‘I’m here,’ he says, banging his football boots so big clumps of mud fall all over the hallway floor. I sigh but say nothing because I don’t have time to argue.
‘Take your brother,’ I say, pushing Henry into his arms and scooping Ava into my own. ‘Right, let’s go!’
The school bell rings as we pull up outside. ‘Ralph, take Ava to her teacher and run – I’ll watch you from here.’
‘Okay, Mum.’
‘Love you both,’ I say as they climb out.
There’s a moment of silence whilst Henry looks out of the window. I sit and breathe for a moment, relishing the tiny slice of tranquillity before the torture of Monday supermarket shopping begins. As I put the car into gear, Henry wails again, prompting me to realise I’ve forgotten the changing bag.
‘Buggering hell!’ I do a U-turn and a car honks at me because there’s an unwritten rule about not reversing near the school gate. I wave apologetically hoping it’s another bedraggled mother who’ll give me a sympathetic smile. It isn’t. It’s a smart-looking lady in a flashy BMW who looks less than impressed at having to stop and wait for my U-turn (okay, three, maybe five-point turn).
When I’ve retrieved the changing bag and Henry is changed and happy, I make it to the supermarket. It’s a small victory that I’ve remembered my carrier bags and I’m feeling ready for the challenge of battling with the trolley. As I’m unbuckling Henry’s car seat, my phone pings. It’s a message from school. Hoping there isn’t another outbreak of nits, I open it.
URGENT REMINDERS
Please could all parents / carers remember that children must be accompanied onto the school grounds by an adult as per our safeguarding policy. We’d also like to remind you that as part of our commitment to keeping your children safe, cars are not permitted to turn around outside the school gates.
I chuck my phone into the footwell. ‘Oh bugger off!’
Before I take a trolley, I glance in my purse. I’ve always been careful with spending but there’s so-we-can-have-a-holiday careful and there’s so-we-can-afford-to-pay-the-bills careful. We’re now in the latter stages of careful and have been since Mike left, but whilst my budget is a lot less than it used to be, I can make this work! I take a small trolley so I’m not tempted to over-buy but realise there’s nowhere to put Henry, so I swap for a bigger one and thrust it through the doors, promising myself I won’t shove a giant multipack of Walkers crisps in.
You can get some good bargains if you look hard enough. I make a few sacrifices and choose all the low-budget supermarket stuff but it’s mostly fine and half the time it’s the same as the more expensive stuff. As I’m browsing the toilet paper, a familiar voice stops me dead in my tracks.
‘Stephanie, is that you?’
‘Emily?’ The sight of her perfectly coiffured blonde hair floods me with emotion. Since the divorce, I’ve hardly seen any of my friends. I assumed they’d rally round me with giant tubs of ice cream and talk of what a loser Mike was anyway, but they all got sort of distant and quiet. They probably wanted to give me time.
I walk over, arms wide, and hug her. She doesn’t respond; instead, she goes rigid and I end up awkwardly clutching her expensive-looking, blazer-clad torso. She smells of something posh and likely unpronounceable. I pull back.
‘Is everything okay?’ I ask, taking in her twisted expression, her microbladed eyebrows pinned into two sharp points by her Botox.
‘Yeah, it’s good to see you, Stephanie.’ She hitches her bag up her shoulder and clutches the strap like she’s ready to leave.
‘Do you want to go in the café and get a cup of tea?’ I blurt before she has chance to. I know I sound a bit desperate and she never really was the supermarket café and tea type. Thinking back, it was always a macchiato in some fancy coffee place. I’d never realised before but perhaps I wasn’t the supermarket café type either. I suppose having a husband with a generous income meant I could afford for Ocado to bring my shopping and I at least had time to shower before venturing out so the idea of going somewhere nice didn’t make me feel prickly and uncomfortable as it does now.
She glances at her watch. ‘Sorry, Steph, my two hours parking will be up soon. It’s been great to see you though. We’ll catch up soon.’
She turns to leave again and there’s no way she’s been in here for two hours. She has a basket with a solitary pack of smoked salmon in. She might be a picky eater but unless she’s brought in sniffer dogs and examined every pack with a magnifying glass several times before searching the warehouse for the most exquisite salmon on offer, she’s lying to me.
‘When?’ I ask after her. When she turns, she pouts a little in a faux sympathetic way.
‘Soon.’
I’m about to say okay when something inside me snaps. ‘Are you ghosting me?’
‘What are you talking about?’ She lets out a small puff of humour.
‘That’s what it’s called, isn’t it? When someone you thought you were close to vanishes without a trace, ignores your texts and makes you feel like you don’t exist and stuff. It’s the modern name for ignoring someone.’
Her features soften. ‘No, hon, nothing like that. I’m not ghosting you. It’s just …’
‘What?’
Her body sags but her Pilates-conditioned frame soon pulls taut again. ‘Since your divorce, Bradley and I have felt a bit in the middle of you and Mike. I wanted to comfort you and he wanted to go and spend time with Mike. It was awkward so we just decided to stay out of it all – y’know, take a step back. You understand, don’t you?’
I go to nod but catch myself and shake my head. ‘You mean that because you feel a little bit awkward, you’re ditching me? At the time when I need my friends the most?’
She looks around. My high-pitched squeak must have attracted some attention but I’m too furious to care. ‘Not ditching you,’ she whispers, ‘just giving you time and staying impartial.’
‘Mike wanted to divorce me! Some kind of midlife crisis or whatever. I was happy. If anything, you should be ditching him. Not that I want you to ditch anyone, just, someone to have a glass of wine every now and then with would have been nice.’
She shakes her head. ‘This is exactly what we didn’t want.’
‘We? We as in you and Bradley or we as in all of you – the whole gang?’
Silence.
‘I see.’ My voice falters. I’m vaguely aware that Henry seems to have picked something up off the shelf nearby. ‘In that case, enjoy your smaller group size. In fact, invite Mike back into your dinner party gang. I don’t want to be part of your pretentious circle anyway. There, your difficult
