My personal life, like my house and my hair, was a mess. The problem was, I didn’t have the time, energy or brains to figure out what to do about it.
We finally set off on the twenty-minute walk through trees and fields that was yet another reason why I was so grateful to live on the edge of a country park.
‘Can I take this in for the nature table?’ Finn asked, stopping to pick up a large snail shell.
I hesitated, knowing what would come next.
‘Please, Mum. It’s perfect, see?’
It was exquisite. That wasn’t the problem.
‘Go on, then.’
‘Can I take this?’ Isla asked, bending down and grabbing something for herself.
‘No!’ Finn smacked his forehead with one hand. ‘The nature table is for interesting finds. What’s interesting about half a leaf?’
‘Well, what about this?’ She immediately dropped the leaf and picked up a twig.
‘It’s a broken stick! That’s rubbish.’
Isla stopped dead on the footpath, the corners of her mouth turning down in an expression I’d grown to dread in recent weeks. ‘Mummy, Finn said my interesting find was rubbish! It’s not fair because he always finds the good things and now I don’t have anything for the nature table.’
‘That’s stupid!’ Finn exclaimed, while I was still taking a breath in preparation for defusing the situation before it exploded into a full-on tantrum. ‘The nature table isn’t even in your classroom so no one cares if you bring anything in or not.’
‘I’m not stupid!’ Isla wailed, her voice rising to a shriek. ‘And it’s not fair! I never have an interesting find.’
‘Woah!’ I knelt on the sandy path so that my eyes could meet hers, taking two tiny flapping hands in mine and gently stilling them. I hadn’t expected my training as an antenatal educator to come in quite so handy as a mum, but my skills in calming people down had been invaluable with Isla recently. ‘We’ve got a whole stretch of path before we get to school. Let’s keep the stick for now but see if we can find something even better.’
I held my breath as her lip began to wobble, but a few more reassurances, a hug and a mumbled half-apology from Finn and we were ready to keep going. As I would have predicted, by the time we reached the school gates and she spotted her best friends in the playground, Isla shoved the dandelion, rough pebble and mangled feather she’d collected at me and, after a long hug, hurried to join them, the drama already forgotten.
‘She’s getting worse.’ Finn shot me a glance that suggested if I was a half-decent mum, I’d be able to fix it. I held back the bone-deep sigh that would confirm I agreed with both his words and the look.
‘Today was only a wobble, and she’s fine now.’
‘She doesn’t even care about the nature table. No one from the other classes brings stuff in. I don’t get why she’s started kicking off all the time.’
Neither do I,I thought, once we’d fist-bumped goodbye – our compromise since he’d decided he was too old for a hug. Even worse, I fretted as I hurried home, this was yet one more problem I had no idea how to handle.
I tried to put my worries to one side once I got back and started preparing for work. Dwelling on my failures as a mother wasn’t helpful when I was about to teach other people the fundamentals of parenting.
Tuesdays were the flip side to the Bloomer sessions. Like Mondays, we spent time in the morning looking at childbirth, with topics ranging from hypnobirthing techniques to caesareansections. After lunch we moved on to life with a baby, including the basics like feeding and what to do when your newborn is screaming so loudly you can’t think. There were some fundamental differences between the Bloomers and my other clients – for example, the tendency to use TikTok as their primary information source. The private classes also didn’t include what my Monday mums called ‘fun time’, the couple of hours when they could simply enjoy being teenagers with mini spa sessions, crafting or music. However, I’d learned over the years that pregnancy is the great leveller. No matter their age or circumstances, what just about every new mum needs most is a confidence boost, a comfy bra and, above all, other women to hand them a hot drink and cuddle their fractious baby while providing some much-needed perspective.
I enjoyed both types of session for different reasons, but the main motivation for carrying on with the private clients was that, after a couple of fluke referrals, I’d got a reputation for being the go-to antenatal educator amongst the region’s wealthier circles, and this meant people were now prepared to pay a serious amount of money for what Nicky and I branded ‘bespoke and discreet sessions’. These could be one-on-one, or in small groups of ‘similar minded’ people – i.e. similarly rich – usually in person – I had one couple arrive by helicopter – or occasionally online. Men were welcome, although they often dropped out or had to leave due to ‘more important’ commitments. I did draw the line at nannies or other professionals attending, after a bizarre session where a baby psychic tagged along.
Today I had four couples booked in for the first of five group sessions. It was a reasonably priced course, with clients more likely to arrive in an Audi than be chauffeur-driven. I spent an hour setting up the cabin, accepted a lunch delivery from a local caterer and checked that everything else was ready.Unfortunately, due to the delay with Isla, I didn’t have as much time as usual to then go and tidy myself up. I wore my standard uniform of cotton dungarees over a pretty T-shirt, but only noticed as the first car was pulling up that I had a smear of chocolate spread across my chest, and I’d also had no time to tame my curls or apply the light make-up that I saved for my fancier clients to avoid appearing like the exhausted wreck I felt.
I settled in Jemima, a thirty-something, and Chris, her husband, who assured me, while offering a knuckle-crunching handshake, that having four older children meant he was here for moral support only. Another couple and a single mum who’d brought her friend as a birth partner also arrived. That left only one more, and I did wonder if I might find a chance to sneak into the bathroom to straighten myself out, but while I was still sorting drinks and listening to Chris’s blow-by-blow account of his second wife’s forty-three-hour labour, the final mum appeared at the cabin door.
‘Is this the bespoke, exclusive antenatal class?’ she asked, frowning while cradling the pert bump exposed beneath her cropped tank top.
‘It is the antenatal class, yes.’ I smiled, hoping to offer some reassurance, but her scowl deepened as she marched in and took a seat on one of the sofas. I couldn’t help thinking that she looked vaguely familiar, but it was only when Jemima introduced herself, causing this new attendee to force a smile, that it hit me who she was.
I’d not seen this woman for years, and had hoped never to see her again.
When her birth partner strolled in, it only added to the tidal wave of horror surging through my guts.
‘Liz,’ Brayden, my ex-husband, said with the smile that I’d once found charming, his grey-green eyes scanning the rest of the room.
