Page 47 of The Housewarming

‘Past their bedtime, past their bedtime, past their bedtime,’ the elder one says, stepping forward and flapping her hands in front of her chest. Her smile is so wide, it is on the edges of a laugh, which duly follows. She steps back and looks at her mother for reassurance. Jen takes both of her hands and moves them back and forth, smiling at her all the while, and in that moment I realise, with a kick to the solar plexus, that her daughter has some form of learning difficulty.

‘This is Jasmine,’ Jen says to the room. ‘Say goodnight, Jasmine.’

‘Say goodnight, Jasmine,’ Jasmine calls out, and laughs again. ‘Say goodnight, Jasmine, say goodnight, Jasmine.’

Shame burns through me as the guests respond in a warm chorus. I assumed the elder daughter attended an exclusive school. I have not at any point considered any other possibility for her being spirited away each morning in their big posh car. I have never asked.

‘I didn’t realise their eldest had special needs,’ a woman behind me whispers, though loudly enough that I hear it. ‘You wouldn’t think, would you?’

I barely have time to consider what this even means, because at that moment Jasmine points to Kevin from across the road and says in a very loud, excited voice: ‘Bicycle! Bicycle, bicycle.’

Jen and Johnnie are grinning like idiots. Their pride moves me. I have judged Johnnie harshly, but perhaps he isn’t so bad after all.

‘Bicycle, bicycle,’ Jasmine calls out again, laughing.

‘She’s not wrong.’ Kevin lifts his glass and addresses the room with a nod. ‘I cycle to work.’

A collective murmur of affection rumbles through the room.

I cannot stop thinking that I never once asked Jen about her girls. Grief is selfish. I have become selfish as well as mean-minded and sarcastic. I used to ask people questions; I used to care. I used to be witty. Not hard. Not self-obsessed. Not like this.

‘No flies on Jasmine,’ Jen says, laughing and gesturing round the room. ‘She’s got you all pegged.’

But Jasmine has moved on and is gesticulating now at Louise Parker. She mimes headphones and runs on the spot, her fists pumping.

Louise blushes. ‘Yep. I’m a runner.’ She raises her cocktail in cheers. Her eyes are glassy and she looks a little drunk.

Jen throws out her hands, clearly delighted. ‘What did I tell you?’

Jasmine jumps from foot to foot. She is flapping her hands quite wildly now. She takes a gasping breath and points across the crowd.

‘Pockets!’ she cries – a loud, joyful shout. ‘Pockets, pockets, pockets.’

I follow her gaze to where Neil is skulking at the back of the kitchen. She has spotted him despite the fact that he is almost in the garden.

‘Pockets,’ she says again, almost beside herself. ‘Pockets! Pockets!’

Johnnie puts his arm around her. ‘OK, Jazzy, that’s enough excitement for one night, I think. Time for bed.’

Jasmine is still pointing.

‘Pockets,’ she says. ‘Pockets, pockets.’

Johnnie looks over at Neil. There is something in his expression I cannot read. Neil has dipped his head. The tips of his ears glow. I look back at Johnnie.

‘She’s wondering where your overalls are, Neil,’ Johnnie calls across the heads, then redirecting himself to the room at large. ‘Jasmine was obsessed with Neil’s overalls when he did the building work on this place, weren’t you, darling?’

‘Weren’t you darling,’ comes the echo. ‘Weren’t you darling, weren’t you darling.’

‘Oh shit,’ Matt says, slipping away from my side.

My face heats. I presume Matt has headed to find Neil, but I dare not look round.I just had enough of being treated like the staff. Words he said in our kitchen this evening. From anyone else’s lips, Johnnie’s comment just now would have been innocuous, but the drawing of attention to Neil’s role as labourer in Johnnie’s home, under Johnnie’s professional direction, with its implication of class and hierarchy, is blatant. It’s possible I’m being oversensitive, overthinking, but if I am, then so is Matt.

I look out into the garden, where a group of eight or so people stand next to the bar. A little further on, under the willow tree again, is Neil, with Matt. Neil is shaking his head. Matt puts a hand on his shoulder, which he shrugs off, and from nowhere, I have the impression that something bigger has happened, bigger than being patronised in front of a room full of people. I have no idea what, but it bothers me for reasons I can’t name. Reasons that have to do with Abi. Barbara tells me that everything will come back to Abi, for a long time, and so I dig into my CBT and tell myself that no, this is not about her. Myreactionis about her, about me and my grief.

‘Come on now, that’s enough. Wave goodbye, Jazzy.’

My attention is called back to Johnnie, who is guiding his daughter out of the room, her voice an excited echo: wave goodbye, Jazzy, wave goodbye, Jazzy, wave goodbye, Jazzy. He appears to be handing her over to someone hidden in the hallway beyond. Back in the room, he bends out of sight, reappearing once again with a beautiful little girl in his arms. Cosima. She looks so like Jen, has grown so much in a year, has become less of a baby, more of a little girl. Like Abi should be. Might be. Somewhere. On his hip, she grins shyly – a delighted little girl allowed to stay up late, to come and say hello to the grown-ups. My heart tightens. My eyes prick. I bite down hard on my bottom lip.

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