Never

It was Wendy's auntie's sixtieth the other day. Kitty had invented a story about us taking her out for a pizza, but in fact we were planning a surprise party for her at Kitty's. I got annoyingly under Kitty's feet in her kitchen.

Wendy turned up in a gorgeous dress. Desire, sadness, self-control. Don't say anything. A clamp-and-release hello, pursed lips diverted onto my cheek, an arsehole-tight kiss. Right that's your lot looby. Now sit down and don't get any ideas.

Kitty took a photo of us -- the only one of her I have. Later, she stood in the kitchen inches away from me with her back turned unselfconsciously towards me. Her slender back and the incredible curve of her arse and her legs; she's got the most beautiful waist. Her dress and her hair, and most of all -- her. The sadness of knowing it'll never be me she'll want to stroke. A touchless, one-way desire.

Wilma came round with a stolen litre of port and a bottle of white. I had a bottle of red. We drank it all. She sat there and pissed over my chair and onto my kitchen floor, twice. Doesn't matter. The lino has never seen so much disinfectant. She's the size of a baby hippo and the effort of going up to my second floor, where the loo is, is more taxing for her than you and me. I wish she hadn't done that though. I'm always the social worker with her, but I do feel for her. She grips my fingers, the more or less stated offer of a fuck. No. There's only one girl I want that closeness with.

I want to be with my girls, all the time. Kirsty asked me if I fancied coming over on Saturday to make an Easter dinner for them. My eldest was brimming, glowing with being accepted for Politics and French at a good university in the East Midlands, as we all started making plans to crash her flat when she's on her year abroad in Lyon.

We all chatted, and I started gutting parsnips, triangling their middles out. I made a nut roast, roast potatoes, honey glazed carrots, sprouts, stuffing, boiled cabbage, roast parsnips, gravy, then piled everything onto their plates. Surrey v Lancashire on the radio. Looking sideways at Kirsty, still attractive, in her 50s miniskirt and her tilting her feet upwards with her charity shop wedges. Thinking about Wendy. Unsaid, untexted: I love you Wendy, and I love my girls, as you do your daughter. You make me want to be unselfish.