‘You’re such a bitch,’ I whispered, turning my hand over to give hers a squeeze.
‘A jealous bitch,’ she corrected with a rueful smile. ‘I’m so jealous of you, I can hardly stand it. I sit at home at night and I think about you living this amazing life in London with your incredible job and your glamorous friends and your gorgeous boyfriend, who admittedly turned out to be a wanker but still. I’m up here juggling Oliver and the kids and the businessandtrying to make sure we don’t run out of toilet paper and there’s nothing left for me. I mean, where does it go? What do they do with all that loo roll? Are they eating it? There’s never enough, no matter how much I buy. This isn’t the life I dreamed of and I took it out on you.’
‘Michael used to go through a four-pack a week,’ I said, delighted. ‘Just him, on his own. One week I kept my own roll in the drawer under the sink to see how much he was using and it was nuts. I was genuinely worried there was something wrong with his insides but now I realize he just shits a lot.’
Cerys laughed again, a true, heartfelt cackle and it was the best sound I’d heard in ages.
‘Four rolls in aweek?’ she replied. ‘I hope his new missus is the heir to the Andrex fortune.’
‘I hope he shits them out of house and home,’ I replied smiling when she laughed again. ‘He’sliterallyfull of shit, Care.’
She wiped her eyes with her sleeve, leaving black smears on her grey sleeve.
‘Oliver got one of those Japanese toilets installed in our bathroom but he set the jet too high and it went up his arse and scared him so much he only uses the downstairs loo now. I hear him in the middle of the night, running down the stairs to make it in time.’
‘Can’t you turn the jet down a bit?’ I asked.
‘I turned it off months ago but why tell him that?’ I recognized the look on her face as that of someone who took great comfort in winning life’s small battles. ‘I know he’s not perfect, but we’ve been together for eighteen years, we’ve got kids, we’ve got a business. I always thought things would get less complicated when I got older, but it really is the opposite.’
She sat across from me nursing her drink, and instead of my older sister, I saw a younger version of our mother. A woman so frustrated with life, she was throwing down with a woman over leeks in Tesco. I didn’t want to watch Cerys end up in the same place.
‘You’re hardly one foot in the grave,’ I said, treading lightly. ‘You’re not even forty yet, you’ve got everything in front of you.’
‘There are no simple choices once you’ve got kids,’ she replied, matter-of-factly. ‘And I don’t mean that in a smug “You couldn’t possibly understand” way, it just is what it is. Every decision I make, I have to make it with three people in mind. Would I love to get up, call in sick and sod off to Paris for the day? Totally. But who would take the kids to school? Who would pick them up? Who would remember whether it’s football practice or ballet lessons or coding class?’
‘Arthur plays football?’ I asked.
‘No, they’re all Artemis. She’s keeping her optionsopen in case she decides to bring down civilization via sports, the arts or tech.’
I really did need to get to know my niece better before she became the global supreme ruler and banished me to live on an oil rig with the deposed royal family.
‘Can I ask you something?’ Cerys said as I quietly wondered if any of the Windsors were better cooks than me. Fingers crossed. Deliveroo probably didn’t drop off in the north Atlantic.
‘Anything,’ I replied.
‘Do you like working at Abbott & Howe? Do you like your job?’
‘That’s a weird question,’ I said, huffing out an almost laugh. ‘It’s a brilliant job, isn’t it? Lucky to have it, everyone says so.’
‘Right,’ she turned her lips inwards, the edges turning upwards but not quite making a smile. ‘I’m sorry about earlier. I shouldn’t have said what I said. You’re not responsible for the way Mum and Dad made me feel or for the way I make myself feel. I want to try harder as well.’
‘You want to go on a family holiday to Center Parcs?’ I asked hopefully.
‘I’d rather kill myself,’ she said kindly. ‘But maybe we can make this pub thing a regular event.’
We sat quietly, drinking our gin in companionable silence. It was only when the snow began to fall, I realized what time it was. My drink was almost empty when Cerys’s phone dinged inside her not-even-slightly-stained suede handbag.
‘It’s Mum,’ she said, tapping out a reply without showing me the text. ‘Checking to see if we’ve killed each other.’
‘Tell her yes but I put up a good fight,’ I replied, watching the snow start to gather on the ruby red Royal Mail post box across the street. ‘Care?’
‘Gwen?’
‘If you got the sixpence in the Christmas pudding, what would you wish for?’
‘No idea. I never get the sixpence because I never actually eat the pudding.’ She put her phone away and took a deep breath in. ‘I take it so Mum doesn’t whine about it. But if I had got it, I’d wish to know why they’re here.’
She nodded across the bar and I turned around to see two uniformed policemen walk up to the bar, speaking to the landlord in hushed tones.