I solved the whole argument in the most adult way possible that night. I went to bed immediately, taking my precious sleeping tablet and letting him face my back the way I’ve faced his so often when I wake in the wee small hours. So there.
That’s the tricky thing with sleeping tablets: they hit you with their chemical cosh for a decent five hours and then, bingo, you are wide awake again.
Just thinking about how little I sleep despite the tablets, I realise that I need coffee badly.
Five damn hours. Zimovane is supposed to give you six hours but I am bucking the trend. My mind fights its way out of sleep, no problem.
Sleep comes second to peace of mind in the list of casualties in my life.
Peace of mind cannot be bought, even pharmaceutically.
I used to worry over my father and how my mother would cope, now I worry over my own fear as well. I also now worry about not being able to come up with the recipes I used to magic out of thin air. I worry over Scarlett who surely cannot face another round of fertility treatment, even if she and Jack could manage to fund it. I worry about the children, naturally.
I worry full stop.
Lorraine is on the phone first thing.
‘How’s Freya the Slayer?’ she says, and I hear the grin in her voice.
‘That’s got a good ring to it,’ I say, putting down my sixth cup of espresso that morning. I have the headache from hell and am blasting it with paracetamolandibuprofen. ‘Freya the Slayer, perhaps we could put that on the cookbooks?Freya the Slayer has new recipes for you: photographers’ intestines served en croûte.’
Lorraine laughs.
‘Yeah, you told them. I almost felt sorry for him.’
‘So do I now,’ I admit. ‘I was thinking of phoning and apologising.’
‘Don’t bother doing any such thing,’ says Lorraine crisply. ‘I saidI almostfelt sorry for him – not that I did. He was there to do a job and he went off mission. He thought he was back in art school. You were right to stop him and you know it’s good to change the old Freya sweet and cuddly image into something a bit tougher. Like I said, you have turned the corner.’
‘I have not turned any corner,’ I say, thinking that this corner must involve becoming Maura and getting all perimenopausal and a danger on the roads. ‘I’m onlyforty-two, you know.’
‘Speaking of which, we’ve got a request in to do aFabulous Over Fortything for one of the Sunday papers. Nina was on to me, said you had to do it and I said yes, we can fit it in, once you agree. It will be a full shoot and they wanted to do it in your house, but—’
‘No,’ I say, horrified. ‘The only part of the house that’s fit for cameras is the kitchen. The rest of it ... Nooo. We have too much stuff, I’ll never get all the boxes unpacked and we haven’t painted a single wall ...’
‘Yeah, I figured,’ says Lorraine, who seems to be on top or everything without actually being told. Sometimes I think she sees my bank statements even though they get delivered to my house.
‘So,’ she continues, ‘I suggested that because it’s summer, we do a romanticpicnic-style thing in a lovely hotel garden.’
‘Romanticpicnic-style thing,’ I repeat as if I’m saying ‘gastroenteritis – both ends.’ ‘OK.’
I hate the sort of summer clothes newspapers and magazines like you to wear for summer shoots: they’re all flowy andfrou-frou and if you have any sort of boobs at all, carry weight on your hips, or basically, like food, you look like a flowerysack-person who never saw a cake she didn’t like.
‘I would have said no, that you only like indoor photographs and sleek clothes, but they are all set on this outside shoot. And Freya, it’s May.’
‘Not that you’d know today,’ I reply, looking out at a day devoid of sun.
Lexi’s school term will be finished soon, end of the month. She’s about to start herend-of-year exams and the grand meeting with Elisa and eight stone of Surella products is not happening until she’s on her summer holidays. Or at least this is what I have told Dan to explain in the messages to Elisa and her mother. That’s another source of great annoyance. All the messages come to Dan. It’s as if I don’t exist. The wholecrime-of-passion scenario has shifted and I’m now idly wondering whether I’d get jail time fornail-gunning Elisa. Only most of the time it’s Elisaandher mother.
Why are they herenow? When everything in my life is so chaotic?
But I control the anger. I can’t see there being much of a TV and cookery book market out there for homicidal chefs.
‘Yes, I used this knife on my victims. So, first we dice the meat ...’ Ha!
‘OK,’ I say to Lorraine. ‘When did they want to do it, do we have any sort of date?’
I’m thinking of my endless lists in my diary which are always full of things I have not ticked off as ‘done.’ Another place I’m failing.
