Have your cake and eat it (Chicklit contest finalist)

Chapter five

When Tamsin and I went to the park yesterday, during a rare sunny spell, I got chatting to another mother while her son and Tamsin played happily with one another in the sandpit. It was so nice to have someone over the age of two to talk to for a change that I found myself rashly agreeing to attend a mother and baby group the following afternoon.

In hindsight, warning bells should have started ringing when she began quizzing me about whether Tamsin had started taking ballet classes yet and had I been to baby yoga at the leisure centre as it was simply fab. But I was just so happy to have a conversational partner who spoke in grammatically correct sentences and didn’t keep tugging insistently at my trouser leg that I had failed to clock she was part of the Mummy Mafia.

I’m surrounded by them right now, in a dingy corner of the village hall. Tamsin and six other children are sitting in a circle, captivated by June, the group leader, who is wearing leggings and a kaftan and unpacking a box of dusty musical instruments that in all honesty look like they should have been incinerated decades ago for health and safety reasons.

We’ve been here only ten minutes and already I’m itching to leave. I had envisaged sidling over to the complimentary herbal tea and stale biscuits to have a good old gossip with one of the other mothers about last night’s episode of the Great British Bake Off, but they all seem intent on avidly watching the prowess of little Felix or Hermione with a mouldy old drum.

“He’s got such a natural rhythm, don’t you think?” one of the other mothers leans over to me, nodding proudly at a little blonde-haired boy who is clearly taking three years of frustrations at having her for a mother out on a poor, defenseless xylophone.

“Oh yes,” I agree wholeheartedly. “I was just thinking how fantastically talented he is. It really is quite amazing,” I add in pretend wonder, briefly worrying that I have gone too far as the woman looks at me quizzically.

“Is your little one struggling to meet her developmental milestones?” she asks, cocking her head and gazing at me with wide eyes. “It can be rather a struggle,” she clucks sympathetically. “Of course, Titan had no such problems, he just sailed through the early stages, simply glided. Tell me, what is she struggling with exactly?”

“She…” I trail off. I look at her blankly. Developmental milestones? Come on Bella, think! In my metaphorical parenting book, there aren’t any. Kids just grow up, don’t they? As long as they are talking and walking at roughly the right ages, what does it matter whether they have started to compose their own symphonies or are still dragging around a dog-eared blanky? Unless you counted the epic tantrum the other day over a strawberry yogurt that indicated that perhaps she had progressed to the Terrible Twos a whole six weeks early, I couldn’t think of anything that showed that Tamsin too was effortlessly navigating the choppy waters of toddler territory.

Nonetheless, the woman is clearly expecting an answer as I can feel her beady eyes on me, so I struggle to come up with something plausible.

“It’s just so shameful,” I confide, dropping my voice to a whisper. “I’ve spent hours and hours trying to teach her Latin and the only phrase she knows off by heart is bene! It doesn’t even contain a verb!” I exclaim, attracting curious glances from the other mothers and earning a reproachful stare from June.

My companion – called Brigitte, I learn - looks rather taken aback. “Oh dear, that does sound…tricky,” she says at last. “But I wouldn’t worry...” she trails off, glancing around her somewhat frantically, no doubt looking for an escape route.

Luckily for her, I too am anxious to make a swift exit in order to avoid further questions about my prodigious offspring’s linguistic ability. Unfortunately for me, Tamsin, the little traitor, has taken to her new surroundings like a duck to water and kicks up a right stink when I mumble something about a forgotten dentist appointment and attempt to separate her from her tambourine. This proves to be rather difficult, I soon discover, given she is clinging to it more tightly than a limpet to a rock and starting to scream at me, her hot, angry breath hitting my face.

“Sorry about this, she’s very highly strung,” I explain apologetically to the rest of the group, who are now all staring at me agog. “It’s often the way with the most intelligent ones, you know how it is,” I add breezily, desperately attempting to uncurl Tamsin’s stubborn little fingers from her new favourite toy and cringing as her obstinate wails get louder and louder.

“Well!” I say brightly, beating a swift retreat towards the exit. “You don’t mind if I take this with me do you?” I ask no-one in particular, gesturing at the tambourine with my free hand. “I think we might just have the next little Mozart in our midst. It would be cruel not to nurture her obvious talent, don’t you agree?” I let out a high-pitched brittle laugh and escape out the door before they have a chance to come running after me and make a citizen’s arrest for theft.