3

Poppy unwound her scarf from her neck and then proceeded to wind it back round again more tightly. The day was sunny but deceptively cold. The leaves had already started to leave the trees behind, and they kicked them up underfoot as they walked. Jason strode on ahead with Poppy’s four-year-old daughter, Maisie, pointing out the ducks and the boats, occasionally grabbing her hand or the hood of her jacket when she strayed too close to the edge of the riverbank.

‘Do you think I’m getting a moustache?’ Poppy said, out of nowhere.

‘Let me see.’

Poppy pushed her face close to Jen’s, and Jen screwed up her eyes and scrutinized her sister-in-law’s upper lip.

‘No. I mean, no more so than anyone else. There’s hair, but it’s blonde. I’d never have noticed, if you hadn’t pointed it out.’

‘Shit. I’ll have to add it to my list of things to get waxed.’

Jen laughed. ‘You can’t see it. I should never have said –’

‘No. You’re the only person I can trust to tell me how it is.’

‘OK, so how about me?’

Poppy peered at her. ‘I can’t tell. I need my glasses.’

They walked on in silence for a few moments.

‘So I’m guessing you were looking at Jason this morning and thinking, “What are we going to do with the rest of our lives now both girls have left home?”’

‘Witch.’

‘It’s a syndrome. I read about it.’

It might not seem ideal, having your sister-in-law for your best friend. There ought to have been whole areas that were taboo, subjects off the menu because they were just too revealing, but Jen and Poppy had a ‘no boundaries’ rule that they had deemed essential if their friendship was going to trump their familial relationship. Luckily, Jen and Jason’s marriage was largely drama free so Poppy had never been called on to take sides. Not so far.

‘It’s just going to take a bit of adjusting to,’ Jen said now. ‘For both of us.’

‘I bet you end up having another baby.’ Poppy smirked.

Jen pulled a face that said ‘no way’. ‘We’re going to run around doing all the things we couldn’t do with kids in tow.’

‘Such as?’

‘I have no idea. Going dogging. Or taking drugs. What do unencumbered people do?’

‘I have a four-year-old, don’t ask me.’

‘Maybe we’ll go travelling, something like that.’

‘What? Backpacks and Birkenstocks? I can’t see it, somehow.’

‘I mean more like a long holiday. Nothing too intrepid. Nice hotels and scheduled flights.’

‘Can you afford to do that?’

‘No.’

‘If I were you, I’d just enjoy the peace and quiet. Lounge around a bit without anyone asking you to make them a sandwich or give them a lift to a party.’

Jen sighed. ‘We can babysit Maisie whenever you like. Look at Jason,’ she said, pointing up ahead, where Jason was now carrying his niece on his shoulders and pretending theatrically to drop her every few steps. ‘He’s in his element.’

Jason revelled in being a parent as much as Jen did. Adored family life. It was one of the things that had attracted her to him early on – his love of spending time with his family, his desire to be a father himself. Fatherhood, he had said to her once after Simone was born, made him feel like a man. He had said it as if it was a joke, and she had laughed along with him, but she knew he’d really meant it underneath. And he’d been good at it too. Still was, she reminded herself. Or, at least, still would be whenever he got the chance.

‘Great,’ Poppy smiled. ‘You can have her every weekend. Recapture your golden years of parenting while I run around and have fun. That way, everyone’s happy.’

‘OK, well. Maybe not whenever you like. But sometimes.’

‘You just need to give it a bit of time to work out who you are without the girls around. It’s not like you’re not parents any more. Just not full time. Or is that too many negatives? You know what I mean.’

Jen looked at her. ‘Have you been reading Psychologies magazine in the doctor’s waiting room again?’

Poppy laughed, pushed her dark (pink-streaked) hair away from her face and tucked it behind her ear. She and Jen were only a couple of years apart – forty-one and forty-three – but Poppy was steadfastly refusing to accept it gracefully. She somehow got away with it, too, managing to seem – to Jen, anyway – cool and carefree rather than deluded and tragic. Both of Jason’s sisters seemed younger than their years. Poppy because she cultivated a laid-back, youthful image, Jessie because she acted up like the spoiled, indulged, youngest sibling that she was. As a counterbalance, Jason had assumed the responsible, reliable, elder brother mantle early on – another trait that Jen had found irresistible.

‘No. But I do watch Loose Women sometimes. Same thing.’

Jason turned round, Maisie swaying like the head of a sunflower on his shoulders.

‘Gaucho?’ he said, pointing to the restaurant up ahead.

‘Lovely!’ she called back.

By the time they got home, it was nearly dark and it was all they could do to summon up the energy to eat off their laps, flipping between Strictly and The X Factor. They had walked miles, trailed round the shops half-heartedly, stopped for lunch and then coffee. By ten o’clock they were both dropping off, cuddled up on the sofa, and decided to call it a night. Jen nestled into Jason’s proffered arm, and was congratulating herself on a successful waste of a day when she fell asleep.