asked Lucy along too. She says it’s a work thing now, not a book club thing, so it would be mean to not include her. And Lucy always knows if we’re going out because she’s on reception and receptionists know everything. Like I say, Kelly is way too nice.
Lucy says she feels the urge for a chicken schnitzel so we head to P J O’Brien’s. The pub option is always better in the city. The restaurants are too full of suits or tourists.
“How’s Charlie, Ella?” Lucy looks up from her schnitzel and beams at me. She is one of those single thirty-something girls who hears the tick tock of her biological clock and wonders how she is going to find time to meet him/marry him/make babies.
“He’s hard work, hon.”
“Where is he tonight?” This is Kelly, who looks guilty as she always forgets to ask. Although I don’t mind a bit. She never beams when she asks about him. Just looks relieved she remembered. Kelly is not into kids and that suits me fine. I do not want to discuss him all the time. Unlike most mums I know.
“He’s on a Nana Fisher day. No fine if he’s picked up late so Ben can go after work and do his dinner as well.”
“You’re so lucky.” This is beaming Lucy again.
“I know. The other place is $120 a day. Shit toys and bring your own nappies. Ben’s mum’s place is like an all-inclusive resort compared to CuteKidz. And half the kids there are far from cute. Some of them are downright ugly.”
“Oh, Ella! No kids are ugly! I mean you are lucky to have Charlie.”
“It’s not like the Huggies adverts, you know, Luce? Even Kelly would have a baby if it were like that!”
“I might,” says Kelly. “But I can only imagine it being hard. Exhausting hard because it never stops, but also emotionally hard because you love them so much and feel scared something might happen to them.”
That’s exactly it! Kelly is so clever. She is wasted at our place.
“But isn’t that love the best thing that ever happened to you?” Poor Lucy. Discussions like this you can almost hear the clock ticking louder than she talks.
“Sometimes I think it’s the worst.”
“Ella!”
“That lovely stuff you imagine? Soft focus? Mum and bub in a field picking daisies with kid miraculously perked up by kiddie drug? 1% of my life, Lucy. Seriously. 99% of my motherhood life is mess and exhaustion.”
”You can’t say you regret having him?”
“Of course not. I sometimes look at him when he’s asleep and the love washes over me. Like a huge wave. And I torture myself about what would happen if anyone hurt him. I’d kill them. Seriously, I’d have no qualms. Anyone hurt him I’d stab them in the guts. But maybe that big love isn’t the be all and end all. It has some shitty downsides. Plenty of them.”
“I think Ella’s saying you could have a good life without a baby.” Kelly the voice of reason.
“The things you took for granted, Lucy. You have no idea. A night’s sleep and vomit-free clothes. All gone with motherhood. Josie used to be baby mad too. Kel, do you remember? Frank knocked that out of her.”
“If you want it, you want it. It doesn’t ever go away.”
Oh, Lucy. Kelly gives her a hug as she is getting teary over what’s left of her schnitzel. The hug does not help, more tears are coming.
“Luce,” I say. “I walk into my flat and am highly likely to crucify my feet on Lego. The ironing will be glaring at me. The kitchen will be a total mess as Ben can never manage to feed his child, clean up, and put him to bed. From get up time to bed time and often throughout the night as well, my life is a series of things I have to do. Yours is all choices. Do you know how lucky that is?”
I don’t think she does.
Jen
Third time lucky. Hairy crystal-burying guy, sad divorced guy, now hot surfy guy! You would not believe how good-looking he is! I’d just about given up on this Internet dating thing when his wink came through. He just has the one picture but I can see all I need to. Him standing next to a surfboard looking very fit. He is big into surfing which I have never tried, but I’m sure I could learn. He lives up on the Northern Beaches which is a bit far away, but I’m sure we could work that out too.
Hot surfy guy and I have a date. Or do we? Here on the doorstep is hot surfy guy’s much older brother. Bizarrely, he has a skateboard with him. Maybe this belongs to the younger brother.
“Hello, pet!”
The older brother of hot surfy guy is from the North of England.
“Hello. You have a skateboard with you.”
Possibly one of the most pointless sentences I have ever uttered
“Ee, there’s no flies on you! It’s for mobility. Easier for me to get around on wheels. The arthritis is a bit of bugger.”
Oh, God.
“And you’re from… Yorkshire?”
“Spot on!”
“I thought you were into surfing not skateboarding!”
“Not surfed in a while, love. Got into it when I first arrived in 1970. Oh bugger, that’s blown it!”
“I think I’d already worked out you’re a bit older than you said you were on the website.”
“I think you might be too, pet.”
“I’m thirty-eight! I took off one year!”
“Bugger me, love. Thirty-eight? You put thirty-seven. That means forty-five in online dating land!”
“You put forty-nine. What does that mean?”
“Sixty-four. Shall we go? Got a right thirst on.”
So we walked/wheeled to the closest pub I could think of with the flattest route and the least likelihood of seeing anyone I know.
I am coming off that bloody website tomorrow.
Josie
I’m getting to know the streets of Bankstown better than the city. I pull up in front of a large single storey house. This must be it, there are balloons tied to the mailbox. I turn to Frank to say how lucky we are to get a parking space so close, but he’s winding down the window and grinning at the big fella lumbering down the drive, loudly hollering.
“Frannkkiiieee!”
It’s Jeff, Frank’s cousin. I was hoping he might not be here. He always pulls Frank away from me at these big clan gatherings, and chances are, once Jeff has him with the boys, I won’t see him much all night. This is a thirtieth birthday do for some other cousin. Frank has so many cousins, and I think he hardly knows this one, but he wouldn’t agree to a cuddly night on the sofa instead. Last thing I need after a hellish sixty hour week at work is this, and now it looks like I’m going to be ditched anyway. We walk up the drive and into the already heaving house. I could not be less in the mood for a party.
After greeting Frank with a handshake, Jeff puts his big arm around me and I am now nestled in his sweaty arm pit. I know how this goes.
“How is the beautiful fiancée, Frankie?”
“Bro! No engagement! She’s my girlfriend, man. No fiancé talk.”
“The old lady wants more great grandkids!”
Frank’s ancient grandmother has twenty-two great grandchildren. Surely this is enough. Besides, she can barely name any of them. Frank’s girlfriend will not be bearing anymore as he wants her to stay hot and sexy.
“Look at her, man. She’s beautiful. Why would I