The Single Mums' Book Club

by Victoria Cooke

  About the Author

  VICTORIA COOKE grew up in the city of Manchester before crossing the Pennines in pursuit of her career in education. She now lives in Huddersfield with her husband and two young daughters. When she’s not at home writing by the fire with a cup of coffee in hand, she loves yoga and travelling. Victoria has always had a passion for reading and writing, undertaking several writers’ courses before completing her first novel in 2016.

  Also by Victoria Cooke

  The Secret to Falling in Love

  The Holiday Cruise

  Who Needs Men Anyway?

  It Started with a Note

  A Summer to Remember

  Sun, Sea and Sangria

  The Single Mums’ Book Club

  VICTORIA COOKE

  HQ

  An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd.

  1 London Bridge Street

  London SE1 9GF

  www.harpercollins.co.uk

  HarperCollinsPublishers

  1st Floor, Watermarque Building, Ringsend Road

  Dublin 4, Ireland

  First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2021

  Copyright © Victoria Cooke 2021

  Victoria Cooke asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

  Source ISBN: 9780008376239

  E-Book Edition © April 2021 ISBN: 9780008376222

  Version: 2021-03-22

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  About the Author

  Also by Victoria Cooke

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Epilogue

  Extract

  Acknowledgements

  A Letter From Victoria

  Dear Reader …

  Keep Reading …

  About the Publisher

  For my children, Scarlett and Amelie, who were not utter horrors during the lockdown of 2020 xxx

  Chapter 1

  ‘Ava, are your teeth brushed yet?’ I yell up the stairs in vain. When I scoop Henry out of the baby chair, I notice his nappy is swollen and damp. ‘Bugger.’

  ‘Coming, Mummy.’ The light thud of Ava’s feet travels down the stairs. I look her over in horror.

  ‘It’s half past eight and you’re not even dressed!’ I sound like a banshee as I do most mornings because most mornings, Ava really likes to test my patience and after another sleepless night, I’m on the edge.

  ‘I had a cut on my knee so I put some wet tissue on it and—’

  ‘And nothing. Get your uniform on now!’

  ‘But, Mummy!’

  Give me strength.

  Henry starts to scream. ‘Ava, you have one minute to get dressed or I’m taking you to school in your vest and knickers. I mean it.’

  ‘Mum, where are my football boots?’

  ‘Oh, Ralph, I don’t know – you had them on in the garden the other day. Try the utility room.’

  Henry is still screaming. It’s now eight-forty. ‘Ava?’

  ‘Coming, Mummy.’ She appears in the kitchen, thankfully, for the most part, dressed bar her tie but I’ll tolerate the disapproving looks at the school gate for one day.

  Otis, our dog, is doing supersonic circles at the prospect of a walk to school.

  ‘Sorry, Otis, we’re running late today.’ He doesn’t get it; instead, he’s the only one sitting nicely by the door ready to go. ‘Okay, let’s get to the car,’ I say, thrusting a banana in Ava’s little hand.

  ‘But I haven’t got my shoes on.’

  ‘Put them on in the car,’ I say, shepherding her to the front door. Henry is still screaming – his cheeks red and puffy – but I haven’t got time to change him now.

  ‘Ralph?’

  ‘I’m here,’ he says, banging his football boots so big clumps of mud fall all over the hallway floor. I sigh but say nothing because I don’t have time to argue.

  ‘Take your brother,’ I say, pushing Henry into his arms and scooping Ava into my own. ‘Right, let’s go!’

  The school bell rings as we pull up outside. ‘Ralph, take Ava to her teacher and run – I’ll watch you from here.’

  ‘Okay, Mum.’

  ‘Love you both,’ I say as they climb out.

  There’s a moment of silence whilst Henry looks out of the window. I sit and breathe for a moment, relishing the tiny slice of tranquillity before the torture of Monday supermarket shopping begins. As I put the car into gear, Henry wails again, prompting me to realise I’ve forgotten the changing bag.

  ‘Buggering hell!’ I do a U-turn and a car honks at me because there’s an unwritten rule about not reversing near the school gate. I wave apologetically hoping it’s another bedraggled mother who’ll give me a sympathetic smile. It isn’t. It’s a smart-looking lady in a flashy BMW who looks less than impressed at having to stop and wait for my U-turn (okay, three, maybe five-point turn).

  When I’ve retrieved the changing bag and Henry is changed and happy, I make it to the supermarket. It’s a small victory that I’ve remembered my carrier bags and I’m feeling ready for the challenge of battling with the trolley. As I’m unbuckling Henry’s car seat, my phone pings. It’s a message from school. Hoping there isn’t another outbreak of nits, I open it.

  URGENT REMINDERS

  Please could all parents / carers remember that children must be accompanied onto the school grounds by an adult as per our safeguarding policy. We’d also like to remind you that as
part of our commitment to keeping your children safe, cars are not permitted to turn around outside the school gates.

  I chuck my phone into the footwell. ‘Oh bugger off!’

  Chapter 2

  Before I take a trolley, I glance in my purse. I’ve always been careful with spending but there’s so-we-can-have-a-holiday careful and there’s so-we-can-afford-to-pay-the-bills careful. We’re now in the latter stages of careful and have been since Mike left, but whilst my budget is a lot less than it used to be, I can make this work! I take a small trolley so I’m not tempted to over-buy but realise there’s nowhere to put Henry, so I swap for a bigger one and thrust it through the doors, promising myself I won’t shove a giant multipack of Walkers crisps in.

  You can get some good bargains if you look hard enough. I make a few sacrifices and choose all the low-budget supermarket stuff but it’s mostly fine and half the time it’s the same as the more expensive stuff. As I’m browsing the toilet paper, a familiar voice stops me dead in my tracks.

  ‘Stephanie, is that you?’

  ‘Emily?’ The sight of her perfectly coiffured blonde hair floods me with emotion. Since the divorce, I’ve hardly seen any of my friends. I assumed they’d rally round me with giant tubs of ice cream and talk of what a loser Mike was anyway, but they all got sort of distant and quiet. They probably wanted to give me time.

  I walk over, arms wide, and hug her. She doesn’t respond; instead, she goes rigid and I end up awkwardly clutching her expensive-looking, blazer-clad torso. She smells of something posh and likely unpronounceable. I pull back.

  ‘Is everything okay?’ I ask, taking in her twisted expression, her microbladed eyebrows pinned into two sharp points by her Botox.

  ‘Yeah, it’s good to see you, Stephanie.’ She hitches her bag up her shoulder and clutches the strap like she’s ready to leave.

  ‘Do you want to go in the café and get a cup of tea?’ I blurt before she has chance to. I know I sound a bit desperate and she never really was the supermarket café and tea type. Thinking back, it was always a macchiato in some fancy coffee place. I’d never realised before but perhaps I wasn’t the supermarket café type either. I suppose having a husband with a generous income meant I could afford for Ocado to bring my shopping and I at least had time to shower before venturing out so the idea of going somewhere nice didn’t make me feel prickly and uncomfortable as it does now.

  She glances at her watch. ‘Sorry, Steph, my two hours parking will be up soon. It’s been great to see you though. We’ll catch up soon.’

  She turns to leave again and there’s no way she’s been in here for two hours. She has a basket with a solitary pack of smoked salmon in. She might be a picky eater but unless she’s brought in sniffer dogs and examined every pack with a magnifying glass several times before searching the warehouse for the most exquisite salmon on offer, she’s lying to me.

  ‘When?’ I ask after her. When she turns, she pouts a little in a faux sympathetic way.

  ‘Soon.’

  I’m about to say okay when something inside me snaps. ‘Are you ghosting me?’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ She lets out a small puff of humour.

  ‘That’s what it’s called, isn’t it? When someone you thought you were close to vanishes without a trace, ignores your texts and makes you feel like you don’t exist and stuff. It’s the modern name for ignoring someone.’

  Her features soften. ‘No, hon, nothing like that. I’m not ghosting you. It’s just …’

  ‘What?’

  Her body sags but her Pilates-conditioned frame soon pulls taut again. ‘Since your divorce, Bradley and I have felt a bit in the middle of you and Mike. I wanted to comfort you and he wanted to go and spend time with Mike. It was awkward so we just decided to stay out of it all – y’know, take a step back. You understand, don’t you?’

  I go to nod but catch myself and shake my head. ‘You mean that because you feel a little bit awkward, you’re ditching me? At the time when I need my friends the most?’

  She looks around. My high-pitched squeak must have attracted some attention but I’m too furious to care. ‘Not ditching you,’ she whispers, ‘just giving you time and staying impartial.’

  ‘Mike wanted to divorce me! Some kind of midlife crisis or whatever. I was happy. If anything, you should be ditching him. Not that I want you to ditch anyone, just, someone to have a glass of wine every now and then with would have been nice.’

  She shakes her head. ‘This is exactly what we didn’t want.’

  ‘We? We as in you and Bradley or we as in all of you – the whole gang?’

  Silence.

  ‘I see.’ My voice falters. I’m vaguely aware that Henry seems to have picked something up off the shelf nearby. ‘In that case, enjoy your smaller group size. In fact, invite Mike back into your dinner party gang. I don’t want to be part of your pretentious circle anyway. There, your difficult decision has been made.’ I shove the trolley but it’s heavy and stiff. Now that I’ve lost momentum, it takes much more effort to move it than I’d prepared for.

  ‘Steph, don’t be like that,’ she says as I shove the trolley one more time, and mercifully it starts to move but not before Henry squirts a tube of something all over me. I recognise the torn yellow and blue box from my pregnancy days. Preparation H. I’m not quick enough to miss Emily’s look of disgust.

  Hot needles stab my eyeballs as I walk away. I don’t look back and Emily doesn’t call after me. I make my way through the checkout as quickly as possible, for once thankful for the checkout lady’s super speed. When I leave the shop, I let out a heavy breath.

  When I’m home and the shopping is put away, I stick the kettle on. I’ve got a life to sort out, children to raise and a house to run. I haven’t got time to worry about Emily and the rest of my so-called friends. If they’re uncomfortable staying friends with me, sod them all. Henry is asleep in his crib and my tea is hot and brewed to perfection. The washing machine has finished but emptying it can wait. I have to take these moments of bliss as and when I can because I never quite know when the next one will be.

  After my tea, I take the opportunity to use the loo in peace. One thing they don’t tell you about having kids is that the toilet becomes a sort of sanctuary of bliss. A few minutes of self-preserving loo-time can do wonders for your sanity and can mean the difference between being able to take a few deep breaths and get on with things, versus completely losing your composure and letting all hell break lose. Unfortunately, as most parents are aware – the little buggers nearly always find you in there. With Ralph and Ava at school, and Henry asleep, this is my perfect moment – I even have a game of Candy Crush. I’m in heaven. That is until I finish, and realise there’s no loo roll.

  ‘Shit!’ Pardon the pun. ‘Bloody Emily!’ Thanks to her catching me off-guard, I didn’t pick any up!

  I waddle, with my jeans around my ankles, to the changing bag in the hall and then back to the downstairs loo where I clean up and bag the baby wipes because the last thing I need is a blocked soil pipe (that isn’t a euphemism).

  When Henry wakes up, I change and feed him and pop him into the pram.

  ‘We’re going for a walk,’ I say, smiling at his podgy face.

  As I’m wrestling the pram down the steps to the pavement, my phone rings.

  ‘Mike?’ My heart plummets. He’ll be welching on father duties, no doubt – he never calls otherwise.

  ‘Hi, Stephanie, listen do you think the kids would be okay with me picking them up from yours on Saturday morning instead of from school on Friday?’ Almost!

  Yes, they’ll mind – their entire week revolves around the exciting things that Daddy will do with them on the weekend. It’s their break away from boring Mummy and her homework schedule and reading routine.

  ‘They’ll be disappointed,’ I say, not wanting to lay on a guilt trip just in case his mother is dying or something. Side note – the best thing about divorce is that you also get rid of the
mother-in-law, not that I hope she’s dying. The physical distance and absence of obligation is enough.

  He sighs dramatically. ‘I can get them, it’s just that I’ve had this awful week at work and it’s only going to get worse over the next few days. I’ll probably have to work late Friday and then there will be team drinks after …’

  Ding ding ding. There we have it. Twenty-one-year-old wannabe Mike fancies a night out with his work friends. Poor cherub!

  ‘Whatever you think is best,’ I say. Yes, I’m being passive-aggressive (one of the things he threw against me in the divorce – he just couldn’t take it anymore) but, well, I don’t care because ninety-nine per cent of my passive-aggressive instances would never have occurred if he wasn’t being such a twat in the first place.

  ‘Stephanie, don’t make me feel worse than I already do. It’s hard juggling a job like mine and, well, you don’t work.’

  And there it is. I. Don’t. Work. Another reason for his emotional stress even though he was the one who told me to give up my job and be a stay-at-home mum because he earns a bloody fortune and the kids need a parent around. Turns out that’s not at all true in Mikelandia where kids raise themselves.

  ‘Yet,’ I say, and he laughs nervously. I could rant about how being a one-woman feeding, cleaning, bathing, clothing, emotional support machine is a full-time job. I don’t because he’ll come back with some retort about how he has to fund us all, then things could get quite nasty – I’ve been there before. I know plenty of single mothers work but we’ve built a life this way and unpicking it is a process.

  ‘So, you are looking for work?’ He sounds hopeful.

  ‘Of course I am,’ I say, and it’s true. I am, but who wants to hire a bookkeeper whose only bookkeeping experience in the last ten years has been neatly stacking nursery rhyme books and filling in reading logs?

  ‘That’s great, Stephanie.’ His voice tinkles like a fruit machine dispensing pound coins.

  ‘Is that everything? I’m sort of busy.’

  ‘Henry running rings around you is he? That’s my boy.’

  Oh fuck off! ‘Something like that.’

  ‘See you Saturday morning then, about elevenish?’