The Two Lives of Lydia Bird(40)

‘Pass the roast potatoes?’ Elle gives Mum the amused side-eye. I can see how hard she’s trying to keep things jolly.

Mum doesn’t miss a beat and holds out the sprouts instead.

Elle puts two fingers in her mouth and mimes choking as Mum places the bowl down. ‘They’re good for you,’ Mum says. ‘You could do with some colour in your cheeks, you’re looking peaky.’

Oddly enough, the comment is enough to add an instant stain of colour to Elle’s cheeks. I suppose we’re all feeling sensitive today.

I pick up the wine bottle and pour for Mum first, and then Elle. It’s David who gives the game away.

‘Didn’t you, erm, decide not to drink today, Elle?’ he says, and she shoots him furious daggers in return.

He turns as puce as Mum’s red cabbage, making a show of carving more uneven slabs of turkey in a bluster to cover his tracks. ‘You know, you’re on that diet …’

I meet Elle’s panicky eyes across the table; she’s never dieted for a day in her entire life, and in that instant I know. Mum realizes too, laying her cutlery down and placing her shaking hand flat over the base of her throat.

‘Elle,’ she breathes. ‘Does this mean …?’ She pauses. ‘Are you …?’

‘I’m sorry,’ David says, grabbing Elle’s hand on the tabletop. ‘It just came out.’ He looks wretched.

We all fall momentarily silent, staring at each other. Elle cracks first.

‘We weren’t going to say anything today,’ she says. ‘We only found out ourselves a few days ago.’

‘Darling,’ Mum gasps, and for the second time today she’s crying. And then so am I, and so is Elle. We huddle round the table, Elle on my left, Mum on my right, David opposite, and we all grip hard on to each other’s hands. We sit for a few minutes, half sobbing and smiling, not wanting to let go.

‘I guess I better drink for two, in that case.’ I laugh a little, filling my own wine glass to the top.

Elle nods, her worried eyes searching my face, trying to discern if I’m faking it. I’m not, and I am.

I’m not, because I’m thrilled from the soles of my shoes to the tips of my silly party hat; she’s wanted to be a mother since we were little girls pushing our doll’s prams around the back garden. She was far more maternal than me even back then; her dolls were always pristine with their hair brushed, while mine were usually missing an arm and had biro on their faces. I understand why she wasn’t going to say anything today, but I’m glad that I know. I don’t want her and David to have to hide such life-changing news for fear of upsetting me.

But I am faking too, because it’s a shock and so strangely life-affirming: a baby. A brand-new life, a razor-sharp reminder that Freddie and I will never know the joy of having a child of our own.

I raise my glass. ‘To you two,’ I say, and I dry my tears because this is one of their most precious life moments.

‘Three,’ Mum adds, high-pitched hysterical.

We clink glasses and I give Elle’s hand an extra squeeze. It’s good news.





Tuesday 25 December


‘Your mum is officially the queen of Christmas dinner. I don’t need to eat again until next year.’ Freddie groans next to me on the sofa.

‘I think we both know you’ll be gagging for a turkey sandwich by eight o’clock,’ I say. I presume, like all our other years, we’ll have come home armed with enough leftovers to make sandwiches, soup, curries and turkey burgers until at least the middle of February. I try to put thoughts of the Christmas lunch I forced down firmly out of my mind.

‘I can’t believe Elle’s having a baby,’ Freddie says.

So it’s happening in this world too, then.

‘I know,’ I sigh.

‘Which means we’re going to have a pregnant bridesmaid.’ He mimes the shape of a huge baby belly. It’s closer to Mr Greedy than a pregnant woman, but I grin all the same.

‘It does.’ In fact, I quite like the idea of Elle being all pregnant and glowy in our wedding photographs. A wedding, and now a baby. It feels as if someone in the ether sounded a whistle: all change, girls, all change. Some things don’t change, thankfully – at Christmas we will always gather around my mum’s table. Next year, we’ll all just squeeze up to make room for a high chair at the table too. I do, of course, realize that he or she probably won’t be in a high chair by that stage. I’m thinking fancifully, in the deep and meaningful way a slightly sozzled aunt-to-be is fully entitled to.

‘Do you think we’ll have babies one day?’ I say, champagne-wistful as I put my feet up in Freddie’s lap. It’s such an unbearably bittersweet thought, really.

He flicks on the TV, clicking through the channels. ‘Doctor Who?’

I don’t answer. Is he avoiding my question? I don’t think he is; we’ve talked generally about children lots of times and it’s kind of a given that we’ll go down that road. Isn’t it? Or am I jumping to conclusions? I tell myself I’m being daft. Turkey paranoia setting in.

Oblivious to my disgruntlement, he leans over and grabs the tin of Quality Street from the coffee table.

‘I thought you were stuffed?’ I say.

‘I’m never too stuffed for a toffee penny,’ he says. It’s one of the many millions of reasons we’re compatible: he eats the toffees, I eat the soft centres. I don’t think I could live with someone who made me fight for the orange cremes, I’d spend the Yuletide period low-level furious.