‘Thanks, guys! You’ve been so good to me! I feel amazing! I know this sounds insane, but I feel like my whole life is going to change now. I have all the tools in my box to look and feel amazing. This really is going to be a big, big change for me.’
‘Yeah … a change,’ says Piper, looking out of the window at the shoppers mooching by, laden with bags or pushing buggies.
‘Erm, earth to Piper, what’s all that about, please?’ asks Lacey.
‘Nothing, nothing,’ Piper says, fondling the stem of her cocktail glass and looking over to the other tables, filled with couples and girl groups, all with luxury shopping bags at their feet too.
‘Don’t “nothing” me. I can see it’s not nothing.’
‘Well, I wasn’t going to say anything today because we’re shopping, and I was going to wait until we were with Mum and Dad, but—’
‘Oh my God, you’re pregnant!’ Lacey and I both interrupt at once, and then give a satisfied glance to each other for doing that best friend thing where you’re totally in tune with one another.
‘No! Jesus! No! But I do have a big change coming up, and like I said, I was going to wait to tell you with Mum and Dad there, I just—’
‘Spit it out. If you’re not pregnant, then what is it?’ There’s a sharp tone to the word pregnant from Lacey that I don’t think Piper has picked up on.
‘I’m moving.’
‘Well, that’s not that big a deal!’ Lacey says, clearly – if only to me – with a hint of relief that there isn’t a pregnancy for her to be painfully jealous of.
‘To New York,’ Piper says, taking her fingers off her glass and looking up at us.
Lacey’s stunned into silence.
Everyone’s eyes dart back and forth to each other, wondering who should speak first.
I bite the bullet and say, ‘Piper, that’s amazing. New York is amazing.’
‘Yes, thank you, yeah. I had a meet and greet in London in January, then a phone interview last month and I’ve been offered a work placement as an Assistant Contributing Curator for a gallery in the East Village. I figured it would be silly not to take it and see where it leads.’ Piper looks at Lacey, waiting for her to say something. ‘It’s not forever, it’s just a-try-it-and-see thing …’ She trails off, noticing Lacey’s shocked face and is clearly desperate for her to respond.
‘Robin’s right, Piper, this IS amazing! I’m so proud of you. My little sister! New York City! Fuck, yeah!’ Lacey gushes, her face snapping into action and lighting up with pride.
Piper and I both let out big laughs, relieved that Lacey is OK and shocked at her use of bad language.
Lacey raises her glass again and says, ‘Well, here’s to my little sister! Flying the nest all the way to the Big Apple!’
We spend the next two hours ordering more cocktails and discussing all the things she’ll do, the celebrities she’ll no doubt become best friends with and the visits we’ll make to her out there. We’re all on a bit of a high now, except somewhere very deeply at the back of my mind, a pang of jealousy is twinging. I hate it, but I can’t help it.
I’m happy for Piper, of course. I want her to have the best time ever, honestly, but I want to have the best time too. I’m never going to be sitting in a bar with my sister and best friend telling them I’m moving to the other side of the world to live out an exciting adventure. For a long time now when The Emptiness has hit, even the smallest of outings can feel like an ordeal. I need to take a day off just to gee myself up for a night out, let alone a move halfway across the world. Plus, even if I was brave and trendy like Piper, I still couldn’t go because of Lyla. I’m a mum and I can’t put myself first, ever.
Still, I reason, I might just be Robin the Single Mum, but now I’m Robin the Single Mum with dating apps on my phone, amazing jeans and red shoes that make me look and feel incredible.
So, no more dwelling on all the things that are simply out of my reach.
TWELVE
THINGS ARE HOTTING UP on the dating apps. Every time I have a free moment I check my phone and sure enough, there’s a message. Sitting in the school car park in the mid-afternoon spring sunshine: have a little flirt. Waiting for Natalie to finalise on a job (she takes such care to make sure the client is completely happy with everything and seeks out any feedback so that she can always improve and grow the agency. It’s impressive. Without her example, I’m sure I’d just pack up and go) so we can go home: flirty-flirt. Sipping a cup of tea in my nine-year-old dressing gown with a little barely-visible-but-I-know-it’s-there period stain, oh yes I’m so sexy: let’s flirt.
Craig is a personal trainer who loves the outdoors, good wine and travel. We’ve been chatting back and forth and the chemistry is fizzing. I’ve not lied but maybe glamorised the truth a little and said I’m a self-employed make-up artist and that I mostly work in London. Almost true; I do sometimes help Natalie in London and I do sometimes go to jobs alone, although they’re always local ones like bridal make-up or home bookings for people who have a special occasion to go to. I haven’t mentioned my penchant for very old pyjamas, my hatred of gyms or the fact that I’ve never been anywhere on holiday other than England and the South of France with Mum and Dad when I was little. Oh, and I haven’t mentioned Lyla. It’ll be fine.
Piper told me never to make the first move and to let him chase me, which sounds very archaic in this day and age, but she seems to do well for herself so I’ll go with it. Eventually, after some cheery messaging, he asks me if I fancy a drink.
A date! An actual, real-life date! I am so excited about it that I screen-grab the entire asking-out conversation and message it to Piper, Lacey and, accidentally, the lady who bought some of my baby bits on eBay. After a few apologetic messages to her, I fully immerse myself in the excitement of discussing every potential date detail with the girls, and spend a merry evening planning my life with Craig. I’d like to say I didn’t get carried away, but I think creating the wedding Pinterest board (sage and cream theming, lace details and the handmade flower girl parasol for Lyla) after that third glass of rosé was probably a step too far.
For the whole of the next day I feel wild with excitement, The Emptiness like a distant memory. I drop Lyla to school and have so much pep in my step I am almost skipping. Even Finola looks impressed, and she’s been up since five to walk the dogs for three miles. I feel so good. Craig fancied me, he looked at me (well, my taken-from-good-angles pictures), and didn’t see a frumpy mum with a messy life. He saw an attractive woman he wants to take for a drink. I feel validated. Only twenty-four hours to go.
Then, as I’m cheerily chopping carrots for Lyla’s tea, he messages to say he actually doesn’t want to meet up.
He thinks I’m a ‘really great girl’ but that maybe he wasn’t looking for a relationship and stringing me along would be cruel.
Oh.
Another wonderful foray into the world of men. Validating bubble burst, pep completely dissolved and, though I’m angry with myself for it, I feel rubbish again.
FIVE DAYS LATER AND no endless, vapid scrolling through men on apps for me today. Lyla and I have – for the first time – been invited to Soft Play with Finola, Gillian and the kids. Soft play. The place where mothers go to let their children behave like savages while they drink cheap coffee and try not to think about the lives they had before. You know, when they went to restaurants without children’s menus and didn’t have half-used packs of wet wipes in their handbags.
The children run off like a pack of wolves to expend their never-ending supply of energy, and I’m determined to make a good impression. Gillian starts us off with the mumsy pleasantries.
‘I was so glad you suggested coming, Finola. Clara’s been getting ever so restless at home on a Wednesday. She does swimming on Mondays and chess on Tuesdays, but by Wednesday she’s bored and ready to blow off a bit of steam.’
Wow. Should I be putting Lyla in more clubs? I thought taking her to Dovington’s was extracurricular, but ap
parently not. This is the first time Finola and Gillian have invited me along, and I’m already learning so much. Note one: put Lyla in a club or six.
True to form, Finola responds with all the tact of a smack in the face, but none of the malice. ‘Absolute load of nonsense, all those prep clubs. What children need is a good run in a field or some solid exercise.’
‘Like dogs?’ I joke, although slightly relieved Lyla isn’t missing out on chess and swimming, and goodness knows what happens on a Thursday.
‘Exactly like dogs. If I leave one of the bitches in the truck while I see to the horses, she goes absolutely berserk. You need to get them out, get their hearts pumping, air in the lungs, and they’ll rest well. Children are the same. Honor’s not too bad, but if Roo doesn’t have at least an hour or two of physical activity each day we’re in for a ruddy awful time, I can tell you.’
She’s so direct I almost feel like I’ve been sent to the headmaster’s office.
‘Well, he looks like he’s having a great time,’ I say as we look up to the ten-foot-high netted pavilion where all the children are running around, quite violently throwing balls at each other. Honor and Roo seem to be heading up the assault with Clara giving it all she has in return and Lyla hangs back a little bit, holding a ball nervously in her left hand and just watching. My heart goes out to her because I feel like I’m doing the same, but holding a coffee and listening. I decide the best thing is to leave her to it. Finola probably did, and look how hers turned out, I think, as I see Roo hang from a bar and simultaneously launch two balls at once at his older sister.
‘Little angels,’ offers Gillian without a hint of sarcasm, clearly not seeing what I’m seeing.
Disregarding further indulgent talk about the children, Finola steps in with no warm-up, ‘Robin, I’ve been meaning to ask you what all the fuss was about the other week, with the hair and make-up and shiny, shimmy bangles and such?’
Assuming she means that morning I looked like a total babe, I say, ‘Just for myself. Just making an effort.’
‘A man on the scene, then, is there?’ Finola probes.
‘Ooohh,’ Gillian chimes with an air of interest, while keeping an eye on Clara, who appears to be straddling Roo and hitting him over the head with a foam noodle. Little angels.
I don’t want to be rude; these are potential friends, so nicely-nicely does it. ‘Well, I’m not actively looking, but if one came along I wouldn’t mind,’ I say with the added extra of a nervous laugh to try to appear casual.
‘I don’t believe it. When one of our bitches is in season, you can tell; she has a way about her, and so do you.’
‘Finola, ha ha, are you comparing me to a dog?’ She’d better bloody not be. This blush I’ve been wearing is Charlotte Tilbury, not shades of dog period behaviour, thank you very much.
‘Ha! We’re all animals, dear, and you can tell a lot about a woman by the way she holds herself. I think you do a marvellous job with Lyla and all you have on. If you’re looking for a chap to add into the equation then I’m all for it. Bloody good for you, I’d say.’
I think that’s Finola being loving. I’ll take the dog comparison, then.
‘Oh. Well, thank you, Finola. Truth be told, I am looking, but it’s not going very well. I don’t think there’s anyone out there for me,’ I say, picking at the sugar packets on the table.
Gillian, lovely, soft, timid Gillian, reaches out and puts her hand on my hand, which is still holding the sugar that I now don’t know what to do with. I just sort of leave it there, hoping she’ll let go before the packet falls out of my hand or makes my palm all sticky.
‘Robin, you work hard for Lyla and you’re intelligent and smart. Any man would be lucky to have such a lovely woman as you,’ she says in her soft voice. I can’t imagine Gillian ever shouting. I can’t really imagine her doing much at all except lovingly caring for Clara and Paul and crying at Call the Midwife every Sunday with a box of tissues and a chocolate orange by her side.
Gillian says this in such earnest that I think I might actually cry. I never knew she felt this way about me – to be honest, I didn’t think anyone did. It seems so much for someone to say, especially someone from the PSM crew. I’d assumed they’d just invited me to make up the numbers.
Blinking back tears, I turn to the play zone, where Roo is now holding his own with a foam brick for protection and Lyla is trying to keep the peace with outstretched arms. Honor watches on, seemingly giving no shits at all.
‘You know what you need to do, my dear?’
No, but I’m sure Finola is about to tell me.
‘Get yourself back on the horse. No shilly-shallying around, just straight back out there, best foot forward. My brother Jeffery fell off a steed once when he was fifteen and broke both arms. Four months later he was back on, and we didn’t hear a peep about it. That’s what you need to do. Get all your lipsticks and eye wands applied, or whatever they’re calling it these days, and try again. You can do it, girl!’
God bless Finola the Blunt and Gillian the Gentle. Like chalk and cheese, but both exactly what I needed. I still feel weird and out of place, and like maybe I ought to be wearing something navy-striped, but I think I might have started to love them a little bit.
THIRTEEN
I’M FINALLY DOING it. I’m grabbing the bull by the horns, I’m flicking through every inspirational quote I can find on Pinterest and I’m bloody well doing it.
I swiped him five long days ago in the car while I was waiting for Lyla to finish ballet. Charles, 32, data analyst, four miles away. He’s local, a bit older than me and employed. The pictures were promising. One face on, one black and white and one of him skiing. Has every single man on every single dating app in all the universe been skiing? Or do they get some kind of single man’s handbook which advises, just so you know chaps, the ladies go gaga for a ski pic. I flick through to the last photo of Charles in a fancy dress ensemble on a night out, probably included to show me what a cool and spunky kind of guy he is. Oh Christ, it’s tragic when you think about it – but who am I to criticise! But his bio was fine: ‘Laid-back, likes nights in or out, looking for a lady to spend time with and enjoys getting to know new people’. See, that’s fine! He sounds totally normal and totally great. Lyla is tucked up safe and sound for the weekend with Simon and Storie; they’re off to a soul festival, naturally.
I’m so used to life being the Robin and Lyla Show, and branching out feels terrifying, especially with spunky Charles. It feels like when you’re twelve years old and you’re going on your first school trip to the Lake District: it’s all fun and games on the coach when you and Sarah McGarthy have eaten your body weight in M&Ms and read through the scandals on Mizz’s problem page. But then you get there, to the dark and dank boarding house you’re staying in, the carpet is thin, the bed smells weird and you just want to go home.
Natalie says ‘fortune favours the brave’, and affirmations like this certainly seem to be working out for her. So here goes. Two weeks, fifteen matches, more swipes than I dare to count and the suggestion by me (oops, I’ve broken Piper’s rule) to meet for a drink, and I’m going on this date. My first real date. It’s time to leave, and I think I’ve done everything right. I spent a disgusting amount of time preparing, but I’m already slightly irritated by the idea that Spunky probably hasn’t even bothered to brush his hair. OK Robin, stop. Try not to mentally attack and take down Charles before you get there.
I smell great; that’s important. I hope I don’t smell too much, though – a perfume should whisper, not roar. I bathed in some Jo Malone minis that I nabbed from a shoot last week (it’s not stealing – they’d been sent by a PR company and would have been thrown away if nobody had taken them at the end). I’d planned to save them for a special occasion, and this seemed good enough. I’ve shaved (not everywhere, just a respectable shave). I’ve exfoliated and tanned. Well, I’ve tanned the bits you can see: arms, legs, neck and face. Naked, I look like abstract art. But what if the
thirty-two-year-old data analyst does see? No, of course he won’t see, because I’d never do that on a first date.
Would I? God, I’m not even sure I’d remember what to do.
I decide to tan everything, but I feel very unnerved smearing Marmite-esque gloop on my bum cheeks. I’m wearing a navy cotton dress from ASOS which is cute, but modest, but fun, but … oh, I don’t bloody know! It’s fine, and I’m wearing it with my gold pumps. I feel OK. I mean, I feel like I might shit myself if I make any dramatic or sudden movements, but I think that’s normal. We’ve agreed to meet at a trendy pub with tables by the River Cam at 8. The one where you can see the filaments in the light bulbs and most people drink Aperol Spritz. I’ve told everyone that cares (so Kath, Lacey and Piper) where we’re going and set Find My Friends up on my phone in case of abduction. I considered bringing both the rape alarm and the pepper spray, but my clutch would only fit one so I’ve gone for the alarm. Auntie Kath told me never to leave the house without the alarm, reassuring me that she even takes hers to crochet class. I’m prepared.
I’m also early. Shit. Don’t really want to go in and sit like a sad single watching the door, so I’m just going to have some Instagram time in the car. I hope he looks like his pictures. Instagram is so nice; why isn’t my life like Instagram? Why don’t I have the sun streaming in through muslin curtains onto a rose gold vase full of peonies that’s perfectly placed on an antique coffee table? I should do that. I should lay out – shit, there he is!
A man vaguely looking like Charles’s pictures walks past the car and towards the door of the pub. (And the use of the adjective ‘vague’ is being very kind.) He’s definitely a crappier version of his pictures. Spunky Charles has decided to wear baggy jeans with one of those belts that looks a bit like a slimmer version of an airplane seat belt. He’s matched this with battered brown loafers that he probably bought after he graduated from university and a short-sleeved grey shirt. Is there anything more repugnant on the face of this earth than a short-sleeved shirt? His face is pointy. Pointier than in his pictures, anyway, and his skin is sallow and makes me think he probably hasn’t eaten a vegetable this millennium. Perhaps Charles never goes out. Or perhaps he’s cobbled this outfit together and has really tried, and this is the most exciting night ever for him. I need to give Spunky a break. Best just to get out of the car, Robin, and see if his personality is a winner.
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