I like to squeeze every avocado and smell every lettuce, which is why online food shopping will never work for me. I take my time selecting my produce. I think that is important when you eat as little as I do. My basic diet consists of boiled eggs, green leafy vegetables, occasional slices of high-quality brown bread, homemade soup and fish. Of course I eat other things, but rarely do I veer far from this list. I buy a much more exciting and child-friendly list of foods for Bonnie – sausages, fish fingers, pizza, I’ve even given her the occasional Pop-Tart. I have two reasons for this. As much as I care for her health, if I offer her anything that doesn’t have melted cheese on it, or come with a sweet sauce, or involve a little icing sugar sprinkled on top, she will throw it on the floor and put herself on hunger strike. And second, I feed her delicious food now because one day she will become a teenage girl, and if she is branded with the same affliction as me, food will become the enemy. And that might take the form of her self-denying, like I do. Or she might overindulge in it, like my mother. Either way, these few years of prepubescent eating will be the best of her life, before vanity, weight management or health inevitably ruin her relationship with food forever.
Eating ice cream on the beach with my dad is one of my favourite memories. The luscious taste, abundant joy. I can take myself back there if I concentrate hard enough. The sound of the ocean, happy families on the beach. Me and my dad licking our ice creams, catching the drips that run down the cones with our tongues. Not missing a single morsel of the heavenly sensation of our sweet treats or the joy we found in each other. I can still taste the ice cream. For me it was always vanilla, for him chocolate. He’d say, ‘Don’t tell your mum I got you two scoops.’ And I’d keep that secret like a love note stuffed into my pocket. My dad was fun. Somewhere inside of me, his influence still shines.
On the way home with the shopping, I walk past a little toy shop. I’m generally extremely conservative about the toys I have in the house for Bonnie. I can’t bear it when you walk into homes and wonder if any adults live there at all because of the grotesque amount of child paraphernalia that litters their living space. Bonnie has all the essentials. Lego, books, a small art station, cuddly teddies and a neat kitchen that Liam put together for her at my request. He’s good like that. Very handy. I was upset though, when Bonnie saw it. It was me who had paid for it and researched the perfect one that would suit her need for fun and my need for order. The assembly was going to take hours and so Liam offered to take on the task. When it was done, looking fantastic in the far corner of the living room, Bonnie was thrilled. She hugged her father and thanked him.
‘It was Mummy’s idea,’ he said, realising Bonnie was excluding me from her overt display of gratitude. ‘Go give Mummy a hug and say thank you.’
But she didn’t and wouldn’t, because at two years old she had no care for the importance of ideas or financial transactions. All she saw was her dad huffing and puffing and working to create a toy that she loved. As far as she was concerned, I had nothing to do with it.
Inside the toy shop, there is a large cuddly mouse. I don’t like it. Even a toy rodent gives me the shivers. But rather than deny my child any more joy off the back of my illogical fears, I pick it up and pay for it. At home, I put it on the kitchen table. Then on the sofa. Then on the coffee table. Nowhere feels right, or exciting enough. Eventually, I put it in her bed. The cuddly mouse tucked under the duvet, its horrible head resting on the pillow. I decide that is the most fun place for Bonnie to discover him.
After a spinning session on my bike, I shower and pluck my face. The body hair is the worst it could be at the moment. I have a wax appointment booked at a new salon next week, and it can’t come soon enough. I’m nervous about what the technician will be like, but I’m desperate. There is no way I am turning up to Lauren Pearce’s wedding looking like this. I got very hot on my bike, and despite having a fan aiming directly at me, it was a struggle. I cut the forty-five-minute class by fifteen minutes and had a simple dinner of green vegetables and prawns to make up for it, before continuing my work on the images of Lauren.
I have her looking as perfect as she asked me to, and I must admit, I’ve quite enjoyed working on her. She has probably never even heard my name, but I play a vital role in her life. Her selfies on Instagram are so staged. The angle she chooses is the edit, really. Not like the shots for a magazine, or the professional pictures that will be taken at the wedding – she needs me for those. I am like her partner in crime, a silent investor keeping her business afloat. I am quite enjoying that power.
I wonder if she is excited for her wedding or dreading it the way that I was dreading mine. I didn’t want all the attention, I didn’t want such a big event. I knew something would go wrong, I knew it and felt so foolish when it did. I haven’t been as foolish since. The only way to get really hurt is to let people get close to you. I won’t make that mistake again.
I open the file on my computer called ‘MENSTRUAL DIARY’. In the file, there are also some of my wedding photos; I printed out the only ones I remotely liked. The ones showing us exchanging vows are nice. I look happy, actually very happy. And I was. I thought I’d found the love of my life. Someone I could give as much of myself to as I would ever be willing to give. There are pictures of us holding hands at the drinks reception. I am smiling in most of them. The camera has caught multiple shots of Liam just staring at me. I do believe he loved me. Just not enough that he’d risk breaking our code of trust.
I open one of the images in Photoshop. It’s of me, standing next to Liam. We are looking into the middle distance. I don’t remember if we were posing, or if there was actually something grabbing our attention. Liam looks so handsome in it. He’s taller than me, which I liked. He has a slim frame, a nice face with a thick black beard and black hair all around an inch or so long. He has dimples that only a select few know are there, as he doesn’t shave very often. We don’t really look like a couple. Or maybe now I just can’t imagine myself in the relationship we had.
Liam was a gentle person. Friendly, sociable. His friends never really took to me. I’m sure I took him away from a more fun life while we were together. He didn’t seem to mind, I never stopped him going out when he wanted to. We used to have long dinners that involved hours and hours of conversation. I thought a relationship based on a genuine interest in each other was really wonderful.
We met when I worked in advertising. Generally, the people were abhorrent, but Liam was a freelance designer who would often be on email chains. Occasionally everyone was called in for physical meetings, and I met him in one of those. He followed me down the street afterwards and asked me for a drink. I obviously said no, but he was persistent. He had my email address and asked again later that day. It took a number of tries until I eventually gave in. I arranged the first date for after a wax and we surprisingly had a very nice time. I saw him again a few days later, then went quiet until after my next wax. I saw him every five weeks for around a year. He never lost interest. It all felt extremely out of body and not at all like my life. I only allowed him to have sex with me during the two weeks after a wax. The lights had to be off and I often kept a top on. I told him I had an issue with menstruation that made sex painful during other times in my cycle. He respectfully didn’t question it. I hid my body from him, I played hard to get, and then I’d come on strong when my body was how I wanted it to be. It was the best I could do.
And then he told me that he loved me.
I backed off after that. Told him I didn’t want to see him anymore. That the feelings were not mutual. If this turned into a real relationship, I kept thinking, I wouldn’t be able to hide for weeks on end. I’d have to tell him or, worse still, show him my body.
He got upset one night and asked me if I didn’t fancy him.
‘I’ve tried so hard to get close to you,’ he said. ‘I don’t know what more I can do. You don’t seem to want me physically and I want to know what I can do to make it better.’
The fact that he presumed the problem lay with him devastated me. I knew I had to tell him, maybe even show him the truth about my body.
I took a deep breath.
‘I have a condition called polycystic ovaries,’ I said, looking at the ground. It felt like I was telling him I was ridden with a shameful disease that I had brought upon myself. ‘It means I may have trouble conceiving. It means I am in constant battle with my hormones. It means … it means …’
He waited for me to finish. He was good like that, never speaking over me. Always giving me space to just be.
‘It means I have thick hair all over my body. It’s repulsive and I understand if it turns you off me. I wax as often as I can.’ I lifted the skirt of my dress and revealed my hairy legs to him.
He laughed and I felt stupid.
‘Come here, Ruby,’ he said to me, calling me over to the bed. ‘I have hair all over my body too, do you think I’m repulsive?’
I told him I did not. He tried to make love to me, but I said I couldn’t do that. That it would take time for me to be able to let myself go in that way, that I couldn’t guarantee I ever would at certain times in the cycle. He respected that. He was relieved. He just wanted me to love him.
Then he asked me to marry him.
I look so thin in my wedding photos. Pale. Gaunt. My dress was lovely, I thought. I made it. It was inspired by a Victorian wedding dress that I found. I did my own hair and make-up, of course. But I didn’t do it very well. In Photoshop, I warm the tone of my skin a little, plumping out my cheeks, filling out the gaps under my eyes. It’s a subtle difference, but it makes me look better. The dress has ruffles all across the front. I chose that to distract from how flat my chest is. I enhance my breasts a bit, adding a cup size or two. It looks better.
Why stop there? It’s for my eyes only.
I drag out my hips, giving me a much fuller figure than I would ever allow, but often dream of. A voluptuous shape, a bottom that men would admire. It looks good on me, I can’t deny that. I smooth away the veins on my hands, shorten my fingers a little, plump them up. I put some extra shine onto my hair, make my feet smaller and take away the veins on my neck.
I look lovely. An image I would be quite delighted with. I suppose if my pictures were being seen my millions of people, I’d want this work to be done on them too. Maybe Lauren Pearce isn’t as crazy as I thought. It’s nice to look at photographs of yourself that boost your self-esteem. But of course, this isn’t real.
I look at the photo for a while, wondering what a different life I could live if I could make those changes to myself for real. It would be better, I don’t doubt that for a moment. I’d be happier. I’d probably still be married.
My phone rings. It’s the nursery. They keep calling and I keep letting it go to answerphone. This time I feel bad and listen to the message.
‘Hello Ruby, it’s Maria again. Please could you let me know when you’ll be able to collect Bonnie, she really isn’t having a good day …’
I shut down my computer and get myself ready to leave. It’s Friday tomorrow, Liam will come and take over at six. I’m looking forward to the weekend where I’ll only need to take care of myself.
I take one last look at the retouched wedding photos and leave the house.
‘What?’ Risky says, picking up her phone.
It is very aggressive for her. I pretend not to notice and shift my gaze to my computer screen.
‘Yeah, and I meant it.’ She gets up and moves over to the window. ‘I said it because it needed to be said.’ She starts to pace up and down. Whoever is on the phone is really annoying her. I carry on pretending I haven’t noticed.
‘Why? What do you mean, why? Because it doesn’t feel right, that’s why.’ She covers the end of her phone with her hand and lets out a frustrated sound, rolling her eyes at me. ‘You can’t just ignore it,’ she continues. ‘No, you have to at least acknowledge it. It’s like it’s not even there. Well of course it matters, it’s my fucking vagina.’
Oh wow. She is talking about sex. I get up slowly. I’ll sneak into the bathroom until she’s finished. But she sees me get up and rushes over, putting her hand on my arm and squeezing it tightly as her frustration mounts.
‘I don’t hate it, I like it, but that isn’t the point. It’s not all I want. You’re giving me a complex about my vagina. I don’t need that in my life, OK? Is there something wrong with it? Why won’t you have sex with it?’
I check to make sure she isn’t drawing blood on my arm, it really hurts.
‘Oh yeah? Well then it’s over, OK? I can’t do this anymore. That’s all you want, and I want respect. Do you know what else wants respect?’
The guy on the phone and I hang tight for her answer.
‘MY VAGINA.’
She hangs up on him, lets go of my arm and screams at her phone.
‘Well that seemed to go well?’ I ask.
‘I love it up the bum, Beth. But my vagina needs it too,’ she says, utterly forlorn. So much vagina chat for one afternoon.
‘Shall we get on with some work?’ I suggest. ‘We’re on a deadline here, Risky.’
She ambles back to her desk, her mind clearly still focused on sex. Sitting down, she picks up her phone and starts angry texting. Then she starts smiling, and her phone rings. This is fascinating.
‘Hey,’ she says, heading back to the window. ‘Yeah, I did it. Yeah, I guess so … I mean, if you want us to be?’ She is making her legs go all kooky and twirling her hair. ‘Ha-ha, oh you do, do you?’ She giggles. ‘Oh yeah? I do too. What, now? Adam, I’m at work.’
‘ADAM!’ I say in a loud whisper. She shrugs as if she just can’t help herself.
‘No, not here,’ she says. ‘No … OK, OK, give me a second.’
Risky winks at me – any authority I had as a boss has all but evaporated – and takes her little pink dildo out of her bag and disappears into the toilet.
‘OK, OK, I’m nearly there,’ she tells him. ‘They’re black … and lacy … I’m not wearing one. I’m not!’
She shuts the door. I am left alone at my desk, in my office, while my assistant cracks one out in the bathroom, over the phone with my client’s brother. How the actual hell is this happening?
The office door suddenly pops open.
‘Michael, what are you doing here?’
‘Tommy wanted to surprise Mummy at work,’ Michael says, coming into the office holding my baby.
‘Right, um, well how lovely,’ I say.
‘Where is Risky?’ he asks me.
‘Oh, she’s in the toilet. She might be a while. Big lunch.’
I wish I hadn’t said that.
‘Everything OK?’ he asks me. I should be happier to see them.
‘Yes, yes, fine.’
‘Oh my goodness,’ Risky says, coming out of the toilet. (That was quick.) ‘You need to prepare me for this level of cuteness.’
She takes Tommy from Michael as he unclips the carrier. ‘Hello gorgeous baby. Oh, he’s got your eyes, Beth. And your nose, Michael. He is the perfect mash-up of both of you,’ Risky coos. She makes funny faces at Tommy, he smiles.
‘How lovely of you to drop by.’ Why am I sounding so formal with my husband? ‘I mean, you should have called ahead and we would have tidied up,’ I say, giving Michael a kiss on the cheek.
‘Oh God, you guys kill me!’ says Risky. ‘I’m always telling Beth how you have my dream marriage. You’re very special you know, Michael. Taking care of the baby like this while your wife works. Such a modern man.’
‘Oh, thank you,’ Michael says, blushing. ‘It’s just what you have to do, isn’t it?’
‘I suppose so, but not all dads are willing to do it.’
Risky’s praise is nauseating. A dad fulfilling his potential as a parent doesn’t mean he should be branded a hero.
‘Have you fed him?’ I ask.
‘Nope, I thought you’d like to feed him?’
‘Great. Risky, bring him here, would you?’ She does as I ask. ‘Come on little man, come to Mummy.’ He latches onto my right boob and we both feel the release of it. I love him so much. Everyone told me I would feel a love I had never felt before, but I didn’t realise it would feel so different from how I feel about everyone else in the world.
‘How great does Beth look for someone who just had a baby?’ Risky says to Michael. ‘I keep telling her what a hot Mumma she is but she won’t believe me.’
‘Risky, please!’ I say, hoping she shuts up. I don’t want Michael to be forced into noticing me and then lying about how he feels about it.
‘Yes, yes she’s looking well,’ Michael says. One hundred per cent less enthusiastic about my appearance than Risky.
‘And what about those whoppers?’ she says, pointing at my breasts. ‘I bet it doesn’t feel fair, for them to look so amazing but you’re not allowed to touch them.’
She thinks she’s hilarious. Risky prides herself on saying whatever she wants and being very open about sex. To be fair to her, she is talking to a married couple who shouldn’t be finding this so excruciating.
‘Yes, they are nice,’ Michael says, not knowing where to look. He manages almost everywhere except at me.
‘Oh look at you, getting all shy,’ Risky says. ‘Look Beth, he’s blushing.’ I pretend to tend to Tommy. I can’t look at Michael. Someone even saying the word ‘hot’ around us has become unbearable.
‘Sooooo, do you think you’ll have another one?’ she asks Michael. ‘People always ask women that, but that isn’t fair, so I always make sure I ask men too.’
‘Um … I don’t know about that, we’d have to …’
I wonder if Michael is going to say ‘have sex’. But of course he doesn’t.
‘… Move, probably. We’d need another bedroom. And we don’t really want to move, do we Beth?’
‘No. We don’t want to move.’ I give Risky a firm eye, urging her to shut up but she doesn’t get my point.
‘Well, I suppose the joy of having one is that you get your marriage back nice and quick. You hear such terrible stories of relationships falling apart after babies. One of my mum’s friend’s husbands just left her after twenty years because she totally lost her sex drive after their third kid.’
‘OK, Michael, I think Tommy is full,’ I say, standing up. Poor Tommy doesn’t know what is going on and starts to cry hysterically. ‘I’m sorry love, we have a big meeting in about twenty minutes and I need to prepare for it. Can you take him home?’
Michael can’t get Tommy in the carrier quick enough. He is screaming and wants more milk. Risky is faffing, she can’t cope with a baby crying. No one can, it’s a horrible and traumatising sound. But nothing is worse to me right now than Michael staying here and Risky trying to spark a conversation about our sex life.
‘Bye love, see you after work,’ I yell down the stairs, over the sound of Tommy’s screams. My nipples are spouting and soaking my top. I could cry at the thought of what our marriage has become.
‘That was nice,’ Risky says as I come back into the office.
‘Yeah, lovely,’ I reply as I sit back at my desk.
‘Here,’ she says, handing me some tissue for my leaking boobs. I pat the outside of my shirt, then shove a couple of nipple pads in my bra.
Risky gets another text message. She grins and replies enthusiastically. Looks like she’s got the horn again.
I pretend not to notice.
When I picked Bonnie up from nursery at five p.m. she was sitting in a corner alone, with bright red eyes and an exhausted face.
‘She didn’t settle all day,’ Maria tells me. ‘It would have been much better if you had picked her up when I called.’
I told her I was sorry, but that it had been impossible for me to leave work. Maria said that Monday must be different. ‘Bonnie has separation anxiety and needs to be settled in slowly.’ It’s the worst she’d ever seen from a three-year-old, apparently. She asked for me all day long.
My little girl asking for me? I’d resigned myself to that never happening. Frustrating as it is for her not settling in, it’s nice to know she needs me. This week hasn’t been entirely terrible. Bonnie has watched a lot of TV in the time we’ve spent together, but we have had some nice moments too. More in a few days than we have had in months. Maybe Bonnie is responding to that, she wants to be with me more. But I try not to think about that too much, because what it also means is that I have been neglecting her for a long time, and that the moment I put more effort in to our relationship, her behaviour towards me has changed. This is quite a frustrating realisation.
Bonnie refused to get into her buggy. But only because she wanted me to carry her home. She wrapped herself around me and wouldn’t let go. Her head lay gently on my shoulder. My back is sore from carrying her for nearly a mile, but I wouldn’t have put her down even if she had asked me to. I don’t remember the last time she held onto me like that. It gave us both a great deal of unexpected comfort.
‘I have a little present for you at home,’ I whisper into her ear to cheer her up. She cuddles me even tighter.
‘What is it Mummy?’ Bonnie asks excitedly.
‘You’ll have to wait and see.’
Her gorgeous blue eyes are sparkling at the thought of it; the excitement helping her to forget the agony of the day.
‘It’s up in your room,’ I tell her as I open the front door.
Bonnie runs up the stairs as quickly as she can, I follow her up. In her room she scans the floor then looks in her toy box.
‘Maybe try your bed?’ I suggest, and she immediately finds the cuddly toy all tucked up.
‘A mouse,’ she says, pulling it out from under the duvet and hugging so hard she squashes it almost completely.
‘Do you like him?’ I ask.
‘I love her.’
‘Oh, it’s a her?’
‘Yes, and her name is Mummy.’ She is delighted with her choice of name. I’d prefer not to have a mouse of all things named after me, but this isn’t the time to express that.
‘Good, well I’m glad you like it. Why don’t you play with Mummy while I go and make your dinner?’
‘I want to play with Mummy, Mummy,’ she says, putting the mouse back on the bed.
‘OK, well you do that and I’ll call you when dinner is ready.’
‘NO, I want to play with you.’
‘With me? Why?’ I ask. I never play with Bonnie. I have always been extremely proud of her ability to play alone. I am not one of those mothers who gets down on her hands and knees and builds Lego towers.
‘Let’s play shops,’ she says, getting a case full of plastic food items and a little cash register.
‘Bonnie, I really do need to get your dinner on …’
‘You can’t cook my dinner if you haven’t been to the shops though, can you?’
‘I guess not.’
I sit on the floor, resting my back against her bed while she arranges things into what she considers to be a good enough shop to satisfy her imagination.
‘OK,’ she says, looking at me like I know what to do next. It takes me a minute to get into character.
‘Oh, right. I’d like a tomato and a cucumber, please?’ I say.
‘No, you want the pasta,’ she says, forcefully.
‘OK, please can I have the pasta and the tomato sauce?’ I say, playing along.
‘NO! You want the pasta and the cheese,’ she says, snatching the fake tomato sauce out of my hand and forcing the plastic cheese into it instead.
‘OK, Bonnie,’ I say, calmly. ‘I’ll have the pasta and cheese please.’ Determined to play nicely.
‘But I want the cheese Mummy,’ she insists, her arms crossing.
‘Bonnie—’
‘NOOOOOO, I WANT THE CHEESE,’ she screams, unreasonably. Going straight to a level eight.
I keep my voice calm. I don’t want to upset her, but I don’t want her to talk to me that way either. She finds my response unbearable and exits the bedroom, thumping her way down the stairs. I sit on the floor, surrounded by plastic food, and I have a major revelation. Toddlers are crazy no matter what I do. It isn’t my fault.
As Bonnie plays alone with her kitchen upstairs, I make her a dinner of sausages and mashed potato. She eats it in her chair with a big cushion on it, while I play The Gruffalo audiobook through my Amazon Alexa. I ask her if she would like more, but she turns her head to the side as if I have said the cruellest thing imaginable. It makes me laugh. I’m not sure I have ever laughed at this behaviour before, but parenting is slowly becoming clearer to me. It isn’t easy, but that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t be doing it. All I have to do is think of Ross, and what he has been through. I bet he’d swap his agony for even just one more day with Verity, whether she was having a meltdown or not.
I let her watch the TV for a bit before we battle through a bath. She refuses to get in, then thrashes about so much that she slips and bangs her head on the side. No real damage is done, but the tantrum elevates to a solid nine. Getting her into pyjamas is like trying to dress an octopus. Eventually she is in bed, a story has been read, soft lighting fills the room and a vaporiser emits a gentle lavender scent. She falls asleep within minutes, holding onto Mummy the mouse like they have shared a lifetime of love.
I watch her from the door. Maybe the trick to parenting isn’t trying to manage her reactions, but rather, it’s trying to manage my own. And above all else, at least my daughter is alive. Maybe I am lucky after all.
Lauren Pearce – Instagram post
@OfficialLP
The picture is of Lauren in workout gear, sitting in the classic Dandasana yoga pose. She has taken the photo herself, using a mirror’s reflection. She is smiling. Fully made-up. There is a green juice on the mat next to her.
The caption reads:
I’m doing better. Much better today. Silly me getting myself in a state and sharing that with you all. As if you don’t have your own problems to worry about. The thing about anxiety is that we all have it on various levels. We all have to manage it. And I can, and I will. Less than two weeks until I say ‘I DO’ to the man I love. Feeling thankful for him, and for the people I have around me. And I am grateful for the large and the little things in my life that bring me joy. Everything from my smoothie, to my dog, to the clothes on my back. Am grateful to be alive. We all should be. #loveyourself #selfcare #womensupportingwomen #greenjuice #yoga #vegan
@quincybones: That’s it girl, get those pelvic floors nice and snappy and cheer the f*ck up.
@delorously: I like it when you share about your anxiety. If someone like you has it, then it makes me feel like less of a mess.
@reason675: oh my fucking god when will you actually shut the fuck up you vain vacuous asshole.
@eagerbeaveronly: So much respect for you. QUEEN. You are beautiful inside and out.
@lovelollyed: literally never loved another human as much as I love you.
With Bonnie upstairs sleeping like an angel, I sit on the sofa looking at the pictures of Lauren. I keep flicking between the originals and the ones that I have worked on. Of course I have made her more beautiful. In fact, I have made her perfect. But she really wasn’t so bad to begin with. There are plenty of untouched photos of her and Gavin leaving various parties and on red carpets. Her dresses are always skin-tight. Either her boobs or legs are shown off, sometimes both. She is every bit the stereotype of the trophy wife. A bit of an airhead, laden with designer clothes, if she is wearing anything at all. The Internet is full of quotes that her PR has made on her behalf. Banging on about empowerment and anxiety like she has a clue about it. She needs to spend a week with my mother, then tell me she understands mental health.
She is a fraud. But she is also my source of income at the moment, and all of this will buy me an exceptional new handbag and very possibly a new painting for my living room. What is the expression? One man’s trash is another man’s treasure? Maybe in my case, it’s more ‘One woman’s insecurity is another woman’s art budget.’ I shouldn’t joke. Mental illness is nothing to take lightly. Which is why Lauren Pearce using it to gain career traction is so offensive to me.
I text my mother.
Mum, how are the cats today?
‘Delivered’ turns to ‘read’ immediately on iMessage. Luckily she has never realised she can turn that function off, as it’s very useful to know she has seen the message, and that she isn’t dead. I get back to the images of Lauren.
My job is to make something that isn’t real, not look fake. That takes a lot of skill. When I used to work for an advertising company, which was awful, there was never the concern that something looked fake, all we had to do was create a picture that lied about how life-changing the product was. I was forever making some anorexic model with limp hair look like she had the locks of a Grecian goddess, just to sell some shampoo that didn’t even work (I know this, because I tried all of the products myself), but all anyone cared about was that the hair looked incredible. A level of incredible that is literally unachievable by anything other than a wig. So full, so shiny, not a split end in sight. I’d create the impossible hair to promote the impossible product. And the people who were behind it were vile. They spoke about women like they were idiotic pieces of meat, stupid enough to believe they could look like a digitally created picture. It made me very uncomfortable. Rebecca used to work for them a lot too, but she moved more into celebrity photo shoots with magazines and took me with her. That was never a moral decision for her – I’m not sure Rebecca has morals about what she does – but then I’m part of the machine so what good are my morals really?
Rebecca used to send me some really horrific emails back then. The agency would book models that were so thin, so ill-looking. I can spot a girl with an eating disorder a mile off. One time, the photos of this poor girl were so upsetting to look at. The ad was for a denim brand. They claimed these jeans gave you the perfect bottom. This woman had no bottom. She was gaunt and pale and her legs looked hardly able to hold her up. Whoever cast her should have been fired, but apparently she was a well-known model and quite a catch for the campaign. Rebecca sent me the images with the simple instruction: ‘Make her look like she isn’t dying.’ It broke my heart. I felt for her as I warmed her skin tone, took away the dark shadows under her eyes, fleshed out her thighs, and gave her the bottom that the jeans promised to give every woman. What I did to her would make her problem worse. She looked fantastic by the end, meaning she would get booked for more work. Her credibility as a model would continue to rise, and she would continue to starve herself. I always wondered what it must feel like for a model like her to know that she’ll be ‘fixed in post’. Was it a relief to know it didn’t really matter how she looked, because someone like me would alter it anyway? Or did it destroy her, to see that her real image was never good enough, and that it needed to be reworked on a computer to make it printable? Either way, the entire experience of advertising was excruciating. These days I mostly work off the demands of the women in the photo, although Rebecca requests changes too and the subject of the photo never contests them. I have no reason to feel bad about it. Even though I do.
Unable to stop snooping on Lauren Pearce, I find an interview that she did with the Daily Mail a few years ago. They ask her when she plans to have children. A stupid question to ask a twenty-five-year-old (as she was at the time) who isn’t even married yet. Her answer is breathtaking.
The lemon-haired beauty wants her daughters to know the value of their bodies.
‘If I am lucky enough to have daughters, I’m sure it will be very hard. I want them to love their bodies, like I love mine. But it’s hard, especially with Instagram and Snapchat and other social media apps where filters can make anyone look perfect. It’s a fake world, but my job as their mum would be to keep it real.’
I have no sympathy for this woman or her hypothetical daughters. She is a liar and a hypocrite. Living in her perfect bubble of money, fame and potential motherhood. Trying to make a dime out of her fashionable issues with mental health, and the fake body she flaunts as real. It really shouldn’t be allowed.
‘Come on, please, Bonnie, Daddy will be here soon,’ I say, holding her shoes and coat. It is finally Friday evening, Liam is due at six and he is rarely late. I am waiting for him in the hallway.
‘What will you do when I’m with Daddy?’ she asks me, as I tie her laces. It is the first time she has ever asked such a question.
‘Tonight, I have a dinner with friends, and the rest of the weekend, I will work,’ I tell her. Because that is what I do at the weekends, along with taking long walks, sometimes buying a new handbag, occasionally making a dress. I spare the detail that I will spend most of tomorrow in a salon, having hair ripped out of my body by someone I don’t know, who may or may not send a message on WhatsApp to a group of her friends later in the day, telling them they won’t believe the woman that came in that day. Before describing me as disgusting.
‘What is work?’
‘It is what grown-ups do so that they can earn money to buy food and clothes, and other essential items.’
‘Do I work?’
‘Do you earn money?’ I ask her.
‘No.’
‘No, you are a child. You don’t work, you play. When you are a grown-up you will work, and you will have to choose what it is you do.’
‘What work did you choose?’
I pause. Did I choose what I do? Not exactly. I have landed in a place I never expected to land.
‘I make pictures look pretty,’ I tell her.
‘Pictures of what?’
‘Of people.’
‘What people?’
‘Women.’
‘How do you make them pretty?’
‘I … I colour them in, I suppose.’
‘Can you colour me in, to make me pretty?’
‘Don’t be silly.’
She lets out a moan. A moan way more in keeping with the version of her I am used to. She wants me to answer the question.
‘So why are the women in the pictures not pretty?’
‘Because they don’t think they are.’
‘Why don’t they think they are?’
‘Because they think there is something wrong with them.’
‘What’s wrong with them?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Then why do you need to change them?’
I stare at my daughter. She stares back at me. She wants an answer to a simple question but I have no idea what to say. When explaining my job to an innocent child, it feels completely ridiculous.
‘Why can’t you make me pretty, Mummy?’
‘Because, because …’
The doorbell rings and I feel, quite literally, saved by it.
‘Daddy!’ yells Bonnie, exercising an immediate mood change, and running to the door and knocking me over. I’ve always been cast aside by Bonnie’s love for her dad. It’s something I came to accept from around five minutes after she was born. Bonnie opens the door before I have the chance to get up. Liam sees me on my bottom in the hall and rushes in to my aid.
‘Ruby, Christ, are you OK, did you fall?’
I brush off his hands and shoo him away. He knows I don’t like to be touched.
‘No, I was just putting on her shoes and she knocked me over.’
‘Oh, OK, good. Hey Bon Bon!’
Bonnie jumps up into his arms. That used to be my favourite place too.
‘How was your trip?’ I ask him, knowing it’s important that we manage polite conversation in front of our daughter.
‘Oh, it was OK. You know, work. How was your week in the end?’
‘Hard, actually. I have a lot of work on at the moment.’
‘Mummy makes women look pretty for her work but she won’t make me pretty,’ Bonnie says, jutting out her bottom lip.
‘That’s because you’re already as pretty as you could possibly be,’ he says, reminding me of the answer I should have given her.
‘Anyway, she’s started at her new nursery now so that’s good.’
‘And how was it, do you like it?’ he asks Bonnie, to which she shakes her head violently and then rests it on his shoulder.
‘It’s smelly,’ she answers.
‘She’s being silly, it was great. It will just take a bit of time for her to settle in,’ I add, not looking him in the eye.
‘Right, well I’m glad that’s sorted. And it probably didn’t do any harm for you guys to spend a bit more time together anyway,’ he says, putting on the brakes and stopping the world from turning.
‘Excuse me?’ I ask him, slowly. Possibly with some steam coming out of my ears.
‘Well, you know, you two spending some quality time together would be nice, no?’
‘Are you kidding me? All I do is work, and parent, work and parent. Is that not enough for you?’ I am saying this through a fake smile, as if Bonnie doesn’t understand English.
‘All I mean is you drop her off at eight every morning, and pick her up after five. She comes to me every weekend. So maybe spending a few weekdays together isn’t such a bad thing. Did you like spending time with Mummy, Bonnie?’
She nods her head furiously. ‘We caught a mouse,’ she tells him. He raises his eyebrows with surprise; he is well aware of my phobia. ‘We set it free in the park.’
‘You did?’ he asks me. But I have frozen, both physically and emotionally. I can’t think of a damn thing to say.
‘OK, well we better get going if we want to get a movie in before bedtime,’ Liam says, snapping me back into the hallway.
‘Her bedtime is at seven, please don’t keep her up late.’
‘I know, don’t worry,’ he says, offering Bonnie a cheeky smile that she delivers right back to him. He’s the fun one. I’m the boring one who never spends any time with my child, apparently.
I give him the bag I packed for her. It’s a nice bag, a Kate Spade tote, I tell him not to lose it. I shut the door behind them as they walk off down the street making silly faces and laughing.
It isn’t my fault I am not as much fun as him.
All of my feelings about Michael not touching me are turning to rage. I am so angry I could burst. I have the right to a sex life. What if I have married a man who never works this out, and I have to either break my family in half to satisfy my own needs, or just commit to a life of no sex? Could I do that? Live a sexless life? Maybe I could. I mean, do we even need sex?
I do. I need sex. That doesn’t make me crazy.
All that has happened so far is accidental voyeurism, and continuous erotic fantasies both when I am awake and asleep. If I don’t get laid soon, I’m worried I might jump Risky.
I came home early from work today, in time to feed Tommy before bed. And early enough that Michael can’t possibly tell me he is too tired to speak to his wife.
‘We need to talk about the other night,’ I say to him, as I tuck into a jacket potato with tuna that I brought home with me. He was offended that I didn’t want his shepherd’s pie with a parsnip topping. But the second best thing to sex are carbohydrates, so it’s happening. He can’t deny me them both.
‘Oh, Mum will be OK, she just loves Tommy, that’s all,’ he says, choosing a subject he can handle rather than the one he knows I am referring to.
‘I don’t mean what happened with your mother, I mean what happened with us, in bed. Michael, can you look at me, please?’ He does as I ask but looks terrified, then cross. I refuse to allow our sex life to be a forbidden subject. I have been fantasising about watching strangers fuck in forests, this simply can’t go on. I am not enjoying feeling like a pervert. ‘Michael, I love you so much, but we have a problem, you know that, don’t you?’
He sits down next to me. ‘I know,’ he says, pitifully. This feels like progress.
‘Michael, do you fancy me?’ I ask, bracing myself for an answer that I am not emotionally prepared for.
‘Of course I do,’ he says, tenderly.
‘Then what? What is the problem?’
‘There isn’t a problem, Beth. Why are you always making me feel guilty?’
OK, here we go …
‘I’m not trying to make you feel guilty. I just need to know. Is your lack of interest in me my fault, or is it something else?’
I want to avoid suggesting that there is anything wrong with him, even if it means aiming the blame at myself, because I am trying to create a safe space for him to tell me why this is happening. I think I am doing quite well.
‘Yes, it is your fault,’ he says.
I immediately want to cry.
‘My fault, how?’ I ask, telling myself to stay strong. I am not the one in the wrong. I am a good wife, I am a good person, I am not the one with the problem.
‘There’s nothing sensual about you anymore, nothing subtle. You make me feel like all that matters is sex. If I don’t want it, there’s something wrong with me. Well, have you ever thought that there might be something wrong with you?’
‘Yes, Michael. All the time. I wonder if there’s something wrong with me every single day.’
‘And?’
‘And what?’
‘And have you worked out what it is?’ he asks.
Is this really the man I married?
‘No,’ I say, knowing he is about to tell me, and knowing it will hurt.
He takes his time, as if really working out how he will say it. And then he does.
‘You aren’t very good in bed.’
‘Pardon?’
‘You make love like you’re alone. It isn’t very sexy. It’s not what I like. Take the other night as an example, I was clearly not in the mood but you forced yourself on top of me and writhed around like you were possessed. It wouldn’t have mattered if I was there or not.’
‘It wouldn’t have mattered if you were there or not? We were making love! You kissed me. You had an erection?’ I say, feeling like I can’t stand up, or raise my voice, or do anything else that might emphasise the fact that he clearly thinks I am a sexual monster. I take a deep breath and force myself to speak calmly. ‘You could have asked me to stop, Michael.’
‘Could I? You weren’t taking any notice of me.’
I don’t know what to say.
‘It’s not how women should behave.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘From the moment you got pregnant it was all about you. How you were feeling, how birth would be for you. How I would take care of Tommy, so you could work. Being a mother has made you selfish. Sex-crazed.’
‘OK, Michael, I think you’re really upset. I didn’t mean this conversation to turn nasty. I just wanted to talk about our sex life.’
‘No, you wanted to tell me it’s my fault.’
‘No, I … for God’s sake, people are out there hurting each other. Cheating on each other. And I don’t want that to happen to us.’
‘Are you cheating on me?’ he asks, his eyes squinting.
‘No, that isn’t what I said. I said people are, and I don’t want us to …’
‘To what? To cheat on each other? Are you threatening me with infidelity?’
‘No, I wouldn’t do that. I’m just saying that—’
‘You’re just saying that if I don’t have sex with you, you’ll cheat on me? Great, I feel really horny now.’
‘You’ve just twisted everything I’ve said.’
‘Well, that’ll go well with your twisted brain, won’t it?’ he says, like a petulant teenager who I will never be able to reason with.
‘Michael, stop it. You’re being ridiculous.’
‘Am I? Well maybe this marriage is ridiculous.’
Wow.
‘Look, I’m sorry if that’s how that sounded, but it isn’t what I meant. I am not cheating on you, and I have no plans to.’
Maybe that was a lie.
‘Good,’ he says, heading to the living room door. ‘Because with all the childcare that I’m doing, I know which parent would get the judge’s vote for custody.’
‘What did you just say?’ I ask him slowly, every hair on my body standing up, my spine breaking through my skin and the Mumma Bear in me preparing for attack.
‘You heard me,’ he says, standing firm.
‘You’re not doing childcare, Michael, you’re being a parent. Can we at least get that straight?’
‘Don’t test me. If you cheat on me, I’ll not make it easy for you. And I’ll take Tommy, you can bet on that.’
He leaves the room. I am left dumbstruck.
I came home to try to and work things out. Now, to be quite honest, he can go fuck himself.
WhatsApp chat
Group name – Falmouth Forever
Yvonne: Feel fat, hate my clothes. What are you all wearing?
Jess: Urgh, me too. Kids ruined me. Jeans, grey top with puffy sleeves, boring.
Sarah: You are NOT FAT. Me, on the other hand. I was doing so well but I’m too busy to go to Pilates. I’ll probably wear what I wear every time I go out … a black smock.
Ruby: I was thinking about wearing some velvet, maybe? ;)
Yvonne: LOL. Can’t wait to see you in velvet Rubes, can’t imagine it ;)
Every time I meet my friends for dinner they send a flurry of text messages explaining why they will look terrible. Very often the complaint is dress-size related. As if they will walk in, and one of us will scream in horror at their weight gain.
I went to university with Yvonne, Jess and Sarah. We were at Falmouth, all doing degrees in Fine Art. I very much enjoyed the course, but living by the coast in a place that had a rampant surf scene was more challenging than I’d envisaged – when I first applied, I hadn’t realised my condition would get worse.
But I managed to make good friends, and twenty years later we’re still in touch. We are all busy but manage to meet two to three times a year for dinner. I generally arrive kicking and screaming but quite enjoy it by the end. It’s always a little surprising when I get invited as, since they witnessed Liam’s outburst at the wedding, I have been even more cagey than usual. But they seem pretty determined to keep me in the group, all reminding me regularly of the times that I apparently ‘saved them’ from total despair.
I’m not capable of giving myself that much credit. But I suppose what they are saying is true. I have, at different times, rescued them all from something. Jess’ experience is the one I remember most clearly. We all shared a house, which I hated because women seem to want to walk around wearing just towels or underwear. They never saw me in anything less than full-body velvet. It was at university that I truly made it my ‘thing’. Dressing gowns, trousers, tops, coats, dresses that I made, vintage discoveries. Looking back, I realise I looked like a sofa, but it got me through university. Like a punk who pierces her face, or a biker covered in tattoos, I claimed velvet as my look. I couldn’t afford full-body waxing back then, and the hair growth was still quite recent. I didn’t have a grip of it at all, and one stupid night I decided to shave. I had shaved my legs and armpits before, of course. But this night, I shaved everything. My legs, my arms, my stomach, my nipples. I even reached around to my back and shaved that. I felt like I had won the greatest prize on earth. I came out of the bathroom with just a towel around me. There was no one else home to see it, but the walk from the bathroom to my bedroom, with my shoulders exposed, felt like the most joyous victory lap imaginable. My friends were in a pub and I hadn’t wanted to go because my need for solitude was starting to develop. But that night, I felt free.
I joined them in the pub. I even drank alcohol. Three drinks in total, my first in ages because I’d developed another fear of losing control. The drinks went to my head pretty quickly. I found myself flirting with a guy at the bar. He seemed to find me attractive, and I’d not flirted or been flirted with for a long time because I hadn’t allowed it to happen. I told myself to enjoy that night, the skin underneath my only sleeveless velvet dress loving the sensation of the air on it. I felt like I could fly.
Jess was getting off with one of my guy’s housemates. At around eleven p.m. they suggested we went back to theirs to continue the party. We said yes. Jess and her guy went into the living room, me and my guy went into the kitchen. He made me a disgusting cocktail, which I drank because I was already feeling loose and had managed to convince myself that I was someone else. After a while we began kissing. It got quite heated so – most out of character but obviously fulfilling an unconscious desire – I asked him to take me to his room. I was a young woman, I had my needs. He did as I asked.
He took off all of his clothes and got into bed. I stood looking at him, my velvet armour clinging to me as if it knew what was about to happen. He asked me what I was waiting for. I told him nothing. I took off my dress and my tights. I got into bed. He kissed me, and laid his hand on my stomach, then leaped out of bed, shaking his fingers like there was something sticky on them that he wanted to get off. He yelled, ‘What the fuck was that?’ And pointed to my belly.
I ran my hand over it. Stubble so sharp it made a sound when I rubbed it the wrong way.
The guy, Jonny, was now switching between laughter and obvious repulsion. ‘Did you shave your gut?’ My presence in his bedroom was impossible to understand. What was I even doing there? Why did I think this could be me?
I got out of bed and got dressed. I didn’t say a word. He laughed at me as I left.
I felt I couldn’t go without letting Jess know, so I quietly peeked into the living room, very aware that I could walk in on my friend having sex, which was not something I wanted to do. What I saw was Jess fast asleep on the sofa, and the guy she was with lying naked next to her. One hand in her underwear, the other hand wrapped around his penis – he was about to have sex with her.
I immediately ran to the couch, pulled his hand off her and shook her as hard as I could.
‘Jess, wake up,’ I yelled, repeatedly. Shaking more and more violently until she came around.
‘What the fuck are you doing, you crazy bitch?’ the guy said, still naked. Still with his hand on his penis.
‘She was asleep, you animal,’ I said, wanting to spit on him.
‘She was gagging for it,’ he groaned. No care for the damage he could have inflicted.
I did the button up on Jess’ jeans, and put her arm over my shoulder, managing to get her out. We staggered with great difficulty for the fifteen-minute walk home. My back was killing me, but it wasn’t worse than what we had escaped.
The next morning I told Jess exactly what I had seen and what had happened to her. She found the whole thing very hard to cope with, but was back at the pub and getting off with guys again within a few weeks.
I didn’t get intimate with another man until I met Liam. And I never drank again.
We are all mothers now.
I have to do a little mental preparation before I meet Yvonne, Jess and Sarah. It isn’t that I don’t like them, I do. But the more time you spend alone, the harder it is to be sociable. These women see each other a lot so they’re quite relaxed with each other. Because I see them less they ask me a lot of questions and I find it quite overbearing.
There is an awful lot of pressure to be a ‘woman’s woman’. Everyone’s talking about ‘women supporting women’, and ‘the power of female friendship’. It’s enough to make me stop reading the papers. Female relationships being written about like a bond men could never understand. How we are ‘stronger together’, how ‘magical things happen when women unite’. How girls run the world, according to Beyoncé. I don’t know if I’m particularly on board with any of that. I’m not sure I particularly like women, just because they are women.
My relationship with the fairer sex has always been extremely complex. For most of my life they have fought against me. It started with my mother, then the girls at school, picking on me in the changing rooms and making monkey sounds at the very sight of my flesh.
These women, my friends, are not cruel to me, despite me being quite unpleasant a lot of the time. After Liam said those awful things at our wedding I was so embarrassed that I barely saw them until Bonnie was born. They turned up unannounced at my house, like they were hosting some ridiculous intervention. Luckily, I was wearing my dressing gown. I allowed them in. They gathered around Bonnie like mad aunties. I didn’t admit it to them, but I enjoyed their visit. I told them I would resurface on the proviso we never talked about the wedding, that they never asked me any questions relating to what happened, and that they never showed up at my house unannounced again. They agreed to all of the above. Each stating again how much I had helped them at various times, and how they all owe me their support.
Maybe they are right, because as well as helping Jess to escape rape, I once punched one of Sarah’s ex-boyfriends in the face because I saw him kissing another girl outside the college library. I went home and told her right away. She cried and accused me of lying, then went to his house where he opened the door with a black eye and a half-naked girl standing behind him. Sarah apologised to me and said that I could rely on her friendship forever. She’s kept this promise.
I am wearing a black velvet version of the usual dress this evening with extensive costume jewellery and a fantastic Saint Laurent shoulder bag. When I am this hairy I go full throttle on my accessories. They’re the ultimate distraction. I was supposed to be freshly waxed for this dinner. I wanted to cancel, but they always give me hell if I try to do that.
‘Ruby, you look so skinny,’ says Yvonne, as I walk into the tapas bar in Soho. My instinct is to snap at her. What a hideous way to greet a woman. ‘So skinny’ is a loaded ‘hello’. ‘So skinny’ is not a compliment. It’s oozing with, ‘What is the matter? Are you depressed? Do you eat? Are you ill?’
Women go on and on about wanting to be valued for more than their looks, but they do this to each other. They greet each other with compliments, often fake. I don’t want to look like a praying mantis. But if I gave in to food I’d swell up like a pregnant rhinoceros. Staying thin is a consistently agonising task. All women know that. Yvonne is projecting her own delusions about her size and possibly hoping I greet her with the same false positive. I don’t. She’s put on weight and it’s not worth denying.
I am the last to arrive and they all stand awkwardly for me. They’ve all been told to get off me when they have touched my body. They’ve all been snapped at, told to shut up. Warned not to mention things enough times to be wary of how to be around me. I don’t feel good about being so demanding, but there is no doubt my time with them is easier since I set such boundaries.
Their children are older than mine because it didn’t take them as long to find husbands. They all live in Queen’s Park. All living the dreamy London mum life, which centres around their kids’ social activities and dinner parties.
‘So how is Bonnie?’ asks Jess. She had her babies at home and runs a charity for pregnant women who live on the streets. The charity ensures they get the best chance possible for a safe delivery. She likes to tell stories about how homeless women, who have everything against them, still have wonderful experiences of birth. I have asked her many times not to relay them around me. She gets upset – once she even said I was selfish, which I suppose is true. But I explained about Bonnie hammering down onto my birth canal for hours, before being cut out of me, and how I now have a high chance of prolapse if I stand still for too long. That put an end to the happy birth stories.
‘Bonnie is alright. She was ill this week though, and we had a terrible time with her nursery so I was forced to find somewhere new.’
‘Oh no,’ Yvonne says. And I immediately wish I had lied, because then she does that thing that people do when they are very happy with something in their life, and start recommending it to you over and over again despite you telling them it isn’t right. ‘I can speak to the ladies at the nursery Florence used to go to, they’re so lovely. Oh God, I miss them. I can ask them on Monday.’
‘No, don’t do that,’ I say. ‘I’ve found a new place and I live in Kentish Town anyway, I couldn’t take her down there every day.’
‘Oh, but it’s so good. Seriously, worth the commute,’ she says, not listening to me.
‘I can’t take her to nursery in Queen’s Park, I don’t live there. I found a new place. She just needs to settle in.’ I’m trying to stay calm and rational.
We all stop to order some drinks as the waiter has been hovering over us. The others order a bottle of wine and I order an Arnold Palmer as a special treat.
‘Oh, you know who I could ask,’ says Sarah to Jess. ‘I could ask Mary, the one who runs the place Sammy used to go to, she’s got an extension I think, so she has more room.’ Jess nods cheerily, as if it’s a great idea.
‘Where is it?’ I ask.
‘Oh, just off the park,’ Jess says.
‘Which park?’ I ask, preparing my eyes for an enormous roll.
‘Queen’s Park,’ she and Sarah say in unison.
‘I don’t live in Queen’s Park,’ I say. Again.
‘Yes, but this place is sooooo good, you could just …’
‘No. No, I can’t just. I don’t live there, I don’t want to go there. You can stop making suggestions now, I’ll work it out.’ I don’t like being mothered, it makes me uncomfortable. It is a side-effect of never having been mothered. It makes me feel like someone is putting a hot, heavy blanket over my head. Being cared for is very claustrophobic for me.
There is an awkward silence. There are always awkward silences. I actually don’t find them that awkward because the thing that I want to stop, has indeed stopped.
‘Are you OK, Ruby?’ Sarah asks. ‘You seem even more tense than usual.’
They all find this funny. I tell them there is nothing wrong, but they insist I share whatever’s on my mind.
‘Liam said something,’ I say, causing them all to take sharp intakes of breath. They have been warned countless times not to talk about Liam. They obviously tried to investigate further after the nightmare of the wedding, but I shut it all down. I shut them down, then I had Bonnie, and I shut the marriage down.
‘It’s OK. In this particular capacity I’m happy to discuss him, you can all breathe out now,’ I say, reassuringly, and they all do. Jess’ eyes light up; for some weird reason she reminds me of the mouse.
‘He made a comment that has upset me,’ I say.
‘Uh-oh,’ Jess says, darting her eyes at Yvonne who makes a ‘yikes’ face. ‘This is never a good start.’
‘What did he say, my love?’ Yvonne says gently. She definitely owes me a sympathetic ear.
The time I ‘saved’ Yvonne was possibly the most remarkable. I walked in on her making herself sick in our third year. She had lost a dramatic amount of weight and insisted it was just the stress and pressure of the final exams. When I walked into the bathroom and caught her, fingers wedged firmly down her throat, she looked at me with a look that maybe a murderer would have given me, had I have walked in on them mid-stab. She was scared, threatened, but also determined to carry on.
She ran to the door and slammed it shut, almost trapping my fingers. I hammered for her to let me in, but she wouldn’t. So I sat on the floor in the hallway and talked to her until she calmed down. I told her I could hear everything she was doing, and that if she was sick I would know. Her problem was a secret and she couldn’t bear for me to hear her do it, so she slumped on one side of the door, and I sat on the other. We stayed like this for hours not saying anything, while she cried and cried. I never left, not even once. Eventually I coaxed her out. She held me and cried some more, admitting to having done this for years with no one knowing, that she hated herself for it, that she wanted to stop. I sat with her and held her hand while she called her mum and told her. Something that very much came from her. I can’t imagine calling my mum when upset, it would be like burning my toe and then jumping into a fire. I forget other people receive comfort and support from their mothers in times of need. I then drove Yvonne to Bristol to her family home, where she stayed for six weeks until she felt like she could return. To my knowledge, vomit-free.
Essentially, she hated her body. Which is why I think I connect with her the most.
‘He said something about me never spending any time with Bonnie, and it’s really struck a nerve,’ I continue.
‘Oh,’ Sarah says, in an indecipherable way.
‘Oh?’ I push, noticing Jess throw her a look. Sarah feels confident to carry on.
‘I mean, the weekend thing is odd.’
‘Odd?’ I ask, trying not to snap. I invited this judgement, I know that.
‘Yes, Liam has her every weekend. We invite you to things with the kids but you never come because you don’t have Bonnie, ever. It’s just odd, that’s all. For Liam to have her every weekend.’
‘But he wants her at the weekends. I have her all week.’
‘You don’t though, do you? She’s at nursery,’ Sarah continues, like she’s been wanting to say this for ages.
‘I’m working.’
‘I know, we all work. But we see our kids at the weekends, that’s the whole point.’
‘I work too much, and I’m feeling like shit about it,’ Yvonne says. I am grateful for the attention to be on someone else. She is a lawyer. She quickly realised having an art degree was utterly pointless and retrained after Falmouth. I’ve always been quite impressed by that. It sounds boring as hell but the level of study is extraordinary, and I think it’s brilliant that anyone should achieve such a qualification without giving up. She’s a clever woman, and maybe my favourite out of the three. Jess works for a women’s health charity, while Sarah does something in the arts that is never clear to me no matter how much she explains it. She doesn’t make art or sell it, but by the time she’s explained that far I’ve usually switched off.
‘I’m actually thinking about going freelance; getting out of the grind, taking on less clients, spending more time with the kids,’ Yvonne says, as Sarah and Jess nod. I join in for show. ‘They’ll have grown up before we know it,’ Yvonne continues. ‘And I’ll look back on these years knowing I missed most of it because I worked so much. I don’t want to feel that way.’
‘You have to follow your heart,’ Sarah says, offering nothing but a cliché.
‘I think it’s good to be a busy working mum,’ I say. ‘Sets a good example.’
‘I agree,’ Yvonne says. ‘But I feel distant from the kids. It makes me …’ She sets her glass down and puts her hand to her face. She is crying. The other women lay hands on her body, Jess leans in to hug her. I remain still.
‘You’re a fantastic mum,’ Jess says. ‘And Ruby’s right, it’s good that your kids see you as a working woman. Providing for your family.’
‘I know, I know. Sorry Ruby, I know this was supposed to be about you—’ blubs Yvonne, nodding and crying. ‘It’s just that when they run to Daddy, and don’t come to me with their problems, or when they hurt themselves … I’ll always blame it on the fact I don’t see them from Monday to Friday, you know? Rob picks them up every day. By the time I get home they are in bed. It’s not what I want anymore. I feel like I’m serving myself and failing my children.’
‘Then you must do what makes you happy. If you think you can do it freelance, then do it,’ says Sarah.
I’m quite surprised. I’ve not seen this side of Yvonne before. She always seems to have it so together these days. I’ve always been a little jealous, to be honest. We actually share the same feelings, in a way. Liam’s relationship with Bonnie is very upsetting for me. I never considered that my issues could apply to other women too.
‘Here’s to being a shit mum,’ I say, raising my Arnold Palmer. They all clink glasses with me, raising their bare arms into the air as our glasses touch. I think we are all happy to move on from that conversation. It has no real resolution. If you are a mother and you work, you will always probably feel like you’re letting your kids down in some way. We just need to live with that. I brush my feelings back under the table.
‘So Jess, how is all with you?’ I ask.
‘Oh, you know, my life is just one constant negotiation. Do I choose my husband’s happiness or my own needs?’
‘Explain?’ Yvonne urges.
‘Sex,’ Jess says. ‘Sex and marriage do not go hand in hand.’
‘Oh my goodness, a married woman is going to talk about her sex life? Controversial,’ Sarah says. And she is right, we have discussed this before. These women used to talk about their sex lives in detail, until they got married and that kind of talk just stopped. A mysterious consequence of getting wed. A sudden respect for the sanctity of a sex life. Jess is obviously keen to smash that code.
‘He’s so moody. He grumps around the house all annoyed, and I know it’s because we don’t have enough sex. But why would I want to do it with someone who’s being so grumpy? But what always happens, every single time, is I give in and have sex with him just to snap him out of his strop. Afterwards I feel like I let myself down, but he is practically cartwheeling around the house. Such is a woman’s plight. Sex with moody husbands. Who signed me up for this shit?’
We all laugh. One thing I really do like about my friends, is how much they make me happy to be single. But also, how because of them, I am not entirely on my own.
Lauren Pearce – Instagram post
@OfficialLP
The image is of Lauren’s lower abdomen and thighs, she is wearing a very sexy black body suit. Across her lap we see white silk. A wedding dress? In the other hand she has a glass of champagne.
The caption reads:
Not long now until I get to wear this and say ‘I do’ to my best friend. Talking of ‘I do’s, shall we all say it to ourselves today? ‘I do’ accept myself, and I AM good enough. #Ido #love #selflove #happiness #mentalhealth #Happiness #AD #VeuveClicquot
@kellyclarkvillee: I accept you as my hero!
@helloprettiestone: SHOW US THE DRESS. Oh my God I cannot wait …
@selmaslemaslema: Is it true about Gavin? My friend says she knows one of the women. Bless you if it is. I hope you have good people around you.
@elasticbrain: You and Gavin and GOALZ. I wake up every day wishing I was you. How did you get that man? What is the secret?
@harrietgallently: I tried that granola you were promoting. Tasted like my gran’s armpit.