I think about how I’m about to leave my funny, bright Poppy all day with the childminder and feel like I can’t breathe. I think about remembering how to do my job, and feel similar.
Turning the radio volume down and flicking over to Radio 4, I switch the day to Ed mode. Ed can’t bear dance music and I gave up trying to persuade him otherwise long ago.
The radio presenter informs me that it is 6.45. I look up from the mop as though she has personally offended me.
Now I am in a panic that I will be late, which is ridiculous, since I have been up since 5 a.m.
I calculate.
To get to the childminder then the station and be at my desk in central Manchester on time from my home in Sowerton, our small village in Cheshire, even if the normally fuckupable train line fucks up, I need to leave the house at 7.05 a.m.
Right.
Okay.
Twenty minutes. That’s doable.
‘Morning, darling,’ says Ed, walking into the kitchen. He kisses my head then pours out coffee from the pot I’ve made for him. He holds it up. ‘Thanks for this.’
He takes a gulp.
‘Fourth of May, Pay Day.’ He smiles.
‘Don’t talk to me about it,’ I snap. ‘I’m too nervous.’
I look over at my own coffee – made far earlier – that sits uncupped by human hand and chilly on the kitchen table.
I have been waiting for the holy grail of a window when it is hot enough to comfort but cool enough not to burn my child, causing social services to take her away and my life to be lived under a cloud of horror and guilt. It’s a difficult balance to nail. There’s no time to drink it now.
I glance at the clock.
6.50.
Oh God.
I still need to shower, whack some eyeliner on – the rest I can do on the train, but my eyeliner requires a proper mirror especially when I am out of practice at looking like a human existing in the real world – and get dressed.
I shove Poppy at Ed, pause, then come back for an extra kiss and crazy mum smell of her head.
‘Don’t drink that coffee while she’s near you,’ I shout, flying upstairs into the bathroom. ‘And have you seen my coat?’
Ten minutes later I am back downstairs and shouting. ‘You must have moved it!’
‘Calm down a second,’ says Ed, putting a hand on my arm from where he sits at the kitchen table drinking his second coffee as I pass.
I stand still.
‘Right,’ he says. ‘Speak to me. Are you still on about the coat?’
‘I laid it out last night,’ I reply, trying to stay calm so I don’t get sweaty. 7.01. This carefully curated ‘back at work and still dressing like a non-mum, don’t write me off’ midi dress and new trainers outfit doesn’t need sweaty. ‘Right there.’
I gesture to the kitchen chair.
‘Your denim jacket is on the coat rack,’ he says like he’s come up with an ideal solution, standing up and putting some bread in the toaster. My heart is hammering in panic. ‘You can wear that!’
I stare at him.
‘I cannot wear my denim jacket on my first day back in the office, Ed,’ I hiss. Poppy is on the floor with her chunky little arms in the air, asking to be picked up. I pick her up. I have my dressing gown back on over my dress: this child knows when to projectile vomit. Dry-clean only silk Whistles is just her thing.
7.03.
‘Why not?’ said Ed. ‘Just ditch it as soon as you get there. No one will notice.’
He smiles.
‘And you always look lovely in a denim jacket.’
I stop for a second and smile back.
Yes, in beer gardens, Ed. When the sun stops warming us at 10 p.m. over a G&T.
I don’t have time to explain to him that if I turn up to work in anything less than new, slick attire, my obscenely young team will tuck me away in that mum file.
Since we had Poppy, he still wears the same suit on his same-sized middle. When she was born, he took no more time off than a colleague who went on a summer trip to Majorca. There has been no seismic shift. It’s one of the ten thousand or so double standards in our life now.
She’s been on maternity leave, they would think. She’s not a serious player any more. Expect her to leave at 4.59 p.m. for pick-ups; one eye on the clock. She’s a mum now and that explains the denim jacket. Next week: meeting in her Ugg boots; work wines in her baggy leggings.
The sweating starts again.
‘I’ll just have to go without a coat,’ I bark, before asking the digital speaker what the temperature is outside.
‘Quicker to stick your head out of the door,’ mutters Ed.
‘Luddite,’ I mutter back, as I shove a dishwasher tablet in and whack the machine on while brushing my teeth.
Why is the dishwasher still my job, I think, when I am going to work now too?
Ed bends down to kiss Poppy in my arms and I notice his hair is greyer than before.
‘Good luck, darling,’ he says, as he kisses me too, hard on the mouth, one hand on my bum cheek. Even in the chaos, I think, I still fancy you.
Ed leaves for work. Like he is used to doing; like is normal to him.
‘Thanks,’ I yell as the door slams and I collect a handful of bags while holding a wriggly Poppy.
The speaker says it’s fifteen degrees but I leave the house without a coat anyway.
Piling a babbling Poppy into her car seat, I mumble to myself. ‘A denim bloody jacket.’
As Poppy and I drive in silence to the childminder’s house, I think about Ed, now on his own in the car to work. It’s only a thirty-minute drive away but he needs to be in early today. He looked distracted this morning, like he often looks distracted these days, and I wonder if it’s work or something else. I frown.
He needs order, Ed. Not chaos and lost jackets and Weetabix on the floor and lateness.
I have a pang of regret that I can’t provide that for him but another pang of regret that he doesn’t play a role in making that happen in our house himself.
Because in my enthusiasm for meeting a respectable, handsome man with a proper job and a close family – a man who also looked at me like I was the hottest woman he had ever seen, and the feeling has always been mutual – I overlooked the fact that he is Radio 4 traditional and I am … not.
The differences weren’t so noticeable when we rented in a city and ate Deliveroo for tea but now we own a house in the countryside and have a child? They’re sticking their head above the parapet, about chores, about parenting, about work, and sometimes it’s like I’m a Trotskyist in a coalition with the far right. But still, I think, we love each other. We don’t have to agree on everything.
A few minutes later I pull up outside the childminder’s up the road. Ed hadn’t offered to do it but I wouldn’t have let him anyway. This was my multitasking horror show; no one else’s. I wanted to settle her in. I wanted to mourn the end of maternity leave. I wanted to write lists and pack seventeen bags last night like a ritual and huff about it. Parental gatekeeping, I think the books call it.
Apt for a gatekeeper, I make Poppy hold on to the gate of Ronnie’s house with her tiny Peppa Pig backpack on and snap her from behind so I can use the picture for a back-to-work post on my parenting blog later.
‘Is it okay?’ Ed asked, concerned at first when I launched Cheshire Mama. ‘Privacy wise, to show off our home and our daughter?’
But I swept away his concerns.
‘Oh, everyone does it, Ed,’ I said dismissively. ‘It’s the twenty-first century. Life’s online. I’ll keep an eye on it, make sure there’s nothing weird posted on there.’
Ed didn’t raise it again. He trusted me. I worked in digital marketing, did a lot of social media. This was my world. Plus we saw kids’ films for free in the best seats when they first came out and a fancy coffee machine arrived by courier. I told him that potentially, this blog and my Instagram could start to make us money. That was enough to stem any objection.
&nbs
p; It gathered pace, the numbers rolling in.
‘We’d get more followers if we showed the whole family off,’ I told him, with a grin. ‘You, topless at the coffee machine should do it.’
I raised an eyebrow, questioning.
Based on the number of women who stared at him on the street though, I knew a lot of women would enjoy staring at him in the privacy of their own homes. And funnily enough, when I did start to include him, it boomed fast.
‘You do that all the time,’ my half-sister Josephine tells me whenever I give that verdict about the brand’s success. ‘Give Ed all the credit; don’t give yourself any. Cheshire Mama is successful because it’s a good blog. You have the eye, you’re funny, you know your stuff on social. The whole leaving the city and being new to the countryside is relatable.’
I drop my phone into my bag. ‘Okay, Pop, got it!’ I say. She’s used to posing for my iPhone by now.
I take her hand and we walk in.
Ronnie was recommended to me by Emma, whose son Seth goes to her too. I’ve met Ronnie twice. She seems lovely. She also obviously has, you know, paperwork and things.
But I am leaving my child with her all day. Is this insanity? Is it legal?
‘Good morning, Poppy!’ singsongs Ronnie in her gentle Brummie accent as we walk in, heaving four bags and a suitcase-load of anxiety. ‘And good morning, Scarlett.’
She looks at me with pragmatic empathy. It’s a very specific expression.
‘Big day today, I know,’ she says. ‘But we’re going to have fun, aren’t we Poppy?’
I fend off tears by speaking fast, with no let-up.
‘She doesn’t have a dummy except for her nap, which will be at eleven, eleven thirty but definitely not after three because otherwise sleep is a nightmare later,’ I ramble.
I realise why I am shattered all the time despite Poppy, finally, sleeping well. It is the level of detail in my head. The tiny things I know about my daughter’s needs and her day and that I am tick, tick, ticking and checking and balancing all day long.
The parenting stuff is often left to me. It’s my head that’s crammed full of its mundanities.
Ronnie smiles.
‘Got it,’ she says. ‘We do naps straight after lunch anyway. All tickety-boo.’
Serene. Experienced, both at childminding and looking calm in front of irritant mums, I suspect. Meanwhile it is me versus the sweat again.
‘Milk, water, snacks in the Peppa rucksack,’ I say as Poppy crawls to the doll she can see in the living room.
‘Change of clothes, nappies, Doggy Dog – that’s what she calls it, it doesn’t have a name – all in this one.’
I gesture wildly at one of the eighty-five zip compartments in my changing bag.
I look up at Ronnie. Still serene.
I point at bag three.
‘This one is toys.’
Then I look at Poppy, yanking the doll round the room by its hair in one hand as she crawls, and my face goes red.
Ronnie smiles.
‘I know you have toys. But in case she wants her toys.’
Bag four.
‘Stickers, books, crafts … I guess this bag is the calmer stuff. For when she needs to relax. Perhaps around three thirty?’
‘Perfect,’ says Ronnie kindly, gently, like she is trying to deflect a toddler from a tantrum. ‘We’ll do some of that later.’
I’ve overdone it. Even I know it. But if you pack enough bags, the feelings of guilt can perhaps be squashed under their weight. If you buy enough stuff, perhaps what you can’t purchase – time with your daughter, sanity, a mind that isn’t running away with thoughts about the right time to get out Doggy Dog – isn’t as obvious.
Serene, serene, serene. I can’t hear any other children; we must be the first. This is early. Poppy will spend so many hours here. Oh God.
I stare at Ronnie. On the surface: maternal, cosy. Her hair is short in a way that says practical and efficient. Her clothes would be able to go in the boil wash that her job probably requires. She’s about to turn fifty, has children of her own who are in their teens now and has been a childminder, I know from the chats we had at Poppy’s settling-in days, for upwards of sixty kids. Seth has survived; thrived, Emma says.
Everything seems right.
But I panic.
Does Ronnie’s mask slip when the others arrive and then she loses her shit, desperate for everyone to shut up? Would she ever lose it with Poppy?
Me versus sweat, me versus sweat.
But then I remember my pièce de résistance.
My document.
This document that will make everything okay and keep everyone happy.
Mostly me.
But also everyone else.
Okay really, just me.
‘This is a schedule of Poppy’s whole day,’ I say slowly, unrolling the document like I am presenting a degree, so that Ronnie gives this masterpiece the gravitas it deserves.
In my head, I am already having a conversation with Asha in which she is congratulating me on multitasking to such a level that I have documentation on my daughter’s oatie bar consumption.
‘You. Are. A. Machine,’ she will say. ‘How you have time to do your job, keep on top of house stuff AND write a schedule of Poppy’s day is beyond me. It’s beyond all of us. It’s beyond womankind as a whole.’
But, bursting my bubble, Ronnie is kind of … ushering me out of the door.
‘Don’t worry about a thing,’ she says. ‘It’s going to be smooth sailing here.’
I glance down. My document is bunched up in her hand. I have a deep-seated suspicion that Ronnie will never read it.
And meanwhile the one who matters doesn’t care about the document either.
Instead, Poppy is sitting next to Ronnie’s foot, poking her moccasin slipper and pulling at the bottom of her leggings. I bend down to say goodbye and Poppy’s rosebud lip wobbles.
My insides feel as though they have a hand roaming around in them, jiggling things about, perhaps performing some sort of surgery that involves the removal of an organ. I feel emotions that I can’t name, tormented at the idea of walking away from her.
I have heard so many people talk about this feeling when you leave your child but I’m sure mine is worse. The worst.
I push past Ronnie and gather Poppy up, stroking that short fuzzy brown hair and smothering her in I love yous. She’s come dressed for fun: leggings and a T-shirt, ready to play, make mess, do all the things that Poppy likes doing. It’s going to be okay. It’s going to be okay.
I take a deep breath.
‘Right, chicken, you have the best day,’ I say but she doesn’t look convinced. She knows something’s unusual. And she’s suspicious of Ronnie.
Gulping back a sob, I plaster on a pretend smile.
‘Mummy’s going to work for a while now but I’ll be back later to get you,’ I say.
She doesn’t quite cry.
‘She’ll be fine,’ says Ronnie, softly. ‘And so will you. Hey, by the way are you the one who does the Cheshire Mama blog?’
I nod, distracted by Poppy. Not now, Ronnie. Do I look like I can hold a conversation?
‘I love that blog!’ She smiles. ‘About time we got something local to us. Well done.’
I say thank you, then kiss Poppy ten, twenty, possibly thirty more times before I drag myself out of the door. If I don’t leave now I will be late and then I will be officially bad at parenting and work, which is really everything, so I will be officially bad at everything.
I cry so hard on the drive to the station though that the windscreen has the visibility of mid-thunderstorm. On the train, I had planned to do the back-to-work post on my blog and reply to a backlog of messages and comments on my Instagram.
The numbers have been growing so fast that I’m starting to make a tiny bit of money from it with affiliate links but that means there’s more pressure to keep up. And days like today, I don’t have it in me to be visible. If I post, I have to
be ready to do the follow-ups, replying and responding. Being on.
Instead, I turn off and go insular, blasting house music into my ears as loud as it will go and carrying on with my sobbing.
I wait for it to ease but the further away I get from Poppy, the worse I feel. I calculate how long it will take me to get back to her if she needs me, all the routes and ways I could get there. I google taxi companies at each town we get to, to see if that will get me there faster than the train back to my car.
Further away, further.
The ache is deep in my insides, around the same place Poppy used to live in utero before I brought her into the world then abandoned her to a stranger.
Further away, further.
How am I going to do this?
Every day.
And further.
I look out of the window at suburban Cheshire stations with commuters clutching coffee in flasks brought from home. It is May, with its telltale juxtaposition of boots and sandals, parkas and bare arms. T-shirts hang out with roll-necks, newly waxed legs and thick socks stand side by side on the platform. It is too early to know what the day will bring so everybody is guessing, balancing weather apps with the chill they still feel and the comfort they need when they’re craving two more hours’ sleep.
I stare at them. That one, who thinks everyone wants to listen to his TV show out loud. That one, falling asleep standing up. I wonder, whether they have bare legs or jumpers or boots or visible toenails, if anyone is feeling close to how I feel this morning.
Slowly, the tiny stations make way for the edge of the city. The flasks are replaced with branded coffee cups and the platforms are crammed full, the people younger, cooler, edgier. Like my colleagues at New Social, one of the city’s biggest digital marketing agencies. I glance at my trainers, doubtful now about the brand.
Everyone moves more urgently here. My heart starts racing watching it all and I have the edge of a headache. I used to be comfortable at the heart of this picture; pushing past, boots stomping at pace, latte aloft, tut tut tutting if you strayed into my path. Now I feel distant from it all. Maternity leave days have required me to get to one place at 10.30 a.m. and make small talk while singing nursery rhymes. We spoke slowly, the other mums and I, trying to drag out our coffees because otherwise what would we do for the rest of the day? We had tried to kill – stake out and murder – time so that it could be the evening, when husbands would be home and wine would be poured and we would feel, for that tiny window, like the old us.
The Baby Group Page 2