They all tittered politely. Mercifully, Norah continued her conversation with Bryony, who was way ahead in the baby stakes, with a ten- and a six-year-old, and had become quite an authority for the others.
‘It’s almost fizzy, isn’t it .?.?.?’
Cassie was catching snatches of the conversation, which was taking on a surreal quality.
‘The teething nappies. Yellowy .?.?. like—’
‘Ochre, that’s the colour!’ chimed in Celine who was apparently in the process of renovating an old bungalow. ‘That’s the exact shade we’ve chosen for the statement wall of the back sitting room, it’s so cosy.’
Cassie held out her glass gratefully as Louise gestured towards her with the half-empty Prosecco bottle. ‘Are you not having any?’
Louise shook her head and made a coy face.
‘Oh my God, congratulations!’ Cassie mouthed. ‘How long?’
‘Twelve weeks,’ said Louise with pantomime secrecy, to which Cassie obligingly responded by miming zipping her mouth.
‘Oh, it’s OK, they all know,’ said Louise, which caused Cassie’s heart to sink just a little. She was officially the only childless member of the group and for a moment felt painfully conspicuous, even though everybody’s attention had moved on to the gripping topic of children’s eating (fussy, for the most part) and sleeping – patchy to non-existent, apart from Celine’s nine-month-old who seemed to have the sleeping powers of a tiny Rip Van Winkle. She desperately wanted to add something to the conversation like, ‘I thought I was pregnant once but it turned out to be a false alarm,’ but recognised in time this was no place for it.
Among the white noise of chatter, she wondered how her old friend group could have changed so much and yet so little. She’d always felt like the odd one out, working to fit in when to everyone else it all seemed so effortless.
In Sixth Year, Norah had been the head girl; Bryony, with her unruly blonde hair and devil-may-care attitude, had been the popular one. Celine, with her dry wit, had been the class joker and Louise had always been the nice one who never spoke ill of anyone. Sometimes that had irritated the feistier members of the gang but now, as a grown-up who’d spent a long time out in the world, Cassie could well recognise the value of simple kindness.
She was always labelled as the arty one, which felt like being told she was the one with the particularly bad case of impetigo. If she’d gone to an artier school, like the comprehensive where nobody had hair their own colour beyond the age of twelve, she might have blended in and been totally unremarkable, but Mam and Da wouldn’t hear of any of that namby-pamby, off-the-wall nonsense and had marched her down in her navy uniform to a decent, traditional all-girls school.
‘Declan’s a design engineer so he combines technical ability and creative thinking. I mean, that’s the future right there, isn’t it?’ announced Norah, who never missed a chance to remind everyone she had won the jackpot in life. ‘He’s a problem-solver, it just flows out of him: he’s adapted the baby sling so he can carry both Karl and Louis at the same time.’
She was commanding the full attention of the group, not to mention the couple at the next table, who discreetly swivelled in their direction so as not to miss any decent tips.
‘Anyhow, he’s fixed it so that instead of them being either front or back, they’re attached on either side of him so he can cook and hoover at the same time. They love it.’
The girls murmured their appreciation but as Cassie’s gaze inadvertently slid to the couple at the next table, she could see they too were struggling to envisage this contraption.
‘He’s actually going to patent the idea. Just wait, it’s the engineers will save us all.’
Crikey, Cassie thought, it sounded like a sort of Wild West-style holster where you could whip one of the twins out and point them at someone in an emergency. This was a totally un-maternal thought to have about a friend’s babies, but she just didn’t get the hype. They secretly knew it and she knew they knew it.
‘And you’ll be next.’ Celine nudged Louise conspiratorially. ‘One of our meet-ups soon is going to be a baby shower, waay-haay, I can’t wait.’
Cassie beamed and cheers-ed along with everyone else but she felt a stab in the gut, not that anyone else noticed. It hadn’t even occurred to any of her friends to ask her if she had any plans in that direction. Not that she wanted them to .?.?. exactly. Just then, Celine, whose tolerance for booze seemed to have plummeted in the years since the Leaving Cert holiday in Corfu, slurred slightly in her direction.
‘What about you, Cass? You going to make a solo run while there’s still time?’
‘Or .?.?. wait a minute, have you been hiding somebody back in London?’ said Norah.
‘Well, if I have, I can’t find him.’
There was an uneasy laugh.
‘Not since I finished with Gav, that is.’
There was a general murmur of sympathy.
‘How long ago was that?’ asked Bryony.
‘Three months, give or take – but sod it, it’s still Christmas, let’s just be silly,’ said Cassie brightly, eager to break the tension.
They all laughed, and she’d just refilled her glass and was settling in to have a giggle with the girls when babe-a-licious Bryony – as she used to be referred to by the boys at school – glanced at her phone and squawked.
