Okay, big surprise.
I know, it’s not like admitting that I am a member of a Civil War Re-enactment Society or go to Star Trek Conventions. Pretty standard, tick the box sort of stuff for middle class women of a certain age who don’t take lovers and therefore have to find something else to do with their evenings.
I used to be in The Power Book Club. This was many years ago when I was a housewife, mother of four, and general all round drudge. Why I was included in this book club was an even bigger mystery than why women are in book clubs at all (apart from the fact that lovers, though more fun, come with nasty side-effects like divorce and heartache and, according to the Daily Mail, Chlamydia). They were all so clever and successful: Anne Marie (thin), an academic, who talked in italics, paranthesis and footnotes all the time despite coming from Kircaldy. Sarah (thin), fantastically glamorous Travel Magazine editor. Louise (thin) fantastically glamorous Fashion Magazine editor. Wendy (thin) fantastically glamorous Journalist and her colleague Betsy (really, really thin) fantastically glamorous and even more senior Journalist. Nina (really, really thin to the point of bony-ness) fantastically glamorous Politician’s Speech Writer.
So you are sensing a trend here.
The kind of women, in short, with degrees from Ivy League universities who make you feel you should have been drowned at birth or left on a hillside to die, except that, there need to be some women around to look after their kids, and they can’t all come from Guatemala.
I was invited along by my friend Julia, fantastically glamorous PR Guru, for reasons best known to herself (possibly having something to do with the fact that her boyfriend, at the time, and I both hailed from the same part of the world and therefore bonded over a common language: we sat and growled och aye at each other, and laid into the bevy. Marrrryin he used to call me).
Whatever her logic, I was included in this magic circle of high-achieving women who have all gone on to even greater heights on Editorial Mastheads, published books, and had children, while I, erm, have taken over the reigns as an assistant at Pedantic Press where all those consonants give my och aye accent a lot of trouble. I have to say it slooooowly, forcing myself to ‘annunciate´.
It’s a tough job, but I think I rise to the challenge.
In between I have been a journalist, a food writer, a restaurant critic, a sex columnist, and penned all sorts of spurious and frivolous articles and 'gift' books (that unfortunately nobody gifted) as well as a couple of children’s books - but let us not rest on our past glories when others’ current glories are veritably blotting out the sun so that our own wee glories, starved of light, wither and die.
In between I have been a journalist, a food writer, a restaurant critic, a sex columnist, and penned all sorts of spurious and frivolous articles and 'gift' books (that unfortunately nobody gifted) as well as a couple of children’s books - but let us not rest on our past glories when others’ current glories are veritably blotting out the sun so that our own wee glories, starved of light, wither and die.
But you’ve got the novel, I hear you scream. Don’t forget the novel.
No, indeed, I have not forgotten the novel, in fact the Coca Cola sign in my head is flashing on and off and on and off in the Piccadilly Circus of my psyche, but unfortunately it seems to be invisible to the rest of the population, which, I suppose, is the problem with imaginary neon signs.
Julia is still my friend, amazingly, and about to write a book herself, so I don’t suppose mine is much of a boast. She is tossing off one now about 'juggling' kids and board meetings.
So I can't think what the attraction is.
Maybe she thinks I am nice.
Ha ha ha ha ha.
Anyway, having told you all about the Power Book Club, I shall now make all of the previous chapters redundant by telling you that it has now disbanded and I am, therefore, no longer a member. All other members have gone on to slam dunk success while I am hiding in the changing room. From being the only mother, now Julia is writing a self help books for mothers and didn't ask me to contribute (whimper) and Wendy is now uncovering the horrors of Saddam's Iraq and will soon be such a hot property we will be dropping her name at parties. Both books are being published by Pedantic Press, where, ahem, I answer the phone.
Nobody ever remembers my name at parties. Not even if I've slept with them. Hell, not even if I've married them.
I am however still friendly with la belle Julia who, this evening , is taking me to ‘her club’ for supper.
I was remembering this important date in my otherwise empty diary when I rose this morning and dressed in the big girl jeans (note to self - remember to change later), trainers (definitely remember to change later) and socks, no - I stand, hopping, corrected. That should have said: sock, as I can’t find the other one of the matching pair of black ‘pop’ socks (nothing to do with music, spontaneity or general approval, but that’s what they are called – I don’t name em folks, I simply report) that I put on last night after my bath. There is one on the floor, but the other has gone out for a packet of fags, met up with a marauding band of assorted dark ribbed socks and vanished. Oh well, never mind. I'll get another pair. I find a dark gray sock and a navy sock in the orphan sock bag – almost from the same colour spectrum, and set off to ride the bus to work.
So Power Book Club – defunct. Keep up – there is a point to this long monologue. But, fear not, I am still in a book club.
I was remembering this important date in my otherwise empty diary when I rose this morning and dressed in the big girl jeans (note to self - remember to change later), trainers (definitely remember to change later) and socks, no - I stand, hopping, corrected. That should have said: sock, as I can’t find the other one of the matching pair of black ‘pop’ socks (nothing to do with music, spontaneity or general approval, but that’s what they are called – I don’t name em folks, I simply report) that I put on last night after my bath. There is one on the floor, but the other has gone out for a packet of fags, met up with a marauding band of assorted dark ribbed socks and vanished. Oh well, never mind. I'll get another pair. I find a dark gray sock and a navy sock in the orphan sock bag – almost from the same colour spectrum, and set off to ride the bus to work.
So Power Book Club – defunct. Keep up – there is a point to this long monologue. But, fear not, I am still in a book club.
Oh really?
Yes, since you ask, Currently, however, I am a member of The Power Book Club's antonym – otherwise known as The Weight Watchers Book club.
By me, anyway.
Here, the members are slightly, or even, in some cases (me) Marina Rinaldi, overweight, and the meetings are a tad more concerned with the food than the fiction. We are all friends from decades of standing outside school gates awaiting children who were once-upon-a-time friends but who now can’t stand each other. We are the ones who maintain our friendships, forged over hours and hours and days and weeks of park times while various small boys kicked various small objects (often other, younger, smaller boys) up and down a muddy field.
Of course, they do other things too. They are all professionals with a couple of former corporate high flyers thrown in for good measure, but none of us quite has the Power Sisters patina of Success stamped on us like the LV on a trophy handbag.
That doesn’t mean that some members (not me) are not jaw-crunchingly grand, you know with dogs and 4x4s and Agas and places in the ‘cuntry’ and organic boxes in the corner of their hand-built kitchens and kids away at boarding school, one such being the lovely Jenny.
She’s quite, quite posh. Very well-brought-up. Very married. Very sweet. Clever too. And slim and perfect looking, not loose and large like the rest of us. And she dresses in a sort of sloaney mufti, like Kirsty Alsop on weekends but without the Alice band - jeans and navy blue jumpers, little white collar peeping shyly from the neck and pearls. Okay, maybe I’m imagining the pearls.
So we are sitting at a Weight Watcher’s Book Club some time last year. We are in one member’s house: Millionaire, hand-embroidered antique tablecloth hanging over the chimney breast that her husband decided to demolish some months earlier and then left, radiator in the middle of the sitting room, unconnected, freezing, using the wood frame he half-built inside the chimney breast as fuel for the fire... West London intellectuals. You get the picture.
Here, the members are slightly, or even, in some cases (me) Marina Rinaldi, overweight, and the meetings are a tad more concerned with the food than the fiction. We are all friends from decades of standing outside school gates awaiting children who were once-upon-a-time friends but who now can’t stand each other. We are the ones who maintain our friendships, forged over hours and hours and days and weeks of park times while various small boys kicked various small objects (often other, younger, smaller boys) up and down a muddy field.
Of course, they do other things too. They are all professionals with a couple of former corporate high flyers thrown in for good measure, but none of us quite has the Power Sisters patina of Success stamped on us like the LV on a trophy handbag.
That doesn’t mean that some members (not me) are not jaw-crunchingly grand, you know with dogs and 4x4s and Agas and places in the ‘cuntry’ and organic boxes in the corner of their hand-built kitchens and kids away at boarding school, one such being the lovely Jenny.
She’s quite, quite posh. Very well-brought-up. Very married. Very sweet. Clever too. And slim and perfect looking, not loose and large like the rest of us. And she dresses in a sort of sloaney mufti, like Kirsty Alsop on weekends but without the Alice band - jeans and navy blue jumpers, little white collar peeping shyly from the neck and pearls. Okay, maybe I’m imagining the pearls.
So we are sitting at a Weight Watcher’s Book Club some time last year. We are in one member’s house: Millionaire, hand-embroidered antique tablecloth hanging over the chimney breast that her husband decided to demolish some months earlier and then left, radiator in the middle of the sitting room, unconnected, freezing, using the wood frame he half-built inside the chimney breast as fuel for the fire... West London intellectuals. You get the picture.
We have spent the usual requisite ten minutes on the book and have moved on to weightier matters like husbands (annoying) ex-husband (spawn of the devil), kids (even more annoying) dogs (lovely/annoying depending on class) food, dinners, meals, ingredients, more food (fattening but really lovely), when Nel looks under the table and says to Jenny: 'Oh, is that yours?' She is gesturing to the hankie on the floor.
Jenny glances down, and says: No I don’t think so, and the conversation continues: Ottolenghi, Tavola, Clarke's, Tom’s, Mr Christians etc… (all names of West London delis).
Then suddenly Jenny looks again, yips, reaches to the floor and says:
'Oh my Gawd, yes, this is mine,' bends down and produces…
Jenny glances down, and says: No I don’t think so, and the conversation continues: Ottolenghi, Tavola, Clarke's, Tom’s, Mr Christians etc… (all names of West London delis).
Then suddenly Jenny looks again, yips, reaches to the floor and says:
'Oh my Gawd, yes, this is mine,' bends down and produces…
no, not a hankie...
but a pair of
... knickers.
Yesterday’s knickers, to be exact, which had lodged in the leg of her jeans that she had worn the day before and hurriedly dressed in that morning.
What a woman. So perfect and human too. I liked her SO much more at that moment.
I thought of that story fondly this morning as I stood up to be catapulted, as usual from the top deck of the bus, somewhat like bunjee jumping but without the rope. to the bottom deck (usually slamming my face into the wall as I go) when there, right there, on the stairs, I espied
Wait for it…
Drum roll…
…a single black pop sock, just lying there, deflated on the middle step, where it had wriggled from my jeans, presumably, as I boarded the bus in West London.
So this is where all the odd socks in the world go.
What a woman. So perfect and human too. I liked her SO much more at that moment.
I thought of that story fondly this morning as I stood up to be catapulted, as usual from the top deck of the bus, somewhat like bunjee jumping but without the rope. to the bottom deck (usually slamming my face into the wall as I go) when there, right there, on the stairs, I espied
Wait for it…
Drum roll…
…a single black pop sock, just lying there, deflated on the middle step, where it had wriggled from my jeans, presumably, as I boarded the bus in West London.
So this is where all the odd socks in the world go.
Stowing away in the leg of lazy women's jeans, off to the London Review of Bookshop to meet like-minded individuals with a fondness for Rilke and ceramic cats.
A mystery solved.
I just thought I would share that with you.
By the way. Of course I picked the sock up and put it in my pocket.
It was one of a matching pair for God's sake.
