Reasons to be Cheerful

by Nina Stibbe

In other words, it was a sex substitute – like having beauty treatments and doing macramé.

I had been an avid reader; a bookworm, bookaholic, librarian – call it what you will – as much as the next brainy young person, having been exposed, no, subjected, to the classics, the southern gothicists, the modernists, the post-modernists, the angry young men and more. But there I was at eighteen, an ordinary young working woman; I had life to live, real life. I had no use for men harpooning whales to death, pouring leperous distilments into other people’s ears, or Marge Piercy. The words that truly met my needs were to be found in the magazines in the waiting room. The world depicted therein, scattered with personal itching, erratic hair and special offers, was not only instructive, but unexpectedly soothing.

It seemed so personal, so intimate, like watching someone eating a yoghurt.

The only thing she objected to was people requesting ‘no butter’. What was so wrong with a no-butter request? we wondered. Ann-Sofie explained that butter acts as a barrier between wet filling and bread, and, for a dryer filling, adds moisture and adhesion, and is therefore always necessary. Plus, she had all the bread buttered and ready before she opened the doors at eleven.

I said I didn’t think we needed miracles, and epiphanies left, right and centre, awakenings and visits from God – we needed to appreciate the actual, ordinary things around us.

I’ve never forgotten that moment, the terrifying realization that you have no control over what kind of baby you produce – you might get Danny, but then again, you might get Thing Two or that baby with the long arms.

I’d known sadness before, I’d seen it, but I’d not experienced the sort of pain that makes a person switch sandwich preference.