Truly Madly Guilty(17)

‘Mummy lets me do it,’ pouted Holly.

‘Well, she shouldn’t,’ said Sam. He shot Clementine a look. ‘You could break your neck. You could hurt yourself very, very badly.’

‘Put your shoes back on, Holly,’ said Clementine. ‘Before they get lost too.’ Sometimes she wondered how Sam thought she managed to keep the children alive when he wasn’t there to point out all the perilous hazards. She let Holly do that face-first dive off the side of the couch all the time when he was at work. Mostly the girls were good at remembering the different rules that applied when Daddy was at home, not that those different sets of rules were ever actually acknowledged out loud. It was just an unspoken way of keeping the peace. She suspected different rules about vegetables and teeth-cleaning applied when Mummy wasn’t home.

Holly got down off the couch and slumped back. ‘I’m bored. Why can’t I have a cracker? I’m starving.’

‘Please don’t whine,’ said Clementine.

‘But I’m so hungry,’ said Holly, while Ruby wandered off into the hallway hollering, ‘SHOE! WHERE ARE YOU, MY DARLING SHOE?’

‘I actually really do need a cracker. Just one cracker,’ said Holly.

‘Quiet!’ shouted Clementine and Sam simultaneously.

‘You are both so mean!’ Holly turned on her heel to leave the room and kicked her toe on the leg of the couch, which Sam had dragged sideways looking for the shoe. She screamed in frustration.

‘Oh dear.’ Clementine automatically bent down to hug her, forgetting that Holly always needed a minute to process her rage at the universe before she accepted comfort. Holly threw back her head and gave Clementine a painful blow on the chin.

‘Ow!’ Clementine grabbed her chin. ‘Holly!’

‘Bloody hell,’ said Sam. He stomped out of the room.

Now Holly wanted a cuddle. She launched herself into Clementine’s arms, and Clementine hugged her, even though she wanted to shake her, because her chin really hurt. She murmured sympathetic words of comfort and rocked Holly back and forth while she stared longingly at her cello, sitting quiet and dignified up against her pretend audition chair. No one warned you that having children reduced you right down to some smaller, rudimentary, primitive version of yourself, where your talents and your education and your achievements meant nothing.

Clementine remembered when Erika, at the age of sixteen, had casually mentioned that she never wanted children, and Clementine had felt strangely put out by this; it had taken her a while to work out the reasons for her aggravation (all her life, there had always been so many varied, complex reasons why Erika aggravated her) and she’d eventually realised it was because she wished she’d thought of saying it first. Clementine was meant to be the crazy, creative, bohemian one. Erika was the conservative one. The rule follower. The designated driver. Erika dreamed of getting enough marks to do a Bachelor of Business degree with a double major in accounting and finance. Erika dreamed of home ownership and a share portfolio and a job at one of the big six accounting firms with a fast track to partnership. Clementine’s dream was to study at the Conservatorium of Music, to play extraordinary music and experience extraordinary passion and then, sure, to settle down one day and have babies with a nice man, because didn’t everyone want that? Babies were cute. It had seemed to indicate a failure of the imagination that it had never occurred to Clementine that you could choose not to have children.

But that was the thing with Erika. She refused to be typecast. When they were seventeen, Erika had gone through a Goth stage. Erika, of all people. She’d dyed her hair black, worn black nail polish, black lipstick, studded wristbands and platform boots. ‘What?’ she’d said defensively, the first time Clementine saw her new look. Erika’s rock-star style got them into the cool clubs, where she stood at the back scowling, drinking mineral water and looking like she was thinking dark Gothic thoughts when she was probably just thinking about her homework, while Clementine got drunk and danced and kissed inappropriate boys and then cried all the way home, because, you know, life.

Now Erika wore clothes you didn’t notice or remember: plain, sensible, comfortable clothes. She had her job at one of the big accounting firms (now one of the big four, not the big six) and her neat, probably mortgage-free three-bedroom house not far from where they both grew up. And now, of course, Clementine didn’t regret her decision to have children. She loved them senseless, of course she did, it was just that sometimes she regretted their timing. It would have made sense to put off kids until they’d paid off more of the house, until her career was better established.

Sam wanted a third child, which was ludicrous, impossible. She kept changing the subject every time he brought it up. A third child would be like sliding down a snake in a game of Snakes and Ladders. He couldn’t be serious. She was hoping that eventually he’d see sense.

Sam reappeared in the doorway and held out a packet of crackers towards Holly. Holly jumped off Clementine’s knee, magically cured, at the same time as Clementine’s phone, which was sitting on one of the bookshelves, began to ring.

‘It’s Erika,’ said Clementine to Sam as she picked it up.

‘Maybe she’s cancelling,’ said Sam hopefully.

‘She never cancels,’ said Clementine. She put the phone to her ear. ‘Hi, Erika.’