The memory throws Lauren back out with a jolt and she’s almost surprised to find Jess still sitting in front of her. An overwhelming sense of guilt consumes her as she imagines how differently this could have all played out.
‘Do you think he even knew I existed?’ asks Jess, looking at Lauren square-on.
Lauren’s stomach turns as her brain rapidly takes her back, offering her distorted flickering images and barely audible soundbites of a time that she’d tried so hard to forget. There are raised voices and a palpable sense of disappointment and betrayal, though whether they’re coming from Harry, Rose or her imagination isn’t clear.
‘Yes, I think he knew you existed,’ Lauren says carefully.
‘And you?’ Jess presses. ‘Have you always known I was out there?’
Tears prick Lauren’s eyes. ‘Yes,’ she says, swallowing the lump in her throat. ‘I’ve just been waiting for you to show up.’
6
Kate
‘Wow!’ Matt exhales the next morning, as he sips his coffee whilst leaning against the kitchen worktop. ‘So, do you think there’s anything in it?’
Kate looks at him as if he’s crazy and forces a laugh. ‘I don’t think so, do you?’
‘So, you don’t think your dad . . .’
She switches the food blender on full power, drowning out his absurd words. There’s no part of her that wants to drink the celery, kale and spinach smoothie that’s being spun around the glass jug. But if it stops Matt from going there, then she’ll gladly down three pints of it.
As much as Kate had tried to stop thinking about the woman who called herself Jess, her face seems to be indelibly printed on the inside of her eyelids. As soon as she’d closed her eyes last night, there she was, goading her.
She’s hit by the sudden recollection of her dream, which until that very moment had buried itself within her subconscious. How do dreams do that? How does an inane thought or action the next day recall such a vivid collection of images, so real and lifelike that it feels as if you’ve been thrown straight back into them?
Kate can see Jess’s pinched face in all its clarity, mocking her from afar, as she taps on her watch – a ticking timebomb. They’re at a party, it’s her father’s sixtieth, though he’d died at fifty-nine, and she can see him dancing, surrounded by his family and work colleagues, having the time of his life. Kate had wanted to freeze-frame that moment, because she knew that she was about to stand on the stage and deliver the truth about the much-loved man, stunning the party into silence.
She kept looking at Jess as she made her way to the microphone, silently begging her not to make her do this. But Jess just tapped at her watch again and smiled, leaving Kate in no doubt that if she didn’t do it, Jess would.
‘Ahem,’ she said over the loudspeaker, into a room that suddenly resembled London’s O2 arena. ‘Excuse me.’
The music ground to a halt and the lights went up, illuminating every inch of the vast space. Kate looked down at her mum and dad, who smiled up at her, their arms wrapped around one another. She cleared her throat and tried to speak, but couldn’t, and stumbled towards the edge of the stage, desperate to reach her parents before they realized what was happening. She felt herself fall and the next thing she remembers is being held by Matt.
‘You were having one hell of a nightmare last night,’ he says now, as the blender grinds to a halt.
‘Was I?’ says Kate, her grief suddenly magnified by the memory of the dream. She can recall her father so clearly – see him standing there, smiling up at her, willing her on – how could he not be here in real life? It makes her want to clamber back into her night-time vision so she can see him, touch him, smell him. The realization that that will never happen again snakes around her heart.
Matt puts his mug in the sink and takes her in his arms, folding himself around her, and she wishes she could stay here all day. Protected from the outside world, keeping their baby safe. How ironic, she thinks. That I want nothing more than for this baby to have a life, yet I’m already scared I won’t be able to shield it from what life may have in store.
‘Will you be okay?’ Matt asks, as if he can hear the exhausting thoughts that are filling her brain. He knows her so well that he probably can.
She gives a little nod into his chest.
‘Do you want to talk to me when you’re ready?’
She looks up at him, smiling gratefully. ‘Thank you.’
‘Look after yourself,’ he says. ‘I’ll see you tonight.’
She doesn’t want him to go, because when he does, she’s going to be forced to face the day and the very real problems that Jess’s appearance has caused.
She waits until she’s had a shower and done her make-up before making the call, her confidence strangely bolstered by a flick of mascara and swipe of lipstick. As Lauren’s phone rings, Kate’s still inspecting herself in the mirror, leaning in closer to retrieve the gloopy residue that sits in the corner of her eye.
‘Hey, it’s me,’ she says, over-cheerfully.
‘Hi.’ Lauren sounds wary and Kate can’t blame her.
‘Look,’ says Kate. ‘I’m sorry about how I acted yesterday. I said some unfair things that I really didn’t mean.’
‘About how Jess turning up suited me?’ Lauren says pointedly.
‘Mmm, yes, I don’t know why I said that.’
‘So how are you feeling today?’ asks Lauren.
‘Honestly? Like shit. I dreamt about it all night and when I woke up this morning, I honestly thought Dad was still alive and that woman was a character from my worst nightmare.’
‘I had a pretty rough night as well,’ admits Lauren.
‘Have you spoken to Mum?’
‘Not yet, you?’
‘No, I think it might be better if you have a chat with her first, just to see how she’s feeling.’
As much as Kate tries to ignore it, it pains her that that is the natural default setting of their family dynamic. It had become even more so since Lauren had had children. Kate supposes that’s what happens when a woman’s daughter has her own babies; the two of them instinctively come together, as if it’s an exclusive club that only those who have borne a child can be members of. Kate caresses her stomach, as if hoping to find a bump there. She can’t help but feel disappointed when she doesn’t.
‘Yeah, I think you’re right,’ says Lauren. ‘I was going to pop round there once I’ve dropped Noah off at school.’
‘Okay, let me know how it goes, will you?’
‘Are you not going to talk to her yourself?’ her sister asks.
‘I will do later,’ says Kate. ‘But I’m at work all day, and anyway, I’m sure that now we’ve all had a chance to think about it, we know that what that woman said yesterday was just completely farcical.’
‘So, you don’t believe her?’ asks Lauren.
Kate feels her hackles rise, unable to believe that Lauren would even feel the need to ask.
‘Of course not!’ she exclaims. ‘Why, do you?’ There’s a delay at the other end, just a few seconds, but it’s enough to give Kate a clue as to what’s coming.