Erika had obviously learned some social niceties as a grown-up, and didn’t go through her cupboards anymore, but Clementine still sensed that avaricious gleam in Erika’s eyes whenever they were in conversation. It was as though Erika’s desire to look under Clementine’s bed was still there and so was Clementine’s mute outraged resistance.
But the really ironic thing was that it now appeared Erika had the same policy of not sharing anything important. She’d kept this huge secret for the past two years, and Clementine’s first reaction had been to feel hurt by the revelation: Oh yes, it was all fine for Clementine to lord it over Erika from up high on her friendship pedestal, graciously bestowing gifts: Why yes, Erika, you may be the godmother of my firstborn!
So, okay, fine then, if their friendship was an illusion and had no substance to it, on either side, but now Erika was asking something you asked only of a dearest friend.
She looked down at the cracker in her hand and didn’t know what to do with it. The room was silent except for the gentle babble of Holly and Ruby in the next room, doing their craft like little angels, as if in rebuke to Clementine. Look how darling we are. Give Daddy another baby. Help your friend have a baby. Be kind, Clementine, be kind. Why are you so unkind?
A crazy, complicated symphony of feelings rose in her chest. She wanted to throw a tantrum like Ruby, to fling herself to the floor and bang out her frustration with her forehead on the carpet. Ruby always made sure it was carpet before she started banging her head.
Sam moved his hand from her leg and shifted slightly away from her. He’d left a triangle-sized piece of cracker on Erika’s spotless white leather couch. Oliver removed his glasses and his eyes looked bruised and tender, like those of a tiny animal emerging from hibernation. He polished them with the edge of his T-shirt. Erika sat immobile and upright, as if at a funeral, her eyes following something past Clementine’s head.
‘That’s Dakota,’ she said.
‘Dakota?’ asked Clementine.
‘Dakota,’ said Erika. ‘The little girl from next door. Vid must be getting impatient. He’s sent her over to collect us for the barbeque.’
The doorbell rang. Erika jumped violently.
Sam leaped to his feet like a man whose name has finally been called after a tedious wait in a bureaucratic institution. ‘Let’s go have a barbeque.’
chapter eighteen
When Sam and Clementine got back from the restaurant and walked in the door, shaking their umbrellas, home from their ‘date night’ less than two hours after they’d left, Clementine’s mother was aghast.
‘What happened?’ She turned off the television and pressed a hand to her throat as if preparing herself for terrible news. ‘Why are you back already?’
‘We’re so sorry, Pam,’ said Sam. ‘The service at the restaurant was slow and in the end we just … we decided we weren’t really in the mood for going out to dinner.’
‘But the reviews were outstanding,’ said Pam. The restaurant had been her recommendation. She looked at them expectantly, as if she hoped she could convince them to turn around and go back into the city and give it another go.
Clementine saw that her mother had folded a basket of clean laundry into neat little piles on the couch, and had just now rewarded herself with a cup of tea and a single gingernut biscuit on a saucer, probably to enjoy while she watched Midsomer Murders. Clementine felt a stab of regret. It seemed this was her default state now: regretful. It was just the degrees of regret that changed.
‘I’m sorry, Mum,’ she said. ‘I know you –’ I know you thought a romantic dinner could save our marriage. She glanced at Sam, and he returned her look as passively as a stranger on a bus. ‘We both felt sort of tired, I guess.’
Pam’s shoulders sagged. ‘Oh dear,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry if I pushed you into it. Maybe it was too soon. I just thought it would be good for you to get out.’ She visibly rallied. ‘Well, how about I make you both a cup of tea? I just made myself one. The water is still hot.’
‘Not for me,’ said Sam. ‘I might just –’ He looked around the room for inspiration. ‘I might just … go for a drive.’
‘Go for a drive where?’ asked Clementine. She wasn’t going to help him. She wasn’t going to pretend that going for a ‘drive’ in the pouring rain to escape a cup of tea with your mother-in-law and wife was reasonable.
But of course her mother was eager to let Sam slip straight off any hook. ‘Of course you can go for a drive,’ she said. ‘Sometimes you need to just drive. It’s meditative. Right now you two need to be kind to yourselves.’
Sam gave Pam a grateful smile, ignored Clementine and left the house, noiselessly closing the front door behind him.