She looked at him then, imagined his disappointed dick creeping back into itself, and she had an overwhelming urge to kick him hard between the legs because after everything her body had done for him, for their family, how fucking dare he keep whining for more?
So, she said the thing she knew would upset him more than any kick, the thing she’d said to him many times already.
‘Do what you like, Seb. I really don’t care.’
Rosie has never said anything about the problems between her and Seb to anyone. Even thinking all this next to Abi, sitting on Barry’s bench, feels like a betrayal. Abi’s eyes are closed and Rosie wonders where she’s gone. Whether Abi, like Rosie, tries to swim away from the dark water within herself. Feeling Rosie looking, Abi opens her eyes, smiles sleepily before she glances at her watch and says with a groan, ‘Urgh. It’s quarter to three. We should get going.’
It’s slow progress walking home with all the kids. Anna and Albie join them for a short while, Anna telling Abi about all the other restaurants in Waverly before PLATE and why, in Anna’s opinion, they failed. Heath and Sylvie bicker and Greer cries for an ice cream, Abi placating them all with a macaroon as Rosie trudges behind, a donkey beneath the kids’ coats and bags, any lightness from her walk with Abi already evaporated. Things settle as soon as they’re home. The kids all thump up the stairs as Abi follows Rosie into the kitchen extension.
The extension had been completed before they bought the house five years ago. It wasn’t done well, in Rosie’s professional opinion – the kitchen is now divided in half by two supporting pillars which the previous owners presumably hadn’t been able to afford to replace with steels. The extension has a sofa and armchair at one end and the big oven at the other, with French doors leading to the garden in the middle. The older half houses the large family table, sink, fridge and the rest of the kitchen units. It creates a feeling of two distinct spaces, the pillars obstructing the view of the rest of the kitchen from the sofa and vice versa. When they bought the place, Rosie had started saving to remove the pillars and to put a skylight in the extension roof, but the increase in the cost of living and Greer’s nursery fees have emptied the pot.
Upstairs, the girls are clattering about; Abi glances up, smiles at the sound of them laughing. Heath’s up there too, playing with his Lego, while Sylvie can be heard occasionally bossing the younger girls about.
Abi looks around at the framed baby photos of the kids, the drawings and calendars on the fridge. ‘Anna seems interesting. Her energy’s … lively.’
Rosie is opposite Abi, standing by the oven, pouring pasta into a pan of boiling water. ‘Yeah. I mean, I love her, but she can be exhausting …’
‘Hmmm,’ Abi says, like she wants to say more but chooses not to. Rosie glances round as Abi picks up a framed photo from the bookshelf behind her. It’s from Seb and Rosie’s wedding day almost twelve years ago. It’s a close-up of Rosie in flattering black and white, Seb out of focus, slightly behind her. Seb likes the photo because you can’t see the silver scar that runs from his nostril to his upper lip. He was born with a cleft palate and had corrective surgery as a baby. In the photo Rosie looks like she’s about to explode with laughter, but she can no longer remember what was so funny; maybe the photographer had asked her to laugh.
‘What a gorgeous pic,’ Abi says, peering closer. ‘You look so happy.’
‘Yeah,’ Rosie says, turning back to the pan, ‘it was a long time ago.’ She shakes her head. ‘That came out wrong’ – thinking she should explain – ‘we’ve just been together for a long time.’
It’s over fifteen years since they met at a friend’s party in London. They didn’t have the ripping-clothes-off, breathless, can’t-live-without-you kind of falling in love that Anna describes having when she met Eddy, but rather a slow, gentle tumble. A dignified dawning that they wanted complementary lives; a strong, dedicated relationship, children, security. Seb, who had grown up with all those things, wanted to replicate what he’d had. Coddled in the rolling hills of Waverly with strong, dynamic Eva at the helm and his kind, steady older dad, Benjamin, as second mate. Rosie, in contrast, had grown up in Stoke Newington with her two present but distant academic parents and older brother, Jim, who moved to Hong Kong ten years ago and whom they still haven’t visited.
There’s an explosion of giggles as the girls burst into the room in a puff of taffeta, calling out, ‘Get ready for the fairy show!’
They watch three chaotic shows, all of which involve at least one of the girls pouring ‘fairy flying dust’ over their heads and leaping from chairs, arms flapping to show off their flying. Abi opens wine while the girls swap fairy costumes and Rosie dishes up the spaghetti bolognese and calls for Heath. She notices how she barely needs to bend down to kiss his head any more – he’s growing so fast.