Part 4 (1/2)

'I'm fine,' she said briskly, getting up and heading to the door. 'I'm going to get dressed.'

As she left the room, Trevor and Jan exchanged concerned looks over their bowls of Shredded Wheat.

'Do you think she's all right?' Jan said, sotto voce.

'Of course,' Trevor rea.s.sured her, picking up the teapot, 'fill this up will you, love? She's probably still jet-lagged. Remember how it took you days to get over it after you came back from visiting her?'

Jan liked this answer. 'You're right,' she agreed eagerly, switching on the kettle. 'She's only been back a couple of days. Or maybe she's got a boyfriend? She could be missing him.'

Trevor snorted. 'Thea with a boyfriend? I can't imagine that.'

'Oh, don't say that, Trev,' cried Jan, stricken. 'She's thirty-six. I do worry, you know. I keep reading about these girls leaving it too late to have babies. I don't want Thea to be one of those.'

'Paul has children,' Trevor pointed out, somewhat irrelevantly. 'And Thea's always said she doesn't want babies. After all, sweets, she has has got a great job.' got a great job.'

'I know,' Jan said. For a moment she was silent, reflecting on how different her daughter was to her, how having watched Jan's struggles to bring up four children on a limited income Thea had always sworn she was going to devote herself to her career. And that devotion had paid off, Jan thought proudly. A producer for the Seven Thirty News Seven Thirty News, Thea had spent the past couple of years in New York. But now the programme had a new editor, and Thea had been recalled to London, just like that, as a senior producer. It was very impressive. None of Jan's friends could believe Thea was actually on speaking terms with the likes of Luke Norton and Emma Waters and, especially, the gorgeous Marco Jensen.

But still... Jan's floppy face sagged.

'Every woman wants to be a mother, Trev.'

'Shh,' Trevor hissed. 'She's coming back.'

They both gazed into their bowls, as the subject of their conversation re-entered the room, dressed in tight jeans and a beige chunky-knit sweater. Trevor stood up.

'I'm off to work now, love. Will you be here when I get back?'

'No, I'm leaving in a minute.'

Trevor gave her a diffident hug. 'Goodbye then, my love. See you again soon, I hope.'

'Mmm,' Thea said. Irrationally, it annoyed her when Trevor called her 'my love', even though he had every right to. Most people didn't even know he wasn't her real father. After all, she had taken his surname when her mother married him. Thea's real father, Leo Fry, had worked in an accounts office by day, but at night was a singer in a rock band. Mum had met and married him when they were both twenty-one. He'd died, only weeks before Thea was born, in a motorbike crash. Throughout her childhood, Thea had obsessed over how different her life would have been if Leo's back wheel hadn't hit that patch of oil. In her parallel life, she would have grown up an adored only child, touring the world with her rock-star father.

But Leo had had died, so Thea's fate had been to grow up in this run-down semi, on the fringes of an industrial estate, littered with plastic cars, trucks, diggers and aeroplanes that belonged to her three boisterous younger brothers. It was a solitary childhood. Mum loved Thea, but the boys' demands meant she had little time to spare for her. Thea had spent a lot of time locked in her room listening to her father's precious Bob Dylan alb.u.ms. died, so Thea's fate had been to grow up in this run-down semi, on the fringes of an industrial estate, littered with plastic cars, trucks, diggers and aeroplanes that belonged to her three boisterous younger brothers. It was a solitary childhood. Mum loved Thea, but the boys' demands meant she had little time to spare for her. Thea had spent a lot of time locked in her room listening to her father's precious Bob Dylan alb.u.ms.

The only person who actually had time to really listen to her was Leo's mother, who lived in Guildford, a short bus ride away. Thea visited her every Sunday without fail. Mum just nodded vaguely and said, 'That's nice, angel', when Thea brought home a good report. Gran would put her specs on, read it carefully and note with approval that Thea was 'excellent' at French and frown when she saw she hadn't been paying attention in biology.

'You've got to work as hard as you can, Thea,' she'd say. 'There are so many opportunities for girls these days. Opportunities I'd have killed for. You can get out of Dumberley and do something with your life. Don't let me down, love.'

'I won't, Gran,' Thea promised. And she hadn't.

'I'm going to make you some tuna sandwiches to take back to London with you,' Jan wittered as the front door slammed. 'They're your favourite, aren't they? At least, it used to be. Maybe there's some American sandwich you like now. If you tell me, I could make it for you.'

'I doubt you can buy lox and pastrami in Dumberley,' Thea muttered.

'Sorry?'

'Oh, nothing.' As always, Thea felt guilty. Her mother was only trying to look after her. The problem was Mum was always trying to look after everyone, with the result that she had neglected herself. Even now the boys had grown up and left home, she still seemed to have no time for herself, busy as she was baking for Trevor, was.h.i.+ng Trevor's dirty underpants, cleaning Trevor's facial hair out of the basin, while Trevor sat in the pub with the darts team watching Sky Sports and nursing a pint.

'Here, have another slice of toast,' Jan said, shoving the rack under her daughter's nose. As penance for her earlier nastiness, Thea smiled.

'Thanks.' But as she continued flicking through the Daily Post Daily Post, she couldn't help another swipe. 'I can't believe you're still getting this vile newspaper. It's obsessed with Princess Diana and how Britain is being swamped with evil immigrants.'

'Dad likes the football reports,' Jan protested feebly, 'and I like the horoscopes. I suppose we could try another paper...'

But Thea wasn't listening. She was opening an email that had just arrived on her BlackBerry from her best friend Rachel. 'You're back' read the subject field.

Yo, girlfriend, so glad you're home. Def on for dinner on Tues. But no boozing, sadly now am up the duff. Can't wait to catch up.

Scowling, Thea pressed delete. She was getting sick of this. Having fulfilled a lifelong ambition to live in Manhattan, Thea had nonetheless been thrilled to get the call from Roxanne Fox asking her to come home.

'You are exactly the kind of talent that is missing from the newsroom,' Roxanne had said. 'Dean and I want you at the heart of things, jazzing this programme up.' are exactly the kind of talent that is missing from the newsroom,' Roxanne had said. 'Dean and I want you at the heart of things, jazzing this programme up.'

Within forty-eight hours Thea had packed her belongings and was on her way to JFK to catch her one-way flight to Heathrow. From the back of her kamikaze taxi, she had sent out a flurry of emails and texts announcing her return. After her lonely childhood, Thea had grown into an extremely gregarious adult who considered a night in to be a night wasted. She could quite easily go for several weeks without cooking a meal in her pristine oven or picking up the TV remote.

Things had slowed down a bit in Manhattan. She'd made a handful of friends mostly gay through introductions or work, but she'd found herself having to try much harder to keep things on the boil than she had in her twenties, and she'd found the whole dating culture utterly soul destroying. By the end of two years, she couldn't wait to come home. Three days ago, she'd disembarked at Heathrow, expecting to be deluged by messages from friends, welcoming her return. But the greetings had been discomfortingly lukewarm. There was the odd text or email, saying 'Gr8 C U Soon I Hope', but no one had made any firm plans to meet.

The people she had spoken to all said how pleased they were to have her back, but were all unwilling to commit to anything definite. 'I'd love to, but my in-laws are in town/the new nanny's just started and I don't dare leave her to babysit/I don't live in London any more, didn't you know, we've moved to Scotland' were the kind of answers she received.

p.u.s.s.ies. What the h.e.l.l had happened to all the old party crowd? Even Rachel, who'd always laughed at women who stroked their b.u.mps and said things like 'we're pregnant', was probably playing Mozart to her foetus now and reading it Tolstoy in original Russian to improve its chances of getting into the best nursery.

'So now you're back in London, how does it work for lunch?' Jan asked.

'How do you mean?'

'Well, what do you do? Take in sandwiches and a flask?'

Inwardly, Thea groaned. What was it with her mother's obsession with food? 'No, Mum. Mostly I'll have lunch in the canteen. Sometimes I'll go out if there's time.'

'Go out?' Jan was scandalized.

'Yes. To a caff.'

'That must be pricey. Wouldn't you be better off taking sandwiches?'

Thea ignored this.

'I could make you some if you like? To take in on Monday.'

'No, thanks, Mum.'

'Are you sure? I could do you what did you say you had in New York?'

'I'll be fine. No one No one takes in sandwiches.' takes in sandwiches.'

'What? You all eat in a caff every day every day?'