Private Lives

Chapter 4

Rosie knows as she walks down the stairs – even without seeing her or hearing her – that Eva has arrived. The air feels calmer, and the kids have stopped bickering; they talk rather than whine and have become the kind of children Rosie imagined having before she actually had any. Today, Eva’s arrived with a jigsaw puzzle she kept from Seb’s childhood, and the four of them are already gathered round the table sorting out the pieces. The kids kneeling on the chairs, bums in the air, hovering over the table.

‘Min skat,’ Eva says when she sees Rosie, reserving her Danish words of endearment for those she loves best. Rosie bends to kiss her mother-in-law’s soft cheek. It’s as soft as the kids’ skin but no longer springy, more like something worn and loved for a long time. She smells of fresh air and shortbread.

‘Thanks so much for this, Eva.’

Rosie is digging through a pile of dirty washing, left in a heap outside the machine, to see if her swimsuit is hiding in there.

‘I can’t think of anywhere I’d rather be,’ Eva says, acknowledging Greer with a nod as she passes her a corner piece of the puzzle. After more than five decades in the UK, Eva still sounds Danish, her accent warm like hot chocolate poured over words. They all adore her. Even though she’s faced a few hard things in life – fertility issues, grief and living away from her beloved Denmark – she is still determined to experience joy whenever it comes her way. She’d met Seb’s dad, Benjamin, when she’d sat down in one of his economics lectures at UCL, having got lost on the way to her English lecture. He’d drawn her a little map of where to go so she wouldn’t make the same mistake the following week and, in a moment of uncharacteristic bravado, he’d written his number at the bottom. Seb had the map framed after Benjamin died, peacefully at home, from cancer. He’d never seen Eva sob the way she sobbed when she unwrapped the frame. Now it hangs in her bedroom, above the side of the bed where Benjamin slept next to her for so many years.

Rosie discovers her swimsuit at the bottom of the washing, curled and limp like discarded skin, and decides it’s best not to smell it before putting it in her tote bag along with her towel. ‘I’ll only be a couple of hours.’

‘Take your time, elskede. Don’t rush for us.’

Rosie puts her hand on Eva’s shoulder and Eva squeezes Rosie’s arm. Now Eva is here, the need to leave suddenly seems less urgent. Having Eva in her life is like having a second chance at being a daughter. But Anna will be waiting, so Rosie kisses all four of them again before she leaves, her heart aching with love as they call out their goodbyes.

At Anna’s gym, Anna strips her clothes off in the communal area while Rosie dips into one of the cubicles.

‘Ro, there’s no one here!’ Anna laughs, muttering, ‘Prude,’ as she undoes her bra, her breasts pouring into her hands. Rosie peers at her friend like she’s snooping on a bathing nymph. Anna’s naked body spills and sways and sinks as she rummages in her bag for her swimsuit, but the main difference between them is that Anna wears herself proudly, luxuriously, while Rosie beetles around, eyes swivelling in the shadows. Rosie bets Anna masturbates regularly. Anna would probably tell her if she asked, not that she ever would. Rosie is sure friendship is easier, clearer when some things, intimate things, remain private.

Rosie comes out of her changing room while Anna’s bent over. She’s stepping into her costume, pulling it up, groaning ‘Bloody thing,’ at the twisted straps, the complicated design.

Rosie moves forward to help and they’re both soon shaking with laughter as Anna puts her head through the wrong hole so when she pulls the costume up, her enormous breasts are forced out either side of the fabric. They’re hanging like water balloons, almost under her armpits, and Anna slides her goggles on and while Rosie doubles over, stamping her foot and shaking with laughter, Anna says, ‘Perfect! Let’s swim!’

And Anna starts to walk, duck-like, tits swinging free, towards the pool.

‘God, I honestly can’t remember the last time I laughed like that,’ Rosie says after their swim as she lies back on the bottom shelf of the wood-panelled sauna while Anna, breasts now safely contained, lies on the top. Anna doesn’t say anything, but Rosie knows she’s smiling, glad. She loves to make people laugh. Rosie bubbles up with giggles again before they both settle into a delicious, endorphin-charged quiet.

After a couple of minutes, her face just a few inches from the ceiling, Anna says, ‘You said you had something you wanted to talk about?’

For a moment, Rosie can’t remember what it was she’d wanted to discuss with Anna, but then the weird disquieted feeling blooms up in her again. ‘How often do you and Eddy have sex, Anna?’

Above her, Anna laughs.

‘Quite an opener,’ she says, but Anna doesn’t squirm like Rosie when sex is mentioned. ‘Umm. Once a week, every Sunday. He reads the papers, I read the supplements and then we have sex.’

Once a week?

‘How about you guys?’ Anna asks back.

‘We’re going through a bit of a dry spell, actually. I’m just kind of trying to get back into it, I guess.’

‘Oh, babe.’ Anna twists around, peering down at Rosie between the slats. ‘That’s so normal, especially with young kids. I wouldn’t worry about that. How often do you have sex?’

Rosie feels her veins leap before rushing with shame. She’s never talked with anyone about the drought, only argued with Seb about it. She can’t go straight in with the truth. She needs to ease in gently. ‘Umm, maybe it’s been three months?’

Anna’s eyes widen. ‘I prescribe a maintenance shag. It’s worked for us before. Even if you don’t feel like it, gets you back on the horse as it were,’ she says with a snort of laughter.

‘Yeah,’ Rosie says, irritation nibbling at her now because all the sex she’s ever had has felt like a maintenance shag. She’d been trying to uphold and maintain some false version of herself – Rosie the sexual, generous, intimate lover – when really she had no idea who she was sexually. No idea what turned her on or even how she liked to be touched any more.

Above her Anna is quiet, so she adds, ‘Yeah, that’s probably a good idea. Thanks, Anna.’

Rosie wants to ask, but could never without confessing how long it has been: is a year really just a dry spell? Sure, after each baby they didn’t have sex for a few months. A couple of months after Sylvie, around three after Heath and even a bit longer after Greer. And perhaps this longer drought is simply an expression of their lives becoming fuller, busier.

Seb acts like sex is as urgent and necessary as breathing, something that keeps him alive. Rosie is sure she used to like sex, but she’s never felt like that about it. Never felt like she’d fade away without it.

‘I remember you saying that as soon as you saw Eddy after Singapore you knew something had happened.’

Anna peers down at Rosie again, wondering why Rosie’s asking this now. This time, Rosie avoids her eye completely.

‘Yeah. I did. He stepped through the front door and I knew something had happened before he even took his coat off. He had nervous energy; he’d spent the whole flight home trying to figure out what to say, eaten up with guilt.’

‘As he should!’ Rosie adds.

‘Yeah,’ Anna agrees, wiping sweat from her brow. ‘Women’s intuition, I guess. I knew something had changed.’

‘He told you right away?’

‘Yes, right there in the kitchen, and then I threw a plate at him.’

A drop of sweat falls off Anna’s chin as she shakes her head and half smiles at the memory.

It had been on one of Eddy’s flashy business trips two years ago.

Eddy runs a company specializing in car tech design and is frequently put up in five-star hotels, encouraged to order whatever he likes at the bar. This trip had been to Singapore and the woman perched on the hotel bar stool next to Eddy laughed at everything he said. Eddy told Seb that the woman was the opposite of Anna – dark, thin, spiky. He knew she was bad for him in the way he knew smoking or having another whisky would make him feel awful the next day. But Eddy was a glutton. He couldn’t – and he didn’t – resist. The flight home was the worst day of Eddy’s life. It never crossed his mind to lie. Eddy was many things – selfish, an impossible flirt, arrogant – but he was not a liar. He could never lie to someone he loved.

Forgiveness took time. Anna and Eddy had counselling and Eddy – for a few months at least – gave up drinking and cut back on the business trips. Both Rosie and Seb knew but never said aloud that Anna wouldn’t end their marriage. For all his flaws, his maddeningly selfish behaviour, Anna loved the idiot.

An unexpected outcome of Eddy’s infidelity had been that for a time, at least, Rosie and Seb had been closer. Rosie remembers feeling like a bit of a traitor, Anna going through the worst time of her marriage while Seb and Rosie were briefly golden. For a few nights, after the kids were asleep, they’d sit in the bath together and talk. Then they’d wash each other, shining and buffing the untarnished commitment between them. They’d been beautiful, those baths and, yes, a couple of times Rosie thinks the slow washing had led to them having sex. She remembers how connected they felt then, how easy it had been to fall asleep wrapped up in each other. Why couldn’t they go back there now?

‘Why is this coming up now, babe?’ Anna asks gently.

Rosie tells Anna about how she convinced Abi to stay for dinner, how Seb came back with straining takeaway bags, how when she came back down after the kids’ row upstairs, the atmosphere was weird, and how Abi immediately said she had to go. Seb told her later that there’d been a minor disagreement with Abi, some school issue about Lily, that he hadn’t realized the parent – Ms Matthews – he’d been exchanging terse emails with was also Abi, Rosie’s new friend.

‘OK, what’s the problem?’ Anna asks.

Rosie lifts her hand to her sweat-slick brow, feels the flesh on her legs swing as she bends her knees.

‘It’s a bit weird, isn’t it, that Abi didn’t mention this thing with Lily? I mean, I’m not saying I expected her to tell me everything, you know, if it was confidential, but Abi could have just flagged it, don’t you think?’

Rosie doesn’t tell her that Abi has suddenly gone cold on messages. Saying she’s too busy to come for dinner but will be in touch. She’s told herself Abi probably wants to wait to hang out again until this school issue with Seb is resolved.

Anna adjusts her position again, leaning back on her arms.

‘It’s a bit odd,’ she agrees. ‘Yes, I know you like Abi, but, to be honest, I’ve been getting some strange vibes from her. I told you I asked her if she could mind Albie after school for me and have him just for an hour on Thursday? Well, I suggested I bring a bottle of wine over, so we can have a glass when I collect him – you know, get to know each other a bit – and honestly, she looked like I’d just slapped her. Just grabbed her kid and disappeared.’

Anna is prone to hyperbole but still Rosie can picture the scene, Anna widening her eyes at Abi’s retreating back, turning to the parent next to her, mouthing, ‘Rude!’

Rosie wants to step in, defend her new friend. Anna has done this before, asking for help with childcare from women she just wants an excuse to interrogate. She can be too quick to form an opinion and despite whatever happened the other day, Rosie still feels drawn to Abi.

‘Maybe she’s just getting used to how it is down here. You’ve got to admit, it’s pretty different and she’s Hackney through and through, right?’

‘Hmm,’ Anna says, unconvinced, before adding, ‘she just seems a bit aloof. I can’t help but feel like she’s patronizing us, treating us like sweet little provincial wives. You know, the other day she asked me if I work? I was like, “Hell yes, I work!”’

Anna works in communications for a hedge fund. Three mornings a week she gets the 6.30 a.m. train to London and can often be found on the 7 p.m. back to Waverly, still tapping away at her spreadsheets.

‘Oh, Anna,’ Rosie scolds, ‘the woman has just upended her whole life, changing town, jobs, and doing it all on her own with two kids. I mean, imagine! Maybe don’t write her off just yet.’

Anna lies back down; Rosie watches the flesh on her back fill the spaces between the wooden slats like rising dough.

‘Saved by the bell!’ Anna says, relieved, lifting herself immediately up again, sweaty face glistening, illuminated by a call coming through the screen of her smart watch.

Rosie shuffles over so Anna can clamber down, Anna’s bum and legs branded with red welts from where she’s been pressed against the wooden slats.

‘I’ll be out in a mo!’ Rosie calls after her but Anna doesn’t acknowledge her. As the sauna door slowly closes, Rosie can see her friend already searching the pocket of her dressing gown for her phone. She watches Anna for a moment through the square sauna window, pacing by the showers, her eyes swivelling around the echoey swimming pool.

Rosie, her head back against the wooden slats, feels her sweat run down her body, and she wonders at Anna’s fragility. Her friend is loud and bright, but easy to bruise and quick to judge. Abi, with her different approach to life, would trouble Anna. How delicate it could be, sharing lives so closely but resisting the urge to collapse into each other’s prejudices. Rosie feels in her root that she is more aligned with Abi, but time and conditioning have made her twist and grow alongside Anna. She’ll text Abi later, see if she’s up for going for a drink soon.

Rosie sits up, her body feeling like a long-burnt candle collapsing in on itself, and she stumbles out of the sauna into the coolness of the pool. She’s surprised to see that Anna’s standing across from her, call finished but holding her phone over her heart like a nun with a Bible, her head tipped to one side like she’s trying to solve a problem she can’t quite see, staring directly at Rosie before she blinks and points towards the showers.

Once they’re dressed again, they sit side by side in front of a large mirror, Rosie towelling her hair while Anna massages cream on to her face.

‘Bloody hell, I look like a boiled ham.’ Anna laughs, before adding, ‘That was Lotte calling while we were in the sauna.’

‘Oh yeah?’ Rosie replies. ‘Is she OK?’

‘She’s feeling stressed about the restaurant. Apparently, her and Richard have been rowing loads, which is kind of predictable.’

‘Yeah,’ Rosie agrees. Lotte is always moaning about Richard.

‘She was asking if we could get there for seven thirty p.m. sharp next Saturday. The opening-night nerves have definitely set in, she’s already having nightmares about no one turning up.’

‘OK, I’ll ask Eva if she can come earlier and do bedtime.’

They’re both quiet. Anna applies her trademark red lipstick while Rosie tips her head to one side and runs her fingers through her damp hair, strands catching in the webbing of her hands like weeds. Next to her, Anna’s reflection stills in the mirror; she smiles with freshly painted lips but her eyes are weighted, sad. Rosie stops towelling her hair and asks, ‘You all right?’

Anna shakes her head softly. ‘Yeah, sorry, it’s just a work email. It’s put me in a funny mood – my fault for reading it now.’

‘You’ve got to stop doing that,’ Rosie agrees. ‘Boundaries,’ she reminds her friend.

‘Boundaries.’ Anna nods, gathering her make-up before she stands and moves behind Rosie, her hand on Rosie’s shoulder. They stare at each other in the mirror; they look like a staged photo from a hundred years ago – Anna fair and flowing, her full arm reaching up for her dark-haired friend. They’ve shared so much. Thanks to Eddy and Seb, they’d had no choice, really; they had to be friends. They’ve babysat each other’s kids; Rosie knows their alarm code and the trick to opening the sticky back-door lock. Anna knows the names of Greer’s favourite cuddly toys and that Rosie is allergic to penicillin. They are more than neighbours and more than friends. Bound together, living life side by side.

‘You know I love you, don’t you, Ro?’ Anna says, her eyes shining in the mirror.

‘Course I do,’ Rosie says, patting her friend’s arm. ‘What’s brought this on?’

‘I just want you to know that I’m always here for you.’

‘OK!’ Rosie says, smiling and turning to face her friend. ‘And I’m always here for you. Come here.’ She opens her arms and, as they hug, Rosie feels how tightly her dear, bold, emotionally brittle friend clings on to her.

None of her kids move their eyes from the TV as Rosie kisses them hello, offering only monosyllabic answers to her questions about their afternoon. She picks up a discarded mug, a few plates scattered with crumbs, and puts Heath’s abandoned school rucksack on a peg in the hall before she walks into the kitchen. Seb is wearing the ‘Kiss the cook!’ apron Eva bought him for Christmas a few years ago. He’s bent over the kitchen sink, frowning and scrubbing something hard. He turns towards her, holding his hands in Marigolds in the air, like a surgeon pre-op.

‘Hi, love,’ he says. ‘You OK?’

‘Yeah, fine,’ she replies before she leans forward and gives him a bouncy kiss on the lips. She notices his eyelid twitch as he turns back to the sink.

‘Think I found some bacon from 2006 on this pan.’

‘Still tasty?’ she asks and he laughs.

‘Delicious.’

‘How were the fajitas?’

‘Well, Heathy and I loved them, the girls not so much. We set the smoke alarm off again, though, and it’s a bit mangled, I’m afraid.’ He looks over to the table where the alarm sits, an alien mess of cables.

‘Jesus, did you just yank it out of the ceiling?’

‘Ro, it was uncontrollable – it was only charred chicken. Greer was screaming and the big kids started beating each other up in the garden – what was I supposed to do?’

She stares at the broken alarm. ‘Um, press the “stop” button, remove the batteries … basically do anything else than pull our house apart.’

His eyelid twitches again, his jaw pulses. He sounds like it’s very much a big deal even as he says, ‘Look, it’s not a big deal. It’s been glitching for ages; we had to do something about it eventually, didn’t we? I’ve already called someone; they’re coming over tomorrow to replace it.’

There is a brief pause, then over his scrubbing Seb asks, ‘How was it? Anna OK?’

Rosie laughs into the glass cupboard at the memory of Anna’s breasts bursting out either side of her costume. ‘Yeah,’ she says, ‘Anna’s great.’

Seb turns and smiles at her; he once told her he loves watching her laugh.

As he looks back down at his pan, Rosie keeps her eyes on him, noticing how quickly his smile drops. It’s as if he is suddenly lit differently, new, unfamiliar shadows darkening his features.

She moves towards him, puts her hand on his scrubbing arm, feels his tendons leap against her touch as he stops abruptly and she asks, ‘You OK?’

He turns, just slightly towards her. Their eyes don’t meet but his voice is unusually sharp as he says, ‘Yes, of course. Why wouldn’t I be?’

She pulls her hand away. ‘You just seem a bit … I don’t know, a bit tense.’

‘Do I?’ He lifts the pan out of the sink, suds running, his eyelid pulsing. ‘Well, yeah, sorry. The smoke alarm thing put me on edge, to be honest, and, you know, Sylvie and Heath arguing the whole time.’ He stares at the still-blackened pan in his hand and says, doleful, ‘I think we’re going to have to throw this away, sadly. What a bloody waste.’

He carries it across the kitchen, splattering water on the floor as he opens the back door. Rosie watches as he props it up in the pile of stuff they’ve been saying they’ll take to the tip for months, silvered now by hungry autumn snails.

Heath slides sloppily into the kitchen, caressing a rugby ball between his hands. Rosie kisses the perfect freckles on his perfect nose and Heath nudges Seb with the ball, code for them to go outside. Seb musses his son’s hair before kissing Rosie’s cheek.

‘Glad you had a good time, love.’ He follows their son, who is now chattering away about rugby, out into the garden. Rosie turns on the outside light for them, smiles at their retreating backs and thinks, yes, she’s right not to worry. Everything is fine. Everything is absolutely fine, isn’t it?