Private Lives

Chapter 1

Seb and Rosie walk in silence, side by side, to Eddy’s party.

Eddy adores his birthday, but it has been the same every year for the last decade.

In the weeks leading up to it, Eddy will shake his curls and say he doesn’t want to celebrate, but then a few days before he’ll tug his beard and change his mind.

And on cue, every year, his wife, Anna, will pull together a last-minute dinner party.

Now, outside their friends’ Victorian terraced house, almost identical to their own, Rosie turns to Seb and offers him the tennis racquet she wrapped with their four-year-old daughter that afternoon. ‘Here, you give it to him– it was your idea.’

The wrapping paper gapes and bags around the thin frame like ill-fitting clothes.

Their fingers briefly touch as he takes it, and Seb catches a flash of panic in her eyes, as if she’s worried, worried he’s going to bring up everything from last night.

She just shakes her head and turns towards the gate.

This is their dynamic now. Their relationship more like that of passive-aggressive colleagues than the happy couple they lead everyone to believe they are.

It’s normal, Seb silently reminds himself.

They are just relearning how to be together without their three kids– Sylvie, eleven; Heath, nine; and Greer, four– dangling off them, screaming and needing them. That’s all. So normal.

As he follows behind her, stepping over a compressed mash of autumnal leaves, he runs through his options to lift the mood. In the final moment before they reach the front door, he opts for a classic.

‘Hey, Ro,’ Seb says, suddenly a bit shy as she turns back to him. ‘You look beautiful.’

Rosie looks down at herself. Perhaps a little surprised and a little disappointed to see herself still there, dressed in her favourite black jeans and blue silk shirt. ‘My body feels like a bag of spanners,’ she says glumly.

Seb laughs. Relieved she’s making a joke. ‘Well, I adore every single one of the spanners in your lovely bag.’

Rosie smiles, grateful, and Seb reaches for her hand, the one not holding a wine bottle, and squeezes quickly. He feels another wash of relief, because looking into her dark eyes in that moment they silently agree to let last night go.

The door opens with a big whoosh and Seb and Rosie lift their arms to the sky, calling in sing-song voices, ‘Happy birthday!’

‘Friends!’ Eddy’s laughing, folding them both into his big arms, pulling them close, smacking his lips to their foreheads like they’re his grown children who have at last come home. ‘Thank God you’re here.’

Eddy keeps his hand on the back of Seb’s neck as Anna hurries pink-faced towards them from the kitchen, lifting an apron over her blonde head. Her feet are bare and her arms– just like Eddy’s– are open wide to Rosie.

‘Hi, loves!’ she squeals like she hadn’t seen them both only yesterday at the school gates.

Rosie bends down towards Anna but as they hug, one of Anna’s dangly gold earrings catches in Rosie’s hair. ‘Ow!’

They release each other quickly, Rosie touching the top of her head.

‘Oh God, sorry! Bloody things!’ Anna says, pulling a few strands of dark hair from the complicated hoops.

Rosie shakes her apology away, keen to move on from the awkwardness, and reaches for Anna’s hand. ‘That dress looks fab on you.’

Seb looks at his wife, his gorgeous, kind wife. She is next to Anna who is now on tiptoes, twisting her curvy hips from side to side, showing off her fitted black dress, delighted, and Seb marvels at Rosie’s apparent ease in giving others what they need.

‘Thanks. Spanx are the best,’ Anna says, snapping the elastic under her dress, before turning to Seb, opening her arms again.

‘Sebbo!’ She pulls him down firmly towards her.

She smells warm, of spices simmering in a stew.

Eddy and Anna have been together for twenty years, and Seb’s known her for longer than he’s known Rosie.

Although he feels brotherly towards her, he will always find a reason to pop out into the garden when Anna gets too much.

Eddy can be similar. Seb often finds himself missing easy shots on the tennis court because he’s zoned out of Eddy’s constant chatter.

Releasing him from her grip, Anna starts telling Seb about their cat leaving a bird’s decapitated head on the kitchen table.

Meanwhile Eddy takes Rosie’s coat with a twinkle in his eye, a telltale sign that he is already at least two drinks down, and ushers her into the sitting room.

‘Oh wow!’ Rosie starts laughing as soon as she enters the room. It’s a blurt of a laugh, uncontrolled, one of Seb’s favourites.

Seb follows a couple of paces behind and starts laughing with Rosie.

The room is plastered with photos of Eddy.

The same extreme close-up of Eddy’s grinning, bearded face has been stuck up on the walls, over the fireplace and is even dangling from the lampshade over the large, carefully set dining table.

‘Welcome to heaven,’ Eddy says, raising his hands, grinning widely as Anna starts passing around champagne flutes.

‘Jesus. I had a nightmare like this once,’ Seb says, turning around the room slowly.

‘Ha!’ Eddy laughs, his palm reaching to stroke Anna’s bottom as she passes.

‘It was my idea,’ Anna says to Rosie, whose favour, even after all these years, she still seeks out. ‘He’s always prattling on about not getting enough attention, so…’ Anna gestures at the room as though this should be enough to satisfy any attention deficit.

Seb glances at Rosie. ‘See?’ he wants to say. ‘See? It’s not just us!’

Rosie’s holding out her glass to Eddy, who is pouring sparkling wine too fast, the bubbles foaming up and over, wetting her hand.

She licks the rim of her glass to stop it spilling to the floor.

Seb watches her tongue flick and where he would once have felt a snap of desire, he now just feels a dull thud.

But Eddy’s turned, proffering the bottle towards Seb, so he keeps smiling as he offers up his own glass.

When all their glasses are full, they lift them in a high salute as Seb says, ‘To Eddy!’

They turn to each other, carefully making eye contact with each member of their group, clinking glasses and chorusing, ‘To Eddy!’

When the other couples arrive soon after, there’s more kissing, more whoops of surprise, more drinks handed around. Seb doesn’t like the start of these things– the high-pitched greetings, the charge of nervous anticipation as everyone attempts to adapt to each other again.

He falls into conversation with Patrick, a friendly, enthusiastic man with a daughter at Seb’s school, married to the officious and slightly intimidating Vita.

They talk about the local tennis club and the plans for resurfacing the older courts.

Changing the subject, Patrick asks, ‘So, how does it feel being at the helm?’

Seb became headmaster at Waverly Community Secondary School three weeks ago, at the beginning of the autumn term.

It’s what he’s wanted since he was a kid.

Back then, Eddy laughed at him and told him to keep it quiet, because what kind of geek wanted to be a head teacher at twelve?

Far better, Eddy said, to want to be an astronaut.

Now, whenever anyone asks about his job, Seb feels a lightness in his chest, a sense of pride.

‘Yeah, it’s good. I’m enjoying it. I mean, it’s obviously a big shift from teaching to doing a load more managerial stuff…’

‘That’s great, really great,’ Patrick says, his gaze sliding over to the women. ‘Essie loves school, you know. Adores it.’

Seb decides to give Patrick the gift he knows all parents crave, especially from a head teacher. ‘Well, Essie’s great. Such a kind girl and so hard-working.’

Patrick looks back at Seb, his eyes full of wonder and gratitude, because Seb’s seen what Patrick’s known all along– there’s some special kind of magic in his Essie.

‘She is, isn’t she?’ Patrick says, his voice a little watery with feeling.

Seb gets it. All three of his kids are at the Old School House, the primary feeder school across the road from Waverly Community.

Greer, their youngest, is only three weeks into Reception and he can’t stop himself from seeking a smile, a nod, a secret transmission from her exhausted teacher that he is right.

Greer is unusually bright for a four-year-old.

Seb half listens as Patrick begins to rattle away about Essie’s GCSE choices and his son’s rugby obsession before they’re interrupted by Anna, her voice high, loud, demanding attention as she shrieks, ‘A bird’s head!’

‘And that is exactly why we’re never getting a pet,’ says Vita, before making a vomiting gesture.

Eddy puts his arm around Vita’s thin shoulders, agreeing. ‘I’m with you. Worst decision of my life, getting that cat.’

‘Yesterday, you said having Albie was the worst decision of your life,’ Anna shrieks in faux-outrage, whacking Eddy on his round stomach.

‘OK, the cat was the second-worst decision, and don’t hit the birthday boy.’

From the kitchen, an alarm starts to ring.

‘Oh, that’ll be the dauphinoise!’ Anna says, putting her glass down on the table. ‘Everyone, find your seats. Ro, will you give me a hand?’

Rosie is sitting on the arm of the sofa, her phone in her hand, typing. Smiling the far-away smile of someone enjoying a private joke. She doesn’t hear Anna.

‘Rosie Kent, are you messaging your new girl crush?’

Again, Rosie doesn’t hear, so instead Anna turns back to Seb and says, ‘Unbelievable! Is she like this at home, Sebbo?’