Read Online Something I'm Not by Lucy Beresford - Free Book Online Page A

and shiny, a performance consistent with his successful career as a rebranding consultant. He mimes quotation marks when speaking certain words; he wears silk khaki cargo pants; he shops, I suspect, at Conran. The question, I realise, is how to lie to Dylan convincingly.
    â€˜David is someone I admire,’ adds Dylan, before I can commit perjury. ‘He leaves a wife of thirteen years to be true to himself. That takes courage. He’s not afraid to be ridiculed for what some might call a midlife crisis. He’s sexy, and funny, and bright, and kind, and I adore him. Above all, he’s got integrity.’ The beatification of St David now complete, Dylan leans back with his arms clasped behind his skull. ‘Oh, and he really likes you, by the way. That’s almost the most important thing. That he should love you as much as I do.’
    Can I trust that there can ever be enough love to go round?
    *
    It’s a familiar enough scene. A man and a woman, standing at the sink at the end of an evening. One washes, the other dries. One rabbits on about babies, the needs of small children, the importance of stable families, the thrill of shopping for tiny clothes. The other listens cautiously, afraid to hear too much, practising in their head attempts to change the subject. One recounts an amusing introductory meeting where they met couples who have already adopted, and some who plan to, to learn what might be involved. How plans for the next few months must accommodate home visits from social workers, and questionnaires, and lengthy chats with family and friends.
    And all this time the other is, without realising it, holding their breath, terrified that all this talk of procreation-by-proxy will dismantle the barriers they have worked so hard to keep in place – internal barriers erected long ago to keep out unresolved conflict – terrified that, once the barriers are down, all the years of unexplored longing will explode, and herald personal disintegration.

Chapter Eleven
    I WAKE AT NINE . An easterly wind wafts faint chimes from Big Ben through the open window. Matt crawled into bed an hour ago, having spent the night assisting nursing staff in restraining a violent patient attempting to abscond, and cajoling another with a paranoia that the carpets harbour spies to emerge from her locked bathroom. We sift through the Sunday papers with, I am ashamed to admit, mounting excitement, only to discover that Simon’s treachery has been universally usurped by a compelling exclusive of celebrity infidelity.
    At three-thirty, I arrive at Ed and Louisa’s. The invitation has been in the diary for weeks – a barbecue on their Tuscan stone patio overlooking one of London’s smartest squares; an opportunity for Ed to grill meat and refute the myth that he is only dating Louisa for her skills as in-house cook at his investment bank.
    Ed will not now, of course, be present, having moved in with his secretary. Ed is another of my university coterie. Over time, our shared experiences (lectures, parties, hangover cures) have proved more durable than Ed’s manifold dalliances. These were often so short-lived that I noted each woman’s passing with no more enthusiasm than I would had she been a tree glimpsed at speed from one of Ed’s sports cars.
    In his break-up with Louisa, I am torn. Perhaps it’s inevitable that at times of crisis women feel mobilised to show solidarity, to critique the sexes and find men wanting. Hadn’t we,
the girls
, dis-invited the boys, replaced the barbecue with scones and éclairs, to offer Louisa our unstinting support? But I don’t want to spend the afternoon belittling men. Gatherings of women make me wary.
    And yet, while not wishing to diminish the trauma of Louisa’s own predicament, I have found Ed’s vanishing act unsettling. When Louisa telephoned with the news of her pregnancy (requesting a lift to the twins’ birthday party), I