The Undercover Mother_A laugh-out-loud romantic comedy about love, friendship and parenting

by Emma Robinson

  It wasn’t worth thinking about until she had spoken to Ruth about it, though. It was one thing writing about Naomi’s obsession with organic cotton without telling her; this was completely different. The question was, if she told Ruth about the blog, would she have to tell the others? Jenny looked at her watch. Ruth was due to visit in about half an hour: time to start scooping debris into cupboards and under the sofa.

  * * *

  Ruth was right on time and carrying a large cake tin when Jenny opened the door. She waved the tin as she came in. ‘I’m still baking.’

  ‘Well, the cake we ate at your house was delicious.’ Jenny took the tin from her. ‘I’ll make us a cup of tea to go with it. Go through to the lounge.’ Jenny went into the kitchen to put the kettle on and find a pretty plate for the cake. When she carried it through to the lounge, she found Ruth sitting on the floor, holding Henry’s hand, tears running down her face.

  Ruth turned a wet face towards Jenny as she came in. ‘Sorry, I’m sorry. I thought I would be okay.’

  ‘Don’t apologise. It was silly – we should have gone out on our own.’

  ‘No, no.’ Ruth shook her head. ‘I’ve got to get used to it. It’s just, you know, he’s the same age and everything.’

  Jenny put the cake plate down on the coffee table. ‘Do you want to talk about it, or do you want me to make inane chatter about reality TV and the price of washing powder?’

  Ruth gave a weak smile and then turned back to look at Henry, who still had a grip of steel on her finger. ‘I told you we were trying again, didn’t I?’

  Jenny nodded. ‘Yes. You told me and Naomi when we came to yours.’

  ‘Well, neither of us could bear to go back into that monthly cycle of ovulation charts and disappointment, and the fertility people still won’t touch us. So, we’re just letting nature take her course and waiting to see what happens.’ Ruth didn’t seem very enthusiastic about this plan.

  ‘But is that what you want?’

  Ruth took a deep breath. She turned her head slowly and looked at Jenny, then looked back at Henry, who was kicking his feet at a dangling giraffe. ‘I’m on the pill.’

  Jenny was confused. ‘But I thought you said…’ As Ruth looked up at her, she grasped what she was trying to tell her. ‘Oh. David doesn’t know.’

  Ruth shook her head. Guilt flashed across her face. Clearly, this was not something she had told anyone else. Her voice was just above a whisper. ‘I’m scared.’

  Jenny took her hand. ‘Oh, Ruth, of course you are. But surely that kind of thing doesn’t happen twice? Everything should be fine next time. That’s what the doctors told you, didn’t they?’

  Ruth nodded, but her eyes were full as she looked at Jenny. ‘It was so awful.’

  Jenny struggled not to start crying herself. The thought of losing Henry was unbearable. Physically painful. ‘I can’t even begin to imagine what it was like. I am so sorry that you had to go through that.’

  Ruth was gazing at Henry again. ‘She was so beautiful, Jen. She looked just like David. She had a perfect little mouth and her eyes were closed so gently, like she was sleeping. She felt warm from being inside me and I just kept hoping. I couldn’t understand why they couldn’t do anything to revive her when she looked so perfect… We dressed her in a little white sleepsuit and just kept looking at her… I didn’t want to leave. It didn’t feel right, leaving her alone like that.’ Her voice wavered and she paused. With her free hand, she brushed the tears away from her face.

  Jenny squeezed the hand she was holding. What could she say? Nothing would help.

  Ruth hadn’t taken her eyes from Henry the whole time she was talking. ‘My mum offered to go to the house and clear away the baby things before I went home, but I asked her not to. I wasn’t ready to give them up yet… That beautiful pram, which took us weeks to choose… The crocheted blanket my sister made for her… The tiny vests and sleepsuits that I’d washed and folded so neatly in her drawers… For the first few days, I just sat in the nursery, touching everything, saying goodbye to it. It was like it wasn’t meant to be, like I’d been playing a game about having a baby, and now I had to stop playing and go back to work.’ She paused again and took a deep breath before looking at Jenny. ‘And that’s how I feel now. That it just wasn’t meant to be.’

  Jenny’s heart hurt for her. ‘Have you told David how you feel?’

  Ruth shook her head. ‘I don’t think I can. That man was destined to be a dad. How can I take it away from him?’

  Jenny knew she was right. But it was also obvious how much he loved his wife.

  ‘How can I say to him that I don’t want to try for another baby? It would break his heart.’

  Jenny thought of the story Ruth had told her at the antenatal class, about the number of pregnancy tests she had taken in her excitement about having a baby. ‘Are you sure that you don’t want to try again?’

  ‘No, I’m not sure. If a doctor could guarantee me a healthy baby, I’d walk over hot coals and cut glass to get to it. But no one can guarantee me that, can they? No one can promise that I won’t have to feel again that my own body somehow killed my baby, for no reason that anyone can give me. That I won’t have to go through labour again and still go home with nothing except a huge aching emptiness that never goes away. Have to watch my husband be terribly, terribly brave, and then listen to him sob in the next room when he thinks I’m asleep.’ She paused again, then whispered, ‘If it happened to us again, Jenny, I don’t think we could survive it.’

  Jenny couldn’t bear to see the pain in Ruth’s eyes. There had to be a way to help. ‘You can’t carry all this on your own. I know that David would understand. What about counselling? Have you had support from someone who has helped other people in your situation?’

  ‘Yes, the hospital was very good. We both had bereavement counselling and it helped a bit, being able to talk about how we felt. But even they admitted that these feelings might never go away completely. I don’t even want them to go away; I don’t want to forget her.’

  Jenny was adrift in uncharted territory. Go with your gut. ‘Having another baby wouldn’t mean you’d forget her. You wouldn’t be replacing her.’

  Ruth looked up with a face so haunted that it made Jenny’s heart contract involuntarily. ‘I have spent years wanting to be pregnant, and now it is the most terrifying thing I can imagine.’

  * * *

  When Ruth had gone home, Jenny picked Henry up from his play mat and held him close. His warm, wriggly body felt solid and real in her arms. Putting her nose into the crease of his neck, she breathed in deeply. Right then, she couldn’t care less about Lucy and her ‘Girl About Town’ column. How could a night out on the town meeting random strangers possibly compare with this?

  However, it didn’t look like The Undercover Mother was going to make it into print, either. Jenny had hoped that writing about Ruth’s experiences might have taken the blog in a different direction and piqued Eva’s interest. But after the conversation they’d just had, it would have been completely inappropriate to talk to Ruth about the blog. It all seemed so unimportant.

  So where did that leave her? She didn’t want to fight for her ‘Girl About Town’ job, and Eva didn’t want her to write about being a mum. Maybe the time had come to see if someone else would?

  Henry had dozed off on her shoulder. Holding him with one arm, she slipped carefully onto a seat at the dining table and opened her laptop.

  Google search.

  Mark McLinley.

  Chapter Nineteen

  I love being a mum. I really do. But sometimes, it’s a little… (come closer)… boring.

  I can’t mention this to the Spice Mums. Scary has to leave Baby Scary every day to go to work, so she would think me downright ungrateful if I moaned about my day at home. Sporty, meanwhile, is emphatic that being a mother is the best thing that ever happened to her and maintains that she enjoys every single minute. Can that really be true?

  There are
, of course, an awful lot of minutes in the day where I AM enjoying it. But there are others when the repetition of changing, feeding and getting to sleep makes me yearn for my previous life of boozy lunches and adult conversation. I wouldn’t swap time with The Boy for anything, but I’d be lying if I told you I preferred a cheese sandwich in my kitchen to brie parcels at Mezzo…

  From ‘The Undercover Mother’

  * * *

  The restaurant was busy but quiet, apart from a low hum of conversation and the occasional chink of glasses. The maître d’ was attentive in taking Jenny’s coat and escorting her to the table where Mark was waiting. Ever the gentleman, Mark stood to kiss her on both cheeks, then pulled out a chair for her to sit. It felt like decades since she’d last done this.

  ‘Great choice of restaurant.’ She looked around her. ‘It’s a new one to me.’

  Mark was in his element here. Looking like he’d just stepped out of the pages of GQ, he’d already attracted glances from two of the other tables. ‘I thought you’d like it. You did always have a fondness for the finer things in life.’ He winked.

  Jenny was determined to keep all conversations strictly business. She already felt guilty. She had told Dan who she was meeting – had practically asked for his permission – but her husband wasn’t a jealous man. ‘If you think that’s best, it’s fine by me. Just order the most expensive thing on the menu.’ But it wasn’t Dan she felt guilty about.

  ‘Thanks for seeing me so quickly. I know you must be pretty busy.’

  Mark smiled. ‘There’s got to be some payback for you having put up with me for all that time.’ He opened his expensive suit jacket and leaned forwards. ‘Anyway, I’m hoping this conversation is going to be to our mutual benefit…?’

  A waiter appeared by the side of the table and filled their water glasses. Mark picked up the wine list. ‘Before we get down to business, what would you like to drink? Are you still a Chablis girl?’

  What was it with all these references to their mutual past? Had this been a terrible mistake?

  ‘Whatever you want to order will be fine. I’m on quite a tight schedule so I’d like to hear what you thought of The Undercover Mother.’

  ‘We’ll get to it, Jen. Let me order the wine first.’ Mark took his time reading the wine list. Then he asked the wine waiter for his opinion, before settling on something whose long French name sounded expensive.

  Finally, he turned his attention back to her. ‘I must admit, I was a little surprised to get your call. I thought you were attached to Flair with an umbilical cord. Does Eva know you’re meeting me?’

  Jenny’s conscience twanged. Of course Eva didn’t know.

  ‘I’m still on maternity leave. I only came to the advertisers’ event to keep my hand in.’

  Mark smirked. ‘Good for you. Best not to burn your boats, eh?’

  Jenny knew that Mark was an expert on not burning boats. Or rather, making sure he had a new bed-warmer lined up before he ousted the current one.

  Despite herself, Jenny couldn’t resist. ‘So, how is Lucy?’

  Mark chuckled. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  If Mark and Lucy were in a relationship, Jenny knew he would have told Lucy to keep it secret in the interests of avoiding ‘talk’ that might get back to Eva about her journalists fraternising with a rival editor. She wasn’t interested in the gory details.

  ‘Have you read the pages I sent?’

  Mark sighed a ‘You’re no fun any more’ sigh. ‘I did. Well done. You’ve made a boring topic almost entertaining.’

  Jenny ignored the faint praise. There was too much at stake to annoy him. ‘So, what do you think?’

  Mark looked confused. ‘What do you mean? I’ve just told you what I think. It’s entertaining.’

  It was Jenny’s turn to sigh. Did he want her to beg? ‘About running the column. The Undercover Mother. In your magazine.’ Should she try sign language?

  ‘The Undercover Mother? In my…?’ Mark’s frown of incomprehension smoothed away and a smile spread across his face. ‘This is a joke, right? One of your jokes?’

  Jenny felt her face grow hot. ‘Not a joke, no. You told me to call you if I wanted to write the column for you instead of Eva. At the advertising event. You gave me your card.’ She wished she hadn’t recycled it – she could have pulled it out of her bag as proof. He had said that, hadn’t he?

  ‘I don’t want to be rude here, Jen, but that is not what I said. A motherhood column? No. Not for Suave. Not at all. If Eva doesn’t want it, I can’t imagine why you thought that I would.’

  Jenny didn’t need to ask how he knew that Eva didn’t want the column. Damn Lucy. She stiffened. ‘So, why did you agree to see me?’

  Mark sat back in his chair. ‘Isn’t it obvious? To discuss you writing a new column for me. Once you’ve got yourself back into shape, obviously. A staff writer position, with your own column, just like “Girl About Town”. But bigger. Better. I was thinking along the lines of the “View from the Boys” column I wrote for Flair, but the other way around. You can help our testosterone-fuelled readers to get into the mind of a woman. We could call it “What Women Want”.’ He leaned forward conspiratorially. ‘Don’t you want to show Eva and Lucy what you can do?’

  Jenny excused herself to go to the toilet. There, she splashed water onto her face to cool it down. Either the lunchtime wine or the embarrassment of having pitched a parenting column to her Lothario of an ex-boyfriend had given her an uncomfortable rosy glow. How had she been so stupid?

  When she got back to the table, Mark had refilled her glass and was trying a different route of attack.

  ‘You were made for this kind of life.’ Mark swept his hand out to encompass the restaurant. ‘What kind of social events will you go to as a parenting writer? Mothercare openings? Church fetes with “Bouncing Baby” competitions?’ He laughed. ‘Come on, Jen. Tell me you aren’t missing all this—?’

  She couldn’t tell him that, because she was. She was missing meals in nice restaurants, and getting dressed up and drinking cocktails with ridiculous names. She was missing it all. Despite the awkwardness of being here with Mark, she loved the food, the service, the being somewhere new where not many people could get a table this side of Christmas. Mentally, she had already written a rave review about it being an ‘ultimate date venue’. But she still wouldn’t swap it for an evening on the sofa with Dan and Henry.

  ‘It’s great, but that’s just not me any more. I want to do something new. Write about being a parent.’

  Mark shook his head. ‘You’re lying.’

  * * *

  After the chrome and white of the restaurant, Jenny’s kitchen felt shabby and unstylish and cramped – even though Claire had cleaned it for her whilst she babysat Henry.

  Jenny tried to see her sister’s work as an act of kindness rather than judgement.

  ‘How was your lunch? Have you signed a new contract?’

  Jenny wasn’t ready to admit what had happened. ‘Not yet. We still need to discuss what the nature of the column will be. Where’s Henry?’

  ‘Upstairs in his cot, having a nap. What do you mean, “the nature of the column”? I thought you were going to write this “Undercover Mother” thing?’

  Jenny was impressed that Claire remembered the name of the blog. She was also impressed that Henry was taking a nap in his own cot. How had Claire managed that?

  ‘Possibly. Or maybe a wider subject. Like general women’s stuff. Lifestyle. Social life. You know.’

  Claire narrowed her eyes. ‘You’re going back to what you did before.’

  Jenny wasn’t in the mood to discuss it. She hadn’t given Mark a definite ‘no’, because he’d made her feel so uncertain about everything. He’d been so dismissive of the blog… And she had really enjoyed being out in the real world again. Maybe she could do Mark’s column and still be home enough for Henry. She needed time to think.

  ‘I don’t know what I’m going to do yet.’
>
  Claire had never suffered from uncertainty in her life. She plucked her cashmere cardigan from the back of one of the kitchen chairs and slipped it on. ‘Well, I think you’re mad. Do you remember how often you were out when you were doing that job? Your husband is quite possibly the most patient man I know.’

  Here we go again. ‘You don’t understand.’

  Claire was pulling on her boots. ‘You’re right. I don’t. You’ve finally got a wonderful life with a husband and a baby and you want to jeopardise it by—’

  ‘My life has always been pretty wonderful, thank you very much.’ It was amazing how much this line still rankled with Jenny. ‘Just because you think a husband and baby is the pinnacle of success doesn’t mean that it actually is. Do you know there are women out there who don’t even want children? Can you imagine?’

  Claire finished zipping up her boots and stood up. ‘I know that you think my life is the height of boredom, Jennifer, but being a mum is the most fulfilling thing I have ever done. One day you are going to look back at all the things you have missed out on and wonder if the posh lunches were really worth it.’

  Jenny was too angry to trust her mouth. How dare her sister reduce her writing career to ‘posh lunches’?

  Claire hadn’t finished. ‘And on that subject, you might have mentioned that Henry has started rolling over. I left him on his mat whilst I went to the toilet and he was almost at the door by the time I got back.’

  Jenny froze. She had been trying for weeks now to get Henry to move. She should be pleased that he was doing it. So why did she feel tears pricking at the back of her eyes? Do not cry.

  But Jenny’s face gave her away and Claire realised what she had done. She softened her voice. ‘Oh, Jen. I’m so sorry. Was this his first time? I honestly wouldn’t have said anything if I’d known. It’s awful when you miss out on any of the firsts.’