by Cate Woods
How can I put this tastefully . . . ?
Imagine, if you will, a pretty cul-de-sac. It’s a nice place to live; a ‘desirable neighbourhood’, in estate-agent speak. The accommodation is cosy and the front hedges neatly trimmed. But then one day an enormous wrecking ball smashes through it – KABOOOOOOM – transforming it into a hellish dual carriageway, big enough for those ‘caution: wide load’ lorries, flanked by a shamefully overgrown soft verge.
That’s how I’m imagining my vagina, post-partum.
And if that wasn’t enough of a passion-killer, my once-passable body now looks like a balloon that’s been blown up and deflated multiple times until it’s all sad and saggy. On the plus side, though, I am currently rocking quite the rack. I have boobs like the Titanic: gigantic, but leaky.
Is it terrible to admit that the idea of sex feels like a chore? It’s not like Luke’s been pressuring me (he’s actually been really sweet about it, telling me to take my time and wait until I’m ready) but all of my multiple baby books agree on the fact that I should be ‘intimate’ with my partner by now. I’m also starting to worry that Dot is taking up so much of my attention Luke might be feeling neglected. I really don’t want to become one of those couples who get so lost in parenthood that they start addressing each other as ‘Mummy’ and ‘Daddy’ and don’t have anything to talk about apart from how many times their baby pooed that week. Luke would hate that.
The bus is now ploughing through the traffic around Hyde Park Corner, which isn’t a million miles from Luke’s office, and at the thought of being just a couple of streets away from him my face relaxes into a smile. Luke. I’m so lucky to have him. Handsome, successful, charming – at times I wonder if I’m punching above my weight. I knew he wouldn’t be much of a nappy-changer, and he works such long hours I wouldn’t expect him to be, but when I see him with Dot, cuddling her to sleep or tickling her until she dissolves into giggles, my heart melts with happiness. I glance out of the window again: I’m so close to his office, perhaps I should message him to see if he can pop out to meet me? It would be lovely to grab a few minutes together, just the two of us. I pull out my phone and write: ‘Surprise! I’m near your office, can I buy my baby-daddy a coffee?’ My finger hovers over ‘send’, but after a moment’s consideration I hit the lock button instead. Wednesday is Luke’s busy day at work, I probably shouldn’t bother him.
The bus stops again, and moments later a twenty-something girl with enviable eyebrows and enormous headphones emerges onto the top deck. She takes a seat a couple of rows in front of me, the tinny bass still audible above the rumble of the bus. I feel a twitch of irritation: possibly because of the too-loud music, but more likely because she reminds me of Barb, that distant version of myself who’d also had time to get her brows in shape and didn’t give a shit what people thought of her. I miss that girl. Against my better judgement, I let my mind slide back to that horrible time five years ago when fun, fearless Barb suddenly vanished and was replaced by sensible, anxious Annie. If only I’d handled things better, and hadn’t lost myself quite so dramatically, perhaps my life might have turned out differently? But then I wouldn’t have met Luke, and we wouldn’t have had Dot – and how could I ever regret that?
A little while later we grind to a halt at the traffic lights outside Selfridges. The January sales are in full swing and shoppers buttressed with Primark bags plough down the crowded pavements. There’s a crowd gathered around the entrance to Bond Street station, and as I watch them milling around like goldfish, my eyes are drawn to a man waiting at the top of the steps leading down to the tube. Although I can only see him from the back, I would know those shoulders and that navy coat anywhere. It’s Luke! I let out a little ‘oh’ of surprise. What on earth’s he doing round here? Perhaps we can meet for that coffee after all!
I bang on the window, trying to get his attention, but he’s so far away with so many people between us that I doubt he’d hear me even if I was standing on the street yelling his name. As I stare at him, trying to mentally will him to turn in my direction, a crowd of tourists ambles past, blocking him from view; now that he’s out of sight, doubts start to edge in. Was that Luke? Perhaps I was mistaken: that navy coat isn’t exactly unusual, and as far as I know he doesn’t own a red beanie. He’s not a red beanie kind of guy; he works in the legal department at a German investment bank. And why would Luke be loitering on Oxford Street on a Wednesday morning? He’s usually stuck in some high-powered meeting around now. I must have been mistaken . . .
The bus inches forward and I fumble in my bag for my phone to call him, but then we creep to a standstill again and I get another glimpse of Luke – or his doppelgänger. Frustratingly I still can’t see his face, or very much else of him. The little I can see, though, feels familiar. We’ve been together for three years; you should know, shouldn’t you? My gut instinct is telling me I’m right. This man is about the same height as Luke and has a similar build and cool, slouchy way of standing. I’m sure it’s him. Well, ninety-nine per cent sure. Eighty-five at the very least.
The bus starts to move and I realise I’m going to lose sight of him, so I make my way to the empty seats at the back in the hope of one last look, but the rain has just started again and with it umbrellas have begun mushrooming up around him. And then – hooray! – the crowds part, giving me a clear line of sight, and I feel sure that I’ll be able to get a look at his face from this angle; except, as it turns out, I can’t, because right where his face should be there’s now another person – a woman – who is wrapping her arms around him, and his hands are hungrily pulling her towards him, and even from this far away I can see, without any room for doubt, that they are kissing.
2
There’s a strangulated sort of choking noise, which I think must have come from me, and a rushing in my ears. Even though I’m sitting down I reach for the back of the seat in front to steady myself. Jesus. A surge of adrenaline pushes me to my feet and I lunge for the stop button, pounding at it frantically, and then race to the stairs and take them two at a time, stumbling on the last step and dropping my bag, the contents scattering as widely as if it had been detonated. The bus is packed and people tut and and huff as I scramble at their feet, muttering my apologies, trying to retrieve my phone, wallet and the surprising quantity of tampons that must have been lurking in the depths. A young man hands back my tube of nipple cream with a kind smile; in normal circumstances I’d be dying of embarrassment, but right now my brain is preoccupied trying to process what the fuck has just happened.
I shout to the driver to ask if he’ll open the doors – we’re stuck in traffic mere metres from the next bus stop – but when his eyes meet mine in the rear-view mirror he shakes his head.
‘It’s an emergency!’ I shriek.
People look round, clearly thinking ‘nutter’.
The driver glances at me again. ‘I’m only permitted to stop at designated alighting points.’
An old woman sitting nearby asks: ‘Are you ill?’
‘No, I’m . . . I . . . just really need to get off.’
‘Well, you’ll have to wait like the rest of us,’ she says, mouth puckered in disapproval.
I shoot one last beseeching look at the driver, but he is determinedly avoiding further eye contact so I hover by the doors, twitchy with impatience, my head exploding with visions of my boyfriend snogging another woman. I press my fists into my eyes, trying to block it all out. Come on, Annie, don’t go assuming the worst. Luke wouldn’t do that – we’ve just had a baby together, for Christ’s sake! It must be a simple case of mistaken identity. I cling to this thought with the desperation of the drowning. There’s absolutely no way that was Luke. I’m being ridiculous, and when he asks me to marry him over dinner this weekend – which actually isn’t as far-fetched as it sounds, as he did ask me a question about ring sizes the other day – I’m going to think back to this moment and have a good laugh at how stupid I’ve been.
Unless . . . what if it
was Luke? I’m hit by another wave of nausea. Is this because I haven’t had sex with him since the baby? I catch sight of my reflection in the mirror over the doors and am far from reassured by what I see: the stringy, mouse-blonde hair with two inches of dark roots already escaping from its lopsided ponytail, a make-up-free face dominated by that wretched conk of a nose and the maternity clothes that I’m still wearing because I can’t fit in my pre-pregnancy jeans. I certainly wouldn’t want to have sex with this version of myself. Christ, have I driven Luke to have an affair by letting myself go? Is this all my fault?
After what feels like hours the doors finally open and I burst onto Oxford Street and race back towards Bond Street tube station. Moments later I’m standing on the spot where I saw him, frantically scanning the crowd for a flash of red hat, but he’s nowhere to be seen. He’s not in the station either, and there’s no point me getting on a tube because if he has come this way, who knows in which direction he was headed. Dashing back up to street level, my heart hammering frantically in my chest, I pull out my phone and dial his number. Come on, Luke, please be at your desk, let this all be a misunderstanding . . . It goes straight to voicemail. Perhaps he’s in a meeting? Or maybe he’s on the tube with her, heading to a hotel to have wild, adulterous sex. I bet she wears fucking Agent Provocateur underwear. Who the hell is she? All I saw was a camel-coloured coat and a light-coloured ponytail – or was it a hat? Annie, focus . . . But the harder I try to visualise the scene, the quicker it slips away from me, until I’m left doubting that it even happened. Did I just imagine the whole thing? Is hallucinating something that can happen when you’ve recently given birth, along with the piles and stress incontinence? Does a weak pelvic floor lead to a weak mind? Am I going mad?
I try Luke’s mobile again but it goes straight back to voicemail, as does his work number – so instead I call Fiona.
She answers the phone with a sigh. ‘Dot is asleep and you’re meant to be pretending you don’t have a child for a few hours. Everything is grand. Now piss off.’
‘No, please, Fi, don’t go! I think I might have just seen Luke kissing another woman.’
There’s a pause. ‘You’re joking.’
‘Nope, deadly serious. I didn’t get a proper look because I was on the bus, but I’m almost certain it was him.’ Now the adrenaline is wearing off I can feel the tears coming. ‘Please tell me I’m going mad and imagined the whole thing. Please.’ I choke out the last word in a sob.
‘Oh, I’m sure you have, love. I mean, Luke has his faults . . .’ She lets that hang in the air and I feel a rush of irrational protectiveness towards my boyfriend.
‘I hardly think forgetting our anniversary means he’ll cheat on me,’ I mutter.
‘And your birthday . . .’
‘That happened once! And he was really manic at work that month, I barely saw him.’
‘Hmmm.’ Fi clearly still hasn’t forgiven him for that, but then as a friend she is staunchly loyal. ‘Anyway, what I was going to say was that yer man may have his faults, but I don’t think he’d be cheating on the mother of his child weeks after she gave birth. That would be a totally shitty thing to do. Luke’s only a wee bit shitty.’
An idea suddenly hits me. ‘Do you think I should go to his office, check if he’s there?’
There’s a pause as Fi thinks this over. ‘You said you’re almost certain it was Luke, but how good a look at him did you get?’
‘Not brilliant. Just his back view really, and he was quite a long way off. And there were a lot of people in the way. And he was wearing a red hat that I’ve never seen before.’
‘Okaaay . . .’
‘But it felt like him, honestly.’ I feel a lump rising in my throat again. If Luke left me, how would I care for Dot? I don’t have a job, Luke and I aren’t married and he owns our flat. Best-case scenario, I’d be a homeless, unemployed single mum. As my future hurtles wildly out of control, with tragedy piling upon disaster on top of calamity, I ask, my voice quavering: ‘Fi, what shall I do?’
‘Darl, remember this is a crazy time for you right now,’ she says gently. ‘You’re looking after Dot 24/7, you’re short of sleep, your hormones are all over the place: your judgement is bound to be . . . impaired. Perhaps this was just a totally understandable mix-up, like when you put your iPhone in the microwave last week.’ (She’s got a point – it’s a miracle it still works after twenty seconds on defrost.) ‘What I’m saying is, chances are you were mistaken and it wasn’t Luke, so I think the best thing to do is just forget about this for now, enjoy your child-free time and then talk to him about it tonight.’
‘You think I should just ask him outright?’
‘Feck no, are you insane! Just get him chatting about what he got up to today and look out for signs of guilt, like avoidance of eye contact, defensiveness and stiff body movements.’ (Fi once did work experience at Cosmopolitan, so she knows about this sort of thing.) ‘Let me know what happens and we’ll take it from there, but honestly, gorge, I’m sure there’s nothing to worry about. Luke loves you and Dot and he wouldn’t do anything to screw that up, I’m sure of it.’
She’s absolutely right, of course. I’m hardly the most reliable of witnesses at the moment, and besides, Luke has never done anything to make me doubt his fidelity. He barely leaves the office: when would he have time for an affair?
‘Thank you, love,’ I say, feeling a glimmer of brightness. ‘I’ll see you in a few hours then. Um, before I go, though, how’s Dottie? Has she done a poo yet?’
She sighs. ‘Annie Amelia Taylor, you are not a mother today, you are a hot babe shopping for fuck-me knickers, remember?’ But then, after a moment, she adds quietly: ‘But if you did have a child, then she would be grand and very happy with her Auntie Fi. And I’m ignoring the poo question because really.’
I smile into the phone. ‘I love you, Fi.’
‘You too. Now get on with you and shop yourself stupid.’
And so that’s exactly what I do. I squash my worries deep inside me, shove a lid on them and march straight to Agent Provocateur, where I buy a black lace bra and ribbon-tie knickers that cost nearly as much as Dot’s pushchair. Then I go to Topshop and get a pair of spike-heeled ankle boots, a beaded clutch bag and two red lipsticks. I shop like a woman possessed, gorging on pretty things to distract me from the fears that are threatening to break free. It’s only on the journey home that I realise I seem to have been shopping for the woman I glimpsed from the bus rather than for myself.
3
At just after 8 p.m., I hear Luke’s key turning in our front door, his feet stamping on the mat (one, two, three – the same as every night) and then he appears at the kitchen door, his six-foot-two figure filling the frame, a smile crinkling the corners of his dark-lashed eyes. And despite the emotions that are churning up my insides like socks in a spin cycle, I feel, as usual, a thrill of excitement that he’s home – and that he’s mine.
His navy coat is buttoned up over his suit and his hair is slick with drizzle; he looks every inch the dashing, Esquire-reading, half-Italian lawyer that he is. I try to visualise him wearing a red woolly beanie, but it’s impossible; the very idea of it is ridiculous.
It wasn’t him, I tell myself, relief soothing my fears. I’ve got it all wrong.
‘You look nice,’ he says, dropping a kiss on my forehead, and I’m pleased he’s noticed the make-up I hurriedly slapped on after putting Dot to bed; it’s the first time I’ve worn lip gloss in months. ‘Here, I got you a little something,’ he adds, disappearing back into the hallway.
He returns holding out a bouquet classily wrapped in brown paper and raffia; these are no cut-price forecourt chrysanths, clearly. A thought immediately pops into my head – cheaters buy flowers – and I firmly shove it away.
‘Your favourites.’ Luke smiles. ‘Peonies aren’t easy to find in January, I can tell you.’
‘Thank you, they’re gorgeous. Um, what are they for?’
‘Do I need a reason
to buy you flowers?’
‘No, of course not, but . . .’
He pulls me close and I rest my face on his chest, taking deep breaths of comfortingly familiar Luke smell.
‘Well, for starters, they’re because you’re a fantastic mum. Because you have to get up and feed our daughter several times a night, and you never complain about it. Because you’re beautiful, and I don’t tell you that enough. Because I love you. I could go on . . .’ He pulls away to look at my face. ‘Okay?’
‘Okay,’ I say, returning his smile as he leans down to kiss me again, this time on the lips. His breath smells minty, as if he’s recently brushed his teeth, perhaps to disguise the fact he’s been kissing someone else . . .
Annie, stop it.
It is taking every milligram of my self-control not to blurt out: ‘Were you snogging a strange woman on Oxford Street this morning and if so, then WHAT THE FUCK WERE YOU DOING, YOU TOTAL FUCKING BASTARD?’ But that would be a dreadful idea. For starters, if it was Luke I saw today then he’ll deny it, obviously. I need to take a subtler approach and then monitor him for signs of deceit as Fi suggested. More importantly, however, now that I’m here, snuggled up against him, I’m becoming increasingly unsure that Luke would ever cheat on me. Over the years we’ve been together, he’s never given me any reason to doubt him – and surely if he was having an affair there would be some warning signs, such as a change in his mood, or unexplained nights out? But quite honestly, apart from the totally understandable post-baby nookie drought, our relationship feels stronger than ever. He actually said to me the other day, ‘You and Dot have made my life complete.’ Those aren’t the words of a cheating scumbag, are they?