Always Alchemy: The Ever After Book (Alchemy #6)

27. Morning Glory

27

MORNING GLORY

AIDA

I ’m no stranger to the red BBC Breakfast couch. I’ve had several invitations to sit here over the years, mainly in the form of an expert on US and British elections. The hosts even had me on here when Searching for Paradise went live.

But today’s appearance is a new take, and I’m pretty excited about how it will go down.

Maddy’s mom, Verity, was offered and accepted a regular Friday morning fixture on BBC Breakfast about six months ago, after her third book came out and her YouTube channel hit crazy numbers of viewers. Her core demographic of middle-aged British women was deemed the perfect fit for the breakfast show’s audience, her signature effusive style touted as a way to shake up the red couch, or sofa , as the BBC calls it.

She’s definitely spiced Friday mornings up over here with her almost childlike enthusiasm and refreshing lack of fucks given. She’s had a lot of viewers clutching their pearls, that’s for sure, but she’s also given many, many more food for thought as they sip their morning coffee and take in her strongly worded, plainly delivered, views on women’s changing needs—and rights—as they age.

I’m not a breakfast television viewer, but I take enormous pleasure in watching her reels on Instagram and catching up with highlights from her weekly slot, mainly because they involve her consistently terrorising her totally spineless and bland-as-fuck co-presenter, Tom Daniels, one of the regular anchors on the show. I guess the powers that be at the Beeb intend for Tom to keep Verity in check. They may not have done it on purpose, but watching a cringing, mortified Tom flail under Verity’s gleeful spiels and her shameless questions to their guests is unintentional TV gold.

Today, I’m here to ensure that TV gold endures.

Verity has invited me on to discuss women’s wellbeing as I prepare to celebrate my fiftieth birthday next week. I’ve been briefed to expect questions on managing everything from my career, energy levels, sex drive and hormonal wellbeing.

Tom Daniels is going to be squirming so hard on that couch I almost feel sorry for him.

Now I sit right on it, my back straight and legs crossed, as we prepare for our segment to kick off after the transition back from regional news. I’m feeling good. My husband felt the need to fuck me pretty damn hard this morning, to—in his words— remind you to own that fucking show and remind everyone how damn hot women can be at fifty .

It worked.

I’m in a simple black Prada shift dress that works well against the tomato-red couch, with my favourite matching Chanel cuffs on my wrists. My lips are red. My hair is immaculate. And my legs are tan and bare except for some light-reflecting leg makeup, a fact I’m sure will have a lot of viewers calling in to complain about. God forbid an almost-fifty-year-old-woman should bare her legs on national television. The indecency!

Verity and I grin conspiratorially at each other as Tom pats his hair. He’s a few years younger than me, but I can see the heavy contouring the makeup department has applied to strengthen his somewhat weak jawline.

Verity looks fantastic, as usual. She always presents this segment in athleisure wear as a signal of its wellness focus. Her makeup is glowy and her auburn hair bouncy. She’s an excellent advertisement for the lifestyle she espouses. Maddy hooked me up with her a couple years ago when I was feeling totally wiped, and we’ve been buddies ever since.

They count us down, and Verity and Tom turn to Camera Three.

‘Welcome to your weekly Vitality with Verity slot with Verity Weir-Chamberlain and Tom Daniels,’ she says with a wide smile at the camera.

Tom takes over with what a bunch of us at the Beeb call his housewife smile, looking intently into the camera as he lowers his voice to a practiced level of velvet . ‘Our special guest this Friday needs no introduction. Aida Russell is a veteran award-winning broadcast journalist for the BBC. She has spent the past three decades bringing us incisive political coverage. She’s best known for her hard-hitting interview style and?—’

‘For famously marrying an enlightened younger man with abs you could bounce a pound coin off,’ Verity cuts in. I can’t help it. I laugh out loud. Cal will fucking love that .

Tom gives her a disapproving look and clears his throat pointedly.

Verity smirks before continuing. ‘As Aida prepares to celebrate her fiftieth birthday next week, we’ll be chatting with her about everything it takes not only to survive at this age but to thrive.’

‘Let’s start with the question we ask all our guests,’ Tom cuts in. ‘Aida, what do you eat for breakfast?’

I smile sweetly at him. My husband’s huge dick—this morning, anyway. ‘Politicians, mainly.’

Verity guffaws. Tom smiles politely. ‘No, but really.’

I sigh. Geez, he’s hard work. I explain, as briefly as I can, how I try to hold off on breakfast during the oestrogen-dominant first half of my cycle but make sure I incorporate eggs and pulses during the second half. ‘That gets harder to manage as perimenopause evolves and my cycle gets less regular,’ I add, partly because it’s an important point—I don’t want any women shaming themselves over any perceived shoulds —but mainly to make Tom squirm.

Sure enough, he shifts on his seat. ‘Excellent, excellent,’ he croons, adjusting his hair.

‘I’m glad you mentioned perimenopause,’ Verity says. ‘We may as well jump right into it. It can be a bloody nightmare for a lot of women. Can I ask how you’ve found it?’

‘Of course.’ I’ve thought a lot about what I want to say here, because this is a huge platform for a fundamental message. ‘I personally found it horrific, especially the early part, oddly. I think that was because I didn’t actually know what was happening to me. I wasn’t armed, so I couldn’t advocate for myself, and I didn’t understand the causes of my symptoms. I honestly thought I was losing my mind. Once I got help, I was able to build a toolbox of treatments and coping mechanisms. ’

I uncross and recross my legs. ‘I haven’t said this publicly before, but the real reason I came off of live news for a couple years was because the brain fog had gotten so bad that I would get awful anxiety whenever I went on air. I’d be interviewing someone and I’d forget the next question I had lined up by the time they’d finished their answer. It was terrifying.’

‘I’m so sorry,’ Verity says. ‘That must have been horrific. Do you think you’ve got a handle on it now?’

‘Yeah,’ I nod slowly. ‘My HRT has helped a lot, as has improving my diet—it’s a lot more anti-inflammatory these days. My husband is super interested in nutrition, and he’s an awesome cook, so I’ve gotten healthier, too. I just figure at my age that I need to eliminate all the headwinds I can, you know? I can’t weigh myself down any more than these hormonal changes are already doing.’

‘I’m so glad you’ve found help,’ Verity says, ‘and I know many women listening will be grateful for your frankness, especially because, come on. To the majority of us, you’re an over-achieving, impossibly glamorous figure. It can help people to know that the great Aida Russell struggles, too.’

‘I can assure you, I absolutely do. Honestly, the entire ageing process feels like a constant game of Whack-a-Mole to me. It’s exhausting.’

‘Do you give yourself grace?’ Verity asks, cocking her head to one side as she surveys me thoughtfully. ‘Because I always say that’s such an important part of the puzzle. I feel like we should pat ourselves on the back as often for walking away from things as we do for getting things done.’

‘I love that,’ I tell her with a smile. ‘It’s so, so true. I’m a good girl, an overachiever, like you say. I have always validated myself based off of my achievements, and I can be super hard on myself, too .

‘One of the absolute hardest things I’ve had to learn to manage is the constant conflict between wanting to do all the things and my body just not being able to handle that. It’s almost like a kind of grief, in a way.’

‘Can you expand on that?’ Tom asks, stroking his chin. ‘How do you think you got a handle on it?’

‘Sure. So, for people like me it can feel more stressful not doing than doing, and it’s really hard to keep boundaries up. I listen to my brain, not my body, and my brain has historically always wanted more . I remember my hormone doctor warned me that if I felt better on the HRT, that wasn’t a sign that I should double my workload until I felt awful again.

‘So there was this constant sense of frustration. I was being told in my late forties to slow down and become more mindful and listen to my body and all that crap. And honestly? It pissed me off.’ I’m vaguely aware of Tom shifting uncomfortably at my low-key swearing, while Verity looks rapt.

‘I interviewed Joe Biden a couple years ago and it really struck me. No one tells all these older male leaders to slow down. Why should I? Why should I have to say goodbye to all the ambition that I think makes me me, just because my body has gotten some ancient memo that I’m nearing the end of my fertility and therefore totally useless?’

‘Oh my God, yes,’ Verity murmurs. ‘Go on, please.’

‘So I had a lot of internal struggle. But then I met an amazing doctor—she’s very holistic—and she helped me recalibrate. This isn’t a slowing down, per se—it’s a period of healing. I’ve been investing in my body so I can come back stronger.

‘But the real breakthrough has been mental. My doctor helped me figure out that all of that panic around feeling I have to achieve is a dysregulated form of me rather than the real me. I’ve been working a lot on staying regulated so I can approach my goals and ambitions from a place of excitement and motivation, rather than being in my sympathetic nervous system and feeling panicked all the time. Because that voice in my head of I Must I Must I Must was exhausting, and it was making me ill. Now I try to stay in a place of I Can instead.’

‘God, I love that,’ Verity breathes. ‘Let’s talk about some of your tools, then.’

This brings us—her and me—into an effusive discussion about the power of somatic-focused exercise instead of adrenaline-heavy cardio and of other somatic tools. When Tom, who’s looking twitchier by the second, can stand it no more, he switches the subject.

‘If I may,’ he interjects smoothly, ‘Let’s talk about the incredible success you’ve had in your career. Searching for Paradise received great critical acclaim and even won a BAFTA. What other projects do you have up your sleeve as you approach your half century?’

I smile to myself. His question is way off topic for this slot, but not to worry. Verity and I will bring it right back on topic.

‘Well, Tom,’ I say, ‘the BAFTA was a huge honour. I was thrilled. A lot of critics were very complimentary, and a lot of them were way too focused on whether a woman over forty-five could and should still enjoy sex. Opening up that dialogue in such a public way was extremely important to me, because the answer is most definitely yes .’

‘Yes!’ Verity says with an effusive hand clap before Tom can craft a response. ‘Let’s talk about middle-aged women enjoying sex. Before we get into it, I wanted to remind our viewers about the affect our changing hormonal profile can have on our sex organs. Now, I’m not a doctor and this is not medical advice,’ she adds hurriedly as Tom frowns at her. ‘But remember Dr Jane, who we had on the show a few weeks ago? She talked to us about vaginal atrophy and the host of medical issues that hormonal imbalances can have, from pain during sex to full-on incontinence.

‘I swear to God, menopause is the one thing that makes me doubt Mother Nature is a she. Aida, are you seeking hormonal help down there?’

I grin broadly. I’m enjoying Tom’s look of horror at the V-word so much. ‘Sure, let’s talk about preventing our lady parts from shrivelling up and dying,’ I say cheerily. ‘When my HRT doctor first suggested that vaginal oestrogen could help with a lot of my symptoms, I was curious. Vaginal atrophy sounded nasty , and honestly, there’s a lot I would do to make sure that never happens. But when she mentioned that my clit could also atrophy but that topical hormones could help? I was like, gimme. ’

Verity laughs loudly. Tom blinks rapidly at my audacity.

Or maybe, despite the wedding band on his left hand, he’s just not familiar with the word clit.

It’s hard to tell.

‘Amen!’ Verity practically shouts it. ‘Okay, so it sounds like you’re doing everything right. You’re looking after your body. Your soul. Your vagina. Your clit. You’ve bagged a husband so hot he could reignite the libido of an entire nation—as indeed he has, judging from the comments he gets on Instagram.’

I laugh again. Fuck, Cal’s going to be even more impossible than usual after this.

‘It’s been almost four years since Searching for Paradise came out,’ she continues. ‘So, for the love of God, Aida, tell every woman listening what she wants to hear—that you’re an almost-fifty-year-old woman having the best sex of her life. No offence to Lord Russell,’ she adds with a wink.

I clap a hand over my mouth, because she is fucking hysterical. When I remove it, I can’t imagine anyone watching will be in any doubt as to how amused I am. I lick my lips before answering.

‘Without wanting to cast a slur on a member of our esteemed peerage, I will say this: fifty absolutely is not a full stop for our sex lives—it's more of a multiple... exclamation point .’

I catch Tom's eye as he nearly drops his cue cards. ‘And I believe Tom might need a moment to recover during the weather report.’