Chapter Thirty-Five
Jack wasn’t working that evening, and Erin was delighted to smell frying onions when she entered the flat.
‘What are you making?’ she shouted as she hung her coat on the hook in the hall.
‘Fajitas,’ he yelled back, over the sound of a rock ballad she didn’t recognize pulsing from the small speaker they carried around the apartment when they wanted music. ‘Ready in ten. Sit yourself down.’
She went through to the sitting room and saw the small table laid with plates and cutlery. Tubs of guacamole, salsa, and soured cream sat unopened in the middle. He’d gone to a big effort. ‘What’s all this in aid of?’ she said, when he brought through a bottle of red wine and two glasses.
‘Can’t I make a nice dinner for my dear old mother?’
‘You can …’ She watched him pour the wine, her eyes narrowed. Something was going on. ‘But I have a feeling there’s a little bit more to this, so come on, what’s going on?’
‘Wait till I’ve brought everything through, then I’ll tell you.’
She sat, unease growing in her core, as he deposited a steaming bowl of chicken, onion and peppers next to a plate of tortilla. ‘Dig in,’ he said.
She took a tortilla and dolloped the spicy chicken mix in the centre, then lay down the spoon. ‘I can’t eat until you tell me what this is about. You know I’ve got a sensitive stomach.’
He sat back in his chair. ‘Okay.’ He dug his fingers into his hair.
‘Is it bad?’ she said. ‘You’re not poorly, are you?’ Her brain sped out of control, imagining him hooked up to a drip, chemotherapy drugs seeping into his blood.
‘God, no. No, it’s not bad. It’s good, actually.’ He took a spoon and spread soured cream in careful circles, watching the slop reach the perimeter of the tortilla. ‘I’ve got an interview for a job.’
Her stomach flipped. Phew. ‘That is good. Well done.’ He was still staring down at his plate. ‘What’s the job?’
‘Junior accounts executive for a small media firm.’
‘That’s fantastic. Executive sounds fancy. Get you.’ This was excellent news. One gigantic thing off the worry list. She thought she’d like to have a junior executive as a son. She imagined telling people his job title with her chest puffed out with pride and a smile crept onto her face.
‘Yeah, they call loads of jobs that. I think it’s supposed to make up for the crap pay.’
‘Well, I suppose everyone has to work their way up. Do you know how many rounds of interviews there are?’ She dipped her head, trying to catch his eye. If this was such good news, why was he avoiding looking at her?
‘I’ve got through the online stuff, so it’s just the face-to-face interview to go.’
‘Well done. You didn’t mention it.’ He usually chatted things through with her, or at least, she thought he did. Maybe they weren’t as close as she’d imagined. The thought made her skin prickle.
Jack placed the spoon down carefully. ‘No, I didn’t expect to get this far, to be honest and … I’m not really sure I want it.’
‘Oh?’ This was exactly what she’d tried to avoid. If he was just applying for any old job because he knew they needed a full-time salary, she would never forgive herself.
‘It’s local, in Canary Wharf, so at least I’d be able to stay here if it comes off.’
‘Oh,’ she said again. There it was, the reason he couldn’t meet her eyes. There were two reasons he was considering this job, money and proximity to home. She swallowed. ‘You’re not only applying for local jobs because of me, are you?’
‘Nah, course not.’
She didn’t believe him. Her wonderful boy was trying to fix everything for her.
How had she let this happen? She pushed her knees tightly together to stabilise herself.
She remembered what Joe said about her being strong and tried to galvanise that core of steel.
‘I don’t want you to take something you don’t feel one hundred per cent about.
You spend too much of your life at work to not be fulfilled in what you do.
’ How lucky she’d always been to enjoy her work.
She desperately wanted that for Jack too. ‘What would be your ideal job?’
‘One I could get,’ he said flatly.
‘Seriously. Humour me. If you could have your dream job, what would it be?’
He scratched his nose and kept his eyes on his plate.
‘It’s not exactly the dream job, but it would be the dream start.
’ He glanced up then straight back down.
‘A girl who was in the year above me at uni, she’s a runner on BBC Breakfast. I’ve been talking to her a bit on Insta, and she’s loving it.
Every day’s different, and she gets to meet all these interesting people.
And it’s got it all, you know, serious journalism, and entertainment.
If I got the chance to start there, then I feel like I could work my way up.
I daydream about being a producer one day.
I reckon it would be a bit like being an events coordinator, but for TV. ’
‘Following in my footsteps, eh? You calling me an inspiration? Seriously, that sounds brilliant. You should go for it.’ Erin grinned across the table and her lovely boy. ‘What’s stopping you?’
‘It’s filmed at Media City.’
‘Where’s that? West London? It would mean early starts, but you’re used to that after working at The Bookmark.’
‘It’s in Salford, Mum.’
She worked hard to keep her expression impassive. ‘Near Manchester?’
‘Yeah, up north. A long way from here. That’s why I’m going to see if I can get something local.’ He spoke gently and Erin hated that he thought he had to couch things to manage her emotions.
She bit the inside of her mouth. She’d made her lovely boy believe she wouldn’t be happy if he was anywhere but at home with her.
‘Don’t do that, love. You’ve got to go for what you want, not what you think I want.
What’s right for you is right for me,’ she said, with urgency.
‘I was talking about exactly this with Joe earlier. At first, I wanted to keep The Bookmark open because it’s what I thought Grandma would want, but he made me see that she would want whatever was best for me. ’
Jack’s lips twitched. ‘Yeah, I think she would.’
‘And I want what’s best for you and I definitely don’t want you to worry about me, or how I’ll react to the choices you make.
’ She waved a hand over the food on the table.
‘You shouldn’t have to go to these lengths to have a conversation with me.
’ She stifled a sigh. ‘I’m sorry you thought you should put your dreams to one side because of me.
I should never have made you feel that way.
’ She raised her glass. ‘Here’s to following your dreams.’
‘I haven’t even applied yet,’ he said. ‘And if I’m offered this other job, I should probably take it. It’s brutal out there.’
‘Getting an interview is worth celebrating.’ She tipped her glass towards him, and he lifted his and clinked it against hers.
‘But it doesn’t mean you have to take a job just because it’s offered to you.
I mean that.’ She kept her eyes on his, trying to make him understand that she truly meant everything she said.
It turned out that Joe was right, she wasn’t a coward. Her love for her son made her strong.
‘Thanks Mum.’ They built their fajitas, and Jack filled her in on the company and the application process. When he’d finished, he paused with his rolled tortilla close to his mouth. ‘How’s the plan to keep The Bookmark open going?’
‘I’ve been having some thoughts about that,’ she said. ‘And this evening puts it into perspective a bit more too. There’s a lot of change around and about at the moment, and I’ve been kicking against it. I’m beginning to realize that maybe change isn’t the problem after all.’
‘Oh, yeah? What is?’
‘Me,’ she said. He opened his mouth, so she carried on before he could protest. ‘Okay, maybe not me exactly, but the way I feel. The fear I’ve got of change. It’s the fear that’s the issue, the anxiety that makes me resistant to change.’
‘Interesting,’ said Jack, taking a bite and chewing thoughtfully.
‘And I’ve always thought I was a bit of a wimp, and that my fear of change was all part of that.’
‘A wimp? You? You’re the strongest woman I know.’
Erin bit down on her bottom lip to stop the tears coming.
She realized then that she’d always seen her propensity for tears as a sign of weakness, but maybe that wasn’t true either.
It just meant she felt things deeply, and sometimes those feelings spilled out onto her cheeks.
‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘When I realized that this resistance to change isn’t serving me, I had an idea.
It’s a bold idea, and I’ve got less than three weeks to pull it off, so it might already be too late …
but even if it is, instead of being terrified about it, I’ve got butterflies, and they’re excited ones with fluttery wings, not the nest of hornets I usually get when I have to make hard decisions. ’
‘I like the sound of this,’ said Jack, his eyes bright and interested. ‘Tell me everything.’
And so, she did.