Seb pushes his hand away, saying, ‘Didn’t you used to think Anna’s dad was a spy, too?’
‘No, Grandad Mike always wanted everyone to think he was MI5 but actually he was just the local busybody …’
‘Eddy!’ Anna interrupts; she has always been defensive of her beloved dad. ‘He had good reason to be protective. You don’t know what it was like growing up in Ruston!’
Eddy wipes away an invisible tear and Anna rolls her eyes before turning to Vita, telling her the story of how she was raised just a few miles down the road in Ruston. Once a lovely local fishing village, it was slowly destroyed by poor planning, a corrupt council and all the usual cruel accoutrements of poverty. Her dad fought hard to protect the town he had been raised in, costing him his physical and mental health, before finally accepting defeat and moving to a tiny cottage in rural Hampshire.
Eddy ignores Anna and instead calls out to interrupt his son. ‘Blakey. Hey, Blake. Tell everyone, why is Uncle Seb a spy?’
Blake glances at Seb apologetically. ‘Oh, Dad and I just came by his office one day and he slammed his laptop closed as soon as he saw us. It was pretty sus.’
Seb’s throat tightens, he feels his smile shake, and he keeps his eyes on his plate of food in front of him.
‘No, you’re not telling it right, Blake,’ Eddy says as he puts the wine back on the table and sits down. ‘It was funny because Mrs Greene appeared and suddenly it all made sense to me. Mrs Greene isn’t who she says she is, she’s not a secretary but the boss, like … what’s her name? N? The one from Bond? Anyway, she appeared in a puff of—’
‘Oh, I remember what I wanted to say!’ Anna interrupts, making everyone turn to her. ‘Did everyone see the news today? The story about the poor TV presenter – Max Harting? I mean, what a fall! He was basically a national treasure.’
Eddy throws up his hands in exasperation at being talked over. ‘Fine. Everyone ignore the birthday boy.’
So they do.
‘It’s his wife I feel sorry for. I always said he was gay …’ Lotte adds.
‘Oh, live and let live, I say,’ Anna returns. ‘He hasn’t done anything illegal. I mean, I bet the boy’s parents are pissed off, but they should just sort that out between themselves …’
‘I’m going to go up,’ Blake says.
The women blow him kisses and everyone calls out goodnight as Anna checks Blake found his plate of food in the kitchen, and Eddy gets up again to bear-hug his son.
Later, after they’ve eaten and watched Eddy open his gifts – ‘It’s not … it can’t be … it is! The fucking Slazenger! Thank you, you beautiful people’ – and everyone is sloppy with wine, Anna squeezes Rosie’s hand and says to her and Seb, ‘I was doing that thing of hating my kids all day, then scrolling through baby pictures of them all night, and look what I found …’
Anna holds up the screen for them to see a photo of two naked, creamy babies with arms like fat, buttery croissants, sitting opposite each other in the bath. Baby Albie – Eddy and Anna’s younger son – and baby Heath – Seb and Rosie’s middle child.
‘I mean, just look at them! Such little puddings.’
A warm longing floods Seb because there he is, their baby son. He glances at Rosie, too; she’s smiling but it’s a sad smile, like she wishes she could reach into that photo and hold her beautiful baby one last time.
‘Flick to the next one,’ Anna says. It’s a photo of Rosie holding a naked baby on a towel on each leg, having just lifted them out of the bath. Rosie frowns at the screen, like she can’t quite place herself from eight years ago. Anna’s turned away from them now, laughing at something Vita and Eddy are arguing about, so Seb and Rosie look at the photo together.
‘Look at you, so beautiful,’ Seb says, resting his hand on her lower back. Close, but hopefully not too close.
‘You reckon?’ Rosie says, doubtful, cocking her head to look at the photo from a different angle. ‘I was thinking how knackered I looked, and I think that’s breast milk leaking through my T-shirt.’
‘Still totally gorgeous,’ Seb says, before adding, ‘That photo must have been taken before we moved down here.’ He remembers back then; they were still living in London. He’d just started teaching while studying at the same time, Sylvie a boisterous toddler and Heath crying with reflux all night. They’d spend most weekends trekking down to stay with his mum, Eva, and he longed to move, craved the simpler, safer life Waverly offered his young family. Now, living in Waverly, just a ten-minute walk away from his mum and with so much to be grateful for, Seb still feels hungry. It seems he is always yearning for something.