Manon puts a hand to her left eye. ‘Yeah, probably.’
Bryony and Peter move around each other at the counter, a nonchalant ballet of putting forks in the dishwasher, getting out bowls, broccoli steam hitting their faces, carving the meat. And Manon watches them. Isn’t this what she should have? Isn’t it what she should want? She knows she comes here, like the third child, to inhale some of it, to slouch in the soft cushioning of the corner armchair where passivity is king. Sometimes she is pricked by jealousy – or at least she wants to possess it. Not wanting to leave or not having the energy to pick herself up and send herself out into the cold world alone. She rubs the infected eye and it re-opens slowly, the picture watery, as if she is looking through smeared glass. Those vicious shards of loneliness cannot seem to prick them in here, in this inner world, where someone has taken an eraser to the view. But its innerness is also airless.
‘D’you know what drives me nuts?’ Bryony once said. ‘I can’t even take a shower without some kind of family summit on the logistics of being out of the room for ten minutes. Never mind pop to the shops.’
It’s not these notional practicalities that bother Manon. It is the loss of separateness, the dependence which might cause her to meld formlessly into someone else until she no longer knows where she begins and ends, until she is no longer capable of saying, ‘You might like that, but I don’t like it, because I am different from you, separate from you.’ Or ‘I will not eat now. I will eat later.’
‘We changed the clocks,’ Bryony is saying from across the room, sliding some cauliflower cheese from a foil tray into a serving bowl, ‘so it said midnight. Then we said, “Cheers, Happy New Year!” and went to bed. About nine thirty, wasn’t it?’
‘About that,’ says Peter. ‘Just think of all the poor bastards out there getting drunk and snogging strangers.’
‘I know, I pity them,’ says Bryony. ‘I mean, who would want that kind of sleazy, low-rent thrill?’
Manon takes another slug of wine. ‘I went to the cinema.’
‘See? She’s one of us,’ says Bryony.
Their three-year-old son Bobby comes gambolling into the room on fat little legs. He is all cheeks and brilliant eyes. Manon notices Bryony’s involuntary smile.
‘Hello, little chap,’ says Manon, setting down her glass and lifting him onto her knee. She has the urge to shower him in affection, not because she loves him – she feels, in fact, an angular separateness from other people’s children – but because she loves Bryony and she can make a display of it this way. ‘Shall we do “This is the Way the Lady Rides”?’
‘Lady wides,’ says Bobby.
‘Cuddle first,’ says Manon, and she folds the boy’s solid body in her arms and luxuriates in the cashmere of his cheek against hers. She kisses him and when he begins to struggle, squeezes him tighter. ‘One more kiss,’ she says and then blows a raspberry into his neck, which smells of warm bread, but he is shouting, ‘Lady wides!’
The lunch is devoured in twenty minutes. Their lips glisten with the meat fat as they suck on bones. Bobby begins to fidget in his booster seat and knocks over his cup of Ribena.
‘Come on, sausage,’ Peter says to him. ‘Let’s go and watch Top Gear.’
When they have gone, she and Bryony pour themselves more wine and sit together at the kitchen table, strewn with cloudy glasses and smeared plates. Manon is wiping hers with a finger and licking the gravy off while she tells Bryony about the cinema and Alan Prenderghast, and it’s as if she can’t wait to, as if she’s been waiting for Peter to take Bobby off, so she can launch into it.
‘He’s nice, but he’s not boyfriend material,’ she says. ‘He’s forty-two.’ She is picking at charred roast carrots, wiping the little chunks in gravy and popping them in her mouth.
‘I hate to break it to you, kiddo, but you’re not in the first flush of youth yourself. Forty-two is the perfect age for you.’
‘No, but … just, no. He’s not, I dunno. He’s really uncool. Like massive trainers, bad flappy trousers.’
‘So take him shopping.’
‘He’s got big ears.’
‘You’ve got no neck.’
‘He didn’t go to university.’
‘Jesus, Manon, who fucking cares?’
‘He has got a nice barn.’
‘There you go then.’
‘He’s just kind of … odd.’
‘Odd is good. You’re really odd. It’s one of my favourite things about you. Stop doing that,’ and she removes Manon’s plate. ‘Ice cream?’
Manon shakes her head. Bryony yawns and stretches her arms up and forward, until her muscles judder.
‘Anyway, how’s disclosure?’ asks Manon. ‘Is the filing getting to you?’
‘No, the exciting news is I’ve been seconded – HOLMES support on a trafficking ring. Massive case, joint ops between border control and public protection. Really good.’