Having It All by Maeve Haran Read Free Book Online Page B

really well. Fortunately she had no intention of having any.
    Her gaze came to rest on a cork noticeboard. Hah! Pinned there in all their glory were the ten commandments of the working mother’s life: babysitting rotas, shopping lists, details of
pickings up and droppings off at music lessons, dancing lessons, tennis lessons. And probably, God help us, Suzuki violin and mini-Mensa.
    Jesus, what a way to live! She probably planned her menus three months in advance, booked lunch appointments with her kids and pencilled her husband in for a fuck every other Tuesday.
    Looking round her, Steffi decided she’d enjoy bagging a career mother. It was time someone blew the whistle on them and gave them a bit of bad press instead of worshipping at their bloody
feet. She was fed up to the teeth with hearing them preaching the wonders of working motherhood and giving every other poor female who didn’t happen to run a multinational company from her
spare bedroom an inferiority complex. Steffi smiled maliciously. And given who Liz was married to, she’d probably get promoted!
    Liz noticed Steffi’s gaze rest on the noticeboard and kicked herself. She’d meant to remove those lists. They made her life look like a military operation, which it was, but she
didn’t happen to want Steffi Wilson to know it. What would the Acid Queen of the
Daily World
make out of those?
    Liz watched her fascinated for a moment. She was pure Fleet Street rag-hag: mid-thirties, streaked hair, a lurid mahogany tan from too many sessions recovering from hangovers on the sunbed at
The Sanctuary, make-up Jackie Collins circa 1968, more bangles than an Indian temple dancer, huge rings on each of her blood-red fingers. She probably thought kids should be drowned at birth.
    Liz had met the breed before: bitchiness was their stock-in-trade. She was going to have to watch her step.
    ‘Do you mind awfully if I smoke?’ Not waiting for an answer, Steffi delved in her vast Vuitton duffel bag and took out a pack of gold-tipped Menthol cigarettes and a portable
ashtray.
    Smoking was such an endangered habit now that it was safer, in Steffi’s view, to take your own gear. A fellow-smoker had given her the ashtray in onyx with its own push-button lid, saying
it stopped people looking at you like a child molester at a Sunday school outing every time you asked for somewhere to dump your ash.
    Steffi took a large gulp of the cold white wine Liz had poured her and opened her notebook. If there
were
any cracks in that smug exterior she’d soon find them. Better ease in
gently and make her feel relaxed. She could put the boot in later.
    ‘So, Liz’ – she smiled a wide sympathetic smile –‘how does it feel to be the most powerful woman in television?’
    OK, thought Liz, we’re starting with the soft pedal. Now, remember the party line:
Being a Mother is an Asset
.
    ‘Great. I mean the most powerful woman in telly stuff is just media hype. But the job’s wonderful. I’ll be the first woman ever to run a major TV company.’ Liz hoped she
sounded keen and enthusiastic rather than smug and self-satisfied. ‘It’s taken me years to get here but now I can finally make the programmes I believe in. And best of all, it shows it
can be done by a woman with kids.’
    ‘But can it really?’ Steffi asked quickly. She’d meant to stay off the subject till Liz was more relaxed but she couldn’t resist this heaven-sent opening. ‘I mean
it’s bound to be incredibly tough. Won’t having kids mean constant compromises? Aren’t you afraid of spreading yourself too thinly?’
    Sometimes Liz felt like an old elastic band stretched so thin she might break at any moment, but she wasn’t telling Steffi Wilson that.
    ‘Nonsense,’ she said briskly. ‘It’s all down to organization and delegation. I have a wonderful nanny.’
    A wonderful nanny who’s thinking of leaving because you never see your children, thought Steffi maliciously.
    ‘But a job like that must