Wilde About the Girl

by Louise Pentland

  Look at me, putting out fires and solving problems without crying or having to eat half a kilogram of brie on sourdough. I’m basically nailing life again.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  AS AUGUST ROLLS ON and I’m relieved that I can smile again, the temporary high of the Spa Night success has worn off. I know I’m still not tackling some of the big questions facing me, but I’m doing my best. There’s a lot to be said for just putting one foot in front of the other. ‘Just focus on enjoying summer,’ people keep saying. So I will. No need to think about baby loss or my strained friendship with Lacey or what Edward wants, if I’m busy ‘enjoying summer’. I’m not sure I’m very good at it, though. Spending my time appreciating the inner-thigh sweat and sickly ‘fun’ flavours of fruit cider is not my idea of a good time. I will say, though, packing The Emptiness tightly into a box feels much better than wallowing in it, feeling as though I might drown in nothingness. I’ve decided I won’t be unhealthy and suppress my feelings – I’ve read enough blog posts and life-affirming quotes in beautiful typography to know that at some point I need to ‘find my peace’ and move on – but, right now, this is working. I will deal with the box of Empty (it’s mad how a box called ‘Empty’ can feel so horribly full), but for the time being I’m really focusing on ‘enjoying summer’ and, most importantly, Lyla.

  Lyla turns eight in two weeks and this year, I’m throwing her the birthday of all birthdays. We always celebrate with something. We’ve done all the usuals: the tedious two-hour session at soft play, the bouncy castle in a community centre, the horrific DIY-twenty-kids-to-your-house-for-cheese-sandwiches-and-party-rings, but this year, this year will be different.

  First of all, I have a little bit of extra cash to play with for the first time in forever. I wouldn’t say money buys you happiness, but it certainly buys you options and those options make me happy. I also have an overpowering desire to spend every waking minute pouring love into Lyla. Loving her feels healing. It’s as if my maternal heart is aching and the cure for that hurt is to love my baby, the baby in my arms as well as – as Gillian so perfectly put it – the baby in my heart. By loving Lyla this hard, I feel like I am loving both of them, easing my niggling guilt for not being instantly thrilled about the pregnancy. This way I can try to fill my mind and heart with happiness instead of sorrow.

  Lyla and I have talked a lot about the Big Birthday. When you’re in single figures every birthday is a big one (plus it’s a handy distraction so I don’t have to think about my own Big Birthday, coming at the end of the year). We’ve decided we are going to do two separate celebrations, one just for us and another for everyone.

  The two of us will have a lovely day doing all our favourite things, then for everyone we are hiring out the local parish hall and everything must be ‘mermaidy’, Lyla has insisted. Having grown up in the 1990s when Ariel was my idol (although I never did achieve the fringe volume that she did, dammit), I’m all over this.

  We’ve spent many happy nights on the laptop and iPad, trawling through Pinterest for mermaid party ideas and saving them all on to a Master Mermaid List, ready for me and Kath to put into action.

  I’ve hired a specialist balloon company (not just a shop that sells helium and foil balloons, but a specialist-moderately-famous-on-Insta balloon company), who are completely covering the parish hall walls with balloons of every under-the-sea colour you can imagine. There’ll be pale blues, aquas, turquoise and pearly whites, as well as crystal-clear smaller balloons hanging from the ceiling to mimic bubbles. Throughout, tiny blue and gold fairy lights will intertwine to give a sparkling sea vibe, and on every table (decorated with fishing nets and sparkly green cloth) there’ll be bowls of sweets, pretzel rods dipped in white chocolate covered with blue sprinkles, miniature sandwiches cut into starfish shapes and lilac plastic goblets filled with ‘mermaid mocktails’ ready for the children.

  Lyla has decided to wear her holographic silver leotard tucked into a turquoise tutu (the spirit of dance is always within her, it seems) and I’ve decided to go wild, abandon my jeans/T-shirt combo and have treated myself to a silky vintage tea dress in deep periwinkle, with a fun shell print dotted all over it. It came in the post the other day and when I tried it on Lyla said, ‘Oh, Mummy, you look like a seaside princess! I wish you’d wear silky dresses every day.’ I let her be in awe for a while and then reminded her that even princesses like jeans and T-shirts, and thankfully my tiny feminist didn’t protest. ‘Yep, you don’t have to be a princess and wear big dresses or tutus, but you can do THIS in them,’ she said, jumping onto my bed and flicking her tutu around like a mad thing.

  When do we adults stop doing that? At what age do you suddenly stop finding joy in jumping on a bed, flapping your limbs around and flipping your skirt up and down while you twirl and shout? Maybe I should try it, I thought, and before I knew it, we were both flailing about on my bed, flicking our dresses and singing songs that made no sense and had no tune. Turns out, you don’t actually lose the joy in that, you just sometimes need a little person to remind you of it.

  ‘Mummy, I love it when you stop being a grown-up,’ Lyla said once we’d flumped down onto my now very crumpled bed. ‘It’s like there are birds in you and you don’t have to be normal.’

  I don’t know if I like the idea of birds in me, but I like the fact that Lyla loves it.

  ‘Oh really? Well, this bird is hungry and is going to peck this little tiny bug for her dinner,’ I exclaimed, grabbing hold of my giggling ballerina girl, squishing her up and pecking her with kissy lips all over her face while she wriggled and squealed and laughed with sheer delight.

  In that moment, the box of Emptiness was shut. I felt so full I could barely even remember what empty was.

  TWENTY-NINE

  THE ALL-IMPORTANT SATURDAY ARRIVES, with bright sunshine streaming through my thin curtains and the most excited not-quite-eight-year-old jumping on my bed singing, ‘Party tiii-ime, party tiii-ime, party tiii-ime!’ with no regard for the fact that I’d stayed up till 1 a.m. with Kath cutting bits of bread into fecking starfish shapes or printing, cutting and gluing tags saying ‘Thanks for swimming by’ to giant bubble wands as favours for the boys and girls who attended.

  At one point, even Kath, craft-lover extraordinaire, ran out of patience spray-painting thirty plastic forks silver with blue sparkles (Dinglehopper decorations, of course). ‘In my day, we just tipped some choccy biscuits onto a paper plate, threw you all in the back garden and called it a good time!’ she’d said with exasperation.

  If Lyla had her way, we’d have started the party at 8 a.m., but unfortunately for her, the invites said 1 p.m.–3 p.m. and there was still a lot to be done. Kath had agreed to come back over in the morning, so her ‘cooee’ was a welcome sound at ten, by which point Lyla was practically bouncing off the walls in excitement and I’d already burnt two bags of microwave popcorn and was wholeheartedly regretting the ‘blue caramel-covered popcorn treasure bucket’ idea.

  ‘Auntie Kath! It’s my birthday!’ screams Lyla as she jumps down off the kitchen bar stool from where she has been overseeing all my efforts.

  She reaches Kath in about half a second flat and I hear the familiar sound of Kath greeting her and singing ‘Happy Birthday’. What isn’t familiar, though, is the sound of Colin saying, ‘Mainly happy returns of the day, Lyla,’ with a chuckle at his own joke, and stepping over the threshold.

  ‘Cooee,’ Kath chimes as she walks into the kitchen holding a box of tiny silver vases with sprigs of fresh lavender in them. I hadn’t asked for these but the colours work and I don’t want to be rude, so I take the box off her with an ‘Oh, lovely, thanks Kath,’ and a slightly stiff ‘and hello, Colin, wasn’t expecting to see you today.’

  ‘Many hands make light work!’ he says, using one hand to give Kath a gentle tap on the bottom, sending her into a fit of blushing giggles.

  ‘You’re not supposed to touch people’s bottoms, Colin,’ Lyla announces in disgust, completely silencing us
all, especially Kath and her giggles.

  ‘I don’t think Auntie Kath minds,’ Colin says with a smirk.

  Jeez, has no one ever told this guy there’s a time and a place for these things? And that an eighth birthday party is definitely not the moment?

  ‘Well you don’t know that because you didn’t ask her. You can’t touch people’s private parts without asking for their content. It’s not allowed, and bottoms are your private space,’ Lyla replies indignantly.

  ‘Consent, darling,’ I correct, but am impressed by Lyla standing her ground. ‘And you are exactly right. I’m sure Colin is sorry and is going to be more mindful of where his hands go for the rest of the day, aren’t you?’ I say, shooting him a hard glare.

  ‘Er, yes, I suppose I am. Very sorry, Katherine. Very sorry all,’ Colin mutters.

  I couldn’t help but feel incredibly proud of my switched-on daughter. One–nil to the mermaid in the tutu, I think. Atta girl, Lyla!

  After a strained hour of dealing with Colin trying to be ‘helpful’, Kath dithering around, far more flustered than I’ve ever seen her before, and Lyla safely sedated by technology (God bless the iPad), we are ready.

  Despite his awkwardness, I am glad of Colin’s help loading my little Nissan with all the party gubbins, and the fact that he has a large Ford estate to heave the rest into, not forgetting Kath’s lavender posies (‘made fresh today, straight from the warehouse’, as Colin has reminded me several times, as though that was some kind of peace offering for bottom-gate). I have to admit, despite having such a hard time from Lyla, he is trying.

  With Kath and Colin in the estate and Lyla and I gussied up and in my car, we head to the hall to set up.

  ‘I don’t want Colin at my mermaid party. He’s not even a merman,’ Lyla sulks.

  ‘I know he’s not, but he’s Kath’s friend so we’re going to be nice to him.’

  ‘I’m not. I’m going to use my mermaid powers to get him.’

  Not wanting to enquire what ‘get him’ means or start an argument before the main event, I turn up the radio and hope she’ll forget about him. With the balloons, the magician, the face-painter and all the other junk I’ve hired (the smoke and bubble machines seemed like good ideas too), she won’t even notice he’s there.

  I can’t help but think about the people who won’t be there, though. Lacey and I haven’t really been in touch since the big fight. She’s sent Lyla a sparkly mermaid card with £20 in and a boxed helium mermaid balloon through the post yesterday (I’ve clearly talked about mermaids too much on Twitter), but there was no mention of coming today. Rather sweetly, Edward FT’d me last night while I was in the midst of mermaid-craft hell and we chatted for a while about our childhood birthdays and all the things our own mothers did for us (mine were rather low-key, but his seemed to be full of sessions at Laser Quest or days at theme parks). It was warming to chat so easily and happily to him with no awkward questions about ‘us’ or anything further ahead than this party. I was glad to wake up to a ‘good luck today, super-mum’ message this morning. Sort of, a little bit, maybe, I wish he was here.

  THREE HOURS LATER, THE parish hall looks like the most Pinterestable party you’ve seen in your life. All the children have taken the ‘under the sea’ dress code on board, especially Roo and Honor, who have body glitter on their arms, streaks of silver spray in their hair and little dots of iridescent pearly eyeliner on their cheeks like magical mermaid freckles (maybe Finola really is getting into the make-up thing). The hall is packed with tiny mermaids and mermen, a couple of Flounders, two crabs, four sharks, a jellyfish (that mum had gone to town on the crêpe paper) and one little boy ‘tangled up’ in old plastic bottles and string – ‘the effects of single-use plastics on the sea,’ he tells me morosely. Naturally, at that moment Simon and Storie happen to be standing nearby (having arrived at 1 p.m. on the dot, offering to help when it’s clearly all been done) and Storie almost weeps with how much she loves the costume. She’ll no doubt hunt down the boy’s mother and ask her out for green tea.

  By 2.30 p.m., games have been played, snacks consumed, the face-painter has done the exact same job on everyone whether they liked it or not, the magician has attempted to impress but Corinthia (of course) pointed out that the magic coin was in his other hand so loudly that one of the crabs cried in disappointment and we are now wrapping up the final half-hour with the DJ playing a selection of chart hits that every eight-year-old in the room seems to know all the words to. How do children do that? Where are they learning such intricate songs? Yet they cannot do anything of real use like the laundry or put their school shoes on when asked?

  One by one, mums and dads start turning up to collect their sea-themed offspring after having a blissful few hours by themselves swanning around retail parks or drinking coffee silently in Costa without being nagged for a babyccino. Every time one of them gasps at how amazing the hall looks, I swell a little bit. Mentally, not physically, I mean (although with the amount of blue caramel popcorn I’ve nibbled, I wouldn’t rule it out).

  Even Finola, who’s been known to call party decorations ‘fluff and piffle’, says, ‘Well, this certainly is quite the show pony, isn’t it! First class, darling. Did you erect this beast all by yourself?’

  Finola is very casual with the word ‘erect’, much like Colin.

  ‘Aha! No, I had help from Kath and Colin,’ I say just as Honor, Roo and Lyla skip over.

  ‘Yeah. Colin is Kath’s boyfriend! He touches her bottom and puts his tongue in her mouth and it makes me sick!’ Lyla shouts over the music. Christ on a cracker, why did she say that! Finola’s eyebrows rise so high she almost loses them in her scraped-back, sensible headband.

  ‘Bluebird, what do you mean, he puts his tongue in her mouth?’ I ask, shocked.

  ‘In the courtyard outside, just before. We all saw, he was kissing her but his tongue actually went inside her mouth and Kath said, “Colin, you naughty boy”, and Colin said, “Only as naughty as you want me to be, Mrs Lavender”,’ Lyla says, the music having come to an end now.

  ‘Well, it certainly sounds like they’ve enjoyed the frivolities of the afternoon!’ Finola exclaims.

  At this exact moment, in walks Val with Gillian by her side, chatting politely. I know how Gillian really feels about Val, but I also know that her deep desire to be nice to everyone will always override it. Val looks different. Still Val, but Val with wider eyes, fuller lips and even straighter hair than she usually has. Enhanced Val. If you put Val and an old Barbie into a mixing machine, Enhanced Val is what you’d get. I can’t stop looking at her but Gillian snaps me out of it.

  ‘Wow, it looks beautiful in here!’ Gillian says, taking it all in.

  ‘Mmm, very nice,’ Val manages, the skin around her mouth barely moving. She waves to Corinthia to come over.

  Lyla, not sensing how much I want her to not speak about it, says, ‘Why does Colin want to be naughty, Mummy? Why doesn’t he want to be good?’

  ‘We’ll talk about it later, sweetpea,’ I say hurriedly. ‘Why don’t you go and find Clara and tell her her mum’s here?’

  ‘I still think Colin’s gross,’ she says, giving me a parting look indicating she knows she’s been shut down but obliging with her Clara search anyway.

  ONCE EVERYONE HAS GONE home, the balloons have all been popped (the ones I can’t fit in my car to bring home to ‘love forever’, as Lyla suggested) and we’ve said our thank yous to everyone, we head back to the house.

  I looked for Kath and Colin (tentatively, even in the courtyard) but they were nowhere to be found. A text pings onto my phone as I reach home. So sorry, lovey, had to nip off, bit of an emergency, speak soon! Lovely afternoon! K xxxx. This is the least Kath-esque text she’s ever sent, and it makes me instantly think she’s gone home for some afternoon delight. Good for her, I suppose. At least someone is having some ‘adult’ fun.

  THIRTY

  IN THE MANIC LAST week of August, and with my own little mermaid safely (and I
think fairly happily) ensconced in holiday club, I can throw myself into work. With the Mara Isso job looming, the office is on high alert and on top of that we have our usual jobs and bookings to contend with, so it’s been long, busy days and I’ve been out on lots of jobs.

  I have to say, I’ve loved it. I love working with people and seeing the joy on their faces when they look in the mirror and see the difference my brushes and powders have made. I know inner beauty is what counts, but having that boost, that lipstick an extra shade brighter, those lashes a tiny bit longer, can make all the difference to a person. I’ve even noticed that since the PaGS Spa Night Finola has been wearing a pearly-pink lipstick and some eyeliner from time to time. She doesn’t seem to have progressed to mascara or filled brows, but she’s having fun with it. I’m proud of her. There’s even been a selfie uploaded to Facebook, which I think must be a first for her. Make-up certainly doesn’t make a person, but sometimes it does make them feel good.

  Skye is thriving on the buzz and hectic pace. In the office she’s smiled at me on at least three occasions and I haven’t endured a single telling-off for eating a panini from a chain coffee shop or the time I forgot my keep-cup. We’ve partnered together on a couple of jobs and rather than my usual under-the-skin annoyance that I used to feel, it’s actually worked well. It almost feels like the olden days, the Robin and Natalie days where we found a rhythmic groove and were an amazing team. As much as I wish the insert-fatty-pic-here saga had never happened, good has definitely come from it.