by Poppy Dolan
‘Could there be something you’re overlooking?’ I say very calmly, very quietly.
He runs his tongue over his teeth. ‘Um, the money, the house, the childcare. Don’t think so—? I’ll have to buy my mum a stiff drink when I tell her, but I’m sure they’ll come out and visit. It’s not as if we ever get to see your folks as it is. It’ll be a whole new life for us, Stevie.’
I slip Cherry into her high chair and move over to the store cupboard, keeping my back to Ted as, eerily calmly, I go about the routine of finding a packet of baby food, slopping it into a bowl, stirring it a bit and pinging the microwave on.
‘You haven’t asked me if I want a new life. This is a new life for you, and we’re coming along. In your plan. A plan you have signed, sealed and delivered without even consulting me. It’s the other side of the world, Ted! This is where we live, here!’ My voice gets louder and higher as I jab a green plastic spoon for emphasis, sending shepherd’s pie splattering down the back of Cherry’s chair.
He blinks as if no part of his mega-clever brain ever considered I wouldn’t be doing cartwheels and throwing flowers at his feet right now. ‘But it always seems like—’
‘Like what?’ I cut across him.
‘Like you’re not all that at home here. We don’t see our London friends really, you keep saying that you’re not sold on going back to work and that you want more time with Cherry. I found a way for that to happen.’ His hands are open, palms up, at his side.
‘Your way. Not my way. And maybe between all your emails and late-night work sessions you haven’t really noticed, but I have friends here. Friends here, who mean a lot to me and I mean a lot to them. And I’m actually—’
I stop myself short, leaving my mouth gaping open, as I realise I can’t tell him about the blog, or the book opportunity. Or ParentFest, even. So instead I grab the warm mush as the microwave dings, sit down and start shovelling it into Cherry.
‘I’m actually really fond of these guys. I don’t want to leave them behind.’
He sits down across from me, reaching for my hand. ‘But you’d make friends anywhere, Stevie. You always do. You’re so great with people. It’ll be a breeze. They have soft plays all over the world. And you could do freelance PR from wherever you are.’
The voice I hear from Ted right now sounds like some corporate management, creepy calmness: he’s level, softly encouraging and oh-so-confident that I will bend to his will. I wince as I look into his eyes, trying to peg this guy onto the one from the New Year dance floor – or even just our recent poo-splosion experience. But to me, right now, he looks as blank and soulless as a business card. Not someone I recognise. ‘It’ll be home before you know it.’
‘NO!’ The voice I hear erupting from my mouth tells me exactly where my daughter gets her riotous rages from. ‘Stop trying to manage me! Do you see anything that happens in our house these days? I am NOT good with people, not any more. I have panic attacks in public bathrooms. I still want to cry when Cherry has a public meltdown. Did you know that? No, because you’re in Amsterdam or Seattle or Scunthorpe, enjoying a 7am wake-up call.’ Cherry is watching me, her eyes wide and her cheeks packed with mashed potato. Mummy has never gone this ballistic before. But I can feel myself still building up steam, still hurtling through everything I’ve wanted to say for so long but haven’t known how. Driven by a panicky vision of saying goodbye to Nelle and Will, and the book deal and the Metro pieces. Swinging from the joy and the pain of today into a volcanic anger.
I press my balled-up fists against my thighs. ‘I’m not the Stevie from London, from smooth product launches or Islington bars at 2am. Sometimes I don’t know who I am. But recently I was beginning to see myself, through my mates; realising it isn’t just me worrying that they’re a gigantic fuck-up. They are the people making me feel good right now. When very little else,’ my eyes take in the kitchen with its sticky worktop and rammed-full bin, ‘does. You think my whole life is just soft plays and coffees and putting my feet up. My life is more than that and it’s mine. You are not taking me away from here – or my daughter. You’re taking me away from the bl—’
The blog. You have to tell him about being First-Time Mum. You have to tell him this is who you are now and it means too much to walk away from.
But I don’t. I burst into tears, snatch up my coat and walk out of the door.
* * *
Seeing as we moved here when I was waddlingly pregnant, I never had the chance to decide on my favourite local pub. But for now, The Fox and Gherkin will do.
I had no plan on leaving the house other than To Get Out, and I was too pumped up to admit I was a hysterical woman walking along the streets alone without a destination or a handbag. I was not turning back now. Let Ted finish the baby’s dinner. Hell, let him bath her and put her to bed if he can remember how. There’s an expressed bottle in the fridge, if he can think that far. My hands instinctively come up to cover my boobs. Oh lord, please don’t let me spring a leak. Not now.
I think drying thoughts as I storm on – sand, towels, unbuttered toast – and soon realise the lights of the pub facing the park are beckoning to me. If I do start to go, there’ll be loo roll there. I root around in my pocket and find my keys, thank god, and a few receipts. Five coins. A lip salve. No phone. It’s OK. It’s enough. I can make this work.
The double doors to the bar swing easily open and present me with just the kind of place I need right now – pleasantly noisy and full, but with a tiny little table still free in the corner. Yes. Everyone too happy and busy to ask any awkward questions of the red-eyed woman by herself. I just need to get a drink to hide behind for an hour while I take in this mad fuckery and let my lungs breathe normally again.
I bring the five coins out and count them in my wobbly hand. £3.70. OK. Great. Enough.
Plastering what I hope is a winning smile on my sweaty, tear-streaked face, I lean in to the barman. ‘What’s the most alcoholic thing I can get for £3.70?’
He must be all of nineteen and he squints just briefly as he thinks of his reply. I hope it’s not: ‘Should you really be out on your own in this state?’
He lays a hand on a tap handle just to his left. ‘This week the Halemead Brewery are doing a special local promotion – two for one on their new cider. It’s a really good dry one. £3.70 would get you two pints of that.’
‘PERFECT,’ I say, a bit too loudly, slapping the coins down on the shiny woodwork. And it’s dry: it was meant to be. I may not have a husband who at all understands me, but the cosmos is totally getting my needs tonight.
Two pints is the perfect cover – no one will talk to me because they’ll all assume I’m meeting someone imminently. I slurp a good mouthful off the top of one glass and hurry over to the corner table.
I’ll hide out, I’ll drink, I’ll try and process what the hell just happened. How could Ted think this would be good for us?! How the hell could he do all this behind my back? All this time and he hasn’t just said: I might get an awesome promotion but it would mean we live on a different continent indefinitely. I can’t believe he could keep this all ticking away…
As the second gulp of cider hits my empty stomach, I feel something curdle. Not the booze so much as the tiniest spot of clarity – I’ve been keeping things from him, too. I’ve been hiding away a secret life, a secret plan. Haven’t I?
But it’s different. Right? My plan wasn’t going to wrench our family unit away from everything we know and love. In fact, if I can keep making money out of the blog and maybe even a book, it would only help me keep our family foundations stable. I’ll be with Cherry, she won’t have to go into childcare. I’ll be working from home. All the better for Ted to ignore me from when he comes in, dumps his shit in a pile and sprints off to the office. My stomach is churning again but now it’s anger layered on guilt layered on booze. Suddenly half the pint has gone and I feel very spacey.
A sweet little lady in a red cable-knit sweater vest is standing in front of my t
able, shaking an old-fashioned pint glass full of pound coins. Eh? Granted, it’s been a long time since I was ‘out’ in a pub, but this is the politest, neatest request for spare change I’ve ever seen.
‘Are you playing?’ she asks.
In my over-wrought brain, all I can think of is that we’re all going to launch into ‘Rhyme Time’, and my heart hurts for Cherry. I shouldn’t have stormed out. She could be heartbroken at bedtime without me. Ted won’t sing Humpty in the right way. She’s probably screeching the place down and the neighbours are calling Child Services. Yet MORE abandonment today. Write that chapter up, you heartless cow. You don’t deserve to be Cherry’s mum.
‘The quiz?’ The OAP tries again. ‘Two pounds per person to enter. Lots of great prizes!’
‘Oh,’ I pat my pockets in the international symbol for I’m making an effort but I am totally skint. ‘Sorry, no. I didn’t realise… do you need this table for someone else?’
She bats my concern away. ‘Of course not! You can just play along in your head, for fun. But maybe try it out properly next week, it’s ever such a lark and,’ she lowers her voice to a half-whisper, ‘I made them drop the Sports round. Such a bore.’ She tilts her head and moves off to the next table: a mixed group of friends who can only just be legally old enough to drink here. They have three bowls of chips between them and my mouth waters.
God, I’m hungry. Carbs would be such a good mood stabiliser right now. Something to absorb the anger and hurt and fear and guilt. Two bowls of chips would do it. If I had any money. Maybe I should completely finish this pint and then walk around shaking the glass, hoping for some pitiful donations? But would my table get nicked? Does that sort of thing still happen in pubs? I’ve forgotten all the social rules of drinking etiquette. I feel like an awkward exchange student in this warm, mellow pub: one that left their phrasebook in their other bumbag.
I will just keep sipping this cider. Slowly. There is no need to rush back. Mostly because I have no idea what to say to Ted right now other than: ‘Fucking fuck! What the fuck! You… Why…? Fuuuuuck!’ And also because: I am out. That’s something. OK, my head is swimming with alcohol units, my boobs are tingling in a threatening manner and my face is blotchy with swallowed anger and spent tears, but I’m out. If I had my phone, I could have sent an invitation to Will and Nelle to grab some cash and join me. I bet we’d make a killer quiz team.
Speaking of which, there’s a tapping on the mic at the front of the bar and the little old lady does a gentle shush. ‘Hello, everyone! We’ll be kicking off with round one: the picture round! So we’ll give you about ten minutes with these tricky puzzles, then we’ll dive into round two!’
All around me, the quiz-goers dip their heads and start a happy buzz of conversation and scribbling. This is what adults do. Adults not in a bonkers sleep pattern. Adults not thrown into surprise emotional attacks by their partners. Adults who do not leave babies in libraries.
If I sit very still, if I hardly blink, I can pretend I Am An Adult.
‘Hang on, say that again.’ One of the eighteen year olds next to me is talking to his mate with long ginger hair.
He sighs and says slowly, ‘What’s the connection? There’s a picture of a cartoon pig, a blank space, then a picture of Frank Skinner. I think we have to work out what links them. The pig and Skinner.’
A curvy girl in a clingy striped top giggles. ‘He hasn’t ever, you know… with a pig, has he?’ She goes bright red and collapses into more laughter.
The ginger guy cuffs her playfully behind the head. ‘No, that’s Cameron. He’s the true pig fuc—’
‘OK, OK,’ the first teen cuts across, looking over his shoulder. He clearly can’t get used to the idea they are allowed to be here and won’t be thrown out for the first minor indiscretion. ‘So, first of all, do we know the pig?’
‘It’s a woman. A female. In an orange dress like an umbrella.’
Oh, FFS. This was all so lovely and adult, as well.
‘Mummy Pig.’ I can’t help myself. I say it loud enough for them to hear.
‘Sorry?’ Ginger Rocker turns to me.
‘The lady pig is Mummy Pig, from Peppa Pig.’ I’m acutely aware of how many times I’ve just said ‘pig’. And that my lips are going a bit numb. I should really pace this second pint. ‘And if you’re looking for the connection between her and Frank Skinner, it’s David Baddiel.’
‘It is?’ The curvy girl looks confused.
I nod sagely. ‘The actress who does her voice – Morwenna something – is married to David Baddiel. And he used to be in a double act with Frank Skinner. You know, Fantasy Football.’ As I say this, I can see myself – the same age these guys are now – sprawled on the sofa, laughing uncontainably at the very rude jokes woven through football references I was happy not to get.
But they all blink at me in response.
‘Shit. Before you were born. But I’m really sure I’m right. Really sure.’
This seems enough of a promise to the ginger guy and he writes down the answer. ‘Thanks! Don’t suppose you fancy joining our team, do you? We could do with some more experience beyond A Level General Studies. And Mike actually failed that.’ He points the Biro across the table at his mate, who goes red to the tips of his ears.
I smile. What I wouldn’t give to be eighteen and have uncomplicated fun. Even uncomplicated misery, come to think of it, but just a day when things were simple. ‘I would, but I’ve stupidly come out without my money, so I was just going to drink this and then…’
‘Pssht.’ The girls flaps her hands. ‘You’ve already paid your way with that answer. I’ll cover you. It’s what my Dorothy Perkins wages are for.’ She winks and pushes a bowl my way. ‘Fancy a chip?’
* * *
I had such a genuinely good time that I didn’t notice we were winning. But at 10.30pm, Lovely Old Lady announced that it had come down to a tie between our team – Quiz On My Face – and a large group of very serious white-haired quizzers called HMS Victory. I thought it was a lame team name and they seemed to shudder every time ours was read out, so game on.
My new teen mates grinned with total glee, their eyes flashing with joy and Guinness merriment. ‘We’re fucking winning!’ Ginger Guy crowed, and HMS Victory shuddered all over again.
‘A local knowledge question,’ our compère read out slowly. ‘I will give a point for the nearest answer and I’m looking for the year here. In what year was the town’s last workhouse torn down?’ Her eyebrows rise. ‘Jolly question, that. Anyway, five minutes to discuss, then I will take your answers.’
Ginger Guy frowns, his eyes now almost crossed with drunken concentration. ‘I think it could be a trick. Pretty sure they had work houses in Oliver Twist and that was, you know, a musical. Not real.’ He crosses his arms like he just found the Holy Grail in the back of his sock drawer. Job done.
I’m also feeling pretty well smashed – the guys stood me two more pints of the cider on offer and even with a bowl of chips in my system the fizzy booze is taking charge. But a little sober voice is telling me I know this. Has someone talked to me about this? Did I read a book…?
‘Oh!’ I put my hands on my head, as if to stop the knowledge floating out. ‘It’s 1890-something. There’s a plaque, just by the library. I see it every time I take my daughter out for a walk in her pram. Which is four times a day. It’s, like, 1893 or 1894. I remember, because it doesn’t seem all that long ago, for something as awful as an actual workhouse. They’d put you there and pay you fuck all if you were poor.’
‘Fucking Teresa May,’ the other bloke mutters into his pint glass.
‘Do you have a baby?’ Curvy Girl coos. ‘Where is it?’ She looks under the table.
I gulp. My throat is suddenly very dry. ‘At home. With my husband. I don’t usually come out… I don’t usually drink in pubs at night…’ I feel a pressure on my chest, around my ribs.
I’m not a teenager. I have a family. What if Cherry hasn’t settled in all this t
ime? I haven’t thought about her at all. I just stuffed toilet roll down my bra in the loos and continued with Round 4: Foods from Around the World. She could be breathless from hours and hours of tears; she could have made herself hot and sick with them by now. Ted might think there was something seriously wrong, he might have rushed her to A&E and she’s caught MRSA off a trolley and he can’t call me and she needs her mum and I’m swimming with cider and trying to bag a twenty-pound voucher to the local Chinese.
Stuffing my arms into my coat, I blab, ‘I really should go. But put 1890. Good luck and thanks for the drinks. Nice to meet you.’
I make it home in about three breaths.
The lights are all out. At least there’s no sirens flashing. I stumble in the front door, suddenly feeling all the more drunk in the chilly reality of our kitchen.
There’s a scribbled note on the table. Oh god, oh god, something happened. This is all my fault!
Stevie,
You went without your phone. I’m pretty fucking worried. But I also have to be up at 4am for a flight so I’ve taken a sleeping pill and gone to bed. When they offered me the job they suggested I should fly out ASAP and meet the team, see if I’d gel on a daily basis with those guys. Which makes sense. Also, I can look at houses and things to get a feel for it. Didn’t get a chance to tell you before you stormed off.
I know you’re not all that keen but maybe if I can send you some more deets it might help you see the full picture? Then we could talk some more.
See you in ten days.
Ted
I would scream if I wasn’t so terrified of waking Cherry while I’m still clearly drunk. She’s going to have to neck one of the emergency bottles of formula in the cupboard when she next wakes up. Which could be in five minutes or two hours. Not enough time for my system to process the cider (delicious and cheap, though it was), and giving her a kind of milk-based Appletini tonight would not sit easily with me, after double abandonment and witnessing a mammoth row between Mummy and Daddy.