Truly Madly Guilty(45)

‘Well, I know it’s not very classy of me, but I’m having a beer.’ Tiffany went to the giant stainless-steel refrigerator and stood with her hip jutted at an angle. She wore denim jeans faded to almost white with rips at the knees (they were plausible rips; Erika could almost forgive her for them) and a plain white T-shirt, and her long blonde hair had that just-off-the-beach look that movie stars favoured. Just looking at Tiffany made Erika think about sex, so God knew what she was doing to the men, although when she looked at her own husband she saw that Oliver was looking out the window, staring at nothing, dreaming of babies. The perfect husband. Just in need of a perfect wife.

‘Actually, I’ll have a beer,’ Sam put down his champagne glass on the island bench, ‘if one is going.’

‘I’ve got some struklji in the oven, just five more minutes,’ said Vid. He opened the oven and peered in. ‘It’s a savoury cheese strudel, very good, Slovenian, an old family recipe, no, not really, I got it from the internet!’ He roared with laughter. ‘My auntie used to make it, and I asked my mother for the recipe, and she said, “How would I know!” My mother, she’s no cook. Me, I’m a great cook.’

‘He is a great cook. Very humble too.’ Tiffany tipped back her head and took a long swig of her beer, her back arched, her chest thrust out, like a girl on a sexist football commercial. Erika couldn’t look away. Did she do it on purpose? It was extraordinary. Erika caught Clementine’s eye, and Clementine raised one eyebrow back at her, and Erika tried not to laugh, and everything Erika cherished about their friendship was encapsulated in that secret, just-for-her raised eyebrow.

‘I’d love a husband who cooked,’ said Clementine to Tiffany. ‘Where did you pick him up?’

‘That would be telling,’ said Tiffany sparkily.

See, this was the sort of conversation Erika didn’t get. Wasn’t that kind of inappropriate? Flirtatious? And Clementine and Tiffany were being so familiar with each other, as if Erika were the outsider and Clementine and Tiffany were the old friends.

‘Hey, I cook!’ Sam flicked Clementine’s shoulder.

‘Ow,’ said Clementine. She said to Tiffany and Vid, ‘The truth is, we share the cooking but neither of us is very good at it.’

‘What?’ said Sam with mock outrage. ‘What about my signature dish?’

‘Your shepherd’s pie. It’s amazing. Exquisite. You follow the instructions on that packet mix to the letter.’ Clementine put her arm around his waist.

And also this. She didn’t get this. How could they be teasing each other so fondly after all the tension at Erika’s place? Tension caused by Erika, but really, Clementine and Sam should have been on the same page about something as significant as whether or not they were going to have a third child. It should have been clarified, discussed. Clementine should not have been going around telling people she’d rather poke her eyes out so that people thought they could rely on that information, thank you very much.

Was all this lovable banter for the benefit of Vid and Tiffany? She and Oliver didn’t do married couple banter. Oliver spoke fondly but politely to Erika in public, as if she were a beloved aunt, perhaps, not his wife. People probably thought they had a terrible marriage.

‘Let me top you up there,’ said Tiffany to Erika, holding up the champagne bottle.

‘Oh, gosh, that went down fast.’ Erika looked at her empty glass, mystified.

‘I wonder if I should go and check on the kids,’ said Sam. He looked up at the ceiling. ‘It sounds suspiciously quiet up there.’

‘Ah, relax, don’t worry, they’re fine with Dakota,’ said Vid.

‘Sam is the worrier,’ said Clementine.

‘Yes, Clementine prefers the free-range parenting approach,’ said Sam. ‘No need to watch them at the shopping centre, a security guard will take care of them.’

‘Sam, that happened once,’ protested Clementine. ‘I turned my back on Holly for one second in JB Hi-Fi,’ she said to Vid and Tiffany, although Erika didn’t remember hearing this story before. ‘And she’d run off to find a Barbie DVD or something, and got disoriented and wandered out of the shop. It was terrifying.’

‘Yes, see, so that’s why you can’t turn your back,’ said Sam.

‘Yes, Mr Never-Made-a-Mistake-in-Your-Life.’ Clementine rolled her eyes.

‘Never made that sort of mistake,’ said Sam.

‘That’s nothing. I lost Dakota at the beach once,’ said Vid.

Erika and Oliver exchanged looks. Were these parents trying to outdo each other with just how incompetent and irresponsible they were? When Oliver and Erika had a child it would never be out of their sight. Never. They would risk-assess every situation. They would give their child all the attention they hadn’t got from their own parents. They would do everything right that their parents had got wrong.

‘I have never been so scared in my life as that day at the beach,’ said Tiffany. ‘I wanted to kill him. I thought to myself, if something has happened to Dakota, I will kill him, I will literally kill him, I will never forgive him.’

‘But look, I’m still alive! We found her. It all worked out fine,’ said Vid. ‘Kids get lost. It’s part of life.’

No it’s not, thought Erika.