‘Yeah, I know. I’m rea-real-really happy,’ she said, sobbing into her tissue.
Lucy and I looked at each other in shock. Why was she so upset?
‘Jess, it’s perfectly obvious you’re not happy at all. What’s wrong?’ asked Lucy, cutting straight to the point.
‘I’m sorry, guys. I know I shouldn’t complain but I didn’t want this to happen.’
‘Well, then, why didn’t you prevent it?’ said Lucy bluntly.
‘Because I do want kids. I mean, everyone does. Right?’
Lucy shrugged, I nodded.
‘And I don’t want Sally to be an only child, so I suppose I was trying to get pregnant, and I don’t know if I’m cut out for motherhood. I don’t think I’m very good at it. I really don’t like it very much.’
I was shocked. Jess was always talking about Sally’s first smile and Sally’s first tooth. She was obsessed with the child. How could she think she wasn’t good at it?
‘But, Jess,’ I said, ‘you’re always telling me stories about how much you love Sally and how proud you are when she does stuff for the first time. You’re a brilliant mum. You’re so into her and enthusiastic about her, it’s lovely. You’re a natural.’
‘But that’s just it, Emma. I’m not. I say those things because I hear other mothers saying them. Don’t get me wrong – I love Sally to bits and I’m really proud of her, it’s just that I’ve had no life for a year and a half. Now she’s in nursery and I was just getting my life back but I’m pregnant again. I can’t bear it. I want to be myself again.’
‘But you are yourself. Life changes when you have kids, everyone says that. You’ve just got different priorities,’ I said, trying to make her feel better. She looked like she was going to have a nervous breakdown and, to be honest, I only wanted to hear about the nice side of motherhood: I didn’t want to be put off.
‘It can’t be that bad,’ said Lucy. ‘You’ve got a great husband and a healthy child. Come on, Jess, get some perspective, you’re very lucky.’
‘I know I’m lucky,’ said Jess frowning, ‘but you have no idea how bloody hard it is. I’m sorry, Lucy, but until you –’
‘– go through it you can’t understand. Yeah, yeah. I’ve heard it all before. Just try being single at thirty-four and see how shit that feels,’ snapped Lucy. ‘I’ll take the nice husband and the kids and you can have my life for a while.’
I have to say, she had a point. Jess was being self-pitying and she had ruined Lucy’s night out.
Jess was angry now. ‘It must be difficult having a successful career, being respected and looked up to by your colleagues. Having a big fat salary with no one to spend it on but yourself. Buying designer clothes, going for facials at the drop of a hat. Travelling to New York on business and being chased round Dublin by a rugby star. Gee, Lucy, it must be really tough.’
Lucy looked flushed, and angry too. ‘So that’s how you see my life? Well, have you ever thought how your life seems to me? You sit around on your arse watching daytime TV or having lunches and coffees with other mothers. You spend time with a daughter you adore … you’ve got a great husband – there’s always someone to cuddle up to at night. You’ve got someone to talk to after you’ve had a shit day. When I get home after a crappy day, all I have to keep me company are the four walls of the apartment I worked my ass off to pay for. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and have panic attacks because I’m terrified of growing old alone, but that’s a reality I have to accept and deal with. I watch my friends move on with their lives while I stay stuck in my single rut. I often have to force myself to go out when I’m so tired and depressed I just want to curl into a ball and scream. Why? Because I know if I stay in, there’s no hope of meeting Mr Right. God! You smug married people make me sick.’
I was stunned. I had never heard Lucy talk so honestly about being single. Obviously I knew it got her down and that she was scared of ending up on her own, but I never grasped how awful that fear must be.
Jess shook her head. ‘Lucy, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to sound so harsh. It must be really difficult for you. All I’m trying to say is that it’s not always sunny on this side either. I think I’m just overwhelmed by how hard being a mother is. No one tells you that your vagina’s going to be ripped wide open and you’re going to need internal and external stitches so that you can’t sit down properly for weeks. The only respite you get is by cutting a hole in a cushion so that it’s like sitting on a doughnut. No one tells you that going to the loo will be like pissing nails. If you even think about not breast-feeding, you’re considered a freak of nature. The pressure is unbelievable, so you give in and walk around with cracked nipples and leaky boobs for months.’
Mother of God, this was desperate stuff. Every orifice seemed to have been a no-go area for Jess post-birth. I wondered if she had a low pain threshold or was it really that bad.
‘And as for the adoring husband,’ continued Jess, ‘he slopes off to the spare room every night because he has to work in the morning, leaving you with the baby to feed, and you don’t have a clue what you’re doing. You’re just winging it. When Sally wakes up in the middle of the night I sometimes want to strangle her. The sleep deprivation is really what gets me down. The first time I bathed Sally, I was so tired I dropped her in the water and thought I’d drowned her. I didn’t stop shaking for days.’
I had to interrupt her. I really didn’t want to hear all this negativity. ‘But after a while you get used to it, don’t you?’ I asked, praying she would say yes.
‘Yes, you do get into a kind of a routine, but you’re exhausted all the time. I sat around for months in my pyjamas because there was no time to get dressed. By the time I’d fed, burped and dressed her, it was time for the next feed. When Tony got home, I was sitting on the couch with greasy hair in my pyjamas. I’d say hello, hand Sally to him, go straight to bed and pass out. We didn’t have sex for eight months.’
‘Eight months!’ I didn’t mean to make her feel worse but I couldn’t help it. Jesus Christ, enough already with the information. This was awful – there was no way it could be as bad as she was making out. She obviously just didn’t cope very well with it. I’d be different. I had loads of energy. I’d bounce back quicker. Mind you, I spent a fair amount of time on the couch in my pyjamas as it was. I’d have to get out of that habit and back into a regular routine at the gym.
‘Yes, Emma, no sex for eight months. During those months I was a fat, miserable, greasy-haired blob with a sore vagina, leaky boobs and the energy levels of a ninety-year-old.’
‘My longest stretch without sex was three months, so I do feel sorry for you there,’ said Lucy, thawing out.
‘But, Jess, once you got back into it, it was OK, wasn’t it?’ I asked, determined to extract a positive response.
‘Well, eventually. But it took a long time. After about six months I decided to go into town to get some sexy underwear and some new clothes to make myself feel better. I still couldn’t fit into pre-pregnancy clothes and I needed to get out of the tracksuit I was living in. Between getting Sally ready, having a shower myself and packing all her nappies and baby wipes into the bag and all that stuff, it took two hours. We were just about to set off when she threw up all over herself, so I had to take her out of the car, change her and feed her again. Instead of leaving the house at ten as I had planned, we left at twelve. The traffic was so bad that it took an hour to get into town. Then we spent another hour stuck in a car-park queue. By the time I’d parked it was nearly two and I knew she’d be hollering for food again soon. So I just turned round and drove straight home. I didn’t even get to one shop. I cried all the way home, then just put on the same saggy tracksuit and had another sexless night. When I eventually made it into town I blew a fortune on sexy lingerie and attacked Tony when he came in from work. I had to do something before his penis shrivelled up and fell off from lack of activity,’ said Jess, laughing.
‘Why didn’t you call me? I could h
ave picked some stuff up for you, or babysat,’ I said.
‘I was ashamed and embarrassed. I didn’t want to admit what a disaster I was to anyone – not even myself. When my baby-group mothers came over for coffee they’d all crash on about how much sex they were having and how the orgasms were better now. So I lied as well and said Tony and I were at it like rabbits.’
‘Well, it’s obviously better on the sex front now, as you’re pregnant again …’ I said, smiling at her.
‘That’s just it, everything’s better now,’ she said gloomily. ‘We’re getting into a nice routine, we have regular babysitters, go out every weekend and have fun together, and now I’m bloody pregnant again and it’s all going to stop and before you know it I’ll be back sitting on that bloody doughnut.’
‘Why don’t you opt for a Caesarean? Lots of people do nowadays,’ said Lucy, always the practical one.
‘And don’t breastfeed, just go straight to bottles,’ I added helpfully.
‘To be honest, my vagina’s so stretched after giving birth to Sally that I reckon this one will just slide out,’ said Jess.
That was it. I’d heard quite enough. I decided to nip it in the bud and refocus the attention on Lucy – after all, it was the reason we’d met up, and it was a lot less gruesome. I’d like to propose a toast,’ I announced. ‘To Jess’s new baby and to Lucy’s new promotion – which she totally deserves because she lives in that office.’
19
A month later I was at the airport waiting for my brother’s plane to land, feeling decidedly grumpy. I’d got my period the day before. It had been three days late and I had gone through the oh-my-God-I’m-pregnant euphoria, only to be disappointed yet again. Christmas was normally my favourite time of year. I loved the buzz around town as people rushed about in the cold buying presents for loved ones, meeting for drinks and wishing each other well. It was the only time of year when strangers actually risked eye-contact and spoke to you – to wish you a merry Christmas.
I always collected Sean from the airport on Christmas Eve. It was our little ritual. We’d been doing it for years. I had always loved seeing all the Christmas decorations at the airport twinkling at me as I drove in. The arrivals lounge was like a carnival as people shouted and cried when their family and friends came through the sliding doors and ran to hug them.
By the time Sean came over to me, I was always tearful – having witnessed numerous emotional family reunions. He found it very entertaining and usually had a tissue on hand for me.
This year was different. I stood at the back of the arrivals hall, watched the travellers coming out and envied them. I watched bitterly as grandparents saw their grandchildren for the first time. I wanted to go over to them and shout, ‘Do you know how lucky you are? Do you have any idea how difficult it is to produce grandchildren?’
A man dressed as Santa came over to me. ‘Ho ho ho, young lady, and a merry Christmas to you. Come on, give Santa a smile.’
I wanted to pull Santa’s beard off and punch him in the nose. Instead I opted for glaring at him, but he was not to be deterred: ‘Come on, I bet you have a beautiful smile. If you smile all your wishes may come true. Come on, Santa isn’t going to leave until he makes you smile. In fact he’s going to sing – come on, join in. “Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer …”’
The airport was packed and the people standing beside me were staring. I grabbed his arm and whispered under my breath. ‘Look, Santa, you’re barking up the wrong tree here. Now, will you please just fuck off and torment someone else?’
Poor old Santa nearly fell over with shock. I’m sure he’d never been spoken to like that before or since. I felt guilty for being so rude, but he was doing my head in and I really didn’t feel like singing ‘Rudolph the Shagging Reindeer’. Thankfully, when I looked up I saw Sean coming towards me. I waved at him. He looked pretty cheesed off himself, which was unusual as he was normally so upbeat and even-tempered.
‘Hi, welcome home,’ I said, hugging him.
‘Yeah, great,’ he said, arms hanging limply by his sides.
‘What’s up?’
‘Just got dumped. Happy fucking Christmas to me.’
‘Oh, Sean, that’s terrible, you poor thing. Come on, let’s get out of here and go for a drink. You can tell me all about it.’
I was a bit disappointed. I’d been hoping to offload on Sean but now it looked as if I’d have to console him. He seemed really down. When we got to the pub, it was jammed with people being cheery and Christmassy, so I brought Sean back home for a few drinks. James was out at some rugby coaches’ get-together so we had the place to ourselves. I poured us both a large vodka and cranberry juice and sat down beside him. ‘OK, tell me everything. What happened? I want a blow-by-blow.’
‘She called me at work four days ago, said she was in love with her agent and she was moving to LA with him. When I got home all her stuff was gone.’
‘Did you see it coming? Were you getting on badly? How could she suddenly be in love with her agent?’
‘How the hell do I know? The guy is married with two kids. I never suspected anything. Besides, I thought everything was fine. She was getting frustrated with the acting because she wasn’t getting any parts, but I never imagined … I suppose they did spend a lot of time together and she did seem to have a lot of auditions in Manchester and Birmingham that involved going up the night before to prepare. God, I’m such a dickhead. How did I not see the signs?’ said Sean, realizing for the first time that he had been played for a fool. He groaned and covered his face with his hands. I poured him another large vodka.
‘God, Emma! I used to pay for all her hotels when she went away to auditions. I gave her a credit card because I felt sorry for her having no money and she said she hated taking hand-outs from me. She put all her expenses on the card. Jesus, she was shagging that bastard on my money.’
As Sean pieced it all together, he grew increasingly despondent. He berated himself for having been so naïve and blind: she had taken him for a complete ride, she had used him for the fool he was—
I jumped in: ‘Hold on. Stop saying you’re a fool. You met a gorgeous girl and fell for her. What’s so terrible about that? OK, it ended badly and she’s a stupid cow, but come on, it’s not as if the relationship was a complete write-off – or was it?’
Personally I wanted to slate the bitch, but I was trying desperately to boost his non-existent ego.
As I was trying to think of something positive to say, someone started banging on the front door. I presumed it was James, who must have lost his keys, but when I opened the door Babs was swaying on the step in a Santa hat, holding a bottle of vodka and beaming at me. ‘Ho ho ho, merry Christmas. Don’t worry, I’ve brought my own booze. After the last time I called in and was served that green muck I was taking no chances.’
‘Come on in, you nutter. Sean’s here and we have loads of vodka. He got dumped so be tactful.’
Babs stormed into the room like a whirlwind. ‘Hey, bro, merry Christmas. I hear you got dumped by that loser you brought to Dad’s party. You’re much better off without her.’
‘Hey, Babs, sweet and sensitive as ever,’ he said, hugging her.
‘Come on, Sean, anyone that calls you “Pooh Bear” has got to go. She was an absolute leper. Too good-looking for EastEnders – give me a break. Are you blind or what? The only pity is that you didn’t dump her first.’
‘Thanks for that, Babs. I’m sure Sean feels much better now,’ I said, handing her a drink and glaring at her.
‘And the way she went on about having to get acting lessons for an ad for Barclays Bank! She was a total spa. So what happened, anyway? When did you get dumped?’
‘Barbara, can you please stop slagging her off? Don’t I get a few weeks’ grace? It’s only been off four days,’ snapped Sean.
Babs rolled her eyes. ‘God, it’s like depressed and depresseder in here. Come on, it’s Christmas, the season to be jolly.’
Sean and I shru
gged and sighed, neither of us feeling remotely cheerful.
‘Right, there’s only one thing for it,’ said Babs, fishing around for something in her bag. ‘Here we go. Pop a few of these babies and you’ll feel no pain,’ she said, handing us two pills.
‘What are they?’ I asked suspiciously.
‘Ecstasy,’ said Sean.
‘Barbara! What are you doing with drugs in your bag?’ I was shocked at the thought that my sister was not only a drug user but a supplier.
‘Don’t get all big-sister on me, Emma. I only use them for recreational purposes, or in this case to treat depression,’ said my young sister, giggling.
I had never tried Ecstasy. I had done a few lines of cocaine years ago at a party but hadn’t been impressed with the results, so I had decided to stick to alcohol. A lot of my friends had got into the whole E-clubbing scene when it first exploded, but my main problem was that I can’t dance – well, I can do the side-to-side shuffle, but I definitely don’t have anything that could be identified as rhythm – so I avoided nightclubs that didn’t play good old-fashioned pop. Give me a bit of Kylie or Sister Sledge any day over Armand van Helden’s drum ‘n’ bass mix of ‘Sugar Is Sweet’ or Technocat’s ‘Dance Like Your Dad’ mix, featuring Tom Wilson.
Sean said, what the hell, he could do with a buzz – he had obviously dabbled before in class-A drugs because he seemed to know the score. Clearly Babs was an old pro and I didn’t want to be a party pooper and, besides, I had always secretly wanted to try E to see what it was like and if it did make you ‘feel the music’, so I took one too.
Sean and Babs then proceeded to rearrange the furniture in the room to give us plenty of space for the dancing. I was a bit worried when they pushed everything up against the wall. What type of leaping was going to take place? Then they went through my CD collection, letting out groans of horror as Shania Twain followed Barbra Streisand’s Greatest Hits, U2’s The Unforgettable Fire, ABBA, David Gray, Coldplay …
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