The wrong child a novel.., p.1
The Wrong Child : A Novel (2024), page 1
To Frank the right child
Contents
Dedication
Title Page
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Chapter 80
Chapter 81
Epilogue
Credits
About the Author
Also by Jessa Hastings
Copyright
Chapter 1
The first truly warm evening of the season, and the sun is just about still visible, hanging low above Greenham Common. Jenna Star sits on the caravan steps and exhales magical smoke as she hands the spliff up to Gaz, who is perched one level above her. She leans back between his legs, waving her signature scent of knocked-off Comme des Garcons Avignon up towards him.
In the space between her shoulder blades, she feels his appreciation.
They’re watching Willow, Tiger and Moon inflict their high-level training on the dogs, getting them to jump through hoops and other tricks. Their newest stunt gets them to gently topple little Moon with the word ‘Push!’ and lie on him with the word ‘Settle!’ so he can’t get up. Moon’s big brother Tiger, whose stated life dream is to be a lion tamer, thinks this is hilarious. The dogs are having fun, too, their boisterousness staying just the right side of playful. They know their humans, and would never let them come to harm, no matter how rough the play. Big sister Willow watches on, making sure things don’t get out of hand. Sensible Willow.
‘Did you like the dhal?’ Gaz asks.
‘Mmm.’ It was OK. Jenna doesn’t really do food.
‘Always tastes better cooked slow over the flames,’ he says.
She sits forward and eyes the fire. ‘Need some more wood on that.’
He slides away from under her, strides to the pile of wood he and Willow chopped and stacked last week, selects a couple of logs and chucks them on the fire, sending sparks up into the dusky air.
Tiger cheers, punching the sparks with his grubby ten-year-old fist. He loves a fire. If Jenna wasn’t certain that he would rather die than go against her, she would be concerned for the Star family safety.
She turns and looks at Nomad glowing in the firelight and sunset. She acquired the caravan two years ago. It is magnificent – a vintage 1967 showman’s van with slide-out sides. She has restyled the interior away from synthetic beige – a colour she violently dislikes – to deep red bohemian: all ancient Persian rugs, Turkish cushions, plants, and decadent comfort. She’s even put in a wood burner and a proper nice shower with handmade tiles. Everything inside Nomad has been begged, borrowed or stolen. It’s a far cry from her first van, a rackety old shoestring-converted horsebox she took as her due from Spider, a man she spent a couple of months with sixteen years ago. Boring, and bad in bed, he deserved to lose his home. Plus she had to make a rapid departure – not her first, and by no means her last – and taking the van was her only option.
There have been many vans and more men in the intervening years, but, like Nomad, Gaz is a considerable step up. He is guilty of neither of Spider’s sins and, because of this, he has earned his place under the animal skins on Jenna’s big bed for six years now.
Easy on the eye, too, all mid-length hair shaved up at the sides to reveal spiderweb tattoos, and muscles earned purely by the physical work he puts into their lifestyle, Gaz pours her another glass of red and settles back behind her.
‘Stop, everyone!’ Willow points to the horizon, where the scrubby heathland meets the sky. ‘Say goodbye to the sun.’
The shouting stops. The dogs obey and sit still. Willow is growing into quite a commanding presence. Jenna is going to have to keep an eye on that. All five Stars – Gaz has honorary status as long as he remains in the firmament – watch the big old fiery ball as it descends behind the trees and the silos.
A cheer goes up, not only from Nomad’s crew but also from the people who live in the other fifteen or so vans on the site, a field a local farmer has put to more profitable use than crops, which can’t be saying much as it’s dirt cheap to stay here.
The Stars have been here for nearly a year now, which is possibly long enough, Jenna thinks.
She stretches out her lovely, long-long legs, her full six-foot-one frame, and admires her taut belly, exposed between her tiny Indian-silk handkerchief top and the long, gathered, hip-slung skirt she lifted on her last trip to Liberty. Not in bad shape for a mother of three.
She laughs.
‘What is it, babe?’ Gaz asks.
‘Nothing,’ she says. ‘Or, actually, I just love how my kids watch the sun instead of idiot screens.’
‘Because you don’t give them the choice, babe.’
‘And that’s a good thing.’
‘That’s a great thing.’
‘I’m a great mother.’
‘The best.’
He gently squeezes his thighs against her and she rubs her shoulders into him.
The children return to their dog training. No bedtimes here. When they feel tired, they get themselves to bed. Even little Moon, who’s just five. Although she’s noticed that Willow has started suggesting that he goes and lies down when he starts being a pain in the arse. She’ll even read to him sometimes from the small selection of children’s books they have in the van, like a proper little Normal.
Not that Jenna approves of books. They’re just another part of the machine, after all. She’s never inflicted school on her kids. Instead, she gives them freedom, the greatest gift any child can ever dream of. Hers are always the wildest on any site, the boldest, the canniest. And yet, just one snap of her fingers and they do as they are told.
Just like the dogs.
‘You do me proud, you lot,’ she says, taking the spliff from Gaz’s rough fingers.
Moon takes a break from being bowled over by dogs to come and squeeze her knees.
‘I love you, Mum,’ he says.
She ruffles his wild hair. ‘Love you, babe.’
Reassured, he returns to his happy play with his brother and sister. Jenna moves one blue-gel-manicured hand to brush off the little bits of straw he has left on her skirt and sighs with pleasure.
It’s a loaded sound, curated to catch Gaz’s attention. And indeed, once more, she feels his appreciation firm against her back.
There is just one serpent in this paradise.
It all stems from the conversations Jenna has been having recently with Willow. The children sleep in a curtained-off rack of three bunk beds in one of the pull-out sections of the van. Until now, that’s worked well as they are tucked out of the way at night leaving the rest of the space to Jenna and Gaz. But recently, Willow has been complaining that she’s too big for the bunk. Just the other day, she showed Jenna how she can’t stretch out and has to sleep curled up.
So Jenna has decided that Willow can move onto the couch right at the front, which converts into a full-sized bed. It kind of makes sense, because these days Willow is usually the last to go to sleep, so Jenna and Gaz no longer have the van to themselves anyway. She’ll rig up a curtain for Willow to pull across so that she has a bit of privacy if that will make her happy.
What Willow would really like, and what she’s been going on about pretty constantly recently, is her own little bender. It’s a common step in the community for teenagers wanting a bit of privacy to move out into some sort of independent structure – a bender made from branches and tarp or a small van of their own. Indeed, Hope next door has just got one from her d
But Jenna isn’t a big fan of that idea because beyond the confines of the van at night, Willow could get up to anything. Jenna’s seen the way boys look at her – she’s a pretty thing, not quite on the same level as Jenna was at sixteen, but still, she’s learned style from her, and can really pull it off.
Gaz reaches down and puts his hand under her handkerchief top, placing it on her small, perfectly formed breast. She rolls her shoulders again so they rub into his inner thighs.
The children play on. She’s taught them not to have any hang-ups about what adults do with each other. They don’t even notice, really. It’s not as if they’re unaware of what goes on in the bedroom at night. Not every detail, of course. That wouldn’t be right. But Jenna finds it impossible to be quiet during sex. Especially with Gaz, whom she has taught well. It’s only natural, after all, and it’s how people managed to have fifteen, sixteen children when the whole family slept in one room.
She sighs with pleasure at the thought of what’s going to happen later.
But the serpent returns, snaking around her sense of contentment. With Willow moved onto the couch, that leaves one spare bed, one empty nest in Nomad.
It’s not as if she would want fifteen or sixteen kids, but one more wouldn’t do any harm. Then her life would be complete. Her happiness constant. Her itch scratched.
She turns and puts her elbows on Gaz’s knees.
‘I want another baby.’
‘Whoah,’ Gaz says. Although the thought has been brewing for a while now, this is the first time she has ever mentioned it to him.
She reaches her fingers up and twines them into his lovely hair.
‘Just one more.’
He frowns. But he has never said no to her before, so she knows this is just a formality, a game he has to play to make himself feel like he has some sort of power in this situation.
She gently pulls his face down towards hers. ‘And that will be that,’ she coos into his ear. ‘No more after that.’ Her tongue follows her words.
He loves that.
He sighs and shudders.
Behind her, the children shout louder, the night descends, the fire crackles.
‘And this would definitely be the last?’
‘The very last.’ She puts a hand on his groin.
‘So this time you leave Daisy.’
She pulls away. ‘What?’
‘If you mean it about being the last, you get rid of Daisy.’
She smiles. He’s cleverer sometimes than she gives him credit for. But she wants a new baby more than she wants to hold onto Daisy. And it will be a great symbolic act, a final severance from her childhood. Some people believe they were born into the wrong body. But Jenna loves her body. Why wouldn’t she? No, she was born into the wrong family, into the wrong house.
She was the original changeling.
‘OK,’ she says. ‘I’ll get rid of Daisy.’
He nods. ‘Good.’
She stands, takes him by the hand. ‘Let’s go and do the Special Thing.’
He looks at her with his warm, brown eyes. Special Thing is a rare treat for him.
‘Willow, help the boys to bed when they’re ready,’ Jenna says, without looking back.
She leads him to the animal skins on her bed.
Like a dog, he follows.
Chapter 2
Three weeks later
Thursday
Sarah is worried that her breast pads are nearing their limit. She’s going to mess up her one remaining good shirt, the red gingham Vivienne Westwood she got by way of TK Maxx.
Meanwhile, Max is still fussing in his buggy, pushing out his mittened fists, kicking his legs. But at least he’s not crying anymore, and the dagger stares from diners around them in Zizzi Newbury are dying down.
She’s still sweating, though.
Lisa’s telling her some complicated story about what Robert at work said to her the other day and how it was borderline creepy. Well of course, whatever Robert says to any woman is going to be well beyond borderline creepy. Not that Sarah’s going to have to worry about that anymore.
‘I’m not going back,’ she says, out of nowhere, interrupting Lisa’s flow.
‘What?’ Lisa says.
‘Max is sick. I’m not going to be able to come back to work. Not with him, Hannah and Tom to look after.’
‘He’s sick?’ Lisa asks, her forkful of prawn linguine halfway to her mouth.
‘And Jake’s a chocolate teapot.’ Sarah looks gloomily at her own plate, a slab of six-layer lasagne. She is not going to lose her baby bulge today.
‘What’s the matter with him?’
‘Too busy looking after other people’s children to spend any time with his own—’
‘I mean Max.’
‘—He sold being made deputy head as nothing but a good thing – more money, less homework to mark.’
‘Sarah, what’s the matter with Max?’
Sarah sighs, puts down her fork and gazes into the mid-distance. ‘Neonatal diabetes.’
Lisa looks down at Max, who is still fighting sleep. ‘But they can control it, yes?’
‘They don’t know.’ Sarah can’t bear to talk about it anymore, having had to explain it over and over to so many people. She hands Lisa the leaflet the consultant gave her this morning.
Lisa takes a slug from her large glass of Sauvignon Blanc and squints at the leaflet. ‘What’s the treatment?’
‘Lots of check-ups. And he has to take medicine every day.’
‘He’ll grow out of it, yeah?’
‘They don’t know.’
Lisa hands back the leaflet. ‘My cousin has diabetes and he’s fine.’
‘Neonatal’s different. Yes, he can’t control his blood sugar. But he might also have developmental delays, possibly learning difficulties.’
Lisa reaches out and takes her hand. ‘Oh, Sarah.’
Sarah resists the urge to pull her fingers away. ‘They don’t know for sure. All they can do, apparently, is keep testing him. And testing him, and testing him.’ Sarah looks over at her sick little baby and sighs. His birth – no, her pregnancy – was like a bomb going off in her life. ‘I don’t have time for anything else.’
‘Well, you’re looking really well on it,’ Lisa says, picking up her fork again.
‘I look like a bag of shite.’
‘No. You’re glowing. Motherhood suits you.’
Glowing means fat, of course. Sarah is on the verge of tears. ‘I wish I could come back to work, though.’
‘It’s hell at the moment, really is. We’ve got ten jobs with six different developers on the go at once, deadlines all within a couple of weeks. The clients all want cool neutral, but we’ve got to make each show home different.’
Sarah tries a smile, but it’s forced. ‘How many shades of beige can you come up with?’
‘Tell me about it. Believe me, you’re best off out of it.’
But Sarah’s mind is racing, flipping through imaginary swatch books, grabbing images from websites, putting mood boards together. She sees herself as she was a year ago, before her third maternity leave, in her smart Hobbs dress and kitten heels, sitting at her Mac in the clean, white office. Everything so ordered, the tasks so finite.
And now her day-to-day is banana-stained t-shirts, pooey nappies, pissy potties, endless small plates of snacks for Hannah and Tom, never finishing a task, never having enough sleep, never being able to have just five minutes for a wash or a wee. Her make-up bag, full of Bobbi Brown, lies unopened somewhere on top of her bedroom drawers, underneath piles and piles of washing waiting to be sorted and folded and put away. And then, all the time, this new baby crying and crying and being a source of constant worry. Is he in pain? Is he hungry/thirsty/tired? Is he going to have another fit?
Is he going to die?
The horror of his rare moments of stillness and sleep. Moments that should give her release, but which just find her constantly checking that he’s still breathing.
Her day-to-day is chaos, struggle and guilt that she is not giving each child enough attention, guilt that she is letting herself go, guilt that she is not enjoying herself. Not enjoying herself one tiny jot.
Three under three. She would not recommend it to her worst enemy. It’s a kind of torture. And when she thinks that she is only in this position by accident . . .
Max stirs and gives out the great shuddering sigh that follows a crying spell and signifies the possibility that he might, just might, settle now.
