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‘Come over again if you like,’ Nadine had murmured in the tiny office kitchen this afternoon. ‘I’m having a low-key night in.’ Hmmm. Well, that had sounded okay: a couple of hours at her place, perhaps staying over again, then up with the lark, back home to change and make himself look like a respectable dad on his way to pick up his children for the weekend. (I’m a weekend dad now … the phrase had been turning over in his mind all day.) So he and Nadine had jumped in a cab back to her place.

‘You don’t need to cook for me,’ he says now as she starts busying away in the kitchen.

‘Oh, I’m just getting a few bits and pieces together. They like something to nibble with their drinks.’

Rob frowns. They?

‘They’re coming over about half eight-ish,’ she adds.

‘Er, who?’ he asks lightly.

‘Just a few friends.’ There’s the clink of crockery, and the sound of a packet being ripped open.

He gets up and peers into the kitchen. ‘A few friends? You never said …’

She smiles prettily, clutching a large glass bowl of tortilla chips. ‘It is Friday night, Rob. Don’t you normally do something fun at the weekend?’

‘Er … yes, I suppose so,’ he fibs.

‘Well, since I’ve been feeling a bit tired and queasy I haven’t really been in the mood for going out.’

‘I can understand that,’ Rob says. To his shame, he realises he hadn’t known she’d been feeling under the weather.

‘So I thought I’d ask the girls round. You don’t mind, do you?’

‘Of course not. God, Nadine. It’s your flat and, like you say, it’s Friday night …’ His mind starts to whir as he tries to conjure up an excuse as to why he must leave right now.

She puts down the bowl on the worktop and starts removing pink glasses from the wall cabinet to line up on the worktop. One … two … three … four …

‘Do they, um … know?’ he asks as a fifth glass joins the others and the cupboard is, mercifully, shut.

‘About the baby?’ She laughs. ‘Of course they do, Rob. They’re my best friends.’

‘But isn’t it a bit early? I mean, you haven’t had a scan yet, I’d have thought you’d want to keep it quiet …’

‘Rob, these girls are the most important people in my life,’ she declares. ‘Why wouldn’t I want to share it with them?’

Rob is momentarily stuck for words. Because it’s too early, anything could happen …

‘Wouldn’t it be more, er … comfortable if I wasn’t here?’ He checks his watch, willing her to say yes.

‘No, of course it wouldn’t.’ Nadine sighs, fixing him with those gorgeous blue eyes which have the effect of stirring something within him, despite the almighty mess he’s found himself in. ‘Last night was really nice,’ she offers hesitantly, touching his arm.

‘Yes, it was.’ He musters a smile.

‘You were very sweet.’

‘Er … thank you.’ This doesn’t mean I’m ready to meet your friends en masse … He swallows hard. While he’s slowly getting used to Nadine’s extreme youth, the thought of spending an evening with a bunch of similarly-aged girls is quite terrifying. What will they talk about – clubbing, the tribulations of teenage complexions or, heaven forbid, chart music? The Top 20 hasn’t bothered Rob’s consciousness for at least a decade.

‘Come on, Rob,’ she chides him, ‘cheer up. This is a special night for me – a sort of celebration. And they’re so looking forward to meeting you.’

‘Really?’ He frowns.

‘Of course they are! We’re going to be parents, Rob, and they want to share that.’ Her eyes sparkle like sequins.

Although it’s tempting to snatch his phone from his pocket and announce some fictional crisis, he forces a grin and says, ‘Okay, if you’re sure.’

‘Great, I’m so pleased. You know, you’re not nearly as stuffy as people think.’

*

‘You’re adorable, Rob,’ Sasha gushes as he stands in the middle of Nadine’s living room, clutching two drinks.

‘Gorgeous,’ agrees Jade, pulling up her knees to her chin on the sofa and exposing several miles of tanned limb beneath a diaphanous turquoise dress.

‘I told you, he’s not so bad,’ Nadine says fondly, while Harriet flops a head onto her shoulder. Sasha, Jade and Harriet are Nadine’s friends from ‘way, way back’ – which probably means about eighteen months, Rob surmises. Unlike Nadine, with her chic make-up and neat crop, these girls are all of the glossy-lipped, swishy blonde hair variety, like some girl group thrown together for a TV talent show. Rob feels as if he has accidentally stumbled into a branch of Claire’s Accessories.

‘I can’t believe you’re having a baby, Nads,’ Sasha announces, clutching her pink glass. ‘It’s the best thing I’ve ever heard in my life.’

I very much doubt that, Rob thinks darkly, crunching a cashew.

‘It’s amazing,’ gushes Jade. ‘How d’you feel, Rob? Are you so excited?’

‘Of course,’ Rob replies. ‘It’s absolutely terrific.’

Harriet giggles. ‘You’re going to have an adorable little baby. Look at the pair of you – you’re so lovely together. I know it’s all happened really quickly but don’t you think,’ – she looks around at the others – ‘that some things are just meant to be?’

‘Oh, yeah,’ Jade declares, already appearing a little tipsy as she drains her glass. The girls are drinking ‘Pink Ginger’, a mocktail of Nadine’s invention consisting of ginger beer (to counteract nausea), elderflower and rhubarb cordials, plus a generous splosh of vodka for her friends. To Rob’s mind, it tastes like liquid seaside rock.

Jade fixes her large, rather scary kohl-rimmed grey eyes on Rob. ‘So what names are you thinking of?’

‘Er, we haven’t yet,’ he replies.

‘How about Joshua?’ Harriet offers. ‘I always thought Joshua was sweet, or Freddie …’

Nadine laughs huskily while Rob busies himself by straightening up the little bowls of snacks on the low table. ‘He has a Freddie already,’ Nadine explains, ‘so that’s kind of out.’

‘Whoops,’ Jade giggles, clasping a hand over her mouth.

‘I like those natural names,’ Sasha muses, ‘like Summer or Autumn or Rain …’

‘Hail would be good,’ Rob mutters under his breath, striding back to the kitchen. ‘Or Thunder. Yep, Thunder Tambini has a certain ring …’ He blinks at the open shelves Nadine has arranged with all manner of quirky ‘finds’, as she calls them: little tin vehicles, a green crocheted frog, a glass paperweight with Dolly Mixture sweets trapped inside. While he found her single-girl’s flat a tad too cutesy for his taste on his first visit, it now feels claustrophobic. Horribly un-baby-friendly, too, with all her itsy-bitsy chokeable trinkets all over the place. Rain, he reflects. Great, if you want your child to be in psychotherapy by age six.

He is a little drunk, too, he realises now as he leans back against the baby-blue fridge. The kitchen is strewn with fairy lights – it’s like being in a bloody grotto – and Rob is overwhelmed by a pang of missing his old life. He craves Kerry and his children, all crammed around the slightly too-small table in their old kitchen in Bethnal Green, with its naff faux-teak units and the children’s drawings Blu-Tacked wonkily all over the cupboards.

The unrecognisable music has been turned up now, and the girls are shouting to be heard over it. He rejoins the group and tries, gamely, to join in, but they keep talking over each other and it becomes impossible to follow their conversational threads without bellowing, ‘Sorry, what did you say?’ like some wizened old man with an ear trumpet.

Escaping to the bathroom, Rob lands heavily on the loo seat and fishes out his phone from his pocket. Without considering what he’s doing, he calls Kerry’s number.

‘It’s me,’ he whispers.

‘Rob? What d’you want?’

‘Um …’ He realises he has no idea what he intended to say. He just wanted – no, needed – to hear her voice. ‘I er … wanted to say sorry for being so negative about the dog thing. Just wondered if the kids were excited when they met him?’ He puts his head in his hands, realising that what he really wanted to say was, I love you, Kerry. I love you so much and I want you back.

‘Hmmm,’ Kerry murmurs. ‘Yes, of course they were delighted. They’ll tell you all about it tomorrow and you’ll see him – Buddy – when you pick them up. Don’t worry, though – he’s been briefed not to home in on your crotch.’

‘That’s good, haha.’

There’s a small, tense pause. ‘Where are you?’

‘Um … at, er … the flat.’ He clears his throat. ‘Nadine’s place …’

‘Sounds like a party.’

‘It’s … a sort of girls’ night in.’

Kerry snorts. ‘What, like a sleepover?’

Rob senses himself flushing, and some part of that drink – the rhubarb component most likely – fizzles chemically at the back of his throat. ‘Not exactly, no …’

‘Are they painting their nails and applying face packs?’

‘No, they’re just … playing music and chatting, and I just wanted to call—’

‘Er, Rob,’ Kerry cuts in. ‘I’m kind of busy.’

‘Oh.’ His stomach slumps. Christ, the girls are singing now, punctuated by bursts of high-pitched laughter. He thinks of Kerry curled up on their knackered old sofa in Shorling and almost chokes with yearning.

‘You can’t do this,’ she adds.

‘What?’

‘Phone me out of the blue like this, just because you’re feeling out of your depth or whatever it is, and want something old and familiar.’

He frowns so hard, it causes his skull to throb. ‘You’re not old and familiar, Kerry.’

There’s a bitter laugh. ‘I’m going now.’

‘Oh … okay.’

‘Please don’t do this again. It’s not fair and it’s not very good for me right now.’ Her voice trembles as they finish the call.

Now Rob feels even worse. He didn’t plan to upset her – it’s the last thing he wants. He just wanted to say something nice to the woman he loves, and all he could think of was to praise her for going ahead with the dog thing. You’ve done the right thing, he’d wanted to say, if it makes Freddie and Mia happy after all they’ve been through. Christ, get them a whole bloody pack of hounds if you want to, and I’m sorry, so sorry for everything – for Nadine and the baby and fucking up so badly, and if I could do anything to make it not have happened, then I would …

But it’s too late for that. What Rob must do now is go back into the living room where the girls will have decided that his unborn child should be called Fern or Crocus. For a short while he’ll have to pretend to be enjoying himself, just to be polite. Then he’ll feign another migraine and take himself off to his cold, empty house, feeling as if his heart could break.