The Cows Read online

  ‘You said we’d go to the park today,’ Annie says, not even looking at me, arms crossed as she stares at the TV. We have Chitty Chitty Bang Bang on, we’ve seen it a hundred times.

  ‘I know. Sorry, Annie. Mummy’s not well. Come on, what do you want to watch, anything you want, I don’t mind?’

  ‘I don’t want to watch TV. I want to go out.’

  I look at my phone again even though it didn’t make a noise. Why hasn’t Jason texted me? Maybe he thought his message had sent? But then he’d be waiting for an answer from me and he’d look and see it hasn’t. No, he decided to stop writing. But why? I want to text him again, say something cool, easy, funny? But I can’t bring myself to. The least I can do for myself is retain some level of dignity by not saying anything else mortifying. Annie huffs loudly.

  ‘I’m bored inside, it isn’t even raining,’ she says, staring at my phone like it’s another child that is taking me away from her.

  ‘OK, I’m sorry, I don’t feel well,’ I say.

  We sit in silence for a few more minutes. I know she isn’t watching the film, I’m not either, but we both stare at the screen anyway.

  ‘I’m hungry,’ she says, eventually. ‘I want to go to the park and get an ice cream.’

  ‘Can’t we just have one day where we sit around doing nothing?’ I realise I’m sounding like the child and tell myself to grow up. I am a mother, not a lovesick teenager. I must parent and stop moping. I skulk into the kitchen. There is a plate of chicken in the fridge, I think it was from Thursday night’s dinner; it should be fine. I flop a big dollop of mayonnaise into it and stir it up, then squash it between two slices of bread. I sprinkle a few Pringles onto the plate next to it, and pour her a glass of water.

  ‘There,’ I say, offering it to her. ‘I made you a sandwich. Chicken mayo, yummy. Eat up and then we’ll go out.’

  She takes a few bites and swallows hard. ‘It tastes weird, Mummy.’

  ‘Oh Annie, please will you stop being so grumpy and just eat the sandwich!’ I snap, instantly regretting it. But I feel so tired, and embarrassed, and I need to wallow in all of those emotions until they go away. I look at Annie, she looks so upset. ‘Oh baby I’m sorry, I …’

  ‘You’re SO mean!’ she shrieks as she throws the plate on the floor, the sandwich popping open and mayonnaise splattering everywhere. She storms out of the living room and flies up the stairs. Her bedroom door slams and makes the house shake. That’s the first time she’s ever done that, I couldn’t feel more terrible. I throw a tea towel over the mayonnaise and pretend it isn’t there. Covering my face with my hands, I tell myself I have to be strong, this is not Annie’s fault, our weekends are precious, and I can’t waste one just because I am a total loser. We’ll go to see Sophie, everything will be fine. I’ll make up for yesterday. I have to be strong.

  I look at my phone again as I plod up the stairs.

  Still nothing. Why hasn’t he texted me?

  Stella

  Last night was shit. Halfway through my stir fry, Phil came back and sat in the living room with the TV on so loud I could barely think. I stood in the kitchen for ages, calming myself down. I wanted to go in there and rip the TV out of the wall and smash him over the head with it. Why is it him that’s so annoyed? Is it his whole family who died? His body that is under threat? I stared at the back of his head from the kitchen door and mouthed everything I wanted to scream at his face. He is supposed to be the strong one. He is supposed to take care of me, to make me feel better. That is the person he was when we met. That is who I thought was moving into my home. He was the one who persuaded me to get the test, with his ‘I’m here for you, baby’ and ‘It’s better to know.’ And now we have the result, he is the one who isn’t man enough to deal with it.

  But I held myself back. And I thought about what I want. And I don’t want to be alone, and I want to have a baby. So as I so often do, I swallowed my pain, I took off Alice’s lovely skirt, I went and sat next to him, put my hand on his leg, and I told him I was sorry. For what I should be so sorry for, I’m not entirely sure. But he turned the volume down, and he accepted a plate of food, and we sat and we watched a movie side by side.

  Now, a day later, we are at the kitchen table, eating the roast beef that I just prepared in a further attempt to stop him leaving me. I am running out of conversation; no friends to catch up on, no work gossip, no family news, and I’m trying to avoid the b and the c words.

  ‘Did you know that if you Google “What if I die with no legacy” the first four results are about what happens to your Facebook account after you’ve died?’ I say, with a small piece of meat stuffed into my left cheek.

  ‘I didn’t. No,’ replies Phil, taking a sip of red wine.

  ‘Apparently, now you can nominate someone to be your “legacy contact”, and then they can take control of it after you’ve gone. So basically I’d give you my login and then you could change my pictures and accept friend requests and stuff.’

  ‘Why wouldn’t you just shut the page down?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘You?’

  ‘Well, I’d be dead,’ I reiterate.

  ‘OK, then why wouldn’t the legacy contact just shut the page down? A Facebook account is no good to you when you’re dead, is it?’ Phil says, bluntly.

  I take a moment.

  ‘What if it’s all you leave behind?’

  ‘Well that would be pretty depressing, wouldn’t it?’ says Phil, obviously hoping this conversation stops soon.

  ‘Maybe that’s all I’ll leave behind,’ I say, pushing him to respond.

  ‘OK, Stella. Do you have to talk like this?’ Phil blurts, standing up from the table and taking his plate over to the sink. He drops his head. ‘I can’t have more of these casual conversations about death, it’s wrecking my head.’

  ‘Sorry,’ I say, even though I’m not. I creep behind him and put my arms around his waist. We stand like this for a minute or two, Phil’s body stiff and uninviting. I undo his belt.

  ‘I want you,’ I say gently as I take his flaccid penis into my hand and try to work it into something functional. I don’t remember ever having to do this at the beginning of our relationship. It’s standard now.

  After a long silence, it’s finally hard. ‘Come to bed,’ I say, taking him by the hand and leading him into the bedroom.

  As I take off my jeans and knickers, Phil lies down. He pulls his trousers down a little but leaves his underwear on. I crawl on top of him. ‘I might need a little help,’ I say, seductively putting my fingers into his mouth. He sucks them and turns his head to the side. I run my wet fingers around the opening of my vagina, a move he taught me, that he used to like to watch. I position myself above him and lower until he’s inside me. He keeps his head to the side. I move slowly up and down, not taking my eyes off his face. I try harder, making the noises that used to turn him on. I lean forward and kiss his neck, then his cheek. I kiss the side of his mouth as I groan and move faster, but he refuses to look at my face. He’s managing to retain an erection but he’s not moving, he’s not offering anything. I keep going, ramping up my speed a little but getting nothing back from him.

  ‘Phil, come on,’ I bark, frustrated. ‘Just fuck me, will you!’

  Phil pushes me off and onto the bed. I roll and face the other way, covering my face with my hands. It’s too embarrassing to bear.

  ‘I’m sorry, Stell,’ he says, sincerely. ‘I’m just really full.’ A lie.

  He gets off the bed, does up his jeans as he goes into the living room. I hear the TV go on.

  Tara

  Sophie and I used to work for an agency that supplied waiting staff for posh people’s parties. We’d serve miniature Yorkshire puddings with horseradish cream, or other such pretentious tiny things, to London’s society crowd. We dealt with a lot of pretentious arseholes, but we also got to snoop around their houses. Huge Notting Hill townhouses and massive Sloane Square apartments. They were another world from what we were
used to in Walthamstow. Our families did well by our local standards, we were the upper end of the scale for where we were from, but nothing in comparison to the people who had these parties. They seemed like something out of the movies, and they lived in a London that we didn’t recognise as ours. We used to laugh about how we would be if we lived that way. We fantasised about wearing wild dressing gowns, marabou slippers, wafting around our mansions with glass after glass of champagne. It was a ridiculous dream, but every time I arrive at Sophie and Carl’s house, I realise she is living it.

  I pick Annie up so she can ring the doorbell. It’s Victorian, so quite stiff. Her little fingers struggle to push it, so I put mine on top of hers and say, ‘One two, three.’ We hear the perfectly tuned, beautiful bells of Big Ben that their £400 doorbell bellows out whenever anyone pops round. Sophie’s voice booms out of a speaker, ‘Hang on, just upstairs,’ but as she says it, we hear heavy footsteps walking towards the door. Annie holds onto me a little tighter, which makes me feel so good. She’s been angry with me all day. But in that way that kids do, when a shred of fear from the outside world creeps in, she knows her mummy is the one to make her safe. I squeeze her back, happy to be a team again, as the door slowly opens.

  And there is Carl. All six foot two of him. His dark hair neatly cut and parted at the side. His fifty-one-year-old, well-looked-after body hidden underneath a cream V-neck jumper, with a checked shirt poking out from underneath. I’m not sure what you’d call the trousers he has on, a casual chino? This is him when he’s relaxing at home, but he still looks smarter than most of the men I know when they’re at work.

  ‘Hey Carl, so nice to see you,’ I say, stepping inside and kissing him on each cheek. I feel under surveillance, like I could say something incriminating to piss him off. I remind myself I am a parent, that he is not my husband, and it actually doesn’t matter if he likes me or not. But still, I feel judged.

  ‘Hello Tara, Annie; welcome. Sophie is somewhere, come in,’ he says, warmly, reminding me that most of my opinion of Carl comes from Sophie’s paranoia.

  ‘Hiiiiiii,’ says Sophie, coming down the large staircase. She looks fully the part and as beautiful as ever. All casual in black, but impeccably styled.

  ‘Aunty Sophie!’ says Annie, letting go of my hand and running over to her. They’ve always got on great. Sophie is childlike by nature, so connects well with kids. I am pretty certain this would not be the case if the kids were her own. It’s another reason why marrying Carl suited her. He has three boys by his first marriage, and no interest in having any more.

  ‘Hello sweetheart,’ she says, picking Annie up and giving her a huge kiss. I see her shoot a look to Carl, to make sure he is watching. She thinks him seeing her with children makes her seem responsible in some way, I think. ‘Shall we go into the kitchen?’ she says.

  In the kitchen, a huge white three-sided cube that opens up to a sprawling and perfectly preened garden, Carl goes over to a wine fridge that is four times the size of my actual fridge and says to Sophie, ‘Maybe a 2008?’

  ‘Lovely,’ she replies.

  As he opens it, Sophie opens the back doors so that Annie can burst into the open air and run around the flower beds. She gets to do no such thing at home, because my garden is basically a shed with no roof on it. I do love seeing her play happily, a gentle reminder that maybe I am doing OK at being a mum.

  ‘So, did he text?’ Sophie asks me, as Carl puts three enormous bulbous wine glasses in front of us. He puts three fingers’ worth of wine in mine, three fingers’ worth in his, but as he’s pouring Sophie’s, she puts her hand up as if to stop him putting so much in hers. That is the first time in the history of my existence I have ever seen her do that. Carl looks impressed. Sophie looks at me and winks.

  ‘No, not yet,’ I say, tasting the wine. It’s unbelievably delicious, like the smoothest, creamiest, most perfectly chilled drink I have ever consumed. I bet it cost £50 a bottle. I drink it slowly, despite wanting to neck it. ‘I obviously gauged that completely wrong. He hasn’t contacted me all weekend, I’m gutted,’ I continue.

  ‘I presume you’re talking about a young man?’ says Carl, like an old dad.

  ‘Yip! Tara went on an Internet date on Friday,’ Sophie says, as if she is telling Carl of a new phenomenon that the kids are doing.

  ‘Actually, that’s not quite what happened. I went to meet the guy from the Internet but I ended up with a guy I met at the bar,’ I say, correcting her, then wishing I hadn’t because that didn’t sound great. Carl looks confused, and I feel dirty.

  ‘I don’t think I could ever date someone I met on the Internet, I’d be so worried that they would expect something from me on the first date,’ says Sophie, like butter wouldn’t melt. My jaw falls open and I stare hard at her, as if to say, ‘I’m sorry, what character are you playing here?’

  ‘I was never much of a dater,’ she continues. To which I have to stop myself yelping, ‘No, you were just a shagger!’ What is this rewriting of history she has to do to keep her husband happy? I know what it is; it’s a fear of him leaving her and her being left with nothing. But would he, really? He’s a bit of a pompous snob, but I don’t think he’s that bad.

  ‘So, hang on,’ interjects Carl. ‘You were going to meet someone on the Internet but ended up with someone at the bar?’ He looks more intrigued than judgmental, but Sophie still looks nervous.

  ‘Yes. I went up to the wrong guy. By the time I realised it was the wrong guy we were already getting along really well, so I just stayed there with him.’

  ‘And what about the other guy?’ Carl asked.

  ‘He left with someone that looked like a prostitute, so he looked pretty happy,’ I say, looking at Sophie, as if to say, ‘You might lie about real life, but I don’t.’ I can see this terrifies her; she’s wondering how to separate herself from my debauchery.

  ‘God, we are so different,’ is what she goes with, causing me to spit out about £2.50’s worth of wine all over the solid white glossy kitchen table that seats twelve people.

  ‘Tara, careful,’ she says, getting up to fetch a cloth, with which she mops up my mess. I feel like I’m fifteen and sitting at a table with my friend’s parents who think I’m a bad influence.

  ‘Sophie, we are not that different. Are we?’ I say, not willing to take any further unnecessary humiliation this weekend; I think I’ve hit my peak after Jason and Wankgate. She stops wiping and looks at me. Carl is behind her, and she looks deeply into my eyes as if to say, ‘Please, just go with this.’ But why should I? Why should I sit here and be made to sound like some old slapper when she was basically ‘Miss Trollop of Walthamstow’ from 1998 through to 2010? Just as I am about to say something brilliantly clever and collected to set the record straight, Annie runs into the kitchen.

  ‘Mummy, I think I’m going to be sick,’ she says, looking as green as the garden behind her. And then, like an earthquake shattering a dam, she projectile vomits all over Sophie and Carl’s perfectly pristine floor.

  3

  Cam

  Cam’s article about not being lonely got shared 42,000 times, retweeted 18,000 times and discussed on This Morning. She is thrilled. This all helps raise the bucks she can haggle from her advertisers, and proves to her that even though she is relatively old now, well, old compared to Mark and his beautiful body, www.HowItIs.com is still as relevant as it ever was.

  But coming up with content every day is hard. She needs to find a balance of outrage, opinion and personal detail. Blogs with a good dose of all three are smash hits, and she thinks she has just the one to follow on with this buzz. She’s been wanting to write it for ages, but needed to get it word perfect. Having spent the weekend obsessing about the most horrendous attempt at dinner out with Mark and if her lack of social skills is a problem or not, she knows the time is right. This isn’t about him, it’s about her; about taking control of her life in the bravest, most honest way possible. She is happy, her choices are right, and it’s impo
rtant to her that everyone understands that. Cam knows what she is about to say will get a strong reaction. From her readers, of course – but mostly from her mother.

  www.HowItIs.com

  Why I Don’t Want Children

  I don’t want kids. And no, I’m not sad or selfish, or self-obsessed or mean. I’m a kind, funny, thirty-six-year-old who was loved by both of my parents and who gets plenty of sex. I’m attractive, fit, healthy, a great lover and good friend. I’ve never been sexually abused, I’ve had happy relationships, and I like myself very much.

  I just don’t want kids. That doesn’t mean that I am not very nice.

  I also don’t hate children, and to be honest I am spooked by people who say they do. When other people who don’t want kids say that to me I think, you were a child, I was a child, we need children. They are only little adults. They are not something you can hate. I believe that people who hate children actually hate themselves more. I do not hate myself; I just don’t want children.

  I am an aunty, and I love my nieces and nephews very much. I am not, however, desperate to be relevant to them in any way more than aunties who have their own children are. They are not my surrogate offspring. They are just my nieces and nephews. I’m a fun aunty who visits, plays games, teaches them inappropriate words and leaves by bedtime. They like me, I like them, but I don’t want to make them feel that if they ran away from home they could come and live with me in my absolutely incredible new Victorian flat which is, in many ways, my very own baby.