Chapter 16
If the cottage was messy before Jay left for his shoot, after Kate’s first day alone with Rosie, it now looks like a scene from one of those television programmes where people seek professional help to sort out the state of their homes. The kind of programme she used to watch from behind a pillow, cringing at how anyone could live like that. There are books and muslins and toys strewn everywhere, plates of half-eaten food from where Kate made several attempts to eat before being interrupted by her daughter’s cries, and a pile of nappy bags in one corner because she hasn’t found the energy to take them to the outside bin.
Kate reaches for her phone, wondering if it’s too early to call Jay to ask when he’ll be back. He was due home at seven. It is now 7.01.
How is it possible for one single day to feel about three weeks long?
Rosie has been crying non-stop for fifty-seven minutes. Kate has tried everything. Feeding, burping, rocking, holding her in her arms and laying her in her Moses basket. The sound of her crying fills the entire cottage and every space inside Kate’s mind.
She checks the phone again: 7.02. Where is Jay?
‘How about I sing to you?’ she tries. ‘Now, what could I sing …?’ She racks her mind, attempting to recall nursery rhymes from her childhood but coming up with nothing. ‘What kind of mother doesn’t know a single nursery rhyme? I’ll just have to think of something else …’
Which is how she comes to sing ‘Wonderwall’ to her daughter, each chorus getting wobblier and wobblier as her face grows snottier. When she finishes and Rosie is still crying, Kate continues through the very limited repertoire of the songs she knows by heart. Adele’s ‘Someone Like You’. 7.04. The soundtrack to The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. By midway through a Christmas carol pulled from the very recesses of Kate’s mind and her Church of England education, Rosie has finally fallen asleep in her arms and Kate’s face is wet with tears.
At 7.07, the front door opens and Kate rapidly wipes her face, blowing her nose on her sleeve. She leaps up, Rosie thankfully conked out after the exhaustion of her crying session.
‘Hi, honey,’ says Jay as he kicks off his shoes and sets down his camera bags in the hallway. ‘I’ve missed you both, how are you—’
But before he can finish, Kate hands Rosie across to him. ‘Can you take her? I really need the loo.’ She pecks him quickly on the cheek and he nods, somewhat bemused, as Kate dashes upstairs.
Inside the bathroom, she locks the door and sits down heavily on top of the loo seat, pulling out her phone and typing a message in her Work Wives group.
Free for a video call?
She hasn’t spoken to an adult human since her trip to the supermarket that morning. She could, of course, talk to her husband, but he will likely want to hear in detail about Rosie’s every burp and bowel movement and Kate really wants to talk about something else, anything else.
Thankfully, Emma and Leonie reply quickly.
Leonie: Sounds good, just back from work, so perfect timing x
Emma: Yes! Would love to see your face xx
Kate: You might regret saying that, I’m a state as usual. Give me 5 mins.
She flushes the toilet and washes her face with cold water, checking that her eyes don’t look too puffy before heading back downstairs. Jay and Rosie are curled up together on the sofa, Jay stroking Rosie’s hair and looking down at her adoringly.
‘How was the shoot?’
Jay doesn’t take his eyes away from Rosie as he replies. ‘It was OK. The client seemed happy with what we got. I’ll need to edit the shots over the next few days. How was your day?’
‘It was fine. I’m just going to chat with the girls, are you OK to put her to bed?’
‘Of course. I’ll cook us both some dinner afterwards – it looks like you could do with a proper meal.’ He glances at the plates of abandoned snacks.
‘Yeah, sorry about the mess …’
‘Don’t apologise. Are you sure it was OK?’
Kate nods but avoids his eye. It strikes her as she turns to leave that she used to tell Jay everything. But there seems so much more at stake now. She isn’t just his wife anymore, but the mother to their child. If she let herself be truly honest with him, it might change the way he thinks about her forever. There are certain things that just can’t be unsaid.
‘It’s so good to see you both!’
The sight of two of her best friends smiling back at her from her phone screen gives Kate exactly the boost that she’d hoped it would. She wishes she could reach through the screen to hug them, Emma beaming at her from the bed that Kate has crashed in several times over the years after nights out and Leonie reaching for a mug of tea from the table beside her fuchsia sofa.
‘You too,’ says Leonie. ‘We miss you! Where’s Rosie?’
Often when they speak, Kate is only semi-dressed, Rosie clamped to her, feeding, but her friends never seem to mind.
‘Jay’s just taken her up to bed. It means you have my full attention for once. And look what I can do …’
She jumps up, waving her arms.
‘I’ve got both hands free! I could do anything!’
‘Simple pleasures, Kate,’ laughs Emma.
With a puff, Kate collapses back onto the sofa.
‘Yeah, I don’t have energy for much, though.’ She reaches for one of the biscuits that she grabbed before the call. Leonie sips her tea and Emma reaches for a glass of wine. For a second, it’s almost as if they are all in the same room together. ‘So, you never told me about the story you’ve been working on? That big meeting you mentioned?’
Both Emma and Leonie look shifty.
‘We’d love to tell you about it, but it hasn’t gone live yet and we were given a pretty severe bollocking by the editor to keep everything confidential. Do you remember that leak we had a couple of months ago?’
‘But I’m not anyone! I work there too.’
There’s that shifty look again.
‘Well, you’re technically not working right now …’
Kate does her best to adjust her expression to hide her hurt. ‘Right. OK. I get it.’
‘You know that we’d love to chat to you about it if we could. Although, honestly, it’s not the most exciting story, I’m not sure why the editor’s so hyped about it.’
‘It’s fine.’ She takes a breath, trying to make her voice sound more cheerful than she feels. ‘So, what else is going on? How’s wedding planning going, Em?’
Emma’s face brightens at the mention of the wedding. ‘Oh, you know, there’s still a lot to do. But I’m getting very excited about the weekend. Leonie booked me an appointment at this boutique in Islington where they give you prosecco and everything – the full shebang. We figured we might as well go all out. I’m hopefully only going to wear a wedding dress once!’
Kate frowns. ‘Dress shopping?’
‘Yeah, the wedding’s only six months away now. Apparently, I’ve left it pretty late to find a dress. Who knew most brides bought theirs like a year and half in advance? Classic me, trying to organise a wedding in half the usual time, but hey, I like a challenge.’
Emma is still grinning, but Leonie seems to have clocked Kate’s expression and is looking flushed.
Kate tries to keep her voice steady. ‘I’m a bridesmaid too, shouldn’t I come with you?’
Emma’s smile drops suddenly from her face. ‘Oh. I didn’t think …’
‘We assumed you wouldn’t be able to make it,’ chips in Leonie.
‘You could have asked me,’ Kate says quietly.
‘Oh God, Kate, I’m sorry,’ says Emma, her face glowing red now.
Leonie helps her out. ‘We didn’t want to put any pressure on you. What with Rosie being so little and you not being in London anymore …’
‘But obviously I’d love to have you there, if it’s not too much for you.’
There’s so much that Kate wants to say. Like, I just had a baby, I didn’t move to a different continent. And, My best friends are moving on without me.
Kate was there when Emma and Sanjay first met. He had just joined the IT department at the Herald when Emma’s computer spontaneously crashed. She was on a deadline and was terrified she’d lost all her copy. Sanjay not only managed to restore her work but, most importantly, managed to keep her calm, which was no mean feat given she’d been close to throwing her computer out the window when he’d arrived on the news floor. Over the next few weeks, Kate had watched on, amused, as her friend mysteriously encountered a whole string of computer-related issues which required calling Sanjay to come up and take a look. She would never have imagined not being there to help Emma choose her wedding dress. And yet hurt stops her from saying, ‘I’ll be there.’
‘No, it’s fine, it sounds like everything’s organised now. Hey, I think I can hear Rosie crying, I should probably go.’
‘Wait, Kate, we didn’t mean to …’
But Kate is already waving and then hanging up. Because if she stayed on the phone any longer, her friends would see her cry and that’s the last thing she wants.
She knows she’s probably being petty. But the feeling of being left out is like a stomach ache that she can’t ignore. It takes her right back to the café that morning when she’d stepped inside hoping to feel a sense of connection with the other mothers but left feeling more isolated than ever.
If her friends don’t want her there, then she doesn’t want to go.