“I think it might be true,” Lyn said sadly. How did that girl come into the world knowing everything already?

Sometimes when Gemma thought about sex, sometimes even when she was having sex, she felt a faint echo of that horror she felt as an eight-year-old. My goodness, she’d think, looking up at the ceiling as some boyfriend earnestly scrabbled around her body, what in the world is he doing now?

It didn’t stop her from having quite a lot of sex.

She rummaged through the bathroom cupboard for the Listerine and thought about Charlie, standing in the Penthursts’ kitchen that morning. “This fridge is the saddest thing I’ve ever seen,” he’d said, taking out a bottle of milk, sniffing it suspiciously, and then throwing it straight into the garbage. “You really don’t cook, do you?”

“Nope.”

He closed the fridge door and leaned back against it, folding his arms. “Well, what are you going to feed me, Gemma?”

He had a lovely, slightly wrong way of saying her name, a caressing emphasis on the second syllable. Gemma.

She took him to a local café where they served breakfast all day and the patrons sat on low, cushiony sofas reading free magazines and newspapers, looking self-consciously relaxed over their Big Breakfast Specials.

As first dates went it was promising. There was a pleasing crackle of sexual tension that caused their eyes to keep meeting and sliding away and meeting again. Charlie seemed slightly flushed and she felt a heightened awareness of everything: the smells of coffee and bacon, the edge of his T-shirt against the caramel skin of his neck, her own hand reaching across for the sugar. But there was also an odd familiarity, as if she already knew him, as if they’d been to this café dozens of times before, and this was just an ordinary Saturday. Instead of sharing vital information about jobs, hobbies, ex’s, and families, they flicked through the magazines and shared stupid information about celebrities and diets.

“Did you know that the shape of Nicole’s head proves that she could never have been happy with Tom?”

“Check out this woman. She lost over forty kilos by walking up and down her hallway. Now her husband says he liked her better when she was fat.”

And then, when they were leaving and Charlie asked, “What are you doing tonight?” something about the slightly defensive way he was standing and the way his eyes grinned straight into hers, made her want to cry and laugh at the same time.

Wrapping a towel around her, her mouth minty with Listerine (tonight was most definitely first-kiss time) she went dripping down the hallway into her bedroom to choose her most unsexy, unmatching underwear so she wouldn’t be tempted to sleep with him too soon.

Probably, she thought, it was always this good in the beginning.

She imagined her fourteen ex-boyfriends, all lined up one after the other in an orderly queue. The plumber who liked country music, that funny redheaded guy with the glasses, the graphic designer who talked too much in the movies, that big guy who was obsessed about losing his hair. At one end was Marcus, grinning a bit contemptuously, the farthest away, but still clearer and sharper than the rest of them. And, now right up front, chuckling his belly laugh, was Charlie. The queue dipped suddenly in height. He was at least a head shorter than the rest of them.

Would Charlie one day be giving her that puzzled, hurt look? “But why? I thought we were going so well?”

At least, thought Gemma, Cat knew exactly what she wanted. She wanted Dan and she wanted a baby. She also wanted a Ferrari, a house by the beach, Lyn’s Italian leather jacket, and for some man at Hollingdale Chocolates to get run over by a bus.

And that was it. No doubts. No confusion. No lying awake at night trying to work out the magic formula for happiness. Even if she didn’t exactly have what she wanted at the moment, at least she knew what it was. Gemma couldn’t imagine a feeling more peaceful, or exotic.

The doorbell rang in an impatient way, as if it had already been rung once. She threw on some clothes over her unsexy underwear and went running down the stairs to stop him from breaking in again.

Perms and the Pill

It must have been in the late sixties. I remember I was wearing my mauve miniskirt, long yellow socks, and platform shoes. Paula and I were off to the hairdressers for our first ever perms.

We had to walk through that park on Henderson Road and we saw this girl about the same age as us. Tall, with gorgeous long red hair. She was running around after these three adorable little girls. All identically dressed in little yellow sundresses with their hair up in top knots. At first, we thought she was just minding them. But then we could hear them calling out, Mummy, watch me! Mummy, come here! The poor girl was running this way and that, trying to keep them all happy.

Paula said, “Triplets! Aren’t they sweet!” And at that very moment, one child grabbed another one and sank her teeth into her bare arm! The bitten child screamed blue murder! And the mother said, very firmly, something like, “I said no biting today! That’s it! We’re all going home!” Pandemonium! They scattered, like a bomb had fallen, pelting off in different directions! How that poor girl managed to get them home I don’t know.

Well, Paula and I were gob-smacked. We had no idea children bit one another, like savage little animals! You know what we did straight after our perms? We went to the new Family Planning Clinic in the city and got ourselves prescriptions for the Pill. We did! Perms and the Pill on the same day. I’ve never forgotten it.

CHAPTER 4

“My wife is a triplet, you know,” Dan said chattily. He leaned back against the squeaky vinyl sofa and crossed his arms comfortably behind his head. Cat watched him suspiciously. He was finding marriage counseling far too enjoyable for her liking.