The Second Chance Café in Carlton Square. Michele Gorman

she wades around with the water around her knees. Sometimes she doesn’t even bother getting wet.

      ‘Nah, it’s just you and me tonight,’ she says. ‘I can see him any time I want. Who knows when I’ll get you to myself again?’

      ‘That’s not fair, Kell. I see you almost every day.’

      ‘Not like this, sans children, like the old days.’

      She’s right. We hardly ever get to talk now without the children. Which means we hardly ever finish a conversation. Sometimes we don’t even get to start them. Dancing on tables. Hah! Falling asleep under them, more like. I’m yawning into my beer and it’s not yet 9 p.m. It’s not exactly like the old days, and don’t think I don’t miss them too. I can’t remember the last time I felt like my normal self. I might look like any other twenty-something woman sitting in the pub with her best friend. I’ve even got make-up on and my top has no visible stains. But it’s a façade. My head is back at our house worrying about whether Daniel will remember not to pull down the blinds all the way in the twins’ bedroom or that Oscar sleeps with a blanket but Grace doesn’t. I can’t stop thinking about them. And Daniel’s texts aren’t helping.

      When do mothers get to turn off their worry? Just give me some kind of time frame, so I’ve got something to look forward to.

      ‘Things are good between you and Calvin?’ I ask, as if the smile hasn’t already told me.

      Calvin came like a bolt from the blue thanks to his gran, one of Kelly’s most devoted customers at the fish van. He had moved from Manchester to live with her for a year, because she’s not as steady on her feet as she used to be. He took one look at Kell – with her white coat smeared in fish guts and her no-nonsense ponytail tucked up under the dorky white fishmonger’s hat her father makes her wear – and now he’s most devoted to her too.

      Kelly blushes, again out of character. She’s never been a girly girl, and not only because she wears jeans all the time and doesn’t usually bother with make-up. Being the youngest of four daughters, all a year apart, she didn’t get the luxury of being the pampered baby of the family. There wasn’t a big enough age difference to make her siblings feel like protecting her, or enough attention to go around. She had to hold her own early on, and that means she doesn’t show her soft side to many people. I only get to see it because we’ve known each other all our lives.

      ‘He’s been really over-the-top lovely lately,’ Kell says of Calvin. ‘You know, flowers and surprise dinners and stuff. Now he’s talking about meeting my parents.’ She takes a big gulp of her pint. ‘But if he meets them, then he’ll have to meet my sisters too, because they’re such twats like that. And you know they’ll just take the piss out of me till they turn him off me.’

      ‘No, they won’t.’ I’m just being nice. They totally will. ‘You’ll let them meet, won’t you? You can’t put it off forever.’

      ‘Probably. I think he might be working up to a big question,’ she says.

      ‘YOU’RE KIDDING! Sorry, sorry. I just mean that that’s fantastic. You’re nuts about him. You mean the big question? You’d say yes, right?’

      She laughs. ‘I don’t know! I haven’t known him long.’

      ‘Daniel and I were engaged in six months. You’ve known Calvin that long.’

      ‘Nine, actually.’

      ‘So you’re counting. Is he still planning on Spain?’ He postponed his job abroad to help his gran, but his sister is coming to take over sometime in the summer. Calvin’s question might change his plans, though. If he’s thinking marriage, then hopefully he’s thinking of staying in London too.

      My phone starts ringing before she can answer me. I snatch it out of my bag. ‘Daniel, can’t you leave me in peace for two minutes?!’

      … Daniel’s voice is far away. ‘Say it, sweetheart, go on, like we said, remember?’

      ‘Nigh’, Mama,’ comes Grace’s little voice as Oscar giggles.

       I’m a horrible mother.

      ‘I’ll be home in twenty minutes,’ I tell my husband, making a sorry face at Kell. At least we nearly got to finish our pints, if not our conversation.

      I get home to find talc all over the bathroom floor and a knife on the side of the bathtub.

      ‘I’ll clean that up,’ Daniel says. ‘I was going to but then… the twins. I don’t know how you do it every day.’

      ‘I don’t have much choice.’ I don’t mean it to come out quite so snappy.

      He pulls me into a hug, tipping my face up for a kiss. ‘I suspected it before but now I’m sure: mothers are superhumans. You’re doing an amazing job.’

      This superhuman will need to pick up some more talc tomorrow. ‘Did they go down okay after their book?’

      ‘Book?’

      He leads me by the hand into the lounge so we can cuddle on the settee. I throw my legs across his lap and he curls me into his arms. The blinds on the bay window are open to the old-fashioned streetlamp outside. It throws a gorgeous glow over us.

      ‘Didn’t you read to them?’ I ask, feeling myself start to tense up. I’d better check that he’s put the right clothes on them too.

      ‘Oh, I did. I read them about a dozen books. They kept pointing to more. They’re extortionists.’

      ‘They’re East Londoners, Daniel. They know a soft touch when they see one.’ I yawn. ‘Can you take the morning shift tomorrow? I’m exhausted and I’ll have to do interviews all day.’

      He nods. ‘Of course, darling, I’m happy to, but do you think it might be time to talk again about getting a nanny? It would make things so much easier for you, especially now that they’re mobile.’

      Not this again. Just because his parents had cooks and maids and nannies doesn’t mean that it’s right for our family. Besides, not even Mary Poppins would work for free and the last time I checked, our bank account balance doesn’t have many zeros on the end. It has, occasionally, had a minus at the start, though.

      I swing my legs off his lap. ‘I’ve told you, Daniel. I don’t want to outsource our childcare. I’m just asking you to take the occasional morning. I don’t think that’s unreasonable.’

      ‘Of course it’s reasonable, Em, and I said I’m happy to. I loved having them to myself tonight. Don’t misunderstand me, but isn’t that still outsourcing, if I’m doing it instead of you? Next month I’ll get my raise and then I think we can just about afford to get someone in for a few hours a day. So you could have help. I mean proper help.’

      My blood might actually be starting to boil. ‘How is it outsourcing to have you look after our children, Daniel? In case you’ve forgotten, the twins have two parents. Why shouldn’t it be your job as much as mine? And the only reason I don’t have proper help is because you’re so… Never mind, I’m tired. I’m going to bed. I’ll put everything they’ll need out on the table. Wake me by seven, please, if I’m not up.’

      It’s not that he doesn’t try. He does. Then he thinks he’s a contender for Father of the Year because he’s changed a nappy. Meanwhile, I’m the mother every minute of every bloomin’ day and I don’t see anyone pinning a medal on me.

      It wouldn’t be so bad if I didn’t feel like such an overworked hamster on a wheel. The twins need me and there’s no time off for good behaviour, or because Mummy might have a breakdown. My brain is mushier than the children’s strained carrots and I need an oxygen tank to ascend the dirty laundry pile. They don’t tell you that along with the high-inducing, all-consuming love comes work that just goes on and on.

      The next morning, I wake with a drooly snort from a deep slumber. That hasn’t happened since before I was