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

  ‘I’d like to do some shopping,’ said Ruth. ‘It’s David’s birthday in a couple of weeks and I might find something a bit quirky down here.’

  Gail nodded at her. ‘Good idea. I’ll tag along.’

  ‘I’m not sure I can be bothered to trawl around the shops.’ Jenny wanted to keep them talking, not shopping. She needed a game plan.

  ‘Me, neither, darling. We can follow them down there and then go and find a coffee shop if you want?’ suggested Antonia.

  Perfect. Antonia’s turn.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  My lounge regularly looks as if someone has eaten the entire contents of the Toys R Us catalogue and thrown up everywhere. Rattles, coloured balls, baby gyms. It was impossible to stop people from buying brightly coloured plastic monstrosities for The Boy, and it wasn’t long before I gave up my ‘wooden toys only’ mantra and joined in myself.

  Sporty almost had a stand-up row with her in-laws on the subject – she only wants toys made from organic materials, from ‘ethically responsible’ suppliers. Whilst I applaud her moral stance, you need to remortgage your house to afford some of that stuff.

  Hopefully I can find him something in one of the hip and trendy baby shops in Brighton. Guilt gifting? Me?...

  From ‘The Undercover Mother’

  * * *

  The Lanes were busy that Saturday. There were couples looking in the windows of the antique jewellery shops with their rows and rows of sparkling, and not so sparkling, gems. Jenny loved her own engagement ring, although it was rather dwarfed by the rock on Antonia’s finger.

  ‘That’s a gorgeous ring.’ Jenny motioned towards Antonia’s hand.

  ‘Yes, it is rather.’ Antonia wasn’t particularly enthusiastic. ‘It’s not my real engagement ring. We got engaged at university. Once Geoff started to earn good money, he wanted me to have something bigger.’

  ‘Lucky you.’

  ‘Mmmm.’ Antonia looked down at her ring finger. ‘I think I prefer the original.’

  They emerged from The Lanes into a more modern part of town and stopped at the first coffee shop they saw. It was quite busy, and Jenny went to find a table whilst Antonia queued for coffee and cake. Once she was seated at a corner table, Jenny checked her messages. Dan had sent a photo of Henry eating chips with a message.

  What mummy doesn’t know…

  She felt a pang. Was this how she’d feel when she was back at work? She slipped her mobile back into her bag as Antonia arrived at the table.

  ‘I didn’t know which cake you’d want, so I got a couple of options.’ Antonia was holding a tray laden with two huge slices of cake and coffee cups the size of cereal bowls.

  ‘Wonderful. I like anything under the heading “cake”, to be honest.’ Jenny helped Antonia transfer the cups and plates to the table.

  ‘Apparently there’s a speed-dating event here later. The young man behind the counter was wondering if we’d be interested. Sounds terribly funny.’

  Jenny pulled a face. ‘I’ve ticked that box already, thanks – I did it for the magazine.’ She picked up a fork and started on the chocolate cake, which was nearest to her.

  ‘Really?’ Antonia leant forward. ‘What was it like?’

  ‘Great fun, actually. I went with a friend and every time the bell rang and I turned to meet my next date I could see my friend behind him either giving me a thumbs-up or pretending to cut her throat.’ It had been a source of much hilarity. All the women at the event had seemed perfectly nice, but the men had been all kinds of crazy. ‘Full of character’ is how Jenny’s nan would have described them.

  ‘I do wonder sometimes what it would have been like to have dated more. Maybe I’ve watched too much Sex and the City, but it looks like terrific fun.’

  ‘Geoff wasn’t your first boyfriend, surely?’ Jenny was shocked at the thought.

  ‘Gosh, no, but dating at university is less, “Would you like to go for dinner?” and more, “Do you fancy a pint and a snog?” I wish I could have dated as a grown-up. Had dinner in fancy restaurants, making small talk about art and culture.’ Antonia smiled wryly at Jenny, shaking her head. ‘Am I living in a fantasy land?’

  ‘Completely. Maybe it’s different if you live in New York and look like Sarah Jessica Parker, but my experience was rather different. I once had a date with a man who had just left a religious cult and wanted some “experiences” before deciding whether to go back in. Then there was the fitness freak who didn’t talk about anything except weights and running and, oh yes, the one that called me to say he was five minutes away and then didn’t turn up at all. Absolutely no one worth wasting a pair of designer shoes on.’

  ‘They all sound ghastly. I’m almost feeling better about settling down young.’ Antonia stirred her coffee slowly. ‘Mind you, I’m going to advise Jessica to shop around a bit more than I did. Even if she does have to date a few disasters along the way.’

  Jenny shrugged. ‘There were some good ones, too. But, I must admit, I was rather relieved to meet Dan and not have to put myself out there any more. It’s exhausting.’

  Antonia nodded. ‘Why do you think we women all have this inbuilt desire to find one person to spend our lives with? Men don’t seem to have the same feeling at all. Geoff’s got several friends over forty who have no intentions whatsoever of settling down yet.’

  Jenny shrugged again. ‘I guess there must be something biological about it. We hit thirty and then that clock starts ticking loudly in our ears. By the time I met Dan, I had the equivalent of Big Ben chiming in my brain.’ She had been so fed up with commitment-phobes like Mark McLinley that, when she first met Dan, she had told him brazenly that she was looking for a potential husband and father for her future children. When he had calmly asked her if he could just finish his pint first, she’d known he was a keeper.

  Antonia didn’t look convinced. ‘That’s what I’ve heard, but, to be honest, I don’t think that ever happened to me. It just seemed to be about the right time to have a baby. We’d been together a long time. We had a nice home.’ She counted out her first two points on her fingers and then made pretend quotation marks in the air. ‘And “everyone else was doing it”.’ She took a sweetener sachet from the pot on the table and started to tap it on the table. ‘Actually, I think Geoff was keener than I was – keep the little woman happy, give her a baby to look after.’

  Jenny was about to go in for a forkful of Victoria sponge but she paused. This was the opening she had been waiting for. ‘And are you happy?’

  ‘Why wouldn’t I be happy?’ Antonia changed her tone and looked a little defensive. Jenny knew that she needed to tread carefully. Before today, she hadn’t even seen Antonia with messy hair, and now she was trying to get her to open up about her marriage.

  ‘I don’t know.’ Jenny paused; she needed to phrase this tactfully. ‘It’s just, when I met you after that church hall baby group, I got the feeling that you were expecting to see someone there. A man.’

  Antonia looked confused. ‘What do you mean?’

  It was now or never. Jenny took a deep breath. ‘And when we went out shopping for my new clothes, I saw you having a coffee with a young man.’

  Understanding slowly dawned in Antonia’s eyes. ‘Are you asking me if I’m having an affair?’ She looked as if Jenny had slapped her. Bad move. She shouldn’t have asked so directly. She should have waited until they had had a lot of alcohol. There would have been more chance of Antonia speaking freely and, if she hadn’t, Jenny could have blamed her question on being drunk.

  Then a smile slowly spread across Antonia’s face, until it reached her eyes. ‘You do think I’m having an affair, don’t you?’ She sat back in her chair and seemed to be enjoying the thought of it. ‘You actually think that I am seeing someone else?’

  Either Antonia was a fantastic actress, or Jenny had somehow got her wires completely crossed. ‘No, no, I wasn’t saying that exactly,’ she stuttered. ‘I just wondered…’ She trailed off, at a loss for
what to say. This wasn’t the reaction she had expected at all.

  Antonia was laughing now: big, shoulder-shuddering laughs. ‘Oh, Jenny, darling. Your journalism skills must be on maternity leave, too. Me having an affair!’ She wiped her eyes and gradually stopped laughing. ‘I wish you had told me this sooner. Have you been thinking this all that time?’ She started to laugh again and then composed herself. ‘You’re right, I’m not as happy as I should be. There are some things that need to change. But I am working on it.’ She nodded, thoughtfully. ‘In fact, I think they are about to change very, very soon.’ She picked up a fork and took an uncharacteristically large piece of cake. Then she glanced at her watch and started to gather her things together. ‘Goodness, look at the time. I’ve just realised that no one will be able to get back into the house. I’m the only one with a key. Maybe I should get back there now, in case anyone has returned early.’ She picked up her sunglasses from the table and put them onto her head like an Alice band. ‘We’ll pick this conversation up later, sweetie, I promise. I’ll see you later.’

  She patted Jenny’s hand and then left, starting to laugh to herself again. She obviously wasn’t expecting Jenny to follow her back to the house.

  Almost in a daze, Jenny wandered around some gift shops. She was completely stumped by their conversation. Had she read it completely wrong? Maybe Antonia wasn’t having an affair, but she had admitted to being unhappy. So, what was going on? Why had she found it so funny?

  Her phone beeped: it was Gail, saying that she and Ruth were about to head back. She sent a return message to ask where they were. She would meet them so they could walk home together.

  * * *

  Gail stood up and waved at her from a small table in the corner. Jenny squeezed her way past a large group of Pimm’s-wielding girls who were dressed in fewer clothes than she wore to bed.

  ‘You found us, then.’

  ‘Through the miracle that is GPS.’ Jenny waved her mobile. ‘Where’s Ruth?’

  ‘In the toilet. I’m glad you’re here. We had a tricky moment.’

  Jenny could tell her a thing or two about tricky moments today. ‘Why? What happened?’

  Gail tipped up her glass and drank the last of her drink. ‘We inadvertently wandered into a baby shop.’

  Jenny grimaced. ‘Oh. Was she upset?’

  ‘She was okay. It just prompted her to ask me why I have never asked her anything about what happened.’ Jenny waited for Gail to continue. ‘And I just said that I didn’t know what to say. I mean, of course it was terrible for her. Why would it have helped for me to ask inane questions?’ Not for the first time, Gail’s business-like approach to life seemed slightly cold to Jenny. ‘Then I tried to change the subject by mentioning that I’d heard she was trying for another baby. Then she seemed even more upset. That’s why I don’t start these conversations with people.’

  Jenny sighed. ‘I assume Naomi told you about Ruth trying again? She shouldn’t have, but that’s not your fault.’ Jenny knew why Gail’s comment would have upset Ruth. It must be bad enough looking at that negative pregnancy test, without having everyone else knowing about it. She hoped again that Naomi would keep her own pregnancy news to herself. Although this was Naomi. She was about as discreet as a half-page advert in The Times.

  Gail’s phone pinged with a message. ‘It’s Naomi. She’s still at the beach. Shall we go and collect her?’

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Why do some parents always feel the need to tell you that, whatever the age of your baby, you are at the ‘easy stage’? ‘Are you finding feeding difficult?’ they say. ‘Wait until you wean them and you have to spend half your life making vats of puréed root vegetables.’ ‘Are you worried about them picking up germs by crawling around everywhere? Wait until they’re running away from you in a busy shopping centre.’ ‘Tired because your baby isn’t sleeping? Wait until they’re teenagers and you’re lying awake all night waiting for them to come home.’ Seriously, parenthood seems like an catalogue of woe to some people.

  Although the other mums think that Posh has it easy with her nanny and her cleaner, I think she is actually struggling a bit. The thing is, babies are rather disruptive creatures and her life seemed pretty perfectly scheduled beforehand. The advantage to being as disorganised as me is that no one expected me to be on time even before I had The Boy. Now they are just grateful when I turn up at all…

  From ‘The Undercover Mother’

  * * *

  The beach was busy; it was a sunny day and it was crowded with families, groups of teenagers and elderly couples. People always seemed happy on a beach. Apart from small children being roughly towel-dried by their mothers, that was.

  Naomi certainly seemed at home on the beach. She was sitting with her toes in the water, chatting to another woman. As Jenny, Ruth and Gail drew near, the two of them looked up.

  ‘Oh, you must be the other mums!’ Naomi’s new friend looked at them appraisingly, making Jenny wonder what Naomi had been telling her. ‘I’m Gemma.’

  Gemma seemed more like Antonia’s kind of person than Naomi’s, with her expensive-looking clothes and pair of designer sunglasses pushing back a sleek mane of hair. She was drinking San Pellegrino from a plastic wine glass.

  ‘Gemma lives around here,’ said Naomi. ‘Lucky woman.’

  ‘Well, in Shoreham actually, which is pretty close but not as expensive.’ Gemma was still scrutinising them. ‘It’s nice and… Timothy! Not too far!’

  Jenny jumped and looked in the direction of Gemma’s yell to where a small boy wearing armbands was making a bid for a Channel crossing. She couldn’t quite believe that one day Henry would be as big as that. She had only just got her head around the idea that she had a baby; the thought that he would soon turn into a toddler and then into an actual boy was beyond her powers of imagination.

  ‘Naomi tells me that all your babies have just turned six months.’ Gemma turned back to them, keeping one eye trained on her mini-Olympian. ‘I’m sure it all seems very easy right now. Just wait until they’re running around like this one – you’ll have to have eyes in the back of your head.’

  ‘Is your little boy okay out there on his own?’ Jenny was slightly concerned for his safety. He seemed intent on getting as near to the water as he could. Although, after only a few minutes in his mother’s company, she could understand why.

  ‘Oh, yes.’ Gemma squinted up at Jenny. ‘Jenny, right? Naomi mentioned that you’re a bit of a worrier sometimes.’ She put her head on one side. ‘You’d enjoy it all a lot more if you just relaxed, you know.’

  Jenny shot Naomi a look which, if it didn’t kill, would definitely leave a gaping wound. Relax? Like sitting there sipping your drink even when it looked like your child might be making an attempt to get to France? Naomi had the grace to look embarrassed.

  Ruth was gazing out at the horizon. ‘I love the beach. I grew up on the coast. When I was young, I used to sit for hours looking out to sea, sorting out whatever teenage angst was going around in my head.’

  ‘Hear, hear. I’m trying to persuade Naomi to follow her heart and move here, nearer the sea,’ said Gemma.

  Naomi hadn’t mentioned a desire to move to the coast before. Jenny frowned. Plus, John worked with his father; he wouldn’t be able to relocate here very easily. Naomi wasn’t still planning on leaving him, now that she was pregnant, was she? Although she hadn’t told John she was pregnant yet. She would, though, surely?

  ‘It would be fantastic,’ gushed Naomi. ‘I’d love to bring up Daisy near the sea. We’d be here every day.’ She glanced at Gail and looked away. ‘Maybe I should start to consider it.’

  ‘I’ll give you my mobile number just in case!’ Gemma was enthusiastic. ‘I know all the best nurseries and schools.’

  ‘Have you got older children, too?’ Jenny looked around. Where were they?

  Gemma nodded. ‘Yes, I’ve got three boys. The other two are at home with their dad. Eighteen months between the fir
st two and then less than a year between the second and the youngest.’

  Less than a year? Blimey. Less than a year? That meant that the second one must have been less than three months old when she fell pregnant again. She must have been having sex whilst she was still on the maternity ward. Gail pulled an open-mouthed face at Jenny behind Gemma’s back, and Jenny tried not to smile.

  ‘It’s the best way to do it,’ Gemma spoke with authority. ‘Get the baby stage out of the way all at the same time.’

  ‘Really?’ Naomi asked, eagerly. ‘You think it’s good to have them close together? I’ve wondered whether a small or large age gap is better.’

  ‘Definitely a small age gap.’ Gemma had the usual assurance of the know-it-alls who can’t understand that anyone else could have a perfectly nice life doing things slightly differently from them. Jenny’s life had been plagued with people like this. The ‘My Life Is Perfect – You Need To Do The Same’ evangelists. It wasn’t only their arrogance that bugged her, it was their incomprehension about how their comments made you feel. When she had been single, she had had to put up with them on a regular basis. Being nudged by everyone at family celebrations. When are you going to find a nice young man and settle down? You’re not getting any younger, you know! This was even worse, though, with Ruth standing beside her, having to listen to this woman describe planning, conceiving and birthing a baby in less time than it took most people to decide to change their hair colour.

  Gail caught Jenny’s eye again and winked. She put her head on one side in exactly the same way Gemma had done. ‘Is that why you’re having trouble getting up to help your son? Three pregnancies in three years, left you a bit…’ Gail motioned towards her nether regions, giving a very good impression of caring concern.

  Jenny didn’t know where to look, but she was pleased to see Ruth also trying to conceal a smile.