Not What it Seems

by Pamela Fudge

  Arthur had been surprisingly chipper and was extremely proud of the newly fitted hip which, he stated, was ‘just grand.’ The old one had, apparently given hm gyp at times in damp weather – though I had never once heard him complain – and he was glad to see the back of it.

  He’s evidently been assured by the nurses that he would soon be walking miles without any problem; neither of us had any reason to doubt them. I didn’t say a word to him about Ron’s impending visit, at his son’s request. I just hoped I would be there to see Arthur’s face when he arrived out of the blue.

  I was really going to miss Gizmo, I decided, looking at him lying on the rug with his head on his tiny paws, his bright little eyes following my every movement. I idly pondered the advisability of getting a dog of my own as I pressed innumerable T-shirts one after another and wondered if I was ever going to get to the bottom of the washing basket.

  With Gizmo at my heels I came in from the garden carrying the last armful of damp washing and almost jumped out of my skin when I found Owen in the kitchen, putting the kettle on.

  ‘I did ring the bell but I thought you were out walking the dog when I didn’t hear him bark,’ he said, laughing down at Gizmo as the tiny dog belatedly went into a frenzy of yapping round his feet. ‘So I let myself in. I hope you don’t mind. Cup of tea?’

  ‘Thanks,’ I accepted gratefully, too tired to be cross about his use of the key I’d given him for emergencies.

  ‘Your house looks a lot like mine.’ He indicated the neat piles of pressed clothes on every available surface. ‘Don’t any of them have launderettes where they live?’

  I shook my head. ‘Evidently not,’ I said, and went back to my position behind the ironing board.

  Owen budged a pile of clothes over with the edge of the tray, set it on the dining room table and offered, ‘I could take over for a while, Evie. Sit down and enjoy your tea and tell me about Arthur. I’d have liked to visit him with you, but I had to price a couple of jobs this afternoon. I’ll be glad of the work because, as you know, it usually goes quiet after Christmas, until everyone’s paid their credit card bills off.’

  I wasn’t surprised by his offer of help, because it was exactly how we had used to operate when we shared a house, dividing the housework between us. I was grateful – though I did wonder what he was doing here and eventually had to ask.

  He puffed out his cheeks and then admitted, ‘Oh, Alice and Jake are bickering. To be honest they’ve hardly stopped all day and it’s seriously beginning to get on my nerves.’

  ‘Oh, dear,’ I said, pouring tea out for us both and fetching my dwindling supply of biscuits. ‘I don’t think they have biscuits where they live either,’ I commented, peering into the barrel.

  ‘Oh, dear, indeed.’ Owen didn’t look up from the ironing board, where a blouse I recognised as mine was being conscientiously smoothed of all creases. ‘It was either come here or go to bed early.’

  ‘You could have gone to the pub and joined the others.’

  ‘Mmm,’ he said, without any interest, but then looked up and asked, ‘You don’t mind me coming here, do you?’

  I grinned and the last trace of annoyance about the key left me. ‘Well, I can hardly complain, can I? You always were much better at ironing than me.’ He still didn’t look sure, so I added, ‘We’re friends, aren’t we? Always have been, probably always will be.’

  ‘I hope so. Fel free any time to come over and do my ironing, by the way.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I said with mock gratitude. ‘I’ll be sure to take you up on that offer very soon.’

  We spent a while discussing Arthur, his circumstances, and the fact that his son was arriving soon, then we returned to the subject of Alice and Jake’s relationship.

  ‘I suppose all couples bicker,’ I thought out loud adding, ‘I’m sure we must have – and we weren’t even a proper couple.’

  ‘Did we?’ Owen looked surprised. ‘I always thought we got along absolutely great. Much better than most couples we knew. Sandy and James were a complete nightmare – and they probably still are. From what I remember of them, they would start a quarrel over the most ridiculous things.’

  ‘Whether tomatoes should be sliced or chopped in a salad,’ I recalled, with the same sense of amazement I’d felt at the time. Remember that? They almost came to blows over that one, until we suggested they just got cherry tomatoes and served them whole.’

  ‘Knocker or bell for the front door – that was another one – and it raged on for ages, until I fitted both just to shut them up.’

  I nodded. ‘That stopped them in their tracks. You have both knocker and bell now, thanks to my generosity, and I hope you have the bell set up to play ‘Auld Lang Syne,’ with the New Year looming. Oh, yes, and we’ve both been invited to my next door neighbours’ New Year’s Eve party, if you’re interested. I have to say Ruth seems very taken with you since apparently speaking to you on the night of Arthur’s accident. She has particularly asked me to be sure to mention it to you.

  ‘Joking aside, though, Owen,’ I became suddenly serious, ‘I was cross – and I mean really cross – that Sandy went out of her way to tell our children I was seeing someone. I probably should have mentioned it to them sooner, but in my defence Stuart and I had barely even been on a proper date at that point. You wouldn’t even have known about us if you hadn’t bumped into us on the same night as Sandy saw us. You didn’t rush off to share the news, yet you had far more right than she did to get involved. I only wanted to tell the children together. We both know what they’re like, Owen. You tell one of them anything on the phone and before you can reach the rest they’ve all texted each other.’

  ‘Yes, but then Sandy always did think she knew best,’ was Owen’s very honest opinion.

  ‘You’re so right,’ I stared at him. ‘She would never have it that we weren’t a match made in heaven, destined to be together forever and go on to have even more children together. I remember she used to question me very closely about our sleeping arrangements, and quite clearly didn’t believe we weren’t nipping across the landing on a regular basis. I actually had to put her in her place more than once.’

  ‘You, too?’ Owen grimaced. ‘Still, they did us a kindness just by introducing us to each other. The last few years could have been very different – even impossible for us both – without the working arrangement we came up with that really did work. There,’ he put the last neatly pressed item onto the correct pile, and began to fold the ironing board. ‘All done,’ he said, and then asked, ‘You don’t fancy joining the gang at the pub, do you, Evie? I don’t feel like going home yet and I won’t feel like such an old duffer if you’re with me.’

  ‘Coward.’ I laughed at him. ‘How can I refuse since you’ve released me me from the hell of seemingly endless ironing a lot sooner than I’d expected to finish. I’ll get my coat.’

  As it was just Owen and the local pub, I didn’t feel the need to do more than change into a fresh T-shirt, brush my hair and tuck my jeans into a pair of boots. As an after-thought I swiped on a dab of lipstick, then grabbed my leather jacket, scarf and bag, and I was ready.

  It wasn’t far, so we walked arm in arm, chatting easily, and because this was something we had done so many times before while we shared a house it felt oddly as if time had stopped and nothing had changed. The feeling increased when we walked into the pub and were quickly encircled by our children and their friends.

  The happy atmosphere changed considerably when Alice and Jake joined us soon after our own arrival. It was clear that the row Owen had mentioned was on-going and they were scarcely speaking. Though Jake was making an effort to behave normally and join in the general conversation, Alice had a face like thunder and was obviously intending to make no effort at all. I would have wondered why she had bothered to come out if I wasn’t well aware that when Alice was upset she wanted to let everyone know about it.

  I tried, Owen tried, Connor, Ella and mai tried, and most of all Jake
tried to coax her into a better mood, but it was all to no avail because she absolutely wasn’t having any of it. The mellow feeling induced by the first glass of wine disappeared as I became more on edge and I stupidly drank more quickly in the hope of getting back to the same state. All I managed was to become quite drunk quite quickly, to the point where I found everything hysterically funny – even Alice’s stony face.

  ‘You,’ she hissed, ‘are a disgrace and just need to grow up.’

  I was proud when I managed to say, very carefully, and without a hint of a slur, ‘I think, Alice, it is you who needs to grow up, actually, and to learn that the whole world does not revolve around you.’

  With that I turned on a heel that seemed suddenly to have become very unstable. I made my way unsteadily to the door and shoved it open. When the cold air hit me I had to keep a firm hold on to the door handle until I got my bearings or I would have taken a nosedive down steps I hadn’t even noticed on the way in. I was wondering in a vague kind of way how on earth I was going to manage the walk home, when I felt a firm hand under my elbow and looked up into Owen’s kind blue eyes.

  I felt obliged to say, ‘I’ll be fine, honestly,’ and prayed he wouldn’t take his hand away.

  ‘Of course you will,’ he agreed, ‘but I have to go back to yours to pick up my car, so we’d just as well walk together.’

  Walking together consisted of me doing my best to put one foot in front of the other and handing onto Owen for dear life. I was sober enough to fel pretty stupid and quite cross with myself. In the end I really felt I should apologise for the state I was in.

  ‘So sorry,’ I mumbled, keeping my gaze steadfastly on the pavement in front and wondering that the short walk on the way to the pub appeared to have trebled itself for the return journey.

  ‘Nothing to be sorry about – if I hadn’t been driving I would happily have joined you.’

  ‘I s’pose we could talk about it – about them and their relationship?’

  ‘It won’t help,’ Owen said sensibly.

  The relief when we turned the corner into my cul-de-sac was indescribable. I felt very little nearer to a sober state, though I managed a creditably normal, Good evening ,’ greeting to Giles, who was just getting out of his car.

  I had enough sense to allow Owen to unlock the door, because I feared that trying to get a Yale key into such a tiny lock might proof to be embarrassing since it was bound to take several attempts. Gizmo rushed to greet us, then he was through the door and between our legs before either of us could do a single thing to stop him.

  ‘I’ll catch him, you go on in,’ Owen offered, but I remained on the step leaning against the doorframe and roaring with laughter at the dog’s determined efforts to avoid capture. ‘Got you, you little...’ Owen said, once he had the animal safely tucked under one arm and me supported by the other. ‘Trouble, you are, the pair of you,’ he added as soon as he had managed to get us both inside and had shut the door firmly behind us. ‘Now, could you just try and keep out of mischief while I put the kettle on?’

  The coffee he put in front of me was so hot and so strong that the spoon could have stood up on its own. I shuddered as the bitter taste burned a trail down my throat but continued to sip with grim determination, feeling it was crucial that I should sober up so that Own could get away.

  ‘Funny,’ Owen said, looking around, I could never have imagined us living separate lives, but it seems to be working quite well, doesn’t it? The chidren have all taken it in their stride, I think, even Alice in the end. I expect once the New Year is over, and life gets back to normal you’ll be getting down to that novel.’

  ‘Erm, yes,’ I agreed, realising with a start that I had scarcely given it a thought since the day I’d moved house, despite the state-of-the-art office waiting for me upstairs.

  The burning desire to get working on the plot I’d been carrying round in my head for more years than I cared to remember seemed to have deserted me somewhere along the way. I knew it was just an excuse, but there always seemed to be so much going on and it would probably need a good pair of bellows blasting ideas at me to get the spark of the original plot to burst into flames again.

  The idea of writing a whole novel suddenly seemed very daunting, even given my inebriated state, though I usually found that alcohol could be relied upon to give a boost to my confidence. I suddenly realised that Owen was speaking to me and I forced myself to concentrate.

  ‘I do admire you, Evie,’ he was saying seriously, ‘because although I know we always said we would move on once the children had all gone off to university, left to me it wouldn’t have happened. Now that you’re dating again it’s given me another massive push. You’ll be pleased to hear that I’ve met someone as well, and, though it’s early days, we get on really well, so we are planning to see a lot more of one another in the future.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said, ‘that’s great. That’s really great. I’m so pleased.’

  A sudden wave of nausea swept over me and I only just made it to the bathroom in time. I felt absolutely wretched and, staring into the mirror at my streaming eyes and chalk-white face, I told myself that it just served me right. It was the alcohol, of course, and had absolutely nothing to do with Owen’s news, because I couldn’t have been more thrilled for him.

  Chapter Eighteen

  It felt as if my hangover was still raging days later when the children were packing their holdalls with freshly laundered clothes ready for the journey back to their own lives. I made a determined effort to convince myself I just had a touch of the flu ad was only feeling down because of that and the fact that I was going to miss them so much, but it didn’t seem to be working particularly well.

  We all went out for a family meal at our favourite Italian Restaurant the night before they were leaving. On this occasion the atmosphere between Alice and Jake was showing some signs of a slight improvement and appeared merely chilly rather than demonstrating the extreme arctic iciness that they’d displayed previously. Alice did at least make a noticeable effort to be sociable and contribute to the general conversation, for which I was grateful, even if she did sit as far away from Jake as possible.

  For some reason it really annoyed me when Owen waited for me to make my menu choices before he made his own – even though it was what he’d always done. I wondered irritably if it was a practice he would continue with his new woman and what she would make of a habit that could really be quite exasperating at times. It would just serve him right, I thought with a touch of unusual asperity, if he continued the ritual and discovered that her selections weren’t at all to his taste.

  ‘It’s been a brilliant Christmas,’ Ella said, ‘apart from poor Arthur’s accident.’

  ‘Yes, thank you both so much for everything,’ Mai agreed, ‘and I don’t just mean the presents, although they are fabulous.’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Alice seemed to come out of a reverie that had appeared to hold her attention for a while and she turned to me with a sudden bright smile that completely took me by surprise, so that I blinked. ‘We forgot to give you your main present with everything that went on.’

  ‘Like you throwing a hissy fits everywhere,’ I heard Connor mutter under his breath.

  I threw him a warning look and said, ‘But I’ve had lots of presents.’

  ‘Not this one, Mum.’ Alice looked pleased with herself as she drew a long white envelope from her bag and handed it to me with a mysterious and very satisfied smile.

  I was expecting tickets for a show, if I was being honest, which would have been fantastic. I’d mentioned more than once that I would love to see Phantom of the Opera amongst others. What I absolutely wasn’t expecting to find in the envelope, not in a million years, was an on-line booking slip confirming return flights to Australia.

  Six faces watched me, obviously waiting for a reaction, and I could see that five, at least, were more than a little apprehensive about what that reaction was going to be. So this was Alice’s idea then; as sual
she was assuming she knew best.

  ‘What’s this, then?’ I kept my tone even only by making a supreme effort.

  ‘Well, we thought you’d spent so many years making us into a proper family that it’s given you no time at all to keep in contact with your own,’ Alice spoke brightly, and though she seemed sincere I couldn’t help feeling there was a slightly malicious edge to her attempt to manipulate me back into a relationship my family and I had given up on years ago. I did try to tell myself that I could have been wrong.

  ‘That’s a very nice thought,’ I managed, determined not to show how angry I was, and I wondered how she’d contrived to persuade them to go along with such a dubious idea and to part with such a lot of money. It was money that the youngest in the family, at least, would barely have been able to afford.

  ‘It’s in the Easter holidays so you don’t have to worry about your classes,’ Mai pointed out. She still looked anxious, and I wondered again how hard Alice had worked to convince them all that this was exactly what I would want.

  ‘Lovely,’ I managed. Thrusting the envelope into my bag I somehow got through the rest of an evening from which, for me, all the pleasure had gone.

  Thankfully, when we arrived home and pulled into the driveway, we could all see lights on in Arthur’s house, indicating that his son had arrived, so I went straight round there. Connor, Ella and Mai were right on my heels, probably in case I came face to face with a burglar. It seemed unlikely, though it did cross my mind to wonder how Ron came to have a key.

  However, there was no doubting that the man who opened the door was related to Arthur because he was, quite simply, a younger version. I liked him very much on sight.