Chapter 30
It’s amazing what a difference a swim makes. The sun is shining and the village looks beautiful as Kate heads back towards home after her swim, spring flowers blooming in the hanging baskets and someone browsing the stacks of second-hand books in the repurposed telephone box.
She pauses for a moment, leaning against a wall and sending a selfie she took of herself by the river to her old Brockwell Lido friends.
Their replies come in quickly.
Jermaine: Wow, looks amazing!
Frank: You’ll have to take us when we come to visit – because we promise we will come to visit soon. We’re hopefully hiring a new member of staff so we’ll actually be able to leave the bookshop sometimes!!
Hope: You l0ok so happy. Rosemary wOuLd be proud of yOu.
Kate looks at the photo again. She does look happy.
It’s not just the swim and her new friends who have put her in a brighter mood. After opening up to Jay yesterday, she woke this morning feeling lighter. As she rolled over to check on Rosie, she didn’t necessarily feel any differently towards her – she still looked like a very sweet little stranger – but the guilt about her feelings had lessened. Maybe Jay was right and those feelings will come in time. And maybe the fact she hasn’t felt them yet doesn’t mean she’s a bad mother, just that she’s falling in love in her own way, in her own time.
She continues on towards home, glancing in at the shops on the village high street. There’s a little greengrocer with a striped awning that makes her think of Rosemary and her husband George, who Kate never got to meet but who she heard many stories about, including about the family fruit and veg shop he ran in Brixton. As she approaches the Cosy Corner Café, she lets herself glance inside the window. And as she does, she spots a collection of prams. Making a sudden decision, she pushes open the door of the café.
The group of women look up as she approaches. ‘Kate?’ says one of the women hesitantly.
They look the same as before, nursing coffees and babies and sporting messy buns and tired smiles. But this time, Kate feels different.
‘Yes, that’s me. Hi, Lexi. I spotted you all and thought I’d come and say hello.’
‘It’s nice to see you again. No Rosie today?’
Kate is touched that she remembered both her name and the name of her daughter.
‘I’m having a baby-free morning today. Is it still OK if I join you, though?’
‘Of course it is!’ Lexi gestures at a free chair and the other women budge up to make room for her around the table. They smile at her warmly.
‘I realise I was pretty rude the last time we met, to just leave like that and not come back. I thought I should come and explain. The truth is, I’ve been finding it really hard since Rosie was born.’
As soon as the words are out, all the others follow easily, as though saying the first bit has unstopped a cork and everything else just comes pouring out. The other mothers listen intently as Kate opens up and tells them everything. Mum buns bob up and down as the other women nod at her words. Occasionally, a baby’s cry or babbling interrupts, but the women keep listening and Kate keeps going, sharing the troubles she has had with building a connection with Rosie, her doubts about herself as a mother, the frequent nightmares she’s had about the birth and, most of all, the way she has been beating herself up for feeling all of these things.
‘I just sometimes feel like I’m getting it all wrong. So, I think when I came to this group that first time, I found it all a bit overwhelming. You all seem to know what you’re doing.’
Once she’s finished, she feels exhausted but lighter too. She’s ready to stand up and leave the women to it now she’s said what she needed to say, but to her surprise, Lexi lets out a loud laugh.
‘You think we know what we’re doing?’ She raises her eyebrows and shakes her head, her messy blonde ponytail swishing. ‘I haven’t got a clue!’
One of the women beside her who Kate remembers as Mabel’s mum bursts suddenly into tears. Holding her baby in one arm, she reaches for a paper napkin on the table with the other, wiping her face as she continues to bob her child up and down on her knee.
‘I’m sorry,’ she says between sobs. ‘I just can’t believe you’ve been feeling that way too. I thought it was just me. I know I should be feeling so happy, but there’s so much I miss about my old life and I feel like I can’t say that, because it’s not that I don’t want Mabel – I love her so much! – but sometimes I wish I could have even just one day of my old life again and not have any of this worry or responsibility.’
Kate can’t quite believe what she’s hearing. All this time, she thought this group wasn’t for her.
‘There’s so much stuff like that, isn’t there?’ chips in the twins’ mother, balancing one on each hip. ‘Stuff you don’t say about how hard this all is because you don’t want anyone to judge you for it, or to think you’re not grateful for what you have.’
‘Why don’t we say it all now?’ Kate suggests, feeling a butterfly spread its wings and flutter in her stomach. ‘If you’re happy to, that is?’
The women don’t need encouraging. One by one, as they sip their cappuccinos and hold their children, the women share their stories – their true stories. The woman who has been getting therapy to deal with PTSD following a traumatic birth and still can’t go back to the hospital where her son was born. The occasional fantasies about running away to a tiny cottage by the sea where absolutely no one could follow you. All the times that they have doubted themselves and their roles as mothers, feeling as though they are getting it all wrong.
Eventually, once the tears have stopped and hugs and smiles have been shared, Kate asks something that has been bothering her since she first met the group.
‘One thing I didn’t get to do last time I was here was learn all your names.’
As babies are bounced on knees and rocked in arms, Kate gets to know Lexi, Jess, Sophie and Olivia. Women who exist in their own right beyond their children, even if at times they might forget it. She learns that Lexi runs her own marketing business and Jess used to compete in triathlons and is just getting back into running, Sophie is a chemical engineer and Olivia went to the same university as Kate and her passion is roller skating.
And, most important of all, she realises that they have all been in, if not the exact same position as her, then something very similar. They have all struggled and done what they can to get by, which has often meant keeping the truth about their feelings hidden. They have all felt desperate at times, lonely, and afraid. But they are all still here, rocking and nursing their babies while also trying to maintain relationships with their partners and friends and return to work and maybe get back to exercising or perhaps contemplate an evening out one day soon, even if they will have to leave by nine because otherwise they might fall asleep in a pub corner. They’re all exhausted but trying their best.
One by one, the babies start to get restless until a Mexican wave of crying spreads around the group and the women begin to gather their things to leave, but not before exchanging phone numbers. As Kate says goodbye to them all, she can’t believe how close she suddenly feels to these women that she had been so nervous about seeing again. Last time, the conversation had felt at times as though they were competing to win the prize of best mother. But now Kate can see how much of it was just a front, a way of protecting themselves. And that these women aren’t her competition. They’re her teammates.
Just before she leaves the café, a thought enters Kate’s mind and she pauses to ask a final question.
‘Have any of you ever tried wild swimming?’