ONE
Red wrapper? Or blue? That was today's biggest question in my idyllic life. Salted or unsalted butter. For a moment I stood in the supermarket with a basket in my hand and stared at a chiller full of butter and margarines. A bewildering selection of spreads illuminated by bright fluorescent lighting. I could feel the cold air flowing out on my hands and feet. I went for salted.
Milk and bread were next. All I needed before going to collect Lilly from pre-school. Oh, and some bananas. That would do until the big shop arrived on Thursday. I paid and took it out to the waiting I-Pace.
I looked the picture of upper-middle-class suburbia. Nice clothes, flash car, immaculate dark wavy hair, and carefully applied makeup. I was still a relatively young wife and mother with little to do but look good while my husband made the big money.
A glance that lasted a little too long by a passing man reminded me just how good. Eyes on my arse was what you call an occupational hazard. Eye candy. That was me. I could have been some famous footballer's wife or girlfriend. I wasn't, but it described my image.
I collected my daughter from the pre-school and we went back to another trapping that a WAG would recognise. The very expensive home my successful husband paid for. Yes. Idyllic. At least that's how it appeared.
Lilly was four. She was becoming independent and curious about the big world. Everything was a toy. I had to watch her all the time or I'd find myself cleaning crayons from the walls or picking Lego out of the washing machine. A nice bank balance and manicured nails didn't protect anyone from a precocious young lady.
She'd recently discovered how the push-to-open cupboard doors in the kitchen worked. Or more significantly, how fun it was to have her frustrated mother find every base cabinet with its doors swinging two minutes after I'd looked away.
Other children her age could be sat in front of a TV to keep them quiet. Lilly's attention span for television was limited. Peppa Pig was as far as it went. A good thing in truth, but there were times I wished it would hold her in the hypnotic state some four-year-olds were gripped by.
I loved her to bits. She was my world. But oh boy, did I look forward to the occasional respite when she was at pre-school or when my niece popped in after school to spend time with her.
Abby lived across the road. She was fourteen and becoming a little adult. She was discovering boys and wearing makeup. It wasn't dolls anymore. Now it was a genuine curiousness about children and babies as she foresaw a future of marriage and families. She was at a crossroads. Soon to be a woman herself, but still retaining a part of her childhood. I think spending time with Lilly was a way she could still play with dolls while pretending she'd outgrown them.
All I knew was that it was an hour or two I could safely switch my attention off. An opportunity to prepare dinner without building a barricade around anything remotely sharp or hot.
I glanced in to check on them to find Lilly piggybacking Abby, giggling madly.
"Hi."
I turned to see my sister coming in through the sliding doors.
"Abby here?"
"Yeah. In the conservatory with Lilly. She's keeping her quiet.
Coffee?"
"Please."
"Good. That's another twenty minutes I can hold on to my saviour."
I was close to my sister. She was a year older but we were more alike than most twins. Same green eyes, and the same dark hair. Same features. Having the same beautician made us all the more alike. We even lived on the same road. I say road. It was more a gated community. Houses my architect husband had designed. Claire's had been the financial Brian, raising the capital for it all. They'd also helped build the houses as part of a self-build community. They were old school friends, probably as close as brothers in their own way.
"Joe and Rogan just got home. I left them talking about Star Trek."
Claire sat on one of the bar stools and ruffled her hair in mock frustration.
"Keeps them happy.
Rogan watches the shite while I take a bath. I can time it to a perfect forty-five minutes."
I poured the coffee from the filter machine into two mugs and joined her.
"Eddie's just as corrupted. Won't watch anything else. On his games machine the rest of the time.
So. Any thoughts about that holiday we were talking about? Skiing? Or sun sea and sand?"
"Yeah. I asked Rogan.
He suggested Barbados in January. Nice and hot.
Just like here." I added glancing out at the dull skies and wind.
"Yeah. May and it's freezing outside."
I glanced down at her legs.
"Might be because you're in a tiny little dress. Drafty?"
"It's my Deanna Troy ploy. Legs and tits and I might get a little attention from his phaser."
"Does it work?"
"No. Not really. Still has his shields up more than down."
"Same with Rogan.
Once a week if I'm lucky.
Thought men were supposed to think about sex every seven seconds."
"They do. But the thinking wears them out." Claire laughed sipping her coffee.
"Okay. Barbados it is."
"Aren't you going to ask Joe?"
"He won't care. I'll tell him it's a planet in The Neutral Zone and he'll be fine."
"You sure you don't watch it in secret? You know a lot about Star Trek."
"Be glad you haven't got a twelve-year-old coming up thirty. I get the rundown every time he watches an episode.
Ugh."
She mimicked shooting herself in the head.
"Can't be worse than Peppa Pig over and over.
Were we like that do you think?"
"I only remember having the hots for Ryan Phillippe and getting told off for watching Cruel Intentions."
"Not for girls your age."
We mimicked Mum in unison before collapsing into laughter.
"Mum.
Dinner ready?"
We both looked around to find Abby standing by the huge glass panels at the side of the house. Her school uniform dishevelled by the antics of my daughter.
"And that's teenagers for you. Always food."
Abby was the spitting image of her mum. She was going to be another slender hottie when she was all grown up. Lilly was at her side dancing to some tune only she could hear. She took after her dad. Blonde hair.
"I only asked. I thought you'd come to get me."
"Do you have homework?"
"English and History."
"Then I've come to get you."
Claire stood up.
"Come over later, Maya. Joe has a work thing on and I have a bottle of wine that needs help drinking."
I walked with them to the door.
"About eight?"
"Perfect. The kids will be up in their rooms by then."
"Mum." Abby protested.
"The kids will be up in their rooms by then." She said a little louder and clearer for Abby's benefit.
"Sorry, Abby." I smiled.
"I'll see you tomorrow."
I would. Most days Abby came over. As did Claire. Or I went to their home. We practically lived in each other's houses.
Joe and Rogan were just as bad. Of course, they worked while we were stay-at-home mums now. But in their free time, they hung out. Played golf occasionally. And arranged most things to include both our families.
They were childhood friends going back to their first day at senior school. I'd met Rogan through Claire and Joe not long after they'd started dating. A charity football match they'd played in. Claire had convinced me to go watch her new boyfriend with her. I'd not been so keen, expecting to play Gooseberry after the match. Instead, I'd met Rogan and became captivated.
Our first date had been the same night. That'd been almost sixteen years ago. Now here I was about to cook his tea.
"Mummy.
Can I watch Peppa Pig?"
"Yes, darling."
Bonus. Peace would continue.
TWO
The beauty of our physical closeness was that we could continue as adults being the childhood friends we always had been. Only with added alcohol.
Claire's children were upstairs doing whatever kids that age did. In our day it'd been texting and watching videos with our friends. I imagined today it was TikTok and FaceTime for Abby. In Eddie's case, there was no secret. It would be Call of Duty on his Xbox.
I crept away from Rogan with the "just popping to Claire's" excuse he'd heard so many times.
She already had a bottle waiting.
"Do we drink too much?"
She asked handing me a glass.
"Probably. We should cut the coffee out."
"Ha. That'll be it.
Cheers."
She raised her glass and took a mouthful.
"Let's go sit down."
Claire's home was a similar style to my own. Open spaces, minimalist, and huge glass panels that folded away in the summer to a secluded garden where no one could see. There were eight other homes in our group. All were constructed by a self-build collective Rogan and Joe had led.
It was a gated little community on the far edge of town with open fields and green spaces isolating us from the world just a little more.
I flopped onto one of the sofas. It was a home-from-home for me.
"Look at us. We live in nice houses, I drive a BMW. You a Jaguar. We're planning a holiday in the Caribbean for fuck sake. We didn't see that one coming during Assembly at school. Anyone would think we have perfect lives."
"We do don't we?
Look around. Not bad for two girls who grew up in a semi and went to a comprehensive school."
"True. But sometimes I think life is passing us by in our little cocoon."
This was new. Claire not so convinced by our amazing luck.
"What's nagging at you?"
"I don't know. Life I guess.
It all gets a bit run of the mill doesn't it."
Claire stared into her drink.
"No one knows what life is like when we close our doors."
I topped her glass up and she went on.
"I remember when it was fun. Going out every weekend. Having boys pester us for a kiss, or more. I remember when I first went out with Joe and he couldn't keep his hands off me."
"I remember having to work for a living and trying to decide if I had enough money for the new shoes I wanted."
"But it was exciting. Now it's all ... bluhh."
"Claire. All you have to do is pamper yourself and look good for Joe."
"That's just it. What am I looking good for? Two kids, a job in finance that takes so much of his time. We're more like brother and sister than we are lovers."
"The dress not working then?"
I looked at her legs stretched out to rest on the edge of a huge coffee table, bare all the way up her thighs. If it'd been any shorter I could have checked the colour of her panties. Was she saying Joe had lost interest?
Claire gulped more of the wine.
"I'm not Deanna. Or his other fancy. I'm just boring, dependable wifey."
I felt a little of her pain. I could see the same with Rogan. It wasn't just him. It was me too. Claire had a point. Marriage did become mundane. It was just that the wine hadn't reached my head quite enough yet to bleat about it.
"Who's his other fancy?
With Rogan, it's Jenna Coleman. Watches anything with her in. Thinks I don't notice."
