Chapter 33.
Then
It was May. Jamie was spending long hours at uni, refining his proposal for his final-year research project.
Norwich was blooming, the trees fat with leaves and frizzing with blossom. We had house sparrows nesting in the eaves that year. Starlings were frequent visitors to our tiny knotted jumble of back garden. The evenings had got lighter, the jasmine-scented hours long and golden, the nights swimming-pool warm.
One lunchtime, Lara came home and found me curled up on the sofa. I should have been at uni, putting the finishing touches to my second-year written project on textile waste. But instead, I was watching Gavin & Stacey in my pyjamas beneath a blanket, despite the warmth of the day outside.
‘Oof,’ Lara said, when she saw me there, not moving. ‘I told you never to mix ouzo with... well, you.’
She sat down next to me. There was a faint sheen of sweat on her skin from her walk home. Her summer freckles were kicking in.
On screen, Nessa was berating Smithy. Lara exhaled happily. ‘My queen.’
I smiled weakly. ‘Yeah. Pam’s still the best, though.’
I’d always wished I had a mum like Pam.
We watched together for ten minutes or so before I said, ‘It’s not ouzo, by the way.’
My voice sounded offbeat, even to me. Lara picked up the remote and muted the TV.
A few seconds passed. She took me in. ‘Talk to me,’ she said, eventually.
‘I’m late.’
‘How late?’
‘Three weeks.’
‘What?’
I knew I didn’t need to repeat myself.
‘How the hell did you not notice?’
‘I don’t know. I’ve just... been thinking about other stuff, I guess.’
‘Wow. Okay. What stuff? Well, let’s get a test.’
‘Three weeks is a really long time, isn’t it?’
She met my eye. ‘Have you told Jamie?’
It will be all right , I thought. Lara is here.
‘Not yet.’
‘Good. Come on. Let’s go.’
‘I don’t think I’m ready.’
‘Screw ready,’ she said. ‘It’s been three weeks. We’re going.’
We got the test from the supermarket on Earlham Road. That day was the only time I’d ever left the house in my pyjamas, except for maybe when I took the bins out, which didn’t count. I thought about what Jamie’s mum would say if she could see me, and felt a flash of petty, teenage-like triumph.
I suggested getting more than one test, just to be sure, but Lara said taking lots of tests was just something they put in films and TV shows to keep us all captive to capitalism. ‘As if they’re not enough of a rip-off already,’ she muttered loudly, right in front of the checkout guy.
At this, a woman behind us in the queue laughed. ‘A high like that usually costs way more than six quid. Believe me. Best money I ever spent.’
‘Do you think she was positive or negative?’ I asked Lara, as we left the shop.
‘Not sure,’ Lara mused, frowning. ‘But someone should probably tell her she’s taking the wrong drugs.’
Back at the house, I peed on the test, then we sat on the sofa together and waited.
‘What do you think Jamie will say, if you are?’ Lara asked. She was holding my hand for support in a way my mother had never quite got the hang of.
I’d been thinking about my mum all morning. About whether she’d wanted me. About whether a pregnancy test had been her Sliding Doors moment. I’d never asked her outright, because I wasn’t sure I actually wanted to see the tell in her face that gave it away: the confirmation I hadn’t been wanted. Not wholeheartedly, anyway. That I’d started life as a weighing-up, a list of pros and cons that, knowing my mother, was probably still crumpled up in a drawer somewhere. I was surprised she hadn’t whipped it out for fun on my eighteenth birthday.
I released a breath. For some reason, I was having trouble picturing Jamie’s reaction to my being pregnant. ‘I have no idea,’ I said, in reply to Lara’s question.
She nodded at the test, face down on the coffee table. ‘That’s it. Three minutes.’
But I didn’t even need to look. I knew what it would say. The bell in my body had already chimed.
I turned the stick over, swore, then surprised myself by laughing.
Lara swore too, her fingers squeezing mine.
I realised later that my laughter must have been instinctive. My body’s subconscious expression of a joy I hadn’t been fully certain I would feel.
Jamie and I had made a whole other life. There was a baby inside me that was half him, half me. We were going to be parents .
If I hadn’t dared to admit how I felt until that point, I knew it then. I was exultant. I thought back to what the woman in the shop had said, and realised she must have wanted what I had now.
‘Are you happy?’ Lara ventured.
‘Yes.’ I started to cry.
She wrapped her arms around me. ‘I’ll be here for you. Whatever happens. You and me – we can get through anything.’
You mean, if he doesn’t want this.
‘You don’t have to tell him straight away,’ she said. ‘If you need a bit more time to think about it.’
I pictured Jamie, head bent over his work at uni, oblivious, and felt a tug of love as I thought about the things he always said, like, When we’re parents , or When we have kids of our own . And yes, maybe this was all happening a bit earlier than we’d anticipated. But I was starting to feel more sure that he would want this. Or, to be more accurate – that he loved me enough to want it.
‘I know it seems mad, Lar, because we’re students, and we don’t have proper jobs yet, or anywhere permanent to live. But we’re in love. We can do this.’
Jamie was going to see his parents that weekend. Even Harry was apparently going to put in an appearance, home on a rare sojourn from Zurich. I couldn’t quite imagine Jamie telling Chris and Debra they were going to be grandparents. I was pretty sure they would hit the roof. Should I go too, so we could make the announcement together?
Lara disappeared into the kitchen to concoct a sugar-hit we usually reserved for hangovers, bad grades, time of the month. Microwaved chocolate puddings, half a Mars bar melted over the top of each one.
After a couple of minutes, she returned and passed me a bowl. I was still experiencing a slightly unsettling, uncontrollable urge to laugh.
‘What will you do, though?’ she said, sticking a spoon into her pudding. ‘About a career, and stuff? It’ll be harder, if you have a baby.’
I thought straight away of the brilliant time I’d had at Kelley Lane Interiors last summer. Lara had been right, before – I’d felt more fulfilled during my internship there than I had in a long time. Possibly ever.
But a baby didn’t mean I couldn’t have a career. It just meant it might be slightly more complicated.
‘We can make it work. We’ll find a way.’
‘Do you think,’ she said gently, ‘that you want this because of everything that happened with your parents?’
This wasn’t the first time she’d said this to me. I knew she thought I was looking to Jamie for the stability and loving family unit I’d never experienced at home.
But even if I was, so what? I felt almost blissful in that moment, high on some sort of hormone, one that made me believe my baby and I – or the clump of cells inside me, at least – were already protected by a kind of shield, a bubble, something that would keep all negativity at bay. ‘Does it matter?’
She shrugged. But then she seemed to be readying herself to say something else.
‘Go on,’ I said.
‘I saw Jamie . . . punching a wall earlier.’
I blinked. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Just that. I saw him... punching a wall. Or, not punching. Sort of pounding, with his hand. I don’t think he broke anything. But he looked... pretty angry.’
A beat. ‘My Jamie?’
‘Yeah. In the corridor, in the main building. He was on the phone to someone called Heather. He kept saying her name, over and over. Well, sort of shouting.’
I felt my joy turn cold. The bubble burst.
Heather. The girl who had called him at the start of term. Who he said was his mentor.
‘Who is she?’ Lara said.
‘I don’t know. I mean, I do. Sort of. I’ve not met her. He worked with her.’
‘In London? Last summer?’
I nodded.
There was a long silence, during which I could feel Lara’s eyes tracking my face. ‘Neve. Do you think—’
‘Never. He wouldn’t.’
‘Okay.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘It means, okay.’ She held up her hands. ‘For what it’s worth, I actually don’t think he would either.’
Though I was clearly in the dark about something, I felt a flicker of reassurance to know that Lara didn’t think I was being naive.
‘I wouldn’t have said anything if I thought... I assumed you’d know what the argument was about.’
I just shrugged then, because it was clear to us both that I didn’t.
‘You’ve got to talk to him about the baby.’
‘I know.’
‘Don’t be scared.’
‘I’m not.’
But of course, I was. It was impossible to know which pin to pull first: an argument with another girl, so impassioned it had had Jamie thumping the nearest wall? Or the fact I was carrying our baby?
In the end, Jamie made the decision for me. We walked into the city that night, to catch a film he’d been wanting to see, and he flinched slightly when I grabbed his hand. I wondered if it was the result of his fist having met brickwork earlier that day.
The evening sky was making its lazy, lilac shift into night-time. A rich weight of blossom, mown grass and gathering dew clung to the air. I thought of the budding new life in my womb, how apt that it was springtime. The timing already felt poetic.
‘Lara heard you arguing earlier, on your phone,’ I said, as we walked. I kept my voice light, free of accusation. ‘With Heather.’
I’d thought maybe he’d freeze or clam up, start stammering. But instead, he said, ‘Oh God. Did she hear that?’ He seemed embarrassed, but not afraid. Not like someone hiding a secret.
‘I think half the building heard it.’
He shook his head, as if in frustration. ‘Heather... called, out of the blue. She said she’d sent my CV up to HR at A&L. They’ve offered me another internship, starting next month.’
I fought the urge to set my hand on my stomach. I’d suspected for a while that he would go back to London for the summer. I knew his dad would have tried to persuade him. But Jamie had been stalling, saying he hadn’t decided yet. Which was very unlike him. Dithering wasn’t in his DNA.
‘Yeah,’ Jamie continued. ‘Apparently, Heather’s boss had lunch with my dad and they sort of agreed I was coming back before they’d even spoken to me. I guess I just felt a bit... annoyed, you know. Like everyone was planning my summer for me.’
At that, I felt slightly conflicted. I didn’t want Jamie to go, obviously. But I still thought he should be thankful that another well-paid internship had apparently been conjured out of some upper-crust top hat by his dad.
‘Anyway, Heather started making out like I was being ungrateful, and I just... Well, it wasn’t exactly an argument. I just raised my voice a bit when I shouldn’t have, probably, because she kept talking over me.’
Already, I could see that Jamie’s version of the conversation differed massively from Lara’s. But I was inclined to believe him. Lara must have exaggerated. She was prone to doing that from time to time. I’d never seen Jamie thump a wall, or a table, or anything. He just wasn’t that type of guy.
I knew then that unless I told him my secret – our secret – I’d soon be kissing goodbye to him for another whole summer, while our baby grew inside me.
At the cinema, I drank a large lemonade, and we shared popcorn in lieu of a proper meal. My eating habits – not to mention just about everything else in my life – were going to have to change.
But, for some reason, even later that night, and for several nights afterwards, I simply couldn’t find the words to tell him.