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

  Another reason for staying glued to her laptop screen was that she was trying not to succumb to watching daytime TV. Somehow, she’d managed to pick up a minor addiction to watching posh people looking around huge houses in the country. Thankfully, she hadn't slipped into watching poorer people taking chunks out of each other live to the nation, but that was merely a flick of the remote control away.

  * * *

  When Naomi arrived, she had Daisy in the car. Jenny felt the colour drain from her face. Even if Naomi hadn't been googling ‘Bereaved parents – what to say’ the night before as Jenny had, surely she realised you didn’t take a baby to visit someone who had just lost theirs?

  She did. They dropped Daisy to Naomi’s mother-in-law, who had her front door open as soon as they pulled up.

  Naomi jumped out. ‘I won’t be long.’

  Jenny watched Naomi with John’s mother through her peripheral vision. Dan always said she was nosy, but Jenny preferred to see it as taking an interest in other people. ‘You're not actually listening to me at all,’ Dan would say, as she tried to catch the conversation of a couple at the table next to them in a restaurant, or behind them in a queue. Once, there had been a mother and daughter having such an interesting conversation about an affair that Jenny had surreptitiously followed them around Marks & Spencer for about fifteen minutes. ‘I’m a writer,’ she would argue. ‘You never know when you might hear a good story.’

  Naomi was back in the car within four minutes. She closed the car door hard and they drove the next five minutes in stony silence. Jenny had to say something.

  ‘All okay? Daisy settled?’

  Naomi tapped the steering wheel irritably. ‘Yep.’

  Jenny tried again. ‘John’s mum looks nice.’

  ‘Does she?’ Naomi continued to tap the wheel. ‘She’ll be in a different outfit by now.’

  ‘John’s mum?’ She had looked perfectly presentable. A cream twinset was a classic for a woman of her age.

  ‘Daisy. She will have changed Daisy into something pink and covered in disgusting nylon frills the minute I turned the corner.’

  Dan’s mum was like that about putting vests on Henry. Even when it was about a hundred degrees.

  ‘I hate clothes like that, too,’ Jenny said. ‘And tops with cartoon characters. Still, if it makes her happy, what’s the harm? She probably enjoys dressing a baby girl.’ Jenny was often envious of the rows of baby girl’s clothes. There was so much more choice.

  Naomi wasn’t listening. ‘Last time we left Daisy with her, she said that she wouldn’t take my expressed breast milk and tried to give her formula. Formula!’ She spat out the word ‘formula’ as if it were ‘whisky’ or ‘arsenic’.

  For most people, Jenny knew, this wouldn’t be a huge issue. But Naomi was practically a breastfeeding evangelist.

  ‘She didn’t drink it, of course. Refused it completely.’ Naomi sounded proud. ‘But that’s not the point.’

  ‘Of course, of course,’ Jenny soothed. ‘But you know what grandmothers are like.’

  ‘She wouldn’t be a grandmother if it weren’t for me. I was the one who made that decision. She should be grateful.’

  What decision? Hadn’t Naomi said she got pregnant by accident? But one glance at Naomi’s face confirmed that now wasn’t the time to ask.

  * * *

  Ruth and David lived on a new estate of executive homes in a tall town house. The kitchen took up the whole of the ground floor and they sat there, at a large round table, with their tea and a plate of homemade cake.

  Ruth looked well. Tired, but well. She’d had her thick, dark red hair cut into a short, blunt bob and it suited her. She’d lost some weight (well, of course, they’d all lost weight since they’d last seen each other) and it showed in her face. She wore a little make-up, a navy striped top and jeans. She looked good.

  Ruth pushed a plate towards them. ‘Please, take more cake – I’ve made enough for twenty visitors and David has eaten quite enough lately.’ She hadn’t eaten any herself.

  Jenny plunged straight in. ‘We’re all so sorry, Ruth. I don’t know what to say to you. It’s just so unfair.’

  Ruth nodded. ‘Yeah. You know, I’d really begun to think that we might actually get to be parents this time. Should never have given in to the hope.’ She gave them a watery smile and then shook her head as if to remove her thoughts. ‘Anyway, it’s good to see you both. It’s been really quiet around here since David went back to work. All my closest friends and family are about three hours away.’

  Jenny felt terrible that they hadn’t been to visit Ruth before now; she had assumed that they would be ensconced in a private family huddle. ‘We would have come sooner if we’d known you didn’t have people around.’

  ‘They all came down when they heard. And they were great at sorting stuff out. Like sending the lovely pram back.’ Ruth bit her lip and Jenny’s heart flinched for her. ‘But since they went home, it’s been pretty much the two of us, barring a visit from the girls I work with. Honestly, it’s fine.’ Ruth waved a hand as Jenny tried to apologise again. ‘Anyway, it’s given us some time to get on with the job in hand – getting ourselves pregnant again.’

  Jenny could tell from Naomi’s face that she was as surprised as Jenny was.

  ‘You’re trying for another baby?’

  Ruth scooped a few crumbs from the table and dropped them onto her empty tea plate. ‘It takes us a long time just to get pregnant, so if we want a baby we can’t be hanging about.’

  ‘Are you restarting IVF?’ That seemed a lot to be putting herself through having just lost a baby.

  ‘No.’ Ruth shook her head. ‘They wouldn’t even consider us at the moment. No.’ She sighed and sat back in her chair. ‘We’re hoping that having carried a pregnancy to term will make us more likely to fall pregnant naturally a second time.’

  The clinical way Ruth phrased this seemed to come straight from the mouth of one of her doctors. There was also something in her tone which didn’t sound convincing. What was she holding back?

  * * *

  Before they left, Naomi went to the bathroom and Ruth started to wrap up some of the cake for them to take home to Dan and John.

  ‘Dan will be very grateful. In fact, this might end up being his dinner.’ Jenny collected their cake plates and put them on the kitchen counter. ‘What are your plans for next week? Maybe you could come to me for lunch one day, if you’re at a loose end?’

  ‘That would be nice. But, be warned, I am a bit weepy at the best of times. The sight of Henry might make me sob.’

  ‘You can sob whenever you want. There’s a high chance I might even join you.’ Jenny paused. ‘How’s David?’

  ‘He’s okay. We’re both getting there. Trying to focus on the future.’ Ruth gave what Jenny’s nan would have called a ‘brave soldier’ smile.

  Jenny squeezed her hand. ‘I appreciate we don’t know each other that well, Ruth, but I’m pretty good at eating cake and listening. You can talk to me if you need to. Any time. About anything.’ Her journalistic instinct was twitching. Obviously she wasn’t going to write about Ruth’s terribly traumatic experience, but she wanted to be her friend. And there seemed to be something unspoken behind her words. What wasn’t she telling them?

  Ruth gave her a furtive glance and lowered her voice as they heard Naomi coming back down the stairs. ‘I’ll come and see you as soon as I feel ready. We’ll talk then.’

  * * *

  Because Jenny’s mum and dad were away, Claire had looked after Henry. Stupidly, she told her sister all about Ruth.

  Claire was sympathetic. ‘It makes you so grateful, doesn’t it?’

  ‘It really does. I can’t imagine how it would feel to lose Henry.’ Since she’d been back, Jenny had already squeezed him about twenty times.

  ‘And yet you’re planning on going back to work and leaving him.’

  How had she not seen that coming?

  ‘You don’t miss a trick, do you?�
��

  Claire held up her hands. ‘I just think you’ve waited a long time to have a baby. Why not take the time out of your career to enjoy him?’

  Waited a long time? Did her sister think she’d been merely marking time as a writer whilst secretly pining for a husband and children all these years?

  ‘I’m not you, you know, Claire.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Claire could give it, but she couldn’t take it. ‘I have a rather good life, I think. My children have certainly never wanted for anything.’

  She was right there. In the motherhood business, Claire was a professional. Organic meals, cakes for the PTA, school project creations of which Michelangelo would be proud. Claire was the Usain Bolt of the mothering world: no one else came close.

  ‘You’re a fantastic mother. Really, I admire you. I honestly do. It’s just… I mean… Don’t you ever get a bit… bored?’

  ‘Bored?’ Claire looked at Jenny as if she were speaking Swahili. ‘How could you be bored watching their first steps, hearing their first words? I don’t think you realise what you might miss out on.’

  Jenny gave up. There was no point having this conversation with Claire – she’d never had a career that she loved; she just wouldn’t understand. Whilst her sister had stayed home surrounded by papier mâché and cupcake cases, Jenny had been out meeting people and visiting great places. It was a lot to give up.

  * * *

  But when Jenny went to bed that night, Claire’s voice was in her head. You will miss out on so much. She had stopped listening to her sister about twenty years ago, but her warnings now made Jenny feel uneasy. What if she was right?

  She dug Dan in the ribs, but he mumbled and rolled over. There’d be no point asking him, anyway – he’d just say that she should do whatever she wanted to. And she knew what she wanted to do. She wanted to write. And to be with Henry.

  She would just have to do whatever it took at that advertisers’ lunch to prove to Eva that The Undercover Mother would work. It had to.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Breastfeeding is one of those things that, as a woman, you assume will come naturally. Like breathing. And shoe shopping.

  After my general anaesthetic, The Boy was so zonked he couldn’t keep my nipple in his mouth, so a helpful midwife hooked me up to a dairy-farm-strength breast pump. It nearly turned me inside out to extract about 3ml of yellow milk, which I tried to feed to The Boy from a cup. It was like trying to get black coffee down the neck of a drunk.

  Three months on and my milk ducts have got the hang of things. Now I wake up in the morning looking like a boob-double for Katie Price. Apparently, the more frequently you feed, the more milk they produce. As her baby feeds more often than a giant panda, Sporty’s milk ducts must be working twenty-four-hour shifts…

  From ‘The Undercover Mother’

  * * *

  The conference room at the hotel was predictably anonymous and corporate. Along one side stretched a table covered in sandwiches and mini quiches. Dotted around the room were men, and a few women, wearing suits, holding paper plates and trying to look interested in the person they were talking with.

  In the past, Jenny had hated these events. Right now, she was looking forward to a free sandwich and some adult conversation.

  ‘Hi, Jen. Glad you could make it.’ Eva joined her at the food table, not carrying a paper plate. ‘There are quite a few advertisers of women’s products here today. Might be a worthwhile day for us. Have you seen Lucy yet?’

  Jenny shook her head; her mouth was filled with two cocktail sausages. She hadn’t wanted to put more than three on her plate in case she looked greedy. Breastfeeding made her want to eat all the time. It was nice to have something to blame.

  Eva was scanning the room. ‘Maybe she’s running late. I know she was out until the small hours this morning at that new club opening. Oh, there she is. Over talking to Mark McLinley. I’m not sure I want the two of them talking – go and split them up.’

  Jenny nearly choked on her last mouthful. Mark was there already? She couldn’t face that yet. ‘I’ll go and catch up with her in a minute. I’ve just seen Jack Jenkins, the sales rep from CleanWare. I’m sure their products would appeal to the The Undercover Mother audience.’

  Eva gave a snort of surprise. ‘Good luck.’

  Jack Jenkins was not a nice man. When he looked at you, you wanted to go and take a shower afterwards. He was dressed in a suit just a little too small for him, the buttons of his shirt barely meeting across his stomach. Not that Jenny was one to judge, but he could easily have passed for five months pregnant.

  ‘Well, hello, Miss Jenny. I haven’t seen you at one of these things for a while. You’re looking—’ he paused ‘—well?’

  She knew a euphemism when she heard one, but she couldn’t afford sarcasm right then. If she could get even one person there to tell Eva that they thought her motherhood column was a good idea, she would have a fighting chance of getting it off the ground. ‘Thank you, Jack. I could say the same to you. How’s business?’

  He held out a pudgy hand and twisted his wrist. ‘You know how it is – ballooning targets, squeezed budgets.’ He had been giving this same old story for years. He was well-known by the sales team back at Flair for waiting until the last minute to place his advertisements, and then negotiating an incredibly low rate. Jenny felt sorry for them having to deal with him every month – at least she only had to play nice when asked to attend these networking events.

  ‘I’ve got a new column pitch which you might be interested in.’ She tried to look as excited as possible, maybe a little flirty. Demeaning but necessary. ‘It’s aimed at new mothers.’

  Jack blanched as if he’d just swallowed a dodgy vol-au-vent. ‘Mothers?’

  Jenny nodded enthusiastically. ‘Yeah, a humorous column. We’re all in this together… isn’t it funny? That kind of thing.’

  ‘Funny?’ He looked like he’d never heard of the word.

  ‘It’s going to be great. I’ve already started a blog and the feedback has been immense.’ She had an idea. ‘Hey, maybe you could advertise on my blog? Get in at the ground level before everyone else?’

  She could almost see the oil coming out of his pores. ‘Sounds great, really. But not sure it’s our kind of “thing”.’ He did those annoying air quotes that made Jenny want to snip off the ends of his fingers. ‘Sorry, Jen, I’ve just seen someone I need to catch up with. We’ll talk later, yeah?’ And he was gone.

  Jenny put another sausage in her mouth. She looked around to see where Lucy and Mark were. She didn’t want to talk to either of them until she’d got something positive to say.

  ‘Jen! How great to see you!’

  She swallowed the sausage whole and a rather unattractive sucking noise came out of her mouth. ‘Mark! What a nice surprise!’

  ‘I told you he’d be here.’ Lucy was right at his elbow. Cow.

  ‘Did you? I’d forgotten.’ Jenny smiled at Lucy with her mouth and killed her with her eyes.

  ‘The memory is the first thing to go when you have a baby, so I’ve heard.’ Mark smiled. Lucy laughed raucously.

  ‘Totally untrue,’ said Jenny. It’s the patience with twats that goes first. ‘How are you?’

  ‘Oh, you know, keeping busy. I got the editor’s job.’

  ‘I heard. Congratulations.’

  ‘Thanks. I’ve been trying to tempt this one—’ he smiled at Lucy ‘—to come over to my rag, but apparently she’s just been given a plum job at your place.’ He raised a provocative eyebrow.

  Jenny gritted her teeth. ‘Yes, I’m working on a new project.’

  ‘So I hear. So I hear.’ Mark and Lucy exchanged a look which made Jenny want to smash their faces into the quiche Lorraine. ‘A parenting advice column, isn’t it?’

  Lucy sniggered.

  ‘No. It’s a humorous column, actually. I’m exploring new media. You know what they say about print nowadays.’

  Mark rubbed hi
s fingers and thumb together. ‘It’s still where most of the money is. Seems to me you’ll be wasting your talents. You’re a party girl, Jen. You’re good at it.’

  Jenny tried to hold his gaze but her face grew warm. ‘Things change.’

  ‘Not everything. Maybe you and I should have a chat sometime. We might be able to do a little something together?’

  The last time they’d ‘done a little something together’ it had ended with her drowning her sorrows with a bottle of Gordon’s, vowing never to call him again.

  ‘Thanks, but I’m happy at Flair.’

  ‘Like you said, things change. Just keep my offer in mind. Here’s my card with my new office details, in case you’ve lost my number.’

  Jenny hadn’t lost his number. Her friends had made her delete it after a couple of drunken episodes when they’d had to wrestle her phone from her hands to stop her booty calling him at 2 a.m. But not taking his card would make her look like she still had it.

  ‘Okay, but I really don’t think I’ll be needing it. Sorry I can’t chat for longer, but there’s a million people here I really need to see. Good luck with the new job.’ She looked at Lucy pointedly. ‘Both of you.’

  She scanned the room frantically; she couldn’t leave the two of them and then stand on her own like a lost puppy. Over by the buffet table was a new face. Young, handsome and conveniently placed near the Pringles. If old ad men like Jack Jenkins weren’t going to bite, she’d go after young blood. Watch me and weep, Mark McLinley.

  Striding over purposefully, she thrust out her hand and flashed a smile. ‘Hi. Jenny Thompson. Flair magazine.’