by Anna Bell
I laugh.
‘But we’re not that old now, are we?’ says Max.
‘OK, maybe not old, but we have responsibilities. We’ve both got our jobs, we’ve got our mortgage, a child, a baby on the way. That ship has well and truly sailed.’
I take another sip of my drink.
‘Sorry, this isn’t what you want to hear, is it? I’m supposed to be selling you our life.’
‘I get it,’ he says. ‘I probably should have taken a gap year too. I was supposed to. Owen and I were going to go after uni, but then he met Sarah and I didn’t fancy going on my own.’
I smile weakly at him.
‘You already know this,’ he says, shaking his head.
‘That’s the problem, isn’t it, when you know each other so well?’ says the woman, leaning across to us. I look at her in horror. ‘We’re the same. I tell the same jokes and stories over and over, and this one just laps them up.’
Her husband shrugs. ‘I do the same.’
I smile back at them and raise my eyebrows.
Although not as cataclysmic as the beer pong date, it’s still not going great. What with my constant reminders to Max of my teenage self, and being sandwiched between the polar opposite of couples who are both eavesdropping far too much.
The waitress plonks down a plate in front of Max.
‘Buon appetito,’ she says before hurrying away.
‘Isn’t that Italian?’ Max says to me, but I hardly think that’s the thing to be focusing on. I’m too busy staring at his limp leaf of iceberg lettuce with a sliver of tomato and a piece of goat’s cheese on a thin slice of toasted baguette.
‘Well, this looks, um…’ says Max, poking it carefully with a fork.
‘At least the goat’s cheese looks nice and runny,’ I say, marvelling at its gooeyness.
‘Bloody hell, it’s like lava,’ he says, draining his beer. ‘It’s been microwaved to oblivion.’
He picks around at it and does a better job than I would at trying to eat it.
‘Did you want some?’ he says, proffering a fork.
I recoil from it and wrinkle my nose.
‘I can’t have soft cheese because I’m pregnant.’
‘Ah, right. I wish I was so lucky,’ he says, putting his fork down and admitting defeat. ‘I’m slightly worried about the main course now.’
‘Hmm, me too. The food was really good last time we came.’
I look out of the corner of my eye and the silent couple actually meet each other’s gaze for a split second before she picks a piece of cut baguette out of a bowl and starts to pick at the crust round the outside.
‘Perhaps I should have looked on Tripadvisor before we came,’ I say, looking round the rest of the restaurant. We’re still the only three couples in the restaurant.
‘But Dad said it was good, and he should know. I bet him and Mum eat here all the time.’
Luckily our friendly waitress comes back and interrupts us before I have to correct him. She picks up Max’s starter before she arrives mere seconds later with two steaming hot plates.
‘Very hot,’ she says, sliding them perilously across the table and stopping them with her grubby tea towel. ‘Enjoy!’
She makes it sound like it’s a challenge rather than a pleasantry.
‘So, this looks marginally better,’ says Max, stabbing at the steak on his plate.
‘And mine smells nice,’ I say, breathing in the winey smells. ‘If it tastes bad, I’ll just sit here smelling it instead. It’s the closest I’ve been to wine in months.’
‘You know, in that case we could have had a very cheap date. We could have sat at home and I could have let you sniff my wine glass.’
‘Now there’s an offer,’ I say, starting to laugh. ‘Of all the things you’ve offered me over the years, you’ve never offered for me to sniff your wine.’
‘What else have I offered you to sniff?’
The woman to the left of me leans over. ‘Oh, is that the bourguignon. That’s what I’m going for too. Smells delicious.’
‘Sure is,’ I say, wishing she’d leave us alone.
I put a little in my mouth so then I won’t have to talk.
‘Fuck me, that’s hot,’ I say, spitting it into my hand and throwing it onto my napkin. The woman looks shocked, and I give her a thumbs-up. ‘Give it time to cool down first.’
The food-spitting seems to have done the trick to get rid of her and she turns back to her husband and starts talking to him.
‘Was it at least good?’ asks Max.
I pick up my water and it fizzes on my burnt tongue.
‘I’m not sure, I think I burnt off my taste buds.’
Max laughs a little. After my experience he waits to try his steak.
The waitress goes over to the table next to ours and picks up their plates.
‘Would you like to see the dessert menus?’
‘Why not? That was delicious, thank you.’
I don’t know what I’m more shocked about, the fact that the woman could speak or that the waitress didn’t have a hint of a French accent this time.
‘Did you hear the waitress?’ I whisper at Max.
‘Yes, she lost her accent.’
We both peer at her, and now we’re the ones that are guilty of eavesdropping.
I turn back to my food and it’s getting even more unappetising by the minute. It’s formed into a congealed heap on the plate. The wine smell has worn off and now I don’t even want to sniff it.
‘How’s your steak?’
‘It tastes like a shoe,’ he says, chewing and pulling a face. ‘What about yours?’
I take a bite and at least the meat is tender.
‘I’ve eaten worse.’
‘Glowing recommendation,’ says Max with a laugh.
We eat as little as we can politely get away with. Max hides a big piece of fatty steak under a lettuce leaf, and I manage to heap all my uneaten rubbery mushrooms into one corner of the bowl.
The waitress makes a beeline for our plates when she thinks we’ve finished.
‘Dessert?’ she asks.
‘No,’ we both say quickly.
‘Just the bill, thanks,’ says Max.
‘Sure,’ she says with the accent that sounds more Spanish this time.
‘Not feeling well?’ says the chatty woman. ‘Is it the baby? I had terrible heartburn at the latter stages.’
‘Hmm,’ I say, ‘something like that.’
The waitress appears with the bill and I don’t even look at it before I hand her my card.
‘Enjoy the rest of your evening,’ says Max to them as he ushers me past the empty tables and out the door.
‘Well,’ says Max, ‘I take it that was not what happened when we went last time.’
‘No, it wasn’t,’ I say, shaking my head. It couldn’t have been further from what I planned.
‘When they put that second couple next to us—’ he says, starting to laugh.
‘And that waitress with the fake accent. What was that about—’ I join in, and the two of us laugh even harder.
‘Oh,’ I say with a big sigh. ‘It wasn’t supposed to be funny.’
A tear trickles down my cheek and I can feel more going to follow.
‘Hey, hey,’ says Max, putting his arm around me and patting me on the shoulder. ‘What’s going on? It was a funny evening and some dodgy food.’
‘Bloody hormones. It’s just, this was supposed to be a proper date,’ I say, wiping the rogue tears away.
‘Well, it was certainly a memorable one.’
I groan again.
‘For all the wrong reasons. Every time we go out and try and recreate one of our dates it goes horribly wrong.’
‘What do you mean, recreate our dates?’
Shit. I wasn’t meant to say that.
‘Ellie?’ he says with an almost amused grin on his face and it only makes me feel even more ridiculous. ‘Is that why we came here, because you were trying to r
ecreate what happened last time? Is that why you got so mad when the mini-golf was out of action?’
He runs his hand through his hair.
‘Ah, Ellie, you’re trying to jog my memory. Did you think that if we had a similar evening, that it might fall back into place?’
‘Yes,’ I say a little too quickly. I’d rather let him think that than what I was really trying to do – to make him fall in love with me again. ‘Yes, I was totally trying to jog your memory.’
‘Maybe if they’d been that disastrous originally, it might have done it,’ he says with a smile. ‘Look, it’s still early, shall we go for a drink? Is The Five Bells still going?’
‘I don’t know, I don’t think I’ve ever been there.’
‘Not even when you were a teenager? It was the only place that used to serve you – no questions asked.’
I shake my head.
‘You and Rach, you two were such goody-goodies.’
‘We couldn’t all be rebels burning down summer houses with our spliffs,’ I say with a wink.
His face creases up. ‘Something tells me that I told you the real story behind that, didn’t I?’
‘I can see why you changed it. Burning a love letter in a bin doesn’t do as much for your street cred,’ I say giggling. ‘You’ve got to be the only person in the world who’d pretend to their parents that they were doing drugs.’
‘I know, I felt like I needed to protect my bad-boy reputation. But I was nothing like that, though, not really. People saw what they wanted to see at school, didn’t they? We never really made an effort to get to know the real person under the label.’
‘Try being labelled a geek.’
‘Yeah, I can imagine it was rough, but it wasn’t easy being…’
‘Most Fuckable 1997.’
Max laughs. ‘OK, you win. But I’ve learnt over the last week that you’re different to how I thought you’d be.’
Does that mean that he’s stopped seeing me as Rach’s geeky friend?
‘Let’s give The Five Bells a go,’ says Max, and he puts his hand on the small of my back and guides me towards the car.
Whilst the whole recreating dates thing isn’t exactly going to plan, Max and I are edging ever closer to one another, even if it feels like it’s at the speed that continents move.
Chapter 14
It’s not only Max and his lack of memory that have been keeping me busy in my maternity leave, but my new mummy friends too. Especially with their worrying about the impending birth of their watermelons – it turns out that string exercise we did in the first class has been giving Helen and Polly nightmares and, short of me exposing my lady bits to them, it’s hard to reassure them that it’s going to be OK. Of course, Anneka isn’t worried as she’s having an elective C-section. Instead she’s channelling her worry into whether or not her little one will get into the highly exclusive nursery that they’re on the waiting list for.
Even though I’m the only one officially on maternity leave – thanks to Anneka not working, Helen using up her flexi-time and Polly taking an early lunch – we’ve managed to meet up for a mid-morning Monday coffee in the café in the arts centre.
‘I just keep looking at Toby’s head and I’m sure it’s abnormally big. Maybe it’s just that his hairline’s receding and it’s deceptive, but still,’ says Helen, putting her card back in her wallet. ‘I’m thinking of taking some selfies just to remember the old girl by, as I can’t see how she’s ever going to be the same again.’
I pat Helen on the arm and laugh.
‘Just spare a thought for what’s going to happen to Ellie’s after having two,’ says Anneka.
‘Hmm, thanks for that,’ I say, thinking it’s the least of my worries. ‘Don’t forget that our lovely husbands will be at our side with their demands for an extra stitch.’
‘That bloody extra stitch. If Toby so much as opens his mouth to make that joke that’s where that extra stitch is bloody going.’
Anneka picks up her drink from the end of the counter and turns to us before she goes to get us a table.
‘Just think, this is the first of many coffee mornings, ladies,’ she says, tutting at another couple of women who were making a beeline for the sofas in the corner. She pushes her bump out and gives them a look and they wisely choose another table.
‘Yes, but I’m guessing that the “many more” won’t be this relaxing,’ says Helen. ‘And this will probably be one of the last times we’re going to be able to have conversations where we can all follow what’s going on.’
‘Come on, it’s not going to be that bad,’ says Polly with a laugh. ‘Is it?’
Helen raises an eyebrow. ‘I can count on one hand the number of serious conversations I’ve had with most of my girlfriends since they’ve had kids. In those first few years they’re always so exhausted or distracted. Oh, no offence, Ellie.’
‘None taken. You’re right, it’s a struggle to do anything when Sasha’s around and when she’s not I’m usually mentally drained from running around after her or working. But that’s the bonus of Max being signed off work – I get to swan off and leave Sasha with him when I’m meeting you guys. And the best part about it all is that he’s not even complaining, because he thinks that he does it all the time when he’s not at work – when usually he’d nip out for a run or a cycle by himself instead. That’s why I suggested meeting here because he’s taken her to the library for Rhyme Time.’
The arts centre also houses the town library. It’s the first time that Max’s taken Sasha out on his own, other than to the park, and I wanted to be close by just in case.
‘Ah, that’s really sweet. I hope that Jason does that with our little one,’ says Polly.
‘I’m not going to be letting George swan off to Rhyme Time, all those yummy mummies there,’ says Anneka with a scowl on her face.
‘Spoken from a woman who’s obviously never been. It’s a savage experience: trying to make it there in time before the room fills up, trying to find a spot where you’re not sitting on the floor like a school assembly, then for the duration of the class you not only have to sing but also wrangle your baby so that he or she doesn’t try to scramble over all the other babies, scream, cry, poo or vomit.’
‘So, I take it that won’t be in our weekly routine,’ says Helen.
‘Oh no, it’s actually very good for the kids and it’s free. I was just trying to make the point that the other mums probably would be too busy to hit on a rogue dad.’
‘You’d be surprised,’ says Anneka, pursing her lips.
Polly sighs. ‘This whole motherhood thing sounds like a never-ending minefield, and I thought sleep deprivation would be the worst bit.’
‘On that matter I have something for you all,’ says Anneka, digging into her bag and handing us all copies of a book. ‘I figured that if we all read it and got our babies on the same schedule, it would make our lives so much easier.’
I take a look at the book and my heart sinks. I read this one when Sasha was a baby and I cried as much as her trying to follow its strict rules.
‘That’s really kind of you, thank you,’ I say diplomatically. ‘Buying us all a book.’
‘My friend owns a bookshop,’ she says, shrugging.
‘Your friend isn’t Jeff Bezos, is he?’ says Helen.
‘No, but I do have a friend who knows him. This is an actual bookshop and I try and buy books whenever I can.’
‘Oh good, you’re doing it to be nice and therefore I don’t have to feel guilty when I don’t read it.’ Helen puts it down on the table.
‘Is this the one where we have to leave the baby to cry?’ says Polly, wincing. ‘I’m not sure I would be very good at that. I read a book last month that was a bit… gentler.’
‘I’m sure that was a very good book, but you’ve got to take into consideration the schedule,’ says Anneka.
‘But that one was all about the schedule,’ says Polly, holding her ground. ‘It’s just the baby sets it.�
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‘I’m not talking about the baby’s, I’m talking about your social schedule,’ says Anneka. ‘You don’t want to be stuck on the sofa feeding for the whole year when there are so many things to do? I’ve scoured a five-mile radius for baby activities that we can do and I’m just making up a draft timetable.’
‘A draft timetable?’ I say, starting to feel anxious.
‘Oh yes, there’s baby sensory, baby yoga, baby massage, Rhyme Time, Bach for babies, although that clashes with baby massage so that’s going to be an issue, but then again Rhyme Time could be their source of music, so maybe it wouldn’t be that bad. I’ve also found a French class, as it’s so important for them to learn as many languages as they can at an early age.’
‘Hmm, I’m not sure that it’s a rounded enough curriculum,’ says Helen, taking the piss. ‘Seriously, Anneka, I’ve spent the last twenty years of my life working. For the next year, I plan to do bugger all.’
Polly gives her a look.
‘OK, so not quite bugger all; I do realise that I’ve got to keep a small human alive. But I’ve been adding things to my watch list on Netflix in preparation.’
Anneka turns to Helen with a shocked look on her face. ‘But those first few months and years are so important to their whole development.’
‘And I’ll give her a history lesson while watching The Crown and she’ll pick up Spanish from watching Narcos. I’ll pop a bit of classical music on for us to nap to and voila.’
Anneka goes to speak when Helen holds her hands up.
‘Don’t worry, I’ll still come out and meet you for coffee. But I’ll not be doing any classes where I have to sing my name,’ she says, and all of us but Anneka giggle. ‘Now, the whole point of today is that we’re supposed to be taking our mind off our babies with the giant heads and the impending demise of our vaginas, and we’re supposed to be making the most of talking. So, shouldn’t we be talking non-baby stuff?’
‘Oh, we should,’ says Polly, and all eyes fall on me. ‘How’s it going with Max? How was your date on Saturday? You were very vague in your messages. I take it it went well?’
‘Yeah. I mean the restaurant was terrible, but the evening was… pleasant.’
‘Where did you go?’