‘Well,’ said the woman. ‘It must be hard, when you’re having tea with the Prime Minister and all that.’
Sophie could still chant the register, Anderson to Young, from her class, and there was no Johnstone. It went from Harvey to Jones. Cynthia’s mother was quite wrong: it wasn’t hard to remember. Sophie hadn’t met many people before she moved to London. There were school friends and her colleagues in the shop and a couple of boyfriends and that was it. It was everyone she’d met since that confused her, an endless stream of faces looming in front of her, all of them saying that they’d met her before, at a party or a meeting or a recording.
‘Oh,’ said Gloria. ‘Cynthia Johnstone. Pretty girl. Good at needlework.’
A doubtful look crossed the woman’s face and then vanished when she realized she was being offered a way out.
‘That’s her,’ she said.
‘Of course it is,’ said Sophie. ‘Remember me to her, won’t you?’
‘I will,’ said the woman, but of course the whole point of the conversation was that Cynthia Johnstone had never forgotten her in the first place.
They finished their tea quickly and left, before anyone else could take Cynthia’s mother’s place.
‘Thank you,’ said Sophie on the way out. She’d put her headscarf back on.
‘She wasn’t going to leave until we’d given in,’ said Gloria. ‘But I suppose it’s not much to ask.’
If she hadn’t come home, Sophie wouldn’t have understood why anyone was entitled to ask for anything at all, but now she could see that whatever it was she’d achieved had to be shared.
They went for a walk down to the South Pier and past the baths, the scene of Sophie’s first triumph. It was sunny but very windy, and she remembered the gooseflesh on her arms that day.
‘I won Miss Blackpool,’ she said to her mother. ‘In 1964.’
‘You never did.’
‘I did. And I told them I didn’t want to do it.’
It sounded preposterous now, the story of a fantasist, and she was glad she’d done something since.
‘Why?’
‘Because I didn’t want to stay here for a year. I thought I’d get stuck.’
‘I’d have been so proud, if I’d seen that,’ said Gloria.
‘That’s what I’m saying. There was nothing to see. I didn’t even stand on the podium to get my tiara.’
‘That’s what I would have been proud of,’ said her mother. ‘I didn’t want you to stay here, looking after George. I wanted you out.’
The conversation, with its intimations of disappointment and imprisonment, reminded her of why she’d come home and why she’d chosen her mother of all people to talk to.
‘Mum, I’m going to have a baby.’
‘Oh, Sophie. You’re not even wed.’
She’d forgotten that bit. She’d forgotten it would mean anything to her mother anyway.
‘That’s not the important part.’
‘It will be to a lot of people. It will be to your father. Are you going to tell him today too?’
‘I’m not going to see him. I just wanted to talk to you.’
‘Am I allowed to know who the father is?’
‘You can probably guess. You saw it before I did.’
‘That nice Dennis?’
‘Yes,’ said Sophie, and she smiled in anticipation of her mother’s pleasure.
‘He’s not as nice as he looks, then.’
‘He’s wonderful,’ said Sophie.
‘Will he marry you?’
‘Yes, he’ll marry me, but will you forget about that side of things?’
‘What do you want me to say, then?’
‘I don’t know. I thought you’d understand.’
‘Understand what?’
‘Did you want to have me? Or did you panic when you found out?’
‘Panic? Why would I panic? We’d been trying for two years.’
‘Because you couldn’t stick it.’
‘I couldn’t stick him. He was killing me. And then I fell in love with someone. I didn’t have what you’ve got.’
‘What have I got?’
And her mother laughed – not bitterly, but with genuine disbelief.
She hadn’t seen Brian for ages. She hadn’t needed an agent, because her career had been taking care of itself. He was at his desk, leafing through a huge pile of eight by tens, all of them featuring young, pretty, hopeful girls.
‘She’s nice,’ said Sophie, pointing at the photo he had just discarded.
‘I’m a happily married man,’ he said defensively.
‘I know,’ said Sophie. ‘I was just saying. She could make you some money.’
He picked it up again, examined it and wrinkled up his nose.
‘What’s wrong with her?’
‘She looks clever.’
Sophie laughed. It was impossible to be offended by an agent who made no attempt to disguise his self-interest, she found. He didn’t like clever girls because they didn’t want gold paint sprayed all over them. They wanted to act, and acting was a risky business.
‘Talking of clever,’ he said.
‘Meaning what?’
‘How’s your series? Have they finished writing it yet?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I’m pregnant.’
‘Ah,’ said Brian. ‘Well, you’ve come to the right place.’