The Undercover Mother_A laugh-out-loud romantic comedy about love, friendship and parenting Read online

  On her way back from the toilet, she was accosted by Frank. Frank was the owner of Chequers and the campest straight man you could hope to meet. His eyes flicked her up and down her in the time it took most people to blink. ‘Jenny! So fab to see you! I heard you were ill or something?’

  Jenny kissed him on both cheeks. ‘No, I just had a baby.’

  ‘Oh.’ His expression suggested illness would have been preferable. ‘Well, you're here now. What can I get you? Mojito?’

  ‘Thanks, Frank. But I need to start slowly. It's been a while. Maybe a white wine spritzer?’

  Frank grimaced. ‘This is not the sixth-form disco, sweetheart. I'll bring you something over. Are you sitting with the lovely Lucy?’

  When Jenny got back to the ‘lovely Lucy’, she found the girls surrounded by a group of men. Her heart sank. She already felt like a maiden aunt at a wedding, and being forced to chat to lads on the pull was only going to make the night worse. Lucy wriggled out from the group and pulled Jenny to one side. At least three of the men watched her go.

  ‘Mark has been asking after you. Wanted to know if you were coming back to Flair,’ she shouted above the music.

  Jenny was surprised he even cared. She’d filed his business card in the recycling bin as soon as she’d got back from the advertising event. ‘Really? See a lot of him, do you?’

  Lucy smirked. ‘Depends what you mean by seeing a lot.’ That was a mental picture Jenny could have lived without.

  Lucy sipped her drink and looked out over the dance floor. ‘I’m surprised you came tonight, actually. Eva warned me that you might cry off.’

  Jenny was affronted. ‘Did she? Why?’

  Lucy shrugged. ‘People change once they have babies. She said you wouldn’t party like you used to.’

  ‘That’s ridiculous! She couldn’t be more wrong. I couldn’t wait to get out tonight,’ Jenny shouted back, waving her fists either side of her head to symbolise her readiness to boogie. She felt an awakening rush of adrenalin. How dare Eva assume she’d changed? ‘It’s so good to be back doing what I love to do.’ Just at that moment, Frank appeared carrying something creamy but deadly. She snatched it from him and took a huge gulp. ‘Let’s get this party started!’

  * * *

  It wasn’t long before she was praying for the night to be over. The dance floor was a tragedy. Cramming her feet into Antonia’s six-inch heels had been a really bad idea. Her feet still hadn’t gone back to their pre-pregnancy size and she would be walking like a newborn calf in the morning. She couldn’t avoid her reflection in one of the many mirrors, either. When had she started dancing like her mother?

  And why had she drunk those awful drinks? Tomorrow was going to be hard. Nappy changing with a hangover? Horrific. But she knew why she’d drunk them. Because she hadn’t wanted to admit to Lucy that Eva had been right.

  Still on the dance floor, Lucy was enjoying the attention of a good-looking man in a rather shiny suit, so, once she had briefly caught her eye, Jenny made the internationally recognised sign for a telephone call with her thumb and little finger, and slipped outside.

  It took Dan seven rings to answer and, when he did, he sounded sleepy. ‘Hello?’

  ‘Hi, it's me. Just checking everything is okay.’

  ‘Yes, fine. We were just dozing in front of Storage Wars.’

  ‘Did he have his milk at eight o’clock?’

  ‘Yep. Guzzled the lot.’

  ‘Did you wind him?’

  ‘Yes. He did a burp suitably loud for a boys’ night.’

  ‘And he's now asleep?’

  ‘We both were until you called. Are you having a good time?’

  ‘Yes, it’s great,’ she lied. ‘So good to be out and about. But I can come home if you're feeling tired?’

  ‘No, I’m fine. Now you’ve woken me up I might go and make something to eat.’

  ‘Well, shall I come home and watch Henry so you can eat in peace? Or I could pick you up some takeaway?’

  ‘I’m only going to have a sandwich. I can easily eat that, even if he wakes up.’ Dan paused. ‘Hang on, are you looking for an excuse to leave?’

  ‘No! No, of course not. I can't wait to get back on the dance floor. I'll leave you to it. See you later.’

  When she got back to the table, there were two psychedelic shots waiting for her. ‘You're playing catch up – get those two down you!’ shouted Lucy.

  Jenny took one look at the bile green and electric blue liquids in front of her and made a decision. ‘I'm so sorry. Dan just isn't coping and I could hear Henry screaming down the phone. I have to go.’

  * * *

  Outside, Jenny had to fight her way through a sea of fake tan and sparkles, tottering girls with their arms threaded together and men punching each other on the shoulder and laughing. At least the queue at the taxi rank was short; most people weren’t going home this side of midnight. Her feet ached, her head buzzed and she just wanted to be home. Home with Henry and Dan. Having a cuddle. And tea. She really wanted tea.

  If her toes hadn’t been so sore, she would have kicked herself. Why had she said she would come out with Lucy? There was probably a smug text on its way to Eva right now, saying Jenny was a lightweight and had gone home early. That she couldn’t cut it any more.

  Maybe Lucy was right.

  Jenny was almost at the front of the taxi queue when she noticed a familiar, slim figure walking towards her, slightly unsteady on its feet. It took her a moment to recognise who it was because the figure was wearing a fitted black dress rather than her trademark floaty top and jeans. And because she was crying.

  ‘Naomi? Is that you? Are you okay?’

  Naomi looked up, gave a grimacing smile and then started to cry harder. ‘No, I'm not okay. I've just had a huge row with John and left him in a bar down there. I tried to call Gail, but she turns her ringer off in the evening so that work can’t disturb her time with Jake.’ She started to rummage in her bag for a tissue. ‘It was supposed to be a romantic night. It was supposed to be just us. It was awful. Just awful.’ She started to sob again.

  Jenny put an arm around her. ‘Come with me. I can drop you home and you can tell me all about it.’ They were at the front of the queue. Jenny gave the cab driver Naomi’s address and nudged her inside.

  ‘Why did we even bother going out tonight?’ Naomi sobbed. ‘We started rowing before we’d even left the house. His bloody interfering mother!’

  ‘What happened? Did she change Daisy’s clothes again?’ Jenny could just imagine how that might have gone down.

  ‘She’s babysitting for us tonight, which—’ Naomi held her hands up in front of her swaying body ‘—I am grateful for. She said we should have some time together as a couple. I was almost feeling guilty for the things I’ve said about her, and then she had to ruin it all by bringing about ten jars of baby food with her.’

  ‘Right.’ Jenny began to piece together why Naomi was so upset. ‘And that was bad because…’

  ‘Because we are not giving Daisy anything until she’s six months old. And even then I won’t be feeding her stupid pap from a jar. I don’t CARE that she thinks Daisy is hungry. I couldn’t give a CHUFF that she weaned John at four months. She needs to STOP STICKING HER BLOODY BIG FAT NOSE IN!’

  Jenny had never seen Naomi this angry. ‘Could you not just take the jars and throw them away when she’s gone?’

  ‘NO!’ roared Naomi, loud enough for the cab driver to glance back at them in his rear-view mirror. ‘That’s what John says. Always trying to keep the peace. Never telling her to leave us alone to do it our way. If we don’t tell her to stop, where is it going to end? I just know she’s going to be one of those grandmothers who is always bringing sweets and junk food. Well, not for my baby, she isn’t.’

  Jenny had fond memories of her own grandmother’s sweet tin, but she didn’t think she should mention that. ‘At least you got a romantic night out, though?’ Naomi’s reaction quickly told her that this redirection h
adn’t had the desired effect.

  ‘Ha! Romantic night out? Just the two of us? That’s what I thought, too.’ She hiccupped loudly. ‘Except when we got there, the place was full of John’s bloody friends.’

  ‘Oh. Did he know they were going to be there?’

  ‘He says not, but I have my doubts. That silly bloody cow he went to bloody Peru with was there looking like a bloody catwalk model. John made a pretence of sitting somewhere on our own, but of course they wouldn’t let us. And then off they went, stories from their younger days. What fun they all used to have. What a shame they hardly saw John any more. Blah, blah, bloody blah.’ Jenny wondered if Naomi was breaking some record for the most bloodys in one breath. ‘And they treat me like I’m the woman who bloody ruined everything.’

  Jenny had often expressed concern that Dan never bothered to stay in touch with his friends, but she could see the up-side to it now. ‘Maybe John didn’t realise—’

  ‘So I told him!’ Naomi cut her off. ‘I told him that I had nearly got an abortion when I found out I was pregnant and I asked him if he wished I had.’

  Jenny was speechless. For the next few moments, she just focused on the raised eyebrows in the cab driver’s rear-view mirror.

  Chapter Eighteen

  There's a side effect to motherhood that no one tells you about: all the crying.

  Not the baby. You.

  Sure, you expect to get weepy and emotional when you're pregnant. It's the damn hormones. When the baby blues kicked in, I cried so much I'm surprised I wasn't treated for dehydration. However, that's not the crying I'm talking about. It's the other sort, the crying that creeps up on you when you're not expecting it.

  At each stage of The Boy’s development there seems to be fresh opportunities for my tear ducts to kick into overdrive. I cried when I found breastfeeding difficult (although, in my defence, part of that was actual physical pain), sobbed when Mr Baby had to go back to work, and wept when The Boy smiled for the first time. There’s likely to be a full-on tsunami when he starts to walk or call me ‘Mum’...

  From ‘The Undercover Mother’

  * * *

  The problem with health freaks is that they never have the hard stuff to hand when it’s needed. There was only decaf coffee in Naomi’s cupboards, but it would have to do. Over the rumble of the boiling kettle, Jenny heard the bathroom door bang open and got there just in time to hold Naomi’s hair back from the toilet bowl as she threw up. A relationship-defining moment in most of her friendships: surprising it should happen with Naomi.

  ‘I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,’ Naomi sobbed between heaves. ‘You must think I’m…’

  ‘Shhh. Don’t speak. You’ll be all right in a minute.’ Although tomorrow morning was going to be rough for both of them.

  Naomi couldn’t face coffee. Instead, she curled up on the sofa, holding a large glass of water with both hands. ‘What did you say to John’s mum?’

  ‘I just told her you’d eaten some dodgy prawns.’ It was very unlikely that Naomi’s mother-in-law had believed Jenny’s story, but at least she’d left without any fuss.

  Naomi sipped her water. They were quiet for a few moments and then she asked, ‘Do you hate me? Now you know that I thought about… about ending the pregnancy.’

  ‘Hate you? Of course not. It’s none of my business.’ Jenny wasn’t naive: she knew other people who had faced this tough decision. But this was Naomi. ‘Breast is best’ Naomi. She even used washable baby wipes. She’d been so enthusiastic about everything at antenatal. Who could have guessed she hadn’t been ecstatic to find herself pregnant?

  ‘I want you to understand why. I want to tell you.’

  And Jenny wanted to know. ‘You don’t need to explain yourself to me.’

  Naomi sat up straight; she wasn’t going to be put off. ‘My head was all over the place. I’d had such a great time travelling and I just wanted to keep going. I only came home to work and get some money together.’

  ‘What about John – were you not together?’

  ‘We only met a few weeks before I came home. I liked him, and we’d been texting. He even hinted he might like to come with me if I went away again, but it was early days. Can you imagine how I felt? I was so frightened. It felt like the world was closing in on me. I didn’t know if I ever wanted a baby, let alone right then. Do you know how it feels to be trapped like that?’

  Did Jenny know? No, it was not something she had ever had to face. But that was much more through luck than judgement. What if she’d got pregnant when she’d been with Mark? It didn’t bear thinking about.

  ‘I understand, Naomi. Honestly, I do.’

  Naomi took another large gulp of water. ‘I thought I would just have to take a pill – like a strong morning-after pill – and that would be it. But I was too far gone. I’d been sick for a while and my period was late, but everything had gone out of kilter while I was travelling. It took a while before I realised.’

  ‘So, you would have had to…’

  Naomi grimaced. ‘They called it a medical procedure. They talked me through the whole thing, what it would entail. Suddenly it all seemed real. What I was actually doing.’ Tears started to drip from the end of her nose.

  Naomi seemed almost relieved to be unburdening herself. Perhaps she hadn’t told many people about this. Had she told anyone? Clearly, John hadn’t known until tonight.

  ‘My sister had a miscarriage just before I went away. It was awful. And when I was sitting in the waiting room, reading the pamphlets they gave me, I just kept thinking about my sister. How much she had cried and cried after her miscarriage. And now, when I think about Ruth…’ Naomi covered her mouth with her hand.

  Jenny had been thinking about Ruth, too. She put her hand on Naomi’s arm. ‘Were you on your own at the clinic?’

  Naomi nodded.

  ‘Did John even know that you were pregnant at that point?’

  Naomi shook her head and her lip started to wobble again.

  ‘So you had no idea how he was going to react?’

  ‘How anyone was going to react. I hadn’t told anyone.’

  ‘Oh, Naomi. That must have been so hard.’

  Naomi just nodded slowly. Jenny put her arms around her as she sobbed.

  After a while, Naomi sat up and wiped her face. ‘When they called my name, I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t even walk through the door. I got up, went home and told my parents.’

  ‘And then John?’

  Naomi nodded. ‘And he was incredible. He made it sound like we could do it. We could have the baby and make a go of things together. So we did.’ She paused. ‘You know at the class, when Sally said we should sing or read to the babies? That they might recognise our voices when they were born?’

  Jenny wasn’t sure why they were talking about this. ‘Yes, I remember.’

  Naomi’s voice dropped to a whisper. ‘She would have heard. Daisy would have heard what I was doing. What I was… planning on doing.’

  ‘Oh, Naomi.’

  Naomi started to cry again. ‘I’m not sure how I will ever make it up to her. Every time I look at Daisy I think… I think that…’ She put her head back on Jenny’s shoulder. ‘You won’t tell anyone, will you, Jenny? Please don’t tell anyone.’

  ‘Of course I won’t.’ The only person Jenny was due to see in the next few days was Ruth, and she certainly wouldn’t be regaling her with Naomi’s story.

  Naomi the super-mother. It made a lot of sense now.

  * * *

  Ruth was due at ten. Jenny would rather have met her at a café, which wouldn’t involve tidying up, but Ruth had wanted to talk to her where no one else would be able to overhear them.

  That morning, Henry had been an absolute angel, not waking up until almost seven o’clock. A full eight hours’ sleep! Now he lay on a mat, kicking his feet at the slightly sinister-looking animals dangling from his play gym. The dirty plates from last night’s dinner and the pile of laundry that needed to be sorted could
wait. Time to open the laptop and work on the blog.

  The disastrous night out with Lucy had confirmed it. Jenny didn’t want her ‘Girl About Town’ job back any time soon – if ever. She had hated watching Lucy schmooze her way around that club, but she didn’t want to be the one doing it in her place. It had been horrible. And exhausting.

  However, Eva’s non-committal attitude about whether the blog would transfer to the magazine was speaking volumes. ‘Mildly funny’ were the words she had used; words that were fairly damning in Eva’s high-octane world. Jenny knew that there was something missing. It had been easy before, as someone always did something crazy or stupid: disappearing with the waiter at a new restaurant, or losing their shoes at a nightclub. It was more difficult to find something humorous when all you were doing was drinking tea and singing nursery rhymes.

  She began to write in her notepad.

  Gail was still not revealing anything about Joe. There had to be a good story there; some reason why they still hadn’t met him, or even seen a photo. Dan’s suggestion that ‘he probably just isn’t interested in us’ didn’t cut it. Even if Gail didn’t want to introduce him to the whole group, surely one of them should have seen him by now?

  Next, she wrote ‘Naomi and John’ with a big question mark. A Google search for ‘Babies and your relationship’ uncovered some startling stats. One study showed that a baby increased the risk of divorce by around 37 per cent – even higher if you had a baby within a year of meeting each other. A newly single mother might make for more exciting blog storylines, but Jenny was really hoping that Naomi and John would make it.

  Lastly, she wrote Antonia’s name down and drew two arrows to the words ‘Man in café?’ There had been nothing much to suggest there was anything less than innocent about her rendezvous, but Jenny had a hunch that there was more to it than two friends meeting for a drink.

  This just left Ruth. Jenny sighed and sat back in her chair. Ruth hadn’t featured in The Undercover Mother so far; it hadn’t felt right. But there were other women who this had happened to, other women who it was going to happen to. Could she somehow put Ruth’s story in there in a way that was sensitive and helpful?