Truly Madly Guilty(32)

(She got exactly twenty-two marks more than Clementine.)

Clementine laughed, fondly it seemed, and Erika felt herself relax. She had to remember to always be like this: sort of flippant and cool, not so intense, or she could be intense but in an amusing, endearing way, not annoyingly so.

In a few minutes they had everyone sorted: the girls were happily using their pink glitter glue sticks on cardboard. Erika saw with vindicated pride that the craft table was a hit. Of course it was. Little girls loved crafts. Clementine’s own mother used to have a craft table like this for her when she was little. Erika had adored that craft table: the tidy little jars of gold star stickers, the pots of glue. Surely Clementine had loved that table as much as Erika, so why hadn’t she set one up for her own children? Erika had known better than to ever suggest it; too often she saw her interest in the girls misinterpreted as criticism.

‘I love these sesame seed crackers,’ said Clementine as they sat opposite each other in the living room. She shuffled forward in a sitting position to take a cracker, and Erika saw a glimpse of cleavage. White bra. The emerald pendant necklace that Erika had got her for her thirtieth birthday dangled from her neck. The coffee table was too far away from the couch, so Clementine just sank gracefully to her knees, like a geisha girl.

She wore a turquoise cardigan over a white T-shirt, a full skirt in a fabric featuring giant white daisies against a yellow background, the skirt spread around her on the floor. She was a splash of colour in the middle of Erika’s beige living room.

‘I remembered you either loved them or hated them,’ said Erika.

Clementine laughed again. ‘I’m just so passionate about my crackers.’

‘She’s crackers about crackers,’ said Sam as Clementine, without asking, cut him a piece of cheese, put it on a cracker and handed it to him.

‘Dad joke,’ said Clementine, rolling her eyes as she sank back on the couch.

‘Had a manicure, have you, mate?’ said Oliver to Sam, and Erika thought, What’s he talking about? Is he trying to be all matey and ‘I’m a straightforward Aussie bloke just like you’ but he’s getting it all wrong?

But Sam held up his hand to show that his fingernails were painted coral pink.

‘Yep, Holly’s work,’ he said. ‘I had to pay for the privilege.’

‘She doesn’t do a bad job,’ said Clementine. ‘We just have to remember to take it off before he goes to work tomorrow so no one questions his manhood.’

‘No one would question my manhood!’ Sam thumped his chest, and Oliver laughed, maybe a bit too enthusiastically but really, it was all good. The tone felt just right.

‘Well,’ said Oliver. He cleared his throat. Erika could see his knee jiggling. He put a hand on it as if to still it.

‘So, to give you some background …’ began Erika.

‘This must be serious stuff.’ Clementine raised an eyebrow. ‘Background.’

‘We’ve been trying unsuccessfully to get pregnant for the last two years,’ said Erika. Just get it out there. Move it along.

Clementine removed the cracker she’d been about to bite from her mouth and held it in front of her. ‘You’ve what?’

‘We’ve been through eleven rounds of IVF,’ said Oliver.

‘What?’ said Clementine.

‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ said Sam quietly.

‘But you never …’ Clementine looked flabbergasted. ‘I thought you didn’t want children. You always said you didn’t want children.’

‘We want children very much,’ said Oliver. He lifted his chin.

‘That was when I was younger,’ explained Erika. ‘I changed my mind.’

‘But I assumed Oliver felt the same way,’ said Clementine. She looked at Oliver accusingly, as though she expected him to back down, admit she was right and say, ‘Oh sorry, of course you’re right, we don’t want children at all. What were we thinking?’

‘I always wanted children,’ said Oliver. ‘Always.’ His voice thickened. He cleared his throat.

‘But eleven rounds of IVF?’ said Clementine to Erika. ‘And you never told me? You went through all that without saying a word? You kept it a secret for the last two years? Why wouldn’t you tell me?’

‘We just decided to keep it to ourselves,’ said Erika uncertainly. Clementine sounded hurt. Almost angry. Erika felt everything shift.

Wait … was that wrong? It had never occurred to her that she had the power to hurt Clementine but now Erika saw that yet again, she’d got it wrong. Clementine was her closest friend and you were meant to share things with your friends: your problems, your secrets. Of course you were. My God, everyone knew that. Women were notorious for sharing everything.

The problem was that Oliver had been so insistent that they tell no one about any of it, and to be fair, Erika hadn’t objected. She had no desire to share. She didn’t want to tell anyone about it. Her fantasy had been calling Clementine with the good news. The good news that never came.

And, after all, she had plenty of experience keeping secrets.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said.

‘No, no!’ said Clementine. She still hadn’t eaten her cracker. Her face was pink. ‘I’m sorry. Gosh, this isn’t about me. Of course, it’s fine if you didn’t want to talk about it. I respect your privacy. I just wish I could have been there for you. There were probably times when I was complaining about the girls and you were thinking, Oh for God’s sake, shut up, Clementine, don’t you know how lucky you are?’ She sounded like she was close to tears.