26
Emily was home from college for the first time since she had left at the end of September. Jen had been so excited to see her, so pleased and relieved to have another presence in the house, that she had driven across London to meet her from the train, and had embarrassed her daughter by jumping up and down and waving when she spotted her walking along the platform. Actually, the girl she had waved at had looked something like one of her daughters, but not quite. Emily had cut her long red hair to shoulder length, added a heavy fringe that almost covered her eyes, and dyed the whole thing black with a few electric-blue streaks.
‘Wow,’ Jen said, as she held her at arm’s length.
‘I think that’s parent speak for, “What the hell have you done to yourself?”’
‘You look great,’ Jen said, not really convinced. ‘Maybe I should do mine too.’
‘Don’t be stupid, Mum,’ Emily said. ‘You’d look ridiculous.’
‘You’ve got skinny,’ Jen said as she hugged her daughter tightly, trying to keep the judgement out of her voice. ‘There’s nothing of you.’
‘Mum –’ Emily protested.
Jen interrupted. ‘I’m not telling you off. I’m just warning you I’m going to be forcing food on you all weekend, that’s all.’
‘Great. I’d be disappointed if you didn’t.’
‘I’ve had mothering withdrawal symptoms. You’re going to have to take the full brunt of my unfulfilled maternal instincts.’
Emily laughed. ‘Christ. I’m calling Simone and telling her to get down here quick.’
Jen leaned over, buried her face in her daughter’s hair. ‘I am so glad you’re here.’
With Emily there, the house seemed like a home again. Jen and Jason back to doing what they did best: being devoted parents, a happy couple, a family. It felt as if the whole building breathed a sigh and relaxed. The atmosphere lightened up, as if someone had added a touch of helium into the mix.
Although Jen was grateful, she tried not to analyse too much. Tried not to acknowledge that something couldn’t be right if she and Jason could only be themselves when one of their daughters was present. Tried to enjoy the weekend and not dwell on life beyond it.
Emily prattled on, oblivious to any underlying tensions, while Jen prepared pasta and pesto, and chocolate mousse, and laid them all out for her daughter to devour. She and Jason watched fondly, as gripped as a pair of feeders by the sight of their offspring enjoying her food.
‘So Josie and I have decided we’re going to share a flat next year,’ Emily said.
Jen resisted the temptation to say, ‘Which one is Josie again?’ She found it hard to keep up with Emily’s fluid social life.
‘And we’re trying to decide which of the other girls to ask if they want to come in with us. We need five, really, to get somewhere we can afford.’
‘Do you really need to start looking yet? You’ve only been there five minutes,’ Jen said, spooning more cheese on to Emily’s meal.
Emily pushed her hand away. ‘God, Mum, that’s enough. Yes, totally. Everyone’s obsessed already, and all the good places get reserved by Easter. If you miss the ones that go through the uni accommodation office, you have to just look randomly, and everyone says you get ripped off that way.’
‘What if you and Josie fall out before you move in? I mean, it’s months away.’
‘As if,’ Emily said, conveniently forgetting that her back catalogue of friendships read like a history of the Roman Empire complete with fallings out and betrayals and secret pacts. Luckily, without the beheadings so far – although she was still young.
‘How’s the course?’ Jason asked.
To his delight Emily had chosen to study drama, and he loved to compare his own teaching methods with those of her tutors.
‘Awesome. We’re doing lots of physical stuff at the moment. I think they’re trying to knock everyone into shape before we start stage fighting after Christmas. I’m knackered, to be honest.’
Once she had finished eating, and was looking like she had already gained a few pounds, Emily announced that she was going out. Her childhood best friend, Catriona, had opted not to go to college and still lived with her parents round the corner. It was her birthday and the reason Emily had made the effort to clear her overstuffed Leeds social life and travel home (only calling to announce her intention a few hours before she had arrived). Jen had practically knelt down and prayed her thank yous on the spot. It hadn’t occurred to Emily that her parents might have plans of their own. Which, of course, they didn’t.
Although Jen was tempted to ground her now – like she used to do when Emily was thirteen – so loath was she to break up the party, she kissed her daughter on the forehead and told her to make sure she handed over her dirty washing before she left.
‘Do you want me to pick you up later?’ Jason asked, clearly keen to resume the chauffeur role he had complained about for years.
‘No. Thank you. I don’t know what time I’ll want to leave.’
‘Well, call me if you change your mind. And promise you’ll get a taxi if it’s late. No walking. I’ll pay you back.’
Emily rolled her eyes. ‘Thanks, Dad.’
‘She’s got skinny,’ he said to Jen, once the front door had closed.
Jen laughed. ‘That’s what I said. I think students are contractually obliged to live on a couple of bowls of cereal and a few vodka shots a day, though.’
‘She looks more like Jessie every minute, don’t you think?’
‘So long as she only inherits her looks, and not too much of the other stuff.’
He snorted. ‘God help us.’
Without asking, he opened a bottle of white wine and handed her a glass. Jen felt as if she had gone back in time, back to before the cracks started to appear. Even without Emily actually being there, the house felt different. Just knowing their daughter would be back later had completely changed the dynamic between her and Jason for the better. They finished the wine, chatted about Emily and how happy she seemed and how great it was that she loved her course, called Simone and passed the phone back and forth between them, tripping over each other’s sentences, and stayed up later than they had in a long time, both secretly hoping Emily would come home early and fill the room with her presence.
Eventually, they gave in to tiredness and went up to bed. Jen felt closer to Jason than she had in weeks. They would get through this, somehow. She didn’t quite know how, if she was being honest. The whole situation had got so complicated, the secrets too big, the deceptions already too hard to explain. But she wasn’t going to worry about that now. Now she felt loving and happy and optimistic. She turned to Jason as he switched off his bedside light, put her hand on the side of his face, willed him to kiss her. It felt alien, a habit they had somehow got out of without even realizing it. She thought, briefly, about when the last time had been. Couldn’t remember.
‘Night, love,’ Jason said, and he pecked her on the cheek. ‘Don’t stay awake all night listening for Em to get home.’
He turned on to his side, facing away from her.
Jen lay back on the pillow, staring at the dark shadows on the ceiling. ‘Night.’
Of course, she stayed awake, waiting to hear the front door open and shut, and Emily’s delicate fairy steps as she tiptoed up the creaking stairs. She felt completely and utterly alone, the hopeful mood of the evening long gone. She missed Amelia dreadfully, she realized. Her whole adult life, if she had had a problem, she would turn to her mother-in-law for advice and comfort. Gossip and news, and anything of a sensitive nature that an elderly relative might not fully appreciate, she shared with Poppy first. But everything else – and at those times when she needed a sympathetic shoulder to cry on and not Poppy’s wisecracks – she looked to Amelia. Before her own mother, that went without saying. Elaine could be judgemental in a way that Amelia never would.
And there was no one in the world she wanted to confide in now more than the one person she knew she never could.
She felt a tear roll down her cheek. Sniffed and tried to stem the tide. She had never felt so helpless before, so completely at a loss about what to do. She thought briefly about Cass and then pushed her out of her mind. She had to worry about her own family, she couldn’t start fretting about Cass too. She looked over at Jason, could just about make him out in the dark. He was breathing deeply, making occasional tiny snoring noises like a purring cat. She couldn’t believe she was letting this thing – this secret – start to drive a wedge between them. OK, so maybe there had already been a crack in their relationship, a hairline fracture, but she had never thought it was irreparable. They had lost their way a little after Emily went to college, had struggled a bit for things to say and to feel as if anything was worth the effort, but she had been sure it was a temporary thing. They had just needed to find a new way to be, a different version of themselves that would see them through the next twenty years. But then this had happened, and now she couldn’t even act like everything was normal, like it was all going to be OK. Because it wasn’t. She didn’t see how it could be.
At about twenty-five past three, she heard the click of the door and, a minute or so later, Emily on the stairs on her way up to her bedroom. Jen waited for a moment, rubbed at her eyes to remove any telltale signs of crying, and then couldn’t resist getting out of bed and creeping across the landing, coughing softly as she neared the door so as not to startle Emily too much.
Not that that worked.
‘Jesus! Mum, you scared the shit out of me.’
Emily was sitting in front of a mirror, wiping her make-up off with a flannel. She had mascara streaked down her cheeks.
Jen laughed. ‘You look like Alice Cooper.’
‘Are you OK? Why are you up?’
‘I couldn’t sleep. Did you have a nice time?’
‘Fab. We went to Pacha with some of Catriona’s friends from work.’
‘Well, in that case you’re home early. Do you want anything? Chamomile tea? Water?’
‘I have water. Go to bed, Mum.’
‘Hot chocolate?’
Emily smiled. ‘We have hot chocolate?’
‘I bought it specially. I think I’ll have some, anyway. Help me sleep.’
Jen leaned down and hugged her, and was gratified to feel Emily hugging her back. ‘Get into bed, I’ll bring it up.’
‘Love you.’
‘You mean you love the fact that I’m going to make you hot chocolate.’
‘Well, that too.’
‘I’ll take it.’
When she came back, Emily was tucked up in bed, duvet up round her chin, looking eight rather than eighteen.
‘Stay here and keep me company while I drink it,’ Emily said.
Jen settled herself down on Simone’s bed, across the room, the way she used to after Simone first went to college and Emily, even at sixteen, had found it hard to get to sleep without the comforting presence of her elder sister there.
The next thing she knew, it was twenty past six in the morning and she was snuggled under Simone’s duvet. Across the room, Emily was asleep on her back, pyjama-clad limbs splayed out from under the covers. Jen thought about getting up and going downstairs, or creeping back into her own bed for a couple of hours, but in the end she just turned over and went back to sleep.
‘Are we going to Granny and Grandpa’s for lunch tomorrow?’ Emily asked over what amounted to lunch for Jen and Jason but breakfast for her, next day. They had decided to have another stab at Christmas shopping in the afternoon – only, this time, in the calmer environs of Kingston.
Jen was aware of Jason looking at her. It had occurred to her that it actually might be a good idea to go and see Charles and Amelia after all. Having Emily there would take the tension out of the visit and would buy Jen a Sunday away from them next weekend without, hopefully, having to have too much of a negotiation about it.
‘Well, I was going to go to Grandma’s …’
She saw Emily trying to mask a disappointed face. It wasn’t that she didn’t love Elaine. It was just that she had bought into the whole myth of the Mastersons just as much as Jen herself had.
‘… but then I thought maybe I could leave that till next weekend. Although she’ll be sorry not to see you.’
‘Fab. I’ll make it up to Grandma at Christmas.’
Jen looked at Jason for confirmation, and he rewarded her with a big smile.
‘We can go to Mum’s next weekend, though, can’t we?’ she asked.
Get him to agree while he was feeling well disposed towards her.
‘Of course.’
‘Goodness,’ Amelia said, when she opened the front door. ‘You’ve done something to your hair.’
‘Do you like it, Granny?’ Emily said as she put her arms round her grandmother and planted a kiss on her cheek.
Jen hung back, not wanting to face Charles alone.
‘Well, yes. It’s … different.’
‘You hate it,’ Emily said, laughing. ‘That’s OK, you can say so.’
‘Well, not hate, exactly,’ Amelia said, with a smile. ‘It’ll just take a bit of getting used to, that’s all.’
‘Well, don’t get too used to it. I’ll probably change it again in a couple of weeks.’
‘I used to bleach my hair white, sometimes, when I was young. Peroxide. Terrible stuff.’
‘Did you really, Amelia?’ Jen couldn’t imagine it, somehow.
‘Well, it was the sixties. I had a beehive, too, for a while.’
‘Cool. Do you have any photos?’ Emily linked Amelia’s arm and walked towards the living room with her.
‘Somewhere. In the attic, I think.’
‘Can we see them, Granny?’ Emily asked. ‘Please.’
Amelia chuckled, flattered that her granddaughter was interested. ‘I’ll see if I can dig them out. After lunch.’
Charles appeared at the door of his study. ‘Good God,’ he said, in mock horror. ‘Morticia Addams.’
He looked a little strained, Jen noticed. There were dark shadows under his eyes. Emily threw herself into his proffered hug, and Jen felt a sharp stab of regret that she could never enjoy those comforting bear-like embraces again, like she used to.
‘I’m trying to persuade Granny to do hers like it. What do you think, Grandpa? You’d love it, wouldn’t you?’
‘Are you kidding? I’ve been asking her to be an Elmo for years. It’s my fantasy.’
‘Emo, Grandpa. Elmo’s a muppet.’
‘Well, that too.’
Jen breathed in the so familiar scent of the Masterson home. Lilies. Baking. Furniture polish. Cigars. Despite everything, it still smelled like comfort.
‘Jen,’ Amelia said, throwing her arms around her and planting a soft kiss on her cheek. ‘I’ve been getting worried. I’ve phoned you a few times. Have you been working extra shifts?’
Jen looked over at Jason, who was chatting happily to Charles and Emily and, hopefully, out of earshot.
‘Just in the run-up to Christmas,’ she said, hoping she wouldn’t get struck down. She hated lying to Amelia, but it was better than having her think she had just been ignoring her calls. Which she had.
‘I knew you must be busy,’ Amelia said.
She accepted what Jen had told her at face value. Of course she did. That was the thing about Amelia: she was naturally trusting. If Jen told her she was flat out at the hotel, she would accept that as the truth. Just as, Jen knew, she would have done if Charles had said he had to entertain a client in the evening, or visit the Bath branch for the night. It would never even have occurred to her that someone she loved so much would lie.
‘You work too hard,’ Amelia said, taking Jen by the hand and leading her towards the kitchen. ‘Come and let me spoil you rotten. Jessie and Martin and the baby are here. They arrived last night.’
‘Great.’
‘Jen, darling!’ Charles exclaimed as they passed him in the hall, deep in jokey conversation with his son and granddaughter. ‘Don’t think you’re getting past me without a hug.’
Jen reluctantly allowed herself to be embraced, half-heartedly patting Charles on the back as she did so.
Then he held her at arm’s length, beaming a smile at her. ‘You’re sitting next to me at dinner.’
This was another one of his in-jokes. They all, for some reason, always sat in the same places at the table when they came for lunch. It had become a long-running gag and, from there, part of their tradition. It meant that Jen knew she would have to sit at Charles’s right-hand side, like it or not.
She plastered on her game-face smile, and waited for the afternoon to be over.
Thank God for Emily. She was so full of her new life, so oblivious to anything else that might be happening, that she filled every available space with her stories. It didn’t even faze her that her grandparents didn’t quite follow some of what she was saying.
‘Tinie Tempah?’ Charles interrupted at one point. ‘Is that one of your friends?’
‘No! He played in town, we all went, a whole gang of us.’
‘Ah!’ Charles said, joking but still not entirely sure what about. ‘He’s like Tiny Tim.’
‘Tiny Tim’s in A Christmas Carol, Grandpa.’
‘No. “Tiptoe Through the Tulips”. You remember. Or maybe you don’t. I suppose you’re too young.’
‘For God’s sake, Dad,’ Jessie said, handing Violet over to Martin.
‘Even I’m too young for Tiny Tim.’ Jason laughed.
Jen, who ordinarily would have loved these half-deliberate misunderstandings that were guaranteed to rile Emily to the point of hysteria, tried to smile along.
‘Is he very small?’ Charles said, a twinkle in his eye.
‘No … what?’
‘And he has a bad temper? Or maybe he hardly has a temper at all, that’s what the tiny bit means. He’s a normal-height man with a very small temper.’
Emily rolled her eyes. ‘You’re so funny, Grandpa.’
‘I am, aren’t I? I can’t help myself.’
Just a normal Sunday lunch. Jen took a sneaky look at her watch. Only a couple more hours.
Although the afternoon being over also meant dropping Emily off at King’s Cross on the way home. Her bag, stuffed full of clean washing and tins of tomatoes and bags of pasta, was waiting in the boot of the car.
Jen was worried that, when the time came, she might just grab on to her daughter’s ankle and refuse to let her go.