The Baby Group

by Caroline Corcoran

  Instead of living together as a couple and a family, at the moment we coexist and speak in instructions and questions. Things have deteriorated fast.

  ‘Has Poppy had lunch?’

  ‘Any updates on the lawyer?’

  ‘Can you pick up some nappies?’

  ‘There are clean vests in the washing basket.’

  It crosses over, too, to critique.

  ‘She isn’t having more biscuits.’

  ‘You’ve drunk all that wine?’

  I don’t know how this happened to us but we have become that couple who have nothing else to say to each other, except we have so much to say: we just can’t manage it.

  I don’t completely blame Ed. He’s reverted to what he knows; the way the men that created him do it.

  Ignore it, shelve it, pour giant bucketfuls of sand over the place in your brain where it lives and move on with an air of tension around you wherever you go because you are so desperately trying not to let that sand dune shift. Drink a beer. Talk about that 3–0 win.

  Ed is now so thickly covered over that I can’t dig through, whatever I try.

  It’s your birthday this week, right Em? I type to the group. We should go out! Last time was so fun.

  I lie so often now that I have started not to notice or to be confused about when I am lying and when I am not. I just need company. People. A hug. To laugh.

  Besides, it’s all relative isn’t it? Compared to the awkwardness and shame that is being at home with Ed, or the pain of those final days in work, or talking about my sex tape with my dad, that night out, being drunk, was fun.

  Or blurrier, at least.

  I have to get on top of the ironing, messages Asha, who may be the only person of our generation who would actually get out an ironing board for anything other than a wedding.

  But she’s making this sound more wifey than it will be. I know Asha and her multitasking. There will be an epic novel propped up next to her, or a mental health podcast – Asha works for a mental health charity – as her soundtrack. Sorry, ladies.

  Emma comes; it’s her birthday. Cora says yes because she loves drinking.

  At the coffee shop bar, Emma double checks her tonic is slimline; asks if I’m sure her dress isn’t mumsy (it’s the epitome of mumsy and she’s wearing tights despite it being late May but bless her, who could tell her that and see that face fall?)

  Cora complains loudly that her glass of Veuve Clicquot isn’t cold enough and whips out a Chanel compact from her Louis Vuitton bag every ten minutes. She is not subtle about her money, Cora. Nor does she have any desire to be.

  ‘I am just not made for average things,’ she will tell me frequently, glint in her eye with a big belly laugh. She can joke about herself, Cheshire set personified, at least.

  And then there’s me, sitting somewhere in between in a Zara jumpsuit I used to wear to work, the red lipstick marks on my wine glass surprising me every time I spot them because I have forgotten that I have make-up on. It’s a rarity these days.

  We make an odd crew.

  I swig long from the large glass of house red and wish it were neat vodka. But I’m no longer a vodka person, I remind myself. Like I’m no longer a threesome person. Except I am, aren’t I, it turns out. Even if you were only a threesome person once over a decade ago, on the internet you’re always a threesome person. And the internet won’t be posting context or reason or the grief you were consumed by at the time, either. You’re just a threesome person, simple, done, gross, cancelled.

  On a whim, I order three straight vodkas with my next round.

  ‘Don’t worry, Emma,’ I reassure her, as I pass them around. ‘There are virtually no calories in a shot of vodka.’

  That’s enough to persuade her and she necks it. Cora has her head in her phone and nods distractedly.

  ‘Vodka shots,’ grins the waiter. ‘Impressive.’

  ‘You ordered shots?’ asks Cora, head snapping up from whatever message she was furiously typing. ‘God he’s a shit,’ she mutters, about her husband I presume, and then reaches out and necks the shot without looking at it.

  ‘See, I knew you needed a vodka,’ I tell her. My old pushy self coming out. Persuade other people to drink as much as you and you’ll never feel paranoid the next day. It’s all coming back to me now.

  The barman looks at me for a second longer than he needs to. Holds my gaze.

  Hot, I think, because old me has taken over my brain now. She’s single. She’s drunk. She notices beautiful men.

  ‘How have I not noticed how good-looking he is before?’ I ask them as he walks away.

  ‘Because you’re usually in here with Poppy picking up bits of cucumber off the floor or wiping shit off your hand and trying to neck your coffee before it’s ice cold,’ says Cora, deadpan, putting her phone away in her bag.

  Fair point.

  ‘Oh and also, because you’re pissed.’

  I laugh. Another good point.

  Cora signals to the retreating barman to bring us another round of shots.

  I glance at him. Early thirties, maybe. Comfortable in his own skin. I think about his hipster beard, hanging out here in the countryside. He doesn’t have the known quality of the locals either. I suspect that no one is friends with his sister; no one lives next door to his nan. Interesting.

  But Cora brings the attention back to her, as Cora likes to do, giving us an update on Hunter and their fling.

  Then she looks at me, and at the barman who is passing again, and who my eyes are following.

  ‘So,’ she says, downing the rest of her champagne and sitting back to stare at me. ‘If you are seriously thinking about propositioning that waiter, no judgement here.’

  Is that why she told us the other day about her affair with Hunter? So that if I do anything with the waiter, I will tell her too?

  ‘Oh come on!’ she exclaims. ‘You two have been checking each other out all night.’

  Emma’s eyes go wide. While Cora is looking for it in others now, Emma is utterly naive to flirting. If she noticed my eyes following the waiter across the room, she would have thought I was debating whether to ask him for some nachos but fighting my concerns that the melted cheese would make me feel guilty tomorrow.

  Would I regret that tomorrow? I think.

  I stare at him again then turn to Cora.

  ‘He is shaggable,’ I concede and I see her eyes widen because I don’t speak like this any more, not normally. I temper my language now. Mute myself often. Think about what I say before I say it. Try to be a little less Old Scarlett.

  ‘But no,’ I confirm. ‘I’m not in the market for an affair. Too much effort.’

  She nods, sagely.

  ‘It’s true. I’m on the Brazilians again every four weeks since I started seeing Hunter. Leg hair no longer plaitable. It’s not easy. But worth it.’

  I glance again at the barman.

  ‘Joseph,’ says Cora, following my eyes. ‘I can find out his surname for you if you want. Say, in case you fancied adding him on Insta.’

  I down the latest vodka shot. I can’t remember who ordered it. Or if anybody did. Did Joseph bring it over? The tiny shot glass in front of my eyes is spinning.

  Emma and Cora pick up their bags to leave and I realise everyone else in the bar has gone now too. I make a decision.

  ‘Head off without me,’ I say with a glance in Joseph’s direction, and my voice slurs. ‘I need to … nip to the loo.’

  He’s the last person working.

  Cora squeals and squeezes my hand and Emma opens her eyes, make-up free like the rest of her face as always, as wide as they will go.

  ‘Scarlett, are you … sure?’ Emma asks. ‘Ed is …’

  I roll my own eyes. Ed is … what? Ignoring me? Ashamed of me? Showing no desire to sleep with me? Possibly sleeping with somebody else instead? Starting to feel, really, like a stranger?

  ‘About going to the toilet, Emma?’ I feign a serious face. She barely knows Ed. ‘
Yes, I think I am. The last thing I need is a UTI.’

  Cora squeals again and I feel even more warmth for her than usual. I hug her enthusiastically but she pulls out of it quickly.

  ‘Don’t let us keep you from … the loo,’ she says with a conspiratorial wink.

  Then she drags Emma by the hand towards the door.

  ‘Leave her to it,’ Cora instructs loudly as Emma looks tortured. ‘She’s a grown woman. And you only get one bloody life.’

  Then she mouths ‘message me’ over Emma’s head as they pull the door shut behind them and I head over to get to know Joseph.

  Six hours later I wake up from a dream about blackcurrant squash. All I can feel is thirst, layered with panic. Poppy is shouting me from her room, Ed asleep next to me. Worlds are converging as I have a hangover of my twenties and the responsibilities of my thirties. I’m disorientated. Nauseous.

  ‘I’ll get her,’ he says. ‘You could probably do with the sleep.’

  I nod and roll over, but I am wide awake now.

  The last thing I remember is leaning in closely at a table alone with Joseph, saying cheers with another vodka. The memories are more like pictures than moving action. Joseph, brushing back his semi-long curls with his hand. Hand to his beard. Me, stumbling. Joseph, reaching out to help me. Me, laughing. Joseph, holding my hand. Us, walking down the street together. And then what? I can’t remember any of the later part. Did he walk me home? Through our gate, down our little path, up to the front door of my picture-postcard family home?

  ‘DADADA!’ shouts Poppy from downstairs.

  I dive under the covers and try to make sense of this.

  I would know, wouldn’t I, if something had happened? We couldn’t have had sex but a kiss. Could a kiss have happened without a memory? It did often enough, back in the day.

  How am I here?

  My phone beeps on the bedside table and I lunge for it, like Ed could read the message from downstairs.

  It’s Cora. With just one line of ????

  I ignore it and get back under the duvet.

  I would know. I would know. And I can’t picture a kiss. Surely I’d have retained that image.

  I get up and choose Poppy’s clothes for the day, her bright red tights and her little tartan skirt and her jumper, and have a hot shower.

  ‘I love you,’ I tell Ed as I walk into the kitchen in my slippers and he glances at me and frowns. It’s been a while since I said that. I can hear desperation in my tone.

  ‘Are you okay?’ is his reply.

  I load the dishwasher. I put a dark wash on. I wipe the worktops and get some chicken out of the freezer for dinner. Ed goes for his usual Saturday morning run.

  And it’s okay. It’s okay.

  It’s the twenty-first century. As long as everything looks how you want it to, it doesn’t matter if inside you’re falling away from your own skin, if nothing is solid any more and if you do not have a clue who you are, what you did, if you kissed the hipster waiter and what the hell you are going to do next.

  Anon

  Oh, we all know about the thing with Joseph, after that night. The ongoing flirtation. The blurring of the boundaries. The fact that Scarlett fancies him, and him her, and her marriage – I allow myself a moment of congratulations here, as I am almost solely responsible – seems done anyway.

  It makes me angry though, how greedy she is.

  Because it reminds me of how all this started in the first place.

  Of how, most likely, she doesn’t even want that man we are both sleeping with. When I do, so desperately.

  And the morals! So superior and judgemental to everybody else but then all it takes is a few vodka slammers to send her to lock-ins with the local hipster.

  But Scarlett is, always, obsessed with men wanting her. With everyone actually, being interested in her, and impressed by her, and coveting her things and envying that beautiful face and clicking on her blog.

  How can model-like Ed not be enough for you? How can you want more?

  Often I am speaking and I glance at Scarlett and see her, staring past me across the room to see if anything else is going on, who else is there. I get it, Scarlett. You are too good for me. Making do.

  That makes me feel so stupid that it pinches.

  The worst thing is that she thinks we are all so oblivious. That we don’t realise her head is elsewhere. That instead we are just so grateful to have a fancy new friend like Scarlett that we’ll take whatever she wants to throw our way.

  Except, she isn’t that fancy, not really.

  Po-faced and pristine sometimes, but then very quickly she becomes drunk and vulgar, swearing like she is in an eighteen movie with lots of guns and not much plot.

  At least I know who I am, even if it’s someone you often scoff at, Scarlett.

  Do you know who you are really: the blogger, the city girl, the high-flyer, the country mum with her wellies on, the loyal wife, the hot flirt, with your working-class accent when it suits and your clipped one when it doesn’t?

  No. Didn’t think so.

  Your friend. How could I be your friend, when you’ve committed the ultimate betrayal towards me, and then sit with me, looking me in the eye and never speaking of it?

  And when I think of it like that, I don’t feel bad about what I did at all. Or about what I am about to do to up, up, up the ante.

  18

  Scarlett

  3 June

  I hear Ed’s key in the door as I am checking for an email from Jonathan White. I leap from my phone, guilty when he walks in, and I have no idea why. I am supposed to be keeping in touch with the lawyer; that’s the idea. But somehow everything connected to this whole thing makes me feel guilty, sheepish, part of a grubby cover-up.

  My husband and I stare at each other.

  ‘Hey,’ he says, then walks over to kiss Poppy.

  I can’t bring myself to reply.

  I wipe down a table where we used to lose hours talking about friends and the news and how good the tagliatelle tasted. I look at photos framed on the window ledge that are looking less and less like us; these people squishing their faces up against each other to get closer. This naturally uptight Ed who had softened with that first fun wave of love. Who couldn’t be in a picture with me without kissing me. Who could hardly be near me without kissing me. We loved long weekends in European cities, taking our running kits and beating our times along the Seine, around big Madrid parks. We loved having no guilt about the oily prawns or the sticky cheese board we would eat afterwards. We loved falling into bed later, limbs falling into each other whenever we stirred. We loved, if we’re honest, always being the hot couple at whatever wedding we went to, the statuesque model-like pair, everyone telling us we looked like celebrities. It’s probably why we got a kick out of the blog.

  The new us moves around each other oddly, like losing track of each other’s minds means we no longer know the shape of each other’s bodies either.

  I wonder why again. Is it just the video? Or are his limbs touching somebody else’s now?

  Knowing how it used to be makes it so much worse.

  Without comparison we have no idea what’s good, what’s bad. We used to stick together, now we float around miles and miles apart.

  ‘Do you have any plans this weekend?’ asks Ed, tentative, like we are on a second date and he is nervously suggesting a third.

  Do you have any plans? It used to be we. Now we exist on separate planes, our plans and weekends presumed to be spent apart. I’ve seen it happen in divorced couples, friends of my dad’s; this is the start of the end. You move away, gradually, until no one has the energy to put their boots on and trudge all that way back.

  I look up, holding a mug with our faces on it. A wedding present from my half-sister Josephine, now about to get married herself but at the time too young to enter into the systemic politeness of a John Lewis gift list. ‘I got you a mug!’ she said, so pleased with herself. ‘It’s got your faces on!’ It was one of
my favourite presents, to be honest, in a sea of fancy stuff with no feeling.

  I think of Asha’s matching sets. I’m fond of this mug, though less so since looking at it started to feel like nostalgia for the old Ed and me.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ I say nervously to Ed now because where is this going? Do I need to steel myself? Is he suggesting couples counselling? A divorce lawyer?

  Ed looks emboldened. ‘Let’s go away,’ he says, decisively.

  This is a long way from what I was expecting.

  ‘Where are we going?’ I say.

  ‘Anywhere,’ he replies, almost desperate and I wish I could close the gap and cuddle him tightly. ‘Anywhere. We just need to be on our own, Scarlett. Out of these walls. My parents will have Poppy.’

  But are we ready for this?

  I think of Joseph and the night at the coffee shop – a place I have had to steadfastly avoid in the weeks since – and I cringe.

  Alone. Away from home. With nothing to do except talk. Can we do that? I’m so angry with him for leaving me alone through this. For that life holiday at his parents’. Do I even want to do that?

  I am still holding the mug and I look at it now. At our faces in the grainy picture on the side: happy, naive, sure. Split up? Not them. Not those people.

  ‘Yes,’ I say. Don’t give in, Scarlett. Don’t give in. ‘Let’s book something.’

  And miraculously, I can feel something that is not dread.

  Forty-eight hours later we are dropping Poppy and her sixteen bags at Ed’s parents’ amidst promises of Peppa Pig marathons and strawberry ice cream.

  I take a deep breath before we walk into their huge modern house to drop her off. It’s the first time I’ve seen them since the video – both parties, I suspect, as keen to avoid each other so that Ed has done every drop-off with Poppy. Whole-family visits – with Ed and I barely speaking – have been off the table anyway. Ed and Poppy head off together while I run or sleep or cry.

  ‘Scarlett,’ says Phillip, as red-faced as a drinker. ‘Good to see you.’

  Nancy, in her cashmere cardigan and thick glasses, gives me a hug in which she manages to barely touch me. Fingertips float just above my skin.