loudly. ‘Um, yes, I think so… . I mean he’s sweet to me and everything … but there’s his kids – what am I going to do about them? They hardly said a word to me today, and I don’t know how to behave with them, whether to try and make friends or just leave them be …’
‘They’re probably a bit freaked out. I’m sure they’ll be fine …’
‘And what about his mother?’ she charges on, feeling her heart rate quicken, which can’t be good for the baby. ‘It wasn’t just the childcare and cheese thing, Eddy. She hated me, I could see it in her eyes, the way I’ve ripped her perfect son’s marriage apart …’
‘For God’s sake, Nads, she can’t have been that bad.’
‘She looked like she wanted to stab me with that cheese knife!’
‘Oh, babes.’
Is that all he can say? It’s easy for him to be dismissive when he’s sitting in a bar surrounded by friends with a drink in front of him. Her bottom lip is wobbling now, her vision fuzzing through tears. She’d never imagined that pregnancy would make you feel like this – highly emotional, prone to dramatic mood swings – or maybe that’s just her, and the situation she’s found herself in. She just needs someone to talk to. Sure, Nadine has plenty of friends, but while they still come over for the odd girlie night, she’s noticed that they’ve become slightly less keen to hang out with her. ‘We didn’t think you’d want to come,’ Jade said the other day when it transpired that she, Sasha and Harriet had been out shopping together. Why wouldn’t she? Pregnant women still buy clothes. They still meet up with friends to gossip and chat … don’t they? Or are they supposed to wear rags and live as hermits?
‘Anyway,’ Nadine tells Eddy curtly, ‘I’ll let you get back to your night out.’
‘I’m at home actually, just having a few festive drinkies with Frank and Ava and a few others.’
‘Oh. So, er … they heard everything you said just then.’
‘No, of course they didn’t …’
‘Well,’ she says coolly, ‘say hi for me.’ You could have invited me, she thinks as she finishes the call; but of course, she was supposed to be at Eugene and Mary’s grand old house in Kent, charming these supposedly lovely people to the point at which they’d get over the Rob/Kerry break-up and welcome her into their family.
Nadine places her phone on the table. She pictures Eddy and the others all lolling around in his beige, minimalist flat, with his ridiculously huge Christmas tree (silver baubles only) where she used to spend the night occasionally until that last time, three days before her encounter on the sofa bed with Rob.
Don’t be so bitter, she tells herself out loud as she undresses in the bathroom in preparation for a lovely long soak. Negative feelings can’t be good for the baby. Eddy gave her that first big break, after all, when she barely had a qualification to her name. There she was, just eighteen years old, with a paid junior position on a trashy little soft porn magazine called I’m Hot, whereas most of her friends had ended up doing unpaid internships for what felt like forever. Making it clear that he fancied her, Eddy then took her with him to a short-lived free weekly magazine, teasing her that if she didn’t make the grade, she’d be the one handing it out at Tube stations in the pouring rain. Finally, when he landed the editorship of Mr Jones, he forced out that hatchet-faced assistant and brought Nadine in instead.
She’d felt blessed, even when it had become clear that he was sleeping with Ava as well. ‘What’s the problem?’ he’d asked, all big, innocent eyes when she’d confronted him. ‘You’re a sweet girl, Nadine, but it’s not like we’re a couple. I’ve never lied to you.’
Revenge – that’s why she’d orchestrated the thing with Rob. That and the fact that he’s gorgeous, of course (she’s always had a thing for older men with dark Italian looks). Anyway, what was good enough for Eddy was good enough for her, so she’d gone for it, even though Rob had been off his face and the sex had been a bit of a non-event. The worst thing was, he’d talked in his sleep that night on her sofa bed. ‘Kerry,’ he’d muttered, ‘you’ve got all the duvet again.’ In the morning, Nadine had reassured herself that he wouldn’t have stayed if everything had been rosy at home, so none of this was her fault really. In fact, she’s probably done him a favour in making it possible to escape a life sentence in the dreary seaside town she’s only been to once, with her grandma, where everyone looked about eight hundred years old. Rob hadn’t wanted to move. Didn’t he admit it that night?
She steps into the bath and sinks into the soothing warm water. Yes, she decides, examining her sugar-pink toenails as they poke through the suds, Rob Tambini probably thinks she’s the best thing that ever happened to him.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Now Kerry remembers why normal people go out, as in, venture beyond the boundaries of their own home when on a date (she is trying not to think of tonight as a date, but what else could it be, really?). That way, the state of your house doesn’t matter. You can turn up all freshly showered and blow-dried and no one will guess that your kitchen is strewn with sheet music, plus the numerous Christmas cards and home-made decorations which have yet to find a home. However, tonight, Kerry hasn’t had a choice. Asking Brigid to babysit would have meant her having to bring Joe along too, or dropping off Freddie and Mia at Brigid’s (not ideal on a school night although, intrigued by his surly attitude – a teenage boy in a four-year-old’s body – they would have enjoyed the arrangement hugely). With a hollow feeling in her stomach, Kerry realised she had no one else to ask.
Still, her anxieties turn into a kind of fizzling excitement as she does a speedy clear-up and answers her ringing phone.
‘All set?’ Anita asks.
‘Yep, I think so.’ Kerry grins. ‘The place still looks a bit shabby but that’s probably a good thing, makes it seem more relaxed.’
‘Shabby’s fine,’ Anita agrees. ‘You don’t want him to think you’ve spent all day cleaning for him.’
‘Well, no chance of that. Anyway, I’m thinking candles to make it cosier …’
‘Yes, go for candles.’
‘You don’t think it’ll look like I’m trying too hard? It’s just the kitchen light’s horribly bright and pore-illuminating …’
Anita laughs. ‘Candles are not trying too hard. They’re not a big deal. They don’t say, I want sex.’
‘Hmmm. I just don’t want him to think I’m this desperate dumped woman who’s planning to hurl myself at him.’
‘You are, though, aren’t you?’ she teases. ‘I mean, the hurling part.’
Spotting Buddy’s favourite chewed-up blanket lying by the fridge, Kerry grabs it and stuffs it into the walk-in cupboard. ‘Hmmm, maybe. The thing is, though, even if there’s a remote possibility that it might happen, the kids will be asleep upstairs.’
‘I know. He sounds nice, though.’
‘Yes, he is. He’s … the kind of man you wouldn’t expect to be single, you know? Like, he’d be the good-looking dad at the school gates with a little gaggle of flirty mums around him.’
‘But his son’s grown-up?’
‘Yes, they run a sandwich place together.’
Anita pauses and Kerry knows her friend’s smiling. ‘Maybe I shouldn’t say it, but I have a really good feeling about this guy.’
Kerry sniggers. ‘Um … maybe that’s why it took me all afternoon to dig out something even vaguely suitable to wear.’
‘Just be casual, don’t worry about it. What are you cooking, anyway?’
‘Um,