The Cows

Today is the birthday of one of the best friends I ever had. She was fun, and beautiful, and kind and generous. I’ve never known anyone else like her. RIP Alice Davies, the world is a darker place without you in it.

‘Never known anyone else like her?’ She was my identical twin sister. I don’t know if Melissa is cruel or stupid, but I have to fight with myself not to write abusive words all over her page. Who says that?

I look at the little green dot to the bottom left of the screen, ‘Alice Davies – online’, and imagine her lying on her bed in our flat, posting silly things on her Facebook page like she used to.

I told everyone I shut her page down when she died, but I didn’t. Instead I unfriended everyone and set her account to private. I am her only ‘friend’. To everyone else it isn’t there, but I can look whenever I like, and read all of her old posts. Like the one where she said she couldn’t cook the sausage dish she wanted to do because the local Sainsbury’s had run out of cherry tomatoes. It’s the really mundane day-to-day ones that I love the most. Just her, plodding along, living life.

Every morning when I arrive at work, I log in to her account on my phone, so that when I am at my computer it says she is online. The little green dot makes me feel like she’s right there, sitting on her bed, able to say hi at any moment.

‘Hi,’ says Jason, coming out of his office and making me jump. ‘Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you.’

I quickly shut down my Facebook page and open the company website, even though it would be weird if I was just sitting here looking at that. Jason probably won’t look anyway, he’s not that kind of boss.

‘I have to go. Dreading this!’ he says, standing in front of me with his arms crossed. This is Jason’s default position; it’s not defensive, or rude. It’s just how his hands fall when he isn’t holding his camera.

‘Don’t dread it. She just wants to hear how you’re doing, right? You don’t have to show her anything?’ I say, reassuringly.

‘Well I was supposed to hand the first draft in last week, so I’m going to have to explain why I didn’t.’

‘Just tell her it’s coming along fine, and you’re all set to meet your deadline. Can I make a suggestion? You need to go on shutdown – no TV or Internet until you’ve finished.’

‘That sounds hideous. But maybe,’ he says, uncrossing one of his arms to rub his face. He looks harassed, but it suits him. Jason is rugged, he never looks like he slept well, even if he says he did. He wears loose-fitting shirts with jeans as standard. He’s tall and slim with an energy that means he finds it hard to sit still. His brain jumps from thought to thought, not giving him time to worry about what he says, so he often speaks out of turn – but the sparkle in his eye means he gets away with it. Part of his charm is how open and easy to be around he is. It’s why he is so good at his job. Well, the photography part anyway; he’s proving to be useless at writing books.

‘I found an app that’s basically a massive child lock for your computer, you won’t be able to do anything until you’ve written a certain amount of words, wanna give it a go? I can also delete your social apps and create blocks for your phone?’ I say, thinking it might be his only hope.

Jason takes his computer out of his bag and puts it in front of me.

‘Go for it. I need to do something dramatic. Leave my laptop on my desk, I’ll come in tomorrow to work. You can do my phone on Monday?’

‘No problem.’

He stands for a moment too long looking at me. I raise my head, as if to urge him on.

‘You’re lucky you know, Stella. That your life doesn’t grind to a halt if you can’t think of anything to say, or write or take a picture of. You just come to work, then go home to your boyfriend in the house that you own, and tomorrow you know that everything will be the same, it will all be perfect. I envy you.’

Jason envies me? What? I have to stop myself standing up and screaming with such force that he’d fall backwards and hit the floor. He’s jealous of my life? Has he any idea what it’s really like? No, he doesn’t. I’ve never told Jason anything about me. Not about Mum, Alice, my health. He just knows the basics – I live in London, in a flat I own, with my boyfriend Phil. That’s all my boss has ever needed to know. But it’s odd, I think, that we come to this studio five days a week, eight hours at a time, talk almost constantly … well, he does. I’m not even sure how it’s possible to skim over the depths of real life in this way and still get along so well, but it is, and we do. A successful working relationship has all the qualities of a bad relationship. If only spending this much time with a boyfriend was this simple.

‘I’m not sure I’d call it perfect,’ I say, playing down the massively imperfect situation that is my existence.

‘Well it seems pretty good to me. You have a boyfriend, security. You’ll get married, have kids. A proper family. I’ll probably die alone in my studio after being knocked over the head by a falling tripod, or something equally as pathetic.’

He looks aimlessly across the studio, blue eyes still sparkling, despite his ageing, weathered face. Normally, we skirt around the personal details of our lives but there’s something about writing this book that is making him relook at everything around him, including me.

‘Actually, I’m jealous of you,’ I say, gently, finding a little voice in the back of my head that feels the need to be heard. ‘You get to create, and people are excited by that. You take photographs that change the way people think. Look at them,’ I say, gesturing to the studio walls, where huge prints of his work keep me entertained every day. Portraits so detailed, it’s as though the subjects’ thoughts are written across their faces. ‘You capture moments that we’d all miss if it wasn’t for you showing them to us. And now you’re writing a book. Something that will live even longer than you. A physical piece of evidence that proves you existed. Maybe fifty years from now, someone will be sitting in a hotel, or waiting at an airport, or going through bookshelves at a friend’s house, and they will see a copy of your book. And they’ll see your pictures and read your words and they’ll wonder who the brilliant person was, who captured such stories. And they’ll turn back to the front cover, where they’ll see your name. And they will read aloud “Jason Scott” and they’ll think about how clever you were, and how grateful they are for you inspiring them, and helping them pass that time. And then they’ll put the book down and someone else will come along and they will love it too. That’s your legacy. The great work, that you produced. You’re the lucky one.’

There is a long pause as Jason looks at me quite intensely. He’s so sexy, sometimes I have to imagine him on the toilet to get that out of my head.

‘That sounded like a speech you’ve been rehearsing for weeks,’ he says, having never heard anything so profound come out of my mouth. I’m quite militant, usually, I suppose. It’s what he employed me for. He’s a scatty artist who needs organising, and I like organising other people’s things because it distracts me from the chaos in my own mind.

‘I just think you should be proud of what you’ve achieved, even though it’s hard work sometimes,’ I continue, opening his computer as if to close the conversation.

‘You’re right. I should,’ he says, watching me for a moment as I search for the Internet-blocking software and start to download it.

‘You’re good with words. Maybe you should write my book?’ he winks, playfully. He’s only half joking. ‘Up to anything tonight?’

‘Actually, it’s my birthday. So just a small dinner with Phil and some friends,’ I say, as unexcited by the prospect as I sound.

‘Bloody hell, Stella, you should have said, I’d have got you something. Where are you going?’

‘Oh, nowhere glamorous. A nice tapas place on Bermondsey Street, Pizarro. Very chilled.’

‘Is it a big one? Your sixtieth or something?’ he says, finding himself pretty funny.

‘Oi, watch it. No, I’m just plain old twenty-nine. Nothing special, no big deal.’

‘OK, well, have fun. Get really drunk and do crazy stuff. I’ll see you Monday.’

‘See you Monday,’ I repeat, watching him leave.

When the door closes, I push his computer aside and get back on mine. For a few moments I stare at the little green dot, willing it to do anything that shows me Alice is really there. Of course, it never will. I click onto her page and write, Happy Birthday, sis. I miss you x

I pack up my things, and leave.

Tara

I rarely get to pick Annie up from school, so on Fridays, when she has dance class and comes out at four p.m., I always make sure I’m there. It means leaving work even earlier, but I grin and bear the guilt trips from my colleagues, because they’re no contest for the mothers’ guilt I suffer if I don’t do it. Being a single working mum usually means that someone somewhere isn’t happy with me. Whether it’s work or my daughter, I’m usually having to apologise to one of them for not giving them enough of my time. This feeling of never being fully enough for anyone worries me a lot. Would I earn more and be better at my job if I didn’t leave at five? Would my daughter be happier if I always left at four? Who knows what the answer is to getting all of this right; I don’t, but I can’t help but think the other mums at the school gate think I’m awful.

I’ve convinced myself they all judge me for my situation and therefore I make no effort to connect with them. This means they make little effort to connect with me either. They all stand around chatting like old friends, and I wait for Annie while answering emails on my phone, barely looking up to say hi. I’m sure they think I’m really full of myself or rude. I suppose I am rude; my lack of interest is deliberate, but if they made more effort with me I’d make more effort with them. Don’t they think, ‘Hey, she’s alone. Raising a child by herself. Let’s go over, make her feel part of the gang?’ No, they don’t. They just crack on talking among themselves, casually judging me because Annie doesn’t have a dad and my mother does most of the childcare. Mum says I’m paranoid and they chat to her just fine, so it’s obviously just that they have an issue with me. Well, who are they to judge? Is being a stay-at-home mum any better than working as much as I do? Are they happier than me? Who knows, and who cares. I was never able to just bond with other women purely on the basis that we both had kids. All of those classes for mums and babies where we were supposed to be open and share our feelings, offer advice, take help; I hated it. I felt like a beacon of controversy glowing in a room full of what everyone else considered normal. I quit the classes within weeks of starting them. Annie and my mum were all I needed. When you go at life alone you learn quickly to rely on as few people as possible. My village was small but indestructible. I was so happy in the comfort of my own decisions.

Five years later, here at the school gate, I still can’t slot into this world. It’s hard to know how to connect when you’ve spent the day squeezing information out of a sex pest and they’ve probably spent the day freezing individual portions of lasagna into zip-lock bags. I find it hard to stand around talking about parenting with people who do nothing but parent, they’re a different breed. Come on Annie, hurry up and come outside!

‘Tara!’ shouts a friendly voice that throws me off guard. As I turn around I realise it’s Vicky Thomson. Her daughter Hannah is in Annie’s class. She’s a bored housewife who is desperate to go back to work and thinks she could get a job in TV, despite having no experience. She relentlessly pitches show ideas to me like I’m Simon Cowell and have the power to change her life. Annoyingly, some of her ideas are quite good.

‘I’ve been hoping to see you,’ she says, hurrying up to me. ‘I’ve been working on the idea I told you about,’ she says, presuming I remember. ‘I thought maybe you could take it further by trying to matchmake the gay people at the end?’

‘OK, sorry, what?’ I say, a little short. She’s one of those people where if I give her too much feedback she won’t leave me alone. She does nothing for my trying to be inconspicuous.

‘My idea, “Take My Gay Away”. The TV show idea about gay people whose parents won’t allow it so they send them to a camp in America to get “un-gayed”. You said you liked it, so I’ve been working on it more. Maybe we can pitch it to your company? I’m so ready to get back into work, three kids in six years, whoa. I need to think about something else now they’re all in school, you know?’

‘It’s a great idea,’ I say, politely.

‘So what do you think, shall we pitch it to your company?’ she pushes.

‘I think it’s interesting but we have something very similar in development, so I’m not sure it will work for us right now,’ I say, giving the standard answer that I give when people pitch me ideas I kind of like. It covers my back, if I ever get around to stealing it.

‘Oh, OK. Well, what about my one about the women who want penises but don’t want society to see them as men?’ she says, hanging off me like a puppy that can smell lamb in my pocket.

‘Wait, that’s a thing?’ I say, the TV shark in me needing to know more.

‘Yup, I found it on the Internet.’

‘Jesus, what were you searching for?’

‘Chicks with dicks,’ she says, as if that’s normal.

‘Why?’

‘I don’t know really; I just wanted to know what it would be like to be a chick with a dick, I suppose.’

‘Do you want a dick?’

‘No.’

‘Cool.’

The school doors bounce open and the kids flood out like spilt oil, slowing as they reach their parents. Annie is one of the last, slower than usual. I can tell she is sad.

‘Annie, what’s wrong?’ I say, kneeling down and putting my face close to hers. ‘Do you feel sick?’

She shakes her head slowly, and looks down.

‘Did something happen at school? Was someone mean?’

‘They weren’t mean. But Trudy is having a party on Saturday and said I can’t go because her mum said there wasn’t room for me.’

‘Why would she say that?’ I ask her, not surprised. Trudy’s mum seems like such a cow. She tutted at me for walking into the Nativity play late last Christmas. An actual tut. I’d had to leave a shoot early to get there; Adam gave me so much shit about it but I did it, I left so I didn’t let Annie down, only to be tutted at for opening the door just as the Virgin Mary (Trudy) was trying to find a room for the night. It was hardly like bursting into the middle of a performance of Macbeth at the National Theatre, was it? I stood at the back and waved at Annie, who was on stage being the greatest donkey I’d ever seen. She waved back at me and one of her ears fell off. Trudy’s mum tutted again. I didn’t care that time; I knew I’d made Annie’s night by being there whether I was late or not.

‘OK,’ I say, rubbing Annie’s arms. ‘Let’s see about this, shall we?’

I take her hand, and march over to Trudy and her mum, who is giving someone else the details for Saturday’s party.

‘The theme is Disney,’ she says, ‘And bring your husband, the more the merrier.’ As she finishes her sentence, she sees me storming up to her and coughs, as if that will drown out the words that she has just said.

‘Hello,’ I say, boldly.

‘Hello. Come on Trudy, time to go.’ She takes Trudy’s hand and forcedly drags her away.

‘Hang on,’ I continue, with more welly in my tone. She stops, making the kind of strained face that suggests she doesn’t want a scene. ‘Annie tells me there is no room for her at the party, but I thought there might be a misunderstanding as Annie is such a special friend?’

‘Um, well,’ says Trudy’s mum, looking around, hoping someone will rescue her, ‘The house isn’t big enough to accommodate everyone. The kids, their parents …’ she says. I am racking my brains to remember her name. Verity, maybe?

‘I think maybe you thought she was busy?’ I say, convincingly. I’m not letting her do this to Annie, it’s really cruel.

‘Trudy, would you like Annie at your party?’ I ask, reaching for the big guns.

‘Yay!’ Trudy shouts, with pure joy on her face. Annie also lights up. I look at Trudy’s mum with persuasive eyes that leave her no choice but to cave. She leans in to me, while Trudy and Annie try to hear what she says.

‘I think you need to know that Annie has been saying inappropriate things to Trudy. I don’t know what goes on in your home but I do not like it when my daughter comes home and asks me what a pervert is because her friend has told her that her mummy knows one.’

A lump forms in my throat. Annie’s being pushed out of her social group because of me? That’s a nice big mother’s guilt pill for me to choke on.

‘Look, she’s obviously heard me on the phone talking about a programme I’m making about sexual harassment. I can assure you there is nothing untoward happening in our house. There are no perverts. In fact, I couldn’t even tell you the last time a man came round. So, there you go, now you know about my job and my sex life. Now, Verity, can Annie come to the party or not?’

My job has trained me to ask for what I want. You don’t get much from someone you are interviewing if you don’t ask them questions.

Verity makes a strained ‘for God’s sake’ face as she covers Trudy’s ears in case I say anything else appalling. She then lets out a big, over-the-top huff. Annie, Trudy and I all stare at her, waiting for an answer.

‘Come on, Verity,’ I say. ‘I’ll speak to Annie about what she heard and I’ll be more careful with my work calls. Please, don’t take this out on her.’

‘Oh, OK,’ she says, buckling. ‘Disney. One till three.’ She snatches Trudy’s hand and pulls her away. ‘And my name is Amanda, not Verity.’

Wow, I was way off. God, not even close.

‘There you go,’ I say, kneeling back down to Annie. ‘It’s all fine, she just didn’t realise how much you wanted to go. Happy now?’

‘Yes. I need a costume,’ she says, sweetly, and a little piece of me dies as I realise I now have to work out what she’s going to wear. ‘Can I be a princess?’

I stand up and take her hand as we walk back to the car.

‘What did I say about girls being princesses? Remember?’

‘You said that little girls don’t have to be princesses.’

‘That’s right. That’s what all the other little girls will do, so we should do something different, right?’

‘Right!’

‘That’s my girl!’

‘Mummy,’ she says as I strap her into the car, ‘what’s a sex life?’

OK, I really need to watch my mouth.

Cam

‘OK, love, that’s all the shelves up,’ says Cam’s dad, coming out of her bedroom. She’s sitting in the window seat of her gorgeous new flat, wondering where to put the chaise longue she found on eBay that just got delivered. ‘Need anything else before I go?’

‘No thanks, Dad. That’s it.’ She looks at him lovingly. ‘It doesn’t matter how grown up I am, I’ll always need my dad to come and put my shelves up for me, won’t I?’

‘I hope so. Even if you don’t, you always have to pretend you still need me, OK?’ he says, going over to her for a cuddle. They both know Cam is as good at DIY as he is. Her asking him to help is always for his benefit, not hers.

‘I’m so proud of you, Camilla. I worked all my life and I’m not sure I ever achieved as much as you have.’

‘You kept four daughters alive, Dad. I’d say that was a pretty big achievement.’

‘Yup, my life certainly became about you guys, that’s for sure.’

Cam looks at him sympathetically. She’s always been so tuned-in with her dad, much more than her siblings were. Before Tanya was born, the oldest of Cam’s three sisters, he worked as a comedy promoter all over the country. It wasn’t stable work, and involved lots of late nights that didn’t work well with a baby, so he quit. Not really being qualified in anything, he got a job in a local school as a caretaker, and was there until he retired four years ago. He never enjoyed it; it was uncreative, hard and demanding. But he stuck with it, because he’s a great dad, and that’s the kind of sacrifice people make when they have kids.

‘I always told you that success is just being happy, didn’t I?’ he says. ‘People put too much emphasis on it being about money. I was never rich, but you guys were all healthy and happy and no matter what I ended up having to do during the day, coming home to that made me feel like the wealthiest man alive.’

‘Yup, you always said that,’ Cam says. She knows he doesn’t really mean it. If it had been down to him, he’d have carried on promoting comedy and they’d all have made do. But Cam’s mum wanted stability, and her dad is a good enough guy not to argue with that. ‘But I fucking love being rich,’ she says, giving him a gentle dig in the ribs.

They both laugh.

‘Don’t let your mum hear you use that language,’ he says, and of course she never would. Cam and her dad have always shared the same sense of humour and a mutual understanding. He’s the only person in her family who doesn’t question her choices, and she’s desperately in love with him because of that.

‘You were always different from the others, Camilla. You stuck to your guns, never tried to be what people expected of you. I’m proud of you, kid.’

‘Jesus, Dad! Will you stop. I’ve just moved in, no tears are allowed in this flat, even happy ones.’ They hug again. Before she pulls away she whispers in his ear, ‘Thank you.’

‘What are you thanking me for? You did this all by yourself.’

‘I did, yes. But because you always encouraged me to be myself. I’m not like the other girls, and you let me work out how to be happy my own way.’

‘I had no choice. There was no other way you could be,’ he says, as he leaves their embrace and heads for the door. ‘Call me if you need anything else doing, OK?’

‘I will.’

‘And don’t have any boys round.’

‘Oh, Dad! OK, go. Mum will shout at you for being late for dinner. I love you. Bye.’

Cam pushes him out of the door. ‘Careful on the stairs,’ she says as she closes it, and leans back against it when it’s shut. Looking around her flat, she lets a huge smile creep across her face. A 1.2 million, two-bedroom, Victorian flat in Highgate, with views across London. She’s sourced furniture from the period the house was built, and she’s mixing that with huge pieces of bold, modern art. It’s bright, beautiful and all hers. It’s in an area of London people only dream of living in. She can’t believe it.

Falling back onto the pea green, Victorian-style chaise longue, she reaches for her laptop and rests it on her thighs. Opening HowItIs.com, she gloats at what it has become. It not only earns her in the region of £20,000 a month in advertising revenue, but it also earns her notoriety, an audience. It gives her a voice. Cam was never great with people, but she always had a lot to say. This unfortunate mix made school tough going; someone with a head full of thoughts but no outlet for them tends to think too much and say too little. In her case, this personified itself as social awkwardness that other kids saw no fun in, so she inevitably became bit of a loner. Until the Internet burst onto the scene in her early twenties and she finally had a way to show the world who she really was, a chance to express herself without the pressure of social interaction. It completely changed her life.

There are boxes stacked up along the walls, and the TV is still in the box on the floor. Her Internet won’t be connected for a few days, so she’s using a dongle, meaning she’ll never be anywhere she can’t blog from. This commitment to her output is what’s made her what she is.