Page 103 of The Spark

‘Yes, it is. It’s our fatal flaw, Neve. We get in too deep.’

‘No. I’m nothing like you.’

‘Oh, you’re more like me than you think.’

‘I can’t believe... you knew I thought this, all along.’

She knocks back the last of her whisky, and I watch her gaze stray straight away to the bottle on the sideboard, eyeing up her next refill. ‘Except there’s nothing to know, is there? Not really. You know Ash isn’t Jamie, deep down. You know that in your heart, Neve. You want him to be, but you know he’s not.’

‘I don’t. And I wouldn’t expect you to understand.’

‘You know, I don’t think Jamie ever loved you in quite the same way you loved him.’

‘Mum, I’m serious now—’

‘I know you lost the baby, darling.’

Ice plates my stomach. ‘What?’

‘Lara told me. Well, actually, she didn’t tell me. I guessed. You hadn’t been round for a while and you weren’t answering your phone and so I rang Lara, and she said you’d been unwell, and I asked her what with, and she said she didn’t feel it was her place to tell me. And so I guessed. Straight away.’

For once, the anger I feel isn’t directed at Lara. I can hardly blame her if my mother chose that moment to demonstrate perception for the first time in her life.

‘You never thought to mention this to me?’ You never thought to wrap me up in your arms and kiss me and tell me how sorry you were and that your heart was breaking along with mine?

‘It wasn’t my place. You obviously didn’t want me to know. Though I do wish you’d felt able to talk to me, of course.’

I think resentfully back to that summer, to the months before Jamie died. ‘That was the year Bev kept calling the police on you. Remember? You were a mess. How could I talk to you?’

It had been years since my father left, and she was still so furious, the police had to officially tell her not to be.

But it’s been nearly a decade now. And what am I doing? Self-destructing like she did – just breaking hearts instead of stuff.

I reach for a tissue from the box on the coffee table and dab my eyes. Being unexpectedly wrenched back to the trauma of losing the baby is hitting me hard.

Mum frowns slightly. ‘I am sorry, Neve. I wish I could have been there for you more.’

‘Why wish it? You could have been. Nothing was stopping you.’

Wordlessly, Mum removes the blanket from her lap and places it on mine. It feels soft, warmed by her body. The gesture brings fresh tears to my eyes. It’s the kind of thing Corinne would have done.

‘Did Jamie support you, when you told him about the baby? Was he there for you?’

I swallow away the memories of those last months. ‘What does it matter, now?’

‘It matters,’ says Mum, leaning keenly forward like she does whenever she’s about to dispatch some pop psychology, ‘because Ash is a perfectly nice boy, who seems desperate to love you. Yet all you can think about – all these years later – is Jamie Fraser.’

‘Jamie was the love of my life.’

‘Jamie’s gone, sweetheart.’

‘No,’ I say fiercely, though I can feel my resolve buckling like metal in the fierce heat of my heart. ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about. No.’

Chapter 44.

‘So I suppose,’ I say, looking around the counsellor’s office, ‘that’s why I’m here. I was hoping you might be able to help me... prove myself to Ash. I’d like to persuade him I’m not going mad.’

Meena appears unruffled, like people say this kind of thing to her all the time. ‘And how would you define “mad”, Neve?’

---