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For a few moments I stared blankly at the screen.
‘A proper screenwriter.’
A PROPER SCREENWRITER?
Then I picked up a quarter of a cabbage which Chloe had for some reason left on the kitchen table (did she persuade them to eat some sort of cabbage recipe from the Gwyneth Paltrow cookbook for breakfast?), started shoving the cabbage into my mouth, biting at fronds, and walking very fast round the kitchen table dropping bits of cabbage down the front of my slip and onto the floor. There was a ping on the phone: Roxster.
There was another ping on the text: Infants Branch.
10.15 a.m. Calm and poised. Will simply open fridge, take out grated mozzarella and shove into mouth, along with more cabbage.
10.16 a.m. OK, is all in mouth now. Will just have swig of Red Bull to top it off. Oh! Telephone! Maybe Roxster regretting the text?
11 a.m. Was Imogen from Greenlight. ‘Bridget. There’s been a terrible mistake. George has just forwarded you an email in error. Could you possibly delete it before you . . . Bridget? Bridget??’
Was not able to reply owing to contents of mouth. Rushed over to the sink and spurted out the Red Bull, grated mozzarella and cabbage, just as Chloe appeared at the top of the stairs. I turned round and grinned at her, bits of the cabbage and grated mozzarella falling from my teeth, like a vampire caught eating a person.
‘Bridget? Bridget?’ Imogen was still saying into the phone.
‘Yes?’ I said, waving a cheery hello at Chloe, whilst trying to spray the sink with the extendable tap to get rid of the cheese and cabbage.
‘Have you heard about Mabel’s finger?’ whispered Chloe. I nodded calmly and gesticulated towards the phone under my chin. As I listened to Imogen, repeating the story about the inadvertently-forwarded-by-George email, my eye was caught by the newspaper, still folded where Roxster had been reading it.
The Tragic Fate of the Toy Boy
by Ellen Boschup
Suddenly there are more toy boys everywhere! As the advances of medical science preserve the appearance of youth, and more and more middle-aged women are devoting their time and resources to doing just that, more and more are turning to ‘the younger man’ – Ellen Barkin, Madonna and Sam Taylor-Wood to name but a few. For these older, preying
women, or ‘cougars’ as they are appropriately known, the advantages are obvious: youth; vigorous, energetic, frequent, satisfying sex; and the sort of baggage-free companionship they would never find in their sagging, balding, middle-aged male counterparts, too idle and self-absorbed to fight the advances of the years.
‘Bridget?’ Imogen was still saying. ‘Are you all right? What’s going on? Earth-to-Bridget. Bridget? Net-a-Porter? Mini Mars bars?’
‘No! Super! Thanks for letting me know. I’ll call you later. Bye!’
I clicked off the phone and returned, reeling, to the article.
For the young, defenceless boys who are their prey, it may seem like an attractive trade. These women, when the lights are off, anyway, seem impressively preserved. Like pickled lemons. There’s no pressure over babies, no demands on the toy boy to succeed at his career. Instead there is a gateway into a glamorous, sophisticated world beyond his wildest dreams. The benefit of an experienced lover, a woman who knows what she wants in bed, who enhances his reputation – an entrée into society, and access to luxury travel. Where’s the downside? When he’s drunk his fill, he can simply leave his cougar to fall ravenously on her next unsuspecting prey. However, as more and more of these Unfortunates are discovering . . .
‘Everything all right, Bridget?’ said Chloe.
‘Yes, super. Could you go upstairs and tidy Mabel’s drawers, please?’ I said with an unaccustomed air of calm authority.
Once Chloe had gone, I lunged at another piece of cabbage, continuing to read as I shoved it into my mouth along with a piece of Nicorette.
. . . far from leaving when they choose, and moving on enhanced, these abused boys are left broken and sexually exhausted, self-esteem in tatters, with a key phase of their career and family-building life wasted. But hang on a minute! Some of these youths, it is true, like Ashton Kutcher, use their cougar as a kingmaker to advance their own careers and profiles. Far more of them, however, are abandoned, back in their sordid flats and bedsits, scorned by their friends, family and colleagues for consorting with women old enough to be their grandmothers, dumped back in their own world which now seems devoid of a glamour they will never . . .
I slumped at the table, head on my arms. Bloody Ellen Boschup. Don’t these people realize what harm they cause with their glib social generalizations? Plucking bogus phenomena and flimsy constructs out of the air at meetings – ‘Whatever Happened to the Dining Room?’ ‘Suddenly There Are More Dining Rooms Everywhere!!’ – then writing sententious social commentary as if it’s the conclusion to years of in-depth research rather than 1200 words to file on a deadline, ruining people’s lives and relationships, based on something they overheard in the gastropub and a couple of blurry photographs in Heat magazine.
‘Should I go and pick up Mabel and take her to the doctor?’ asked Chloe. ‘Are you all right, Bridget?’
‘No, no, I’ll . . . go and get her,’ I said. ‘Could you text the school and tell them I’ll be there in a mo?’
I walked insouciantly into the toilet and slumped, mind racing. If only there was just one thing to deal with. Roxster’s ‘confusion’, the horrible article, the ‘proper screenwriter’ or the septic-finger shame I could probably handle individually but not all at the same time. Clearly the septic finger had to take precedence, but could I allow anyone to see me in such a disturbed state? If I picked Mabel up like this, wild-eyed and bonkers, and took her to the doctor, would the school or the doctor put her into care?
Equilibrium was what I needed. I needed to clear my mind, because, as it says in How to Stay Sane, the mind is plastic.
I took some deep breaths in and out and went, ‘Maaaaa,’ to pray to the mother of the universe.
