THINGS ARE HOTTING UP on the dating apps. Every time I have a free moment I check my phone and sure enough, there’s a message. Sitting in the school car park in the mid-afternoon spring sunshine: have a little flirt. Waiting for Natalie to finalise on a job (she takes such care to make sure the client is completely happy with everything and seeks out any feedback so that she can always improve and grow the agency. It’s impressive. Without her example, I’m sure I’d just pack up and go) so we can go home: flirty-flirt. Sipping a cup of tea in my nine-year-old dressing gown with a little barely-visible-but-I-know-it’s-there period stain, oh yes I’m so sexy: let’s flirt.
Craig is a personal trainer who loves the outdoors, good wine and travel. We’ve been chatting back and forth and the chemistry is fizzing. I’ve not lied but maybe glamorised the truth a little and said I’m a self-employed make-up artist and that I mostly work in London. Almost true; I do sometimes help Natalie in London and I do sometimes go to jobs alone, although they’re always local ones like bridal make-up or home bookings for people who have a special occasion to go to. I haven’t mentioned my penchant for very old pyjamas, my hatred of gyms or the fact that I’ve never been anywhere on holiday other than England and the South of France with Mum and Dad when I was little. Oh, and I haven’t mentioned Lyla. It’ll be fine.
Piper told me never to make the first move and to let him chase me, which sounds very archaic in this day and age, but she seems to do well for herself so I’ll go with it. Eventually, after some cheery messaging, he asks me if I fancy a drink.
A date! An actual, real-life date! I am so excited about it that I screen-grab the entire asking-out conversation and message it to Piper, Lacey and, accidentally, the lady who bought some of my baby bits on eBay. After a few apologetic messages to her, I fully immerse myself in the excitement of discussing every potential date detail with the girls, and spend a merry evening planning my life with Craig. I’d like to say I didn’t get carried away, but I think creating the wedding Pinterest board (sage and cream theming, lace details and the handmade flower girl parasol for Lyla) after that third glass of rosé was probably a step too far.
For the whole of the next day I feel wild with excitement, The Emptiness like a distant memory. I drop Lyla to school and have so much pep in my step I am almost skipping. Even Finola looks impressed, and she’s been up since five to walk the dogs for three miles. I feel so good. Craig fancied me, he looked at me (well, my taken-from-good-angles pictures), and didn’t see a frumpy mum with a messy life. He saw an attractive woman he wants to take for a drink. I feel validated. Only twenty-four hours to go.
Then, as I’m cheerily chopping carrots for Lyla’s tea, he messages to say he actually doesn’t want to meet up.
He thinks I’m a ‘really great girl’ but that maybe he wasn’t looking for a relationship and stringing me along would be cruel.
Oh.
Another wonderful foray into the world of men. Validating bubble burst, pep completely dissolved and, though I’m angry with myself for it, I feel rubbish again.
FIVE DAYS LATER AND no endless, vapid scrolling through men on apps for me today. Lyla and I have – for the first time – been invited to Soft Play with Finola, Gillian and the kids. Soft play. The place where mothers go to let their children behave like savages while they drink cheap coffee and try not to think about the lives they had before. You know, when they went to restaurants without children’s menus and didn’t have half-used packs of wet wipes in their handbags.
The children run off like a pack of wolves to expend their never-ending supply of energy, and I’m determined to make a good impression. Gillian starts us off with the mumsy pleasantries.
‘I was so glad you suggested coming, Finola. Clara’s been getting ever so restless at home on a Wednesday. She does swimming on Mondays and chess on Tuesdays, but by Wednesday she’s bored and ready to blow off a bit of steam.’
Wow. Should I be putting Lyla in more clubs? I thought taking her to Dovington’s was extracurricular, but apparently not. This is the first time Finola and Gillian have invited me along, and I’m already learning so much. Note one: put Lyla in a club or six.
True to form, Finola responds with all the tact of a smack in the face, but none of the malice. ‘Absolute load of nonsense, all those prep clubs. What children need is a good run in a field or some solid exercise.’
‘Like dogs?’ I joke, although slightly relieved Lyla isn’t missing out on chess and swimming, and goodness knows what happens on a Thursday.
‘Exactly like dogs. If I leave one of the bitches in the truck while I see to the horses, she goes absolutely berserk. You need to get them out, get their hearts pumping, air in the lungs, and they’ll rest well. Children are the same. Honor’s not too bad, but if Roo doesn’t have at least an hour or two of physical activity each day we’re in for a ruddy awful time, I can tell you.’
She’s so direct I almost feel like I’ve been sent to the headmaster’s office.
‘Well, he looks like he’s having a great time,’ I say as we look up to the ten-foot-high netted pavilion where all the children are running around, quite violently throwing balls at each other. Honor and Roo seem to be heading up the assault with Clara giving it all she has in return and Lyla hangs back a little bit, holding a ball nervously in her left hand and just watching. My heart goes out to her because I feel like I’m doing the same, but holding a coffee and listening. I decide the best thing is to leave her to it. Finola probably did, and look how hers turned out, I think, as I see Roo hang from a bar and simultaneously launch two balls at once at his older sister.
‘Little angels,’ offers Gillian without a hint of sarcasm, clearly not seeing what I’m seeing.
Disregarding further indulgent talk about the children, Finola steps in with no warm-up, ‘Robin, I’ve been meaning to ask you what all the fuss was about the other week, with the hair and make-up and shiny, shimmy bangles and such?’
Assuming she means that morning I looked like a total babe, I say, ‘Just for myself. Just making an effort.’
‘A man on the scene, then, is there?’ Finola probes.
‘Ooohh,’ Gillian chimes with an air of interest, while keeping an eye on Clara, who appears to be straddling Roo and hitting him over the head with a foam noodle. Little angels.
I don’t want to be rude; these are potential friends, so nicely-nicely does it. ‘Well, I’m not actively looking, but if one came along I wouldn’t mind,’ I say with the added extra of a nervous laugh to try to appear casual.
‘I don’t believe it. When one of our bitches is in season, you can tell; she has a way about her, and so do you.’
‘Finola, ha ha, are you comparing me to a dog?’ She’d better bloody not be. This blush I’ve been wearing is Charlotte Tilbury, not shades of dog period behaviour, thank you very much.
‘Ha! We’re all animals, dear, and you can tell a lot about a woman by the way she holds herself. I think you do a marvellous job with Lyla and all you have on. If you’re looking for a chap to add into the equation then I’m all for it. Bloody good for you, I’d say.’
I think that’s Finola being loving. I’ll take the dog comparison, then.
‘Oh. Well, thank you, Finola. Truth be told, I am looking, but it’s not going very well. I don’t think there’s anyone out there for me,’ I say, picking at the sugar packets on the table.
Gillian, lovely, soft, timid Gillian, reaches out and puts her hand on my hand, which is still holding the sugar that I now don’t know what to do with. I just sort of leave it there, hoping she’ll let go before the packet falls out of my hand or makes my palm all sticky.
‘Robin, you work hard for Lyla and you’re intelligent and smart. Any man would be lucky to have such a lovely woman as you,’ she says in her soft voice. I can’t imagine Gillian ever shouting. I can’t really imagine her doing much at all except lovingly caring for Clara and Paul and crying at Call the Midwife every Sunday with a box of tissues and a chocolate orange by her side.
Gillian says this in such earnest that I think I might actually cry. I never knew she felt this way about me – to be honest, I didn’t think anyone did. It seems so much for someone to say, especially someone from the PSM crew. I’d assumed they’d just invited me to make up the numbers.
Blinking back tears, I turn to the play zone, where Roo is now holding his own with a foam brick for protection and Lyla is trying to keep the peace with outstretched arms. Honor watches on, seemingly giving no shits at all.
‘You know what you need to do, my dear?’
No, but I’m sure Finola is about to tell me.
‘Get yourself back on the horse. No shilly-shallying around, just straight back out there, best foot forward. My brother Jeffery fell off a steed once when he was fifteen and broke both arms. Four months later he was back on, and we didn’t hear a peep about it. That’s what you need to do. Get all your lipsticks and eye wands applied, or whatever they’re calling it these days, and try again. You can do it, girl!’
God bless Finola the Blunt and Gillian the Gentle. Like chalk and cheese, but both exactly what I needed. I still feel weird and out of place, and like maybe I ought to be wearing something navy-striped, but I think I might have started to love them a little bit.