Confessions of a First-Time Mum

by Poppy Dolan

  A horn beeps from the end of the drive and I flinch. ‘Nelle is here! Bye then!’ I wave at his downturned face, the green glint of the screen bouncing off his cheeks.

  ‘Bye. Laters. Oooooh.’ He draws his breath in, a long gasp.

  ‘What? What?’ I dash back into the living room.

  ‘Murphy fumbled that. What a balls up.’

  Visions of devastating news bulletins or texts to say someone has fallen down the stairs or off a boat or down a gangplank and then off a boat now start to fade. Since having Cherry and that triggering all those hyper-sensitive parent hormones, I am at a constant threat level of Wets-Knickers-at-Doorbell.

  You would think my husband would remember that and not make such cliff-hanger noises.

  I stuff my feet in my boots and pick up Cherry, clipped tightly into her car seat. Nelle said parking was really restricted at the venue so we could both go in her car. The idea of Cherry in the back with Joe – Baby’s First Buddy Road Trip! – appealed in principle, but swinging her hefty weight by the rigid plastic handle of the seat, and the pull at my arm socket, is not such a fun reality. I have packed her several sets of clothes, two boxes of baby biscuits, three different rattles and my iPad for emergency In the Night Garden episodes. I’m ready for puking, wailing and any meltdown she might choose to have today. If I can distract her enough to stay quiet and content, I might be able to think in a straight line for thirty seconds and have a half-decent adult conversation. Maybe. And, besides, she really can be a peach when she’s in a good mood and for once I’d love someone to compliment me on my lovely baby. Even if I have to shove two gingerbread men in her gob to get her to smile.

  As I yank open the back door to Nelle’s little red Metro, my terror alert peaks at What-The-Fucking-Christ and I jump backwards, immediately sheltering Cherry behind me. There, in the driver’s seat, is a clown. A fucking clown.

  ‘Hiya!’ The scarlet, over-painted mouth talks.

  Nelle?

  ‘Wha… what are you doing?’

  ‘Oh, this?’ She gestures casually to her red nose and rainbow wig. ‘I do the clowning at kids’ parties. Thought I might as well show off the goods! Give people a free demo on site.’ Her black semi-circular eyebrows drop – hard to do under so much face paint. ‘Sorry, does it bother you? Oh, shit, do you have a phobia?’

  Breathing deeply in through my nose, out through my mouth, I take a moment to find myself. ‘No, not really. Just… out of context it… it’s a bit alarming.’ My hands tremble just a little as I manoeuvre Cherry into the car and look for the little metal bits to lock the seat into. Chill out, Stevie, I remind myself, you’re still on a friendship probationary period – she mustn’t know how weird you are inside.

  ‘Let’s do this thing!’ Clown Nelle grabs the steering wheel as I hop into the passenger’s seat.

  ‘Yeah!’ I muster an air-punch, praying we don’t break down. Waiting for roadside assistance like this would be just too trippy. Luckily, the radio starts playing some Katy Perry and our energetic singing soon drowns out the little anxious voice inside my head.

  Nelle’s get-up attracts lots of double-takes on the way to the event, but maybe it isn’t the exact kind of attention-grabbing she’s after. At the traffic lights, a few mothers with small children in tow clasp their little ones’ hands closer to them and scurry off. The security guard is totally white as he waves us through the entrance.

  As we drive into the car park of Heather Academy, I forget all about Nelle’s polka dot harem pants, gasping at the sheer scale of the Hogwarts towers before me. I’d heard that this was the best, fanciest private school in the whole county but seeing it up close is something else. Gothic arches, stained-glass windows, manicured lawns. Pretty different from my Watford comprehensive.

  ‘Wow,’ I breathe.

  ‘Oh, I know, right? Just don’t ask about the fees, you’ll pass out cold. Still, we should get a good, aspirational crowd who have the cash to hire party planners. I think we’ll make a really good team, chick.’ Nelle winks before she starts to clamber out of the car, the curly multi-coloured wig being squashed against the doorframe as she does so.

  When I open the back door to retrieve Cherry I can’t believe it – she’s asleep. Perfectly asleep. Not even the movement of being wriggled out of the car and the noise of the door clicking shut wakes her. Wow. This never happens. Usually the merest bump of the pram against a kerb wrenches her from sleep. But hey, let’s not overthink it. I’m just going to enjoy this adult time and do Nelle a favour while my head is clear.

  We hoof the children inside, through eight-foot-high carved oak doors and into the lobby where the Mother and Baby Fair will be taking place. There’s already a photographer setting up shop, a very fancy range of prams on display and an aromatherapy table sending over some lovely wafts of lavender and citrus.

  ‘Here we go.’ Nelle plonks Joe behind our table and I follow suit with Cherry. It’s not much to look at right now – a plain trestle table and two brown plastic chairs – and I’m about to suggest we ask the school if we can borrow a tablecloth or something when Nelle puts her hands on her hips and says, ‘Right, you watch the tiddlers and I’ll grab the props from the boot.’

  I very much hope these are props for the stall and not a second Coco outfit for me. I don’t think my frame could take clown shoes. Or my sanity.

  When Nelle marches back five minutes later, she has an IKEA bag full of tricks: a lovely red and white gingham table covering; very cute and traditional bunting in lots of pastel colours and prints; some poster boards with blown-up photos of past events, I’m guessing – bouncy castles, petting zoos, a happy child blowing out candles on a giant cake; plus handfuls of flyers and business cards and logoed balloons to hand out. As both babies are still spark out, Nelle and I get busy with setting up a lovely, welcoming table. The whole thing shouts English Countryside Idyll and the rusty, professional part of my brain starts to loosen up, appraising it as a really strong and well-delivered message. But then everything I’ve come to see in Nelle in just a week or so has led me to believe she’s one smart cookie.

  She stands back from our handiwork, hitching up her oversized trousers and tilting her head to one side. ‘Does it need something else?’

  ‘Hmm. Hang on, is there a kitchen here, do you know?’

  Her eyes light up behind the thick white slap. ‘Ooooh, a coffee. That could be just the thing. If memory serves it’s beyond the matron’s office, down the corridor off to the right.’

  ‘OK. Back in a sec.’

  But it’s not two coffees I return with, though I will make another trip for those if Cherry’s nap stays blissfully long, but a white teapot stuffed with silk flowers.

  ‘I’m not totally mad’ – I laugh nervously as I set it down on the trestle table – ‘I just thought we had space for one last bit of set dressing and what says quaint English pursuits more than an old teapot? I was actually after two teacups but this is so much better, and Matron won’t miss her flowers for just a few hours.’

  Nelle flashes me a double thumbs-up. ‘Love it. Gorgeous! You are my secret weapon. Now we’ve got half an hour yet before punters are let in, so I might hunt out some biscuits for long-term survival later. If Joe wakes up, just jiggle the carrier with one foot and he’ll probably nod off again, bless him.’

  With Nelle stalking off in her Technicolor outfit – a slight squeak from one clown shoe that I’m not sure is accidental or not – I’m left gazing at these two snoozing babies. Joe, tiny and wrinkly in a navy striped onesie, his eyes gently closed in two crescents, not a peep coming from his general direction. And Cherry: round, plump, legs like ham hocks next to Joe’s, a sheen of sweat on her red cheeks as she snoozes, a hefty snore breaking the silence every now and then. As I watch, she pulls a grimace and wiggles her feet around and I wonder if she’s just swallowed some sick in her sleep. You can normally set your watch by her upchuck and she hasn’t been sick all morning.

  If you strolled past
now, you’d see a woman in reasonably clean clothes, minding two peaceful babes and you’d think, ‘Well, motherhood looks dreamy.’ But Cherry sleeping like this, and being calm in public, is a dream – it is not reality. This is not my day to day, far from it. If she wakes up, there’s no jiggling with your foot and falling back asleep like an angel. There is only hellish yelling and fat fists flying. I love my daughter but she is not at her most sunny just after a nap. And this is the first nap to go beyond forty-five minutes that she’s had in… maybe ever?! All the books tell you that you should be getting a good three hours of sleep out of them at a time, you know, when you can ‘rest’, ‘take it easy’ and practise ‘self-care’. Self-care for me is a two-for-one on digestives at the supermarket. That is, if I get all the way through the shop without having to abandon my trolley due to one of Cherry’s epic brawls. I bet Joe could get through a trip to Sainsbury’s and a car wash and a trip to the chemist without splitting anyone’s ear drums. But not our Cherry.

  A wet snore escapes her mouth and Joe doesn’t even flinch, safe and sound in a deep slumber.

  A stone hits the bottom of my stomach: this is how babies are supposed to be, only mine isn’t. Probably because I’m getting it all wrong.

  My eyes sting suddenly so I try to find something else to look at, some other s for my rattled brain. But on every table, on every wall, are popping up more and more examples of how Cherry and I aren’t doing it right: the photographer with his compilation board of tiny babies curled up in pumpkins or on sheepskin rugs, bows perched on their perfect heads. Well, despite the best intentions, we never did get Cherry to that first-week photo shoot. The scarlet forceps marks on her face weren’t exactly something I wanted recorded for posterity, and I was so deranged with tiredness and hormones and guilt and worry that I could barely find the camera app on my phone, let alone a photographer’s studio.

  There’s someone here advertising baby massage classes, a black and white blown-up photo of a slim, smiling mother cooing down at her perfect babe. Another class I’ve failed to take my daughter to. Another chance to bond, to help calm her, to teach us both some life skills , instead, I’ve hidden away with daytime telly and a daily weep.

  And as I clock the companies offering hand and feet moulds, personalised artworks and handcrafted wooden toys, it’s like a shopping list of my missed opportunities to be a top-notch mum and give Cherry all the top-notch things in life. I bet that swishy mum-mum on my road has all her children’s digits preserved in solid silver.

  But I’m not giving into the blues now. Not now. I’m out and I haven’t had to flee in shame yet and not one mouthful of sick has hit anything. I just need to keep my mind ticking over. So I whip out my phone.

  I haven’t checked my emails in ages, now I think of it. Reading the tiny text on my phone always feels too much like work at the end of another tired and tiring day, so I usually abandon it in favour of Netflix and red wine. But there’s no better way to fake that you’re important and popular by checking your phone, after all.

  The first one I come to is from Mum. Her monthly check in, no doubt. Living in the States, the time difference makes it tricky to speak on the phone sometimes so we’ve fallen into an email pattern. She wasn’t the most maternal mum when I was growing up. Not that she did a bad job or locked me in the broom cupboard or anything, but I could tell early on that making sandwiches and wiping chins didn’t fulfil her. Motherhood wasn’t enough. She loved music and the whole Eighties music scene – big hair, tight leather, rocking hard – and although she tried to make it work in the UK after she and Dad split and we moved back to be closer to her family, for years she was just itching for another adventure. So my first day at uni halls was the same day she booked her flight back to San Jose and bought a vintage record store of her very own. I miss her like mad sometimes, but I can’t deny she’s really happy out there.

  Hello chick,

  How’s my Cherry Pie? Still a lovely porker?!

  I’ve had a postcard for you from your dad. I keep giving him your address but I don’t know what he does with it in that shepherd’s hut of his. If only he’d wake up and get electricity and a goddamn laptop. Anyway, he said he felt your karmic presence on one of his hikes and he’s thinking about you. Whatever that means. So there you go.

  The store’s ticking over. Grime still seems to be the thing. God, I miss guitars.

  When are you going to come out and see me?! I’m forgetting what you look like, you know. Do it quick while Cherry’s still free on the flight.

  M x

  Today’s not the day to delve into feelings about Dad living in the Rocky Mountains without a phone, or get angry about Mum eschewing all the trappings of motherhood bar the ability to make me feel guilty in just a handful of words. Today I’m living in the here and now, I’m making friends, my baby is a sleeping angel. I’m living my life.

  Well, I’m trying to. Standing here alone, guardian to two freakishly quiet babies, I feel about as isolated as if I’d climbed to the top of the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square. So maybe a bit more phone staring, to be safe. I’ll warm up to actual human interaction slowly. Seems wise when my social muscles are so stiff.

  Just as I’m deleting some sale emails from my old favourite places to shop for clothes, pronouncing great deals on the season’s sharpest looks (if it’s not super-comfy jeggings I’m not interested), a new mail pops into my inbox. It’s from Sarah, my best mate from work. God, I haven’t thought about her in months. My heart pangs suddenly for our carby lunches with side servings of office gossip and relationship dissection. I suppose I’ve been rubbish about keeping in touch because she might be able to see through my platitudes and rumble what a rookie beginner I am at all this mum stuff.

  From: Sarah Rimmer

  To: Steviebutnotabloke@hotmail.co.uk

  Subject: SSSSSHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!

  Hey lovely,

  How’s that gorgeous baby of yours? And how’s Ted behaving himself? Spoiling you rotten, I hope, mother of his perfect child.

  Look, I know this is super-naughty of me because technically we’re not supposed to contact you on leave when it comes to business matters… BUT I thought you’d want to know some super SUPER-shitballs exciting news.

  Marcus is leaving. Like, next week. I know, right?! Not a poach, he’s just decided he’s had enough of modern life and he’s going off to be a forester, whatever the fuck that is. Like a security guard for trees?! Bit different from PR but, hey, it takes all sorts.

  So that leaves the lead accounts management role open… Now, I haven’t heard anything about who they’re considering (but if you’re not on the list they are CRAZY) but in an emergency meeting where we had to divvy up Marcus’s clients, Marion said she would personally handle Fierce Beauty cosmetics… Until YOU get back! She wants you to have it long term!!!!

  So are you ready for a mega-bucks client?! Fashion week, celeb endorsements, freebies galore and a monthly budget bigger than my mortgage. If I didn’t love you so much I’d be a jealous bitch right now.

  Well, maybe I’m still a bit jealous. But I was just bursting to tell you. How amazing?! But when Marion tells you in due course just fake surprise, yeah?

  Look, you’ve got to come into town with that beautiful girl of yours and we’ll celebrate this properly over a lunch. I even promise not to swear in front of Cherry.

  S xxxxxxxxx

  My fingers shake as I close down my email app. Fierce Beauty. Me. One of the hottest American cosmetics brands of the last few years. And me. A PR job that all my colleagues would kill for: glam parties, new product launches people actually care about, vloggers biting your hand off for the new nude lip-stain. And me: the woman who’s forgotten how to talk, how to sort her eyebrows out, how to wear clothes that don’t come with an elasticated waist.

  My hand is now full-on wobbling as I slip my phone back in my handbag.

  I blink in the hard strip lighting. It bounces up off the old parquet floor and makes me wince.<
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  And now my eyes start to swim and my head feels a bit woozy, like when I was pregnant. And I’m not sure if the floor is slippery or maybe my legs are weird? I clutch the table top through the cloth, holding on for some stability. Must be because I still haven’t had my morning caffeine. That’s it. Yup.

  A huge beach ball wrapped in striped jersey nudges its way into my eye line. It’s attached to a woman. Oh, right. She’s actually pregnant. My eyes struggle back into focus.

  ‘Hello!’ Her smile is bright, no eye bags or grey tinge to her skin. First baby, then, I hear myself thinking bitterly. ‘Do you do naming days? Not christenings, you know, but a Humanist ceremony? With a celebrant? That’s what I’m thinking of.’ She rubs a hand down and around her ginormous bump.

  ‘OK,’ I force out, not really knowing if Nelle does such a thing.

  ‘What kind of price would that be? And would it include food – could you lay that on? I’m thinking for about seventy-five people.’

  Her words echo about in my ears and I realise I am grimacing in my attempt to compute what’s been said. The pregnant lady’s smile is also starting to fade.

  ‘Uh…um.’

  She’s shuffling her feet now, frowning. I know I should be saying something. Fast. I know I should be talking.

  ‘Erm. Ah…’