They met a few weeks ago – as so many parents do – through their kids. Margot and Greer are in Reception together and have become firm friends. Rosie noticed the way Abi shrank back at the school gates from the noisier, shrill women Rosie calls ‘friends’. The ones who talk in high-pitched whispers about other people’s kids and marriages. It was a quiet thrill for Rosie to leave those women and stand with Abi instead; she hasn’t made a new friend, independently of Seb, for so long. Rosie offered Abi help in navigating the town, recommending the best kids’ swimming lessons, after-school clubs and the places to avoid. They had a couple of play dates in the park and while the girls dangled from monkey bars Rosie found herself telling Abi things she hasn’t even told Anna. How disconnected she feels sometimes from her own life, how her days feel like an endless ‘to-do’ list. Abi sates a part of Rosie she hadn’t even known was starving. Some little forgotten wisp of her that had been banging a tiny internal cymbal, a lone protestor demanding attention. Rosie hasn’t talked to anyone like this for so long. Abi must have been an amazing therapist, her job for years in London before moving to Waverly.
Today, for the first time, Abi and her kids are coming back to Rosie’s after school. Seb is picking up a takeaway from the local Thai on his way home as a treat for the three adults.
‘Everything looks so simple from up here, doesn’t it?’ Rosie says, noticing the perfect neatness of the doll’s house town, a place where nothing bad could ever happen. She automatically places the Old School House, where all three of her kids will be, and, just across the road, Waverly Secondary, where Seb is at work. Strange to think of everyone she loves muddling their way through another day down there. Abi doesn’t reply because she’s rummaging around in her rucksack for something, before offering Rosie a bright-pink mini macaroon out of a small Tupperware.
‘I was going to save these for pudding when we’re back at yours, but sod it. Fancy one?’
‘Ha!’ Rosie laughs. ‘Wow! Hell yes, I do!’
She bites into the fluorescent sugary flakiness before the sting of the bright raspberry cream fills her mouth. ‘Jesus – they’re insanely good.’ She immediately wants another.
‘Well, they were my first attempt – I don’t know. I think maybe next time I—’
‘Wait. Are you telling me you actually
Abi shrugs. ‘Food’s my thing. I love making new stuff.’
‘Yes, but come on – you’re a single parent with two kids, you’ve just moved town, changed career and you’re making
‘Well,’ Abi says, inspecting a macaroon before popping it into her mouth, ‘at least it explains why I don’t have time for dating.’
Rosie takes another macaroon. ‘Ever thought about going pro? Being a chef?’
Abi’s face twists as she tongues her back teeth, freeing them of stuck sugar before she says, ‘Oh, when I was, like, twelve, I thought about nothing else.’
‘Twelve!’
Abi laughs before she pops another macaroon into her mouth, chewing slowly, considering how much to tell Rosie. She swallows, runs her fingers through her cropped fair hair and says, ‘We were living on an estate in Hackney and a fancy chef set up a pop-up restaurant in an old service station – remember disused spaces were all the rage in the noughties? Anyway, I was twelve and they paid me a fiver an hour to wash up – totally illegal, of course, but I loved it. Some of the chefs would sneak me this insane food – beef cheeks cooked for twenty-four hours and baked oysters, stuff I never knew existed. The place became my way of escaping. I guess for some kids it’s books or video games. For me it was always food.’
‘What were you trying to escape?’ Rosie asks, emboldened by Abi’s honesty. Rosie has shared much more in this new friendship so far.
‘Oh, I don’t want to go all
‘Do you still see them?’ Rosie asks, quietly, like she doesn’t want to talk loudly and disturb these precious things Abi is sharing with her.
‘My dad not at all. Couldn’t even tell you where he lives. My mum – well, it’s complicated. We haven’t spoken in a long time.’
Rosie wants to ask more about her parents, but Abi looks back at the view before closing her eyes, feeling the sun on her face. Rosie won’t push it so instead she asks, ‘How did you go from being a kid washing pans to a therapist?’
Abi opens her eyes, looks briefly to the sky, turns back to Rosie and, smiling, says, ‘I went through a few wild years. Got really into boys – too into boys, my mum would say – partying, all that stuff, and then when I was eighteen found out I was five months pregnant. So, yeah, Lily was the wake-up call.’
Rosie can’t help it. She wants to know. ‘Did your parents help?’
Rosie notices for the first time the strain behind Abi’s equanimity.