When I got home, having collected Clemmie from nursery, Jennie was at her sitting-room window, arms folded, scanning the road, waiting for me.
‘So that’s wot I’ve decided,’ Clemmie was telling me firmly as I helped her out of the car.
‘But Miss Hawkins isn’t very happy about it, darling.’
‘I don’t care. It’s my life.’
Blimey. ‘Where did you hear that?’
‘Wot?’
‘ “It’s my life”?’
‘Peggy says it when she lights a cigarette.’
‘Oh. Right.’
Jennie, meanwhile, had exited her house and bustled down the path in her long white apron to hover by my side. Horrors on her plate, her stepdaughter pregnant, news flashes coming in by the moment, she needed to share, but even in her highly fraught state she knew too that I had two tired and fractious children who needed to be bundled out of the car, got inside and fed. She lifted Archie out of his car seat for me and we headed on in.
‘So that is wot I’M DOING!’ Clemmie shouted, stamping her feet for emphasis in her pink wellies as she ran to the front door and turned, glaring at me.
Jennie raised enquiring eyebrows.
‘Clemmie’s teacher’s just told me Clemmie only works a three-day week,’ I muttered as we went up the path.
‘Oh, how killing. Which ones?’
‘Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. She has Monday and Friday off. Lays down her crayons and sometimes even takes a nap in the Wendy House. Likes a long weekend, apparently.’
‘Good for her.’
‘Well, I’m not sure Miss Hawkins sees it like that. She’s keen to instil something of a work ethic.’
Jennie made a face. ‘She’s only four, Poppy. The work ethic can wait.’ She ruffled Clemmie’s curls, and as I opened the door Clemmie ran off down to the kitchen, Archie toddling in her wake. I turned to my friend. Her eyes were shining, I noticed.
‘Well? Any news?’ I asked, aware I had quite a bit myself.
‘Well, I texted her like you said,’ she told me breathlessly, following me down the hall, ‘and she said she’d meet me at break time so long as I didn’t bring Dan.’
‘Oh! So you’ve seen her?’
‘Yes, we went to Starbucks opposite the school.’
‘And?’
I was hastening round the kitchen now, taking sausages from the fridge, putting them under the grill, grabbing a tin of sweet corn. Jennie positioned herself against the sink.
‘And … I’m convinced she’s not pregnant.’
I turned, tin opener poised. ‘Oh, thank God! She told you that?’
‘No, she barely told me anything. Just sat there stirring her hot chocolate, glaring at me. But she was so angry, Poppy. And something told me her anger stemmed from being wrongly accused; it was a sort of self-righteous rage which could only come from a position of power. She said things like –’ Jennie adopted a sneering expression – ‘So, you find a positive pregnancy test and instantly assume it’s mine, eh Jennie? Is that how your mind works? Wouldn’t that be neat? Confirm all your worst fears about me? Something to tell your friends?’
‘Oh! How hurtful.’
‘I know, horrid. But oh, Poppy, I was so pleased. I love her so much and I just don’t want her to be pregnant. I don’t care how much she lashes out at me. I went to tell her that it was absolutely her decision if she wanted to keep it and all that bollocks, like we said – but ended up not saying any of it, didn’t even embark on the little speech I’d rehearsed. I just kept staring at her furious little white face and thinking:
‘Did you say that to her?’
‘Of course I did, but she didn’t answer. There’s a certain satisfaction, I’d imagine, in my not knowing, from her point of view. She just gave me that withering look of hers and said surely it was time I marched down to the biology lab, grabbed Mr Hennessy by the lapels and slugged it out over the Bunsen burners?’
