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  “About eighteen months. He’ll be two in February. I don’t know how I’m going to manage with no job. I need to pay the rent and buy food. I can’t depend on handouts from the family, it wouldn’t be fair.” I rubbed my eyes and burst out, “And we kept having to drive up and down the horrible road where Jilly died. It's right on the edge of a cliff. I can’t stop thinking about it.”

  “That’s natural,” he said, patting my hand sympathetically, “but she wouldn’t have felt anything, falling from height onto that sort of terrain. It’s tragic, Caro, but you have to concentrate on Skye now. He's the important one.”

  “Of course he is, and I will. That's why I need a job and a steady income. It's so unfair. Can I sue for wrongful dismissal, do you suppose?”

  Blake stood up. “Easily, but it won’t come to that. Stay there. I’ll be back." He felt in his pocket for a handful of change. "Here, get yourself another tea and a slice of cake.”

  It seemed he really was making a name for himself. An hour later I was reinstated on full pay, albeit in a different department because the director refused to have me back, and with an apology to boot. I even had the rest of the week off to sort out my affairs. Personnel still hated me though, so when a few years later the bean counters started screaming about accountability and outsourcing, I was one of the first to be offered redundancy. By then I was married to Blake and we had Ellie as a little sister for Skye, so I took the money and stepped out into the scary world of independent production.

  ~~~

  “Are you coming back to the office?” asked Mark as the tube approached Camden Town.

  I roused myself. We’d worked together so long we were comfortable travelling in silence, locked in our private thoughts. “No, I’ll go straight home. All those memories have taken it out of me. See you at Ellie’s housewarming on Saturday.” I kissed his cheek.

  “I’ll be there,” he replied.

  Blake had emailed that he was going to be late and might stay in town. This wasn't uncommon. To be honest, I rather liked having the house to myself. It had surprised me, considering the urgency with which Blake had wooed and wed me, how polite and unexciting marriage should afterwards turn out to be. Possibly it was because we’d never had a honeymoon period. There had been Skye right from the start, then Ellie, and also I’d always worked. Blake’s income from writing and directing tended to be erratic, so my wages were necessary, but in any case I needed to work for me, not just to pay the bills. Work was where I came alive. At work I was the real me, the domestic version of me was just a pale imitation.

  Not today, though. If I was going to wallow in old memories, I'd do it properly. Stirred by the David Bowie exhibition, I poured myself a glass of wine and got out Jilly’s letters.

  I had found them as soon as I’d packed her things up. Jilly’s writing case in those days holding no secrets from me. Opening the near invisible zip on the inner cover, I’d been stunned to see nearly two years of thin airmail paper filled with her flamboyant handwriting. At the time I was too full of grief, and too overwhelmed by the challenge of suddenly becoming a single mum to a youngster who was also grieving for his mother, to do anything other than read greedily through and put them aside. Jilly didn’t want anyone to know who Skye’s father was. Jilly loved Skye and wanted me and no one else to look after him. Those were the important bits. I’d zipped the letters back inside the hidden flap and put the writing folder in a drawer. Now, I drew them out again.

  “Caro, I’m not writing this in clear because, well, just because. You know me, though, and I’m depending on that. About Skye - I love him to bits, but it wasn’t planned. I was only dancing, the same as I think you’d like to do, except you’re a better person than me. It really was only dancing, Caro. I never expected it would change my life. There are reasons why I’m not saying who Skye’s father is. Trust me, though, he has the best of genes. He’ll grow up a brilliant boy who will look after me beautifully in my old age. Caro, darling, I'm dying to talk to you, but I can't unless I let everyone know about Skye, and I really can’t do that just yet. What I do want is for you to bring him up if anything happens to me. You, Caro. You and no one else. Not that I’m expecting any problems, but having a child makes you think about the future. Alessandro is shocked I haven’t made a will yet. I’ve told him what I want - he’ll see it happens. The Castello Acqua di Fonte isn’t where I would have chosen to settle if I were a free agent, but the van breaking down here turned out to be a godsend. I'm sorry I've misled you about India, but when I tell you everything, you'll understand. When Skye's a bit older, he and I might take off again and go there anyway. Or perhaps I'll stick with commune life until he’s five or six, then come home.”

  But she hadn’t. Her bright future had been wiped out by a hit-and-run driver. Mine too. All the wondrous things I’d thought I’d have plenty of time to savour and grow into, all put aside for the reality of managing a young family on zero experience and not quite enough money.

  A young family. Yes, that was the next thunderbolt. Sometimes, everything really does come at once, doesn't it?

  I can't blame myself for not noticing straight away. With my job assured, thanks to Blake, I threw myself into shifting everything out of Postern Court and into the new flat. By dint of talking non-stop to Skye and introducing him to the wide circle of family members Mum had recruited to help with the move, I managed to gradually ease him off me. This was liberating for both of us. He turned out to be a sociable boy. He liked the bustle of moving. He liked riding between the two flats in cars. He especially liked Blake's car because Blake had appropriated one of the donated child's car seats and fixed a toy steering wheel to the back of the passenger seat where Skye could reach it.

  "I thought it would tempt him away from holding your hand the whole time," he explained with a smile.

  Blake. He was another reason I hadn't given a thought to myself and my monthly cycle. At first I assumed he was simply being solicitous out of an awkward feeling of responsibility for having been the one who found me weeping in the canteen and got my job back for me. But he kept on being helpful. I wasn't honestly sure what to make of him.

  "New fella, Caroline?" said my brother on the sweltering day Blake joined in with manhandling all Jilly's furniture down four flights of stairs, into a hired van and out again at the new flat.

  "No," I said, flustered. "He's just a friend."

  Richard made a disbelieving sound and exchanged a speaking glance with Dad. "Come off it. Have you seen the way he looks at you and Skye?"

  Incomprehensible though it was, Blake did genuinely seem to be interested in me. He mowed the grass at the new flat so I could take Skye outside. He blew up the paddling pool one of my cousins had passed down, mended the punctures and filled it with water so Skye could play in it. He even played with him, getting his nice clothes thoroughly soaked and not seeming to mind a bit.

  He came to Jilly's memorial service. He made a point of meeting me for a mid-morning coffee on my first day back at work and asking how the Light Entertainment department was shaping up. He was there to drive me home.

  "You could do worse," said Mum elliptically. "It's not every man who's willing to take on a child as well as a bride."

  "Mum, I don't even know him properly."

  "Whose fault is that? No one ever does to begin with. He's taken a shine to you and Skye. That's in his favour for a start."

  My head was too full of new things, that was the problem. I liked Blake, but I wasn't anywhere near ready for a relationship. I was still adapting to the hugeness of looking after Skye. I was striving to do well in the new job. And ever-present was the need to keep a lid on the immense cauldron of tears still sloshing around inside me about Jilly.

  I hadn't had enough time or space to grieve. The misery pushed against my skin all the time, threatening to spill over. What I desperately wanted was someone to talk to, someone who would listen and sympathise and not judge. I was looking at the calendar, working out when Mark wo
uld get back from Margate, when it burst upon me in a moment of quite appalling realisation that there might be another reason I was feeling so tired and weepy.

  Mark, I thought, staring at the result of the pregnancy test in stunned, frozen horror. I have to see Mark. Not that he could do anything, not that either of us could do anything, but he would have to know and I was frantic to talk everything through with him.

  The internal phone, however, delivered a further bombshell. Mark had returned from Margate with mumps. Severe mumps. He would be off work for three or four weeks.

  I put down the receiver, shaking with full-blown terror. I couldn't talk to Mark, I couldn't phone him, I couldn't write to him. Furthermore, I suddenly saw with awful clarity that as I had no boyfriend, even if I did nothing, people here were bound to suspect Mark of being the father. We had worked together, we often took lunch breaks together. Even though we were now in different departments, someone was bound to speculate. There would be whispers, gossip, rumours...

  Oh God. Even more chilling was the thought that some sanctimonious person might suggest that 'there's probably nothing in it, but Jean ought to know'.

  Jean would be distraught. Mark would be devastated. His little girls...

  I couldn't bring either of them - any of them - that pain.

  That was the day Blake asked me out for a meal.

  The decision, I told myself afterwards, was absolutely the right one. Blake was caring, flattering, eager, and he adored Skye. His arm slipping around my waist as we left the restaurant confirmed it. I didn't even have to make any of the running, I simply had to accept. Like the little tick-boxes you get on forms. 'Please untick the box if you do not want things to go any further with this man.' I didn't untick the box. Things went further. And in a great deal less than the fullness of time, there I was, standing in the registry office, signing my new name under his.

  We didn't have a honeymoon. Blake thought it would be unsettling for Skye, and he was concerned that I needed to establish myself with my new production team before taking time off. He would give up one of his climbing fortnights and we could have a family holiday in the spring instead.

  I agreed, not letting on by so much as a tremulous smile that I expected to be involved in a rather different kind of production come the spring.

  It had been weeks since I'd said goodbye to Mark on that morning I'd gone to Italy. It was pure coincidence that I was at a canteen table in direct line of sight of the doorway on his first day back at work after the mumps. Our eyes met, he hesitated, and for several dozen heartbeats the Terrible Error klaxon went off full blast in my head.

  This is what absence does. This is what panic does. This was why marriage to Blake hadn't cured my inner turmoil after all. The truth stunned me with its enormity. Oh dear God, how in heaven's name was I going to get through the next twenty minutes without letting Mark know?

  "Hi," said Mark, sitting down awkwardly with his tray. "Long time no see. How have you been?"

  "Um. Surviving," I said. "How are you? Are you properly better now? You look terrible."

  He gave a shaky smile. "Now I know I'm back. You couldn't just lie like everyone else and say how well I'm looking? Thank you, Caro, yes, I'm bored out of my skull, but I'm better."

  I grinned. "Good. How was Margate?"

  He rubbed his face. "Margate was Margate. I spent most of it on the beach with the girls."

  There was a tiny silence, a gap waiting to be filled. I obliged. "By yourself? What about Jean and her mother?"

  He gave a soundless sigh. "Jean was mostly throwing up."

  The sword thrust was unexpected, swift, and cleaved straight through my breastbone. Everything I might have said died right there on my lips. The tiny flicker of hope in my heart expired along with it. "Not food poisoning, I take it?" I quipped bravely.

  "No."

  So now he was even more committed. I managed a quite remarkably creditable smile under the circumstances. "Congratulations."

  "Thanks." He cleared his throat. "I understand congratulations are in order for you too."

  For a moment my panic levels went soaring through the ceiling. How could he know? Then I saw his gaze resting on the shiny new ring on my left hand.

  "Oh, that, yes. It was all a bit sudden, really. Did you hear about Italy? Has anyone said?"

  His expression became properly Mark again. "Oh lord, Caro. Jilly. I'd completely forgotten. Sorry. Was it horrible? I was thinking about you at the time."

  "Yes, it was horrible, but..." I stopped and started again. "The thing is, when I arrived, I was told Jilly had had a baby out there. She left him to my care."

  Mark's fork clattered to the plate. "What?"

  "His name is Skye. He's very... he's very sweet. He's got Jilly's hair. I've adopted him. So you see, when Blake..." I stopped again. "As I say, it all happened a bit fast."

  Mark had only been toying with his food. Now he pushed it away. I'd already given up on mine.

  "Caro..."

  "Mark, I..."

  We met each other's eyes. I don't know what he saw in mine, but his expression was a dead ringer for how the WW1 soldiers must have looked on being told they had to leave the trenches and go over the top in one final push.

  "Yes, well," I said.

  "I hope you'll be very happy," said Mark.

  "It won't be long until I'm used to it," I said. "Skye's lovely. Blake's very good with him." It was just me whose heart was fracturing. I took another deep breath. "I hope all goes well for Jean. Give her my best wishes."

  "Thank you. I will." We stood up, our food largely untouched. We left the canteen together, then he turned one way, back to Current Affairs, and I went the other to the empty, echoing spaces of Light Entertainment.

  And I didn't feel brave, or noble, or self-sacrificing or any of those high-flown words.

  I just felt like howling.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Blake was delighted when I told him I was pregnant. Mum was also pleased, reasoning that it would make the family properly complete. She reassured me that she'd be more than happy to look after both the children when it was time for me to go back to work.

  I was... I was ambivalent. I found it desperately difficult, knowing I was carrying Mark's child and yet not being able to share it with him. Blake was caring and solicitous - rather too much so when he took charge of my diet, telling me what I should and shouldn't be eating to ensure the baby and I stayed healthy - but I knew I was playing a part. I hated being pregnant. I hated my body changing and none of my clothes fitting. I resented feeling tired all the time. I really disliked not being able to put a hundred percent effort into my work.

  One of the problems was that none of my friends at work were anything like at the stage where they were producing children, so nobody understood my feelings. I began to realise why Jean had always been so anti the rest of us in the early years. I'd seen her just once since Mark broke the news. I was crossing the back of the foyer and she was sitting on one of the benches at the front with her two girls, obviously waiting for Mark. I put my head down and scuttled away, not wanting to analyse why I didn't want to talk to her, not wanting to swap cosy stages-of-pregnancy stories. Not wanting to see Mark's face as he greeted her and his daughters.

  It wasn't just Jean, I was also avoiding Mark. I'd taken the decision that not seeing him at all would be safer than making artificial conversation and dissolving into an ocean of tears. It was easier than I'd expected because I realised he was avoiding me too. This actually made me feel worse. I missed his friendship so much. It was horrible, a great aching void in my life. I worked even harder to try not to notice it.

  Blake didn't know me well enough to realise anything was wrong, but Mum did, even if she put it down to the pregnancy. "What you need," she said, looking at me thoughtfully, "is a day at the health club with Kim."

  Kim was my sister-in-law. I protested feebly, but we were packed off and - wouldn't you know it - Mum was absolutely right. Kim - who y
ou would have said was a shoe-in for all the mother of the year awards going - said yes, she loved the twins now, but before their birth she'd hated the idea of having a family. As we lay in the warm bubbling water and were then gently oiled and massaged, we let our hair down and oh, I did feel better.

  "Thanks, Mum," I said when I got back. "You were right. I think I can cope now."

  One of the things Kim had told me to do was to join ante-natal classes as soon as I was offered them. Not just for the information, but to connect with other local women in the same situation as me.

  "It gives you a safety group," she explained. "Everyone can moan amongst themselves and nobody judges you. I'm still in touch with my lot. We meet once a month or so to catch up and help each other and pat ourselves on the back about not killing anybody. That sort of thing."

  I took Kim's advice. It was good. None of the girls in my group hated being pregnant the way I did, none of them had a husband who was monitoring their health and trying to manage their pregnancy, but there were lots of smaller things we had in common and they really did make the last interminable stretch more bearable.

  Ellie, bless her ten little pink toes, managed to hold on inside me until she was two weeks late. This made her two weeks early according to the fake dates I had given the hospital, so perfectly acceptable in everyone's eyes. Only the midwife awarded me a sharpish look, as if to say this was not a two-week-premature baby, but fortunately she didn't say anything. Blake had to rush off to a script meeting right after seeing Ellie into the world, due to nobody except me expecting her to arrive this soon, and that was good too. Why? Because my daughter's birth-wet hair dried to a blonde frizz, giving me one of those moments where your life flashes before your eyes.

  "That won't last," said the midwife, ruffling it.

  It didn't. Within a couple of days it had fallen out, to be replaced by a safe, anonymous brown.