The Accidental Life of Jessie Jefferson (8 page)

Stuart pushes open the door and my reflection disappears with it. He stands aside to let me pass into the vacuous reception space. Two women sit behind the large desk ahead of us. One is on the phone. The other glances up and smiles.

‘Can I help you?’ she asks.

Luckily Stuart takes control because I’ve lost my voice. ‘We’re here to see Wendel Rosgrove.’

‘Names?’

‘Stuart Taylor and Jessica Pickerill.’

She scans a notepad in front of her, then nods. ‘Go straight up to the fourth floor.’

‘Do you have a toilet?’ I interject.

‘Of course. First door to your right.’ She points to the corridor behind her. I half hop and skip my way towards it, but when I’m safely inside a cubicle, the urge to go vanishes. If this is what I’m like when I’m meeting his solicitor, what am I going to be like when I come face-to-face with Johnny Jefferson?

Another, smaller, reception desk waits for us on the fourth floor, but before we can take a seat as directed, a grey-haired man wearing a pinstripe suit opens the door and pokes his head out.

‘Mr Taylor?’ he asks, staring straight at Stu, but his blue-grey eyes flit towards me.

‘Pleased to meet you,’ Stu says confidently, going towards him with his hand outstretched. The man shifts to push the door back with his other hand, relieving his right hand to shake Stu’s.

‘Wendel Rosgrove,’ he says.

‘And this is Jessie,’ Stu says, turning around and indicating me.

Wendel nods at me. ‘Come straight through.’ He pushes the door open and I meekly follow Stu through the door.

We follow Wendel down a long corridor, with doors to our left and right. He opens the door at the very end and I’m almost blinded by the light as a view of London at its sunniest comes into focus. We’re inside the block of glass, and this is a floor-to-ceiling view of the city. Straight ahead, between a break in the buildings, I can see Oxford Street, bumper-to-bumper with black taxis and double-storey red buses. Mum used to take me shopping there . . .

‘Why don’t you get a Saturday job in TopShop?’ she says as we rifle through the racks. ‘There’s one in Maidenhead town centre.’

‘Yeah, I know,’ I reply, vaguely aware of the irony of us coming to London when we have the same shop at home. But this branch is the biggest in the country. ‘I think you have to be sixteen,’ I reply.

‘Oh, that’s a shame,’ she says. ‘You could work in another clothes shop, though? You’d be good in fashion.’

‘Yeah, maybe,’ I say thoughtfully. I’d love to get a job and have a bit of my own money, but I’m only fifteen – well, I will be next week. We’re here on a pre-birthday shopping trip so I can get something to wear at my party.

‘What about this?’ She holds up a dress in front of me. ‘Yellow really suits you.’

‘Do you think?’ I screw up my nose.

‘Definitely. I wish I had your skin tone.’

She’s always been quite pale. ‘I guess I must take after my dad, then,’ I say with irritation and she stiffens. Another moment spoiled by the secret that rests between us.

The pain that engulfs me at the memory is breathtaking. I thought this was enough to take my mind off Mum, but I was wrong. Everything about this search for my dad is linked back to her – how could it not be?

‘Take a seat.’ Wendel brings me back to the present as he goes behind his chunky, dark-wooden desk. Stu and I pull up black leather office chairs in front of him and sit down. The chairs look expensive. Everything in here looks expensive. I glance around at the wooden bookshelves against the wall, neatly stacked with pristine books, and the brown leather sofa to my right, accompanied by a highly polished black glass coffee table.

‘Tea? Coffee?’ Wendel asks us.

‘No, thank you,’ Stu replies, and it seems to me that he’s lost some of his earlier confidence. Or maybe he never had it in the first place. I quickly shake my head and look away.

‘Soft drink?’ he asks, and I glance back to see him staring directly at me.

‘No, thank you,’ I reply quietly.

‘Right.’ He presses a button on his intercom and speaks into it. ‘Coffee for me. Nothing else.’ Then he turns and regards us from across the desk. ‘Thank you for coming to see me,’ he says in a clipped tone without a smile, making me think he’s anything but pleased we’re here. ‘Shall we get down to business?’

Business?

‘Can I be completely honest with you?’ he asks, and I nod, sensing Stu’s impatience beside me. Both of us are clearly wishing he’d get to the point, whatever that is.

There’s a sharp knock at the door and a woman enters with a tray. Wendel leans back in his chair as she places it on the desk in front of him. He continues to talk, ignoring her as she pours his coffee and adds a dash of cream.

‘We haven’t had a situation like this before.’ I’m a ‘situation’? ‘That may surprise you, considering my client’s reputation.’ So I
am
the only one like me.

The woman turns and goes out of the door without so much as a thank you from Wendel. The man’s manners are even worse than my own.

‘I have to tell you that I’ve imagined this day coming on numerous occasions.’

I feel like I’m sitting in the headmaster’s office. I’m surprised when Stu speaks.

‘In that case, you will have had plenty of time to think about where we go from here,’ he says, and I detect a hint of sarcasm to his tone.

Wendel clears his throat. ‘It’s not that straightforward.’

‘Have you told Johnny about me?’ I find myself asking. His eyes meet mine.

‘He knows,’ he replies, his tone neutral.

My heart jumps.

‘Does his family know?’

‘I’m not at liberty to discuss that,’ he replies, making me shrink back into myself. ‘What I would like to know from you, is what you expect to come from this?’ He stops short of asking me if I can be paid off. But I know that’s what he’s thinking, so I answer his unspoken question.

‘It’s
not
about money,’ I tell him firmly. ‘I want to meet my real dad. I’ve always wanted to meet him, or at the very least know who he is. But my mum died nearly six months ago, without telling me who he was. I thought I’d never know the truth, but now I do I’m not going to miss out on this opportunity. So you tell Johnny Jefferson that he’d better come clean to his family about me. Because I’m not going away. I won’t be bought. I’m here. And he owes me the courtesy of meeting me face to face.’

Without realising it, I’ve stood up, my body wracked with tension and my nose tingling as I stare him down from across the table. Whoa. I sit back down with a bump. Then I realise that Wendel is regarding me with something that I would almost call respect, if that didn’t sound so cringey. Maybe he’s not used to being spoken to like that. Well, like I care who he is?

‘OK,’ he nods, a hint of a smile on his lips. ‘I’ll speak to my client.’

Why doesn’t he just call him Johnny, like everyone else does?

‘But in the meantime, it would be wise for you to keep this quiet. Don’t go talking to any journalists—’

‘As if I would,’ I interrupt.

‘If she’d wanted to tell anyone, she already would have,’ Stu backs me up.

His faith in me is a
little
unfounded, as I discover the next day when Natalie stalks into work and insists that I go for lunch with her.

‘Where have you been?’ she demands to know as we sit in the coffee shop in the mall. It’s raining today and neither of us brought umbrellas so we don’t want to venture far. ‘Have you
really
had a stomach bug?’

‘Um . . .’

From the look on her face, she knows I’m lying.

‘It’s true that I haven’t been feeling very well,’ I tell her.

‘What’s been wrong with you?’ she asks with a frown, sipping her milkshake through a straw. ‘Tom was asking about you last night, you know.’

‘Really?’ I instantly perk up. I’ve barely thought about him in almost two weeks – I’ve been so consumed with everything that’s going on. ‘What did he say? Where did you go?’

‘
Now
you’re feeling better,’ she teases, tucking into her sandwich. ‘A bunch of us went round Aaron’s,’ she reveals between mouthfuls. ‘His parents have turned their garage into a games room so we hung out and played pool.’

‘What did Tom say?’ I urge her to get to the point.

‘He just asked where you were.’ She flicks her black hair back.

‘Did he say anything else?’

‘No. But he did look a bit disappointed.’

I can’t help grinning as I pick up my own sandwich. But before I can lift it up to my mouth, I have a thought. ‘Was Isla there?’

‘No, she wasn’t, actually. I’m pretty sure they’re not together.’

My smile pops back into place. ‘Who else was there?’ I ask as I take a bite. She fills me in on all the gossip.

‘You should have come,’ she says eventually, still sounding a little put out. She’s not used to me saying no.

I look down. ‘I couldn’t.’

‘Why not? What’s going on with you?’

I’m not sure how much more of this secrecy I can bear. I’m dying to spill the beans. I make an impulsive decision. I’m sure Natalie won’t tell anyone.

‘OK . . .’ I lean in towards her. ‘I’ve just found out who my real dad is.’

She frowns. ‘Oh. Wow.’ She sounds slightly deflated, like she was hoping for something better, and I realise that she has no idea how much I’ve wanted to know about him all these years. Why would she, when we don’t really talk about serious things? For some reason I picture Libby sitting opposite me and can’t help feeling a twinge of regret that she wasn’t the first person I told. Never mind, the next bit of my news is going to blow her away.

‘It’s Johnny Jefferson.’

I fight the urge to laugh out loud at the look on her face. Obviously she thinks I’m taking the piss.

‘Good one,’ she says with a wry look, turning back to her lunch.

‘I’m not joking.’ I shake my head slowly.

‘Ha ha, very funny,’ she says sarcastically. ‘Have you really found out who your real dad is or were you joking about that, too?’

‘Natalie.’ I reach across the table and grasp her hand. ‘I’m honestly, honestly being serious. My mum was a Fence groupie when she was a teenager.’

She rolls her eyes and extracts her hand.

Bloody hell, she’s not going to believe me . . . ‘I’m serious!’ I exclaim. ‘Stu told me. I asked my mum time and time again who he was and she’d never tell me. Then she died.’ The smile falls from my face. Natalie still looks sceptical. She doesn’t say anything, too worried to look like a fool in case I’m teasing her. But I would never use my mum’s death to wind anyone up.

‘Why wouldn’t your mum have just told you the truth?’ she asks with narrowed eyes, holding back from showing any emotion. ‘I mean, if your dad is
Johnny Jefferson
,’ she says in a comedy voice, ‘surely that’s big news.’

‘She didn’t want to lose me, Stu said. She thought I’d want to go and live with him, choose him over her. I mean, he’s a mega famous rock star.’ I shrug.

She smirks and noisily slurps at the dregs of her drink. ‘You should be an actress,’ she says when she’s finished.

‘I am not joking!’ I say in a loud whisper. ‘Johnny Jefferson is my biological father. I’ve had to do a paternity test. I went to see his solicitor yesterday in London and he told me to keep quiet about it, so it’s actually pretty handy if you don’t believe me because I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone.’

Something changes in her expression and I think she’s starting to come around. Then she cracks up laughing. She literally
hoots
with laughter, bordering on hysterical. ‘Are you serious?’ she asks again. She’s wearing false eyelashes today. They make her blue eyes look even bigger.

‘Yes!’ I sit back in my chair and grin at her. She lurches forwards and grabs my hand.

‘Johnny Jefferson is your dad?
Your
dad?’

‘Yes! Shh!’

‘Holy shit!’ she cries. I lean over and bat her across the head.

‘Keep it down, you nutcase. I don’t want anyone to hear us.’ But the coffee shop is bustling with people and they’re all nattering away, so I don’t think anyone is paying attention to two hysterical teenagers. I look back at Natalie. She’s still staring at me. I’m not sure if it’s in disbelief or if she’s just reeling from the truth. I hope it’s the latter because I’m sick of trying to convince her.

‘What a load of bollocks,’ she says suddenly with a wry grin, throwing the remnants of her lunch down and pushing her chair back. ‘I’ve got to get back to work.’ She stands up. ‘Glad you’re feeling better, though.’ She pats my arm and walks out of the coffee shop, shaking her head with bemusement.

I stare after her with surprise. She still thinks I’m making it up. It makes me think about Libby again, and how things might have been different if she and I were still friends.

The rain has cleared by the evening, so I walk the long way home, my feet taking me on a detour past Libby’s house. I slow on the pavement on the opposite side of the street, and cast a look at her house. Her dad’s car is on the driveway, but there’s no sign of life inside. I feel downhearted, but then, just like the last time I walked past, her mum appears in the kitchen window and she spots me instantly. But unlike last time, I don’t put my head down and turn away, so I see her wave enthusiastically. I timidly smile back and she holds up her palm, indicating for me to wait. She hurries out of sight and then the front door opens.

‘Jessie!’ she cries, beaming, her curly red hair framing her round face. ‘How are you?’

‘I’m OK, thanks, Marilyn,’ I reply uncertainly. My life has changed so much since Mum’s death, it’s like I don’t know her any more. She used to be like a second mum to me.

‘Come over and see me.’ She beckons to me and I feel obliged to go. ‘I haven’t seen you for such a long time!’ she exclaims as I reach her, putting her arm around me and pulling me in for a squeeze. I awkwardly squeeze her back. She’s familiar, yet unfamiliar. ‘Have you got time for a cuppa with me?’ she implores, and I hesitate before nodding. She leads me through to the kitchen. The house looks the same as it always did, but it feels like an age has passed since I was last here, not just a few months.