Eva and Katie slip past Sadie and tumble through the hall into the kitchen, full of excitement and laughter, wearing their best dresses and faux fur coats like mini princesses. They have little handbags over their shoulders and they’re clutching programmes between their nail-polished fingers.
‘Mummy! Mum! It was brilliant!’ Katie cries.
‘You should’ve come, Mum,’ Eva says. ‘You would have really liked it.’
‘Sorry we’re so late,’ Sadie says, her blue eyes shining.
I do a double take. Sadie looks really pretty tonight, wearing a plain black dress, simple heels and a jade wrap, her raven hair swept up in a stylish chignon. Her make-up is sparse – pale plum lips and a lick of eyeliner. She really seems to be coming out of her shell.
Robert walks in last, looking devastatingly handsome in a dark suit and open-neck shirt. As he stands next to Sadie, I push away the jealous thought that they look like a beautiful couple.
‘Hey, Gems.’ Robert comes over and kisses me on the lips.
‘Hi,’ I say, putting a hand to his cheek. ‘How was it?’
The girls start talking all at once, squeezing their bodies between me and Robert.
‘Look!’ Eva cries, thrusting her programme under my nose.
‘What’s this?’ I ask, sitting down and patting the chair next to me.
Eva sits and lays the programme on the table, opening it at the first page.
‘We queued up and they wrote in our books!’ Katie says, shoving her programme on top of Eva’s.
‘Hey!Iwas telling Mum.’ She shifts Katie’s programme off hers.
‘You can both tell me,’ I say.
‘We went to the stage door,’ Eva says, ‘and waited for the cast to come out. They gave us their autographs. It was brilliant.’
‘There was someone called Bottom,’ Katie says, dissolving into giggles.
Eva joins in and soon we’re all laughing.
‘So you enjoyed it?’ I ask.
‘It was the best night ever!’ Eva says.
‘Fantastic,’ I reply. But although I’m happy they had a wonderful time, there’s still a part of me that feels sad I wasn’t there with them.
‘Right!’ Robert claps his hands. ‘Time for bed, monsters!’
‘O-oh,’ they groan in unison.
‘You promised,’ Sadie says. ‘We had a deal – we said you could queue up for autographs if you went straight to bed when we got home. Remember?’
The girls’ shoulders droop. They nod and get to their feet, yawning.
‘And we have to take that nail polish off before school tomorrow,’ Sadie adds. ‘Come on, let’s go, lickety split.’
‘I’ll be up in a moment to put them to bed, Sadie.’
She nods and I watch them shuffle off upstairs, their exuberance vanishing with every step as tiredness kicks in.
‘It’s a shame you couldn’t come tonight,’ Robert says, pulling me to my feet and wrapping me in his arms.
‘It was a mix-up with the dates,’ I say.
