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

  ‘At a work event. She was there with Geoff and she said she saw you with a distinguished-looking man.’ Antonia hadn’t said distinguished either, but Jenny didn’t want to say ‘old’.

  Understanding dawned on Gail’s face. She unclipped her hair and brushed it through with her fingers. ‘That wasn’t Joe. That was my boss. Which I’m sure Antonia realised.’

  ‘Oh.’ Jenny was disappointed. ‘She did say he might have been your boss.’

  ‘I’m sure she did. Did she enjoy herself, dutifully following her husband around?’ Gail’s voice developed an edge any time she referred to Antonia.

  ‘I was a little confused.’ Jenny made herself more comfortable on the hard plastic seat. ‘You told me at antenatal that you didn’t know each other, but she said she’s seen you at work events before.’

  Gail tapped the table with her nails. ‘I said I didn’t know her and I didn’t. There are lots of wives at these things. I can’t be expected to remember all of them. I’m there to network, not chit chat.’

  Jenny was more interested in finding out about Joe than Antonia. ‘Anyway, how is Joe? Enjoying fatherhood?’

  ‘He’s not particularly hands-on. You probably guessed that from his absence from the class.’

  ‘I thought you said he was working?’

  ‘I lied. He just refused to come.’

  Was Gail going to talk about him at last? Jenny tried to make it easy for her. ‘I’m sure that’s not unusual. I had to drag Dan there kicking and screaming.’

  Gail looked her in the eye. ‘Joe and I, we’re not really like you and Dan.’

  Jenny was all ears. She had tried to discuss the existence of Joe several times with Dan, forcing him to give an opinion, even though he had zero interest. His conclusion was that ‘Joe’ was code for ‘sperm donor’ and didn’t actually exist. Jenny thought that maybe Joe had been a one-night stand and that it hadn’t worked out. Or they had been a couple, and he’d given her an ultimatum: if you have the child, I’ll leave. Or maybe he was her gay best friend and they had decided to conceive a child together, like Madonna and Rupert Everett in that film – what was it called? The Next Best Thing. Then Dan had suggested Jenny needed to go back to work and apply her brain to something more useful.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Jenny tried now to sound nonchalant.

  ‘Jake wasn’t planned.’

  ‘Oh.’ Jenny thought briefly of Ruth and her IVF. And her tragic loss. Fertility was such an unfair lottery.

  Just then, Dan appeared, greeted Gail and turned to Jenny. ‘Your meatballs are served, my lady.’

  ‘You can have this table – I need to brave the search for the cot mattress.’ Gail pinned her hair back into place and took hold of Jake’s pram. ‘Try not to worry about Henry. I’ll bet he’s being spoiled rotten at your mum’s. I’m sure they miss us much less than we miss them.’ She kicked the brake off to release the pram and waved with her fingers. ‘I’ll catch up with you soon.’

  * * *

  When they collected Henry from her mum’s, Jenny’s sister was there, too. Henry was asleep on her lap. Jenny tried to resist the urge to snatch him from Claire’s arms, but she only lasted about thirty seconds.

  ‘Missed him, have you?’ asked Claire, as Jenny scooped Henry up and nestled her face into his neck. He smelt vaguely of her sister’s perfume. ‘So, how are you finding being a mum? Isn’t it the most wonderful thing you’ve ever done?’

  Did she never let up on this saintly mother theme? Jenny did think being a mum was pretty wonderful but she wasn’t about to admit it to Perfect Pants. ‘Yeah, it’s pretty good. Don’t forget I have a very good career, too. I’m not just a mum, you know.’ Even as she said it, she felt guilty. How could she refer to the way she felt about Henry as being ‘just a mum’?

  ‘Oh, you are still planning on going back to work, then?’

  Jenny noticed that Dan had retreated to the kitchen to help her mum make tea. ‘Of course. Why wouldn’t I?’

  ‘I suppose everyone is different.’ Claire was using her ‘If you don’t think like me, you’re wrong’ voice. ‘Though I have never understood why a woman would have a baby and then leave them with someone else so she could go back to work. I wanted to be there for my children.’

  If Claire was so intent on ‘being there’ for her children, why wasn’t she watching them play football or at a dance practice on a Saturday afternoon, rather than sitting there preaching to Jenny about not missing out? Try not to rise to it. ‘I will be there for my child, thank you. I just want to write, too. Am I not allowed to do both?’

  Claire laughed. ‘Of course you’re allowed to do anything you want. I just don’t want you to miss out. This time goes by so quickly.’ She reached out and patted Henry. ‘He’s a lovely little boy.’

  Perhaps her sister was trying, in her own judgemental style, to be nice. ‘Thank you. We are pretty besotted with him.’

  Besotted was the right word. It had been so hard to leave him that afternoon. Hopefully Gail was right and she’d get used to it. It was unlikely that Flair magazine would open a crèche.

  ‘So, who will look after Henry when you go back to this great job of yours?’ Claire wasn’t giving up. ‘I hope you’re not expecting Mum to do it every day?’

  ‘I’ll be able to work from home and email my column.’ This was a lie. Eva would never go for that. Jenny waved her mobile at Claire. ‘It’s called modern technology.’

  At that moment, the phone pinged with a new message. It was Lucy. Just what she needed.

  Reminder about the ads evo.

  Stupid woman always used her own abbreviations.

  Meet you there? Mark coming. Did you know?

  Claire had launched into a long story about someone she knew who had gone back to work two weeks after having her baby and who was now having some kind of maternal guilt therapy. Jenny wasn’t listening.

  Mark McLinley was going to be at the advertisers’ event.

  Mark’s magazine, Suave, was owned by the same parent company as Flair. He liked nothing better than an industry schmoozing event, so of course he was going to be there. Jenny should have expected it.

  If she hadn’t been anxious about going before, she certainly was now.

  There was a large mirror over the fireplace. When Claire broke off from her story to go and remind their mum not to put milk in her camomile tea, Jenny stood up and appraised herself. The prospect of facing a room full of advertising executives when she was two stone over her fighting weight had been bad enough, but now she had to see Mark, too? She was going to need more than an Antonia-inspired outfit if she was going to show her ex-boyfriend how wonderful her life was without him. This called for more than industrial-strength Spanx.

  She sent a text to Naomi. Jenny had no idea what the hell Buggy Bootcamp was, but Naomi looked good on it. When Naomi had invited Jenny to try a new group with her, Jenny had laughed. Suddenly it wasn’t such a funny idea.

  She had three weeks.

  Chapter Twelve

  Going to the clinic to have The Boy weighed always leaves me slightly depressed. Maybe it’s a repressed fear of Weight Watchers, or possibly it’s the conveyor belt of mothers and babies reminding me that I am ‘one of them’ now. My attitude is not helped by the health visitor repeatedly calling me ‘Mummy’, as in: ‘If Mummy could just bring baby over here?’ and ‘Does Mummy have the baby record book?’ I want to ask her if she’s talking to me or The Boy because if it’s to him, she should expect a very limited response.

  Posh doesn’t take Baby Posh to the clinic any more because they made her feel guilty about not breastfeeding. She also didn’t like their suggestion that she might need to eat more herself. Instead, she weighs Baby Posh by holding her whilst standing on the scales at her exclusive gym. With both of them on there, I bet they still weigh less than I do…

  From ‘The Undercover Mother’

  * * *

  The weather was clear and crisp. People were jogging around the
perimeter of the park; others were sitting on the benches, chatting. A squirrel ran across their path. Jenny started to relax a little. Maybe this wasn’t going to be so bad, after all. Buggy Bootcamp was surely an ironic title. No one was expecting aerobic activity from people who had recently given birth. She mocked herself for being so frightened on the way over there.

  Then she saw them.

  In the distance, a circle of mums. They were limbering up. They were stretching. They were wearing Lycra.

  ‘Let’s hurry up,’ said Naomi. ‘We’re going to miss the warm up.’

  Warm up? Jenny hadn’t bent her body into shapes like that since Year 9 PE lessons. Was it going to get more difficult?

  ‘I’m not sure this is a good idea.’

  ‘You can’t back out now. Come on.’

  Naomi picked up the pace and Jenny had no choice but to follow. Purposely pushing the buggy firmly over any large bumps, she prayed for Henry to wake up and save her. Or for a wheel to fall off the pram. Whichever.

  A tall, blonde woman in a vest and leggings turned to them with a smile. ‘Hi. You must be our new ladies. Welcome to the group. We’re just waiting for a couple more and then we’ll start the warm up.’

  Start the warm up? So what were they doing now? Warming up for the warm up? Jenny turned around to speak to Naomi and found that she was standing with her legs splayed, rocking from knee to knee. Jenny tried to do the same but her thighs weren’t happy about it. She jiggled Henry’s pram again. Now he sleeps.

  The other buggies were very different from hers. They all had three wheels and tyres that looked as though they belonged on a small car. She had seen buggies like that when they were buying Henry’s pram. The shop assistant had told them how they were suitable for ‘all terrains’. Dan had laughed uproariously when Jenny had asked whether that meant both carpet and lino.

  Two more all-terrain buggies appeared, followed by more Lycra. It was time to start the warm up.

  It wasn’t as if Jenny had never been to an exercise class before. Over the years, she had pretty much tried them all: either from choice, or as research for the column. She had tried Zumba (couldn’t follow the routines), step aerobics (kept falling off) and she’d even tried the cycling one, where she just got shouted at by the man at the front whatever she did. But she had never really stuck at anything because, basically, she hated exercise.

  Now it was serious. She needed to do something about this flabby expanse around her middle. There was no way she was going to stand alongside Lucy at the lunch with a muffin top.

  It started out simply enough, with a walk along the path. Then the pace picked up until they were actually jogging. Jenny sent a silent apology to her breasts. As if they weren’t getting enough abuse as it was. Thankfully, the jogging didn’t last long and they collected around the instructor, who took them through some bending and stretching. Jenny leaned over to Naomi. ‘This isn’t as bad as I thought.’

  Naomi looked puzzled. ‘The warm up?’

  ‘Oh, yes, the warm up.’ Jenny felt a rise of panic.

  ‘Okay, ladies, now we’re warmed up and ready to go. Let’s get those bodies back to their best!’

  They actually cheered.

  What followed was torture. Jumping and hopping and lunging and skipping: Jenny could only assume the session was being sponsored by Tena Lady. The only reason she stayed was that her car was a long walk away. If she left, they would all watch her traversing the length of the park with her tail between her legs.

  Naomi, on the other hand, seemed to be in her absolute element. She called out to Jenny mid-star jump: ‘This is great, isn’t it?’

  Jenny tried to smile back, but she found it was quite difficult to smile when she was trying to remember how to breathe.

  Then, praise the lord, Henry woke up and started to cry. It was more of a gurgle, but Jenny seized it as an opportunity to stop. Unfortunately, this strategy didn’t work.

  ‘As we’ve got one awake, this is a good time for us to do our arm exercises.’ Instructor Woman beamed at Jenny. ‘Use your baby like a dumb-bell. He’ll love it. Just make sure you support his head.’

  Who was going to support her head? And the rest of her.

  Childbirth had taught Jenny that even awful experiences come to an end, and eventually they were ‘cooling down’ and saying their goodbyes. She listened politely as Instructor Woman gave out information about all the different classes and different times.

  She’d be coming again when hell froze over.

  * * *

  ‘Wasn’t that fun?’ said Naomi, for probably the seventh time that morning. They were sitting on a bench, enjoying the sunshine. ‘Shall we make it a regular thing?’

  ‘Hmm. Maybe. I’ll have to see how it goes.’ Hell. Freezing. Over. ‘That was more strenuous than I expected it to be.’

  ‘Really?’ Naomi looked surprised. ‘I was disappointed that they didn’t push us harder.’

  Jenny wanted to push Naomi a little harder.

  ‘So how are you and John finding parenthood?’

  Naomi fiddled with the straps on her changing bag. ‘Yeah, it’s great. Being a parent is great.’ She emphasised the word ‘parent’.

  ‘Everything okay?’

  ‘I guess we’re just getting used to it all.’ Naomi stopped fiddling with her bag and looked at Jenny. ‘Daisy wasn’t planned, did I tell you that?’

  First Gail, now Naomi! She would google later and find out just how many pregnancies were unplanned. ‘No, I didn’t know.’

  ‘John and I met when we were both travelling last summer. It was just a fling, really. But I got to bring home a souvenir I hadn’t purchased.’ She leaned into Daisy’s pram and untangled the pram toys so that they were once more hanging in a neat row. ‘Not that I regret it for a second.’

  ‘Wow. I thought Dan and I had been quick off the mark, but I think you beat us. How did you end up getting together?’

  ‘We had swapped emails, and I contacted him after we got home. He was amazing.’ She rubbed her eye.

  ‘And now you’re living together and you have a baby. Great to get a happy ending.’

  ‘Mmm. Yeah.’ Naomi retucked the blanket around Daisy. She got up and started to stretch. ‘Fancy going for a quick run before you go?’

  Jenny pretended to consider it. ‘If “quick run” is code for cake, then yes. Otherwise, I think I’ll leave you to it.’

  She watched Naomi run off, pushing the pram. She wasn’t even doing the half-jog mum-run; that was proper marathon-runner-in-training stuff. How had she got a body like that so soon after the birth? Whether it was the downward dog or the fact she was a decade younger, she’d popped back like a piece of elastic. Whereas Jenny’s body felt like a pair of Lycra leggings which had visited the washing machine too many times: there was definite saggage.

  Her boobs were starting to feel a little heavy, so she took out her phone, intending to look at the app which told her whether it was time to feed Henry, which boob she should use and that also allowed her to log how long he fed for each time. It was comforting to have the confirmation that she was doing it right.

  She’d had two text messages: one from Lucy, one from Ruth.

  She opened Lucy’s first. It was a photo of her. With Mark.

  Look who I bumped into at Murphy’s!

  Jenny’s stomach flipped. Was Lucy trying to psych her out? What were they saying about her? Lucy looked fantastic. So did Mark. Jenny looked at Naomi in the distance and then down at her own wobbly stomach. Maybe she should have taken Naomi up on the offer of a run. Or maybe Naomi could just body-double for her at the event?

  Mark McLinley. At one point, Jenny had thought she was actually in love with him. They had had a great time together: swanky lunches, product launches, concerts – all on his expense account, of course. It had been fine for quite some time. Until her thirtieth birthday had made her begin to talk about their future. Then she hadn’t seen him for the expensive dust coming off his Italian lea
ther shoes.

  She opened Ruth’s text.

  Hi Jen. Yes, all still okay for tomorrow. 2pm? x

  That was good; she’d been worried that Ruth might cancel. At least her impending face-off with Lucy and Mark would give her something to talk about. Something other than babies. She needed to steer away from that.

  Somehow, Naomi had completed a whole circuit of the park and was back at the bench.

  ‘I thought you were leaving?’

  Jenny hadn’t even got around to checking the app, but her burning boobs told her that it was time to wake Henry for a feed. ‘I was. Just got caught up.’ She waved her phone at Naomi. ‘I got a text from Ruth. She’s still on for tomorrow.’

  Chapter Thirteen

  Smug parents like to evangelise on how they ‘got’ their baby to nap to a schedule/sleep through the night/love broccoli, but they are delusional: it’s all down to luck.

  Fertility is the biggest lottery of all. How can some of the best candidates for parenthood be the ones whose reproductive systems are on the blink? And don’t get me started on birth. Sporty waxes lyrical on how her positive mental attitude and breathing techniques brought about Baby Sporty’s beautiful birth. But if you discover that your pelvis is a bit wonky, there ain’t no amount of hypnochanting gonna get that baby out.

  I might write my own baby manual for expectant mothers, entitled ‘Cross your fingers and hope for the best’…

  From ‘The Undercover Mother’

  The upside to Henry having been up four times in the night was that he slept most of the morning. Naomi was collecting Jenny at 1.30 p.m., which gave her time to research some other parenting blogs.

  There were tons of them out there. The writers seemed to span a wide range of types. There were the worthy-hipster-organic ones, the scatty-messy-funny ones and the perfect-crafty-baking ones. Were there any mothers not blogging about their daily life? Jenny took heart from the fact that no one seemed to have her ‘lost in a foreign land’ angle and, she reminded herself, she wasn't competing for best blogger; she just needed to sell Eva on the idea of a magazine column. Surely the number of blogs out there added weight to her case?