Nine Perfect Strangers

‘I don’t want any more children,’ said Carmel. ‘I just want to go back in time to when everything was beginning. Pregnancies are the ultimate beginnings.’ She put a hand to her stomach. ‘I always felt beautiful when I was pregnant, although I must admit my hair looked preposterous. I’ve got all this thick black Romanian hair, so when I was pregnant, it went wild.’

‘Wait, why did it go wild?’ asked Jessica. She was not prepared for her hair to go wild, thank you very much. Surely there was a shampoo and conditioner to fix that.

‘Your hair stops falling out when you’re pregnant,’ said Heather. ‘So it gets thicker.’ She touched her own hair. ‘I loved my hair when I was pregnant.’

‘I’m sure you are pregnant, Jessica,’ said Carmel. ‘And I’m sorry.’ She paused. ‘Congratulations.’

‘Thank you,’ said Jessica. Maybe she wasn’t pregnant. Maybe she’d just made a fool of herself in front of these people. She looked at Ben. He was studying his bare feet as if they had the answer. He had huge feet. Would their baby have huge feet too? Could they really be parents together? They weren’t too young. They could afford a baby. They could afford a dozen babies. Why did it seem unimaginable?

Tony had gone to the bathroom and come back with a damp towel that he wordlessly handed to Frances. She pressed it to her forehead. She was sweating.

‘Are you not well, Frances?’ asked Carmel.

Everyone looked at Frances.

‘No,’ said Frances. She waved a languid hand in front of her face. ‘Just . . . you know how you talked about how much you liked beginnings? I’ve got my own personal ending going on here.’

‘Ah,’ said Heather, as if that made perfect sense to her. ‘Don’t think of it as an ending. Think of it as a beginning.’

Carmel said, ‘When I was a teenager, my mother used to wear this badge that said, “They’re not hot flushes, they’re power surges.” I was absolutely mortified by it.’

The three of them laughed that self-satisfied, middle-aged-woman laugh that made you want to stay young forever.

chapter fifty-three

Frances

‘You alright?’

Tony sat on the floor next to Frances, in that uncomfortable way men sat on the ground at picnics, as if they were looking for somewhere to stow their legs.

‘I’m okay,’ said Frances. She pressed the damp towel to her forehead as the wave of heat continued to engulf her. She felt strangely sanguine, even though she was locked in a room with strangers and having a hot flush. ‘Thanks for the towel.’

She studied him. His face was pale and there were beads of sweat across his forehead too. ‘Are you okay?’

He patted his forehead. ‘Just a bit claustrophobic.’

‘You mean like properly claustrophobic? Not just I really want to get out of here claustrophobic?’ Frances let the towel drop to her lap.

Tony tried to bend his knees up towards his chest, gave up, and stre

tched them out again. ‘I’m mildly claustrophobic. It’s not that big a deal. I didn’t like being down here even before we were locked in.’

‘Right then, I need to distract you,’ said Frances. ‘Take your mind off it.’

‘Go right ahead,’ said Tony. He smiled a half-version of his full-on smile.

‘So . . .’ said Frances. She thought about what Napoleon had said yesterday before their smoothies had their full effect. ‘Did you suffer from that “post-sports depression” when you gave up football?’

‘That’s a really sparkling topic of conversation to hit off with,’ said Tony.

‘Sorry,’ said Frances. ‘I’m not at my best. Also, I’m interested. My career might be kind of ending right now.’

Tony grimaced. ‘Well. They say that a sports star dies twice. The first time is when they retire.’

‘And was it like a death?’ asked Frances. It would feel like a death if she had to stop writing.

‘Well, yeah, kind of.’ He picked up a half-melted candle and pulled off a chunk of wax. ‘Not to be dramatic about it, but the game was all I knew for all those years, it’s who I was. I was a kid straight out of school when I started playing professionally. My ex-wife would say I was still a kid when I finished. She used to say it stunted me. She had this phrase she’d picked up somewhere: professional sportsperson, amateur human being.’ He put the candle back on the floor and flicked away the piece of wax with his fingertips. ‘She used to repeat it every time I . . . demonstrated my amateur approach to life.’