Page 11 of The Mistake

‘Sounds like you had a good time.’ Pete tries to listen really hard through his beer fog, and he doesn’t think there’s an undertone to her words, but he’s not sure. ‘Who was there?’

Pete sits on the edge of the bed, his back to Natalie as he pulls off his socks and tugs his T-shirt over his head. There was a timewhen he and Natalie might have laughed about the frequency of Vanessa’s visits to his site office – for help with the printer and to ask whether he used the last of the milk – but for whatever reason, he hasn’t mentioned them to her so far.

‘Just Josh, Dave … a few of the other lads.’

‘Nice. Well, at least you all have two days off to get over your hangovers,’ Natalie says dryly as she places the baby in the crib and switches off the lamp, leaving Pete to lie cotton-mouthed and wide awake beside her. As Natalie rolls away from him, he reaches out and presses a hand against the small of her back. He’s not entirely sure why he didn’t mention Vanessa.

Natalie

There’s no milk. Or bread. Natalie closes the fridge door and rests her forehead against it. She’s going to have to go out and get some, despite the dragging exhaustion nagging at her very bones. The temptation to ask Eve to drop some groceries over after her last client leaves is strong, but Natalie bats the thought away before it can fully form. She can’t ask Eve to pitch in again. Just yesterday Eve had very kindly collected, and then dropped off, Zadie’s refill for her inhaler, even though she must have been busy. Natalie yanks the fridge door open again and surveys the contents with a critical eye. There might be no milk, but there is, however, a ginger shot in the bottom of the fridge, promising revitalisation and an energy boost. Natalie twists off the cap and necks it in one, her face twisting at the fiery taste. Maybe that will give her the oomph she needs to get out to the supermarket. Erin squirms in her bouncy chair, gurgling as Natalie leans over her.

‘Hello, you,’ she says, holding out a finger that Erin reaches for and grips in an iron fist. The baby pulls, yanking Natalie’s finger towards her mouth. ‘Hey, missy! That’s not your lunch.’ Natalie blows a raspberry, her mood lifting, suddenly sure the ginger shot is working its magic. Erin startles at the noise before she erupts into a smile, her eyes never leaving Natalie’s face.

‘Oh.’ Natalie presses her free hand to her mouth, her heart filling her chest. ‘Thank you, beautiful girl.’ She frees her finger and pulls off the blanket covering Erin’s lap, spotting a damp patch at the top of her thigh where her nappy has leaked.

‘Come on, baby,’ she says, scooping up Erin before she can launch into that ear-splitting wail that makes Natalie’s skinshrivel. ‘We need to go shopping.’ She carries Erin upstairs, laying her gently on the changing table before pulling the drawer open for a fresh outfit.

‘What the …?’ Natalie pauses, staring down into the drawer that holds Erin’s tiny sleepsuits. Instead of the hastily folded outfits thrown into the space, every outfit is neatly folded, rolled and placed in colour co-ordinated rows.Eve. It has to have been Eve that did this. Pete would never do something this organised, and as for Emily … Natalie’s lucky if Emily is even speaking to her these days.

She pulls out a clean sleepsuit and begins to stuff Erin’s legs into it, but she can’t stop thinking about the rows of neat outfits. Something about it makes her feel oddly displaced – off-kilter. There is something weirdly unsettling about the regimented way they are lined up in the drawer, so at odds with the rest of their chaotic household. It makes Natalie feel as if she is an intruder, living someone else’s life. Once Erin is clean and dry, Natalie turns her attention to her own appearance. She washed her hair yesterday, but she looks pale and drawn, and she pulls out the make-up bag on top of the dresser.

‘How about some lipstick?’ she says to Erin. ‘Maybe Mummy should try and look pretty for a visit to the shops.’ She opens a MAC lipstick in a nude pink, but the end has been mashed into the lid, rendering it unusable. She throws it back into the make-up bag, swapping it for a Glossier lipstick called Fuzz, but when she slides the lid off, that, too, is squashed and ruined.

‘Zadie,’ she sighs, tears pricking her eyes. She just wanted to look nice, for the first time in months, but Zadie’s obsession with make-up has scuppered that plan. ‘It’s only the supermarket anyway,’ she says as she picks Erin up out of the cot, blinking rapidly. Erin offers up another of those rare gummy smiles and Natalie grins back, her tears drying up. When Erin smiles at her like that, things don’t seem half as bad.

Natalie realises as she pulls into the car park of the supermarket and wrestles Erin into the baby seat of the shopping trolley that she has not timed this trip particularly well. Erin begins to grizzle as she enters the supermarket, the sound sparking a flicker of anxiety in Natalie’s veins. She’s due a feed, and Natalie could kick herself for not realising. By the time Natalie reaches the chilled section Erin is wailing at her highest volume, her legs scrunching into her belly as her face turns an alarming shade of purple. Natalie’s thoughts feel scattered and fragmented as she scans the shelves looking for semi-skimmed milk, but all she can see is full-cream, and that makes Zadie sick. Erin’s shrieks pierce her eardrums, and she feels as if someone is raking their fingernails over her exposed nerve endings.

‘Excuse me?’ An older lady taps Natalie on the arm as she finally spots the right milk and snatches up two cartons, throwing them into the trolley.

‘Yes?’Please don’t ask me for help, Natalie thinks desperately.Please just let me get out of here.

‘Can’t you shut that child up?’

Natalie feels as if someone has punched her in her solar plexus. ‘What?’

‘Can’t you stop that baby crying? You are her mother, aren’t you? Surely you can stop her screaming like that. Some of us are trying to shop in peace.’

There is a moment in her head where Natalie sees herself shove the trolley into the woman’s belly, sending her sprawling into the fridge, icy cold milk cartons bursting all over her perfect helmet of lacquered hair.I’m going mad, she thinks as Erin screams on, and she turns on her heel, hurrying towards the till before she does something she regrets. Fuck the bread. She’s not hungry anyway.

At the till the young lad scans her shopping, as Natalie frantically tries to stop her racing pulse. Erin has cried herself to gasps and whimpers, and to Natalie’s horror she feels herself join her as a sob erupts from her throat.

‘Are you … OK?’ The checkout assistant asks. He looks terrified. To Natalie’s horror she realises she recognises him; she thinks he used to be in Emily’s class at school.

Natalie nods, averting her gaze as tears drip off her chin, her cheeks burning. ‘The baby was crying,’ she says. ‘An old lady was quite rude to me.’

The boy just nods and hands over her change, clearly at a loss as to what to say. Natalie pushes the trolley hastily towards the exit before Erin can start wailing again. She makes no attempt to stop the tears pouring in a constant stream from her eyes, and as she passes the old woman at the self-checkout, their eyes meeting over the till screen, Natalie looks away first.

‘Natalie?’ Eve’s voice rings through the shriek of Erin’s cries, and Natalie lifts her head from where she sits at the kitchen table, hands over her eyes. She hadn’t even heard the doorbell ring, so Eve must have let herself in.

‘Nat, are you OK?’ Eve moves through the kitchen, giving Natalie a concerned glance from where she stoops to lift Erin from her bouncy chair. ‘Shush, good girl. Shhhhh.’

‘I’m fine.’ Natalie swipes at her eyes, aware that there is a stain on her T-shirt, and a ripe smell emitting from her armpits.Did I shower today?She can’t remember.

‘You don’t look fine.’ Eve bounces a still-wailing Erin in her arms. ‘This one’s hungry. Have you got a bottle?’

Natalie runs her eyes over the kitchen worktop: the dirty breakfast dishes, Zadie’s Shreddies dried on and stiff; the empty bread wrapper; the greasy smear of butter glistening in the puddle of afternoon sunlight that hits the side. Six bottles sit on the draining board, every one of them lined with old milk.

‘I need to wash some up. Hang on.’

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