‘Pep station?’ Roe looked confused, while Lindy took in Ailbhe’s gleaming eyes and the keyed-up jigging of the baby in her arms.
‘Ailbhe! You absolute lunatic. Are you on coke right now?’
‘Coke!’ Roe yelped. ‘Really? Where did you put the baby while doing the coke?’
Ailbhe grinned manically. ‘One of the Monteray Mamas held her for me.’
‘That is depraved.’ Roe looked equal parts shocked and amused.
‘Mam is making the most of her last hurrah, isn’t she? Yes she is,’ Ailbhe cooed at the baby.
‘Ailbhe, aren’t you breastfeeding?’ Lindy tried not to sound judgemental.
‘Yer wan Clíodhna says it’s grand. It was only a bump anyway. Some of the Sports Casuals are absolutely rolling, sure! Relax, Lindy, don’t be a buzzwreck.’
‘Oh, sorry, I’m wrecking the buzz at thischild’sbirthday party.’ Lindy rolled her eyes and carefully took the baby. ‘I’ll mindthiswhile you go dothat, whateverthatis. It could be bloody Lemsip cut with Epsom salts, ya know. You could be snorting anything, Ailbhe.’
‘Don’t be insane – these bitches have the best of everything. I was actually here when the taxi did the drop-off. Even the drug taxi was swish, a Tesla!’
Roe was shaking her head slowly from side to side. ‘This is the most debauched party I’ve ever been to. Drugs! Magicians! Hired staff! Crazy!’
‘It’s exhausting.’ Lindy sighed just as Morris, Rachel’s husband, or Fitzy as everyone called him, started shouting over the din of the kitchen.
‘Lads! Lads! Lads! Shots, lads!’
‘Fitzy, you ledge!’ a dad nearby shouted, nearly deafening Lindy.
‘Eeeek, shots,’ Ailbhe whooped, raising her arms to point at Morris. ‘Yessss! You cool to hang on to Tilly?’ she fired back at Lindy. ‘There’s a bottle of formula in the changing bag upstairs.’ Ailbhe winked. ‘Don’t worry, I wasn’t going to drink and boob.’ She pushed off to where Morris Fitzsimon was lining up at least twenty tumblers of Red Bull and balancing Jäger shots on the rims between each one, leaving Lindy and Roe holding the baby. The crowd were chanting ‘Trainwreck, trainwreck, trainwreck’ as Morris tipped the first shot of Jägermeister into the first glass of Red Bull, setting off a domino effect of shots tumbling neatly into tumblers across the table. The chanting abated as the crowd fell upon the glasses like hyenas discovering a carcass.
‘This is a lot,’ Roe muttered to Lindy.
As people finished downing the grim concoction, a chant of ‘Fitzy, Fitzy, Fitzy’ took hold.
‘This is giving me such intense school flashbacks,’ Lindy returned.
Where is Adam?she wondered.Do I even care? Nah. As long as he’s not doing any coke.Rachel was deep in hosting duties so at least he wasn’t holed up with her anywhere. She hated thinking like this, but everyone was monitoring everyone these days and Coked Up Maxxed Out Dad would not be a good look.
‘We can hardly leave already – we’ll have to give it an hour at least. Let’s go hide somewhere to wait it out,’ Roe muttered.
After traipsing through every room on the first and second floor of the house (all filled with shouty Monteray parents), Lindy and Roe realised that the best tactic to avoid the endless booze-pushing and bleary emoting of people whose tolerance was on the floor post-kids would be to hide in plain sight. They ended up back downstairs in the playroom, where they sat on the floor with Tilly, among the kids who were watching both a movie and a performer who’d been hired to keep them entertained. This was definitely the last place any of the other parents would be venturing.
‘What is their deal?’ Roe jerked her head in the direction of the door and the muffled sounds of inebriated people. ‘It’s like four in the afternoon? They’re acting like it’s 3 a.m. on a Saturday in 2006.’
‘No one cuts loose like a fun-starved parent.’ Lindy shrugged.
‘It’s kind of depressing, though, isn’t it? They all seem to hate their kids. Or hate being parents at least. This is why I just can’t imagine me and Eddie going for it. I feel like I’ll end up like one of these cynical women shooting up coke at a kid’s birthday party. Is it coke you shoot up?’
‘I know it looks bleak from right here, but I swear it’s not all social climbing and bathroom bumps of coke. It’s nice having a family.’
Despite her words, Lindy couldn’t quite summon the enthusiasm to match the sentiment. She hadn’t clapped eyes on Adam since they’d all arrived. For all she knew, Adam was off in some closet motorboating Rachel for real.
She tried to picture walking in on that scene and how it would feel, but all she came back with was a kind of unnerving non-feeling, a blankness. Adam didn’t want her any more. She should be screaming and railing but she felt too shattered, too sapped by the despair. Did the others in Monteray Valley feel like this? Was the pervading numbness a middle-class, mid-life malaise infecting all of them? Maybe this accounted for the coke and the hard-edged, unsentimental attitude to their own children. Maybe they’d hit a wall with their self-advancement. They had the money, the houses, the cars, the clothes. They had the lives they’d always been working towards and now had to confront the fact that there was still something missing. Was it just the next obvious stage for restlessness to set in? The desire to hunt out the things left undone, the things still outstanding that needed to be ticked off? That is some level of privilege, Lindy knew. Her own incredibly hard-working parents wouldn’t know what to make of having things so good – at least on paper – that you would actually go looking for something to be unsatisfied by.
Lindy’s thoughts drifted.
If you could have a do-over, what would you fix?
Children truly did create a watershed in life, as Clíodhna’s prickly words had highlighted. After kids, you weren’t the most important person in your life any more. All your decisions affected them. Your dreams, if you went after them, even had the potential to hurt your kids. Her own daydreams of starting her career over would definitely not benefit Max. The idea of stepping back from Maxxed Out made her feel guilty. Would Max feel like she was ditching him? Maybe he wouldn’t mind. She could still be on the board. Maybe he wouldn’t even notice.
