I’M SAT ON MY hotel bed sandwiched between my laptop (essential for top work research and, mostly, Netflix) and a tube of sour cream Pringles from the corner shop which might be the saddest dinner I’ve ever ‘made’ myself. My excitement has faded to worry, which is now transitioning into humiliation. Hotel rooms are lonely places to feel sad.
Natalie and I have been working in Bath on the set of a new indie band’s (apparently the next big thing) music video. We drove up on Monday, started on Tuesday and now, Friday, it’s the wrap party. I say ‘party’, but really I mean pub crawl.
We were going to go for a few drinks, show our faces and be part of the team. I couldn’t imagine Natalie on a pub crawl (the only pub I can imagine her in is a country bistro – one with a solid specials board), but in the end I didn’t have to. Martin rang her several times throughout the job, and each time she’d finished a call she smiled even wider when she said, ‘Fine, fine,’ to ‘Everything OK?’ I don’t think anyone else would have seen through her calm swanlike exterior, but I could see her feathers were ruffled, so I wasn’t that surprised when she said she was going to drive back a night early and ‘spend some time’ with her husband. Natalie’s so lucky to have someone so desperate to be in her company. I hope everything’s OK.
Theo and I haven’t seen each other in a couple of weeks. I messaged him a few casual, breezy texts, then a ha-ha-so-funny have you fallen off the face of the earth? text, and then followed that up with an OK cool, I’ll leave you be then message. In fairness, that last one was hotel-bar-cheap-wine-induced, so I’m not sure we can count that one, but Theo did and replied this morning saying, Gosh, so sorry, haven’t seen any messages, just been so busy, let’s FaceTime tonight at 9.
Result! Admittedly there’s no warmth, sweetness or kisses in there, but his text style is time-efficient, I guess. When he’s with me he’s so perfect, so attentive, and it’s like he’s reading me, working out what I like, what I don’t, what I want, how he can make it happen. It feels exquisite to have someone pay you that much charming attention. So when he sends short, businessy messages, I don’t sweat it, that’s just how he rolls.
Once we’d packed up our kit, Natalie had driven home and I’d walked back to the hotel, past Bath’s beautiful creamy stone buildings and wrought iron railings with the rest of the guys from the shoot, I made my excuses in the lobby. Fearing they’d think I was a massive bellend if I said, ‘Soz, guys, I can’t come out, I’m waiting for the man I’m in love with but who sometimes ignores me a bit to call’, I went with a different version of the truth and said, ‘I’d love to come out but I’m waiting on an important call from a relative’, and then pulled a pained face. Nobody questions a ‘call from a relative’ if you add a pained face. The British don’t want to delve into that potential mess of awkward conversation, so they all just nodded, gave me hugs, ruffled my hair, said goodbye and thanks a lot and off I skipped, giddy that soon it would be just me and Theo alone in a hotel room. Sort of.
I FaceTimed Lyla at her dad’s, washed my hair, packed my stuff for tomorrow and waited.
And waited.
And waited.
By 9.30 p.m. I caved and tried calling him, but there was no response. At 10 I texted casually, saying, Hey, I’m free for a call now if you are? x, but there was no response to that either. Bastard.
So here I am. It’s 11.03, I’m alone in my Travelodge hotel room, not FaceTiming with my gorgeous man but eating an entire tube of Pringles and feeling hollow. It feels so shit to be picked up and played with and then completely discarded like this. I feel embarrassed at my own neediness. I wish I’d gone out and joined in the ‘mad bants’ after all.
* * *
A WEEK LATER AND Natalie and I are in the car home after a brilliant day on set for a short YouTube film.
The vibe was young and creative.
It was an action film, so touch-ups for the men, beauty for the women and dirt, gunpowder and general muck for everyone. It was easy to get into my rhythm and lose myself in the work. I chatted to the actors, deftly flitted between brushes and took great pride in seeing them leave my chair looking exactly like they’d been fighting heroically in a derelict building.
We’re only an hour away from home, and I’ve been looking forward to a catch-up with Natalie.
‘Were you OK the other night, after you had to drive home early?’ I start as we set off in the car. I didn’t want to say anything on set, but she’d seemed tense when she left.
‘Yes, absolutely! Lovely to get home early.’ Then, a lightning-quick change of tack: ‘So, you did really well today, Robin, great work,’ she says, keeping her eyes on the manic London traffic.
‘Thank you! I really appreciate that, Natalie.’
‘How’ve things been going outside of work, then?’ she asks casually.
‘Not too bad. I’m still sort of seeing that guy from the Foundation Bar I met a few months back, Lyla’s great, I’m enjoying all the extra jobs you’ve had me on. Really happy, actually.’ Natalie is a friend, but not like a Lacey or Piper friend. I never forget that she’s my boss, and refrain from moaning about Kath’s unsolicited ‘makeover’ of my bedroom last month (‘I just thought you could do with a bit more lace in here, darling; lace is very sexy,’ she’d assured me when I recoiled at the sheer amount of lacy fabric she’d glue-gunned to every nook and cranny that I’ve since had to peel off before Theo saw), or worrying about how snide Val Pickering can be. I give her the highlights reel and try to keep the focus on work.
‘What about you? You look like you had a lovely time in Paris this weekend. From Facebook, I mean. I wasn’t stalking you. Ha ha ha.’ God, I hate my nervous laugh.
‘It was lovely, thank you, Robin; glad you enjoyed our photos. Martin surprised me, actually. We’ve been so busy lately with Max and Daniel doing mocks and exams and Nathan moving to university and the agency doing so well, we haven’t had a whole lot of time to just be. Now the boys are a bit more independent, Daniel and Nathan driving and Max so occupied with his sports and school, I think Martin’s a bit restless, needs something more to do, you know? Something to focus him.’
‘I know, it can get like that, can’t it? When you just drift a bit?’
‘No! No, no, we’re not drifting,’ she answers a bit too quickly. ‘It’s wonderful the agency has been so busy; it’s afforded us so many fantastic opportunities and really given the boys a brilliant start, but I just mean it’s an extra treat for Martin and I to jet off for a minibreak. It’s not that we’re drifting. We just need something special to focus on.’
Wow. That was only the second time I’ve ever detected a ruffle in Natalie’s feathers. She’s usually so unflappable. I don’t want to pry, so I move the subject on to something much safer – business.
‘Oh no, I didn’t mean it like that at all! Martin’s so lovely, I bet he’s thrilled the agency’s doing so well. I love it because it means I’m getting more jobs, Lyla and I get to have a few more treats and I get out of the house. It’s great!’
‘And you deserve them, you work so hard. I watched you today, and I think your technical work is coming on in leaps and bounds, and your confidence is shining through beautifully as well. I can see you love it.’
‘I really do; it’s such a buzz to be in that environment, talking to new people, doing something I’m so passionate about. Thank you, Natalie, for always being such a great mentor. It means such a lot, you know.’
‘Well, I think you’re about to thank me a whole lot more!’ she says like a mother who’s about to treat the kids to a McDonald’s. Mmm, I’d be more than happy if she were about to do that, actually. I’m starving.
‘Ooohh, OK …’ I say, playing along with the excitement.
‘Look. There’s something I want to ask you. We’ve had something quite exciting in. A film franchise are set to make a series of horror movies, and they’ve heard great things about the agency.’
‘Oh wow, how cool!’
‘They’d like a senior artist and assistant to work on set for two to three weeks full-time, and I’d love it if you’d assist me. I know we’ve spoken before about you only working on local jobs, to be close to Lyla and home, but this one really is something unique. I think you’re ready for a job like this. I think you’re ready to push yourself to those creative limits and give it a go.’
‘Wow! I’m so flattered to be asked. I think I could see if Kath would help me with school pickups here and there, and I’m sure Simon could have Lyla as well. How exciting! Thank you!’
‘Before you agree to it, I should probably mention …’ Natalie pauses excitedly, ‘it’s in New York! This is the first film, and it would be a trial contract. If things go well, we’d win the deal and work on all five of them over the next few years. The rest are going to be shot in the UK, but this first one needs to be filmed in part on location over there so they want to find the team they’ll be using long-term in the UK. It’d be incredible for the agency’s portfolio, but also amazing for your own personal portfolio. They already have a special effects team booked for the latex work, which I want to learn more about, and really challenge myself with some of that, but they need beauty work and touch-ups and creative support and advice. Seeing how hard you’ve worked all these years, and watching you when you’re in the zone on a job, I just know this would be perfect for you. I think it’s time you challenged yourself to do more. I know you have it in you to take on bigger jobs and step up to them. I want you to be my right-hand woman, Robin.’
I’m stunned.
For one, I can’t believe Natalie has so much faith in me, Robin Wilde, the girl with mystery Sharpie all over her leggings, and two, New-freaking-York! For a second I feel excited. And then panic kicks in. I can’t go to New York! I’m a mum! My mind starts going into overdrive as we turn onto the motorway and I don’t know what to say. First, I can’t leave Lyla. She needs me. She’d probably be all right with Kath and Simon for a short while, but maybe I need her – she’s who I am. Without my daughter around, I wouldn’t know who I am. Also, New York is so busy, so on the go. I like my pace of life. I like a quiet glass of wine at night. Well, I’m just used to it, I guess. I can’t imagine myself in New York. I can’t even imagine myself on the plane, let alone bossing a job on the other side of the world. What if there were an emergency at home. What if … What about Theo?
‘Natalie, I’m … wow. New York … that’s so far. I don’t know if I could leave Lyla. I’m not sure … Look. I’m sorry … I just can’t. I’m sorry.’
‘Take some time to think about it,’ Natalie says calmly, eyes on the road.
Once she’s dropped me off, I put my things in the house (months on, and I’m still loving my cleared-out cupboard and easy make-up kit storage, I feel so smug every time I use it) and go to collect Lyla from Kath’s. I’m so looking forward to seeing her. I’ve felt a bit guilty for working so much these past few weeks, and even the prospect of going to New York for half a month, let alone disappointing Natalie because I simply can’t go, has been whizzing around in my head and making me anxious.
I know having her home will soothe me, so I grab my car keys and head out the door.
LEAVING KATH’S HOUSE, I can feel my footsteps slamming against the concrete as I thunder down her drive to my car. I’m furious. Every inch of my body feels prickly with heat. How dare she? How dare she make this choice without me?
Opening the car door for Lyla, I seem to employ that super-strength you only have when you’re super-mad and almost rip it clean off. Well, probably not, but it feels like I could, I’m that angry.
Lyla climbs in silently and I slam the door shut so hard I see her midnight-blue eyes widen in shocked fright. I feel instant guilt for scaring her. Brilliant. Another wretched emotion on top of the rage.
Thunder, thunder, thunder with my ballet flats on the tarmac, and I’m round to my side of the car and in the driver’s seat. Good. The faster we get away from that selfish old cow the better. Driving away feels good. The sound of the car whirring washes over me and I can feel calm being restored. Thank goodness. Driving that angry was teetering on dangerous. The Mother of the Year Award committee won’t be knocking on my door any time soon.
Very quietly from the back I hear Lyla’s mouse-like voice tentatively ask, ‘Mummy? Are you cross?’
‘Yes baby. Very cross.’
‘At me?’ Her voice trembles as she queries, and the instant guilt at making her feel like it was her fault resurfaces.
‘No. At Auntie Kath. She shouldn’t have cut your hair without asking me first.’
When I say it out loud it sounds so trivial, like it’s nothing at all; but it is something. A haircut is a thing. You see those poor children on the news with dirty clothes and scraggly hair and pity them. You assume they aren’t well taken care of. You assume nobody is there to love them. You see a smart, well-groomed, clean kiddo and know they are cared for and loved. Loved is the key word here. I love Lyla, I’m her main love-giver, and so haircuts are on my shoulders. A haircut isn’t a daily thing, it’s an event. Arranging that would have shown that I have everything in hand, that I can balance home and work and that I can handle my life. I can manage it all. I can, I can, I can.
Then Kath muscled in and thought she was in charge. No call to ask, no consideration for me, just snip, snip, snip, done. I should have been in control of that. Not doing it has made me feel like crap. Like my life is the mess I secretly fear it is. I was going to book a salon appointment, but I didn’t have time. Was her hair really so desperate? Did she look like the pitiful children off the news, and I’m such a shoddy mother that I just didn’t notice?
I look in the mirror and I can see the cogs turning in her tiny head.
‘Auntie Kath has all the best scissors, Mummy. We were playing salons and I told her I wanted my hair short at the front like yours.’
‘In a fringe?’
‘Yes! I wanted to have Mummy Hair, so Auntie Kath said we could surprise you and you wouldn’t be cross because it’s a “lovely surprise”. Auntie Kath didn’t cut my hair in a cross way, Mummy. She cut it in a loves-and-cuddles way.’
I can feel my heart softening. ‘A loves and cuddles’ way means Lyla felt cared for and special, and I can’t begrudge her that, can I? That’s how you want your child to feel always.
Cogs still seem to be turning. ‘Do you think it looks rubbish, Mummy?’
‘No, I love it, I just wanted to be there—’
‘Then if you love it, why are you so cross?’
Can’t argue with that kind of logic, I guess. Starting to feel like maybe I overreacted very slightly.
‘Lyla, I’m your mummy and I love you so, so, so much. More than you can ever imagine. I love you so much that I want to be at everything you do. To help you do it right or not to feel scared or to protect you.’
‘But I wasn’t scared, and Auntie Kath did do it right because she has all the special hair-cutting scissors from when she was a hair lady in the olden days.’
How am I being outdone by a six-year-old?
‘Yes, I know. But I wanted to be there. That’s all. I just wanted to be there.’
‘Then how would you have been at work helping Natalie? Auntie Kath said you were doing a very important job and that you work sooo hard that we could do a lovely surprise for you.’
I love that she takes my job seriously. I’m sure everyone else thinks I do nothing all day, or that there is no skill in it, but the joy of children is that they have no judgement, and if you say you’re working, to them, you’re working. I hope she never loses that trust. I hope I never ruin it.
‘I just wanted to be there, Lyla.’
Quick as a flash she replies, ‘I wants don’t get.’
Argh, why did I teach her that? I don’t need my own quips thrown in my face when I’m so angry I’ve given myself a tension headache.
‘Mummy, I don’t want you to be cross with Auntie Kath or she won’t want to play with us again. You’ve got to use your indoor voice and kind actions, or people will have hurt feelings.’ She says this to me like I’m new to the world and haven’t had any experience in basic communication before.
‘I know, baby. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have been cross.’ Hopefully that will placate her for now.
I pull into the drive and feel ten notches calmer already. Nothing takes the edge off things like the innocent reasoning skills of a child.
Once we’re in and settled (Peter Pan for Lyla, the secret Galaxy bar I hid behind the tinned beans for me), I look properly at my little girl. I’m constantly astounded at how perfect she actually is. Dainty rosebud lips; clear, pale skin with the faintest of freckles; deep-blue eyes and the kind of elfin nose that every ‘it’ girl in Hollywood would die for. And now she has a fringe, and eight inches has been lopped off her once bum-/waist-length locks. Does it look terrible? No, I suppose it doesn’t. The fringe softens her slender face and gives it a sort of roundness I miss from her baby days. The length still swings down her back, but now it looks healthy and somehow thicker. I absent-mindedly stroke my hand down it and feel how silky it is under my fingers. God, I love her. Before I had Lyla I didn’t have any comprehension of how much I could physically love a person. Sometimes when she’s there, squeezed up next to me on the sofa, I run my fingers through her hair and feel like my heart could burst.
‘Do you like it now, Mummy?’ she says, jolting me back from my deep thoughts.
‘Yes. It’s lovely, just like you.’
‘Will you be friends with Auntie Kath again?’
‘Yes.’
‘You were so cross and shouty. Do you think you’ll have to say your biggest sorry?’
‘I think so.’
I do think so. I was awful, and Kath knows it. Lyla is lucky to have her, and so am I. Time to get my grovel on, I think.
THAT NIGHT I CALL Theo to talk to him about everything. Communication has been really lacking lately, with a few sporadic messages since the night in Bath but nothing concrete, and I don’t know where we are with things at all. After not really hearing from him, being nervous and confused about the New York offer and the whole Kath debacle, I’m feeling really anxious and I’m hoping that by speaking to him, we can sort things out and I can maybe get back on track a bit. I could do with the support, and Theo really is the person I want it from. I know he can make me feel better.
I’ve put Lyla to bed, settled on the sofa with crap TV and a gin and tonic and I pick up my phone to call. It rings out for a frustratingly long time but eventually, in true Theo form, he answers like nothing has ever been wrong.
‘Hello darling, how’s tricks?’
I don’t know why, but I’m instantly angry. How dare he be so nonchalant about the fact we’ve barely spoken in a couple of weeks. Obviously, though, I must appear to be the very essence of breezy and let him think I’ve been having the best few days of my entire life.
‘Hey! Yeaaahh, great, thanks! What about you?’
‘You know, just up the bloody wall with things at the office, and missing my favourite make-up artist.’
If he was missing me that much, why didn’t he just call? Maybe I don’t want to offload everything on him. I feel like I could slap him for being so slimy.
‘Oh really? How charming of you. Things have been quite busy here lately, with work and social life, crazy, crazy, as always!’
If by crazy you mean working three days this week, washing, shopping, cleaning, cooking, defrosting the freezer and playing a thousand games of Shopkins with a six-year-old.
‘Absolutely. Yes. Very busy,’ he says, clearly distracted by something. ‘Why don’t we have a weekend soon? Just me and you. Give Lyla to Kath, and let us have some fun, eh?’
I knew he’d pull through. A weekend of fun is exactly what I’d like right now.
‘Amazing! I’d love that! Do you want to come up here, and I can rearrange dinner with some of my friends and their other halves? It’d be nice for you to meet them, and—’
‘No; why don’t you come down to me and let me treat you? We could do a spa, perhaps? Or a fun little day on the Thames if you fancy? Surely that’s nicer than dinner with the mums from school?’
He’s got a point, but I really did want them to meet him. I feel torn now. Boating on the river and a massage sounds better than a thousand custard creams alone or pasta with the parents, but I feel like he’s saying spending time at our house isn’t good enough. I want to let it go, but after my run-in with Kath, I’m not in a very agreeable mood.
‘Theo, don’t you like coming up here any more?’
‘Of course I do, darling, but I think we both know it’s more comfortable at my place, don’t we?’
How rude! There’s nothing wrong with my place! It might not be a city apartment with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the Thames, but it’s got views, wonderful views, if you like the top of my neighbours’ garage and an old Frisbee that’s been there years. Anyway, yes, OK, maybe his place is nicer than mine – not that I really remember it very well, having only actually been invited once – but that’s not the point. He should be making things up to me, after leaving me hanging so often, and if he really did like me, if I really was his ‘favourite’, then he’d be happy to drive up here and be part of my life. Wouldn’t he?
I’m so sick of everything being hard work, and feeling so crummy all the time. I’m a shoddy mother, crap at dressing myself (I’m wearing a T-shirt with Sharpie on, for fuck’s sake), Kath probably hates me and I’m going to be alone forever.
Picking up on the silence, Theo continues, ‘How does the end of this month sound to you?’
Did I just hear that right? That’s three weeks away!
He thinks he can just charm his way into having it however he wants. Well, he can’t.
Summoning everything I have, I say, ‘Look, a date every six weeks isn’t good enough for me. If we’re going to be a thing, whatever this thing is, it should be easier than this. We should be in each other’s lives properly, like normal couples are. This isn’t working for me.’ And then I go further than I’d ever expected I would. ‘I need a break, Theo. From us. Anyway, I’m not free at the end of this month. Because I’m working on a movie set in New York.’
Drop the mic. That’s decided, then.