by Poppy Dolan
Nelle needs this business. She needs this deal. This could be a big gig. Quick. Quick!
My jaw just grinds shut, teeth against teeth.
Why aren’t you saying anything?! Anything at all! Just at least keep her here till Nelle gets back. Just some chatter! What kind of idiot can’t talk polite nonsense for five minutes?!
The pregnant woman is now looking at her watch, and then over her shoulder. She’s going, any moment now.
A flaming idiot who can’t make small-talk. Well, this would just be perfect in front of the Fierce Beauty clients. Get up in front of them in a boardroom and grunt. See how well that goes. See what’s left of your career then.
Now it’s not just my jaw that feels clamped shut. It feels like someone’s squeezing my windpipe too. It’s closing shut. I can’t… I’m not sure I… Here’s that dizzy feeling again.
‘Hello!’ A familiar, smooth voice calls. The woman instantly brightens and pulls her shoulders back.
‘Will. Oh, thank you.’ Relief makes my lips unlock and I realise I have left little claw marks in the tablecloth from where I was holding on so tight.
He strides in our direction, unbelievably good looking in just black jeans and a grey marl sweatshirt.
Will’s here to help out. Will can smooth this out. He can help me talk to this woman.
Yes, Will will see you don’t even know how to talk to a fellow human. He’ll see that you’re a pathetic mess. Say goodbye to your new mum mates, idiot!
‘What’s the deal, then?’ he asks, with a chirpy smile. Being out and about with no toddlers in tow must feel like a two-week holiday, I imagine.
He looks between me and this very pregnant lady, who has switched her entire attention to Will.
If I had the choice between a mute fool and a model-like hunk I think I know who I’d be training my eyes on.
The silence lengthens and fills the space all around us. I feel it winding around my arms and legs, heavily weighing me down; I feel it building a wall between Will and this lady and me. And I’m not doing anything about it. I’m just standing here, dumbly, as everyone in the room figures out I am a broken excuse for a person.
‘Loo,’ I blurt and run down the first corridor I can see.
Chapter 4
‘Stevie, sweetie?’ I can see two red clown feet through the crack under the toilet door. Oh god, she found me.
‘Fine,’ I wheeze, my hand on my chest as it flutters up and down.
‘Are you having an asthma attack? Can you let me in? Love, we’re worried about you. Will’s here. He said you didn’t look well when you rushed off.’
I squeeze my eyes shut but tears escape down my cheeks anyway. This is not how today was supposed to go. This is not how my life is supposed to go. This is not how I’m supposed to be.
A horrifying thought pops into my head and I leap towards the lock on the door, then yank the whole thing open. ‘The babies!’
Nelle smiles, her gigantic red mouth turning up. ‘The babysitting firm said they’d keep an eye on them for five minutes. Proper professionals. But they’re still asleep. Good as gold.’
Well, chalk that up on today’s list of abject failures: too busy having a bonkers meltdown to think about my baby. The small, helpless child I am supposed to love and care for and protect. Great. So that’s a failure at my day job AND a failure at motherhood. Smashing it.
I hang my head and more tears plop down onto my jeans.
‘Hey, hey.’ Will’s long arms wrap around me as he pulls me in for a hug, the soft grey jersey material of his jumper absorbing all my snot and running mascara. ‘What’s happened, Stevie? Something at home?’
Nelle rubs my shoulder. ‘You can tell us anything, love. There’s a strict code of ethics about bathroom confessions: nothing goes beyond these four walls and the hand dryer. Promise.’
Tell them anything, OK. Where do I start? Um, I’ve become the world’s most boring wife, my husband would rather make eyes at his iPhone than at me, I’m a crap mum as evidenced by a baby that’s permanently angry or puking or both at the same time, I have no friends to speak of, I’m only friendly with the health visitors in the baby clinic, and I’ve lost all the skills that used to make me excellent at my job. And just at a time when I’m being offered one of the biggest breaks in my career, when I should be jumping for joy about this new client, the thought of having to schmooze and present and confidently charm makes me feel like a ten-tonne lorry is driving over my chest.
So where do I start?
‘I’m fucking it all up,’ I weep onto Will’s chest, and he pulls me that bit tighter.
* * *
In the end, as all the words came finally flooding out and, sensing this wasn’t going to be a five-minute boohoo cured by a chocolate Hob Nob, Will gently untangled himself from my floppy limbs and held me at arm’s length so he could look me squarely in the eye. ‘You’re not fucking anything up. I know that for a fact. What you need right now is to talk this all through, preferably not this close to a toilet. So here’s the plan. I’m going to go back and man the table. I can fluff it for a few hours and just give out Nelle’s email for follow-ups. And, hey, I am the master of handling two babies at once. If they cry, I’ll call you ASAP. Now – go.’
Someone so handsome and stern really must be obeyed and in my post-hysterical-sobbing mood I was pretty powerless to put up a resistance that No, I should be with Cherry and What if she wakes up and I’m not there? But I let Nelle lead me out of the back doors of the school and towards its playground: all rustic wooden structures and woven rope swings. No graffiti on a wobbly-springed hippo for these guys.
We huddle under the triangular roof of a slide, taking a seat opposite each other on the benches built within it.
Nelle takes a deep breath. ‘I’m not going to preach at you, love. I’m not going to give you some inspirational poster line about new dawns and clear skies and that kind of crap. But what I will say, having once been a first-time mum myself, is that all these things – with your other half and how you feel about work and how you feel you’re doing as a mum – they’re not actually a mountainload of different issues. They’re set off by the same thing – having a little kid has stripped you of your confidence. It hasn’t actually changed who you are or what you can do, but the broken sleep and the hours of being cried at and the constant work of feeding and changing and washing, all that has tricked you into thinking this way. You’ve had no time, no energy, to put into feeling good about yourself. Am I right?’
I nod.
‘You know, if you think about it, having a baby is a lot like being locked up in Guantanamo Bay.’ She points a finger at me as if that is totally self-explanatory. ‘They wake you up with loud noises and bright lights at all hours, they play distressing, heart-wrenching noises at you, you’re forced into hunched-over stress positions like when you’re breastfeeding, you can’t choose when you eat or wash or rest. Someone has taken that control from you and it really, really sucks.’ Nelle shrugs her shoulders and rolls her eyes to the scrubbed-pine roof above us.
I never thought I’d hear the sagest breakdown of motherhood from a fully painted clown sitting under a slide.
‘But,’ she moves over to sit next to me, ‘it gets better. The real you comes back: she really, really does. And you will realise that you will be fantastic at your job again and that Cherry is only so… full of vim and vigour because you keep her healthy and hearty. And happy. I know you say she never stops crying but she’s just got the one noise and she’s using it. But that’s not a reflection on the job you’re doing as her mum. I know I’m going on – I could be an Olympic long-distance talker – and you probably hear all of this from your Ted.’
Biting my lip seems to be the best way to avoid commenting on this or crying all over again.
‘What does he say about your work worries?’
‘Ah. Well.’
‘Well?’
‘He doesn’t really know. I haven’t told him.’
I pick at my thumbnail. ‘I sort of… don’t let on. And he works so hard, travels so much, that the last thing I want to do when he finally gets home and switches off his laptop is whinge and moan and weep.’ I look out at the perfectly mowed, stripy lawns of the school’s cricket pitch, wishing that life could be so orderly, so manicured, so free of lumps and bumps. And with a place where everyone knew just where to stand and where to run to and who was on your team. ‘The thing is, this is so not me. This is not the woman he married. I was bold, confident… gobby at times. A force of nature, he called me in his wedding speech. And as much as he loved me for that, I loved it in me, too. If I… if I say, “Oh, hey, I have no friends and I’m worried I’m a crap mother and I’m not sure I’ll ever earn another penny again”, not only am I admitting that to him and possibly burning the last romantic bridge in our marriage but—’ I take a big sticky swallow, and Nelle cuts in.
‘—you’re admitting it to yourself? Love, I think you just have.’
I wipe my nose on the heel of my hand. ‘Oh. Yeah. And it feels just as crappy as I’d thought it would.’
She loops an arm around my shoulders. ‘It’s that bloody confidence trick again! These feelings aren’t real. For one: you are a great mum. Fact. You’re first in line at the weigh-in, for god’s sake!’
I say after a groan: ‘Oh, please don’t remind me! What a nerd.’
She bustles on, ‘Two: whether you work again, and at what, is up to you, and it’s a decision you don’t have to take just now. If they’re holding a big client for you, let them. They can stall while you take the time you need to sort out your next step. That will come as you work through this crisis of confidence. And three – and I can’t believe I am having to spell this out to you when I am here, hugging you, telling you you’re great – you HAVE friends. Unless Will and I are chopped liver—?’
‘I haven’t heard anyone use that expression since I last spoke to my Aunt Phyllis.’
‘She’s a wise woman. It’s a great phrase. But seriously, we’re here. We want to hang out with you. And that work friend of yours, who emailed, she loves you enough to break serious HR rules to tell you something exciting. When those dark little voices get to you, remember her and remember us, just for starters.’
Blowing out a deep breath, I straighten my posture and lean into her hug a little bit more before breaking away. ‘OK. I hadn’t thought of it like that.’
‘You’re not the only one with that voice, Stevie. We’ve all got one. It’s just about remembering those voices are complete pillocks.’ Nelle stands up and brushes off her crazy pant legs. ‘Now, we’d better get back. Will might be locked in some mum-mum’s car boot by now, little honeytrap that he is.’
Nelle and Will gently insisted that I take it easy for the rest of the morning, entertaining the wee ones behind the table after their monster naps, and only talking to people if I fancied it. And with red puffy eyes and streaks of wept-out make-up on my sleeves, I can’t say that I did just then. Nelle seemed happy with the number of phone numbers she took for quotes and Will seemed adept at convincing parents that they really needed two miniature Shetland ponies for their child’s birthday party, as if just one was somehow faintly embarrassing. In his Selfridges days he must have been the king of upselling luxe over necessity.
When the fair wound down and we were packing everything back into Nelle’s car, I felt as if the choppy waters in my heart had finally settled. It had been a stormy swell of emotion all right, not something I had really wanted to happen in front of two new friends, but I felt a little looser around my rib cage, a little lighter in my step.
Cherry was all safely clipped into the car and the last blue IKEA bag shoved into the boot. Nelle closes the boot lid with a thunk.
‘That was a good morning.’ She takes off her foam red nose and throws it into the handbag that was under her arm. ‘Now my advice to you, Stevie my love, is to go home and tell Ted all about it. ALL about it, you know what I mean?’
The vice around my ribs cranks up again.
* * *
Saturday afternoon plays out like so many in our family dynamic. On paper, it looks pretty healthy: a family of three, enjoying quality time at home, toys out, radio on, not a raised voice or angry glare on the scene. But, inside, I’m not feeling all that rosy.
While I’m sitting crossed-legged on our rug, Cherry sitting in front of me like a happy Buddha demolishing all my Duplo towers, Ted is snugly reclining on the sofa, the papers scattered about him like some sort of rustling blanket. He made us both a cup of tea ten minutes ago and somehow I think he feels his contribution is over.
‘Here’s a green one. And a red one on top. And then another green one,’ I sing-song as I build Cherry her twenty-ninth tower of the last twenty minutes. ‘And those are the colours of Daddy’s rugby team, aren’t they, Daddy?’ I’m throwing out the most tenuous line for him to come and join in, to interact, even if Cherry couldn’t care less about the Leicester Tigers than she does about particle physics. I would just like to tag team this baby entertaining for a while, not be the sole entertainer plus feeder and bather and soother. It might give me some headspace to figure out how I’m going to talk to him about my hour-long breakdown today. About how there are some things I haven’t been totally honest about…
‘Isn’t that right, Daddy?’ I say again, to grab his attention back from the supplements.
‘Oh? Yup, yup. That’s right.’ But he stays on the sofa and turns another glossy page.
‘Ted,’ I now say a little more sharply, as Cherry grabs out at my arm, indicating that I’m taking too long to get things to a good smashing height. ‘Want to come and join in?’
His brown eyes appear over the top of the cookery section pages. ‘Hmm? Is she getting whingey? I could take her out in her pram.’ He looks at his watch.
‘No, we’re just—’
He stands up, his legs always surprising me that someone could skilfully control limbs so long. ‘Actually, I could take her out now as I need to get down to the pharmacy in town.’ My heart soars. He’s noticed we’re nearly out of baby wipes; he’s going to buy them without me having to ask. ‘I need to pick up some travel stuff – they’re sending me to Hong Kong for all of next week.’
My leap up onto my feet is nowhere near as graceful as his: it takes a hand pushing against my knee and a middle-aged ‘Ooof’ noise. ‘Wait, what?’
‘Yeah, it’s all last minute. They asked me on Friday and I was so shattered I forgot to say. Leaving crack of dawn Monday.’
‘Wha—Monday as in the day after tomorrow Monday? And for how long?’ I can barely croak the words out. Cherry is now chewing on the back of my jeans.
‘Back next Saturday, about lunchtime, I think.’ He says this so casually, like he hasn’t just lobbed a grenade into my world.
I can feel heat rise to the tips of my ears. ‘HOW can they do this? Did you tell them it’s not that easy to waltz off for an entire week when you have a six month old?’
Ted blinks at me like I’m a deranged prisoner behind soundproof glass in one of those little visiting booths, and I haven’t worked out how to talk into the phone. ‘I’m not waltzing anywhere, Stevie. This is an important project and it’s part of my job.’
‘But…’ My heart is thumping as I look for a reasonable argument. I hate it when he stays calm in these situations and I go straight into near-hysteria. I’ve already cried crazily this weekend: I won’t do it again. Until at least tomorrow. ‘Couldn’t you just Skype into the meetings? You’ve got all the tech to do that.’
Cherry begins to yelp and protest on the floor. She hates being left out of anything – she has infant FOMO – so I whip her
up into my arms.
Ted rubs a hand over his light stubble. ‘It doesn’t work that way,’ he says gently, and I feel patronised and fill with another blast of rage. ‘I have to be there to form relationships… you know how it is.’
I want to smash some building blocks into his face. I want to yell, ‘No, I don’t know how it is because I haven’t had a professional moment in nearly seven months and I never get to escape this domestic drudgery and the only highlight of my week is looking forward to a weekend when that drudgery is shared, is normalised somehow. And now you’re going to leave me behind to be totally alone in a mountain of dirty nappies and glued-on porridge dribbles and lose yourself in room service and cold beers and power suits. You absolute arsehole!’
But I don’t yell that. I don’t say anything. I am so immobilised by the rage I feel, all I do is fall into the hypnotic sway of the hips that comes when you hold a squirming baby, shifting my weight from foot to foot.
Ted holds out his arms towards my baby. ‘Shall I take her, then? Give you ten minutes to yourself?’
My hand stays firm on Cherry’s meaty bum. ‘No. Thanks,’ I mutter. ‘I’d better get used to being on my own with her, hadn’t I? Just the two of us.’ I plonk us down on the carpet again, busying my shaking hands with a whole other tower. Sod the green and red, sod the Leicester Tigers.
I keep my back to Ted, but his sigh reaches me over my shoulder. ‘Stevie, please. Don’t be like this. I have to go. And you’ll be fine, you know you’ll be fine.’
When I don’t move he sighs again. I know I’m hurting him, this man I love, by going into shutdown mode. I know I should be a grown-up and face the problem that’s just erupted between us. But I don’t want to be the bigger person, not today. I’m the bigger person when I pick up his dumped coat. I’m the bigger person when I wash his socks. I support him and his career and the things that stress him out. But when do I get my turn at that kind of support? Who’s there to take the burden off me?