‘I want to talk to you about something,’ I tell the girls over Ruth’s excellent lasagne as Norm sits, as per fucking usual, silently alert and as close to Nancy as he can get. His eyes are massive and needy, his huge black body quivering with anticipation of any offerings, whether intentional or accidental.
Since my dinner with Mads last night I’ve been spinning, swirling, in some limbo of fear and guilt and hope and every emotion in between.
Fear that I’ll upset or trigger my incredible, resilient little daughters or cause them to think in the merest way that I believe their mother to be replaceable.
Guilt that I might actually be looking to replace Claire in my bed. In my heart. Although I know that’s not the case. However improbable, it appears there’s room in my heart for the mother of my children and this new, more fragile, fledgling affection.
Finally, hope. Hope that the light and happiness Mads spreads like fucking fairy dust may touch my beautiful little girls in the same way it’s touched me.
That their life will be better because she’s in it.
That it’s in my power to do this one thing for them.
That this new phase with Maddy isn’t merely a selfish act but an act whose ripples Stel and Nance will feel in wonderful ways.
The girls are staring at me expectantly—or more accurately, gormlessly—over their bowls of lasagne. They’re knackered after a day at school followed by their swimming lesson, so it’s not the chattiest dinner we’ve ever had. My mouth is dry, because, fuck. This isn’t a conversation any parent should have to have with their children.
‘Um. You know Maddy.’ Smooth, Zach.
‘Duh,’ Stella says. I swear she watches too many American TV shows.
‘Right. Well, do you think she’s… fun?’
‘Is she going to babysit for us again?’ Nancy asks.
‘Um. I don’t know. Possibly. But, actually, I wanted to ask your permission for me to, um, date her.’
Silence.
Stel frowns. ‘Like a girlfriend?’
‘Yes. Exactly,’ I say, relieved I don’t have to spell it out for her.
’You’re too old for her, Dad. It’s creepy,’ she says. ‘I think she’d prefer a younger boyfriend. No offence.’
I stare at her, stunned. What’s going on here? Have I just been age-shamed by my ten-year-old daughter?
‘How would you know?’
She puts down her fork with the air of one whose patience is being thinly stretched. ‘So, like, Tom Holland and Zendaya are both young. But Ben Affleck and JLo are both old. See? You can’t have one old person and one young person. I told you, it’s creepy.’
‘How do you know who Ben Affleck is?’ I wonder aloud.
‘YouTube shorts,’ Nance pipes up, her lisp butchering the word shorts in a way that’s cute as fuck. As every parent knows, YouTube shorts are every kid’s easiest route to watching repurposed TikTok’s in households where that particular app is firmly off limits.
‘Hang on.’ I turn to her. ‘You know who Ben Affleck is, too?’
‘He’s a meme,’ Stella says, as if this is all I need to know.
I try again. ‘Maddy and I have the same age gap as Rafe and Belle. Exactly the same. You don’t seem to think they’re creepy.’
‘Cos Rafe’s cool,’ Nance pipes up.
‘Yeah. He has the same car as James Bond. The exact same.’
I roll my eyes at the gross unfairness of the fact that Rafe’s wanky taste in cars exonerates him from any perceived creepiness and return to the topic of Mads, where I’ve clearly lost all control. ‘But Maddy likes me. She wants to be my girlfriend. She doesn’t think it’s creepy. And I’m not that much older than her, actually.’
‘Ew,’ is all Stella has to say. She picks up her fork, a rather her than me grimace on her cute little face.
Stoically, I soldier on. ‘So don’t worry about Maddy being happy, or me. She makes me happy, and I make her happy. But I want to know if you’d be happy if I went out with her. Would you be okay with me having her as my girlfriend?’
‘Slay,’ Stella says, which I gather is an affirmative.
‘Okay,’ Nancy says. She flicks her fork, and there’s a noisy splat on the floor immediately followed by a canine gobbling noise.
I frown. It can’t possibly be this easy, can it? The pitching-the-girlfriend thing, not the changing-my-labrador’s-behaviour thing.
On I plough. ‘So it wouldn’t upset you? You know no one can ever replace Mummy in any of our hearts. Right? But we’ve all been so sad since she died. And I’m hoping Maddy might cheer you up as much as she cheers me up.’ That didn’t come out right. I’m making it sound like Maddy’s some fun distraction instead of the angel responsible for my salvation.
Stella sits bolt upright. ‘Would she have sleepovers here?’
‘Um.’ I look in Nancy’s direction. She’s cocked her head in interest. ‘No. I don’t think—I mean, it’d be complicated. Maybe she’d stay over and sleep in the spare room, because I’d always want you guys to feel comfortable coming into my bed if you need me.’
In truth, I haven’t quite worked out the strategy on this front. Much as I’m dying to spend the night with Mads, I can’t square that with the reality that the girls often still need me in the middle of the night.
Stel narrows her eyes. ‘Because if she stayed, maybe she’d bring her Drunk Elephant stuff again?’ She bounces in her chair. ‘Because she’d need her skincare for bedtime, right? And she has the serum and the moisturiser.’
‘I don’t know,’ I say quickly, ‘but that’s Maddy’s stuff, so I hope you’d always respect that if you saw it in the bathroom.’
She slumps in her chair. ‘I wouldn’t try it without asking.’
‘I know you wouldn’t,’ I tell her, mentally calculating the possible benefits of Drunk Elephant-related bribery, whatever the fuck Drunk Elephant is. ‘But I’m sure she’d be happy for you to try some of her stuff, with her supervision.’ Even if I have to restock her entire bloody skincare supply while the girls pillage it.
It seems like a small price to pay for integrating Maddy into our family unit without too much trauma. I’ve been overthinking this until I’m blue in the face. What the girls will think of my moving on. What they might infer from it about my feelings for their mother, or for them.
But maybe I should just take their non-reaction as a sign that I don’t have to have our whole future figured out just yet. All I know is that I’m utterly besotted with Madeleine Weir, and whatever it looks like, I want her close.
I want it to be official.
I’m at my desk when Gen sends a message around to me, Cal and Rafe.
Can we have a quick chat re an applicant?
Five minutes later, we’ve convened on the sofas in the front reception room. Rafe’s looking relaxed, tanned and entirely too healthy after sweeping Belle off for a cheeky long weekend in Seville. Apparently, it’s not yet the depths of autumn there. Cal’s his usual jovial self, rubbing so vigorously at Norm’s jowls that the dog is practically purring with glee, and Gen’s the muse Hitchcock would have killed for in a cream dress.
I can concede, as a longtime mate who has no sexual interest in her whatsoever, that she’s objectively a knockout. As usual, she hasn’t a hair out of place. Her makeup is immaculate, and the perfection with which her indecent curves are poured into that dress would, I suspect, make a lot of good men do bad, bad things for a chance to find out what lies beneath her expensive clothes.
She’s too put-together for me, though. I love her dearly, and I’m all-too-familiar with her heart of gold, but I sometimes think her carefully decorous personality must be exhausting to maintain.
I recall Maddy’s unholy shrieks of delight as I put her over my shoulder the other day and smacked her bare bottom. I’ll take my ridiculous, incorrigible wild child any day of the week.
Now, actually, would be a convenient time to get the others up to date on that front. I clear my throat. ‘Um. I’m making things official with Mads. The girls have given me their blessing to date her, so she and I are in a relationship.’
Gen’s face breaks out into a rare full-wattage grin. Cal disturbs a disgruntled Norm, whose huge head has been resting contentedly on his thighs, and leans over to high-five me. Rafe gets to his feet, standing in front of me and holding out his arms.
‘Get up, mate.’
I feign reluctance as he envelops me in a bear hug. ‘That’s great news, okay? I’m thrilled for you both.’
‘Like you didn’t already know.’ I slap his back.
‘May have had prior notice from Belle,’ he says sheepishly as he releases me.
I grin. It’s a good sign Maddy’s told her. I’m still convinced she’s going to get cold feet.
‘So she’ll be my official co-host for Stel’s party,’ I tell them.
Cal raises an eyebrow. ‘That’s one way to rip the bandaid off. Are Claire’s folks coming?’
‘No. We’ll do a family celebration at theirs next weekend. I wouldn’t flaunt a new relationship without having a chat with them first.’
The others nod in sympathy. That’s a conversation I’m not looking forward to. I don’t doubt that some of the other adults at the party will have a strong opinion on my moving on with Mads, but I’m not equipped to shoulder that burden. The best I can do is be sensitive when I introduce her as my girlfriend.
‘What did you want to discuss?’ I ask Gen as I sit back down heavily on the sofa.
She purses her lips. ‘We got an application in.’
We look at her expectantly.
‘From Anton Wolff,’ she adds.
Cal whistles, causing Norm to look left and right before slumping down again. ‘Well, well, well.’
Anton Wolff is one of the most successful exports the UK has ever seen. He’s been a top five fixture on the Sunday Times Rich List for years. Off the top of my head, he’s got business interests spanning everything from media and tech to consumer finance and aerospace.
If Richard Branson and Pierce Brosnan had a love child who seemed to subsist on a diet of pure amphetamines, given his energy levels, that child would be Anton Wolff. The guy’s in the press as much for his seemingly endless succession of wives and toys (both equally expensive-looking) as he is for his business empire.
He’s the man both the society pages and the finance pages love to hate, and I have to admit, I find him annoying as fuck. It’s jealousy, obviously. He’s got the world at his feet, and from where I’m standing, he seems like a smug bastard who doesn’t know he’s born.
I frown. ‘Is he married at the moment?’ One of our non-negotiables is our members’ marital status. They can be as kinky as they want, but they cannot be a cheating twat. And Wolff’s marital status is more volatile than Bitcoin.
Gen shakes her head discreetly. ‘He got divorced from that singer earlier this year, I believe.’
‘What’s your thought process on this?’ Rafe wants to know. I want to know, too.
‘For me it comes down to discretion,’ she says. ‘He’d be by far our highest profile member. We just want to make sure we can offer him the discretion he requires.’
Cal shrugs. ‘An NDA’s an NDA. Every member knows what the consequences are if they break it. He’d be subject to the same rules as everyone else—no special treatment. Right, Norm?’
The dog ignores him.
‘My thoughts exactly,’ Gen says.
‘Why would he want to join?’ I ask. ‘He’s richer than God—surely he’s got the funds and the looks to organise any kind of orgy he wants on whatever yacht he happens to have docked close by.’
‘I suspect,’ Gen muses, ‘he’s looking for the exact same thing as the rest of our members—convenience and discretion. There’ve been murmurings that he’s a man of quite specific appetites, and you can imagine how exacting his standards must be. It’s a huge compliment to us that he’s knocking on our door.’
‘Anything strange in the application?’ Cal asks.
‘Nope. It just came through the website form—looks like his assistant filled it out on his behalf.’
‘Well,’ Rafe says, ‘the process is the process, whether you’re Joe Bloggs or Anton fucking Wolfe. He’ll have to come in for an interview so we can vet him. NDAs or not, we don’t want some billionaire twat waltzing in here without being very clear on the house rules. You want me to process him?’
‘No.’ Gen shakes her head, and I could swear there’s the barest hint of a flush on her cheeks. ‘Thanks, but I’ll take care of it. I can handle big bad Mr Wolff just fine.’
