AllFreeNovel
Share Us
‘I don’t know. Yes.’ Miranda sighed and closed her eyes.
‘I know weddings can be stressful, they can raise a lot of feelings.’ Audrey reached for Miranda’s hand. ‘You don’t need to walk down the aisle with me if you don’t want to. You don’t even need to wear the bridesmaid dress if you’d prefer not to.’
‘Thank you, thank you, I just, I think I might vomit or cry, or cry-vomit and then I’d ruin your day. Not that I’d be vomiting about your wedding. I just look at what you and Josh have, and you and Jay, Clara – you’re like this model dream couple. Why can’t I have that?’
Chocolatey dribble escaped from Miranda’s mouth, and Audrey reached out to dab it with a tissue.
‘I’m sure it’s out there for you,’ said Clara, catching Audrey’s eye and giving her a concerned look. ‘But you know, nothing is perfect, everything is a bit of a compromise. Jay and I are definitely not a “model dream couple”.’ Clara paused, biting her lip. ‘We haven’t had sex in over a year.’
‘What?’ Audrey turned to her friend. Why hadn’t she said anything about this before now?
‘Everything’s just been so full on with the girls. No one sleeps, and we snipe at each other all day and well, sometimes I just can’t stand the sight of him by the time I climb into bed at night. I can’t even lie facing him in case I open my eyes and see his big stupid round face and it makes me so angry I can’t sleep. But you know what, that’s fine. I love him, we’ll get it back. All my married friends have troughs, sometimes you just need to live in the trough and roll around in the shit for a while.’
Audrey couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Before they’d had the twins, Clara and Jay were the kind of couple who snuck off in restaurants for a quickie in the bathroom. They were insatiable, completely besotted with each other, and she rarely saw them argue. Yes, they’d both found it hard becoming parents, but they were still Clara and Jay.
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ Audrey asked.
‘Last week, Jay went into the cupboard to get some Calpol for Lily, and he said, “Why is our medicine cabinet so messy?” Why? Why? We wouldn’t even have a medicine cabinet if it wasn’t for me. You think he’s ever bought medicine? Do you think he even knows the difference between Nurofen and Calpol?’
Miranda had stopped sobbing now and was staring at Clara with a strange, slightly scared expression.
‘And when Lily and Bea were six months old, six months, he said he thought we shouldn’t use disposable nappies any more, that we needed to do our part to save the environment and we should switch to washable ones. Can you believe it? I mean he changes about ten per cent of the nappies, at best. Can you imagine he’s going to wash and dry the sodding things too?’ Clara’s face had gone red. ‘Sometimes he walks into a room now, doesn’t even say anything, but just the way he’s breathing makes me want to kill him. Last week he came home from work, and I was washing up bottles for the fiftieth time that day, and he was talking on the phone, laughing his stupid fake laugh he does with this coffee supplier, and I just wanted to pick up the saucepan that was drying by the sink and smash it into his skull until he stopped laughing.’ Clara noticed Audrey’s worried expression and waved a hand dismissively. ‘But I love him. We’ll be fine. It’s just being a parent, lack of sleep. Everyone feels like this when they have kids.’
Miranda looked entirely composed now.
‘I can walk down the aisle with you, Audrey, it’s fine.’ Then she patted Clara’s shoulder and offered her the chocolates. Clara took one, biting down on it with a sharp crack.
‘Can you fix my horrible ringlet hair?’ Miranda asked cautiously. Clara nodded.
Audrey swallowed a new wave of panic. If any couple was ‘meant to be’ it was Clara and Jay. Anyone could see it – in the way they sat on a chair together, limbs entwined, the way they spoke in their own short-form, coded language, the fact they looked for each other first in any room, and their eyes lit up at the same things. If marriage and children had broken them, what hope was there for anyone?
