Page 91 of Always Alchemy

Seven years of therapy and just as many years of being enveloped in a loving, supportive relationship have taught me how to sit with it. How to sit with the loss and betrayal and injustice. I will never be a hundred percent fine with it, mainly because my outrage on my children’s behalf still runs deep. But I am a hundred percent grateful for my lot in life: two incredible spouses, two beautiful, loving children and another on the way, one happy and loved-up mother, and a step-father-cum-father-in-law who could not be a stronger role model for our children.

When we’ve kicked out the last stragglers and retired to the drawing room to let the caterers clear up in the kitchen area, Lauren calls Charlie over, tugging him up onto her lap. ‘We’ve got some pressies for the birthday boy,’ she sing-songs, kissing him on his cheek.

‘Presents for me?’ Amelia asks from my lap.

Darcy laughs. ‘Nope, sweetheart. It’s not your birthday. Only the birthday boy or girl gets presents.’

Amelia folds her arms huffily over her chest, and I stifle a smirk. My little go-getter doesn’t like that one bit.

Charlie slides off Mum’s lap to the rug so he can rip the paper off two boxes. They’re both Playmobil emergency service vehicles to complement the epic fire station we gave him earlier in the week, on his actual birthday. (I won’t tell you how long it took three intelligent adults to construct it.) Charles Senior holds out a large envelope to him. ‘This is from us too, champ.’

Charlie gets a large card out of the envelope and brandishes it. ‘Fireman Sam!’

‘You might want to ask your Mummy or Daddies to read it to you,’ Charles suggests, and Charlie scrambles to his feet. ‘You read it, Grandpa?’

I grin at Darcy and Max over Amelia’s head. We all know what this is.

‘Dear Charlie,’Charles reads aloud.‘Very many happy returns on your fifth birthday, with love from Granny and Grandpa. You are invited to join us next Saturday at Camberley Fire Station to meet the fire crew there, inspect our fire engines, and even slide down the pole if you are brave enough! Dress code: full fire-fighting kit.What do you think, old man? Are you game?’

Charlie’s frowning as he tries to compute this. ‘An actual real-life fire station?’

Mum nods enthusiastically. ‘Yes. We told our local fire crew about you and they said they’d love to meet you and show you around. What do you think?’

‘And will I get to sit in the truck? And slide down the pole?’

‘Yes and yes!’ Charles says. ‘And you have to wear your uniform, that’s very important. Can we tell them you’ll be there?’

Charlie gapes at him for a moment. Then he launches himself at Charles, little arms going around his grandpa’s neck, and holds on for dear life.

Mum lays an affectionate palm on his little back. ‘I take it that’s a yes, then,’ she says softly.

32

AULD ACQUAINTANCE

STELLA

Iwas a New Year’s Day baby.

This very evening, exactly twenty years ago, Mum and Dad were at a New Year’s Eve party at Cal’s old flat. They were taking it easy, because Mum had been feeling a bit dodgy all day, but apparently it was Mum who insisted that they ‘let their hair down’ one more time.

The plan was never for them to last at the party till midnight, but they lasted less than that, because about ten o’clock Mum started having contractions, and the rest is history.

I was born around eight o’clock the next morning, as night began its slow shift change to a grey dawn.

I think about it every year. I think about that New Year’s Eve more than I think about the timing of my birth, and I pretend not to know why it hurts more than usual this year, but I know, really. It’s because tomorrow, I turn twenty. Twenty-one is the big one, of course, and I’m sure Dad and Mads will throw me a gorgeous party and everyone willmake a big fuss, but twenty is hitting me hard for all sorts of reasons.

Tomorrow, I’ll become a young woman for real. I will officially be a twenty-something, even if there’s nosomethingto go with thetwenty.I’ll be in the same decade that Mum was when she had me, and that Maddy was when she basically took over mothering us. I’ll be an adult in a way I certainly haven’t felt since I supposedly came of age two years ago.

Whenever Dad tells me and Nance the story of my birth, he always does it in a jolly way, and he makes a really big deal out of how excited they both were that they were going to start the new year with a brand new baby daughter. I can tell he really does have happy memories of it all, but it’s hard for me to hear about them, sometimes, because the fact that they didn’t know what lay ahead for all of us always hurts me so much that it gives me an actual stomach ache when I think about it.

So I find myself here, in Gen and Anton’s insanely gorgeous villa in the South of France, getting ready in my lovely room for what I know will be a beautiful—if dull for those of us under the age of forty—dinner, and thinking way too much about big, scary things like the circle of life.

It’s probably just hormones. Also, lots of people get reflective around their birthdays and lots get reflective on New Year’s Eve, so shoot me for indulging in a double whammy.

I tilt my head to one side as I survey my reflection in the mirror. I’m in the little black dress that my parents bought me for Christmas, though I know Maddy was behind it, because only she knew howobsessedI was with it and how expensive it was, and it’s way too short for Dad to haveokayed it. It’s so unbelievably gorgeous—simple, and classy, but really sexy.

I couldn’t wait to have a reason to wear it. I’m glad we’re eating in Anton’s dining room and not out on that lovely terrace, because I’d freeze my tits off otherwise. Still, it’ll be totally wasted on everyone tonight. The younger ones are in bed and there’s only Nance and me and the stupid Russell boys.

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