‘Then sorry, maybe I’m missing something here, but isn’t that a successful business? What you’ve made is beautiful.’
‘Maybe…but anyone could do that.’
‘I couldn’t,’ said Peg.
‘Okay, but it’s not being an interior designer, is it? That’s the point. Only a handful of really successful designers get to work with the kind of clients who have the money to do something different, to fundamentally change their houses instead of just fiddling with the soft furnishings, or swapping the colour of paint on the walls.’
Peg thought about Farrow & Ball’s Breakfast Room Green and smiled. ‘There’s nothing wrong with that though, surely? We don’t all have money to burn.’
‘No, I realise that, it’s just…’ Sofia sighed, frowning as if she was trying to catch a thought. ‘Maybe it’s not that at all, maybe it’s the fact that the few clients Idomanage to get just want the same as everyone else does – which is whatever’s trending on Instagram. Because, in reality, no one wants to stand out from the crowd, do they? We all want to belong. Only it’s to a club that has no name, and no organisation, and the rules of it change almost every day. Yet we still want to be a part of it. It’s baffling when you think about it.’
‘And that club is full of people with picture-perfect lives,’ agreed Peg, nodding. ‘With beautiful houses, beautiful bodies and in beautiful relationships…things that most of us struggle over and never feel we attain. And yet we keep on striving, because we keep on believing. But what if we tell ourselves those lives are fake, Sofia? What then? Doesn’t it change the pressure we put ourselves under? Doesn’t it make us kinder to ourselves? More accepting?’ She paused to give Sofia a warm smile.‘Doesn’t it make us realise that being ordinary is okay? That, in fact, being ordinary isextraordinary, because that’s what each and every one of us is – unique and utterly extraordinary.’
Sofia’s gaze dropped to her hands, still clutched in her lap. ‘That might sound good in theory, but it’s not that simple, is it? We’re all expected to be something these days, be someone.’
‘Can I ask you another question then? Going off on a tangent here, but what made you want to be an interior designer in the first place?’
‘Because I have a degree in textiles, and I thought…’ She gave Peg a perplexed look. ‘I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I thought I’d give fashion a go, but that’s such a competitive area and I knew I didn’t have the stamina for it, nor the skill either, not really. But I’d started making a few things for myself when I was at university, mainly to save money, and it started from there. I ended up working in a fabric shop…’ She pulled a face. ‘Which was fine. I enjoyed it, actually. I learned a lot, too, and once Adam and I got married, it was all right for a bit, but then it didn’t seem…enough, maybe, I don’t know.’
‘And that was when you decided to throw a lot of money at your business, and do all the social media stuff to try to attract clients?’
Sofia nodded, looking miserable.
‘So why wasn’t what you were doing before enough, if you enjoyed it?’
‘Because I thought when we got married that children would come along and I’d be a mother. I never really wanted to be anything else. I certainly didn’t want a career.’
‘So why go chasing one?’
‘Because the few friends I told about how I felt thought I was odd. None of them want kids. Or not for ages, anyway. Not until they’ve got where they want to be.’
‘What, none of them?’ Peg frowned, thinking of her own children. Is that really what young people wanted these days?
Sofia’s glance flickered away. ‘Not all of them, no. Quite a lot of our friends already have children. Our old friends that is – but we don’t see them much any more.’
And suddenly Peg understood. She remembered how it was when she was Sofia’s age, how all the friends in her circle gradually paired off, got married, started families, and she’d wondered when it would be her turn. But then she’d met Julian and suddenly itwasher turn. But how would she have felt if that hadn’t happened for her? Quite probably the same as Sofia did now – choosing to move in a different circle where the differences between them were no longer so obvious. Where she wasn’t made to feel left behind and yet she still felt it anyway.
‘My mother used to call it having your cake and eating it,’ she said. ‘Describing women who didn’t just want to be a stay-at-home mum. Didn’t want to bejusta wife and mother. She made it sound as if there was something wrong with women wanting to run a global company at the same time as having children. But the point is that it’s a choice, and each decision has its merits. It’s whatever is right for the individual concerned. Though, admittedly, it’s often financial pressures which make those choices for us. Both my husband and I needed to work when our children came along.’
‘Yes, but it isn’t just that. It’s the pressure to besomething, be someone…Which is exactly my point.Ihave to be something, someone…’
‘Why?’
‘Because…’ Sofia looked up, her eyes suddenly wide. ‘Because I don’t have anything else…’ She trailed off, a surprised look on her face. Surprise at having finally given voice to the thought which had been in her head for such a long time, the hurtshe had held inside of her for so long. A hurt that coloured everything.
Peg let Sofia’s words hang in the air for a moment, giving them space to breathe, to swell and fill the room and hopefully take root in Sofia’s head so that she fully acknowledged them. She leaned forward.
‘I can’t take away your pain, Sofia, but I can remind you to never lose hope. Because if you have hope, you usher in possibility. And where there’s possibility, anything can happen, and often does. Don’t live your life putting distance between yourself and the thing you want the most. Make a home for it instead, here in your head.’ She tapped two fingers lightly against her crown. ‘You have to make it welcome or it will never arrive. It takes a lot of courage to break from the crowd. To do things differently…But you know, if you did, I think you’d find that people would admire you for it. Perhaps even be a little bit envious, even a lot envious. Maybe you should try it. Maybe this is the perfect time to break the mould, Sofia.’
24
Peg had been watching the clock for almost an hour before Mim and Henry finally arrived back, much, much later than she’d thought they’d be. And Henry was exhausted.
‘I know, I know…I’ve overdone it,’ he said, in reaction to her expression. ‘But I didn’t realise how knackered I was until we got in the car to come home and my head started spinning.’
He rubbed at his chest and Peg wondered whether that was hurting as well. For goodness’ sake, why were men all the same? Determined not to listen. Well, she was damned if she’d let history repeat itself. Mim was looking sheepish as well, and were it not for that fact, Peg would have said something far stronger than she was going to.
‘You’re both as bad as one another,’ she said. ‘But I shall have to have words with Blanche if she’s going to have you gallivanting about.’
