Text 3. Nineties women

Jill gave a sigh of relief as she waved to the child at the window and then turned away. Other mothers she knew were tormented by guilt when they left their children at school or play group for the first time. "When I got home after leaving her there," one of them had said to her, "and saw her toys scattered on the floor and her unmade bed, I felt utterly criminal!"

Jill didn't feel guilty at all. She hadn't felt so free since she left university several years ago now. She and Brian had met in their first year at London University and everything had fallen quite naturally into place. It had been natural to join the univer­sity drama society, to take a student production to the Edinburgh Festival, to hitchhike round Scotland when the show was over and to move in together at the beginning of the next academic year. When they had got their degrees Brian had done an Arts Ad­ministration course and Jill had found a small part in a West End production. After that Brian's career had flourished while Jill's had been stillborn, as is the way of these things in the precarious world of the theatre. It had seemed a good time to have children and two little girls had arrived in rapid succession.

"But now," said Jill to her friend, Kay, as they sat in Kay's kitchen on the first, bright day of Jill's new life, "things are going to change. What now?"

"The theatre again?" Kay saw Jill's frown and tried again. "Teaching? Managing Director of Marks and Spencer? Check-out girl in Sainsbury's? Prime Minister? What is a highly intelligent young mother of two not capable of, especially when she is am­bitious, imaginative and has the potential to spend a very large salary?"

Jill glowed as she felt her horizons expand.

"Yes, now I've often thought I'd rather like to go into politics. My acting experi­ence could be very useful."

"Do they allow breast-feeding in the House of Commons?" asked Kay. "You did say you'd like two more children."

"I could bring in a bill during the first session."

"Your children would be drawing their pensions before it got through. What about teaching?"

"Must I?" Jill looked agonised.

"Oh, no. It would be dreadful, wouldn't it? Just think - all those kids leaving school every year and you never leaving at all! Like being in purgatory - never daring to hope that you'd be let out."

The horror of it silenced them for a moment until they managed to put it behind them.

Unit 1

"Becoming Brian's secretary at the theatre?" suggested Kay.

"Oh, no. That would reverse our relationship in an entirely unacceptable way. That wouldn't do at all." Jill finished her doughnut and licked the sugar from her cheeks with long, pleasurable swipes of her tongue.

"Going into business on your own? A book shop? A coffee shop? Both?"

"I've often thought of that," Jill mused. "But then I'd need someone who knew about coffee and about coffee machines and someone who understood financial things and what books sell and how to sell them and..."

"You?"

"Me? Oh, no, I know nothing about anything except how to glide onto the stage as Lady Macbeth, sleepwalking and washing the blood from my hands, or sighing fare­well to my cherry orchard as Madame Ranevskaya."

Kay frowned and sank into silence.

"Please, Kay," said Jill, earnestly. "I really need your help."

"Well, can I suggest to you some totally unfeminist option quite unacceptable to young women in the nineties?"

"Oh, do!" begged Jill.

"Well, you could always have three more babies, buy lottery tickets twice a week, encourage your husband's career by inviting fascinating actors and writers to dinner, going to the gym three times a week to improve very beautifully the tone of your muscles and coming to see me and have coffee and letting me buy you not only doughnuts but caramel squares and scones and tea cakes and..."

"... and butterfly cakes and chocolate eclairs?"

"Of course! And then we could set up a women's group where we could discuss contemporary issues such as the shocking lack of women in high positions and how this regrettable situation should be put right."

"Wonderful idea! Our daughters would thank us for it, I'm sure. When shall we start?"

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