Back home it was time to get scientific. I sat on the bed and opened the two kits. Can be used up to four days before your period is due. The other could trump that with up to six days. But reading on, they could detect it then but might well not; you had to keep repeating the test. What a con, they knew we were all bloody desperate to know.
I opened my filo. The date of my last period was either the Saturday of the funeral gig in Kensington or the one with the christening gig in Highgate; I recalled asking Kirsty for a tampon, but at which I had no idea. I’d been miserable at both, so nothing to differentiate them there. I thought charting the previous period would help, so I waded back through the quagmire misery of post-David January. The break-up weekend on the ninth: surely I’d had one then, making the 31st January more likely if I usually had a three-week cycle. But did I? I flicked back into the previous year with its intermittent frogspawn circles. A flurry of activity in early autumn (flu?), a further spell of two-week cycles in November (tummy bug?), followed by a marathon seven-week gap and an angry circling of December 25th…
On balance it looked like the end of the month was the time to do the test. I’d just have to keep busy: there were more flamenco shows, the usual half-term trip to Jersey, a week of teaching, a final flamenco lesson. Then I’d do the test the day I was to fly out to Granada, feeling weary and nauseous with either pregnancy or disappointment.
‘Come here you… it’s been far too long.’ We squeezed each other hard and then she held my shoulders to examine me. She was still golden after her New Year holiday in Cuba.
‘You look a bit peaky, little sis. Not air sick again like the old days, surely?’
‘Naa… just a bit tired. So where’s the welcome party?’ The kids: hearty hugs then running all over the place asking for sweets from the airport shop while we dealt with the car park ticket machine.
‘Later. They’re at the zoo with Marie-Clare. Thought we’d have a bit of time to ourselves first. Crab Shack okay?’
‘Ooh yes. Starving.’
We drove off, Charlotte crawling along because she was in trouble with Simon about yet another scrape to her car. I slumped in the seat; it was the usual Jersey lurgy thing - something to do with the enveloping narrow lanes, the sea level, the return to the place of teenage dopey diffidence.
‘So how’re you doing? Have you got over David now?’
‘Yeah. I can see now that we weren’t quite… I had to try too hard.’
‘Anybody new on the horizon?’
‘Not really.’
‘It must be difficult for you to meet guys when you spend so much time with—’
‘That’s not it, I’ve told you.’ An awkward silence. We’d been through this before, it was pointless telling her how much I loved Jeremy, that the right guy would understand, does understand… ‘Simon okay?’ I asked, as if he ever wasn’t.
‘Yes, he’s fine, busier than ever…’
The top end of the Jersey property market is probably fascinating, but as usual my mind was off… What would Nando think of Simon? He couldn’t be faulted as a brother-in-law, but I couldn’t forgive him for curtailing Eddie’s dance classes. Thought it would turn him gay or something. At seven. Signed him up for Saturday tag rugby with George instead. It wouldn’t be easy bringing up a half-flamenco boy in the narrow-minded non-dancing UK…
‘Here we are.’
I got out of the car and we laughed as my skirt flew up round my waist.
‘Bloody hell! I’m fed up of this weather - being frozen, drenched and blown around.’
‘Well, you should have come with us, got some midseason warmth - makes such a difference.’ Antigua, Barbados, Cuba. Presumably somewhere beginning with D next winter. But by then I could have a one-month old baby. I grinned and shrugged.
‘Same as usual?’ she asked.
Fish and chips: heavens no. ‘Er… spinach salad for me, I think.’
‘Thought you were starving.’
‘Leaving room for pudding.’
‘Ah.’
Charlotte ordered and then rested her face in her hands, fixed me with Mum’s hazel eyes. ‘Couple of things I need to talk to you about.’
Here we go. A lovely friend is newly single.
‘The… er… not so good one first. Father. He’s been calling me.’
Every few years he would. Asking how we were doing but mainly bragging about his latest business venture, his current lady. Leaving an address that neither of us would write to.
‘He keeps calling. Says he really wants to see us. After all this time… it’s ridiculous.’
‘What did you say?’
‘What d’you think? There’s no point, we could never forgive him for what he did to Mummy.’ And what he did to her, although we hadn’t spoken about that since the night before she left to go to uni. ‘Even if we did agree to meet him, you can be sure something better would come up and he just wouldn’t show. You were too young, don’t remember.’
He must be about seventy now, I thought, his womanising and other excesses tailing off. Perhaps feeling his age at last. Looking back at his life and wondering what he’d missed, what could be repaired - a different kind of ticking clock.
‘What did he sound like?’
‘Cocky as ever. Living with some woman in Kensington probably loaded, because he says he’s pretty much retired and I can’t imagine he ever sorted out a pension. Thing is, he got quite stroppy about me not giving him your number. Said he was going to track you down. Are you ex-directory?’
‘Er… yes, I’m sure I am.’
‘But he sounded so determined… Maybe there’s some other way he can find you.’
‘Would it be that bad? Perhaps I should just get it over with, give him a call and—’
‘What? No Yolly. You don’t want him in your life, don’t even think of it.’ She sat back in her chair and smiled. ‘If you were ever thinking of moving, now would be a good time. Which sort of brings me to the next thing I wanted to talk about.’
Ah yes. My move to Jersey. Getting me away from Jeremy.
‘A job’s come up at the school for a flute and piano teacher. For September - hasn’t even been advertised yet. Eddie’s violin teacher says it’s the best school she’s ever worked for, and top rates of pay… She even knows a company that puts together groups for weddings and stuff… Say you’ll go and talk to the head of music - I told her you were going to be over and she said she’d be happy to meet you, even though it’s half-term—’
‘Charlotte! What are you doing? You know I couldn’t live here.’
‘Well, that’s the other thing, it’s brilliant timing, because the lodger in the little house in Gorey moves out at the end of June… It needs completely re-decorating, of course—’
‘But —’
‘Simon says he wouldn’t want any rent, he’d just be happy if you prettied it up and paid the bills.’
‘Yes but —’
‘Yolly, think about it. Speak to them. I could take you to see the house this afternoon, the lodger says he’ll be at work. Just don’t be too quick to say no.’
I looked out of the window: that huge expanse of beach, with earlier versions of Charlotte and Yolande playing, arguing, and supporting each other. Overlooked by the church where Charlotte and Simon got married,and where we’d wept together at Mum’s funeral. Such a small family should stay together, she was saying. If I were to have my own tiny family, that closeness and support would be… But I already had closeness and support.
‘Jeremy could visit, you could go over for your dance shows now and then… Please say you’ll at least look.’
Feeling sick, but also nervous; how was I supposed to tell the difference? I sat up in bed and rested my chin on Lem’s soft head, picked up the print-out of Early Symptoms. Definites: nausea, fatigue, frequent urination. Breast tenderness… well, sort of, but that could be due to frequent pummelling of them to check. Possibles: bloating (pistachios?), elevated body temperature (central
heating level?) and increased sensitivity to odours (but who didn’t have that in a plane?). No ‘spotting’ (unless I’d missed it) or ‘cramping’ (whatever that was). And of course no missed period - yet.
I flopped through to the bathroom. On the other hand, I could be coming down with something; George had been recovering from a tummy bug, Phoebe had run a fever. But I needed distraction to help the days flip over more quickly, and anyway some of my pupils had exams coming up. Pupils I might soon be abandoning. Another wave of nausea-nervousness: my whole life seemed to be teetering, waiting for a line on a stick to show me which way to fall.
‘Stick your jacket and gloves on, we’re off to the sixth form bench,’ Emma said, putting on hers.
‘What?’
‘You’ve got a free. That Polish girl’s in Upper Four, right? They’ve all gone off to the Science Museum.’
‘Uh. She’s got her grade five—’
‘Come in on Friday and you can take her out of my double English. Come on, let’s go. You did bring the Sadler’s Wells brochure?’
‘Er… no, sorry.’
‘Yolly! Oh well, we’ll just have to discuss the possibilities of the new drama teacher instead.’
‘What?’
‘You mean you didn’t notice? The guy in the staff room talking about the Globe Theatre trip - which will also be whisking your little musicians away this week, I’m afraid.’
Good-looking in a neat, unexciting kind of way. A luxurious speaking voice that should have made me realise who he was. Apparently he’d been in a couple of West End show ensembles, and Emma was intrigued because that meant he danced.
‘So how’s the flamenco going?’
Not well. Tears in my lesson when Alicia said ‘You’re here to dance, not just learn steps. Say something!’ Tears through Eva Yerbabuena’s show - a ‘tribute to melancholy’, for God’s sake. Flamenco had become synonymous with passion and loss. ‘Fine.’
I let her tell me about the Alhambra in Granada, even though I’d already been there with Jeremy. A friend of hers had lost her virginity to an Alhambra tour guide. The same friend whose teenage son had drowned on Brighton beach after some hi-jinks, and who’d then discovered she was pregnant.
Perhaps it was the word, because that’s when I felt it the cramping. This extra symptom seemed to tip the balance of probability, and for a moment I was so excited that I wanted to tell her. But the bell would ring soon; there wasn’t time to explain. I’d leave it until I was sure.
But suddenly I was sure. Sure I wasn’t. Because as we stood up to walk around, I was aware of what the cramping - and the other symptoms - had been trying to tell me. It was all over the place; I’d been caught out like a thirteen-year-old. Emma gave me a hug and put me in a cab.
I dashed in to the flat as quickly and quietly as I could; I didn’t want Jeremy coming out and asking why I’d come home early. I ran a bath, took off my clothes and lay in it. So much blood; maybe it wasn’t just a period but a miscarriage. I lay in the bath. Tears, pain and blood: on and on, there was no way of stopping them.
A phone call. Another. A knock on the living room door, too faint to be real or relevant. I closed my eyes, let the water cool around me, drifted. Until I was back in the sea at Beauport, floating on my back like Mum had shown me how to do. If you can do that, she’d said, you won’t drown. And I was saying to the boy who’d jumped in beside me, just lie like this, then you don’t have to drown and break your mother’s heart…
‘Yol?’ A loud knocking on the door. ‘Answer me, please.’ He sounded angry, as he should. I’d stolen and lost his baby. ‘Speak to me or I’m opening this door!’ Now he was Jeremy, not Nando. I opened my eyes, cold and confused. Then he burst in and our eyes met.
‘Get out!’
He shut the door. ‘You look like a ghost - come out of there.’
I steadied myself against the wall and waited for the stars and blackness to subside, put on my dressing gown.
‘Yol?’
‘Yes, I’m coming.’
He was pressed to the door waiting for me. ‘God, you’re freezing - what the hell were you doing?’ He studied my face. ‘Didn’t you…? You had me really…’
‘Just girl problems…’ I leant into him, the pain bending me over.
‘I know, Emma rang, but she thought there was also something else…’
‘Well, you know… one thing and another… I’m still waiting for spring, aren’t I?’ I tried to smile.
‘Yes, and it will come, Yol.’ He pulled back my duvet. ‘Get into bed for a bit - where’s your hot water bottle?’ I pointed to my bedside table and before I could change my mind he’d got it out, the Boots bag falling out after it. But he pushed the bag back in and went off to the kitchen. ‘And chocolate caliente?’
Chapter 7
calmarse vpr to calm down
Raining, and by the look of it had been for some while; there were torrents of muddy water gushing through every little crease in the hills above Malaga. Why hadn’t we considered the weather when choosing my course? I could have been sitting in a sunny plaza with a freshly squeezed orange juice in Seville. But oh God no, imagine walking around and seeing posters for Nando’s show everywhere.
Anyway, it had to be Granada. Enjoy it, Ángel had said in his email, I know it well, my grandparents live in Monachil, not far. He was Spanish after all. Half granadino in fact; something we could talk about when we met up. It was back to the original plan - the only heart-safe, responsible way for me to have a flamenco baby.
I crossed the Plaza Nueva and followed the cobbled road beside a roaring river Darro, taking in the aroma of burnt charcoal, leather and incense. I was drawn into one of the gift shops by the Moorish lamps and silky clothes, coming out with a couple of exercise books with an Alhambra tile design on the front. Then there were the terraces of the Paseo de Los Tristes, where I considered buying a café con leche and sitting looking over at the Alhambra for a little while. The truth was, I didn’t feel up to dancing; I’d had six days of trying to rid myself of energy-sapping thoughts, six days of Jeremy stuffing food down me and making me go jogging, but my body wasn’t convinced.
But I had less than half an hour to get to the school, so I forced myself up the hill towards the Albayzín area. I showed my photocopied hand-drawn map to a man with a guitar on his back, who pointed towards a steep narrow alley. I stomped up it, trying not to slip on the large cobbles, jollying myself along by imagining Joaquín Cortés and his leather-jacketed gun-carrying Gitano gang loping down the alley towards me. Eventually I stood panting in front of the huge brown doors of Escuela Carlota.
I pushed open the door into a small courtyard of plants and noticeboards, then went through a low-lit reception area to a white cave room - where everybody else was already sitting down listening to Carlota introduce her school in Spanish and perfectly enunciated English. As I expected, my fellow students were mostly very young and very female, with just two boys - English, but long-haired and tight-jeaned like the flamenco guitarists they hoped to be. Then we were asked to help clear away the chairs because we were in the dance studio for the beginners’ technique class, and I had just a few minutes to get my shoes on.
Braceo: I was already struggling, wincing in the mirror at my flailing arms compared to the floating sea anemones of my four fellow students. Then taconeo: I’d done these feet with Alicia, albeit slower for accuracy - but the track-suited bailaora wanted them in double-time. I cheated and kept them in singles, which had me ending with the wrong foot. This was followed by arms with the footwork - but not for me. Then she wanted us to do the steps from one end of the narrow room to the other, one by one. I felt a rise of tearful petulance: this was not a beginners’ class. I stopped and said I was tired.
I sorted out my pink nose and eyes in the ladies’ and then went winding up and down all the little staircases and roof terraces trying to find my Spanish class.
‘Sorry I’m late - had a dance class and then couldn’t fin
d—’
The teacher smiled but held up her hands to stop me. ‘En español!’ she exclaimed, and said she and my two fellow students were happy to hear all about my problemas as long as I spoke in Spanish. We had to interview each other and report what we had learnt to the rest of the class. We rambled and laughed, but by the end of the lesson we had covered two forms of past tense; Japanese weddings; scarcity of work for non-Spaniards living in Granada and a clutch of expressions for skint; and friendships with gay men and so-called beginners’ flamenco classes. According to the fumbled entrevistas, teacher Juana was thirty-nine and unmarried, but she looked happy with her lot; perhaps she had a gorgeous granadino with whom she had plans for the future.
Liz, about my age and living in Granada with her English partner, invited me back to her low-ceilinged town house for sandwiches in their hidden courtyard garden.
Then it was time for the Flamenco ‘choreography’ class. In the changing room I learnt that the Finnish girls had been learning for two years. Amparo had taken lessons ‘on and off’ for some while, and it was generally agreed that her Spanish blood gave her a head start. The frosty Scottish woman claimed to be a beginner, but Amparo pointed to her legs and feet and made her confess that she’d been teaching ballet and tap for twenty years. They all went off to practise before the lesson, but I decided to save myself, walk around barefoot enjoying the cold stone floor on my already aching feet. Then I hobbled out to the drinks machine.
Two guitarists sat near the heater in the reception area: one with a bushy pony-tail and a hooked nose, the other haughtily handsome with long black hair. A third man stood in front of the heater wearing a shabby black coat, rubbing his hands. The ungainly clattering of my shoes as I came out of the changing room had the guitarists looking over briefly before carrying on with their conversation.
The drinks machine had a number of red lights by the sugared tea or coffee options; it was going to have to be hot chocolate. I put my money in and pressed the button. Chocolate spurted into a hole. I put a cup in the machine and tried again. A pale green soup. Bloody thing. My last coins, an alternative Chocolate button. Nothing. I gave the machine a thump.
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