'What's funny?'

'Isn't that traditionally a woman's trick? Great s.e.x, immediately followed up by a previously unreasonable request, so that you are guaranteed a positive response.'

'Yes, Connie, it is,'I say with impatience. 'I think that's what's annoying me the most. I thought that's what I was doing.'

I fill in the details on the night in question. Connie is almost rolling on the floor with the hilarity of the situation. I'm glad I can amuse her. 'Oh, come on, Luce. It's not that bad. Where's he booked?'

'Center Parcs.'

Connie is going to split in two. She laughs manically. I glare at her for a number of minutes, becoming increasingly irritated. Connie and Luke have holidayed at Center Parcs twice. On both occasions they asked Peter and me to join them and I made it perfectly clear that I'd rather chew off my own arm. She loved both holidays, which just goes to show you never really know anyone.

'I truly can't think of anything worse,'I tell her.

'Actually, it's a lot of fun.'I look unconvinced. 'Don't worry, Rose will probably veto you taking the boys away for a week.'

'No, no, she hasn't. I thought she would but she hasn't. She's dating, can you believe that? And trying to get some freelance work doing VAT records or something. She said that she could do with the time to herself and that it was time Peter was more actively involved with the boys. b.i.t.c.h.'

Connie can't see anything other than the funny side. She tries to cheer me up. 'Come on, Luce. It will be good for you and Auriol to have a bit of bonding time. And the boys are good kids. I bet you'll love it.'

'Did you hear me? He's booked Center Parcs. The modern family's Butlins. I just can't do it.'

'Will you take Eva?'

'No, I can't. She's booked a flight home. I agreed to her holiday before she would accept the job back in September. If I make her cancel her trip back to Poland to come away with us, she'll quit.'

'It will be OK,'says Connie. She squeezes my hand and then goes to refill our gla.s.ses.

No, it won't be OK. I'm ma.s.sively disappointed with Connie, I thought she'd see how unreasonable Peter is being.

'I don't want to play happy families for a week. I don't have a maternal bone in my body.'

'But you are a mother. Why'd you have her?'

'It's expected.'

'You've never been pulled in by expectations in the past, least not other people's.'

'Society, my family, Peter, they all expected me to have a child. Even you did. Besides, I needed to even things up.'

Connie sighs elaborately. 'Is this about Rose again?'

'No. Yes. How is it, Connie, that I'm still competing against her?'

'Beats me, Lucy. Look, I know you've been, well 'She can't find the words, or daren't. 'Not yourself recently. And feeling a bit 'Again she falters. 'I had a thought, hear me out. Have you considered having another baby? Babies keep you young.'

I stare at Connie amazed. I'm trying to tell her how much I'm struggling with the children already in my life. Auriol stole my youth. How can she suggest anything so ridiculous and inappropriate as having a second?

'No. Peter and I really believe that the world's resources are thinly stretched as it is. The western society is such a greedy consuming one, we take out so much more than we are prepared or capable of giving back. I only have to think of landfills of disposable nappies rotting and I can't bring myself to conceive. People ought to be more aware.'

I shake my head sadly. Connie eyes me reproachfully. She's not sure how seriously she ought to take my response. She picks up a handful of nuts and chews silently and carefully. She's irritating me. She looks like a hamster. Connie has let me down, she's changed, she's insisted on popping out a baby every five minutes and she's insisted on loving it. I've lost her. I don't belong, I've never belonged. Connie is the closest I've ever had to a proper friend and she doesn't understand me. Who cares? I don't even aspire to belong. I am a very independent woman. Not a loner, not unsociable, just independent.

Maybe I'm a bit lonely at the moment alternately lonely or angry. I opt to be angry, it's not as pathetic. Right now Connie is closest to me physically and psychologically, so I lash out at her.

'You all have that holier-than-thou thing going.'

'What?'

'The att.i.tude mothers of more than one child have. I'm not sanctimonious when I see a childless woman, I'm jealous of her or I pity her, depending on what sort of day I'm having with Auriol, but mothers of multiples are so sanctimonious. No sooner did I have Auriol than people started to ask me when we'd have another. Any time on the third of neverary.'

Connie looks sad for me. What the h.e.l.l is that about? How have we ended up in such different places?

On Monday Mick will be back in the office. I'll talk to him about Peter's underhand tricks and the unfairness of me having to use precious holiday allowance on a week's break in Center Parcs. He'll understand where I'm coming from.

Connie flops back on to her couch. I notice that the grey buckskin is mottled with spillages and stains. Clearly Connie has lost the plot. She used to be fanatical about keeping her Conran furniture absolutely just so. I rather liked it about her.

'I've had a rollercoaster week myself,'she says.

Given her lack of concern for my problem I'm tempted to be uncooperative and refuse to show a polite amount of interest; however, I was brought up to have impeccable manners, they've always seen me through when I had to give morals the big heave-ho.

'Really? Why's that?'

Connie stands up and closes the door of the room.

'I saw John Harding again,'she whispers.

'Really? Why's that?'I repeat, deadpan.

'He came to the school. He'd taken the day off work to be with me.'

'Well, it goes to show, there's a first for everything.'

'The scary thing is I realize that I've started to wear make-up to drop off or pick up Fran from school. Just in case he's at the gate.'

'Oh dear.'

'Indeed.'

I stare at her in amazement while she tells me that she did not go to her studio (hired at great expense twice a week) to work on her photos and instead she spent the day with him. I cannot believe she wants to follow that same road to nowhere.

'Was it fun?'

'Yes,'she says with a beam.

'As much fun as it used to be?'I ask.

She pauses for great effect and then beams again, 'No.'

That's a relief.

Her smile is triumphant. She is utterly thrilled with herself. 'Something has changed. I've changed. I'm older and wiser. He's certainly still gorgeous to look at. He's amusing, bright, quirky, but no longer irresistible.'

'How sad,'I comment.

She looks me in the eye and nods slowly. 'Yes, in a way it was. The fact that I found it genuinely simple to resist him was a clear indication I'm getting older. I mean, not habitually chasing a destructive fantasy is more of a sign that I'm approaching middle age than wrinkles or cellulite,'she says with a laugh.

'Connie! You are not approaching middle age. For G.o.d's sake.'I am unspeakably angry with her. If Connie is approaching middle age, then so am I. 'You are thirty-six,'I remind her. 'Middle age is fifty.'

'Do you know many people who make their centenary?'she asks with a grin. Why doesn't it bother her more? 'Still, the important thing is I've de-mystified him. The way we'd left it before was so uneven. It was rather satisfying letting him know that I don't want him.'

I stare at her amazed. 'So you told him that?'

'In as many words.'

'Wasn't there any s.e.xual tension between the pair of you?'

'He tried to flirt. I'd just bounce back with a story about Flora or Fran. Mostly, I'd recount the less glamorous mothering moments. You know, anxiety about which injections to go for, the tedium of getting into the school you want, the issues around toilet training. You know the sort of thing.'

I hold a hand up in front of me indicating that Connie ought to shut up. No, I do not know about the sort of things she is talking about, and even if I did it would never cross my mind that I'd discuss them in public and least of all with an ex-lover. I sigh, rather depressed. There was a time when Connie thought as I did. I've lost that Connie. She's gone. I like Luke. I have enormous respect for him and despite Connie's personality shift I still consider her my best friend, so I am genuinely thrilled for them that Connie feels so unattracted to her ex-lover. Life will be simpler all round and I won't be forced into the rather tedious role of confessor once again, so this is a good result.

And yet.

As Connie said, there is nothing like kicking a destructive habit, particularly a s.e.xual obsession that's likely to threaten your marriage and family stability, to indicate that you have well and truly grown up. She's left me behind. I always used to be the one up front.

A thought occurs to me. I wonder if she is lying to me. Maybe she secretly s.h.a.gged him until she was raw and she's just holding out on me. In one way this would be awful, on the other hand I'd approve enormously. I do not want to be approaching middle age.

'But you spent the whole day with him?'I ask.

'Yes.'

'Why?'

'I wanted some answers to questions I've waited six years to ask.'

'Did you get them?'

'No, of course not. When I started to approach any potentially difficult subject John would clam up. Eventually he said, "You don't want to ask those questions, babe. You won't like the answers."'

Connie is using a silly voice to represent John. She really doesn't fancy him. She's prepared to laugh at him. That is much more final than hating him.

'It seems that some people really can't grow up,'she says with a sigh.

For the first time I see what she finds attractive about this John Harding, a guy that won't grow up. Hurrah, a man after my own heart. I'm only kidding. Sort of.

Connie suggests we order a takeaway but I decline. I make an excuse about having to do some work tonight. I gather my coat and head for the door as quickly as I can without appearing openly rude. Quite some intimacy between us has died tonight. I fear that Connie and I are no longer on the same path and I feel sick with sadness. I can't imagine the time our paths will merge again. I cannot find the same pleasure she does from the domestic necessities that clutter our lives. She'll never care how much money I make company X in a single day. I'm not sure she ever did. I need to go home to quietly grieve for us.

27.

Thursday 19 October

Rose

It has been very useful learning about replacing sparkplugs and such but, as Luke predicted, the best thing about the course has been meeting Susanne and Helen. Helen is confident, bright and chatty. I was surprised to discover that she's three years older than me, as she appears at least eight years younger. She dresses well and has a social life, which can be misleading. One of her nicest qualities is that she a.s.sumes I am like her. It's a compliment. She seems to believe I have just as much right as the next lady to go to the cinema or visit a fancy new restaurant. She often suggests we meet up for a drink or tries to interest me in going to see a show. I intend to accept these invitations at some point the only fly in the ointment is that Helen issues the invites at the last minute. She calls me at seven and asks if I'd like to meet that night at eight. I've tried to explain the impossibility of getting babysitters at short notice and the impracticality of dropping everything in a moment but she doesn't get it. So, to date, our social interaction has been limited to a coffee after cla.s.s, which is always extremely pleasant so I'm not grumbling.

Susanne and I have more in common, even though she is nearly ten years older than I am. Her girls are eighteen, sixteen and nine years old. Chloe was a surprise and the unacknowledged straw that broke the back of the camel called Susanne's marriage. She doesn't resent Chloe's arrival at all. In fact, she says Chloe was the best thing that ever happened to her; a new lease of life when she felt she was getting staid and set in her ways. She realizes that a man who looked upon the third daughter as nothing more than an inconvenience to retirement plans was not much of a loss. She's been divorced for eight years now and is comfortable with her lot.

Susanne owns a tiny hair salon, on a small road off Queensway. She works hard and makes a reasonable living. She has three staff, including the Sat.u.r.day girl, and she has a regular clientele who have all been visiting her for years and years. Her busiest day is a Tuesday because she does a pensioner special half-price cut and blow-dry (which she refers to as a set). On production of a bus pa.s.s she throws in a cup of tea and a chocolate biscuit. Susanne is always laughing. When I pointed this out she stared at me as though I was insane. 'Why wouldn't I be laughing?'she asked. 'I'm one of the world's lucky ladies.'And of course she is, because she believes it to be so.

This morning Susanne has kindly offered to blow-dry my hair for today's date. With much humour she man ages my expectations about the level of chrome, leather and black marble I am to encounter at her salon. But as her hair is always impeccably cut and shiny to the point of looking like she's wearing a halo, I am confident that I can live without the intimidating decor and staff (normally part and parcel of a trip to the hairdresser's).

'So who do we have this afternoon?'asks Susanne.

'This afternoon I'm having tea with a chap called...'I pause and quickly reach for my diary. 'David Clark,'I tell her.

Susanne hoots with laughter. 'You forgot his name,'she accuses.

'Only his surname.'I slip into the nylon gown. It smells clean even though it is stained with splashes of bleach. I follow Susanne to the sink. This establishment is distinctly old-fashioned and down-market. There are no copies of Vogue for clients to read, although the customers can scan dog-eared copies of the cheaper weekly mags and are encouraged to do the crosswords on the back page. The tea is strong and hot and served in mismatched mugs, but none of the mugs is chipped. The chair at the basin does not flip into a flat bed, nor is the basin cushioned. But Susanne wraps a couple of towels around my neck in an effort to make me feel comfortable and she tests the water before spraying it on my hair so that I'm neither frozen nor scalded. Most importantly, Susanne does not feel compelled to ritualistically humiliate me by insisting that my hair is thin or split beyond repair. Instead she starts to give me a head ma.s.sage and it feels sensational.

'You are certainly racking up the numbers, no wonder you are getting confused.'

'There really haven't been that many,'I defend.

'Hey girl, I'm not criticizing. I'm enjoying living out my romantic notions through you. If I was ten years younger I'd be hooked up for broadband and doing the same thing myself.'

'There's no reason you can't date at your age,'I say. 'Although the internet suitors are an unforgiving bunch. I'm glad I placed that ad in Time Out,'I add.

Susanne laughs loudly. 'Can you believe we live in a time when placing a personal ad is seen as a traditional approach?'she asks.

'No,'I sigh. 'I can't.'

We both remember when it was only losers who felt they had to sell themselves through an ad. Normal people met their boyfriends in normal ways at a party or through mutual friends but that world has disappeared. The belief now is that the losers are the ones who are not proactively searching out a partner through blind dates, personal columns, internet or speed-dating. I'd still love to meet someone the old-fashioned way. You know eyes across a crowded room and fall instantly in love, or at least meet someone, like him, respect him and slowly fall in love with him. Now that would suit me.

'Well, as long as you are careful,'warns Susanne.

She's not talking about unprotected s.e.x. We both know that she means I ought to be careful about who I'm meeting. s.e.x, ha. Despite my numerous dates s.e.x is still a dim and distant memory. I'm not keen to rush anything but even if I was I haven't found anyone remotely attractive in that way. The most physical contact I've had is a couple of air kisses and even those seemed intrusive.