“I didn’t want to get involved in this gang war you two have,” he said. “I just want to sell coffee.”
I felt guilt wash over me about stooping to Mrs Clunting’s juvenile level. He was right, he was a business owner and the last thing he needed was to get involved in a petty vendetta.
“She started it,” said a petulant Elle.
“I don’t care who started it, it ends here. No more trouble is to come through those doors or I will hold you both personally responsible.”
We watched him silently as he went back into the kitchen to torture Michael before the lunchtime rush.
The bell announced more customers coming in and as I turned to welcome them I was faced with our nemesis and her cronies.
“Well, hello Mrs Cunting what can we do for you on this fine morning?” said Elle in a sickly-sweet tone.
A bolder of dread hit my stomach, I was not physically or mentally capable for a showdown with this woman and her band of harpies. I sat up and was thankful that I hadn't taken off my sunglasses yet so they could hide my darting, nervous eyes.
“Hello Elle, I’m sorry to disturb you, clearly you’re holding court in your den of disappointing mothers,” said Mrs Clunting in her usual condescending tone.
I know she was talking about me, my hangover was still evident and I looked a state even with my telltale bloodshot eyes hiding behind glasses. I straightened up to pretend I was a functioning adult.
“Where are your feral children, Elle? Off running the roads?” she continued.
“I suggest you state your business here Cunting before I put your abnormally large head through that glass for even mentioning my children.”
“We’re here for some coffee, obviously. Be a dear and fetch us three cappuccinos, we’ll sit over there on that lumpy leather thing passing for a sofa.”
She turned and walked away, with her followers close behind, all three of them shot us matching dirty looks.
“It’s like they don’t know I can easily spit in all of their cups?” said Elle.
I called for Joseph to be some sort of voice of reason. It wouldn’t do if Elle jumped the counter and made good on her threat to shove her through the window.
“Joseph, can you take care of those women on the sofas? I think if Elle is left unsupervised with their order it could result in legal action,” I pleaded.
Joseph agreed and set to work on the drinks order while muttering something about ‘gangs’. He was an expert barista. There was a world of difference between his coffees and Elle’s. In fact, I wasn’t entirely sure why Elle spent so much time actually serving customers. I'd lost count of the number of unofficial jobs she had in order to make some extra money. I assumed Joseph was giving her a few sneaky pounds for her help around the place, or at least I hoped so – especially with Keith gone from the house.
For the next half hour, I couldn't get a word out of Elle that wasn’t about Mrs Clunting – none of which were complimentary.
“Just don’t even look over there, Elle,” I said.
“I'm not backing down, she's the one that came into our territory and is pissing everywhere. She’s looking for a fight.”
“Oh, for goodness sake! If you can’t be an adult about this then you’re as bad as her. One of us has to be the cooler head and just get on with things, we’re not in a bloody playground this is a business. A business that we’ve been working very hard to bolster and I’m not about it let that be ruined by childish rivalry. She runs a playgroup for pity sake, she’s not the bloody mafia.”
I decided to clean up some of the tables and pretend to look busy in order for the unwelcome visitors to get bored of the staring contest. It didn’t go as planned.
“You missed a spot there, Alice,” said Mrs Clunting.
There was something so demeaning about her purposeful misremembering of my name. It grated something in my subconscious, I could feel my face flush and I picked up the tray of empty cups and left it over on the counter with Elle. I pushed my sunglasses off my face onto my head, pulled my shoulders back and walked over to the sofas. Mrs Clunting looked me up and down with a perplexed expression on her face.
“May we help you, Alice?” she smirked.
“Yes, actually you can,” I said as calmly as possible. “It’s Amy, by the way, but you know that already because you were here recently lurking around to see what you’re doing wrong at your place. Obviously, because you’ve nothing better to do with your life – I can help you with that if you like?”
I motioned to one of her cronies in order for them to budge over on the sofa. I sat down to face a shocked looking Mrs Clunting.
“This coffee shop isn’t a personal slight against you or your playgroup, Margaret. You don’t have to see it that way. This is a place where parents can come and relax for a bit while their kids play in the toy area, over there. We’re not reinventing the wheel here, we just wanted somewhere to relax.”
“Don’t you mean somewhere to slack off and sit on your phone? Lazy parenting dressed up as a coffee shop,” she spat.
“What does that matter to you?” I continued. “Why is it so important to you, to come here and try to make us feel bad? I don’t understand what you’re getting out of it. We tried things your way and Elle didn’t last ten minutes. Then I felt so uncomfortable I couldn’t wait to get out of there. Maybe that’s on us, maybe we're the problem but so what? What does it matter that we tried your place, didn't like it, and now we have here? Does this really need to turn into a turf war? Which of us are the Sharks and which are the Jets?”
I smiled hoping that my poor attempt at a joke would be enough to make her see sense about how ridiculous this situation had become. She didn't match my smile. Instead, she sighed and said:
“You see Amy, this isn’t about my way or your way. This is about the way to properly parent children and you two peddling this ‘haven’ for parents – or whatever you’re marketing it as – is the reason the whole of society is going to the dogs. The point of the S.M.U.G organisation isn’t to make mothers feel bad, it’s to hold us all up to a higher standard of parenting. I’m sick to death of all these lazy, gross, and frankly, unworthy mothers being catapulted to stardom for writing on the Internet about how happy they are about being inept at the most important job in the world. It’s tough enough without me having to deal with you two, your crass café and this ‘come one, come all' attitude. It has to stop somewhere and I've decided it stops with me, on this street and with you two. By all means, sell the coffee but I'll be damned if I see this place promoted as a mum club of any description.”
I was stunned; the woman was insane.
She was declaring war on a coffee shop because she thought we were the embodiment of a crumbling society.
I just wanted to drink coffee while it was hot, that was the main motivation for me – well, that and the tray bakes.
“Margaret, I think you’re being a bit dramatic about this.” I tried to sound reasonable but I came across as if I was talking to an unpredictable horse that was ready to buck at any moment.
“Well, I think you’re being naïve. I suppose that’s to be expected judging by the company you keep and the state your child was in when I saw him. I shudder to think what the home life is.”
I had often read about this phenomenon that makes seemingly average people lift cars off their children or stop trains with their minds (ok, I made up the last one) and I wondered if there would ever be an occasion for this to happen. I don’t know if that was what I experienced at that moment, but I did know that a red mist had descended. The implication that I was doing a rubbish job with my children crossed a line and she wasn’t getting away with.
I didn’t care that my children had chips for dinner two days in a row because I was too hungover to cook, or that my husband had questionable bald patches on the bottom half of his body. She didn’t know this and all that mattered was: I was trying.
“Were you not hugged enough as a child?” I asked. �
�Is this where the incessant need to have some sort of fake accolade as the perfect parent comes from? Whatever it is, just stop. Stop judging every single person that walks through the door of your stupid club by an unrealistic standard of parenting. I was willing to be reasonable here, I was trying to be adult but if you can’t even manage that Cunting then you and I are going to have a problem.
“Let’s break down the Holy Grail that is Special Mothers United in Growth, shall we?
“Firstly, to their child, every parent is ‘special’ and unique and awesome – even if they don't match your checklist of parenting perfection.
“Next: Mothers. How about remembering dads exist too? I mean family units come in a whole range of shapes and sizes. The whole ethos of your damn club is concentrating on those solely with ovaries.
“Thirdly: United? What a joke. You mean only if you follow your ridiculous example as a parent.
“Finally, Growth implies you’re ready to evolve and change as the situation demands. Clearly, that's another lie. S.M.U.G is utter bull and you lot are a bunch of judgmental asses.
“Don’t worry though, if you want to change and embrace every facet of the parenting community you’re more than welcome to come here anytime you like. If not, then I do hope you have a wonderful day, but get the fuck out and make room for decent people, you pathetic, downright embarrassing, excuse for a human.”
She was stunned.
It took a few seconds for her to compose herself once more.
“I know it was you two that let my tyres down,” she snarled.
“Prove it,” I said, with a steely determination I wasn’t aware I had.
She stood up and left without saying another word, with her lackeys in close pursuit.
I cleared the table and tried to hide the fact my hands were shaking.
“So, was that you ‘being an adult’ about it then?” said Elle.
Without looking up, I could hear the smile in her voice.
“Shut up, Elle.”
“You’re a legend, Princess.”
At that particular moment, I agreed that I actually might be a freakin’ legend.
Chapter 24
On a high from my run in with Mrs Clunting, I picked up Adam from school and took the boys to the beach. It was a bit of a stretch to call it a ‘beach’. It was better described as a rocky patch with a smattering of sand in between that happened to be conveniently located next to the Irish Sea.
We skimmed stones on the water until their noses turned red from the cold, and then we headed home for hot chocolate and marshmallows.
I had earned parenting brownie points for my afternoon with them and, for the first time in days, I felt at ease in my own home.
When I heard Ben come in and do his normal boisterous ‘hello’ routine with the kids I had settled myself at the table ready to confront him about the ongoing silent treatment. He walked in and said ‘hello’ but I didn’t answer. He was about to walk out the door when I kicked the legs of the chair in front of me pushing it out into his way.
“Sit down, please,” I said.
“Haven’t you caused enough injuries without bruising my shins as well?”
“We need to talk about Friday night.”
“I’d rather not,” he said, monotonously.
“I know, but that’s how we got into this mess. We haven’t been talking properly. We’ve been happy to get through every day without any hassle instead of working on us.”
“No, we got into this particular mess because my wife burnt the hairs off my thighs and I’ve been cutting wax out of my remaining leg hair for a few days now.”
“I meant the bigger picture.”
He sighed, his signal for giving into what I wanted, and sat down on the chair.
“What do you think is going wrong with us? Are we just out of sync or something?”
“I don’t know, Amy. All I know is I can’t have an honest conversation with you without wondering if what I say will upset you and you’ll go running off to a lake.”
And there it was. The big black elephant in the room.
I was never going to escape my actions of that day and now my husband is afraid to even speak to me properly.
“I’m not suicidal, Ben.”
The shame was overwhelming and it choked at my throat to even have to say those words out loud. I felt myself shrinking inwards, to the point where I was physically trying to make myself smaller by curling my legs in under me.
“I know, I don’t know why I said that – it isn’t true. I’m just tired and pissed off about Friday, I shouldn’t have said anything.”
I knew he was still panicked about the precariousness of my mental health, but it was upsetting to learn that he was this nervous.
I’d spent the last six months trying to find a way back to being me, without realising what it was changing Ben into. He was afraid of me, or at least what I was capable of doing. The shame was growing and it felt like the walls in the kitchen were starting to close in on me.
“I’m sorry,” I said, quietly. “Not just for Friday, for everything. I don’t know how else to convince you I’m trying to get better. I’m doing all this stuff to figure out how to stay healthy. I’m taking the tablets, I’m keeping busy and I just don’t know what else you want me to do.”
“Therapy.”
“It doesn’t work, I can do this myself.”
“Can you? Because all I’ve seen so far is you running around with a new friend, trying every which way to distract yourself from your skewed way of thinking and how you process things. You’re filling your life up with all this nonsense so you don’t have to face the fact you tried to kill yourself.”
“I went to therapy and I didn’t like it.”
“You didn’t give it a proper chance. Cognitive Behavioural Therapy has a real chance of helping you actually deal with depressive episodes, instead of you ignoring that nagging voice in your head. I know it’s still there because I know you. I’ve been watching you and I can tell when ‘she’s’ talking. I just want to help and this is the best way I know how.”
“You’re shaming me into therapy?”
“I was going for nagging, but I’ll take whatever abuse you want to send my way if it makes you go see someone and get advice. I’m not saying all this stuff with Elle isn’t helping, you seem to enjoy yourself with her, but I think it’s going to take a culmination of things to fight this.”
I wondered how long he had been preparing this speech for me. Weeks? Months? I hated the thought of going back to therapy. I held the firm belief that it was nonsense. My belief was based on zero scientific fact or experience and more to do with my sheer pig-headedness. I had survived ok, so far, by basically avoiding anything uncomfortable.
“Is this because I poured wax on you? There’s a whole community dedicated to S&M out there, and I bet they’re not told they need therapy.”
“Burning me doesn't really help your case, no; but that's not the reason. I just thought we could confront the easy stuff first like: why you bullied yourself into thinking you needed to take your own life rather than talk about your grief with me. When you figure that out, then we can build up to S&M,” he said, smiling. He reached out and gave my hand a reassuring squeeze. It was the first time he’d come close to me since our disastrous evening.
“Fine, I’ll try therapy – but I’m buying nipple clamps for you,” I replied.
“That sounds fair, but please let my leg hair grow back before we bring pyromania into our lives on a full-time basis.”
The horrible dark cloud that had plagued the house had started to shift. It allowed me to enjoy the evening with Ben and the kids. It was much nicer to sit in a room together and not feel stifled by an awkward atmosphere.
I kept my phone to one side and enjoyed their company for a whole half an hour until Arthur wouldn’t stop singing ‘yummy, yummy, yummy I’ve got poo in my tummy and I’ll give you a punch in the gob’.
Even a spell on the
naughty step, for repeated use of the word ‘poo’ did not stop him from singing it over and over again.
Instead, I decided to look towards the summer holidays and researched the possibility of our first foreign holiday as a family. I thought it would prove as great incentive to lose weight.
I could put pictures up all over the house like those ‘fitspo’ posts I keep seeing online. Or I could also try chopping off a limb; that’s about as appealing as clean eating is to me.
I quickly became addicted to looking at all the wonderful holiday destinations we couldn’t afford. I loved imagining Ben and me in luxurious destinations (without those horrible little humans we brought into the world).
We never had a honeymoon. Ben’s business was just starting up when we got married and we said we’d go later on in the year, once things were up and running. As time went on it never seemed like a good idea to take the time off, for either of us, and then the kids came along. Of course we'd had nights away, here and there though the thought of going away for longer than a night without the kids just didn’t seem right. Although I was starting to come around to the idea more frequently the cheekier my children got.
I knew holidaying together so we could all be miserable as a family was the only way I was going to see some sun. I suspected that holidaying with children was just shouting at them in a new location.
I hoped I was mistaken and perhaps the warm weather wouldn’t turn them into heat-activated gremlins, but I suspected my initial hunch was more likely to be correct.
As bedtime approached, I watched the three of them build things with blocks. I loved to lie on the sofa and think about how happy I was, in moments like these – mostly, because they were ignoring me and weren’t demanding snacks.
I felt very lucky and it made me think of Elle and how I wanted to be a better friend to her.
I knew she wasn’t telling me everything that was going on with her and Keith and I know if I pressed harder I could find out the information. Although she was ridiculously bossy when it came to changes in my life, I felt I could do with prying into hers a bit more to make sure she wasn’t feeling isolated without him.
Amy Cole has lost her mind: The perfect laugh out loud, feel-good comedy (The Amy Cole series Book 1) Page 19