FEBRUARY
I HATE FEBRUARY. I thought I’d feel better once January was out of the way, but I don’t. If I’m honest, I feel a little scared that I don’t. My face is a constant mask of happiness (I chat in jolly tones at work and smile at the girl at the supermarket checkout and sing songs to Lyla in the car), but deep down I feel flat. Very, very flat.
For the last few years I’ve done everything alone. Shopped alone, spent evenings alone, planned outings for Lyla alone, driven everywhere alone, paid bills alone, slept alone. After a while that takes its toll. I feel like nobody is on my team and nobody has my back. I know there are Lacey and Kath, and Mum and Dad if I really need them, but it’s not the same. There’s nobody to wake up next to and roll over to give a cuddle to. Nobody of my own to have drinks and Chinese takeaway with when Lyla is with Simon. Nobody to share my happy moments or deepest worries with, and sometimes, when it’s very late at night and the house is very still, I wonder if there will ever be anyone at all. Valentine’s Day is approaching. Every time I walk into a shop I’m faced with a sea of love-themed paraphernalia reminding me that I won’t be waking up to a teddy and a red rose.
Don’t get me wrong; I know there are people out there who have a much harder life, but I feel isolated. Everything I do is alone, or as leader of the Robin and Lyla Club, and that gets a bit hard sometimes. I’d love a teammate to just take the edge off. Like how gas and air in childbirth takes you from wanting to rip your midwife’s face off to simply wanting to yell obscenities at the walls of your delivery suite. That’s what I need – something to just take the sharp edge off the loneliness. What I’d love is a little bit of help and love and companionship. Is that too much to ask for?
I don’t want Lyla to ever know how shit I feel.
I want her to feel like I’m her rock, and that whatever happens, however much life throws at us, I’m here and dependable and safe. Right now, secretly I don’t feel either dependable or safe, but I sing songs or use a chipper voice to play dollies for the eighteenth time that day. I hide the emptiness that I feel inside to keep her safe. She is a perfect thing that needs to be protected at all costs and so I never want her to carry the burden of knowing your mum struggles. She makes me a Valentine’s card with a ‘?’ and I play along and exclaim in surprise, ‘Oh my goodness, I’m so, so lucky!’ when she tells me it was from her. I don’t let on that I’m crying inside at how sweet she is and how much I’d love it to be real.
WEEKENDS AS A custody-sharing single parent can be really hard. To everyone else it looks like the perfect life: time to relax, entire evenings to go out and drink cocktails, read magazines or go shopping, but in reality it’s not like that. I crave that family unit and the sound of other people in the house. Right now Lyla is at Simon’s for the weekend. I can feel the clouds of The Emptiness gathering again.
Determined not to let it take me over this time, I give Lacey a call and see if she fancies popping round for a glass of wine and a makeover. Lacey can always be guaranteed to come over if a mini-facial and a good smoky eye is on offer. It’s been that way since we were naive teenagers in poster-clad bedrooms. Lacey has all the best advice, and I have all the best make-up. I’d pour my angsty fourteen-year-old heart out to her about the boys at school or the girls I hated or was jealous of, and she’d flick through the pages of Bliss or Sugar and pick out a make-up style for me to try on her.
Things are pretty similar now, except we’ve replaced teen magazines with Grazia and drinks and olives, and I barely hate anyone. Except maybe Val. How sophisticated we are.
‘What’s the matter, then?’ she says, laying the box of Maltesers she’s brought over on the sofa and plopping herself down. I love that wherever Lacey is, sweet treats are never far away. She drags my big metal make-up case across the floor towards her and opens it as if it were a treasure chest.
‘How do you know something’s the matter?’
‘Your house is spotless, your nails are done and you’ve been responding to my messages in under four nanoseconds. Clearly something’s going on or your life would be a whole lot messier,’ she says with a laugh on the last bit.
‘Oh. Hmmm. All good points,’ I say, admiring the lilac gloss on my nails. ‘I don’t know … I just feel flat. Every time I think I’ve got my spark back, something small happens and I feel rubbish again. Today it wasn’t even a big thing, but it got to me. I had some spare time – story of my bloody life – and fell into a scroll-through-Facebook-photos wormhole. I went all the way back pre-Lyla and saw our nights out, your hen do, that trip to Edinburgh we had, and I just missed having a bit of fun, I think.’ And then I say it. ‘I’m bored, Lacey. I’m lonely.’
‘Oh, Robin,’ Lyla says with a maternal tilt to her head. ‘You’ve got Lyla, though.’
‘I know, but she’s at school every day and Simon has her two nights a week too. When she was super-little she had every bit of my attention. Now she doesn’t need it. Nobody really needs me.’ I can feel tears pricking at the back of my eyes.
‘I need you! I knew you were a bit down at Dovington’s last month, but I didn’t know things were this bad. You should have called me. I want to help you.’
‘There’s something missing in my life.’
‘A man,’ Lacey says bluntly, snapping out of her soft, maternal tone.
‘Not everything is about men.’
Lacey studies my face for a moment. ‘This is, though.’ Still being blunt, then.
‘I thought you were a feminist, Lacey Hunter?’
‘I am. Being a feminist means you want everybody to be equal; to have the same chances, opportunities and treatment as everyone else. It doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy feeling Karl’s arms around me at night, or being taken out for dinner and good conversation, or having someone who takes the bins out when it’s their turn.’
‘I can’t remember the last time that even happened to me. Kath comes over and does such a lot to help, but it’s not the same as having your dashing man clean out your dishwasher filter or mow the grass, is it? The last person I had dinner with was Peppa-bloody-Pig!’ I laugh sadly.
‘So, Robin. I’ve been thinking about this for a while. I think you need to put yourself out there, meet someone. You deserve to have a bit of fun.’
‘I’m never going to meet someone, though, unless a hot single dad magically appears at the school gates on one of the rare days I don’t look like an egg, or one of the perilously young male models at work goes blind and suddenly fancies me!’
Lacey throws a cushion at my head and exclaims, ‘Robin! First, don’t say that! You have a lot to offer any man. And second, you don’t have to meet anyone at the school or work. Everyone does it online these days.’
‘No, I’m not doing that,’ I say as I buff foundation in a tad too firmly. How does Lacey have such lovely skin? After this endless winter, mine is dull and lifeless. ‘It’s desperate and cheesy. It’s full of creepy old men who masturbate over the underwear section of a Littlewoods catalogue!’
‘No, it’s not!’ she exclaims, trying, and failing, to keep her face still. ‘It’s all changed! You should 100 per cent give it a go. Look at Meredith from school. She was single for nearly ten years, and then she met Peter on an app. Look at her now.’
‘Yeah, she’s stuck at home crying with the twins while she puts over-filtered photos of them smiling on Facebook and hashtagging #WouldntHaveItAnyOtherWay, when really we all know she would have it another way. She’d be wearing clothes without sick on and not googling “has my vagina changed since childbirth”. That’s not where I want to be! I want to be romanced! I want to be seduced!’
‘Well, yes, but how do you think he got the twins in her in the first place?’
‘This is getting really gross. I don’t want to imagine Dating-App Peter getting anything in Meredith.’ It’s surprisingly hard to apply sharp, even, cat-eye flicks in black liquid liner when you’re imagining your old school friend being shagged enthusiastically by a man called Peter that she met on ‘the apps’.
‘You’re missing the point, you dingbat. Just give the apps a try. Let’s download MatchMe or something right now. It’ll be fun!’
‘Oh God, do I have to?’ I say, finishing the eyeliner and blending a trio of deep red, mocha brown and gold onto her right eye.
‘Yes, absolutely, or I’m leaving right now and you’ll be alone all night with nobody to moan to.’
‘You’re not going anywhere – I’ve only done one eye and you’ll look deranged.’
In the end, she twists my arm and after another glass of wine (OK, three more glasses), it turns out the dating apps are quite fun. Sort of like shopping for men but without having to worry about them seeing you staring or saying something stupid. It doesn’t take long before I’m matched with Gareth 34 Engineer, Dylan 32 Freelance Consultant and Phil 37 IT. We scream with glee when the first ‘Hi, how are you’ pops up.
Why had I never considered doing this before? Man-shopping from your sofa!
Two bottles of rosé later, a wobbly and very giggly Lacey leaves in a taxi and I feel quite excited about all of these dashing potential suitors vying for my attention.
Huzzah!
Playing it cool (on Lacey’s orders), I go to bed merrily full of vino and high hopes for my future love life.