Chapter 7
The walls in the nursery are a bright lido blue, matching the paint of the beach-house-shaped bookcase in the corner. On a hanger on the back of the door is the tiniest pink swimsuit – a gift from Kate’s lido friends that is as yet unused. This is one of Kate’s favourite rooms in the cottage. She decorated it the day after moving in, before even unpacking the kitchen crockery. Jay kept telling her that it didn’t matter, the baby wasn’t going to care about the colour of the walls, but she was determined to make everything perfect.
She takes a photo of the room now, careful to cut out the nappies and piles of washing she is busy folding, Rosie asleep in a sling on her chest, and instead capturing the bright corner where sunlight streams onto a rocking chair covered in the rainbow blanket given to her by her friends Emma and Leonie when Rosie was born.
Opening her Work Wives WhatsApp group, she sends the picture to them.
In pride of place. It looks so lovely in here and always makes me think of you both xx
The replies come in quickly.
Emma: It looks great! Good choice, Rosie’s godmothers!
Leonie: Yeah, well done us. That kiddo’s lucky to have such style icons as aunties.
Kate sets down the laundry so she can focus on her phone, checking first that Rosie is still sleeping soundly in the sling. She selects a couple of the most recent photos of Rosie and sends them to the group.
Emma: Ah, isn’t she perfect!!
Leonie: She looks sooo much like Jay.
It’s what absolutely everyone has been saying to her since her daughter was born. It was the very first thing that her mum said when she met her new granddaughter. Kate never says anything. Because Rosie does look exactly like her father.
Kate types quickly with one hand.
Tell me what’s going on at work, I’m bored …
Emma is the first to reply again. You’re not missing out on much, don’t worry. Just a normal day in the newsroom.
But Kate knows there is no such thing as a normal day in the newsroom. No two days are the same, which is one of the things she loves about working at the Herald. Compiling the next day’s stories, you feel as though you’re at the heart of things, in the place where everything is happening. There’s always this buzz and sense of energy, partly from all the journalists like her and her friends busily doing interviews and typing away in the same open-plan office and partly from the sense that in the newsroom, nothing is ever certain. Things can change at the last minute if a story suddenly breaks or the editor changes her mind about what stories they’ll be leading with. It keeps you constantly on your toes. OK, it can be exhausting sometimes and when Kate said goodbye to her colleagues on her last day before her maternity leave, she’d been happy to leave, looking forward to a break from the relentlessness of it all after years of working hard to climb her way up the rickety journalism career ladder. But now …
You have to give me more than that. I just watched three hours of Gilmore Girls and am now folding laundry.
After Lydia left, Jay headed back out to the studio to carry on working, leaving Kate and Rosie in front of the TV.
Not gonna lie,types Leonie, that sounds kind of dreamy
Emma: Yeah, take me to Stars Hollow NOW please. Although maybe pass on the laundry …
Leonie: I’d even take the laundry. You know I find it soothing. P.S. Lorelai forever!
Kate: I used to think there was no such thing as too much Gilmore Girls, but I think my brain might be turning to pumpkin-spiced mush. Is it just me or is it somehow always autumn in Stars Hollow? What are you both working on today?
There’s a pause and Kate stares at her phone, waiting for the replies to come in and give her just a glimpse of the life that was hers up until recently. Is this how smokers feel before their next cigarette? Please, just one drag, one hit of the sounds and atmosphere of the bustling newspaper office.
Lately, most of her conversations have been with Jay, and although maybe they used to talk about politics and social issues, now they mostly discuss their daughter’s bowel movements and sleep patterns. The person she spends most of her time with is Rosie and she might be cute, but she’s an absolutely terrible conversationalist.
The notifications ping and Kate’s heart leaps.
Emma: So sorry, Kate, but Big Boss has just called an all-hands meeting, looks like there’s a story breaking. Gotta go!
Leonie: Give that sweet girl a kiss from us! Xx
Kate abandons the laundry for good and sinks down into the rocking chair in the corner, pushing herself back and forth in order to keep Rosie asleep. If her friends are going to give her nothing, then she’ll just have to turn to Instagram instead.
The first image she sees is of her friend Jermaine on the side of Brockwell Lido, that post-swim smile on his face that Kate recognises because it used to fill her own face every morning. It’s almost as if she can smell the chlorine and feel the sunshine reflecting on the turquoise water.
Below the image from Jermaine’s personal account is one from the bookshop account he runs with his husband Frank. There’s a photo of Sprout sitting in the window, her golden fur practically glowing in the morning sunshine, and a pile of new hardbacks stacked around her to advertise an upcoming event. As well as the second-hand books they specialise in, recently they’ve also started running author events. Kate and Jay went to as many as they could back when they were living in Brixton. Kate even helped hook them up with some of their speakers, recommending experts she’d interviewed for the paper who had new books coming out. She posts a comment, wishing them luck for the event, then continues scrolling.
Her favourite restaurant in Brixton Village has uploaded a new menu and she reads it thoroughly, spending a long time deciding exactly what she would order. There’s a photo in Emma’s Stories of her and Leonie and a few other colleagues at after-work drinks. Kate instantly recognises the décor of the pub just around the corner from the office. She’s been there countless times and can almost smell the craft beer and hear the buzz of the London pub that is busy every night of the week.
Her phone feels like an anchor tethering her to her old life and she grips it tightly, scrolling her way through reminders of the choices she has made.
Until Rosie begins suddenly to cry. Kate puts her phone away and wraps her arms around her daughter, rocking back and forth a little more vigorously.
‘I didn’t mean it,’ she says quietly as she kisses Rosie’s head. ‘I don’t really want to be back there. I’m happy right where I am.’
But Rosie continues to cry, as if she doesn’t really believe her mother’s words.
‘Mum, you do know you don’t have to clean every time you come over, right?’
Within five minutes of Kate’s mother arriving in the cottage that afternoon, she has got the hoover out. Her electric-blue earrings that match the exact blue of her boxy shirt jangle as she leans to unwind the wire and plug it in. Kate watches from the kitchen table, wanting to help but currently tied to her chair as she feeds Rosie. Again.
‘I know that, but I like to be helpful.’
Her mum plugs the hoover in and then stands up, tucking a strand of her sharp grey bob behind one ear. She only recently decided to give up her honey-blonde highlights and let her hair go its natural grey. It suits her. She looks great generally, in tight indigo jeans and colourful trainers, a leopard-print skinny belt giving the outfit a little edge. Kate can’t help but think how much cooler her sixty-three-year-old mother looks than she does. Earlier, she caught a glimpse of herself in the reflection of the microwave and really wished she hadn’t.
‘And you have been helpful. You’ve already made me a cup of tea.’ Kate lifts it up, leaning to one side to take a sip without risking spilling any on Rosie’s head. ‘You’ve done so much for me, Mum.’ Her voice wavers slightly as she says it, going through the endless list of kindnesses in her mind. The day they moved in to the cottage, Kate eight months pregnant, her mum and stepdad Brian had come over to help them unpack, insisting that Kate sit down while they helped Jay with the boxes. When Kate was in labour in the hospital, her mum had used her spare key to the cottage to let herself in and cleaned the house from top to bottom. She’d left a fish pie and a bottle of champagne in the fridge. And the last time she visited, she’d pretty much forced Kate to go and have a lie-down while she watched Rosie. When Kate re-emerged, blurry-eyed, having been pulled suddenly from sleep by a phantom cry that turned out to be just in her imagination, there was a wash in the machine, the bins had been taken out and Rosie was still sleeping soundly.
‘If she wants to do it, why don’t we just let her?’ Jay had said when Kate later talked to him about how she was worried they were taking advantage of her mum’s help. ‘The place does look like a tip and I know the last thing either of us wants to do when we have five minutes is clean it.’ There are so many things Kate could do in those brief pockets of time that occasionally come when Rosie is settled in her basket or with Jay. Wash herself, catch up with the Herald, read a book. Mostly, she just lies down on the carpet and closes her eyes.
‘I don’t know how I’d have got through these past months without you, Mum,’ she says now, her voice properly wobbling.
Her mum abandons the hoover and sits down beside her, reaching for her hand.
‘Oh, sweetheart! You know I’m happy to do it.’
Kate sniffs, wiping her face with her sleeve.
‘Is everything OK?’ Her mother’s forehead furrows into a frown and she places a hand on Kate’s shoulder and gives a little squeeze.
Kate takes a steadying breath, lightly patting Rosie’s back. ‘I’m fine, just a bit hormonal, I think. And tired.’
‘Of course you are. It’s exhausting being a mother. And wonderful, of course,’ she adds hurriedly.
Kate opens her mouth to speak, but the doorbell rings. She goes to stand, but her mum is already leaping up.
‘I’ll get it!’
By the time Miriam returns with Kate’s sister, Erin, in tow, Rosie has finished feeding and fallen asleep in her arms and Kate has readjusted her top. And all the things Kate had for a second considered telling her mum have been neatly folded and pushed to the back of her mind.
‘Look at her!’ Erin says, placing the enormous casserole dish she’d been holding down on the table and heading straight for Rosie.
Kate has become used to this new order of things and waits patiently while her sister gently strokes Rosie’s hair and plants a kiss on her cheek before standing straight again and giving Kate a sideways hug.
‘Hey, sis.’ Kate catches an inhale of her sister’s familiar perfume – a gift every birthday from her sister’s husband, Mark – and feels a rush of comfort. Erin is nine years older than her so has always felt like more than just a big sister to her. The smell of her perfume smells like safety.
Erin opens the fridge and jostles things about to fit the casserole dish inside. ‘Just something to keep you both going. I thought you could do with something hearty. And there’s a bag of 3–6 months clothes in the hallway for Rosie. I figured she’d probably be moving up a size now.’
‘Thank you. You’re the best.’
‘It’s nothing, I needed to go up to the attic to get down some stuff to make a fancy-dress costume for Arlo and the casserole’s just something I threw together with what we had in the fridge.’
Erin is always like this, making out that she’s gone to no effort, like the other day when she dropped by with lanolin nipple cream and wine because she ‘happened to be passing by’ even though their cottage is in the opposite direction to Erin’s work. Or the day a couple of weeks ago when a Sainsbury’s delivery Kate didn’t remember ordering arrived on her doorstep and, after a lengthy discussion with the confused delivery driver, they managed to ascertain that the delivery had been placed by Erin.
Kate has no idea how Erin manages to find the time to look after her little sister alongside running her own business and taking care of two small boys – and somehow manages to look like an off-duty social media influencer in the process. Today, she is dressed in cropped white trousers and a crisp Breton top, a silk scarf tied around her sleek ponytail. Kate only has one child and is pretty certain she forgot to put on deodorant this morning.
She knows that Erin’s life isn’t without its problems. There have been many long phone conversations over the last few years about silly arguments between Erin and Mark where Kate has had to talk her sister down from ringing a divorce lawyer, patiently reminding her of all the great things about her brother-in-law that maybe might outweigh his snoring and his mother.
As a child, Kate idolised her big sister, always thinking of her as glamorous and pretty much perfect. As they’ve both got older, they’ve grown much closer, more like friends than doting little sister and perfect older sister. But Kate knows that since having Rosie, she may have slipped back into putting her sister on a pedestal. But how can she not? Erin has always done it all without complaining, without asking for too much help, without falling apart.
‘I’ll make some more tea,’ Miriam announces. Her mother is of the generation that believes that most of life’s problems can be if not solved, then drastically improved, by a cup of tea. Erin silently gives her arm a tight squeeze and then fetches mugs from the cupboards. ‘Maybe we can have it in the garden? It’s lovely out there.’ Fresh air is the other thing that Miriam believes is a cure-all, and Kate is inclined to agree with her.
She still can’t believe that she is someone who owns a garden, and a proper garden with grass, flower beds, a tree and a view, not the small patch of paving just about big enough to squeeze in a barbecue that constituted the outdoor space of their basement flat in London.
‘Oh, by the way, Kate,’ her mum says as she pours the tea, Erin pulling a packet of biscuits out of her plum leather Mulberry handbag, ‘I just remembered. Last time I came to visit, I popped into that nice café in the village on my way home. You know, the one with all the comfy sofas and that amazing display of cakes. Has a cutesy name …’
‘I know the one,’ she replies, readjusting Rosie in her arms as a pang of pain shoots up her wrist. After a lot of trial and error, she has found a position that seems to keep Rosie slumbering for a decent chunk of time when she falls asleep like this in her arms. It just happens to be a position that’s started to give Kate RSI in her wrists. ‘The Cosy Corner.’ When she first moved to the village, she imagined writing in the café while Rosie napped in the pram. ‘I haven’t had a chance to visit it yet.’
‘Well, when I was there, I saw a group of young mums with their babies. They looked like a really friendly bunch, so I went over to say hello …’
‘You did not, Mum,’ says Erin, rolling her eyes and nibbling a biscuit.
‘What?’ Miriam lifts her eyebrows, looking at her daughters as though she’s completely innocent. ‘I only wanted to say hello and that I had a daughter who had just moved to the area who had a new baby.’
‘Mum! I love you, but did you have to? I’m thirty-two, I don’t need you arranging me playdates!’
‘I just thought it might be good for you to make some friends,’ shrugs Miriam. ‘The women were lovely and say they meet at the same time every week and that everyone’s welcome. They call themselves the Tired Mums Club. They’ve got a flyer up in the café and everything. I know it’s hard work having a newborn, darling, but it might make you feel better to put some real clothes on and get out of the house, you know?’
Kate looks down at what has become her standard outfit of maternity leggings and one of Jay’s old shirts.
‘These are real clothes. And I do get out.’
Her mum and sister look at her and their expressions say it all.
‘I love you, sis, but I’m not certain I’ve seen you in anything other than that shirt of Jay’s since Rosie was born. And the supermarket doesn’t count as “out’’. Maybe Mum has a point.’
‘But I have friends.’
Her heart squeezes as she pictures her last night in London. Jay ordered pizzas and they invited everyone over to join them, squeezed into their tiny flat amongst all the packed boxes. Emma and Leonie caught her up on everything that had happened in the office on her first day of maternity leave. Frank and Jermaine from the bookshop were there too, along with Kate’s friend Jamila and her mother, Hope, a seventy-three-year-old Caribbean woman who Kate counts just as much as a friend as Jamila, both brought into her life by the local lido. She’d had her last swim there earlier that day too and as she said goodbye to the staff, it felt as though she was saying goodbye to far more than just a swimming pool.
Her friends have all been messaging her since she left – even Hope, whose texts are always full of amusing typos because she hasn’t got to grips with the smartphone Jamila bought her yet. Emma and Leonie came for a visit not long after Rosie was born but the others haven’t managed it yet. Frank and Jermaine have the shop, Hope’s hip has been playing up so travelling is difficult for her and Jamila is a central London GP with a school-age daughter. Hopefully, Kate will be able to get to London before long to visit, but right now the thought feels about as realistic as her travelling to the moon.
‘I know you do,’ her mum says gently. ‘But they’re back in London. You need friends here, mum friends. I think it might help.’
‘But I’m doing fine.’
‘I know you are, you’re doing great. But becoming a mother is a huge thing for anyone. You know we will always be here for you, and you have lovely Jay, of course, but you need all the support you can get.’
Kate is reminded of what Lydia said earlier about needing to build a network.
‘Some of the women I met when the boys were Rosie’s age are still some of my closest friends,’ chips in Erin. ‘You know I’m always here to answer any baby-related questions, but my boys are a bit older now. It’s great to have other people going through the same thing as you at the same time.’
Kate wraps her arms around her sleeping daughter.
All the things she hasn’t told them about how she’s really feeling swirl around in her head. The thought of sharing those worries with other women also grappling with similar things makes the tension in her body that’s been building day by day ease slightly.
Maybe they have a point.
‘I’ll think about it. Oh, by the way, Jay has a shoot in Bristol tomorrow. Which means Rosie and I are going to be flying solo. Do you think you’d be able to pop over, Mum?’
Up until now, Jay has been working from home, doing up the studio and taking on some freelance editing work. Kate knew he would have to get back to shoots away eventually and at least this one is just in Bristol, so not too far away, but it still feels daunting. Jay is so good with Rosie, always able to calm her down. And to calm Kate down too.
‘Sorry, sweetheart, but I’m busy tomorrow.’
‘Oh, right. No worries.’
‘I’d offer to help,’ says Erin, ‘but I’ve got a busy day in the office. We’re pitching for a new client.’
It strikes Kate how much she’s come to rely on her family over the past few months. Especially her mum, who has been coming over to visit every couple of days. But of course they wouldn’t be able to carry on like that forever. They can’t always drop everything for her, they have their own lives. She eyes the hoover in the corner, guilt bubbling inside her at how much they’ve both done for her. Has she been taking advantage?
‘Will you be all right?’ her mum asks anxiously.
Kate gives Rosie a little squeeze.
‘We’ll be absolutely fine. It will be nice actually, to have some time, just the two of us.’
She’s been so lucky to have so much help up until now – far more than a lot of people get. It’s time to start learning to cope on her own.