When She Was Bad(62)

The mortgage you pushed him into, said the voice in her head. She batted it away.

A loud whooping noise came up from the next table where the sales and marketing team were sitting, making Amira jump. They seemed to be playing a drinking game. The ginger-haired guy whose name she could never remember was draining a pint of something while the others looked on, chanting, ‘Down in one, down in one.’ When he smashed the glass down on the table, he had a foam moustache. Those around him clapped.

‘Everyone’s treating me like a leper,’ whispered Sarah on her other side. ‘It’s not as if I planned to have another baby. It was a mistake.’

‘Do you think maybe after two you ought to have learned how they’re made?’ Amira had meant it to be a joke, but it came out harsher than she’d intended.

‘I know it sounds really lame but you don’t understand how exhausted we are all the time, both of us. After seven thirty at night our brains just shut down. We’re not thinking straight, certainly not thinking about consequences. And I thought it was a safe time.’

Amira made a face. ‘There is no safe time. Anyway, you’re clearly not that exhausted if you’re still having sex.’

‘Once in a blue moon. Honestly. It’s just so unlucky. I haven’t even been able to bring myself to think about it. After I’d done the test, Oliver had his back to me, doing the washing-up. I tapped him on the shoulder and showed him the little stick thingy with the blue line and he just stared at it and then turned back round and carried on washing up. Didn’t say a word.’

‘You’re happy now though, right?’

Sarah lifted her eyes to hers and Amira saw they were blurred by a sheen of tears.

‘I just don’t know how we’ll cope with another one, Amira. We’re so tired. Joe and Sam are so physically demanding. And I’ve only just really got back into work mode again. My career’s hanging by a thread as it is.’ She shot a meaningful glance in the direction of Rachel who had turned her back on them to talk to Ewan on her other side.

‘You’re not thinking of getting rid of it though, surely?’

Sarah looked stricken. ‘No. I mean, I look at Joe and Sam and think, no way, but then I imagine what it’ll be like to go back to the beginning again with the constant feeding and the not sleeping and that smell of shit and sour milk that gets into your hair and your skin and I just can’t . . . Well, I just can’t. That’s why I didn’t tell anyone. Couldn’t face dealing with it.’

‘Has she,’ Amira jerked her head backwards towards Rachel, ‘said anything to you?’

Sarah shook her head, and now there was a tear building in the corner of her eye, then spilling down her cheek.

‘That’s a conversation I’m dreading,’ she whispered.

A screech of laughter cut across the table. Chloe was sitting next to Will and clearly finding whatever he had just said hysterically funny. Amira had been surprised to find Will here at dinner. She’d assumed his duties ended after the outdoor activities were over. On the itinerary they’d been given before they arrived, there had been an entry on the Saturday night reading ‘after-dinner games’. She’d hoped it might be something like Scrabble or even pool, both of which she quite enjoyed, but Will’s presence made her nervous in case it was something more elaborate. More scope for public humiliation.

‘Amira,’ shouted Chloe. She had those pink blotches that pale girls get after a few drinks. ‘Tell Will that joke you told us last week. The one about the monkey on the bus.’

Amira groaned.

‘That kind of is the punchline, Chloe,’ she said.

Again the screech of laughter. ‘Oh yeah! I’m such a div!’

The meal progressed without much incident, but Amira couldn’t shake off that sense of feeling disappointed in herself. When Rachel started talking to her about her vision for the department, asking her advice on what she thought about offering a performance-based incentive – like a day at a spa – she couldn’t help thinking about how it would look to the others, she and Rachel cosying up together making plans for the office. She knew that when the axe finally fell, Paula would remember this evening and wonder if they had been plotting her downfall. ‘Did you know then,’ she could almost hear Paula’s quiet voice in her ear, ‘at that team-bonding dinner? Did you already know she was going to get rid of me?’ And what could she say to that?

‘I’d like to propose a toast to the team,’ said Mark Hamilton, once the plates were cleared away. ‘And to say a big thank you to Rachel for helping to make this weekend happen. I think today has been a tremendous success in bringing everyone together, making us think about how we work with each other and the importance of cooperation within the department – as well as the benefits of a bit of healthy competition. Plus we had a lot of fun, which is always a bonus!’