The Cows Read online

  ‘Here you go,’ says Pete, handing me a Bloody Mary and breaking the silence.

  ‘Wow, celery and everything. Cheers.’ We chink glasses, and I take a big sip. It’s delicious.

  ‘OK, well, have fun,’ Amanda says, walking away, as if she has hit her limit on what she can handle from me. ‘Pete!’ she says, ordering him away. I can’t help but notice him glance at my tits as he goes.

  ‘Hello, hi, hey, hi, hello,’ I say, walking over to the table of food and the small crowd of people around it. ‘Mmmmm, bright blue cupcakes, yummy,’ I say, taking a paper plate and loading it full of food. Everyone is looking at me with ‘isn’t she fascinating’ faces. There are as many dads as mums. I feel very conspicuous. Very solo. How is it I can be so confident at work, but put me in a group of parents and I want to bury my head in the birthday cake?

  ‘A Bloody Mary and carbohydrates, that can only mean one thing,’ says Tracey, Gabby Fletcher’s mum, coming over to me. We’ve chatted a few times before; she’s generally quite friendly but also has that air of primness about her that so many women seem to get when they get married and have kids. Even the wildest ones, like Sophie, even though she doesn’t have children. They used to be hard drinking, slutty drug munchers, but now they’re boring, safe, and married to men who would implode if they knew the things they used to get up to. I get the impression from Tracey that she has a past she doesn’t want to admit to. She always takes a second to answer questions, as if she is reminding herself of the right thing to say. Maybe I’m imagining it, maybe not.

  ‘Yup, killer hangover. This table has everything I need on it.’

  Pause.

  ‘I haven’t had a proper hangover in years, I just couldn’t do it with my two,’ she says, and the rest of the parents mumble in agreement.

  ‘Oh, I know. My mum has Annie on Friday nights, so I can go out and have a sleep in. I’m not sure I could handle it otherwise.’

  Tracey glances back at the group. I wonder if she’s been sent over to get information.

  ‘And I suppose you can do weekend swaps with Annie’s dad too? I mean, God forbid anything ever happen with me and James, but a bit of child sharing must be nice?’

  It’s not unusual for people to presume that Annie’s dad and I split up. It is unusual for me to be asked about it in front of an audience of mums and dads at a Disney-themed birthday party. This topic gives me extreme anxiety at the best of time. Mix that with hangover fear, and I suddenly realise that my face is very sweaty.

  ‘Oh, actually Annie doesn’t have a dad,’ I say, stuffing half a blue cupcake into my mouth and hoping she moves on.

  ‘Oh. Yes, some of the girls and I were just saying, we don’t really know much about you, we just wanted to get to know you a little better.’

  Girls, I think. Why do women refer to themselves as girls? It’s so weird.

  ‘Oh, right,’ I say, eating more cupcake.

  ‘So, was it a bad breakup?’ she asks, after watching me chew and swallow the whole thing.

  ‘No, nope. No, we were never actually together.’

  The other mums have now moved closer. I wonder how many cupcakes I can get in my mouth at one time, so I don’t have to speak.

  ‘Oh, sorry I shouldn’t pry!’ Pause. ‘So, what, just a fling?’

  I could just say yes, but as the Bloody Mary kicks in and joins last night’s alcohol that is still buzzing around my system, I have an unfamiliar wave of bravado.

  ‘Nope. Not a fling, a one-night stand. Well, there was a bit of flinging, I suppose. In that he flung some sperm up my vagina and into my uterus.’ I laugh, thinking that was pretty funny. Then I look at all of their faces, and realise it wasn’t.

  ‘That’s quite the image,’ Tracey says, picking up a cupcake she obviously has no intention of eating. ‘So he didn’t want to be involved?’ she asks, like a human lie detector that I know I won’t beat.

  ‘Nope. Actually he never knew. I never told him.’

  Silence. For what feels like a very long time. I eventually realise this isn’t one of her weird pauses, she just has no idea what to say. My nerves keep speaking.

  ‘Anyway, now I’m dating and looking for love, not sperm. Real, actual love. So don’t worry, your husbands are safe, ladies!’ I let out a raucous and crazy laugh. What am I doing? Who am I being? Why the hell did I say that about their husbands being safe?

  ‘Pete,’ shouts Amanda across the garden. ‘Pete, let’s get the cake.’ I hadn’t realised that he was standing behind me again.

  The crowd of parents disperses and spreads themselves into small groups around the garden. Every wife is making some sort of physical contact with their husband. I am left standing at the table alone, me and approximately 40,000 calories’ worth of blue puddings. I feel like the smashed-up sausage roll that nobody wants to eat.

  After a minute or two, my anxiety wins.

  ‘Annie, Annie, come on, we have to go,’ I say, rushing over to the bouncy castle and elbowing parents out of my way to get my daughter.

  ‘But Mummy, we haven’t had the cake yet,’ she says, looking embarrassed and worried that I am serious.

  ‘We’ll have cake at home. Come on, grab your cardboard box.’

  ‘But …’

  ‘ANNIE, now!’

  She does as she’s told, mortified that I just shouted at her in front of her friends. I don’t care, I’m too embarrassed to deal with judgement from these people. I also think I might be sick.

  I grab Annie’s hand and hurry through the house, feeling like I’m escaping an avalanche. As I open the front door, Vicky Thomson is standing there, her fist up to start knocking. I jump about three feet into the air.

  ‘Tara,’ she says, ‘are you leaving? God, I’m so late. Is the party over, why have you got a blue mouth?’

  So many questions. I push past her, dragging Annie by the hand.

  ‘OK, well, bye. And we should do coffee, I’ve written up a few more ideas, I really think one could …’

  But I’ve strapped Annie in and driven away before she has the chance to finish. When I get around the corner, I feel a little calmer. Then I look in the rear view mirror and see Annie’s face.

  My little princess is crying her eyes out.

  Cam

  ‘Hello, yeah I’ve been waiting for my pizza for over an hour … Yes, it’s Stacey … What? I spoke to you myself? … Oh, forget it, I’ll call Domino’s.’

  She hangs up.

  ‘That is so rubbish,’ Cam says to Mark, who is also very hungry but not the type to get annoyed. ‘It’s going to take ages to get here now.’

  She storms over to the kitchen and aggressively opens and slams shut all of the cupboards and the fridge. They are all empty.

  ‘Babe, you get so hangry,’ says Mark, infuriating Cam a little with his youthful slang.

  ‘I’ve been craving pizza all day,’ she says, huffing.

  ‘Well then, let’s go out and get some?’ Mark suggests, flippantly.

  ‘What, and bring it back here?’

  ‘No, let’s go eat somewhere. It’s Saturday night. Date Night!’

  Cam goes a little cold. Let’s go eat somewhere? As in, they sit opposite each other? In a restaurant? With clothes on? Making conversation? Is that possible?

  Before Cam has the chance to question it, Mark is standing by the door, ready to leave. ‘Come on then, I’m starving,’ he says.

  She picks up her keys, slips into some flip flops and follows him out. This is actually happening.

  As Mark reads the menu, Cam stares at him. It’s been a few months since they met in the line at Whole Foods, they’ve had sex in every position imaginable, but she has no idea if he even has a middle name. Sitting opposite him now, she can’t think of a single thing to say.

  ‘I’m going for the meat feast, I don’t even know why I bother to read the menu. What about you?’ Mark asks, putting the menu down and nodding at a waiter.

  ‘Me? What about me?’ Cam asks, worrie
d he’s asking her to express some feelings.

  ‘Er, what pizza you going for?’

  ‘Oh, a Hawaiian, always.’

  ‘Nah, can’t do fruit on pizza,’ Mark says.

  ‘Oh right,’ replies Cam, making a face that she thinks shows she is enjoying getting to know the small details of who he is, despite finding this terribly awkward.

  It’s not that she doesn’t like Mark, or doesn’t like spending time with him. But she’s actively avoided traditional dating for most of her adult life; it isn’t what she’s good at. She’d rarely choose to sit opposite someone she didn’t know really well for an entire meal. A drink, probably. A coffee, fine. But a meal? A proper date? She’s not good at this. She’s good at being at home, in her pants, making general conversation between sex sessions. In that environment she has props, distractions from intense emotional interaction. But now here she is, sitting opposite her fuck buddy of a few months, realising for the first time that the age gap is actually a thing. She feels conspicuous. Like an older man with a young hot blonde. Out of bed, this feels a bit silly.

  They order.

  ‘So what did you do today?’ he asks, as they wait.

  ‘Oh, um, I went to the park with my sister and niece and two nephews. We swam in the pond, it was nice,’ Cam says, shoving two olives into her mouth.

  ‘Ah, nice. I’ve got two nephews. Jacob and Jonah. Both want to be called JJ, so I just call them JJJJ, like Ja-Juh, Ja-Juh, and they find that really funny.’

  ‘That’s hilarious,’ says Cam, hiding her feelings by spitting olive pips into her hand.

  ‘They love me. I can pick them both up at once. They call me Uncle Hulk,’ Mark says, holding his arm up, bending his elbow, and flexing his biceps.

  Cam smiles. He’s so nice, she doesn’t want to be rude, or mean, but …

  ‘So how old are yours?’ he asks, being completely acceptable and acting as any normal human being would in this situation. But it’s too much for Cam. She’s not sure why she’s finding this so excruciating, but she is. She can’t do it. She just can’t.

  ‘Mark, I’m sorry. I’m not feeling great, maybe sunstroke or something. Can we get the pizza boxed up and take it home?’

  Mark doesn’t seem bothered. He still gets pizza, he still gets Cam – as far as he’s concerned, it’s all good.

  ‘Sure,’ he says, calling over a waiter to ask for the pizza to go. Cam instantly relaxes, and fills the time by getting her wallet out of her bag and counting out some money. ‘I’ll get this,’ she says. Mark happily accepts.

  As they leave, Cam thinks again.

  ‘You know, maybe I’ll just go home alone. I’m sorry, I think the heat really got to me today. Then not eating, and chasing kids around all afternoon. Is that OK?’

  ‘Of course, babe,’ Mark says, understandingly. He opens a pizza box to make sure she takes the right one. ‘Want me to walk you home?’

  ‘No, I’ll be OK. Thanks though,’ she says, appreciating how nice and easy he is, and wondering why she can’t bring herself to sit through a meal with him.

  ‘Will you go out tonight?’ she asks.

  ‘Probably, I fancy a dance,’ he says, further clarifying the vast contrast in their lifestyles. Cam wonders if he’ll pull later. Someone closer to his age, who also works in a gym, who is happy to chat about stuff. She knows she isn’t allowed to care.

  ‘Have fun,’ she says as he walks away.

  ‘Thanks babe,’ he calls back. She walks home, slowly.

  Back at her kitchen table, laptop in front of her, half a pizza to her right, and a cup of tea to her left, she thinks about what to write about. She knows her relationship with the world through the Internet is better than it is with it in person, but does that matter? Why should she have to be great offline, when she can be everything she wants to be online? It’s not like she has no contact with other humans at all; there is her family, Mark, and of course she has friends. Sure, she conducts most of her relationships on email, but it’s not like she’s literally alone, like an old person in a home that no one comes to visit. She could go out if she wanted to, she just doesn’t want to.

  She sits for a minute, and thinks about that.

  Does she want to? Or has she become so consumed with her online profile that she’s forgotten how to communicate face to face? She shakes her head. No … no, that isn’t how it is. The Internet allowed her to be everything she wanted to be. She’s happy living through her fingertips. In her virtual world she is bold, brave and powerful. In the real world, she kind of sucks. Her relationship with the Internet is nothing to be ashamed of.

  There, she has something to blog about. Cam gets to work.

  Being alone doesn’t mean I am lonely.

  I don’t remember the last time I felt lonely, but I am alone all the time. I think it stems from being brought up in a busy household, and living most of my life in my head. The truth is, I probably have the same fear of being surrounded that most people have of loneliness. Being alone doesn’t scare me. In fact, it makes me really happy.

  Being lonely is actually quite hard, if you fill your life with things you love. For me, the things I love don’t take me far from my front door. I enjoy walking, and watching movies, and seeing family and those kinds of things. But the rest of the time, when I am alone in my home, my thoughts and work occupy me plenty.

  When I am alone, I just get on with things. I do all sorts, ranging from acts of vanity to writing words. As I sit here in my kitchen on a Saturday night doing the latter of those activities, I thought I might share some of the other things I do when there is no one else around.

  Sometimes, I might sit at the kitchen table and pluck my bikini line with tweezers. Or I put a little vanity mirror on a table by the window, and use the brightness of the daylight to inspect my pores. I squeeze little blackheads and pluck out dark hairs from places on my face that they shouldn’t be. This leaves me looking all blotchy and unsightly, so I probably wouldn’t do it if there was someone else around. I’ll finish that process with a facemask, that I leave on for ten minutes while I email friends.

  I’m brilliant at emailing people. I’d write letters if actual handwriting didn’t give me wrist cramps, because I love the idea of old-school pen pals. I write school friends huge catch up emails, and I send them all the time. And they write back with just a few sentences, and I always feel really proud of myself for being so good at staying in touch, even though I would never make the effort to actually see them face to face. I also spend ages reading all of the emails I get from you guys, and a good portion of my time replying.

  I cook myself meals, and sometimes really go to town on what they might be. A few nights ago I made myself a chicken Thai green curry from scratch, including the paste. Then I sat in my window seat and I ate it while looking out over London and listening to Tapestry by Carole King. I followed that by reading almost half of a novel about a North Korean refugee, before going to bed and writing a blog with a cup of peppermint tea. In the morning, I woke up at ten a.m. and finished the curry. Cold. There was no one there to judge me, so I just did it, and it was perfect. I spent the rest of the day doing DIY with my dad.

  This is my life now, and how it has been for a really long time. I am alone, but never lonely. I don’t know if I could ever be lonely, because I love being alone. I think when you’ve truly mastered the skill of enjoying your own company, happiness just comes.

  Cam x

  She uploads the piece and tears off a huge piece of pizza. Usually she feels a sense of calmness when she’s written a good article, but Cam can’t quite shake the jitters she’s feeling from earlier. The weakness she feels when she’s in the wider world. How can the virtual her and the real life her be so different? Taking the pizza with her into her bedroom, she slips between the sheets and eats it. Looking around her room, she thinks how nice it would be to have a small armchair in the corner, one with a fun print on it, just for show. Maybe she’ll go looking for one tomorrow, that wou
ld be the perfect way to spend a Sunday. Still chewing, she lets out a massive pizza-perfumed fart, turns off the light, and falls fast asleep.

  Sunday

  Tara

  Annie and I are snuggled up on the sofa watching a movie, like we always do on rainy Sunday afternoons. My phone beeps and I jump up like a wasp just landed on my leg, giving Annie a huge fright. Suddenly we are both off the sofa, and standing in the middle of the living room.

  ‘What, Mummy? Who is it?’ she asks, a little frightened.

  ‘It’s just Sophie,’ I say, glumly. And sit back down.

  Did he text yet?

  No.

  Need cheering up? You can come over? Bring Annie. Carl is here, but that’s OK.

  Maybe later. I’m too busy dying of shame right now x

  OK, well come if you can. I like Carl seeing me with kids x x

  I consider telling her about the guy who filmed me on the train, but I don’t even know how I would explain that to Sophie. It’s giving me the creeps so badly, I’m really trying to block it out of my mind. But I keep visualising him in his living room wanking away to it, or even worse, posting it on his Facebook page so all his spotty little mates can wank over it. It’s so weird to think that someone out there has that footage and I have no idea who he is. Oh God, me having an orgasm, on camera. It’s just the worst thing I can imagine.

  Maybe he was just taking a photo? The newspaper didn’t fall off my lap until pretty near the end. It might not be as bad as I think. I just have to forget about it, pretend it didn’t happen, or it’s going to taunt me for the rest of my life. There is nothing I can do about it now, so I need to focus on the other things in my life, like the fact that I totally imagined how much Jason liked me. Urgh. Today is not good. Annie wants to do stuff, and I feel so low I can’t get off the sofa. There is a standoff.

  She was so upset about leaving the party early that she refused to come out of her room yesterday afternoon. I felt so gross that after some pitiful attempts to coax her out, I just lay on the sofa eating Pringles, like a teenager going through a breakup. Eventually I took her up some dinner and let her eat it in her room. Why is it that kids find eating away from a table so exciting? She came downstairs after that, and we played Snap until bedtime. When she was asleep, I got back to my carbohydrates and a bottle of wine. That’s probably why I feel even more horrendous today.