Something Good (22 page)

P
erhaps she'd done it wrong. Jane stared at the pregnancy test. Perhaps her pee had seeped into the wrong part of the stick, or she'd done it too soon for the test to be accurate. Or—Jane favored this version—she was in the midst of some hellish, hyper-real nightmare and would soon jolt back to safe, nonpregnant reality in her bed.

Of course the test could be faulty. Jane studied the box: “Proven to be 99% accurate”, it said. Knowing with absolute certainty that she couldn't have another child, she clung to the hope that she represented that rogue 1%. She'd never wanted another baby after having Hannah. Hannah had been enough, all she'd ever wanted; with her baby, and Max, life had felt complete. Although Hannah had been unplanned—“Have you given a thought to your future?” her mother had barked—she'd never felt so certain,
so right.

And here she was, fifteen years later, with dread coursing through her veins.

“Jane? It's me!” Sally's voice ricocheted around the house as she let herself into the hall.

“Won't be a minute,” Jane called down.

There was some clattering downstairs, and a rustling of carrier bags. “I'll stick this wine in your freezer, okay? Can't understand why the store doesn't have one of those chiller machines, or at least put cheap white wine in the fridge and not just the expensive stuff….”

Jane was still gripping the stick. She didn't care about wine or chilling machines. Christ, by rights she shouldn't even be drinking. She examined her reflection in the bathroom mirror. She looked gaunt and strained, but not pregnant. She certainly didn't look like a woman who'd gone back to the house of a man she barely knew and had head-exploding sex on a tumble of soft blankets and sweet-smelling sheets while his seven-year-old son was being Chief Dalek at a sleepover party. If only she'd waited until morning to go to pack up her panel in Archie's studio. If only she hadn't been so mad that night she'd overheard Hannah and Zoë discussing her crumbling ovaries and booked a place on that wretched course.

“Jane,” Sally called over the low music she'd put on, “are you okay up there?”

“I'm fine.” Jane glanced at the bathroom bin into which she and Hannah dropped used disposable razors. No, couldn't risk her finding it. Grabbing a length of toilet paper, she wrapped it tightly around the stick. Now it looked like a miniature Egyptian mummy. Stuffing it into the back pocket of her jeans, she fixed on a too-bright smile, which she feared verged on the manic, and headed downstairs.

Sally was in the kitchen. She had obviously decided that chilling the wine in the freezer would be too long and drawn-out a process and was instead plopping ice cubes into two glasses. “I'm impressed you've got ice,” she said without looking up.

Jane watched the wine swirling into the glass as Sally poured it. She wished she could feel pleased about having ice. “It's left over from Hannah's party,” she said flatly.

Sally glanced at her. “God, Jane, you look washed out. Been working late?”

“Yes, a bit.”

“I thought ditching your job was supposed to give you more time…you look beat…”

“Sally, I—”

“Bet you never used that massage voucher I gave you,” Sally rattled on. “Come on, let's go through, get cosy. Where's Hannah tonight?”

“It's Zoë's birthday do. Veronica's organized some meal out….” Jane was aware of her voice, but it sounded as if it were drifting from someone else's mouth. A bunch of teenagers were throwing some kind of inflatable Frisbee across the park. Jane could feel Sally studying her, knowing there was something else. She couldn't tell her. Telling her would make it real, and a real pregnancy required decisions and explanations, even though what she'd done wasn't wrong—just sex, for God's sake…. Jane was aware of the hardness of the pregnancy test in her jeans pocket.

“Have you eaten?” Sally asked.

“No. I'm not really hungry. D'you want cheese on toast or something?”

“Please.”

Relieved to escape from Sally's penetrating gaze, Jane headed for the kitchen, where she took the stick from her pocket and glared at it. Then she jammed it deep into the kitchen bin as if, concealed beneath a layer of bread wrappers, eggshells and carrot peelings, it would cease to exist.

H
annah had imagined that a handful of people might wander into the launch of FoxLove Foods—the kind of mumbling weirdoes who hung about in libraries, twiddling on the computers because they had nothing better to do on a Thursday afternoon. In fact the conference room was full to capacity. Row upon row of women, and the occasional man in a T-shirt or ancient-looking sweater, were watching intently as Veronica demonstrated how Nibble 'n' Lick bars were made—as if each one you saw in the shops would have been lovingly prepared in her own kitchen.

“Each snack bar,” Veronica announced from the stage, “represents a powerhouse of sexual energy to unleash your inner erotic resources.” An image of her hand, swooping dramatically over glass plates of ingredients, was beamed onto the screen behind her. Hannah had agreed to spend two hours distributing samples, along with Zoë and Dylan—who, clearly, had had no choice in the matter—for the princely sum of five quid an hour. She glanced around the conference suite, a nondescript third-floor room in a faceless office building.

“No dairy in these, is there?” A skinny woman with a pale, pinched face peered at the gravelly lumps on Hannah's tray.

“No, they're all dairy-free,” Hannah said, hoping that her smile masked the fact that she hadn't the first idea of what had gone into these things. It could be toenail clippings for all she knew or cared.

The woman picked up a gnarled-looking lump and sniffed it. “Yurumba bark?” she enquired.

“That's right,” Hannah said.

“Great. You see, I have a mucus problem. Sinuses…” The woman tapped the side of her nose and bit into the lump. “Mmm,” she said, giving Hannah a patronizing pat on the arm before bobbing back down onto her chair.

But now Zoë seemed to be enjoying herself as she toured the edge of the room with her trayful of libido-boosting mega-bites. Was this what the world was coming to, Hannah wondered, that to get in the mood for sex you had to stuff your face with horrible lumps that looked like old fish tank gravel bound together by PVA glue?

“Hey,” Dylan murmured, sidling up to her with his own heavily laden tray, “want to escape for a bit?”

“How?” Hannah asked.

The audience had burst into spontaneous applause. Veronica held aloft a glass dish of sludgy stuff, and a cluster of people had surged toward the demonstration table. “This is the bit where she starts on about igniting libido, blood flow to the genitals and all that….” Dylan shuddered dramatically.

“How d'you know?” Hannah asked, laughing.

“I've heard her practicing in her study. Don't think I can stomach it again. Come on, let's sneak out for a bit. Mum won't miss us.”

Hannah smiled. She liked his sweet, pale face, those dark eyes that radiated naughtiness and cheek. “Okay. Where shall we go?”

“I know a place,” he said.

 

The graveyard wasn't spooky but filled with beautiful carvings of Madonnas and angels, their edges weathered to softness. Hannah sat on a damp wooden bench, enjoying the feeling of spring sunshine on her face. “So,” Dylan said, sitting at a respectable distance beside her, “did you talk to Zoë about making up all that crap about the worry dolls?”

“Not yet.” Hannah wanted to pick her moment. She hadn't seen Zoë all week, which was unusual. And today, with the opening night of
Little Shop of Horrors
a mere five hours away, she didn't feel up to a confrontation.

“Aren't you going to?” Dylan asked.

“Yes, of course I am.”

He peered through his bangs at her. “Not scared of her, are you?”

“No, why d'you say that?”

“Because…you shouldn't be. She really looks up to you with your art and your acting and all that.”

“My acting?” Hannah laughed hollowly.

Dylan looked hurt. “Yeah.”

“Anyway,” Hannah added, “she's hanging out with Amelia now….”

“No, she's not. They fell out. That's what happens with Zoë's new best friends. It gets really intense and competitive and—”

“It's not like that with me,” Hannah interjected.

“No,” he said, feigning interest on a blackbird that had landed on a gravestone. “You're different.”

“What kind of different?”

He turned to look at her. Hannah was seized by an urge to grab some scissors and cut his hair so she could see his eyes properly. “You're just…you,” he said.

Hannah smiled. She didn't fancy Dylan exactly—he was in the year below her at school, and thinking
anything
about him would be out of the question—yet hanging out here with him was hugely preferable to being trapped in that conference room and have people go on about their sinuses and mucus. “Dylan,” she said suddenly, “d'you want to come tonight? To see the show, I mean?”

“What, and watch you being a Venus Flytrap?”

“Uh-huh.”

His face brightened. “Is Zoë coming?”

“Yes, and my parents.”

“Sure you want me to come?”

“I'd really like it if you were there. I'd feel better.”

“Why?” he asked. “Not nervous, are you?”

Hannah sighed. “There's this boy, Ollie, who I was sort of seeing. He's in the show, playing the dentist.”

“So…you dumped him, or what?”

“No, I went round to see him, soon after we'd come back from Scotland, and his mum mistook me for someone else—his
proper
girlfriend, who turns out to be pregnant….”

Dylan's eyes widened. “Holy shit.”

“So,” she continued, “I feel like a complete idiot.”

“You're not an idiot.” He touched her hand.

She smiled, enjoying the warmth of his ink-stained fingers. “Come on,” she said, “We'd better get back. Don't tell anyone about the pregnant girlfriend thing, okay?”

“I don't tell anyone anything,” Dylan assured her as they wandered along the grass path that cut its way between the gravestones—a path that Hannah would have followed happily for the rest of the day.

T
he waiting room had a sharp, chemical smell of new carpet. Jane gave her name at the receptionist's window and skimmed the room, estimating that she'd have to wait half an hour at least. Taking the only available chair, she grabbed a magazine from the table in front of her and opened it randomly, trying to focus on pictures of North African dishes—couscous, tagines—in order to blot out the real reason why she'd come.

“Well, if it's not Jane Deakin!”

Jane looked up to meet the gaze of the woman beside her. “How are you, Barbara?” she asked, mustering a smile. Barbara had been her mother's friend since childhood.

“Fine, Jane, apart from my cataracts. More to the point, how's that mother of yours, abandoning us all to live in a shack up in Scotland? Has the woman completely lost it or is there some man involved, hmm?”

“No, not that I know of,” Jane told her. “You know Mum. There's no changing her mind once she's got an idea in her head….”

Barbara shook her head good-naturedly. “Complete nutcase, always had been. Not like you, eh, Jane?” Barbara's pointy elbow dug into Jane's side.

“Um, no.” Jane felt her cheeks reddening.

“The sensible one, that's you. Most grown-up person in that crazy house, when you were a little girl. Always had your head screwed on.” She laughed from the pit of her belly, flashing a glimmer of gold tooth.

Jane felt as if her tongue and mouth and even her throat had withered and were incapable of functioning normally. She smiled inanely.

“Are you okay?” Barbara asked in a quieter voice. “I don't want to pry, and do tell me it's none of your business but—”

“I'm fine,” Jane barked, startling the auburn-haired girl opposite.

“Barbara Toner?” the doctor called around the door.

Barbara sprang up from her chair. “Yes, that's me. Lovely seeing you, Jane. Do take care of yourself—you're looking a little bit peaky if you don't mind me saying so.”

“Yes, I will.” Jane watched her leave. The auburn-haired girl caught her eye and smiled. She had a delicate face with a neat little chin and was wearing foundation that looked too orangey for her skin. She was pretty, Jane thought—around seventeen at a guess—with eyes of a pale, diluted green and the kind of sculpted lips you saw on Victorian dolls. In fact she looked like a doll, sitting there with pale hands clasped loosely on her lap.

A tall, good-looking boy ambled out of the loo. Finding nowhere to sit, he crouched down in front of the girl and rested a hand on her lap. “Feeling all right?” he asked gently.

“Yeah, okay,” the girl replied. “Bit hot in here though.”

He stood up, shook the stiffness from his legs and strolled across the waiting room to the water dispenser. “Get one for me, would you?” the girl called after him.

There was something about the young couple that transfixed Jane. The only un-doll-like thing about the girl, she realized now, was the faint swelling at her belly. The boy returned with a paper cone of water and bent to kiss her forehead. She looked up at and smiled her thanks.

It shocked Jane, the way her eyes misted instantly; she hadn't been prepared for it at all. She wanted the magazine—pictures of tagines to hide behind—but had put it back on the table from where it had been snatched by an obese man in a tight white T-shirt.

“Hazel Driver?” proclaimed a nurse.

“Ollie, that's us.” The girl stood up, dropped the cone into the bin and linked her boyfriend's arm. They looked like a proper couple, Jane thought, trying to tear away her gaze. Like she and Max all those years ago. A couple who were happy and excited to be having a baby. They disappeared through the door to the surgeries, and Jane stared after them, even though there was nothing left to see. Here she was, probably two decades older than that girl—with her head screwed on, Barbara had said. She had a daughter who, in two or three years' time, would be leaving home. She had more work pouring in than she could handle, and the memory of a night in a cottage with the storm wreaking havoc all around.

“Jane Deakin?” the woman doctor said.

She stood up. “Yes, that's me.”

The doctor smiled distractedly, and Jane followed her through the door and along the corridor to the farthest room. “So how can I help?” the doctor asked as Jane took a seat.

“I—I think I'm pregnant. In fact I know I am.”

The doctor had a soft, kind face and wiry hair with grayness showing at the roots. “Have you done a test?” she asked.

“Yes.” Jane glanced around the cool white room. She'd come to a room like this for her pregnancy test sixteen years ago. She hadn't known about home tests then, and wouldn't have trusted them anyway. It had taken three days for the results to come through but Jane had known already, just as she knew now.

“Is this your first pregnancy?” the doctor asked.

Such a typical London doctor's office, Jane thought, where you never saw the same doctor twice, despite her regular trips here regarding Hannah's asthma. “No, I have a fifteen-year-old daughter.”

The doctor laughed softly. “That's quite a gap.”
Quite a gap
—not only in years but in what she'd intended to do. To make arrangements to end it and get on with her life.

“‘It's not a planned pregnancy,” Jane murmured. “The father and I, we're not together.”

The doctor smiled sympathetically. “How are you feeling about it?”

Jane opened her mouth to speak, and her head filled with that auburn-haired girl and the handsome boy who'd rested a hand on her lap. “Fine,” she said firmly. “Everything's fine.”

“Well, that's good,” the doctor said, sounding businesslike now. “So, Jane, if you can tell me the date when your last period started, we can work out a due date and book you in for your antenatal care.”

Jane felt something lifting—like a cloud, what were clouds made of again?—and said, “Thanks, that would be great.”