Skeletons (31 page)

She felt sad that it had ended like this, even though Sean had made it as painless as it could possibly be under the circumstances. She had treated him badly without ever wanting to, and he had behaved as, it seemed, Sean always behaved –
rational, reasonable, wanting her to be happy. She felt as though she had lost a friend.

There was a split second when he first set eyes on her that gave away the fact that Jason was happy to see her. It was just a hint of surprise, the beginnings of a smile, but it was there. Luckily, Jen noticed it before he rearranged his face into
something more unreadable – sterner, but with a hint of anxiety too. Otherwise, she probably would have backed out of what she had come to say, completely.

She was sitting on a low wall outside the house where Jason had his first-floor flat, in Kingston. She had managed to get the address from Emily, who would never have imagined that her father wouldn’t have wanted her mother to know where he
lived. She had guessed that he would be home about five, based on nothing but the fact that that was the time he used to arrive back when they lived in Wimbledon. Of course, he could have finished early, or have a rehearsal or a performance in the evening, or even a date – although she
didn’t really want to think about that. She knew she should have called ahead, but she hadn’t wanted to give him the opportunity to avoid seeing her. Plus, she thought his unguarded reaction would tell her volumes.

She could sit here all evening, if she had to – the day had been pleasant and sunny, an early-spring warm spell, and she had brought a jacket in case it cooled down later – and the area where Jason had settled was nice enough.
She had started to wish she’d brought supplies, though. Pregnancy was making her feel permanently hungry.

She felt hopeful in a way that she hadn’t in she didn’t know how long. Everything was going to be OK. She was going to get her old life back. Maybe.

Thankfully, at about ten past five, she saw a figure that could only be Jason getting off a bus along the road. She breathed in and out steadily, to calm her nerves, forced her face into an expression that she hoped said ‘It’s OK,
nobody’s died’ and stood up to greet him.

She hadn’t seen him for weeks – nearly three months, in fact. Of course, he hadn’t changed in that time – even though Jen felt she had, immeasurably. Or, maybe he had inside, who knew? Physically, though, he was the Jason she knew so
well. Familiar. She even recognized the T-shirt he was wearing. In fact, she thought she might have bought it for him.

She had wondered how she might feel when she saw him. Whether her heart would start beating out of her chest, or she would burst into tears, but when it happened she felt blank. Removed, like she was watching herself go through the motions.

‘What are you doing here?’

She remembered that she needed to get the good news out there quickly. ‘Don’t worry, everyone’s fine. I just need to talk to you, that’s all.’

‘Why didn’t you call first?’ He didn’t say this in an accusatory way, more confused.

‘I don’t know. I … can we just go inside?’

‘Of course.’

She followed him in through the front door to an
unloved hallway. Upstairs, they entered a flat that was clean and neat, and full of bits and pieces Jen recognized. It was like a mini-me version of
their house – or, at least, a negative version, furnished with all the missing pieces from the jigsaw. Put the two together and they would make one complete home. Even the smell was familiar. She watched as he filled the kettle, switched it on.

‘It’s a nice flat,’ she said, searching around for something to say.

‘Yes, it’s worked out well.’

‘How’s work?’

Jason put down the box of tea bags he was holding. ‘Jen, why are you here?’

Here we go.

‘OK, well … I appreciate you might not want to know, or you might not even care, but I just found out I’m having a baby. That is,
we’re
having a baby. Me and you.’

He couldn’t have looked more surprised if she had told him she had been born a man. That she actually still had her old equipment in a jar somewhere.

‘What? I mean … when?’

‘The weekend away. Remember? I’m due in the middle of August.’

Jason sat on a chair opposite her, looking as if he might pass out if he didn’t lower his centre of gravity quickly. She waited for him to say something else and, when he didn’t, she carried on.

‘Obviously, I would never have planned for this to happen. Not so long after Emily. But I couldn’t be happier.’

‘I can’t believe it. Another baby.’ He smiled at her, and she knew immediately that her news had wiped out
months of bad feeling. She smiled back. ‘I know. Crazy, isn’t
it?’

‘All those sleepless nights. Are you ready for all that again? And then when she – obviously, I’m assuming it’ll be a she – is a teenager, we’ll be well into our fifties.’

Jen noticed how he’d said ‘we’.

‘Lots of women don’t even have their first one till they’re my age, these days. We started young.’

‘We did.’

‘Jason, I know things are different between us but I want … I’m hoping you’ll be involved. I would hate for the baby not to know its father.’ She looked at him for a reaction.

‘Of course. I’d never … I’ll do whatever I can.’

‘I’d hate for it to grow up not knowing its whole family, actually.’

She couldn’t help herself then, she asked him about Charles. ‘I’ve seen him on the TV, now and then. He seems to be doing OK.’

Charles – having done a couple of mea culpa TV appearances (one of which Jen had caught by accident and then hadn’t been able to turn over), which meant all was forgiven and that he could salvage something of his TV career, although he had
had to shift his rigid viewpoint a little and was now presenting himself as some kind of lovable rogue – had, it seemed, embraced the forgiveness of his family with enthusiasm.

‘I think he’s really sorry for everything,’ Jason said, parroting what Emily had said before. The party line. The Tao of the Mastersons. ‘And, you know, it was all years ago …’

‘And Cass?’

‘God, no, none of us want anything to do with her. Not after what she did, going to the papers. Dad’s cut off all contact.’

‘They don’t still work together?’

‘She’s leaving, apparently. And he’s keeping out of her way till she does. He’s trying really hard.’

He shut the conversation down by changing the subject without even acknowledging he was doing so, making it clear that this wasn’t an area for discussion. As far as he was concerned, he had popped Cass’s skeleton firmly back in his
closet and she was staying there. Door locked. Key thrown away.

‘So the baby’ll be due in the summer …’

It was going as well as it could, they were chatting like two reasonable people who had a shared past, and who might well share some kind of a future, but Jen realized she could feel a weight settling on her. She couldn’t understand why she
wasn’t floating on air at the prospect of Jason letting her back into his life so readily.

‘I could move back to Wimbledon,’ he was saying. ‘If you thought that was a good idea, I mean. So I could be there –’

‘Move in?’ This suddenly felt like it was going a bit fast. So much felt unresolved.

‘Not necessarily. Not at first. I’ll rent somewhere. Just so we can be close to each other. And then we could maybe think about it later, after the baby’s born. If you wanted to.’

Jen remembered Sean’s advice. Get everything out in the open. Don’t leave any explosives hidden that could blow you apart later on.

‘Jason … even before it all happened … did you ever think that maybe we’d lost our way a bit?’

He looked at her as if he didn’t know what she was talking about. ‘What do you mean?’

‘That once Emily left home we weren’t the same? I don’t know, that maybe we didn’t know how to relate to each other without the kids around? Or your family.’

‘I thought we were fine. I was happy.’

‘It didn’t bother you that we never slept together any more?’

‘Well, you seem to be pregnant,’ he said, trying to make a joke of it.

‘You know what I mean.’

He sighed. ‘I just don’t see the point of rehashing all this now.’

‘That’s part of my point. We never talked about anything. We never sorted anything out.’

‘If we’re going to have this baby together – be a family again – then we have to move on. Just forget about everything that’s happened. If I can, then so can you, surely?’

‘It’s not healthy, though. Nothing ever gets resolved. I’d rather we got everything out there, told each other exactly how we felt, got any lingering resentments or doubts off our chests, and then started again from
there.’

‘There’s nothing to talk about. A new start is a new start. That’s the whole point of it – you agree to forget everything that’s gone before.’

‘But then how will it be different?’

‘Why would we want it to be different? When it was good, it was good.’

‘When the kids were there?’

‘So? Now there’ll be another baby. You kept saying you hated not feeling like a family any more, once Em went to college.’

‘I know. I did. I do. I don’t know. And if I’m being honest, I don’t understand how you could just give up on our marriage, just like that, without us trying to work through it. I know I handled things badly, but you
couldn’t even stay around and fight it out?’

‘There wasn’t any point.’

‘But now I’m pregnant, you’re happy to come back?’

‘I never wanted us to split up. It’s just there wasn’t any other way.’

He was exasperating.

‘And what happens eighteen years down the line, when this baby leaves home and we’re on our own again? Can’t you see what I’m getting at? We have to work out what went so wrong that we fell apart at the first hurdle, once
it was just the two of us.’

‘I hardly think it’s going to be the same. Who knows what’ll be happening in our lives that far in the future?’

‘I don’t know, Jason. I just feel like we should clear the air. Establish a few ground rules about how it would be.’

‘Sure. There’s plenty of time for all that,’ he said, standing up to resume his tea-making. ‘How’s Elaine?’

Jen knew that, for now, the conversation was over. She would have to try to force the issue again, later on.

There was no denying it felt so familiar, so comfortable, filling Jason in on the way she and her mum had become closer than ever, telling him about work, asking about his students. Away from the topic of them and their relationship, they were
pretty much able to slip back into
a conversation as if they had been halfway through it the last time they saw each other.

By half past eight, she was exhausted. They had eaten a takeaway, sitting side by side on the sofa like they used to, and caught up with stories about the girls. When Jen was clearly dead on her feet – she remembered this from the last time she
was pregnant, that feeling of wanting to hibernate, starting to feel tired and then, a split second later, having to go to bed or risk falling asleep where she stood – she called a taxi. They agreed that Jason would come to the house the following morning so they could talk some more.

There was an awkward moment when they said goodnight, and she hadn’t known what to do. Who knew what the rules were regarding almost-ex-but-maybe-not-husbands? In the end, Jason had offered her a hug and she’d accepted it.

It had gone well, she thought. Much better than she had anticipated. Jason had seemed happy to put the past behind them – maybe too far behind, but that was another issue. Now there was a baby on the way, it seemed as if he could see a future for
them. They could be a family again.

It was the right thing to do. Jason was a good man, a fantastic father. He was kind and considerate, could be funny, was always supportive. They could be right back where they were before. Two parents enjoying bringing up their child.

She ran her hand protectively over her stomach. She knew this was what she wanted; she just couldn’t quite feel it yet.

Back home, before she even got her key in the lock, her mobile rang.

Poppy.

She hesitated before she answered. She was too exhausted for more confrontation. She was curious, though. It was the first time Poppy had returned one of her calls since, well … since. It was too hard to ignore.

‘Hi …’ she said gingerly.

‘I’m going to be an auntie again!’ Poppy squealed on the other end.

Jen stopped in her tracks, completely wrong-footed. ‘Um …’

‘Jason just called me,’ Poppy said breathlessly. ‘I can’t believe … I mean, I know you still have things to work out …’

Jen put her bag down, flicked the kettle on. She wondered, briefly, if she’d entered a parallel universe, one where her whole adopted family hadn’t rejected her without a second thought. Where her best friend hadn’t refused to
even speak to her.

This was what she wanted, but now she seemed to be on the verge of getting it, it felt unreal. Play acting.

She took a deep breath. ‘I thought you didn’t want to speak to me.’

Poppy laughed, as if that had all been a big joke and they both knew it.

‘Well, that was then,’ she said, as if that explained everything. ‘Things have changed now, obviously.’

‘Right …’

‘There’s a new little niece on the way. Or nephew.’

‘And do you think Amelia –’

‘Are you kidding?’ Poppy said. ‘A new grandchild? It’s like a whole fresh start.’