Chapter 18
18
ROBYN
‘I thought you were staying with Fabian tonight? Or has he driven back to Harrogate?’ Mum looked from Sorrel back to me.
I shook my head. ‘This is more important.’
‘OK, go on.’ Mum sat down without taking off her coat.
‘Where’ve you been, anyway?’ Jess asked almost accusingly. ‘What choir goes on until after ten at night? We were getting worried.’
‘What, you’ve all gathered here to wait up for me? Just so you’d know I was home safely?’
‘Mum,’ Sorrel suddenly blurted out. ‘I’m pregnant.’
There was silence in the room as the three of us kept our eyes on Mum, waiting for her response.
‘But you’re fifteen, Sorrel. What do you mean, you’re pregnant?’ Mum appeared dazed.
Jess held up the evidence of the pregnancy test, hiding behind the teapot, waving it crossly in Mum’s direction. ‘I drove down to the all-night pharmacy in the village.’
‘Oh? So everyone in the village now knows, do they?’
‘Does it matter? Anyway, it’s not me, is it?’ Jess tutted crossly.
‘Right? Joel, I suppose? The father of your child is a sixteen-year-old drug pusher in prison?’ Mum was close to tears. ‘What is the matter with this family that we all make such totally awful decisions about the men we choose?’
‘You’re as bad, Mum.’ Jess, knowing Dean was being dissed, was immediately on the defence.
‘I never said I wasn’t including myself,’ Mum snapped.
‘Hey, and what’s wrong with Fabian?’ The bloody awful mess Sorrel had got herself into was making me more than irritable. ‘I thought you liked him?’
Ignoring both Jess and me, Mum turned back to Sorrel. ‘Well, what do you want to do about it?’
Sorrel shrugged.
‘If you’re old enough to be having sex with this boy, then you’re old enough to make some decisions about what to do with the consequences.’ Mum was almost beside herself.
‘Mum, you can’t call a baby a consequence.’ I shook my head.
‘Well, what would you call it?’ She turned on me now, glaring in my direction.
‘I thought… you know… I thought…’ Sorrel started ‘…thought I could have it and then Jess – or even Robyn – could look after it. You know, until I was old enough to have it back.’
‘What?’ Jess, Mum and I spoke as one.
‘Lending it to me?’ Jess’s face flushed with anger. ‘Like a sodding library book that I have to return, once you decide you’re ready to send me a reminder? That you actually have a child?’
Mum and I tutted in unison.
‘I don’t want another baby,’ Jess went on crossly. ‘If I’d wanted another baby, I’d have had another baby.’
‘But, Jess, you like children; you’ve fostered children.’ Sorrel started to weep.
‘Short term, Sorrel. The last thing I want is another eighteen years of bringing up your child.’
‘And count me out, Sorrel.’ I put up two hands against the very idea. ‘Can you imagine, going down to the cottage and telling Fabian, now that I’ve got him back, that actually there’ll be two of us moving in with him?’
‘This just goes to show how immature you are, Sorrel.’ Jess was on a roll.
‘OK, I’ll have an abortion, then.’
‘I hate that word.’ Jess closed her eyes. ‘Can you not say…’ she lowered her voice, visibly upset ‘…termination?’
‘A rose by any other name,’ I murmured.
‘Oh, don’t you start quoting your precious Shakespeare at us,’ Jess countered, glaring in turn at me.
‘Isn’t it against the law for a boy to have sex with someone under the age of legal consent?’ Mum folded her arms, sitting back in her chair.
‘If that was the case,’ I snorted, ‘half the kids at St Mede’s would be being arrested.’ I turned to Sorrel. ‘Does Joel know?’
‘ I only found out myself an hour ago,’ Sorrel protested. She put her head down on the table and wept. ‘I don’t know what to do.’
‘Oh, sweetheart.’ Mum was immediately up on her feet, cradling Sorrel, who clung to her. ‘This is all Jayden’s fault.’
‘What’s he got to do with it?’ I pulled a face.
‘If he’d been a proper father to you girls, this wouldn’t have happened. It happened to you too, Jess, don’t forget. About to go to uni and, instead, you make the decision to stay here with that pillock next door.’
‘Dean’s not next door, is he?’ I asked, tutting in Jess’s direction.
‘No!’
‘But, Mum.’ Sorrel lifted her head. ‘At least my being… you know… pregnant… means I’ve not got porphyria.’
‘I never for one moment thought you had,’ Mum said, obviously feeling some relief at what Sorrel had just said. ‘Actually, that’s where I’ve just been,’ she went on. ‘To see Matt.’
‘At this time of night?’ Jess stared. ‘You said you’d been singing. Was he, you know, was he… all right ?’
‘Not great, no, Jess. How you can let go a wonderful man like Dr Matt Spencer…’ Mum emphasised his profession as proof of his brilliance and suitability for her eldest daughter ‘…is utterly beyond me. And, I have been singing. And it was fantastic. And I’m going again. As long as I can continue to get my life on track and not now be stuck at home changing sodding nappies!’
‘Matt was singing?’ Jess pulled a Jess face. ‘Matt can’t sing. He can’t rub two notes together.’
‘Mixing your metaphors,’ I muttered.
‘Will you please stop doing your teacher act on me?’
‘Matt said I should do what I always said I never would do.’ Mum looked up from stroking Sorrel’s hair.
‘What, finally boot Jayden out?’ Jess sniffed.
‘Will you leave your father out of this?’
‘You keep bringing Dean into it!’
‘Matt says I should try to find my birth parents. Look into whether the porphyria is in my family. If there is a gene that is being passed down the generations.’
‘If that’s the case, does that mean you’re more likely to pass it on to us in turn?’ I exhaled. ‘I really don’t think I want to know.’
‘Me neither,’ Sorrel sobbed. ‘Let sleeping dogs lie and all that. Don’t go opening cans of worms.’
‘Good use of imagery.’ I was impressed.
Mum looked at the clock. ‘It’s well after eleven,’ she said calmly. ‘I think we’ve all said things this evening that should never have been said…’
‘ I haven’t,’ Jess protested. ‘Jayden is a pillock and…’ she raised an eye in Sorrel’s direction ‘…I am not prepared to bring up another baby that’s not mine.’
‘That sounds like Lola wasn’t yours either,’ Sorrel said mulishly.
‘Sorrel, I sacrificed my career and my body: my bosom, my pelvic floor, my mental ability – and stability – to bring Lola into the world. I can assure you I was there at her conception and her birth and, while I adore my daughter, I do not want another.’ She stood up, crossly. ‘ I want what Fabian wants,’ she added, giving me a somewhat challenging look while pushing back her chair.
‘He wants me .’ I tutted, looking at my watch. ‘Right now, and wearing very little apart from the black basque he bought me for Christmas. And with a spoonful of ice cream in my…’
‘Enough!’ Mum held up both hands, silencing all three of us as she’d so often done in the past.
‘I was going to say in my mouth.’ I started to laugh and then, realising that wouldn’t now be happening, as well as remembering the reason behind its non-occurrence, moved over to Sorrel. ‘Oh, you silly girl. We’ll sleep on it and sort it out tomorrow.’ I turned back to Jess, who was at the door. ‘And what the hell do you mean, you want what Fabian wants? You used to call him that “Bastard Barrister from Bucks”. So don’t you come all matey, best friends forever with him now.’
‘I want,’ Jess repeated grandly, ‘what Fabian wants. He and I are going to open a restaurant.’ And, with that, she slammed the door behind her, loftily striding past the kitchen window as she made her way back to her daughter asleep in her own cottage.