Page 4 of The 3am Shattered Mums' Club

Love, Irene x

Mel found herself smiling as she always did, reading Irene’s notes. She was a kind woman – proper salt of the earth, some people might say. She had done so much for Mel over the years, even back in the day when Mel and Daz were courting and Mel would cause quite a stir with some of her night-time outfits and then come falling through Irene’s front door at all hours of the morning, still singing and clomping about in her heels, whilst Daz tried to hush her. Irene didn’t tell her off, but would come down, put the kettle on, get Mel settled with a cup of tea and get her talking about her night until she was so tired she almost passed out on the kitchen table. Then Irene would flip out the sofa bed – as no one was strong enough to carry Mel upstairs because Mel was and always had been, as Irene liked to refer to her as, ‘a well-structured girl’– and she and Daz would guide her into the lounge where she would sleep in until midday, with everyone else creeping around her. Mel felt she owed so much to Irene, and yet Irene would say that Mel had given her everything she had ever needed by staying faithful to Daz, making him a happy man and bringing her and Mike grandchildren.

Mel messaged back to say she would pop along with Skylar to the baby group, even though the thought of it might bring her out in hives. She could dance around in a skimpy outfit to complete strangers or belt out an Adele number to a room full of corporates, but put her in a room with a bunch of other mums and expect her to talk about weaning, naps and which bottle teat works best for acid reflux and she wanted to run for the hills. But she knew she had to do this for her beloved mother-in-law, although she was positive that a poxy hand massage and some badly choreographed tai chi were not going to convince her to become a regular customer. She was just fine as she was, with her perfect little baby. She didn’t need anyone.

4

SOPHY

Sophy wasn’t sure how she found herself miles away from home, outside a small community hall on a dull March morning. Her friend Suzi had messaged her earlier in the week and asked her to come and support her at this new baby-group thing she was starting up. Hand massages and tai chi? Sophy wasn’t sure it would catch on, but she was giving it a shot. Suzi was charging eight quid, which Sophy thought was a bit steep for women who were essentially knackered and just wanted a bit of peace and quiet. There had been a mention of nettle tea and slices of papaya but Sophy was craving a cup of PG Tips and a bourbon biscuit.

Although loath to admit to many these days, Sophy was from a working-class background, where a proper tea was chips, fish fingers, peas and beans, and dessert was a Battenberg cake or Angel Delight. As much as she had adapted well to her new middle-class life, she occasionally missed the simplicity she experienced when she was growing up. These days there was so much choice for everything, it made her head spin. She craved for the old days, when you could burn your skin in the sun without worrying you’d develop cancer, or not have to separate all your rubbish into six different compartments, complete with the fear of the neighbours banging on your door to give you a rollicking because they saw through their triple-glazed window that you hadn’t washed that baked bean can out.

Suzi said she had made an organic banana loaf and the nettle tea was home-made. Sophy really didn’t know who she had become. She enjoyed the thought of these things but she couldn’t fight off the cravings for a Findus crispy pancake and had to chastise herself; remind herself those days were gone. She was above and beyond cheap convenience food. Jeff provided her with a home, a steady income, a car; they drank champagne on a Tuesday night for god’s sake! They ate out three times a week – or at least they did before Max came along. Now it was takeaway. She was slowly building her Instagram account. Soon she would be able to support herself. Sometimes, she thought about her drive for independence, catching herself off guard with it, and wondered why she was so intent on needing to be self-sufficient when she had everything that she had ever dreamed of as a child. Why couldn’t she just let Jeff – who was older than her by almost eight years – look after her? After all, that was all she had wanted when she met him. Wasn’t it?

Sophy caught a figure approaching along the pavement out of the corner of her eye. She noted the double buggy and straight away felt a sense of competition creeping in. She had the upper hand; this poor woman had two babies, and she only had one. She could not even begin to imagine doing what she did with Max, twice over. Sophy physically shuddered at the prospect as the woman got closer. She put on her best ‘mum’ face, which was a small smile with a slight raise of the eyebrows. Such a subtle gesture that said so much:You’re a mum. I’m a mum. Here we are, then – being mums.

The woman, gorgeously light-brown skinned with shoulder-length black ringlets, looked a similar age to Sophy – although it was hard to tell with all the layers on. She began fussing with her prams, pulling blankets that were already perfectly tightened and closing zips that were already fully fastened. Sophy felt obliged to speak. She had never struggled socially – ‘a bit of a gobby cow’ was how her mum would still refer to her, fifteen years after she moved out of the family home in Milton Keynes. She’d had to find her voice from a young age, what with three little brothers and an older sister to shout over. She had somehow managed to tone down her Midlands accent and adopted a softer, plumper tone, one that she found made people stop and look at her when she spoke.

‘How is it with two?’ Sophy said before she had time to think about what she was going to say. Already she regretted saying what was probably a cliché to someone with twins.

The woman stopped fussing with the plush grey prams that didn’t look as if they had seen the light of day, and looked quizzically at Sophy, as though speaking to a stranger was an uncommon experience.

Sophy waited a beat, felt the old familiar dread in her pit of her stomach when a reply didn’t come. Had she misread the situation? When you came from a family of five children, you just spoke when you needed to. Survival of the fittest. She spoke louder this time. ‘The twins. I presume, there are two in there?’ Sophy laughed to accentuate the lightness of her comment.

‘Oh yes, there’s definitely two of them.’ The woman spoke. ‘Are you…?’ She looked towards the firmly closed door. ‘Are you here for the mother-and-baby group?’

‘Tai chi and tea!’ Sophy scoffed. The woman looked perplexed. Sophy straightened her expression. ‘I know the girl who is running the group. She’s a bit eccentric. Doesn’t even have kids of her own. Thinks she’s just trying to make a quick buck out of us tired and delirious mothers.’ Sophy scoffed and immediately wished she could retract some of that information. She owed Suzi a bit more than that to this stranger. Why did she insist on just saying whatever popped into her head?

‘Well, I suppose it’s nice to be out.’ The woman smiled.

Sophy smiled back. Max was beginning to fuss in his pram. He was flat out on his back. It could be wind. But the day was grey, and it had started to drizzle, so she didn’t fancy getting him out. She hoped he would go back off to sleep.

Sophy’s phone let out a loud ping, notifying her of a text message. She gave the woman an over-the-top look of shock, as though getting a notification on her phone at 10.30 a.m. was quite unusual.

‘I’ll just see who that is.’ Sophy pulled her phone out of her pocket and scoured the text for the part that was going to defuse the rage that was building up inside her. ‘Fuck’s sake,’ she muttered under her breath.

The woman looked at her. ‘Everything okay?’

Sophy pushed the phone back into her long black padded coat, which was so cosy it could double up as a sleeping bag. In fact, she had actually slept in it once, before she was pregnant with Max, when she had been too drunk to leave a friend’s house who had been stingy with the central heating.

‘That was our host, Suzi. She can’t make it.’ Sophy frowned at her phone, still trying to accept she had made the effort to come all this way for nothing.

‘Oh,’ the woman said. Sophy thought she saw a glimmer of relief spread across her face. ‘Well, I suppose these things happen.’

‘Oh, no, these sorts of things don’t happen. Not to the majority of the civilised population. They do, however, happen to Suzi. She’s injured her ankle giving her boyfriend a body massage – apparently it was quite intensive. She could have been walking on him, or just slipped whilst applying pressure, who knows? I never do with Suzi. So the group is off today.’

‘The group’s off?’ came a voice from behind them. They both spun round to see a tall woman with big hair in a messy topknot, arriving with a rainbow-coloured pram with such vigour that she had developed quite a sweat across her forehead.

‘Er, yes, apologies sent from Suzi,’ Sophy said.

‘From your phone?’ the sweating woman asked as she came to a standstill next to them.

‘Yes. I know her.’ Sophy wasn’t sure this was something she wanted to admit to anyone any more. ‘Do you? Know her?’

‘I knowofher,’ the sweating woman said. ‘My mother-in-law told me to come – she knows Suzi’s mother. Said I’d do them a favour. Anyway, I rushed out of the house to get here and now I’m sweating bloody buckets.’ She stooped and looked into the rainbow-clad pram. ‘But it got her off like a charm,’ she said breezily. She looked at Sophy and stretched out her hand. ‘I’m Mel.’

‘Oh.’ Sophy flung her hand out. ‘I’m Sophy.’ Mel took it, and Sophy was taken aback by the strength of Mel’s grip.

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