what’s it for?’ Ollie wants to know.
‘It’s, er, a sort of pretend girlfriend,’ Sabrina replies, trying to keep a straight face.
Saul looks incredulous. ‘What does he do with her?’
She smirks and takes a big swig of wine.
‘What’s she for, Mum?’ Ollie demands.
‘Er, they probably sit and watch TV together,’ I explain, noticing Saul nudging Ollie, then the two of them dissolving in laughter – my cue, I think, to whisk the kids off home. It’s gone eleven; amazingly, none of the neighbours have complained about the thumping music.
‘We’re heading back,’ I tell Will, finding him chatting away to Tommy, ‘but you stay as long as you like.’
‘Hey,’ Tommy chuckles, ‘you’ve got a late pass, mate,’ which isn’t what I meant at all, but never mind. At least he’s enjoying himself, which sparks a tiny flicker of optimism that he’ll soon put his special foraging gloves into retirement and rejoin the human race. A job, and colleagues, and the odd rowdy night out – that’s what he needs, urgently. Then we’ll start to have fun again, like in the old days. This party has proved that Will can shake off his grumpiness and be charming and lovely, like he used to be.
Wrapping a matey arm around Will’s shoulders, Tommy hands him a beer. Will grins, clearly enjoying being made so welcome and having his barbecuing skills praised to the hilt. And my heart does a little skip, forcing the trials of late into the background: my lovely, hot Will, whom women joke about ‘borrowing’. Does it matter that we haven’t done it since Mother’s Day? It’s normal, I think. All couples’ sex lives fall into a pattern eventually, and ours now seems to happen quarterly, like a VAT return.
Even so, as I hug Sabrina goodbye I make a supreme effort not to even glance at her shed.
*
Tired and yawning, the boys shuffle straight off to Ollie’s room, leaving Rosie and me in the kitchen. How lovely, I think: some mum – daughter time. Who cares that it’s almost midnight? No school or work tomorrow. ‘You seemed to be getting on well with Zach,’ I say lightly, clicking on the kettle for tea.
‘Yeah, he’s all right.’ She perches on the edge of the worktop, swinging her almost endless, denim-clad legs. Her feet are bare and pretty, her nails painted duck-egg blue. ‘We were just talking,’ she adds.
‘I wasn’t suggesting anything else, love.’
Her face softens. ‘He’s nice. Interesting. We had a laugh.’
I try to arrange my features into a casual expression. What I’d love to do now is ask her about boys, and if there’s anyone around whom she likes at the moment. But it doesn’t feel right to quiz her. I’d always imagined we’d have one of those lovely, discuss-anything mother/daughter relationships – boys, sex, the whole caboodle – but it hasn’t quite happened that way. Whenever I’ve tried, tentatively, to touch upon sensitive matters, she’s shuffled uncomfortably as if I’m a PSE teacher about to thrust a wad of embarrassing leaflets at her. It’s so hard to know how to be with her these days. I know she doesn’t want me checking her homework, or running her a bath, or doing any of those motherly things I used to do for her – yet she’s not quite grown-up either. She seems incapable of fixing herself breakfast without leaving a scattering of Frosties in her wake, and I’ve found her prodding nervously at the washing machine buttons as if the appliance might blow up in her face.
She jumps down from the worktop. ‘Think I’ll get some sleep, Mum.’
‘What about your tea? Want to take it up with you?’ I fish out the teabag and add a generous slosh of milk, plus two sugars, just the way she likes it.
‘Thanks, Mum, but I’m pretty tired.’ She allows me to hug her, then pulls back and meets my gaze. ‘That was a bit weird for me, you know,’ she murmurs.
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