From Mum With Love

  FROM MUM WITH LOVE

  Louise Emma Clarke

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  About this Book

  About the Author

  Table of Contents

  www.ariafiction.com

  About From Mum With Love

  Mum of one, Jess, has had enough of endless diaper-filled days, and her husband Chris has just the solution to vent her frustrations – a blog.

  Jess loves her daughter more than anything, but sometimes she just wants a little bit of freedom – some time for herself. Cue a laptop, a glass of wine and the beginning of a life-changing journey.

  Overnight Jess’s inbox is full of notifications and before long she is officially a ‘mummy blogger’, but this new life comes with its own set of rules and regulations. With Queen of the Bloggers, Tiggy, blanking her in public, people recognizing her on the street and her life decisions suddenly judged by strangers, Jess’s idea of ‘me time’ is slowly becoming a full-time job.

  Will Jess be able to find the right life/work balance? Or will she wish she’d never turned to a world online?

  From the award-winning blogger behind ‘Mum of Boys & Mabel’.

  Contents

  Welcome Page

  About From Mum with Love

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  A Note from the Author

  Acknowledgements

  About Louise Emma Clarke

  Become an Aria Addict

  Copyright

  Dedicated to my husband, Charlie,

  and our three babies; Stanley, Wilfred and Mabel;

  without whom this novel would have been written at least 6 months earlier

  Prologue

  How it all started…? It was pitch black and very nearly silent, bar the occasional roar of a car passing on the street below. Her left arm was now completely numb and her left leg, which was taking most of her weight, was starting to prick with pins and needles. But she didn’t dare move an inch. A small human being lay below her, its breathing soft and shallow. Squinting in the darkness, she didn’t take her eyes off the child, waiting patiently until she saw the rise and fall of her chest grow deeper, accompanied by the gentle snuffles of sleep.

  Now came the escape plan – and she knew it wouldn’t be easy.

  She slowly removed her hand from the rising chest, finger by finger.

  Thumb, then forefinger, then index finger, then ring finger, and finally her little finger. As that last finger gently lifted, she paused and held her breath, listening to the sound of the breathing.

  She exhaled quietly with relief as the snuffles continued, undisturbed in their rhythm.

  Now to escape. Taking a deep breath, she glanced at the sliver of light coming from underneath the door behind her – and carefully dropped to the floor, beginning a slow, steady crawl in its direction. There were a couple of floorboards that squeaked with too much weight, so she made sure her hands and knees avoided them. Slow and steady, she thought to herself, as she danced to the left and then to the right, towards the promised sliver of light. Don’t blow it now.

  But as she placed her left knee back on the floor, touching distance away from the door, she felt pain sear through her leg. Every part of her wanted to scream ‘FUCK!’ and roll around in agony – but the consequences would be dire. She gritted her teeth so hard that the pain flooded into her head and roared into her ears, before pulling a small Hello Kitty toy out of the skin on her kneecap. She wanted to rip its head off, but instead she glared at it fiercely and tossed it onto the chair by her head.

  I’m winning this battle, she thought to herself, as she crawled awkwardly towards the door. Reaching it, she climbed slowly to her feet and gently pulled the door open.

  And it was then that she heard the unmistakable clatter of metal in the lock of the front door.

  ‘No!’ she muttered under her breath, lunging for the door. ‘He’d better not… No… Please… He’d better not…’

  But it was too late.

  ‘Honey! Bella! Daddy’s home! Where are you?’ The shout echoed up the stairs, followed by a loud clunk as he threw his keys and phone onto the sideboard in the hallway.

  ‘Shut up!’ she hissed. ‘I’ve just put her down!’ She raced towards the top of the stairs, adding, ‘please… shut up!’

  He was starting to climb the stairs now: ‘Sorry, honey? What was that? You OK? You both upstairs? Is she in the bath?’

  And just as his right foot hit the top of the stairs, a trill scream was heard from the nursery.

  And that was that. A wasted forty-five minutes, contorting her body over a cot, numb limbs, and an imprint of Hello-fucking-Kitty on her knee – and he’d blown it all with yet another badly-timed arrival home and yell up the stairs.

  It was 6.45 p.m. Bella was usually asleep by 6.30 p.m. – after all, she was fourteen months old – and despite Chris requesting endlessly that they move bedtime back so he could see his little princess when he made it home from work, Jessica had always had quite enough by then. If he wasn’t home by 6 p.m., he didn’t see Bella; it was as simple as that. Unless he woke her up, that was, which was becoming a bit of a habit. Just as he caught sight of his wife standing on the landing with a face like thunder, Bella called out again from her cot – and his face dropped with realisation. ‘I’m sorry, honey. Did it take a while to get her off?’ He pushed open the door to her nursery and made his way to her cot, while looking back at her. ‘Has it been a tough day?’

  ‘Has it been a tough day?’ she echoed hollowly, while rubbing her bruised knee. ‘You could say that, yes.’

  She considered pushing past him and heading downstairs to pour herself a large glass of something cold and alcoholic but had second thoughts, and followed him into the nursery instead, standing alongside him as he scooped Bella into his arms. ‘Do you want to know how our day went? Really? It started at five-thirty this morning when you woke her up getting into the shower. Well, that was fucking brilliant, because I’d already been awake four times in the night while you lay there snoring.’

  Bella was smiling up at her daddy, who was gazing adoringly back – but as Jessica paused, he turned his attention back to her. She wasn’t finished. ‘I tried to get her back to sleep, but she wasn’t having any of it, so while you sat on the train to London, probably flicking through a newspaper in peace and drinking a coffee you could actually get to the bottom of before it went cold, I was watching the Teletubbies on the living room rug, wearing a donkey puppet as a hat. And after doing that for what felt like an eternity, I looked at my watch and it had been fourteen minutes, Chris. FOURTEEN MINUTES. Can you imagine? No, you bloody can’t!’

  She took a deep breath before she continued. ‘So next on the day’s fun agenda was feeding her breakfast. A simple task, wouldn’t you think? Well no, it never bloody is! I offered her cereal first. She threw the whole bowl on the floor. I offered her banana next. She smeared it over the high chair, over her face, over her clothes, and as a crescendo, over my pyjamas too – which I only washed yesterday, so you can imagine my delight… I then decided that was enough mess for one day and I made her some dry toast. But, as you can probably guess by now, that wasn’t blood
y right either – so I spent the rest of the morning veering between feeling outraged at how incredibly headstrong our child is and worried sick that she is deliberately starving herself. And let me tell you, Chris, asking Google didn’t alleviate any of those worries…’

  ‘OK, honey, I get the picture,’ he interrupted, as Bella started struggling in his arms to get down.

  ‘You get the picture? You get the picture? No, you don’t, Chris!’ she shouted. ‘Keep with me because there is more. There’s lots more!’

  Chris leant down and placed Bella on the floor of her nursery. She immediately toddled towards Jessica and attached herself to her legs.

  ‘Moving onto her morning nap, where I tried unsuccessfully to get her to sleep for a grand total of fifty-three minutes,’ she continued, leaning down to scoop up Bella. ‘What were you doing at 9.35 a.m., Chris? Having a leisurely breakfast at your desk? Making a coffee in the kitchen and comparing fantasy football results with John? Well, I hope it was fun, because I was lying on a bed being repeatedly whipped around the face with a cuddly bunny rabbit!’

  Chris’ mouth curled into a smile, which he tried to hide by leaning down to pick up Hello Kitty from the chair below him. ‘Ah, here’s Hello Kitty, Bella!’ he said. ‘We were looking for her last night, weren’t we? She was here all the time!’

  Bella cooed and reached out to grab Hello Kitty, while Jessica exhaled deeply.

  ‘I’m sorry, Jess! I’m really sorry,’ Chris said, reaching down to stroke his daughter’s hair.

  ‘Are you?’ Jessica snapped back. ‘Are you really sorry?’

  ‘Yes, honey. Of course I am,’ he replied, smiling down at his daughter

  ‘You don’t bloody sound it,’ she said, feeling the rage bubble.

  Chris looked up at her. ‘Let’s not do this now, Jess. Not in front of Bella. I’m exhausted.’

  Jessica sighed loudly, plonked her child in her father’s arms, and stormed out the room.

  ‘You’re exhausted! You’re exhausted! Ha! That’s brilliant!’ she called back at him, running down the stairs.

  ‘We’re both exhausted,’ Chris replied quietly. He kissed the top of Bella’s head gently and took a deep breath, before calling after Jessica. ‘I’m sorry you had such a crap day! But do you know what?’

  ‘What?’ she called back, making her way to the fridge.

  ‘I’ve told you this before, but you really should write everything down in a blog!’

  ‘Well, maybe I will!’ she shouted back

  And as the wine glugged noisily into her glass, she added under her breath: ‘At least somebody might bloody listen to me.’

  1

  Followers – 0

  Dear Bella,

  This is my first letter to you, and as I write it, you are asleep next to me. Tiny, and curled, and peaceful – which is a relief after the night we have just had. You are three weeks old and I think it’s time to start writing. When you were born, I promised to tell you everything – and I don’t know whether these letters will make much sense, given how groggy I feel with lack of sleep, but I will try. I will keep writing.

  And where better to start, but at the beginning? I am Jessica, and I am your mummy. I grew up in South East London with Granny, Grandad and your Auntie Fran. Grandad worked on the railways and Granny made curtains, filling our living room with giant swathes of fabric that we all had to tiptoe around. Auntie Fran is ten years older than me, but she has always been my very best friend in the world, even when I was a goofy teenager with my head buried in books and she was a cool, sassy student with boyfriends who rode motorbikes and smelt of cheap aftershave and musty leather. Our family didn’t have a lot of money, but I don’t think we ever noticed. We were close and very happy. And that’s exactly what I want for you.

  I always wanted to be a writer, Bella – so everyone was so proud when I packed my suitcase and headed to Leeds University on the train to start a degree in English Literature. My dream was to graduate and start a job as a journalist in a bustling newsroom, with my own desk and a slimline laptop, rushing out of the office when a story broke. But I soon came to realise that life doesn’t always follow the course we imagine – and after a year of rejection letters landing on our doormat with depressing thuds, Granny turned to me and said: ‘Apply for something different Jess! Anything! Just get out there and earn some money. You can still write one day, but you need to do something now!’

  I gave her the silent treatment for a few days after that, but I knew she was right. I quickly accepted a job as an office manager at an insurance company in the middle of Blackheath Village. There were only fifteen of us in the office and I enjoyed my job. I made cups of tea, I ordered stationery, I processed invoices, and I managed diaries. Gradually, my dream of being a writer fizzled, faded, and disappeared without so much as a pop.

  I was careful with my money and before long, I had enough to move into a small flat in the centre of the village, where I wandered back every evening after a drink or two with the team. And it was on one of those nights out that the course of my life changed forever. The whole team were out celebrating Tom McGee’s fiftieth birthday – and I had definitely drunk too many glasses of white wine (and definitely not eaten enough nibbles to soak it all up) when I quite literally bumped into a tall, dark, and handsome stranger at the bar. And as he looked down at the crotch of his suit trousers, which were now drenched in the contents of my wine glass, the world stopped spinning. Just for a second, it stopped. He was older than me, I guessed around forty at the time, but he was very handsome. About 6-foot-2, with tanned skin and dark hair, a few greys at his temples, and eyes a bright, surprising green. ‘I’m Chris’, he said, offering his hand. ‘And I’m Jessica,’ I replied, shaking it. And since that moment in that bar, your daddy and I have been inseparable.

  He worked in the city by day – and by night, he came home and we snuggled under fleece blankets and watched TV boxsets, whilst taking it in turns to knock up feasts in the kitchen. He soon decided to sell his flat in North Greenwich, given it was pretty much always empty, and we started looking for places to buy together. And when we stepped through the door of a house in Westcombe Park on a sunny autumn afternoon, with its duck-egg blue front door and lavender bushes scenting the path, we knew we’d found our forever home. We moved three months later – and as the sun set over our new garden on a crisp December evening, Daddy got down on one knee, opened a small turquoise box, and asked me to be his wife. ‘Thank God I poured that wine over you!’ I cried, as I fell into his arms and cried happy tears.

  That was the beginning, Bella.

  That was the beginning of us.

  But I have so much more to tell you.

  Just wait.

  Love from Mummy x

  *

  Jessica’s fingers rested on the keys of her laptop. Leaning back in her chair, she moved her eyes down to the notebook lying open on the table in front of her and traced her finger across the page. Once smooth, the paper was now filled with the indents of words scrawled in a blue biro. She’d carefully typed the letter word-for-word, allowing her mind to wander back to the day she first wrote it. The tiredness, the newborn cuddles, the emotions. It felt like yesterday, but a lifetime ago, all at the same time. Shutting the book with a snap, she pulled it towards her and sniffed the leather. There was something very comforting about this notebook, with its sunshine yellow cover and gold monogrammed initials.

  JDH. Jessica Dawn Holmes. Her married name.

  It still gave her a thrill nearly two years later.

  The notebook had been a gift, handed to her on the last afternoon of her hen weekend in Cornwall a few weeks before her wedding. The small group of friends and family were gathered in the lounge, and Jessica unwrapped parcels one by one.

  ‘Right,’ Fran had said. ‘I’ve saved mine until last. Here you go, little sister!’

  She held out a small package, wrapped in colourful polka dot paper and tied with a silver bow. And as she untied and p
ulled, those gold initials were the first thing Jessica saw. Her new name staring back at her. She was the first of her friends to have a serious boyfriend, let alone get married, but she didn’t have a single doubt. And as she smiled up at her sister to thank her, she was filled with nervous excitement about becoming JDH for real.

  Jessica blinked now and glanced down at the same notebook in her hands, the gold initials fading in places and the pages filled with letters to her daughter. The idea to share the letters in a blog had come to her a few weeks ago. She’d been avidly reading parenting blogs since Bella was born and she’d often thought of starting her own, but every time she opened her laptop to start typing, she just couldn’t find the words. What should she write about? And how should she start?

  And then she remembered the notebook.

  She already had the words.

  Jessica’s eyes shot back to the screen of her laptop, speed reading the letter she’d just typed in her mind – but there was something stopping her from publishing it. Did she really want to become a mummy blogger? Did she fit the mould? She didn’t have a troop of perfectly turned out kids, her house was never tidy, she didn’t have a glamorous home in the South of France to spend her summers, nor a team of photographers to capture her in fabulous outfits against cool backdrops. She didn’t have long glossy hair to flick, nor a lounge of monochrome prints to photograph, nor the bank balance to take her daughter to different over-priced attractions every day of the week.

  She was just Jessica – a thirty-one-year-old, mummy-of-one, and wife to forty-four-year- old Chris. She had an average wardrobe in average size twelve, an average three-bedroom house on an average street in South East London, and an average career as the office manager of an insurance firm (before she gave it up to become a mummy, that is). She wasn’t anything special.

  But she did love to write and she thought, possibly, she might even be quite good at it. She would just stick to writing letters to Bella, telling the story of how motherhood happened for her.