Her big brown eyes were earnest, her trace of a London accent fading with every month that passed.
Everyone nodded in expected agreement.
‘You have to make one, right?’ she said. ‘It’s just a mum thing.’
Is it? Waitrose does great cake though.
But I added crafting Peppa Pig from icing to the mental list of things I needed to be good at.
Not a problem.
After all, I’d crafted a wife and mum from a woman who used to be eighty per cent vodka and a handful of pills. How hard could a cartoon pig be?
Four hours in the kitchen later as Ed watched the golf highlights on TV, Poppy had her cake. Ropey but done. I presented it to an unenthused Ed and then went to bed, exhausted. Those precious evening hours spent on something that would have been better from a supermarket. But no matter. I had done it. It was a mum thing.
I think of Poppy’s face though, when she saw that Peppa Pig cake.
Back at the playgroup, Other Mum sniffs at my low-key approach.
‘Oh we’re going big for Jacob,’ she says. ‘It’s Fireman Sam themed.’
She leans in conspiratorially.
‘Fireman Sam is coming!’ she whispers and I want to explain to her that her ten-month-old son can’t be on the receiving end of spoilers on the basis that he can’t yet speak and also that you do know Fireman Sam is a fictional character?
Instead I look down at Poppy and see her trying to take off, she is waving her hands so excitedly. I love this, being with her, and it’s painful, the twitching of my brain and how much I wish I could be fully here, immersed. I feel another wave of guilt about her birthday. For not throwing that party that I couldn’t face, with the eyes of family and friends on me, all at once, and the loudness, and my paranoia.
I feel a twist of rage again. Fuck you, whoever did this, stealing my daughter’s party from her. And for what?
‘Come on, Pops,’ I say, scooping her up as the final song finishes. ‘We’re off.’
We leave quickly without goodbyes and I am pushing Poppy’s buggy home when I see him, across the road and just cutting through the lane behind the doctor’s surgery.
Mitch.
Mitch, who I hadn’t seen for all these years, then saw so recently.
Mitch, my co-star in the sex tape.
I stand and stare.
Because as a woman he is speaking to shifts around, bringing her profile into view, this picture gets weirder.
Mitch is speaking to my friend Asha.
Asha, without the daughter who is almost always with her in a sling or feeding, as she’s passionate about attachment parenting. Asha, for once, is alone. And she looks intent, focused.
No. Rephrase that. Asha looks angry.
I run down to the crossing and push the button over and over then glance back at them but they have parted ways, and I can see them both getting into separate cars. Come on, lights. But they are driving away. When the lights finally change, I run fast with the pram, to try to see into the car Mitch got into. Poppy thinking it’s a game and whooping.
But if I was right and it was him, he’s gone. More likely it wasn’t and I’m losing it, I think. This is too much. I stand catching my breath in the middle of the street.
Mitch isn’t in Sowerton, chatting to my mum friends in the street. Come on, Scarlett.
Unless he’s stalking me, and he lied, and none of this is a coincidence?
‘More more!’ shrieks Poppy but I stand still, out of breath and taking in what just happened and how fast my brain invented a scenario that couldn’t have been real, couldn’t have been a genuine picture. Could it?
My heart pounds as we walk down the silent streets towards home. I glance over my shoulder before I go inside. Double lock the door.
Inside, I pull off my tights and replace them with my pyjamas. Human contact for Poppy: done. Now I can retreat again. I put Poppy in her highchair for raspberries that she smears over her face and I log into Instagram to post her bright red face on Cheshire Mama. Work: also kind of done, in its new guise at least.
My numbers are creeping up; the only success story in my life right now.
I message Asha.
I think I just saw you in the village, I say. By the doctor’s?
She replies yes, says she parked there while she nipped to the shop. That she’s sorry she didn’t see me.
And what next, I think? I can’t ask her about the guy she was speaking to, without sounding odd. Without flagging what is happening to my life, which I am still desperate to keep from my mum friends just so I have respite, somewhere.
I put Poppy down for a nap, drink a strong coffee and then – far earlier than there should be – there is a key in the door.
‘Hey,’ I say, confused. ‘What’s wrong?’
Ed sighs. ‘We need to talk,’ he says, business-like in the entrance to the kitchen.
My first thought is You’re leaving me. Another woman? Those long gym visits, the after-work drinks, I know the tropes. I thought the video was the reason we were distant; perhaps the truth is more clichéd.
‘That sounds serious,’ I say, smiling nervously, trying to defuse. He doesn’t smile back.
Instead he sits down next to Poppy, kisses her then wipes raspberry from his lips. I let our kitchen island bear my weight. A few seconds pass, where things feel oddly calm. All I can do is wait. Even if he is leaving me, I am too tired to fight. I could deal with the marriage break-up later, if I could just sleep.
‘Any updates?’ he asks, perfunctory.
I shake my head.
‘No point in the police, not until I figure out who did it. And beyond the two guys, I have no clue where to start. It’s maddening.’
‘Okay,’ he says. ‘Well, in the meantime, we need to make sure we’re doing
