‘Don’t you think it’s strange that of the four of us, only Leon has settled down and had a kid?’ Angie had asked.
‘Not really,’ Maggie replied.
‘But I’m thirty-one, and you’re not far behind me,’ Angie had continued, ‘and yet we’re both still single and childless.’
‘Child-free,’ corrected Maggie. ‘Happily child-free in my case. And no, I don’t think it’s strange. Unusual maybe, but not when you look at who the four of us are. None of us has taken the traditional path, except Leon. I’m not saying that it won’t happen. Thirty-one is no age and there’s still plenty of time for you to have a baby if that’s what you want.’
‘But you don’t want?’ asked Angie. She had always assumed that Maggie wanted children, but now she came to think about it, she realised that it wasn’t something she had ever actually said.
‘No, I don’t think so,’ Maggie had replied thoughtfully. ‘I love my work and I could only carry on with that and have a child if I employed a nanny. Why have a child if I never see it because I’m always at work?’
‘Plenty of women use childcare,’ objected Angie. ‘It doesn’t make them a bad parent.’
‘Of course not,’ said Maggie. ‘I think it might even make them a better one. I just know that I wouldn’t want to divide my attention like that. And it’s all immaterial anyway because I don’t have anyone to father a child.’
‘Well, that’s easy enough to fix,’ said Angie.
‘How? With carefully timed one-night stands? I’m not sure that’s for me,’ laughed Maggie. ‘What about you? Do you still want kids?’
Angie had thought for a moment. She wasn’t sure that Jax was the fathering kind, but then she didn’t exactly have a lot of experience of fathers in general to know what the fathering kind might be. She did want a baby, though. Or, to put it another way, she couldn’t imagine a future without children in it.
‘Yes,’ she’d said. ‘I think I do.’
Maggie knocked on the door of Leon and Becky’s neat house. They could hear the ear-piercing screeching of small children coming from inside.
‘It’s not too late to change our minds,’ said Angie with a smirk.
The door opened and there stood a harassed-looking Leon, a plastic toy lawnmower in one hand and a disposable nappy in the other.
‘Oh, it’s you two. Thank God. Please, come in and talk to me. If I get caught in another conversation about baby signing or swimming lessons for newborns, I shan’t be responsible for my actions!’ He opened the door wide and ushered them in. ‘And on top of all that it’s the bloody funeral and half the mothers are watching it and bawling their eyes out. I was expecting crying children but not crying parents. Hang on.’
He disappeared into what appeared to be the sitting room and returned a moment later sans nappy just as Maggie was depositing the gifts on the hall table, balancing them carefully on top of a huge pile of others.
Seeing the identical wrapping, Leon smirked at them both and winked at Maggie. ‘Thanks, Mags.’
Angie rolled her eyes. ‘And me,’ she said, but she couldn’t quite pull off the fake indignation and grinned back at him. ‘You got me. Presents are always Maggie’s department.’
‘You should have pushed the start time back,’ said Maggie pointedly, clearly still irritated about missing the funeral.
‘Becky said that,’ said Leon. ‘But I was sure that it wouldn’t make any difference. I mean, the woman’s dead!’ He shook his head in mock despair. ‘How wrong can you be?’
Maggie raised an eyebrow at Angie but didn’t say anything. ‘Well, it will be over soon enough. Is there anything we can do to help?’
Leon grinned at her. ‘You always were great in a crisis, Mags,’ he said. ‘But no, I think we have it under control. Becky tried to get the pass the parcel started but no one was interested so she’s given up and gone to join the rest of them gathered around the TV. And the babies are with their mothers so it’s all good. Drink?’
Maggie looked at her watch as if to question the earliness of the hour, but Angie ignored her.
‘Yes, please. What have you got?’
‘Red, white, beer and then some organic, non-sugary juice. And water.’
‘Beer, please,’ said Angie without missing a beat.
‘Coming right up. Mags?’ Leon asked her, but she shook her head.