I stand there, heart hammering in my chest, as a TV advert for fence preserver blasts through the flat. Only when it has returned to a relatively normal speed can I concentrate on the matter in hand. I resume piping meringues, wondering why any interaction between me and an adult male is viewed as tawdry, whereas their father is regarded as the height of respectability. Having put the last batch to bake, I clear up the kitchen, and find the boys still lolling on the sofa.
‘You know Dad’s coming to get you at lunchtime tomorrow,’ I remind them, ‘so you really should start packing today.’
No response. They are watching a programme about the building of an eco-house, a dazzling wedge of glass clinging to a hillside in a remote part of Wales.
‘Look at that,’ Logan murmurs. ‘Imagine living somewhere like that.’
‘Yes, imagine,’ I say distractedly, surveying the scattering of shoes, batteries and backless remote controls on the carpet.
Fergus turns to me. ‘It’s an eco-house, Mum. It’s hardly got any carbon footprint.’
‘Amazing,’ I agree.
‘We should be more eco-friendly,’ he goes on.
‘In what way?’
‘Well, like, our oven’s always on, isn’t it?’
‘Not always,’ I correct him, ‘but quite a lot, yes, when I’m baking, obviously …’
‘It’s on so much, Mum! Think of what it’s doing to the planet.’
I take a moment to digest this. ‘Meringues take a long time to bake, Fergus. There’s not much I can do about that.’
He scowls, as if I might be making this up, and enjoy consuming vast quantities of electricity just for the hell of it. ‘Couldn’t you make something different? Something that cooks quicker?’
I burst out laughing. ‘What d’you have in mind?’
‘I dunno, you’re the baker.’ With that, he turns his attention back to the TV where the presenter is extolling the virtues of a composting toilet.
‘Oh, and just so you know,’ I add, my voice drifting like tumbleweed, ‘the girls are coming over later to test flavours.’
Logan throws me a bemused look. ‘The girls,’ he sniggers.
‘Okay,’ I say, my voice rising a little, ‘the women are coming over. Is that better?’
Fergus chuckles. ‘That sounds as if you don’t actually like them very much.’
‘So when are they coming?’ Logan wants to know.
‘About seven-ish.’
‘Ugh, all that talking and laughing …’
‘I know – hideous,’ I snigger, catching Fergus’s eye who grins in return. ‘We shouldn’t be allowed to congregate en masse.’
But thank God we do, I think, leaving him to ogle the eco-house while Logan gets up and heads out, to meet his people.
*
‘I never realised Anthony was like that,’ Ingrid exclaims later as I set down plates of freshly baked meringues on the kitchen table. ‘What a complete creep. I feel so responsible. If I’d known, I’d have warned you off.’
‘It’s not your fault,’ I assure her as Kirsty and Viv munch on my confections, equally dismayed by the outcome of my date. ‘You didn’t exactly throw us together and force me to go out with him. I thought he was nice, actually. A proper grown-up …’
I’m aware that I have this grown-up-in-a-good-way thing, probably as a reaction against all those years spent with Tom. I don’t mean grown-up as in, ‘Every Saturday will be spent trundling around Homebase until I drop down dead.’ More, ‘It’s okay – I can fix things and throw a meal together, and I’ll never expect you to remember my relatives’ birthdays.’ An in-this-together sort of feeling … like we’re equals. If I occasionally yearn for anything, it’s that.
‘I guess there was no way of knowing he likes being smacked with utensils,’ sniggers Kirsty.
‘Well, I thought he looked creepy,’ declares Viv, smoothing back her neat auburn crop. ‘I tried to communicate that to you every time I came into the kitchen.’
‘No, you didn’t,’ I tease her. ‘Whenever you glanced over you gave me an indulgent smile, as if to say, “Ah, that’s nice, Alice enjoying some adult male company for a change.”’
‘No, I didn’t. God, you’d have no end of male company if you wanted it, if you put out some signals. You’d be fighting them off with sticks …’
We all laugh, and I quickly shush them as Fergus scampers in to grab a bottle of Lucozade from the fridge and barks a speedy hello before disappearing again.
‘Does he know about your date?’ Kirsty murmurs.
‘Yep. Heard me muttering to myself about Anthony plunging his tongue down my throat …’
Viv splutters. ‘That’s the kind of conversation you have with yourself?’
A strawberry meringue dissolves in my mouth. ‘Sadly, yeah. I probably traumatised my poor boy …’
‘Bet he’d love you to meet someone, though,’ Kirsty suggests.
‘You really think so?’ I laugh dryly. ‘He interrogated me after Anthony called today. God knows how things would be if I dared to bring a man back to the flat. I’d have to smuggle him in, covered in a blanket, like a criminal being ushered into a police van. And then we’d lie in bed, as silent as lambs in case Fergus – his bedroom is next to mine, remember – got wind of some action and set off his translator to spite me: “I have been raped!”’
Everyone howls with laughter. Seriously, though, is it any wonder I find the very thought of sex rather anxiety-making?
I glance at Viv who, perhaps in an attempt to inspire me, has switched the topic to her current dalliance with some whippersnapper she pounced on in a bar. Although the four of us are close in age, Viv has by far the whizziest life these days. As studio manager at a textile design company, she easily passes for a decade younger with her Mia-Farrow-esque crop, which she carries off beautifully with her large brown eyes, pronounced cheekbones and the rosy complexion of the child-free. Viv married young, at twenty-one; the ring had barely been slipped on her finger when her husband started to micromanage the way she dressed (no hemlines above knee-length) and even her make-up (i.e. none). So jealous was he, she used to joke that he’d probably implanted some kind of tracking device in her while she slept – then he caused an almighty scene when she was chatting to some man at a party, and it stopped being remotely funny. Sick of being ‘under surveillance’ as she put it, Viv packed her belongings into two battered old cases and walked out. There’s been a dizzying amount of flings since, though nothing remotely approaching serious.
‘You need to cast the net wide,’ she instructs me now, smoking a cigarette at the open kitchen window. ‘Find yourself a younger man. Everyone’s doing it these days.’
‘You mean you are,’ I snigger. ‘Anyway, how young is too young, d’you think? I mean, what are the rules?’
She takes a drag of her cig. ‘Half your age plus seven is perfectly fine.’
‘And how did you work that out?’
She grins and drains her wine glass, refilling it to the brim from the bottle. Viv drinks fast, with seemingly no ill effects next morning; but then, my hangovers were child’s play before I had kids.
‘Well,’ she explains, extinguishing