Page 134 of Maybe Tomorrow

She smiled. ‘You can have anything you want.’

ChapterSixty

Freya and Chris were sitting at the kitchen table enjoying a takeaway curry when there was a knock on the front door. Chris got up and opened the door to Jennifer Ripley. He showed her through to the kitchen.

‘Sorry, am I interrupting?’ she asked upon seeing the meal all laid out.

‘No. In fact there’s plenty. You can join us, if you want,’ Freya said, standing up and shuffling things around on the table.

‘You know, I can’t actually remember when I last ate anything.’

‘Chris, get a plate and cutlery for Jen. And open another bottle of wine.’

‘I don’t want to intrude.’

‘You’re not intruding. How are things going with Anthony?’ Freya asked.

Jennifer shook herself out of her coat and draped it on the back of the chair. She sat down, took the plate from Chris and, as instructed, began helping herself to rice and chicken korma.

‘I left them all to it. We needed to do a press conference, but Anthony just wants to hide away from everything.’

‘That’s understandable,’ Chris said.

‘They’re going home tomorrow to Withernsea. I’ve said I’ll pop along in a few days.’

Freya looked to Chris, then to Jennifer. ‘How are things with you and Malcolm?’

‘Well, we’re talking,’ she said with a smile. ‘He’s accepted the fact I don’t want to start a family yet, so we’re slowly getting to be on the same page.’

‘Is he all right with that?’ Freya asked.

‘Personally, possibly not. Professionally, he’s fine with it.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘If he wasn’t the Home Secretary, he’d probably look for a younger woman, someone who’d be happy to sit at home and give birth to a whole litter for him. But that’s not the image he wants to project. He wants to be seen to be supporting his successful wife and showing we can juggle a busy workload and family life at a time to suit us.’

‘Are you happy with that?’

‘I think so. I suppose there’s never a good time to have a child, is there?’ She ate a forkful of korma. ‘I bet you two don’t shy away from the big conversations.’

Chris looked away.

‘I can’t actually have children,’ Freya said.

‘Oh, Freya, I’m so sorry. I didn’t realise. Shit, I’m so sorry,’ Jennifer said.

‘No. It’s fine. I’ve known for years. We’ve talked about it and we’re thinking of being a yuppy couple, aren’t we?’ she smiled.

‘Absolutely,’ Chris agreed. ‘A city penthouse apartment somewhere, dinner parties twice a week, skiing holidays in winter, car boot sales in summer. I’m looking forward to getting gout,’ he laughed.

Freya laughed with him, and it seemed genuine to Jennifer.

‘You never realise how complicated life is being an adult, do you?’ Jennifer asked. ‘They should teach all this at school. I’ve never used algebra or Latin. They could take that off the curriculum and teach kids all about the problems of relationships.’

‘Latin? Someone went to a posh school,’ Freya said.

‘We had a very, very old and traditional headmaster.’