nearly December, Mum, not a great time to be standing out in the wind. I could pop round to see you afterwards.’
Mum pulled a purple woolly hat out of her bag and jammed it on her head. ‘I’ll be fine.’
I had no choice but to let her come. On another day, I’d have been delighted to dilute her with the other grandparents who came to spectate. But today my mind fizzed about wondering how I could give her the slip so I could talk to Faye on my own. It had been difficult enough planning how I could ditch Patrick.
Mum turned to Phoebe. ‘I like your stripy jumper. Horizontal stripes can make you look so fat, but lucky you being so thin. I couldn’t wear those. You never could either, Jo, could you? You were always a bit solid, took after your dad.’
Mum was like a blueprint for inducing anorexia. Phoebe really didn’t need Mum commenting on her body shape. No wonder I always walked out to my sunlounger on holiday assuming every bloke around the pool was whispering to his mate, ‘Don’t fancy yours much.’ After Phoebe was born, I’d made a point of rarely commenting on what people looked like, good or bad. Though I’d still produced a daughter who was determined to have breast implants when she was eighteen.
Luckily, the sunshine had come out in Phoebe’s world and we moved on from my body failings to which boys to look out for on the rugby pitch – ‘You need to watch the boy with blonde curly hair, he’s got quite a big arse, I mean, bottom. That’s my friend Leah’s brother. He’s quite good, isn’t he, Victor?’
‘Yeah, he’s up there. Bit slow sometimes. Freddie’s a better winger. Fast.’
Mum turned to Victor. ‘And are you quite good?’
‘I’m all right. Settling into the team now.’
‘Nan, Victor isn’t quite good, Victor is a legend. Harlequins are interested in him for next year.’ And just for a moment, Phoebe’s championing of Victor, the proof that she could be kind, almost outweighed what I tried to reject but often succumbed to: jealousy that they shared a father. I hoped – desperately hoped – that I could be bigger than that.
As we pulled up to the rugby field, I scoured it for Faye. She came over immediately, greeting Mum with a big hug. So few friends of mine had that familiarity with my parents, that extra notch up in belonging. None with my dad now Ginny was gone. To be fair to Mum, she had an extraordinary memory for the minutiae of my friends’ lives, their kids, their ages. As she machine-gunned her questions to Faye, I had the sense that I should intervene to stop Mum banging on. Just like Phoebe did with me when I was around her friends.
Thankfully, the match kicked off and I spotted my opportunity to go with Faye to get coffee for everyone from a van that was selling burgers in the car park. Normally I’d have been all Arabica-blend beans or die, but right now, I was trying to save my marriage.
I stuck Mum on Patrick, hissing at him to keep her occupied for a minute. These days, he didn’t put up much of a fight about anything, as though he thought by keeping the peace, I’d somehow forget that we needed to address the fact that his son was living with us.
As soon as we got out of earshot, Faye said, ‘Just run past me how Victor came to be Phoebe’s half-brother?’
I glanced around nervously in case we were overheard. I kept the details to a minimum, but even saying those out loud had the effect of making the thing that had grown and grown, taking over just about every waking thought, shrink back slightly.
Faye put her hand on my arm. ‘That was a bit of a shocker for you. When are you going to tell them?’
‘We haven’t decided yet. It’s early days.’
And we reflected about never knowing what was round the corner and I felt the friend I’d trusted all these years come back to me, my ally rather than my adversary.
We bought our coffees and, on the way back, Faye said, ‘I did ask Georgia about the drugs you found. She said she was keeping them for someone from a different school. Last night was the first time she’d taken anything since the accident and even that was by mistake. Apparently someone had given them some birthday cake and she didn’t realise it