Page 108 of The Spark

I thought of Lara, of the arsehole who’d wanted to hurt her last week. The whole thing had made me appreciate Jamie even more deeply. Why wouldn’t I want to start a family with this man?

‘Don’t you think having a baby might make life more difficult?’ Jamie said, shuffling a little closer. ‘I won’t be earning any kind of salary for another two years at least. You’ll need a job, next summer. And with a child to think about—’

‘I could work part-time,’ I said, hopefully, naively. ‘Or shifts, or something. Plenty of people do it, Jamie. We’d muddle through.’

Our plan had always been to stay in Norwich after graduating, but over the past year I had already seen that our life trajectory was changing. Jamie had been spending an increasing amount of time in London. And Lara had been talking about moving there too, because that was where all the TV contacts were, the best assistant jobs. Earlier in the summer, she’d stayed with her cousin in Haringey while she shadowed an art director on a comedy series being shot in Finsbury Park. I’d missed her hugely. She was my oldest friend. My sister. She had every one of my best interests at heart. Any prolonged separation felt as unthinkable as running out of air. I wanted her – needed her – living near to me.

London was starting to feel like where we were all supposed to be.

The high peal of a fire engine penetrated the stillness then. Something set alight by the heat, maybe. Tinder-dry grass ignited by the spark of a chucked cigarette, an abandoned barbecue.

I tugged Jamie’s arms more tightly around me and we lay wordlessly together for a few minutes. I was trying to remember to stay in the moment, to enjoy the press of his bare skin to mine, the cushion of his stomach against the ridge of my hip.

‘You never told me you wanted to have kids so young,’ he said.

‘I didn’t till I met you. And I was so happy when that test came back positive. So doesn’t that mean it’s the right thing?’

As Jamie seemed to be working out how to reply, my emotions overtook me without warning.

‘I don’t know how to let go,’ I gasped. Panic poured into my throat. ‘I don’t know how to not want this, Jamie.’

‘Hey, hey. It’s okay to want it, Neve. It’s okay.’ He put a hand out to stroke my face and hair, his palm cool against my skin.

I knew by now that my longing had moved beyond the boundaries of anything rational. The need to have another baby felt physical.

I’d tried to explain it to Lara before. The overwhelm of yearning for motherhood. She said she’d never felt anything physically that way. But she didn’t judge, or try to dissuade me. She was unfailingly supportive, if slightly despondent about my career, and the apparent forthcoming destruction of my vagina.

‘Let’s wait till we graduate. Ten months is going to fly,’ Jamie whispered. And then he moved tenderly on top of me, and we made love, and it was long and intense in a way that felt like he was giving me his word.

Chapter 46.

Now

I’ve arranged to meet Lara at her mum’s house. Before I’ve even had a chance to ring the bell, Corinne opens the door, enveloping me in a hug. Felix is standing in the hallway behind her. From within Corinne’s grasp, I raise my hand and nod. He meets my eye, smiles softly, and nods right back.

She looks even older than I’d been expecting, and she feels fragile in my arms, more bone than flesh. Exhaustion clings to her like smoke. Her cropped hair is almost white now, and her skin has the texture of cigarette paper. But she still has her trademark suntan, even though it’s nearly Christmas. I smile as I recall the Corinne I knew years ago, who would dash hopefully outside in a bikini whenever the centigrade hit twenty.

‘I’ve missed you, darling girl,’ she murmurs into my hair. She smells exactly how I remember, a cloud of coal tar soap and Estée Lauder.

‘I’m so sorry about Billy,’ I say, my voice flimsy with emotion. I think about watching them dance in the kitchen, late at night, to ‘At Last’.

I wonder if that was their song, if they played it at Billy’s funeral. But I don’t ask.

Corinne squeezes me harder, and after a couple of moments I realise it’s because she can’t speak. Behind her, Felix puts a silent hand on her shoulder.

Eventually, she pulls out of the hug and manages to say, ‘How’s your mum, Neve?’

‘Same as ever.’

‘I still think of her, sometimes.’ Then she tells me Felix is taking her out for lunch. ‘I’m being spoilt,’ she says, smiling.

I stare at them. ‘Oh, I...’ I thought I was here to see you. Have there been crossed wires? Is this something to do with Felix? ‘Please don’t leave on my account.’

‘Not at all,’ he says, graciously, as Corinne puts on a coat. ‘Nice to see you again, Neve.’

I must have misunderstood.

Just before Corinne shuts the door behind her, she gives me a funny look, one I can’t quite interpret. ‘Lara never stopped loving you, Neve, you know.’

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