I’ve never been a runner, literally or figuratively. When facing fight or flight, I roll up my sleeves and take off my earrings, unless there’s a third option available – do nothing at all. I will wait in the rain for buses; remain in jobs with no prospects; endure a relationship when it’s way beyond saving – until the day I didn’t.
And when that happened – the moment I called time on my marriage – I was shocked by the strength of my urge to run. All I wanted was space between what I was becoming and who I had been, and a friend with a car willing to make that happen. Natalie had always been my ride or die and luckily this time I only needed a ride. I said, ‘Get me far away, to another country if possible.’
She drove to Wales. All break-ups are a variation on a theme, whether three dates in or after vows before God: when it ends you doubt who you are and wonder who you were, and you look for another pair of arms to fix that. My girl took me to a festival, a place with the promise of open arms. We sat in the sun and drank ‘fuck it’ champagne; danced till the early hours and pinned flowers in our hair; but the men – the men who could give me answers in the form of validation – they seemed alien. I wanted to offer a whole lotta woman, but all of me was mum.
So, drunk and confused, I did something desperate: I went to see a psychic. The fortune-teller had a tent on the edge of a field and boasted qualifications from a top psychic academy. Mike didn’t look like a mystic; he looked like a mortgage broker or a chemistry teacher, and he said, ‘You’re here because of a relationship.’ Which is like a dentist saying you’re there for your teeth, but because I’m bad at quitting I stuck the reading out. I let Mike consult his runes and, after conferring with the spirits, he looked me straight in the eye and said, ‘You’re scared.’
‘No shit, Mike,’ I said. ‘I’m scared of everything. I’m scared of being alone; I’m scared of starting again; I’m scared of the recycling with its never-ending list of rules.’ But he removed his specs and shook his head and said again, ‘You’re scared. You’re scared of all those things but there’s something else.’
And because he was a stranger and because of the ‘fuck it’ champagne and because I couldn’t be sure he wasn’t in fact psychic, I was honest.
‘I’m scared that no one will want me.’
Without pause Mike said, ‘Well, that’s bullshit.’ And we laughed, Mike and I and any spectres in his tent. As I stepped back into the sunlight, I estimated it would take a year to prove him wrong.
The first kiss was easy. Kisses, you get for free. I took myself to the club and pretended to belong; under the low lights I could be childless and incautious. And I didn’t have to tell the man anything, I simply stared at his beautiful face until my intentions became clear and aside from steering his hands away from my flanks, it was fine, like riding a bike – sweaty and wobbly and freewheeling. He didn’t care that I was a mum because the bass was too banging for him to hear that, but he couldn’t ask me backto his because his girlfriend was there waiting for him. I didn’t mind. I had someone at home too.
I knew I had to be where the seekers are: the apps and the sites, the late-night clubs of the world wide web. ‘No single mums.’ They put that, brazenly, at the bottom of otherwise humdrum profiles. Like back in the day when they put ‘no blacks’ on ads for damp bedsits, or today when they say ‘no benefits’. Those apps needed a reduced aisle, a shelf at the back near the blackcurrant squash, where I could sit with the damaged and the out of time. And I did feel damaged.
They dragged my son out of me like he was a stubborn weed and put me back together with a blanket stitch. At my six-week check I told the doc I’d been too scared to look, that if it looked how it felt I’d see yesterday’s corned-beef hash. She said, ‘It’s fine. You’d never know.’ And she meant, ‘He will never know, this man you’re thinking of’, and I was relieved because that’s how women are supposed to be, immaculate and untouched. I don’t blame the men. I blame myself and the product aisles and the magazines and all the other ways we troll ourselves. I blame all that for making me feel I had to hide
I rebuilt my profile with no evidence of my sinister child-rearing ways and it didn’t take long for someone to walk into my web of lies. He took me to the river, he bought the drinks, he told me I was sexy and I was drunk enough to believe it. We played twenty questions; with the right enquiries you might guess who I am. The wine made me loose and I let my status slip. He coughed into his glass and said, ‘I didn’t know you had a child.’ He said, ‘I hope I don’t offend but I don’t want to date a mother.’ He didn’t offend. I know the rules of romance: rejection is part of the deal and, although I believed him, I decided he would break this rule for me. I – someone who buys microwave chips – imagined that with enough effort I could change his mind; I’d show him my stretch marks and he’d abandon those once firm values. It nearly worked.
I manic-pixie-dream-girled myself into his affections. I stayed up late and drank shots and didn’t once mention school catchment areas. When he asked what I wanted, I said adventure when the truth was some sleep; I projected a spontaneous existence while my days were ruled by nap times. For our first night together I booked a hotel, the perfect backdrop for anonymity. But eventually motherhood ended our dalliance because he said he wanted me waxed, and parenting doesn’t allow time for that. After him, I said I’d no longer conform: I’d grow out my body hair, give up bathing, find the man who loved me for me and not an illusion. If the spirits were right and someone was to want me, they had to want all of me. All of us.
He came in the form of a friend, so stealthily I almost didn’t notice. He offered something mothers don’t always receive – help. Rather than flowers he bought blue-top milk; instead of chocolates, armfuls of bog roll. I offered myself as both a woman and a parent, and he told me the combination made me special. Single motherhood had become my superpower, snot and snacks my shields. I no longer had to pretend and it was such sweet relief to relax my vigilance. It wasn’t long before he asked me to stop running, requested that we stand still together, and I let him into our life.
When you date as a single parent it’s like doing everything at once – the spark and thrill of early days alongside the gentle intimacy of domesticity. I adored it all. I was greedy and bloated with love. The first time I watched him read to my boy, adapting his tone for each character, I died. hen I was resurrected, he was cooking dinner. I thought I had cracked the code. I was unprepared for our first and last fight, the wind on the seafront so fierce he had to shout: ‘Good luck finding someone to play daddy!’
Parenthood is not a game; if it is, it was one I was losing, along with hope, along with him. All break-ups are a variation on a theme. I lay awake wondering who I was and doubting who I’d been but motherhood doesn’t give a shit about heartbreak. With another dawn, my son needed cuddles and comfort and Weetabix. We were two once more and I had my answer. Mike the psychic was right. I will always be wanted.