Chapter 51.

Once Anna had persuaded Nan to let her change out of costume, the whole family walked home.

“We moved here when Jess was eight.”

“Seven,” Jess muttered, walking beside Nan.

“Whatever, seven,” Nan carried on. “Like a little stick she was back then. Can’t believe she would grow into this woman here.” And she patted Jess on the hip.

Anna couldn’t see Jess's expression past Nan, but she imagined it wasn’t best pleased.

“She was such a timid little thing. I used to braid her hair, shout a thousand times for her to get dressed in the morning and drag her to school. No matter how early I got her up we were always late. She’d be last at the school gates, a piece of toast and Nutella-”

“Marmite.”

“Breakfast still in her hands, school clothes already covered in crumbs and sticky patches of Nutella on her cheeks.”

“Marmite,” Jess repeated.

Anna couldn’t help smiling. It sounded adorable and she wished she could reach out to Jess to try to put her at ease. At this point Jess jogged around them both and appeared at Anna’s side.

“Hello,” Jess said quietly, which made Anna smile even more.

“I worried about her when she came out as a lesbian,” Nan carried on.

“Queer,” Jess said.

Nan batted away Jess's objection. “I know, but I love saying ‘lesbian’,” and she shouted it out into the woods. “Has a power about it, don’t you think? Really gives some people the heebie jeebies. Always telling everyone that my granddaughter is a lesbian, especially those who come to the door preaching about sin. Why would God not love lesbians?” And she gave the sky a cursory wave.

Anna laughed and drew Jess closer.

The woods opened out into a churchyard, then a village with a group of trees in the centre of a green.

“This is home,” Nan said grandly, and she led Anna across the green to a terrace of cottages. “Watch your head,” Nan fussed.

There was a heavy clunk as the latch handle opened and the door creaked inwards as Nan pushed. Anna was met by a waft of warmth suffused with the rich aroma of spices and stew. She instinctively closed her eyes and inhaled. There was ginger, chillis, rich gravy and it made her mouth water.

“That smells delicious,” Anna said.

“My favourite stew,” Nan said, “with dumplings. Except I have to cook a bean version because these two,” Nan flailed around towards Jess and her brother, “want to eat less meat. Then,” Nan put her hands on her hips, “I can’t use my usual cuts of beef, because this one,” she pointed towards Bill who was dipping under the doorway, “needs to watch his cholesterol. But,” Nan threw her hands in the air, “it’s still delicious.”

“Come on in,” Trisha said, at Anna’s elbow. “Dinner will be a while so make yourself comfortable.”

Trisha led Anna around a large kitchen table, through to a sitting area, Anna having to duck under a low beam across the cottage, and offered her a sofa by the window, an expanse of green and a small building of some sort visible outside. The tinkle of wind chimes reached Anna and she remembered Jess's phone call and guessed that was where Nan lived. It struck her how ordinary it was, as ordinary as when she’d pictured it on the phone with Jess, before she knew she was a star, before Anna had been blinded by the deception and the fame of Atlassia.

“Can I get you a cup of tea?” Trisha said.

“Thank you,” Anna said. “With milk please.”

“Won’t be a tick,” Trisha replied, politely. Then, as Jess's brother slumped next to Anna on the sofa and a bright TV flashed on beside them, “Switch that thing off Jack.”

There was a groan from Jess's brother which broke over several octaves.

“Help your Nan in the kitchen a minute,” Trisha said.

The teen tutted next to Anna. “You wouldn’t mind if I played on the console would you?”

Anna smiled. “It’s not my place to say.”

“Mom,” he moaned. “She doesn’t mind.”

Anna caught Trisha desperately beckoning him away. “Give her some peace a minute would you.”

“But Jess is here too,” he groaned. “Can’t she help with tea.”

“Just get,” Trisha growled.

Anna realised she and Jess were being set up.

“How about I take Anna into the garden for a bit,” Jess said.

“That sounds nice,” Anna replied, realising Jess's need to escape scrutiny and her brother to do XBox.”

“Oh go on then,” Trisha said. “That thing goes straight off at tea time though,” she said, jabbing her finger towards Jack.

The boy growled a “yes!” then high-fived his sister.

 

–

 

“I’m so sorry,” Jess said as they stepped out of the back door. “It’s like you’ve been abducted.”

Anna laughed. “I wanted to meet your family. You always talked so fondly about them.”

“Right now I have no idea why. Bet your family’s nothing like it.”

“No,” Anna shook her head, “unfortunately not.”

Jess led her across a lawn and beneath trees Anna assumed were fruit trees of a small orchard, and onto the veranda of Nan’s home. They sat on a sofa, Jess spreading a couple of blankets over them both and snuggling close, though not as close as she could. Anna guessed at her reticence with how they’d left things back at the studio.

“They’re everything a family should be,” Anna said.

“What? Annoying?”

“Yes,” she laughed, “bickering, getting on each other’s nerves, helping each other, most of all being together.”

There was a beautiful warmth about Jess's family and it wasn’t just the comfort of the stew cooking in the stove. Food, chatter, commotion. It was a home, a proper home. It was nothing like the stage of her mother’s house, everything cool and precise and ostentatious, to be admired. This house breathed as part of a family, alive and imperfect. Anna suddenly had a greater sense of Jess after seeing this side of her.

“I can understand why you missed it so much.”

“Yeah,” Jess sighed, beginning to unwind from the chaos. “I have. And Jack, Jesus, he’s as big as me now. I’m glad I’ve spent time with him again. Admittedly it’s been playing computer games most of the time, but I can cope with that level of bonding,” she said.

“Your Nan…” Anna started, but she couldn’t help smiling.

Jess laughed. “Wish I was like her.” Then she stopped, thoughtful for a moment. “She would have coped with all this.”

“With what?” Anna asked gently.

“Fame, adulation, all the hate too,” Jess said grimly. “She’d have handled the exposure like a boss, put any detractors in their place and bulldozed on through. She did it when I was little, settling here, and when Mom was young apparently,” Jess said with a shrug. “But I’m not like that.” She turned to look at Anna. “I’m quiet, more like Mom and Dad. I think Nan despairs of the lot of us. But then other times I wonder if underneath she’s like the rest of the family, especially when she wants a quiet game of chess or retires early to bed with a romance novel. Her need for greenery and quiet made her move to this village after all.”

As always when Jess talked of her folks, the local accent came to the fore, especially tonight in her family’s presence.

“They’re nice,” Anna offered her genuine opinion.

“They are,” Jess replied. “I envy them,” she said quietly. “Never thought I’d say that but I do.”

“In what way?”

“They’re happy. They’ve got each other,” Jess said, and the weight of her envy and longing hung over her and Anna couldn’t miss her meaning. “That seemed so boring growing up, but it’s something I want most of all now.”

Anna didn’t know what to say. Her heart swelled in her chest, aching for Jess and grieving that this was unlikely for them. At least hearing it and seeing Jess at home, Anna could believe it. She could imagine Jessica Lambert, the star, wanting an ordinary life.

“They got married when Mom was twenty-three and Dad was thirty.”

“Wow, young,” Anna said.

“Younger than me.”

And Anna felt a lump in her throat and there was silence at the implications.

“I’m serious about you,” Jess said quietly, staring towards the house, as if not wanting to catch Anna’s reaction.

“I know,” Anna whispered. And they were quiet for a while, huddled up beneath the blankets, the sky above deepening to indigo.

“I’ve been thinking of getting a place out here,” Jess said, suddenly.

“Really?” Anna turned to look directly at her.

“A little cottage, not much different to this. Somewhere I can escape to.”

“Oh,” Anna said.

Jess near her family. Countryside to allow her to breath. Sounds of birds and fresh air. Anna could imagine it recharging Jess. “That sounds wonderful,” she said.

“Yeah?”

Anna couldn’t miss Jess's hopeful tone, but she shook her head. “Would you be safe though?”

“Perhaps,” Jess said, looking at her and seeming to will Anna to try. “I don’t really have a choice,” she said, again waiting for Anna’s decision. “I am who I am.”

Anna knew she was seeking her approval, hoping for her to take a step.

Was it possible? Could Anna move out of her comfort zone again for this incredible woman? The weight of expectation and problems hung heavy in the air. She was about to tell Jess a hundred reasons why it would never work, when they were called inside for dinner.

And it was the messy chaotic dinner of an ordinary family and Anna’s heart both grieved and celebrated. Jess and her brother teamed up in camaraderie against their Nan. Trish was pulled between the generations, siding with her mother one minute, berating her for her attitudes the next, Bill, the voice of calm reason, ignored one moment then exalted the next. The flow of conversation, the laughter, the food, the cat stealing the stew, the dumpling rolling under the table, the glass too many of wine, the embarrassing story of Jess's childhood, the revenge from Jack about Trish and Bill’s adult hugs ban – it was like life happened in this household and Anna couldn’t help but be swept up by it.

When Anna left for the studio car outside, she was showered with affection and hugged to oblivion. She rode on a wave of love and happiness and the slap of cold air when she stepped outside was a rude awakening.

Jess accompanied her up the steps and onto the pavement. Anna stood at the car door, wondering how she should say good bye. She didn’t know where they stood. Anna knew what she wanted, but not whether it was possible, and the more she saw of Jess, the more she had to lose and the more it hurt.

Jess waited, beside Anna, close enough that she could feel her warmth. Anna was torn between wanting to promise Jess the world and embracing this wonderful woman, and her head that cautioned her.

She peered down at the pavement and Jess's shoes scuffing the ground. “I–”

“Do you want to go on a date?”

Anna looked up in surprise. “A date?” she said, with disbelief.

“Yeah.” Jess was grinning. “An ordinary date. Meet up. Spend some time together. Me and you. I don’t think we’ve ever been on one.”

Anna mulled it over. “You know, I don’t think we officially have.”

“So?” Jess beamed.

Oh it was hard to resist her when she was like this. Anna had been caught up in her youthful enthusiasm before.

“So,” Anna said, gathering her poise and trying hard not to smile, “we’ve spent several nights together, had wonderful sex.” Did Jess twitch with embarrassment at that? “We’ve fallen out and argued, saved each other, had steaming sex, I’ve met your family…”

Jess shuffled.

“…and now you want to go out on a date?”

“Yeah.” And there was that grin of Jess's that you could see from space.

“Well.” Anna thought. It was as though she put all her worries and complex scenarios to the side for a moment. “Why not?”