AFTER SNOOZING MY ALARM for the third time, and realising it’s now gone 7.30 a.m., I get up, take a big breath and resolve that this is going to be a good day. Yesterday was tough. I felt completely trapped in The Emptiness, and even though I saw friends and got things done (or Kath got things done on my behalf), I didn’t feel myself. Not today though, oh no! Today is a fresh start, and a chance to make the most of my life and count my blessings. I can’t face another day of feeling as bad as I felt yesterday.
Robin Wilde, I say to myself in the mirror: something needs to change …
I can definitely do this.
Just like Lacey said, I’m as good as everyone else, and today I plan to show the world what I’m made of. Rather than schlepping into school in leggings and an oversized coat, I’m going to release the beauty within and take some pride in myself. (I’m basically just going to pretend I’m Natalie, the most self-assured, successful woman I know. If I follow her lead, I can attain her levels of acing it. Right?)
Lyla is already awake: she’s a morning person. She sits buidling her Stickle Bricks and playing teachers with her toys; I can hear her instructing them to ‘put the bricks in odd and even piles, please’, patiently waiting for me to lay her uniform out. She gets dressed, brushes her teeth and tells me that today she’d like ‘ninety-ten’ plaits in her hair.
‘Ooh, ninety-ten is going to be tricky. I don’t think we have ninety-ten hairbands,’ I reason.
‘Make them,’ she demands.
Jeez, I’m being bullied by a child. What does this say about my life? But no. I’m not going there. Today Lyla and I are going to win!
‘Bluebird, I really love how much faith you have in me but maybe we should do just two plaits? We could put ribbons on the bottom and be like Pippi Longstocking!’ I offer, in an overly cheery and high-pitched tone. She surely can’t resist this.
‘Who?’
Oh, yes; sometimes I forget we don’t live in the rose-tinted eighties and read The Secret Seven and suchlike any more.
‘Never mind – she’s a character from a story. She has plaits, two plaits, so let’s do that.’
‘NINETY-TEN!’ is screamed back at me with a complimentary foot stamp at the same time. Oh my God, I’m raising a monster.
‘Lyla! Stop! It’s seven forty-five and we need to leave soon. Let’s do two very beautiful plaits and leave it at that. That’ll look so gorgeous.’
‘Storie does lots of plaits,’ she sulks. Good old Storie. Storie is Simon’s new girlfriend. I say ‘new’. It’s been four and a bit years. Of course Storie does lots of plaits. She probably does them while singing to the garden gnomes and fermenting her own urine for face cream.
‘Well, I’m Mummy and I’m doing two.’
Sensing I’m not backing down, she gives up the fight and lets me work two neat French braids all the way to the bottom of her beautifully glossy long brown hair, and stomps off downstairs once I’m finished. Well, isn’t it lovely to feel so valued and appreciated – motherhood is such a gift.
Once her toast is presented to her in the exact formation she likes (God forbid I’d ever cut it into squares instead of triangles), I nip back upstairs to sort myself out.
Today is not a day for the usual drudgery, so I pull on my good skinny jeans (not the comfy ones with a worn-thin crotch – why is that bit worn? Is my crotch so fat it rubs when I walk? I should look into that). I pair it with my white Ralph Lauren shirt – the one I bought two years ago in a discount shop and, thanks to the fact that I barely ever wear it, looks brand new and isn’t a faded grey crumpled mess at the bottom of my wardrobe.
I’m already on to a winner.
My hair is never going to play ball at 7.55 a.m., so I praise Baby Jesus for the joy of dry shampoo and then put it up in what I consider to be a ‘sleek pony’. When I see models sporting a sleek ponytail I think they look so chic, so effervescent. When I wear one I wonder if it looks like I’m wearing a brown swimming cap with a small plume at the back. Let’s hope for chic and stop overanalysing.
Make-up time. This is one of the few areas in my life I know I’m good at and feel confident with. Time is of the essence, so I don’t have hours for a full face, but I do have a few minutes for perfectly applied black liquid liner across my lids, a few good coats of mascara, a base of foundation and perfect red lips. (Make-up is something to be eternally grateful for when you’ve woken up with a red-wine-the-night-before complexion). Nothing says ‘I’ve got my shit together’ better than well-applied red lipstick. It’s bold and sexy and as soon as I pout back at my reflection in the mirror, I feel good about myself. It might all be a mask but at least it’s an effective one. And it feels good to be doing something for me.
We make it all the way to school without any kind of catastrophe. Lyla didn’t trap fingers in doors, zips or seat belt plugs; I remembered her school bag and each and every correct component of her ballet and PE kit, as well as a nourishing lunchbox with proper foods in it like veggie sticks and hummus (not just a sandwich and a ton of things in brightly coloured wrappers). All that, and I look great. Maybe this motherhood deal isn’t as hard as I’ve been making it for myself. Maybe I AM as good as everyone else. To top it all off, we’re on time. We saunter through the gates at 8.50 hand in hand, and I feel overdramatically proud. Good for us.
Walking up beside us are Finola Brennan with her two children, Honor and Roo. Roo (short for Rupert) is seven already and in Lyla’s class. Three years older than them is Honor. She’s tall and strong and obsessed with the horses and ponies the Brennans keep. Finola is a sturdy sort of mother. She takes no nonsense, and believes in fairness and character-building. I like her a lot and secretly really want her to like me too. I’m also slightly terrified of her.
Next comes Gillian with Clara, who’s also in Lyla’s class and is a sweet little thing who believes fervently in fairies and magic and unicorns. Gillian seems pleasant enough.
Finola and Gillian are friends, and strike me as yummy mummy types who went for morning coffee dates in cafés with their babies and who didn’t sit at home, alone, in jogging bottoms and a tangled topknot, resenting the fact that they felt too inferior to go to the mummy groups themselves and make friends.
‘Morning!’ I chime in a merry tone, as casually as possible flicking my ponytail off my shoulder in a bid to show off that I’ve brushed AND styled it. Wow, I really do feel great today!
‘Morning. Honor! Roo! Go and hang your bags up and then come back for a kiss goodbye,’ Finola orders them briskly.
‘Hello! Oh, Clara, poppet, I’ve asked you four times now, can you not pull on my arm like that, you’re really hurting me, darling,’ Gillian pleads timidly with Clara, clearly not having the best morning.
‘You want to raise your voice a bit, Gillian. Children are like dogs and respond best to an authoritative tone,’ offers Finola.
Gillian looks a bit shocked, but thankfully her innate politeness kicks in and she just says to her friend, ‘Oh, er, yes, thank you, Finola, I’ll give that a try next time,’ and blinks quite a lot.
Lyla sees all the others running for the cloakroom and follows suit, while we mums walk slowly in and stand by the hall doors waiting to walk them through to their form rooms. We always stand here. It’s an unspoken rule that you pick your Foyer Spot on the first day and that’s it for life. If someone were to violate this code of etiquette, all hell would break loose. Where would the now displaced mother stand? Who would she talk to? What if her precious child came looking in that spot and they weren’t there? It doesn’t bear thinking about.
I’ve learnt the hard way that there are a lot of unspoken rules to be taken very seriously. Joining the school in Year One instead of Reception was tough for both of us. While Lyla was learning the rules of the classroom and playground, I was tackling the etiquette of the foyer and car park.
It’s so good to see Lyla running and playing with the others, though I do worry she’s still hovering on the outskirts. I’m hoping that each day, as she settles in further, I can maybe be a bit more pally with these women. They all seem to have their cliques and groups, and aside from my when-I-can-face-it cheery hellos and the odd wave here and there, I’ve no idea how to get in.
‘It’s such a beautiful day today. So good to see a bit of sun shining,’ I offer as a starting point. I’m determined that today I am going to start fitting in. I’m sick of feeling out on the sidelines. My mother always said, ‘You can’t go far wrong with talk of the weather, how well you slept or what you’re cooking for dinner’. Mum clearly has all the bants – in fact, I remember at primary school hanging around at her side at the end of my school day while she talked for England with the other local mums. I’d be dying to go home and hoping she’d stop boasting about her latest Cambridge Front Gardens in Bloom competition win – but in this case, she’s not actually wrong. Weather chat is a winner.
‘It’s marvellous. We got all four horses out for a good hack this morning and watched the sun rise.’
Of course Finola did.
‘You do so well to do so much!’ says Gillian. ‘Clara wouldn’t like it if I gave so much of my attention to something else. She still likes to have her special mummy time in my bed in the morning after Paul has left for the City.’
‘Aww, I wish Lyla still did that; I’d like the company!’
Apparently this was the wrong thing to say. Finola and Gillian look at me, then at each other, then both appear stuck for what to say next. Perhaps we’re not supposed to admit we’re so lonely, our children are our friends?
‘You look really glamorous today, Robin, are you off somewhere special?’ Gillian asks nicely, conversation inspiration clearly striking.
‘Or husband-hunting in Sainsbury’s again!’ I hear Val’s seething voice from behind me. She’s head-to-toe in designer clothing and tottering over on her high-heeled ankle boots smiling to herself (definitely not at me). Valerie Pickering is the worst of the PSMs. Mother to six-year-old Corinthia (who I suspect is a little cow, because they say the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree) and married to Roger, who’s eleven years her senior, severely balding and absolutely loaded. Val is brutally competitive and, for some reason, hates me. I’ve never done anything at all to her, but not once has she been able to say something to me that wasn’t loaded with sarcasm or an attempt to put me down in front of everyone else. My only form of defence with this woman is to ignore her or, through gritted teeth, play nice and be polite. She makes me feel like shit.
‘You are looking very glamorous today,’ she laughs. She’s clever; she’s saying it like a compliment but I can feel the sting in it.
I’m not going to let her dampen my spirits. After that miserable solo night on the sofa yesterday, I’ve made a bloody good effort, and I’m not going to be derailed.
‘Yep. Thought I’d treat myself to a bit of me time this morning,’ I say as curtly as possible.
‘Ahh, yes. Being on your own you must have quite a lot of “me time” to spend dolling yourself up, eh?’
Wow. That was a low blow. I’m taken aback for a few seconds.
To my surprise, I catch Finola puffing her chest out and gearing up to rescue me. ‘Valerie, lovely to see you! Edgar tells me Roger has been staying in Huntingdon since Christmas. I expect you’re rather enjoying an increase in “me time” too, aren’t you?’
Val’s eyes widen in shock and Finola continues to give her a steely glare until Gillian meekly chips in, breaking the tension. ‘That’s a lovely shade of lipstick, Robin,’ she says.
I’m so overcome by how perfect Finola and Gillian were just then that I’m blinking back tears. It’s been a long time since someone stood up for me like that.
‘You’ll have to tell me what make it is so I can pick some up myself,’ continues Gillian. ‘You look really nice.’
Before I can thank them both, the bell rings and the foyer descends into chaos. All the children zip back to us like magnets; mothers are rushing through to classrooms issuing orders to their little cherubs as if they’ll never see them again. ‘Make sure you wear your gloves!’ ‘Your judo kit is in the blue bag!’ ‘Don’t you dare fight with Hugo today!’ And we’re swept away in the commotion before Val has a chance to retaliate to Finola’s revealing shutdown. I’m sure that won’t be the end of it; it never is with Val, but for now I’m grateful not to have to deal with her. And still a bit in shock that Finola stood up for me … Maybe she’s not as much of a cold fish as I thought.
Once the children are settled with their oh-so-smiley teachers (how do they manage to be that happy at 9 a.m.?), we make our way out to the car park. Val is nowhere to be seen. She’s obviously shot off ahead of us.
‘Thanks, Finola, I didn’t know what to say to her. I can never think of something in the moment. I really appreciate you stepping in there.’
‘Not a problem, Robin. Women like that are like pack dogs; once they know who’s boss, they soon settle down.’
In Finola’s world, everyone is like a dog or a horse.
‘Edgar and I are always available for a good canter if you want to get some air in your lungs of a morning. Does you a world of good.’
‘Thanks, Finola. Thank you,’ I say, and walk off swiftly in the direction of my car before she sees the tears in my eyes. The thought of me going for a ‘good canter’ on a horse is ridiculous, but the offer was there and that felt good.
ONCE HOME, I DOUBLE-CHECK that I’ve got everything ready for next week’s job on the set of the fruit-infused tea commercial. Mostly, The Emptiness doesn’t touch my job. The occassional jobs I’ve been doing have, more and more, been like a holiday for my brain. Instead of feeling stuck and sad, I feel like I can run wild with ideas in a way I can’t in my mummy life.
After five more hours of ‘research’ (the lemon tea needs a ‘fresh and zesty’ model, whereas the berry flavours need the model to look ‘warm and inviting’), which has consisted of 30 per cent work-related internet browsing, 20 per cent getting lost down a YouTube wormhole of girls showing what they bought on their latest shopping sprees and 50 per cent clicking on every pointless link or humble-brag post friends have shared on Facebook. I don’t know why I even bother going on Facebook, it’s so depressing. Everyone I know is planning a wedding with huge lit-up marquees, showing their baby off in its new John Lewis matching outfit or posing for photos on the beach with their tanned boyfriend. Clicking on and scrolling through all this is like self-torture. Fortunately I can’t dwell too long, because before I know it it’s time to collect Lyla and click back into Mummy Mode.
The pickup goes smoothly; Val is nowhere in sight but instead sends her mother (an older, bonier version of her) for Corinthia. She looks down her nose at me – but I’m not going to let it bother me, at least now I see where Val gets it from. I drive Lyla home for dinner. I don’t yet feel completely drained, which is better than most days, so I seize the moment and steam some veggies, grill some chicken, throw a few alphabet-shaped chips in the oven (I was doing so well but fell at the final nutrition hurdle) and sit down with Lyla to eat.
‘Mmmm, Mummy, look at this dinner! It’s like we’re in a restaurant tonight, isn’t it? The Mummy and Lyla Restaurant!’
I could cry. She didn’t say anything yesterday when it was Smarties before fish and chips, but today, with chicken and veg, she’s a happier kiddo. This is full-on validation.
‘It is! Let’s cheers to that, my Lylielooblue!’
We clink our glasses, spend the evening snuggling on the sofa with books, BunBunBear, an array of Stickle Bricks stuck in my side, CBeebies bedtime hour and a good feeling in my heart. A swish of lipstick really does make all the difference. Note to self: tomorrow it’s the boldest, brightest red I own. It’s going to be a big day.