The Stepmothers’ Support Group. Sam Baker

have the first clue what to do. Didn’t know what to feed her, anything…I mean,’ Clare asked, ‘would you?’ Her voice rose.

      Clare had never been much of a drinker, but when she got drunk, she got drunk. Eve was familiar with the signs.

      ‘I should probably go,’ she said.

      ‘Not yet.’

      Eve waited.

      ‘I’ve had a brainwave! You could meet up with Lily. Compare notes.’

      ‘Clare…’

      ‘I’m serious.’ Standing up from the table Clare found the cups and put the kettle back on. ‘Have to be instant,’ she said. ‘And I think I’m out of digestives.’

      ‘I know. You haven’t done a shop.’

      Eve hated Nescafé, but wouldn’t dream of saying so. Fresh coffee was a luxury Clare only allowed herself once a month, on payday. And when the packet was empty, it was back to instant again. Occasionally, Eve would bring coffee herself, only she’d been too strung out by meeting Ian’s kids to bring anything, apart from her problems.

      If she was honest, that was something of a pattern. Eve arrived with something for Louisa, a bottle of wine for Clare, and her problems. In return, Clare listened, although rarely without comment. That was the price of access to Clare’s shoulder.

      ‘It’s a good idea,’ Clare insisted. ‘You know it is. If you’re going to do this…’ She looked at her friend. ‘And I assume you haven’t fallen at the first hurdle?’

      Eve shook her head. Of course she hadn’t. How pathetic did Clare think she was?

      ‘Then you’re going to need all the moral support you can get. And who’s going to understand better than Lily, who’s in the same predicament?’

       THREE

      If Clare hadn’t been coming along to say hello…

      Check they both showed up more like, Eve thought wryly. She’d already had a text and a call on her mobile to make sure there was no last-minute work crisis. If not for Clare coming, Eve would have cancelled.

      But even the most mundane night out was a big deal for Clare. She didn’t do it often—couldn’t afford the time, energy or money that four hours away from Louisa invariably cost, both in bribery and babysitters—and every occasion was a military operation of childminders, Tube trains and precision timing.

      In the two weeks since Clare suggested a three-way get together, Eve had seen Ian only a couple of times. Both snatched drinks on his way home from work. They’d spoken on the phone another half a dozen times, and texted and e-mailed often, but she hadn’t once mentioned Clare’s plan.

      What was the big deal anyway?

      And mentioning it would involve being honest about how hard she’d found meeting his kids, how upset she’d been about Hannah’s rejection of her present. Easier by far to continue with their mutual pretence that it had gone well.

      Closing the feature she’d been editing for what felt like days, Eve shut down her computer. The piece was a profile of Kate Winslet by an award-winning interviewer. Eve pulled her make-up bag from a desk drawer and began retouching her face. Award-winning interviewer maybe, but she was a famously bad writer, well-known for delivering what were, basically, six-thousand-word transcripts for a two-thousand-word interview.

      But features editors continued to commission her because her name opened doors. Hollywood publicists loved her and always approved her, so she always got used. Eve wondered if the old soak ever read the interviews printed under her name; and whether she really believed the award-winning writing was hers.

      A stiff drink was deserved, for cutting the feature by half and turning what remained into half-decent prose, but she wasn’t going to get one. Clare had suggested Starbucks on Carnaby Street and Eve had agreed. Central enough to be convenient for none of them, it was busy enough for them to have a coffee each and call it quits if the whole thing was as big a disaster as Eve expected.

      An hour, she decided. An hour and a half, max.

      Then she was out of there.

      ‘I’ll be an hour, tops,’ Lily Adams told the stage manager at the Comedy Club, as she grabbed her purse and kicked her backpack under the desk of the ticket office. ‘I’ve got to do this to humour my sister. I’ll relieve you at eight, promise. Eight-thirty, absolute latest.’

      ‘Eight it is,’ he said, waving her away.

      There was no irritation in Brendan’s voice.

      Stand-up had always been Lily’s great love. Right up to the point she got hammered at Soho House with a couple of the comics who’d just done a one-off charity special, got talking to, and laughing with, some journalist they knew called Liam Donnelly, and woke up in his bed. Somehow one night had turned into weeks, and then weeks had turned into months; now Liam was Lily’s great love. Or so she was telling everyone.

      Helping out in the ticket office, and being general dogsbody at the Comedy Club in Piccadilly was as close as Lily got to the career she’d temporarily put on ice. For now, it was close enough. She had other things on her mind. Although what Clare thought ‘discussing her problems’ with some old friend that Lily hadn’t seen for years would achieve, Lily didn’t have the faintest idea. Not that she could avoid it.

      ‘I’ve booked a babysitter,’ Clare said. Pulling her old, ‘don’t let me down after I’ve gone to so much trouble’ guilt trip again. It worked, of course. It always did.

      Privately, Lily thought that if her sister’s life was tough, Clare had only herself to blame. She hadn’t had to have the baby after all. Although Lily would never dream of saying such a thing, and felt bad for even thinking it. She adored Louisa and couldn’t imagine life without her pintsized partner in crime. But honestly, nobody forced Clare to become a single mum at eighteen. More importantly, nobody forced her to still be a single mum nearly fourteen years later.

      That particular call was down to Clare.

      Lily had been nine when Clare announced she was pregnant, and was having it no matter what anyone else said. She could still remember the rows that rocked their Hendon terrace. As days dragged into weeks, Lily began to feel ever more invisible. She went to school and came home again. Went to Brownies and netball practice. Went next door to play with Bernice. Inside the house the argument raged. Lily might as well not have been there.

      Lily had lost count of the nights she lay awake, plotting her escape. She wanted to run away and find Dad, then they’d be sorry; if they even noticed. But she never did run away. And Dad had been gone five years, anyway. Six, almost.

      When the baby was born, Lily went from see-through to utterly invisible. The day Clare took baby Lou away to university in her pushchair, Mum had shut herself in her bedroom and sobbed and sobbed.

      At the time Lily didn’t care. She had her mum back.

      At the bottom of Carnaby Street, Lily stopped to check her reflection in a shop window. Not exactly smart—jeans, T-shirt, Paul Smith jacket lifted from Liam’s wardrobe—but these were her theatre clothes and she was on her break. What else could Clare expect? Her fine dark hair was newly washed and tied back in a knot, her make-up minimal, but there if you looked close enough. That would do. It would have to.

      Clare was already sitting at a low-level table pretending to reread Jane Eyre in sympathy with her GCSE students when Eve arrived. Of course she was, Eve thought fondly. The one with the most on her plate and the furthest to travel still managed to get there early and keep a bunch of German students out of the three most comfortable leather armchairs in the whole place. She’d even got the coffees in.

      ‘Let me,’ said Eve, reaching for her purse. She knew the evening