The Baby Group

by Caroline Corcoran

  I’ve wondered, haven’t I, for a long time now.

  Now, Ed is in a deep sleep next to me. His gentle snore exhales beer. I raise myself up slowly in bed. My heart speeds up because I know now that I’m going to do it, and I’ve never done it before. Well, you started it, Ed, I think. How many times have you brandished my phone at me lately?

  I slip out of bed and walk around to his side, pick it up. I enter the passcode that I know he has had for years.

  It doesn’t work.

  I try a couple of other numbers – Poppy’s date of birth, mine – but neither of them let me in. Eventually I skulk back to my side.

  Why do people change their passcodes?

  I stare at his sleeping face.

  I think of him, furiously typing. I think of him typing to a woman who, were she to be wearing nothing next to him as I am now, he would want to touch. I think of her falling for him.

  I think of her hating me. I think, skipping step after step, about where that could lead. About quite how much a love rival might want to hurt me.

  I message Cora, desperate to talk.

  Do you think Ed could be sleeping with someone else and SHE posted the video?

  I lie back against my pillow. Is this now my life, suspecting everybody and even inventing new people to suspect?

  But again I come back to the biggest mystery of all: how anybody but Ollie and Mitch could have got access to that video. I think of who knew what had happened back then: Suki and Felix, our flatmates at the time, a few friends we were out with that night, I suppose. Zoe, the girl I went travelling with and talked to about it, on a long bus journey down the coast of Eastern Australia. Even if they knew though, I don’t think any of them were close enough to Mitch to have access to his phone. I don’t think Mitch ever sent it to my phone. None of this makes sense.

  Cora replies.

  Do you not remember what I told you about people who wake me up early? her message says.

  Then another.

  But it doesn’t sound like the most unlikely scenario. Let’s talk when I see you xxx

  I squeeze my eyes closed, try to bury my head under the duvet and grasp at sleep again.

  This is torturous.

  As I drift off, somewhere in between sleep and awake, I think about Josephine, lovely Josephine in her dress, and how I wish wish wish I could be Josephine and go back to the beginning, start again, with all of my fuck-ups still to make.

  ‘Scarlett,’ says Ed suddenly. I bolt upright. What? Sleep had come, at some point, or a semblance of it. ‘We need to get up. We’re supposed to be picking Poppy up in half an hour.’

  My mind feels like it’s sparking. I jump in the shower and lock the door behind me and I’m relieved there is no time for breakfast. Relieved there is no time to talk. Relieved that there is no time to spend with a husband who I realise then, I no longer trust.

  31

  Scarlett

  15 July

  I glance behind me to check on the girls and see Emma bouncing inelegantly with Seth asleep in the buggy (‘His dad’s out, needs must’).

  We are out running. Emma has come for the negating of Slimming World points against a cheeky curry that will be consumed when she gets in. Her face is the colour of a livid pimple.

  ‘I’ve been going to the gym too!’ she yells. ‘I thought my fitness would have improved.’

  ‘Doesn’t work if you just spend it in the Jacuzzi then eat a cake in the café, hon,’ Cora shouts back, deadpan but we know she’s joking, Emma looks slim, toned.

  Asha jogs alongside me, childlike and spindly in Lycra. Cora lags back, looking utterly unlike herself in her trainers and designer leggings, her exercise normally done behind the closed doors of yoga studios. Or hotel bedrooms. But Cora hates being left out.

  ‘FOMO, Scarlett,’ she sighs to me regularly, phone sellotaped to her palm. ‘I’m a slave to it.’

  For me, it was the air of awkwardness that inhabits our house; my overwhelming desire to escape it that got me out running tonight. And then there is the need to outrun what’s next. What I fear is coming for me. Of the penthouse.

  ‘Is that …’ says Asha, but I concur before she can finish. Yes. It’s Joseph. Standing across the street, ignoring the advance of autumn in a T-shirt. Pausing as he clears tables. Watching me as we run by with an empty coffee cup in his hand.

  Is it him I’m meant to leave alone?

  My skin prickles. He’s too close to me, too tempting.

  But when I suspect that Ed is doing something far worse than any small flirtation I’ve had with Joseph, should I care?

  ‘Well I tell you what,’ Cora shouts from behind. ‘I’d be tempted. That’s one beautiful man.’

  I ignore her and speed up. Asha keeps pace.

  ‘You okay about what happened with Cora the other week?’ I say, a quick glance at Asha.

  She laughs.

  ‘Bit pissed off at the time,’ she says. ‘But it’s just her isn’t it? That’s her way. I don’t think she meant any harm.’

  We run in silence as I think how much I’d have stewed on this. Perhaps Asha doesn’t hold grudges like I do.

  ‘Do you think Ed could be cheating on me?’ I ask Asha suddenly too, out of nowhere.

  Asha turns as she runs, a half-second glance, and then looks ahead again.

  We are silent for a minute or two except for the thwack of pavement beneath our trainers. I know I’ve made her feel awkward.

  ‘Well I only ever met Ed at NCT classes and don’t know him well,’ she says eventually. Thud, thud, thud. ‘So I’d say your judgement will be better on this one than mine.’

  She gives me another mid-run look.

  ‘I was just thinking that could be something to do with the video?’ I lead her. ‘If he’s shagging somebody else, they could have reason to want to hurt me?’

  Some of my past runs have settled in my bones so that I can keep going at a decent pace even when I’m at my least fit but I am still struggling to speak at the same time.

  ‘Do you have any evidence?’ Asha says and Cora yells to us to wait for them.

  ‘I want to join in the gossip!’ she yells and I flinch. This is my fucking life.

  Asha turns to me.

  ‘Sorry,’ she says, short of breath. ‘That sounded a bit dramatic.’

  I raise an eyebrow, which is about the most I can do with the energy I have left while I run.

  Let’s face it: everything about me since I hit the internet naked is dramatic. And it makes for a relentless paranoia.

  I stand in the queue at the doctor’s and wonder if the man behind me, coughing without covering his mouth, knows.

  I go to get my hair cut and I look in the mirror and see the face of this young, happy blonde girl holding her scissors and the first thing I think is ‘Do you know?’

  And you, and you, and you. It’s incessant.

  And still, it’s not even close to how it would have been if I’d been exposed as the mum blogger with the sex tape. I shudder.

  ‘Why have you deleted Cheshire Mama?’ the odd acquaintance asks. And I tell them I have been concerned about privacy. Concerned about sharing, as Poppy gets older, becomes a little person. They nod, understanding, then tell me it’s a shame, it was doing well. I know, I think. We were almost at eight thousand. Now, gone.

  We run in silence for a few minutes.

  I keep going, going. I know how to get in the zone, to focus on the heavy pad of good trainers on hard pavement and to block out everything else but the next step.

  Plus I have a lot of rage that needs an outlet. In the absence of a punch bag, the pavement can take the pounding.

  ‘It’s probably not what you want to hear …’ Asha says over the noise. It’s nice having someone running alongside me. ‘But yeah. It doesn’t sound like the most unlikely scenario. Who wants to screw you over in life? Love rivals are up there, right? I mean if this were a BBC drama, it would be a love rival.’

  We laugh. But Asha�
��s right. It’s logical.

  If my life has been ruined because Ed is fucking about though, I think, running, running, running harder, I will lose it. If Ed is fucking about while implying that all of this has happened because I had sex, when it’s because he had sex, worse sex, sex that betrays, I will lose it, lose it, lose it.

  Slam, slam, slam.

  ‘Scarlett, I can’t go that fast,’ says Asha, over the noise of my trainers as she falls behind me. The air is charred, smoky with a nearby barbecue. I hear the others complain too but I can’t slow down.

  I need to keep running because I can feel my head spinning off somewhere bleak. Is it coming for me? I think. Is the next thing coming? The biggest secret of all? They could email it again; they have the addresses. They could message Ed; they have his number. I imagine his face; my dad’s. I can’t take another hit.

  When Asha catches up with me I am bent double, resting my hands on my knees, gasping for breath and I am sobbing, hard and louder than I am ever allowed to at home, terrified that I have lost control.

  32

  Scarlett

  24 July

  Ed is away on a boys’ trip for two nights and I am suspicious. Two nights in a hotel is a convenient thing to have in the calendar if you’re sleeping with somebody else.

  I haven’t asked him because my brain needs wiping like dirty glasses at the moment and can’t be trusted to judge things. Am I trying to get myself off the hook? Shift the blame to him? The worst thing each and every time I lose myself in life is that I can’t trust my own thoughts. And isn’t that the most terrifying thing of all.

  But then, I get a message from Flick.

  You around for brunch today by any chance?

  Flick names an edgy place in the Northern Quarter and I try on five different tops.

  It happens so quickly when you move out of a city. One minute it’s instinctive, the vibe, the style, the mood. And then it’s like a language you don’t speak.

  I drop Poppy at Ed’s parents’, where we make small talk with no eye contact, and head into town to meet her.

  I walk in to the restaurant wearing jeans and trainers. Is it worth trying to impress people now, given what they know?

  Flick is in her Pilates clothes, straight from a class with her hair scraped back and I remember that: the coolest thing you can do in a city at brunch is give zero fucks.

  She sips a green juice and looks young without her heels and her make-up, so that her wedding ring seems incongruous. I, on the other hand, feel weathered.

  As I say hello, she slurps from a straw.

  ‘It’s good to see you,’ she says, putting her drink down and standing up to kiss me. ‘Sorry it took me so long to reply.’

  From then on though, the conversation is stilted and that makes me sad. Like a relationship, can you pull back a friendship once awkwardness kicks in?

  We order: eggs and smoked salmon for her, a bacon sandwich for my hangover, more juice for Flick and strong coffee for me.

  I chew fast so that I can finish and say something and fill the silence, because it isn’t comfortable like it used to be.

  And then when the food has gone away and only the dregs of our drinks are left, Flick looks up at me and the expression on her face makes me feel sick.

  ‘You know I said a while ago I needed to speak to you urgently?’ she says.

  I nod. Sure.

  ‘I wasn’t up to it.’

  ‘It wasn’t about the video, Scarlett,’ she says. ‘It was about Ed.’

  I think about the other messages I had from her afterwards, the missed calls. All ignored. Thinking she wanted to talk to me about work when really, it was this.

  I’ve known, anyway, haven’t I?

  Those nights away. The texts at Josephine’s wedding. His distance to me and how sometimes I have an instinct that this video has been a gift, to let him pull back from us and our marriage. To give him an excuse to blame me, when it comes to it. And it will come to it, I know.

  I look up. Wait.

  ‘I changed my mind about telling you because I didn’t know anything for certain, Scarlett, and I decided that wasn’t fair,’ she says. ‘I wanted to have something more solid to give you.’

  I put my head face down then, looking at the menu on the place mat: avocado, scrambled eggs, hot sauce, Nutella pancakes.

  ‘I had heard rumours that Ed had been cheating. And now, I’ve heard them from other people too. People I trust.’

  I keep staring. Fried potatoes, banana and honey, homemade granola, steaming porridge.

  ‘Scarlett?’ she says. ‘Scarlett, are you okay?’

  Déjà vu, I think, of her offering to call medical the last time I was shamed in front of her and she had to take care of me. Not again. Not again.

  ‘Who is it?’ I say, quietly.

  Crispy chorizo, streaky bacon, chilli halloumi.

  Flick pauses, and sounds pained when she speaks. ‘I don’t know. Jared was drunk at the summer party and heavily hinted. And then, this week Martha told she heard it at her place too.’

  I reach slowly into my bag and take out some cash; hand it to Flick who waves me away.

  ‘I’ll get this,’ she says. ‘It’s the least I can do.’

  ‘Why?’ I say, looking up and laughing. ‘None of it’s your fault. Not my sex tape. Not my husband’s affair. None of it. It’s not your fault, Flick. It’s nobody else’s fault.’

  I put the cash on the table and walk out, to that city buzz and that throng of people that I’ve craved but I can’t feel anything any more.

  Later that night, Poppy back home and in bed, I have a chance to think.

  I’ve had some evidence Ed is cheating, I tell Asha, Cora and Emma on our group chat.

  I go to check on Poppy. Stare at her tiny chest rising and falling.

  I wanted to be good at this, I think. I wanted to be the mum I wish I’d known into my school years and adulthood. To be perfect; part of a perfect family. Though I am starting to think that perfect is the most dangerous word there is.

  I lean over the cot and stroke Poppy’s head. I sit on the floor with my head on the bars. By the time I sit up the bars are wet.

  What now, for your family, Poppy?

  Are you okay, sweets? asks Emma. Do you need someone with you?

  You’ve got this, hon, says Cora with about fifteen emojis.

  As I sit there, I picture where their messages are coming from. From cosy evenings in front of Netflix binges. Freshly showered, in pyjamas. With pappardelle on their laps, or wine in their hands alongside still-awake toddlers or home-from-work husbands. I light my imagined pictures with Tiffany lamps and fancy candles and I scent them with homemade biscuits and expensive perfumes.

  The lamp bulb is gone in our living room and nobody can be bothered to replace it. We don’t tend to our home now.

  I sit, harshly lit and shivery and I’m jealous of all of it. Of things that may not exist and scenes that I’ve invented myself.

  If we can do anything, babe, just let us know, says Emma. Here for you.

  I scroll through my phone absent-mindedly and end up at pictures of Poppy taken when she was weeks old. Ed and I, finding our feet.

  When life was simple.

  Then was simple. Then was perfect. Then was the easy part.

  But all of them have got the behind-the-scenes version.

  Then, really?

  Then was so exhausting I thought the tiredness would make me ill. Then was terrifying. Then was lonely, without a mother of my own to learn motherhood from. Then was emotional, now there was a baby, because so often I would stare at her and wonder about the baby who came before.

  Then was unsettling, when my identity felt lost and altered and unknown. Then was guilty, because some people didn’t have this and I did, and when I knew sadness and grief existed in the world, how could I walk around the place being so smug in my joy? Because then was joy. Joy at Poppy’s existence. Joy at being loved. Joy at being part of a team.r />
  All of this makes so much more sense if my husband is sleeping with somebody else. It makes the parts fit together. If I figure out who that is, I am pretty sure I have figured out who sent the video too. That doesn’t make it any less sad though, as a family combusts, and I lie on our sofa, in our home, for most of the evening and weep.

  33

  Scarlett

  24 July

  It comes late at night, as all the dark things do.

  It comes into my home, because that used to be the safest place but these days it’s the worst, with its Wi-Fi and its iPad and its phone, all snuggling in with me on the sofa.

  I reach for the glass of red I have been nursing.

  My phone beeps. The dopamine hits.

  Since the internet became the worst place for me, it’s the place I’ve gone to the most. A form of self-harm? I don’t pick up a razor, but somehow I’ve always got the impetus to pick up my iPhone.

  What am I hoping for, I wonder, as I reach for it? For Ollie, again? I have told him I’ll update him with anything new on the video; beyond that we don’t speak. I am scared now anyway. Is it him I am meant to leave alone?

  Am I hoping for Joseph? For Ed, perhaps, to prove me wrong? To tell me there isn’t anybody else, that Jared was drunk and nonsensical; Martha was thinking of someone else.

  I will anything that might be enough to pull me out of this bleak place.

  Because make no mistake, I think, this is the kind of bleak place people go to just before they opt out.

  I longed, when I was younger, to live a sizzling life. Lukewarm seemed like the worst option. Now I long for it.

  I can’t see a way back.

  I can’t feel the joy.

  I can’t remember who I am.

  And I am terrified of what’s next.

  I take a sip of wine. Then I read the message.

  Be kind, I tell Poppy, over and over when she pushes Seth over or pulls Ananya’s hair. Be kind. I say it because it is the best advice I can give; the simplest rule for life, even if I sometimes don’t manage to follow it myself. This message isn’t kind, is the first thing I know.