by Jan Jones
Dear God, did my heart thump then! Out of the mouth of babes or what? "No," I said, too rapidly, too firmly and with a slightly high laugh. "One is quite enough, don't you think?"
The shock jerked me back to my senses, though. God almighty, what on earth did I think I was doing? Casually strolling along like this with the unsuspecting father of my child. Perspiration prickled across my back. I wasn't in full command of my faculties at all. It was just as well Jean was going to be present or goodness only knew what I'd let spill in the giddiness of the moment.
Jean. She was the next hurdle. I had to admit I was less convinced of her likely delight at seeing me again than Mark was. We’d never particularly gelled in the old days, even though, since my own pregnancy experience, I now understood why.
However, it seemed I’d wronged her. Jean was pleased. Unlike me, she was in her element as a wife and mother, never happier than when dispensing advice on all child-related matters, and busily useful on the PTA and nursery committees. She was the epitome of a neat blonde earth-mother, queen of the PTA cake stall and baby sitting rota.
“I don’t know how you do it,” I said over tea and home-made flapjacks. “I’ve only been unemployed a fortnight and I’m already at screaming point. Even the wasteland of the Light Entertainment department was better than chasing job applications. Did you hear the BBC had dispensed with my services, Mark?”
Mark grinned from his position on the sofa where his two older girls were cuddled one either side of him reading him their school storybooks, a page at a time, alternately. “More fool them," he said. "I wonder... I might be able to help. The tiny indie I’ve been moonlighting for have been let down and need a production coordinator as soon as possible. They can’t pay much, mind.”
“You life-saver. I can start tomorrow. Have you got a phone number for them?”
That was the start of my career with the independents. It was also the start of a lifelong friendship between Ellie and Tori. Rarely was one of them seen without the other throughout their childhood and adolescence.
Jean was inclined to fuss about this as they grew up. “It’s not healthy, being so fixated on each other,” she said. “Suppose they turn out to be gay?”
“If they are, I couldn’t wish for nicer in-laws,” I replied. This wasn't quite what Jean wanted to hear, but she was used to me by then and just glared and muttered that I wasn't taking it seriously.
The months went by and I kept pushing to the back of my mind the circumstances of Ellie's conception. I knew I should tell Mark, and I was going to, of course I was, but the thought of the upset it would cause between our families filled me with such absolute horror that I quailed before it. Being completely honest with myself, I also really dreaded the prospect of losing Mark's friendship just when I had it back again. This was selfish, and it did bother me, but having him in my life was keeping me sane and I was clear sighted enough to know he would always choose Jean and the girls over me, no matter what his personal feelings were. He'd made a promise, he had commitments, just as I had. We were still honourable people.
Just after Skye started school, there was even more reason not to rock the boat. Mark was also made redundant. He'd secured one research contract to tide himself over. Now he was panicking about where the next one was coming from.
"Well..." I said, eyeing him speculatively.
"Well what? I'm at my wit's end, Caro. It's not like it was with you and Blake. We don't have any other money coming it at all apart from what I earn."
"Well..." I repeated, and broached my big idea. Which was, quite simply, to start our own company. Him and me, together. It would make us more visible in the industry marketplace. It would keep more of the contract money in our own hands.
The thing was, I'd discovered I really liked not having the restraints of the BBC around me and that I was even better at my job than I'd thought. I suspected Mark would be the same. Production assistance and research assistance were often needed together, and when they weren't, we could work on separate projects.
The independent company I'd been working for most recently had had an idea for a quiz show that could use us both, but they didn't want to bear the whole cost if it didn't take. If we bought into it, it would be a good place to begin.
Surprisingly, Blake was all in favour of us going solo. To be honest, I think he was keen on anything that kept me busy. I got in the way at home. "You need a strong name," he said. "Something catchy. Let me think... LineMark? It's a concatenation of Caroline and Mark. It sounds trustworthy. It'll look good on the credits."
"You're the man with the words," said Mark easily.
"You'll need an office." Jean was very firm on this point. She had her own routines, her own coteries, and it put her out terribly with Mark being either under her feet or working with all his papers spread out on the dining room table. "It's more professional," she added.
I agreed with her. I didn't want to work from home any more than Blake wanted to have me there when he was pacing the house writing. I needed people around me. I needed the radio on or a TV monitor playing. I needed bustle, telephones, fax machines and clattering typewriters. We wouldn't get that for a while, but we could make a start. Camden Town had cheap, disused warehouses, an NW1 postcode, easy access from Finchley on the Northern line, and equally simple travel from there into town. Mark and I put our bank loans together, rented a ground floor suite, installed a phone and hired a secretary. Then we bought business cards, designed ourselves some headed stationery, and we were off.
Our first year was very scary indeed, but the quiz show was a success, a second series was commissioned, other work came in and by the time Ellie and Tori had started primary school, we were cautiously expanding. We did ask Jean whether she wanted to come and do part-time secretarial stuff in the front office, but she looked askance at us and said this was the first free time she'd had in God knows how many years and she was too busy going to the gym and joining dance classes and generally regaining her fitness to go to work.
When she later told Mark she'd got a job on the reception at the local leisure centre - just as our workload exploded and we could have really done with some extra help - he heroically sealed his lips and said nothing.
Lost in memories, I hadn't realised how long I'd been sitting in the darkening lounge. I rose stiffly from my armchair, put back Jilly's letters, tucked away the set of David Bowie postcards I'd bought from the V&A as a reminder and got ready for bed. Blake hadn't returned. He'd be staying at his club overnight. He'd started doing it years ago, saying it would save disturbing me and the children when he came in after a late recording session. I'd thought at the time it was probably a peace-making gesture following my getting so fed up with having au pairs in the house and putting my foot down about not having any more. It was all very well him being patriarchal and lord of all he surveyed, but it wasn't good for the kids being cooped up here all the time and I'd hated the feeling of being a cipher in my own home. I'd not made a fuss on the first occasion when Blake stayed in town, and the arrangement had continued. It was convenient on many levels. On any awards evening, for example, when he failed once again to run out as the winner after being shortlisted, it was especially convenient.
Blake was not a good loser, no matter how many times he put on an above-it-all face for the world at large and said what an honour it was that his work was considered one of the top three (or five or seven) dramas of the year.
I remember one lunchtime at the BBC, soon after we'd got married. Blake had been shortlisted for something reasonably prestigious and one of the top brass had paused by the table where we were eating. He'd congratulated Blake on flying the flag for the BBC drama and had added that Blake was almost becoming a resident in these media awards and it was nice to have a reliable BBC presence.
I'd swelled with reflected praise, which just shows how little I'd known. Blake had thanked the man urbanely, but underneath he'd been furious. "I don't write them so the bloody BBC can have a rel
iable presence," he'd ground out, mashing his cottage pie to oblivion with his fork. "I write them because the stories are there."
"Yes, of course, but the shortlist publicity can't harm when it comes to commissioning the next one, can it?" I said. "One has to live, after all."
He'd looked at me as if I was a stranger (which, of course, I was). "My work is commissioned because it's good," he said coldly.
I'd back-pedalled, it being a bit soon in our relationship to have an argument on the practicalities of life in the middle of the BBC canteen. "You know that and I know that," I said, "but accountants only see the figures, not the art."
"Money isn't everything, Caro."
I prudently took a large bite of my quiche, on the grounds that I'd been brought up not to talk with my mouth full.
I never went to awards evenings with him. The first time the question had arisen, he was up for a short-drama award for a dark, twisted story of obsession. It had got good reviews, but I'd found it unwatchable, so I was thankful for the excuse of being pregnant and having Skye to look after not to go.
I commiserated with Blake the next morning. He shrugged, telling me he could live with it. Apparently, he'd left early, livid with the judges' obtuseness, but on letting himself into the flat, he'd seen me and Skye curled up together fast asleep and had known he was the real winner. It was one of the nicest things he's ever said to me.
In fact, I wasn't keen on any of Blake's dramas. They were the sort of clever, psychological, uncomfortable pieces that were much in vogue at the time, but they made my skin crawl. I let it be known that I admired him enormously for writing them, but that I didn't think I was brainy enough to appreciate them properly. He smiled and said I had other attributes that made me desirable and not to concern myself about it. After all, he added kindly, he rarely watched the sort of shows I worked on, but that didn't mean he couldn't appreciate the skill that went into running them.
My brow creased now as I slowly got ready for bed. I'd been thinking Blake and I had grown apart, but when I looked back properly, we'd never really been soul-mates in the first place. All we'd ever had in common had been the children. With them grown up and having moved away to homes of their own, we didn't even have that any more.
We still shared the house, of course, and decades of memories. We also had a social life and an assumption of couple-ness. Without my work, though, my actual life here was empty. Were we the only ones like this? How many other people stayed together out of habit? Jean had, it seemed. I'd been flabbergasted when she told me she was going out to Portugal with Fernando. I didn't see how anyone could possibly get bored with Mark - I hadn't, in all the years we'd been working together - but she'd said there was no excitement with him, no feeling of being cherished and she'd been having an affair for ages.
"We had the children too young," she explained airily. "You know I didn't have any 'me space' until Tori went to school." She paused. "Mind you, at the time she was my master stroke."
"Sorry?" I replied.
She'd given me a look, half guilty, half triumphant. "Seven year itch."
I shook my head. "You've lost me." They'd been married for considerably longer than seven years.
"I thought Mark was getting the seven year itch," she explained. "You can always tell, can't you? I panicked. Well, I wasn't trained for anything, was I? I'd had Lydia straight from school. All I knew about was running a house and bringing up children. So I got pregnant again. That stopped him straying."
I must have gaped at her. "Oh, come on, Caro," she said impatiently. "Don't tell me you've never done anything less than perfect to keep your marriage going."
"I... no," I said.
Jean looked at me in disbelief and changed the subject to how she knew Fernando wasn't perfect, but at least he wasn't bloody polite to her all the time.
I let it wash over me, stunned. Mostly I was thinking what a waste, what a waste, what a waste of all our years. But I still didn't do anything about it because I'd made that promise to Blake.
Now, I wondered. The reason I'd never had to resort to desperate measures like Jean was because Blake had never shown the slightest inclination to leave me. Why not? Why had he been attracted to me in the first place? We were so very unalike. Unless that's what he wanted, of course - a busy, bustling livewire as a contrast to his cerebral, orderly life. He was always the one in charge though. He allowed me my flamboyant cushions, but kept the walls magnolia. He put up with a modicum of clutter, but confined it to a corner of each room. He came to my family gatherings (occasionally with a long-suffering air), but he didn't instigate them. And yet... and yet we rubbed along. We might not take an interest in each other's jobs, but we respected them. Blake had certainly always had my welfare at heart - witness that time he vetoed the suggestion that I should work on a documentary being made about Alessandro's commune out in Italy.
"No, Caro," he'd said. "It will bring it all back. You'll get terribly upset, thinking about Jilly."
I'd fingered the letter. "Alessandro says we can all go out, you and the children as well, have a bit of a holiday. He'd like to see Skye."
Blake had looked appalled. "It would upset Skye even more than it would you! No, Caro, thank him for the thought and walk away. Send him another photograph."
So that's what I'd done, but I still think Blake was wrong. Skye hadn't even been a year and a half when he'd left Italy, and he'd always known about Jilly and that I'd adopted him. He might have been distressed by me getting teary when we were out there, but that was all. As for me, sufficient time had passed by then that I'd have been able to see the Castello though Jilly's eyes.
It wasn't worth a row though. I declined the job and we went to Cornwall as usual for our family holiday. And even when Blake went off on his climbing weeks without us, I'd respected his concerns and not taken the children to the Castello by myself.
Once upon a time, I'd thought there would be so much more to life than a succession of small interactions, that there would be more to look back on than a long list of compromises.
I sighed. And that, finally, was why I'd been reluctant to visit those early memories today. I'd never dreamt that keeping promises would be so draining. But there you are. I could have changed my circumstances, but I didn't. I'd made my choice. I'd failed the girl I was.
My gaze fell on the photographs on my dressing table.
Except for the children.
I smiled, my heart lightening. It was true. The children were a triumph.
CHAPTER SEVEN
I still remember the day Skye told me he was gay. It was such a relief to have it out in the open. I’d guessed which way things were going for some time, of course, and had tried to let him know I was fine with it. I couldn't say it in as many words - not until he'd said it first - but I consciously projected a tolerant attitude whenever same-sex relationships were shown on television, mentioned in the newspapers or came up in general conversation. It turned out Skye wasn't at all worried about my reaction, but he was terrified of telling Blake.
“Dad gets so weird about things when they don’t happen like he expects them to,” he said, having finally come into the office after Sixth Form College one day to blurt it out.
“This is true," I replied, remembering several explosive episodes, "but all he’s ever wanted is for you to be happy.”
Skye slanted a look at me remarkably reminiscent of Jilly. "Happy and successful," he corrected, "and better than anyone else."
"There is that," I allowed.
Skye moved restlessly about the room. “And he always thinks he knows best exactly how Ellie and I should be happy and successful and better than anyone else. Do you know he's made her a revision timetable already for her GCSEs? He's going to go mental when he finds out she's lost it.”
“I have known your sister for fifteen years. I took a copy. Stop changing the subject. Skye, darling, I can't do this for you. You’ll have to tell Dad yourself, man to man, in your own words. No trimmings, no ex
cuses, just how it is. He’ll appreciate that.” I paused. “You can give him your mock A-level results at the same time.”
Skye had laughed, throwing his head back just like Jilly always used to do. “I do love you, Mum. Are you nearly finished? Can I have a lift home?”
“You mean, can you practice driving my car home? Go and put the L-plates on, then. I’ll be with you in ten minutes.”
"Thanks." Still he'd fidgeted. “Is Mark in? I might try out my words on him first.”
He wandered down the passage and I heard Mark’s door open. Like a conscientious mother, I didn’t listen, but I couldn’t fail to hear Mark’s reply.
“At bloody last. Maybe you’ll be happier with yourself now. Well done on your mocks, by the way. Caro told me. Listen, Skye, these Schools of Architecture you're looking at - check out the social side as well as the course content, okay? Some places aren't as sympathetic as others.”
"I will. I'm including some looking-around time on the open days. Thanks, Mark."
Blake took longer to come to terms with the news, but I'd known he'd accept it. In Blake's eyes, despite those explosive episodes, Skye had rarely put a foot wrong his whole life. He probably thought he'd chosen his sexual orientation deliberately to save Blake from ever having to lose Skye to a daughter-in-law.
That being the case, I was honestly shocked a few months later to discover that Blake's next TV drama featured a troubled gay relationship as the central theme.
Skye shrugged, resigned, when I indignantly pointed it out to him. "I expected that. He always does it, hadn't you noticed? That Christmas when Laura and Darren had that huge fight at Granny's and Darren was effing and blinding about the cost of Laura's dress and Laura was screaming at the top of her voice detailing every single thing he'd done wrong during their entire marriage - all that went into Thread of Jade.
"No! Honestly?"
"Yes. Didn't you watch it?"
I made a face. "I never do. Give me a nice game show any day."