I put my head face down then, looking at the menu on the place mat: avocado, scrambled eggs, hot sauce, Nutella pancakes.
‘I had heard rumours that Ed had been cheating. And now, I’ve heard them from other people too. People I trust.’
I keep staring. Fried potatoes, banana and honey, homemade granola, steaming porridge.
‘Scarlett?’ she says. ‘Scarlett, are you okay?’
Déjà vu, I think, of her offering to call medical the last time I was shamed in front of her and she had to take care of me. Not again. Not again.
‘Who is it?’ I say, quietly.
Crispy chorizo, streaky bacon, chilli halloumi.
Flick pauses, and sounds pained when she speaks. ‘I don’t know. Jared was drunk at the summer party and heavily hinted. And then, this week Martha told she heard it at her place too.’
I reach slowly into my bag and take out some cash; hand it to Flick who waves me away.
‘I’ll get this,’ she says. ‘It’s the least I can do.’
‘Why?’ I say, looking up and laughing. ‘None of it’s your fault. Not my sex tape. Not my husband’s affair. None of it. It’s not your fault, Flick. It’s nobody else’s fault.’
I put the cash on the table and walk out, to that city buzz and that throng of people that I’ve craved but I can’t feel anything any more.
Later that night, Poppy back home and in bed, I have a chance to think.
I’ve had some evidence Ed is cheating, I tell Asha, Cora and Emma on our group chat.
I go to check on Poppy. Stare at her tiny chest rising and falling.
I wanted to be good at this, I think. I wanted to be the mum I wish I’d known into my school years and adulthood. To be perfect; part of a perfect family. Though I am starting to think that perfect is the most dangerous word there is.
I lean over the cot and stroke Poppy’s head. I sit on the floor with my head on the bars. By the time I sit up the bars are wet.
What now, for your family, Poppy?
Are you okay, sweets? asks Emma. Do you need someone with you?
You’ve got this, hon, says Cora with about fifteen emojis.
As I sit there, I picture where their messages are coming from. From cosy evenings in front of Netflix binges. Freshly showered, in pyjamas. With pappardelle on their laps, or wine in their hands alongside still-awake toddlers or home-from-work husbands. I light my imagined pictures with Tiffany lamps and fancy candles and I scent them with homemade biscuits and expensive perfumes.
The lamp bulb is gone in our living room and nobody can be bothered to replace it. We don’t tend to our home now.
I sit, harshly lit and shivery and I’m jealous of all of it. Of things that may not exist and scenes that I’ve invented myself.
If we can do anything, babe, just let us know, says Emma. Here for you.
I scroll through my phone absent-mindedly and end up at pictures of Poppy taken when she was weeks old. Ed and I, finding our feet.
When life was simple.
Then was simple. Then was perfect. Then was the easy part.
But all of them have got the behind-the-scenes version.
Then, really?
Then was so exhausting I thought the tiredness would make me ill. Then was terrifying. Then was lonely, without a mother of my own to learn motherhood from. Then was emotional, now there was a baby, because so often I would stare at her and wonder about the baby who came before.
Then was unsettling, when my identity felt lost and altered and unknown. Then was guilty, because some people didn’t have this and I did, and when I knew sadness and grief existed in the world, how could I walk around the place being so smug in my joy? Because then was joy. Joy at Poppy’s existence. Joy at being loved. Joy at being part of a team.
All of this makes so much more sense if my husband is sleeping with somebody else. It makes the parts fit together. If I figure out who that is, I am pretty sure I have figured out who sent the video too. That doesn’t make it any less sad though, as a family combusts, and I lie on our sofa, in our home, for most of the evening and weep.
33
Scarlett
24 July
It comes late at night, as all the dark things do.
It comes into my home, because that used to be the safest place but these days it’s the worst, with its Wi-Fi and its iPad and its phone, all snuggling in with me on the sofa.
I reach for the glass of red I have been nursing.
My phone beeps. The dopamine hits.
Since the internet became the worst place for me, it’s the place I’ve gone to the most. A form of self-harm? I don’t pick up a razor, but somehow I’ve always got the impetus to pick up my iPhone.
What am I hoping for, I wonder, as I reach for it? For Ollie, again? I have told him I’ll update him with anything new on the video; beyond that we don’t speak. I am scared now anyway. Is it him I am meant to leave alone?
Am I hoping for Joseph? For Ed, perhaps, to prove me wrong? To tell me there isn’t anybody else, that Jared was drunk and nonsensical; Martha was thinking of someone else.
I will anything that might be enough to pull me out of this bleak place.
Because make no mistake, I think, this is the kind of bleak place people go to just before they opt out.
I longed, when I was younger, to live a sizzling life. Lukewarm seemed like the worst option. Now I long for it.
I can’t see a way back.
I can’t feel the joy.
I can’t remember who I am.
And I am terrified of what’s next.
I take a sip of wine. Then
