Mummy Needs a Break. Susan Edmunds

‘If you put your raincoat on.’ The deal was done.

      The goodbye as I dropped him off at nursery was not the drawn-out film scene farewell that it sometimes was, where he would sit on me and hold my hair, then lean through the fence as I drove away, waving at me as if he was a castaway on an island. This time, his class was engrossed in what looked like a big bowl of blue gloop. They were in it up to their armpits, flicking handfuls at each other. All fifteen of them were filthy.

      Thomas pushed through to the middle of the group and plunged in up to his armpits. One of the teachers met my gaze as I quickly tallied up whether we had enough size three clothes to justify throwing this set out, rather than bothering to wash it. Their ‘washable’ paints had taken me at least a week and half a bottle of bleach to budge last time, and even then the shirts had looked like they’d been washed with some vibrant socks. ‘It’s a valuable learning experience. Great sensory exploration,’ she shouted over their heads.

      I ignored her and blew a kiss at Thomas, noticing with a jolt how the curve of his face had become that of a little boy, not the round-cheeked profile of a baby. He jostled with his best friend, Nixon. ‘I’ll be back to pick you up after lunch.’ He did not acknowledge me. Instead, he smeared some gloop across the front of his shirt and threw some at Nixon.

      The rain had stopped when I returned to my car but the sunshine was not yet sure of itself. I clambered in. Between the baby seat behind me and the steering wheel in front, there was little room left for my expanding bulk. I slammed my hand on the button to turn the car on. The fuel light glared at me. I’d usually have tried to swap cars with Stephen just at the moment when it needed to be filled. But there was a service station on the way home, so there was no excuse.

      Even though I’d had this car more than three years, I always drove up to the pumps on the wrong side. The hose reached across the top – just – but left a dingy mark on the white paintwork.

      ‘Let me help you.’ A woman appeared beside me. With a deft wriggle, she moved the nozzle around so it no longer threatened to snap out and spurt across the forecourt. ‘Go inside, I’ll finish up here.’ She gave me the sort of half-smile I assume most people saved for children and the very elderly.

      Behind the counter, another woman was shuffling packs of gum into a display unit. She looked up as I approached and beamed. ‘You don’t have long to go.’

      I felt my shoulders sag. I did not have the energy for another of these conversations. The only worse conversation starter was something about how enormous I was. Or a request to touch the bump always asked in the way a small child might approach a petting farm animal.

      ‘A few weeks.’ I pointedly turned my attention to the display of protein bars and chocolate. It was almost time for second breakfast, a pregnant person’s most important meal of the day.

      ‘Is this your first?’

      I passed her my card and a couple of chocolate bars. ‘No, I have a son. He’s two.’

      ‘Do you know what you’re having?’

      I had promised myself that the next time I had this question, I would reply that I was having a baby. Or perhaps hoping for a small rabbit or chicken. But at that moment, it felt a bit like I’d be telling her that Santa wasn’t real. I sighed. ‘I’m having a girl.’

      She half-squealed. ‘You must be so pleased. Daddy’s little girl! Your partner must be over the moon.’

      My stomach did a backflip. I backed away, trying to avoid her puzzled gaze as I fumbled my credit card back into my wallet. I could feel tears forcing their way out of the corners of my eyes. ‘Sorry, I have to go.’

      When I arrived home, my hands were still shaking, and the blood had left my knuckles from the vehemence with which I had gripped the steering wheel. My feet were on fire, my lower back throbbed and my throat was raspy from crying. I dropped on to the sofa, wincing as I lifted my legs on to the ottoman. I had lost all definition in my ankles, and the bones in my feet were a mere memory.

      As I leant back, the wedding photo in a heavy frame on the opposite wall seemed to glint in the sunlight. I had never really liked it – my pre-wedding diet had been overzealous, and my dress ended up a little too big. Every couple of minutes, I had had to hitch it up to cover my bra. My smile was glossy white but forced. It was probably the twenty-fifth photo that had been taken in a row while we stood under a sagging tree branch. Although everyone exclaimed over how happy we looked, with Stephen guffawing at someone over the photographer’s shoulder, I could see in my own face how much I’d worried about the table settings, the accommodation, making sure my parents were not stuck in awkward conversation with Stephen’s boorish newly single uncle and that Amy was not too far into the champagne before she gave her speech.

      The photo was only on the wall because I felt it was what we should do when we finally had our – very expensive – delivery from the photographer. Suddenly, I found I could not look at it a moment longer. In two steps, I was across the room and ripping it from the hook. Without thinking, I turned on my heel and strode out to my car. I thrust the chunky frame into the boot. Looking at it lying among the detritus of shopping receipts, some empty lunchboxes and an old picnic blanket, felt apt. I was determined not to stop there.

      There were holiday snaps in matching frames on our bedroom wall. A photo of Stephen and his parents, with his niece, was propped on the side table in the spare room. They could all come down too. It was not like he was around to notice.

      I worked my way through the house, room by room, pulling photos from their hooks, thrusting the smaller ones into rubbish bags. Only Thomas’s baby photos and one of my family were left in place.

      As I walked out after stripping our bedroom, I noticed the door on Stephen’s side of the wardrobe had been left ajar. As usual, his clothes were spilling out, jammed on to hangers and in piles on the wardrobe floor. He would never throw anything out. I grabbed handfuls of material and stuffed them into the top of the big black plastic bags of photos.

      Half an hour later, I was driving into the rubbish collection centre in the middle of town, the back of my car laden with the big black rubbish bags, huge photos in frames, T-shirts, hoodies and business shirts. The frames clinked together as I rounded each corner and crashed into the back of the back seat when I stepped on the brake.

      The woman who staffed the entrance looked at me quizzically as I drove up. ‘Just a carload of rubbish.’ I gave her my cheeriest smile. My face was probably still streaked with make-up, and my eyes were undoubtedly bright red. She waved me on.

      At the edge of the rubbish pit, I stood next to an elderly man who was dropping his own rubbish bags in, watching them flop one on top of each other. The contents of Stephen’s wardrobe landed with a satisfying thump. I hurled the photos one by one, listening to the glass smash on the concrete floor below.

      There went our wedding photo. Crash. The time we had lunch on the street in Barcelona. Smash. The evening we spent on the beach in Waikiki after Stephen ‘asked’ me to marry him. The glass in that frame blew apart into a thousand little pieces.

      Thomas was swinging on the gate when I arrived to pick him up from nursery, next to a girl in a T-shirt at least two sizes too big for her. They were both filthy from the knees down, with tracks of sand in their hair.

      ‘Mummy! My mummy!’ he shouted as I hauled myself out of the car.

      I pulled his bag out of the cubbyhole by the door, and a plastic bag full of wet, blue clothes came somersaulting down with it. As I had expected, almost everything in his lunchbox was untouched, except for the yoghurt and cookies, which were gone.

      He allowed himself to be clipped into the car seat, wriggling as my midsection got in the way while I fastened the buckles. When he was secure, I paused, jangling my keys in my hands. I desperately did not want to go back home – and work could wait. ‘Shall we go to the library?’

      ‘Yes!’

      There was something about the fish tanks, the long staircases and my insistence on quiet that appealed enormously to