by Poppy Dolan
I order some kind of complicated jasmine tea from the waitress. Tea, at least, is never political. Thank God for that, or the whole country would crumble.
‘Did you get what I sent for Willy’s birthday, by the way?’
I’d gone for plain wooden building blocks. Nothing too overtly Bob the Builder there, I hoped, and I knew Maria had had similar when she was smaller.
‘Yes, thanks love. Sorry, I haven’t done thank-you cards yet. I’ve been thinking of maybe starting up a new agency of my own, from home, but just the planning is exhausting.’
‘But that’s great! Great stuff. You should totally do it. I, for one, need to know whether to actually bother buying those ugly, heeled brogues or if they will disappear soon. And you can tell us the next fash holiday destination, so we can get there while it’s still cheap. Cheers to that!’ I hold up my tea cup and then take a swig. Ow. Hot.
Something like panic pinches Georgie’s mouth into a tight bud. ‘Well, it’s not definite. I’d have to come down to London loads, and that’s quite a train journey, even if you get the fast one.’
‘But you’d get to see us so much more! More boozy nights back at Wahaca, hey?’
She runs a hand over her forehead and down along her cheek, resting her fingers on her lips and then speaking through them. ‘But I would see the kids so much less. I don’t know …’
I really want to be a useful friend in this moment and tell her what she wants to hear. But we both know there is no magic answer. She could get more friend time but less family time; she could give up the idea of her own agency and be at home to see all those important ‘First’ milestones, but she’d be letting her career stumble on its last legs. Georgie already knew she couldn’t return to her last job after her maternity leave with Will – the commuting was just too much and her employers weren’t altogether flexible about working remotely. The fact that she’s both awesome at business and at being a caring, careful mum is royally biting her in the arse. I wish I had an answer. But no one does.
We just stare into our teas for a moment, willing something prophetic to jump out of the posh leaves. It doesn’t, but Jules pushes her way through the door.
‘Hey guys!’ We leap into jolly hellos, as if we have no memory of touching on Georgie’s huge life crisis.
Emmeline is strapped to Jules’s back, her gorgeous face just about peering – albeit in a sleepy, unfocused way – over her mum’s slim shoulder.
‘Thought I’d test out the new Baby Bjorn instead of cramming up the aisles with the buggy. And Seb wants us to do a walking holiday soon. Seriously, fatherhood has changed him. No more ordering beers in Spanish and cheap midnight flights. Nope, it’s all Norfolk Broads and bloody compasses.’ She rolls her eyes but her grin gives her away: she is loving the new, wholesome Seb.
‘Hello twinkle!’ I waggle my fingers at Emmeline. I’m not sure why I expect her to wave back at three months old, but I feel a little jilted when she doesn’t.
Jules mouths ‘Big coffee please’ at the waitress, then turns to me. ‘So, happy birthday again, Ells! Here’s your card. Didn’t want to lose it in the pub. Oh I wonder WHAT will be on it? Hmmm.’
I laugh as I start to tear at the envelope. As I set up Jules with Seb not long after I met Pete (he’s a uni mate of Pete’s) and they obviously hit it off, the joke at their engagement was that I ‘should buy a new hat, Cilla’. So as bridesmaid, I got given all sorts of jokey hats to wear on the hen, Jules even gave me a lovely antique hat stand for my thirtieth and all my birthday and Christmas cards have to have a hat on them. Jules even briefly took up knitting so she could craft me a beanie and stitch CILLA on to it in big wonky letters.
The card has the obligatory hat – a top hat this time – being worn by a guinea pig with googly eyes.
‘Thanks, love.’ I lean forward to hug her in her chair.
Georgie winces. ‘I totally messed up and didn’t get to the shops in time. William had a reaction to a wool jumper and … well, it’s all a bit boring. Sorry, Ellie.’
I flap my hand casually, ‘Card, schmard. I’m just dead chuffed you made all the effort to come down here. It’s lovely to see you. Have you heard from Becca? When’s she getting into town?’
Becca is actually a uni mate of Jules’s, but after so many shared milestones together via Jules – twenty-first birthdays, first London jobs, the celebrations we had when Jules finally dumped Trent the A-hole – she now feels just as much my friend.
Jules bites down on her bottom lip. ‘You didn’t get her message?’
‘No. What’s up?’
Jules wraps her fingers around the mug that’s just been neatly placed onto the table by the waitress. ‘She’s not coming, babe. Her mother-in-law mentioned she had a cold, so … Becca didn’t want to run the risk.’
Becca had left the smoke because her other half’s job relocated them to outside Manchester four years ago. But it also neatly tied in with this weird OCD she’d developed for baby-wiping anything within twenty paces of her son, and there weren’t enough baby wipes on the planet to clean up a Tube carriage. If someone in her social circle got a cold, Becca gave them an unofficial quarantine until they stopped sniffing and then Dettoled her house anyway, just to be sure. They were going to stay over with her husband’s parents, and so a poorly MIL rules out a London weekend. Bums. I haven’t seen her in ages.
I blow out a long breath. ‘Well, she can’t take any risks with Benjy, I suppose.’
‘Yee-eesss, there’s that.’ Jules says this in a sing-song way that means, No, there’s something else.
‘What?’
‘She’s expecting again!’ Her hands go up in a little, jazzy Mexican wave.
Georgie squeaks, ‘No way! That’s brilliant news! Another glutton for punishment among us.’ She beams, winking at me. ‘I had to leave at least two years between mine because the thought of piles again actually kept me up at night. Which, funnily enough, was what the real piles did too.’
‘Ha!’ Jules sinks some of her latte. ‘Yup, she’s brave. Handling two cannot be easy, I have no idea how you do it. I mean, Emmie’s three months and I’m still refusing to acknowledge Seb’s penis even exists. You’ve done your part, thank you Mister.’
I try not to wince.
‘Oooh, I’m just going to nip outside and call her.’ Georgie grabs her phone and makes for the door.
‘I might need cake. Big cake.’ Without realising it, I’m leaning with one hand on my forehead. I quickly straighten out and try and look like a normal woman who is happy for her pregnant friend and not like the drunk Dumbo who sees pink elephants everywhere he goes. Babies. Are. Everywhere.
Jules leans forward, ‘Hey, sorry about this.’
I shrug. ‘About what?’
She picks her words slowly and carefully. ‘This was supposed to be about you, your birthday. And now we’re talking postnatal sex and Preparation H. Becca is really sorry she’s missing this. I’m sure she’ll call you later. And look, we’ve got the fancy pants wedding soon, yeah? I promise you I won’t so much as think the b word.’
Chapter Eight
Pete and I trundle along in a hire car to the fancy wedding. I’m fully anticipating an epic castle, a huge marquee and a moatful of booze. The invites were thicker than our floor tiles, the groom has four middle names and we’ll be dancing away to S Club 7 in a castle’s armour room tonight. I don’t know the bride and groom that well (Pete was on a water polo team with the groom for a year at uni and was a bit baffled by the invite), but the quality embossing implied a free bar, maybe a hog roast, and the chance to catch up with other of Pete’s uni mates from Newcastle. And as Seb is a fellow former water polo guy, he and Jules will be there, for much communal cheesy dance moves. A wedding’s not a wedding if it doesn’t end with at least twenty-three people high kicking to ‘New York, New York’. They’re driving there separately, after a detour to drop Emmeline off with Jules’s parents. They are ‘off the hook’ and that’s to quote Jules, n
ot Seb.
After two hours on the motorway and four games of ‘You Would Never’, a game we invented when we realised ‘I Have Never’ was pointless as we already knew everything about each other, we arrive at our cute countryside B&B. We’ve got an hour before a coach is due to pick us up from the hotel to take us to the castle – ‘What, no Beemer?’ Pete half-jokes – so we have the perfect amount of time to get changed and polished up. However, Pete gives me his wolfish look after he’s taken in the plump bed, pristine sheets and the long zip running up the back of my dress. And when he starts to undo my zip in an achingly slow fashion, I pretty much turn to smush. So after a quickie, I have to re-polish up. Though I don’t know if it’s just me, but sometimes a quickie is just the thing to add natural volume to my hair. I’m wearing a slightly clinging floral dress from Jigsaw that I’ve now whipped out for so many weddings that it’s coming in at about fifty pence per wear and thankfully justifies costing the same as a small car. Trusty canary-yellow heels and I am ready to go. Pete, as ever, rocks a simple charcoal suit so well that I want to backcomb his hair all over again.
On the coach, feeling like excited fourteen-year-olds on a school trip to Chessington, Pete introduces me to some guys he knows from halls and their other halves. I’ve met them on the wedding circuit before, but names get hazy after all that free Pinot. I should really be better at remembering fellow guests, as – after baking – going to weddings seems to be my biggest hobby. I don’t mind getting six invites a year, though; weddings are the catwalks of baking, after all – the most beautiful cakes ever steal the show. All well dressed, coiffed up, blinged to haute couture standards. I once saw one of those Choccywoccydoodah wedding cakes that was so Jean Paul Gautier – red, white and blue stripes, luxurious petals of white chocolate with tattoo-style swallows painted on them over four glorious tiers – I half-expected to see a black leather corset buried under the fruit cake when the bride and groom made their first cut. I sometimes take pictures of the cake, pretending there’s someone I know and cherish in the background. But really I just cherish the confection. Yes, I really am that sad.
When Pete and I got married, I was rather sensible about the budget. No, no wedding cars, I told my poor mum’s disappointed chops. And no seat covers, and only one flower girl. When I said I was thinking about just hiring a dress for the day, my mum had to lie down with a cold compress, and I realised I may have gone a bit far. Pete, in über accountant mode with a spreadsheet of costs at his fingertips, was deeply impressed. And then I showed him the estimate from the supremely posh French patisserie that would be making our cake. To which he had to borrow my mum’s cold compress. But I had my cakey heart set on the very best in taste, texture and presentation, so it had to be French. They are the grand masters of the fancy cake, whichever way you look at it. And oh my, it was a beaut. We could have put a down payment on a second home in Wales for what it cost, but when I saw Pete’s eyes roll in pleasure at his first taste of the chocolate mousse cake with a fine hazelnut noisette base, I knew two things: 1) I had done the right thing in having a stropasaurus about a cake and 2) he and I were going to be very very happy together.
But today’s wedding is pretty typical of the super swanky; they have forgotten all about the cake as a prime opportunity to out-do their parents’ friends, because they’ve put all their efforts into creepy magicians as entertainment and amazing venison canapés (I had seven, so I can attest to their fine quality, but still, the cake is the cornerstone to any quality wedding). I’m just staring down at what is clearly a Waitrose two-tier job – white royal icing, silvery flower things poked in, a silver ribbon, but NOT EVEN A CAKE TOPPER! Do these people have no regard for the sanctity of marriage? I look around for a nearby candle to maybe whittle down into a makeshift bride figure, when a familiar voice says to my left, ‘God, is that it?’
I turn to see Jules looking amazing: she has a swish up-do in place, is wearing some killer heels and has accessorised the whole look with a tiny baby asleep on her muslin-covered shoulder. Oh.
‘Hey love.’ Jules leant forward to peck me on the cheek. ‘Mum and Dad’s boiler burst first thing this morning – their house is a bloody fridge. I was all up for just swaddling Emmie like a Russian doll but Mum was having none of it.’ I give a half-grimace of sympathy. ‘And now on my first night out in three months, when I was hoping for at least some chocolate fudge cake, even carrot, I get two small layers of old fruit rubbish. Though I’m sure it’s delicious. Or something.’
I smile. ‘Jules, you know how I feel about cake. You can slag this dismal effort all you like. And I would back you all the way. Where’s the blummin’ cake topper? In this kind of wedding, with this,’ I lower my voice to a murmur, ‘kind of disgustingly huge budget, they could have gone for a tower of profiteroles, or Hummingbird Bakery cupcakes, or even just the old classic chocolate fountain to perk things up a bit.’
Jules hoists her dribbly baby further up on to her shoulder. ‘Don’t, you’re making me salivate as badly as Emmeline. I was dreaming of something with a ridiculous amount of sugar in it all the way here. It’s what got me into my Spanx and out the door this morning. I could have just sat in my joggers and ordered takeaway Thai. Still, there’s a disco. I am going to dance like I’m Kevin Bacon. With gusto and crazy arm gestures.’
As much as I want this to be true, I just can’t see how Jules is going to juggle a new baby and drunken guest duties. Am I in for two hours of baby chat while Pete reminisces about snorkels and budgie smugglers on the other side of the room? I brace myself for cracks in nipples.
‘I’ve been so looking forward to this – wall to wall adults. Bad behaviour. No NCT coffee morning bollocks. Let’s talk about politics, drugs, celeb gossip, anything that only applies to the over-fives.’
I feel my spine loosen nicely. Relief and white wine mixed. ‘OK, right now I’m working on a plan for a Saturdays junior tribute act – made up of all their own babies. Can you see it? Mini Rochelle is gorgeous. The Irish one’s baby is sure to be a great singer, like her mum. Frankie’s kid will rock the edgy haircuts, maybe have its own New Look fashion line one day, you wait and see.’
‘Yes, yes. More of this. And more wine.’
I follow Jules back to our table with its ridiculously full ice bucket of white. The only nipples we discuss are the ones Katy Perry is due to nip slip anytime soon. As we start our own sweepstake, I thank the wedding gods that Jules is here with me.
The rest of the night passes swiftly and boozily as wedding receptions should. We all take turns dancing with Emmeliene on our shoulders, who sleeps through the full cheesy alphabet, from ABBA to WHAM! At one point, after perhaps three more Jägerbombs than I really need, I freak out that she’s in a coma. But Seb calms me down by gently nudging her in the cheek with his bent index finger and exclaiming as she twitches her very delectable little nose. Where we go, Emmeline goes – bar, garden, bar, dancefloor, bar. And she sleeps through it all. This baby goes better with a wedding reception that an emergency pashmina and flip-flop set. I mean, I’ve seen her at home, in coffee shops, in strolls through Peckham Rye Park but these are all natural baby habitats. I had no idea she could rock a wedding. I’m impressed, in shock and encouraged, all in one drunken jumble.
I try to dejumble my feelings by splurging them right out of my head and into Pete’s ear as we make it back to our B&B. ‘Let’s have a baby like that!’ I yell as we stumble down a rocky little alley of shrubs. ‘One that is barely conscious! And that we can pass around like a sneaky joint, but with more pride. I could take a baby like that to work, even, and just hide it under my desk.’
‘Um,’ Pete guffaws, ‘not sure they let you do that kind of thing, Smells. But I wouldn’t mind a baby like that, either. Her cheeks are all fuzzy, like a sweet little peach.’ He softly pinches a bit of my slightly rougher cheek, more like a tangerine. ‘We could do that. We could.’ He snogs me sloppily, then lustily but also with a firm cuddle, wrapping his arms around me in a tight vice
. And through the Jäger and champagne haze, I see our chubby-cheeked, chilled and cheery baby. Pete’s eyes, my ears; what could go wrong? I kiss him back, just as hungrily.
If we’d had two sober brain cells to rub together, we might have rubbed some other things together without any protection and started a big chain of events. As it was, I fell asleep with my tights still on and Pete then watched two hours of Poker Stars in a zombie-like trance.
The next morning we lug our limbs and luggage down to the desk, feeling pukey but still silently a tiny bit hopeful about our babied-up future. For the first time I feel a ray of sun poke through the gloomy cloud that had been cluttering up our sky; completely sane, normal, less than perfect people like Jules and Seb have babies and don’t even break their stride. As I’m fishing about for my purse with all the coordination of a three-legged dog with concussion, I suddenly hear what sounds like an EastEnders episode at full volume, coming down the stairs behind us.
