The children barrelled in. ‘Mummy.’
‘Hello my little loves, how are you?’ she warbled ‘I’ve missed you. Were you good for Grandma?’
‘Yes,’ said Eadie.
‘What about you, Pol?’
‘Yes,’ her youngest agreed, though she seemed more interested in trying to get her T-shirt off.
‘What are you doing?’
‘I need a wee.’
‘OK, well you don’t need to take your top off to have a wee do you? Come here.’
Just then Max called up the stairs. ‘Jen, what the hell have you been doing? You haven’t peeled the bloody potatoes. They’re going to be here soon and nothing’s ready. You haven’t even laid the table.’
Jennifer rolled her eyes so vigorously they actually hurt a little bit. ‘Well…feel free to go for it.’
‘All right, there’s no need to be sarcastic about it, it’s just you said you’d get things under control while I got the girls and nothing’s done.’
‘All right,’ said Jennifer testily, stomping onto the landing and into the bathroom so she could plonk Polly on the toilet before heading downstairs.
She found Max in the kitchen, peeling potatoes angrily. Whole chunks were coming out.
‘I’ll do that,’ she said, trying to grab the peeler off him.
‘No, it’s fine, I’m doing it.’
‘What are you so grumpy about anyway? Is it that much of a big deal that little wifey hasn’t done everything by the time you’ve got back?’
‘Little wifey hasn’t done anything, let alone everything,’ muttered Max.
‘Oh rubbish,’ disagreed Jennifer. ‘The house was a complete state if you must know, and besides, I’m getting a bit sick of having people over every single weekend when we don’t even enjoy it.’
‘Yes we do,’ said Max, shooting her a look of real disdain.
‘No we don’t,’ she replied petulantly, simultaneously acknowledging that now they were sounding like their children.
‘We do,’ said Max, oblivious.
‘Oh yeah, we’re having a great time preparing for the arrival of smug-arse, “high powered” Judith and dullard Henry. And it goes without saying I can’t wait to spend the rest of the day washing up after them while you bum lick her,’ huffed Jennifer.
Max wrinkled up his nose at her choice of words, which actually made Jennifer giggle for a second and broke the tension a little.
‘Muuuuuuuuuuuum,’ yelled Polly from upstairs. ‘I’ve got wee wee on my sock.’
‘Yours,’ said Max.
Jennifer tutted before turning on her heel, faintly wondering if she’d get away with quickly locking herself in the spare room, so she could finish what she’d started earlier. Hmm…probably not.
Half an hour later the doorbell rang meaning the people she couldn’t be bothered to see, let alone entertain, had arrived.
Taking a deep breath and summoning up a smile she opened the door.
‘Hello everybody, come in, come in,’ said Jennifer, ushering them all into the house and down the hallway. ‘It’s so lovely to see you all. Oh my look at James, hasn’t he grown and doesn’t he look so like you, Henry?’
‘He’s a chip off the old block all right,’ agreed Judith, immaculate as ever in tasteful navy, which she’d offset with funky ‘weekend’ jewellery and ballet pumps. ‘No questioning who his dad is.’
Jennifer agreed totally, because actually James really did look exactly like Henry, only given that he was only ten years old, looking like a gone-to-seed, middle-aged man wasn’t necessarily a good thing. ‘So how was your journey?’ Jennifer enquired brightly, snapping out of her reverie before anyone noticed her staring.
‘Fine,’ said Judith, kissing her on both cheeks and handing her a bottle of wine. ‘Sorry we’re a bit late. Work’s been sooooo manic this week I simply had to have a bit of a chill out this morning. I bet Max did too, we’ve literally been working like Trojans this week.’
‘I can imagine,’ said Jennifer, quite wanting to punch her.
An hour and a half later than planned, lunch was finally on the verge of being served up.
The children were all starving despite having been fed various ‘just to keep you going’ snacks and were getting fractious. Judith and Henry had polished off two entire bags of Kettle Chips and had already had an argument about who was driving home. Oscar, their eighteen-month-old baby, was having a sleep upstairs and they were well into a third bottle of wine. Meanwhile, Max was sucking up to Judith so much it was making Jennifer’s skin crawl. She herself was worryingly pissed given that she still had to get lunch on the table.
As Judith roared with laughter at yet another dull work anecdote of Max’s, Jennifer flinched. The way Max was giving her his undivided attention was grounds for jealousy quite frankly, only she couldn’t be bothered to make a fuss. Instead she just felt saddened that every time she tried to join in with a vaguely witty remark he barely looked in her direction. Perhaps she should get her tits out she thought wryly. Run round the kitchen with them jiggling about.
With little enthusiasm Jennifer replenished the crisp bowl (this time with Frazzles and Pom Bears instead of posh Kettle Chips—it was all she had left). As she did so she smiled weakly at dull Henry who was sat on a stool by the island like a fat useless turd. She was just about to ask him yet another question about how his work was going when she realised she didn’t care and couldn’t be bothered. So instead she turned her back on him, and bent down to open the oven to investigate what might be happening in there. As boiling hot air blasted her in the face, she realised she was one hundred percent, definitely, without a shadow of a doubt, drunk.
She was also glad, and a little bit smug, that for once she’d cut corners by picking up (on Karen’s recommendation) some small stuffed chickens from the local deli. Not having to cook a meat dish of some description meant all she’d had to do in theory was make the roast potatoes and cobble together a salad. So why did it all feel as stressful as though she’d been preparing a banquet for eighty under the same conditions as the Masterchef final?
Seconds later she emerged from the oven once more, red in the face, sweating, and clutching the ludicrously heavy tray in an oven glove only to realise that the island needed clearing before she could put it down.
‘Max,’ she called over, to where he was deep in conversation with Judith about something tedious.
‘Max!’
‘Hey, there’s no need to yell. What is it?’ he said, trying to sound like he wasn’t snapping when in fact that was exactly what he was doing.
‘Sorry,’ she said, not sorry at all. Her hands were practically on fire. ‘I was just wondering if you could clear a space for this. It’s very heavy,’ she grimaced.
‘Oh right,’ he said, finally realising her plight.
Once dumped on the side, one by one, Jennifer lifted the little chickens out of the roasting tray and onto the chopping board. They were less chickens really, more parcels of poussin, tied up with string and stuffed with pork and herbs. Jennifer immediately decided that she wouldn’t bother fobbing the meaty creations off as her own. After all, she’d never boned a piece of meat (fnar fnar) in her life and had certainly never been arsed to tie up anything you could eat with string.
‘Ooh, those look wonderful, Jennifer,’ said Judith, gliding over to have a look at what she was about to stuff her self-satisfied face with. ‘Aren’t you lucky, Max? That’s what comes of having a wife