Hens Reunited by Lucy Diamond

the threshold. Alice could see her daughter’s point. It was dark and dingy in there after the glaring sun outside. Dark, dingy, cluttered with old furniture, and ripe with a choking musty smell. Oh God. It was so much smaller than she remembered it.
    She walked across the room – which took all of three steps – and sank into an armchair that had stuffing leaking from its side like Father Christmas beards. It creaked under her weight and she leaned back gingerly, Iris still attached to her like a sniffling baby monkey. Oh no. What had she done, agreeing to this?
    By rights, she should be with Jake, in their Chelsea flat, bought three years ago when his career went into orbit and he landed his first big Brit-flick deal. By rights, they’d be snuggled up on that ridiculously large bed he’d bought, all three of them, one big happy family on the Egyptian cotton sheets. By rights, Iris would be dressed top to toe in organic fleecy baby clothes, instead of charity-shop bargains, and . . .
    The tears were leaking down her cheeks, dripping into Iris’s tufty black hair like rain. Instead, here she was, making a so-called new start, in this grotty little cottage in the arse-end of Nowhere. How had things gone so spectacularly wrong?
    ‘I never liked him,’ her mum had said loyally. ‘Never thought he was good enough for you. Nor did your dad.’
    But that wasn’t the point, was it? Alice had thought Jake was good enough for her (too good, actually, if truth be told). And once upon a time, Jake had seemed to think they were good enough for each other, too. He’d married her, hadn’t he?
    She looked down at her wedding ring, still on her finger. She couldn’t bear to take it off. Her fingers had puffed up so much during the pregnancy that the ring had hurt her, cut into her, the metal leaving red tracks on her tender skin. But Alice – stupid, devoted Alice! – had ignored the pain and carried on wearing it. It was a symbol, wasn’t it? A symbol of eternal love.
    Ha. That was a laugh. Eternal disappointment, more like. The puffiness from her swollen fingers had long since gone; after Jake had unceremoniously ditched her (‘In your condition, too! Has the man a heart of stone?’ her mum had railed), she’d seemed to shrink with misery. The ring spun loosely on her finger now. One of these days it would drop off when she wasn’t paying attention, and she’d lose it. Her mind, as well as the ring, that was.
    Alice hoisted Iris higher on her shoulder and delved into her skirt pocket for a tissue. It hit her every now and then, the full sick horror of what had happened. She almost thought it would have been easier if Jake had died. At least then she could grieve his loss wholeheartedly, safe in the knowledge that a line had been drawn, a chapter closed. At least then nobody would say such bloody irritating things to her.
    ‘Well, you’ve certainly seen his true colours now, Alice.’ That had been Georgia, of course – before Alice had slammed the phone down on her. Like Alice gave two hoots for anything Georgia Knight had to say any more, after what she’d done. The bitch.
    ‘You’re well shot of the cheating pig.’ Katie, trying to be supportive. But it was all right for Katie, wasn’t it? She was super-confident and super-independent. She’d never bought into the ’til-death-do-us-part line in the first place – well, if you discounted that moment of matrimonial madness with Neil whatever-his-name-was.
    ‘Plenty more fish in the sea!’ And that tactless, completely unhelpful reminder had been from her mum. Fish – ha. Who wanted a fish? And why hadn’t anyone thought to warn Alice about the sharks?
    Alice got to her feet. She would not think about Jake anyway. The whole point about this wretched new start was that she was moving on from those miserable, exhausting months at her parents’ house, where she’d stayed in the aftermath of the split. There she’d slept in her old bedroom, with the