'Well, no, nothing like that. She's determined to become a Catholic. She says it's in her blood.'
Stella was astonished. Neither she nor Dave had been religious; and although in the past Ken had sometimes attended his wife's African Christian services to please her, he had not been near a church since her death. Holly however pointed out that Stella's mother had been half-French, and that the French were Catholics and that she had met some wonderful, understanding people who were Catholics and who wanted her to be baptized into the Catholic Church. Manchester has a high proportion of Catholics, many of them of Irish ancestry, so it was not surprising that Holly had made friends with teenagers who took their religion seriously. What seemed strange to Stella and Dave was Holly's own sudden intense commitment to the Church. Together they met the parish priest and some adult members of his congregation. Then they had a long discussion with Holly, explaining that they accepted that she was now 17 and had a right to decide for herself if she wished for instruction in the rules and beliefs of the church. So when she was 18, Holly became a devout and enthusiastic Catholic, whose life now circled around her Catholic responsibilities and friends.
Two months later, soon after he had started on his A-level course, Jake came to Stella one evening and said that he wanted to talk to her. Stella was startled; Jake had seemed quiet, even withdrawn, for some months now, unlike Ethan who was inclined to talk non-stop.
'What is it, darling?'
Jake looked at her very seriously. 'I've something to tell you, Mum, that I think you ought to know. I'm gay. That's who I am. I'm a gay person.'
The first thought that went through Stella's mind was, 'Oh, that explains why he has been so quiet. He's been troubled about this.' The next thought was, 'Poor boy, he must feel very lonely, if his family don't know. Well, he won't be lonely now!' She said, 'Oh, Jake, darling!' and gave him a big, long hug. Presently she found she was crying, and Jake was half-comforting her, although she was not quite sure why she needed to be comforted.
Then she said, 'Probably this is a silly question, but - do you want to be gay?'
Jake said, 'It's not like that. I can't choose. You didn't choose to fall in love with men - with Dad or with Ken. That's how you are. You don't fall in love with women. And obviously it's how most people are. I mean, men fall in love with women, and women with men. But it's not like that with me. So it's not a matter of wanting to be gay. I am gay.'
Stella said, 'So it's not like Holly deciding to become a Catholic?'
Jake laughed, wryly. 'No. Holly can decide and change her mind and decide and change her mind again. I'm sure that at the moment she feels she is going to be a Catholic all her life, and perhaps she will be. But she could choose. I am what I am. I've known that since I was eleven or twelve.'
'As early as that?!'
'I don't mean that I understood the consequences then. I didn't think. I just knew. Come on, Mum, tell me when you realised that, for you, boys were sort-of-special.'
Stella looked back to her childhood. All those grubby primary school boys that first you played with, and then you didn't want to play with, and then...
'I must have been about eleven.'
'You see,' said Jake.
Stella said, 'It must feel sometimes very lonely for you.'
Jake said, 'Yes. I have one or two gay friends, but it's not like all the boys and girls being together and having a good time together, which is mostly what happens at school. So I do feel lonely, sometimes.'
Stella gave him another hug and said, 'Even if you're straight - is that the word I should use, Jake, for ordinary people, I mean heterosexual people? - you can still sometimes feel very lonely, especially if you are 17.'
Jake said, 'Yes, Mum' but not as though he believed her.
That night in bed, Stella wept a little to herself. She tried to work out why she was crying, and decided that it was partly because she believed that her beloved Jake would have a more difficult time than most people in finding his way in the world. And partly because Jake would never give her grandchildren, which was sad but (she told herself) a selfish matter to feel sad about.
For all these people, for Sarah, Mark, Sam, Nell, Peter, Linda, Craig, Stuart, Kate, Tariq, Ismail, Emmeline, Clarity, Jonas, Stephanie, Denise, Clifford, Lily, Stella, Dave, Holly, Jake, Ken, Ethan, Noah, Jacky, Simon, Alice and Beth, life was busy in all directions: in their family life, at work or at school, in all their friendships, responsibilities, in their making homes, having fun and all the other activities that, somehow or other, they managed to take on at the same time during the years up to 2008. Towards the end of 2008 the world financial collapse and recession was just around the corner. Money, finance, and the loss of jobs would affect them in different ways, some for a few months, some of the rest of their lives. But they did not know the future, any more than we do.
Chapter 2. Family Life and Personal Relationships
In the previous chapter I told, very briefly, the stories of the lives of twenty-nine people. In this chapter I look at these families insofar as they illustrate patterns of English life during the last ten years of the twentieth century and the first ten years of the twenty-first.
The popularity of marriage has been declining. Almost half the children in Britain are born to parents who have not married, but this does not mean that their parents are in casual and drifting relationships. A smallish minority of unmarried mothers who give birth are living on their own; the child's father is not around or only around sporadically. But most children with unmarried parents grow up with a mother and father who have much the same relationship to each other as if they were married. Of the marriages that do take place, about two-thirds are civil marriages, one third are religious ceremonies.
Among our families, all three Taylor children married, though for different reasons. Both Sarah and her husband, Mark, wanted to marry as the first stage in starting family life. This was a public celebration of their commitment to one another. Mark had religious beliefs, so they married in church. Peter and Linda had no thought of marrying, until they decided that they wanted to become adoptive parents. The adoption agencies (see below) accept unmarried couples, but Peter and Linda wanted to emphasise for the boys as well as the agency that they were a 'properly married mum and dad'. Kate had decided that marriage was not for her, until she met Tariq. His family were by no means altogether comfortable with Tariq marrying outside their traditional world of Pakistani Muslim origin. But equally, they would have been unhappy if the couple had lived together, not marrying. So, in order to insist, as kindly as possible, that they were absolutely serious about their long-term love for one another, Kate and Tariq decided to marry with a civil ceremony in which both families could come together on neutral ground. Their scheme worked well; the families found sufficient in common to meet on several other occasions without very much stress.
Jonas and Stephanie have not married. Among them and their friends, marriage is not the norm. One or two girls whom Stephanie knows have chosen to have 'real weddings' which have turned out to be extraordinarily expensive. Jonas and Stephanie prefer to keep their money for paying their mortgage and for their new baby.
Stella has been married and divorced. She did not want her first unhappy marriage to be repeated, so she was unwilling to go through a marriage ceremony with Ken. Ken was not interested in expensive romantic parties, and if that was how Stella felt, it suited him. Dave and his new partner, Emma, have also not married, for similar reasons.