The Yummy Mummy (11 page)

In the park café, I collapse like a pushchair, folded arms clicked tight to my ribs, knees crossed, shyly constricted. Nicola is late, always. Normally I time myself to be about twelve minutes late, then we coincide. Slurping a cappuccino on my own, I watch the hubbub elsewhere. At other tables, women breast-feed beneath peacock blue kaftan tops and fork salad. Toddlers squabble over trikes and skateboards. Everyone laughs loudly and chatters intently like they’re having a boozy lunch in the south of France. Everyone seems to know each other. Why didn’t anyone invite me to the party?

The other mothers look too thin to ever have been fertile. That they are thinner than I was in my prime (age twenty-four?) is demoralizing. That they all look like they have been dressed from the pages of
Vogue,
even more so. Do they not have impossible spring wardrobes full of drab, stretched vest tops and mismatched separates in different sizes bought to fit their expanding and contracting figures? It seems not. The park is paint-balled with color, floral dresses, sparkly little halter tops, and teeny skirts that show if you’ve got cellulite or not. (They haven’t.) Some of the mothers coordinate. Some of the mothers accessorize. I really can’t remember the last time I had the occasion or motivation to put on a pair of earrings, let alone an extravagant fall of cleavage-bouncing Bloomsbury beads.

Some of these women I recognize from the sandpit. Some of them I may once have misguidedly attempted to talk to in the early days, when desperate for adult daytime company. That was before I’d sussed the sandpit etiquette. Rule number one: Don’t attempt to use your child as an entree into a clique of mothers who already know each other. It won’t work. The children
may
play with each other, but embarrassing disinterest or, worse, violence is just as likely. (If your child hits theirs, apologize profusely and quickly remove yourself and your offending child. If their child hits yours, never
ever
tell their child off. Smile sweetly and say it doesn’t matter even if your child is bleeding and their child is about as cute as a rabid pit bull.) Rule number two: Don’t expect a friendly aside about spades or sandy nappies to result in a friendship with another mother. In my experience, such asides meet with a slightly embarrassed smile and brush-off, as if you were a gawky guy trying to hit on them in a public place. Rule number three: Look like you have lots of other mum friends or, alternatively, are happy in your own company. Playground politics apply: No one likes a needy loser.

Evie asleep, I seize the moment to flick through my celebrity weekly, something I’d once have been a little embarrassed reading in public. But I’m too tired to care, about most things actually. And—luck’s in—there’s an article about Pilates, most of it taken up with pictures of celebrities, pre- and postpartum. The caption above their lollipop heads tells how many months (or weeks, in many cases) it took for them to regain their figures. Two months . . . with a diet of oatcakes and watercress soup. Three months . . . on the Zone. Four and a half months . . . on Atkins. Me? Six and a half months and counting on the toast-and-anything-in-the-fridge diet. No wonder nothing’s shifting. Must try harder. Must try to be more like Victoria Beckham. But the photos make me feel worse about myself, so I seek solace in a gooey flapjack, scoffing it quickly, without pleasure, as if that would nuke half its calories. “Nic!”

Nicola pushes her pram like an aged gardener might push a wheelbarrow. “God, I was miles away. Sorry I’m late.”

“You all right?”

Nicola’s eyes are orbited by Saturnine shadows. “Hmfsk! Thomas was up all night wailing. Sam snored through. Me, up and fucking down trying to appease his lordship.”

“Oh dear. What’s the matter, dear Tom-tom?” I bend down to her pram. Thomas grins back. Unlike his mother, he looks thoroughly well rested. Nicola collapses on a bench, grabs my magazine, and flicks through, harumphing. “I can’t believe you buy this crap.”

“Just light reading.”

“You’ll give yourself all sorts of new insecurities if you’re not careful.”

“I’m inspiring myself to lose weight.”

“Why the hell would you want to do that?” Nicola pulls Thomas out of his pram and bounces him on her knee. When he starts to cry she spoons him some froth from my cappuccino.

“For me.”

“That’s the worst pat women’s magazine answer I’ve ever heard. If we were left to our own devices we’d all eat doughnuts all day and never exercise. And I hate the notion that we’re meant to look like this”—she pokes the magazine—“like a prepubescent girl and just weeks after having a baby.”

“It’s not about that.”

“Hmmm. Do what you want.” Girlie foibles wind her up. “Just don’t expect me to join in. What’s wrong with a bit of extra upholstery?”

“You won’t be joining me at my Pilates class, then?” I tease. “Alice has invited me. Does wonders for baby belly apparently.”

Nicola snorts. “If there’s a babysitter around I’d rather sleep.”

“We’re embarking on Project Amy! I’m going for an overhaul. Body, clothes, eyebrows . . .”

“Project what? Seems a bit of a drastic course of action. You’ll be having a bikini wax next.” We giggle because we both know that we haven’t had a bikini wax in months. Not that Sam, her partner, would notice. A shambolic fiftysomething academic (once mistaken for Thomas’s grandfather) studying public policy at UCL, he worships Nicola like a goddess and would be unlikely to object if she grew a full yogi beard.

“Project Amy!” mutters Nicola incredulously as she stretches her arms above her head with a yawn. “Hilarious.” She rummages in her nappy bag. “Do you think I’ll get lynched if I have a cigarette?”

“Probably.”

“I promise not to breast-feed at the same time.”

Nicola lights up and we sit easily for a few moments watching the carousel of children and outfits and trikes on the path circling the grass. I try to find courage. Words don’t flow easily. My mouth feels dry. Nicola starts reading the magazine.

“Nicola . . .” She doesn’t look up from the page. “Nicola . . . I think Joe’s having an affair.” My voice is very quiet.

She starts. “WHAT?”

“An affair. I’m pretty sure of it. He’s been acting funny. There’s this hotel . . . Oh, maybe I’m being paranoid. But remember what Sue said. And Nic, he comes back so late from work and his mobile is often switched off and I can’t help but wonder. . . .” I can feel my eyes watering up.

“Whoa! Amy love, you’re gabbling.”

Nicola puts Thomas back in his pram and places her hand momentarily on mine, pressing it down for a second, a tiny but poignant movement. She doesn’t do superfluous body contact. “Now speak slowly and start at the beginning.”

So that’s what I do. I tell her about the text that Joe sent that was meant for someone else and how I went to the park, unbeknownst to Joe, and saw him with that someone else from a distance. And that she was a woman. And how I could only see her from behind and not clearly because of being bloody shortsighted but not shortsighted enough because I could still see how close they were with their cozy interlinked arms and how Joe kissed this woman’s arm—why her arm?—and how I thought I was going to throw up the five croissants I’d had for breakfast and how I ran and I have been running ever since.

Nicola is quiet for a moment. She isn’t the hysterical type. “What did he say when you confronted him?”

“I didn’t confront him.”

“Why not?”

“Because . . . because . . . I was eight months pregnant. And, it’s humiliating admitting to it, it sounds so wet, but I didn’t want him to leave. I didn’t want to corner him. I didn’t want him to have to choose between us.”

“But there may have been an innocent explanation.”

“Yeah, right! I couldn’t risk it. I just couldn’t. I was pregnant, freaked out. I needed him.” I flick away a tear. A woman from an adjacent table is staring.

“Oh dear. I’m really sorry, Amy.” Nicola sighs. “I would have thought you would have asked him, though. You’re no Stepford wife.”

“Hope not.” I giggle through my tears, like a draining plughole.

“The worst-case scenario would be awful, I’m not saying it wouldn’t. But you’d survive it. Isn’t it always better to know the truth?”

“Hmmm. I’m not sure I’d ever find out anyhow.” My nose is beginning to snot up like Evie’s. I’ve never been the kind of woman who looks good crying. “Problem is it’s about more than just what’s gone on. It’s about me. It’s almost like . . .” Light shafts into the muddle. “I have a terror of history repeating itself. It’s kind of irrational.”

“I’m not with you.”

“It’s my big fear, always has been ever since Dad left. I saw what happened to Mum. The weird Christmases, no man to carve the turkey or unblock the sink. The way Mum stopped getting invited to dinner parties because she wasn’t in a couple. The way she cluttered her bed with pillows to make the empty space shrink. She’s never learned to sleep in the middle, you know.”

“God, that’s awful, and a bit seventies if you don’t mind me saying. Things have changed.”

“Suppose, in some ways.” I think of Alice. “But that’s not the point.”

“Sorry.” Nicola squeezes my shoulders in a brief hug.

“I’ll ask him when I’m ready.”

“And that’ll be?”

“When I can afford to lose him. Look at me. Nicola, I’m a mess. I’ve been depressed for months. . . .”

“The baby blues?”

I ignore her. “I look like shit. I’m not sorted out about work. I’d be at sea on my own right now. You know why? Because I’m no longer sure who I am. Who am I, Nic? Where’s the old Amy? I need her back. I’m not going to confront him until
I’m
ready to face the possible consequences.”

Nicola picks up my coffee and drains it in one neat whiskey gulp. “What do Kate and Alice think?”

“You’re the first person I’ve told.”

“Jesus! No wonder you feel like crap. Why? Why keep this to yourself all these months?”

“Well, Kate’s too close to Joe. Awkward, she’d start interfering. And Alice . . . I’m just getting to know her and she’s a bit funny about Joe anyway. Can’t deal with pressure from her right now.”

“Understood.”

“And . . . this sounds really silly. I didn’t want to tell anyone because it feels disloyal to Joe.” I laugh weakly. “Yes, I know. Ironic, considering.”

“Honestly, I understand.” Nicola moves slightly closer to me on the seat. I can feel her warmth down my left side. “It’s hard when you’ve got a baby. You feel you have to present a united front.”

“You won’t say anything?”

“Of course not. But Amy, he’s probably completely innocent. And if he’s not, well, maybe you should ask yourself, hand on heart, whether you and Joe are well suited.”

I shrug. Perhaps the question should be: If circumstances were different, if we didn’t have a baby, would Joe and I be suited to each other? But that’s impossible to know, like whether the light in the fridge remains on after you shut the door.

Twelve

I STAND IN FRONT OF ALICE’S FULL-LENGTH FRENCH
mirror, naked except for an old vest and mismatching knickers. She points at parts of my body with a long makeup brush, like a schoolteacher with chalk. Five minutes ago I was giggling at the absurdity of it. Now I am chilly and rather self-conscious.

“Pilates can get rid of this,” she says, stabbing at my belly fold with the brush.

“How long?”

“Ten sessions, I’d say. But I can see evidence of the demon baker! You need to stop eating so many carbs, watch your GI.”

“How about I stop eating altogether?”

“Overrated. It slows the metabolism. Some kind of GI diet is your best bet. Now do this”—Alice breathes in and stands like a ballerina—“suck in and stand tall. Posture!”

I do as she says, too naked not to be compliant and almost enjoying the submissive role play.

She pulls my shoulders back firmly. “There! What a difference! You have a fab waist, you know. It’s hidden under a bit of baby blub but it’s there all right, very defined. I wish I had your curves.”

Yeah, right. As Alice stalks around me, I’m hushed by her physical prowess. She’s somehow more impressive in her downtime home clothes—chocolate-brown Juicy Couture tracksuit bottoms, white vest, UGG boots—than in all her heels and clattering jewelry. She looks like one of those celebrities snapped darting from her Santa Monica home to a yoga class. I put on a tracksuit and look like I’m darting out of a council flat to buy cigarettes.

“Now sit down, let’s see what we can conjure up with a bit of war paint.” She puts a cool hand on my shoulder and presses me down onto a stool upholstered in cow skin. It itches my buttocks.

“Can I have a dressing gown or something?” I demand, tiring of the game.

She tosses over a delicate pale-gray and lilac silk number that collapses around my shoulders like a parachute. Then she opens a huge black box, with interior trays that fold out like beetle wings. More makeup than I have ever seen in my life.

“Don’t be alarmed.” Alice laughs. “I am not an obsessive. I’ve got generous friends who work at glossy mags. I never use it all. Most of it goes off.”

“Goes off? What, like milk?”

“Yes, sort of. Makeup does have a shelf life, especially the good stuff.”

“But I’ve had mine for centuries . . . ,” I say, thinking of my battered lipsticks. Improbable how I once considered their application in the morning as essential as brushing my teeth.

“Don’t!” She laughs.

Alice loses herself in her box of tricks, smudging colors on the back of her hand like bruises, crackling into smart packaging. I study her bedroom: creamy rugs so thick the foot sinks into them like snow, an enormous chandelier dripping candy-colored teardrops, walls covered in a shimmer of silvery green wallpaper. Five mirrors bounce back Alice’s beauty as she walks across the room. Along her white marble fireplace march glass-potted candles, incense cones, and framed photographs of Alice and Alfie, in a Moroccan market, on a beach, buried in the sand, laughing. One whole wall is a wardrobe. When she opens the dark wood doors, spotlights burn like stars. There are hundreds of Perspex boxes filled with shoes. More shoes than I’ve ever seen. There are shelves of sweaters, folded with tissue paper. I’ve never met anyone who folds clothes in tissue paper before. Her bed is even bigger than mine, with a soft gray cashmere blanket folded across it in the manner of a hip hotel. On the floor, next to the bed, squatting on a copy of Italian
Vogue,
is a pink glass ashtray with what looks like a half-smoked spliff stalk. Not very childproof, notes my inner Sue.