Read Online The Yummy Mummy by Polly Williams - Free Book Online Page A

Nicola. I like her a lot.
    “The closest a woman can get to being kicked in the balls.”
    “Of course,” Sue says, assuming her Reassuring Bedside Manner Voice (other voices in the repertoire range from Officious Secretary—“So I’ll see you at five P.M. at the sand pit then”—to needling lawyer, “Can you describe exactly the color and shape of Evie’s poo?”). “This is the price we pay if we stop suddenly.”
    “Come on, Amy, you can’t deny Evie. It’s delicious stuff,” says Michelle. “Have you not tasted it?”
    “I prefer cow’s milk on my cereal, thanks.”
    “You’re missing out.”
    Nicola and I exchange alarmed glances. Is Michelle serious? Probably. Michelle fried up her placenta with basil and French sea salt and ate it the evening after the home delivery.
    “I’m going to breast-feed until Amelia’s two, if I can,” pipes up Hermione, sitting to my left. Pale and tiny, she doesn’t look like she could suckle a guinea pig. “Build up those antioxidants.”
    “Anti
bodies
,” corrects Sue loudly.
    Sweet, unchallenging, and pretty, Hermione is reluctantly admired in the group. Hermione did three hundred pelvic floor exercises every day before the birth, which was, of course, a drug-free water birth at Queen Charlotte’s. The baby slipped out like a fish. “All about the breath,” she informed us helpfully. The resulting baby, Amelia, is a delicate organically reared pedigree, pretty, eyes shaped like leaves. And, as Hermione regularly drops into the conversation with the accuracy of a smart bomb, Amelia slept through the night at four weeks.
    “Waaaaah!” Evie’s whimpering is beginning to crescendo. Then she starts to cough. All the other mothers, bar Nicola, pull back, maneuvering their babies out of Evie’s bubonic sneeze line, pretending to smell their nappies, or adjust their clothes. It is a great faux pas to participate in socials with an under-par baby, endangering others.
    “Oh, is Evie
ill
?” Sue asks warily.
    Just a little cough, I explain. Then Evie coughs again, this time with the ferocity of a forty-a-day Rothmans smoker.
    Amelia is quickly strapped back into her pram. “We’ve got to go, running late for the Routine,” Hermione says.
    Not wanting to destroy the entire social, I give Evie my mobile phone, the only thing that ever truly distracts her. Sue slits her eyes and glares at the phone as if it were a lump of plutonium.
    “Can I get you anything else, ladies?” The waiter, early twenties, spotty, has been wiping down clean surfaces for the last ten minutes, waiting for Michelle’s boob to retreat back to its lair of burgundy linen.
    “Another scone, please,” Nicola says. “Starving.” Nicola reckons, if she could be bothered—which she can’t—she would have about a stone to lose. Nicola is tall and rangy, with a tummy she tucks into her jeans. “I’m back on the pill. That increases your appetite, apparently. Well, that’s all the excuse I need.”
    “I wouldn’t worry. Breast-feeding uses up at least five hundred calories a day,” cuts in Michelle authoritatively. On account of her age (it took her ten years and two changes of husband to conceive) and the number of natural-birth manuals she’s devoured, Michelle has appointed herself pregnancy guru, a role contested by Sue.
    My phone vibrates in Evie’s hands, shocking her silent. A text, Alice.
     
    Mting grls for lunch and film. 12 Electrc, Prtobello. Do cme.
     
    Oh, it’s rather glamorous being invited to something the day it is happening, the presumption that I am free and mobile and follow my social whims. Such a contrast to these meetings that are organized with military precision, usually days in advance as if we had the diaries of busy diplomats.
    “Beckham, is it?” Sue says. My eyes must have lit up.
    “No, no, just a friend.”
    “You’re blushing!”
    Now all the mothers are staring. Weirdly, I do feel caught out.
    “It’s Alice, remember I told you about