used to get ready before one of our big nights out, with me gamely letting Kate treat me as a canvas as she acted out her Picasso dreams. As she strokes the soft brush over my eyelids I realise how much I’ve missed getting glammed up. When I had a life, before Marlow, I used to spend fifteen minutes each morning following a skin-care and make-up routine; now I’m lucky if I remember to put on deodorant.
After she’s done, Kate turns me towards the mirror and I startle, almost unable to recognise myself. She’s put a burnt orange colour along the edges of my eyes – not a colour I’d ever go for normally, but surprisingly it makes the blue in my eyes stand out. They look almost cobalt and whatever she’s dusted me with has given me a glow that has lifted my ghost-like pallor.
‘Yummy mummy,’ Kate declares with triumph.
I flush a little at the praise. I haven’t thought of myself as sexy or beautiful for a long time – it’s hard to when your breasts are leaking milk and you have stitches in your vagina, but now I’m wondering if all is not lost and I might actually still have it, or if not ‘it’ then something. Standing next to Kate, I might not feel like Cinderella but I no longer feel quite like the ugly sister either.
‘I’ll get us an Uber,’ Kate says, reaching for her phone.
A few minutes later, we leave the apartment and head down the three flights of stairs to the street, Kate clattering in her heels and me following behind in my sandals, checking the door is locked and that I have the address programmed into my phone in case we get drunk later and can’t remember where we’re going.
My sensible mum gene was activated long before I had Marlow. I’m always thinking ahead and worrying about things, whereas Kate refuses to worry about anything that might not happen. Perhaps it’s down in part to personality but it’s also to do with my job. I manage HR for a big housing development company with hundreds of employees, or at least I did before I went on maternity leave, so I have to constantly make sure we’re following rules, that all the i’s are dotted and t’s crossed. Risk assessment is part of my job description and being organised is essential. Whereas Kate spends her life wheeling and dealing, massaging actors’ egos and wooing big-name studio heads. She has to constantly deal with crises and think on her feet.
Thinking about work elicits a rush of excitement, though the excitement is immediately snuffed out by guilt. It feels wrong to admit, even to myself, that I can’t wait to get back to work. I thought I’d love maternity leave and though Rob and I planned for me to take a full year off after Marlow was born, I’m rather wondering if nine months would have been enough. It’s not something you can generally admit to though, that you’d rather be at work than taking your baby to monkey music or baby gym.
I find refuge online sometimes among chat rooms of mums venting about the monotony of being a stay-at-home parent, and it makes me feel less alone, but I’m still not confident enough to share my frustrations with anyone in the real world. I’m afraid they’ll think I’m selfish and horrible, especially after the battle I went through to have Marlow.
As Kate and I pass the door to the apartment below ours, it opens and a man steps out in front of us, blocking our way.
‘Hi,’ Kate and I say.
The man, around thirty-five with thinning hair and wearing round artist-like glasses, looks us both over, unblinking as an owl.
‘Hi,’ he says. He holds out a slender hand to Kate. ‘I’m Sebastian, nice to meet you. I own the apartment you’re staying in.’ He speaks good English with only the faintest trace of an accent.
‘Right,’ says Kate, shaking his hand. ‘I’m Kate, this is Orla,’ she says, indicating me.
‘Nice to meet you,’ I say, shaking his hand.
His gaze dips briefly to my exposed cleavage. It makes me flush a little, both self-consciously and also with a little pride. I can’t remember the last time a man looked at me in that way, not even Rob.
‘It’s just the two of you staying?’ Sebastian asks.
I nod. ‘Yes, just us.’
‘You’re going out?’ he asks, though that much is pretty obvious.