Page 125 of Alice Carver Manifests Her Perfect Life
24 June
Dutifully minding three different babies in prams whilst Louise went to the loo and then when Lucy who was still heavily pregnant came over, I said,Let’s hope your one doesn’t turn out to have a head like that, pointing to a newborn / traffic cone.Can’t be long for you now: you look like you’re about to pop!Turned out the traffic-cone newborn was Lucy’s baby, and she was no longer pregnant, just still carrying the baby weight.
Ashamed
It’s always good to have a reminder to think before you speak. And Lucy and I have never been particularly close anyway so I guess I’ll cope.
24 June
Endless small talk, cake, sandwiches, fielding questions, being introduced to people by Mum as if Drunk Stephen were my partner; congratulating Penelope and Tristan; Penelope clocking my eyebrows and asking if they were stress-related; and everyone speculating whether Matthew and Ebba were going to materialise – they’re obsessed with him since he’s been in the media.
On edge
At least if everyone else is obsessed with Matthew they’re not noticing that I am. That’s a bonus.
24 June
Being cornered by Monty in the library (again) who confessed he thinks Minty might like his mother more than him, and that I was the only woman who ever really got him. All I kept thinking was how much I wished I could turn back time to Christmas Eve when Matthew walked through that very door.
Sad
It could be worse – I could be miserably married, like Monty, rather than miserably unmarried.
24 June
Realising that Matthew was not coming to this christening and deciding to sample from the Lamb’s new cocktail menu.
Desperate
It turns out that gin, vetiver and violet can dull the desperation. Grateful for that…
24 June
Insisting to the really fit barman that I used to work in the Lamb, and that I knew the owner and that I should therefore be allowed to mix cocktails myself, offering to sleep with the fit barman if he let me behind the bar, and being ushered out of the Lamb by Drunk Stephen (not before he exchanged numbers with the fit barman).
Rejected
Well, Drunk Stephen has got lucky… every cloud and all that.
