‘Take care of my boy, won’t you?’
‘Oh, I will. You can absolutely trust me on that.’
They got into the car, and waved out of the windows all the way back along the driveway. Jake indicated and turned left into the road.
‘Thank you. You were amazing,’ he said. ‘I’ve never seen my mother be so …’
Vicious, Kate thought. Cold. Patronising. Possessive.
‘… impressed.’
She looked at him to discern a smile on his face, or a twist of the mouth indicative of held-back laughter or some discreet sign that he wasn’t being serious. There was none.
‘What?’
‘I knew she’d adore you.’
‘Wait, are you saying … you think … your mother acted in that way because shelikesme?’
Jake turned to her briefly, surprised.
‘Yes. She definitely likes you.’
Kate was about to make a joke, something to puncture the absurdity of their conversation that would make Jake admit he’d only been winding her up, and yes, wasn’t his mother awful, and no, they never had to do that again. But she stopped herself. The set of Jake’s profile warned her against it. He was simply stating the facts as he believed them. He could not see that his mother had behaved like a proprietorial harpy, and to explain it to him would require the dismantling of over thirty years of toxic maternal influence. Annabelle had wound her way into his psyche like a twisting wisteria.
‘Oh,’ Kate said finally. ‘I’m glad. I wasn’t sure that she did, to be honest.’
She chose her words with unfamiliar caution, trying to feel her way through the fog.
‘I think she can sense I’m serious about you and she’s not used to it.’
‘No?’ Kate asked, placing her hand on his knee where a few hours ago, she had seen his mother place hers. ‘What about all those manyfriendsyou’ve brought home and shown around the garden?’
He winced.
‘I don’t know what she’s talking about. I’ve only ever brought a couple of girls home and they pale in comparison to you.’
‘Do they?’
He tilted his head to look at her.
‘They do.’
He turned his eyes back to the road, and they drove for some minutes in companionable silence. She leaned forwards to turn the radio on, but just as she pressed the button, Jake spoke.
‘I love you and I want to spend the rest of my life with you,’ he said.
She stared at him and her heart thudded with hope.
‘I know you don’t want to get married,’ he added, hurriedly. It was true. Kate had told Jake from the outset that she did not want to be trapped in a patriarchal tradition, given her lack of religious faith and her feminism. He had laughed at her seriousness.
‘Fine with me,’ he’d said. ‘As luck would have it, I’ve never had ambitions to be a religiously zealous patriarch. It’d look rubbish on my CV.’
Now, in the car he said: ‘I want to have a family with you. Our very own.’
She leaned her head against his arm, feeling the smoothness of his frequently laundered shirt against her skin.
‘I want that too.’
