The Dilemmas of Harriet Carew

THE DILEMMAS OF HARRIET CAREW

THE DILEMMAS OF HARRIET CAREW

CRISTINA ODONE

To Edward Lucas

1

Driving a Merc is like wearing a push-up bra. Suddenly everyone notices you, and makes comments like ‘You look great, Harriet …’ As I park the hired S320L outside the dry cleaner’s, the Polish woman behind the counter gives me a thumbs-up sign; I only go there a few times a year but I’m suddenly worthy of the smile reserved for bankers who bring in their shirts and boxers every day. At the greengrocer’s, the doltish assistant, who usually slouches against the counter, rushes to carry my bags to the car. The rhubarb and pears which I was expected to carry easily when I was on foot are deemed too heavy for the driver of a high-performance sports car.

I turn out of the Tesco car park. Janet Miller, patroness of the charity I work for (HAC – Holidays Association for Children), stops her Range Rover Sport, rolls down the window and for the first time ever chats about children, schools and the holidays. Hers: a month in a villa, with pool, in San Gimignano; ours: a fortnight at my in-laws’ cottage, with coin-operated electricity meter, at Lyme Regis.

I’m in a rush but everything seems bearable as Guy has decided to use our upgrade vouchers, obtained after I complained when our last hired car broke down, to get this Mercedes rather than the usual Renault Scenic.

‘Your carriage awaits …’ Guy, with mock ceremony, hands me the keys after lunch. I feel like Cinderella – an impostor stealing away in a swanky set of wheels. But this way, I can run my errands in style:

Mario’s to get my hair cut and set up an appointment for my roots, which haven’t been seen to since May. Charlotte’s to return the drill, Foot Locker to buy Alex’s trainers, the greengrocer’s and Tesco’s for tonight’s dinner party.

It still strikes me as pure madness to have people for dinner tonight of all nights, but Guy insists that it’s the only date Oliver Mallard can do. Guy is convinced he will be the man to pull us out of penury. So I give in, thinking that at least I can use the car to lug around some heavy carrier bags. There are seven, to be precise, adding up to a whopping £93 – but that includes three bottles of quite decent Merlot.

Normally, I do the shopping on foot: a nightmare where Maisie’s pushchair doubles up as a pack-mule; I give my biceps and triceps a thorough work-out (who needs a gym when you can go to Tesco’s?); and progress is slow, with me constantly checking and repositioning the more precious items – handbag, wine, eggs, jars – lest they spill on to the pavement.

The Merc, instead, makes everything easy. I smile to myself in the rear-view mirror; as they say, I could get used to this. I’ve never thought of myself as materialistic. At home we always had enough, and if Dad’s car was no Merc (he drove a Rover which later gave way to a Peugeot), we never felt we were missing out on anything.

Mum had a wish-list of holiday destinations, but ‘next summer in the South of France’ became a family joke rather than a bitter disappointment. We had a comfortable bungalow in Kent, Dad’s dental practice flourished and Mum pottered about the house while Mel and I did our homework: I felt that I had the best possible start in life.

The rest, I would go out and get for myself – and if I really did want a Mercedes, by the time I’d grown up, I’d be able to afford it. Or my husband would.

Now, purchasing an S320L is absolutely unthinkable. As are foreign holidays, a home north of the river, taxi rides, restaurant meals, and regular sessions with Mario. It’s been years since I bought an item of clothing that was not second-hand or on sale; years since we decorated a room or bought theatre tickets.

Guy and I consider ourselves middle class. We earn better, travel more, and live longer than our parents and ancestors could ever dream of. And yet, throw into this happy mix two little words, and the result is an avalanche of debts, doubts and despair. ‘School fees’: the two scariest words in the English language. Our parents took it for granted that they would offer their children a better deal than the one they’d had, but we can’t do the same for our brood. Behind those crocodile rows of matching jackets and trousers or skirts lurks a sweaty-palmed, terrifying vision of huge bills and sniffy bursar’s letters. For what should be the best years of your life you can talk and breathe nothing but entrance and scholarship exams, gift tax, league tables, advance-fee schemes, instalments, catchment areas, fee-protection insurance in case you die, and a blizzard of acronyms and codewords: GCSE, AEAs, A-levels, the IB. Everything else must take second place.

I check my watch: half past two. I catch Mario and his minions watching me through the window. Mario usually has time only for the regulars who can afford to see him weekly: but, eyes on the silver Mercedes, he smiles. I step into the chrome-and-mirrors salon and immediately am welcomed with offers of Vogue and a cappuccino while I wait, Silvia doing my nails while Mario cuts my hair, and a menu card from which to choose any other treatment I might fancy. Given that usually I’m lucky if I get a worn copy of last month’s OK! and have never been offered so much as a glass of water, I bask in this temporary pampering.

While a young Japanese girl in a mini and platform sandals washes my hair I run my eyes down the glossy card in my hand: facials for £50, reflexology for £45, half-leg waxing for £25, Brazilian for £30 … I can’t afford any of them, either in time or money. Who can?

But even as I ask myself the question, I see before me, hair wrapped in tinsel foil, fingers and toes separated by cotton wool, Leo Beaton-Wallace’s mum. She is tall, blonde, and her husband runs a hedge fund: the living embodiment of all a Griffin mum should be.

I’ve been piloted to a chair behind her, but I can see her in the mirror. And vice versa, so I fervently hope Mario hurries over before she sees me with wet wisps of hair and no makeup. At thirty-seven, my natural look could have me banned by Health & Safety.

Peals of electronic children’s laughter erupt in the salon. ‘That’s my phone!’

Leo’s mum picks up a slim little mobile that has been sitting on the counter among the combs curlers and brushes. ‘Hullo …’ she twitters. ‘Oh, darling, what a thrill!! I’ll see you Monday at start of term? I’m getting myself ready as we speak – it’s practically a catwalk these days, isn’t it? … No, no, the works: colour, manicure, pedicure … I can’t bear not keeping it up. You see some scary visions out there … That clever boy’s mum, have you seen her? Lets her roots grow until she’s got black-and-yellow tiger stripes … That’s the one, Alex Carew …’

Me! I seize up with shame and duck under the counter, pretending to rifle through my bag. It’s so unfair. I’ve been trying my best, ever since Alex started at the Griffin, to put up an appearance of casual elegance. I’ve scoured the sale racks and those of the hospice shop for bargains that don’t scream ‘Last Season’s Left-Overs’. I’ve filed my nails before every gathering of Griffin parents (well, almost) and I’ve stepped up my visits here to Mario’s … but obviously it wasn’t enough. I’ve been spotted as the blackhead in the Griffin mums’ otherwise perfect complexion. I’ve been outed as the fake Yummy Mummy, the outsider who tried to smuggle herself in as ‘one of us’.

Oh, for the blissful ‘who gives a toss’ shrug of state schools, where parents sport pierced belly buttons, tattoos and shabby jeans without worrying about what little Leo’s mum will whisper to little Max’s mum. It’s almost worth putting up with the thirty-five-to-one child-to-teacher ratio, the twelve-year-old boys with knives and the twelve-year-old girls with child, the bullying, the swearing, and the terrible exam results.

I’m still crouched under the counter, determined not to be spotted by Leo’s mum. I’m at an awkward angle, hunched over, feeling the strain in my waist, and wonder how long I can hold this position. Sunglasses, that’s what I need. I’ll look odd – but anonymous. I fumble in my bag, sifting feverishly through keys, purse, loose change, sweet wrappers, a sticky half-eaten lolly and plasters.

‘The new car – I like it! Brava!’ Mario comes to my chair. I turn my head to look up at him, sleek and Latin and twirling a comb in his hand. Mario frowns. ‘I need you to come up from down there.’

I smile apologetically and just then, Hurrah!, my fingers make out the sunglasses and I triumphantly slip them on. Only to realize, as I sit up, that these are Maisie’s pink plastic star sunglasses, bought at Lyme Regis for a pound last July.

‘Hmmm … this pink –’ Mario shakes his head in the mirror ‘– it is not you.’

I leave Mario and the ghastly Griffin mum, marginally soothed by hair that is now more tabby than tiger. It’s three thirty. Just enough time to get to Charlotte’s and then Foot Locker. I head past the common; it’s been a wet summer, and the grass stretches as thick and green as a carefully tended lawn. The sky is a deep blue and the air sparkles.

But I feel the usual September melancholy: summer has ended, school looms. I shall take up once again the routine of chaotic breakfasts, school-gate encounters, office admin, hovering over homework and making supper.

Despite the daily check-up telephone calls from Cecily Carew, the maddening way the electricity meter ran out just as I curled up in bed with my Plum Sykes, and the boys’ breaking the springs on their beds, Lyme Regis suddenly seems a little corner of paradise. I miss the constant exposure to the children, the way all three, bronzed and bursting with loud energy, run in and out of the cottage and garden; I miss watching Guy scamper about with them, and take out his work only at sundown. In Lyme Regis, even school fees seem a manageable wave we can easily surf.

I turn into Charlotte’s crescent. Leafy and elegantly lined with white Georgian houses, road bumps protecting the stillness, this is a choice bit of Clapham. It’s south, and we’re north – and that works out at about £200,000 difference. Charlotte wants her drill back: ours burnt out as we tried to rehang the Carew medals in Guy’s study. Guy keeps them above the fireplace, in a glass-fronted mahogany box, pinned against blue velvet: a century’s worth of Cecils, Claudes, Berties, Reggies and Hectors honoured with enamel and ribbon. There are medals from India and Africa, an early Distinguished Flying Cross and, in pride of place, Great-Uncle Claude’s Victoria Cross.

Virtute non verbis: ‘Deeds not words’, the family motto, is carved into the wooden box, reproaching Guy as, seated at his desk, he wrestles with his prose. His worries about deadlines and narrative flow and realistic pictures seem pedestrian in comparison to his ancestors’ gritty valour as they survived malaria, starvation, rationing, and mustard gas. Or so he keeps telling me.

Charlotte lets out a wolf-whistle as I pull up. My best friend stands on the doorstep of her immaculately painted white stucco house. ‘Guy must have finally written his bestseller.’

‘Only hired for the weekend,’ I say, ignoring her put-down. Charlotte has never quite believed in Guy’s talent.

When I started going out with him, Guy was twenty-one and Lonely Hunter, a comic account of an African safari (featuring a hungry cheetah, a Masai warrior and two repulsive white British hunters) was a bestseller. He was much fêted and, to my eyes, grand and glamorous. I suspect that Charlotte, at Bristol with me, was a bit envious of my new boyfriend – a published author, at Cambridge and even profiled in Tatler. In our unspoken rivalry, he gave me the edge.

When we married, I was convinced that Lonely Hunter would be the first of a string of great successes. My future would be as Guy’s muse, inspiring the genius in his quest for the perfect travel tome. My life would be spent riding side by side with him across the Kalahari and over the Himalayas, the two of us braving perilous, intoxicating adventures.

This has not been the case, quite. Instead of trekking across the desert, a song on our lips and hair blowing in the wind, Guy and I can barely move under the burden of school fees, mortgage repayments, utility bills, taxes and those unforeseen ‘extras’ private schools lob at you like hand-grenades: uniforms, school trips, music lessons, birthday presents and, God forbid, extra tutoring.

‘It’s very nice.’ Charlotte’s eyes are still on our hired car. ‘Jack tried out that model before getting the Porsche.’

If we could afford a car at all I’d be happy, I think; but I say instead, ‘When we grow up, we’ll be fund managers, too.’

‘Well, you have all the fun: or at least Guy does, with all that travelling …’

I hand over the drill. I notice she is in her matching pink DKNY tracksuit and remember that on Saturdays she has her Pilates and tums&bums back to back. As opposed to Fridays, when she has her session with the Ashtanga yoga instructor; or Wednesdays, when it’s the personal trainer … I always hold in my stomach when we’re together.

‘Last weekend of summer.’ Charlotte deadheads a rose by her front steps.

‘I know,’ I sigh. ‘The Griffin starts on Monday already … Hello, school-fee headaches.’

Charlotte shakes her head. ‘If God had meant for your children to go to Eton, Harrow or Wolsingham, he would have married you off to an investment banker.’

Or at least to a man who doesn’t believe in the Carew Gospel: that it is a parent’s duty to send every male child to a top prep school, and then to Wolsingham, ‘their’ big school, and in this way ensure that they imbibe the virtues of courage and discipline and hard work, together with an excellent education, that will stand them in good stead in the challenges ahead.

‘There are plenty of good schools that cost less than the Griffin and Wolsingham,’ I plead with Guy.

‘The Griffin feeds into Wolsingham, and Wolsingham is part of the Carew tradition, Harry.’

‘So was the army, but you broke with that tradition.’

‘I know – and my father has only now started talking to me again.’

Jack is a successful hedge-fund manager, so it makes perfect sense for Marcus and Miles to move from St Christopher’s C of E primary school to Hampton House, a prep school that rivals the Griffin in its access to the big three – Eton, Harrow and Wolsingham.

But for us … Guy and I wake up at night worrying about the latest school bill. We lie there at three in the morning and outline different scenarios: Guy will develop a lucrative sideline writing coffee-table books about far-away places; I shall forget about my yearning to be the perfect stay-at-home mum and work full time at HAC; the children will learn to go up chimneys.

‘Coffee?’

I’m tempted, as always with Charlotte. I can glimpse the neat and gleaming kitchen, miraculously exempt from the scuff marks and greasy paws of unruly children, not to mention the ever-floating hair of an overly affectionate mutt. I can smell the chocolatey aroma of real coffee as opposed to the instant we keep on hand. And I can hear the soft strains of Classic FM uninterrupted by a screeching toddler or rowing boys. Charlotte has three children, who almost match mine in age, and yet her life shows none of the dents, scratches and handprints that cover my own. Amazing what a difference money makes.

Reluctantly I shake my head. ‘Afraid not, I’ve got to cook for you, remember?’

‘I know, I know. It’s the man behind those cruises for wealthy OAPs – Drake, isn’t it?’

‘Mallard. He’s launching a monthly glossy magazine called Travel Wise in January and he’s looking for an editor.’ I don’t need to say more.

‘Fingers crossed.’ Charlotte crosses her fingers and raises them.

‘And thanks for the drill: the family honour has been saved. Eight for eight thirty.’ I wave goodbye and rush back to the car. As I’m about to step into the Merc, a green van pulls up: Charlotte’s organic shopping.

Good for you, good for the environment: the motto is printed in bright red-and-yellow letters across a basket of fruit and veg. Bad for my purse, I think as I start the car.

It’s four thirty: getting late. I’m making an old favourite, pork belly with juniper berries and fennel seeds, and it needs at least three and a half hours in the oven. Working backwards, if we sit down at eight forty-five … damn, I don’t have time to do Foot Locker. I’m about to turn back, then with a pang realise I won’t have time to shop tomorrow as Guy has planned an outing to Richmond Park; and I think how Alex will get into trouble at school if he doesn’t have his trainers. As it is, Evie, the matron, keeps telling me that Alex doesn’t have the full complement of regulation grey flannel shirts:

‘Why don’t you order another from the school outfitters?’

It doesn’t occur to her that this would cost us twice as much as anywhere else.

Argh … I step on it, and am pleasantly surprised by the instant response of the Merc.

I’m cross with Alex for this needless trip and expense: only last week I got him the pair of black trainers that are part of his school’s absurdly elaborate sports kit, but somehow he managed to lose one.

(Me, voice rising in irritation: ‘Where could you possibly have lost one shoe, Alex?’ Him, ‘I dunno …’ Me, openly cross: ‘I’m going to deduct it from your pocket money.’ Him, shrugging with nonchalance: ‘You never pay me my pocket money anyway.’)

The shop is packed. I try desperately to catch the eye of now one assistant, now the other. Nothing. A host of harassed mums and gum-chewing pre-teens are ahead of me in the queue. Finally, I thrust the lone black trainer at a young assistant called Pawel, and ask for the matching pair at £18.99. Ten to five.

I rush back to the car, calculating: if I’m lucky the guests will arrive at closer to eight thirty than eight, so we won’t have too long to sit around trying to make polite conversation while waiting for alcohol or the discovery of a mutual acquaintance to loosen our tongues. If I work quickly without the usual interruptions (can I find Guy’s notepad, have I got Tom’s book, have I seen Alex’s fleece), I should be able to stuff the belly’s flap of fat with the herbs and stick everything in the oven by … say, quarter to six.

I pull up in front of the house and make out three figures in the kitchen. My heart sinks: the children will be demanding tea of Ilona. But our au pair can no more make a toasted cheese sandwich than wear a modestly cut dress. Slowly I start taking the carrier bags out of the Merc. I feel loath to trade this quiet interior, with its polished wood and ivory leather, for the chaotic yellow kitchen, with its peeling linoleum floor and scrambling family scene. I look up at the house. It’s never been a beauty, but when we first bought it I had visions of investing in a few well-chosen improvements that would work a magical transformation. We could rebuild the wooden door frame at the entrance, paint the grey brick white, maybe even consider a loft extension. All we needed was to wait until Guy had secured a good contract for his next book. That was twelve years ago, and nothing’s been done – and we have only forty years left on the lease.

‘Mummy!’ Maisie interrupts her drawing to stretch out her arms to me.

‘Mummy, can we have pizza?’ Tom peers into the carrier bags as I walk in.

‘Can’t we have spag bol, Mummy?’ Alex stands by the open refrigerator.

‘Darling,’ Guy wanders in, Rufus in his wake, ‘I can’t find chapter one.’ He scratches his head, peering hopelessly around the kitchen: he wears that expression of total absorption that takes over as he nears completion of a book. And God knows, Rajput, Guy’s on-going magnum opus about the warrior kings of Rajasthan, has been nearing completion for almost a year now. ‘I’m sure I left it here somewhere.’ Anything is possible: various parts of Guy’s books have routinely surfaced next to the toaster, in Maisie’s buggy, in my sewing basket.

‘Don’t keep the door open, the fridge is playing up. Sausages for your supper, but first I need to prepare pork belly for dinner. Check for Rajput by the radio, Guy; you had it in your hands when you were listening to Any Questions?’ I start unpacking the carrier bags, trying not to kick Rufus as he weaves in and out of my legs. ‘There’s still shopping in the car, please.’ A burst of feverish activity follows the chorus of protests.

‘Eureka! I knew it was here somewhere.’ Guy lifts the radio from a wad of typed pages and hugs his manuscript to his chest.

I preheat the oven. ‘Did you have a chance to look at the microwave?’

Our microwave door has refused to shut since before Lyme Regis, but Guy fancies his DIY skills and won’t let me replace it. Which is also his attitude to the kitchen-unit door (off its hinges) and the shower head (still drip-drip-dripping).

‘Not yet, but I have fixed the broken tap.’ He proudly points out a wodgy lump of brown masking tape around the cold tap, whose cracked plastic knob split in half last week. I know how it felt.

‘Mummy, look!’ Maisie holds up her drawing for me to admire. Then, as I haven’t jumped to her side in record time, she repeats in a reproachful tone: ‘Look, Mummy!’

I bend over her notebook. ‘Beautiful, darling – is that our house?’ I point to the large square with misshapen roof that sits in the centre of the page.

‘No, that’s Lily’s house. This is ours –’ Maisie points to the teeny-weeny box beside it. Oh gawd: even my three-year-old suffers from property envy.

‘That S320L is really cool!’ Alex is staring out of the window. ‘Can’t we keep it until Monday? You could drop me off.’

‘Afraid not: has to be back tomorrow night.’ Guy is tapping his fingers on his manuscript.

‘Da-ad …’ Alex wails, ‘you’ve got to make up for the time you came to the school gates in that Skoda.’

‘We’ve never hired a Skoda!’ Guy protests indignantly.

‘I was teased for a month. I’m the only boy at school whose parents don’t own a car.’

‘What the Griffin should be teaching you is that there are more important things in life than a set of wheels.’ Guy thumps the table decisively. His sons roll their eyes.

‘I’m off.’ Guy retreats to the downstairs loo. It’s his favourite room in the house, lined with framed photos of him in the Wolsingham boater and jacket; punting on the Cam; and the cover of the first edition of Lonely Hunter. These are the bits of the past that Guy seeks when he wants a haven from a hostile world of luxury cars, Poggenpohl kitchens and expensive holidays.

While Guy communes with his past, Ilona arrives. As she discards her tight-fitting leopardskin jacket, our au pair casts an approving smile in my direction.

‘Mrs Caroo, you have new car?’

The last time Ilona addressed me by my surname was when I interviewed her for the job. I can see now how to earn her respect. ‘Mehrtsedez –’ she points at the window with her thumb. ‘Booteeful.’ Without my having to ask her, she lays the table. Perhaps if I bought myself a pair of Jimmy Choos she might start cleaning Maisie behind the ears, and if I wore a Diane von Furstenberg wrap dress she might finally do the boys’ laundry.

‘Only a hired car, Ilona.’

‘Ah …’ Ilona’s sighs are always eloquent.

I rub salt into the pork and then put it in the oven. I turn my attention to the children’s supper.

‘Pete, he have Corvette.’ Her boyfriend of the moment, a tattooed butcher’s assistant from Essex, has a ten-year-old red Corvette that Guy calls the pimpmobile. They met through Blinddate.com – which has Ilona pinned to the computer for hours on end. ‘He coming for me now. We go to Empire Leicester Square.’ The charming thing about Ilona is she never asks anything of us but simply informs us of her plans.