A Rural Affair

‘Um, I’m not sure, and as I say – Jennie, no!’

She was on her feet now, striding out of my sitting room looking very dangerous, about to leave my house, car keys in hand. Jennie’s tall and strong, much bigger than me, but I sprinted past her down the passage and in one fluid movement got between her and the front door, quickly turning the Chubb key, locking her in.

‘No!’ I gasped, flattening myself against the door, arms out like a starfish. ‘You are not charging up there like this. You are not hoiking Mr Hennessy out of his reproduction class and making an exhibition of yourself and of Frankie in front of the whole school. I will not let you!’

She glared down on me, eyes blazing, nostrils flaring. ‘Out of my way.’

I quaked briefly. ‘No, Jennie!’

‘Out of my way!’

Glaring back defiantly and fully anticipating being manhandled, I braced myself. Then, suddenly, I saw her collapse. Her eyes dulled and her mouth drooped. She almost staggered backwards, to sit, as if her legs wouldn’t hold her, on the tiny Victorian chair in my narrow hallway, by the table with the phone. She bent her head and clutched at the roots of her hair with her hands, pulling hard. Then she sobbed. She sobbed and sobbed and I crouched down before her, holding her knees in her jeans, letting her cry.

‘My fault!’ she gasped, when she was able. ‘All my fault! I wasn’t there for her – didn’t help her enough. Wasn’t a good enough mother!’

‘Not true,’ I told her, gripping her knees, shaking them. ‘So not true, Jennie! It’s nothing to do with you, just a stage, a rebellious teenager stage, and you’ve always done your best by her!’

‘Yes, but if I’m honest,’ she gulped, raising her head and giving an almighty sniff as she pulled a tissue from her sleeve, ‘I’d slightly given up recently. I tried so hard when she was little, Poppy, out of love for her, of course, but out of a lot of love for Dan. But lately – oh, I don’t know. She’s been so tricky, and of course these days I don’t look at Dan any more and think: I worship the ground you walk on. So maybe I took my eye off the ball. Maybe I sort of thought: to hell with the lot of you, if you know what I mean.’ Her body shuddered.

I did. Jennie was a strong woman and kept that family firmly on track with lots of robust shouting and yelling, which I’d hear through the wall and smile at, knowing it was nothing more than hot air and knowing, as she told me, that if she didn’t, they became feckless. ‘Feckless!’ she’d snap. And she had her work cut out with the two boisterous younger ones, not to mention a husband who got into scrapes, and a stepdaughter who could be surly and unhelpful. But recently I hadn’t heard the familiar hollering through the walls. Certainly not with Frankie. That didn’t mean it was Jennie’s fault she was pregnant, though, and I told her so.

She gazed glumly at her hands, clutching the tissue in her lap; a bit calmer now, but shattered, I could tell.

‘Still. I could have hustled more. Probed. Questioned the interminable sulks.’ We were silent a moment. ‘Poor Frankie,’ she whispered at length. ‘Poor, poor darling. She must be so scared.’

She balled the tissue hard in her hand. I knew what she was thinking: that terrible moment when the blue line had appeared, the horrific shock Frankie must have got, sitting on the side of the bath last night, perhaps, or in her school uniform this morning. Then the walk to the bus stop, sitting on the bus, blankly watching the world go by, thinking: everyone else is having a normal Thursday. White-faced; devastated.

‘I’ll talk to her tonight,’ she whispered.

‘D’you want me to do it?’ I ventured.

We both knew Frankie talked to me. Quite a bit. Sometimes Jennie had been jealous. I knew she wouldn’t let a bit of jealousy get in the way of her daughter’s welfare now, though. She thought about it.

‘No,’ she said at length. ‘I think I’ll do it. And I promise I won’t scream and shout. No recriminations. Hopefully I’ve done all that in your sitting room.’

I nodded. ‘And you’ll let her choose?’

She stared down at me, appalled. ‘She’s sixteen, Poppy! Quite possibly pregnant with a teacher’s baby!’

‘OK, let me rephrase that. You’ll let her think she’s chosen?’

She gazed opaquely at me, her pale face streaked with tears. ‘Oh. Yes. I see. Suggest. Point out the difficulties should she keep it. But let her know I’d nonetheless be very happy to be a grandmother.’ She clenched her teeth.

‘Exactly, so the whole thing horrifies her and she instantly says, “Oh God, no.” But if you bully her and tell her what’s going to happen, she could go the other way, just to spite you.’

Jennie blinked. ‘You’re right. I’ll paint a picture of her aged thirty, with a sixty-year-old man on her arm, plus his middle-aged