The Secrets We Left Behind (26 page)

Jo couldn’t concentrate. She didn’t have a shift at the pub today so she was supposed to be painting some shells for Eve, but she’d barely slept and now she
was just sitting in the thinking room, going over and over the previous night. She could hardly believe what had happened, and as she relived it in her mind, her feelings swung violently back and
forth: one minute, she felt the most delicious thrill at the memory; the next, she was engulfed by a sense of miserable, sickening guilt.

And what if she was pregnant? She groaned aloud. Seagulls were shrieking outside the window, and for a moment the sound stirred in her a powerful longing for home, for the sandy beach at Newquay
with the noisy herring gulls that woke her early every morning. They’d driven her mad there just as they did here, and many people regarded them as vermin; ‘sky rats’, Mr Rundle
called them. But somehow the fact that Hastings had this one thing in common with Newquay made her feel nostalgic for her home town.

She lit a cigarette. Even if she wasn’t pregnant, there was still Eve to worry about. The idea of deceiving Eve was unthinkable, but on the other hand, how could she tell her? She just
couldn’t believe what Scott had said, that Eve really wouldn’t mind.

A seagull alighted on the windowsill and looked in at her with a malevolent stare, as if it knew what she’d done. She stubbed out her cigarette and lit another. Scott didn’t appear
to feel remotely guilty. He’d wanted to sleep with her in her room last night, but she’d refused. He’d looked disappointed but then shrugged, told her to sleep well and loped off
to his and Eve’s room along the hall. When she’d gone down to the kitchen this morning, he was already in there, so she’d crept back upstairs before he spotted her and had only
gone back in to make her tea and toast once he was out in the garden sawing wood he’d found on a skip for the box he was making.

There was nothing covering the many windows in the thinking room, and the sun coming through the glass turned the room into a greenhouse. She picked up her mug and cigarettes and went out into
the relative cool of the landing, an instant relief from the relentless late-morning heat. She could still hear Scott working in the garden, and was about to go downstairs when the sound of sawing
stopped and she heard voices. Eve was home. A knot of misery tightened inside her. If only she could go back twenty-four hours and start again. She stood on the landing, listening intently, but she
couldn’t make out what they were saying. There was a pause at one point, and she had the powerful sense that they were kissing. Then she heard the basement door open and close and the sound
of Eve’s footsteps coming along the hall.

‘Jo.’ Eve smiled and put her arms around Jo in that familiar, comforting way. ‘Scott told me what happened, and I know you’re feeling bad about it, but don’t, Jo.
Please don’t.’

She didn’t say anything. Eve’s hair smelled hot, and not of the sea like it usually did, but of trains and traffic and Trafalgar Square. ‘It’s only bodies, after all. Why
shouldn’t we share our bodies for pleasure?’

Jo pulled away and looked at her. ‘But don’t you feel. . . betrayed? I mean, I’m supposed to be your friend.’

Eve laughed. ‘Betrayed? Of course not, you silly thing! I might feel that way if you’d lied to me, but how could I feel betrayed by the truth? And you
are
my friend.
It’s like I keep telling you, me and Scott, we don’t . . .’

‘I know, you don’t own each other.’

‘That’s right, we don’t. Jo, sex is a beautiful thing; it’s something we should share. I’m not saying we should sleep with any Tom, Dick or Harry who comes along,
but why not share it with special people in our lives?’

‘I just . . . I’m not . . .’

‘Jo, what are you so upset about? It’s okay.’ She reached up and wiped away the tear that had leaked out of Jo’s eye. ‘Don’t you believe me?’

Jo turned and ran out of the kitchen and up to her room. They were mad, Eve and Scott; absolutely crazy. They were just like those hippies that used to come to Cornwall for the solstice, with
their Afghan coats and bells around their necks and flowers painted on their skin. She remembered walking through the park once when the hippies were having a picnic; they were all bare-chested,
even the women, and one of the men was sitting between two of them with an arm round each one, his fingers idly playing with their breasts as he kissed first one, then the other. The young Jo had
been shocked.
Peace, man; make love, not war.
But that was 1969; it was all a bit outdated now, wasn’t it? She crawled onto her bed and stared up at the ceiling, watching the dust
motes dance in the sunlight. Was it possible that Eve really, truly didn’t mind? Even if she didn’t, surely she was a little disappointed? Like her mum had been disappointed in her when
she’d been unable to stop herself from taking one of the butterfly cakes from the table half an hour before her birthday party started. She must have only been about eight or nine, because
there hadn’t been many birthday parties after that, and although she knew now that it had more to do with her parents splitting up than with her own behaviour, she’d always felt that
there must be something intrinsically greedy about her, something that compelled her to take things to satisfy her own desires, whether she had permission to take them or not. She fell into a
fitful, sweaty doze. When she woke, her shirt was stuck to her back and sweat was trickling down her chest. The thought of going downstairs made her stomach flip. She couldn’t stay here now;
she felt exposed, dirty;
embarrassed.
She could go back to London and find another squat, start again. Eve found places to stay easily enough, so why shouldn’t she? And if she was
pregnant, then she’d find a mother and baby home. There were bound to be plenty of those in London. She’d have to make it clear that she didn’t want her baby adopted, she just
wanted some support until she got back on her feet. She didn’t know quite how she’d manage, but other girls her age did, so it must be possible. She stood up and started tearfully
shoving things into her duffle bag. How had she managed to acquire all this stuff in just a few months? There was so much here that she could hardly bear to leave behind. All the clothes Eve had
given her, for a start. She’d grown to love the cheesecloth shirts, the peasant tops, the long, floaty skirts. Now her hair was growing longer and Eve’s was shorter they were starting
to look more and more alike, apart from the fact that Eve was getting a bit pudgy. In fact, the man in the corner shop had taken to calling them Tweedledum and Tweedledee whenever he saw them
together. She started to feel tearful again as she looked at the shelf full of books, the red lava lamp, and the other bits she’d found at jumble sales or in skips. She didn’t want to
leave it all behind, but how could she possibly stay? She put her duffle bag down and sat on her bed with a sigh. There was no hurry, she supposed; she could aim to leave by the weekend.

‘What?’
Eve said when Jo told her what she’d decided. ‘Why?’ She was hand-stitching a lace trim to the child’s sun hat she was making. They were
selling well on the beach – plenty of day trippers underestimated the sheer power of the sun beating down on their toddlers’ heads, and an inexpensive cotton sun hat saved the day. Eve
had bought up lots of remnants of cotton material, then she simply cut circles of fabric and gathered them with sheering elastic to make little mob-caps. She put down the cap she was working on and
looked at Jo. Her skin had paled and her eyes glittered as though she was fighting tears. ‘You can’t leave, Jo. Please don’t.’

‘I can’t stay,’ Jo said. ‘Not after what happened the other night.’ She couldn’t quite bring herself to talk about it in the open and uninhibited way that Eve
and Scott did. ‘I’m sorry. I know you said it doesn’t matter, but even if you honestly don’t mind, I still feel awful about it. I feel embarrassed every time I see you or
Scott.’

‘But there’s no need to feel—’

‘I know. But I can’t help it; I do.’

To Jo’s horror, tears started to spill down Eve’s face. Before now, she’d only ever seen Eve cry over awful things like the Vietnam War, or the Troubles in Northern Ireland, or
earthquakes where thousands of people were killed; she’d never
made
her cry.

‘I’m sorry.’ Eve quickly wiped away the tears and shook her head. ‘I’m feeling a bit emotional at the moment. Listen, Jo, I need to tell you something and I really
hope it’ll make you change your mind.’ She looked down at her sewing again. ‘I’m going to have a baby.’

‘What?’ The momentary shock Jo felt was quickly replaced with the uncomfortable realisation that, now she thought about it, the signs had been there for a while and she just
hadn’t taken them in – Eve putting on weight; the tiredness; the sickness she’d had until a few weeks ago. She swallowed. ‘When’s it due?’

‘November.’

‘November?
So you’re . . .’

‘Five and a half months.’

Jo felt her face colour; how could she not have realised? Eve had been getting bigger and bigger every week, her clothes straining at the seams, and Jo had just been grateful for the
hand-me-down clothes. It was so obvious now she thought about it. How could she have been so naïve?

‘But why didn’t you tell me before?’ She did a quick calculation. ‘You must have already been pregnant when I first moved in.’

‘Yes, but I didn’t know I was, not at that point. I was . . . we were going to tell you soon, but. . . the thing is, well . . .’ Eve was shifting about in her seat, looking this
way and that as though she wasn’t sure what to say next. ‘The thing is, I wanted to ask you something.’

For a moment, it flashed through her head that Eve was going to ask her if she thought she might be pregnant. Had Scott told her that they hadn’t used a Durex? She waited.

‘Yes. You see, I don’t want to have the baby in hospital, and so I’ll need some support here, some female support. Scott’s marvellous, but it’s not the same thing
as having another woman around.’

She’d never been referred to that way before, and she felt a silly little thrill to know that Eve thought of her as a woman rather than a girl.

‘You’re my friend, Jo, and I was hoping you’d stick around to give me a hand, not only before the baby’s born, but after as well. I think it would be lovely for the baby
to have you around as well as Scott and me.’

‘But why—’

‘You know I don’t have any family, and Scott’s family is in New Zealand, so there’ll just be us two. And I want my baby to have more people to love her. Or him.
You’d be an honorary auntie.’ She looked up at Jo again and her face was a picture of hope and trust. ‘Please, Jo, please stay; I need you.’

Jo’s thoughts were reeling. A baby! Eve was going to have a real, live baby, and she, Jo, was being asked to be part of it, to be involved. ‘I . . . I don’t know,’ she said.
‘I need to think.’ She hurried from the kitchen and ran back up the stairs and along to the thinking room. As she opened the door, the force of the heat coming through the glass almost
took her breath away. She sat on the wicker chair and put her feet up on the window seat, then tipped her head back and closed her eyes. The sun was searing her skin, but she wanted to feel its
intensity. It helped her to concentrate. What would Eve say if she knew that there was a possibility Jo could be pregnant? Would she still think the whole thing was okay? She sat there with her
eyes closed for a good ten minutes, wondering whether she should say anything. She could feel the beads of sweat forming on her forehead, but still she didn’t move. Realistically, she
probably wasn’t pregnant, and her period wasn’t due for another fortnight anyway, so there was no point in worrying about it now. But she needed to think about Eve. Eve really
was
pregnant; there would definitely be a baby.

Ever since Jo was a child, she’d looked forward to the time when she would be a mother herself. When she was eleven, not long after her dad left, the lady next door gave birth to twin
girls and Jo had quickly become besotted with them, going next door at every opportunity, offering to help, probably making a nuisance of herself, now she thought about it. But Auntie Pat, as Jo
had been instructed to call her – her mother said it showed respect – had always welcomed her and what’s more, had treated her like an equal instead of like a child. One day,
she’d been telling Auntie Pat that she couldn’t wait to grow up, get married and have babies herself. ‘Don’t be in too much of a hurry,’ Pat said, bending over a sink
full of hot water and soap suds, her short, permed hair plastered to her face by the steam, the skin on her arms and hands reddened by the heat. ‘I got married at sixteen, and look at me
now.’ Jo looked at her, a dumpy figure in a shapeless dress, bare legs and swollen feet pushed into grubby carpet slippers. ‘Old before my time.’ With a pair of wooden tongs, she
lifted a greying nappy dripping from the sink and then she wrung it tightly until she could get no more moisture out of it.

‘How old are you now?’ Jo had asked innocently. She’d always assumed that Auntie Pat was about the same age as her mother, and all mothers must be roughly the same age –
about thirty-five. ‘Eighteen,’ Pat had said, wiping her forehead with the back of her hand.

Eve wouldn’t be old before her time like poor Pat. In fact, Eve was looking better and better every day; her eyes were clear and bright, her skin was glowing, especially now she had a
golden tan. A thought flashed into her mind; had Scott only wanted to sleep with her because Eve was pregnant? Maybe you weren’t allowed to have sex when you were pregnant. She walked over to
the open window and looked out. Did that make it better or worse? She shook her head; she couldn’t think straight any more.

Scott was still working away in the garden, his back a deep brown colour now, almost mahogany. She and Eve had good tans, but next to them, Scott no longer even looked English. She watched the
muscles in his back moving as he sanded the piece of wood he was working on. It was only when he paused to hold the curved wood against what she’d thought was to be a storage box that she
realised what he was making. The curved pieces were rockers; he was making a wooden cradle. Seeing the cradle made it suddenly seem more real, somehow. There was going to be an actual baby whose
arrival needed to be planned for. Jo felt her blood quicken; she’d be able to help; Eve
wanted
her to help. She could babysit again, and take it out in its pram. She felt a little
thrill at the thought. Perhaps she could knit or sew something for the baby to wear. When Pat’s twins were two, she’d had to make a child’s garment in Parentcraft at school, so
she’d hand-stitched a little sky-blue summer dress and trimmed it with white ric rac braid. She got a good mark for it, so she went straight out and bought more fabric out of her own money
and made another one, and when she gave the two dresses to Pat, Pat hugged her and told her what a clever and thoughtful girl she was. Maybe that was one of the reasons Jo always spent so much time
next door rather than at home with her own mum, that and the fact that she was allowed to help with the twins, obviously. She’d loved babysitting them and sometimes, when Pat and Derek were
out, she would pretend that she was their mother. Even now, when she closed her eyes, she could almost feel the weight of their little bodies as she held them; Lisa’s chubby legs; the silky
softness of Lynne’s hair as she rested her head against Jo’s shoulder.