We said it was going to be civilised. That was the first lie of the day.
Sophie put a chicken in the oven at eleven like she was someone’s mother. Mia laid the table with the plates that actually match. I bought the wine and the Yorkshires from M&S because I am many things but I am not standing over a batter at noon on a Sunday with last night still sitting behind my eyes. We even put flowers in a mug. Looked like a Waitrose advert for about twelve minutes.
Then the first bottle went down and the chicken was still pink in the middle, and that was that.
It always starts with the gravy
There is a particular hour on a London Sunday where everyone pretends they are well. You know the one. Showers have happened. Someone has put on jeans instead of the thing they slept in. There is talk of going for a walk later, which nobody believes. The radio is on too loud because nobody can face the silence of a flat that still smells faintly of Saturday.
We do this roast maybe twice a month. Parsons Green kitchen, tiny table, three chairs that do not quite belong to the same set. Sophie does the meat because she is the only one who owns a meat thermometer and has opinions about rest time. Mia does the potatoes and somehow they are always better than they have any right to be. I do drinks and commentary. It is an ecosystem.
For a while it was actually sweet. Mia telling us about a girl at work who wears the same blazer four days running. Sophie moaning about her boss in that tight little voice she uses when she is trying not to be unkind. I reapplied lip gloss in the back of a spoon because the lighting over the hob is unforgiving and I refuse to eat looking tragic.
Then Sophie said, very casually, “I saw Tom last week.”
And the whole room changed temperature.
One name is never just one name
Tom. Her Tom. The one who worked in “something with property” and used to leave his cycling shoes by our front door like he paid rent. The one who called her babe in front of people and darling when he wanted something. We all sat up a bit.
“Where?” Mia said, already smiling.
“M&S food hall. He was buying a meal deal like a man who has given up.”
I snorted into my glass. Could not help it. There is something about an ex in fluorescent lighting that strips them of whatever myth you built. No low light. No playlist. Just a bloke holding a prawn sandwich.
Sophie tried to be generous. She always does, at first. “He looked fine. Tired. He asked how the flat was.”
“He asked how the flat was,” Mia repeated, delighted. “Not how you were. The flat.”
And off we went.
It is funny how quickly a table becomes a courtroom. Nobody bangs a gavel. Nobody swears an oath. You just pass the carrots and suddenly everyone has evidence. Dates. Jobs. The exact wording of a text sent at 1:14am. What he was like with the lights off, which is information you should probably take to the grave and absolutely will not.
The disappointing bedroom habit portion of lunch
I am not going to sit there looking saintly. That would be dishonest and, worse, boring.
Mia went first because Mia has no brakes. Her last one, the photographer, the one with the good coat and the bad timing. “He used to apologise. During. Like he was sorry for taking up space. I wanted to shake him. I wanted him to mean it.”
Sophie made a face and then admitted, after a long sip, that Tom used to check his phone after. Not during, she said, as if that made him a gentleman. After. Still in the bed. Scrolling. Once she asked who he was talking to and he said work. On a Sunday. At midnight.
“Work,” I said. “At midnight. On a Sunday. In your bed. Sure.”
She threw a roast potato at me. Missed. It rolled under the fridge and will live there until we move out.
My turn came the way it always does. They look at me. I am the one who collects men like other people collect matchbooks, and I know how that sounds, and I also know it is mostly true. So I told them about the one from Mayfair who talked the entire time. Not dirty talk. A presentation. His fund. His hours. His bloody commute. I lay there thinking, this man is networking. Inside me.
Mia screamed. Sophie put her head in her hands and then asked for the name, the job title, and whether I would do it again. I said perhaps, if the lighting was better and he shut up. Honesty is my vice. Always has been.
We kept going. The one who only liked the morning. The one who called you baby once and then never again. The one who was incredible until he opened the fridge in our kitchen and said, “You girls live like students,” which is rich from a man who still splits a starter.
Jobs came next, because jobs are how you locate someone in this city without admitting you still look them up. Finance. Media. A start-up that is definitely about to raise. Someone’s brother who “does something in music.” Half of them are in Shoreditch. The other half think they are above Shoreditch. None of them can load a dishwasher.
Why a roast does this to people
I have thought about this more than I should. You put three women who know too much about each other around a small table, you give them hot food and cold wine, and the week comes off like a coat.
A night out is performance. You are in the dress. You are on. A roast is the opposite. You are in socks. There is grease on your wrist. Someone has gravy on their sleeve and nobody is taking a photo yet. That is when the truth comes out, the ugly little specifics that would sound vicious in a group chat and feel almost tender across a chicken carcass.
It is not even always mean. Sometimes it is. I will not pretend we are better than that. Sometimes you need to say, out loud, that he was mid, that the sex was a negotiation, that he made you feel like a weekend plan instead of a person. You say it and the other two nod like they have been waiting for permission.
Sophie is the worst at pretending she does not enjoy it. She starts every story with “I probably should not say this.” Then she says it. In detail. With dates.
Mia keeps a mental spreadsheet. I am convinced of it. Names, duration, whether they texted after, whether they were any good, whether they ever met the parents. She will deny this. She is lying.
Me, I contribute because I cannot help myself and because I am already writing the caption in my head. That is the job. That is also the problem.
The bit I did not plan to say
There was a pause after the second bottle. The sort of pause where you can hear next door’s telly through the wall. Sophie started clearing plates and then stopped with a dish in her hand.
“Do you ever worry we sound like we hate them?”
I thought about it. Properly, I mean. Not the cute version.
“No,” I said. “I think we sound like we remember them. That is different.”
I do not hate most of them. Some of them were lovely for a Tuesday. Some of them were a disaster I walked into with my eyes open because the alternative that night was coming home early and looking at myself in the bathroom mirror for too long. A few I would still text if I was bored and well dressed and the city felt too big.
What I cannot stand is the rewriting. The way a man will tell the story later as if he was the prize and you were the evening. The roast is where we take the story back. We give him a name, a job, a disappointing habit, and we put him on the table next to the Yorkshire puddings where he belongs. Contained. Discussed. Finished.
Sophie looked at me for a second like she wanted to argue and then she laughed. “You would say that. You kept the last one’s hoodie.”
I did. It is a good hoodie. I am not throwing out quality because the man who owned it thought aftercare was a text that said “got home safe x” two hours later.
What happened after the plates
We did not go for a walk. Obviously.
Mia opened the third bottle even though nobody asked her to. Sophie put the leftovers in the good Tupperware, the one with the lid that actually seals. I sat on the counter and recapped the afternoon like a match report.
Tom: meal deal, cycling shoes, phone in the bed.
The photographer: sorry during, never again.
Mayfair: talking. So much talking.
The start-up one Mia will not name because his sister follows her: apparently very proud of a move he saw on the internet. We howled. The neighbours can cope.
By four the sky had that flat Sunday colour London does so well, not quite rain, not quite anything. Someone’s phone lit up. An old number. Of course it did. These things have timing. Sophie turned it face down and we all stared at it like it might bite.
“Are you going to look?” Mia said.
“Later,” Sophie said. Then, because she is still Sophie, “Maybe.”
I did not take a picture of the table. I thought about it. The wreckage looked good. Wine rings, a graveyard of roast potatoes, three girls who had just taken several men to pieces and still had pudding to get through. It would have done numbers. I left it. For once I wanted the afternoon to belong to the kitchen and not the grid.
That will not last. I know myself.
The rule we pretend we have
We have a rule that what is said at the roast stays at the roast. We also have a group chat called “who’s coming home tonight,” so the rule is decorative.
By six Mia had already sent a voice note to someone else, the short version, names removed, habits intact. Sophie had texted her sister. I opened a note on my phone and wrote the line I used at the start of this, because if I do not catch it while the gravy is still on my jumper I lose the texture of it.
People love to call this toxic. Fine. Call it what you want. I call it how women stay sane in a city where half the men you sleep with will describe you later as “a bit of fun” and the other half will ask to stay over and then critique the towels.
A Sunday roast is supposed to be comfort. It is. It is also a tribunal with better seasoning. You eat. You talk. You put the week in order. You remember who made you feel like a person and who made you feel like a slot in their calendar. Then you wash up badly and argue about whose turn it is and someone puts on a playlist that is too upbeat for the hour.
I contributed. Obviously. I am not going to sit there looking saintly while my friends hand over their whole romantic history and I sip merlot like a vicar’s wife. That is not friendship. That is a performance for an audience that is not even in the room.
If you want the short version: one bottle in, every ex had a name, a job, and a disappointing bedroom habit. The chicken was fine in the end. The potatoes were excellent. Tom is buying meal deals now. And I am still not giving the hoodie back.
Next Sunday we said we would keep it light. Just food. Just us.
I have heard that one before.
