of how many rugby players ended up with broken necks and concussion to goggle-eyed mums. She leant into me and whispered, ‘He’d never have let me take in someone else’s child. Far too selfish.’ She clapped her hands gleefully. ‘That’s why he’s an ex. Arrogant pig.’
In a village where the only thing I ever heard about people’s marriages was how many diamonds were on the bracelet their husbands had bought for Valentine’s Day, I loved Jasmine for her honesty. At the same time, I was conscious of Faye separating herself, not joining in, as though Jasmine was too quirky, not mainstream enough for her to bother with. I kept trying to involve Faye in the conversation, but her face had a funny little expression that I recognised as her waiting for Jasmine to leave.
I turned away from her and filled Jasmine in, quietly, on how I didn’t see myself as brave or generous and I didn’t deserve for other people to see me like that either. Her kindness, her lack of judgement, had suddenly uncorked all the guilt I had swilling around in me. She didn’t flinch when I said it was an action we’d been trapped into rather than embraced. That I’d been so small-spirited that I hadn’t explicitly told Ginny, ‘Victor is the last person you need to worry about, he’ll be absolutely fine with us.’
Jasmine shrugged. ‘You did step up though and, let’s face it, if we’re really honest, who does have the energy for other people’s problems? Most of us are already hanging on by our fingertips.’
In the ten minutes I was chatting to her, she made me feel so much better, that I wasn’t a poor excuse for a human being, that actually it was normal to worry about our imperfect family having to expand to include yet another complication. And now our lives were being played out with what felt like a whole crowd of critical assessors looking on, holding up their three out of ten scoreboards.
Jasmine went off to fetch one of her daughters from dance and Faye pulled a face. ‘Got yourself a new best friend there. She’ll be sending you over her mung bean recipes if you don’t watch it.’
I smiled as though I was taking it in good humour, but really I wanted to say, ‘At least she doesn’t make out everything is perfect like you do.’ Instead I said, ‘I like her. I think she’s got a really good heart.’
Faye looked at me as though I needed my bumps reading.
Before I could examine all of that more closely, the other side scored two more tries in quick succession and Jordan took a knock to the head straight afterwards. He was helped off the pitch and Faye and Lee went over to check on him.
‘I thought all that stuff about Victor being good at rugby because he was black was a bit off,’ I said.
Patrick said, ‘He’s just plucking any old excuse out of the air because Victor was outclassing Jordan. He’s the best player on the pitch. By a long way.’
And as if to prove Patrick’s point, Victor thundered down the field, did a neat dodge of several boys who were steaming over to halt his advance, and ducked over the line with several metres of clear space to spare.
Patrick went wild. ‘Way to go, Victor! Woooooo!’ His face shone with joy and pride as though he’d been responsible for throwing a rugby ball around with him as soon as he could walk. A wave of relief rushed through me that Patrick was showing some interest in Victor. Quickly followed by a sting of regret that I’d never seen Patrick embrace anything that Phoebe had done with such unbridled enthusiasm.
Honestly, as my mother would say, ‘Jo, your ability to see a grey cloud on a sunny day is astonishing.’ Or as Phoebe put it quite often when I was whittling about her being safe, ‘Do you read books on how to infect people with your negativity?’
I needed to be more Patrick. Or better still, more Ginny.
Lee came back to grab his rucksack.
‘Is Jordan okay?’ I asked.
‘Yeah, you know, a bit concussed. See him out of a few games though. Bad luck this early on in the season. Not sure who’s up to skippering in his place.’
Patrick returned his attention to the field as Victor took out the other team’s prop to a huge cheer from the home crowd. ‘Victor’s doing a good job. He could easily lead the boys.’
Lee