“How are you, Bonnie?” she said.

She watched Tom and Jane melt away into the crowd. Someone was asking Tom for a soy latte to much hilarity (poor Tom), but Tom didn’t seem bothered; his eyes kept returning to Jane, as Jane’s did to him. Watching their obvious mutual attraction had made Madeline feel as if she were witnessing some beautiful, extraordinary, but everyday event, like the hatching of a newborn chick. But now she was making conversation with her ex-husband’s wife, and although the alcohol was numbing her nicely, she could feel the subterranean rumbling of her PMS.

“Who is looking after Skye?” she said to Bonnie. “I’m sorry!” She tapped her forehead. “We should have offered to have Skye over to our place! Abigail is looking after Chloe and Fred for us. She could have babysat all her siblings at once.”

Bonnie smiled warily. “Skye is with my mother.”

“Abigail could have given them all a tutorial on website design,” said Madeline at the same time.

Bonnie’s smile disappeared. “Madeline, listen, about that—”

“Oh, Skye is with your mother!” continued Madeline. “Lovely! Abigail has a ‘special connection’ with your mother, doesn’t she?”

She was being a bitch. She was a terrible, awful person. She needed to find someone who would let her say all sorts of horrible, bitchy things and not judge her for it or pass them on. Where was Celeste? Celeste was great for that. She watched Bonnie drain her glass. A Blond Bob came by carrying a tray of more pink drinks. Madeline took two more drinks, for herself and Bonnie.

“When are we starting the trivia competition?” she said to the Blond Bob. “We’re all getting too drunk to concentrate.”

The Blond Bob looked predictably harried. “I know! We’re way off schedule. We’re meant to have finished the canapés by now, but the caterer is stuck in a huge traffic jam on Pirriwee Road.” She blew a lock of blond hair out of her eyes. “And Brett Larson is the MC and he’s stuck in the same traffic jam.”

“Ed will be MC!” said Madeline blithely. “He’s a great MC.” She looked about for Ed and saw him approaching Renata’s husband, all handshakes and backslaps. Great choice, darling. Are you aware your wife ran into his wife’s car yesterday afternoon, resulting in a public screaming match? Ed probably thought he was talking to Gareth the golfer, not Geoff the bird-watcher, and was currently asking Geoff if he’d been on the course much lately.

“Thanks anyway, but Brett has all the trivia questions. He’s been working on them for months. He’s got this whole multimedia presentation planned,” said the Blond Bob. “Just bear with us!” She moved off with her tray of drinks.

“These cocktails are going straight to my head,” said Bonnie.

Madeline was only half listening. She was watching Renata nod coolly at Ed and turn quickly to talk to someone else. She remembered suddenly the hot gossip she’d heard yesterday about Renata’s husband being in love with the French nanny. That news had gone straight out of her head when she’d found out about Abigail’s website. Now she felt bad for yelling back when Renata yelled at her for running into her car.

Bonnie swayed a little. “I don’t drink much these days, so I guess I have a very low tolerance—”

“Excuse me, Bonnie,” said Madeline. “I need to go collect my husband. He seems to be in a very animated conversation with an adulterer. I don’t want him picking up any ideas.”

Bonnie swung her head to see who was talking to Ed.

“Don’t worry,” said Madeline. “Your husband isn’t the adulterer! Nathan is always monogamous right up until he deserts you with a newborn baby. Oh, but wait, he didn’t desert you with a newborn baby. That was just me!”

Bugger niceness. It was overrated. The Madeline of tomorrow was going to regret every word she said tonight, but the Madeline of right now was exhilarated by the removal of all those pesky inhibitions. How wonderful to let the words just come slip-sliding out of her mouth.

“Where is my delightful ex-husband anyway?” said Madeline. “I haven’t seen him yet tonight. I can’t tell you how great it is to know that I can go to the school trivia night and know that I’ll run into Nathan.”

Bonnie fiddled with the end of her plait and looked at Madeline with slightly unfocused eyes. “Nathan left you fifteen years ago,” she said. There was something in her voice that Madeline had never heard before. A roughness, as though something had been rubbed off. How interesting! Yes, please do show me another side of yourself, Bonnie!

“He did a terrible, terrible thing. He will never forgive himself for it,” said Bonnie. “But it might be time you thought about forgiving him, Madeline. The health benefits of forgiveness are really quite extraordinary.”

Madeline inwardly rolled her eyes. Maybe she outwardly did as well. She’d thought for a minute that she was about to see the real Bonnie, but she was just speaking her normal airy-fairy, no-substance rubbish.

Bonnie looked at her earnestly. “I’ve had personal experience—”

There were sudden squeals of delight from a group of people behind Bonnie. Someone cried, “I’m so happy for you!” A woman stepped back, causing Bonnie to lurch forward so that her cocktail spilled right down Madeline’s pink dress.

Gabrielle: It was an accident. Davina was hugging Rowena. She’d just made some sort of announcement. I think she’d reached her goal weight.

Jackie: Rowena had just announced she’d bought a Thermonix. Or a Vitamix. I wouldn’t know. I have an actual life. So of course Davina hugged her. Because she’d bought a new kitchen appliance. I’m not making this stuff up.

Melissa: No, no, we were talking about the latest nit outbreak, and Rowena asked Davina if she’d checked her own hair, and then someone’s husband pretended he could see something crawling through Davina’s hair. The poor girl went crazy and collided with Bonnie.

Harper: What? No! Bonnie threw her drink at Madeline. I saw it!

73.

The trivia night had been going for over an hour now without food or trivia. Jane had a sense of gentle undulating movement, as though she were on a ship. The room was becoming warmer. It had been cold earlier and the heat was on too high. Faces were turning pink. The rain picked up again and pounded on the roof, so people had to raise their voices to be heard over the roar. The room rippled with laughter. A rumor circulated that someone had ordered in pizza. Women begun to pull emergency snacks from handbags.