Jake nods.
‘She’s had it explained to her. She understands. I don’t think she particularly wants to come back. Too many uncomfortable truths.’
Kate lifts her head and brushes a strand of hair away from her forehead. Her throat is dry.
‘You’re right. I need to be strong.’
‘We both do,’ he says. ‘And we can be because we have each other, OK?’
They drive up at the weekend. It is a strange echo of the first time Kate met Jake’s parents. Once again, she takes inordinate care with her clothes, without wanting it to seem as though she has. Once again, she feels a nervousness in her chest that she is at pains to ignore and deny. Once again, she rehearses possible conversations in her head. But this time, they are conversations with Marisa, not Annabelle and Chris.
Jake’s parents have been in regular contact since taking Marisa in as their unofficial lodger. They have been unquestioning in their support. Annabelle has not complained about the situation once.
‘Are you sure we’re not imposing?’ Kate said to her on the phone a few nights earlier. ‘I’m so sorry to have lumbered you with this.’
‘Not at all. Marisa is no trouble now. She’s actually very pleasant.’
‘Oh good,’ Kate said, surprised. ‘Thank you. I know you had your doubts about the surrogacy route, but—’
‘Whatever I felt about it is in the past,’ Annabelle cut her off. ‘It’s family first and that’s all there is to it.’
Kate was unsettled when she ended the call. She put it down to the fact that she was unused to Annabelle being so kind, and tried to allow herself to be comforted by this new facet of the older woman’s character. Jake had told her they wanted to do it.
‘That’s the thing you have to understand about my mother,’ he said. ‘Family is everything to her. She sees you as family now.’
Kate wasn’t sure that was the case. To her mind, Annabelle was doing all this for Jake, not for her. But, she reasoned, the motivation didn’t matter as long as the outcome was the same.
In the car to Gloucestershire, Kate and Jake don’t speak. They’re listening instead to the audiobook of a new novel that has just been longlisted for a prestigious literary prize, but Kate keeps losing the thread of the plot. Jake takes one hand off the steering wheel and rests it on her thigh. She concentrates on the blur of field and hedgerow passing by her window.
When they get to the house, Annabelle opens the door and gives them both a quick hug. She is wearing an overflowing linen blouse,black velvet leggings with stirrup straps looping underneath each foot, and quilted ballerina pumps. Small gold and ruby earrings. Her make-up, as ever, is impeccable.
‘You look fantastic,’ Kate says, warmly. She is aware that she is trying to charm because she knows that she owes Annabelle now, and that the debt will never fully be repaid.
‘Oh,’ Annabelle says. ‘Really? Thank you.’
There are no reciprocal compliments. The Annabelle that Kate saw on her doorstep a fortnight ago, the one stripped of her usual armour, pale-faced and worried for both of them, who was simultaneously capable and compassionate, has vanished.
‘Jakey, you look tired, darling.’ Annabelle says, leading them through to the kitchen where the table has been set with the ‘casual’ crockery set and patterned paper napkins.
‘I’m fine, Mum. How’s she been?’
Annabelle leans against the Aga, spreading her hands across the silver railing.
‘Marisa?’
Who else? Kate thinks.
‘She’s doing really well.’ There is an unexpected softness to Annabelle’s voice. ‘She’s been good as gold, really.’
‘That’s a relief,’ Kate says. ‘Can we see her?’
She isn’t sure why she’s asking. This is why they have come, after all.
Annabelle looks offended, as though she expected more preamble, a little foreplay before the act itself.
‘Of course,’ she says, her voice clipped. ‘I’d leave it for a few minutes. Chris is with her now, doing his thing. Now,’ Annabelle looks at them brightly. ‘Drinks?’
She makes them each a gin and tonic, one with less gin for Jake, who has to remind her he is driving (‘Oh you don’t need to worry about that once you’ve had a meal,’ Annabelle says airily). They sit on the L-shaped window seat, the cushions made out of the same chintz pattern that dominates the sitting room. Kate sips her gin and tonic, frustrated by this social charade. She suspects Annabelle is rather enjoying her role as gatekeeper.
