Chapter 24
MARY
I had another cryptic message from Sofia, asking if I was around on Saturday, to which the answer was, unsurprisingly, yes.
Sofia
Fab! We’ll pick you up at ten x
Mary
Any hints? Dress code? Pushchair or papoose? Snacks?
Sofia
Nope
Once Bob woke up, I had plenty of time to do a half-hearted tidy-up, shoving all the costume stuff in the dining room.
While he enjoyed his morning snooze, I showered and dressed in my most versatile outfit, which was wide-legged jeans with a stretchy waist and a smart bottle green cashmere jumper that Shay had given me after deciding it was too baggy on her.
I could fit into about half of my pre-pregnancy clothes now.
While I loved having a change from leggings and joggers, it did feel daunting, as if this was another step out of my self-imposed hibernation.
I packed up a bag for Bob, checked I’d got my purse and a water bottle, and sat fretting until a car pulled up at ten past eleven, and the coffee mums tumbled out.
The moment I opened the door, they spilled inside, with various cries of greeting, hugs and smiles.
‘Am I allowed to ask what this is yet?’ I asked, the trepidation clear in my voice.
‘Didn’t Sofia tell you?’ Rosie asked, shaking her head at her friend. ‘What about the no secrets rule?’
‘This isn’t a secret. It’s a fun surprise,’ Sofia retorted.
‘Look at the poor woman. Does she look like she’s having fun?’ Rina said, putting a sympathetic arm around my shoulder. ‘Go on, Li. It was your idea. You tell her.’
‘It’s Li’s birthday spa day!’ Li held out her hands like an old-fashioned game show hostess showcasing a prize.
‘I’m pretty sure babies still aren’t allowed in spas,’ I said.
‘They are in Li’s birthday spa,’ Li said, beaming.
‘Come on, the rest of us have got a child-free day,’ Rosie said. ‘No offence, Mary, but I for one don’t want to waste a minute.’
‘I don’t think I’ve got a swimming costume. Or a birthday present for Li.’
‘Not a problem. We guessed as much,’ Rina said. ‘It’s all sorted. Cossie, robe, slippers, and the present is your presence. Off we go.’
And then I was bundled out of the door and into Sofia’s people carrier while still trying to get my second boot on.
Once Bob was strapped in beside me, and Rosie’s DJ husband’s ‘Cracking Good Christmas Crackers’ playlist was turned up high enough to drown out the caterwauling to ‘One More Sleep’, they confessed that the spa was back at Li’s house.
She’d only come to pick me up because she wanted to see the look of joy on my face.
I apologised for her wasted trip and tried to look suitably excited.
‘Itinerary for the day,’ Li announced after insisting the music was turned off so we could pay attention.
‘Brunch upon arrival, followed by hot tub, then Ellie and Kendra will do treatments. We’ve a winter-themed afternoon tea and time for more hot-tubbing, Jacuzzi, nap room or gym.
We’re missing a pool, and the sauna and steam-room stuff, but you can always sit in the airing cupboard or turn the fire up until we start sweating, if it’ll make more of an authentic spa experience. ’
‘Li, I have never been to a spa,’ Sofia said. ‘You could have stopped at brunch and I’d be happy. Mary, have you done a spa day before?’
I had. Our ShayKi directors’ away days had often involved sipping prosecco in fluffy robes by the side of a pool while discussing five-year goals and brainstorming future plans.
None of these future plans had featured an argument so ferocious that one director packed her bags and fled the company, her apartment and twenty years of friendship, never to be seen again.
The next six hours were as heavenly as any high-end luxury spa could be.
Even better, because we had the whole place to ourselves so didn’t have to bother about things like overly hairy, overly friendly men climbing into the hot tub and interrupting our conversation, having to queue for fresh towels or feel guilty about bagsying the good loungers.
Li had arranged for a private caterer to serve us all brunch. We had pastries and coffee, followed by eggs and smoked salmon on sourdough and pots of berries with a bite-sized pancake on the side.
We then spent a long time sipping mocktails in the hot tub on Li’s patio, gazing at the fields stretching out across the valley beyond her garden, not another living soul in sight.
I had a massage and a facial with Kendra, and it felt as though, for the first time since discovering I was pregnant, every muscle in my body was able to breathe out and relax.
‘I think my bones have turned into marshmallow.’ I sighed, sinking into an orangery sofa and eyeing up the mugs of soup the caterer had just brought in to accompany the platter of warm cheese scones with lashings of butter.
Rina, cuddling Bob on the opposite chair, smiled. ‘You look like a whole new woman.’
‘I think I am one,’ I replied ruefully. ‘Or, at least, becoming her. It’s as if I’ve been in a cocoon since moving to the forest. My old identity, all the things I thought were important about myself that gave me value, have dissolved into caterpillar mush.
When Bob was born, I genuinely had no idea if anything in the mush was salvageable.
I had no idea who I was now, let alone how to be her. ’
‘It’s huge,’ Li said, helping herself to a mug.
‘Becoming a mum is taking on a whole new identity, but most of us get to keep enough of our old one to still hang on to our true selves, even as they inevitably change and grow. You were in a whole new place, with nothing and no one from before to anchor you. How did you not completely lose the plot?’
I gave a wry laugh. ‘I’m not sure I didn’t, for a few weeks there. But you, the Christmas Twins entrusting me with this new project?—’
‘Beckett,’ Rosie chipped in with a smirk.
‘Beckett,’ I conceded. ‘You all helped me realise that maybe I’m not a catastrophic failure, despite all the evidence.’
I took a thoughtful sip of tomato and lentil soup.
‘I might even end up liking this version of myself more than before. I grew up being told constantly that I wasn’t good enough, because I didn’t care about the right things.
I then spent my twenties trying to be this badass, ultra-successful businesswoman, so no one would notice I was a woefully unremarkable girl from Sheffield scrambling to keep up with her highly impressive friends. Then I met Bob’s dad.’
Everyone suddenly leant forwards in their seats.
‘And I tried being someone else again. Spontaneous, carefree. Adventurous.’ I shook my head.
‘Only that was worse. I felt as if I was playing a role that really didn’t suit me.
But when it all imploded, I got the chance to rebuild from scratch, to create whatever kind of life I want for me and Bob.
I’ve decided I love the countryside. Hanging out with inspirational women who seem to be perfectly content with being themselves.
I think I’d like to plant some vegetables.
And make my own cushions. I still need loads more time and space to figure things out, but in my grotty little cottage, I’ve got that.
So, in answer to your question, Li, I don’t think I had a true self to hang on to.
I’m finally starting to get to know her, and it feels pretty good. ’
‘That’s wonderful,’ Sofia said. ‘I happen to think you’re very impressive.
I’ve never lived more than a few miles from my family, and have been with Moses since I was a teenager, so I can’t imagine having to pick up all the pieces and start again.
Also, please can I have a cushion? Your sewing is pure art. ’
‘When you’ve finished all that, you should consider your new life including politics,’ Rosie said. ‘Or working for MI5.’
‘What?’ Rina screwed up her nose in confusion. ‘What do cushions have to do with politics?’
‘Nothing,’ Rosie replied. ‘But giving a speech like that and still managing to reveal literally nothing whatsoever about your entire life, apart from that you lived in Sheffield, is what impressed me.’
‘Maybe today isn’t the day to be sharing all that,’ Sofia said.
‘However.’ She paused to look at me. ‘If and when you want to share anything, because you’ve obviously been through something significant this past year, please know that every woman here has faced situations that certainly felt catastrophic at the time. ’
‘I think we should share.’ Li put up her hand. ‘Coffee mums have no secrets, and it feels weird you all knowing and Mary not. I want her to feel like properly one of us, not a hanger-on. I mean, that’s if you want to know, of course?’
Did I want the chance to feel like less of a hanger-on for once in my life?
Oh, my goodness. My lunch went cold while I cried.
‘Right,’ Li said once she’d finally given in and let Sofia reheat my soup, because it was Li’s house but also her birthday, and these were the type of women who tussled over who got to be kindest. ‘I’ll go first.’
She took a deep breath.