Page 86 of The Fallback

‘I knew it was a source of tension between them.’

‘You did?’ Rosie gaped again. Did her mother knoweverything?‘I didn’t even know they had been considering a third baby. Did they tell you?’

‘It’s amazing what you pick up on when you spend a lot of time babysitting for a couple,’ her mother said sagely. ‘But yes, Jasmine did tell me that she had been wanting another baby for some time.’

‘And Chris told you he didn’t?’ Rosie asked.

‘Well, not in so many words,’ her mother said. ‘But I could tell that it wasn’t something he was completely sure about.’

‘But you think they’re going to be OK?’ asked Rosie, feeling like a small child who desperately wanted her mother’s reassurance.

‘I think,’ Susan began carefully, ‘I think this has given them a chance to talk to each other. And I think Chris has been surprised by how sad he has been about the baby. Not that he wasn’t terribly upset about Jasmine, of course,’ she said hastily. ‘But I do think it has made him wonder whether he does in fact want another child.’

‘You think they’ll try again?’ Rosie asked, silently cursing herself for her constant tone of surprise.

Her mother tilted her head to one side considering Rosie’s question. ‘I’m not sure,’ she said. ‘I think that ironically it has made Chris more keen and Jasmine less so.’

Rosie shook her head. ‘Yikes,’ she said. ‘I don’t envy them trying to sort that one out.’ But she really hoped that they would, because she had realised how fundamentally important it was to her that Jasmine and Chris were OK. If they couldn’t make a relationship work then she may as well just give up now. It wasn’t as if she had a lot of other positive personal experiences to draw on.

‘I think they will be fine,’ Susan said emphatically. ‘They love and care deeply about each other and that’s the most important thing. I think they will both wait and see what happens, and if they get pregnant they’ll be delighted, but I don’t think Jasmine will be devastated if they don’t. Anyway, talking about couples, it’s sweet news about Mitch,’ Susan said as she took another sip of her coffee.

‘What do you mean?’ Rosie said, narrowing her eyes. Why was it that Mitch seemed to figure inallof her conversations at the moment, no matter how much effort she put into trying not to think of him?

‘His new girlfriend,’ Susan said, smiling. ‘She looks…’ he paused for a moment and Rosie wondered what she was about to say. ‘Lovely,’ Susan continued blandly, to Rosie’s disappointment who hoped her mum might say something catty. ‘She does look rather young, though,’ Susan concluded, which cheered Rosie up no end. She knew she could rely on her mother to say the right thing.

‘But how do you know about her?’ Rosie asked in consternation.

‘Instagram, of course,’ Susan said cheerfully. ‘I saw he had updated it with some lovely pictures of them both. Have you met her?’

Rosie confirmed that yes, she had indeed met her and took a large gulp of her coffee, relieved that it had cooled down enough for her to do this. ‘You follow Mitch on Instagram?’ she asked her mother.

‘Oh, we’ve been following each other for years,’ Susan confirmed. ‘I sent him a request when I joined. In fact, he accepted my request before you did,’ she said a little pointedly.

Rosie blushed; it wasn’t that she really ever had anything to hide from her mother but the follow request had felt like such a massive invasion of her privacy. The type of thing that had made Rosie go through her entire past activity just to check she wasn’t about to be shamed.

‘In fact,’ Susan continued, ‘I often find out what you’ve been up to from Mitch’s posts.’

‘I’m not “up to” anything, Mother,’ Rosie said defensively.

Susan looked up sharply at Rosie. ‘I just meant he posts more often than you do.’

‘Hmm,’ Rosie grudgingly conceded. She knew it wasn’t her mother’s fault that she and Mitch had fallen out and it certainly wasn’t Susan’s fault that he had blocked her, but there was something incredibly irksome about the fact that her Mum knew about Mitch’s new girlfriend. And that if Instagram was anything to go by, their kiss last night hadn’t resulted in him immediately ending things with Jenny. Rosie knew she was being silly, but there was a tiny part of her that had been hoping Jasmine would call her today with the news that online at least, Mitch suddenly appeared to be single again.

‘Mum,’ Rosie asked, hoping to change the subject, ‘do you remember Connor?’

Susan looked baffled. ‘Remind me?’ she asked.

‘Connor, Connor Ryan, he moved to Washington the autumn after we graduated?’

Susan’s face cleared. ‘Oh, Connor, of course! I remember you were quite upset when he moved away, weren’t you?’

Rosie felt relieved at her mother’s understatement. Whenever she thought of that summer all she could remember were long and painful conversations with Connor in London parks and an embarrassing amount of tears after he had left. Which felt even more embarrassing now that she’d grasped what an idiot he actually was.

‘I saw him last night,’ Rosie told her mother.

‘You did? How lovely. So, he’s not still in Washington?’

‘No, Mother, he’s not still in Washington’ Rosie replied tersely. ‘How could I have seen him last night if he was still in Washington?’

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