Wilde Women

by Louise Pentland

  ‘Great! But Women Who Win isn’t going to be a sign-up thing. You can just let us know you’re going to come along, and then chat through ideas and see where you can get some advice and help others in turn. For example, I want to figure out how best to push forward with my style tuition idea for MADE IT, and offer any help to anyone who needs it. We’ve been doing some great work on setting it up. Gloria came round last night and we went through the plans over a glass of wine – she’s so nice. Gloria thinks it’s a great chance for everyone to make really good connections. Are you wanting to offer help, or do you have a sneaky little idea up your sleeve?’ I ask teasingly.

  ‘I’m not a sneaky woman, Robin. Sneak up on a horse and he’ll kick you in the chest. I like to come at you face forward,’ Finola says, pausing for breath.

  ‘Yes, sorry, I didn’t mean it in a bad way,’ I add, my brain taking me to an unwanted image of her going at her husband ‘face forward’.

  ‘Do you have an idea, Finola? I’d love to hear it,’ Gillian encourages gently. Sometimes I think Gillian is so nice that I’m actually jealous of Clara, her daughter, because I want Gillian to be my mum. My own mother rarely leaves Cornwall to visit us here in Cambridge, and is about as encouraging as a wisdom tooth infection.

  ‘I do, Gillian. I’d like to start offering riding lessons at the stables. Honor and Roo can ride wonderfully now, and I have found myself at a loose end during the days. Sometimes it’s a little, well, lonely with Edgar at work all day and just the horses and dogs for company. I’m not looking to change the world, but perhaps I could teach other people to enjoy animals, too. Maybe I could start with the women in this network, and then … maybe someone could show me how to do all the advertising and whatnot,’ Finola explains, with just a shred less certainty than usual.

  ‘Finola, that sounds like a fantastic idea! I know Lyla could be your first customer! She loved that day at the yard last year. I bet you’ll be inundated!’ I say happily, wondering why she hasn’t done this sooner. It’s probably best if I don’t remind her of Lyla’s reaction the first time I took her riding – ‘I bloody hate ponies’ – because, you know, empowered women empower women.

  ‘Well. Yes. Quite right. The sticky wicket is, I’m not really what you’d call a people person. I like the horses and dogs, and my two and I just get on. I need to know how to handle the whosits and whatsits of a business, as it were.’

  ‘What sort of thing do you need?’ Gillian offers, faltering slightly. ‘Maybe I could help you. I’ve started looking for things to do during the day now that Clara is a bit older and I don’t have so much to do at home.’ Gillian looks briefly at her shoes. ‘I’m glad Clara doesn’t need me as much – she’s not a baby, is she? She’s a big girl, and that’s lovely!’

  I must check in with Gillian properly soon and see how she really is. Last year we talked about her wanting more babies and struggling, so perhaps it’s hard to see Clara grow. I’ll invite her and Clara over for a play date and chat as soon as everything settles down a bit.

  ‘You should both come along to Women Who Win. You’ve both got questions, and answers, and we’d all benefit. Our first meeting is in a couple of weeks. I’ll send you the details. I’d love to stop and talk more, but I promised I’d pop in on Lacey. She’s being a bit weird about taking the baby out,’ I say, looking at the time on my phone and wondering why the children haven’t been released yet. Mrs Barnstorm, who has returned to work for afternoons only while she’s recovering, is usually alarmingly prompt. Previously Head of Pastoral Care in Pre-Prep, she’s never been my favourite teacher, thanks to her stern words about missing bits of ballet kit, or me sending Lyla in with the wrong colour hair ribbon, but since her recovery she’s softened a bit, and moved up to Juniors, where she’s occasionally given me a tight smile and a nod. After all we’ve been through, I take this as firm friendship.

  ‘Oh dear, that sounds like the baby blues to me,’ Finola says with a wise nod, bringing me back to the present.

  ‘Does it? I think she’s just being a bit anxious,’ I respond, surprised that she’s jumped on ‘baby blues’ so quickly.

  ‘Mark my words, deary, that’s not just anxiety or paranoia. We had a mother and foal who wouldn’t leave the stable. Very depressed, she was. Ordinarily up for a sterling hack, but as soon as her foal arrived she wouldn’t leave its side or the stable for love nor money.’

  ‘Well, my friend Lacey is a woman, not a horse, and she has wanted this baby for years, so I can’t imagine she feels blue at all – in fact, she seems really happy and together. I feel a bit jealous. I was such a wreck with Lyla. Lacey’s quite the opposite of blue, I expect,’ I say indignantly.

  ‘I’m sure Lacey will be glad to see you either way,’ adds Gillian, sensing the tension and bringing her supreme diplomat’s skills to the table. She’ll be ace in WWW, I think. Or the UN …

  ‘I’m so pleased you’ll be there at Women Who Win. I’m supposed to be making some opening remarks, so it will be great to see friendly faces.’

  As soon as I finish speaking, all the children come running out. Amazingly, Lyla is holding hands with Corinthia, the class bully. There’s no time to delve into this now, though, and who am I to get in the way of world peace?

  TWENTY MINUTES LATER, WE are knocking on Lacey’s door with three Happy Meals and three McFlurries. The golden arches went down so well last time, and why fix what isn’t broken?

  ‘Ah, we’ve got to stop meeting like this!’ Lacey says as she opens the door, perfectly made up (though sporting some heavy-duty concealer, to my expert eye) and beaming at the goodies.

  ‘I know! I don’t have a fast food loyalty card, I just remember how it is in the early days – a hot meal isn’t always on the agenda when you’re up to your eyes in mess and nap—’ I stop dead as I take in my surroundings. Lacey’s perfectly refurbished Victorian town house is absolutely immaculate. The ornate tiles in the hall are gleaming, her white quartz countertops in the kitchen are sparkling and there is a brand-new White Company candle lit on the mantelpiece. She isn’t up to her eyes in anything except Insta-perfect interiors. Even the cushions have the karate chop thing in them that everyone’s doing these days.

  ‘Wow, Lace, you’re so on top of things,’ I say incredulously.

  ‘Well, I don’t want anyone to think I’ve let myself go,’ she replies, walking on into the kitchen where Willow is asleep in her vibrating bouncer. Oh, to be a baby, when you’re encouraged to snooze all day.

  ‘Nobody could ever think that about you, but you are allowed to let things go a little bit. You’ve had a baby, literally only weeks ago!’ I say, leaning over said two-month-old and deeply inhaling that gorgeous baby smell. Gosh, she is scrummy. Lacey has dressed her in a pale peach romper with tiny ducks embroidered on the chest and a perfectly ironed white collar tucked under her chubby cheeks. I stand and watch her face snuffle about as she breathes deeply in her sleep, and reach out a hand to softly stroke her perfect little face.

  ‘Don’t wake her up,’ says Lacey, a little sharply. I step back in surprise.

  ‘Willow came out of your vagina, Lacey, didn’t she?’ Lyla interjects helpfully, reaching across the counter for her strawberry milkshake as if she hasn’t said anything at all shocking or interrupted a slightly weird moment there.

  ‘God, sorry, she’s started getting to grips with these things,’ I say to Lacey, who is laughing now I’ve moved away from Willow. ‘Yes, Lyla, Willow did come out of Lacey’s vagina.’ Gillian said Clara’s been asking all sorts of questions, and the best thing to do is give a frank and succinct answer. I think that did the job. She knows what’s what.

  ‘Is it still on?’ Lyla says, looking at Lacey.

  Oh.

  ‘Is what still on? My vagina?’ Lacey asks, trying not to laugh, and looking as if she’s taking the matter very seriously.

  ‘Yes, when she came out, did it come out or snap off too?’ Lyla continues, deadpan.

  ‘Oh. No. Willow came out
of my vagina, and my vagina stayed attached to my body. She just came through it.’ Lacey looks over at me with eyes that say, ‘What the eff do I say now?’ but I am too stunned to know what to say.

  ‘Like when sick comes out of your mouth?’ Lyla clarifies. Good job, Lyla.

  ‘Yes, Lyla. Robin, did your daughter just compare the birth of my precious baby to vomiting?’ Lacey asks with a smile, though a shadow crosses her face as Willow begins to gurgle and wake.

  ‘Yes. Yes, she did. You’ve got all this to come. Now give me that baby, eat this burger and try not to snap your vag off!’ Note to self: have another, more detailed birds-and-bees chat with Lyla at some point soon.

  It is lovely, squishing Willow and stroking her velvety little cheeks, running my fingers across her bunched-up little fists, stroking the back of her hair with its wisps of blonde stuck up in squiffy tufts where she’s been lying down and telling Lacey repeatedly how gorgeous she is, but wow, I’d forgotten how much hard work a baby is.

  She’s currently on a three-hour schedule of feed, burp, change, cuddle time, sleep, repeat. No sooner have you sat down than you need to get up again. Despite her mum, Terri from Dovington’s (the family florist’s Lacey runs) and Kath (I tried not to be a tiny bit stung that Kath seems to have time for Lacey but not for us) offering to babysit, Lacey hasn’t been out of the house sans Willow yet (in fact, she doesn’t seem to be going out much with Willow either), and says she feels guilty at the mere thought of needing time to herself.

  I wonder if I’m a crappy mum for enjoying my time away from Lyla so much these days, or if I’ve just forgotten feeling the way Lacey does.

  ‘It’s OK to want time for you, Lace,’ I say. ‘There’s not a mum in the world who doesn’t need a break. You can’t pour from an empty cup, can you?’ I add as encouragingly as I can.

  ‘I know, I know, and I don’t begrudge the other mums who have breaks, but Willow’s different. We tried for so long, all those desperate months, and now she’s here. What kind of person goes on and on and on about wanting something so very much and then when she gets it, wants time out?’

  ‘A really normal person, Lacey, a really normal mum,’ I reassure.

  We chat on about what’s normal and what’s not, and end up on a tangent about half the girls we used to go to school with, followed by a joyful forty-five-minute Facebook stalk while Lyla sits in the back room playing on Karl’s Nintendo Wii. God bless modern technology, eh?

  WE STAY TILL KARL gets home from work at around seven, just in time to give his baby girl a cuddle before Lacey whisks her off to bed.

  ‘What do you think to family life then, Karl?’ I ask as Lacey comes downstairs again with, I notice, a freshly applied slick of lip gloss. I also notice she’s reapplied concealer over the big bags under her eyes.

  ‘It’s pretty amazing! Willow is the best baby I’ve ever seen, and Lacey is a fantastic mum. It’s pretty easy, really, isn’t it, Lace?’ Karl replies, beaming at his clearly shattered wife.

  ‘Yep! Totally! Willow is amazing. Couldn’t be happier,’ Lacey says, walking over to squeeze her husband, with what I think might be the fakest smile I’ve ever seen her do in over twenty years of friendship. She didn’t even smile that falsely when she fell flat on her face on the tennis courts at school, and pretended she’d done it on purpose to get out of PE!

  On the drive home I can’t stop thinking about Lacey. Her house is perfect, Willow is a contented and cheery baby, but she’s not really going out and she looks beyond tired. Every time I try to broach the possibility that she doesn’t have to be perfect, she talks about Willow being worth it all and everything being fine. But the more she says it, the more it sounds like a script. Since Finola planted that seed in my head, I’ve started to wonder if it is the ‘baby blues’. I hope Karl has noticed. I’ll drop him a message and keep an eye on her. This week’s a bit manic with work bookings and Edward coming home (to my home – our home? – to live. Whaaat?) next week, but I could ask Kath to have Lyla after Homework Club on Wednesday and pop in on Lacey. Yes. Good. It’s on the To Do list. It feels good to be this buzzy and busy. I feel like superwoman. After so many years floating through The Emptiness, where I felt far from busy and able, I’m going to hang onto this feeling with both hands!

  When I pull up onto the drive and look in my rear-view mirror, I see that Lyla has already fallen asleep. I can’t believe I’ve been a mother to her for eight years. Holding Willow tonight reminded me of how far we’ve come. From those intense first months to the lonely toddler years and now this, an almost-family unit. I think of Edward and how easily he’s slotting into my life, and I pull my phone out of my bag while Lyla continues to sleep peacefully in her booster seat.

  How’s it going over there? Are you enjoying your freedom and not having soil put in your shoes?

  I press send, scroll through Insta for a few seconds and a message pings back. This is what I like about Edward – no games.

  It’s fantastic. I’ve been hanging out with my American girlfriends all week but I asked one of them to put soil in my shoes to help me feel at home. How are you, gorgeous?

  Ha ha. So this is fully ‘home’ now, is it? X

  You know what they say.

  What’s that?

  Home is where the heart is.

  I heard it was where the slimy worm is. I miss you. And your worm. Your slimy worm.

  I know it was meant to be sexy but that got really gross.

  I know. Let’s never speak of this again.

  And with that cringeworthy faux pas, I smile and click my phone shut, climbing out of the car, opening Lyla’s door and carrying her very heavy no-longer-a-tiny-little-girl body into the house and up to bed.

  Aside from not seeing as much of Kath as I’d like, Lyla occasionally destroying Edward’s things (but I think – I hope – she’s starting to come round …), Lacey maybe struggling a bit and work being a tad full-on, we’re all ticking along nicely. And now for some long-awaited me time, I think as I flump into my apparently ugly sofa with a fresh bar of fruit and nut and the TV all to myself.

  SIX

  THE NEXT MORNING, AS I pad around the kitchen bleary-eyed, pouring a bowl of cereal for Lyla and a cup of strong coffee for me, she drops a clanger.

  ‘So is Edward my new dad, then?’ she asks through a mouthful of Rice Krispies.

  Oh my God, it’s too early for this. I don’t think she got the memo that I was awake till 1 a.m. worrying about Lacey feeling low and Kath being distant and all the tasks I need to do, plus work being intense and planning for the first ever WWW meeting, and about how maybe I need two laundry baskets now that Edward is going to live here. Or will we merge all of our dirty clothes together, and will he see my dirty knickers and will I touch his dirty socks and—

  ‘Mu-um. Is Edward my new dad or my stepdad or my adopted dad?’ Lyla asks again impatiently, and with a tiny hint of anxiety in her voice.

  ‘He’s none of those. He’s just my boyfriend, so he doesn’t need to have a dad title. Your dad is your dad. That’s not going to change.’ Maybe I haven’t dealt with this as well as I thought. We’ve had numerous chats over the last few weeks, and I hate to see her struggle to understand what’s going to happen this week but I don’t know what to do. Am I moving too fast with Edward? Is it wrong to want him here with us? I wish Kath was more available to help. She’s always so good at things like this. I’m going to give her a call later. If she’s not too busy to chat, that is …

  ‘I know Dad is Dad, but now Edward’s going to come and live with us and I have to be kind to him, what will he be to me?’ Lyla says plainly. She doesn’t seem deeply distressed or psychologically damaged, which is good, but I can’t imagine that spate of destroying Edward’s things was a particularly good sign.

  ‘He’ll be your friend, I hope.’ That sounds like a good answer, and she seems sold on that.

  Gillian told me recently, when I offloaded the Lyla vs Edward situation over coffee, ‘Children ar
e not little adults, they don’t just have our emotions but smaller.’ Apparently you have to be short and simple with your responses to allow them to process the information. So, that was pretty short and sweet, I think. Look at me go, winning at MumLife.

  ‘Corinthia’s mum is getting a new daddy,’ Lyla continues.

  ‘Do you mean Corinthia’s getting a new daddy?’ I ask, knowing that her mum, my school nemesis, Valerie, is separated and going through a divorce.

  ‘No. Corinthia said her mum was on FaceTime to her auntie and said, “What I need is a sugar daddy”, so now Corinthia knows her mum is getting a new dad. Durrr,’ Lyla adds at the end for my benefit, as if I’m being completely ridiculous not understanding all this immediately. ‘And he’s going to give her loads of sweets.’

  Trust Valerie to actively search for a man specifically to pay her way. I really can’t bear that woman.

  ‘Also, I actually know what a sugar daddy is,’ Lyla says triumphantly.

  ‘Do you now?’ I say, outwardly confident. Children are like wolves – you can’t let them smell your fear.

  ‘Yep. Corinthia asked, and her mum said it was a man to make her very happy indeed.’ She nods firmly, as though that is the case closed.

  ‘Well. Fabulous. Good for Corinthia and her mum, then. Now, shall we hurry up with this breakfast so we can get going, please?’

  ‘Edward makes you very happy indeed. Is he your sugar daddy?’ Lyla says, ignoring my plea for us to ‘get going’.

  ‘No, he’s my boyfriend.’

  ‘And not my sugar daddy?’

  ‘No, Daddy Simon is your dad. You have one dad, and that’s him. Edward is not your dad. If one day in the far, far future we decided to get married, then he’d be your stepdad. But Simon, your dad, will always be your dad. I don’t want or need a sugar daddy, and my real dad is Grandad Wilde in Cornwall.’ Good, keeping things short and simple. Nobody is confused at all.