How Hard Can It Be? - Allison Pearson

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Correction. The things that I know that I knew. At forty-nine years of age, the tip of the tongue becomes a very crowded place.

      Looking back, I can see all the times my memory got me out of trouble. How many exams would I have failed had I not been blessed with an almost photographic ability to scan several chapters in a textbook, carry the facts gingerly into the exam room – like an ostrich egg balanced on a saucer – regurgitate them right there on the paper and, Bingo! That fabulous, state-of-the-art digital retrieval system, which I took entirely for granted for four decades, is now a dusty provincial library staffed by Roy. Or that’s how I think of him anyway.

      Others ask God to hear their prayers. I plead with Roy to rifle through my memory bank and track down a missing object/word/thingummy. Poor Roy is not in his first youth. Well, neither of us is. He has his work cut out finding where I left my phone or my purse let alone locating an obscure quotation or the name of that film I thought about the other day with the young Demi Moore and Ally Somebody.

      Do you remember Donald Rumsfeld, when he was US Secretary of Defense, being mocked for talking about ‘Known Unknowns’ in Iraq? My, how we laughed at the old boy’s evasiveness. Well, finally, I have some idea what Rumsfeld meant. Perimenopause is a daily struggle with Unknown Knowns.

      See that tall brunette coming towards me down the dairy aisle in the supermarket with an expectant smile on her face? Uh-oh. Who is this woman and why does she know me?

      ‘Roy, please can you go and get that woman’s name for me? I know we have it filed in there somewhere. Possibly under Scary School Mums or Females I Suspect Richard Fancies?’

      Off Roy shuffles in his carpet slippers while Unknown But Very Friendly Tall Brunette – Gemma? Jemima? Julia? – chats away about other women we have in common. She lets slip that her daughter got all A*s in her GCSEs. Unfortunately, that hardly narrows it down, perfect grades being the must-have accessory for every middle-class child and their aspirational parents.

      Sometimes, when the forgetfulness is scary bad – I mean, bad like that fish in that, that, that film1 (‘Roy, hello?’) – it’s like I’m trying to get back a thought that just swam into my head then departed a millisecond later, with a flick of its minnow’s tail. Trying to retrieve the thought, I feel like a prisoner who has glimpsed the keys to her cell on a high ledge, but can’t quite reach them with her fingertips. I try to get to the keys, I stretch as hard as I can, I brush aside the cobwebs, I beg Roy to remind me what it was I came into the study/kitchen/garage for. But the mind’s a blank.

      Is that why I started lying about my age? Trust me, it wasn’t vanity, it was self-preservation. An old friend from my City days told me this headhunter she knew was anxious to fill his female quota, as laid down by the Society of Investment Trusts. He was the sort of well-connected chap who can put a word in the right tufty, barnacled old ear and get you a non-executive directorship; a position on the board of a company that’s highly remunerated but requires only a few days of time a year. I figured if I had a couple of those under my belt, to supplement my financial-advice work, I could earn just enough to keep us afloat while Richard was training, while still taking care of the kids and keeping an eye on Mum and Rich’s parents as well. On paper, everything looked great. Hell, I could do two non-execs in my sleep. Full of hope, I went to meet Gerald Kerslaw.

      11.45 am: Kerslaw’s office is in one of those monumental, white, wedding-cake houses in Holland Park. The front steps, of which there must be at least fifteen, feel like scaling the White Cliffs of Dover. Apart from the occasional party and meeting with clients, I haven’t worn a decent pair of shoes in a while – amazing how quickly you lose the ability to walk in heels. On the short journey from the Tube, I feel like a newborn gnu; tottering on splayed legs, I even stop to steady myself with one hand on a newspaper vendor’s stand.

      ‘Alright, Miss? Careful how you go,’ the guy cackles, and I am embarrassed at how absurdly grateful I am that he thinks I’m still young enough to be called Miss. (Funny how rank old sexists become charming, gallant gentlemen when you’re in need of a boost, isn’t it?)

      It’s hard to comprehend how swiftly all the confidence you built up over a career ebbs away. Years of knowledge brushed aside in minutes.

      ‘So, Mrs Reddy, you’ve been out of the City for how long – seven years?’

      Kerslaw has one of those stentorian barks that is designed to carry to the soldier mucking about at the back of the parade. He is bawling at me across a desk the size of Switzerland.

      ‘Kate, please call me Kate. Six and a half years actually. But I’ve taken on a lot of new responsibilities since then. Kept up my skillset, provided regular financial advice to several local people, read the financial pages every day and …’

      ‘I see.’ Kerslaw is holding my CV at a distance as if it is giving off a faint but unpleasant odour. Ex-Army, clip-on Lego helmet of silver hair; a small man whose shiny face bears the stretched look of someone who had always wanted to be three inches taller. The pinstripes on his jacket are far too wide, like the chalk lines on a tennis court. It’s the kind of suit only worn by a family-values politician after their cocaine-fuelled night with two hookers has been revealed in a Sunday tabloid.

      ‘Treasurer of the PCC?’ he says, raising one eyebrow.

      ‘Yes, that’s the parochial church council in the village. The books were a mess, but it was quite hard to persuade the vicar to trust me to manage their one thousand nine hundred pounds. I mean, I’d been used to running a four hundred million-pound fund so it was quite funny really and …’

      ‘I see. Now, moving on to your time as Chairman of the Governors at Beckles (is it?) Community College. Of what relevance might that be, Mrs Reddy?’

      ‘Kate, please. Well, the school was failing, about to go into special measures actually, and it took a huge amount of work to turn it around. I had to change the management structure, which was a diplomatic nightmare. You can’t believe school politics, seriously, they’re much worse than a bank, and there was all the legislation to adhere to and the inspection reports. So much red tape. An untrained person hasn’t got a hope in hell of understanding it. I instigated a merger with another school so we’d have the money to invest in frontline staff and bring down classroom sizes. It made Mergers and Acquisitions look like Teletubbies, quite frankly.’

      ‘I see,’ says Kerslaw, not an atom of a smile on his face. (Never watched Teletubbies with his kids, obviously.) ‘And you were not working full-time in that period because your mother was unwell, I believe?’

      ‘Yes, Mum – my mother – had a heart attack, but she’s much better now, made a full recovery thank goodness. I’d just like to say, Mr Kerslaw, that Beckles Community College is one of the fastest improving schools in the country, and it’s got a terrific new head who …’

      ‘Quite. So what I need to ask you is: if one of your children were to be ill when a board meeting was scheduled, what would you do? It’s vital that, as a non-exec director, you would have time to prepare for the meetings and, of course, attendance is compulsory.’

      I don’t know how long I sit there staring at him. Seconds? Minutes? I can’t promise that my jaw isn’t resting on the green leather desktop. Do I really have to dignify that question with an answer? Even when such questions are supposed to be illegal now? It seems that I do. So, I tell the headhunter prat with his trying-too-hard red silk jacket lining that, yes, when I was a successful fund manager, my children were occasionally unwell, and I had always arranged backup care like the conscientious professional I was and that any board could have the utmost confidence in my reliability as well as my discretion.

      The speech might have gone down better had a phone not chosen that exact moment to start playing the theme from The Pink Panther. I look at Kerslaw and he looks at me. Funny kind of ringtone for a stuffy old headhunter, I think. It takes a few moments to realise that the jaunty prowl of a tune is, in fact, coming from the handbag under my chair. Oh, hell. Ben must have changed my ringtone again. He thinks it’s funny.

      ‘I’m terribly sorry,’ I say, one hand

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