reach for my dressing gown that I keep on the other side of the bed. It’s no substitute for a husband, but at least it’s something to wrap around my body when I wake up in the morning. My dressing gown is one of the few things I adore. It’s a 1970s terry-towelling, full-length, high-necked, long-sleeved Victorian-looking thing that hides almost every inch of my body other than my face and neck. I spent ages looking for the perfect one, nothing modern had the same coverage. It means I can answer the door before I get dressed, should someone come knocking. I often wonder who the woman who owned it before me was, as it came with certain signs of wear and tear. Did she also feel the need to hide herself in her own home? Did she have children who loved her? Did she live a life of self-inflicted solitude? Liam hated this dressing gown, but I saw it as my only option after what he did to me on our wedding day.
Getting Bonnie dressed every morning is on a par with being in one of those shark cages, and the shark getting into it with you. She kicks me directly in the chest and stomach. She’s bitten me a number of times. She tries to get away, and I have to pull her back and hope to God I don’t dislocate a shoulder or hip.
I love her, of course. But I don’t love parenting. People tell you not to wish it away. They say I’ll miss her being small. I won’t. I will never miss this. Living with a toddler is like living with someone with a complete lack of empathy. Something I swore I wouldn’t do again, when I moved out of home, and moved away from my mother.
Monday mornings are always the hardest, especially after she has spent the weekend with her dad. Liam doesn’t bother with the boring stuff. He lets her eat what she wants, he lets her stay up late watching TV until she falls asleep. He doesn’t bother bathing her or brushing her teeth. Which means that when Bonnie comes back to me she is sticky to the touch, with a yellow smile and dreadlocks in her hair. I am the one who then has to force her into the bath. The one who has to brush out the knots. The one who has to scrape the fur from her teeth. The one who ruins the fun.
I put the TV on for her while I make her breakfast. I don’t like preparing food, even if it is for my child. I hate a lot of things I am supposed to like – especially when it comes to being a mother, but also just life in general. I don’t like self-help, self-care, the ‘mum scene’ or social media. I hate politics, and the way it divides people. I hate football for the way it brings people together, but still puts them on opposite teams. I hate how a woman with her top off is more likely to sell a packet of mints than a woman with her top on. I hate how the male gaze is still more powerful than a woman’s self-worth.
I hate how the male gaze so rarely comes in my direction. I hate how when it does I bat it away like a bug that might sting me.
I hate so many things. I hate that after my appointment I’ll spend the day making a young girl look thinner and smoother when there was nothing wrong with her in the first place. I hate that my job has become this. I hate that I am part of the problem I am so upset about, but keep doing it because I am too afraid to try anything else.
My daughter calls me from the other room where she is watching TV. She tells me she hates the programme she is watching and wants something else. I change it and tell her she shouldn’t use the word hate. I remind her that she has many more options in her lexicon that she can use to describe how she feels about something, and that she should be more clever with her choice of them.
I hate that I talk to her like that when she is only three and a half.
I call Bonnie into the kitchen for breakfast. She says she isn’t hungry and doesn’t feel well. I put my hand on her forehead; she’s fine. I put Octonauts on and give her a bowl of dry cereal to eat on the sofa while I go and get dressed. I hate that I am not the kind of mother who puts my arms around my child and tells her everything is going to be OK.
My appointment is at eleven. After that, things will feel better.
There is only one dress to wear when I am at this stage of the cycle – my burgundy velvet maxi dress with high neck and long bell sleeves with elasticated wristbands. I made it myself when I was at university and it still fits perfectly. I’m the same size at forty-three as I was at twenty-one. That takes a certain amount of effort. When you have a condition like mine, you do what you can to keep the symptoms minimal. Low weight is key. I eat like a bird and exercise for at least an hour a day. But in the privacy of my own home, of course. Someone like me can’t go to a gym. I purchased myself an exercise bike with a computer screen attached to it, so I can do classes with real-time instructors. I noticed a little camera at the top of the screen. It is disabled, but I put some gaffer tape over it just in case. I kept imagining someone being able to see me on my bike. I couldn’t take the risk that maybe they could. That is quite possibly the most horrifying thing I can imagine.
My burgundy dress says a lot about who I am. It all came together for me when a guy I’d had dinner with a couple of times once described me as an ‘Amish Virginia Woolf’. He wasn’t being kind. But, I actually loved the description. I feel a deep connection to Virginia Woolf. It’s comforting to know that genius can lie in the socially impaired.
‘Amish Chic’ became my look. I make most of my own clothes now. Long, gothic velvet gowns. High necks, long sleeves, frills down each breast, a pinched-in waist and long, heavy skirts. I wear black pointy boots with a low heel that lace up the front and finish just above the ankle. My skin is pale, I wear a lick of mascara, some heavy blusher and try to match my lips to my dress whenever I can, usually burgundy. I may or not wear tights, depending on where I’m at in the cycle. But the uniform remains the same. I made a number of thick cotton versions of the dress for the summer months. Pale blue, a floral, but nothing too bold. Vintage Laura Ashley fabrics are my style, I buy them on eBay. The boots remain the same, no matter the dress or weather. I have repulsive feet. If someone wanted to torture me they would abandon me on a packed beach with a bikini and flip-flops on. I’d likely get into the sea and swim as far away from the shore as I could, hoping to one day reach a deserted island, where I would make a thick dress out of sheets of seaweed and hide in caves at the very hint of life on the horizon. I’m not a summer person. It is now June in London and some days are sweltering. If it’s really hot I tend to stay at home as much as I can. One of the reasons I am so locked into my job is that it gives me very little reason to leave the house. I invested in an air conditioning unit last year, which has made the hot summer months much more bearable. Other than getting Bonnie to and from nursery, I have very little reason to go out unless it’s social, which is a rare occurrence in itself, but of course I do have friends. To be fair to myself, I am very consistent and I offer very comforting advice to people when they need it. I’m quite proud of that.
Loading Bonnie into her buggy takes a moderate amount of strength on my part. I have to press her down just below her belly button, so that I can get the straps on her and secure her properly. She is particularly unpleasant this morning. I say her name over and over – ‘Bonnie, get in now. Bonnie. Bonnie, sit down!’ – all the while regretting it. It has never felt natural for me to call her Bonnie. It’s a curse of a name, meaning beautiful. An unfair pressure to put on a young girl. It was Liam’s grandmother’s name, and it meant a lot to him to pass it on. I agreed, but only if she had my surname. Liam didn’t argue with that bit at all. I hate how progressive he was about so many things.
She is quite small for her age, but very strong. It takes a minute, but soon enough I have her in. I give her a box of raisins to distract her and somehow we manage to get out of the house.
When she finishes the raisins she throws the box onto the street and demands more. I don’t have any, so I ignore her and keep pushing. It’s a ten-minute walk to her nursery and I walk fast to burn off the toast and Marmite I had for breakfast. Bonnie gets more and more upset, eventually becoming physical. She launches herself backwards and forwards in the buggy, then from side to side too, trying to get herself free.
‘I
