‘Of course you are. It’s exhausting being a mother. And wonderful, of course,’ she adds hurriedly.
Kate opens her mouth to speak, but the doorbell rings. She goes to stand, but her mum is already leaping up.
‘I’ll get it!’
By the time Miriam returns with Kate’s sister, Erin, in tow, Rosie has finished feeding and fallen asleep in her arms and Kate has readjusted her top. And all the things Kate had fora second considered telling her mum have been neatly folded and pushed to the back of her mind.
‘Look at her!’ Erin says, placing the enormous casserole dish she’d been holding down on the table and heading straight for Rosie.
Kate has become used to this new order of things and waits patiently while her sister gently strokes Rosie’s hair and plants a kiss on her cheek before standing straight again and giving Kate a sideways hug.
‘Hey, sis.’ Kate catches an inhale of her sister’s familiar perfume – a gift every birthday from her sister’s husband, Mark – and feels a rush of comfort. Erin is nine years older than her so has always felt like more than just a big sister to her. The smell of her perfume smells like safety.
Erin opens the fridge and jostles things about to fit the casserole dish inside. ‘Just something to keep you both going. I thought you could do with something hearty. And there’s a bag of 3–6 months clothes in the hallway for Rosie. I figured she’d probably be moving up a size now.’
‘Thank you. You’re the best.’
‘It’s nothing, I needed to go up to the attic to get down some stuff to make a fancy-dress costume for Arlo and the casserole’s just something I threw together with what we had in the fridge.’
Erin is always like this, making out that she’s gone to no effort, like the other day when she dropped by with lanolin nipple cream and wine because she ‘happened to be passing by’ even though their cottage is in the opposite direction to Erin’s work. Or the day a couple of weeks ago when a Sainsbury’sdelivery Kate didn’t remember ordering arrived on her doorstep and, after a lengthy discussion with the confused delivery driver, they managed to ascertain that the delivery had been placed by Erin.
Kate has no idea how Erin manages to find the time to look after her little sister alongside running her own business and taking care of two small boys – and somehow manages to look like an off-duty social media influencer in the process. Today, she is dressed in cropped white trousers and a crisp Breton top, a silk scarf tied around her sleek ponytail. Kate only has one child and is pretty certain she forgot to put on deodorant this morning.
She knows that Erin’s life isn’t without its problems. There have been many long phone conversations over the last few years about silly arguments between Erin and Mark where Kate has had to talk her sister down from ringing a divorce lawyer, patiently reminding her of all the great things about her brother-in-law thatmaybemight outweigh his snoring and his mother.
As a child, Kate idolised her big sister, always thinking of her as glamorous and pretty much perfect. As they’ve both got older, they’ve grown much closer, more like friends than doting little sister and perfect older sister. But Kate knows that since having Rosie, she may have slipped back into putting her sister on a pedestal. But how can she not? Erin has always done it all without complaining, without asking for too much help, without falling apart.
‘I’ll make some more tea,’ Miriam announces. Her mother is of the generation that believes that most of life’s problemscan be if not solved, then drastically improved, by a cup of tea. Erin silently gives her arm a tight squeeze and then fetches mugs from the cupboards. ‘Maybe we can have it in the garden? It’s lovely out there.’ Fresh air is the other thing that Miriam believes is a cure-all, and Kate is inclined to agree with her.
She still can’t believe that she is someone who owns a garden, and a proper garden with grass, flower beds, a tree and a view, not the small patch of paving just about big enough to squeeze in a barbecue that constituted the outdoor space of their basement flat in London.
‘Oh, by the way, Kate,’ her mum says as she pours the tea, Erin pulling a packet of biscuits out of her plum leather Mulberry handbag, ‘I just remembered. Last time I came to visit, I popped into that nice café in the village on my way home. You know, the one with all the comfy sofas and that amazing display of cakes. Has a cutesy name …’
‘I know the one,’ she replies, readjusting Rosie in her arms as a pang of pain shoots up her wrist. After a lot of trial and error, she has found a position that seems to keep Rosie slumbering for a decent chunk of time when she falls asleep like this in her arms. It just happens to be a position that’s started to give Kate RSI in her wrists. ‘The Cosy Corner.’ When she first moved to the village, she imagined writing in the café while Rosie napped in the pram. ‘I haven’t had a chance to visit it yet.’
‘Well, when I was there, I saw a group of young mums with their babies. They looked like a really friendly bunch, so I went over to say hello …’
‘You didnot, Mum,’ says Erin, rolling her eyes and nibbling a biscuit.
‘What?’ Miriam lifts her eyebrows, looking at her daughters as though she’s completely innocent. ‘I only wanted to say hello and that I had a daughter who had just moved to the area who had a new baby.’
‘Mum! I love you, but did you have to? I’m thirty-two, I don’t need you arranging me playdates!’
‘I just thought it might be good for you to make some friends,’ shrugs Miriam. ‘The women were lovely and say they meet at the same time every week and that everyone’s welcome. They call themselves the Tired Mums Club. They’ve got a flyer up in the café and everything. I know it’s hard work having a newborn, darling, but it might make you feel better to put some real clothes on and get out of the house, you know?’
Kate looks down at what has become her standard outfit of maternity leggings and one of Jay’s old shirts.
‘Thesearereal clothes. And I do get out.’
Her mum and sister look at her and their expressions say it all.
‘I love you, sis, but I’m not certain I’ve seen you in anything other than that shirt of Jay’s since Rosie was born. And the supermarket doesn’t count as “out’’. Maybe Mum has a point.’
‘But Ihavefriends.’
Her heart squeezes as she pictures her last night in London. Jay ordered pizzas and they invited everyone over to join them, squeezed into their tiny flat amongst all the packed boxes. Emma and Leonie caught her up on everything that had happened in the office on her first day of maternity leave. Frank and Jermaine from the bookshop were there too, along with Kate’s friend Jamila and her mother, Hope, a seventy-three-year-oldCaribbean woman who Kate counts just as much as a friend as Jamila, both brought into her life by the local lido. She’d had her last swim there earlier that day too and as she said goodbye to the staff, it felt as though she was saying goodbye to far more than just a swimming pool.
Her friends have all been messaging her since she left – even Hope, whose texts are always full of amusing typos because she hasn’t got to grips with the smartphone Jamila bought her yet. Emma and Leonie came for a visit not long after Rosie was born but the others haven’t managed it yet. Frank and Jermaine have the shop, Hope’s hip has been playing up so travelling is difficult for her and Jamila is a central London GP with a school-age daughter. Hopefully, Kate will be able to get to London before long to visit, but right now the thought feels about as realistic as her travelling to the moon.
