The Stepmothers’ Support Group

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.