Page 25 of So Thrilled For You

I check my rearview mirror. Woody is still a sleeping cherub. I never love him more than when he’s unconscious. It hits me then, the love – rushing in like the world’s most powerful drug. Reminding me this darling baby is half Tristan’s – how both our blood pumps through his veins. I shouldn’t have shouted at Tristan. I should’ve just packed the nappy bag myself. He’s exhausted too. He’s stressed too. He doesn’t go out as much as the other NCT blokes. I should count myself lucky really. One of them left their girlfriend with their six-week-old baby to go on a cycling holiday.

I remember the last time I was dumb enough to confide in Mum about how much Tristan and I are fighting.

‘It’s not good for the baby, Lauren. Hearing you row like that.’

‘I know, I know. It’s just . . . if Tristan could just be a tiny bit less useless.’

She sighed down the phone. ‘Honestly, your generation expect too much of men.Of course,he’s not as good with the baby stuff. You’re the mother.’

‘Mum, that’s outdated and . . .’

‘No, sorry. I know your generation just LOVE to ignore the basic facts of biology but I wouldn’t let your fathernearyou when you were a baby. Why would I want to? He was inept.’

I sighed and tried to explain. ‘But that’s weaponised incompetence. It’s . . .’

Mum’s scorn almost melted my phone. ‘Weaponised what now? Crikey. No wonder you’re always arguing. Just accept things how they are. Enjoy the baby! Men likecopers,Lauren, so start coping better. Stop attacking your husband too. What good is that going to do any of you? You don’t want him to leave you.’

I’d shaken my head and wiped under my eyes, wondering why I’d used up Woody’s precious twenty-seven-minute nap thinking this would help. ‘So, you’re saying, I’ve got to suck it up to stay happily married,’ I said, ‘because wanting basic equality in parenting will result in divorce?’

‘Probably . . .’

I could hear her shrug over the phone.

Cope better. Cope better. Cope better.

Not evenbetter.Just fucking cope.

This is my mantra when I get to the train station two minutes before the train is due and panic ripples through my body for what this means for Woody’s nap.

Cope better. Cope better. Cope better.

He’ll wake up if the car’s stationary for more than ten seconds. I’m already anxious Steffi’s going to take too long gettinginto the car and that she won’t do it quietly enough and that she’ll also mind the craziness of sitting in total silence for the whole drive. I’m hoping years of friendship will mean she understands, but I don’t know how to handle this unfamiliar station carpark. There’s nowhere to circle it seems, so I do what any reasonable person would do, and I head straight out of it and decide to come back when the train gets here. Woody stirs as I wait to turn out of the carpark and my heart rate surges up a notch.

‘No, shh, shh, we’ll be moving soon.’

I get back on the ring road and just keep turning left and left and left again until my phone tells me the train got in two minutes ago. That should be enough time for Steffi to get through the gates. I 360 around a roundabout and turn into the carpark again, just in time to see a surge of people streaming from the doors. Everyone’s in sundresses and shorts, flip-flops, sunglasses, smiling and fanning themselves. There’s a slow queue of cars waiting to pick passengers up and I join, craning my neck to find Steffi’s face in the crowd. She’ll be wearing something understated and slinky, no doubt, to show off all the Peloton and such. It will probably be cream or white, to show off her gorgeous darker colouring and the fact she doesn’t have a child with grubby hands to ruin it instantly. Cars fill up in front of me. Woody stirs and I flinch whenever a door slams. Where’s Steffi? Where is she? I’m driving as slow as I humanly can so we’re still in motion, rather than stop-starting. The car behind me – typically a red-faced potato of a bloke in a BMW, is getting visibly angry that I’m not up the arsehole of the cars in front, like it makes any difference at all.

‘Calm down, calm down,’ I whisper – to him, to myself.Where’s Steffi?There’s only three cars in front now and I can’t see her. The stream of people has slowed to a tiny trickle. Everyone must be off the train now, so where is she? I crawl forward, hoping I’ll see her emerge, but no. Now two cars ahead. No Steffi. One car ahead . . . then nothing. Blank space and no Steffi. If I drive super slowly maybe she’ll appear? I inch and inch but I can see the guy behind me get redder.

He honks his horn. Woody stirs.

‘There’s no need for that.’

Then he honks three times – long and loud – and hangs his rotten face out the window. ‘GET A MOVE ON, YOU SLOW BITCH.’

Woody wakes and howls. Past Me, without a baby, would never accept being spoken to like this. I’d have given him the finger. I would’ve gotten out and had a go back. But this arsewipe is forgotten because all that matters is getting Woody back to sleep because he’s not had a long enough nap yet. Waking up now will throw the whole day, the whole night, my wholeSHIT RELENTLESS LIFE.I roar out of the carpark and get back onto the ring road, hoping the movement will lull him back.

‘Shh, Shh-shhhhhhh. Go back to sleep, baby. Back to sleep. Please.’

But it’s not going to happen. His face is contorted into a scream. His little hands clenched in pudgy fists. He’s furious at being woken but not willing to go the fuck back to sleep. I know he needs me. That he won’t calm without me. So, Irev up and speed through the ring road for the fourth time, clunking to a hard stop in a parking space about ten metres from the station entrance. I run out the car, muttering,‘fuck fuck fuck, fuck this, fuck you Steffi, fuck my life, fuck my endless fucking life,’ and hoist Woody from his car seat – the scream he releases so loud that several people turn to look. He’s exhausted, red-eyed, inconsolable. I bounce him, I rock him. I fold myself into the backseat and try to shove a nipple in his mouth but he spits it out like it’s a poisoned entree. I hoick him back out of the car and bounce him, narrating as I go to try and calm him down.

‘Look babe. There’s a billboard. There’s a traffic light. There’s a queue of taxis. Isn’t life great? Please stop crying. Are you OK? Do you have a fever? Are you teething? What’s wrong? Why won’t you sleep? Why are you never asleep?’

Cope better. Cope better. Cope better.

And yet all I feel is disaster at the ruined nap. How this is going to play out all day. An overtired Woody at this baby shower. An overtired baby on the car journey home. An even worse night’s sleep than last night’s which maybe isn’t scientifically possible. I feel tears threatening to spill. A panic attack deciding whether to turn up or if, like me, it’s too tired and will send an IOU instead – probably at 2am tomorrow, when Woody no doubt wakes up.

‘Shh, shh. Don’t cry. It’s OK. Shh, shh.’

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