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By Root 1479 0

and always immaculately turned out. Overnight she became as sick as a dog. One day she even puked into the wastepaper bin. When she wasn’t in the ladies’ either weeing or throwing up, she was slumped at her desk, queasily nibbling ginger, too exhausted to work. And the food! Despite her ever-present nausea, she ate mountains. ‘The only thing that settles my stomach is food,’ she mumbled, shoving another Cornish pasty down the hatch. In no time she looked as if she’d been buried up to her neck in a sandpit. It got worse. Her once-glistening hair became unaccountably frizzy and suddenly she was very prone to cold sores. Her skin yielded flaky patches of psoriasis and her nails split and broke. To Lisa’s supercritical eye she looked more like a plague victim than a pregnant woman.

Most disturbing of all, Arabella’s concentration disappeared. Mid-interview she forgot Nicole Kidman’s name, and could only come up with the office nickname for her: Nicole Skidmark. She couldn’t remember if her wraparound John Rocha velcro skirt was last season’s or the one before. And these things were elementary, Lisa noted in mounting alarm. The day came when Arabella’s ability to make a decision between a White Magnum and a Classic Magnum just went west on her. ‘Whi- No, Classi- No, no, wait. White. Definitely White. No, Classic…’ She could have dithered for England. ‘I’ve become lime-jelly-brain girl,’ she moaned.

Thoroughly spooked, Lisa went to see another woman who’d had a baby. Eloïse, features editor at Chic Girly.

‘How are you?’ Lisa asked.

‘Psychotic from sleep deprivation,’ Eloïse answered.

It got worse. Though it was six months since Eloïse had had her baby, she still looked as though she’d been buried up to her neck in a sandpit.

And something else. She no longer cared, she’d lost her hardness. This was the editor formerly known as Attila. She sacked without fear – or at least she used to. But now she was afflicted with a faint but unmissable air of goo.

Lisa began back-pedalling like there was no tomorrow. She didn’t want a baby, they destroyed your life. It was easy for models and Spice Girls. They had teams of nannies to ensure you got your sleep, personal trainers to insist you regained your figure, private hairdressers to comb your hair when you hadn’t the energy to.

But by then Oliver was well into the idea. And the thing about Oliver was that once he’d decided on something, it was very hard to make him change his mind.

Secretly she began taking the Pill again. No way was she destroying her precious career.

Ah yes, Lisa’s career. Oliver had objected to that too, hadn’t he?

‘You’re a workaholic,’ he accused, over and over, with mounting frustration and anger.

‘Men always say that about successful women.’

‘No, I don’t just mean that you work too hard, although you do. Babes, you’re obsessed. All you talk about is office politics or circulation figures, or how the competition is doing. “At least we get more in advertising… We did that article six months ago… Ally Benn is out to get me.” ’

‘Well, she is.’

‘No, she isn’t.’

Mad with the irritation of being misunderstood, Lisa glared at him. ‘You’ve no idea what it’s like, they all want to be me, all those twenty-year-olds. They’d stitch me up and stab me in the back, given half a chance.’

‘Just because you think that way doesn’t mean everyone else does. You’re paranoid.’

‘I’m not, I’m telling it like it is. Their only loyalty is to themselves.’

‘Just like you, babes. You’ve got so hard, you’ve sacked too many people. You shouldn’t have sacked Kelly, she was sweet, and on your side.’

Shame flickered for the tiniest moment. ‘She couldn’t hack it, she wasn’t tough enough. I need a features writer who isn’t afraid of doing hatchet jobs. Nice people like Kelly hold the magazine back.’ She rounded on Oliver. ‘I didn’t enjoy sacking her, if that’s what you’re thinking. I thought she was all right, but I’d no choice.’

‘Lisa, I think you’re the business. I always did. I…’ he paused as he searched for the right word. ‘I admire you, I respect you…’

‘But?’ Lisa questioned