Sam Baker - The Stepmothers’ Support Group

The words echoed inside Clare’s head as the Tube doors finally opened and she stepped off the train into a balmy north London night. The venom with which Lou had spat her resentment at the comforts she didn’t have that her friends did…And unspoken, the words that had sent Clare fleeing from their flat for fear of hearing them, knowing she couldn’t bear it if she did. Knowing that if she let Lou say those words, the words she knew her daughter was thinking, things would change for ever between them. ‘And I’m stuck here,’ Lou had screamed before her bedroom door slammed shut behind her.

With you.

‘This it, love?’

Eve peered from the taxi’s window across a gravel drive littered with dusty four by fours and expensive but lowkey cars to a solid farmhouse built from weather-beaten Cornish granite. Above the screech of seagulls she could hear the squeals of small children.

‘Sounds like it,’ she said, pushing a ten pound note and some loose change into the driver’s hand as she took the case he hauled from the boot.

It looked like it too. Eve wheeled her case between a Subaru and a Lexus, and narrowly avoided squashing a Power Ranger standing guard on a manhole cover. She bent to collect it, then stopped. Alfie was here, it said. He might not thank her for moving it.

The front door was on the latch for late arrivals and opened at first push. Dragging her case across a flagstoned hall, she lent it against a wall and slipped Hannah’s birthday card and present (Topshop vouchers—no chances this time) from her handbag, then folded her jacket—creased from the heat, the journey and being clutched too tightly—and dumped it on top of the case beside her handbag. There was no doubt the house itself was empty; but the shrieks of children and low-level murmur of adult conversation was louder now. Eve took a deep breath.

She was in no doubt what a big deal this was, not just for Ian and his children, but for his entire family. For more than two years since Caroline’s death, there had been nothing and no one in his life but the children, and getting them from one day to the next. And now, here was Eve…

Although, somehow, meeting his parents had turned into something even bigger. What Ian hadn’t made clear—at least not until there was no turning back—was thatshe’d be meeting the extended Newsome clan at the same time.

‘It’ll be great,’ Ian had promised when he’d called from Cornwall earlier in the week to check her train times. ‘The weather’s amazing and it’s meant to hold. So Ma thought it might be fun to have a barbecue in the garden, Saturday lunchtime. It’s Hannah’s birthday, so it’s her party really. My parents will be there, obviously. My brother, his wife and kids are coming over from their place in Devon. There’s a cousin or two, nothing too terrifying. Oh, and a couple of neighbours.’

Safety in numbers, that was what he’d said. Hiding in plain sight. There’d be so much going on it would take the focus off her, off them. Far from being the main event, she’d be just another guest on a lazy summer’s afternoon. And that had made sense to Eve. At the time. But that was before engineering works on the line from Paddington had added ninety minutes to her journey and she’d felt obliged to call Ian with an offer of making her own way from the station. How hard could it be, after all?

Smoothing down her top, she followed the noise.

An open door to her right led into a large sitting room that stretched from front to back. Its parquet floors were barely visible beneath a chaos of threadbare Persian rugs, and mismatched chairs and sofas covered with cushions and throws. The effect should have been a fight in a jumble sale, instead it was relaxed and cosy.

At the far end, French doors spilled out onto a terrace and lawns that led across to the fields beyond the garden’s limits. This was some holiday home, bigger by far than her own parents’ only home. A fold-out table inside the doors was laden with presents, some opened, some still neatly wrapped, and in the middle, in pride of place, stood a large birthday cake iced in pink with a large, garish number thirteen, marked in candles. To Eve’s eye, the pastel icing bore Sophie’s unmistakable hallmark.

Propping her card against a pile of unopened presents, Eve moved to the French doors. The lawn was packed. A few friends? She’d hate to be around when Ian’s parents organized a large party. Where the terrace met the grass she could see Ian, standing by the large brick barbecue, talking to a stockier man wearing a navy and white striped apron. At first glance he looked nothing like Ian, but on closer inspection his nose gave the relationship away. Eve guessed she was looking at Ian’s younger brother, Rob. The ‘boys’ were obviously on barbecue duty. Ian’s eyes found her and his face broke into a grin.

‘Eve!’ he called. ‘You made it! Over here!’

A dozen heads swivelled, Meerkat-like, faces full of illsuppressed curiosity. Smiling nervously, Eve looked for the quickest route from where she stood to Ian’s side. Not that she expected this to afford her much protection. As she did so a small whirlwind swirled through the tanned legs and deck shoes of a group that stood drinking Pimm’s on the terrace.

‘Eeeve!’ shouted Alfie, hurling himself at her, another small boy in tow. ‘Did you bring me a present?’ Although they had now spent several Saturday lunchtimes together with no further gifts forthcoming, this was still his preferred opening gambit.

Resisting the urge to hug him, Eve bent down to ruffle his hair instead.

‘Hello Alfie, what you up to?’

‘Winning!’ He grinned and turned to smack a black Power Ranger against the other boy’s toy. Eve wondered if anyone had ever explained the concept of playing nicely to Alfie.

Someone else obviously felt the same way.

‘Alfie, behave. Now go and tell Daddy we need him over here.’

The woman who spoke was tall, slim and elegant in a beige cotton skirt and white short-sleeved blouse and cream sandals. Around seventy, she had the stature and aura of someone much younger, someone used to people noticing her. Someone like Caroline, had Caroline lived to see her eighth decade.

‘But Graneee…’

‘Alfie,’ the woman’s voice was gentle but firm, ‘go and fetch Daddy for me, there’s a good boy. And take Danny with you.’

‘How do you do?’ The woman held out her hand with a smile. ‘I’m Elaine, Ian’s mother.’

‘I’m Eve,’ said Eve, unnecessarily. ‘It’s nice to meet you. I’m so sorry I’m late. The train…’

The woman waved her apology away.

As she did so, Eve couldn’t help noticing that Ian’s mother took in every particular of Eve’s appearance.

‘I’m delighted to meet you, dear. You’re something of a hit with my grandson, I gather. And my son, of course, but I imagine that goes without saying.’

No , thought Eve. She would never tire of hearing it. Instead she smiled with relief. ‘I’m very glad to hear it,’ she said. ‘They’re something of a hit with me too.’

‘Eve…you’ve obviously met my mother.’ Eve felt a warm arm slide around her waist and resisted the temptation to sink gratefully into Ian.

‘Come on,’ he said. ‘You look like you need a drink…Ma, another Pimm’s?’

Ian’s mother waved her half-full glass and shook her head. ‘Not for me dear. I’d better go and see what your brother is burning on the barbecue.’

‘How was that?’ asked Ian, leading her by the hand to a white-clothed table that had been set up at the side of the terrace with metal buckets full of iced beer and bowls of punch. ‘Survive the first encounter?’