The Stepmothers’ Support Group. Sam Baker

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СКАЧАТЬ or in case she’d need to make aquick getaway—on the seat beside her.

      ‘I’m divorced,’ she said, raising her voice slightly to be heard over the low-level chatter around them. ‘My ex recently remarried and had a child—not in that order. A little boy with his new…wife. But that’s not strictly relevant. I mean, it’s not as if Barty’s my stepson. He’s nothing to me. And that’s kind of odd in itself, don’t you think?’ She paused, obviously embarrassed at how much she’d revealed so quickly. The others looked everywhere but at her, while Melanie sipped her latte and tried to regain her composure.

      ‘Anyway…I’ve been seeing this guy for a couple of months now, I met him through work. His name’s Vince, his company set up personalshopper’s computer systems. It was all going really well, no pressure, just an easy-going thing. No strings—well, not many. Exactly what I needed after…well, after…you know…’

      They did. Even if Eve hadn’t already filled them in, Melanie’s divorce was well enough documented for anyone who ever read the gossip columns.

      ‘And then I found out he’s been married before. Vince, that is. He just tossed it into the conversation, like it was nothing; just one of those things everybody did in their twenties.’

      ‘Not me,’ Clare said.

      ‘Me neither,’ Eve agreed.

      ‘That’s what I mean,’ Melanie continued. ‘And on top of the unmentioned marriage, it turns out he has a daughter who’s ten. She lives with her mother but he sees her every other weekend, and a week or so in each of the school holidays.’

      ‘How d’you mean, you “found out”?’ Lily asked, sketching inverted commas in the air. ‘You mean he kept it secret?’

      ‘No, not exactly,’ said Melanie. ‘He just hadn’t thought to mention it and I didn’t think to ask. Well, you wouldn’t, would you? But I know what you must be thinking. I mean, how do you date someone for two, nearly three, months and not tell them something that significant? And, to be honest, I feel like an idiot. How can you not know your boyfriend has a kid?’

      ‘I wasn’t thinking that,’ Lily said, with a shrug.

      ‘Really?’ said Clare turning to her. ‘I was.’

      Melanie gave a nervous laugh. ‘But it’s not just that. It’s like one minute it’s all easy-come, easy-go, the next he’s got a ten-year-old daughter and therefore, by extension, so do I.’

      She paused, clearly panic-stricken. ‘It’s not that I don’t want to meet her. I do. It’s just…I’m terrified. I don’t have the first clue how to handle it. What to say, what to do.’

      Taking a deep breath, Melanie looked around at the other women. ‘I’m pathetic, aren’t I? I’m scared of a tweenager I haven’t even met.’

      ‘And, not unreasonably, a bit pissed off with Vince for putting you in this position without warning,’ Lily added. ‘I don’t call that pathetic.’

      ‘Not at all,’ Eve added. ‘If we’re anything to go by, out-and-out terror is entirely normal.’ She was gratified to see that Melanie, who’d looked on the verge of tears, smiled.

      ‘When did you find out your guy was a dad?’ Melanie asked Eve. ‘If you don’t mind me asking.’

      ‘It was a bit different,’ Eve said. ‘I knew long before I met him.’ And she ran Melanie through a potted history of her and Ian.

      ‘What about you?’ Melanie asked Lily, when Eve had finished.

      ‘Pretty much straightaway,’ she said. ‘A week in, maybe two at most. But that’s Liam for you. He wouldn’t see what the big deal was. It was, “Can’t see you Saturday babes, it’s my turn to have the kid. Don’t suppose you fancy coming round too, do you?”’

      ‘Really?’ Eve said, eyebrows raised. ‘You’re kidding? Liam let you meet Rosie that soon? How did he know it was going to last? You and him, I mean.’

      ‘What? You don’t believe in love at first sight?’ Lily grinned to show she wasn’t serious. ‘And I didn’t meet Rosie that soon. But only because I refused. Liam would have wheeled me along on our second date, no doubt about it. To him, it’s not that big a deal. He thinks we think too much. And, sometimes, listening to us beat ourselves up, I wonder if he doesn’t have a point.

      ‘Anyway,’ said Lily. ‘Where was I? Oh, yes. I didn’t meet Rosie that first time. It would have been too soon for Rosie, and frankly it was too soon for me. I mean, you meet this guy, you basically laugh each other into bed, then you wake up next morning and he’s like, “Oh by the way babe, how d’you feel about brat sitting at the weekend”. Call me old-fashioned, but I say that’s a bit too soon!’

      The group burst out laughing and Eve took the opportunity to start a coffee run. As Melanie reached for her purse Eve waved her away. ‘You get them in next time.’

      ‘Not for me, thanks,’ Lily said, reaching for her jacket and backpack. ‘I’ve got to be back at work five minutes ago. Lovely to meet you, Melanie. Sorry to run out on you. See you soon.’

      Melanie watched Eve and Lily hug each other and then head in different directions, Lily to the door, Eve to the counter, as Clare called her daughter to check she was where she said she’d be, doing what she said she’d be doing. At home doing homework.

      Did they realize what they’d just said? Melanie wondered. Next time. For the first time since landing in London, Melanie felt on the verge of something, some people, who might truly, in time, become her own friends.

      ‘That whole Lily/Liam thing kind of puts things in perspective,’ Melanie said when Eve had returned with two more coffees and a herbal tea for Melanie. ‘I mean, this might sound odd to you…but, Vince and I, it’s just not that kind of relationship. If he’d gone straight from first date to “meet my kid” I would have run a mile. I’ve so had it with big romantic gestures…’ She paused. ‘Vince is nothing like my ex. Thank God. We just like each other’s company. So I guess I can understand.’

      ‘That’s all very well,’ Clare said and Eve winced, knowing her friend was about to punch right to the heart of the matter. ‘But didn’t he have any photos of her? Of his daughter?’

      ‘Um,’ Melanie looked uncomfortable. ‘He might do. I mean, yes…yes, I’m sure he does but usually we hang out at mine. It’s not much, just a couple of rooms. But it’s above work, so it’s easy. I’ve only been to his place once and it was, late. You know…’ Her voice trailed off.

      The others smiled to show they knew. Well, Eve did. She’d only set foot in Ian’s house once so far. But it was a long time since Clare had been anywhere else with anyone else. Late, or otherwise.

      The Tube to Finchley took even longer than usual. The Northern Line was sweltering, not just from that day’s heat but from decades of muggy, smoggy summers, the memory of which seemed to have lingered in the tunnels, just waiting to burst out at the slightest rise in temperature above ground. Why was it, Clare wondered, leaning her head against the murky glass, that seventy degrees above ground translated into ninety degrees below?

      ‘Ladies and gentlemen, I apologize for the delay,’ came the driver’s voice over a tannoy. ‘We СКАЧАТЬ