LITMIR.BIZ

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him, or anyone else. I’ve been a wife and a mother for twenty-three years. Now I want to be just what I am.’

      There was a moment’s awkward silence.

      ‘I’m sorry,’ Lizzie said.

      Jess smiled into the mouthpiece. ‘For what? For being yourself?’ Briefly she became the comforter again; the balance between them tipped so easily. ‘How’s Sock? What’s he doing?’

      Christened Thomas Alexander, Lizzie’s baby had been referred to in the womb as Socrates and was now invariably known as Sock.

      Lizzie’s voice lightened. ‘Asleep at last, thank God. He’s been tireless today, a chaos machine.’

      Sock was a source of delight to everyone. For Jess the sight and smell and feel of him, the round head and peachy fuzz of skin, brought back piercingly sharp memories of her own babies. She turned her head to look at their photographs, framed on the shelf beside her chair. To see Sock was almost to have them back again.

      ‘He’s learnt so many new words.’

      ‘What does he say?’

      They could talk endlessly about his achievements. There were no complications in this.

      ‘James is looking after him for the whole day tomorrow. I’m going to London to do the handcream voice-over. I’m swimming in free handouts of the stuff here, do you want some?’

      ‘Handcream? Yes, can you take it intravenously?’

      ‘Probably. I just hope they don’t expect me to say so in thirty seconds. Darling, I’ve got to go.’

      James reappeared, changed out of his business clothes into a sweater and corduroys. He made a little tilting movement with his fingers, asking if she wanted a drink. Lizzie mouthed, ‘God, yes.’

      ‘Right. Hope the voice-over goes well. Call me soon.’

      ‘Tomorrow night, or the day after. Promise you’re all right?’

      ‘Everything is fine here.’

      ‘Good night darling.’

      James came to her as she put down the phone and slid his hands down to her hips, then kissed her thoroughly.

      ‘Mmm. At last. How are you, my darling?’

      She curled an arm around his neck. ‘Feeling pretty fat and mumsy, actually.’

      ‘You look wonderful. You feel wonderful.’

      ‘Oh. Ah. Jim, what did my life consist of before there was you?’

      Jess went slowly upstairs to the bathroom and tipped a heap of soiled clothes out of a basket. She stooped to sort them into differentiated piles and carried an armful down to the kitchen. She fed the bundle into the washing machine and slammed the round eye of the door, and while the clothes turned in the lace of suds she found a tin of soup in the cupboard and heated it up. She carried the bowl through into the living room and watched the television news as she ate.

      The club was packed. It was a popular DJ night and there were surges of dancers filling the floor. In the mass of people Rob could see Danny dancing with Cat. He was smiling broadly and bouncing on the spot, up and down fast from the knees, as if he was on springs. One hand held a bottle by the neck and the other waved in the air over his head. The four girls and Rob and Danny had all had a lot to drink, the celebration of Zoe’s birthday moving on from the café to gather swift momentum in another pub and then the club. The beginning of the day seemed very long ago to Rob, at the far end of a multicoloured narrow tunnel. The music was loud, seeming to generate itself within his head. He followed the intricate cross-patterning of it in his mind, letting his eyes drift shut, then opening them again to see Cat standing in front of him. She was very pretty, he noticed for the first time. A little triangular face, just like a cat’s, with a damp fringe of hair sticking to her forehead. Smoky eyes. He knew from dancing with her that she was thin and light-boned. Catty-like. He swayed towards her with music booming in his head. She was saying something to him.

      ‘What?’

      She repeated it, shouting with her mouth to his ear. Warm breath on his face. ‘Where’s Rachel?’

      Rachel. Yes, the plain one of the foursome. She had been here a minute or perhaps an hour ago. He shrugged his shoulders against the waves of sound and Cat pushed away from him. Danny was at the bar now and Rob joined him. Another beer apiece, and when Danny tilted the bottle to his mouth a trail of silvery froth ran down his chin and glittered in the blue and purple lights. He wiped it away and moved his head to draw Rob closer. They stumbled together, Rob’s arm round Dan’s shoulders, a support for both of them.

      ‘Not a bad night.’ Dan was grinning, the angle of the lights making him seem cross-eyed.

      ‘Yeah, pretty good.’

      ‘Listen. I’m going back with her.’

      ‘With who?’

      ‘Cat.’

      ‘Shit. I quite fancied her myself.’

      Danny’s grin widened. ‘No chance, my son. I’m in there.’

      ‘Who’s driving, then?’ Rob’s old van was parked outside. After the pub they had all piled into it, the girls’ legs and buttocks heaving and pressing in the passenger seat. Rob remembered laughing and gunning the clapped-out engine, and the traffic lights on sentry duty down a long stretch of wet road to the club warehouse.

      ‘We’ll get a cab or something,’ Dan said vaguely, his smile beatific, irritating.

      ‘Sod you then.’ A prickle of antagonism renewed itself between them.

      ‘What about what’s-her-name, Zoe?’

      ‘Thanks.’

      Cat came back. She had pushed her hair off her face and her round forehead looked bare and vulnerable.

      ‘Rachel’s in the toilets. She’s not very well.’

      Danny took another pull on his beer.

      ‘What’s happening then?’

      ‘We’re going to take her home.’

      ‘All of you? What is she, crippled?’

      Cat hesitated. Her top lip crimped, making a new triangle in the inverted one of her face. ‘Wait a minute, then.’

      There was beer spilt on the bar, and a slick of it underfoot. The crowd standing three deep was now dotted with familiar faces, and the sweating barman in his soaked T-shirt was a regular at the gym. The gathering seemed suddenly tribal and this and the women’s invisible crisis tipped the boys back into collusion. They turned their backs on the heaving dance floor and the barman saw them and sent two uncapped bottle slithering across. Dan clashed his against Rob’s and they drank, leaning their heads back. The blue and purple lights recoloured Rob’s sweat-darkened hair. Standing shoulder to shoulder while the surf of people and music crashed around them, they had almost forgotten Cat before she materialised again, with Zoe beside her.

      ‘The other two have gone.’

      Danny took hold of her wrist, his feral grin showing his teeth. ‘C’mon then. We’ll drive you girls home.’

      The rain had thinned into drizzle once more. In the front of the van Cat sat across Danny’s knees but her arm and shoulder and thigh were wedged against Rob. Zoe crouched in the space behind, her chin over Danny’s shoulder. They were not singing or laughing any longer. Rob peered ahead, frowning through the hypnotising arcs of the wipers. The cab of the van vibrated with engine noise, but on a different frequency each of them plainly heard the ambiguous whisper of sex.

      Jess washed up her soup pan and placed her bowl and spoon in the proper slots in the dishwasher. In the hallway she glanced at the security chain for the front door hanging loose from its bolts. She checked her watch and hesitated for a minute as a dark

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