Abi looks abashed. ‘No, no, silly of me to have brought it up. You do know I didn’t mean anything odd.’ She reaches out and grabs my hand, squeezes tightly, like a child might. Impulsively, I bring our hands to my lips and kiss her knuckles. Weird, but she permits intimacy, somehow demands it.
‘Of course,’ I reassure her. I want to move on. Get off this topic. She smiles at me, eyes glistening with relief. I matter to her. My good opinion matters to her.
The evening races by, shimmering with laughter and shared confidences. Our lives are obviously very different, yet we find things in common. We find we watch a lot of the same TV shows and we have the same view on them, we’ve read some of the same novels and I make a note of others Abi recommends. Abi has been to several places on my bucket list and it’s fascinating to hear all about them first hand. She strengthens my resolve to travel more, when the kids are all a bit older and when there’s a bit more spare cash floating about. Abi shows me her Instagram account. It’s full of stunning, glistening, gleaming images. Her in exotic locations, in fabulous restaurants, at gigs, shows and the theatre.
‘Don’t you have an Insta?’ she asks, not even self-conscious about the casual use of the abbreviation, as though she was sixteen. She is so confident.
‘No, but maybe I should get one.’ I don’t really mean this. Or at least I do, right now, but I won’t in the morning after I’ve slept off the effect of the G&Ts. What would I post? I think about the food I prepare. Liam wolfs it down – there would be no time to photograph it. The girls pick and poke; in the end, everything I prepare looks like a Jackson Pollock on a plate.
‘Oh, don’t bother,’ says Abi, sounding bored. ‘It’s so time consuming.’
‘That’s what Ben says. He’s not a fan of social media. He thinks it’s desperate and deadening. Basically, I think he just doesn’t like his boss knowing too much about his personal life.’
‘Is that why you never post photos?’
‘I suppose.’ I take a sip of my G&T.
Abi nods, thoughtfully. ‘Ben’s quite right. Very dignified.’
Hearing her compliment Ben encourages me to add, ‘I’ve always been careful with what I post. Liam didn’t grow up in an era where social media dominated childhoods. When he was very tiny, I still had photos developed at Boots. By the time every Tom, Dick, and Harry were equipped with smartphones and everyone fancied themselves to be the next Annie Leibovitz, Liam was at the age where he point-blank refused to let me take his photo, let alone allow me to post pictures of him.’ Abi smiles and nods. ‘I never got into the habit. I still prefer printing the shots and putting them in albums. The girls grumble about this on a regular basis. They’d love to be plastered all over the internet.’
‘You’re a very special person to have such standards. It’s unusual, Mel, to have such a high regard for privacy. You know the thing I don’t like about social media?’
‘What?’
‘The fact that no matter how many photos I post of me meeting pop stars, politicians or the Dalai Lama—’
‘You’ve met the Dalai Lama?’ I interrupt excitedly. She nods, smiles and carries on. ‘Yes, but even so, I’m in a competition I can’t win.’
‘You can’t possibly suffer from FOMO.’
‘It’s more FOMOOM. Fear of missing out on motherhood,’ she says sadly.
‘Oh.’
‘Social media is nothing other than an echo chamber. People are forever posting pictures of their children. Just children doing perfectly normal things, often as not – but I can’t join in. Here’s little Elliot or Harriet in a sand box, or in a hat, in the bath. It’s so ordinary, there’s a plethora of these shots, at any and every point, on my feed.’ Abi sighs then straightens her back, which was unusually bowed, sniffs bravely and admits, ‘It’s exquisitely, painfully inaccessible for me. From bump to junior school, people post practically every moment.’
‘I’m so sorry, Abi. I had no idea you felt this way.’ Why would I?
She shrugs and then tries to make a joke. ‘Although I do notice the photos tend to drop off once a kid gets a bit older. I guess the cute factor wears a little thin then. Not quite so appealing.’
‘They do go through an ugly stage,’ I say, with a laugh. I don’t mean it. I think my babies are and were beautiful, every single step of the way, but I feel a sudden need to detract from their perfection. It makes no sense but I suddenly feel aware of my glut and her lack and I’m drenched with a wave of guilt. Stupidly, I think of that fairytale – Sleeping Beauty – where the witch left off the invitation list swoops in and brings all sorts of trouble. I stare at my G&T glass. It’s empty. I need to slow down. My thoughts are bonkers. If anything, Abi is the Fairy Godmother who gets Cinderella to the ball, not a bad fairy.
‘Did you hear about that man who photographed his son every day from the boy’s birth to the day he turned twenty-one? He made a time-lapse video with the 7,500-odd photos. That’s what I’m up against,’ declares Abi. ‘Baby worship. It’s an epidemic.’
‘It must be hard,’ I admit. I love Facebook – even though I don’t post pictures, I love to read other people’s euphoric posts. The ones wishing the ‘sweetest, kindest, funniest boy/girl a happy birthday’. Oblivious to the fact that everyone else is claiming the same of their child. These utter and complete testaments of love have always delighted me. Now, I see it from Abi’s point of view. The vanity behind the posts. The insensitivity.
Abi shoots me a look that suggests she is irritated, if not outright angry. It is difficult to know what the right thing to say is, exactly. She juts out her chin and says firmly, ‘Still, I’m an absolutely awesome PANK.’
‘PANK?’ I ask, not certain I want to know the answer.
‘Professional Aunt, No Kids.’
‘Oh yes you are, the girls are already totally under your spell.’
‘And Liam too, I hope.’
I’m not sure Liam has actually noticed Abi’s existence; teens live in their own very small world but saying so to Abi would only sound as though she’s ignorant of how big kids tick. The last thing she needs to hear, right now. I nod, and then ask tentatively, ‘Did you and Rob ever try for children?’
‘Rob was the biggest child in his life. He didn’t want kids.’
‘Oh. I see.’
‘He hated the idea with a vengeance.’ I shift uncomfortably in my seat as she starts to brew up a new wave of invective. I wish I hadn’t brought Rob up. What was I thinking?
I try to cut her off. ‘You have plenty of time for a baby,’ I say, encouragingly.
‘I don’t have plenty of time. I’m thirty-eight. But I do have some time. Friends of mine are getting pregnant in their forties; there are options. But first I need to divorce Rob and then meet someone new. Then get pregnant. Let’s not pretend. It’s not going to be easy.’
We sit in silence for a moment. Both sobered by the truth of her words. Suddenly, Abi laughs. ‘Oh, listen to me. I sure know how to kill the mood, right?’
Coughing, I say the most honest thing I can. ‘You’re entitled to.’
She stares at me for the longest time. ‘Yes, I am, aren’t I?’ Then she asks, ‘How did we ever lose contact?’
I feel warmth seep through my stomach at her comment, the meaning implicit: how could we have let something so important fall by the wayside? Simultaneously,