Broken glass on our kitchen floor.
My daughter on a hospital bed, curled up in a ball.
The front page of a newspaper.
I want this to stop now. Something is wrong. I keep trying to wake up, to open my eyes, but I can’t, my eyelids are too heavy.
It is not so much the idea of dying which upsets me as the thought I might never see any of these people again; all the things I might never have the chance to tell them. Dan – I love you. Mum – I forgive you. Polly – I hope you can forgive me. Bear . . . Coco . . .
I have an awful feeling something terrible is about to happen.
I have an awful feeling it is all my fault.
SIX WEEKS EARLIER
Chapter One
Emmy
I never planned to be an Instamum. For a long time, I wasn’t sure I’d be a mum at all. But then who among us can truthfully say that their life has turned out exactly the way they thought it would?
These days I might be all leaky nipples and little nippers, professional bottom wiper for two cheeky ankle biters, but rewind five years and I guess I was what you’d call a fashionista. Ignore my knackered eye twitch and imagine this frizzy, pink-hued mum bun is a sleek blow-dry. Swap today’s hastily daubed MAC Ruby Woo for clever contouring, liquid liner and statement earrings – the sort that my three-year-old daughter would now use for impromptu pull-ups. Then dress it all in skinny jeans and an Equipment silk blouse.
As a fashion editor, I had the job I’d dreamed of since I was a problem-haired, buck-toothed, puppy-fat-padded teen, and I truly, truly loved it. It was all I’d ever wanted to do, as my best friend Polly would tell you – sweet, long-suffering Polly; I’m lucky she still speaks to me after the hours I spent forcing her to play photographer in my pretend shoots, or strut with me down garden path catwalks in my mum’s high heels, all those after-noons making our own magazines with yellowing copies of the Daily Mail and a Pritt Stick （I was always the editor, of course）。
So how did I get from there to here? There have been times – when I’m mopping up newborn poo, or making endless pots of puréed goo – when I’ve asked myself the same question. It feels like it all happened in an instant. One minute I was wearing Fendi, front row at Milan Fashion Week, the next I was in trackie bums, trying to restrain a toddler from reorganising the cereal aisle in Sainsbury’s.
The career change from fashion maven to flustered mama was just a happy accident, to be totally honest with you. The world started to lose interest in shiny magazines full of beautiful people so, thanks to shrinking budgets and declining readership, just as I was scaling the career ladder, it was kicked out from under me – and then on top of everything else, I found out I was pregnant.
Damn you, the internet, I thought. You owe me a new career – and it is going to need to be one I can build around having a baby.
And so I started blogging and vlogging – I called myself Barefoot, because my stilettos came with a side order of soul-baring. And you know what? Although it took me a while to find my stride, I got a real buzz out of connecting with like-minded ladies in real time.
Fast-forward to those first few months after giving birth and in the 937 hours I spent with my bum welded to the couch, my darling Coco attached to my milky boobs and the iPhone in my hand my only connection to the outside world, the community of women I met on the internet became a literal lifeline. And while blogging and vlogging were my first online loves, it was Instagram that stopped me from slipping too far into the postnatal fug. It felt like a little life-affirming arm squeeze every time I logged on and saw a comment from another mother going through the same things I was. I had found my people.
So, slowly, it was out with the Louboutins and in with the little human. Barefoot morphed into Mamabare because I’m a mama who is willing to grin and bare it, warts and all. And take it from me, this journey has got even crazier since my second little bundle of burps, Bear, came along five weeks ago. Whether it’s a breast pad fashioned from rogue Happy Meal wrappers or a sneaky gin in a tin by the swings, you’ll always get the unvarnished truth from me – although it may come lightly dappled with Wotsit dust.