The Yummy Mummy (20 page)

“Hello, mister. Come back for more?” She laughs, wipes her hands on her apron, and winks. “
Another
new friend today, heh?” Josh studies the pot of teaspoons.

I don’t ask.

We sit down at a small square table covered in a tired gingham oilcloth. Our knees just touch.

“I love this place,” he says. “Hope it’s not too greasy spoon for you.”

“No, it’s great. No-frills, how I like cafés.”

Josh grins. “That’s what I love about it, too. Can’t stand the corporate coffee shops.” His hand shoots across the table and grabs the sugar pourer, which is about two inches from my right elbow. My instinct is to pull back in my chair, increase the distance between us. But I don’t because that would draw attention to my awareness of his hand on the sugar pourer and that would be embarrassing.

“Sorry. I’m such a twitcher, all this yogic energy rattling around my veins,” he says wryly. Terribly cute.

I am about to say, don’t worry, my other half twitches all the time, too. But something stops me. Joe has no place at this table. So I say, “It uses up a huge amount of calories.” And I feel like a total fool because I really don’t care about how many calories twitching uses up and I sound like a stupid girlie.

Luckily Josh cracks into a smile.
“You,”
he says. “You make me laugh.” His hand leaves the sugar pourer—I relax—and he leans back in his chair, tugging his shirtsleeves up. “It’s been really nice having you in the class, Amy. Sometimes it gets a bit serious. A bit earnest. You lighten things up.”

“Even with my soil-brown aura?”

“Very funny.”

“Or because I’m about as well suited to Pilates as an elephant seal?”

“Rubbish. You’re getting better. Really you are.” His eyes dance. “It’s just that the others treat it more like . . . oh, I don’t know. Less playfully, perhaps.”

I’m secretly thrilled that my ineptitude has been mistaken for comedic tendencies and I do nothing to contradict him.

“I’ve really needed a bit of playfulness recently,” he adds quietly with a slow exhalation.

“Oh? Everything’s okay, I hope,” I add stiffly, unsure how to respond to this invitation to intimacy. The café table suddenly seems very small.

“Amy, have you ever felt like you might be living the
wrong
life?” He’s staring at me directly now. “That by twists of fate and misunderstanding you’ve come off the motorway at the wrong junction and you know that to get going in the right direction may mean driving miles in the wrong one before you find a slip road?”

“I think so,” I underplay. Responding, “Yes, I bloody well do,” could be too strong. “But you look so at ease standing on your head.”

“I love what I do, don’t get me wrong,” says Josh, fingers majorette-twiddling a teaspoon. “It’s just other things in my life . . . I don’t know. It’s hard finding the right person, isn’t it?”

That Josh is asking me this question at all, is, well, discombobulating. I don’t chat with men other than Joe anymore. I certainly don’t discuss relationships with them. New motherhood is a female landscape, like stepping back into the nineteenth century or a strict Islamic country. Apart from the odd househusband (who usually claim to be “freelancers” anyway), men mostly disappear—to work, to the pub—and women are left to create days together with a baby, a park, and cups of tea. Most of my male friends lost interest when I got pregnant, as if that was proof I was finally off the market and couldn’t be kept as a reserve girlfriend for a rainy day.

“It’s hard to know if the one you’re with is the right person, I suppose, if that’s what you mean. People change,” I say, disappointed to be spouting cliches already.

“Has Jonathan?”

“You mean Joe.”

“Sorry, sorry. Has Joe changed?”

“Well . . .” I stumble, uncomfortable at incriminating Joe, wanting to present a united front out of pride more than anything else.

Josh spots the hesitation. “It’s okay, Amy. I’m a safe place. It’s going no further than this table. Talk to me, babe.”

My eyes water. I hold so much in that with a little prod I pucker like a balloon. “Maybe he’s changed a bit. Well, we have. Inevitable, I suppose.”

Josh frowns. “Is it? I’d like to think I’ll be as in love with the mother of my child the day she gives birth as the day we met.”

“You speak with the certainty of the childless.”

Josh looks down at the table a little bashfully, fingers a salt packet. “You’re right. As always. Wise old bird.”

“Less of the old.”

Josh laughs, rakes his curls. “Joe’s lucky to have you.”

I stare into my cup and wonder why Joe doesn’t feel lucky enough not to risk losing me.

“Hey, don’t look like that, babe! What’s the matter? You carry your sadness over your shoulders like a coat.”

I brush him off with a wave of my hand. “A nice one, I hope.”

“An old fur. A soft and inviting sadness.” Josh smiles, reaches for my hand. It’s like being plugged in to an electric socket.

“Listen, Josh. I’m fine, really.” I pull my hand away. “This conversation seems to have done one of your backflips. You were the one who felt down. Don’t project.”

Josh raises an eyebrow. “Having troubles in a relationship doesn’t make you a bad person. You should let it all out. I may be able to help.”

“I very much doubt it.”

Josh looks hurt. “Try me.”

I pause, resist, cave in. “It’s just tough. You see, Joe, well . . .” I stumble. Josh looks at me expectantly. “He’s not been, I don’t think . . . he’s not been faithful. Not always.” I pressure the bridge of my nose with arrowed fingers. “I don’t know why I’m telling you this.”

“That’s shit, man.” He grabs my hand again and squeezes it. “Jona . . . sorry, Joe, must be mad. You’re a fine catch.”

I laugh weakly into my cup, trying not to betray how insanely grateful I am for this comment. Or how insanely flattered. To think that Josh, sexy, hard-bodied, blond Josh thinks I, wobbly, tired new mum, am a catch!

“The problem is couples get too used to each other. Familiarity breeds contempt and all that . . . ,” he says, looking up for a nod. I nod. “And you stop seeing the other person, don’t you? Joe may have forgotten there’s this beautiful sensual woman inside the mother.”

“I think she’s on sabbatical.”

“Nonsense. I’m looking at her.”

“Very funny. What about you?”

Josh flashes his Bowie teeth. I imagine them biting into my shoulder. “Me? I’m just looking for The One. All men are. Think I’ve been looking in the wrong places.” He slumps forward a little sadly. “I don’t want some supermodel now, you know. I’m over that. I want someone with soul. . . .”

“But preferably a size zero.”

“No, no. You’ve got it wrong. Women always get it wrong. Give me a J. Lo bottom any day. It’s not about that. I think I’m coming to a new stage in this life. A family, that’s what I’d like. A little boy I could take fishing and teach tai chi.”

“A girl might be able to learn, too.”

Josh rocks back on his chair, grinning impishly. “Yeah, yeah. Not as well. But hey, I can’t go planning my brood until I’ve got the woman, can I?”

“Not really. But don’t worry, you’ll meet someone, everyone does eventually.”

“But then you get close and they take off their masks, and you’re meant to be grateful for this removal of the mask because that’s what relationships are all about, aren’t they? But what if they reveal themselves and you’re not sure you like what you see? Do you understand?” He takes my silence as a yes. “What if they show you their pain, their vulnerability, and you find it repellent? Sorry, I’m rambling. . . .” Josh’s head is tilted downward, toward his coffee; he lifts his eyes. I wonder if he knows he looks devastating from this angle. “I just feel so comfortable with you, babe. I feel I can say anything.”

I smile helplessly. Please don’t say such things.

“You know when we first met . . .”

I blush furiously.

“Outside the Salusbury pub. That was me. You remember. I
know
you do.”

I nod.

“I just thought you were the sweetest thing, scruffy, childlike, unmadeup.”

“Brilliantly accessorized by loo paper!”

Josh laughs. “That was the finishing touch. A woman in her raw, unpainted state is a rare find these days. But you’re a natural. And you look better and better every time I see you.”

That might have something to do with the dyed hair, the plucked eyebrows, and the Hungry Caterpillar diet. I sit tight on my secrets.

“Didn’t I tell you that Pilates would work wonders? It’s a free way to change your body and your life.”

“Ten pounds a go, actually,” I correct, gulping my last dreg of coffee.

Josh laughs. “Oh, Amy,” he sighs. “We’re similar, you and I. It’s like we’ve known each other for years.”

My body throbs beneath the gingham tablecloth. “I’ve got to go, got to pick up Evie.”

“Whoa! No rush.”

“No, really, I’ve stayed too long anyhow. I must go.” I stand up and pull my handbag over my shoulder. “It’s been lovely. Thanks so much for the coffee. See you next week at class.”

I feel Josh’s blue eyes burn into my back as I turn left out of the café’s peeling door. I try my best to walk normally, but my body is a coil of energy, wanting to skip, to power jump down the normally gray streets now golden in the sunlight. I can’t face going straight home—where will I tell Joe I’ve been?—so I trot toward Queen’s Park, a thick green rug between the smart Victorian houses. Through the horse chestnuts, the oaks, I instinctively follow the toot, beat, and anticlimax of jazz coming from the Victorian bandstand. Orbiting it are groups of families and friends, lying on the grass, tearing at sourdough bread, and sipping beer, their daughters in fairy costumes, Superman sons. I find a springy patch of grass for myself, adjacent to the mini golf, away from the hubbub but in earshot of the gray-haired musicians. And, adrenaline sapping, I lie back and study the sky, baby boy blue and cotton wool. Tiny ink-drip flies circle above my head. Josh, Josh, Josh go the drums.

Twenty-six

“GOSH, HAVE YOU BEEN UNWELL?” DEMANDS SUE, SHORTBREAD
crumbling on her tea-wet lips.

“No. Why?”

“You’ve lost so much weight.” An airborne shortcake crumb shoots over her tracksuit bottoms and glues itself to the side of my mug.

“Why, thank you.”

The other mothers smile weakly: Weight loss doesn’t do much for group morale.

“And what’s happened to your feet?”

Eyes fall to my MBT trainers. “Oh, these! A bit like walking on a tire, but I’m assured by my friend Alice that they burn up loads of calories. . . .”

Nicola starts giggling. She thinks I’m bonkers.

“They’re kind of orthopedic looking. Why not just go barefoot?” asks Michelle, who once met us in the park in a loosely tied sarong that threatened to swish open like curtains in the breeze, but no bra or shoes.

“My feet are still awaiting a pedicure.”

“Pedicure?” Sue shakes her head and conquers her irritation by masticating more shortbread. “Gosh, Amy.”

Silence. Everyone shifts politely on the blue canvas sofa, rearranging their lower backs, rolling back their aching shoulders. It is the world’s most uncomfortable sofa—“sofabed actually,” qualifies Sue. “If anyone ever wants to come and stay . . .”

Sue’s house is on a recently gentrified terraced Kilburn street off Willesden Lane. The outside looks normal enough, red brick, flowerpots, paving. But inside, despite Sue and Alan’s having lived here for four years, there is scarcely any evidence of the house’s being inhabited by any person above the age of two. Colored plastic toys carpet the living room floor. The coffee table is a blue plastic toy basin. The cushions are embroidered with farm animals. The alphabetically organized DVD collection consists solely of baby flicks. Although Oliver can neither walk nor crawl, every inch of the room anticipates his first step: baby-proof video locks, socket covers, and rubber corners. Photos of a bald grumpy Oliver glower from every horizontal surface with the repressive repetition of a dictator’s portrait.

“So what does Joe think about this . . . No, not the shoes, this wasting away?” demands Sue.

“Oh, don’t think he’s really noticed.”

“No?” Sue thoughtfully strokes her hand under her chin, which has the unfortunate effect of scooping and dragging all the loose flesh. “Well, I may be two stone heavier since conceiving Olly, but Alan says he likes my figure better postpartum, real womanly curves, he says. Men like something to grab hold of, don’t they, Hermione?”

“And new blouse, too, I see,” chirps Hermione, changing the subject quickly, unable to back Sue up this time. (Piers likes his wife as slim as his ex-catalog-model mother.) Bar these NCT carb-fests—a little of what you fancy, she rationalizes—Hermione is as strict with her own diet as she is with Amelia’s and usually carries a Tupperware box of sprouting seeds and tofu chunks in her handbag, for those three-hour snack windows. Pregnancy gave Hermione a whole nine months to obsess about food groups and vitamins and trace elements without being labeled neurotic or vaguely eating disordered. And after such knowledge? Well, there can be no forgiveness of sour cream potato crisps or, her old favorite, peanut butter cups. Oh no. Inspired by Gwyneth Paltrow, icon of postnatal nutrition, Hermione has recently slain a mild head cold with large ingestions of raw purple sprouting broccoli and a Chinese herb called Bai Guo.

“Had enough, munchkin?” Michelle asks her fed-on-demand (that is, twenty-four hours a day) daughter, Beatrice, who smacks her lips like an old man over a pint of Guinness. Beatrice strains away, milk dribbling down her chin. But Michelle makes no effort to put her breast back. It protrudes from her gaping cheesecloth shirt like a large root vegetable.

Nicola averts her eyes. “And how’s your cashmere baby sock company going, Hermione? Are the mills spinning?”

“Ooh. Nothing concrete as planned. Just investigating Scottish mills on the Internet, when I have the time, which—”

“—as we all know,” adds Sue, drowning out Hermione, “we just don’t get. There just aren’t enough hours in the day, are there, Oliver?”