Good Material

by Dolly Alderton

“Did you have any children?” “No,” he says. “And I’m very glad I didn’t.” “Why?” “They’re destroying the planet, they ruin your house. They cost too much money. They’re ungrateful. They’re loud, they’ve got sticky fingers. It’s disgraceful that in this day and age people think they still want to have them, they don’t even question whether it’s a good decision.” “That seems a bit—”

“One of the lesser-reported tragedies of the London property crisis is that it is now possible for two people dating to live twenty miles apart from each other.”

“If he asked me for any advice about…personal matters—personal relationships—I wouldn’t have a whole lot to say, because I don’t know a whole lot about it. But I would say that—” He stops himself and makes a sound of a half-formed word, then stops himself again. He takes a breath and speaks in an uncharacteristically unhurried way. “Life is a bit more difficult for women. More difficult than it is for us, I mean. And you don’t need to ask them to explain why or understand it all. You just need to be nice to them.” He looks up at me nervously. “Do you understand what I’m saying?” “I think I do, yes,” I say.

The risk felt so much higher for me and it wasn’t something he would ever truly acknowledge. This baby’s life would rely on my maternity leave, my savings, my body, my career.

My granny who’d met my grandfather aged fourteen and who’d never been with another man. My granny who’d had five children and dedicated her life to being a mother. A woman who once told me that all she’d ever wanted was to be a ballet dancer, but her “good years” were taken up with having babies and then the moment passed her by. A woman who was so dependent on her husband that when he died she had to “ring a man” and pay him to change a light bulb for her.