Jess looked at her watch, wondering how much longer she’d be at work today, thinking about the pile of washing that had to be done, the carpets that needed hoovering and the bathroom that required a long-overdue clean. Sometimes when she was on location Jess couldn’t help feeling that somewhere out there, real life was happening while she watched pretend life repeat itself again and again.
Her mind began wandering into fantasies of how different her life might be had she not got pregnant years before she was ready and spent the last months of university battling morning sickness instead of revising for finals; had Iain not asked her to move in with him immediately after she graduated and had she not mistakenly believed that his maturity – twenty-one years her senior – meant he would provide the security she craved; had she understood, at the time, that her fear of returning to Barnsbury Square was fuelling a decision that would determine the rest of her life.
She thought back to that day, standing in the kitchen at Barnsbury Square, an overnight bag at her feet, waiting to hear her mum’s reaction. On the radio next to the microwave, All Saints had been singing ‘Never Ever’, and Jess had turned down the volume even though it was one of her favourite songs.
She remembered her mum standing opposite, hands gripping the back of a kitchen chair as though needing to steady herself in the face of Jess’s news.
I can see how disappointed in me you are, Mum, but I’m not going to change my mind. I’m having this baby whether you like it or not. Jess recalled the defiance in her voice, alongside the conviction and the confidence. Even now she didn’t know how she had managed to sound so certain when it had been such a long way from what she’d felt. So many times prior to that conversation she had pictured her mum’s response: had imagined her smiling, folding her in her arms, giving her the answer to a dilemma she didn’t know how to resolve. In each imagined scene, Jess had felt the tension between them dissolve, had felt the news sweep aside all the years of caution and mistrust, narrowing the distance between them. It was a fantasy she hadn’t even known existed until she’d become pregnant. But as soon as she had learned she was having a baby, she had wanted more than anything – more, even, than Iain’s promises to stand by her – to feel close to her mum again. But instead, as they had stood opposite one another in the kitchen, Jess had been aware of the chasm between them widening.
Iain loves me and I love him. And we can make this work. I’ll only need to take a year off after I graduate and then I’ll get a job. Iain will be able to support us in the meantime, and then when I start work we’ll get someone to look after the baby. So please don’t think we haven’t thought this through.
She could hear, even all these years later, the confrontation in her voice but also, underneath it, the fear. She remembered hoping that the more she talked, the more she might come to believe the things she was saying. It had been true that she and Iain had discussed it, true that they had a plan which, on paper at least, seemed entirely achievable. It was true that she loved Iain. And yet, even as she had stood there, challenging her mum to contradict her, she had not been able to turn off the anxiety, flickering like a faulty light bulb at the back of her mind, that history was repeating itself: that, just like her mum, she was giving up on her ambitions because of an unplanned pregnancy.
But you’re so young, Jess. And Iain … I know you think you love him, but the age difference … When you’re forty, he’s going to be on the brink of retirement. What’s that going to be like for you? What will it be like for the baby?
Her mum’s questions had reverberated in Jess’s head but she had been unable to produce any answers. Why can’t you just be happy for me? You’ve never liked Iain – why can’t you just admit it? You’ve never given him a chance.
That’s not true, Jess. It’s not that I don’t like him. I just worry – you must be able to understand why. He’s old enough to be your father.
Jess had experienced then a feeling that defied a single adjective, that seemed to compound all the anger and resentment, fear and grief that had simmered inside of her for more than a decade. I’m almost twenty-one, for God’s sake. I know what I’m doing. It’s not as if I’m a child.
There had been another, unspoken, sentence that Jess had allowed to hover in silent parentheses, knowing it would be a cheap shot. But in the end she hadn’t been able to stop herself.
It’s not as if I’m as young as you were when you got pregnant with Lily.
She remembered how her mum had looked at her with such sadness, regret and longing, and how Jess had known instinctively that this was another of those moments when the ties that bound them slackened and pulled in different directions, to which they must both, gradually, become accustomed. But each time it had happened before, Jess had not been consciously aware of the adjustment until after it had been made. This time, it was as though she was watching it happen and there was nothing she could do to stop it.
The director called something to the lead camera operator and Jess looked around the crew, thinking about the career she had fallen into through necessity rather than choice, a career other people seemed to imagine was glamorous, ignoring the unsociable hours, the disruptive travel, the egos she worked with. All these years later, she still couldn’t resist the fantasy that perhaps, had she never got pregnant and moved in with Iain, she might now be sitting in the office of a broadsheet newspaper, commissioning articles about artists, scientists, politicians or captains of industry, rather than standing in a muddy field worrying about parking permits and traffic noise.
Sometimes Jess felt as though she’d exited, stage left, from her own life many years ago, but no one in the audience had noticed.
‘Right, everyone, let’s take a break. Back on set in fifteen. Charlie and Lucia, can I have a word?’
As Justin swung an arm around the shoulders of his lead actors and steered them deeper into the field, the crew melted away.
‘Are you coming for a drink tonight, Jess? There’s a pub Steve spotted nearby that looks half decent so a few of us are going for a couple of pints when we finally wrap.’
Jess shook her head as she and Paul – a cameraman she’d known for ten years and one of the few colleagues she’d describe as a friend – set off towards the catering truck. ‘Thanks for asking but I’ve got loads to do this evening.’
‘It’s Saturday night, you can’t just go home. Come on, loads of us are going – me, Steve, Ray, John, Milly, Lexi. It’ll be a laugh.’
Jess thought about sitting around a pub table, having a drink and a packet of crisps, gossiping about the day’s events with people who would be her colleagues for another four weeks, and suddenly she was answering before she could stop herself. ‘OK, then. Just a quick one. That’d be nice, thanks.’
‘Great. It doesn’t have to be a late night. Wait there – I’ll go and get us both a cup of tea and a couple of pastries if there are any left.’
Paul wandered off while Jess pulled her mobile phone from her pocket and switched it on. As it blinked into life, a series of notifications pinged onto the screen.
Four missed calls, four new voice messages, all from Mia. Jess didn’t need to listen to them to know something was wrong.
She pressed down hard on Mia’s name to return the call. There was less than one complete ring before it was answered.
‘Mum, why haven’t you been answering your phone? I’ve been calling you for ages. You need to come now. It’s Granny.’
Chapter 27
Audrey
Audrey slid her eyes from left to right, a simple enough movement yet one that sent a sharp pain shooting across her forehead.