‘Nathan,’ Dot said, touching his upper arm, ‘I’m so sorry about your father.’
He nodded. ‘Thanks. Yeah, it’s been rough on my mum.’
Evelyn came out of the bedroom, closing the door quietly behind her, and crossed the room on tiptoe towards them, streaky blonde hair tumbled over her shoulders, smudged eyeliner, bare feet and a long cotton sundress. Beside her, Dorothy could feel Andrew tense up, and she was conscious of her nursing bra, coffee-stained T-shirt, the roll of flesh over her waistband. Eve whispered, ‘Louisa’s asleep,’ and opened her arms wide to embrace Dot and the baby on her hip in slow motion, her touch like feathers.
The pool was a natural crater in some rocks, sealed roughly in patches with concrete, filled with rainwater and sterilised with salt. The rocks were mossy. Even for an adult it was hard to clamber out, pulling up on the slippery round edges that sloped too gradually for hands and feet to get any real purchase. Rain pocked the irresistible surface. The water was the temperature of blood, warmer than the air above. After the first dip Dorothy emerged on all fours, knees bright red from the effort of gripping the rock.
‘Primordial slime,’ Nathan said. ‘You’re like the first stage of mammalisation.’
‘Is mammalisation a word?’
‘Mammalial.’
‘That might be something to do with breasts.’
‘Oh yes.’
Dot wrapped herself in a towel and sat on the covered porch watching the rain come down, and Grace came and sat on her knee, the child’s head fitting perfectly underneath her mother’s chin.
They were on hyper-alert about the kids: Grace, Louisa and even Amy, although she could not yet crawl. The fence had to be locked at all times. At least one adult per child. No running on the wet rocks. Don’t give them water wings, a polystyrene flutter board, they won’t ever learn to float. Everyone knew someone who had let the child run ahead to the water, who had gone back to answer the phone, whose pool gate had swollen in the rain and wouldn’t shut properly, who had been helping another child with a grazed elbow that needed sterilising when – And the images were there and you couldn’t erase them and it was then that you wondered why have the children in the first place, loss was too possible, you can’t be a parent, surely this can’t be what a parent is?
The men cooked, raggedy T-shirts beside the barbecue, smoke gathering under the awning, a current of air drawing it out and dispersing it over the pool. The storm had passed and the atmosphere felt rich, charged with negative ions as though just breathing it could get you high. After a few wines Evelyn said to Dot, ‘I thought Andrew was a vegetarian?’
‘Used to be.’
‘That was a cool thing for him to do. Brave. I mean anyone can be a vegetarian now. Except Nathan.’ She drained her glass and poured another one, started in on that.
‘How are things?’
‘Great! How’s Andrew’s work?’
‘The caretaking, or the painting?’
‘. . . Both.’
‘He’s doing abstracts now.’
‘It’s great that he keeps with it.’
Dorothy bit her thumbnail. ‘What are you thinking about any more kids?’ she asked. ‘Louisa’s so gorgeous. She’s being lovely with Amy.’
‘To be honest,’ Evelyn said, ‘I’m not sure. Nate would like to have another but I don’t get why he’s so keen.’
‘Maybe, since his dad . . . ?’
‘I don’t know.’ Her vague voice, the habitual hand over her mouth. ‘Sometimes I wonder if it’s better to just have one kid and try to do that right.’
‘Bit late for me now,’ Dot said. Her breasts hardened and ached; she pressed down on them before milk could spot her new sundress. Was the baby alive? Ah her brain.
Through the shambles of early parenthood Eve had retained her knack of making things lovely, wild flowers pluming from a milk jug, herbs scattered over the salad. Their mother’s floating-skirts phase was in here somewhere, but Eve’s grace was her own. Yet even though she and Nathan touched each other, kissed in passing with an ease and enthusiasm Dorothy envied, and even though they had Louisa, a seamless child, Evelyn carried this twisting, claret undercurrent, the thing that set her finger tapping on the table when her husband told a story.
Standing now, Eve supported herself with a palm on the table before, Dorothy knew, she would walk unevenly to the fridge for another bottle.
‘Did I ever tell you about that guy I caught trying on my knickers?’