Sam Baker - The Stepmothers’ Support Group

Stealing him, however, wasn’t Annabel’s number one crime.

Her number one crime, the sin that led to rows, recriminations, and ultimately an estrangement lasting nineteen years and counting, was that Annabel had tried to usurp their mother. When, as Clare never failed to point out, they had a perfectly good one, already.

The scene of Annabel’s crime was an Italian restaurant in north-west London. And the way Clare told it, it began with Annabel sending Clare and Lily to the toilets to wash their hands before eating, and went downhill from there. Couldn’t they sit up straight? Why weren’t they using napkins? Hadn’t their mother told them how to hold a knife properly?

The list grew longer with each telling.

Finish their mouthfuls before starting another. Surely their mother didn’t allow them to leave their crusts at home? (The answer was no. But what self-respecting thirteen-year-old would admit that?)

When the woman asked Clare if she’d ever heard of the words please and thank you , lunch turned ugly. Who could blame her, Clare said, if she accidentally knocked an almostfull glass of Coca-Cola over her father’s girlfriend’s smart cream trousers? (She was thirteen, for crying out loud. Thirteen and trapped. Who wouldn’t do the same?)

Lily sighed loudly.

But as Eve pictured a teenage Clare nudging her elbow towards that glass, it wasn’t her friend she saw. The skinny face that stared defiantly as sticky brown liquid splashed across the table was Hannah’s. And suddenly the story didn’t seem as clear-cut.

‘Liam’s got a little girl, hasn’t he?’ Eve asked Lily. Her attempt to move the subject on could hardly be less subtle. ‘How old is she?’

‘Rosie,’ Lily said. She’d obviously planned to say as little as possible, and leave as quickly as she could, but even she looked grateful that Eve had stopped Clare in her tracks. ‘She’s three. Adorable, in a girly way. Yours?’

‘Not really mine.’

‘They never are,’ Lily said, sounding far older than her years. ‘That’s the whole point, isn’t it? So, how old are they?’

‘Hannah’s twelve, going on fifteen. Sophie’s nine and Alfie’s five and two months. And don’t you dare forget the two months!’ Eve smiled. ‘I’ve only met them once. And that was terrifying enough.’

‘Three of them! I can barely cope with Rosie.’

‘I know the feeling,’ Eve said. ‘I had no idea it would be so hard. They’re just kids, after all.’

‘ Just kids? ’ Clare said. ‘You’re kidding, right?’

‘Of course,’ Eve smiled weakly. ‘I wanted them to like me so much. That’s why I bought them the books,’ she explained to Lily. ‘That was my big mistake, right there. I shouldn’t have bothered. Especially without running it by Ian first. I opened myself right up and now I’m afraid I’ve blown it.’

‘What does Ian say?’ Lily asked.

Eve stared at her hands. ‘I haven’t told him,’ she admitted. ‘We haven’t really seen each other properly since. And I don’t want to worry him.’

Don’t want him to think there might be a problem, more like , she thought.

‘Is that usual?’ Lily asked.

‘What?’

‘Going a fortnight without seeing him properly?’

‘Not really, but it’s not un usual. It depends on both our work, his childcare arrangements—he has an au pair, but he tries to be home as much as possible to cover homework—that kind of thing.

‘We talk about it all the time,’ Eve continued. ‘How to spend more time together, I mean. But Ian wants to take it slowly—for the sake of the kids. It’s a difficult balancing act. I’m trying to understand, but it’s not easy.

‘So much of our relationship has been like this,’ she continued. ‘Cups of coffee, quick drinks on his way home, dinner and the odd evening at my place. We’ve managed a night away a couple of times, but overnighters are rare…Understandably enough,’ she added, for fear of sounding bitter. ‘They’re going to their grandparents’ in a couple of weeks, so he’ll stay with me then.’

She felt like a teenager, aware her face lit up at the mere thought of a whole twenty-four hours together.

Said out loud it sounded paltry, embarrassing. A grown woman excited by a Saturday night sleepover. ‘It’s the kids,’ she repeated. ‘He wants to ease them in gently.’

It was a well-worn line. One she trotted out every time anyone asked after her love life.

‘You can hardly blame him,’ Clare put in, plonking three full mugs on the table in front of them. ‘They’ve lost their mum, after all. The last thing they need is to feel they’ve lost their dad too.’

Eve and Lily had been so engrossed they hadn’t noticed Clare was gone until she’d returned with the second round of coffees.

Lily nodded thoughtfully. ‘So, he’s a proper dad,’ she said. ‘Unlike Liam.’ She smiled indulgently. ‘He’s an every third weekender. And then only when he remembers.’

‘ Liam forgets ?’

‘Oh yeah,’ Clare said. ‘He’d forget his head if it wasn’t screwed on.’

‘My turn,’ Eve said, reaching for her purse.

‘OK,’ said Lily. ‘But I’ll get the next round.’

Clare raised her eyebrows.

‘If there is one, obviously,’ Lily added hastily.

‘It wasn’t that much,’ Clare said, looking at the ten pound note Eve was holding out to her. When Eve rolled her eyes, Clare took it anyway. It would pay her Tube fare home.

‘Back to Liam,’ she said. ‘And his convenient bouts of amnesia.’

‘Don’t start,’ said Lily, but her tone was light and the smile reached her eyes as she pulled a picture from her wallet. It showed a slightly thickset man, with dark curly hair and crinkly brown eyes. He was good-looking, if you liked the type, and he knew it.

‘Looks like Jimmy Nesbitt with longer hair,’ Eve said.

‘God, don’t tell him that,’ said Lily. ‘He’s vain enough as he is.’

‘I’m not sure Eve meant that as a compliment.’

Lily caught Eve’s eye and both women grinned. ‘Thing is,’ she said, ‘I know Clare doesn’t appreciate his finer qualities…’

She ignored her sister choking pointedly on her coffee.

‘But I love him. I’ve never met anyone like him. He’s funny and clever and…’

‘The sex is great,’ said Clare.

‘Clare!’

‘You’re telling me it isn’t?’

‘OK, the sex is great,’ Lily grinned. ‘You’re just jealous.

‘Seriously, though,’ she returned her attention to Eve. ‘If you’d told me a year ago I’d be taking on a guy twelve years older than me with a three-year-old kid I’d have told you to dream on, so I guess that makes it a bit more than great sex.’

Lily smiled again. ‘But, yes, he forgets, a lot…’

‘And you can’t do that with a kid,’ Clare completed for her.

‘Never make a promise you can’t keep.’ Eve put in. She had heard it from Ian, about a zillion times. Never fight a battle you can’t win. Let the small stuff go. Concentrate on the things that matter.

‘Well,’ Lily said. ‘Let’s just say, reliability isn’t Liam’s strongest point. Not even where Rosie’s concerned.’

‘Understatement,’ Clare snorted. ‘Tell her about the FA Cup quarter-final.’

‘Not his finest moment. Rosie comes every third weekend. Liam picks her up Saturday, takes her back Sunday. He fixes his shifts around it. We both do, if we can.’

‘Which paper’s he on?’

Lily named a tabloid.

‘Anyway, that’s how our free Saturdays are spent, babysitting.’ She glanced at her sister, and Eve was impressed to see Clare remain silent.

All of Clare’s were spent babysitting.