‘A cartoon? I can’t, sorry.’
‘OK, are you sure? I mean, it’s a movie. You wouldn’t have to talk to me. Come on Ruby, it would be nice for Bonnie to have us all together,’ he says, speaking more quietly, so I have to bring the camera closer to my face, which I hate.
‘No, Liam, I can’t. I have Bonnie all week, I need a break at the weekend, OK? It’s what we agreed.’
‘Actually, it’s what you agreed, but OK,’ he says, raising his eyebrows. ‘I just thought it would be nice.’
‘Well like I said, I can’t. OK? Anything else?’
‘No, other than, you look nice.’ He smiles; it’s confusing. I don’t like it. I catch sight of my face on my phone, I look horrible.
‘OK, well if you’re done then have a safe trip back and we’ll see you on Friday at six p.m., on the dot. Wave goodbye to Daddy, Bonnie.’ I turn the phone back to her, let Bonnie wave, then cut Liam off half way through him telling her he loves her. Which makes me feel nasty.
When we arrive home, Bonnie is coming down off the additives and sugar she’s eaten today. She’s falling asleep in her buggy. It’s one p.m., I’ll stick her in front of the TV, and I’ll get some time off to work on the images Rebecca sent through. Then I’ll feed Bonnie some fish fingers and vegetables.
I unstrap her and carry her to the sofa. She’s too tired to fight me. I put her head on a cushion, get Peppa Pig on, lay a blanket over her and let her be. I should get an hour of peace, maybe two if she goes back to sleep. I haven’t spent an afternoon with her in so long, I’m not even entirely sure if she naps anymore. It strikes me that that is terrible.
In the kitchen, I take off the tights. It’s a hot day, I’m sweating and plan to get my dressing gown on now I don’t intend to leave the house again today. I put both hands on the edge of the sink and take a second to think and breathe. Today has been awful. So the last thing, and I mean the absolute last thing, I need to see right now is a mouse run across my counter top, fall off it, land on the floor and disappear into a hole smaller than my finger.
‘NO!’ I yelp.
My fear of rodents is a close second to my fear of anyone seeing me naked. I cannot cope with them. I hate them. I hate them so much. I run to the dining table and clamber up onto one of the chairs. The mouse runs across the floor again. It disappears and I convince myself it’s crawling up my dress. I feel like I’m covered in mice. I pull my dress up over my head, getting stuck in it because I forgot to unzip. I’m trapped inside metres of thick velvet. My hands are fighting to get me free. The chair starts to wobble, I can’t steady myself. I fall, crashing to the ground, smacking myself on the floor, my dress coming over my head.
‘Mummy?’
Bonnie’s voice becomes clearer as my hearing returns. I must have been knocked out for a second because I hardly know where I am. I rummage around with my dress until I find a gap for me to look through. Nothing is broken, I don’t think. I pat my thigh with my hand and realise my dress is around my neck and my body is completely exposed. My arm hurts. I can’t cover myself. Instead, I freeze.
‘Mummy?’ Bonnie says again, looking at me with something between disgust and fascination on her face. For the first time in her life she gets to see what I have been hiding. My thin, skeletal frame, covered with thick black hair, starting at my chest and covering my stomach and my back and going all the way down to my ankles. Today, as if to add insult to injury, there’s the addition of a Pampers Baby Dry, heaving with blood.
I lie still, surrendering to the shame as my daughter takes it all in. I remember my mother’s face the time she burst in on me in the shower when I was sixteen. At first she looked disgusted, then pleased. Pleased she had discovered something she could taunt me with for the rest of my life.
Bonnie has an unidentifiable look on her face. I’ve hidden my naked body from her for three and a half years. Even when she was a tiny baby I turned her bouncer to face the wall when I was getting dressed. I didn’t want to frighten her or give her a complex about what she might become. I established a no-nudity clause when I became a parent, and I have never, ever broken it. Until this moment.
‘Bonnie, sitting room, now.’
She stares at me. What do I see in return? Shock? Disgust? It’s hard to tell.
‘Please, Bonnie. Mummy will be in in a minute.’
She doesn’t move. Her eyes water a little, she is pale. I think of the mouse. I have to get off the floor. It isn’t easy, my arm is starting to throb. Just as I get myself to a seating position, Bonnie’s mouth opens, and a stream of hot vomit shoots all over me. Chunks of undigested chocolate cake and half-chewed Percy Pigs cling to the hair on my stomach and shoulders, pooling into my lap and resting on the blood-soaked nappy.
I poisoned her with sugar.
Beth
I have been relentlessly googling how to reinstate some magic into a marriage, and it seems one of the answers is to spend more time together, one-on-one. That makes sense. I don’t remember the last time Michael and I went out for a meal. We fell into a TV dinner hole when I was pregnant and watched a series on Netflix until we passed out. It was time together, but not really. Our conversations now centre entirely around Tommy, and that is hardly going to help us work out our issues, is it? I send another text just before I leave work. This time a less humiliating one, requiring a straight answer, rather than any kind of compliment.
Do you think your mum would babysit tonight? After I put Tommy down? He won’t need feeding again until 11 and maybe if we stay local we could grab a nice dinner somewhere?
Nice idea, let me ask.
Mum says that’s fine. See, I told you it would be handy living so close to her. Bye.
This is literally the first time I have ever associated anything positive with living so close to my mother-in-law, Janet. She is interfering and obsessed with her children. She is one of those women who probably had sex three times in her entire life, each of which resulted in a child. All of whom are a bit weird. Michael’s brother has been married and divorced four times and not one of his ex-wives will speak to him. I’ve met him seven times and on at least three of those occasions he has hit on me or offended me in some way. Their sister is single at forty-eight. She lives in a house share in Canary Wharf and is obsessed with conspiracy theories. I can’t handle more than a thirty-second conversation with her. When I had Tommy, she turned up to the hospital high on ecstasy and told me that she thinks Tommy is the reincarnation of Benedict Cumberbatch. I reminded her that he isn’t even dead, to which she answered, ‘Yes, but how do you know?’ Luckily, she hasn’t come to see us since.
My mother-in-law will, however, speak of her children like they are perfect and as if she did a sensational job of raising them. I just nod and smile. Janet is prim, thin and neurotic. I am informal, fleshy and balanced. If his mother and I met in any other capacity, we would very likely scratch each other’s eyes out. But because of Michael, we somehow keep our claws in. I am willing to restrain myself even more knowing that her hideous proximity to our house means that she will be available for regular babysitting in the future. This is OK with me, because I will be out, far away from her.
She arrives at 6.30 p.m. as requested and insists that she puts Tommy to bed. My evenings with him are precious and I look forward to his bedtime every day, but I sacrifice this one to get a night out with my husband. It’s OK, it will be worth it. I get changed. I have a pretty standard uniform for work at the moment: my skinny maternity jeans – I know it’s been four months, but they are soooo comfy – and a long shirt that I can open easily for breast feeding. I wear low-heeled boots and subtle make-up. It works for both sitting alone