The Stepmothers’ Support Group

The bottle of Sauvignon Blanc shook in her hand as she refilled his glass and then her own. When she looked up Ian was staring at her. ‘You all right?’ he asked.

‘Of course.’ She smiled before taking a sip. A gulp would have given her away.

‘Can I talk to you?’

Eve laughed. ‘Funny how you don’t ask if you can fuck me. And now you ask if we can talk!’

‘Eve, be serious.’

‘I was, sort of…Of course you can. Either or both,’ she couldn’t help adding.

The tension left his face and he slid a hand down the front of her dressing gown to cup her breast.

‘Talk first,’ he said, crawling around to her side of the picnic, and lying beside her, his head on his elbow, his face serious.

‘I need to tell you something,’ he said.

‘So, tell me.’

‘I’m so grateful, Eve…for everything, but above all for your patience. Believe me, I do know I’m asking a lot.’ She waved his apology away. ‘But there are other things about Caro and me. Things that might help you understand…About Hannah.’

‘What’s she said?’ Eve asked, before she could stop herself.

‘Nothing.’ Ian held up a hand. ‘Chill, OK. It’s going to be harder for her than for the others because she’s the eldest. When Caro became ill Hannah was seven. So she remembers…’ He hesitated. ‘What it was like before, I guess. She remembers things the others don’t. Especially not Alfie. He never really knew his mother. Not properly.’

Caro and me. The words tasted sour in Eve’s mouth. And she hadn’t been the one to speak them. When she looked up, Ian was watching her, obviously wondering whether to continue.

‘What does Hannah remember?’ Eve asked gently.

Ian rubbed his eyes. His skin had greyed, and in the fading light he looked older. For the first time, tiredness showed in the lines of his face.

‘Caro was ill for three years. Think about that. Hannah was ten when she died. A third of her life,’ he sighed. ‘The third she was old enough to remember properly.’

Eve felt her insides knot. She’d wanted to hear this. She needed to know how it had been. Not the publicfriendly version Ian gave in interviews. Had given her in an interview. But how it really was. Now it was coming, she was afraid of what he might be about to tell her.

‘Go on,’ she forced herself to say.

‘When Caro found the lump we didn’t tell Hannah or Sophie there was anything wrong. Even the hospital visits were fairly easy to hide. Alfie was tiny, the others were used to her being away. But then Caro needed a mastectomy.’

Wrapping her robe more tightly around her, Eve waited.

‘She didn’t want to have to hide away every time the girls came into the bathroom or our bedroom. And, of course, she couldn’t breastfeed Alfie any more. So, we told them.’

‘What?’ Eve asked.

‘Mummy needed an operation to make her better.’

Eve nodded.

‘Then, for a long time, Caro was in remission. And then, suddenly, she wasn’t. And the rest, as you know, is terrifyingly well-documented. But it’s not so much the illness that I need to explain to you. It’s my relationship with Caro.’

She felt sick. Eve wasn’t sure she did want this conversation after all. ‘Your relationship?’ she managed.

‘Yes, I’m horribly afraid Hannah has worked it out. The others haven’t. Unless she’s told them.’ Ian stopped, as the full implications of that hit him. ‘She wouldn’t,’ he said. ‘I’m sure she wouldn’t.’

Somehow both their glasses were empty again. Eve refilled Ian’s, but when she shifted to fetch another bottle, he reached out to stop her. His grip on her wrist was gentle but solid.

‘Please,’ he said. ‘If I stop now, I’m never going to start again. And I need to tell you. I need you to know everything. If we’re going to…if we’re going to make this work.’ He stared at her. ‘We are, aren’t we?’

She sat down. Her heart was pounding. ‘Yes,’ she whispered.

‘Look,’ he said. ‘The night Caroline died I wasn’t there. All right? I wasn’t there. Oh, I’d been there up to then. I’d been at the hospice for weeks. Originally she came home when we realized radio and chemo were only making things worse. But eventually she had to go into a hospice. For the kids’ sake. For mine, for her own, I don’t know…But we said it was for the kids.’

Ian took a gulp of wine, then another.

‘I took them to see Caro most days, after school. Or her mother did, when I was working. Although, by the end I’d stopped accepting commissions. We didn’t want the kids to live their day-to-day lives in a house where their mother was dying. Of course, they knew she was ill, very ill. But going to visit, even someone who’s unrecognizably ill, is different from sitting in the same room as them day after day. If you’re six, I mean, or ten.’

‘Or even thirty-eight,’ he added, almost to himself.

‘I’m talking about Sophie and Hannah, because Alfie was only three. I’m not sure what he knows, even now. He’s like “Is Mummy in heaven, Daddy? That’s good. You be Venom, I’ll be Spiderman”.’

Eve smiled, she couldn’t help it. It was so Alfie.

Ian nodded.

‘Anyway,’ he said. ‘The night Caro died I took the children home, gave them a bath and put them to bed. Hannah wasn’t asleep. I knew that, because I could see light under her bedroom door. Although I pretended I couldn’t. It was our ritual. Still is. After I tucked her in, we had a long conversation about Mummy and angels. I wasn’t expecting her to get much sleep that night.’

He looked so haggard by the memory Eve wanted to comfort him, but didn’t know how, so she remained silent and hoped that was right.

‘Gone eleven,’ Ian said. ‘My mobile rang. I knew it was the hospice before I even looked at the screen. They’d agreed to call my mobile instead of the house to avoid disturbing the kids. Caro had lapsed into unconsciousness. They thought it would be soon. Her mother was there already. Her father was on his way. Could I come back?’

This is it, Eve thought. Whatever he’s been wanting to say.

‘Eve, I didn’t even stop to think. There was nothing to think about. I just said no. Someone had to look after the kids. Someone had to get them up, washed, make their breakfast. Someone had to carry on, and that someone was me. That was the way life was. The way I knew life was going to be from that moment on. That’s what I told the nurse, and it’s what I told Caroline’s mother when she called two hours later to tell me her only daughter had gone. She was kind enough to pretend she believed me. But the truth is, I didn’t want to be there. I was done.’

Ian took a deep breath, and Eve watched him wonder if he was really going to say what he was about to say.

‘The truth is,’ he said. ‘We’d been done for years. Caro and I were only together because of the kids and the cancer; not necessarily in that order. Caro knew that, although we rarely spoke about it. And I assume her parents knew; but they were kind, they never judged me. They still don’t. The thing…the thing that worries me…’

He shrugged and eyed his now empty glass.

‘I’m fairly sure Hannah knows too.’

Dusk had fallen while they were talking, and the room was dark but for an orange glow from a street light through still-open curtains, and the tiny screen of the CD player, which had long since fallen silent. For once, the Kentish Town streets around Eve’s one-bedroom flat were quiet, without even the wail of a distant siren.

With Eve, the room held its breath.

It felt to Eve that whole minutes passed before he spoke again. As if they’d slipped into a slower time zone and if they went outside they’d discover time had passed everywhere but there.

‘I had an affair,’ he said. ‘So did she. One. More than one. I don’t know. It didn’t mean anything. It was symptomatic, I guess. Before Alfie was born. He was—what do you call them?—an Elastoplast baby, meant to stick us back together again. Poor little sod. Of course, he couldn’t. How could he? I wasn’t in love with Caroline, hadn’t been for years. She wasn’t in love with me, not any longer. We stayed together for the children, then I stayed for the cancer, then she started that damn newspaper column and our life—our family—became public property. With no way out, except the inevitable.’

SIX

Eve had just discovered the real meaning of walking on air. Ian had stayed Friday night and Saturday night too, leaving on Sunday only to collect his children from Caro’s mother to take them to his own parents in West Sussex where they were all staying for the rest of half-term.

Another first in a weekend of relationship firsts.

A full, blissful, domestic forty-eight hours together, and Eve knew she was in deeper than ever. And Ian was too, she was sure of it. He’d never have told her about Caro, about his infidelity, about hers, if he wasn’t. Far from being thrown by it, she felt her confidence surge.

If she ran into Caitlin now, she could say, hand on heart, big smug grin on her face, ‘Yup, you’re right. I’ve bagged the cream of groovy dads. So hands off!’

Print-outs of the pictures from last week’s feature shoot were already on Eve’s desk, with a Post-it note from Jo, the picture editor.

‘Nice work,’ said Jo’s hastily scrawled note. ‘They’re all fab, but Melanie Cheung is STUNNING.’

No kidding, Eve thought, flicking through the printouts. The line-up of case studies was on top. No prizes for guessing which one was Melanie, even if she hadn’t been the only non-blonde. Her solo portrait was even better.

Eve was about to pick up her desk phone when her mobile rang. Ian mobile flashed up on its screen.

‘Hey, you’re up early.’

He laughed. ‘You’ve got a lot to learn, Alfie’s been up so long he’s had second breakfast.’

‘Second breakfast?’

‘I blame Lord of the Rings. All those hungry hobbits. Can you talk?’

Eve glanced around. The office was empty. ‘Nobody in yet but me. What’s up?’

‘Nothing. I’ve just been thinking, wondering really, if you’d like to come around to the house at the weekend? Saturday lunch, maybe? See the kids in their natural habitat. If you’re free, that is?’

If she was free? Eve couldn’t help grinning. Of course she was free.

‘Sure,’ she said casually. ‘I’ll just check my diary.’

‘If you’re not, it’s…’

‘Ian!’ She laughed. ‘I was kidding! Of course I’m free. What time do you want me?’

Sliding her mobile back into her bag, Eve collected her thoughts and picked up her desk phone, punching in Nancy Morris’s number from memory.

‘What a result,’ she said when Nancy answered. ‘Melanie Cheung looks fabulous—if her story is even half as good we’ve had a lucky break.’

‘Good?’ said Nancy. ‘Her story’s brilliant. She’s Chinese/American, from Boston, but don’t let that put Miriam off,’ she added hastily, knowing how the editor could be about non-Brit case studies. ‘She meets this British guy in New York, they have a whirlwind romance, he proposes and she moves to London to be with him.

She was a lawyer there, pretty high-flying by the sound of it, and she chucked it all in for him. From what she says the whole episode sounds out of character, but hey, we’ve all been there.’

Speak for yourself, Eve thought. Never one for grand romantic gestures, it wouldn’t have occurred to her to let anything so insignificant as love get in the way of life. Well, not until Ian. Now she wouldn’t rule out anything.

‘Like I thought,’ Nancy said. ‘It was a classic she-wants-kids/he-doesn’t scenario. She was in her early thirties, clock ticking, and he wouldn’t even discuss it, said kids weren’t consistent with his lifestyle, apparently. He ended it, although she won’t talk about that on the record. If you ask me, she was gutted. You don’t look the way she does unless you’ve spent a considerable amount of time on the heartbreak diet.’

‘Uh-huh,’ Eve murmured by way of encouragement. Heartbreak had never had that effect on her. Maybe her heart had never been sufficiently broken.

‘Her parents are crazy for a grandchild,’ Nancy continued. ‘Last of their line and all that, and blame her for the breakdown of the marriage. Her mother, old-school Chinese, accuses her of putting her career before doing her duty and having a family, which, according to Melanie, couldn’t be further from the truth. Anyway, the whole thing makes her re-evaluate her life. So she sells the duplex in Holland Park that was her divorce settlement and ploughs every last penny into her internet start-up. Which, as we now know, is reckoned to be the new NET-A-PORTER.’

‘Fantastic,’ Eve said, typing her password as Nancy spoke. A hundred and eighty e-mails awaited her. At least ninety per cent of those would head straight for the trash. ‘I’m almost glad the first case study pulled out.’

‘It gets better,’ Nancy said, the grin obvious in her voice.

‘Not possible.’

‘The ex? He’s Simeon Jones.’

Eve racked her brain, but the name didn’t ring any immediate bells.

‘Call yourself a journalist. He’s that hedge fund guy. And not just any old hedge fund guy, either. He’s the king of them, been all over the society pages since he married Poppy King-Jones, the model. You know the one. Working-class girl from Rotherham made good.’

OK, now there was a bell ringing.

‘C’mon,’ Nancy was getting frustrated. ‘Less than two years after he dumped Melanie ‘cause he didn’t want to start a family, the guy is married to a supermodel and the father of a one-year-old. Although not necessarily in that order! Tell me that’s not a good story?’

Eve was impressed, but not that impressed. ‘So we throw a society ex into the mix,’ she said. ‘Is that going to add to the story? I think it’ll just turn readers off.’

She’d have had more time for Melanie Cheung if she hadn’t turned out to be one of those women who’d go to the opening of an envelope. Because that was the only place you met men like Simeon Jones.

‘God,’ Nancy said. ‘There’s no pleasing some people. No wonder Miriam rates you…Melanie Cheung crawls from the ashes of her divorce to launch the most successful start-up of the year, recently valued on paper at least at—’ She named an eye-watering figure. ‘And her “celebrity ex” throws it all back in her face by rushing off to procreate with one of this country’s biggest models.

‘So, not only does Melanie have to handle being dumped for one of the world’s most beautiful women, she can’t even open a magazine without seeing her ex with his picture-perfect new family. The family he refused to have with her.

‘And on top of that, she’s recently started seeing a new guy, Vince something or other, I forget what. She met him through the business. It’s early days, by the sound of it, and he’s just dropped a ten-year-old daughter from his first marriage on her from a great height. Now he wants Melanie to meet her, the daughter, not the ex…Surrounded by kids, and not one of them hers. Tough, huh?’

‘Fascinating,’ Eve said. ‘But I think we need to stick to our angle: how divorce spurred her into launching a business.’

‘Well, you’d better not be so snotty when she calls you.’ Nancy sounded put out.

‘Calls me? Why would she call me?’ Eve felt herself tense. ‘Tell me you didn’t promise her copy approval?’

‘God no. What do you take me for?’

‘So, why is Melanie Cheung going to call me?’

‘That’s what I’ve been trying to say. I told her about your club.’

‘My…What club? ’

‘Oh you know, the stepmother thing. That get together you have for women landed with other people’s kidshaped baggage.’

Eve wanted to smack her head on the desk.

‘Nancy! That was a coffee. One coffee. With one other woman, plus her sister. It was just for moral support.’

‘Well, whatever. Club, support group, coffee morning. I mentioned it to Melanie and she asked if you’d mind if she came along. So I said, contact you.’

‘Thanks,’ said Eve.

‘That’s OK,’ Nancy replied, the sarcasm going right over her head. Or maybe not. ‘Melanie says she needs all the moral support she can get. So I gave her your work number and e-mail address. She’s going to call to find out when the next meeting is. If you don’t want her to come, all you need to do is tell her.’

Next meeting.

What next meeting?

Her good mood evaporated, Eve stabbed irritably at her keyboard, deleting e-mails. She could kill Nancy, really she could. Mind you, she could kill herself more for mentioning it in the first place. You’re a journalist for crying out loud. The first rule is you never tell anyone—especially not another journalist—anything that you don’t want to see in print.

As she dumped updates from dailycandy, mediaguardian, style.com, mediabistro and the Washington Post without bothering to open them, her eyes alighted on a name she’d been entirely unfamiliar with until a few days earlier. But it wasn’t just Melanie Cheung’s e-mail address that made Eve’s heart sink. It was what Melanie had written in the subject box:

Stepmothers’ Support Group.

‘Melanie? You in there? There’s a call for you…’

Clambering to her feet, Melanie Cheung peered around one of the dozens of plastic-shrouded fashion rails that lined her stockroom. If personalshopper.com carried on growing at this rate they were going to have to out-source fulfilment, and do it soon. The warehouse off the Caledonian Road had seemed perfect eighteen months ago when she was setting up, not least because Melanie could live above the shop. Now she could barely move for cardboard boxes. Her company was growing too big and too fast. Melanie knew that was better than the alternative. In the current climate, the entire shopping population of London didn’t have enough fingers to count the number of start-ups that had gone under in the last year. And now the recession was squeezing more. So the scale and speed of the company’s success terrified Melanie.

Terrified and thrilled her.

This monster was hers. The first thing she had done for herself—done at all, in fact, beyond shopping and smiling and making small talk—since she moved to London as Mrs Simeon Jones, and the mere thought made her heart pound with excitement.

‘Tell them I’ll call back,’ she said. ‘I’m kinda busy right now.’

‘Already did,’ said Grace, Melanie’s office manager, right-hand woman and what passed for friend. Scratch that, only friend. ‘But she’s pretty persistent. It’s from that magazine you did an interview for last week. She says you’re expecting her call. Eve someone. Sorry, I didn’t catch the surname.’

Melanie swallowed hard. Now she’d really done it. ‘OK…’ she said. ‘Tell her I’ll be right there.’

‘Melanie Cheung speaking.’

Two years after the split, eighteen months after the decree absolute, it still surprised her how easily she had become Melanie Cheung again. Melanie Jones had vanished as quickly as she’d appeared. Sometimes it seemed to Melanie as if the other her had only ever been a ghost. The real her had always been there, lurking just beneath the surface, biding her time, waiting to make her move.

‘Hi, this is Eve Owen,’ said a voice on the other end of the phone. ‘From Beau.’

The woman sounded cool; official, if not exactly unfriendly. ‘I got your e-mail. And, to be honest, I think Nancy might have given you the wrong impression.’

‘In—in what way?’ Melanie’s heart was pounding.

This probably wasn’t what she’d thought it was. Probably the woman was just calling to check some facts, but still Melanie had to resist the urge to check her reflection in the small mirror that hung on the back of her office door.

‘Well, we’re not really a group, to be honest. Or a club, or anything like that. We’re just friends, well, two of us are. And we’ve only had one meeting, so far. And that wasn’t so much a meeting as a couple of cups of coffee. And one of us isn’t even a stepmum.’

‘Oh.’ Melanie didn’t know what she’d been expecting, but it certainly wasn’t this. ‘It’s just that Nancy—your reporter—well, she said…’

‘So I gather. Anyway, to get to the point, I’ve spoken to the others.’

‘The other members?’

‘Like I said, it’s not a club, so there are no members. But I’ve spoken to my friend Clare, and she’s spoken to Lily, who’s her sister, and we’ve decided…’

Melanie sighed. To say this woman sounded reluctant was the understatement of the year. But if she’d learnt anything from her ill-advised marriage to Simeon Jones it was that there was no such thing as a free handbag. If something sounded too good to be true, in Melanie’s experience, it usually was.

She was about to put the woman out of her misery, tell her not to worry, it was all a misunderstanding, when Eve spoke again. ‘We’re meeting Tuesday week at seven. Starbucks on Carnaby Street. Come along if you’re free. You can meet the others and we’ll, you know, see how it goes…’

For several seconds the words didn’t sink in.

‘Unless you don’t want to?’ Eve said, slightly too quickly. Her tone was part-relief, part-irritation.

‘No, no. I do,’ said Melanie. ‘That’s…perfect. Just perfect. I’ll see you then.’

SEVEN

‘You remember Eve?’

The small blonde girl sitting cross-legged on an old rug peered shyly through her fringe. ‘Hello,’ she said. ‘I finished my book. It was good.’

‘Hello Sophie,’ Eve said. ‘I’m glad you liked it.’

‘Alfie hasn’t read his,’ the girl said, ‘He says it’s Venom’s vehicle.’

Eve smiled inside. Were small girls in some way programmed to tell tales? ‘That’s fine,’ she said. ‘It can be whatever Alfie wants it to be. Where is he anyway?’

A thundering on the hall stairs, in no way proportionate to the size of the shoes using it, answered her question. ‘Eeeeve,’ he shouted, launching himself into the room. ‘Have you bought me a present?’

‘Alfie!’ Ian said.

Eve just laughed, there was no way she’d get caught out like that again. Alfie was easy enough to buy presents for, but then she’d have to buy presents for the other two and that meant finding something Hannah wouldn’t reject.

‘No presents this time,’ she said. ‘It’s not a special occasion.’

Alfie cocked his head to one side as he processed the information. ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘When is a special occasion?’

‘Christmas,’ Eve said, thinking on her feet. ‘Easter, your birthday, that sort of thing.’

His face crumpled in confusion. ‘But you gave me Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and it wasn’t my…’

Eve looked at Ian in panic.

‘It’s OK,’ Ian said, rumpling Alfie’s hair. ‘That was different. That was a late present because Eve missed Easter.’

‘Oh,’ Alfie seemed satisfied. ‘What’s for lunch?’

‘What would you like?’ From the way Ian asked, Eve gathered he already knew the answer.

‘Pizza!’ Alfie yelled and galloped from the room, leading his imaginary army in search of a takeaway menu, which, apparently, was in his bedroom.

‘Red wine? White wine? Beer? Tea?’ Ian asked, as he led Eve back into the hallway. At some point its original black and white Victorian floor tiles had been lovingly restored. Eve tried not to wonder by whom.

‘White please, if you’ve got one open.’

‘What do you think?’ he asked, pushing open the door to the kitchen. Sun poured through a large bay, bouncing off the white walls and giving the scrubbed pine table and cupboards a golden glow. ‘Like it?’

‘What’s not to like?’ she gasped. Eve couldn’t imagine owning a place like this. You could fit her flat twice into the kitchen alone. ‘It’s beautiful.’

Throwing a glance over his shoulder before he pushed the door to, Ian slid his arms around her. ‘So are you,’ he said and kissed her.

‘Daddeee!’ a wail came from halfway up the stairs and Ian rolled his eyes. ‘Talk about timing. Take a seat,’ he nodded at the old pews that lined either side of the table. ‘While I go and sort that out.’