I Don't Know How She Does It

to take furious notes on Charlie Baines’s suggestions for something he calls organizational amelioration.

The review of monthly reports goes on and on. Am losing my battle with unconsciousness again when I suddenly notice that Rod’s computer is still displaying his Christmas screen-saver. It shows a snowman gradually disappearing in a blizzard. I think how restful it would be to be buried in snow, how delicious to slip into its cold accepting nothingness. Think of Captain Oates at the South Pole: “I’m going out now. I may be some time.”

“You’ve only just come back in, Katie,” snaps Rod, aiming his MontBlanc pen at me like a dart.

Realize I must have spoken thoughts aloud like crazy woman who wanders streets dressed in bin bags, giving running commentary of her paranoid inner world.

“Sorry, Rod, it’s Captain Oates. I was just quoting him.”

A roomful of fund managers swivel eyes in unison. At the far end of the table, within licking distance of Rod, my assistant Guy’s equine nostrils flare appreciatively at the first whiff of humiliation.

“You remember Captain Oates.” I prompt my boss. “The one who walked out of a tent to certain death on the Scott expedition to the South Pole.”

“Typical bloody Pom.” Rod snorts. “Meaningless self-sacrifice. What do they call that, Katie, honor?”

They’re all looking at me now; wondering how I’m going to get out of this one. Come on! Kate to brain, Kate to brain, are you receiving me?

“Actually, Rod, the South Pole expedition is not a bad management model. How about we apply it to our worst-performing fund, the one that’s sapping our resources? Maybe the worst fund needs to take a walk in the snow.”

At the suggestion of cost-cutting, Rod’s eyes take on a viscous piggy gleam. “Huh. Not bad, Katie, not bad. Look into it, Guy.”

Eyes swivel away. That was a close one.

7:23 P.M. Crawl home only to find Paula in a huff. A nanny huff can descend as suddenly as sea mist and be twice as treacherous. Can tell this is a bad one because she is actually clearing up the kitchen. What I really want to do is collapse on the sofa with a glass of wine and figure out if any characters I recognize are still alive in EastEnders, which I haven’t seen since June — enough time for entire dynasties to have fallen in Albert Square and for Phil Mitchell to have spawned at least two more love children with his late brother’s ex-wives. Instead, I have to navigate with extreme care around the events of the day. I praise the nutritious contents of Emily’s lunch box, I promise to pick up some name tags tomorrow, saying it’s really no trouble (as if); then I try blatant cultural suck-up by mentioning a soap star who has just given birth and is featured across seven whole pages in Paula’s new copy of Hello!

Two pregnancies have wrecked my short-term memory but left me with freakish instantaneous recall of the names of all celebrity babies. Knowing the offspring of, say, Demi Moore and Bruce Willis (Rumer, Scout, Tallulah) or Pierce Brosnan (Dylan; also the name of the Zeta-Jones/Michael Douglas first sprog and of Pamela Anderson’s second) may not be of any immediate professional use, but it has lifted my stock with Paula on several critical occasions.

“Dylan’s getting to be a very popular name now,” observes Paula.

“Yes,” I say, “but think of Woody Allen and Mia Farrow’s little girl. She was called Dylan and got to the age of eleven and wanted to change her name.”

Paula nods. “And they called the other one something stupid too, didn’t they?”

“Satchel!”

“Yeah, that’s it.” Paula laughs and I join her: the limitless folly of stars being one of the great democratic pleasures. Can see the huff is starting to lift when I stupidly push my luck and ask Paula if she managed to find a Teletubbies cake.

“I Can’t Remember Everything,” she says, and sweeps out with a swish of her invisible black cape. While the front door is still reverberating, I discover the cause of the huff lying open on the worktop. The Evening Standard has a story about how much London nannies are paid and their incredible perks: top-of-the- range car, private health care, gym membership, use of jet, use of horse.

Horse? Thought we were doing OK by letting Paula use my car while I take the bus. Whatever happens, I am not going to be blackmailed into paying out more money. We are at our absolute limit already.

8:17 P.M. Tell Richard we will have to give Paula a pay rise. Plus possible riding lessons. A terrible row follows in which Rich points out that, after we have paid her tax and National Insurance, Paula actually takes home more than he does.

“Whose fault is that?” I say.

“What do you mean by that?”

“Nothing.”

“I know your nothings, Kate.”

Over supper, we sit within a few centimeters of each other at the kitchen table, simmering quietly. Richard has cooked spaghetti and put together an avocado and tomato salad. We start a cautious conversation about the children — Ben’s huge appetite, Emily’s new fixation with Mary Poppins—and I am starting to like him again when, twiddling some spaghetti onto his fork, he casually mentions that he made the pesto himself this afternoon. This is simultaneously admirable and horribly demoralizing. I can’t bear it.

“How did you find time to make pesto? And the plates? I suppose you’ll be taking up pottery next. Why the hell can’t you do something that needs doing? How about replacing the parking permit, for instance?”

“The new parking permit is in the car,” he says, “if madam would take a few seconds out of her schedule to look.”

“Oh, we are the ideal husband, aren’t we?”

There is a screech of metal on wood as Rich scrapes his chair away from the table. “I give up, Kate. You ask me to do things to help out, and then when I do them you despise me for it.”

Somehow I can’t formulate a reply to this. It seems both an incredibly brutal thing to say and impossible to argue with. Women often joke that they need a wife to take care of them, and they mean it: we all need a wife. But don’t expect us to thank the men who sign up for the role of homemaker for taking it away from us.

“Kate, we have to talk.”

“Not now, Rich, I need a bath.”

STILL OUT OF BATH OILS, I find an old packet of lavender salts at the bottom of the airing cupboard. It promises to “soothe and motivate”: I add some of Ben’s Pirate Pete bubbles, which turn the water school-uniform navy.

Climb into the scalding blue lagoon and lie back with my favorite reading matter — in recent years, let’s be honest, my only reading matter. Better than any fiction, Jameson’s “Country Property Guide” is a glossy brochure crammed with photographs of desirable properties for sale around the British Isles. We could exchange the Hackney Heap for, say, a converted mill in the Cotswolds or a pocket-size castle in Peeblesshire. (Where is Peeblesshire? Sounds a bit far.) The pictures are fabulous, but what I really like are the specifications. On page 18, there is a house in Berkshire with annex study with a barreled ceiling and gardens full of mature fruit trees. What is a barreled ceiling? I’m not quite sure, but I want one. And mature fruit trees! I picture myself wafting through a wood-paneled library where there would be freshly cut blossoms in tall vases on the way to the country kitchen boasting a blend of traditional cupboards and up-to-the-minute appliances. Standing next to the Aga — not for cooking in, I would be using the Neff double oven for that — I would write dates on the labels of the jelly made from apples picked from mature fruit trees in extensive gardens while my children played contentedly in the recessed nook upholstered in tasteful fabrics.

“Kate’s porn.” That’s what Richard calls the Jameson’s brochure when he comes across a copy stashed guiltily under my side of the bed. He’s got a point. All the mouth-watering pictures, laid out for my viewing pleasure, allow you to take possession of those lives without having to go through the trouble of actually leading them. The more depressed I get in my own house, the more consuming my property lust.

Thinking of Rich reminds me of our pesto fight and I wince at my part in it. His very kindness and sanity are enough to inspire the opposite in me. Why? Richard thinks that I indulge Paula, that I let her get away with things