Mum on the Run (7 page)

‘Right,’ he snorts. ‘Like a little garden or something?’

‘Something like that,’ I say as he fills a second glass for me. The back door is open, and the tea lights flicker feebly on the table.

‘Hey,’ Jed says gently, sliding his arms around me. ‘I’m sorry, love. I know you went to a lot of effort.’

‘It’s okay. It was my fault.’

‘Look,’ he adds hesitantly. ‘I . . . I know I’ve been . . . wrapped up in other things lately . . .’

Like Celeste?
‘I suppose we’re just not used to being together anymore,’ I cut in quickly. It feels so good, being held by him, that I don’t want to spoil it by saying her name.

‘Of course we are,’ Jed says. ‘We just don’t have the chance very often.’ He pulls back to study my face. ‘You smell good,’ he adds. ‘
And
you’re wearing make-up. It suits you.’

‘Oh, it’s just some old stuff I found . . .’

‘Well, you look lovely.’

‘Thank you.’ I smile, stretch up and kiss his soft lips. Then we’re kissing and kissing, and it doesn’t matter that I ruined our meal, or that Jed has spent the past four months in some parallel universe, because right now everything feels perfect. His hands, which were resting gently around my waist, slide down over my hips, pausing as he detects the suspender clips. He raises an eyebrow and smiles. ‘You
have
gone to a lot of effort.’

‘It’s amazing what you can buy at Tesco these days.’

‘Tesco?’ He laughs softly. ‘Classy.’ Then he clutches my hand, as if it’s something he’d lost and has just found and says, ‘We, um . . . we could just go to bed.’

‘Okay,’ I say, grinning. ‘If you insist.’

My heart is pounding as we climb the stairs together, the way it did the first time we kissed. We’d met at a party. Jed had just started out in teaching, and I’d vaguely known one of his housemates from college.
What if ?
was our favourite game back then.
What if your date hadn’t stood you up?
he’d ask me.
What if you hadn’t gone home feeling totally fed up, and played that message from Helen who you hadn’t heard from in years? What if you hadn’t rung her straight back? What if she hadn’t invited you to our party? What if my girlfriend hadn’t dumped me, and I hadn’t been sitting on the stairs, pissed off, nursing a warm bottle of Becks?

He’d known instantly, he insisted, although he hadn’t been remotely aware that I’d spied him too, the moment I’d walked in. Jed is oblivious to women’s glances and flirtations. But he’d spotted me, breezing in and brimming with confidence, as if I had no expectations of the night ahead because so far it had been crapper than crapsville. ‘And you thought I was just being friendly,’ I used to tease him. ‘You had no idea how cute you were. What did I have to do? Take you home to bed! The lengths I had to go to to make you realise I was crazy about you . . .’

‘Even then, I thought I was just a sympathy lay,’ he laughed.

Jed and I reach the landing. Hell, my unfinished chicken-shave job. ‘I’m just going to the bathroom,’ I murmur.

Disappointment flickers in his eyes. ‘Don’t be long this time.’

‘I’ll only be a minute. Honestly. There’s just, um, something I need to do.’

It takes longer than a minute as I strip naked and stand at the sink, trying to make myself symmetrical as speedily as possible without causing myself irreversible damage. My libido is ebbing away rapidly. The stockings have formed a crimped ring around the top of each thigh. In my eagerness to escape from that perv in Tesco, I must have grabbed too small a size.

I’m covered in suds, and water dribbles in rivulets down my legs as I try to wash them away. The floor is soaked, and I mop up the water with a fraying bath towel and an old T-shirt of Jed’s. By the time I’m back in my wretched underwear and padding tentatively into our bedroom, he is tucked up in bed with one arm slung across my pillow. ‘Hi,’ I whisper, slipping in under the duvet. I slide a hand across his chest which prompts him to roll away from me.

I study his broad, lightly tanned back and shoulders, which rise with each inhalation. Soft snores fill the room. It would appear that my hot date for tonight has fallen asleep.

Chapter Eleven

Beth and I are unloading the toys from the playgroup cupboard. The children clamour around us, their voices echoing in the dusty hall. We lift the lid from the sandpit and fill it with mini trucks and diggers; we top up the water tray, drop in some little plastic boats and set out books in the reading area. I glance at her, my best mummy-friend looking lithe and faintly Boden-esque in her narrow jeans and snug-fitting raspberry T-shirt. ‘Beth,’ I say later, fixing us a coffee from the grumbling urn, ‘how do you do it?’

‘Do what?’ she asks.

‘Stay so slim and fit. I’ve been thinking, I really have to do something. I’m sick of being like this.’ I glare down at my body in its loose jeans and even looser black top.

‘But you’re lovely as you are,’ she insists. ‘Men are always looking at you. You must realise that. You’re sexy and voluptuous and—’

‘Voluptuous? That means fat, Beth! The other day, I couldn’t even do up the zip on my biggest jeans. They’re a size sixteen!’

‘Well, sizes vary from shop to shop,’ she says firmly, nibbling a pink wafer biscuit. ‘They’re irrelevant really.’

‘Not when you’re going
up
in size. Then it’s horribly relevant, I can assure you . . .’

‘Oh, Laura. You look great, honestly. Anyway, no one’s the same after having kids, are they?’

‘I bet
you
are,’ I say.

‘You might think so, but I’m a disaster down here.’ She pats her taut stomach. ‘But after having two children, what can I expect?’

I set down my cup and tip out boxes of building blocks for the younger children. ‘The thing is, I don’t expect to be like I was before the children,’ I add. ‘I’d just like to not be expanding, to be able to resist all the snacks and biscuits . . .’

‘What’s brought this on, hon?’ she murmurs.

‘Oh, I don’t know. That mums’ race, I suppose. Me getting all dressed up for Jed the other night, even buying new underwear, even
stockings
. . .’

‘Whoa,’ she says with a grin. ‘Lucky Jed.’

‘Well, he wasn’t. By the time I climbed into bed, he was already asleep.’

‘You should’ve been quicker,’ she sniggers. ‘What took you so long?’

I smirk, deciding that playgroup isn’t the place to tell Beth about my chicken-shave job. ‘I was getting ready,’ I murmur.

She rolls her eyes. ‘Well, make sure you’re quicker next time. He was probably just knackered. You should see Pete, falling asleep virtually every time he sits down. It’s a man thing. They come home and switch off and, next thing, it’s full-on REM sleep. Next time, give him a sharp prod and wake him up, especially if you’ve gone to all the bother of wearing stockings. I mean, what a bloody waste!’

I laugh, thinking, if only it was that simple. ‘I can imagine how he’d react if I rudely interrupted his beauty sleep,’ I murmur.

As the session progresses, the noise level increases to earsplitting levels. Jack, Beth’s three-year-old, grabs a scooter and hurtles recklessly across the gleaming wooden floor, bellowing out a shrill siren noise. Meanwhile, Toby proceeds to bang the metal xylophone furiously. ‘Not so loud!’ I call over.

‘I’m playing music,’ he yells back.

‘Yes, I know, but—’

‘No, it’s mine!’ he screams as a pig-tailed blonde tries to wrestle the hammer from his grasp.

‘Toby, it’s
not
yours.’ I rush towards him, but not fast enough to stop him whacking the girl on the forehead with the hammer. Screaming, she tears across the hall to be scooped up by her furious, red-faced mother. It’s their first time here. I doubt if they’ll ever come back.

‘I’m so sorry,’ I witter, scuttling over to check on the damage, as if I’m responsible for the throbbing pink splodge on the weeping child’s forehead. In a way, I guess I am. I’m Toby’s mother, his prime carer who’s supposedly in charge of teaching him how to behave nicely and kindly to others. Although he still demands to come to playgroup, and clearly enjoys it, he’s one of the oldest kids here and has really outgrown it. Maybe these violent outbursts are due to the fact that I’m not stimulating him enough.

‘It’s okay,’ the girl’s mother says, her eyes steely. ‘I don’t think she’s
concussed
or anything.’

‘God, I hope not. I’m so, so sorry. I think he was just, er, overexcited.’

The woman pulls in her lips and turns away from me. ‘Come on, Emily, darling. Let’s find you someone else to play with.’ Someone who’s not intent on causing GBH, is what she means.

‘You must never hit anyone like that,’ I bark, marching back to the music corner where Toby looks totally unconcerned. ‘That was very, very naughty and you’ve made a big pink mark on that little girl’s head. I want you to go over and say sorry.’

‘No!’ he yells, haring off to play with the doll’s house at the far end of the hall. He doesn’t play gentle games with it. The miniature people don’t sit around having quaint tea parties. If Toby’s involved, there has to be a fire, a burglary or some dreadful natural disaster. ‘It’s
my
xylophone,’ I hear him muttering.

Beth hands me another polystyrene cup of insipid coffee. ‘I can’t control him,’ I murmur, trying to steady my breathing. ‘God knows what he’ll be like when he starts school.’

‘Jack’s just the same. He drives Kira crazy, always trying to barge in and trash her room. And this morning he pulled down one of the living room curtains to wear as a cape . . .’

I smile, feeling marginally reassured. Toby’s behaviour probably is normal, at least for our family; Finn and Grace were a handful too, forever clambering all over the kitchen worktops and balancing perilously on the garden wall. However, I seemed to cope better when they were little, and fear that my reserves of tolerance have reached critically low levels.

Beth and I perch on the windowsill and sip our coffees. I was relieved to meet her, when we’d just moved to Yorkshire. Not only did she have big-age-gap children around Toby and Finn’s ages; she also didn’t assume I was some poncey, over-precious mother just because I’d come from London, as a few women seemed to. ‘Are you still running these days?’ I ask her.

She shakes her head. ‘No, I’ve let it slide really. All that getting up at the crack of dawn, and going out before Pete went to work . . .’

‘That takes dedication,’ I murmur.

‘Plus,’ she adds, prodding a hip, ‘I was starting to feel creaky. Age, I guess,’ she says, smiling. ‘It’s not great for the joints.’

‘Who cares about joints?’ I snigger.

‘You would, if you were an old crock like me . . .’

‘You know what?’ I say, filled with sudden enthusiasm. ‘I think I might give it a try. Maybe that’s what I need. Exercise I can just do, whenever Jed’s home and I get the chance to go out. It’d be a lot simpler than going to the gym, and it might shift this . . .’ I poke my belly.

‘Good for you,’ she says. ‘It’s brilliant actually. Great for stress levels too. I’d come with you, keep you company, but I don’t think the old knees could take it.’

‘Don’t worry,’ I say, laughing. ‘I’d have to go in the middle of the night anyway. Couldn’t risk being seen, could I?’

She shakes her head despairingly as I take my ringing mobile from my pocket. It’s Jed, which is unusual. He rarely phones during the day. ‘School boiler’s broken,’ he explains, ‘so I’m coming home early. Just wondered where you were.’

‘At playgroup,’ I tell him, adding, as a joke, ‘Why don’t you come along?’

‘I, um . . . where is it?’ he asks, sounding alarmed.

‘St Mary’s Hall. Didn’t you know that, Jed?’ I tease him.

‘Well, er . . .’

‘It’s on until three,’ I add. ‘Come on, you’ll love it and you’ll give all the mums here a treat.’

‘Well, er, I was just, um . . .’

‘Great. See you soon, love. Bye!’ I finish the call and grin at Beth.

‘What’s happening?’ she asks.

‘I’ve just done something I’ve been trying to do for years. I’ve persuaded Jed to come to playgroup.’

‘He actually agreed?’

‘Well, not exactly,’ I snigger.

‘So we’re going to meet him at last?’ exclaims Ruth, who’s dishing out bowls of chopped fruit for the children.

‘Yep, it’s your lucky day.’ In fact, I’m slightly embarrassed that few of these women have met Jed. I suspect that most of them don’t believe I have a man at all, and that the children were conceived by an anonymous donor.

‘Hey, girls!’ Ruth announces. ‘Better get your lippy on. There’s going to be a man in our midst.’

There’s a burst of laughter, and Ruth is only half-joking. Despite claiming to prefer
Coronation Street
to sex, most of these women are tragically starved of male company. It’s not about wanting to sleep with random blokes. We just want to revel in their maleness.

When Jed strolls in twenty minutes later, there’s a palpable ripple of excitement, and I catch Ruth primping her sleek auburn hair and wiping an imaginary smear from her cheek. ‘Daddy!’ Toby charges towards him, still gripping that blasted xylophone hammer.

‘Hey, little man.’ Jed hugs him, then looks around for me.

‘Everyone, this is Jed,’ I announce, a little too loudly as I go over to greet him. ‘He’s new here. Please be gentle with him.’

‘Like a tea or coffee?’ Rush gushes, even though the etiquette here is that adults help themselves to drinks.

‘Coffee would be nice,’ Jed says meekly.

‘How d’you take it?’

‘Just milk please.’ He sits gingerly on a too-small plastic chair and throws me an anxious glance. It’s not that dads aren’t welcome here; they simply don’t come. I have no idea how full-time fathers fill their days.

‘Biscuit?’ Ruth trills, twirling a tendril of hair.

‘Yes . . . er . . . great.’

‘Penguin, Jaffa Cake or wafer?’
Or would you prefer oral sex?

‘Yes please,’ Jed says. ‘I, um, I mean anything. I don’t mind.’

‘I’ll bring you a selection,’ Ruth says, fanning an array of snacklets on a plate and slinking across the scuffed parquet floor towards him. As Keeper of Biscuits she must have a secret supply of chocolate varieties which she brings out once a decade when a handsome man happens to walk in. We mothers are lucky to get a stale fig roll.

‘You’re a brave man, Jed,’ Beth laughs, ‘joining us rowdy lot for the afternoon. Bet school’s a walk in the park compared to this.’

He grins, taking his coffee and biscuit (chocolate Hobnob, damn him) from a drooling Ruth. ‘Oh, it’s not so bad,’ he chuckles. ‘I could probably get used to this.’

‘Well, you’re welcome any time,’ Ruth simpers.

Jed smiles unsteadily. After downing his drink, he helps a bunch of children to construct a train track with a myriad of bridges and sidings. By the time we’re ready to leave, I suspect that several of the women are on the verge of climaxing. ‘You’ve never mentioned how gorgeous he is,’ Ruth hisses. ‘God, Laura. He’s an absolute darling. You’re
so
lucky.’

‘Oh, he’s all right,’ I snigger. Even the vexed mother – whose daughter is now sporting an impressive forehead egg – is regarding us more kindly now that Jed’s in our midst.

The three of us leave playgroup and head towards school with Toby skipping ahead on the pavement. I’m startled when Jed takes my hand and curls his fingers around mine. ‘Did I mention,’ he says lightly, ‘that Celeste’s having a party on Saturday?’

‘Is she? What for?’

‘It’s her thirtieth.’

‘Thirty? She’s only
thirty
?’ I clamp my mouth shut. I’d realised she was younger than me, but hadn’t realised there’s almost a decade between us. Now I feel prehistoric.

‘Uh-huh,’ Jed says. ‘Well, twenty-nine at the moment.’

‘I . . . I’m not sure we’ll be able to get a babysitter at such short notice,’ I say quickly.

‘We don’t need one. It’s an afternoon thing. A garden party.’

‘What, like the Queen has?’

Jed lets my hand drop. ‘It’s just a
party
, Laura. You know – people chatting, having fun . . . it’s really not a big deal.’ He rolls his eyes at me.

‘And Celeste’s okay with children, is she?’ What am I saying? She’s a primary school teacher. Of course she’s okay with children. It’s like asking a surgeon if he’s okay with blood.

‘Of course she’s fine. We’re all invited and she said there’ll be loads of kids there. Don’t you want to go? You were complaining that we never go out.’

‘Of course I want to go,’ I say shrilly. ‘It’s just . . .’

‘Can I come to Celeste’s party?’ Toby spins round delightedly.

‘Yes, darling,’ I say, keeping my voice perky. ‘Of course you can. We’ll all go.’

‘Will there be cake?’

‘I’m sure there will,’ Jed chuckles as we approach school and join the cluster of parents all gathered around the gate. I spot several mothers checking Jed out – like an exotic bird, he’s rarely spotted around these parts – and instinctively slip my hand into his. He squeezes mine back, triggering a surge of warmth in me. Hell, why shouldn’t we all go to Celeste’s party? It’ll be a prime opportunity to show how
together
Jed and I are – how close and in love, despite his infatuation. It might even be a chance to get to know her properly. We hardly got off to a good start at the pub, when I made that terrible joke about being taken back to the institution. She’s probably
a very nice person,
if only I’d give her a chance.

I should lighten up. The old Laura loved a party, and I could wow Jed by wearing my new emerald dress. I glance at my husband, proud that he stepped into my funny, daytime playgroup world and passed with flying colours. It’s time I dipped my toe into his world too. But first, drastic action is required.