Forgiveness took time. Anna and Eddy had counselling and Eddy – for a few months at least – gave up drinking and cut back on the business trips. Both Rosie and Seb knew but never said aloud that Anna wouldn’t end their marriage. For all his flaws, his maddeningly selfish behaviour, Anna loved the idiot.
An unexpected outcome of Eddy’s infidelity had been that for a time, at least, Rosie and Seb had been closer. Rosie remembers feeling like a bit of a traitor, Anna going through the worst time of her marriage while Seb and Rosie were briefly golden. For a few nights, after the kids were asleep, they’d sit in the bath together and talk. Then they’d wash each other, shining and buffing the untarnished commitment between them. They’d been beautiful, those baths and, yes, a couple of times Rosie thinks the slow washing had led to them having sex. She remembers how connected they felt then, how easy it had been to fall asleep wrapped up in each other. Why couldn’t they go back there now?
‘Why is this coming up now, babe?’ Anna asks gently.
Rosie tells Anna about how she convinced Abi to stay for dinner, how Seb came back with straining takeaway bags, how when she came back down after the kids’ row upstairs, the atmosphere was weird, and how Abi immediately said she had to go. Seb told her later that there’d been a minor disagreement with Abi, some school issue about Lily, that he hadn’t realized the parent – Ms Matthews – he’d been exchanging terse emails with was also Abi, Rosie’s new friend.
‘OK, what’s the problem?’ Anna asks.
Rosie lifts her hand to her sweat-slick brow, feels the flesh on her legs swing as she bends her knees.
‘It’s a bit weird, isn’t it, that Abi didn’t mention this thing with Lily? I mean, I’m not saying I expected her to tell me everything, you know, if it was confidential, but Abi could have just flagged it, don’t you think?’
Rosie doesn’t tell her that Abi has suddenly gone cold on messages. Saying she’s too busy to come for dinner but will be in touch. She’s told herself Abi probably wants to wait to hang out again until this school issue with Seb is resolved.
Anna adjusts her position again, leaning back on her arms.
‘It’s a bit odd,’ she agrees. ‘Yes, I know you like Abi, but, to be honest, I’ve been getting some strange vibes from her. I told you I asked her if she could mind Albie after school for me and have him just for an hour on Thursday? Well, I suggested I bring a bottle of wine over, so we can have a glass when I collect him – you know, get to know each other a bit – and honestly, she looked like I’d just slapped her. Just grabbed her kid and disappeared.’
Anna is prone to hyperbole but still Rosie can picture the scene, Anna widening her eyes at Abi’s retreating back, turning to the parent next to her, mouthing, ‘Rude!’
Rosie wants to step in, defend her new friend. Anna has done this before, asking for help with childcare from women she just wants an excuse to interrogate. She can be too quick to form an opinion and despite whatever happened the other day, Rosie still feels drawn to Abi.
‘Maybe she’s just getting used to how it is down here. You’ve got to admit, it’s pretty different and she’s Hackney through and through, right?’
‘Hmm,’ Anna says, unconvinced, before adding, ‘she just seems a bit aloof. I can’t help but feel like she’s patronizing us, treating us like sweet little provincial wives. You know, the other day she asked me if I work? I was like, “Hell yes, I work!”’
Anna works in communications for a hedge fund. Three mornings a week she gets the 6.30 a.m. train to London and can often be found on the 7 p.m. back to Waverly, still tapping away at her spreadsheets.
‘Oh, Anna,’ Rosie scolds, ‘the woman has just upended her whole life, changing town, jobs, and doing it all on her own with two kids. I mean, imagine! Maybe don’t write her off just yet.’
Anna lies back down; Rosie watches the flesh on her back fill the spaces between the wooden slats like rising dough.
‘Saved by the bell!’ Anna says, relieved, lifting herself immediately up again, sweaty face glistening, illuminated by a call coming through the screen of her smart watch.
Rosie shuffles over so Anna can clamber down, Anna’s bum and legs branded with red welts from where she’s been pressed against the wooden slats.
‘I’ll be out in a mo!’ Rosie calls after her but Anna doesn’t acknowledge her. As the sauna door slowly closes, Rosie can see her friend already searching the pocket of her dressing gown for her phone. She watches Anna for a moment through the square sauna window, pacing by the showers, her eyes swivelling around the echoey swimming pool.