by Poppy Dolan
‘Great! There’s this local band we like for ParentFest and they say they can come and play a mini acoustic set for us at the pub today, so we can see if we like their sound, yeah.’ She says this last bit in a roughly Gallagher-like accent.
‘Private acoustic set?! Blimey, it’s like our very own Live Lounge. Count me in! What about Will?’
‘Messaging him now,’ Nelle replies, eyes down and thumbs moving rapidly. ‘Meet you at The Jolly Good at 2pm?’
‘Perfect. Maybe we should have a pint of snakebite each, just for full authenticity? I must have a tie-dye T-shirt at the back of a drawer somewhere still.’
The moody little library gnome clears his throat loudly and obnoxiously. Jeez, I’m joking about having a pint, not downing a can of Foster’s here and now!
I follow Nelle out of the double doors, glad to be out of his miserable earshot. ‘I haven’t listened to live music in… just for ever. Maybe they’re like the next Ed Sheeran or something, and we can say we saw them first?!’
‘Four Ed Sheerans is a bit of a weird thought, though, isn’t it? And if they cover that “Irish Girl” song I’ll be having words. Rude words. I’m hoping for some classic Springsteen, Van Morrison. Clapton, if they’ve been well schooled by their parents. Coldplay and maybe—’
‘Excuse me!’ I wheel around on the spot at an angry croaking following us down the street. The gnome is huffing his way the ten metres from the doors to where we’re standing. Instinctively I pat my pockets. Did I slip a book in there and forget to check it out properly? I’m all for supporting libraries, not robbing them.
His whole face and neck are a livid puce as he reaches us. ‘You forgot…’ he wheezes.
Oh god, I have unintentionally nicked a book…
‘…your baby,’ he eventually finishes.
My breath catches as I look at Nelle’s sling. But Joe’s stripy beanie is visible, poking out above her cleavage, and he can’t mean—
‘CHERRY!’ I scream, running past the little troll, almost knocking him over, my lungs now devoid of oxygen and a searing pain tearing through my calves.
She’s sitting on the carpet, still sucking all the juices from her board book. Tears stream down my face as I scoop her up. ‘Oh, baby, baby,’ I cry into her neck. ‘I’m sorry. Mummy’s so sorry. I didn’t—I wouldn’t—’
But I did. Didn’t I? I forgot my baby.
* * *
Even at 2pm, I’m still shaking. My hands, my legs, my brain. Whatever steel I thought my resolve had gained recently has melted in fiery-hot shame and now I’m a puddle of a person. I left Cherry behind. I breezed out of there without a care in the world, easy as you like, making stupid, stupid jokes about getting drunk in the daytime. Full of myself. All the while, my beautiful, defenceless baby just sat there in a public space, waiting to be snatched. I might as well have listed her on Freecycle: Baby to collect. ASAP. What if the staff hadn’t noticed?! What if someone unscrupulous had got there first? What if I had to make one of those awful public appeals on television, with Ted barely holding back the urge to throttle me there and then for being so careless, so stupid with this incredible, precious gift of life.
I’m at the bar in The Jolly Good, ordering three coffees, and tears drop quickly into my cappuccino. Nelle spots me and comes over.
‘Love, please, don’t beat yourself up. It’s such an easy thing to do and you’ve been working all these crazy hours…’
I hold up my hand, not even turning to face her. I’d rather she put hot coals down my bra than be kind to me right now. Kindness just makes the shame burn even deeper. I am an awful person.
She takes the hint. ‘OK. OK. Look, the band’s about to start… try and allow yourself to be distracted, if you can. Just listen to the music and let it drown everything else out.’
Will puts his arm around my shoulders as I take a seat at the little round pub table. The girls are doing one of their first nursery afternoons and he can barely contain his giddy joy, even though I know he’s trying his best to sympathise.
I pull Cherry’s pram closer to me by a few inches. This girl is not leaving my sight. Ever. Possibly not until she collects a pension. Luckily she seems unfazed by the abandonment ordeal I put her through this morning. Sure, she had her usual shouts and cries of protest at being wheeled about for a nap after lunch, but it was no louder or longer than any other day. I’m definitely putting off moving her into her own room now, though. Maybe I’ll do it in October. October 2035.
‘Ooooh, here we go.’ Will rubs his hands together as some tuning twangs come from the lead singer’s guitar. He has super-tight acid wash jeans on, which finish promptly above his ankle, and a lot of quiffy hair on top with a number one shave around the sides. Young. Cool. Maybe this is the perfect distraction from my mothering fails – I can use this guy as portal to reminisce about all my teenage crushes: Damon Albarn, Leo DiCaprio, the boy with the ice-blue eyes who used to give out the shoes at the bowling alley. Every week I’d go and rent those sweaty flats so that I could chance brushing my hand against his.
Nelle sits just behind us and gives the band the thumbs up. The Isolated Pawns, apparently. They can’t be more than twenty-three at the oldest but they seem so self-assured, so composed. Standing with their cool T-shirts and instruments in a corner of a Berkshire pub at 2pm on a weekday, looking like a Top Man shoot that’s got hideously lost. I envy them that confidence of youth. Or maybe it’s the confidence of talent? Or good hair? But they seem to just belong, to fit perfectly, and I miss that easy, impossible-to-fake sense of belonging. Just when I thought I was hitting something like a stride this week with the blog and the chance to write a book, all alongside caring for Chezza, I go and slide right back into Beginner Mum territory…
Hang on. Distract yourself. Don’t start crying again in front of Nelle and Will. Or The Isolated Pawns. They’re too young to handle a middle-aged meltdown.
Some gentle chords start to float out towards us, and I’m sure I remember this song. From sixth form. Kind of romantic. What was it? Not Nirvana. Not REM. Foo Fighters, that’s it. The strumming goes on and I feel my shoulders loosen as familiar notes fill my head. What was it called? I hum along a bit just to myself, seeing if I can get to the chorus before they do.
Oh. ‘Walking Back to You.’ That was it.
Karma really has it in for me today. Thanks, universe. I get it. Might as well do my own cover called ‘Running Hysterically Back to You’ by the Custody Battle Fighters.
To keep myself from more ugly sobs, I unlock Cherry from the pram and lift her into my lap for a good head-sniff. I hope I never lose the memory of what her hair smells like: part custard powder, part fresh laundry, wrapped up together in the smell that can only be called Warm. I get these smells best post-bath time, when she’s squeaky clean and we’re settling down for her bedtime feed. They’re few and far between during the day because sadly the sour-milk taint of regurgitation trumps Warm smell, every time.
My daughter wriggles and kicks away from me, not wanting to be enclosed in my desperate arms but to be lunging towards these strangers and their mysterious big toys which she could slice her fingers on and cover with her drool. ‘Geerrrrghhhh!’ she yells, as they wind the song down.
Nelle looks at me out of the corner of her eye and then yells, ‘Got anything a bit more up tempo? But same era?’
The lead singer nods without making eye contact and soon an acoustic version of ‘American Idiot’ has us up and out of our seats. Now this is distracting music. I bounce up and down with Cherry on my hip and her pudgy arms wave in no apparent rhythm, but she’s loving it just as much as I am. After a few verses she yanks my hair and grins. These are the moments I should hold on to, I realise. Not the utter fails but the relatively normal, happy triumphs. When my girl and I are jigging about like loons and having fun together. The moments when I feel how closely we are connected, how unbreakable is our bond. If I’m going to write this book, I’d better practise what I preach. Today th
is feels like a momentous fuck-up of nuclear disaster proportions but in a week, in a month, next year, will it feel like something knobbish I could actually laugh about? I mean, David Cameron left his kid in a pub and he was still allowed to be prime minister. One of the worst ones, in my opinion, but he wasn’t chased out of Downing Street with pitchforks and flaming torches for that forgetfulness. And, right now, the only one pointing a sharpened garden tool in my direction is me.
Nelle is pogoing around the limited space, her eyes half-closed in joy, and Will is pumping his arms about wildly, stepping side to side. I think it might have been a while since he was last clubbing. And that makes three of us. But who cares?
I switch Cherry into a rocket launcher position, crouching down her then zooming her up in the air and over my head. She wetly gurgles out laughter, louder with each whoosh. This girl might leave a white, sticky calling card wherever she goes, she might burst the eardrums of cafe patrons, she might not sleep like the books say she should, but she’s happy in this moment. And she is utter perfection to me.
The band leap straight into Garbage’s ‘Stupid Girl’ without even taking a breath. ‘Yes!’ bellows Nelle. ‘Absolute classic!’ And I don’t even let that snarky little voice in my head pass comment about the relevance of the song title to today’s misadventures. I just keep twirling and hopping and shimmying with Cherry held at my front. When I have to pause for a slurp of coffee, I get an image of myself at the end of the year six disco, the first one I ever went to. Those huge stretchy headbands that were de rigueur, making us look – in hindsight – like we had serious head injuries. I shuffled awkwardly about the dance floor with my mates to this song, feeling so grown up to be at a disco in my best Tammy Girl stirrup leggings, without my parents, listening to grunge. This is proper adult stuff, I’d thought. Which, of course, it in no way was.
But here I am now, decades later, a certified adult with a baby of my own (though always yearning for those stirrup leggings – they were a pure grape purple) and, at times in the parenting game, I still feel like I’ve been let into my first ever disco. Excited, overwhelmed, out of my depth. Like everyone else is so cool and so ahead of the game. But it’s OK not to have mastered it all. It’s OK to not follow some kind of master plan. It’s OK to trip over in the middle of ‘Oh, Carolina’ and then get up and try and shrug it off like some very rare body-popping move.
I will remember The Event at the Library for as long as I live. It will ramp up my levels of protectiveness, caution and double-checking under seats by 120 per cent, I imagine. But I will also remember it as the day my friends helped me shrug it off and then dance around to guitar music in the same afternoon. I’ve got to write a chapter on Mum Mates. Even if it scares the bejesus out of you to find them, they are a lifesaver.
Nelle leans against me, heaving happy breaths of exhaustion.
‘Working hard, are we?’ a gruff voice calls out behind us.
‘Hello, love!’ Nelle beams in the direction of a stocky guy with sandy-blond hair standing in the pub doorway. ‘Come and meet Stevie and Will. This is my Darren.’ As he approaches, Nelle places her hand on his chest, rubbing a brief circle on his flannel shirt. It’s both affectionate and protective. These are couple goals.
‘Hello, heard lots about you all. All good, of course. Um, love, you know that dentist appointment the kids had for today?’
Nelle frowns. ‘What? No. I didn’t make one. Did you?’
‘Yeah, uh, the thing is’ – he scratches the back of his head – ‘someone might have mentioned to the kids that we were trialling a live band. And then that same someone got worn down by begging and pleading. So that soppy someone made up fake dentist appointments to get them out of school early.’
Just as Nelle is taking aim to smack him on the bicep, Darren yells, ‘Kids! Your mother is fine with it!’ and through the door barrel two very excited children, both with the sandy hair of their dad: Evan’s is buzzed all over in a close crop and Amy’s is long and parted on the side, with a Hunger Games-style plait in front of her ear.
I can see Nelle biting back the admonishment she’d like to give her other half and instead she just shrugs and smiles. ‘Oh, well. You’re here now. But only one lemonade each. And you must work really hard, deciding if this band is any good. Look, they’re about to start up again.’ She pulls a frown of mock-concern. ‘But I don’t know about these guys, what do you reckon? Hmm. I really think we should get them to play at least three more tracks.’
‘Four!’ Will does a cheesy double-finger gun towards us all. There’s a smattering of sweat beads on his forehead and he’s thrown off the inky blue jumper he was wearing.
‘I would say the success of ParentFest categorically depends on it!’ I chime in.
‘Yay!’ Evan and Amy chorus together, gleeful at playing hooky with their parents’ consent and probably looking forward to showing off to their mates at being inside a pub, listening to a band.
And I can see us all there at ParentFest: at the front of the crowd, faces thick with festival glitter and shoes slopped with white wine as we bop about without a care in the world to the tunes of our youth. We’re going to put on an awesome shindig for the parents of this place. This place which is really starting to feel like home for me.
Chapter 13
We danced and nattered and bargained a rate with the band, high on nostalgia for the past, excitement for the future of the festival, and more caffeine than is strictly good for you. In fact, we were having such a blast that I suddenly realised the pub was filling up with after-work drinkers. It was 5.40pm and I hadn’t even given Cherry her tea!
With some swearing and apologies, I high-tailed it home, praying to the patron saint of Parenting, The Lady Annabelle of the Holy Purée, that there would be at least one ready-to-heat food pouch in the cupboard for Cherry. I didn’t have time to defrost any of her frozen homemade cubes of smush if I had any hope of catching up with the normal evening routine. And it would be so nice to have a relatively normal night of it tonight, to hold on to the lovely, bonkers shine of this afternoon. Just for a little while.
The front door swings open and Ted’s pale face turns to greet me. Not with a friendly smile, but with a relieved grimace.
‘Where have you been?’ he snaps, and my hackles rise.
‘Out with friends,’ I shoot back, shoulders pulling back. ‘Which, last time I checked, was allowed without my husband as chaperone.’ I flick my eyes to the clock on the kitchen wall. ‘You’re back early. It’s not even six.’
He gets up from the table and paces around it. ‘I’ve been back since four. To see you. Only you weren’t here. And you didn’t answer your phone. I have been thinking the very worst thoughts about something having happened to you, or to Cherry.’
I bite my lip. Now is not the time for a confessional.
‘And the Champagne I opened has lost all its fizz, I think.’ His voice tapers down into a flat tone.
‘Champagne?’ Two crystal glasses are out on the table, wedding gifts we haven’t thought to use since I successfully weed on a Clear Blue test.
Ted flops into a chair, his paleness being slowly replaced by a healthy, pink, more-Ted-like colour. ‘I got promoted!’
I finally wheel the pram the rest of the way in and hurriedly slam the door behind me. Cherry, by now hangry and not having time for my loud noises bullshit, breaks instantly into an ear-splitting wail. ‘Argh. Sorry.’ I whip her out and jiggle her about, my knees creaking with the effort after so much dancing this afternoon. ‘But yey!’ I say loudly over the din. ‘So you’re now…?’
‘Global Head of Strategic Client Success.’ He dips his head.
‘WOW!’ I hope my semi-shout of enthusiasm over Cherry’s red-faced screams will compensate for the fact that I don’t totally understand what that means. ‘Blimey, global! That almost sounds a bit jet-set!’
‘Well…’ He smiles shyly and twists his watch on his wrist. ‘It is. It’s based in Hong Kong.’
He starts ticking things off on his fingers hurriedly. ‘It’s a huge pay rise. Huge. You know,’ his eyes roll to the ceiling, ‘Bahamas holidays huge. They’ll give us a resettling payment and sort out everything – they can choose our house, if we like, fill it with furniture. They’ll even compensate us for a nanny or au pair. That’s pretty standard out there. And, later, private school fees. Literally, they’ve thought of everything.’
My hands tremble and my face burns as I squat down to the bottom of the pram and fish out a sandwich bag of emergency baby-friendly gingerbread men. I shove one in Cherry’s loudspeaker and she’s quiet at last, orange drool spouting from the corners of her mouth.
They’ve thought of everything, have they? They’ve thought of everything. Well. Wow.
With Cherry weighing me down on one hip, I turn back and look at Ted. My husband. The father of this precious kid. The man who wants to drag us halfway around the world, away from everything we know. The man who apparently can’t see anything wrong with this plan.
‘Ted. Hong Kong. I…’
He comes over to us and puts a hand gently on my forearm. ‘I know it’s a lot to take in. And I didn’t want to say anything until it was completely in the bag – just in case it fell through and you got disappointed. But now it’s official. It’s so much more financial security for us… you don’t need to worry about working again, you can be with Cherry all the time if you want.’ He blows out a deep breath and smiles. ‘It’s going to be great. I know it.’