year) and then all of a sudden they start spraying sprogs about the place like a fish spawning. I’ve heard all the stories. Couples who gave up hope only to have eight kids in a week!
“I know someone who waited decades!” people say.
“My cousin had actually been dead for three years when she had her first. Dead of old age! She was a shrivelled, sundried-tomato-like, cadaverous old corpse and what’s more her husband had no testicles, having lost them in the Crimean War. Yet once they’d had one they couldn’t stop. Ended up with enough for a football and a netball team plus a crowd of supporters!!”
I’ve heard them all.
Mum says that she’s sure it’s all in the mind. Everybody says that. She says I concentrate too much on my career. Everybody says that too. Besides which, career? Ha! Ha ha HA! One thing I do not have is a career. I am not a theatrical agent, I am a theatrical agent’s assistant. Negotiating residual repeat fees for cable broadcasts of ancient episodes of Emmerdale Farm (when it was still called Emmerdale Farm) is not what I call a career.
Melinda says I’ve got to relax. Everybody says that as well! In fact, that is the thing that everybody says most. They say, “Relax, the thing to do is put it out of your mind and then it will happen.” It is simply not possible to bloody well relax with your body clock ticking away in your ear at five million decibels, and your eggs getting more dry and ancient by the day.
Melinda and George brought Cuthbert round today, which was nice. No, really it was, I’m not so bloody sad that I can’t enjoy my friends and their babies. Sam still refers to Cuthbert as Scrotum, which is ridiculous because he’s beautiful. I held him for a while and just wanted to eat him. It’s pathetic, I hate myself, but all the time I was saying how lovely he was, all I could think was, “Wish I had one.”
Dear Sam
Scrotum may have improved slightly, difficult to say. I mean he no longer makes me want to hide behind the sofa like he was a monster from Doctor Who, but then that may just be because I’m getting used to him. George has overcome his initial qualms, I’m pleased to say, and given the lad the benefit of the doubt. The prospects of young Cuthbert ending up wrapped in a blanket outside a police station are receding. I mean it’s clear that he’s not going to be a male model, that’s for sure, but George thinks he could probably do something in the City or on the radio. Or a boxer, perhaps? We certainly wouldn’t have to worry about his looks getting ruined.
I’m probably being unfair here. I suppose all babies look this way in the very early stages, but I have to be honest and admit that they do absolutely nothing for me. I try to get clucky but no go, I don’t even want to hold them. I’m an arm’s-length man, thank you very much. That funny pulsating bit on their heads completely freaks me out. The first time I saw that I confidently expected the Alien to burst forth from it with Sigourney Weaver close behind. Of course Lucy went potty over the lad and had to hold him and I knew that all she could think was that she wished she had one.
I wish that she did too. I wish that we both did. I would love to be the father of Lucy’s child.
Sometimes, on the rare occasions when I go for my run in the park, I find myself fantasizing about us being a family. I imagine Lucy back home with the two cutest little toddlers ever and me getting back and having my bath with them and then we all have tea together and then a story.
I’ll stop writing now as I’m in danger of turning into a sad fuck.
Dear Penny
Drusilla has suggested aromatherapy. She’s given me some rose and geranium oils, which was nice of her. She says these oils are oestrogenic. Sam is of course completely dismissive. He says if women want to bathe in scented oils then that’s fine by him but they should not bloody well pretend there’s any further significance to it than that. I hate the way he does that. As if there’s some rational and obvious way of doing things and everything else is just self-indulgent claptrap. I mean it probably is self-indulgent claptrap, of course, but he doesn’t have to be so negative all the time. I said to him, “There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy, you cynical bastard!” which I must say I thought rather a clever riposte.
The thing about Sam is that he protects his feelings by pretending he doesn’t have any. I’m sure that’s why he suffers from writer’s block. I just don’t believe you can write anything worthwhile without putting a bit of yourself into it.
Dear Self
The house reeks! Stinks! I do wish Lucy would not talk to Drusilla. I mean I know that Drusilla has considered Lucy her soulmate since Lucy got her the part of a plum in a yogurt advert, but the woman is nuttier than squirrel shit. The aromatherapy business has got out of hand. As I write these very words Lucy, a normally rational person, is boiling up the bark of a hawthorn hedge with the roots of a herbaceous bush in order to make a tincture for her bath. I try not to be dismissive, but Lucy knows how I feel and takes it as evidence of a shallow cynicism on my part. She feels that this is at the root of my inability to write, saying that I live my emotional life at a glib surface level and that I won’t write anything worthwhile until I get in touch with my inner feelings. The truth of the matter is, of course, that I don’t have any inner feelings and the reason I can’t write anything decent is that I am a talent- free zone with the brain of a Brussels sprout.
Dear Penny
Sam is still moaning about my aromatherapy and herbal remedies (I’m currently boiling fennel and ginger, which I admit is a bit whiffy). He’s so cold and dismissive of anything remotely spiritual or sensual which is very frustrating for me because I really do feel the need for softness and spirituality in my life sometimes. I mean, what’s the point of sharing your life with someone if you can’t communicate with them about the things that matter to you? Sam, I’m afraid, thinks that feelings are an inconvenience and never really wants to talk about anything important. He’s only interested in his work and trivia like old popmusic. Sometimes I even wonder about whether he still fancies me.
Sheila took on an important new client today. An actor called Carl Phipps. He came into the office. Very arrogant. Good looking, certainly, but what does that signify?
Dear Self
Now she’s started using this little candle and dish arrangement in which she warms aromatic oils. The house stinks like a student party. I know I shall have a blocked nose in the morning. On top of which the whole business has made her all upset with me as well. This evening she wanted me to massage nutmeg oil into the crease of her bum (not, I hasten to add, out of any sudden erotic desire but because it’s what it said you should do on the bottle). Well, I put down my newspaper and did it, of course, but she could tell that I wasn’t overly enthused about the whole thing. She felt I was massaging her bum crease in a perfunctory manner and took this as further evidence of my lack of tactile warmth, similar to the shameful way in which I don’t like to cuddle while watching the telly. Lucy thinks I’m uptight and unloving, that massaging her bum crease is something I should relish, that I should be rejoicing in the sensual dialogue betwixt my fingers and her bum. I just think that I wanted to finish my paper.
Look, Book, I’m not saying I don’t fancy her. Of course I fancy her, but we’ve been together for nearly ten years! I just can’t get as worked up about her bum as I used to. I know her bum, I’m familiar with it, we’ve been through a lot together. Caressing it can never again be the same journey of mystery and delight that it was on our first wild nights together. I can’t say this to Lucy, of course. She’d be horrified and think me a callous pig. Although I can tell you one thing: if I strolled up to her while she was watching EastEnders and said, “Stick your fingers up my arse now,” I’d get pretty short shrift.
But it’s always the way with women, isn’t it? One law for them, one law for us. She’s completely irrational. She says that I’d probably be more than happy to massage aromatic oils into Winona Ryder’s bum and the truth is
