Wilde About the Girl

by Louise Pentland

  ‘Lacey, I really want to support you and help you, but I don’t know if I can manage this,’ I say, sitting down at the table with her and our big mugs of hot tea.

  ‘I thought you said you were free?’ Wow, this isn’t going to be easy.

  ‘I am free. But, Lacey, come on, you must know how hard this would be for me. I should be having scans, too, I should be looking at little features and movements. But I’m not. My baby doesn’t exist anymore,’ I say, leaving the last line hanging heavily in the air, not really knowing why I said it or how much weight it held in me.

  Lacey’s face softens.

  ‘I know it’s hard, Robs, I’ve been there. All those months desperately waiting for this little baby,’ she says, tapping her stomach. ‘But it was early on, wasn’t it? And you can get pregnant again, you’ve proven that it wasn’t hard for you to conceive. Edward will move back over here and Lyla will finally have the family unit she needs. It’ll be fine, I promise.’

  I’m stunned. Everything she’s just said has completely knocked the wind out of my totally unpregnant sails. Facing infertility and having a miscarriage are both awful, but they’re not the same. I’m not looking to engage in some kind of competitive grief. They’re different, even if equally painful, experiences and yet she’s thinking I could just get knocked up again instantly (maybe I shouldn’t have let it go the first time she suggested this). Never mind whether I’d want to, if I’m ready or the fact that the man she’s talking about lives on the other side of the planet. But it’s the suggestion that Lyla isn’t getting what she needs that really stings right now. Was it a slip of the tongue, or does she really think I’m not enough for my little girl? I’m so astounded that I just sit there, gormless, like those people who open the door to surprise TV shows where the presenter is holding an oversized cardboard cheque. Except, there’s no cheque or camera crew, just my ignorant, pregnant, cow of a ‘friend’ who I’m fighting the urge not to throw milky tea all over.

  ‘Are you for real?’ I manage at last.

  ‘Huh?’ she says, surprised that I’m not thanking her for her infinite wisdom.

  ‘Are you for fucking real?’ I say again, a bit louder and clearer.

  ‘Look, I’m sorry if you’re upset by me having a scan – you don’t have to come. I just thought you’d like to be asked and I thought you wanted things to go back to normal,’ she says indignantly.

  ‘Back to normal? What’s normal?’ I say, still reeling from the Lyla comment.

  ‘You know what’s normal! Before things happened, before last month …’ she says, tailing off at the end.

  This isn’t my Lacey talking. This isn’t the woman who stayed by my side – apart from loo breaks – for four solid days when Simon left; the woman who could make me smile even in the most frightening days of The Emptiness; the woman I’ve always trusted with the most breakable parts of me. What has happened to my best friend?

  ‘You can’t even say it, Lacey! I’ll say it for you. Before I had a miscarriage. Before I lost something I didn’t even know I loved until I watched my body reject and destroy it.’ With that, great heaving sobs rise up through my body and I slam both fists down on the table.

  ‘That’s not what I meant. All I meant was—’

  ‘And, while we’re at it, what does Lyla “needing a family unit” mean? Have you not met Kath or Simon or me? I’m enough, Lacey! It’s 2018. Not everyone has to be in an identikit nuclear family with a matching husband and matching house with a cleaner and a job they can swan in and out of whenever they fancy it. I make this work. My family unit doesn’t look like yours but it’s still a fucking good family fucking unit!!’ I’m on the edge of hysteria but it feels like a release. All those worthless, angry or sad feelings I’ve been harbouring for all these weeks are bubbling up and spewing out of my mouth and I finally feel a little bit alive again. It’s not just that I can’t stop them, I don’t even want to.

  ‘I’m not going to stay and listen to this. I don’t need the upset,’ Lacey says, getting up to leave.

  ‘Thank God. If I have to hear one more thing about you being pregnant, I’ll scream. No wonder Perfect Karl is working so many extra hours, he’s probably sick to death of you.’

  Instantly, I know I’ve crossed a line. I can see the sting in her eyes as she picks up her phone, keys and bag and walks out of the house. I know I should say something, but I can’t. Right now I’m relieved. Relieved not to have the opportunity to be hurt – or to hurt her – more.

  For a few seconds I sit at the table staring at her empty chair and then, as if everything is all right, I stand up, wipe my eyes and nose with kitchen roll, go upstairs and run a bath, chucking in one of Kath’s lavender-infused bombs and plonking myself in, just in time for a huge, fresh wave of tears to fall. Fuck.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  JULY

  THE EARLY-SUMMER WEEKS PASS and the day of Lacey’s scan has come and gone. I don’t reach out to Lacey, nor her to me. I think about her on the day of the scan, all day, wishing things could be some sort of normal, that I could be on the end of an excited text with the scan picture attached, telling her it looks so cute and I’m so thrilled, but I’m just not. I’m still angry, but now as well as that hot rage, I just feel sad.

  I think I can get over almost all of the comments she churned out and put them down to the fact that her baby brain is firmly engaged (I mean, I remember feeling and saying some daft things when I was pregnant with Lyla, though I don’t remember any foot-in-mouth calamities of this level). But the remark about Lyla needing a family unit got to me. It plays on repeat in my mind as I make Lyla’s packed lunch, or wait for her to come out of school. I thought I’d nailed motherhood at last and that I was enough, that I was doing enough, but now doubt has crept into the cracks I didn’t know were there and I think about it all the time.

  Kath unexpectedly pops round on a sunny afternoon in half-term with another batch of lavender creations to show me on the doorstep like a travelling salesman. ‘I don’t think all your posh mummy friends will want these, will they?’ she asks, showing a rare insecurity.

  ‘Of course they will! Look how much Moira and the crochet ladies have enjoyed them. Everyone at school will love them, too, and besides, they’re not that posh,’ I say.

  ‘What about that horsey one with the same jacket as Princess Anne?’

  ‘Yes, OK, Finola’s a bit posh but everyone else is fairly normal! Now, don’t stand out here, come in, come in!’ I say, stepping back and moving towards the lounge.

  ‘I can’t stop, Colin from the warehouse is in the car, we’re going out for a stroll and then dinner,’ she chimes, not making eye contact with me. Instead she fiddles about with the little cellophane bags of lavender bath salts she’s tied with purple ribbon and arranged in the shallow box she’s carrying in the crook of her arm.

  ‘Oh, hot date is it?’ I laugh, trying to put her at ease. Obviously she feels weird about going to dinner with a man – she hasn’t dated anyone since Uncle Derek died a few years back – though she probably just wants to talk to him about her lavender business.

  ‘Ha, yes! You could call it that! Colin’s a bit of a dish, I suppose,’ she says, blushing from forehead to bust.

  Good God. ‘Kath, are you seeing Colin?’ I say, shocked.

  ‘I can see him, yes, love, he’s in the car,’ she says, waving him to get out and come to the door.

  ‘No, no! I meant are you actually seeing him like … dating him,’ I rattle off quickly, now Colin is on the move.

  ‘Well, we go out for lunch and dinner, I watch him play bowls on Wednesdays and we’ve enjoyed some special time together, so yes, I suppose we are dating,’ she says, slightly flustered, but excited like a teenager as he walks over. Jesus Christ, what sort of ‘special time’ has my aunt enjoyed? Actually I don’t want to know.

  Bald, with crinkly blue eyes, Colin walks up with what I detect to be a swagger and puts his arm comfortably around Kath’s waist, causing her to blus
h even harder and necessitating even more furious rearranging of the bath salts. Colin is wearing tan Hush Puppies, a pair of very faded blue jeans with a pink paisley shirt tucked in and secured with a conker-brown belt that looks a wee bit tight. I think he thinks he is a ‘cool guy’.

  ‘You must be the wonderful niece I’ve heard all about!’ Colin says, beaming.

  ‘Aha! I must be! Now I know you’re off for dinner, but come on in, if you’ve got time, no need to stand on the step,’ I say, also slightly flustered, somehow catching it off of Kath.

  I walk through to the lounge and they both follow and sit on the double sofa, and Kath puts the box down on the footstool. Hearing people coming in, Lyla bounds down the stairs and stops in her tracks when she sees a strange man sitting in the front room.

  ‘Look, Lyla, Kath’s brought a friend round! This is Colin! He helps Kath make her lavender things,’ I say in a children’s-TV-presenter tone.

  Lyla goes into typical child mode, completely ignores Colin and climbs onto the sofa next to me, hiding her face in my back and shoulders.

  ‘She’s shy,’ I say with a smile and shrug and Kath nods.

  ‘Colin and I weren’t going to stay,’ Kath says.

  ‘No, I like to meet your friends. Colin, Auntie Kath tells me you work at the wholesaler’s, that you’ve been really encouraging her to make more of her products,’ I say brightly. I feel as though this is a glimpse into the future, where I will have to vet Lyla’s boyfriends like this.

  ‘Any excuse to spend more time with this gorgeous creature!’ he says, mock-tickling her sides and causing her to squirm and giggle.

  ‘Yes, I’m sure. So do you, er, source your lavender locally?’ Wow, I’m really scraping the barrel for conversation here.

  ‘All over, really. That bubble bath she gave you, I must say I’m rather proud of it too. I had the great pleasure of being Kath’s, shall we say, guinea pig, with a lot of her products. Any excuse to get a bit sudsy, eh?’ Colin the Cool Guy says, now heartily laughing. I want this thread of conversation to end immediately.

  ‘What’s sudsy?’ Lyla pipes up. ‘Like Pudsey?’

  ‘No, lovely, Colin just means a bit soapy,’ Kath interjects far too quickly for someone faking breeziness.

  ‘Why is that funny?’ Lyla persists.

  ‘Well, sweetheart, because I had a wonderful assistant to help with my suds,’ Colin replies, with a rather repellent waggle of his eyebrows.

  ‘I don’t need help with my bath. I’m seven. I can do it myself and wash my own hair, can’t I, Mummy?’ she says proudly, mercifully not cottoning on to the adult nature of Colin’s cringe-inducing remarks.

  ‘And you know, Robin, Kath tells me you’re a single lady about town—’

  ‘I’m not “about town”, but yes, I’m single,’ I interject.

  ‘You want to give the lavender body butter a try. It drives the men absolutely berserk. I should know!’ he says with a wink and a pat of Kath’s thigh.

  ‘OK! Great advice!’ What’s wrong with him? And why did I let this randy old goat into my living room?

  ‘Yes, my lovely lady here is quite the whizz with her new lavender line,’ Colin starts.

  ‘She’s not your lady,’ Lyla says bluntly, and Kath shifts uncomfortably in her spot on the sofa.

  ‘Well, no, she’s her own lady but she’s my lady friend. My girlfriend, I suppose,’ Colin says with all the tact of a bulldozer down a village high street.

  ‘No she isn’t! Kath isn’t a girlfriend! Kath loves me and Mummy and Derek!’ Lyla peaks, distress rising in her small voice.

  Sensing the meeting is not really going well for anyone, Kath stands up. Colin, the only person oblivious to his mistakes, stands up too.

  ‘I do, lovey!’ Kath says, putting her arms out to Lyla, who instinctively gets off the sofa and goes over for a cuddle. ‘I love you to the moon and back again, and Mummy too. But we have to go, because we have a table booked. Shall I pop round tomorrow after school and we can make Mummy’s favourite scones for her?’

  ‘Yes! And biscuits too!’ she negotiates.

  ‘Biscuits too, then!’ she says, cuddling her tightly back and looking at the floor with pursed lips.

  They make a speedy exit and, as I close the door, I turn round and lean on it to take a big breath, not noticing Lyla sitting directly opposite me on the stairs.

  ‘Kath’s boyfriend is a worm.’

  TWENTY-SIX

  IT’S TWENTY MINUTES UNTIL the Grand Opening of the Hesgrove Pre-Prep School PaGS Spa Night. After myriad phone calls, an overcrowded WhatsApp group, a few coffee shop planning meetings with the other parents and two or three nervous but excited, ‘Are you sure they’ll like my products?’ messages from Kath, the big night is upon us and I’m excited.

  I feel like such a mum tonight, but in a good way. The kind of mum I always wanted mine to be. The kind that is friends with all the other mothers, is part of the school community, has a calm, maternal way about her. I don’t know whether it’s the buzz of being involved in a new project, or the super soft white slouchy cardigan I bought from ASOS last week and have thrown on over my slouchy jeans and trainers, either way, I’m digging it.

  Gillian, Gloria, Matthew and Laurence, Stephanie from Year Five and Ros from Year One have spent the afternoon setting up the facilities with me. We’ve turned the utilitarian dining hall into an inviting, serene, well-laid-out ‘spa’. We have used medical-style room dividers draped with silk and taffeta from the art department to measure off treatment ‘zones’. Gloria has booked in ladies to offer hand, back and shoulder massages, we have a person coming in to provide Indian head massages, one of the school dinner ladies ‘does a bit of reiki on the side’ so we’ve solicited her services, and Matthew’s favourite chiropodist is attending for two out of the three hours, too. I’ve tried not to ask why this one is his favourite and how many he actually has to warrant a favourite, because he made it all sound so normal when he mentioned it at the coffee shop meeting a few weeks back.

  In the beauty zone we have Skye and one of her millennials offering mini makeovers and a lady called Nicky doing gel nails for £5 less than she would in her salon. We’ve also booked in a body artist to offer metallic temporary tattoos and hand art with body paints. Skye offered to help for no fee as a ‘thank you for taking responsibility for my huge mistake’, which I thought was noble of her. I had already forgiven her, but I won’t tell her that and will take all the help we can get for tonight. In fact, since the whole insert-fatty-pics-here debacle, Skye seems to have been something approaching humble. I wouldn’t say we are best buds ready to swap gossip and share a glass of wine (I wonder if she drinks, or is this against her principles, too?) but I think she has learnt to respect me a little, step down off her pedestal sometimes, and I appreciate it. It’s quite comforting to have her here tonight, we’ve become a bit more of a team since working closely on the Isso Project.

  Over on the far side of the hall, we have our shopping stalls and wine kiosks. We have the local delicatessen serving mini samples of wine from around the world as well as olives, cheeses, overpriced crackers, chutneys and the most beautifully ornate truffles I’ve ever seen in my life.

  There are also stalls from artisan jewellers, children’s book initiatives, knitted clothes, wood crafts (I can’t help but think how much Storie would enjoy this stand) and in pride of place (thanks to a little bit of meddling on my part this afternoon), Kath’s ‘Lavender Lovies’ stall. I had a professional banner designed and printed with sprigs of lavender and the name in a swirly font. I’ve covered her table with a sage-green silky fabric that I think will really make her purple creations pop.

  At 5 p.m. the vendors trickled in to set up, ready for our 6 p.m. grand opening. Mr Ravelle has agreed to open the event, something Gloria seemed insistent on. She’s a really nice woman but she’s fearsomely pushy when she’s on a mission. She even brought her own clipboard in. Who has a personal clipboard at home ready to use for events
like this? Gloria Straunston is who. We’ve all accepted her as our leader for tonight. She who holds the clipboard, leads.

  Gillian has become quite friendly with her these last few weeks. Apparently she’s been a single mum to her twins since she divorced her American husband three years ago, and ran her own very successful online business in PR until she recently sold it. Gillian seems impressed at how well behaved her children are and how tastefully decorated her country home ‘with room for six or seven cars on the drive and Jacobean panelling in the entryway’ is. I suppose the bossiness correlates to the well-behaved children (maybe she has clipboards for them, too?), I certainly want to stand up straight and behave better when I’m around her. I think Mr Ravelle is under her spell as well, since he’s been flitting about all afternoon helping us set up.

  By 7 p.m. the hall is heaving. Mr Ravelle opened the event with a ceremonial lifting of his disposable wine glass from the drinks stall and the guests poured in, full of merriment.

  My Gloria-assigned volunteer duty is to ‘ensure all vendors and service providers are content’, and also to ‘manage bin bag collections’. I think this means check on the people and pick up rubbish at the end. I can totally handle that and I’m just glad I’m not poor Ros, who is stuck on ‘assist with surplus parking requirements’ and is currently standing outside in the car park wearing a hi-vis jacket.

  I walk slowly round the hall and note that all the masseuse ‘cubicles’ are full and their waiting lists outside them (on little tables adorned with sprigs of lavender that I borrowed from Kath) are full, too. So far, so good.

  I meander over to the beauty zone. Skye is giving one of the nice mums I recognise from Year Four a makeover and answering questions about contouring, her millennial MUA assistant Maci is giving another woman a ‘full brow lift’ with her powder kit, and Nicky the nail lady has a queue forming. The only fly in the ointment is the fact that the body artist isn’t there. Instead, there’s a sad, empty table with ‘body art’ written on a slip of paper Sellotaped to it. Where is she? It’s my job to ensure all the vendors are OK, but I can’t ensure they’re OK if they aren’t here. I’ve invested so much time and energy into this event that I start to feel a bit panicked at the thought of anything tarnishing it. I look around for Gloria and her clipboard but she’s nowhere to be seen.