Page 63 of Filter This
Much of the rant centred around society’s refusal to recognise women as the true mothers of mankind, which seemed like a bit of a reach to Ali. Who was denying that women were the mothers in this equation? The rant veered from society being innately fearful of the power of mothers to ire at the existence of cots. Occasionally snippets of an even more obscure and bizarre personal agenda would seep in. There was mention of nefarious attempts by the Irish media to discredit her teachings.
‘Nobody fucking bats an eye at the Happy Pears,’ she railed. ‘Then I start making a tangible difference in women’s lives and I “seem a little whimsical”. Oh, fuck you, Mr Middle-Aged Morning Radio guy – stop mansplaining me to me.’
Ali and Shelly exchanged more looks of quiet amusement and Ali felt a flicker of guilt about all the emails currently awaiting answers that could potentially boot Shelly out of a job. What was going on with her?
At last they reached the clearing and Adrienne led them in some sun salutations.
‘Is this safe?’ Imogene asked as some of the pregnant women struggled to assume the poses.
‘You’re suffering from societal Stockholm syndrome,’ Adrienne barked.
‘What?’ Imogene faltered.
‘Some male obstetrician has convinced you there are things your powerful gestating body can’t or shouldn’t do. They have medicalised this process to keep women down.’
‘But … it’s just that … it’s just I can’t lie on my tummy.’ Imogene indicated her bulging belly.
‘Everyone back to your feet,’ Adrienne shouted over her. ‘Now I want you to form a circle holding your offerings.’
Offerings? Ali was confused. She’d brought Miles’s watch – she’d thought it was supposed to be something of personal value not something to offer up. She started to feel alarmed and clutched the watch close as Adrienne knelt in the centre of the clearing and lit a fire. This did not bode well.
She wished she had something she could swap for the watch but they weren’t even wearing underwear under these hemp monstrosities. Obviously there was no way in hell she was parting with Miles’s watch. Shelly, she noticed, was looking similarly disturbed. She was carrying a small wooden box.
Adrienne was stoking the fire with her staff, the rhetoric having taken an unnerving new direction. ‘A woman cannot be a mother without first sacrificing her former identity. You must destroy yourselves in order to birth this new life.’ She aimed the crook at a woman who seemed about to speak. ‘This is not negotiable. You are not you anymore.’ Adrienne was getting sweatier as the speech climaxed. ‘You must murder the woman you once were. Now, each of you regard your totem, regard the woman you thought yourself to be and accept that she is over. In your own good time – but not too long because the IGTV has a ten-minute video limit – hurl that self into the flames.’ Adrienne started recording.
Well, that escalated, thought Ali, sneaking a peek around to see how everyone else was taking the news that they had to self-immolate just to be a mother. In general, the assembled women were staring with reverence at their chosen objects. Polly was crouched over to the right past Shelly contemplating a papier mâché ornament, evidently homemade. Ali hadn’t seen her much throughout the retreat – she obviously wasn’t as close to Shelly as their Instagrams suggested. Then Ali’s thoughts and the silence were disturbed by a sound that had presumably never been heard before at the Mothers of the Earth retreat: sniggering.
Adrienne marched over to the offender – none other than Shelly! – looking frankly homicidal. Ali felt the rage rolling off her in waves.
Shelly held her hands up in a stance of surrender. ‘I’m sorry, Adrienne. I didn’t mean to laugh but, like, ya know, it all seems a bit much. We can’t only be mothers from now on. You can’t lose yourself when a baby comes along. It’s hard enough being a mother without trying to make it all that you are.’
Adrienne was incandescent with rage. ‘What do you know about it?’
‘Well, I am a mother.’ Shelly was trying to sound reasonable.
‘You only know your own spiritually bankrupt way of motherhood. I am teaching a profound and joy-filled new path,’ Adrienne screamed.
The entire circle was now silently staring. Ali wouldn’t have bet on Shelly leading the mutiny but there she was looking defiant.
‘Joy-filled is the whole fucking problem,’ Shelly argued, and Ali nearly died of shock. Shelly saying ‘fuck’ was big. ‘You’re making all these women think it’s going to be this huge spiritual experience and that’s just crap.’
‘Don’t listen to her, mamas.’ Adrienne was verging on hysterical as she covered her own ears. ‘She’s trying to block your joy.’
‘I’m not,’ Shelly insisted. ‘I’m just saying it’s not all what you see on Instagram. Some mornings you’re so tired, you just feel like a wrung-out old J-cloth. There’s actual poo in your hair and you wish you could just get rid of the baby for five minutes and go for a lie-down.’
Ali couldn’t believe the queen of beige was talking like this. Around her the other women looked traumatised.
‘You wanted to kill your baby?’ Joanna, a Pilates instructor from Westmeath, gasped.
Shelly looked irritated. ‘That’s not what I said. I did not want to kill my baby – I just wanted a bit of peace. You don’t know what it’s like. They’re sucked on to you round the clock and they don’t do anything but scream and shit. I don’t think I even loved my baby at first. I just felt this huge sense of obligation to her. And then I felt so guilty all the time because I didn’t have the joy. And I was supposed to have the joy and didn’t everyone else have the joy. That’s why I’m telling you this. Forget about the joy. You’re a mother, not a fucking goddess. And being a mother is hard. But it’s so, so worth it.’ Shelly paused, looking around mischievously. ‘Well, it is when they’re not chewing the tits off you. Let me just say mastitis is a bitch,’ she finished triumphantly and marched back towards the edge of the clearing.
Ali burst out laughing and immediately covered her mouth. A few women gasped.
‘Nooo,’ screeched Adrienne. ‘I would never have invited you here. This is not who I thought you were, Shelly.’
‘It’s not who I thought I was either,’ Shelly threw over her shoulder. ‘And maybe that’s a good thing.’
Ali watched her go. What was going on? That was the most un-Shelly thing she’d ever witnessed. Did she just say ‘chewing the tits off you’? Ali couldn’t believe it.
