Essentially, she hated her body. Which is why I think I connect with her the most.
‘He said something about me never spending any time with Bonnie, and it’s really struck a nerve,’ I continue.
‘Oh,’ Sarah says, in an indecipherable way.
‘Oh?’ I push, noticing Jess throw her a look. Sarah feels confident to carry on.
‘I mean, the weekend thing is odd.’
‘Odd?’ I ask, trying not to snap. I invited this judgement, I know that.
‘Yes, Liam has her every weekend. We invite you to things with the kids but you never come because you don’t have Bonnie, ever. It’s just odd, that’s all. For Liam to have her every weekend.’
‘But he wants her at the weekends. I have her all week.’
‘You don’t though, do you? She’s at nursery,’ Sarah continues, like she’s been wanting to say this for ages.
‘I’m working.’
‘I know, we all work. But we see our kids at the weekends, that’s the whole point.’
‘I work too much, and I’m feeling like shit about it,’ Yvonne says. I am grateful for the attention to be on someone else. She is a lawyer. She quickly realised having an art degree was utterly pointless and retrained after Falmouth. I’ve always been quite impressed by that. It sounds boring as hell but the level of study is extraordinary, and I think it’s brilliant that anyone should achieve such a qualification without giving up. She’s a clever woman, and maybe my favourite out of the three. Jess works for a women’s health charity, while Sarah does something in the arts that is never clear to me no matter how much she explains it. She doesn’t make art or sell it, but by the time she’s explained that far I’ve usually switched off.
‘I’m actually thinking about going freelance; getting out of the grind, taking on less clients, spending more time with the kids,’ Yvonne says, as Sarah and Jess nod. I join in for show. ‘They’ll have grown up before we know it,’ Yvonne continues. ‘And I’ll look back on these years knowing I missed most of it because I worked so much. I don’t want to feel that way.’
‘You have to follow your heart,’ Sarah says, offering nothing but a cliché.
‘I think it’s good to be a busy working mum,’ I say. ‘Sets a good example.’
‘I agree,’ Yvonne says. ‘But I feel distant from the kids. It makes me …’ She sets her glass down and puts her hand to her face. She is crying. The other women lay hands on her body, Jess leans in to hug her. I remain still.
‘You’re a fantastic mum,’ Jess says. ‘And Ruby’s right, it’s good that your kids see you as a working woman. Providing for your family.’
‘I know, I know. Sorry Ruby, I know this was supposed to be about you—’ blubs Yvonne, nodding and crying. ‘It’s just that when they run to Daddy, and don’t come to me with their problems, or when they hurt themselves … I’ll always blame it on the fact I don’t see them from Monday to Friday, you know? Rob picks them up every day. By the time I get home they are in bed. It’s not what I want anymore. I feel like I’m serving myself and failing my children.’
‘Then you must do what makes you happy. If you think you can do it freelance, then do it,’ says Sarah.
I’m quite surprised. I’ve not seen this side of Yvonne before. She always seems to have it so together these days. I’ve always been a little jealous, to be honest. We actually share the same feelings, in a way. Liam’s relationship with Bonnie is very upsetting for me. I never considered that my issues could apply to other women too.
‘Here’s to being a shit mum,’ I say, raising my Arnold Palmer. They all clink glasses with me, raising their bare arms into the air as our glasses touch. I think we are all happy to move on from that conversation. It has no real resolution. If you are a mother and you work, you will always probably feel like you’re letting your kids down in some way. We just need to live with that. I brush my feelings back under the table.
‘So Jess, how is all with you?’ I ask.
‘Oh, you know, my life is just one constant negotiation. Do I choose my husband’s happiness or my own needs?’
‘Explain?’ Yvonne urges.
‘Sex,’ Jess says. ‘Sex and marriage do not go hand in hand.’
‘Oh my goodness, a married woman is going to talk about her sex life? Controversial,’ Sarah says. And she is right, we have discussed this before. These women used to talk about their sex lives in detail, until they got married and that kind of talk just stopped. A mysterious consequence of getting wed. A sudden respect for the sanctity of a sex life. Jess is obviously keen to smash that code.
‘He’s so moody. He grumps around the house all annoyed, and I know it’s because we don’t have enough sex. But why would I want to do it with someone who’s being so grumpy? But what always happens, every single time, is I give in and have sex with him just to snap him out of his strop. Afterwards I feel like I let myself down, but he is practically cartwheeling around the house. Such is a woman’s plight. Sex with moody husbands. Who signed me up for this shit?’
We all laugh. One thing I really do like about my friends, is how much they make me happy to be single. But also, how because of them, I am not entirely on my own.
Lauren Pearce – Instagram post
@OfficialLP
The image is of Lauren’s lower abdomen and thighs, she is wearing a very sexy black body suit. Across her lap we see white silk. A wedding dress? In the other hand she has a glass of champagne.
The caption reads:
Not long now until I get to wear this and say ‘I do’ to my best friend. Talking of ‘I do’s, shall we all say it to ourselves today? ‘I do’ accept myself, and I AM good enough. #Ido #love #selflove #happiness #mentalhealth #Happiness #AD #VeuveClicquot
@kellyclarkvillee: I accept you as my hero!
@helloprettiestone: SHOW US THE DRESS. Oh my God I cannot wait …
@selmaslemaslema: Is it true about Gavin? My friend says she knows one of the women. Bless you if it is. I hope you have good people around you.
@elasticbrain: You and Gavin and GOALZ. I wake up every day wishing I was you. How did you get that man? What is the secret?
@harrietgallently: I tried that granola you were promoting. Tasted like my gran’s armpit.
9
Beth
It’s like when you’re hungry and you find yourself standing at the fridge with a mouthful of cake, but don’t remember getting there. I’m behind the tree again.
It is lunch time, prime time, and it isn’t dark. This is a ‘dogging hotspot’, I know that now, I read it online.
A car passes but doesn’t stop. I see a little movement behind a bush on the other side of the clearing and I tell myself I am safe, even though maybe I am not. Is that part of the thrill? I’m still trying to work that out. People would hear me if I screamed.
The rustle moves a little closer. Maybe it’s the couple?
Another car drives past. It doesn’t stop. Then a man appears from behind a tree opposite me. He is wearing a mask. It should be terrifying, but the mask only covers half of his face and it is a kid’s mask, some kind of animal. Maybe a fox? Yes, a fox. If I wasn’t so horny I’d think he was stupid. But I read that a lot of people wear masks. It’s an anonymity thing, and I think that is fair enough. I try not to pay it too much attention.
The man stands in the clearing and holds his hand out, as if asking me to join him. I shake my head. I’m not here for that. I see there are other people behind the trees. He puts his hand out again. This time I wonder if I should. I was led here by my sexual desire, I am craving something new. I deserve to have my libido acknowledged and appreciated. It weirdly feels like a safer space than my own bedroom. I don’t want the complexities of emotion; I want the satisfaction of sex. I come out from behind the tree and walk over to the man.
He takes my hand and leads me to a tree stump. There are definitely people watching us. He smiles at me. I wish I could see his eyes. He is tall, slim. He could be very handsome, I wi
sh I could see. But then he could be very ugly. So maybe it is best that I can’t.
I now can’t imagine him any other way than ugly.
He begins to undo his jeans. Another rustle behind a tree. Tommy appears in my mind. My baby. Michael too. Still my husband. Reality strikes.
‘I can’t, I’m sorry,’ I say. The man is getting closer to me with his hard penis in his hand. He stays still, and puts up no resistance, but he continues to masturbate himself, as if that will change my mind.
‘I’m sorry,’ I repeat, shaking my head. ‘This isn’t who I am.’ I walk away slowly, wondering if he will jump on me and make me go through with it. But he doesn’t. I pick up the pace and I run as fast as I can towards Lauren’s house. It’s the only destination I know, but obviously I can’t just pop in so I go into a local pub and order myself a drink.
‘Gin and tonic, please.’ Just the one is OK, I’m craving it. Tommy’s next feed will be a bottle anyway. And I need a moment. I have things I need to think about. These feelings are not right. Do I have post-natal depression? Is that why I suddenly hate my husband and want to have sex with strangers?
But I don’t feel sad. I just feel out of control of myself. Part of the responsibility of being a parent is keeping yourself safe. To think what could have happened. How horrible would it be for Tommy to live his life knowing that his mother was bludgeoned to death in a park whilst being raped by a tall man with a fox mask on. I can’t go back there. That is not the answer.
I can’t believe this is me. I was always a sexual woman. Some might say, too sexual. I lost my virginity at fifteen; not too early, not too late. Boys were never scary to me. They liked me, I liked them. I was a good flirt, a good shag. I didn’t expect relationships from sex and was happy to have the fun. My parents loved me, my influences were good, my friends were not wild. It was all good fun until I got to university and had a boyfriend with a strange quirk. He used to leave money on my bedside table after sex. I’d tell him I didn’t want it. I’d insist he took it back. But he made sure that one way or another I took it. By either hiding it in my bag or throwing it at me then running away.
‘You’re my little whore,’ he would say, as if the whole notion of paying for sex really turned him on. We spent most of our time high and in bed, so there wasn’t much outside of that to judge him by. The sex was good, not too rough. He occasionally said things like, ‘You are so worth the money,’ or, ‘You could charge double.’ But he wasn’t mean to me and he didn’t force me into anything emotional or physical that I didn’t want to do. He just insisted on paying me, that was his fantasy. And I was a broke student, so in the end just gave up fighting it and took the cash. I even held off on dumping him before Christmas because I had to pay to get home for the holiday.
It wasn’t until I was about twenty-six that I realised that made me a prostitute.
I battled with the repercussions of that for some time. Feeling dirty and ashamed. Like I should have just broken up with him, like I should never have spent the money, and posted it through his letter box instead. I always said to myself that if I ever had the money I would give it all back to him. It was such a small amount, really. About £300 in total, I only went out with him for a couple of months. But at that age, it felt like a lifetime and £300 to a skint student was a lot. I could pay him back tomorrow if I wanted to. But I have no idea where he lives, and I certainly don’t want to ask people if they know and draw attention to it all. Also, I was so high for most of that time that I actually have no recollection of his surname. Sometimes I wonder if I ever even knew it.
I can’t change the past. It’s always quite surprising to me how things feel terrible in retrospect, but at the time they really don’t. A nice guy, fun, non-violent, a weird sex thing, money was exchanged that paid for my family’s Christmas presents. It didn’t feel wrong. But often, when you are living an experience, and things seem OK, you really don’t worry about what is wrong with it. Especially at that age. I didn’t think about my future when I was twenty-one. I didn’t think, ‘If I take that twenty pounds from the side of the bed, it will haunt me for years.’ It didn’t haunt me at the time, surely that is all that matters? So, I always try to put myself back there, when that dark and heavy thump of anxiety and regret tries to keep me awake at night, I tell myself it is OK to have been questionable. I also remind myself that people are out there doing actually terrible things. Rape, murder, fraud, betrayal. My experience was nothing like that, but still, it challenges my self-respect. And that is very annoying.
I’ve always thought my marriage was quite normal, until recently. Maybe I’ll look back on it one day, and not believe I was in it. It’s feeling less and less like where I should be every single day.
I realise I have finished my drink. Whoops. I order another one.
When I met Michael, a safe, sexually unambitious man who didn’t demand anything weird in the bedroom, I felt like maybe he redeemed me. He was vanilla, I was absolved. Most women have had some kind of relationship they are not proud of. A one-night stand, a guy who you stayed with who got you to do kinky stuff you weren’t even into. An affair. The list goes on. Well mine was inoffensive really. No one got hurt. But it left me with shame. Michael took it away. I had my own business, I didn’t rely on him for anything. And he was gentle and I felt relieved that my deviant days were over. The past is the past. Everyone is allowed to have dubious stories that make no sense to anyone like they made sense to you at the time. That’s called living. I was adventurous at that age, I was wild. I have spent most of my adult life trying to justify my actions.
I ended up seeing a therapist for a few years in my late twenties because I felt so disgusted by myself. I never knew if it was a comedown from all the drugs I took at uni, or a reaction to how that relationship made me feel. Either way, therapy helped. My therapist told me it was OK to have done those things. That all I have to do is give myself permission to have acted in that way, give myself permission to have been young and unbothered by the consequences. She said all I was doing was role play, the transaction was not important. I was neutral back then; if it wasn’t hurtful at the time, then why should it be hurtful now? She was right. At the time it was OK. Marrying a man contaminated by innocence also helped. I have to beg the question, would Michael have been the man I chose, if I wasn’t trying to mask my shame?
I don’t know the answer to that. As women, we are raised to believe all men want to screw us. When one doesn’t, especially when it’s the man you love, it’s incredibly confusing. It feels like the problem must be me.
Until now. Michael isn’t making me happy. He isn’t who I thought he was. But then look at me; a middle-aged woman regretting my past and present over a gin and tonic while I avoid work and my child. As if that is going to make anything better. I finish my second drink.
A man heads over and sits next to me at the bar. He orders a beer. He didn’t need to sit in that chair, there are plenty of others to choose from.
‘Waiting for someone?’ he asks me.
‘No,’ I reply. Wishing I’d said yes. I really want some time on my own.
‘Drinking alone in the afternoon? That’s usually a sign of one thing.’
‘That I’m a single woman out gagging for sex and should therefore be approached by men I don’t know and hassled until I give it up?’ I say, accusing him, when actually it’s kind of true. I am gagging for it.
He is around fifty, annoyingly handsome, well dressed in quality casual clothes and he blatantly wasn’t hitting on me. I realise that immediately.
‘I wasn’t going to say that, actually. I was going to say that drinking alone in the afternoon usually means you have something you should be talking about. But sure, I’m a man, so presume the worst.’ He picks up his drink and walks away to a table in the corner. I feel like an idiot.
‘Hey,’ I say, calling him back. He stays where he is, so I go over. ‘I’m sorry, that wasn’t fair.’ He looks up at me.
‘I have
a daughter. You just did what I’ve always told her she should do. So I guess I should just sit over here and shut up.’
‘You don’t need to shut up. Again, I’m sorry. I’m not having the best day.’
‘So maybe you do have something you need to talk about?’ He pushes a chair out with his foot. And gestures to the barman to get me another drink. I don’t turn it down. ‘Or we can sit here for a few hours, play backgammon and pretend our real lives aren’t happening?’
‘That sounds like a really nice idea.’
I guess I’ll have to pump and dump.
Coming out of a pub drunk when it’s still light is like walking down a tunnel towards a fleet of trucks, all with their headlights shining right into your face. I’d maybe fall to the ground if the man wasn’t holding me up. I never caught his name. It’s not like you can ask again after an hour of sitting with someone in a pub, is it?
He remembers mine.
‘Beth, I’ll hail you a cab,’ he says. I shout the word ‘Booooooring’ like a thirteen-year-old girl who has just been told to button her top up to cover her cleavage.
‘No?’ he asks me. ‘Then what do you want to do?’
I manage to straighten my legs and hold them still enough to put my face opposite his. My head is like a balloon tied to a stick, it keeps flopping down towards the ground. I haven’t been drunk in over a year. I just chugged four gin and tonics in one hour. That’s a lot for me right now.
‘I want to kiss you,’ I say. ‘I want to kiss you on your mouth.’ I manage to keep my head steady enough to make my first attempt. He pulls away, looks up the street and seems a bit cross.
‘What are you doing?’ he says, like I just tried to hit him.
‘Sorry, I thought we …’ My shame taps me on the shoulder. Another man who thinks I’m a giant sexual oaf.
‘It’s OK. But what about this?’
So Lucky Page 18
