The Stepmothers’ Support Group

Lily sighed loudly.

But as Eve pictured a teenage Clare nudging her elbow towards that glass, it wasn’t her friend she saw. The skinny face that stared defiantly as sticky brown liquid splashed across the table was Hannah’s. And suddenly the story didn’t seem as clear-cut.

‘Liam’s got a little girl, hasn’t he?’ Eve asked Lily. Her attempt to move the subject on could hardly be less subtle. ‘How old is she?’

‘Rosie,’ Lily said. She’d obviously planned to say as little as possible, and leave as quickly as she could, but even she looked grateful that Eve had stopped Clare in her tracks. ‘She’s three. Adorable, in a girly way. Yours?’

‘Not really mine.’

‘They never are,’ Lily said, sounding far older than her years. ‘That’s the whole point, isn’t it? So, how old are they?’

‘Hannah’s twelve, going on fifteen. Sophie’s nine and Alfie’s five and two months. And don’t you dare forget the two months!’ Eve smiled. ‘I’ve only met them once. And that was terrifying enough.’

‘Three of them! I can barely cope with Rosie.’

‘I know the feeling,’ Eve said. ‘I had no idea it would be so hard. They’re just kids, after all.’

‘Just kids? ’ Clare said. ‘You’re kidding, right?’

‘Of course,’ Eve smiled weakly. ‘I wanted them to like me so much. That’s why I bought them the books,’ she explained to Lily. ‘That was my big mistake, right there. I shouldn’t have bothered. Especially without running it by Ian first. I opened myself right up and now I’m afraid I’ve blown it.’

‘What does Ian say?’ Lily asked.

Eve stared at her hands. ‘I haven’t told him,’ she admitted. ‘We haven’t really seen each other properly since. And I don’t want to worry him.’

Don’t want him to think there might be a problem, more like, she thought.

‘Is that usual?’ Lily asked.

‘What?’

‘Going a fortnight without seeing him properly?’

‘Not really, but it’s not unusual. It depends on both our work, his childcare arrangements—he has an au pair, but he tries to be home as much as possible to cover homework—that kind of thing.

‘We talk about it all the time,’ Eve continued. ‘How to spend more time together, I mean. But Ian wants to take it slowly—for the sake of the kids. It’s a difficult balancing act. I’m trying to understand, but it’s not easy.

‘So much of our relationship has been like this,’ she continued. ‘Cups of coffee, quick drinks on his way home, dinner and the odd evening at my place. We’ve managed a night away a couple of times, but overnighters are rare…Understandably enough,’ she added, for fear of sounding bitter. ‘They’re going to their grandparents’ in a couple of weeks, so he’ll stay with me then.’

She felt like a teenager, aware her face lit up at the mere thought of a whole twenty-four hours together.

Said out loud it sounded paltry, embarrassing. A grown woman excited by a Saturday night sleepover. ‘It’s the kids,’ she repeated. ‘He wants to ease them in gently.’

It was a well-worn line. One she trotted out every time anyone asked after her love life.

‘You can hardly blame him,’ Clare put in, plonking three full mugs on the table in front of them. ‘They’ve lost their mum, after all. The last thing they need is to feel they’ve lost their dad too.’

Eve and Lily had been so engrossed they hadn’t noticed Clare was gone until she’d returned with the second round of coffees.

Lily nodded thoughtfully. ‘So, he’s a proper dad,’ she said. ‘Unlike Liam.’ She smiled indulgently. ‘He’s an every third weekender. And then only when he remembers.’

‘Liam forgets?’

‘Oh yeah,’ Clare said. ‘He’d forget his head if it wasn’t screwed on.’

‘My turn,’ Eve said, reaching for her purse.

‘OK,’ said Lily. ‘But I’ll get the next round.’

Clare raised her eyebrows.

‘If there is one, obviously,’ Lily added hastily.

‘It wasn’t that much,’ Clare said, looking at the ten pound note Eve was holding out to her. When Eve rolled her eyes, Clare took it anyway. It would pay her Tube fare home.

‘Back to Liam,’ she said. ‘And his convenient bouts of amnesia.’

‘Don’t start,’ said Lily, but her tone was light and the smile reached her eyes as she pulled a picture from her wallet. It showed a slightly thickset man, with dark curly hair and crinkly brown eyes. He was good-looking, if you liked the type, and he knew it.

‘Looks like Jimmy Nesbitt with longer hair,’ Eve said.

‘God, don’t tell him that,’ said Lily. ‘He’s vain enough as he is.’

‘I’m not sure Eve meant that as a compliment.’

Lily caught Eve’s eye and both women grinned. ‘Thing is,’ she said, ‘I know Clare doesn’t appreciate his finer qualities…’

She ignored her sister choking pointedly on her coffee.

‘But I love him. I’ve never met anyone like him. He’s funny and clever and…’

‘The sex is great,’ said Clare.

‘Clare!’

‘You’re telling me it isn’t?’

‘OK, the sex is great,’ Lily grinned. ‘You’re just jealous.

‘Seriously, though,’ she returned her attention to Eve. ‘If you’d told me a year ago I’d be taking on a guy twelve years older than me with a three-year-old kid I’d have told you to dream on, so I guess that makes it a bit more than great sex.’

Lily smiled again. ‘But, yes, he forgets, a lot…’

‘And you can’t do that with a kid,’ Clare completed for her.

‘Never make a promise you can’t keep.’ Eve put in. She had heard it from Ian, about a zillion times. Never fight a battle you can’t win. Let the small stuff go. Concentrate on the things that matter.

‘Well,’ Lily said. ‘Let’s just say, reliability isn’t Liam’s strongest point. Not even where Rosie’s concerned.’

‘Understatement,’ Clare snorted. ‘Tell her about the FA Cup quarter-final.’

‘Not his finest moment. Rosie comes every third weekend. Liam picks her up Saturday, takes her back Sunday. He fixes his shifts around it. We both do, if we can.’

‘Which paper’s he on?’

Lily named a tabloid.

‘Anyway, that’s how our free Saturdays are spent, babysitting.’ She glanced at her sister, and Eve was impressed to see Clare remain silent.

All of Clare’s were spent babysitting.

‘So, he got a call late Friday night saying they needed him to cover the quarter-final. To be fair, he did try to get out of it. I heard him. But his editor wasn’t having it. And, ultimately, work’s work. The paper comes first, everything else is second. That’s what he’s like. What he’s always been like.’

Now that Eve understood.

Taking a gulp of coffee, Lily said, ‘He couldn’t face calling Siobhan—his ex—at midnight. I didn’t blame him. It’s not exactly amicable at the best of times and this was going to cause a huge row.’

Clare nodded. She’d obviously heard it before.

‘When he left next morning, I just assumed he’d call her on his way to work. I was on the verge of phoning the Comedy Club to see if they needed any shifts covering, when his doorbell rings. So I picked up the videophone assuming it’s the post or something. There’s Siobhan, with Rosie, Angelina Ballerina rucksack and all.’

‘God!’ said Eve, horrified. ‘What did you do?’

‘What could I do?’ Lily shrugged. ‘I let her in. Siobhan was furious. Man, did she give me a piece of her mind. It’s funny how she’s changed the goalposts to suit her. She refused to let me anywhere near Rosie in the beginning. But then Liam told her that if she wanted every third weekend off, Rosie would be spending it with us or she’d be making other arrangements. So she backed off.’

‘New boyfriend,’ Clare said. ‘Wants some time for herself.’

For a split-second Eve’s eyes met Lily’s.

‘So there I was—and there Liam wasn’t,’ Lily continued. ‘I was at least as furious with Liam as Siobhan was. Being lumbered with his kid without anyone even having the decency to ask, but there was no way I was going to let Siobhan see that.’

‘What about Rosie?’ Eve asked. ‘Did her mum take her away again?’

‘Fat chance!’ Lily was emphatic. ‘She dumped her on the settee, turned on CBeebies and shut the flat door so she could spit venom in the privacy of a communal stairwell. She said I could tell Liam she expected him to deliver Rosie back at the usual time and she’d be having words with him. Then she buggered off. Can’t say I blame her. But talk about kicking the cat.’

Eve was blown away by the young woman’s calmness. She wasn’t sure she would know how to cope with this now, let alone when she’d been Lily’s age.

Maybe she could learn something after all…

FOUR

His dark head was burrowed into the pillow, and his flat silent but for the sound of his breathing when Lily finally pushed open the door to the bedroom she shared with Liam. As she stood in a strip of light from the hall, she couldn’t help feeling a pang. A bit of her wanted to reach out and stroke his hair. Another bit wanted a quiet life and some sleep. She couldn’t risk waking him, and didn’t want another scrap, because scrap was all they had done since Rosie’s last visit.

If they were speaking at all.

Surely this wasn’t how it was meant to be? Surely this wasn’t what having kids did to you? Even kids who weren’t your own.

Reaching back to click off the hall light, Lily heard a floorboard creak, making Liam grumble in his sleep and burrow further under the duvet. She waited for him to settle, before shutting the door and shucking off her clothes, her eyes adjusting to the quasi-darkness of south London, visible through a gap in his curtains.

God knows she loved him. She just hadn’t bargained for this. She was twenty-three, twelve years younger than he was. And suddenly she was being referred to as Mum by Polish waitresses in Pizza Hut.

When I was your age I was married with a three-year-old.

Her mother’s voice echoed through her head. Yes, Lily thought, as she always did. And so was Clare. Well, not the married bit. That was precisely why Lily was determined to do things differently.

What had she been thinking, getting involved with a not-quite-single dad? It wasn’t as if she hadn’t been out with boys with baggage before. In fact, the bigger the baggage the better she liked it. If Lily had a type it was tall, skinny and arty…All cheekbones, hipbones, angst and assorted undesirable habits.

So what was she doing with a slightly stocky sports reporter who came with a child attached? It didn’t bear thinking about.

Except, of course, thought hadn’t come into it. Their second bottle of Pinot Grigio—or was it the third, who knew?—had seen to that. And the sex was amazing, even drunk. Or should that be especially drunk? But when her wine goggles came off, Lily hadn’t moved on in her usual easy-come, easy-go way. Moving on hadn’t even entered her head.

Somehow, Lily Adams, who never let a man get under her skin, let alone in the way of her ambition to make it on the comedy circuit, had found herself organising her weekends around a three-year-old. That was something they didn’t mention in all those magazine features about the Dos and Don’ts of twenty-first-century relationships. Where were the features on falling in love with a man with baggage? The ones about how to handle his ex, know Peppa Pig from Iggle Piggle, or planning your Saturday around trips to the playground.

Making a mental note to suggest those to Eve next time they met, Lily slid into bed beside Liam.

To Lily’s surprise, her brief coffee with Clare and Eve had turned into a long yack; only ending when a Portuguese barista, with trainee written across his back, started mopping up around them. Lily had serious grovelling to do when she got back to the Comedy Club, gone nine, to find the show almost at the first interval and Brendan cashing up the till himself.

‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘Really sorry. It won’t happen again.’

‘Whatever.’ Brendan’s shrug suggested it couldn’t matter less. ‘But, next time you want an evening off, just book it like everyone else.’

So when the show finished, and the stragglers and autograph hunters had gone, she insisted he head to the pub with the crew for a pint before closing time. She stayed behind to lock up. It meant braving the night bus with its drunks and letches, but in the circumstances it was the least she could do.

‘Lil, that you?’

The sleepiness was obvious in Liam’s voice, as he rolled over and draped his arm heavily across her hip. ‘S’late…You OK?’

Her body instinctively curled into his. ‘Work,’ she whispered. ‘It was my turn to lock up.’

‘Look, I’m sorry about the Rosie thing,’ Liam said, his sleep-fogged breath hot against her ear. ‘My fault entirely. Should have called on my way to the match. And then it was too late and…’

I know, Lily thought, you gutless sod, you chickened out.

‘Sorry you got landed with my shit.’ He nuzzled the back of her neck, and she could feel him hardening against the base of her spine. Despite herself, she pushed against him. ‘It won’t happen again,’ he promised, sliding one hand up to her breast, the tips of his fingers grazing her nipple. ‘I’ll straighten it out, I promise. You do believe me, don’t you?’

Her brain didn’t, not really.

But for that moment at least, her body did.

Two hours later Lily was lying, eyes wide open, staring at streetlamp shadows and passing headlights on the ceiling. It wasn’t the itchy-eyed insomnia she’d suffered since childhood, the kind that guaranteed her migraines by the following lunchtime.

She was warm and her body relaxed; she’d even been dozing since they’d finished making love and Liam had sunk back into his usual impenetrable slumber. No, she’d been woken by a thought. And now that thought was bugging her.

Liam and she had barely gone forty-eight hours without sex since they met, let alone two weeks. And it hadn’t escaped her notice that he’d made peace in the nick of time for Rosie’s next visit. Now that thought was playing on her mind. Was he really sorry? Had he missed her as much as she’d missed him? Had he been as unhappy about the quarrelling as she was? Or was he just worried he might have to field his daughter on his own for twentyfour hours?

No, she wiped the thought from her mind. Liam was many things, but calculating was not one of them.

‘Any luck with that case study?’

Eve was on the phone to Nancy Morris, a regular contributor to Beau. What should have been a straightforward ‘four women who…’ feature had turned into a nightmare when the fourth case study had pulled out that morning. The shoot was in two hours. Somewhere in London there had to be a woman aged twenty-eight to forty-five, who had turned emotional trauma into business success and could get to a photographic studio in Chalk Farm by two o’clock at the latest.

‘I’ve got two possibilities,’ said Nancy. ‘If Miriam hates them we’re up shit creek without a paddle; not to put too fine a point on it.’

Eve laughed. Beau’s editor was notoriously choosy. Did they have the right age range, geographical spread and racial mix? And that was even before she’d approved photos of them. ‘Tell me what you’ve got.’

‘I’m e-mailing you the pics now. They can both do a shoot this afternoon, but the first is best, by a mile. Her name’s Melanie Cheung. She’s thirty-five, and she sold her home and ploughed all her savings into an internet fashion business after her marriage fell apart. You’ve probably heard of it, personalshopper.com?’

Eve had. It was one of those genius, ‘why didn’t I think of that?’ ideas, mixing the high-end edited choice straight-to-your-desk ease of NET-A-PORTER, with a personal shopping service. When you signed up, you just put in your sizes, budget, colouring and examples of items and labels you already owned to give an idea of your personal style. And every week your personalshopper e-mailed you a tailor-made list from their new stock. Click on the items you liked, and they’d be delivered by six p.m., provided you ordered before one p.m. (And lived in London, of course. Everyone else had to wait twenty-four hours.) Not that Eve had bought anything. Most of the items had ‘investment’ sized price tags.

‘So there’s a good entrepreneur-rises-from-ashes-of-failed-marriage story,’ Nancy was saying. ‘And I think, if we dig around, there might be an I-wanted-kids/he-didn’t angle. If that’s not muddying the waters too much. I’ll play that by ear, if that’s OK?’

‘Sure,’ Eve said.

‘She lives in London, of course. Which means we have three London-based case studies. But realistically, at this short notice, anyone who can make a shoot this afternoon is going to be here already. Plus, she’s Chinese, so not blonde.’

‘Thank God,’ Eve said. ‘We’ve got three blondes already. You sure she can make it?’

‘Surer than sure. To be honest, I’ve already teed her up. I had to.’

Eve sighed. ‘Is it worth me even looking at the other?’

‘Probably not,’ Nancy said, as she gave Eve the top line on the alternate case study. She was right. Although the woman had set up a business, she was selling scented candles from her Notting Hill living room, there was nowhere near enough human interest to garner readers’ sympathy. Also, she was blonde.

‘We’ll go for Melanie,’ Eve said, forwarding the photo to her editor, having added the relevant details. ‘I know Miriam usually demands a choice, but there’s no time to mess around. I’ll square it with her.’

‘Tell me again why there’s only one option?’

‘Because the other is blonde and we’ve got three of those already. Plus, her marriage hasn’t fallen apart and she didn’t launch one of the most successful start-ups of the year from the ashes of her relationship.’

‘And why do we have three London-based case studies?’

‘Because we’re paying David a thousand quid to do the shoot and she has to be at the studio in under two hours.’

Miriam wasn’t thrilled. But Eve also knew her boss could spot the difference between a rock and a hard place, as surely as she knew when she was wedged between them.

With her editor squared, Eve headed down the office to the picture desk. Thank God Melanie Cheung was size 10. That way, they’d be able to scrounge some samples from the fashion department, before they were returned to the designers.

One of the designers, Caitlin, was regaling the picture editor with a weekly update of the dating woes of a thirtysomething singleton.

‘You could hardly move for groovy dads,’ Caitlin was saying. ‘You know, sexy, slouchy thirtyish, maybe fortysomething, cute little kids in matching jeans and kiddie Converse. All carrying eco-shoppers stuffed with locally grown asparagus. Although, I mean, how local can it be if you buy it in Queens Park?’

‘So what’s your problem?’ Jo, the picture editor, asked. ‘I thought hunting down a groovy dad was your preferred weekend pastime.’

‘Me and the rest of the single female population of north London,’ Caitlin sighed. ‘Anyway, the problem with the Queens Park farmers’ market crowd is they usually come with a groovy mum attached!’

The art department rang with laughter. ‘You don’t live anywhere near Queens Park,’ Jo said. ‘What were you doing there anyway?’

‘Hunting. I had a tip-off,’ Caitlin said, lowering her tone and pushing subtly highlighted hair out of her blue eyes. ‘Anyway, I have a plan.’

Jo waited.

‘Even groovy mums and dads split up,’ Caitlin said. ‘So somewhere in there has to be a groovy separated every-other-weekend dad. That means changing my MO. From next weekend, I’m going to take my sister’s kids as bait and disguise myself as a groovy estranged mum. That gives me five days to train my nieces to answer to Phoebe and Scarlett. If you see me hanging by the organic cheese stall with two adorable little girls, do me a favour—don’t blow my cover.’

Jo grinned. Looking up from her screen, she spotted Eve. ‘Got one?’

‘Yup,’ said Eve. ‘And she’s perfect. She’s sample size and can be there by two.’ She gave a bow to accept the applause that wasn’t forthcoming.

‘What d’you think of Caitlin’s idea?’ Jo asked. ‘I mean, you’re the expert. Does it sound like a plan?’

‘Sorry, groovy dads, not my specialist subject.’

Jo and Caitlin snorted in unison. ‘Hello!’ said Caitlin. ‘Earth to Eve Owen. Ian Newsome is the patron saint of them all. Added to which, he’s famous. Famous and a widower, which makes him the Holy Grail too. All the sympathy, none of the nightmare ex-wife. Come off it. All you need now is the rock and you’re home dry.’

Caitlin paused, waiting for Eve to reply.

When Eve didn’t, Caitlin tilted her head to one side, a look of expectation lighting her face. ‘You haven’t split up, have you?’ Far from sounding sympathetic, her voice revealed thinly veiled excitement. Eve realized her colleague was a split-second away from asking if she was ready to on-gift Ian’s phone number.

‘In your dreams,’ Eve said.

Was Ian a groovy dad? It had honestly never occurred to her.

Maybe he was.

In fact, Ian and Caroline Newsome had been the full groovy mum and dad package.

‘Come on Eve,’ Caitlin’s words echoed up the office in Eve’s wake. ‘Tell us how you pulled it off.’

Eve shrugged and kept walking.

She shrugged because, in all honesty, she didn’t know how someone like her—just pretty-enough, just brightenough and just successful-enough—had bagged a catch like Ian Newsome. And having met his children, she didn’t know how on earth she was going to keep him, either.

FIVE

‘I’m sorry it’s been so long.’ Ian rolled over and planted a lingering kiss on her forehead. ‘I couldn’t get any decent overnight cover. Also, to be honest, their suspicions have been on high alert since they met you. Especially Hannah’s. They’re not stupid, after all.’

Eve wriggled up the mattress, so his lips trailed down her face until their lips met. His blue eyes were open, staring into hers as he began to do previously unimaginable things with his fingers. They didn’t say anything else for a long time.

‘I know it’s not ideal and I promise it won’t be for ever. Now they’ve met you, that’s the first hurdle over with. We just need to take it slowly, give them a chance to get used to the idea of there being someone else in our lives,’ he paused. ‘Someone important.’

Same subject, different setting.

They had dragged themselves out of bed and were now camped on Eve’s living-room floor sharing an impromptu picnic.

Joy surged through her. She felt irrationally, stupidly happy. As if she were fifteen again. Not that she’d ever felt like this when she was fifteen.

Smiling, Eve reached over the tea towel that doubled as a tablecloth, laden with pitta bread, hummus, carrot sticks and tubs of salads, to squeeze his hand. ‘I understand,’ she said. ‘The kids come first. You don’t need to explain.’

‘I do, though,’ he said. But his smile was grateful as he leant forward to kiss her again. As he did, the front of his shirt fell open, and Eve couldn’t help but stare at the trail of fair hair that led down his lean body into the waistband of his jeans.

When they were together, she felt sick with longing.

She loved him so much she felt physically ill with wanting. And when they were apart too, most of the time. It was just that, sometimes, at night or on a Sunday, when Ian had spent the weekend with the kids, and she’d exhausted Sky Plus and was on her fifth DVD of the day, she couldn’t help wondering if they really stood a chance.

There was no way he would have allowed her within a mile of his children if he wasn’t deadly serious. But this wasn’t a regular, every other weekend stepmum arrangement. There would be no collecting the children on Saturday morning, dropping them back on Sunday evening, and having the following weekend to recover. This was full-time, 24/7.

She didn’t know if she could handle that. More importantly, she didn’t know if the children would let her try. But she did know she wanted to.