How Not to Be a Loser

by Beth Moran

  ‘Says her!’ Mel whispered, loud enough to cause every single person to duck their heads and hide their smiles, apart from Selena, who suddenly became very engrossed in what appeared to be an enraging phone message, and Audrey, who shot me a lightning-quick worried glance before hastily continuing to stare at a blank space on the wall as if completely oblivious.

  Everyone left shortly after that, to my great relief, as stomachs were beginning to rumble and there were only three mince pies left. Having my first ever houseful of guests had been exhausting, but as I curled up on the sofa with a mug of butternut noodle soup, the chatter and the bustle still faintly echoed through the empty rooms. I had been an adequate hostess, I reflected, and hadn’t even embarrassed myself or visibly freaked out. I thought I had made everyone feel welcome. More importantly, I couldn’t believe that these women had chosen to welcome me. To count me as one of their own. It was so overwhelming, so stunningly wonderful, that it almost stopped me thinking about Nathan and our evening together on an endless, revolving loop of mushy drivel.

  Almost.

  Once Joey got back, no doubt after discerning that I’d had an unusually good day, he succeeded in interrupting my thoughts where I’d failed by bringing up the subject of seeing his dad again. This time, without me there to ‘make me feel guilty for not thinking he’s Despicable Dad’. Sean posed no threat, physically at least, and I didn’t think a couple of hours after school could cause Joey any lasting emotional harm. But, oh, it was hard. A first, tiny, step towards co-parenting my child.

  36

  Stop Being a Loser Programme

  Day Eighty-Four

  That Thursday, I took another step forward in the Programme. Sean had picked Joey up from school and taken him to a local pub restaurant that offered a ‘create-your-own rotisserie experience’. I thought there were probably better experiences than thirty combinations of cheap chicken and sides, but it was a darn sight better than the non-existent places I’d taken Joey in the past few years, so I couldn’t really comment.

  I could, however, use my angst at the father-and-son meal to propel myself into the Brooksby Leisure Centre and firmly plant myself on a bench, poolside, ready for training. And I only needed to hold Nathan’s hand for the actual stepping through the door into the pool area. After all, there couldn’t be anything worse in here than Sean, and I’d already handled that challenge. Once I was in, I strolled on up to that old bench as if I sat there three times a week alongside all the other normal parents. Lisa, Ben’s mum, came and plopped herself down next to me a few minutes later.

  ‘Hey, Amy,’ she exclaimed. ‘Great to see you! You’re looking well.’

  By which we both knew she meant: you’re looking OUT OF YOUR HOUSE!

  It was none of her business, but she’d definitely have heard about last week’s spectacle. There was no point fudging the issue.

  ‘I’m here to spy on Joey’s dad.’

  Lisa nodded. ‘I guessed as much. For what it’s worth, the odd time I’ve stayed for training, he’s done nothing weird.’

  ‘You don’t usually stay?’

  ‘Nah. Only when I haven’t got the twins with me. And I don’t really watch. It’s just an excuse to sit down and do nothing for an hour. It’s not like Ben cares whether I’m here or not.’

  ‘I thought all the parents stayed.’

  Lisa rolled her eyes as a gaggle of mums pushed through the doors and started tottering towards us on heels that would have been a health and safety risk on a dance floor, let alone the side of a swimming pool. ‘Only this lot. And they aren’t here to watch their kids.’

  I followed the tilt of her head to the other side of the pool, where Nathan was laughing with the lifeguard.

  ‘Or the lifeguard,’ she added.

  Between the revelation that my guilt at not attending training had been for nothing, and the sight of five women so blatantly offering themselves up to the man I had been trying to keep in the mental friend zone, I was rather flummoxed.

  ‘I know,’ Lisa tutted. ‘It’s pathetic. As if he’d be interested in such a blatant attack of bored, middle-aged-crisis mums.’

  I managed a vague, sort of snorty squeak in reply.

  ‘Not that there’s anything wrong with being middle-aged, or a mum, of course. I personally consider my forties to be my finest decade.’ She wrinkled her nose in thought. ‘I think it’s the desperation that’s so grim. Like, their radars lock onto every fit and attractive single male in the village, irrespective of what he’s like as a person, or whether they have anything in common.’ She put on a high-pitched robot voice. ‘Must make man fancy me. Prove still able to get man and therefore not worthless as woman.’

  I might have considered that a bitchy statement, had I not personally been wincing at the pouting and preening, flicking hair and prominently displayed body parts. David Attenborough would have had a field day in here. No wonder the swimming pool glass was steaming up.

  Nathan, to his credit, didn’t even give them a second glance.

  He did, however, give me a questioning look, responding to my tentative thumbs up with a grin and a nod, as if he’d known all along that I’d be fine.

  After that, Sean slithered in and took a seat beside me on the bench, and by the time I could see something other than a raging-red cloud, Joey was in the water, and, despite my own possible, not-quite-middle-aged-grim-desperation, I couldn’t possibly look anywhere else.

  ‘He’s incredible,’ Sean said, as Joey powered past us for the dozenth time, glancing at me after a few seconds when I failed to reply (I still wasn’t quite ready to agree with Sean on anything, and I could hardly disagree with that comment). ‘It’s uncanny. As soon as he hits the water, it’s like watching the male version of you.’

  ‘You never saw me in the water,’ I replied, in a tone that made it clear I wasn’t falling for any of Sean’s lines this time around. ‘You hated me swimming.’

  ‘I didn’t hate you swimming,’ he said, softly. ‘I hated how it made you feel. How the pressure was affecting you. Swimming wasn’t the problem. The supposed hopes of the nation being strapped to your shoulders? That I had a problem with.’

  We watched Joey in silence for a while. I’d been doing a reasonable job at making this evening be about him, pushing the avalanche of memories to one side by focusing on the here and now. Getting myself here was a huge deal, and I really didn’t need Sean Mansfield tossing reminders at me like snowballs.

  ‘Do you regret it?’ he murmured, shifting a couple of inches closer to me on the bench, making him now at least eight inches too close. ‘Walking away from it all? I mean, looking at Joey, I guess you can’t wish it had been any different.’

  ‘Oh, shut up.’ I got up and went to stand beside a woman in a skintight purple dress cut so ingeniously that she was actually showing more flesh than the girls in the pool. Next to her, I felt like even more of a washed-up frump than usual, which only made me more annoyed with Sean than I had been already. Ugh. This was going to be a long however-long-he-was-going-to-be-here-for.

  What annoyed me the most? How when he leant towards me and lowered his voice, it still had the power to trigger a faint echo of the way those eyes, that gentle smile, had made me feel fourteen years ago. I was a woman careening down a mountain in a bobsleigh after years trapped in the ice palace at the top. Every sensation, every person, every new (and old) experience was overwhelming. I couldn’t trust it. I couldn’t trust myself yet to handle, well, anything much at all beyond a run in the woods with some kind women and a chance to sit and watch my son swim.

  I wanted to be there for every second that Joey and Sean spent together. To observe, analyse, intervene as necessary. The prickle that skimmed down my arms when he’d quirked the side of his mouth up made it clear that it would have to be long-distance surveillance wherever possible.

  37

  Stop Being a Loser Programme

  Day Eighty-Five

  By the hundredth time I’d heard, ‘
Dad said…’ I knew I needn’t worry about keeping up to speed with their relationship. I did my best to brush off the pain that everything Sean said was new, and exciting, and utterly brilliant and obviously right. Joey deserved to enjoy this. And the only time I let him see me cry was when he leaked a few tears of his own, at breakfast the next morning.

  ‘I called him, “Dad,”’ Joey told me, his voice hoarse, while round eyes made him appear a little boy again. ‘It was weird. But then, not. Do you think it’s weird? He looked weird when I said it. Oh, farts. Do you think it freaked him out? Should I have waited until he asked me to call him that?’ He paused, sniffed. ‘I just. I can’t believe he’s here. I can’t believe I have a dad. I wanted to see what it felt like to say it. And now I’ve probably ruined everything. He’ll be like, “Dude, we only just met, enough with the pressure!” What if he doesn’t like me, I’m not what he expected, and now he’s totally panicking because he doesn’t want to be my dad?’

  I placed a hand each side of his face, smudging away the tears with my thumbs. ‘He left his whole life behind to come and hear you say that, Joey. If he looked weird, it’s because you just made his dream come true. In all those years he’s been imagining what you’re like, it couldn’t have come close to how wonderful you are. He told me at the pool that you’re incredible.’

  That had the reverse effect than I’d intended, as Joey cried even harder.

  ‘And trust me, I know when he’s telling the truth or not. He loves you already, Joey. How could he not love you?’

  We clung on to each other until we decided we’d cried enough for one morning, and I accepted again that no rich, cool, exciting, long-lost parent offering a myriad of adventures could ever come close to replacing thirteen years of tears dried, breakfasts shared, a million tiny moments that create a life lived together.

  But, honestly, the whole thing left me exhausted. There was so much to process. I swapped my run for the duvet that day. I felt too weighed down with the memories, the questions about where Sean had been and what him turning up here would mean. A thousand ‘what-ifs’… what if I’d tried harder when we were together, coped better, been less demanding – would he have stayed? What if I’d laughed off those stupid girls in the supermarket, instead of allowing their thoughtless cruelty to crush me? What if I’d got help earlier, been to counselling, stopped allowing Cee-Cee to empower my decisions to retreat from life? What if I’d been stronger, braver, wiser? Better? I’d been this way for so long. What if I couldn’t be strong, brave, or wise enough now?

  I stayed in bed most of the next day. And the next. And before I realised it, the rest of the week. Sean turning up had coincided with the echo of my younger self emerging in a jawline, cheekbones – most of all the spark in my eyes: hopeful, determined, a gleam of confidence. It terrified me. I felt haunted. Did I regret what happened, the woman I’d been? Sean had asked me, as if regret meant I wished my son had never existed. I hadn’t regretted it since the moment I knew he was there. Did I regret how it happened, and what happened after that? Like a slap in the face each time I caught my changing reflection in a mirror, or a darkened window. And the hurt and the shame were too much to bear.

  So as December slipped past, I stopped running.

  Ate biscuits.

  Worked at my desk in ratty leggings and a giant hoodie.

  Hung Christmas decorations, ordered food and presents for Joey and Cee-Cee online.

  And I used every spare ounce of energy pretending that the Stop Being a Loser Programme was just on a break.

  38

  Stop Being a Loser Programme

  Day One Hundred (Day Fifteen Since Quitting)

  They waited two whole weeks.

  ‘Enough wallowin’, Ames.’ Mel told me, in no uncertain terms. ‘Time to get yer armour back on.’

  After fobbing off their texts and phone calls with excuses about a massive work contract, a bad cold, general Christmas busyness, of course Mel and Dani had turned up at the house, barrelling their way in before I could say, ‘I’m actually about to go out.’

  ‘I’m actually about to go out,’ I mumbled, as they each dumped a shopping bag on the kitchen table.

  ‘We get that Joey’s father turning up is a significant life event to have to cope with,’ Dani said, looking me up and down. ‘But your strategy of completely letting yourself go, retreating back into your cave and shunning your best friends clearly isn’t working. We’re staging an intervention.’

  Best friends?

  ‘Nathan told us.’ Mel, her hair red and white striped plaits like a candy cane, pulled a ginormous watermelon out of a bag, whipped a knife off the rack on the wall and began hacking away. ‘We knew Joey would’ve filled ’im in so we harassed and terrorised ’im until ’e were worn down.’

  ‘He refused to give up any details, though. Despite my superior court-honed interrogation skills. So…’ Dani jerked the top off a bottle of fresh orange juice, while giving me a steely glare. ‘You can fill us in while we prepare you a self-respect-restoring, excuse-eliminating, return-to-real-life-with-the-support-and-solidaritory-of-your-friends-enabling brunch.’

  An hour and a half, two mimosas and a healthy yet humungous pile of food later, we were all filled up and filled in. Mel and Dani, on Sean and Joey’s chicken Thursdays, how Sean had cheered Joey on at a regional gala I hadn’t even bothered trying to attend, how the memories were bombarding me like slow-moving shrapnel from a bomb detonated over a decade ago, how I had lost the courage to keep going with the Programme and regressed to the crappy coping mechanisms that had been consistently failing me for years. And I had been filled in on Bronwyn’s newest new boyfriend (although details were scarce, making Dani suspicious that he might be one of the Outlaws crew), Selena’s new hairstyle (bigger than her whole head in every direction, à la 2010 Katie Price, according to Mel) and the real reason they’d come round that morning.

  ‘I don’t think I should go,’ I told them, once they’d confessed.

  ‘You can’t not come!’ Mel protested. ‘All the Larks’ll be there, and their fellas – or women or whatever. I hardly ever have a night out.’

  ‘Which is one reason why I won’t come. I’ll panic, and cause a scene and spoil somebody’s night when they end up trying to take care of me.’

  ‘Maybe our night will be spoiled by you not being there in the first place,’ Dani threw back at me, patting my hand to counteract her tone. ‘Unlike Mel, I go out all the time, so if you start to feel overanxious, I’ll whizz you home and be back at the party before anyone’s missed me. Any other reasons not to come? No? Great, Derek and I will pick you up at seven-thirty.’

  ‘I feel uncomfortable leaving Joey here alone all evening. He’s not done that before.’

  ‘You’ve got a phone, haven’t you?’

  Right on cue, Joey clattered down the stairs and into the kitchen. ‘Oh, hey, Mum. Hi, Mum’s friends. Dad asked if I want to go to the cinema this evening. Maybe get a burger or something before. I’ll be back at ten-thirty. Can I go?’

  ‘Well, that’s perfect, then in’t it?’ Mel beamed. ‘You can stay out ’til ten, Amy.’

  ‘Are you going out?’ Joey asked, a spark of hope in his eyes.

  ‘I’m thinking about it,’ I said.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘The Lark’s Christmas bash,’ Dani replied. ‘Only the best night out of the year. She’s going out out.’

  ‘Since when was the Cup and Saucer out out?’ Mel asked, bewildered.

  ‘Since we’ll be there.’

  Mel and Dani vigorously pooh-poohed my final excuse, insisting I must be able to find something to wear, even if it was just a nice pair of jeans and a shirt. In the end, they forced their way upstairs and had a good riffle through my wardrobe, Dani triumphantly brandishing the one half-decent item in there.

  ‘What about this? It’s lovely, and looks new.’

  I willed, with every muscle in my body, not to blush. ‘I wore that to the wine and cheese e
vening.’

  There was a half-second beat of silence while she processed my point. ‘He won’t notice it’s the same dress. But I understand, a woman has her pride. No worries, this is my size.’ She eyed me up and down. ‘I’ll pick you up at seven-twenty, with a few options for you to try. Right, we’d better get you back to your sweet little Christmas angels, Mel.’

  ‘I’ll think about it,’ I mumbled to a pair of backs clattering down the stairs and straight out the front door.

  There was no way I was going to that party.

  ‘There’s no way you’re not coming to the party,’ Nathan told me, at six that evening, leaning against my front door frame in his running gear.

  ‘Are you going to drag me there like this?’ I retorted, releasing a smidgen of the tension that had been spreading through every nerve and sinew as the clock ticked closer to party time. I’d expected Dani to ignore my cowardly, cancelling text, deliberately changing into my pyjamas so that when she turned up, she’d realise I was serious. I’d also planned on not answering the front door. Although that hadn’t stopped her in the past, picking the lock would at least give me enough time to gather my defences.

  So, when I opened the door, the sight of Nathan, eyes crinkled beneath his beanie hat, hands stuffed in his jacket pockets, was the visual equivalent of a giant hug after a day fraught with frittering.

  Then I mistakenly allowed an image of him taking me to the party to pop into my head, releasing a burst of warm, sparkly, Christmas feelings that were not helpful.

  Get a grip, Amy, my anxiety cackled softly.

  Nathan held up a carrier bag. ‘From Dani.’