Just My Luck(23)

‘Saturdays is when our gang – the gang – get together. We have dinner, a few drinks.’

We tell one another hilarious stories about our bosses, our families, the other school parents. Actually, we tell each other pretty run-of-the-mill stories but because we usually put away a week’s worth of units in three hours, the stories became hilarious. The incidents recounted may have originally been frustrating, saddening or aggravating, but they became amusing anecdotes. It is then that my shoulders loosen, I stop worrying about Jake’s inability to find a job that he is truly inspired by, or whether I’ve missed the optimal time for Emily to get braces, or whether Logan will be picked for the school football team and I just… relax. And laugh. Out loud. Sometimes until my sides ache.

‘Who exactly is in this gang?’ The way Double Barrel 1 says ‘gang’ makes it sound like I head up the Mafia.

‘Carla and Patrick Pearson, Jennifer and Fred Heathcote, Jake and me. We are good for each other. My frimily,’ I add.

‘Frimily?’ He raises an eyebrow.

‘That’s what I call us. I think I coined the phrase. We’ve often said we were more like family than friends. We met at childbirth classes when we were all preparing for the birth of our first-borns, over fifteen years ago now.’

‘Wow,’ says my lawyer.

I nod, I’m used to people being impressed by the longevity of our friendship. In a world where things are fleeting and unstable, where news is received in 140 characters and national treasures only expect to be flavour of the month for a week, longevity is coveted. A fifteen-year friendship means something.

Or at least, it is supposed to.

‘Time flies when you are having fun,’ comments Gillian.

I agree. ‘Gone in a blink of an eye and yet none of us can even remember a time when we haven’t known one another. You know? Sometimes it seems odd that we weren’t together at college, let alone at each other’s weddings.’

‘So, it’s safe to say you are close?’ asks Double Barrel 2. His posh ink pen poised to make a note.

‘Yes, we’re close. Or at least we were up until—’ I break off.

We’ve helped one another through childbirths, miscarriages, promotions, redundancies, house moves, new puppies and even losing parents. Every triumph and heartbreak. Even though the sitcom show Friends played out its final episode a year before we even met, the influence of the show was still profound. We would never say it aloud as it sounds daft but, on some level, I think the six of us have always seen ourselves as older, British versions of the twenty-somethings who bounced around Manhattan. Frimily.

All the eyes in the room are trained on me as I fight tears. What’s happened is so sad. Money is glorious. Money corrupts. Ruins things. I need to go further back. The past is safe.

‘When we met, we all lived in London. Clapham. The six of us formed the lottery syndicate when our first babies were very young and we were housebound because finding reliable babysitters in Clapham on a Saturday night was about as likely as finding the elixir to eternal youth.’ I look up hopefully, but no one responds to my small joke. I make jokes when I’m stressed. It’s a much-misunderstood habit. I push on. ‘It was then that we started taking turns to host suppers. The evenings were often frantic juggling acts involving crying babies and badly prepared food but we didn’t care, we called it a social life. Then Jennifer and Fred announced their intention to move back to Buckinghamshire, just before Ridley’s first birthday.’

They persuasively cited the many advantages of doing so. We all lived in one-or two-bed apartments in London; Jennifer kept saying that in Bucks we could buy decent-sized semis or even a detached doer-upper. Plus, Bucks had impressive co-ed grammar schools. Sort of private school, without the fees. At the time, I was struggling to get my head around Monkey Music class admissions, but Jennifer insisted that it was important to think ahead. The rail links allowed efficient commutes into London, which meant the career ambitions of the men – and any of the women who wanted to continue to work (just me) – didn’t have to be curtailed by geography. Jennifer and Fred had family on the doorstep, so would have access to reliable childcare and whilst this didn’t apply to the rest of us, Jennifer swore her mum was ready to be ‘Everyone’s Granny’.

‘Patrick and Carla moved out just six months after Fred and Jen. They settled in the same village, Great Chester. It was only when we couldn’t get a decent infant school place for Logan that we decided to join our friends and move out of the city too,’ I explain.

Unfortunately, the property market was booming at the time of our move, and we really didn’t get quite as much bang for our buck as we’d hoped. We settled in Little Chester, a couple of miles away which is, in every way, slightly inferior to Great Chester. Still, it has a pub, a post office and small convenience store. True, we don’t live in one of the pretty wisteria-clad cottages in the high street, we live in a 1990s three-bedroomed semi on the outskirts of the village, but I’ve never regretted the move.

Or, hardly ever.

Admittedly, there isn’t quite so much to do as there was in the UK’s throbbing capital: fewer shops, theatres, galleries, but we make our own entertainment.

‘We fast fell into routines. When the kids were little, we frequently got together for impromptu playdates through the week. That doesn’t happen now. The kids make their own arrangements and I work. But we’ve continued our tradition of meeting up most Saturday evenings, with the dads too. Sometimes we throw what has to be recognised as a dinner party, other times we pick up greasy bags of fish and chips. Keep it low key.’