The artist confided that he knew a girl who used to paint boring pictures of boats. Then she reinvented herself, got schmoozing and now sells dirty knickers to Charles Saatchi
Now our baby, Andrew, is old enough to be sat, life is beginning to return to normal. Last week, we went out to our first dinner party for what seemed like years. It was held in one of those tall Notting Hill houses with a dining-room in the basement whose table groaned with cut crystal and silver jugs for holding bottles. The talk, too, was textbook perfect: on one side was an editor who knew Valerie Eliot and Frieda Hughes; on my other side was an artist who was leaving London for the West Country. He had, he said, been toying with the idea for ages until, a mere few days earlier, something happened to harden his resolve. "What?" I asked. "A nutter hit me in the face at the bottom of Tottenham Court Road. There I was, with blood streaming down my nose and my two daughters standing beside me, crying. And what happened? A crowd of about a hundred people gathered round me - and just stared. I shouted: 'Someone get that man! He's mad and he'll do it to someone else!' But no one said anything or moved. I thought: 'Bloody hell, time to get out of here.'"
Talk then turned to art and the meaning of. I told him about my idea for the Turner Prize. "Imagine a pentangle on the floor," I said. "In it is an inter-city train seat. And sitting in that train seat is a business executive in a bad suit talking in loud, nasal tones into his mobile phone. 'I hear what you're saying!' he keeps repeating, and 'I'm not entirely convinced Accounts are singing from the same hymn sheet.'" This notion was born of endless train journeys with just such a person sitting a few seats away and was, I thought, the essence of genius. "Everyone will identify with it!" I said. The artist shook his head pityingly. "Yes, but they won't get to see it. To win the Turner Prize you need to schmooze three top curators, three top galleries and three top art critics. Once you've done that, the idea can be anything. I used to know an artist who just did boring paintings of boats and then she reinvented herself, got schmoozing and now sells dirty knickers to Charles Saatchi."
I hate shopping: crowded streets, heaving stores and "helpful" sales assistants. Last week, however, with Andrew's christening looming, I hit the West End filled with the leaden foreboding reminiscent of the pre-Agincourt scenes in Henry V. After hours of sifting through expensive boutiques, I finally found a perfect little white silk suit at - where else? - John Lewis. The best bit about the suit was the size label - 12. I haven't been a size 12 for well over a decade; since Andrew's birth in December, however, I have lost more than a stone. The secret of successful slimming, I have discovered, has nothing to do with Hay or Atkins and everything to do with Heinz. If the uniquely horrid smell of baby food doesn't suppress the appetite for hours, the sight of the baby trying to eat it will.
It was not long, however, before disaster hit my suit. Terrible things tend to happen to my clothes. There was the time when, a fortnight or so before Andrew was due, I was invited for lunch with Fay Weldon at the Savoy. Checking my reflection in the splendid loos, I noticed a smudge on my boots and bent over to wipe it away. A loud, cartoon rip was the result, followed by a heart-sinking draught about my nether regions. My pregnancy trousers had given way in spectacular fashion and had split fore and aft; a disaster compounded by the fact that not only was I wearing a short floaty top but a thong into the bargain. I gathered my wits, asked for needle and thread at the coat-check and cobbled the back of my trolleys together in the loo.
Clouds had hung over the christening for days. The entire venture depended heavily for its success on the weather, which was not looking helpful. The venue was a small walled garden near the church. Both the bar marquee and the sun umbrellas were to be decorated with floral garlands. The fete champetre feel was to be completed with a bubble machine for the children. We'd hired Uncle Michael the Clown from Matlock, and the local pub landlord, a gifted accordionist, had been bribed to provide musical interludes. Everything that could have been thought of to help our baby's party go with a swing had been rung up, booked and paid for.
But the weather cannot be paid for. The christening was on a Sunday and on the Friday the marquee men erected their structure in conditions not so much of downpour as of power shower. On Saturday, the rain thundered on the roof of the church as, inside in the Stygian gloom, hands shaking with the cold, the florist arranged her displays of summer flowers. On Sunday morning, I woke up at five and with beating heart lifted the edge of the blind. Big grey clouds were scudding ominously about. Yet as the morning wore on, the patches of sunshine grew longer and stronger and, by 3.30pm, unimpeded warmth pouring down from a sky of azure blue greeted us as we emerged from the church. Nor was this the day's only miracle. After the festivities were over and I took off my white suit at bedtime, I noticed that, despite the proximity of baby, passing party foodstuffs and a long session in the pub, the delicate silk was unblemished.
Wendy Holden's latest novel is Fame Fatale, published in paperback by Headline (£5.99)
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