The Yummy Mummy (30 page)
“Look, Amy.” Joe stops sternly. “This isn’t easy for me. Don’t make it harder. Go home. We’ll sort something out.” His baseball-glove hand cups Evie’s cheek. I catch a quick vague scent of him, leathery and male, already a nostalgic smell. “Go home,” he says again, almost nicely. And the hint of niceness kills me because this is Joe being detached, Joe’s full stop.
“If that’s what you want.” I swivel the pram around and walk away, ears pricked, waiting to hear him shout “Come back, Amy,” or the squish of his size-twelve feet. Instead, I hear the clatter of keys on wet pavement and a rattle as they drop down a drain.
ONE APPLE AND CINNAMON CRUMBLE, DROPPED OFF
with a note (“I’m waiting to hear what I can do to help . . .”) on my doorstep, Sue. Two phone messages, Alice. Four phone messages demanding that I call her back, Kate. Two lunchtime visits, Nicola. Disbelief and a set of spare house keys, mother. The word is out: I have Been Left.
Thing is, no one is entirely sure why. I’ve curled the truth into a ball and suck on it privately, greedily. Only Nicola knows the full story. My mother got an abridged version. And that was bad enough. She had to sit down.
Yes, I’ve seen Joe again. He came round to take Evie out yesterday morning. He spoke officiously, face shut like a cupboard. I tried to get him to talk. He wasn’t having it. And I realized the more I pushed, insisted, the further he retreated. Very Mars. So, when he returned, I tried to out-casual him, pretended not to be bothered. A clever dating trick of Kate’s. Except it didn’t work.
Got to go to a design conference in Barcelona for a few days, he said. Then he walked out of the front door—
our
front door—into the cool September evening. I watched him from the bedroom window, his hair lifting in the breeze, the shirt I bought him last Christmas echoing the V shape of his chest. He didn’t look back.
“Eeeee!” Evie yelps like a kitten. She is playing peek-a-boo with the adorable creature in the board book’s shiny foil mirror. It is nappy-splitting funny. She grips the beanbag with her fat little hands, balance improving, edging forward on her tummy, poised to crawl, a reminder of the breakneck speed at which babies grow. Already Joe is missing tiny milestones. She looks at me for collusion with her joke. And I cannot help but smile. Darling Evie. The person who kept me up at night now gets me through it.
Ding dong.
I shrink toward Evie, away from the suddenly crippling decision as to whether or not to answer the door. Leave me alone until this bit’s over! Joe needs to lick his wounds, punish me. Then he’ll be back. Of course he will. And, apart from anything else, I’m too exhausted to socially integrate. Looking after Evie without Joe’s help feels like triple the amount of work, rather than double.
Pushed from outside, the letter box flaps open like a mouth. “Miss Crane! It’s Alice, let me in!”
Alice! Oh. That life.
“Hey,” I say, opening the door. A rush of mild air ruffles the hallway. Alice steps back and crosses one brown arm over the other, charm bracelet tinkling.
“Whoa, Amy! Look at you!”
“I’m sure I look ghastly. Give me a break.”
“What are you talking about? You look fabulous! So skinny.”
“I am?” My waistbands are looser, but any sense of satisfaction has been subsumed by the fact that I appear to have ruined my life.
“Didn’t I always say you’d make a great single yummy mummy? Here, this is for you.” A bottle of champagne. “Get the glasses out.”
We sit cross-legged on the living room floor. Alice holds her glass up. I reluctantly clink her flute. “Thanks. A better hit than the apple crumble.” I nod to the tea towel–covered dish on the table in the kitchen. “A sympathy gift from Sue at NCT.”
“The Sue who shares a husband with Jasmine?”
I nod, relieved to be reminded that others have problems worse than mine. Then instantly feel a pinch of guilt because I still haven’t intervened in any way, I’ve just uncomfortably straddled the fence.
“Well, that’s coming to the end of its shelf life.”
“Really? I hope so.”
“Me, too. Affairs have to operate within a framework of honesty, between the mistress and husband at any rate,” Alice says coolly. “Jasmine should say ‘enough.’ ”
When did moral outrage make way for this libertine, quasi-French realism? Alice leans back on a cushion, tanned knee flopping out to one side, exposing the white gusset of her knickers. “Amy, I never thought I’d be asking you this, but have you got anything I can eat? I’m starving and I can’t drink bubbly on an empty stomach.”
“Stale pita, pureed carrot, or apple crumble?” There seems very little incentive to shop without Joe around to wolf it all down. Surprisingly, I miss having a man to feed.
“Sue’s? It seems a bit perverse, considering. It’ll probably choke me, but, go on. Nothing like a glycemic boost midmorning.” I serve her a tiny Alice-sized portion. She picks at the apple, avoids the crumble.
“How’s everyone? Annabel? Blythe?”
“Blythe has gone!” Alice cries, wiping mock tears away from her eyes. “She’s left us for New York. Said she couldn’t bear the weather and the bad grooming any longer.”
“No!”
“Well, not exactly. Husband’s been relocated back to his New York City bank. Blythe is pretty happy about it. She wants to be in a country with long summer camps. And, of course, she’s looking forward to being reunited with her old therapist and plastic surgeon.”
Blythe’s departure is surprisingly flattening. We were never close—I suspect I was dismissed as a little boring and unfashionable—but I’m sad that we never said good-bye, sad that another little chapter, a footnote in my recent, happier life, has been closed. And any kind of ending makes me a little weepy because it reminds me of Joe. “Annabel?”
Alice frowns. She coils Evie’s hair around her fingers and puts it precisely behind her ear like a stylist. “Oh, the red eyes are much better. But, Milo . . .” She pauses. “The doctors say he’s fine but Annabel isn’t convinced, says she’s had enough kids to know. She’s quite worried, poor thing. But I’m sure he’s fine. Annabel is London’s most effective beautiful baby–making machine, isn’t she?”
Yes, Annabel is a perfect mother, a perfect wife. No, someone like Annabel would never risk it all for a romp, would she? Annabel wouldn’t let flattery turn her head. I take another sip of champagne and I suddenly feel like two hands are pushing my skull together. It’s a new kind of drunkenness, almost like flu symptoms but not wholly unpleasant. “This is actually rather nice,” I mutter, articulating my surprise that anything could feel nice after the horribleness of the last few days.
Alice gives me an understanding I’m-feeling-it-too look. “It’s like you’ll never be able to cope at first,” she says. “But actually you do. It’s a mental adjustment. And if Joe is a good father, well, you’ve got a baby-sitter for life.” She raises her glass. “Here’s to your new independence! I’m so proud of you, Amy, you’ve come so far.”
I can’t raise mine, not exactly feeling the carnival. “I just want Joe back.”
Alice arches back in surprise. “What? You want him
back
? Why? I thought that this was just what you needed, a clean break. I thought you’d be pleased! Your relationship didn’t seem that functional, if you don’t mind me saying so. A few eyebrows were raised when you announced your engagement.” Alice stretches out her long legs, the calf muscle elongating and tensing. “We’re all here for you now. I certainly am.”
“Thanks.”
“It’s not like you’re going to be alone in a world of happily dysfunctional Sue’n’Alan couples.”
“Suppose not.”
I watch the champagne bubbles fizz up the glass, hiss and pop like the hot, bad relationships I had in my twenties. How I grieved for them after having Evie: The idea that I’d be stuck making love to one man for the rest of my life was appalling. But now the thought of climbing back on that dating carousel is far worse.
“And you’ll be back at work, no? You’ll be too busy to be lonely.”
“Yeah, maybe. I’ve got to contact my boss.”
Alice looks at me and sighs. “Oh dear. You’re really not happy, are you?” I bite my lip, shake my head. “Okay, let’s start at the beginning. What happened, exactly?”
Thought she’d never ask. “Um, it’s complicated, a bit seedy.” I don’t want to tell her, but my tongue, wetted and disorientated by the champagne, longs to let loose its curled-up little secret.
“Seedy? How fabulous, do tell.”
“Josh . . . ,” I say, the secret unfurling, like a rolled-up rug dropped from a great height.
“Yes?” Alice bends forward encouragingly, as if talking to a small child.
“Joe caught me and Josh kissing.”
“Whoa!”
Alice’s eyes widen. “You got caught? That was the reason he left? Shit, that’s bad.”
“Really fucking bad.”
Alice pauses, then waves her hand. “Hey, what’s a kiss? It’s not like you’ve been having a Jasmine-style affair.”
I’m a little stunned, and relieved, by Alice’s flippancy. “If I tell you something,
promise
not to tell anyone else. You see, Joe doesn’t know the first bit. . . .”
“The first bit? Ooo, there’s more?”
“Well . . . there’s no nice way of putting this. There was a bit of a heavy session before the kiss, too.”
“You naughty devil!” Alice nudges me hard with her elbow. “This is exciting. When?”
“A few weeks ago. After a Pilates class. It was a mistake, a weird thing. Like all this sexual energy that I thought had gone for good suddenly . . .” And I explain. The morning sunlight thrums moodily through the half-closed blinds. A pause. I wait for chastisement, head bent, eyes drilling the floor.
“Go girl!” Alice says, clapping her hands.
I look up. “Alice! This is serious.”
Finally acknowledging the situation’s severity, Alice stares sheepishly into her glass, the champagne reflecting a golden trembling disk of light on her cheek. “I suppose it is. But he only caught the kiss, nothing else?” I nod my head. “No problem, Joe’ll be back.”
“You don’t know what he’s like.”
“Hey, come on. It’s not going to do any harm for Joe to realize that you are a sexual woman. That other men fancy the knickers off you.”
Alice does not get it. I put my head in my hands and sigh deeply, head swimmy with sadness and alcohol. Alice puts an arm around my shoulder and hugs me to her breasts. They smell like almonds. “Hey, hey, my baby Amy,” she says. “Didn’t realize it would hit you like this. I’m sorry.”
“No need for you to apologize, I did all the fucking up.”
Alice stares out the window. There’s a bit of an awkward silence, punctuated by my sniffing. Then her phone beeps. She scrabbles it out of her bag, quickly, as if relieved for something to do. While other people’s crises are tonic to the likes of Sue, they make Alice ill at ease. She doesn’t do downs. Tut-tutting at the screen, Alice stands up, brushing crumble crumbs off her gleaming brown legs. “Shit, I need to scoot. . . .”
“But we haven’t finished the champagne.”
“Alfie, er, he’s unwell.” She flings a bag over her shoulder and walks to the door. “Hey, look after yourself,” Alice says, voice flat now, as if the mood was contagious and had hopped from my head to hers, nimble as a louse in a playground.
NO NEWS FROM JOE. RESTLESS, I SLITHER ABOUT THE
house creating static in a new Marks & Spencer fondant pink faux-satin nightie. Mum bought it to “cheer me up,” but it makes me feel like I’m about to go to hospital for an overnight stay. (She’s also bought me a new hairbrush, which I’ve deemed inappropriate and ignored.) The blinds are at half mast. I’m eating baked beans out of the can. Evie has registered her disapproval of this subdued atmosphere by refusing to eat her vegetable mash and feigning boredom with her
Baby Einstein
DVDs, which used to keep me sane by keeping her quiet. (Whereas I used to disapprove of children watching television, I now long for the day Evie gets into the respite that is the all-day programming of CBeebies.) I try to amuse her with hearty renditions of “Row Your Boat,” but, as with toy telephones or toy keys, she won’t be duped. She knows a fake when she sees it. Every time I anxiously check my voice mail, she looks at me strangely, demanding attention, answers, explanations. . . .
“What, Evie?” I snap. “I don’t know. Sorry.” Hurt clouds across her eyes. Christ, who am I becoming? I can’t expect her to make up for Joe. She’s not a big enough human to fill the space he’s left. She’s about the size of his thigh.
“Sorry. Sorry. Come on, sweetheart, we need to get out.” I kiss Evie’s head all over, trying to make up for Joe’s absence, doubling the love. “Baby massage?”
This is a sign I’m getting desperate. Because I tried baby massage once before, when she was about two months old. There were only five mothers in the group, all so cliquey you’d think they’d suckled one another’s babies as a group bonding exercise. The teacher—spirally dark hair, tie-dye pants, enough said—directed us in such a quiet singsong voice I could barely hear her above the groaning-whale background music. In the kind of hushed intimacy that makes me instantly feel awkward, the mothers massaged their babies into Zen-like states: Evie imploded in inexplicable fury. But she’s older now. And I’ve got to do something. The house is hardly a whirl of social activity. No one’s visited for the last couple of days. Perhaps I’ve had my quota of sympathy. Or there’s a fear that Being Left might be catching.
The evangelical church where the baby massage group meets is ugly, concrete, sixties. It could be a scout club. On its flat planed blue double doors is a note in swirly handwriting:
ALL GOD’S TODDLERS WELCOME HERE FOR TEA AND BISCUITS FROM 10–12, 50P LITTLE PERSON, £1 GROWN-UPS
. Hope I haven’t got the wrong day. Levering bum against the doors, they screech open.
Oh, I have. Rather than sweet kicking babies on mats, the church looks like it’s been ransacked by barbarians. Toddlers wielding plastic swords run around in hysterical circles beneath a huge mural of a Chris Martin look-alike Jesus and a banner inviting us to JUMP THE HALLELUIAH TRAIN!