Book Club Reads: 3-Book Collection: Yesterday’s Sun, The Sea Sisters, Someone to Watch Over Me
want to be a mum, I love that you’re ready to start a family, I love that you want to have a house full of kids, I love you!’
‘Back up a minute,’ interrupted Holly. ‘Let’s just plan one baby at a time, shall we?’
‘I know, I know. It’s a five-year plan, blah, blah, blah.’
‘So what’s the problem? Why aren’t you going wild with excitement?’ Holly asked, pouting her lip like a petulant child even though Tom couldn’t see her.
‘The studio has called me in for an interview as soon as I’m back in London.’
‘Why?’ Holly didn’t like the tone of his voice. She knew he was still worried about his job, but he was already doing everything they asked of him; surely there was nothing more he could give?
‘The reorganization hasn’t been able to stop the rot. There’s going to be a merger and more changes.’
‘But they can’t do that, they’ve already messed you around. Your job’s as flexible as it could be, they can’t change it any more! Can they?’ Holly felt tears stinging her eyes. She had been looking forward to this moment, telling Tom that she was ready to be a mother. It hadn’t gone according to plan and the euphoric moment Holly had imagined fizzled and died.
She had planned on keeping her decision to herself until Tom returned home in two weeks, but then she had looked up at the full moon that night and the urge to go back into the garden and put the glass orb once more into the claws of the moondial had unnerved her. She needed to lay claim to the future the moondial was trying to take from her.
‘The merger will mean major changes, cutting deeper than anyone expected,’ Tom said.
‘You’re losing your job?’ Holly asked, panic rising in her voice. Her income from her artwork wasn’t enough to support the two of them, let alone a baby.
‘I really don’t know. I’m sorry, Hol, I think it’s great that you want to start planning for a family, better than great, absolutely monumental. I know how much it must have taken you to get to this point and I feel awful about it.’
‘Hey, don’t feel awful. It’s not your fault and, who knows, it might be good news from the studio.’ Holly was usually the more pessimistic of the two, but somehow she sensed there was a need for a little role reversal. Tom was sounding decidedly anxious. ‘Maybe they are in dire straits but they’ve just realized that it’s going to take someone as incredible as you to get things back on track. I can understand that.’
‘I get the feeling that it’ll go one of two ways. Either I’ll have no job at all, or they’ll use the threat as leverage to get me to do some kind of nightmare job. But, hey, we don’t know yet, and even if it is bad, I don’t have to accept it. I could always take a chance and go freelance if the worst happens.’
‘Suppose,’ Holly said glumly. Optimism didn’t become her and she was struggling to fight against the sense of impending doom. ‘Not exactly the secure future we imagined, then?’
‘Hol, we won’t know anything for sure for a couple of weeks yet. Let’s worry about it when it happens.’
‘You’re right,’ she said in a monotone voice that did little to hide her disappointment. ‘Perhaps during your interview you can ask the studio to fill out our five-year plan for us.’
Holly knew it wasn’t Tom’s fault, yet she couldn’t help but feel as though he’d just thrown icy cold water over her fragile plans for motherhood. She suddenly felt so alone with Tom at the end of the phone and the distance between them stretching out further than ever before. Her only company was the pink teddy bear sitting on her knee staring back at her. She played with the label sticking out of the side of its head and it was only then that she noticed the warning written on it. The toy was not for children under two years of age. Perhaps this was a sign that she really wasn’t fit to be a mother after all. She couldn’t even buy a simple teddy for her baby.
‘We’ll know in a couple of weeks,’ repeated Tom.
Holly bit down hard on her lip. She didn’t dare reply in case her words came out as a sob.
‘We’ll have babies one day, I promise,’ Tom added.
‘Will you stay on the phone with me until I go to sleep?’ Holly asked.
‘I’ll stay with you forever.’
‘Now you look like someone who needs cheering up,’ Jocelyn told Holly. She had just arrived for their now usual Sunday brunch and could tell straight away that there was something on Holly’s mind.
‘I’m fine,’ Holly reassured Jocelyn with a weak smile. They were sitting at the kitchen table and Holly lifted a teacup to her mouth to hide her trembling and slightly bruised lips. Since Tom’s call, Holly had been nervously biting them to hold back the tears she refused to shed.
‘You’re not the least bit fine. These eyes may be old but they’re not blind,’ admonished Jocelyn. She picked up her shopping bag and took out a small cake box. ‘Still, there’s nothing that can’t be put right with a cupcake. Now what do you fancy, lemon or walnut?’
‘Tom might be losing his job,’ gulped Holly.
‘Oh, Holly, I’m sorry.’ Jocelyn put down the box and stood up, although the grimace on her face made it clear the manoeuvre was a huge struggle for the old lady. ‘Damn these aching joints,’ she muttered as she shuffled around the table to give Holly a hug.
‘Are you all right?’ Holly asked. It was now her turn to look concerned. She was so used to seeing Jocelyn as a strong warhorse that she found it easy to forget that she was an octogenarian.
‘Nothing a new pair of hips wouldn’t fix,’ smiled Jocelyn. ‘I remember the days I used to walk back and forth from here to the village two or three times a day. Now just walking from one end of the room wears me out.’
‘You should have said. I’ve got the car outside. I could have picked you up.’
‘I wasn’t born old and I refuse to give in to it. The day I stop getting from A to B under my own steam is the day I reach my final destination.’
‘Well, you sit right back down and I’ll get some plates for those cakes.’
Jocelyn sank back into her chair with a relieved sigh. ‘So when will you find out about Tom?’
‘He’s back a week on Thursday and then he’s being hauled in to see the studio. He doesn’t know what they’re planning, but he’s not expecting it to be good news. Even if he does keep his job they’ll be piling more work on him.’ It was Holly’s turn to sink back into her chair with a deep sigh, only this sigh had the telltale signs of disappointment.
‘He sounds like a resourceful kind of fellow and from what I’ve seen of him on TV he’s gorgeous. I should imagine he could walk into any job he wanted. I’d give him a job,’ Jocelyn admitted with a wink.
‘Yes, I can imagine!’ laughed Holly. ‘And however comfortable he looks in front of the camera, he actually hates it. He’d rather do the legwork and let someone else take the credit on screen. But it’s not just the job security that worries me,’ confessed Holly.
‘Want to talk about it?’ Jocelyn asked.
‘We were about to start planning for a family. You have no idea how difficult it’s been for me to even contemplate becoming a mother and now, when I think I’m ready, everything is going wrong. I’m starting to wonder if it was meant to be.’ For someone Holly had known for less than two months, she was surprised at how easily she could talk to Jocelyn. There had been very few people in Holly’s life that she would have felt able to have this conversation with, and Jocelyn seemed to be filling a gap that had existed since childhood.
‘There’s