The Child(22)

    Kate


WEDNESDAY, MARCH 28, 2012

She’d had enough of the day already when she emerged from the lift at work. Her foul mood had soured her eyes and lined her forehead, but Joe Jackson still hadn’t got the hang of people.

“Hi, Kate, how are you?” he’d chirped like a friendly budgie.

Kate had given him a look that would have made a Rottweiler hesitate. She threw her computer bag on the desk, the laptop making an unhealthy clunk, and stalked off to the ladies’ to give herself breathing space.

Steve had brought her “bed tea” half an hour earlier than usual that morning and stood over her until she surfaced from sleep.

“Sorry it’s so early, love, but I need to leave for work at eight—I’ve got ward rounds this morning—and Jake is downstairs already,” he’d said, a warning note in his voice. They both knew there was trouble coming.

Jake, their eldest, had appeared unexpectedly the night before, in the middle of his university term. It had been too late to talk—Steve was already in bed, exhausted by the day’s appointments with his cancer patients, and Kate couldn’t face tackling Jake’s latest crisis alone. She’d packed him off to bed with the promise that they’d talk in the morning. That moment had clearly come.

Kate had stumbled out of bed and hardly had time to sit down at the kitchen table before Jake announced he was dropping out of his law degree and going traveling.

Well, “announced” was probably overstating it. Jake had mentioned it in that irritatingly casual way he had as he swirled two poached eggs in a pan of water. He was a boy who “took everything in his stride,” according to his senior school reports. “Rolling over” is what Kate called it, but Steve had always counseled against confronting their son.

“It’ll just make things worse. He’ll grow out of it,” he’d said.

But he hadn’t.

“He just gives up when things get difficult,” Kate had said when Jake decided to stop playing the saxophone after three months, despite having begged them to buy him an instrument.

“He’s so clever, but he can’t be bothered to put in the effort,” she’d complained. “Poor old Freddie has to work his socks off to get the grades. It must be infuriating for him to see his brother flick through a book and get an A.”

And it infuriated her, too. She’d been just like Freddie. And she couldn’t see where Jake’s lack of motivation came from. Both she and Steve had the work ethic in spades, but Jake just stood at the foot of the ladder, looking up and shrugging at the idea of climbing.

It was Steve who had broken the silence that followed their son’s latest news.

“Where are you thinking of traveling to?” Nice and neutral. Very Steve, Kate thought.

“Not sure really,” Jake had said, smiling his beautiful smile. “Thailand, maybe?”

“Couldn’t you do that when you finish your degree?” Kate had said as he put his plate of food down on the table. “You’ve only got one more year to go.”

“I’m not sure I’m doing the right subject, Mum,” Jake had said, tackling his eggs, tea towel over one shoulder.

“But you’ve always wanted to do law,” she’d said, sinking down further into her chair. “What’s changed?”

“I think I have,” he had said, mopping the yolk with a crust of bread. “I think I want other things now.”

Kate and Steve had exchanged looks over their son’s bent head.

“Well, best not to make any hasty decisions, Jakey,” Steve had said. “Why don’t you finish this year and then take stock. Give yourself a chance to think it through.”

“Actually, I’ve told college I’m not going back,” their son had said. “They were very nice about it. It’s all sorted.”

There’d been stunned silence and then raised voices—Kate’s mainly, with Jake patiently munching his way through his food—followed by pleas, recriminations, and slammed doors. Breakfast had ended as an ugly showdown. Steve had stormed off to the hospital, Jake had gone back to bed, and Kate had stood in the kitchen and sworn.

“It isn’t even bloody eight a.m. yet and the day is a nightmare,” she’d said.

Later, as she’d driven across London to the office, Kate had ground her teeth and practiced what she would say to Jake later, cursing the black-cab drivers and white-van men who dared to cut her off.

? ? ?

The stress had taken its toll. She looked at herself in the mirror and saw the bags under her eyes, the mascara already smudging, and her hair escaping from a collapsing ponytail.

Christ, what a sight, she thought. She looked like she’d just stumbled up the embankment after a train crash.

She pulled the elastic band off her hair and got a brush out of her handbag to repair the damage.

Oh, get a grip, she told her reflection.

You can do this, played in her head as she brushed her hair into submission. It was a mantra she’d picked up from her dad, a man who was not at home to negativity.

“Come on, Katie,” he’d say as she struggled to ride a bike, pass maths exams, or get a job interview. “You can do anything.”

It was wonderful to have your own personal cheerleader, but the constant pressure for her to succeed was exhausting. Okay, Dad. I’m on it, she thought and gripped the sink to still her hands.