our glasses chink together. ‘Do you really think I’ll be a good mother?’ she asks and I hear the note of anxiety in her voice.
I force a nod. ‘Of course. Look how much Marlow loves you.’
She smiles wider at that. ‘Well, Marlow and I have a lot in common. We both love to guzzle from a bottle and we both like to have someone do everything for us!’
I laugh along with her, happy to think about Marlow for a moment. I wonder how she and Rob are getting on.
‘Anyway,’ Kate says, interrupting my thoughts and sitting back to let the waiter remove our plates. ‘How are things with you and Rob? Are they better?’
I pause as the waiter replaces the plates with our main course and a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc.
‘OK,’ I say. I’ve told Kate something of the ups and downs our marriage has suffered over the last few years but must admit to having put a better spin on it than is perhaps the truth. ‘Improving slowly.’
I dig into my sardines, which are more delicious than they look, lying grilled on the plate staring up at me.
Kate saws through an octopus tentacle covered in tiny suckers. ‘Have you got back on the horse?’ she asks. ‘Are you having sex?’
Straight to the point as always. ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘I mean, not like we used to …’
‘What do you mean? How often are you having it? Once a week? Once a month?’
‘Probably a couple of times a month.’
Her eyes go wide. ‘God,’ she says, ‘I’m amazed your hymen hasn’t regrown. How on earth do you manage without regular orgasms?’
I blush and check over my shoulder that no one around us can hear, but luckily no one seems to be listening.
‘I’m so tired,’ I say by way of explanation. ‘What with housework and Marlow the last thing I want to do in the evening is have sex. Besides, you should try it after you’ve had fifteen stitches in your vagina.’
She winces. ‘No thanks.’
‘Well, if you want a baby …’ I say, laughing at her. ‘You better be prepared. They don’t just pop out like the cork from a champagne bottle.’
‘Maybe I’ll opt for a C-section,’ she shoots back, laughing.
‘That’s not any better,’ I tell her.
‘You can have a tummy tuck at the same time.’ She grins. ‘All the celebs do it. That or they hire a surrogate and skip the whole getting fat part altogether.’
I glance down at my plate; the sardine, sitting beside its nest of potato, looks back accusingly.
‘Not that you got fat,’ Kate adds quickly. ‘Besides, I’m only joking,’ she says. ‘I’m not too posh to push.’
‘You might become too posh if you move to Richmond.’
She laughs even louder and pours us more wine, without waiting for the waiter to do it. I hold up a hand to stop her filling my glass because I can feel myself getting quite drunk already, but she bats my hand away. ‘Come on, we’re going to have fun tonight.’
Reluctantly I let her refill my glass. ‘I just don’t want to end up with my head in a toilet bowl later.’
Kate has always handled her drink much better than me and now, after giving up alcohol when I was pregnant and breast-feeding, I’m more than a lightweight. I take a small sip and then sigh. ‘Honestly, I just don’t feel like it.’
‘Like what?’ Kate asks. ‘Champagne? What’s wrong with you?’
‘No, I meant having sex with Rob.’
‘Why not?’ she asks. ‘Did you stop fancying him?’
I shake my head. ‘No. It’s not that.’ Rob’s still good-looking, still in shape from his daily cycling, and we still get on as friends and as partners. We still love each other and I know he wants to have sex with me because he keeps trying to. ‘I just don’t feel in the mood ever,’ I explain. ‘I don’t feel attractive. I think that’s the problem. I don’t want him to see me naked. And he’s a visual guy. He likes the lights on.’
She smirks. ‘You’ve still got it, what are you talking about? You’re a hot MILF. There’s a guy over there by the bar who checked you out when we came in.’
I glance over towards the bar but it’s rammed with people and I can’t figure out who she means. ‘Thanks,’ I say turning back to look at her. ‘Most days I feel like a fat, frumpy, middle-aged hag.’
‘Well you’re not,’ she tells me. ‘You’re gorgeous. How’s Rob taking the lack of sex?’ she asks.