Sam Baker - The Stepmothers’ Support Group

He looked so haggard by the memory Eve wanted to comfort him, but didn’t know how, so she remained silent and hoped that was right.

‘Gone eleven,’ Ian said. ‘My mobile rang. I knew it was the hospice before I even looked at the screen. They’d agreed to call my mobile instead of the house to avoid disturbing the kids. Caro had lapsed into unconsciousness. They thought it would be soon. Her mother was there already. Her father was on his way. Could I come back?’

This is it, Eve thought. Whatever he’s been wanting to say.

‘Eve, I didn’t even stop to think. There was nothing to think about. I just said no. Someone had to look after the kids. Someone had to get them up, washed, make their breakfast. Someone had to carry on, and that someone was me. That was the way life was. The way I knew life was going to be from that moment on. That’s what I told the nurse, and it’s what I told Caroline’s mother when she called two hours later to tell me her only daughter had gone. She was kind enough to pretend she believed me. But the truth is, I didn’t want to be there. I was done.’

Ian took a deep breath, and Eve watched him wonder if he was really going to say what he was about to say.

‘The truth is,’ he said. ‘We’d been done for years. Caro and I were only together because of the kids and the cancer; not necessarily in that order. Caro knew that, although we rarely spoke about it. And I assume her parents knew; but they were kind, they never judged me. They still don’t. The thing…the thing that worries me…’

He shrugged and eyed his now empty glass.

‘I’m fairly sure Hannah knows too.’

Dusk had fallen while they were talking, and the room was dark but for an orange glow from a street light through still-open curtains, and the tiny screen of the CD player, which had long since fallen silent. For once, the Kentish Town streets around Eve’s one-bedroom flat were quiet, without even the wail of a distant siren.

With Eve, the room held its breath.

It felt to Eve that whole minutes passed before he spoke again. As if they’d slipped into a slower time zone and if they went outside they’d discover time had passed everywhere but there.

‘I had an affair,’ he said. ‘So did she. One. More than one. I don’t know. It didn’t mean anything. It was symptomatic, I guess. Before Alfie was born. He was—what do you call them?—an Elastoplast baby, meant to stick us back together again. Poor little sod. Of course, he couldn’t. How could he? I wasn’t in love with Caroline, hadn’t been for years. She wasn’t in love with me, not any longer. We stayed together for the children, then I stayed for the cancer, then she started that damn newspaper column and our life—our family—became public property. With no way out, except the inevitable.’

Eve had just discovered the real meaning of walking on air. Ian had stayed Friday night and Saturday night too, leaving on Sunday only to collect his children from Caro’s mother to take them to his own parents in West Sussex where they were all staying for the rest of half-term.

Another first in a weekend of relationship firsts.

A full, blissful, domestic forty-eight hours together, and Eve knew she was in deeper than ever. And Ian was too, she was sure of it. He’d never have told her about Caro, about his infidelity, about hers, if he wasn’t. Far from being thrown by it, she felt her confidence surge.

If she ran into Caitlin now, she could say, hand on heart, big smug grin on her face, ‘Yup, you’re right. I’ve bagged the cream of groovy dads. So hands off!’

Print-outs of the pictures from last week’s feature shoot were already on Eve’s desk, with a Post-it note from Jo, the picture editor.

‘Nice work,’ said Jo’s hastily scrawled note. ‘They’re all fab, but Melanie Cheung is STUNNING.’

No kidding, Eve thought, flicking through the printouts. The line-up of case studies was on top. No prizes for guessing which one was Melanie, even if she hadn’t been the only non-blonde. Her solo portrait was even better.

Eve was about to pick up her desk phone when her mobile rang. Ian mobile flashed up on its screen.

‘Hey, you’re up early.’

He laughed. ‘You’ve got a lot to learn, Alfie’s been up so long he’s had second breakfast.’

‘Second breakfast?’

‘I blame Lord of the Rings. All those hungry hobbits. Can you talk?’

Eve glanced around. The office was empty. ‘Nobody in yet but me. What’s up?’

‘Nothing. I’ve just been thinking, wondering really, if you’d like to come around to the house at the weekend? Saturday lunch, maybe? See the kids in their natural habitat. If you’re free, that is?’

If she was free? Eve couldn’t help grinning. Of course she was free.

‘Sure,’ she said casually. ‘I’ll just check my diary.’

‘If you’re not, it’s…’

‘Ian!’ She laughed. ‘I was kidding! Of course I’m free. What time do you want me?’

Sliding her mobile back into her bag, Eve collected her thoughts and picked up her desk phone, punching in Nancy Morris’s number from memory.

‘What a result,’ she said when Nancy answered. ‘Melanie Cheung looks fabulous—if her story is even half as good we’ve had a lucky break.’

‘Good?’ said Nancy. ‘Her story’s brilliant. She’s Chinese/American, from Boston, but don’t let that put Miriam off,’ she added hastily, knowing how the editor could be about non-Brit case studies. ‘She meets this British guy in New York, they have a whirlwind romance, he proposes and she moves to London to be with him.

She was a lawyer there, pretty high-flying by the sound of it, and she chucked it all in for him. From what she says the whole episode sounds out of character, but hey, we’ve all been there.’

Speak for yourself, Eve thought. Never one for grand romantic gestures, it wouldn’t have occurred to her to let anything so insignificant as love get in the way of life. Well, not until Ian. Now she wouldn’t rule out anything.

‘Like I thought,’ Nancy said. ‘It was a classic she-wants-kids/he-doesn’t scenario. She was in her early thirties, clock ticking, and he wouldn’t even discuss it, said kids weren’t consistent with his lifestyle, apparently. He ended it, although she won’t talk about that on the record. If you ask me, she was gutted. You don’t look the way she does unless you’ve spent a considerable amount of time on the heartbreak diet.’

‘Uh-huh,’ Eve murmured by way of encouragement. Heartbreak had never had that effect on her. Maybe her heart had never been sufficiently broken.

‘Her parents are crazy for a grandchild,’ Nancy continued. ‘Last of their line and all that, and blame her for the breakdown of the marriage. Her mother, old-school Chinese, accuses her of putting her career before doing her duty and having a family, which, according to Melanie, couldn’t be further from the truth. Anyway, the whole thing makes her re-evaluate her life. So she sells the duplex in Holland Park that was her divorce settlement and ploughs every last penny into her internet start-up. Which, as we now know, is reckoned to be the new NET-A-PORTER.’

‘Fantastic,’ Eve said, typing her password as Nancy spoke. A hundred and eighty e-mails awaited her. At least ninety per cent of those would head straight for the trash. ‘I’m almost glad the first case study pulled out.’

‘It gets better,’ Nancy said, the grin obvious in her voice.

‘Not possible.’

‘The ex? He’s Simeon Jones.’

Eve racked her brain, but the name didn’t ring any immediate bells.

‘Call yourself a journalist. He’s that hedge fund guy. And not just any old hedge fund guy, either. He’s the king of them, been all over the society pages since he married Poppy King-Jones, the model. You know the one. Working-class girl from Rotherham made good.’