Twenty-four

Frances was the last to leave. Steve had gone first, leaving Meg the solicitor’s number on a piece of paper he attached to the fridge door by a Teletubby magnet.

“Just in case,” he said. “Jill says you should be prepared for everything.” He thought for a moment and dropped a hand on Meg’s shoulder. “And I say you’re a bloody marvelous woman and you shouldn’t accept anything but the best. Promise me you won’t, Meg.”

Meg smiled up at him. “I won’t, Steve,” she said. “That’s the last thing I want.”

Jess had gone soon after, when Jacob woke from his nap and wouldn’t stop crying.

“See you all at Tiff’s,” she had to say quite loudly to be heard over his yells.

They had been discussing when to hold the next meeting, and Frances had put into words what the rest of them were reluctant to say.

“Well, it’s my turn, of course, but I hardly think considering my current guest that it is an appropriate venue.”

“And it’s not fair to keep turning up at Meg’s all the time,” Steve said. “I bet she’s sick of the sight of us.”

“Well, Jess and Steve have already held a group and we know Natalie currently has workmen in, so that leaves…” Frances stared pointedly at Tiffany, who instantly retreated back to the shy and awkward girl she often was around the other members. Her cheeks flushed pink and she sank her head between her shoulders.

“Oh well,” Natalie said, keen to take the spotlight off her friend. “Come to mine, the work’s all but done anyway, so…”

“No,” Tiffany said, at first so quietly that no one heard. “No,” she repeated. This time the others looked at her. “I can do it.”

“What’s that, love?” Steve asked her.

“I can hold a meeting at my flat. You might as well know I live on the thirteenth floor of a high rise and I’ve got hardly any furniture and no cups that match—” she glanced at Meg’s table—“or a milk jug. But I can make tea, so if you don’t mind the odd chip in your cup, you can all come to mine.”

It seemed more like a challenge than an invitation, but Natalie was pleased that Tiffany had issued it.

“Brilliant idea!” she said. “Of course it’s Tiff’s turn. Thank God, I say, that means I have a few more days to evict my mother before you come round—what a relief!”

Tiffany had carefully written out the address and her telephone number for everyone but Natalie, who had been there before. “Eleven o’clock next Tuesday then?” she said.

Everybody agreed to be there, and Tiffany was able to smile again, with a mixture of pleasure and anxiety. After all, the only other thing she’d hosted in her entire life was a sleepover.

Tiffany had been upstairs changing Jordan as Natalie collected her things, instructed to wait for Tiff so they could leave together. Frances went to the loo (or possibly to surreptitiously clean it), leaving Meg and Natalie alone for a few minutes.

“Are you okay, Natalie?” Meg asked out of the blue.

“Who, me?” Natalie sat up straight, as if she’d just been caught napping in class. “Yeah, I’m fine. Why wouldn’t I be?”

“You look a bit…preoccupied,” Meg said, with concern. “Like you had a bit of a sleepless night, too.”

Natalie hoped to God that she didn’t look as guilty as she felt.

“Look,” Meg went on, “you know that just because I’m in the middle of all of this, it doesn’t mean you can’t still talk to me if you need to. Has something happened with Gary?”

Natalie looked at Meg, dear sweet Meg with her tear-bruised eyes and red raw nose, and with all the pain that was weighing so heavily on her shoulders, and for a second she wanted to tell her everything. But how could she? It would be so unfair to expect Meg to deal with her problems. And besides that, Meg was offering to help a woman who didn’t really exist. Maybe she wouldn’t like the real Natalie at all, whoever that was.

“No, there’s no problem,” she said. “Gary and I are fine.”

“Which one?” Tiffany said as she walked into the kitchen.

Natalie looked at her. “Pardon?”

“I mean, which Gary? It must be confusing having two Garys in your life.”

After that Natalie left in rather a hurry with Tiffany close behind.

“I know, you know,” Tiffany said almost as soon as they’d left Meg’s house.

Natalie hurried on as if she could somehow outstrip the slender teenager with her speed and strength. But of course she couldn’t, Tiffany was more than a match for her. She’d just have to get the whole conversation over with as quickly as possible. She took a deep breath.

“What do you know?” she said.

“I know that you had sex with Gary last night.”

“How can you know?” Natalie asked her, scandalized. “Did he tell you?”

“He didn’t have to,” Tiffany said quite smugly. “You just did. It was written all over his face when he came to pick up Anthony this morning. I asked him why he was so pleased with himself and he said he couldn’t tell me. I just made an educated guess that it had to be something to do with you—and I was right.”

“Curses! Foiled again.” Natalie couldn’t help but find Tiffany’s satisfaction in being right quite amusing.

“It’s not funny, Natalie!” Tiffany exclaimed. “You’re totally out of order, you do know that, don’t you?”

Natalie walked on briskly; as fond as she was of Tiffany she had, in her opinion at least, far more pressing matters to think about and do just now than receive a dressing down from a surprisingly prudish sixteen-year-old.

“Tiffany,” she said, with more than a hint of condescension. “You are a lovely girl, a girl who has had more than her fair share of life experiences at a young age. But you are still only sixteen. Gary is a consenting adult and so am I. It was what we both wanted and we both knew where we stood, so really it’s not as big a deal as you think it is.”

“It is a big deal!” Tiffany protested. “Gary really likes you and you still love this Jack bloke. Don’t use him, Natalie. You’re better than that.”

Natalie stopped dead in her tracks.

“I know,” she said. “Tiffany, look…it was a stupid and wrong thing to do. It’s not going to happen again. Neither of us wants it to.”

“Gary would, I can tell,” Tiffany said. “Look, you have to realize he’s not just some distraction to take your mind off things or some other stupid complication to get yourself caught up in. He’s been really good to me and Anthony, really good. If he gets hurt…” Tiffany trailed off before adding with a hint of menace, “I don’t want that to happen.”

“It won’t,” Natalie reassured her. “We made a mistake and that’s all. Look, please will you just pretend you don’t know? For my sake and Gary’s?”

Tiffany’s scowl was still quite fierce.

“I like you, Natalie,” she said, even though she looked as if the very opposite were true. “But you really should think before you act. You rush in too fast. Actions have consequences, you know.”

Natalie looked from Freddie’s buggy to Jordan’s.

“I think you and I know that better than most people, don’t we?” she said, with a wry smile.

“I just don’t know what you want from him,” Tiffany said, beginning to walk on. “Look at you, you’ve got a lovely baby, a ton of money, a big job, a nice house, and you’re still not happy!”

“How do you know I’m not happy?” Natalie asked her huffily. “I’ve never told you that!”

“You don’t have to,” Tiffany said. “It’s written all over your face.”