The Yummy Mummy (26 page)
Joe, eyes flickering quickly side to side, studies my face. “Your eyes get bluer in the summer,” he says softly. “Maybe it’s your tan. Or the carbon-monoxide-free light.”
I look away, unable to meet his eyes, thinking of Josh’s staring “game.” Was it foreplay? Had he planned it?
“You are quiet this weekend. But that’s okay. I want you to relax.” Joe’s niceness complicates things, makes me feel worse. “Amy?” He looks at me, suddenly terribly somber, frowning.
“Yes?”
“I want to ask you something . . . it’s been bugging me.”
My rib cage contracts. Heart
thump thumps
. He knows. I know he knows. How can he? Please don’t ask about yesterday. Please don’t make me tell the truth. Not now. Not here. Not ready.
“Yes, I’d love a cream tea,” I joke weakly, trying to divert the conversation to less dangerous ground. “Besides, I’m getting the most horrible blisters and I really need the loo.” I pull him a couple of steps down the hill. “Let’s go.”
Joe looks relieved. He doesn’t want to go there either. “Okay, let’s go.”
So we follow a white stony path down toward a plait of river. My body feels strong, my steps sure. It’s not the same body as it was a few months, weeks, days ago. Somehow Josh retrieved my body from the mud of motherhood, shuddered it back into life.
“For medicinal use only,” Joe says, reaching into his pocket and pulling out my favorite organic dark chocolate, chipped with ginger. “To keep us going.”
We break off waxy chunks and continue walking, mostly in silence, lost in our thoughts, connected through interlaced fingers. It’s an easy silence, easier than all the antagonistic chatter at home, easier than questions. And the walk helps the stiffness between my thighs, each step flexing me back to normality.
DINNER TIME. ABOUT THE TIME I’D BE BATHING EVIE. IS
the ability to miss your baby so viscerally, even when you’re supposed to be enjoying a night off, just another of nature’s tricks to make mothers stay at home? It seems to me that if you’re not within touching distance of your baby, she worms her way into your head like a catchy pop song, pokes her little fat fingers into your brain, pulls at your heart, reminds you that child-free freedom is not what you hunger for after all.
I throw on a floral blouse, an old favorite, not something Alice would ever approve of. Not sexy enough, she’d say. Jeans. No heels. I don’t want to dress provocatively. Not now. Besides, this is the country. No one dresses up.
We clatter down the staircase, talking loudly, and walk into the lobby. Oh, I’ve misinterpreted the dress code. The floral sofas sag with sixtysomething couples dressed in Weekend Country Wear, forest green, navy ties, and brass-buttoned blazers. Coiffed heads turn to stare. Joe and I are the youngest and scruffiest people here.
“Not exactly Babington House,” whispers Joe. “Sorry.”
“I’m so pleased it’s not cool. Cool is totally unrelaxing.” Scrutinizing, heavily powdered eyes dart above sherry glasses when they think we’re not looking. “But shall we skip the mingling and just go and eat?”
The dining room is oak-paneled, hung with sentimental Victorian oils. Spotty local teenagers dressed in black and white uniforms hover shyly. The hushed mutterings of the other diners stop as we sit down. Who do they think we are? Out of towners, obviously, a couple on a romantic minibreak? A mother who made out with her Pilates instructor?
“The menu, sir.” The teenage waiter’s hand is red-raw, as if he’s been doing too much washing up.
Joe flicks over the wine list, too flippant for this place. “Ugh, swirly font, practically illegible,” he mutters. Such things affront Joe. “Hmmm. The Cotes du Rhone please. Two glasses of Moét first. Thanks.”
I dig into the hot bread basket. It’s impossible to keep to any type of diet away from home, where the calories don’t seem to count. From the menu I choose grilled goat’s cheese and then, to compensate, honey-glazed salmon.
Joe wants foie gras and steak. He is intent on enjoying himself, holding up his champagne flute for a smart conclusive clink. “If someone had told me I’d be sublimely happy in a naff overpriced country hotel in Sussex a year ago, I’d have laughed,” he says.
It occurs to me that while I feel too guilty to feel happy, I am enjoying Joe’s company more than I have in months.
Joe leans forward. “It’s wonderful to be alone, without the threat of Evie waking up. To be able to really talk.” Ah, he’s been waiting for this face time. I shift on my padded seat. “Don’t you think?”
“Um . . .” This should be my cue, rather than settling into a pseudoromantic meal. Ask him, confront him now, I hear Nicola saying. Ask him the truth about that September day. Clean slate and all that. Instead I say, “Yes, you’re right. It’s a real treat.”
“I know it’s not been easy for you,” Joe says earnestly, negotiating the napkin origami to get to my hand. “What with Evie and everything. I’m just beginning to understand . . . er, why you felt unattractive . . . your hair . . . why you want to Alice yourself up.”
“It’s not about Alice,” I sigh.
“Okay. But it’s about reclaiming yourself, isn’t it? Trying to locate . . . well, the creative, sensual old self, hidden beneath relentless practicalities?”
Starters are slid in front of us. It’s too personal a conversation to have in front of a waiter. I hold back tears by staring intently into the dancing candle flame. It’s amazing that Joe can still do this to me. I think I’m hardened to him and then he peeps inside, understands so well, and it floors me.
“I suppose the thing is that I always thought that
me
saying you were pretty should be enough,” he continues. “I was angry that it wasn’t. And I kind of felt . . .” He stumbles, finding this hard. “A bit left out.”
“If I’d known you wanted to come to Annabel’s baby shower . . .”
Joe laughs, a candle reflected in each iris. “No, God no. I’d implode. But still, you lot are terrible, like a secret society.”
“Not as secret as you,” I say, tracing my fingertip down the sharp edge of the fish knife.
“It doesn’t matter how many nappies I change, maybe I’m physiologically unable to understand. Like you’ll never understand how a clutch works, or the genius of New Order.” He frowns, features drooping. “I don’t get why you’re so keen to ‘get back into shape’ and all that nonsense. Why not just embrace this period in your life? I mean, who gives a shit?”
“I give a shit.”
“It’ll always be unfathomable to me why you care so much.”
“As you said, it’s something about reclaiming the old me. Listen . . .” I huddle forward, stumbling for an explanation. “Lots of women cope superbly well with having a baby. For some reason I was useless. It sent me into a tailspin . . . and . . .” I give the sentence up. The fish knife isn’t sharp enough to cut my skin.
“You are an excellent mother. That’s what matters.”
I shrug, knowing different, knowing I’ve been unfaithful both to him, and also, by proxy, Evie. Because I’ve threatened the stability of her world. I set out to be the kind of mother who threw everything into motherhood but I’m evidently not that person. I have distracting, rogue desires.
Joe sips his champagne thoughtfully, the glass tiny in his huge hand. “Why, Amy? What is it? I just feel there is something that I haven’t understood that you expect me to understand and it’s really frustrating.”
I concentrate on the goat’s cheese melting in my mouth. Silence slips around us like gravy. I can’t speak because I fear if I say anything Josh will find a way of sliding beneath my tongue and jumping onto the table. Joe drops his fork with a clatter. “Oh, I’ll shut up. No more depressing talk. Or we’ll end up like all the other miserable couples in this room who look like they find the floral arrangements more interesting than each other.” He laughs. “The husbands have probably taken their wives for this ‘fine dining’ minibreak to compensate for the fact they’re having affairs with Tracy from accounts during the week.”
Affairs? I jump. How can he mention it so lightly? Then, with an almost physical jolt of recognition, I realize this has gone on long enough. We can’t pretend anymore. Now is the time. We both deserve to know the truth, no more second-guessing, no more risk aversion. I must confront him. “Joe, you’re . . . right.”
Honesty is always better
. Deep breath. “We must talk. I need to ask you something. . . .”
Joe looks disappointed. He wants to direct this dinner. “Amy, I wanted to ask
you
something.”
Of course. He suspects. Like Kate’s dogs, he just knows on some weird primordial level. “You go first. . . .”
“No, you.”
“Nah . . . go on. Bring it on.” Here it comes. In a millisecond I decide that I can’t lie to Joe. He deserves better. If he asks, I will tell him. I’ll confess the lot.
Joe leans forward, his long back curving over the candle, making an intimate cave of space. “Okay, if that’s what you want. Amy. I’ve been trying to ask you this all day but, well, with one thing and another, the motorway, you needing the loo . . .”
“Sorry.” I smile thinly and steel myself.
“I should have asked ages ago and then we’d understand where we stood a little better. . . .”
I nod. We both should have aired things earlier. At least we wouldn’t be living a lie.
“And I know I haven’t been the best boyfriend in the world. . . .”
Not always, no.
He smiles. “I’m sorry about being so crap, working late and everything. It’s been a pain, I know, but I’ve been working on a new project, to save up for something special. Because sometimes I see this, what we have, slipping away and it terrifies me.” He takes a deep breath, his eyes pooling wide, hand crunching mine tight. “I’d love it so much if . . .” Joe is sweating now, glistening in his laughter lines. He swallows hard.
“Amy Crane, will you marry me?”
THE WORDS HANG ABOVE THE TABLE LIKE HUMMINGBIRDS
. Everything freezes, the waiters, the cutlery clatter. Heads turn and I realize that the restaurant waits with Joe. His eyes are contorted with the stress of the moment, his mouth agape, wanting to mouth my words for me. But I cannot speak. He slides a blue jewelry box shyly across the table, clearing its path of forks and fish knives with shaking hands. I pick it up, this unexpected velvet box, click it open. On a cushion of blue silk is a square-cut diamond suspended on a simple platinum band. It’s exquisite. I hear a cloud of “ahhs” coming from other diners. But I can’t look up, not knowing where to look, or what to think.
“Do you . . . li . . . like it?” stutters Joe.
I nod, swimmy, mouth soaking with saliva. And I want to smile but can’t. My stomach trapezes and the blood rushes from my head.
“Amy? Are you okay?”
And then they come. Not little sweet feminine tears. Oh no. Globules, dollops, heaving out involuntarily, shudders of guilt and shock. I try to smile and brush them off with a wave of the hand but my body isn’t having it, convulsing and sobbing and creating a terrible scene.
“Sorry . . . ,” I gulp.
Joe, aghast, reaches for my hand across the table. “Hey . . . it’s okay . . . shit . . . sorry.”
Flapping my tear-soaked napkin against my eyes, the restaurant fuzzes at the edges and I feel faint. “No, I’m sorry. . . .” A waiter hovers awkwardly into view. Diners stare. And the tears keep coming. I can’t get my breath. I’m shaking. “God do . . . do . . . you . . . mind if I clean myself up?”
“No, absolutely. Do what you have to do.” Joe looks slightly shaken. “Shall I come, too?”
“I need to be alone for a minute.” Heads track the exit of the most terrible, unworthy person in the entire world as she makes her way to the ladies’. I stand in front of the mirror and splash cold water on my blotchy face. Marry me? Who’d marry me? Breathe. Breathe. I’ve fucked up. Eventually I lean back against the sprigged pink wallpaper, spent, strangely purged.
In the restaurant, Joe fiddles with the cutlery while the other diners talk about him in funereal whispers. He looks relieved to see me. “If I’d known I’d have that effect . . .”
“I am so
so
sorry. I don’t know what happened. . . .” I huddle forward in my chair. “Or what to say. What a mess.”
“Here, drink this.” Joe passes me a glass of water. And I want to put him on pause. Just to give myself a moment to think. Life couldn’t get any more preposterous.
“Feeling a bit better?” Joe strokes my arm, which is gallant, considering.
“God, I’m sorry.”
“Stop apologizing. You’ve got nothing to feel sorry for.”
I gag on the water.
“Do you want to go upstairs?”
“Not sure I can face this audience for much longer. Would you mind?”
Joe signs a bill—the waiter avoids eye contact—and we walk out of the hushed restaurant self-consciously, the little blue box a bomb in my handbag. All politeness lost in the urgency of getting the last look, the diners stare brazenly. We are probably the most dramatic thing to have happened in this restaurant, ever. Upstairs on our big four-poster bed, Joe and I lie down. Joe can’t keep still. There is a question to be answered.
I hold the ring up to the bedside light’s dusty halo. “I love it, Joe.”
“You do?” he says, disbelieving.
“Yes, yes . . . it’s extraordinary.” I put my hand on his shoulder, rather awkwardly. I have no script for this. “And I am absolutely dumbfounded. I had no idea!”
Joe looks up at me shyly. That look, for months I’ve interpreted it as a guilty look. Perhaps it’s not. Perhaps it’s a sweet coy look. “I wanted a new start, Amy.”
More tears. He brushes them away gently. “You get amazing eyelashes when you cry.”
“There’s a beauty tip.”
Joe folds me into his newly washed shirt against the beat of his chest, solid and certain after the reckless abandon of the last week. I try to swipe away the deceit that sways above this romantic moment like a column of midges. Will Joe be faithful? Can he be faithful? Perhaps I am better off cutting out now, making myself strong, single, and sexy, protecting myself against more hurt, against the pain of his leaving. Marriage didn’t stop Dad leaving Mum, did it?
