“So, want to know my other story?” said Miranda, sipping her drink. “?‘They’re small, they’re totally incontinent and they MAKE YOU DEPRESSED—babies!’?”
“What?” said Shazzer, sitting bolt upright and shooting a look at Tom.
“Yup,” said Miranda smugly. “Survey in next month’s Psychiatry Last Week Today.”
“How did you get next month’s Psychiatry Last Week Today?” said Tom from his prone position.
“Contacts, bro.”
“Please don’t say ‘bro,’?” I said.
“Apparently all these years women have been brainwashed into thinking they’re depressed because they don’t have children, whereas apparently women who give up their careers to have children are more depressed than women who keep their careers and don’t have children.”
“You SEE, Tom?” said Shazzer, adding, “Tom’s de
cided to adopt a baby. Jumping ship, jumping on the bandwagon.”
“Shazzer, shut up, it was a secret,” said Tom, furious.
I was staring at Miranda, aghast.
“Oh come on, you don’t have to take any notice of an article. All surveys are bollox, but it’s a headline for Monday. They’re passive-aggressive: ‘Oh, oh, look at me, I can’t do anything, help me,’ and they ruin your life—babies!”
“Exactly! It’s all propaganda!” crowed Shaz as I took a giant gulp of wine, remembering how much better it made one feel, and also wanting to have another one and a packet of Silk Cut. Started tucking into my goats cheese toastie.
“All these years we’ve been BRAINWASHED into thinking we were depressed because we haven’t got children, whereas, in fact, we weren’t depressed at all!” Shazzer ranted gleefully.
“But, er, we were,” said Tom.
“No. We just THOUGHT we were because society made us believe we’d suffered an unbearable loss, whereas in fact people who make a conscious decision not to have children are not depressed at all,” said Shazzer.
“Hurrah!” I said, out of pure habit. “Childless Singletons! Hurrah!”
“Bridget! What are you doing here? I thought you were meeting us for lunch.”
Gaaah! It was Magda and Mufti. Mufti was pushing a stroller containing a baby and festooned with a scary amount of baby-clobber.
“Are you drinking WINE?”
I leapt to my feet guiltily, knocking the wine over with my stomach.
“She can’t drink wine! She can’t drink wine!” said Mufti.
“Honestly, you Singletons are completely irresponsible,” said Magda. “She’s coming with us. Bridget, come on.”
“Is that goats cheese?” said Mufti. “You’re eating GOATS CHEESE?”
Woney suddenly appeared, also with a pram but no baby in it. “What are you doing here—we thought we were meeting in Café 202. We’ve bought you a Bugaboo stroller!”
“Oh, thank you,” I gushed, looking doubtfully at the giant pram. How was I going to even get it up the stairs?
“Oh my God, you’re enormous,” said Woney. “I thought you were only a few months. You’ll have to stop piling it on or you’ll have a terrible delivery.”
Magda squeezed my hand and whispered, “Take no notice of Woney—she spent so much time on her feet she got varicose veins in her labia,” at which Shazzer smirked.
“It’s a girl!” said Mufti. “It’s a girl! Look how low-slung she’s carrying.”
“No, it’s not, it’s a boy. Look how bloated her boobs are.”