Amy headed off to the office while Shelly cleared up Georgie’s breakfast. Dan texted:
Cool if I drop in for a quick Georgie kiss?
Shelly sent back a thumbs up.
They were slowly finding their way with co-parenting, but it was very early days. They had agreed that with Dan so close, it would be nice to not live completely separate lives.
He slipped in the sliding back door and Georgie sprang up.
‘Dada! Muma’s taking me to the park today.’ She clapped her hands, her dark braids bouncing as she launched herself at Dan.
‘Oh, that’s gonna be cool! Aren’t you the luckiest little puppy?’
Georgie did a few little yelps and gave his face a little lick.
‘Hmmmmm, Puppy had porridge for breakfast.’ Dan winked at Shelly as he discreetly wiped porridge from his cheek. Shelly grabbed a wet wipe and scrubbed the shoulder of his suit jacket, where more porridge was now smeared.
‘Would you be around this evening to watch G if I head out with the girls?’
‘Yeah, there’s golf on so, cool, happy to chill in here and watch it.’ Georgie was now scurrying around the floor between his feet.
‘Have you much on today?’ Dan gathered his bag and stood to leave.
‘Just a couple of scenes this morning. I’m trying to cut back while I reassess things.’
Dan just nodded and pretended to pet Georgie, the puppy.
He’s a good father, Shelly thought, tinged with regret. That was the thing you forgot when a relationship was in a nosedive for so long. In between all the cheap shots and resentments, you completely forgot who the person even was before you started hating each other. Dan was not a bad person. They had both changed. He didn’t like the Insta-life and she didn’t like the person she’d been pretending to be to keep him happy. They had both made mistakes, but if they could co-exist like this for the moment, Shelly was happy with that.
‘You’ve got to mind yourself and this one.’ He made to pat her slightly swollen stomach but thought better of it at the last minute and Shelly smiled awkwardly to hide the sadness rearing up inside.
This isn’t how it was meant to be.
‘Of course it isn’t,’ her therapist, Berna, had responded just the day before. ‘You thought you’d be welcoming this second child as a couple. You need to feel sad about it. It is a sad thing. Feel that. Don’t be afraid of feeling it.’
‘So, who’s going tonight?’ Dan made his way to the door.
‘The Insta-mums, Hazel and Polly.’
‘Horseshit Hazel? Wasn’t she tearing you down last week?’ Dan grinned.
‘What? Have you been reading Notions.ie?!’ Shelly mugged.
‘I may have been …’ Dan looked sheepish. ‘It’s only ’cos I forgot to take the Google alert for your name off from when things were … a bit … heated there a few weeks ago. The sidebar on that Notions thing is addictive. It’s worse than crack.’
Shelly laughed at the image of Dan stuck into the gossip on the Notions.ie sidebar of shame. ‘Well, that was last week. This week, according to Hazel, we need each other. She says she’s got some news and, well, I don’t really know what’s going to happen with SHELLY, but I probably need to hear what she has to say. Plus, that weird person is still in my DMs and I kind of actually wanna talk to Hazel and Polly about it. See if they’ve come across the account. Bríd, the guard, says lots of these trolls target loads of people at once. I might just be on her rotating roster of people who piss her off. The guards ruled out a suspect last week and seem to be having a lot of trouble attaching an IP address to the account.’ Shelly shrugged unhappily. ‘Meeting Hazel and Polly might be useful or at least comforting. Surely Hazel’s been trolled online.’
‘Yeah,’ Dan agreed. ‘You don’t swan around the internet bad-mouthing epidurals and bottle-feeding without ruffling a few feathers.’
Chapter 5
After Mini left, Ali went into the living room and flopped onto the couch while Liv went to faff with the chicken for a bit. She flicked between Amy’s email and the text she’d sent to Sam that was blue-ticked but remained unanswered:
My first appointment in the Rotunda is tomorrow at 10 a.m. You’re welcome to come with me. Just let me know.
She’d deliberately left it till the last minute to give him the details. It was a bit of a defence mechanism – so that if he said no she could just blame it on not giving him proper notice.
‘Chicken’ll be another twenty,’ Liv announced, joining Ali in the sitting room. ‘So, how’s it going?’
Ali burst out laughing and after a moment Liv joined in.
‘Oh my gawd,’ Ali gasped through her peals of laughter. ‘How do I even start to answer that?’
‘Well, you look shite,’ Liv proffered cheerily.
‘Yep, I do, thank you. Turns out public shaming is a real appetite killer.’ Ali tugged her hoodie sleeves down over her hands.
‘Is Mini still on the “pretend you were doing an art performance this whole time” train?’ Ali had filled Liv in via text in the car on the way over.
‘Well, I think she’s coming around to the idea that it might be pouring petrol on an already raging dumpster fire. And I got an interesting email from Amy Donoghue, Shelly Devine’s assistant.’ She fired the phone displaying the message across to Liv and waited.
‘Racist slurs in the voice of his teddy bear? Whoa, I think I know who that might be!’ Liv peered once more at the phone. ‘She sounds hilarious.’
‘She’s … I dunno if “hilarious” is the word but she’s certainly pretty intimidating. Think I should meet her?’
‘Yes.’ Liv was emphatic. ‘Ali, you can’t stall like this forever. Even if living out your days in internet exile was an option, the baby is going to happen whether you engage with life or not. You have got to clear the decks and make a fresh start. This looks like as good a step as any. Just see what she has to say. I’ll come.’
‘Yeah, I know. You’re right.’ Ali composed a short reply asking Amy to meet and hit Send. ‘I dunno how I’m supposed to pay her, though.’
‘What’s the deal with the ill-gotten free swag? You’ve a fuck-ton of stuff down in your room – could you sell it?’
‘I feel like that’s probably not great, karma-wise.’ Ali frowned. ‘Ugh, my room. It’s a frickin’ hellhole in there. I can’t face it.’
‘Well … I gave it a clean over the weekend and I cleared out the box room too … for the baby.’ Liv looked a bit awkward and turned back towards the kitchen. ‘Chicken needs a poke, I’d say.’
Ali hopped up after her and watched her from the kitchen door fiddling with the oven glove. She seemed off and Ali slipped uneasily down the hall to her bedroom door – a quick glance told her why Liv was so uncomfortable. There were three black bin bags lined up on the right of the door. Ali had let things go pretty badly in there. She quaked at the thought of what Liv had found. She nudged the first bag, causing an unmistakable clink of bottles. She winced. When had she last done a bottle bank run? She shuddered to remember. The next bag was slightly smaller, but another nudge produced the same vaguely accusatory sound of glass on glass.