The voice was clear, imperious.
‘Yes.’
‘It’s Annabelle here, Jake’s mother.’
‘Yes. I know.’
Annabelle laughed sharply and Kate realised she had been rude.
‘How are you?’ she said, her voice assuming a faux cheeriness. ‘It’s lovely to talk to you!’
‘It’s nice to talk to you too, Kate, and to put a voice to the name I’ve been hearing so much about. I suppose you and Jake have been …’ there was a slight but meaningful pause ‘…courtingfor, what, three months or so now?’
‘Actually it’s six, but—’
‘Six! Goodness!’
Kate looked at Jake, who was leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed, a light frown across his forehead. She wondered if he had deliberately shortened the length of their relationship so as not to make his mother feel threatened.
‘And you’re spending so much time together,’ Annabelle continued. ‘You always seem to be at his flat when I call.’
‘Well, I …’ So Jake hadn’t told his mother that they were living together. ‘Yes,’ she concluded, weakly.
‘Listen, I’ve got to dash as there’s a paella on the stove, but I was just saying to Jakey that we’d love to have you guys down for lunch one weekend. Whatever suits you. I know how busy you young people are, so you choose a suitable date and we’ll work around you. Except the twentieth. I can’t do the twentieth because of the choral society. And actually not the thirteenth either, but any other date would bewonderful.’
‘Thank you,’ Kate said, even though this was her least favourite kind of invitation. There was no way of coming up with an excuse unless someone offered a specific date. ‘That would be lovely.’
‘Great. Looking forward to it.’
The silence stretched out between them for slightly too long. Kate looked at her feet at the end of the bed. She was wearing knitted brown socks. Beyond them, she could make out the tops of the trees in the park and a thin trail of reddish-pink cloud.
‘Could you pass me back to Jakey?’
‘Oh yes, of course, sorry.’
She handed the phone over. Jake raised his eyebrows, but she turned away from him and pretended to read her magazine. Kate hated having to meet the parents. It was why she had never suggested a similar thing to Jake. Her own parents were perfectly nice, quiet, Tory-voting, semi-detached-house kind of people, but they were largely irrelevant to who she was now. They didn’t understand her and she didn’t understand them and both parties were respectful of this. She mistrusted adults who could not invent themselves away from their family units. Shedidn’t see why she had to obey the rules of convention by traipsing to the countryside and tugging her forelock at posh Annabelle and mousey Chris simply because she chose to pursue a relationship with their son.
The bed dipped as Jake came to lie next to her. She felt his body slot into hers, his knees bending into the backs of hers. He kissed her neck.
‘Is that OK?’ he asked. ‘I know it’s the kind of thing you loathe but I really appreciate it.’
Her shoulders softened.
‘Mum will love you. I just know it.’
She turned to him and kissed his mouth.
‘I’ll do it for you.’
And she was as good as her word.
Three weeks later, they drove to Tewkesbury. The car had been their first serious joint purchase, with Jake scanning theAutoTraderwebsite for days before he found a suitable option: a silver Volkswagen Polo with a reasonable amount of miles on the clock, being sold for £2,000 because of a scratch on the front which neither of them cared about. The description had alerted them to the fact that the car had only ever been handled by ‘women drivers’, which Kate found hilarious.
‘Can we email them and ask whatkindof women they are?’ she said, scratching the back of Jake’s head in the way he liked.
‘What sort of woman would you refuse to buy a car from?’ he asked, smiling.
‘A fallen one. A loose one. One who wears too much Lycra and smokes fags out of the passenger side of her best friend’s ride.’
