Truly Madly Guilty

'Ah, relax, don't worry, they're fine with Dakota,' said Vid.

'Sam is the worrier,' said Clementine.

'Yes, Clementine prefers the free-range parenting approach,' said Sam. 'No need to watch them at the shopping centre, a security guard will take care of them.'

'Sam, that happened once,' protested Clementine. 'I turned my back on Holly for one second in JB Hi-Fi,' she said to Vid and Tiffany, although Erika didn't remember hearing this story before. 'And she'd run off to find a Barbie DVD or something, and got disoriented and wandered out of the shop. It was terrifying.'

'Yes, see, so that's why you can't turn your back,' said Sam.

'Yes, Mr Never-Made-a-Mistake-in-Your-Life.' Clementine rolled her eyes.

'Never made that sort of mistake,' said Sam.

'That's nothing. I lost Dakota at the beach once,' said Vid.

Erika and Oliver exchanged looks. Were these parents trying to outdo each other with just how incompetent and irresponsible they were? When Oliver and Erika had a child it would never be out of their sight. Never. They would risk-assess every situation. They would give their child all the attention they hadn't got from their own parents. They would do everything right that their parents had got wrong.

'I have never been so scared in my life as that day at the beach,' said Tiffany. 'I wanted to kill him. I thought to myself, if something has happened to Dakota, I will kill him, I will literally kill him, I will never forgive him.'

'But look, I'm still alive! We found her. It all worked out fine,' said Vid. 'Kids get lost. It's part of life.'

No it's not, thought Erika.

'Ah, no it's not,' said Tiffany, echoing Erika's thoughts. 'It's not inevitable.'

'Agreed.' Sam clinked his beer bottle against Tiffany's. 'Jeez. These feckless partners of ours.'

'You and me, we are the feckless ones,' said Vid to Clementine, and he made 'feckless' sound like a delicious way to be.

'We're relaxed,' said Clementine. 'Anyway, it happened once and now I watch them like a hawk.'

'What about you two, eh?' said Vid to Erika and Oliver, perhaps noticing that his neighbours were being left out of the conversation.

'I watch Erika like a hawk,' said Oliver unexpectedly. 'I haven't lost her once.'

Everyone laughed and Oliver looked triumphant. He couldn't normally pull off a clever comeback. Don't ruin it, my love, thought Erika as she saw Oliver's mouth move in preparation to speak again. Stop there. Don't try to say the same thing again in a different way to get a bigger laugh.

'But what about kids, eh?' said Vid. 'Are you two planning to have children?'

There was a brief pause. A tightening, a constriction of the atmosphere as if people had stopped breathing.

'Vid,' said Tiffany. 'You can't ask people that. It's personal.'

'What? Why not? What's personal about children?' Vid looked nonplussed.

'We're hoping to have children,' said Oliver. His face collapsed inward, like a popped balloon. Poor Oliver. So soon after his tiny social triumph.

'One day,' said Erika. Everyone seemed to be deliberately not looking at her, the way people did when you had food in your teeth and they didn't want to tell you so they kept trying not to see. She used her fingernail to check her teeth for sesame seeds from the crackers. She'd meant to sound up-beat and positive. 'One day soon.'

'Yes, but you can't wait too long,' said Vid.

'For God's sake, Vid!' said Tiffany.

There was a piercing yell from upstairs.

chapter twenty-three

'It's Clementine.'