Time Out

by Emma Murray

  ‘But I can tell you, in a nutshell, that we had been together for a long time, then I got pregnant and he had an affair. He is not in my life and he never will be.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said, again. ‘I’m a bit pissed and…’

  She smiled kindly and suddenly clapped her hands.

  ‘Now, let’s get one more bottle before we hit the road.’

  As she got up to go to the bar, Anna started to cry as if she was being pricked heavily with safety pins. I looked at my watch. Holy shit, it was half past three. Anna had slept through two feeds. She must be starving.

  I hurriedly went to undo the clip on my maternity bra strap and froze, putting my hand to my mouth.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Bea said.

  ‘Jesus, I can’t breast-feed her,’ I said. ‘I’ve been drinking for over four hours. She’ll be pissed if I feed her now.’

  ‘Oh, don’t worry about it,’ she said airily, rooting in her bag. ‘I always carry a spare.’

  And with a flourish, she produced a ready-made bottle of formula, otherwise known as the ‘devil’s milk’, according to the antenatal group.

  ‘I can’t give it to her,’ I said, panicking. As if sensing there wasn’t a meal coming any time soon, Anna’s crying hit supersonic. ‘She’s only ever had breast milk. She won’t like it.’

  I didn’t say what I really meant: that I would be a bad mother if I gave my four-week-old baby formula instead of breast milk. I could already feel the judgemental whispers from Michelle, the antenatal teacher: ‘Don’t do it – breast is best.’

  ‘Try,’ Bea said gently.

  Doing my best to shake off the voices, I took it.

  Balancing a frantic Anna on the crook of my arm, I slowly moved the teat of the bottle towards her tiny open mouth, all the time thinking about the fruitlessness of it all. There was no way after four full agonising weeks of breast milk that she would accept a lesser product.

  Anna clamped down on that fake teat with an enthusiasm I’d never seen before, and sucked the bottle dry. Usually she took over an hour, if not more, to feed on my poor enflamed, agonised nipples. While I was relieved the crying had stopped, I had never been so offended in my life. What a little traitor!

  ‘Now,’ Bea said, carefully, ‘I know your preference is breast-feeding but you can do both. You can breast-feed her during the day, and get David to give her a bottle at night. That might help her sleep for longer at night, give him a job, and give you a rest,’ she said authoritatively.

  I nodded weakly. Bea was right: if I went on like this, I would lose my mind as well as my marriage.

  As if he had heard his name, Harry woke up, wailed, and inhaled his bottle.

  Bea and I decided to call it a day. Slightly unsteady on my feet, I settled Anna into her pram, and tucked her in.

  We walked back together, tipsy and high on the potency of our new friendship.

  And that’s how Bea and I became best friends.

  8

  London, Now

  It is Thursday night, and if I’m going to write this stupid pitch for the motherhood book, I need to get some ideas down on the page. I place my fingers on the keyboard and there they stay for the next few minutes. Finally, with panicky resolve, I spin off a few paragraphs to test my ‘honest mum’ skills.

  I write about the joy we felt when I got pregnant, the wonders of the birthing process, how happy we were when we saw our beautiful daughter for the first time, and how much her arrival brought us closer together as a couple. I end with the following passage:

  When we leave the hospital, we carefully place our sleeping living doll into her car seat, and head for home. We are filled with indescribable euphoria. We have a baby now – we are three instead of two. And she is everything. So happy are we that we don’t talk on the drive back. I know that my husband is as filled with joy as I am and I don’t want to break the spell.

  There, I’ve written something. As I am reaching to turn off the desk lamp, David walks into the room and peeps over my shoulder. ‘Is that it then? Have you started the pitch?’

  Automatically feeling self-conscious, I grab the mouse to remove what I have written from sight. While I have no problem with complete strangers reading my work, I feel very exposed when someone I’m close to reads it.

  ‘Oh, come on!’ David says, covering my hand with his. The mouse stalls.

  I sigh and, still seated, swivel my chair over to give him enough space to read. He bends down and stares intently at what I have written. I look down at my bitten fingernails.

  Eventually, he turns to me and says, ‘It’s certainly well written.’

  Well, that’s something, I think, but, watching him rub his chin, I know there is more to come.

  ‘And…?’ I prompt him.

  ‘Well…’ he hesitates and frowns, opening and closing his mouth as if he can’t decide whether he should say something or not.

  I lose patience.

  ‘David, spit it out!’

  And then he does.

  ‘Well… it’s total bullshit, isn’t it?’

  And of course, he’s right. It is bullshit. It’s nothing like what really happened. But it’s late, and I’m tired and fed up with thinking about this stupid pitch. So, without saying a word, I switch off the desk lamp with unnecessary force and stomp noisily out of the room.

  He follows me into the bathroom, hands raised like a priest about to address a congregation and asks me what’s wrong. I ignore him. He asks me again, and I tell him to fuck off. As we both know from experience which way this conversation is headed, I decide to remove myself from the inevitable fireworks and go into our bedroom. This time he is wise enough not to follow.

  I turn on the bedroom light and immediately I freeze. Something is missing from our room and I can’t put my finger on it. I scan the room. Everything is still as it should be, yet the symmetry is off. What is it?

  Then I spot it. The entire contents of my bedside table are missing, save my bedside lamp. Usually, the surface is covered in books, bookmarks, earplugs, an alarm clock, and a box of tissues – what David refers to as my ‘table of shit’, one of his very rare concessions to my untidiness – but now the table is totally bare.

  The hairs on the back of arms start to rise and my heart begins to thump faster.

  The thought of David deliberately swiping all my comforting clutter away makes me physically sick. In that moment I realise that I would have preferred it if a sociopath had broken into the house to play mind-games with me, or even that I was the one losing my mind, than to accept the fact that my husband, the father of my child, has done this to me. All the repressed flashes merge and the fireworks begin.

  After the big row that follows, I toss and turn, and must eventually doze into a fitful sleep, until something jumps in my chest and I find myself bolt upright.

  Anna.

  Anna shouting.

  I shoot out of bed so fast, I wouldn’t have been surprised if I’d jumped clean out of my nightdress. I race down to the end of the corridor, but the funny thing is I feel like I am not moving fast enough. My legs are going, but I don’t seem to be getting anywhere. It is like a horrible reverse Road Runner cartoon.

  Just as I am about to push open the door, the shouting stops. YESSSSSS, I think to myself. No need to go in – whatever it is, she’s over it. But just as I visualise getting back into my warm, cosy bed, making as much noise as possible (to punish David for sleeping through the whole experience, and for being an arse), the guilt starts to creep in. What if there is an axe murderer in her room? Or what if she has been stolen? I’d never forgive myself if I don’t at least look in on her.

  When I open the door a crack, she is sitting up in bed, her huge eyes staring at me, illuminated by the glow-clock in her room. I let out a small shriek. She may still be alive but she is also looking extremely creepy.

  ‘What is it?’ I hiss at her, guilt and fright giving way to relief that she is alive, and then anger that she is looking far
too lively for… what time was it anyway? The glow-clock tells me it is 2.45 a.m. Fuck.

  ‘I had a bad dweam, Mummy,’ she wails.

  Sighing, I kneel down on the fluffy rug beside the bed and stroke her forehead.

  After a good half-hour of reassurances – ‘No such thing as girls turning into blueberries’; ‘It’s all make-believe’ – she is still nowhere near settling down. I tuck her in and prop all her cuddly toys up on the railing of her toddler bed so they look like an adoring furry audience, but when I go to leave, she starts to wail again.

  I am beginning to lose my reason. It is time to lay down the law.

  ‘Now go to sleep, Anna,’ I say, firmly.

  ‘No, thank you, Mummy,’ she says politely. As much as I love her for finally using her manners, there’s nothing more irksome than a four-year-old politely refusing a desperate request to go to sleep at 3.15 a.m.

  ‘Seriously, Anna. It’s very late – you’re going to be a very tired little girl in the morning,’ I say, trying to keep the desperation out of my voice. Once she senses weakness, I’m done for.

  ‘I’ll be fine,’ she says dreamily.

  ‘Well, I won’t,’ I wail, finally losing it. ‘I’m going to be knackered, and I need my sleep!’ I add silently, and Mummy had a fight with Daddy and is on the verge of being a single mother.

  Anna started humming ‘The Gummy Bear Song’, the only song that’s actively banned in our household because of its lethal catchiness.

  I try to fight the red mist, but it is too late in the night and I don’t have the strength. I take a deep breath and get out the big guns.

  ‘Anna, if you don’t close your eyes and go to sleep now, there’s going to be NO treats tomorrow,’ I say, through enamel-chipping gritted teeth.

  She stops singing.

  My heart begins to sing.

  She looks me dead in the eye, and says, ‘What about marshmallows?’

  To which I reply with a happy note of triumph, ‘Nope!’

  Looking unsure, she tries again, ‘What about chocolate biscuits?’

  And I give her the same cheery answer. We are on the home stretch now.

  She cycles through all her usual treats and I give her the same joyous response. Suddenly, she lets out a great big yawn and her eyes start to flicker. Good, good. And then her eyes snap open again, and she says, ‘What about pears?’ and actually gives herself a little hug.

  ‘You hate pears!’ I say, incredulous, which is absolutely true, although I have been continuously trying to get her to eat them by disguising pears as ‘treats’.

  ‘You always say pears are a tweat, Mummy! That means I don’t have to eat them ever again!’ she says, breaking back into a cheery rendition of ‘The Gummy Bear Song’.

  Eventually, I do what every mother does when they have been defeated by their toddler. I draw back the covers, get into bed with her and, teary and humiliated, doze off into a restless sleep.

  9

  London, Now

  The next morning, I wake up alone in Anna’s toddler bed with a churning feeling in my stomach, crusty eyes from angry, unspilled tears, and a sore jaw from clenching my teeth. Classic aftermath symptoms from a row with David. I don’t want to relive it but I can’t help feeling angry that all the ‘no-go’ topics have come to the surface yet again – the burden of our finances (David: ‘If you got a proper job maybe I wouldn’t be so stressed all the time!’); David’s escalated habits (Me: ‘Why are you so bloody anal? What is wrong with you?’); and the fairly regular argument about sex (David: ‘I can’t remember the last time we had sex,’ and me: ‘David, nobody has sex any more – we’re fucking MARRIED WITH A CHILD!’).

  The worst thing about our arguments is their utter repetitiveness. The lack of originality is more painful than the mud-slinging.

  I spend some time unscrunching myself, having slept in a bed half the length of my body, before wearily stepping out onto Anna’s purple, fluffy floor mat. I can hear breakfast noises from the kitchen below and I am grateful David is with Anna and nowhere near me. I treat myself to a longer shower than normal (three minutes rather than two), which makes me feel half-human again. As I emerge, I stand on the bathmat soaking wet and drip for two whole minutes (David can’t cope with a wet bathmat) as small revenge for David’s incurable pettiness. Finally dry, I encase myself in a towel and get dressed in my usual uniform of jeans and T-shirt, yawning throughout.

  ‘Mummy, I can’t find the wemote!’ Anna wails as I walk slowly into the kitchen and hand her the remote. The front door slams shut. Good. After the row last night I’m not in the mood to play happy families with David. After several rounds of Peppa Pig, accompanied by a ‘lethal’ bowl of Cheerios and some fruit and toast that inevitably remains untouched (I don’t know who I’m kidding – Anna always has a shite breakfast), I dress Anna as one of the less slutty Disney princesses – I’m too tired to battle with her to get into her normal clothes – and then we begin my favourite ‘put your shoes on’ game. As it always does, the game ends in a furious, barely disguised muttering of, ‘Put your fucking shoes on.’ Thank fuck it’s Friday and Anna has nursery today. If I have any chance of doing anything about this pitch, I need some peace and quiet.

  I pack Anna into the car, and off we go to Rocking Horses nursery, with Anna singing ‘Uptown Funk’ in the back, although the way she says it, ‘funk’ sounds a lot like… a grown-up word. Five minutes later, I pull up on the street alongside Rocking Horses and for the umpteenth time, I am astonished that the building hasn’t been condemned by the council. It looks like the sort of premises used for public information films from the 1970s, the ones where children ignore all the red ‘Beware!’ and ‘Danger!’ signs in order to creep under the barbed wire to have a bit of a lark with live electricity. Why is Anna going here? Because all the decent nurseries have been booked up by savvy mums like Tania Henderson, who put their babies’ names on the waiting list when they were mere foetuses.

  So, Rocking Horses it is. Anna started there part time when she turned one and, at the time, despite its grim appearance, I would have happily trotted over blazing hot coals to find some care for Anna just so I could hang on to my sanity for a couple of hours.

  Over the years, Anna and I have perfected the hazardous walk to the nursery door, which in itself is a feat in self-preservation. I pull open the rusty iron gate, and the two of us run through lest it swing back on our legs, which has happened quite a few times already. As is our ritual, we cover our ears as the huge gate crashes behind us. No injuries today; our calves will live to fight another day. We gracefully dodge the dog poo through the narrow passageway that leads to the nursery building itself, and as usual Anna points out the barbed wire strung across each of the high walls. Concentration camp or kids’ paradise? Nobody can really be sure.

  As we approach the cheerily painted sludge-brown door, my heart sinks as I see the familiar round-shouldered shape of Misery waiting outside with her daughter, Mara. I curse my strict time-keeping skills. If I’d only been a few minutes later, nursery would have been open, and I would have avoided the awkward small talk we are now obliged to engage in. As it is, I will have to face her for at least five minutes, a very long five minutes at that. As soon as Anna clocks Mara, she races over to say hello. It is fairly typical of Anna to befriend someone whose mother I actively despise.

  Misery is the type of person who sucks any trace of energy from you the closer you get to her. I can actually feel my feet dragging on the ground as I walk over to where the kids are busily playing a game of ‘peel the paint off the decrepit nursery door’. I think it’s fair to say that relations with Misery have become more strained since the disastrous playdate incident a year ago. Even though I try to avoid playdates – and, frankly, even using the term ‘playdate’ – Anna’s incessant repetition of, ‘Can Mawa come to my house?’ finally got the better of me. So, with huge reluctance I invited Mara over to play, and her mother spent the entire afternoon lecturing me about the
dangers of modern technology. Apparently using the iPad was akin to throwing sulphuric acid into the child’s eyes, and the TV was simply a plot to brainwash young minds into heroin addiction. That sort of thing.

  So, when Anna fetched the remote at teatime and niftily navigated to her recorded programmes to watch Dora the Explorer for the fiftieth time (the ballerina one), the other mother turned a grim shade of puce, huffing, ‘Oh, do we have TV during teatime, then?’

  To which I responded, in my most upbeat passive-aggressive voice, ‘Yes, we do.’ The rest of the tea was spent with Mara staring open-mouthed at Dora, her meal totally untouched, with her mother desperately trying to get her to focus on her food, muttering all the while that the TV was ‘killing Mara’s appetite’. Honestly, did this woman not know the rules? Judge all you want, but at least have the grace to do it behind my back.

  In case you haven’t already guessed, Misery is also one of the Organics crew and prolific on Vale Mums. Her commentary is endless and her wisdom boundless. When new, sleep-deprived mums desperately looking for support tearfully post their struggles with breast-feeding, Misery is the first to share her own perfect record just to make those poor mums feel doubly shit about themselves: how she herself breast-fed for eighteen months, loved it, and would have regretted it if she hadn’t persevered.

  When another mum posts that she really wants to go back to work, but feels guilty about putting her six-month-old son in full-time nursery, up pops Misery again. She tells the eight hundred members of Vale Mums that she herself ‘waited a year before putting my son in nursery and I only work part time. What’s the point of having children if you never see them?’ And it doesn’t stop there. Don’t get Misery started on the number of paedophiles in the area. A slave to the paedophile register, she makes it her business to publicly ‘out’ paedophiles on social media. At least once a week, she names and shames someone in the area who has been listed on the sex offenders list.