Second Hand Jane Read Free Page A

odd and he wasn’t very
attractive and she had no idea how her sister actually managed to
have sex with him but she obviously did—and quite often, too,
judging by their numerous offspring. Who, if she were being honest,
were complete and utter little shites. Although as their aunt, she
obviously loved her pretentious eight-year-old niece Mia,
know-it-all six-year-old Bella, bossy four-year-old Ethan, and of
course she couldn’t forget her three-year-old tearaway nephew,
Elliot, who still wasn’t properly toilet trained. Nor could she
forget the incident whereby he’d wet himself all over her favourite
velvet Balenciaga skirt the last time she had been home. She had
picked up the vintage skirt for an absolute steal on one of her
op-shop forays and it would now forever bear the mark of her
nephew. Kelly had tried to appease her by saying that he only peed
on people he felt comfortable around. She’d tried to convince her
sister that really, she should be pleased because despite his
having not seen his aunt since he was six months old, he obviously
had a soft spot for her. Jess was too busy wiping at the wet spot
he’d left on her lap to care.
    Suffice to say
she loved them all but she loved them even more from afar. Which
was why she had left behind her gigs writing a weekly column about
Auckland’s movers and shakers—she refused to call it a gossip
column—along with the regular trickle of commissioned work that had
started to come her way as she carved a name for herself to
inadvertently flee to the Emerald Isle in the first place.
    Now that she
thought about it, her mother never said much when she made
reference to her brother-in-law hailing from the red planet. Jess
reckoned this was because deep down she secretly agreed with her
but the fact Brian was something or other high up in the world of
banking was all the compensation she needed.
    There was no
doubt about it; Marian Baré was a snob, she reflected fondly.
Though where it stemmed from, Jess had no idea because it really
wasn’t in keeping with her South Auckland upbringing or her
parents’ current suburban address of Hillsborough in Auckland. It
may well have straddled the more fashionable Mt Eden, as Marian
liked to point out whenever she got a chance, but their
three-bedroomed brick and tile still firmly had its foundations dug
into Hillsborough.
    Then there was the thing with their
surname. Whenever anybody pronounced it as the rather blunt “Bare,”
Jess was instantly reminded of that old TV show Keeping up
Appearances . The one
where Hyacinth Bucket always insisted her name was actually
Bouquet. It’s
not Bear, thank you very much; there is an accented ‘e’ on the end.
Beret, dahling; it’s Beret.
    “Your sister’s
making noises about having a fifth baby, you know,” she announced
during one of their last cosy mother-and-daughter transatlantic
chats.
    “More fool her;
then she’ll be run ragged.” This wasn’t true. Kelly was not averse
to getting their Mum, the world’s most devoted grandmother, to help
out and she would be in her element with another baby. She was a
proper earthmother, which to Jess’s mind simply meant not wearing
makeup, not getting one’s hair done, and talking about nothing else
other than your boobs and your baby’s bowel motions, both of which
her sister majored in.
    “All I am
saying is that your eggs are a-cooking, Jessica Jane, and once
they’re fried—no matter what these medical experts say—there is no
turning back the clock. Surely there must be some eligible men in
Dublin. Isn’t it choc-a-block with famous musicians and actors? We
don’t want any more of your wounded birds, mind.”
    What was it
with her mother and all things avian? Jess had sighed. “All I will
say with regards to my eggs, Mother, is that I am quite partial to
the odd fried egg despite their being high in cholesterol and that
four, possibly five grandchildren, in an overpopulated world is
enough for anybody. Stop being so