I'm thinking we should run a book and my money would be on Editorial - it would have been Contract but he succumbed on Day 3 and the sandpaper glint disappeared from his cheeks.

'I think he probably lives with a woman,' I said when Editorial bemoaned the fact that Contract had thrown in the hot towel.

'What do you mean? I live with a woman,' He replied indignantly. 'My mum loves my beard.'

You got it at mum, didn't you?

But are there really women apart from mothers who love beards? I assume there must be since my ex took his razor burn with him to the new woman when he left me. I wasn't sad to see it go because, despite Mrs Arafat telling me on very good authority that Yasser's beard didn't scratch (waste time on the PLO's mismanagement of millions when there's the important matter of physical intimacy to discuss - are you mad?) - scratching I can handle, it's the soft fluffy hairiness that I find sooooo wrong on so many levels..

And the way they stroke it.

We were talking about hair as a male attribute in the office the other day (waste time on literature when you there's the important matter etc...). 'I like bald men,' said one of the lithe young lovelies with flowing locks to her waist and a, presumably, hirsute Italian stallion tucked away in her weekends.

'Me too - but that's just as well, because after fifty you don't always have a lot of choice.' I said, authoritatively.

Well you do. But it's either that or hair gel.

Crispy hair gel.

That gets stuck in between your fingers if you try to run them through it, just before they jump back and yell: 'Don't touch the hair!'

For those who like lists

noreply@blogger.com (Writer in Residence) — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 08:48:00 +0000

In the last week while not blogging I saw The Prophet, Swan Lake, The Misanthrope (for goodness sake Kiera, eat something), The Habit of Art (there should be an F in there somewhere and you can guess where it goes), Priscilla Queen of the Desert, Hairspray (at which, for the first time ever, I groped the breast of an ...erm woman - Phil Jupitus in drag - and met Josie Lawrence which was only marginally less exciting), broke up with the new man, fell out with the old man, made up with the old man again, spend the weekend at The Halkin, had a great meal at Maze and a noisy but delicious meal at Buca del Lupo, visited the Saatchi, the Serpentine, the National Gallery, The British Museum, The Tate Modern, and found a dead body.

Cold water flat

noreply@blogger.com (Writer in Residence) — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 16:40:00 +0000

Next up: 'It's Complicated'. But this time with a friend who is in the process of separating his wife of 28 years. What a pair we are - the leaving and the left.

'Oh that stung,' He said later of the scene where Meryl Street is sitting around the table with her children and the ex-husband arrives looking forlorn to be left out of their happy little group. 'That's going to be me.'

'If you think that's bad, just don't go see Up in the Air,' I cautioned, though I started choking up in the scene where the youngest daughter goes off to college and leaves Meryl (who in the film looks like an unmade bed according to Sharon, at-least-she-didn't-make-her-living-out-of-forgetting-her-underpants, Stone) alone in the kitchen of her beautiful family home. Let's forget that Alex Baldwin looks like he should be starring in Family Guy but God forbid that Meryl Streep doesn't brush her hair.

I'm unashamedly sentimental about chicks flying the nest though I've signed up all my my remaining cuckoos for flying lessons and sent them a list of regional airports to which they might soon flit off. Two down, two to go. However, I still cry over the eldest every time she goes back to Oxford and I can summon tears at will by merely thinking about the youngest, but that's because she's usually just told me to f... of myself, though her verb doesn't even rhyme with fly.

'At least you'll always have your children around you, I can't say the same about mine,' says my friend as he links my arm and we repair to the local pizza restaurant which is, as you might expect on a Saturday evening, heaving with the sort of young, squirming, families than neither of us have any more. Thank god.

'Well, I won't have them, but I expect they'll still visit me. Not that having them is all that it's cracked up to be. You know, it's not all group hugs, pyjama parties and big cosy family dinners - it's hair choking the drains that nobody can be bothered to pick out, and disappearing knickers from the dryer that you hope, just hope, have ended up in the girls' underwear drawers and not on the loins of the son with the long curly hair.'

He looks unconvinced. And he's right to be. Yes, I can moan as though being paid by the word for it (which I kinda am), but I would still rather be filling my fridge with food I won't get a chance to eat, and appalling the visiting new man with the line of trainers that fills the hallway making it look like he's dating the Nike sponsored version of The Sound of Music, than living alone with my cat.

Not knocking cats, so don't bother writing to tell me how intelligent they are - it's just that having got rid of one lot of indifferent creatures who cast hair and look at me disdainfully when I attempt affection, I am not keen to replace them with another identical creature who also can't flush the loo. Nor do I want to turn into one of those people who talks about their dog as though it had opposable thumbs and a complex inner life, such as the man I met recently who said that 'he and Hector' wanted to take me to dinner. Lest you think that I was contemplating a threesome - Hector is a dachshund. I think Hector might have been the better company, admittedly, as his owner, erm, I mean best friend appeared to be a conspiracy theorist who thought he was doing me a favour by considering me as a possible date given that I was eight years older than him. He also had a lisp, something of a disadvantage for an Italian.

I mean, who is the one who has dinner dates with his dog? Not me. I just didn't fancy it. Or him.

But I digress.

My friend is still looking glum, however as we start saying how it would be the best solution all round if we could only cast a magic wand over our marriages and turn back the clock to pre-broken days (and I say that even though my ex also looks like Alex Baldwin but with less hair) I'm the one who starts weeping just as the burger arrives. He hands me a tissue. I wave it away. I have my own stash.

'But just think of all the freedom we'll have,' I sniff, eagerly trying to put a positive spin on what just seems horribly lonely. 'I mean, new man, or at least future new man will stop freaking out that he's in bed with Florence Henderson every time it creaks when sex turns into a game of statues - though I think, somehow, that current new man will not be around long enough to reap the benefits.'

'Why not?'

'Well look on the second date he brought designer chocolates. On the third he brought flowers. On the fourth, it was my birthday and he brought expensive champagne and presents. On the fifth it was Christmas and he brought more presents. On the sixth he brought wine and fancy cheese. On the seventh he brought more wine. On the eighth he brought his tool box...'

'That's amazing - his tool box? I want to date him.'

'I know, how sweet is that - he said he was going to do all my odd jobs.'

'I don't do odd jobs. I don't do presents either. So what's wrong with that? He sounds lovely.'

'He didn't. Do the odd jobs, I mean but frankly, I was sooooo gushy at the whole knight in white overalls thing he didn't need to even show me a spanner. He had to rush off after breakfast. However, that was the end of the presents. Last few times he didn't bring anything. Not even the tool box. And the other night, he arrived drunk...'

'Ah.'

'Yeah, ah.'

'Will you stop wiping your eyes - people will think we're having an argument.'

'No, they'll think you're dumping me.'

He stands up and smiles and gives me an enormous hug, a kiss on the cheek and tells me in a very loud voice how lovely I am looking. 'I'll be damned if I look as though I'm leaving anyone else ever, ever again,' He hisses. 'I'm fed up being the bad guy. Have a drink.'

But somehow a diet coke just doesn't have that celebratory, to-hell-with-it-all, ring to it.

I ate carbohydrates instead and went home to plumbing hell where not one, but two bathrooms are out of action due to the fact that nobody scoops anything out of the plug hole. The central heating is blazing at the temperature of a Caribbean summer because the hot water only works when the thermostat is set to 28 degrees. All the lights are on. I tidy up the assorted dirty dishes, close the door of the microwave and wipe up the exploded food from its perimeter. I scrub the table, fold the laundry, throw away out of date food and decide to have a bath before I go to bed. I run the tepid taps in the one remaining bathroom with plumbing and go back downstairs to fiddle with the boiler to see if I can get it to give me lukewarm bubbles without razing the planet. I can't. I go into the sitting room to turn off all the lamps and hear the rain battering down outside. What a downpour, I think, looking out at the dark street which is, I notice - with horror - totally dry.

Damn it, the sound of the deluge is coming from... I run next door... the kitchen, where water is pouring through the ceiling.

Five saucepans, three tea-towels, six bathtowels and a hole gouged into the plasterboard my eldest son - he of the long curling hair and major cause of current blockages - arrives with his girlfriend (maybe she's the one wearing my knickers, I think - then banish it as just too, too weird to contemplate).

'I hope you don't want to use the kitchen,' I say, wringing out my third towel into the sink.

He looks at me the way you imagine aliens would if they suddenly landed in your house in the midst of a domestic incident, as though water streaming through the roof were somehow a quaint custom that everyone indulged in on a Saturday night.

'Nah,' he says eventually, and he and his girlfriend disappear upstairs to their bedroom. It's a testament to my low expectations that I doesn't occur to me that they might have offered to help until after my cold bath the next morning when I leave new man - who arrived, garullous at 1.30 am on his way back from a gig and got arsy with me when I hadn't sufficiently appreciated the effort he had made to come and see me - and went downstairs to make his breakfast.

I clean up all the towels. Empty flying nest, bring - it - on, I think. But then later, after new man has left and I've cleared away all the dishes, miraculous eldest daughter makes me home-made cookies and coffee.

I turn on my laptop and see that New Man has left me to go home and check his internet dating site.

'What do you want - a cup or a mug,' says daughter.

'Oh mug. Definitely, a mug.' I say.

Come fly (away) with me...

noreply@blogger.com (Writer in Residence) — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 11:44:00 +0000

Another weekend, another cinema, another film.

I'm here with my ex. It's a way of passing time together companionably without actually having to talk - which is what keeps it companionable. He's been in the Middle East for a week and is about to leave for Stockholm, Strasbourg and then Brussels. He spent the period after Christmas in the States. When not in flight or in conference, he spends his time between anonymous hotel rooms and, so my kids tell me, a less-anonymous-than-it-was, one bedroom flat which, when I last visited had nothing but a single bookshelf of Arabic books and a television. Though it was all seductively tidy seen through the eyes of someone who wades through a sea of trainers in the hallway every night, I looked around at the sparse, shonky rental furnishings, the tiny two-seater sofa, the bare dining table and realised just how much he must have wanted to get away from me and the domestic accoutrements of family to have preferred this, which he does. He likes living alone. He likes being able to please himself. He likes not having any demands on his person or his time. And of course, there's the girlfriend who visits now and again, but not often enough that he's never available at the weekends to go to the cinema.

We're watching Up in the Air. The sterile, unencumbered character of Ryan, a man who fires people for a living, and who lives in an efficiency apartment when not - as the title suggest - 'up in the air', aiming to clock up 10 Million frequent flyer miles, makes even George Clooney look tired and in need of a shower.

His wallet bulges with plastic loyalty cards as packs his folded underwear into a his carry-on suitcase, slots his ties into a leather case, sets it on top of his capsule wardrobe, then zips his life up into a case small enough to fit on an overhead locker. Even his fridge is stocked with miniature bottles of hootch.

The last scene features him in a plane, with a voice over saying:

'Tonight, most people will be welcomed home by jumping dogs and squealing kids. Their spouses will ask about their day and tonight they’ll sleep. The stars will wheel forth from their daytime hiding places, crowning their neighbourhood with lights. And one of those lights, slightly brighter than the rest, will be my wingtip, passing over.'

Credits.

I was so depressed I could hardly get out of my seat and it seemed there was a long, communal sigh from the audience as they scrambled to their feet in the dark, to the crunch of underfoot popcorn.

'So, did anything in that last monologue resonate with you?' I asked the ex as we walked out into the equally dark night.

'Yes, it did a bit,' he said after a pause long enough to fit in a set of golf clubs.

'No jumping dogs, no squealing children, no spouse...' I added, just to rub it in. I've never been one to go for the understatement. 'He's exactly like you, right down to the British Airways Gold Card, except that you chose this life over the alternative.' Salt and wound, I'm thinking - it's never been that much of a surprise that the man would prefer solitude and air pressure to me turning the screws, though actually rubbing salt into a wound that isn't gaping and has healed over is actually just a salt scrub and

'Well, not exactly. I mean I don't have nobody.'

'Erm, you kinda do.'

'No, I don't. I've still got you in a way.'

'No you don't. The pictures once a week isn't 'me'. I'm not waiting for you at home. I don't know where you are or when you come back. You return to an empty flat with nothing in the fridge, and nobody to welcome you. It's not like Natasha is even waiting for you since she doesn't seem to be here most of the time.'

'Well, I've got the kids.'

'The kids are mostly gone and it's not like when they were babies and you lived with us and they would ask "when is daddy coming back", they don't know whether you're in the country or out of it. You've removed yourself and they've got used to it.'

He goes quiet.

I look at him wearily, waiting, wishing he would say something to indicate he feels some sense of our absence.

'Well, I must say, I wouldn't mind his 10 Million frequent flyer miles.' He adds.

And he laughs.

The Oxford Blues

noreply@blogger.com (Writer in Residence) — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 14:39:00 +0000

Oxford.

Snow up to my knees.

My daughter is taking me to have dinner a la Harry Potter in the Gothic dining room of Keble where she currently immerses herself in apocalyptic texts in the School of Divinity. Yes, laugh if you like, but I have a daughter who is going to be a Doctor of Divinity - though just at the moment she's flogging children's books at Waterstones to the navy blue of Oxford.

We're having tea in the newly refurbished Ashmoleum. Outside there's a foot of snow covering the terrace on which a lone classical figure hunches, his shoulders burdened with two white icicled epaulettes. He makes me feel cold just looking at him though the museum is toasty warm and redolent of the smell of damp felt and mothy wool.

A waiter approaches. Professionally French with a comma of black fringe over one eye, he shrugs, leans on one hip and pouts.

'Do you have a menu?' I ask.

'We 'ave tea, coffee, and some cakes,' He says.

'What kind of tea?' (Look I'm pedantic but 'tea' is a generic term.)

Another pout. 'English Breakfast, Peppermint, Camomile...'

I wait.

'...Earl Grey.'

He waits.

'Okay, Earl Grey then. With lemon.'

'What about the cake?' Asks my, she-isn't-on-a-diet, daughter.

'Oh I fink we have carrot and chocolate and somefing...' He says airily and wafts his hand in the general direction of the bar where no cakes seem to be on display. It's odd to think we're in a restaurant as the food seems almost incidental, not to say inconvenient.

She settles for a hot chocolate as does my friend from days of yore who has joined us, and we all pass on the mystery cake.

My friend used to share a house with me. Back then he was a member of the Socialist Workers Party, but perfectly normal beforehand when his hair was not unlike the French waiter's but with a few flecks of grey, and his face, cherubic and cheeky. It's all gone now. But actually it had gone even then since he shaved it off to stubble and got a few earrings when he joined the party. I think that was the entrance fee. We had been great friends back in the bedsit days, but didn't have much in common once he started selling Socialist Worker outside Boots. However divorce is a great reuniter of old friends just as time is a great healer of relationships, as well as a smoother of previous political convictions. His have gone the same way as the stubble. Now he's clean and shiny, with a polished head and a polished face and scant sign of piercings in his ear though you can still see the dimples if you look closely. My specs are so strong I can see craters on the moon. We have no secrets... He even has rosy cheeks which he tries to pass off as a consequence of the cold but I think it's a symptom of middle England myself. He has kids at prep school, and like me, a partner who made him redundant. She was also a Socialist Worker in the late seventies. Now she's in the City.

I stir my tea with its treasure of three slices of lemon smiling up from the bottom of the cup - I wonder if the waiter thinks I'm sour - and look around the room. Eldest daughter is looking at a squirming three year old at the next table with some distaste.

'You know, when I was your age and lived here on Banbury Road, I used to go out with your father on a Sunday and we'd do exactly this - go to a museum, or a film, or to a concert in one of the colleges, and I'd look at all these navy blue people with their cut glass accents and messy, scrunchied hair, in their sensible shoes and with their grubby children called Jeremy and Jemima and want it all with a passion. I wanted to be them. I didn't want to live in a freezing bedsit in North Oxford with a two bar electric fire that was one more than I could afford to run on my pathetic salary, seeing my boyfriend once a week when he managed to drag himself away from London, trailing round the Botanical Gardens and looking through other people's windows in Park Town where there was always a fire burning in the grate and book-lined rooms where someone played the violin. I wanted the violin. I wanted the kids on the back of the bicycle going to the Squirrel School and the chintz skirt and the upholstery to match. I wanted to be conventional and middle class.'

I say this waiting for Rob to shoot me down in flames, but people in combustible houses don't throw napalm.

'And I got it.' I add.

My daughter doesn't react. Her childhood is all she knows. She grew up in violin-land, though in fact we had drums, piano, guitar and recorders but never the violin. We had, and have, the shabby, book-lined rooms that now I'd be delighted to get rid of but the ex refuses to pack his books up and take them to his new flat. We had the tow-headed, grubby children and despite my Scottish speech impediment, I even got some cut glass accents and a notch up the class ladder for me, and a few down for the ex, at ten grand a year London day schools.

Nevertheless, we are still not the most conventional of families. I mean I don't think mummy and daddy Navy-Blue take Jemima and Jeremy to see a Burlesque Striptease for their Christmas treat.

Indeed, my friend took his kids to the Messiah.

But Oxford, where I grew up, got married (twice), fell in love (four times) and lived from the age of 17 to 25 always makes me maudlin. It's like being a ghost and haunting yourself. You meet friends, like the ex Socialist Worker, who is now wearing a cashmere sweater and a blazer (and it's not even red, but powder blue) - or Mimo, who owns Ash-Shami, the Lebanese Restaurant. I saw him in St Giles and stopped and talked to him as though he was still my husband's landlord in Walton Well Road and I was going to see him later in the basement kitchen while I made a salad with newly discovered iceberg restaurant, that twenty-eight years later I wouldn't even consider a vegetable. I see my younger self walking along the Corn Market in a succession of fashion mistakes, with long red hair instead of bottle blonde, carrying half my body weight but heavy with anxieties. And the nostalgia, the regret, the sense of loss for what was falls upon me like the snow that's swirling through the black afternoon and traps me.

I look at the table beyond us. There's a man with silver hair and a matching woman, slim and petite in the ubiquitous navy blue uniform. Another couple in their late middle age sit next to them and there are two daughters, one of whom has a child. I try to work out if the two older women are sisters - they both have the same frame and grey, page-boy styled hair, but I can't be sure. The two men, however, are definitely their well-worn, long-accustomed husbands, and one of them is the father of the girls though I don't know which woman he's married to until she stands up and he helps her on with her coat.

'So, I used to look at the young couples and want their life, but now I look at the older couples, and think - I want that too.' I say, gesturing at the people who are now gathering up their belongings and slotting the baby into a stroller, preparing to leave. 'I want to be sitting here on the weekend with my husband of many years, having just had tea with my grown up children and our friends, or our in laws.'

My daughter looks uncomfortable, as though I'm saying that she, on her own, isn't enough of a pleasure, but it isn't that - it's that I'm longing for a fantasy of the life I thought I had already bought into, and paid all the instalments on, and only had to cash in. And you never compromise in fantasies. I mean, you don't dream of going to bed with someone who looks like George Clooney but shorter and a bit fat round the middle - you dream about George Ruddy Clooney!

My friend looks as glum as I feel. 'I know what you mean. That's what I wanted, what I still want...' He says and looks so sad that I immediately feel I have to dust myself down and get rid of all these chilly reminiscences - we can't both be sitting here, miserable about what was lost. But then, I remember when he wanted Revolution and brown rice and thought that all property was theft. Sometimes, thank goodness, you don't get what you want. And it's no bad thing.

I drain the last of my tea, button up my pink cardie to keep the cold off my cleavage, I tuck my bottle blonde hair into my vintage Dior coat that once belonged to the ex-husband's aunt, and which the daughter and I share (though she wears it as a cross over, and I button it straight), shuffle my feet across the floor until I find my totally unsuitable-for-snow-shoes which I've kicked off, throw round the fake fur stole and pull on the gloves lined with orange fur that is not fake. I check my lipstick and add a dab more red, pick up the zebra patterned pony-skin handbag, link arms with my agnostic Dr of Divinity daughter, and my ex Socialist Worker friend who muffles himself into a sleek black overcoat, and the three of us set off for the slush like The Scarecrow, the Lion and the Tin Man.

Actually, all things considered, it's probably a huge blessing in disguise that I didn't turn out to be navy blue.

Le Clique

noreply@blogger.com (Writer in Residence) — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 09:54:00 +0000

I waved the tickets under the noses of the assembled offspring feeling like Mother of The Year. 'I've got us tickets to Le Clique at the Roundhouse, how great is that?'

Stunned silence and foot shuffling ensued. It was like watching calves being rounded up for the abattoir.

'How great is that?' I repeated, eagerly.

Apparently, not that great.

'Ma, it's an erotic circus. I'm not going to an erotic circus with my mother.' said younger son.

'It's not erotic. It's Burlesque.'

'What does Burlesque mean?' asked the teenager.

'Erm, sort of risqué ...'

'What does riskay mean?'

'Erotic,' jumped in younger son.

'Not really.'

'Yes it does, one of my friends went with his wife and he said it was an erotic circus and that one woman does a striptease and pulls a hankie out of.. '

'Don't give it away!'

But it was too late. The teenager's eyes widened with revulsion and refused to go, as did younger son. 'What's wrong with the ruddy Nutcracker or a Carol Concert, like a normal mum?' He retorted. Eldest son was working, he told me with some relief, which left only the eldest and me, and three spare tickets.

First stop was new man. Total disinterest. He was visiting his brother in trendy Macclesfield, that Mecca of frivolity and jewel of whichever part of the North it happens to be in, without a mobile signal or email, and didn't seem keen to cut his three day visit short to frolic with naked women in Camden, or anywhere else in the Greater London vicinity. He's also been reading my book since Christmas and has only got to page 170 by now and so I think the words 'not' and 'bothered' can safely be married together without even the glue of a 'that'.

'Are you sure? I haven't seen you for more than a week and it should be fun - it's an erotic circus (oh to hell with it, call a spade a spade, Marion),' I wheedled.

'Nah, it's been a while since I've seen my brother...'

Alas, I think I have bigger problems than the size of my backside.

Nevertheless eventually I rounded up a few friends and packed into the trunk of Fran's Jag, off we went to the circus. However - erotic? Not really. In fact, except for the woman pulling the hankie out of an unusual place that I would never have thought of, even if I had lost the option of stuffing it up my sleeve having taken off my jacket and tossed it across a stage, it was all pretty tame, old fashioned stuff like acrobatics and juggling served up with innuendo. There was even a woman with hula hoops and another old guy doing tricks on roller skates - I mean it was hardly Dita von Teese. I've had more smut on my reading glasses.

It was terrific fun though, especially when Chocolate Gateau, an obese black man with a beard dressed in leopard skin spandex and feathers chose my friend Fran as his target and straddled him in mid-song, then proceeded to rub his face between his large prosthetic breasts (having first handed me his specs). He took it all in good spirits, though I hesitate to think how either of my sons would have reacted if a cross-dressing baritone had attempted a bit of bump and grind with them in public, not to mention new man. Ha, if he thinks I'm big! But at least I don't have facial hair baby.

crotchety

noreply@blogger.com (Writer in Residence) — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 13:50:00 +0000

ding

Hurrah - a text!

just checking to see if your phone is actually on silent, Nico

Go on, shame me in front of the whole office.

Stockholm Syndrome

noreply@blogger.com (Writer in Residence) — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 18:22:00 +0000

And then the youngest and I went to Florence. Four days in a hotel by the Ponte Vecchio doing a mother and daughter bonding break.

You've probably all been to Florence so I won't wax lyrically about standing in the rain under an inadequate umbrella in the long, snaking queue outside the Uffizi, after you've stood for half an hour in another long, snaking queue to pick up tickets that you paid for on the internet (including a (9E booking fee each) so that you wouldn't have to join the other queue for people who didn't prebook which was, admittedly, longer. But not much. Neither do I have to tell you that David has hands like spades and looks like he's been taking a lot of steroids judging by his not so dangly bits because you can see him in plaster in the V&A and in replica outside in a piazza for free. There was also a Maplethorpe exhibition on at the Accademia which since it was called something about 'perfection in beauty' - the subject of youngest's latest art project, she really wanted to see. I approached it with trepidation wondering if it was going to be a series of explicit photographs of rippled male torsos which it was, but only one contained anything explicit enough that it would frighten the horses, or indeed was in any way reminiscent of a horse and that would leave an impressionable seventeen year old doomed thereafter to be sorely disappointed by all the real life Davids.

So, we did the galleries and the churches and the shops and the restaurants and then came the really fun part: How long is it since you've been under hotel arrest, sharing a bedroom with a teenager who doesn't particularly like you, held hostage by a boxed set of DVDs that she thoughtfully gave you for Christmas with the ominous title: Supernatural? I wouldn't be giving anything away if I told you that the whole premise of the series starring two wet, slightly dim boys hunting demons and ghosts is that their mother was glued to the ceiling of her bedroom and burnt alive by a devil. Hmm. Getting the idea, are you?

In episode one, the hot pouting girlfriend of one of the main characters goes the same way (that would be what we call in the business - a spoiler - for those of you who were going to run out and get the whole series) and this is rapidly followed by every single nightmare you've ever had being replayed in 50 minute parts. Walking scarecrows with hooks for hands, blood drinking psychopaths, Bloody Mary scratching teenage girls' eyes out, Lunatic ghosts in the asylum - you name it, they're all here and all the action always happens at night. One after the other. All 11 episodes of the first season. Hurrah! Hook me up for a telly marathon!

I was scared stiff.

Daughter, however, relishing every minute of it - calmly playing solitaire with her creepy Tim Burton deck of cards like a knitter at a guillotine matinee, hoping to cram in four slots of gore, haunting and terror, every single night, while I cowered in my bed and thought pretty thoughts, terrified to put the lights out after the DVD.

Since returning home I've had to put the DVD case into a sealed box. There's still the second series to go.

I'm thinking of leaving the box next to the fridge at home as it's one way to ensure I don't open the door.

The terror diet.

But it worked. We bonded. I was so frightened I hardly left her side.

Seasonal Greeting

noreply@blogger.com (Writer in Residence) — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 14:42:00 +0000

I can't come to you for Christmas, said Eva, whose husband was having his turn with the kids this year, meaning she was left on her tod - the divorced woman's worst nightmare, and the married woman's idea of heaven.

Why not?

Because you will all be together and I'll have nobody and I just don't want to be reminded that everyone else has a family.

Erm, well we're hardly the ruddy Waltons, I protested, but she was determined to exclude herself.

However, it was true that the ex had forsworn the charms of his scrawny girlfriend to stay in the house with me for the first time since he left - without telling her, of course (sorry Natasha - but do read on for further suprises) - but in the two days running up to the International Festival of Consumption, I managed to argue with all three of my children and none of them were speaking to me so that most of the previous conversation with Eva was conducted in tears.

After staggering home in the snow with a temperature of 103 (the day before the Christmas party I was knocking back shots of Beecham's Cold Relief like Tequila), one of the little darlings announced that I could do my own washing up because it wasn't as if I had been doing anything all day 'sitting on my backside in an office for a couple of hours' (as opposed to sitting on your backside on holiday from college at home all day). Another joined in and queried the fact that I paid any of the bills when I wondered if the lights may, occasionally, be switched off rather than left on all night since Santa didn't actually need to find his way until the eve of the 24th. 'Are you sure you pay the bills, mother - isn't it dad who pays the bills?' And then the third went for the hat trick by shouting at me when I asked him to wait for a second while I finished a conversation with the new man (who I had just discovered was happily surfing www.thinandavailable.com - from which I'm naturally and fattily excluded) after I had driven across town and waited in the car for ten minutes to facilitate the purchase of the father's Christmas present.

Joy to the world.

Please, please, do come and join our dysfunctional happy family, everybody-hates-me Christmas, but no - instead she volunteered at a homeless shelter for Crisis at Christmas and I stayed home in the bosum of mine and had my own crisis and I cooked and served the lunch. The ex washed up. I almost forgave him for absent mindedly picking up my hairbrush in my bedroom and using it though I was silently screaming PUT THE RUDDY HAIRBRUSH DOWN - YOU DON'T LIVE HERE ANY MORE.

But never let it be said I'm selfish and don't know how to share. I also gave him my cold just in time for his trip to Colorado and the fragrant girlfriend. Yes - pig flu - it's the gift that keeps on giving.

Unfortunately I also passed in on to the new man. And that was even before he told me I was fat.

I'm very, very generous.

Lords of the Rings

noreply@blogger.com (Writer in Residence) — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 14:22:00 +0000

The other annoying fallout of the holiday season when you are eagerly awaiting the darling little knife on glass ping of the iphone telling you that you have a text message is that every other Pedant seems to have acquired one over Christmas. There's an iphone cluster around my desk. It used to just be Orlando and I who reached for our little bundles of wonderfulness every time a bell rang, but now there are seven of us twittering about Apps and e-readers and generally stroking our handsets like Gollum.

And we all seem to have the same ring tone.

I could pretend that mine was on silent, and annoyingly, it would never prove me a liar.

2010

noreply@blogger.com (Writer in Residence) — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 14:33:00 +0000

The Christmas tree has been on the kerb since Boxing Day and the decorations returned to the attic for another year. The fridge is emptier than my bank account and the office party at which we threatened to bring the house down at 2, Brydges Place (literally - the assembled staff in a circle like firemen doing high kicks) is as distant a memory as my waistline.

The new man charmingly told me recently that it was taking him a while to get used to a 'larger woman' after his last relationship with a size 0 some seven years my junior which made me feel like a speciality fetish with my own pay per view web site. You can imagine my reply - even though the pithy repost inferred something I have absolutely no intention of ever actually doing again - along with eating, drinking, appearing in public without a one-size fits all burka, and even breathing if the air looks vaguely calorific.

Consequently, however, willpower has been dredged out of the place I wedged it somewhere around 2005 and I have been resolutely ignoring the siren song of the Tartan shortbread, French truffles, chocolate logs, Hobnobs, Quality Street and tamarind flakes (yes, that one is odd, admittedly, but Vanessa went to Burma for her Christmas break and this was all they had in the way of confectionery) that are reclining seductively on the tea trolley only an arm's-length from my desk.

Curves, they're called curves, Mr Kipling. But I'm still not taking the cake.

Seasonal Greetings

noreply@blogger.com (Writer in Residence) — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 11:44:00 +0000

Note to self: Don't blow your nose on the tissue you've just used to blot your lipstick...

We wish you a...

noreply@blogger.com (Writer in Residence) — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 12:36:00 +0000

click here for Christmas

End of perfect days

noreply@blogger.com (Writer in Residence) — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 13:32:00 +0000

The rest of the day passed in a pampered blur. One of the guests yesterday gave me a hugely generous gift card for a Day Spa on Madison Avenue which I spent on a facial with every conceivable treatment known to woman, and a few silly ones I'm sure they made up. When I came out of the salon it was already dark and great big fat flakes of snow were falling lazily on to the street. I felt like I was in my very on New York fantasy as I walked across Park Avenue and back to the house.

Within an hour we were leaving again to go downtown to dinner and a concert in Carnegie Hall where we had another box shared with two elderly ladies, one who had a cane and another who had two canes - both with three wheels which meant manoeuvring them between the gilt chairs took some effort, as well as a large, ominous dressing taped to the side of her face.

'Introduce yourself because I've forgotten her name.' whispered my friend after greeting both dowagers warmly. I looked at the one cane lady and smiled. She smiled back. What do I say? 'Hello I'm Marion McNobody and why the heck would you care?' I was suddenly crippled with shyness but feeling the weight of my friend urging me to do my social duty, I opened my mouth obediently but nothing came out. The old lady smiled at me again uncertainly and then turned her head tremulously like one of those nodding dogs on the back seat of a 1960s Ford Escort back to the stage onto which members of Orpheus, who we had come to hear, were carrying their instruments. I sighed with relief and began to clap with the rest of the audience as seconds later the orchestra launched, conductorless into Mozart's ballet music for Idomeneo, and I watched them sway to and fro like corks in a musical sea, my anonymity preserved.

At least until the interval by which time she was asleep.

What every woman wants...

noreply@blogger.com (Writer in Residence) — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 00:03:00 +0000

Back home I found a box of flowers and a parcel. The first contained a dozen red roses and the second, I noticed with surprise, came from Worcester.

'Perhaps it's a jigsaw.' said one of my fellow Pedants at work when I mentioned that he'd called me to wish me a safe trip and said he was going to sent me something.

'Ha bloody ha,' I retorted, though knowing full well that it was unlikely to be a box from Tiffany's. For those of you who are wondering about the significance of jigsaws in this sentence it's because I met him when we published Margaret Drabble's 'Pattern in the Carpet' about - yes - jigsaws, because, erm, yes - he makes them - as in manufactures them - as in runs a jigsaw factory. I know, I know, you can keep the jokes, I've heard them all before, and even made a few...

As it turned out, however, my colleague was right. The fabled gift was, indeed, a jigsaw. However instead of the obligatory chocolate box picture the box bore a photograph of my own fair self.

Ahhhhh. Sweet. Really sweet. I was touched.

The implication only dawned on me later when I had another look at the photograph. It was taken on a boat in Lake Como. The last time I saw him. The weekend we split up. Now commemorated in a jigsaw.

Broken up into little pieces.

If that's not a metaphor then I don't know what is.

December 5th

noreply@blogger.com (Writer in Residence) — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 23:44:00 +0000

It's not the way you usually spend a Saturday - going to a funeral in Long Island, and yet, nevertheless, to a funeral I am going.

In a stretch limousine.

There are four of us, and it's raining.   It's pelting water from the sky as though there's a prize for it. I swap my pink coat for one of my friend's black cashmere shawls, while she's in a 1950's clinched waist suit from the wardrobe department of Mad Men (via Dior) with a sable collar than cradles her shoulder like a mother's arm. The silver fox is in a dark suit and raincoat while another friend, also in black, whose silver hair is in a bob, wears a hat. Together we pick our way through the puddles on the sidewalk ignoring the row of cabs behind us which honk at the limo for blocking the narrow cross street, and we drive off.

Deerhurst, Long Island is an hour and a half away, but the ride is like being rocked to sleep in one of those big cushioned prams in which old fashioned, uniformed nursery maids used to push their charges round the park. I am falling asleep until our friend starts to tell us about the war of attrition in her apartment building between those who object to the Christmas tree and those who want a full creche complete with flashing star on the barn like it's a casino in Vegas.   One of the residents said to her one morning: 'There are wreaths hanging in the lobby. Who put those goddamn things there? Jews don't like wreaths, they're offensive, who do we have to speak to in order to get the mother-fricking things gone!' (Religious and profane...)

''Then the next day,' she goes on, 'I come in and there's a dime store menora on the charger. I think to myself, oh-oh - this is going to be a problem, and sure enough, I'm riding in the elevator with Steve Abrams and he turns to me and says - "I'm a nice, ordinary Jew from from the Upper East Side who likes a Christmas tree - why the hell do I have to have a menora in my face when I get home?" So, I asked Arthur the doorman about it and he just shrugged his shoulders and said he couldn't tell me anything, but the next morning as I'm going out I see the dime store menora is gone and in its place is an antique silver one - so now we've got a Christmas tree, wreaths on the front door, evergreen bunting hanging from the awning and an heirloom menora the size of a side of beef - all we need is Santa on an elephant and we've got a parade.'

I can't believe anyone gets so worked up about a harmless Christmas tree and the religious implications of the wreaths escapes me. We're, nominally at least, Muslims, and we have a tree with a battered, one eyed doll called Paul dressed in a pink tutu (he's very gay) at the top of it, hand of Fatima candles and a baby Jesus from Mexico on the mantelpiece.

'Yeah, well look I tried to tell them that actually the tree is a pagan symbol that really has nothing to do with Christianity but was just mopped up by them as a way of getting more members but I know that isn't going to carry any weight. Especially when I discover that the fancy menora belongs to the Chairman of the Resident's Committee. But in the end I said we should get rid of everything and just have some nice neutral flowers and make the place look classy.'

I ask her if she won.

'Nah - the menora vanished. But we kept the tree. The stupid thing is I'm the only Christian in the whole damn building and I don't believe in any of that crap.'

The story takes us deep into Long Island where through the vertical rain I see us drawing up outside a small red brick church with firmly closed doors festooned with - you've guessed it - wreaths. There's a spire that looks more like a turret and blood red stained glass in the windows. It's all very Gothic. And deserted. Apparently, we're the first people here.   We file into a pew half way up the echoingly empty church. The pastor who is having trouble lighting the pink and lilac (yes really) candles sprints up to us and hands us the order of service with a hymn on a printed sheet. The words 'don't believe any of that crap' ring in my ears as I look in vain through the hymnal for anything I recognise - and see with a heart that would have sunk if there had been anywhere further south than hell for it to go - that all the hymns seem to have been written after 1978. The church is an evangelical, born again, happy clappy one and it soon transpires that everyone, apart from us, the bereaved whom we are here to support and - in fact - the deceased whose daughter belongs to the church - have been born again (probably a bit of a bummer since it's too late to remedy it now that he's been carried in by four short square Italian men with rain glistening on their shoulders like dandruff.

We sing the first hymn. Nobody knows it except the pastor and one soprano with bad phrasing who happens to be standing behind me and hits the high notes right into my ear.   The pastor conducts from the pulpit with one hand that is alternately praising the lord and punching out the tempo - a flat palm pointing upwards for anything at the top end of the register. That disposed off he begins on his sermon:

'All the prophecies are coming true and the signs are clear that Jesus will soon walk amongst us once again at the end of days. We the righteous who walk with the Lord and who love the Lord and who have accepted the Lord Jesus Christ his son as our saviour will soon be going home. We have nothing to fear, because Jesus is coming for us. Jesus is coming for all of you!' He spreads his arms wide to include the congregation - about twelve of us, half of whom Jesus is just not going to tap on the shoulder any time soon. He casts his eyes over us dubiously. We are so obviously sinners it's a wonder the floor doesn't start leaking flames.

To round things off we sing 'I Cannot Tell' to the tune of Londonderry Air - aka Danny Boy. I figure I'll give it a go - it seems the least I can do to join in with the spirit of things I don't believe in, but when I get to '...but this I know, the skies will thrill with rapture...' instead of 'but come ye back when spring is in the me-e-dow' and I give up. I just can't do it.

It seems crazy that less than twelve hours ago I was watching a waiter in a bow tie come upstairs to the drawing room with the first plate of appetizers at my birthday party- tiny lobster rolls and chicken wraps cut into slivers. A glass of champagne was placed in my hand. The table was set with a row of vases full of white anenomes and my friend's son arrived with his girlfriend, quickly followed by another son with his girlfriend as the room filled up with other guests - some of whom I've known since conception, others since last New Year in Brazil.

Then the rest of the appetizers arrived in waves - tiny lamb sliders, duck rolls, tuna carpaccio with mango on flatbread, teeny won ton parcels, ricotta with truffle oil, I was dizzy with them, and speechless since every time someone asked me a question I had something in my mouth. The main course was queen scallops and venison with diced saute potatoes, spinach salad and butternut squash. More champagne. Pinot Noir. Two birthday cakes and darn it - candles - and everyone sang happy birthday whilst circling the cakes. Except that they had to hold off as there was a speech to made which I got almost the way through before my friend started crying, and then so did I, and a few guests' tears were hastily wiped away (I think I have a gift for making people weep, but sadly I'm usually shouting at the time)... before finally they got to eat the cake.

My last memory was drinking Grand Marnier after everyone had gone.

Which was when someone carried up the presents.

I am jolted out of my avaricious reverie as Danny Boy comes to a resounding close on the badly played organ with 'the saviour of the world is King' to follow the coterie out of the church. It's still raining outside and the sky is a coil of dark, boiling clouds, so low they seem to be sitting on the roofs. I kiss my bereaved friend who rolls his eyes in wordless horror and make my way back to the car before I realise that I'm nearly climbing into the hearse which is, if anything, smaller than our stretch limousine parked in front of it. My hostess puts up her umberella - it's black with scalloped ruffles. Her husband turns up the collar on his coat which flaps behind him in the biting wind. Our other friend puts on her dark glasses and her silver hair glows in the gloom of the day. Her hat's at a jaunty angle. I wrap my borrowed black cashmere wrap around my shoulders with a theatrical flourish and in a sombre uniformly black line we pick our way over the leaf sodden lawn piercing foliage on the end of our heels until we are swallowed up into the creamy leather upholstery of the sleek black car whose door is held open by a man in a peaked cap.

Readers we are like something out of the Adamms Family.

We're creepy and we're kooky, mysterious and spooky...

And it's actually my birthday. It's not the most conventional way to spend the anniversary of the day you were born, but I don't think Morticia could have come up with a better way to celebrate it...

Da da da da, click click.

In Style

noreply@blogger.com (Writer in Residence) — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 13:39:00 +0000

Jamie meets me in Bendel's and we brave the crowds on Fifth Avenue where we try to find a coffee shop eventually settling for a place the size of a shoebox with a stools at a counter redolent with the smell of French toast and home fries. The wait staff are Spanish and a man with a cold sore is on the cash register. Funnily enough, neither of us are hungry. We order iced tea (tepid brown water) and catch up. She's moved back to the states with her son who is an internationally successful model and her husband - who commutes to Washington - and is in the process of buying an apartment in Chelsea so they can escape their home in rural Connecticut where she is slowly going crazy.

Just that last sentence makes me crazy.

Before she moved here she lived and worked in Hammersmith where her kids went to school and where her husband stayed home all day and cooked. How do you cope with such an upheaval after twenty five years in England? A house husband in Hammersmith one day to manless in Manhattan the next? I wonder this aloud, as the squat waiter reaches over my head and takes a plate of bacon and scrambled eggs over to a well dressed man in a business suit who is reading the New York Times. On the other side of me a guy in worker's overalls, boots and a hard hat is eating a BLT. An old lady with lipstick over the edge of her lips is drinking coffee in one of the booths.

I'm having culture shock and I'm just a tourist.

Earlier I took my courage in both hands (no easy task when they are already full of shopping bags from Bloomingdales, Crate and Barrel and Williams Sonoma) and braved Abercrombie and Fitch where in my naiviety I thought I'd pick up a sweat shirt for one of my kids. Inside it's darker enough for braille garment tags and loud music booms out at deafening volume so that you have to yell at the sales assistants who are difficult to find since the shop is simply packed with foreign visitors speaking in French and Italian and Russian. It's Babel with plaid shirts. I pick one up and look at the price. Eighty dollars. Eighty freaking dollars for a check shirt that looks preworn? I put it down again and walk round in a trance until I find a t-shirt. I approach a young God whose shirt is unbuttoned to his crotch, and then thinking better of it, find a female who at least seems to wearing underwear and ask her if she has this in another colour. She tells me that they are all around the store. I look into the heaving mass of bodies and see that indeed the store seems to be colour coded and that if I want to get it in blue and pink I have to walk round to each individual area and find it. I drop it on the counter (in the orange section though it's blue) and head for the door. I'll take mail order over male model order any day. I am getting old.

Jamie has been to Barney's where twenty sales assistant leap on you and ask you how you are today before the door has even closed behind you. I've had much the same treatment at Victoria's Secret where a girl accosted me on entering and said: 'Buying pandies today?' as I tried to find some for my daughter. It is my ambition to go to my grave without anyone ever asking me this question in public ever, ever again. Particularly since I don't think there are any in the ruddy store that fit me (ergo pitying look). I find myself stammering no as I back out the door. Daughter is not getting pandies for Christmas. Or a t shirt from Abercrombie and Fitch. I'm wondering how she feels about a set of non stick spatulas from Williams Sonoma. It's quiet in there. They give you Christmas tea...

In the diner, I duck again for the chicken pot pie and fries and the check is slapped down unceremoniously on the table - it might be time for Jamie and I to say goodbye. She picks up the tab. It's four dollars. I want to frame it. Four dollars is the tip I gave the cab driver on the way here.

'I love your hair..' She says as I gather up my bags.

'Yeah, thanks. It's the most expensive blow dry I have ever had in my life,' I say as I toss my glossy curls outside in the street, and now, I think it probably smells of grease. We kiss goodbye and she goes off to meet her sisters to see a play. Next up I have a manicure and a pedicure. At seven thirty there are fifteen guests arriving at the house for the party. This morning ten boxes of orchids, roses and anenomes were delivered and, as I speak, the florist is arranging them into elaborate displays. And, though Natasha the cook has made two birthday cakes, apparently she isn't cooking for the party and instead a team of caterers will be there at half past six.

As I said, I'm only a tourist. But what a way to travel.

Agnes b list

noreply@blogger.com (Writer in Residence) — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 13:00:00 +0000

The Met.

A gala dinner for Offenbach's Tales of Hoffmann.

My friend, whose name is on the program, is wearing a floor-length, gold Christian Lacroix coat with a matching gown and a great many diamonds. I'm in the same Agnes b dress I wear every time she takes me somewhere glitzy - from the Oxford Cambridge Boat Race Ball to the Opening of the V&A Couture Exhibition where she was photographed on the red carpet. My seat at the table for dinner cost more than my entire outfit - hell, hiring the car that drove us through Central Park cost more than my entire outfit since the dress is ten years old and the velvet coat I'm wearing over it is vintage (ie second hand) from a shop on Goldborne Road, as is the grey taffeta jacket which came from the same place. Actually, to be absolutely accurate - even the blow dry I had in a salon downtown earlier in the afternoon cost more than my outfit. I think I paid about the same for the root canal I had done the last time I went to the dentist - but it hurt a lot less. My hair is so bouncy it's like there's elastic in the conditioner.

I try not to feel like one of the ugly sisters which is relatively easy since I've borrowed from the safe and huge chandelier earrings dangle from my ears crusted with diamonds and semi precious stones while on my right wrist there's a five inch cuff made of quartzes and tourmalines the size of a giant's cough sweets. I'm like Wonder Woman, but with bling. You can kiss my big fat amethysts.... And though I'm not going to win any beauty contests, I'm at least able to walk unaided and my skin - while lined - hasn't been tacked behind my ears into a death's head mask. Despite the glamorous occasion and the copious number of furs, approximately fifty percent of the audience seem to be bordering on geriatric - so much so that if you forgot that you were in the Met you might easily imagine you were in a very well appointed nursing home where all the inmates were insanely rich. If you were ever in any doubt that it was possible to live too long, a gala evening at the Metropolitan Opera would clear that right up for you. Women (and yes, sadly it is mostly women because the men have done the sensible thing and died earlier) with walkers, with carers, with wheelchairs, mechanical and electric. Women with crutches and walking sticks, and brittle bones, and terribly bad plastic surgery so that they all look like they have some odd leonine genetic disease, with wizened elbows and withered arms and shriveled decolletages, but very plump lips, startled eyes and breasts like snowglobes, except they don't shake. Most are tiny little candy canes, bent out of shape by age and osteoporosis, glittering with baubles and swathed in ostentatious furs, but with dresses that went out of fashion before I was born and shrouded with the dusty patina of age. The women look like they too have been stored in a plastic garment bag for the last twenty years.

After we've eaten tepid butternut squash soup and a veal medallion, we glide across the dress circle - named after one of the benefactors who is sitting at another table, towards our seats. We settle ourselves in our box - my friend and her husband the silver fox, two handsome gay uncles, my friend's son in law who has been dragged along as my companion, and a young attractive couple who are colleagues of the host. The women get to sit in the front row to show off their frocks, or in my case, my borrowed jewelry, and the curtain goes up. The music is absolutely beautiful though I'm less convinced by the women stomping across the stage in pasties and high cut knickers with their buttock cheeks hanging out (I don't think the men are complaining because you know - those girls are singers, and there's as much bounce on stage as there is in my blow dry).

The basic plot seems to be that Hoffmann (Joseph Calleja) is remembering his past loves - Olympia, a wind up doll (Kathleen Kim), the sickly Antonia (Anna Netrebko) and a courtesan Giulietta (Ekaterina Gubanova) - all facets of womanhood pretty much represented there then, wouldn't you say? - before deciding that they are all really different parts of the same woman - his current love - Stella (Anna Netrebko again).

The man has a point, I think as I zone in and out of the performance like a badly tuned radio station, swapping sleep for static every now and again (I was jet lagged). Haven't I really been dating the same sort of person for the last year or so as the one I was married to for twenty five years - first with an Italian accent, then with an English one? From uberhusband to husband lite, I've pretty much sought out the same sort of type time and time again - it's Freud's urge to repeat. I just do it less musically.

I struggle through the second act after a glass of champagne and a dessert for which we withdraw, once again, to the little gilt chairs on the dress circle surrounded by the creme of the decrepit while tiers of people stand leaning over the balconies above us, watching us like we were in a zoo. Note to self - sugar and alcohol are not friends of the somnolent. I pinch myself. I kick myself. I hold my eyes open while pretending a rapture I can only summon up for the idea of curling up in bed. I count white hair. I count members of the cast. I count people sleeping and then my chin slips. Only afterwards do I discover that sitting in the box next to the arm that's propping up my head is the General Manager and his party. I sincerely hope none of them see me nodding off.

By the third act, however, I am suddenly wide awake again. A state which I manage to prolong until three am (eight am Pedantic time, when usually I’m just getting into work). Tomorrow night it’s my birthday party. Somehow, I don’t think I’m exactly going to sparkle… There’s just not enough bling in the safe. Pass me my zimmer frame.

Today is St Nicolas's Day

noreply@blogger.com (Writer in Residence) — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 11:23:00 +0000

My night as a rock chic(ken)

noreply@blogger.com (Writer in Residence) — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 14:31:00 +0000

I went to Jools Holland last week with two of my colleagues and one of our authors - none other than the font of all knowledge Vic, Jim Moir, Reeves who was promoting his book.

Oh yes.

Karen and I were there - possibly the only women over forty in the whole room, apart from Annie Lennox, who was singing while we just stood there and did that sort of 'mum at a wedding' dancing that embarrassed even me to such a degree that I refused to watch myself on the television despite being assured that I was seen by no less than two of my closest acquaintances who don't ruddy bother to call me up when I'm not making a fool of myself but still feel moved to get in touch when I'm being a complete ass.

'Aye,' said Big Alan in the office, 'Ah saw you and Karen there, standing behind Jim.'

I winced and waited for the next sentence.

'Aye...' He nodded.

I think that his tactful silence is a sign that nothing more need be said about it. Until perhaps the Christmas party.

Actually we weren't quite the oldest swingers in town (and I should confess here that Karen, though probably a decade younger than I, for the purposes of making me feel less ancient, is being grouped in my approximate age range) as one of the bands - a snarling, angry group of black eye-lined, leather-clad boys with serious sleeping-in-a-skip hair and lots of attitude who made the sort of noise that has you saying things like 'but it doesnae have a tune' while they jumped up and down and humped their guitars like they were young ponies they were trying to wrestle to the ground - also brought their mums and dads. It was hilarious. One of the mums was wearing lurex and the dad was in a suit - it was more like a Latymer Upper School parents' evening than a gig (says she in the blue polka dot dress with extra cleavage). And as the band screamed unmelodically and the keyboard player turned his instrument upside down and banged it (without affecting the sound), mum and dad were standing on their tip toes and waving those little peek-a-bo waves, blowing the equivalent of fond parental kisses and saying: "...coo-ee, Justin! Timothy!".

And after they stopped playing the band waved back.

Bless.

Non-specific paranoia

noreply@blogger.com (Writer in Residence) — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 14:15:00 +0000

'You look dreadful!' Said Fran as I rolled, stumbled, reeled into the office a tad later than usual, the morning after the night before.

'Which one was it this time?'

I just shook my head. Very carefully. It hurt.

I hadn't had a lot to drink but nevertheless when you meet for a glass of wine after work and then decide to have another because you are getting on so well, and then go off to dinner where there's more wine, and - just to prolong it - a tiny glass of something else afterwards... erm, well let me rephrase that. I had actually had quite a lot to drink. And I didn't eat a thing until probably somewhere around glass four. It's no wonder I like this one so much - not only did he bring me a little box of designer chocolates but he is imbued with a lovely rosy red wine glow. However, I think perhaps we do need to try a date where we actually stay sober just to be sure we know who we are 'seeing' as in - will recognise each other again in broad daylight - and no doubt be mightily relieved that, indeed, there is only one of us and we haven't been dating twins. Saturday is the big day. As in all day. He's coming round in the morning and being inducted into the secret life of Marion which involves the purchase of totally useless junk from some stall at the sordid end of Portobello Road which has so far furnished Castle Suburbia with: a set of oyster dishes (I have never once eaten oysters at home) three assorted tureens for all those vegetables that I don't cook for the Sunday lunches I don't make (but which would look fantastic laid out on the several serving dishes I have also purchased) , two or three tiered cake plates for the cakes that I don't bake (or at least, when I do, they don't exist long enough to merit display) and a sauce boat shaped like a bunch of asparagus. Nothing cost more than a tenner. You can keep your Manolo's - as well as being a really cheap drunk, I'm also a really cheap date - give me a ceramic toast rack with a chip on it and I'm delirious. And I never eat toast.

So we'll wander down Portobello. Stop at the next station of the cross which is Eggs Benedict at Uncle's Cafe where they know me so well now they don't even bother to ask for my order but just bring it with extra Hollandaise (I'm echoing Julia Child that "with enough butter anything is good"). And eventually, end up at the Gate Cinema for the latest Cohen Brothers' film. And if that doesn't scare him off, there's dinner later at the dodgy but brilliant Thai on our local council estate. Classy or what? I know how to show a man a good time.

It's slightly nerve-wracking. Okay, no, it's terrifying. But it's not the new man who scares me, it's all the women who've gone before me that I find daunting.

As my friend George pointed out over supper a few weeks ago - you're not just sleeping with the person who happens to be in your bed at the time, but with every single one of their previous partners. And this, naturally enough, does not just apply to their sexual health which is worrying enough, but also to the size of their thighs, quality of their underwear, dress size, exercise habits, body shape, diet and clothing... In short, their details - and - more significantly - yours, live on in subsequent relationships. I hate the idea of the last man discussing my character, or lack of it, with my successor in the way that one does tend to 'fess up about previous relationships and what went wrong with them, especially when she's only getting one side of the story. I don't like the the thought that some other women out there might know intimate details of my life from the lips of an unreliable source without me even knowing she exists. And if she reads this blog she'll be none the wiser because, readers, I LIE. Of course I do. I couldn't have a social life if I wrote the truth, would have no friends left, would never get anyone to go out with me, and you would pity me for the depths to which I'm willing to sink in pursuit of love. I mean - the West freaking Midlands, FFS?

I don't use real names, I exaggerate and sometimes I really, really don't. But former lovers? Do you think they dress it up in prose. Do you think they're self deprecating when they suck their teeth and tell the next one what was wrong with the last one? Viruses aren't the only thing that spread. So, similarly, with new man, the outline has been filled in. I don't know if his last woman went to Marks and Spencers for her tights or if they were hand woven from blind children in Nepal but I do know she had the same watch as me - but hers had diamonds. I know her name. What she does for a living. I know she was slim and gorgeous. And that she had a room for her shoes.

Shall I repeat that?

A. Room. For. Her. Shoes.

So I'm guessing she didn't have an orange crate wardrobe from Homebase at the end of her bed, then. Nor am I seeing her in Bridget Jones big pants.

I also know she never went to the gym, could eat what she wanted and was still skinny, never had children and was ten years younger than me.

Readers - there is not enough butter in the world, and all I have I'm wearing around my hips. I'm wondering if I should pull the bag over his head or mine. (Smear the butter on his specs perhaps..?)

Still the fear of confession and comparison is a STD that affects both men and woman.

I hope.

Proving that female of the species are just as deadly as the male

noreply@blogger.com (Writer in Residence) — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 15:12:00 +0000

Apparently the thing that women do is expect to move in after the third date... I have this on good authority from three of the sane men I've met. In our minds it goes - coffee, lunch, dinner, bed, weekend, joint answerphone messages and a his and her Christmas card... Though sometimes the coffee, lunch, dinner is elided. No wonder they're all cagey about telling you their real names or where they work (for intelligent people they obviously don't know much about the internet, or women's ability to use it to track down personal information). They're terrified you are going to turn up with your suit cases and scatter cushions. My most recent date who claimed to be fifty nine but looked seventy (an old seventy) if he was a day, and seemed a tad shabbily dressed for the chauffeur driven car that idled outside the hotel bar ready to whisk him away after our drink, told me that his previous girlfriend used to pray while they were making love. Looking at him shuffling across the floor it's not hard to see why.

It's a zoo

noreply@blogger.com (Writer in Residence) — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 21:02:00 +0000

I'm in New York next week where it will be raining men for my birthday. Unfortunately they will all be sheltering under an awning to protect their Gucci loafers as they are already partnered up with each other - but at least I shall be a gay icon at my own birthday party. There are worse things.

After some spirited socialising I'm suffering from dating fatigue. I'm so looking forward to getting away from it all. Apart from seeing the relocated Ambassador in Manhattan (I'm dumb with excitement at the thought of it - which is, as you know, a rarity), I am going to a gala evening at the opera, Carnegie hall, having a party thrown for me and generally being wined and dined every single evening. I can't wait.

Meanwhile it's been convenient that three of the men I've met up with recently have been called David as it saves me having to remember their names, though it is tricky knowing which one is which, especially when I got a message from one asking me to call him back as soon as possible and I didn't recognise the number. Unfortunately this David was the guy who is coming to fix the flashing on my roof and so he was a bit surprised to be called darling... (it saves me getting them mixed up).

However, my month's dating course is almost up. What a relief. I can't stand the highs and the lows. It's an emotional wringer. It has gone from the giddy excitement of looking forward to champagne at Claridges and dinner afterwards in one of those swanky business restaurants that I used to eat in all the time as the only woman not in a dark suit, and sometimes, the only woman - to the disappointment of realising that the classiest thing about the date is the postcode. I'm a sucker for a bit of flattery and after months of feeling very under-appreciated by His Royal Worcester it has been wonderful to be complimented and invited out to lovely places where I never once see the bill. Apart from the flowers I was even sent a gift in the post one morning. It has been sweet to have some easy affection instead of having it wrung out at the end of a telephone conversation disguised as a cough. I had a crisis of confidence after we stopped seeing each other and started this dating diet and so I asked my ex husband, somewhat doubtfully, if he thought I was still fanciable. Yes, he replied, with alacrity (because the man has to be nice to me otherwise I don't let him come round and mow the lawn and replace all the lightbulbs in the house he is still paying for) of course you are. I know, it's hardly the sexual seal of approval when you have to ask the man who left you for reassurance that some hapless twit out there in the big world of testosterone and "really enjoy staying in with a DVD" (good God, I can do that single, I don't need a man to be bored out of my skull on a Saturday night, thank you very much) will maybe ask you out, remember your birthday and write 'sweetheart' in the card. It's the sort of 'well-I-don't-want-you-but-somebody-else-will premise that clearance sales work on.

It has been thrilling and fun, but it has also been uncomfortable and, at times, depressing - even, like the last post, really frightening. The sad stories I have struggled not to bang my head on the table and cry upon hearing, and so many tales of marriage breakdown that dating starts to feel like Groundhog Day - especially when they are all called David. Even my own story starts to sound like a script. I've been desired, delighted and then dismissed and still had to drink the coffee. and felt like the relationship equivalent of cat nip for anyone on the autistic spectrum. There are a lot of men out there sitting at home playing the one arm banjo. Those are my shoppers...

But thankfully there are the nice ones. And the particularly nice one who I plan to see a lot more of.

Mind you after a martini every one seems nice. Even me.

One Martini is bliss, two makes Chimps look handsome and three means you can have your appendix out without anaesthesia. One particular two-Martini man told me I looked younger and 'far more beautiful' than I did in my picture (proving my own point). If it hadn't been for the fact that he got out a toothpick to excavate the remains of his halibut while he was trying to flirt with me, I would have fallen head over heels in love with him.

Call me Cheeta.