Underneath (2 page)

I feel my chest tighten and try to swallow the acid rising up from my gut. Does nothing ever rattle this man? I’m beginning to think I have a Stepford husband.

‘Well, see you later,’ I say. My smile fixed and teeth gritted, I close the door, head back downstairs, grab my bag and keys and take Joe to school.

Joe dropped off, I get back into my lovely metallic blue Nissan Micra and pull the lever until the seat is further back and I have more leg room. I lean back into the comfy padded upholstery, a creamy-beige colour that Joe does his best to turn grey, and reach into my bag for my mobile phone. I love my bag. It’s a black leather Betty Barclay, with lots of pockets for keys and a mobile. I was forever unable to find things and kept being told off by Niall for not hearing the phone. I pull out my Nokia and fire off a quick text to my friend Monique.

Fed up. U free for cofi n chat?

Within seconds I have a reply.

God yes. Get here asap.

Texting that I’m on my way, I throw my phone in my bag, completely ignoring its designated pocket. I pull my seat forward and set off, calling at the supermarket bakery en-route for two pain au chocolats.

My friend’s apartment is part of a large Victorian building that from a distance looks like a stately home. An elegant stone staircase leads to the front entrance. The grounds have large swathes of green grass and established shrubbery and trees. A Consultant at the local hospital, where Monique works part-time as a Research Assistant, told her he thought she owned it all after giving her a lift home. Monique would make you think that though. She is immaculate. Tall with short brown hair in a pixie crop, she is the colour of the finest milk chocolate and has a row of freckles across her cheeks that add to her exoticness. She has exacting standards and will not leave the house without full make up and painted nails. If it’s summer, this self-rule extends to her toe-nails. Her clothing looks like it cost hundreds of pounds, and yet I know that the majority of it comes from the charity shops located in her local area. She lives in Ecclesall, a district full of yummy mummies who want the latest of everything and dispose of their attire the moment the next season is on the runway.

I first met Monique at yoga class five years ago, when I was desperately trying to shake off my frumpy mummy self image. We hit it off and she took me under her wing, seeing me as both a friend and a little project. Now I feel I can hold my own with clothes and make-up, though I have to confess to making more of an effort on the days I’m seeing her. Today I’m dressed in Levi’s, a royal blue Reiss blouse, which was a car boot find, and some black Office sandals. My toes are painted orange to match the belt around my jeans. I walk up to her apartment entrance and hit the buzzer.

She opens her door and I’m greeted with a wide smile that makes her look even more gorgeous.

‘Hi, Lo.’

She never gets bored of this.

I roll my eyes. ‘You letting me in or what? I have breakfast.’ I hold up the bag and crinkle it before her eyes.

She scrunches her nose up. ‘Ugh. An Asda carrier bag? Where on earth is that swish shopper bag I got you with Paris on it?’

‘That’s not as much fun as seeing your face when you have to touch a carrier bag.’ I giggle, and hand it to her as I step through to the foyer. ‘I was going to bring a Poundland one, but couldn’t find it.’

She mock shivers and leads the way to her apartment, all the while holding the bag like it’s a used nappy.

Monique’s apartment is on the ground floor. She takes the bag through to the kitchen while I go straight through the hallway, removing my sandals to carry in my hand. I move past the sitting room and through the patio doors to outside. I claim one of the two wrought iron chairs and slip my footwear back on. There are strict rules in her apartment block about garden furniture; no plastic rubbish will do. The patio is part of a large, enclosed communal garden, shared by around four residents. Two large ceramic pots frame Monique’s doorway, overflowing with multi-coloured floral displays. I could sit on her patio all day, and can’t help but compare it to my reasonable sized lawn, which has Joe’s cycle marks all over it and not a hint of a flower in sight. There’s not much point when footballs are forever being kicked around it. I learnt that lesson the hard way, enjoying some home sown black tulips for a whole hour before he knocked all but one of their heads off with his football. He did pick me the last one though, bringing it to me as a gift because it was ‘pretty... like mummy.’ That was a few years ago now and I haven’t grown a flower since.

Within a few minutes, Monique comes outside bearing a cream vintage tray covered in tiny pink roses – a present from me. Upon it are two steaming cups of coffee in pink tipped cream tea cups, nestled on pink tipped cream saucers with space for the Amaretti biscuit which lies beside it. Our pain au chocolats sit on matching side plates. No mismatching crockery for Monique.

She raises an eyebrow. ‘What’s up with you then misery guts?’

I fill her in on my night of seduction. Monique is no fan of Niall and the way he fails to ever give me compliments. She shakes her head as I get to the part where I told him to get out. She stays silent for a moment and I wait to hear her verdict, and then she looks at me and falls about laughing. I can’t help it. Her laughter’s infectious and I start giggling. Huge fat tears roll down my face as I think how funny it was, and then I think about how utterly humiliating it was.

‘Lo, he’s Niall. He doesn’t do seduction. He never notices your normal clothes, never mind your night attire,’ she says. ‘You’ve spent the last God knows how many years just getting into bed and getting on with it, and then you go and dress like a porn star. It probably blew a gasket in his brain. If he didn’t want you he wouldn’t have tried to get into bed. It’s obvious he sees the attire as an unnecessary barrier.’

I sigh. ‘I know you’re right.’ I take a bite of biscuit. ‘I tried it once before when we’d been going out a couple of years,’ I confess, before pausing to swallow. ‘While he was at footie practice I dressed in a lace Basque. When he walked in he asked why I was dressed in a doily.’ I sniff up and search my pocket for a tissue I don’t have. Monique, whilst desperately trying to keep a straight face, pops back into the house and returns with a leopard print tissue. I look at her before I blow my nose. ‘Seriously, they make these? You co-ordinated your snot rags with your handbag?’

‘It takes no extra time to choose between a stylish tissue and a boring old white one,’ she replies. ‘Now back to Niall. You do remember who he is, right? Mr Unromantic. Mr Moody. You expected him to turn all Christian Grey on your ass? Seriously?’

‘Okay, okay, I admit in hindsight I was a tad deluded. I just thought he’d think whoa and—’

‘Take them off? As I keep saying, Niall just thinks you’re wasting VBT.’

‘VBT?’

‘Valuable bonking time. Now stop talking and eat your pastry. I need to tell you about my Friday night hottie, and I don’t mean a wheat bag.’

I partake of my delicious, pain au chocolat, chasing the sauce escaping from the corner of my mouth with my tongue. Monique tells me about the twenty-six year old Medical Student she pulled Friday night. She hasn’t had a serious relationship since Toby left her ten years ago after her refusal to have children. I didn’t know her then. She was thirty-two and Toby was thirty-eight. He felt it was time. He left, and within six months had a pregnant girlfriend. Monique moved to Sheffield to start over. She’s ten and a bit years older than me, although you wouldn’t know it to look at her. She says she’s inherited her mother’s skin; there’s barely a line on her face and sometimes I feel very jealous. My crow’s feet and frown lines have deepened over the last few years. I think having children must be an ageing factor. All that stress is enough to give anyone a few extra lines. Monique is blunt about why she doesn’t want children and I love her for it.

‘They make a mess and I can’t deal with it. Plus they want constant attention and I want all my attention.’

That said, she still makes the effort to see Joe a few times a year, and she really makes a big effort when she does. I selfishly and secretly like the fact that she’s my child-free friend. She’s the one I can talk to about books, fashion and the latest reality TV programme. I don’t have to chat about school, SATs and the things about having a child that bore me rigid to be honest. I don’t do well with routine and having to get up at the same time to go to the same place twice a day nearly sends me demented.

‘So how’s Joe?’ she says, like she’s reading my mind.

‘Oh. Well he totally loves school, and must be the only child not looking forward to the summer break. He says he wishes school was carrying on. I think he’s scared he’s going to be stuck with me. I’m becoming less cool the older he gets.’

‘Yeah right,’ replies Monique. ‘Joe totally adores you and you know it. You are Cool Mum personified. When are the holidays anyway? And more importantly, are you going to be able to ditch him for some girl time?’

‘There’s seven weeks left of the term, and yes, I’ve lined up some holiday clubs so we can skive off. You’ll have to let me know when you’re free so I can put it in my diary.’ Monique looks satisfied at this and I know it was the correct response, though Joe hates holiday clubs and I feel torn between them both. ‘Joe was extra excited today because a new boy was starting in class. I told him to be nice to him.’

‘Strange time to start school?’

‘I know. I can only think that his mum’s doing it to get him introduced to the kids before the break. I hope he’s a good kid, cos that class has its fair share of troublemakers as it is.’

Monique starts looking around the room, my signal that she’s getting bored.

‘Anyway, enough about men and children,’ I say. ‘Show me the new clothes you’ve bought this week, you know you’re dying to.’ She claps her hands on her knees, smiles and goes off to get them whilst I move inside to the sofa and make myself comfortable. This is what I love, fashion. I smile to myself as I wait to see her latest collection.

She doesn’t disappoint. A black knee length Wallis jacket sits amongst the items she piles at the side of me. I feel my mouth get wet as I look at it. She grins. ‘See you don’t need sex when you have fashion porn. Try it on. I picked it for you.’

I pull it around myself. The waist nips in and the bottom of the jacket flares out ever so slightly. I shimmy so it swings. Monique looks at me like a mother at her child’s first school uniform fitting. I hug her. ‘Thank you, it’s beautiful.’

‘You’re very welcome. Now, how about another coffee and Real Housewives of NYC?’

‘Mon, my life is complete,’ I giggle, sitting back on the sofa and keeping my new jacket on so I can keep touching it.

Back at home I catch up with the ‘Chore of the Day’ (my latest project to alleviate boredom, courtesy of Pinterest). Today’s exciting chore is vacuuming the house, and then I check my eBay account. I’ve not got much for sale at the moment, but I hope the weekend’s nice for trawling car boots in search of bedraggled Barbie dolls and pretty vintage pieces. My business started off as a hobby when Joe was younger. A lot of my friends had daughters at a similar time and I was secretly jealous that they got to play with dolls. I don’t think I’ve ever totally grown up. I’d got into eBaying while Niall had been nurse training. We were broke, so I’d sold anything I thought I might make some money to help pay the bills. I noticed that Barbie clothes went for a lot of money and started looking around for them at summer fairs and car boots. Then I took to buying dolls that looked like they had seen better days; washing them, brushing their hair, mending their clothes and then selling them online in the run up to Christmas. I made a few hundred pounds and earned a good reputation for selling them, so I started my little eBay shop, ‘Lauren’s pre-loved’. My obsession with all things vintage followed; pretty tea-cups, jewellery, the odd piece of clothing. It’s grown into a little part-time job that fits in perfectly around Joe, and apart from Monique, I think it’s the only thing that keeps me sane. I make a mental note to list the nine or so items in the box at the side of the desk later on tonight, and then head off to school to collect Joe.

I always park up on one of the back streets near the school. It means a few minutes’ walk, but the main drag is full of crazy mummy maniacs who despite repeated warnings from the school and the local police, still persevere with parking on zigzags and corners of junctions. You fear for your life walking down to school as they whirl around the corners in their haste to get the nearest parking slot available at the last possible moment. I meet Tanya, one of the other school mums, at the bottom of the drive. Tall and slender, with her red hair tied in a ponytail with a huge scarf, she’s easily identifiable from some distance away. I get on well with most of the school mums and we have the odd coffee, but I keep a distance as I have Monique and that’s enough for me.

The walk up the drive only takes a few minutes. It leads past the main school building into a playground complete with two small benches, a wooden climbing frame and a large grassed area. In the corner of the playground are two Portakabins, one of which is Joe’s classroom. We all gather nearby and await the release of our little angels. For once it’s not raining.

‘Did you know there’s a new boy in school? Our Billy told me.’ Tanya says.