The Pick Up

Chapter 1

There’s a trespasser in my bedroom. I snap my eyes shut and play dead but alas my daughter Lila, destroyer of circadian rhythms, is now inching under the duvet. And so here we are dancing the dawn dance again, I realise reluctantly. I can but hope that she’ll retreat to her own bedroom until the clock strikes a more acceptable hour of the morning. Six a.m., maybe? Imagine sleeping until seven, I think wistfully as I take an elbow to the ribcage, Lila now attempting to scale me like a mountain.

It’s a surprise to no one that playing dead is proving unsuccessful. My four-year-old housemate has started shrieking ‘MUMMY’ as she claws my eyes open with a force that belies her small-person size. With my eyelids unceremoniously peeled back, I spot the alarm clock next to my bed.

‘It’s five a.m.,’ I mumble through the fog of interrupted sleep. ‘Go back to your room.’ But Lila laughs in the face of instructions and today, she’s bought ammo. I must immediately admire the Duplo train set she has reverentially placed on the bed.

‘Isn’t it the best train ever? Mummy, look! Mummy? MUMMY!’ – more urgency – ‘LOOK.’

I dutifully look.

‘What’s your favourite bit?’ she probes.

It’s a challenge to muster enthusiasm for a stack of brightly coloured blocks at the best of times, more so at five a.m.

‘The blue bit?’ I suggest. Unfortunately my child is finely tuned to being fobbed off and is not pleased that I am yet to engage in the labour of love that is three plastic carriages adorned with a Duplo cat.

‘No.’ She shakes her head, tufts of blond standing on end.

Silly me, I’ve got my own opinions wrong again.

‘The red bit,’ I reply with what I hope is more conviction this time.

I am wrong.

Lila flicks on the bedside light to add a bit of blinding to this morning’s torture regime. She has her arms folded and a frown across her face, which means that the toddler tightrope has begun already. One false move from me could send the entire day into a string of seismic meltdowns. What I should do is explain calmly that toys have no place in my bed in the middle of the night and insist politely but firmly that she bugger off back to sleep (or similar).

And yet. No amount of positive parenting can prepare for the concrete stubbornness of four-year-olds. Lila is a tiny assassin with cherub cheeks. A miniature emperor who rules our roost with an iron fist. So, while I’d love to announce that I’m the one in charge around here, that would be a stonking lie. Instead, I pull myself up in bed and blurrily admire the plastic tat until she is happy because I am a great big pushover.

‘I am a morning person. I am a morning person,’ I mutter unconvincingly, eventually lurching out of bed to turn the heat on, my feet crunching over more discarded toys on the floor as I move. The irony is that I actually did used to be a morning person. Before Lila crash-landed on the scene I’d hop out of bed and enjoy a sunrise yoga class before work like a smug tosser. Not for the first time, I find myself wondering if the Sunrise Sophie of old was all a fever dream.

Three hours later and I’m having heart palpitations. After Duplo at Dawn, the morning had stretched ahead, long and languid, to be filled with plaiting hair and hosting a teddy bear picnic. Now at eight a.m., quite suddenly and with just thirty minutes until we need to leave the house, Lila has announced that today is World Environment Day at school.

I stop plaiting and freeze. Since she started at St Barnaby’s last September I’ve learned that any kind of ‘day’ requires parental input. Bloody days. As if we don’t have enough on our plates. I don’t remember reading about this one, though. I try my best to keep up with the sheer amount of school admin but the emails are so very long and then there’s the app, the text message system and the class WhatsApp to monitor too. Sometimes, at the end of the day, I pour myself a glass of wine simply to celebrate not developing a stomach ulcer from the pressure of it all.

‘World Environment Day?’ I ask, attempting casual as I scroll through my phone for clues.

Ooh here’s the email. Parents and carers, et cetera. I skim through. World Environment Day blah blah. Please help your child craft something which represents looking after our planet. Our suggestions include making bees out of recycled cardboard, growing seeds in flower pots or how about getting adventurous by crafting a set of scales with the world in balance? Fossil fuels on one side and trees planted on the other!

‘Craft something,’ I mumble, checking the time. Quite clearly I cannot grow a plant in half an hour.

‘Yes, Mummy.’ Lila beams. ‘We need to make something to take in.’

She drops the bombshell casually, a mouth full of Weetabix, her hopeful eyes trained on me. ‘Oscar says he’s made a fruit bowl out of recycled magazines.’

I know it’s wrong to formulate strong opinions on four-year-olds but Oscar, quite clearly, is a douche. He can’t pick his own nose without getting his finger stuck up there so I imagine his mum Celeste, Queen Bee at the school gates, has delegated making this alleged fruit bowl to his long-suffering nanny.

‘Right-o!’ I plaster on my best competent mother smile. ‘Let’s draw a picture of the planet.’

Lila gives me the kind of sassy look that makes me wonder whether she is secretly a teenager already.

‘Drawing’s boring.’

‘Painting, then?’ It’s a last-ditch attempt. I usually try to avoid it because of the hellish mess.

‘YES!’ She claps, thrilled, and my heart squeezes for her. Note to self: let small child paint occasionally. As I pull out the paint stuff from a cupboard that Lila can’t reach herself, I see that my phone is flashing with a warning about train delays. I’m meeting potential new clients in Bath later this morning and I cannot be late for the pitch. Normally I’d drive but my car’s in for a service and URGHHHH would it be too much to ask for things to run smoothly for once? I take a breath and tell myself not to panic. It’s all going to be okay because I’m a morning person.

Just multi-task the heck out of it, Sophie!

So as I call out words of artistic encouragement to Lila and she splatters green splodges onto paper at the kitchen table, I check train times online. There’s an earlier train leaving from Bristol Temple Meads and if I can get on that, I should make it to Bath in time. But what about school drop-off? I cannot physically do both. Do I tear off an arm so that Lila still has my hand to hold on the walk to school?

What I really need is back-up.

I pick up my phone and dial my little sister’s number.

Poppy answers instantly and with characteristic enthusiasm. ‘SOPHIE! How do you feel about cruffins?’

‘Erm, ambivalent?’

She sucks in her breath before brushing this apparent slur aside. ‘I’ve got good news for you,’ she chirrups.

I feel bad that I don’t have time for Poppy’s pastry chat or, indeed, her good news.

‘Pop, I’m SO SORRY to do this but could you take Lila to school this morning?’

‘Sure, I’m actually just around the corner from you. At that new bakery? Would you like a coffee cream cruffin or not, sis, because I’m telling you now they look insane.’

‘Well, yes please but only if you can be here in the next … five mins?’

‘Literally at the till now.’

‘Oh thank god! You’re an angel,’ I exhale.

‘Everything okay?’

‘Train delays. Big meeting. Need to get to the station asap.’

‘Okay, take a breath. The cruffins and I will be with you soon.’

My first mistake was leaving Lila unattended with paints while I raced upstairs to throw laptop and work notes into a bag. My second was choosing a dry-clean-only white silk shirt to wear for the meeting. As I rush back into the kitchen, Lila proudly thrusts the artwork at me and I watch helplessly as still-wet paper collides with bright white silk, leaving a smear of sewerage green across my formerly pristine outfit.

‘Messy Mummy,’ Lila tuts as I paw at my ruined outfit.

I’m trying very, very hard not to swear when Poppy, who does not arrive places quietly, bursts into the kitchen.

My little sister stuffs a cruffin into my hand and looks alarmed at my outfit.

‘Please tell me you’re going to get changed?’

‘Mummy made a mess,’ Lila states. The argument that it wasn’t me dies on my lips when I see Poppy and Lila sharing a sage look. Poppy plus Lila equals a force I cannot reckon with.

I roll my eyes, halfway up the stairs already, and I hunt out a clean shirt. Black. Much less risky.

Back in the kitchen, I find the two of them making smiley faces out of blueberries on the table.

‘Are you picking me up from school today, Mummy?’ Lila asks.

‘I sure am.’

‘Sidney’s dad brings sweets to pick-up …’

What a dickhead.

Wordlessly, I proffer the treat tin which is filled with things labelled ‘organic’, ‘natural’ and ‘made from real fruit’, catnip for the middle-class mum market. I buy them even though Lila has questionable opinions on what is acceptable to eat. Crisps off the floor? Sure, why not. Vegetables? Don’t be ridiculous.

‘They taste like mud.’

Says the child who literally consumed mud between the ages of one and two.

‘Mummy’s not a big fan of sweets,’ I attempt to push back, even though I am running late and a regrettable three coffees down before nine in the morning. ‘Ooh look, this one’s blackcurrant!’ I wave an organic bar around like it’s a Fabergé egg in the hope that I’ll elicit some interest.

Lila looks mutinous. Poppy sighs demonstrably.

‘What’s wrong with sweets at pick-up?’ Poppy whispers when Lila stomps off to find her school jumper.

‘You try putting a young child to bed when she’s jacked up on sugar! It’s like trying to wrestle an octopus into a pair of trousers. Anyway, I’m just looking out for her and her tiny little milk teeth.’

‘You’ve got your crazy mum look going on again,’ Poppy points out. ‘Oh, speaking of crazy mums, that bonkers one with the big hair and the posh accent was talking about her son Oscar’s birthday party last time I was at drop-off. Lila didn’t get an invite when I was there, any chance it came to you?’

I pause, deflated, and shake my head.

Poppy pats my arm. ‘Okay, well, don’t stress. It’s early days and there’s loads of time for her to get invited to stuff.’

I’m irritated now by the fact that Poppy’s touched a nerve, and I say a little too sharply: ‘I have got to go!’

‘Before you do, I have good news. I was trying to tell you on the phone. You have a date tonight.’ Poppy produces jazz hands. My stomach lurches.

‘Can’t, I’m busy.’ I grab my bag.

‘Doing what?’

‘Being a mother?’ Right on cue, Lila bounds back in. She’s accessorised her school uniform with the Santa hat I’ve been trying to prise out of her hands since 26 December. It’s now February.

‘I can babysit,’ Poppy announces.

‘OH YES AUNTIE POPPY I LOVE IT WHEN YOU STAY OVER!’

She’s got my daughter on board, the wily devil.

‘I don’t want to,’ I whisper through gritted teeth. This will be the third blind date this month that Poppy has set me up on and I can safely say that they have all been dreadful. The crux of the problem is that Poppy’s convinced I need to ‘find love’ again and I feel very much that I have been there, done that and burnt the T-shirt.

Poppy opens up some garish games app on her phone, designed solely to turn small children’s brains into complete mush. She hands it to Lila and I’m in too much of a dash to argue.

‘This guy is perfect for you,’ Poppy says as she follows me into the hallway. ‘He’s called Paul, I met him at the gym and he is very fit. He’s thirty-four and I’ve already told him about your divorce. I’m really excited about this one, sis.’

I’d love to launch into a lengthy diatribe about precisely why I don’t want to go on yet another hell-date but the clock is ticking so I take the more adult approach of plugging my fingers into my ears, pretending I can’t hear her, and am out of the door with a coffee cream cruffin and my marbles hanging by a thread.

I get a real buzz from pitching my business consultancy services to new clients. While day-to-day life can be hectic to say the least, when I’m at work I just get it. I’m confident and knowledgeable. I think, if I’m honest, work is where I feel the most safe and secure too. There are no nasty surprises here. No matters of the heart to send me spiralling. It’s all cold hard facts, and that’s exactly how I like it.

The Bath clients own an art gallery but footfall at the shop is low and their website is a creaking relic of the mid-noughties. In steps me, Sophie Rogers, Business Consultant! Today I’m pitching a bespoke advice service where customers can upload pictures of their homes from anywhere across the world and get advice from the art experts on what and where they should display their work.

I find the owners, a chic couple named Arnaud and Alec (all beige outfits and colour-pop spectacles), at their gallery with five minutes to spare. Boom!

We meet, we greet, we shake hands and head through to their office at the back of the gallery. I smooth down my trouser suit and grab a seat, pleased that they’d have no clue I was in such a dishevelled state just a few hours ago.

‘Loving the stylish tattoo, Sophie,’ Arnaud says with a glimmer in his eye as I roll my sleeves up.

The protestation that I don’t have any tattoos falls short when I look down to see Elsa from Frozen half-peeling off my arm. Damn it. Lila had insisted upon it last night, and she didn’t do the best job, so I now have a peeling Disney character dangling about my elbow crease. How did it not come off in the shower this morning?

‘Ah. I’m just grateful my daughter didn’t make a case for the real thing.’ I smile.

It turns out Arnaud and Alec are expecting twins via surrogate later this year so talk turns excitedly to the baby years. This is perfect, I think, sharing some anecdotes about being a mum before leading the conversation back to how I can help them.

‘There’s no doubt you’ll have your hands full,’ I say, whizzing through the presentation, buoyed up by their enthusiasm. ‘Affordable art is having a moment right now and I think we should look at that market, too. People are shopping less these days but they are shopping with heart, and as a phase two, I’d suggest we start looking at some up-and-coming artists in the South West who might appreciate a platform to show their work.’

‘Yes,’ says Arnaud, up and out of his seat. ‘I love it. Obviously Alec and I will need to discuss your pitch together later but,’ he looks fondly at his partner, ‘I think it’s safe to say you nailed it.’

‘Thank you so much.’ I smile. ‘It’s been a pleasure working on these ideas for you.’

‘We did our research, of course,’ adds Alec. ‘We’d heard all about your success with Mylk It. Who hasn’t been for a coffee in one when in London?’

‘The coolest cafés in town!’ Arnaud adds. ‘We love what you did with the branding there. We had high hopes that you’d come up with some fabulous ideas for us too.’

I feel a little glow of pride at the praise for my old business. Mylk It, a chain of vegan cafés, was booming when I left five years ago. Quite a lot happened five years ago, actually. I learned that my husband did not want the baby I’d just found out I was expecting. What he did want was to carry on having the affair I’d also just found out he was having. We ran the lucrative business together – my idea, my hard graft, his family’s injection of cash to get us started. So I left the business, divorced the husband and left London all in the space of a few months. I moved back to Bristol, where I grew up and where my parents lived, and started afresh. Out of all the big decisions I had to make at that time, quitting the business I had created at university was by far the hardest. Still, my life feels so much richer now. Sure, I’d love to still be involved with Mylk It, but there’s no way I could work with Mark after what happened. And I cannot imagine my life in London now. Bristol is busy and bustling and full of new life for me.

I’m at Bath train station buying a peppermint tea when an alarming message from Poppy comes through.

Don’t forget about Paul tonight!

7pm that swanky restaurant near The Triangle where the footballers go.

You know it?

I do know it. Very posey and wildly not my scene. I sigh into my hot drink. Poppy’s still going.

Dress UP.

Actually don’t worry I’ll bring outfit options with me later.

Have promised to take Lila out for tea so you can’t get out of the date LOVE YOU X

And just like that, peaceful work mode has been shattered. I frown and check the time. At least I’ll be back in Bristol on time for school pick-up.