The Stepmothers’ Support Group. Sam Baker

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СКАЧАТЬ are good,’ she whispered, when the children were packing their possessions into rucksacks, carrier bags and pockets. Or, in Alfie’s case, all three at once.

      ‘It’s in the job description.’ Ian kept his voice light, but his meaning was clear. He was their dad, and not just any old dad, not an every-other-weekend one, or a Saturday one. He was full-time, 24/7, widowed.

      He was the there-is-no-one-to-do-it-if-I-don’t model.

      As Eve recounted her meeting with Ian’s kids, badly chosen books and all, Clare sipped at her wine. It was more acidic than when she’d opened it the night before, allowing herself just the one, after Louisa went to bed. Well, Lou claimed she’d gone to bed. Clare knew better. Her daughter had probably spent a good hour on YouTube; only turning off her light when she heard footsteps on the stairs.

      Clare had learnt the hard way to choose her battles, because, as a single mum, there was no one to back her up. If Louisa and she argued, it seemed much more serious. Besides, if they weren’t there for each other, who was?

      Clare had saved hard to buy a laptop for Lou’s thirteenth birthday; taken in extra exam marking to pay the monthly broadband bill. It will help with your homework, she told Louisa at the time. If Clare was honest, it was about more than that. She wanted Lou to fit in and have the stuff that her friends had, not always to be the one who went without. Not that the reconditioned Toshiba from a computer repair shop on Finchley Road was the latest thing, but it could pass for new, and it worked, and Louisa had been ecstatic. The expression on Lou’s elfin face when she first turned it on made all the long nights at the kitchen table marking exam papers worthwhile.

      Occasionally, Clare felt her life was one long night at a kitchen table. After Louisa was first born, it had been a pine table in Clare’s mother’s kitchen in Hendon; revising for the A-levels she’d missed, what with being eight months pregnant. At Manchester University, it had been an Ikea flat-pack in a grotty student house she’d shared with three others. One of whom was Eve. It was Eve who lasted. The others came and went, endlessly replaced by yet more students who freaked out at the idea of having a toddler around to cramp their style.

      Now it was a pine table again. And, even now, Clare couldn’t work until Lou was asleep, the flat was still, her light came from an Anglepoise lamp that lived in the corner during the day, and the low mutter of the BBC’s World Service kept her company.

      Not normal, she knew.

      Clare had been sixteen when she met Will. She’d been smitten the first time he walked into her AS level English lit class, his dark floppy hair falling over his eyes. By the end of the second week they’d been an item, a fixture.

      He was her first boyfriend, her first true love and, so far as she knew, she was his. At least, he’d told her she was. They’d done everything together. First kiss, first love, first fumble, first sex. Life had been a voyage of mutual discovery. And then, halfway through the next year, she’d become pregnant and everything—everything—had come crashing down.

      Her mum and dad only got married because her mum was pregnant, with Clare. Her nan had married at seventeen; giving up her factory job to have five children and a husband who spent most of his life in the pub. It was the one thing Clare had promised herself would never happen to her.

      A mistake like that, it could ruin your life.

      Will had laughed when she’d said that. Said people didn’t think like that any more. He’d been trying to get her into bed at the time. Well, he’d been trying to get his hand inside her knickers on his parents’ settee while they were next door having drinks. Like a fool, she’d believed him.

      Clare wasn’t sure what happened exactly. They’d always been careful. Originally, she only went on the pill because she didn’t think condoms were enough. After Will stopped using condoms, Clare never, ever missed a pill. But a vomiting bug went around college, and that was enough, apparently.

      Everyone, from her mum to Will and Will’s parents told her to do the sensible thing, and ‘get rid of it’. Even her dad would have had an opinion, Clare was sure of it; if he’d ever bothered to show an interest in what she did, or even sent a birthday card in the five years since he’d left.

      ‘What do you mean? You want to have it?’ Will said, sitting in the recreation ground not far from her home. Clare watched the ducks try to navigate a Tesco shopping trolley masquerading as an island in the middle of their lake.

      ‘I want us to have it,’ she said. ‘Us. It’s our baby.’

      Out of the corner of one eye she was aware of Will staring at his knees. Once, his curtain of hair would have hidden his eyes, but he’d had it cut shorter and removed his earring for a round of medical school interviews.

      ‘Our baby,’ she said, turning to stare at him. ‘We would have had one eventually, wouldn’t we?’

      Will refused to catch her eye.

      ‘Wouldn’t we?’

      It was only later she realized he’d never answered the question.

      ‘If it’s our baby, then it’s our decision,’ he said, trying to harden his voice. But Clare could hear it tremble as he spoke. ‘And I don’t want a baby. I’m too young, Clare. We’re too young. What about university? What about those novels you’re going to write? And me? Seven years of medical studies. How can I do that with a baby?’

      ‘We can manage,’ Clare promised. ‘Both of us, together.’

      She was fighting a losing battle. She knew it, and Will knew she knew it. ‘No,’ he said finally. ‘We can’t manage. And I won’t do it.’

      Hurtling into the kitchen, Louisa threw her skinny arms around Eve. ‘Hello Auntie Eve,’ she said. ‘Mum didn’t say you’d be here.’

      ‘That’s because Mum didn’t know,’ Clare said.

      Louisa raised her eyebrows.

      Eve had known Lou since she was a baby, and been an honorary aunt—the kind whose job it was to provide presents, play-dates and an impartial ear—almost as long. But it always amazed her how unlike her mother Lou looked. Where Clare was stocky, Louisa was wraith-like. Taller, lankier, olive skinned, with eyes so dark they were almost black, and a curtain of shiny black hair that kept falling into her eyes. A black T-shirt carrying the logo of a band Eve didn’t recognize, black jacket, skinny jeans and a pair of sneakers that were almost Converse. The girl had emo written all over her.

      ‘Mum,’ said Louisa, heading to the fridge. ‘What’s for lunch?’

      ‘Lunch was two hours ago and if you think I’m cooking again you’ve got another think coming. If you’re hungry, you can have what’s left of last night’s risotto or make a sandwich.’

      Her daughter’s nose wrinkled in disgust. ‘A sandwich?’ she said, sounding like Edith Evans playing Lady Bracknell in The Importance of Being Earnest, her last school play. ‘I’m going to look like a sandwich if I eat any more. Anyway, there’s nothing to put in one.’

      ‘I’ll do a shop tomorrow. For now, there’s cheese, peanut butter, marmite, jam…’ Clare recited a list of jars in the fridge and hoped the cheese hadn’t yet developed a crust.

      ‘They’re СКАЧАТЬ