Just Like Proper Grown-Ups

by Christina Hopkinson

Genres: Women's Fiction

Synopsis

'You don't really grow up until you either have a kid or one of your parents dies.' Glamorously carefree and nearing forty, Tess shows no sign of settling down. That is, until she drops a bombshell on four of her friends: she's pregnant, and has chosen them as godparents. Yet while they rally round the single mother, each one is struggling to face the realities of adulthood. Sierra may be only twenty-three but her mother is so irresponsible that she's had to grow up fast. Michael is too busy searching for Mrs Right to worry about collecting the essential accessories of spice racks or investment saucepans, while Owen eases the pain of a mid-life identity crisis with a string of unsuitable fiancées. Only Lucy has the trappings and offspring of a proper grown-up, but is terrified of ageing. On a challenging and hilarious journey through birth, Botox, bad sex and beyond, all five friends must discover that while growing old is inevitable, growing up is optional . . .

Release date: August 16, 2012

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton

Print pages: 401

Sample

It was always a surprise to those who knew Lucy to discover that she had an enduring attachment to the diktats of women’s magazines. They provided a running commentary on her life so that however successful and efficient she became, there was always something that could be improved. As she waited on the doorstep of Tess’s flat she did a quick inventory of her appearance. Women of a certain age, she knew from her reading, should forego cleavage but displayed legs were fine, so long as they were encased in opaques. Check. Her face was only dimly reflected in the glass, but she could see how cross she always looked these days. Her hair was too flat, but she’d had no time to do the necessary candy-flossing to big it up before coming out.

As she was buzzed in and confronted with Tess, she felt any confidence she had brought alongside the bottle of mid-market Italian wine evaporate. Her friend looked radiant, almost younger than when they had first met twenty years before.

‘My darling,’ said Tess. ‘You look tired.’

‘Thanks,’ said Lucy. ‘Nothing like people saying that to make you feel a hundred and three.’

‘Speaking of which, happy belated birthday.’

‘Is it? Happy, I mean? It feels like one more plank of wood towards the coffin.’

‘Don’t be silly. We’re still young.’

‘Well, you look it,’ said Lucy. ‘You look amazing. I read somewhere that these days Botox and teeth-whitening are considered “basic maintenance”. Can you believe it? Not in my world. It’s as much as I can do to brush my teeth of an evening.’ She squinted some more at Tess’s unlined face. ‘Are you, have you?’

‘Had work done, you mean? Funny how they call it work, when it’s really about being quite lazy, isn’t it? Letting someone else sort out your face for you.’

‘Not a face-lift, obviously, but Botox, injectable fillers, collagen, hyaluronic acid – anything like that?’

‘You seem to know a lot about it.’

‘Well, have you?’ Tess’s face looked as though it had been plumped out. Yes, it was plump, but in a good way. It was too irritating that after all these years of being told that thin was everything to have to readjust your vision to embrace a sort of localised chubbiness, restricted to the apples of your cheeks and your lips.

Tess laughed. ‘No, I’d tell you if I had. But you should see Mummy these days. She’s like one of the people who put their car into reverse to try to get the mileage down before flogging it. She’s had so much Botox that her forehead’s got that shiny oversized skating-rink look that you see on actresses, and she has these weird little lines’ – Tess pointed to the sides of her nose – ‘right here. It’s like all her wrinkles have sought sanctuary there, so she looks like she’s making a rabbitty face all the time.’ Tess crinkled up her own face and bucked her teeth in illustration. It only served to emphasise the dewiness of her skin.

Lucy looked at herself in one of Tess’s silver spoons, which was speckled with age. Everything in Tess’s home was vintage and mismatched in the artless way that is such hard work to achieve. The only new thing seemed to be Tess’s glow. ‘Oh god, even in this, I look terrible. Now that I’m doing a bit of TV, do you think I should get some work done? My forehead looked like corduroy when I saw myself on-screen. Ned asked the other day, “Mummy, why’s your face all stripy?”’

‘You’re on the news talking about pension reform; I hardly think people want to see a baby-faced expert. I can’t believe I’m hearing this from you, of all people – you were my ally in not being boring about looks and weight.’

‘I don’t have a problem with my weight. That’s an easy calculation: calories in minus calories expended. That makes sense. But I can’t control this. I find myself actually paying attention to adverts that promise luminescence and a reduction in the appearance of fine lines. What are the seven signs of ageing that they talk of anyway?’

‘Talking nonsense in your case. I rely on you to be sensible.’

‘How bloody grown-up.’

They were interrupted by the doorbell. Lucy looked with surprise at the man – or, some would say, boy – in low-slung jeans and a logo-ed top, staggering under the weight of several large brown paper bags. She’d seen him many times before, but to see him out of context was like seeing a priest out clubbing. What on earth was he doing here at Tess’s flat?

‘My darling,’ said Tess as she kissed his cheeks, ‘you’re dwarfed by these bags.’

‘Not that it takes much to dwarf me,’ he said.

‘Shush, you’re not that much smaller than I am.’

‘Bless you, but despite my boyhood hopes, I’m always going to be eight years younger and three inches shorter than you. Your side got all the tall genes.’ He smiled at Lucy. ‘Hi, I’m Michael.’

‘I know. Well, I know you as Mr Wasiak.’

‘Yes, he’s a Wasiak, my cousin on Mummy’s side,’ said Tess. ‘How do you say cousin in Polish?’

‘Kuzyn,’ said Michael. ‘It’s very tricky. You’re about as Polish as fish and chips.’ He turned to Lucy again. ‘How do you know my name?’

‘Because you’re Mr Wasiak from Moreton Primary. I’m Lucy, mother of Rosa and Ned, Year 2 and Reception. You’ve never taught either of them. Though I’ve heard great things about you.’

He reconfigured his look of blankness into one of enthusiastic recognition. ‘Of course, Lucy.’

‘How weird that all this time I never knew you were Tess’s cousin. And strange to see you outside school. I don’t like to believe that teachers have lives outside school.’ Lucy was always rather priggish when she heard other parents talk about friending the teachers on Facebook. Teachers weren’t allowed to have drinks or sex; they should dissolve on walking out of the building.

‘Lucy and I were besties at university,’ said Tess.

‘But I’ve heard so much about that Lucy,’ he said. ‘All the stories about what you girls did in your youth.’

‘Sweetheart,’ said Tess, ‘some of us like to believe we are still in our youth.’

‘Of course.’ He looked at Lucy in reassurance. ‘Well, do call me Michael and I promise not to tell on you in the staff room if you get drunk. So, Tess, who else is coming? They told me at the deli that it’s dinner for five. It’s all very mysterious, you never give dinner parties.’

‘Sierra, the latest and longest-lasting assistant at the gallery. Just your type – big and gorgeous. You’ll want to eat her up, if she doesn’t gobble you up first. And Owen, another friend from the old days.’

Lucy groaned.

‘You know you love him really,’ said Tess.

‘Really not.’ The announcement of Owen’s attendance chipped away still further at Lucy’s confidence. ‘Does he still have such an, ahem, engaging way with women?’

‘You are mean,’ said Tess. ‘Although I saw Fred the other day, who told me a good joke: what’s the difference between Owen Williams and a public lavatory? The loo can’t be engaged and vacant at the same time.’

‘Boom, boom,’ said Lucy.

‘What are you talking about?’ asked Michael.

‘Owen has quite a history with the ladies,’ said Tess, exchanging glances with Lucy. ‘Quite a history.’

Michael found himself falling quickly into his traditional role as Tess’s helpmeet, unpacking, unwrapping and uncorking, in part to hide the fact that he had no memory of ever having seen Lucy at the school. There were so few teachers and so many parents that it wasn’t fair to expect him to recognise her, especially since she had that generic layered and highlighted mum-bob.

He leaped to the intercom when the doorbell buzzed.

‘Tess, you gorgeous creature, open up and let me ravish you,’ a deep voice boomed, sonorous through the speaker. Michael wished he could have left its owner out in the cold night, feeling his ears ache even with the man held at a remove. He pressed the door release button and was almost flattened by the force of the man’s entrance.

‘And here he is,’ said Lucy. ‘The lovely Owen.’

He gave Michael a bone-crushing handshake with a self-consciousness that suggested he knew his own strength, then turned to Tess. ‘You look fabulous, absolutely gorgeous. Tits look particularly great.’

They do, thought Michael, they really do look marvellous, though he’d never have been so uncouth as to comment on them. And in his head they were always reverently referred to as breasts. Women like Tess didn’t have tits.

‘Oh please,’ said Lucy.

‘Oh please what? You want me to compliment your tits, too, Lucy.’ He turned back to Tess. ‘And where’s the lovely Vondra?’

‘Owen is Mummy’s favourite man in the world,’ said Tess to Michael, who liked to think he occupied that position.

‘Something to do with the fact that he says things to her like, “and you must be Tess’s gorgeous sister”,’ said Lucy.

‘And it’s great to see you too. What are you up to?’

‘Work, kids, house, you know.’

‘Not really, no. I’ve just got a new car actually.’

‘What is it?’ asked Michael, who had no interest in the subject whatsoever.

‘Alfa Romeo.’ There was a pause, which Owen decided to fill with: ‘Looks as good topless as you do, Tess.’ He winked, not in a lascivious way but in a knowing, ‘this sexist drivel is actually me being postmodern’ way. At least that’s what Michael hoped, since he didn’t want to admit that his cousin could have a friend who was idiotic rather than ironic.

‘And that’s what I love about him,’ Tess said to Michael. ‘He really embraces this silly playboy image of his.’

‘To the extent,’ added Lucy, ‘that it must be hard to know where the image ends and the person begins.’

Owen began talking about the size of his bonus, which he did with full innuendo. His tone was low and slow, like a record being played at the wrong speed, yet everything about him spoke of a life lived at full pelt. Michael found himself sucked into the beta half of the room, discussing the state of local secondary schools with Lucy. He was relieved when the bell went again.

Sierra, he assumed. Tess was right, she was his type: tall and slightly over-ripe.

‘Tess, you look fierce, I love those shoes.’ Her voice veered from squeak to husk, from snob to scrub, all in the space of one sentence.

‘But yours are amazing, too. Vintage?’ asked Tess.

‘Yeah, of course. I don’t like having new stuff in my wardrobe – it’s just like so boring and so unsound to buy new stuff in shops.’

‘Apart from Topshop,’ said Tess.

‘Of course, Toppers is different,’ said Sierra. ‘And you’re totally working a statement earring. Those are edible. Like little chandeliers that you might find in a doll’s house. Teeny tiny chandeliers.’

The food was lavish, all chargrilled artichokes and aubergines coupled with obscure smoked cheeses, alongside grilled salmon and beef in different but complimentary shades of pink.

There was a brief lull in the conversation. ‘Lucy was asking me earlier what the seven signs of ageing were,’ said Tess.

‘Senility, incontinence . . .’ replied Owen.

‘Casual racism and elasticated waistbands,’ added Michael. ‘While middle age is all about investment dressing. You know, an investment coat, usually in camel.’

Lucy cringed at his words. She had now moved way beyond the investment coat towards the investment saucepan, one of the expensive ones with copper bottoms.

‘And owning a spice rack,’ continued Michael. ‘Surely that’s the definition of adulthood. Actually, surely the definition of a grown-up is anyone who’s ten years older you.’ He looked at Tess.

‘Rounding it up are we now? I think she was thinking more about skin elasticity and so on,’ Tess retorted.

‘Not really,’ said Lucy. ‘Can we drop it?’

‘It depends, I suppose,’ continued Michael, ‘if you’re talking about ageing physically or mentally. Ageing might mean growing up. Which would mean the acquiring of wisdom.’

‘Or acquiring a house,’ said Sierra. ‘I think you’re a grown-up when you own property. My mum doesn’t.’

‘I knew I’d grown up when I’d made my first million,’ Owen announced.

‘That’s nice,’ said Lucy.

‘Oh, what, you think it’s when you’ve got a watertight pension plan in place?’

‘If the definition of growing up was making a million, then almost all of us would still be considered adolescents.’

‘You’re just jealous you didn’t use your degree to make as much money as I have.’

‘Do stop arguing, children,’ Tess interrupted.

‘You’re right,’ said Lucy. ‘I know that ageing isn’t just about crow’s feet. I remember my midwife saying you don’t really grow up until you either have a kid or one of your parents dies.’

‘Says you, the woman with children, ergo Little Miss Mature,’ Owen snorted.

‘I’m not saying I agree with that theory. Just that it’s an interesting thought, you know, about the conveyer belt of life.’

‘I’ve a dead parent,’ said Tess. ‘That makes Lucy and I even, by that reckoning of grown-upness.’ She paused. ‘For the moment.’

Sierra was very drunk and very happy, basking in the glow of male attention.

‘Sierra, unusual name,’ Owen purred, leaning in closer. ‘After the Ford Sierra? A classic eighties car.’

‘Nah, after the Sierra Nevada. I was conceived there.’

‘In Andalucia?’ said Lucy. ‘How lovely. We went to Granada – so beautiful, the Alhambra’s just exquisite, though you do have to get there very early to avoid the crowds. We booked these special tickets in advance.’

Sierra laughed. ‘Nah, it was a club in Vauxhall. My mum and dad used to go there and legend has it that I was the result of a session in the toilets in the late eighties. Class.’

‘More champagne?’ Tess asked.

‘Got anything stronger, sweetheart?’ enquired Sierra. ‘Why don’t I make us all up some cocktails. You got the voddy in?’ She stood up and felt the heel of her shoe wobble. Or was it her leg? Either way, she hoped it would give an alluring wiggle to her walk. She found a tray and filled it with assorted spirits. Tess had a spice rack, she noticed, and pillaged a bottle of Tabasco from it.

‘Just look at that arrangement,’ said Tess. ‘It’s like that game we used to play at children’s parties, you know the one with the tray filled with objects and you looked at them then they got covered up and you had to remember as many of them as you could?’

‘Kim’s game,’ said Lucy. ‘Except they don’t play it at children’s parties any more because it’s not expensive enough. It’s all “let your children play football with a Premiership team”, or have a real live zoo in the back garden.’

‘Shall we play it now, then?’ suggested Sierra. ‘Can you remember these? We’ve got vodka, some sort of lemon drink from Italy, some freshly squeezed OJ, something purple. Fuck that, let’s just get mixing. Yeah, much better to drink than to remember. I want to drink to forget. I warn you, guys, my cockies are absolute killers. A couple of these and I’m anybody’s.’ She locked eyes with Owen for as long as she dared when she said it.

‘This is all marvellous. I love you all,’ proclaimed Michael after two of Sierra’s concoctions. Job done, she thought. ‘I love you, Tess, for getting all these marvellous people together. But you are naughty not to have got us together sooner.’

‘Naughty, naughty, naughty,’ echoed Sierra.

‘But nice,’ said Owen.

‘Not nice,’ Michael countered. ‘Nobody could ever accuse you of being nice. You’re merely marvellous. A toast to the hostess.’

‘A toastess,’ said Owen.

‘A toast to Tess, a testes,’ Sierra giggled.

‘She’s our host-tess. A toast to toasts,’ said Michael. ‘Or just toast. Toast, just a little piece of toast. My sisters used to sing that song. Do you remember it?’

Tess and Lucy murmured assent. ‘I don’t,’ said Sierra. ‘Is it, like, really old or something? More toast, please.’

‘Beer, beer, I want more beer,’ sang Owen in a beautiful baritone. ‘All the lads are cheering, get the bloody beers in. Or champagne, if you insist. No thanks, Sierra, your cocktails taste like washing-up liquid.’

‘Cheeky,’ she said, giving him the punch that schoolgirls give boys they think are way buff.

‘You’re all right,’ said Michael to Owen.

‘Why, thank you.’

‘No, really, I thought you were a bit of a knob when you came in, but you’re all right. Turns out you’re not a total arse.’

‘A nice arse,’ said Sierra. ‘A pert one,’ she added, in case her first comment had been too subtle. ‘You two must come and have lunch at the gallery one day with me and Tess.’

‘Or even if Tess isn’t there,’ said Michael. ‘We don’t care about her any more.’

‘And this is why I never introduced you,’ Tess said, but she was smiling. She was still holding a full glass of champagne, undrained despite the repeated toasting that surrounded her. Sierra was vaguely aware that the other two women had not been knocking back the drinks with quite the same speed as she had.

‘Actually,’ declared Tess, ‘I’ve got you together for a reason. I’ve got an announcement to make. Well, it’s more of a favour.’

‘You look like the cat that got the cream,’ Michael said to his cousin. She was smiling, but her hands shook and she spilled some of her champagne. ‘Spit it out. The announcement, I mean, not the cream.’

‘Spit it out,’ said Owen. ‘You never used to.’

‘Oh please,’ Michael protested. ‘That’s my cousin you’re talking about.’

‘Did you two . . .?’ asked Sierra.

‘Hardly,’ said Lucy. ‘For about three minutes.’

‘I can assure you, Lucy, it lasts a lot longer than three minutes. With me, anyway.’

‘He’s not exactly one for commitment, Sierra.’ Lucy shook her head. ‘Tess, please tell us what we can do.’

Tess cleared her throat theatrically. ‘I’d like to ask you . . . I’d be honoured if . . . I’d like to ask the four of you to be godparents to my child.’

The four of them stared at her, their glasses lifted in preparation but as yet unchinked. Michael decided to drink his anyway.

‘Well?’ asked Tess.

‘Yeah, whatever, of course I will, babe,’ said Sierra.

‘As and when you decide to have a baby, I’d be delighted and proud to be his or her godmother,’ Lucy said.

‘I wouldn’t,’ said Owen. ‘I’m bloody sick of being a godfather. I’ve got ten or eleven or something already.’

‘You must be so popular.’ Sierra leant towards him.

‘Rich,’ said Owen.

‘And unlikely to have children of his own,’ Lucy added. ‘You know that thing I was saying about commitment earlier, Sierra.’

‘Would you really not want to be godfather to my child?’ asked Tess.

‘Of course I’d be godfather. I’ll make an exception for you. Just don’t do it too soon.’

‘Too late.’

‘What?’ said Lucy. ‘I knew something was up! You haven’t had more than a glass of champagne. I noticed you weren’t drinking. I knew it. You look so different, too.’

‘I look fat.’

‘No, not fat. You’ve put on weight, but only on your face.’

‘And chest,’ added Owen.

‘You look incredible,’ said Lucy. ‘Really well. God, if you could bottle it up and sell it in Harley Street, you’d make a fortune. It’s like the elixir of youth. You’re glowing. I only ever glowed with the gleam of vomit on my chin. But you look amazing.’

‘I feel amazing. They say now that morning sickness is psychosomatic. I don’t feel sick at all.’

‘How many weeks are you?’

‘Twelve, nearly thirteen. I’ve had the first scan. I’m due in August.’

‘God,’ said Michael.

‘No, godparent – I want you to be a godfather.’

‘God,’ he repeated. ‘You know I don’t do god.’

‘What the hell are you doing?’ said Sierra. ‘What about the gallery? And your friends? You can’t be pregnant. Why didn’t you tell me? Who the fuck’s the father?’

‘It’s nobody you know,’ said Tess.

‘Well who?’

‘We didn’t, did we?’ joked Owen.

‘Stop messing around,’ said Sierra, feeling simultaneously more drunk and more sober. ‘Who’s the father?’

‘He’s a doctor, blond hair, blue eyes, six foot something.’

‘Sounds like a sperm donor,’ said Michael. ‘They’re always six foot and then some. Always scientists, too, though who wants to go out with them in real life? Often blond. Women seem to have an Aryan thing going when it comes to their sperm donors.’

‘He is a sperm donor, actually,’ said Tess.

‘Not literally, though,’ said Lucy. ‘Figuratively, surely.’

‘No, I do mean literally. He is a sperm donor.’

‘No,’ exclaimed Michael, giving the word at least four syllables. ‘What, one of those ones off the Internet? I’ve read about them. These sites where you order some sperm and a motorcycle courier comes round.’

‘You’re pregnant by a sperm donor off the Internet? Deliberately?’ asked Lucy.

‘It’s quite hard to get pregnant by accident, really. At my age.’

‘But why?’

Tess shrugged. ‘Just because I don’t have a man in my life, I’m not allowed a baby?’

‘No, of course not. I absolutely applaud you for pursuing your right to have a child. It’s just that I thought you were different, above fretting about biological clocks. That’s what you always said, anyway – that you didn’t want children. I admired you for it, for being different. And you don’t even like babies. Not mine, anyway.’

‘Don’t be silly, I adore your little ones and their little faces and so on.’

‘But why now, when you’ve always said you didn’t want them?’

‘Please, so many questions. Pregnancy’s so tiring.’

‘It’s really, really fantastic,’ said Lucy, hugging Tess. ‘I honestly couldn’t be more pleased for you, but at the risk of sounding like the bad fairy . . .’

‘Bad fairy godmother,’ said Sierra, who was responding to the news by drinking another of her detergent cocktails.

‘At the risk of being negative, do you know how much work is involved in bringing up a child?’

‘Lordy, how hard can it be? I’m sure I’ll manage.’

‘But really, it’s such hard work . . .’

‘That you get Jamie to do it for you. That’s enough, Lucy. I get the picture.’

‘I still don’t understand,’ said Michael. ‘If you wanted sperm, why didn’t you ask someone you knew? You could have asked me.’

‘Don’t be silly, you’re my cousin.’

‘Second cousin. It’s because I’m short, isn’t it?’

‘Daft boy. It’s because I didn’t want to share the responsibility with anyone. It’s something I want to do and I want to do it on my own.’

‘Well, you can’t,’ said Michael. ‘I read that they’re changing the law. Donors aren’t anonymous any more. And there was that boy who found his dad’s DNA on the Internet. You know, it was in America. The Child Support Agency will be on to Mr Tall Doctor man, or make that Mr Tall Medical Student, given that he’s flogged his load for a tenner . . .’

‘I think it’s more than that, actually.’

‘Well, he’d better put it in a high-interest account,’ said Michael, ‘as one of these days he might find himself having to support a child with expensive tastes.’

‘We’ll worry about that when we need to, won’t we? Owen, you’re being quiet. You will be a godfather, won’t you?’

He nodded.

‘Sierra? Michael?’

They, too, mumbled assent.

‘With such enthusiasm,’ said Tess, then laughed.

‘Obviously you know you can count on me,’ said Lucy. ‘We really need to pull together to make sure that you never feel the lack of . . . support.’

‘I know, that’s why I’ve chosen the four of you to be godparents. You’re all so special in your own ways. You don’t have to tell me how much it, he or she, is going to change my life. I know that. But I’d like to hope that in a little way it will change yours, too.’

Lucy pretended to be asleep as she watched Jamie get out of bed at dawn. That way she could admire how he had just enough stomach definition to be attractive, but not so much that he looked like he spent too much time exercising his abs and drinking protein shakes.

He lifted up his T-shirt to scratch said abdominals and Lucy felt herself lust like a builder at a blonde. Then she found herself wondering whether he was going bald on the top of his head, in just the sort of spot that a television presenter would be tempted to spray on that fake hair which looks like strange-hued candy floss. Was it wrong to hope that dramatic hair loss was imminent?

Jamie was giving her a lie-in, as she’d been the one to go out the night before. He was thoughtful like that. He’d give the kids breakfast and clean up afterwards. He was perfect.

She pulled herself up after a dozily unsatisfying snooze and stared at herself in the mirror. She started with one of her favoured manoeuvres, which was to pull up her eyebrows to see what she’d look like with a brow lift. She wasn’t particularly sure what the point of lifting one’s brows was, but it was one of the most popular surgical procedures around, so clearly having unlifted brows was a bad thing. Maybe her eyelids were getting a bit saggy after all, one step closer to drooping over her eyes. She stopped tugging since she figured that this would only make it worse. She imagined a surgeon with a marker pen drawing circles and dotted lines around them. She moved on to her forehead, which she pulled back. She wanted it to look cushiony like Tess’s did now that she was pregnant.

She then stood up and pulled at her stomach. This was the most satisfying of her manhandlings, seeing what she’d look like after liposuction. Although she was slim, back to the weight she had been before children, she had a flap of residual fat that no number of sit-ups would eliminate. When she did a downward dog in yoga she’d see it dangling, which made her feel anxious and unyogic. She clasped the flesh around her middle. The surgeon would draw a dotted line around it, maybe with a scissors symbol at one end. Then perhaps they could take the white shiny fat from inside the flap and inject it into her cheekbones for a pillowy modern look. ‘The new new face’, she had seen it called.

She went down to the kitchen, where Rosa and Ned were filming themselves on her phone.

‘You look rubbish anyway,’ Ned said to Rosa as they played back the footage.

‘No, I don’t, I look like a pop star,’ Rosa retorted. This latest phase was even worse than the princess one, and Lucy was surprised to find herself mourning the Snow White and Rapunzel dresses that had been consigned to the bonfire (metaphorical, given their highly flammable man-made fibres).

‘Look at my costume,’ Rosa went on, pointing to her midriff, exposed below her knotted up T-shirt. ‘I’m fierce.’

‘It’s my film and you’ll do what I say,’ said Ned, a four-year-old Alfred Hitchcock with an iPhone.

Lucy didn’t need to drink to feel hungover. ‘Please, darlings, stop fighting. Guess who I saw last night? Mr Wasiak, you know, from school.’

‘Oh my god!’ shrieked Rosa, and Lucy lacked the energy to admonish her. Teachers at this age were accorded celebrity status when spotted in the supermarket, as if they were too glamorous for such mundane realities. ‘Evie says he’s the nicest teacher in the school. I hope I get him next year.’

‘He seems lovely,’ said Lucy. ‘He’s my friend Tess’s cousin, but I never knew that. Isn’t that funny?’ Which it was, to her – that Tess should not know the names of all the schools of all her friends’ offspring, nor ever make the connection between Michael and Lucy, but she supposed it was like the way you never noticed how many different sorts of buggies there were on the pavements of the city until you had one of your own.

Jamie was on the phone, saying, ‘Yeah, man,’ a lot and bandying around some technical terms like ‘edit’ and ‘Avid’. He barely looked at her, absorbed, just as he had been for the last few months, by the renaissance in what he called his ‘film-making career’. She hated herself for always mentally wrapping it in inverted commas.

‘So,’ she said to him when he finally tore himself away from a conversation about ‘viral shorts’ that had nothing to do with infectious disease. ‘Guess who’s pregnant?’ A look of sheer terror fla. . .