no contest for the mothers’ guilt I suffer if I don’t do it. Being a single working mum usually means that someone somewhere isn’t happy with me. Whether it’s work or my daughter, I’m usually having to apologise to one of them for not giving them enough of my time. This feeling of never being fully enough for anyone worries me a lot. Would I earn more and be better at my job if I didn’t leave at five? Would my daughter be happier if I always left at four? Who knows what the answer is to getting all of this right; I don’t, but I can’t help but think the other mums at the school gate think I’m awful.
I’ve convinced myself they all judge me for my situation and therefore I make no effort to connect with them. This means they make little effort to connect with me either. They all stand around chatting like old friends, and I wait for Annie while answering emails on my phone, barely looking up to say hi. I’m sure they think I’m really full of myself or rude. I suppose I am rude; my lack of interest is deliberate, but if they made more effort with me I’d make more effort with them. Don’t they think, ‘Hey, she’s alone. Raising a child by herself. Let’s go over, make her feel part of the gang?’ No, they don’t. They just crack on talking among themselves, casually judging me because Annie doesn’t have a dad and my mother does most of the childcare. Mum says I’m paranoid and they chat to her just fine, so it’s obviously just that they have an issue with me. Well, who are they to judge? Is being a stay-at-home mum any better than working as much as I do? Are they happier than me? Who knows, and who cares. I was never able to just bond with other women purely on the basis that we both had kids. All of those classes for mums and babies where we were supposed to be open and share our feelings, offer advice, take help; I hated it. I felt like a beacon of controversy glowing in a room full of what everyone else considered normal. I quit the classes within weeks of starting them. Annie and my mum were all I needed. When you go at life alone you learn quickly to rely on as few people as possible. My village was small but indestructible. I was so happy in the comfort of my own decisions.
Five years later, here at the school gate, I still can’t slot into this world. It’s hard to know how to connect when you’ve spent the day squeezing information out of a sex pest and they’ve probably spent the day freezing individual portions of lasagna into zip-lock bags. I find it hard to stand around talking about parenting with people who do nothing but parent, they’re a different breed. Come on Annie, hurry up and come outside!
‘Tara!’ shouts a friendly voice that throws me off guard. As I turn around I realise it’s Vicky Thomson. Her daughter Hannah is in Annie’s class. She’s a bored housewife who is desperate to go back to work and thinks she could get a job in TV, despite having no experience. She relentlessly pitches show ideas to me like I’m Simon Cowell and have the power to change her life. Annoyingly, some of her ideas are quite good.
‘I’ve been hoping to see you,’ she says, hurrying up to me. ‘I’ve been working on the idea I told you about,’ she says, presuming I remember. ‘I thought maybe you could take it further by trying to matchmake the gay people at the end?’
‘OK, sorry, what?’ I say, a little short. She’s one of those people where if I give her too much feedback she won’t leave me alone. She does nothing for my trying to be inconspicuous.
‘My idea, “Take My Gay Away”. The TV show idea about gay people whose parents won’t allow it so they send them to a camp in America to get “un-gayed”. You said you liked it, so I’ve been working on it more. Maybe we can pitch it to your company? I’m so ready to get back into work, three kids in six years, whoa. I need to think about something else now they’re all in school, you know?’
‘It’s a great idea,’ I say, politely.
‘So what do you think, shall we pitch it to your company?’ she pushes.
‘I think it’s interesting but we have something very similar in development, so I’m not sure it will work for us right now,’ I say, giving the standard answer that I give when people pitch me ideas I kind of like. It covers my back, if I ever get around to stealing it.
‘Oh, OK. Well, what about my one about the women who want penises but don’t want society to see them as men?’ she says, hanging off me like a puppy that can smell lamb in my pocket.
‘Wait, that’s a thing?’ I say, the TV shark in me needing to know more.
‘Yup, I found it on the Internet.’
‘Jesus, what were you searching for?’
‘Chicks with dicks,’ she says, as if that’s normal.
‘Why?’
‘I don’t know really; I just wanted to know what it would be like to be a chick with a dick, I suppose.’
‘Do you want a dick?’
‘No.’
‘Cool.’
The school doors bounce open and the kids flood out like spilt oil, slowing as they reach their parents. Annie is one of the last, slower than usual. I can tell she is sad.
‘Annie, what’s wrong?’ I say, kneeling down and putting my face close to hers. ‘Do you feel sick?’
She shakes her head slowly, and looks down.
‘Did something happen at school? Was someone mean?’
‘They weren’t mean. But Trudy is having a party on Saturday and said I can’t go because her mum said there wasn’t room for me.’
‘Why would she say that?’ I ask her, not surprised. Trudy’s mum seems like such a cow. She tutted at me for walking into the Nativity play late last Christmas. An actual tut. I’d had to leave a shoot early to get there; Adam gave me so much shit about it but I did it, I left so I didn’t let Annie down, only to be tutted at for opening the door just as the Virgin Mary (Trudy) was trying to find a room for the night. It was hardly like bursting into the middle of a performance of Macbeth at the National Theatre, was it? I stood at the back and waved at Annie, who was on stage being the greatest donkey I’d ever seen. She waved back at me and one of her ears fell off. Trudy’s mum tutted again. I didn’t care that time; I knew I’d made Annie’s night by being there whether I was late or not.
‘OK,’ I say, rubbing Annie’s arms. ‘Let’s see about this, shall we?’
I take her hand, and march over to Trudy and her mum, who is giving someone else the details for Saturday’s party.
‘The theme is Disney,’ she says, ‘And bring your husband, the more the merrier.’ As she finishes her sentence, she sees me storming up to her and coughs, as if that will drown out the words that she has just said.
‘Hello,’ I say, boldly.
‘Hello. Come on Trudy, time to go.’ She takes Trudy’s hand and forcedly drags her away.
‘Hang on,’ I continue, with more welly in my tone. She stops, making the kind of strained face that suggests she doesn’t want a scene. ‘Annie tells me there is no room for her at the party, but I thought there might be a misunderstanding as Annie is such a special friend?’
‘Um, well,’ says Trudy’s mum, looking around, hoping someone will rescue her, ‘The house isn’t big enough to accommodate everyone. The kids, their parents …’ she says. I am racking my brains to remember her
