study his broad, lightly tanned back and shoulders, which rise with each inhalation. Soft snores fill the room. It would appear that my hot date for tonight has fallen asleep.
Beth and I are unloading the toys from the playgroup cupboard. The children clamour around us, their voices echoing in the dusty hall. We lift the lid from the sandpit and fill it with mini trucks and diggers; we top up the water tray, drop in some little plastic boats and set out books in the reading area. I glance at her, my best mummy-friend looking lithe and faintly Boden-esque in her narrow jeans and snug-fitting raspberry T-shirt. ‘Beth,’ I say later, fixing us a coffee from the grumbling urn, ‘how do you do it?’
‘Do what?’ she asks.
‘Stay so slim and fit. I’ve been thinking, I really have to do something. I’m sick of being like this.’ I glare down at my body in its loose jeans and even looser black top.
‘But you’re lovely as you are,’ she insists. ‘Men are always looking at you. You must realise that. You’re sexy and voluptuous and—’
‘Voluptuous? That means fat, Beth! The other day, I couldn’t even do up the zip on my biggest jeans. They’re a size sixteen!’
‘Well, sizes vary from shop to shop,’ she says firmly, nibbling a pink wafer biscuit. ‘They’re irrelevant really.’
‘Not when you’re going up in size. Then it’s horribly relevant, I can assure you . . .’
‘Oh, Laura. You look great, honestly. Anyway, no one’s the same after having kids, are they?’
‘I bet you are,’ I say.
‘You might think so, but I’m a disaster down here.’ She pats her taut stomach. ‘But after having two children, what can I expect?’
I set down my cup and tip out boxes of building blocks for the younger children. ‘The thing is, I don’t expect to be like I was before the children,’ I add. ‘I’d just like to not be expanding, to be able to resist all the snacks and biscuits . . .’
‘What’s brought this on, hon?’ she murmurs.
‘Oh, I don’t know. That mums’ race, I suppose. Me getting all dressed up for Jed the other night, even buying new underwear, even stockings . . .’
‘Whoa,’ she says with a grin. ‘Lucky Jed.’
‘Well, he wasn’t. By the time I climbed into bed, he was already asleep.’
‘You should’ve been quicker,’ she sniggers. ‘What took you so long?’
I smirk, deciding that playgroup isn’t the place to tell Beth about my chicken-shave job. ‘I was getting ready,’ I murmur.
She rolls her eyes. ‘Well, make sure you’re quicker next time. He was probably just knackered. You should see Pete, falling asleep virtually every time he sits down. It’s a man thing. They come home and switch off and, next thing, it’s full-on REM sleep. Next time, give him a sharp prod and wake him up, especially if you’ve gone to all the bother of wearing stockings. I mean, what a bloody waste!’
I laugh, thinking, if only it was that simple. ‘I can imagine how he’d react if I rudely interrupted his beauty sleep,’ I murmur.
As the session progresses, the noise level increases to earsplitting levels. Jack, Beth’s three-year-old, grabs a scooter and hurtles recklessly across the gleaming wooden floor, bellowing out a shrill siren noise. Meanwhile, Toby proceeds to bang the metal xylophone furiously. ‘Not so loud!’ I call over.
‘I’m playing music,’ he yells back.
‘Yes, I know, but—’
‘No, it’s mine!’ he screams as a pig-tailed blonde tries to wrestle the hammer from his grasp.
‘Toby, it’s not yours.’ I rush towards him, but not fast enough to stop him whacking the girl on the forehead with the hammer. Screaming, she tears across the hall to be scooped up by her furious, red-faced mother. It’s their first time here. I doubt if they’ll ever come back.
‘I’m so sorry,’ I witter, scuttling over to check on the damage, as if I’m responsible for the throbbing pink splodge on the weeping child’s forehead. In a way, I guess I am. I’m Toby’s mother, his prime carer who’s supposedly in charge of teaching him how to behave nicely and kindly to others. Although he still demands to come to playgroup, and clearly enjoys it, he’s one of the oldest kids here and has really outgrown it. Maybe these violent outbursts are due to the fact that I’m not stimulating him enough.
‘It’s okay,’ the girl’s mother says, her eyes steely. ‘I don’t think she’s concussed or anything.’
‘God, I hope not. I’m so, so sorry. I think he was just, er, overexcited.’
The woman pulls in her lips and turns away from me. ‘Come on, Emily, darling. Let’s find you someone else to play with.’ Someone who’s not intent on causing GBH, is what she means.
‘You must never hit anyone like that,’ I bark, marching back to the music corner where Toby looks totally unconcerned. ‘That was very, very naughty and you’ve made a big pink mark on that little girl’s head. I want you to go over and say sorry.’
‘No!’ he yells, haring off to play with the doll’s house at the far end of the hall. He doesn’t play gentle games with it. The miniature people don’t sit around having quaint tea parties. If Toby’s involved, there has to be a fire, a burglary or some dreadful natural disaster. ‘It’s my xylophone,’ I hear him muttering.
Beth hands me another polystyrene cup of insipid coffee. ‘I can’t control him,’ I murmur, trying to steady my breathing. ‘God knows what he’ll be like when he starts school.’
‘Jack’s just the same. He drives Kira crazy, always trying to barge in and trash her room. And this morning he pulled down one of the living room curtains to wear as a cape . . .’
I smile, feeling marginally reassured. Toby’s behaviour probably is normal, at least for our family; Finn and Grace were a handful too, forever clambering all over the kitchen worktops and balancing perilously on the garden wall. However, I seemed to cope better when they were little, and fear that my reserves of tolerance have reached critically low levels.
Beth and I perch on the windowsill and sip our coffees. I was relieved to meet her, when we’d just moved to Yorkshire. Not only did she have big-age-gap children around Toby and Finn’s ages; she also didn’t assume I was some poncey, over-precious mother just because I’d come from London, as a few women seemed to. ‘Are you still running these days?’ I ask her.
She shakes her head. ‘No, I’ve let it slide really. All that getting up at the crack of dawn, and going out before Pete went to work . . .’
‘That takes dedication,’ I murmur.
‘Plus,’ she adds, prodding a hip, ‘I was starting to feel creaky.
