It Could Have Been Her(39)

* * *



Jane is about to leave the house when her phone buzzes once more. It’s an email notification and she quickly clicks it open when she sees it is from Oliver Bloom, the cheesemaker man from the B-movie that Jessamine made back in the early 2000s.

Hi. V. mysterious! Yeah, I remember Jessamine. Between you and me we had a thing. Brief. Weird. I could tell you things. Here’s my number. Give me a call. But make it later, maybe midday?



Jane puts a reminder into her phone to call Oliver at midday. She does not subscribe to all the brain fog nonsense that is continuously spouted about menopausal women. She is, she is quite sure, sharp as a pin; HRT and lots of fresh air. No fog whatsoever. But she does find it’s usually a good idea to set things down in writing, to pin things into the matrix to make sure they don’t slip away. Chances are she will remember to call Oliver at midday with or without the automated reminder, but it really doesn’t hurt to set one anyway.

She finds her sunglasses, fills a bottle with water, adds a slick of SPF to her nose, and heads out toward the tube station.





chapter thirty-two


STUART, NINE YEARS EARLIER

I ask Jessamine about the clown mask a few days later. “What’s with this?” I ask, holding it up toward her. I see her flinch, very slightly, and then shrug.

“It belonged to my brother.”

“I thought you were an only child.”

“Yes, well. I’m not. I have a brother. His name is Jasper. I haven’t seen him since I was nineteen.”

“Where is he now?”

“I have no idea. I moved away from home for a few months. When I came back, he was gone. Disappeared.”

“Whoa,” I say. “That’s heavy. I mean, he’s your brother. If my brother disappeared, I’d—”

“Well, yes,” she interjects sharply, “I’m sure your brother is a very different kettle of fish to mine. My brother was… well.” She nods toward the old mask in my hands. “He was weird. I didn’t like him very much. And I really, really don’t miss him. Not at all.”

“So, what was the deal with this thing?” I point at the mask.

She sighs. “He had this obsession with the circus. From when he was a child. My parents took us to the circus on the Heath one year and it started then. He wouldn’t stop talking about it; he’d go and hang around there during the day, watching them all.” She gives a little shudder. “He had this sort of alter-ego thing going on.”

“Oh my God.” I laugh. “A clown alter ego; sounds like the stuff of nightmares.” I hold the mask up to my face and do a stupid clown impersonation: “Hello, my name’s Stewpot the Clown.” I tip myself giddily from foot to foot, but immediately the mask is snatched away from my face and out of my hands, and I am confronted with Jessamine’s furious face.

“Not. Funny,” she exclaims darkly. “Not even slightly funny.”

I defer to her anger and shrug. “Sorry.”

I see her soften. “It’s fine. It’s just… it’s complicated. All of it.” She forces a smile. “And thank you,” she says, “for everything you’re doing for me. For us. It’s good having you here.”

“What about your dad?” I find myself asking, and I want to kick myself the moment it’s out of my mouth.

She grimaces. “What about him?”

“Nothing,” I say. “It’s just, you never talk about him.”

She shakes her head slightly.

“It’s fine,” I say. “We don’t need to talk about him.”

“Thank you,” she says; then she turns and puts the clown mask back into the dresser drawer.



* * *



She asks me to take Daisy to school the next morning. She says she thinks she might be coming down with something. Daisy is perfectly happy for me to walk with her. Unlike her grandmother, and to some extent, her mother, Daisy seems to quite like me. I clip on Hugo’s lead and grab a raincoat from the pegs by the back door, then wait while Daisy zips up her own raincoat and collects her rucksack and her water bottle. The rain is light but wet and Hugo stops a couple of times as we walk to shake out his coat.

“What do you know about your grandfather?” I ask.

“Grandad Allen?”

“Yes. Your mum’s dad.”

“Not a lot. Mum and Grandma never talk about him.”

“Not at all?”

“No. Only in terms of missing having a man about the place. Complaining that the place is a mess. That things need fixing.”

I nod. That has definitely been a recurring theme in my brief experience. “And your uncle? Jasper? Did you know him?”

“No. He disappeared before I was born too.”

“When your mum was pregnant?”

“I think. I’m not sure. It’s like nobody really wanted to meet me.” She laughs drily.

I smile. “Their loss,” I say. She doesn’t say anything, but I can see from the slight softening of her facial features that she appreciates the concept.

“And did you ever meet your great-grandmother?”

“Why are you asking so many questions?”