‘It’s amazing what you can buy at Tesco these days.’
‘Tesco?’ He laughs softly. ‘Classy.’ Then he clutches my hand, as if it’s something he’d lost and has just found and says, ‘We, um . . . we could just go to bed.’
‘Okay,’ I say, grinning. ‘If you insist.’
My heart is pounding as we climb the stairs together, the way it did the first time we kissed. We’d met at a party. Jed had just started out in teaching, and I’d vaguely known one of his housemates from college. What if? was our favourite game back then. What if your date hadn’t stood you up? he’d ask me. What if you hadn’t gone home feeling totally fed up, and played that message from Helen who you hadn’t heard from in years? What if you hadn’t rung her straight back? What if she hadn’t invited you to our party? What if my girlfriend hadn’t dumped me, and I hadn’t been sitting on the stairs, pissed off, nursing a warm bottle of Becks?
He’d known instantly, he insisted, although he hadn’t been remotely aware that I’d spied him too, the moment I’d walked in. Jed is oblivious to women’s glances and flirtations. But he’d spotted me, breezing in and brimming with confidence, as if I had no expectations of the night ahead because so far it had been crapper than crapsville. ‘And you thought I was just being friendly,’ I used to tease him. ‘You had no idea how cute you were. What did I have to do? Take you home to bed! The lengths I had to go to to make you realise I was crazy about you . . .’
‘Even then, I thought I was just a sympathy lay,’ he laughed.
Jed and I reach the landing. Hell, my unfinished chicken-shave job. ‘I’m just going to the bathroom,’ I murmur.
Disappointment flickers in his eyes. ‘Don’t be long this time.’
‘I’ll only be a minute. Honestly. There’s just, um, something I need to do.’
It takes longer than a minute as I strip naked and stand at the sink, trying to make myself symmetrical as speedily as possible without causing myself irreversible damage. My libido is ebbing away rapidly. The stockings have formed a crimped ring around the top of each thigh. In my eagerness to escape from that perv in Tesco, I must have grabbed too small a size.
I’m covered in suds, and water dribbles in rivulets down my legs as I try to wash them away. The floor is soaked, and I mop up the water with a fraying bath towel and an old T-shirt of Jed’s. By the time I’m back in my wretched underwear and padding tentatively into our bedroom, he is tucked up in bed with one arm slung across my pillow. ‘Hi,’ I whisper, slipping in under the duvet. I slide a hand across his chest which prompts him to roll away from me.
I study his broad, lightly tanned back and shoulders, which rise with each inhalation. Soft snores fill the room. It would appear that my hot date for tonight has fallen asleep.
Beth and I are unloading the toys from the playgroup cupboard. The children clamour around us, their voices echoing in the dusty hall. We lift the lid from the sandpit and fill it with mini trucks and diggers; we top up the water tray, drop in some little plastic boats and set out books in the reading area. I glance at her, my best mummy-friend looking lithe and faintly Boden-esque in her narrow jeans and snug-fitting raspberry T-shirt. ‘Beth,’ I say later, fixing us a coffee from the grumbling urn, ‘how do you do it?’
‘Do what?’ she asks.
‘Stay so slim and fit. I’ve been thinking, I really have to do something. I’m sick of being like this.’ I glare down at my body in its loose jeans and even looser black top.
‘But you’re lovely as you are,’ she insists. ‘Men are always looking at you. You must realise that. You’re sexy and voluptuous and—’
‘Voluptuous? That means fat, Beth! The other day, I couldn’t even do up the zip on my biggest jeans. They’re a size sixteen!’
‘Well, sizes vary from shop to shop,’ she says firmly, nibbling a pink wafer biscuit. ‘They’re irrelevant really.’
‘Not when you’re going up in size. Then it’s horribly relevant, I can assure you . . .’
‘Oh, Laura. You look great, honestly. Anyway, no one’s the same after having kids, are they?’
‘I bet you are,’ I say.
‘You might think so, but I’m a disaster down here.’ She pats her taut stomach. ‘But after having two children, what can I expect?’
I set down my cup and tip out boxes of building blocks for the younger children. ‘The thing is, I don’t expect to be like I was before the children,’ I add. ‘I’d just like to not be expanding, to be able to resist all the snacks and biscuits . . .’
‘What’s brought this on, hon?’ she murmurs.
‘Oh, I don’t know. That mums’ race, I suppose. Me getting all dressed up for Jed the other night, even buying new underwear, even stockings . . .’
‘Whoa,’ she says with a grin. ‘Lucky Jed.’
‘Well, he wasn’t. By the time I climbed into bed, he was already asleep.’
‘You should’ve been quicker,’ she sniggers. ‘What took you so long?’
I smirk, deciding that playgroup isn’t the place to tell Beth about my chicken-shave job. ‘I was getting ready,’ I murmur.
She rolls her eyes. ‘Well, make sure you’re quicker next time. He was probably just knackered. You should see Pete, falling asleep virtually every time he sits down. It’s a man thing. They come home and switch off and, next thing, it’s full-on REM sleep. Next time, give him a sharp prod and wake him up, especially if you’ve gone to all the bother of wearing stockings. I mean, what a bloody waste!’
I laugh, thinking, if only it was that simple. ‘I can imagine how he’d react if I rudely interrupted his beauty sleep,’ I murmur.
As the session progresses, the noise level increases to earsplitting levels. Jack, Beth’s three-year-old, grabs a scooter and hurtles recklessly across the gleaming wooden floor, bellowing out a shrill siren noise. Meanwhile, Toby proceeds to bang the metal xylophone furiously. ‘Not so loud!’ I call over.
‘I’m playing music,’ he yells back.
‘Yes, I know, but—’
‘No, it’s mine!’ he screams as a pig-tailed blonde tries to wrestle the hammer from his grasp.
‘Toby, it’s not yours.’ I rush towards him, but not fast enough to stop him whacking the girl on the forehead with the hammer. Screaming, she tears across the hall to be scooped up by her furious, red-faced mother. It’s their first time here. I doubt if they’ll ever come back.
‘I’m so sorry,’ I witter, scuttling over to check on the damage, as if I’m responsible for the throbbing pink splodge on the weeping child’s forehead. In a way, I guess I am. I’m Toby’s mother, his prime carer who’s supposedly in charge of teaching him how to behave nicely and kindly to others. Although he still demands to come to playgroup, and clearly enjoys it, he’s one of the oldest kids here and has really outgrown it. Maybe these violent outbursts are due to the fact that I’m not stimulating him enough.
‘It’s okay,’ the girl’s mother says, her eyes steely. ‘I don’t think she’s concussed or anything.’
‘God, I hope not. I’m so, so sorry.