We’d been sixteen, seventeen, and certain it was Monica Lewinsky’s fault. I remembered discussing it with school friends in the sixth-form common room. The stupid wee bitch, we’d called her. The silly wee slag. And the dress, like! The president had come to Belfast a couple of years earlier. He’d ousted the Power Rangers to turn on the Christmas lights; there’d been cheering crowds in Donegall Place, and fireworks. The Leader of the Free World. What did Monica Lewinsky think she was at? His daughter was more or less our age: frizzy hair and braces. We felt scundered for her, and disgusted.

I remember my mum saying how charismatic he was, I said.

That’s one word for it.

Ha.

And do you know that The Dress was only from Gap? It was just this … shirt-dress thing. Bog-standard blue. 44

I had imagined some chi-chi cocktail dress. Marabou feathers, a plunging neckline.

Yeah, my friend said. She never got it cleaned to wear it again cause her friend said she looked fat in it.

We both had a fit of giggles and the babies regarded us with their disapproving stares.

I’ll walk with you a bit, I said. I turned the buggy and we fell into step. We were both wearing trainers, hers trendier than mine. It had been a joke between us for years, my impractical footwear. I thought of how substantial my first hi-tops had felt, after years of flimsy ballet pumps, the cheap ones made out of cardboard and fake leather. When we’d discovered how well made men’s brogues were we’d laughed and laughed.

Her bus was pulling in to the stop, and we ran for it.

Come back to mine, she suddenly said, for baby rice and Ella’s.

But there was already a buggy on board, and the maximum allowed was two. We hugged a quick goodbye, chlorine and cold cheeks, and see-you-next-weeks.

It wasn’t for the babies we did baby swimming, of course.

A minute or so later, my phone buzzed: a stream of emojis telling the story of two splashing whales and two fishes abruptly and tragically separated. Then another message, tactfully upgrading the whales to dolphins, with the crying-laughing face.

I didn’t know when we’d started to communicate in emojis, but I was pretty sure it had coincided with parenthood. A way of acknowledging how forthright, earnest, 45certain we used to be about everything. Or maybe it was just sleep deprivation.

I sent the same face back, then searched for the bowl-of-rice and the strawberry and wrote: Enjoy your pre-digested feast.

She sent me the Edvard Munch face, and some x’s.

There was no way I’d make it home before my baby fell asleep. But if I started walking now, I could sit in a cafe and google Monica Lewinsky for five minutes before he realised the buggy was no longer moving and woke to express his outrage.