Fiona Gibson - Mum On The Run

‘Yes, haha,’ I croak, scrambling up from my seat and stuffing Toby’s purse into my bag. Naomi picks up the grooming guide.

‘Mind if I read this?’

‘Go ahead. I’m running late actually.’

She flips it open at the au naturelle page as the waitress brings her a steaming mug of dandelion witch-brew. It looks like puddle water. ‘Oh, Laura?’ she calls after me as I head for the door. ‘Miss Marshall’s looking for parent volunteers to set up a junior athletics club.’

I blink at her. ‘That sounds good.’

‘She asked me to help to run it. You know, coaching the kids, motivating them, that sort of thing . . .’

‘Great.’ I try to look excited.

‘Thought you might be interested,’ she adds, ‘in the fund-raising side. Maybe you could do some home baking or something.’

I force a wide smile, hoping it’s the smile of a woman who is dynamic, perky and firmly at the helm of family life. ‘Love to,’ I say. ‘Count me in.’

*

‘I’d like something like that,’ my first client says, thrusting me a snipped-out photo from a magazine. The woman has over-bleached hair which peters out to fine wisps at her shoulders. The photo is of Angelina Jolie.

I take time to study her hair, feeling its coarseness and trying to figure out a diplomatic approach. ‘Are you sure you wouldn’t prefer something that works with your hair’s natural colour and texture?’ I suggest, slipping easily into hairdresser-speak. It’s not that I loathe my job. Far from it: I enjoy the steady routines, the companionship, and knowing that most clients walk out feeling far happier than when they came in. I especially enjoy the dramatic transformations, when the right cut heightens a woman’s bone structure, and she emerges a real beauty. I still preferred it, though, before our grand relaunch as Shine Hair Design, when we were plain old Snipperz. More realistic expectations. Install a bubbly water feature and butter-soft leather sofas and people think you can transform them into Hollywood actresses. It’s like the time I joined Bodyworks, the fancy gym over the road, in the hope that I’d somehow be magically transformed by simply wafting around the building.

As I show my client sample hair shades, the magazine photo appears to have been forgotten. She leaves, not as Angelina, but thoroughly de-frizzed and happy.

‘Lovely colour you did there,’ remarks Simone, my boss, as I check my appointments.

‘Thanks. She was pleased, I think.’

‘Fancy a quick coffee? I’ll make one.’

‘That’d be great. I’ve got a fifteen-minute gap, then I’m booked up pretty much all day.’

In the kitchen, Simone hands me a mug. ‘So, good weekend?’ she asks.

‘Yes, I actually managed to get out on my own and do some shopping.’

‘Sounds great . . .’

‘Celeste popped in,’ I add, ‘while I was out.’

‘Oh.’ She frowns. ‘Were the kids there?’

I nod. ‘I know – nothing was going to happen while they were around, and I’m probably being ridiculous and reading far too much into it. But still. I felt kind of . . . uncomfortable.’

Simone regards me with striking blue eyes. Everything about her – the flawless skin, perfect nails, the fact that she looks around 500 years younger than I do – screams ‘child-free’. ‘You know what I think?’ she says, raising an eyebrow. ‘I reckon they’re just friends and that’s all there is to it. Maybe he’s just enjoying hanging out with a woman. You know – having a female friend instead of just the guys from football and school. Good for the ego and all that.’

‘Yes but—’ I stop myself. Simone’s probably right, and what’s wrong with having a close friend of the opposite sex? I used to, at school and college and in suburban hair salons on the fringes of North London. But they all drifted into relationships, as I did, and since we left London four years ago, we seem to have lost touch. I’ve never made any new male friends to replace them.

‘Know what you and Jed need?’ Simone adds, swilling her cup in the sink. ‘A weekend away, just the two of you. Something to put the spark back.’

‘Impossible,’ I say. ‘Mum’s brilliant with the kids, but having all three for the whole weekend would be too much for her.’

‘What about Jed’s parents? Or your sister?’

I laugh darkly. Pauline and Brian live a five-hour drive away in South London and are, more to the point, beyond clueless. Kate would be willing to come down, but since she’s just set up her B&B in Scotland it seems far too much to ask. ‘I really don’t think—’ I start.

‘Why not?’ she cuts in. ‘A weekend in, I don’t know – Paris or somewhere would do you the world of good. It might even perk up your . . .’ She tails off and grins.

‘Simone,’ I say, sniggering, ‘anyone’s sex life would perk up if their children were in another country.’ She laughs her throaty laugh, and tosses her gleaming chestnut curls, as we go through to attend to our next appointments.

Although I barely come up for air between clients, our conversation niggles at me all morning. A weekend away , I keep thinking as I cut, colour, blow dry and create an up-do for a party. It’s obvious that Jed and I desperately need time together but, even if I could arrange it, would he want to go away with me?

Grace has three friends for tea after school, involving an impromptu cookie-making enterprise. One young visitor decides to liven up the proceedings by taking my dressing gown off the radiator in order to wipe her sticky hands on it, then places it on the hob and inadvertently turns on a gas ring. A sleeve is singed black, the gown is extinguished under the cold tap and the kitchen fills with bitter fumes, cancelling out the delicious biscuit aroma which has been teasing my nostrils. By the time Jed shows up, I’m scraping dough off the kitchen floor, a husk of my former self.

‘Don’t want to put pyjamas on,’ Toby screams, as if they were made not from the softest brushed cotton but laced with barbed wire. His cheeks are flushed, his dark eyes wet with furious tears.

‘You look exhausted,’ Jed points out, taking over with Toby. ‘Here, I’ll sort out the kids.’

‘Thanks,’ I mutter, sinking onto the sofa with a large glass of wine. As a parent, my husband is far more effective than I am. With Jed, the kids snap into action, whereas my voice drifts ineffectually around the house, no more significant than a light breeze.

As I sip my wine, a mobile starts ringing on the coffee table. I pick it up, realising too late that it’s not mine but Jed’s. ‘Hello?’ I say.

‘Oh! Um, is that Laura?’ Celeste asks.

‘Yes, it is,’ I say lightly. Why is she calling him now? Hasn’t she heard of kids’ bedtime?

‘Is Jed there? Don’t worry if he’s busy, it’s nothing urgent . . .’

‘He’s just reading Toby a story upstairs. I’ll ask him to call you back when he’s finished—’

‘No, it’s okay,’ Jed cries, bounding downstairs all bright-eyed and smiley. ‘I’ll take it . . .’ With a ridiculous guffaw, he snatches his mobile from my grasp and marches through to the kitchen. I stare after him. I have never seen Jed move so fast, not even on the football pitch. Anyone would think Nicole Kidman was on the line.

‘Daddy!’ Toby roars from upstairs. ‘What are you doing? Come and finish my story. Come back !’

I stand dead still, still clutching my wine glass, fury fizzing through my veins as I try to make out what Jed’s saying. Ooh, yes, ma petite French angel, you can slather me all over in chocolate sauce as soon as I can get away from the dumpy old wife . . . zut alors, I’m sure the old trout’s listening . . . Okay, he doesn’t say that exactly, but he’s chuckling, yacking about God knows what. ‘Yeah, yeah,’ he murmurs, adoration spilling from his lips. ‘That sounds fantastic.’ Perhaps we could extend the chocolate-sauce slathering a little lower, Angelcakes . . . ooh yes, just there . . . perfect . . .