Second Hand Jane (39 page)

She didn’t get
a chance to further consider her options, though, because Jess, not
even waiting for her mother to do her seat belt up, had put her
foot down on the accelerator and was haring off down the drive and
out of Owen’s life once and for all.

“Jessica!”
Marian gasped. “What on earth has got into you? Slow down, for
goodness’ sake.”

Remembering it
was not her car she was driving and that she had no axe to grind
with Brianna, Jess grudgingly slowed. In the seat next to her, her
mother’s sigh of relief was audible.

“That’s better.
I don’t fancy being sent home in a budget body bag. I’d probably
wind up in Taiwan too.”

Jess refused to
smile, feeling her mother’s eyes upon her.

“What were you
ranting on about me being—what was it you said before?
Hoity-toity?—yes, that was it.”

Jess didn’t say
anything, concentrating instead on the bends in the road ahead of
her.

“I hardly think
that’s a fair comment because I’ll have you know, Jessica Jane,
that I have been on my best behaviour today. I did not turn my nose
up at anything and I kept my word and gave Owen the benefit of the
doubt just like I said I would and guess what? Surprise-surprise! I
liked him. He is a lovely young man, so if anything you should be
sitting there saying I told you so instead of getting yourself into
such a stew. So come on then, my girl, tell me what was it that got
you in such a state all of a sudden?”

“You, Mum! It
was you who got me in such a state! You wound me up like you always
do, because no matter what I do and no matter what choices I make,
you always manage to make me feel like I don’t measure up! Not in
my job and certainly not in my love life. Well, I am sorry I am
such a big, fat disappointment to you. ” Jess banged her hands down
on the steering wheel.

“Calm down,
Jessica. I have no idea where all this is coming from.” Marian
looked at her daughter in alarm, wondering whether she was having
some sort of breakdown.

“Nothing I do
is ever right where you are concerned and no one I meet is ever
good enough, so I spouted off all that crap about Owen being a
successful lawyer to make you like him. How could you not like him
if you knew he was a lawyer? Only a professional will do for your
daughter, after all. Except now he says I am not the person he
thought I was and I don’t think he wants to see me ever again.”
Jess broke into big gulping sobs.

“Right, enough
is enough, Jessica Jane Baré! You cannot drive in this state—you
will kill us both.” Marian gestured at the tractor that was
meandering toward them and taking up most of the lane. “You, my
girl, are going to pull over and let Farmer Ted there on his
tractor pass and then we are going to sort this ridiculous notion
you seem to have about what makes me tick once and for all.”

So it was that
next to a field full of cows on a cold early winter’s afternoon in
the depths of County Down, Northern Ireland, Jess and her mother
had a long overdue chat.

Marian toyed
nervously with her rings, fighting back tears. “I have never meant
to make you feel like you didn’t measure up. Good grief, Jessica, I
am so proud of what you have achieved! I mean, just look at you.”
She turned in her seat, gesturing to where Jess sat hunched over in
hers, her face hidden behind a curtain of hair. Leaning over, she
smoothed her daughter’s hair back from her face and tucked it
behind her ear. “That’s better. I can see your beautiful face now
and you are beautiful, Jessica.” Her voice softened. “Do you know
that when I look at you, I can’t believe the baby your father and I
raised is all grown up now? Where did she go, that little girl of
ours, our firstborn who always had her nose buried in a book?” She
sighed. “The time goes by so fast, Jess, and it only seems to speed
up even more once you have children. We’ve made mistakes along the
way. I know we have but we did our best and do you know that when I
look at the life you’ve carved out for yourself, I’m fit to burst?
There you are, with a wonderful career doing something you love,
living in a fabulous city with fabulous friends and here’s me,” her
right hand patted her chest, “finally getting to be a part of it
all, even if it is only for a few weeks. If I have been
disapproving of your choices in the past, it’s because you never
brought anyone home who was anywhere near your equal.” She reached
over and stroked Jess’s cheek. “Remember when you were little and
you brought that sparrow inside that the cat had got at?”

Jess
nodded.

“You were so
determined to make it better. You even made it a little bed in an
old shoe box and set up a nursing station in your wardrobe but the
poor thing never stood a chance, even with all that TLC. You were
beside yourself when it died.”

The memory
still made Jess feel sad. She couldn’t fix it—make it better—and it
had been a lesson in life that had taken her a very long time to
learn.

“It broke my
heart seeing you like that and I couldn’t stand to sit back and say
nothing while I watched you get upset time and time again with the
choices in men you were making. I just wanted you to be happy, not
weighed down by someone else’s problems.”

Jess wasn’t
ready to be appeased just yet, so she sat head bowed, making little
snivelling noises until her Mum did what she really wanted her to
do. Unbuckling her belt, Marian leaned over and pulled her daughter
into her arms, cradling her close. Snugged against her like she
was, Jess felt like a child again. She wished she was because life
had been a lot less complicated back then.

“I know what I
can be like.” Marian continued, “Lord knows your father tells me
off often enough but I can’t help myself. It just bubbles up inside
me, this need for people to think I am something special, and
things just pop out of my mouth before I can stop them. I suppose
putting on a posh front is my way of trying to hide behind what I
really am.”

Jess pulled
away from the embrace and rubbing her eyes, she looked at her
mother, wondering what she was going to say next. “What do you
mean?”

“A woman who
did nothing much with her life, that’s what I mean, Jess. I was
married at nineteen, remember, and I don’t regret that or the fact
you girls came along so soon afterwards for one minute so don’t get
me wrong on that count. It’s just that I never finished my
hair-dressing apprenticeship and after awhile, staying at home and
being a wife and a mother was all I knew how to do. That was fine
at the time because that was what most women of my generation knew.
We were the queens of the Edmonds cookbook. But then the times
changed and suddenly women were getting careers and becoming
independent. What we did—being homemakers—didn’t seem so important
in society’s eyes anymore. Do you know Kelly tells me she can
actually see people’s eyes glaze over when she tells them that
she’s at home with the children?”

It was true,
Jess thought; she’d heard Brianna bemoan the same thing on numerous
occasions and the derisive way in which Nick had described
stay-at-home mothers had been appalling.

“Then when my
time did come, and you girls were at an age where I could think
about what I wanted to do with the rest of my life, what did I go
and do? I got a job selling knickers, that’s what.”

“There’s
nothing wrong with knickers, Mum—we all need them.”

Marian raised a
small smile. “Glad to see you still have your sense of humour and I
know there is nothing wrong with it. I enjoyed my time working and
the other girls were great fun but selling underwear was never
going to set the world on fire, was it? And there was you, growing
up with all this talent and making a life for yourself, independent
of me. I was scared you saw me as a bit of a let-down and I never
knew what to say to you, this high-flying, gorgeous girl of mine. I
suppose that’s why I pushed so hard for you to meet someone and
settle down because then you’d be living the sort of life that I
could relate to. I’m so sorry, Jessica.” She broke off with a
sob.

Jess rubbed her
mother’s back. “Oh Mum, you should never have felt like that. I am
who I am because of you and Dad and all the opportunities you gave
me. You were the people who gave me the confidence in myself to put
myself out there and give things a go because I knew that if I
failed, I could always come home and that you would always be there
to pick up the pieces. Having that kind of stability behind you
makes life a whole lot less scary.” She paused to fish out the
packet of tissues she could see peeking out of the pocket of her
mother’s handbag and handed her one. “You know, I think being a mum
is the most important career choice any woman can make and I hope
that if I ever become one, that I can do half the job you did with
me and Kels.” She leaned in and kissed her mother’s cheek, noticing
the lines that were there now where the skin had once been smooth.
Lines that would one day etch themselves onto her face, too. Where
had the years gone? “You were always there for us, Mum—all the
running us around to this group or that. Dropping us off and
picking us up from our friend’s houses, all those hundreds of
packed lunches and afternoon teas that were always waiting for us
after school. You put us first the whole way through. There is no
sacrifice greater than being a mum. Just look at everything you
still do now for Kelly and the kids. She’d be lost without you and
although I might not always show it, I need my Mum, too.”

“You do?”
Marian’s eyes were the mirror image of Jess’s as they looked
properly at each other. Nora was right, Jess thought; the
similarities had always been there—she’d chosen not to see them for
the longest time.

“Of course I
do. Who else do I know who can bake Yo-Yos like you?”

Marian laughed,
swiping at her tears with the tissue and then, taking the rest of
the packet off Jess, she pulled out another and gave her nose a
good blow. “Aren’t we a pair of silly gooses?”

“Don’t mention
geese!” Jess snorted. “Oh Mum, you should have seen yourself
stomping around that puddle, wielding your handbag at Jemima.”

Marian began
laughing, too, and the tension that had filled the car such a short
while ago dissipated.

“I love you,”
Jess said once she’d got her giggles under control.

“I love you,
too.”

Marian pulled
the sunshade down and wiped away the streaks of mascara her tears
had left behind before turning her hand to Jess and swiping away
the black smudges under her eyes. It reminded her of when she was a
child and her mother would spit on a hanky before wiping her face
with it when they were out. Just like she had done when she was a
child, too, she wiggled to escape but to no avail. Satisfied she’d
cleaned up the worst of the damage, Marian reached into her bag,
producing a lipstick. “You need some colour; you’d scare the birds
if I stood you out in that paddock, so come on, put this on. At
least we’ve the same colouring.”

Jess stared at
her. Her heart was breaking, she felt physically ill, and her Mum
wanted her to put lipstick on as if that tiny tube of colour would
cure all ills? “I don’t need lipstick on in order to drive the car
back to Dublin and the way I feel at the moment, I really don’t
give a stuff what I look like. Let’s just get back on the road so I
can get the car back to Brie’s.”

Marian smile
beatifically. “Well, you might want to give her a quick call and
say we’ll be a bit late getting back. She’ll understand because we
are not going back to Dublin, sweetheart, not until we’ve been back
to the farm and you have sorted things out with Owen.”

Jess shook her
head. “No way. Nice try, Mum; you didn’t see Owen’s face, though. I
have blown it with him. He doesn’t want to see me again.”

“Now listen to
me, young lady—just because we have had a heart-to-heart doesn’t
mean I am going to stop sticking my oar in. I’m your mother and
that’s what mothers do. It is our birthright. Now, put the lipstick
on, then start the car up and do a U-turn.”

Jess frowned at
the narrow country lane; even if she did as she was told, she
didn’t have a hope in hell of performing a U-turn—a six-point turn
at best. She could put the lippy on, though. As she angled the
rearview mirror and applied a layer of russet red to her mouth, her
mother said, “Honestly, sweetheart, do you think I am about to let
the best man who has ever come your way slip through your fingers
so easily?”

And as Jess put
the lid back on the lipstick, Marian shook her head in that way of
hers that spoke volumes.

Unprepared to
go Round Two with Jemima, Marian opted to wait in the car. “Don’t
you dare come back out until you’ve kissed and made up,” she
bossed, casting a wary eye across the drive. “And watch out for
that bloody goose.”

The front door
of the cottage was locked, so Jess wandered around to the side of
the house. Peering through the French doors, she spied Owen looking
like he meant business as he chopped something at the kitchen
bench. There was a glass of half-drunk red wine next to him and
even from her vantage point outside she could smell the
unmistakable aroma of browning onions. Typical male, she thought;
food was the last thing on her mind. She watched him for a moment,
trying to summon the courage to tap on the door until, feeling like
a Peeping Tom, she at last knocked.

Owen swung
round, nearly tipping whatever the contents of the pot he had in
his hand all over himself. She heard him swear and then grabbing a
tea-towel, he wiped at the stain spreading down his pants,
gesturing at her to come in with his free hand.

“Jaysus, Jess!
You scared the crap out of me! I nearly wore all the bloody
stock!”

“Sorry, I
didn’t mean to startle you.” She shifted from foot to foot, unsure
of the reception she was expecting. “What are you making?”