‘That’s okay, my lovely. It’s not like it’s Christmas or a birthday; it’s a wedding anniversary, and that’s different, a bit more of a personal celebration for Dad and me. I didn’t expect you to come home. Not at all. I know you are very busy – and Liverpool is hardly around the corner.’
Rae did this: issued verbal platitudes designed to appease everyone but herself. How she would love to spend time with her daughter! A coffee, a lunch or a quick chat over breakfast – any would do. How she would love to be made a priority in Hannah’s life just for a day, or an hour! But it was not her way. She would never want her kids to feel like she was pressuring them, even when this was to her detriment.
‘Yes, but twenty-five years! That’s like a lifetime.’
‘It is in fact not far off your lifetime,’ Rae pointed out.
‘Urgh. I am never going to get married, Mum.’
‘You don’t know that, Hannah. And I’m not saying you should get married; but I would like you to settle in a relationship. I think it would be good for you, make you happy. It’s a nice way to live, when it works.’ She smiled and thought of Howard, who was secreted in his study, no doubt preparing for the night ahead.
In truth, not only did she pray Hannah would find someone to love who loved her back, but she was also a little weary of her daughter’s militant views on just about everything. It wasn’t that she didn’t want her to have opinions – of course she did: strong ones! – but Rae couldn’t help wondering if she needed to be quite so angry about everything. She hoped it was a phase, thinking how much easier her daughter’s life would be if she were a little more appeasing. That, and Sunday lunch might actually be enjoyable if she were able to dish up vegetables without a knot in her gut, waiting for Hannah to take umbrage at something and begin one of her rather shouty lectures.
‘I do know!’ Hannah spat. ‘Marriage is outdated, restrictive and pointless.’
‘But weren’t you out marching in support of same-sex marriage only last year?’
‘That is totally different, Mum! God!’ Rae pictured her daughter’s eye-roll across the miles. ‘That was about the principle of it! The discrimination, not the actual marriage!’
‘I see,’ Rae said, even though she didn’t, not really, but was choosing to end the debate there, not having the energy for further discussion.
It felt like a poignant topic, on this of all days, when she and Howard were celebrating their silver wedding anniversary.
It had been a day of reflection, much of it spent at the kitchen table as she thought about the slip of a girl who had traipsed up the aisle on the arm of her dad, taking in the glances of admiration and thinking, she was now ashamed to admit, of all the pretty beribboned, boxed gifts that were piled on the dining-room table of her lovely new home, just waiting for her to rip off the paper. Her eyes now flew to the wide cherrywood chest of drawers on which sat a small glass perfume bottle with a silver lid. This bottle was just one of the gifts she had revealed on her wedding night, pulling the delicate thing from its fancy box as she sat with the full skirt of her watered-silk wedding dress spread on the floor like a picnic blanket. Howard had lain on it, his head resting on her lap, smoking, as he did back then, and with a slender glass of champagne clutched to his chest, the base sitting inside the open shirt front, which was a little stained with red wine. He seemed uninterested in the presents that had come flowing from relatives far and wide – his, mainly, and therein probably lay the reason for her joy: Howard was used to this life of opulence; she, however, was still impressed by it all. She felt it gave her status that had been lacking in her life so far and this, in turn, raised her confidence.
‘Twenty-five years!’ she breathed. ‘And it feels like yesterday.’
Rae had heard many people talk about the nerves of the big day and she knew better than most how anxiety could peel the joy from any event. Many were the minutes – hours – she had locked herself in toilet cubicles, trying to summon the courage to participate on other occasions. But strangely, on her wedding day, she hadn’t felt nerves – maybe a flutter or two, but her overriding feeling had been one of pure, unadulterated happiness.
She had fallen for Howard on their second date.
The first had been a mild disaster, a double date with the newly coupled Dolly and Vinnie. They hadn’t made it to Majorca without parents; not then. This was partly because Dolly’s parents, Arturo and Mitzy, had pooh-poohed the idea, but mainly because the trip felt a little redundant once her friend’s impressive bosom, loud mouth and sass had landed her her catch at a nightclub in northwest London called Coco’s.
Vinnie had watched Dolly strut her stuff on the dance floor to the Pointer Sisters’ ‘Automatic’; this, followed by a slow dance to Kenny G’s ‘Songbird’ with that body pressed closed to his, and he was snared.
She and Howard were quite overpowered on that first meeting by Dolly shouting, fidgeting and being generally overbearing as she and Vinnie flirted up a storm, making Rae – and, she suspected, Howard too – feel like the supporting cast for the drama that unfolded. She recalled sitting in the pub with her hands in her lap, wishing her friend wasn’t quite so vocal and wondering what she was doing there at all, so out of place in this setting with these people. There was, she’d decided, no way someone as handsome and confident as Howard Latimer was ever going to be interested in someone like her, the girl in the corner. With this thought prevalent, she cursed the fact she had persuaded her mum to buy her a new floral blouse with leg-of-mutton sleeves and wished she could fast-forward the clock to when she was climbing into her warm bed in that familiar room and the whole embarrassing ordeal was over.
She had stepped from Vinnie’s car at the end of the evening with a cloak of disappointment weighing her down. As she’d pushed open the garden gate and stood on the cement-frog-lined path, Howard had caught her up.
‘That was a terrible, terrible evening.’ He spoke softly, with the crinkle of laughter around his blue eyes.
‘It really was,’ she agreed, her laughter born of pure relief.
‘I don’t think either of us managed to get a word in edgeways.’
‘I think Dolly was just a bit excited,’ she whispered, looking again at her shoes.
He took a breath and placed his finger under her chin, lifting her eyes to meet his properly for the first time. ‘You are kind and far too nice to be my sister’s best friend. She’s a nightmare.’
‘Come on, Howard! Get a bloody move on! Let her go in already! We are getting so bored I literally might drop dead!’ Dolly shouted from the front seat. Rae felt the twitch of net curtains all around, as the neighbours heard her too.
‘See what I mean?’ He didn’t take his eyes from her face and the interaction felt a lot like talking, even in the gaps between the words. It made her tummy flip. ‘I think maybe we should go out again, but just you and me. How does that sound?’
‘Sounds like it would be quiet,’ she squeaked, biting her bottom lip and cursing the lack of confidence in her tone.
‘And right now quiet would be good.’ He smiled at her. ‘I think we should go for a long walk and not to the pub. What do you think?’
She smiled at him. ‘I think yes.’
Their second date had come only a week later. The two of them had fallen into step and walked the track around the lake in the local park with perfect rhythm. They chatted and it was far from awkward, far from nerve-racking. It was in fact perfect.
Rae smiled now and rubbed the top of her arms at the memory, feeling, as she sometimes did, so blessed. In truth she had fallen for him as they walked laps of the water, as if afraid to step from the path and break the magic. She needn’t have feared. As the afternoon drew to a close and dusk bit, he had held her close to him, so close she thought he must be able to hear her heart beating, and kissed her sweetly on the top of the head before offering the casual promise to see her soon.
As he’d walked away, she had imprinted an image of him at the front of her brain and that was
where he had stayed. Even now she might be shopping or changing the bed linen when a feeling of warmth flooded her – so powerful that she would stop and take a moment, giving silent thanks for her husband, her marriage, her kids and all that she held dear.
Rae glanced at her watch and fought the desire to pace. She wondered what the arrangements were this evening for her parents. Her mum and dad were slipping into the realms of the elderly and it was happening a little too quickly for any of them to find comfortable. It was sobering to feel that time seemed be flying by faster the older she got. She hoped someone had thought to ask about her dad’s dietary requirements for the evening and that her mum wouldn’t be asked to stand for too long. Although if Debbie-Jo, Lee and their boys Luke and Taylor were invited, at least she’d be on hand, which would make a nice change. She didn’t want to be mean about her sister, but she still found it a little galling that the golden girl could only manage the odd trip home from Northampton, when Rae knew she practically drove past her parents’ front door on trips into London to attend concerts, catch flights, shop in the sales . . . Rae thought it was unfair. But this too she kept to herself.
Her relationship with her sister was an odd one. She had tried over the years to get closer to her but had given up when they were younger, figuring that Debbie-Jo, with her life of glamour and aspirations of fame, did not want to mix with someone as everyday as Rae; but then, when Debbie-Jo’s career had fallen flat and she had taken a full-time role at Woolworths, Rae had tried again, hoping that maybe, with a more ordinary life plan, her sister might have room for her. But still no.
It was Howard who pointed out – and she now noticed – that whenever Rae spoke of the kids’ achievements or their next holiday, the new tiles for the bathroom or the opening of a restaurant, her sister lifted her chin, looked towards the heavens and let out a barely audible ‘huff’ that relayed her utter and complete disdain for whatever was being discussed. It made Rae quiet, with a sinking feeling that whatever she had to say was of no interest or, as she suspected, boring.
Not that she was going to let anything spoil her night. It was a difficult situation. This evening she was going to attend a surprise party thrown by Dolly in honour of their anniversary; she was not meant to know about it, but did, and in truth she was finding it all quite torturous. She carried all the stress of hosting a big event, but without any of the control or the means to allay her many concerns. Ordinarily it was her who quietly organised lifts, taxis, accommodation, food, but she was supposed to be ignorant of tonight’s whole affair, so had been forced to sit back and hope everything had been thought of. Still, this was preferable to the party being an actual surprise; at least she had known to get her roots done and pick out a suitable dress. She hated surprises; even the thought sent her anxiety levels soaring.
Howard had told her they were going out for dinner. And she would have believed him, had it not been for the loud message Dolly had left on their answerphone, asking him to call her ‘Immediately! Seriously, Howard, like right now! Call me on my mobile or at home or call Vinnie’s mobile – just make contact. I need to give the final decision to the restaurant about cake design and balloon colour and it can’t wait . . . I swear I am so stressed right now I might actually die!’
Rae had laughed at the message from her buxom buddy who was, as ever, so very close to death.
Right now was the calm before the storm and Rae stood at her bedroom window, watching. She ran her fingers over the khaki-gold, ribbon-edged drapes that half-hid her form, and looked up and down the street: the magazine-perfect street she loved, where grand houses stood proud, front doors shone and window boxes spilled red-bloomed flowers and variegated greenery down brick walls. It was dusk, her favourite time of day, when the cast-iron Georgian street lamps flickered to life, bathing the pavements in a honey-coloured tint. There was something very Mary Poppins about the whole scene, and she often half-expected to see the flash of a chimney sweep’s broom up on the roofline. She had always rather liked the position of their house, right there on the bend in the road, affording her an enviable view of both ends of the crescent and all the houses opposite. This evening she looked at the lit windows of the tall houses, standing like sentinels in a proud curve, and wondered, as she often did, about the lives that went on behind them, picturing the people she nodded to or greeted during the course of the day.
Morning, Mrs Williams! . . . Yes, it is a bit chilly; stay warm.
Hello, Mr Jeffries. How are you today? . . . Oh, I’m so glad to hear it. If you need anything you know where we are.
Well, hello, Fifi – aren’t you full of energy today! Rae loved to pet the cute little shih-tzu and would smile at Fifi’s owner, the quiet young woman who never responded with anything other than a brief nod and a stony silence, her eye contact non-existent.
Yes, she wondered about the lives of these people, her neighbours with whom she lived cheek by jowl, bumping into them in their pyjamas as they put the bins out, listening to them row, cry, sing . . . She knew so many intimate details of their lives, but not their first names or their favourite colours or even why Fifi’s mum was so painfully shy. It was a strange and wonderful situation and one that she felt was peculiarly British; she considered the possibility that if the residents of Lawns Crescent had slightly less stiff upper lips and more open arms, she might have answers to all of the above.
The sun had all but sunk on this autumnal evening, sending a rosy glow out over the parkland, which nestled in a grand sweep on the west side of the street. Beyond to the east sat the bustling, growing suburb of the north London postcode they had called home for the last twenty-odd years. She remembered her and Howard getting the keys for the first time and walking through the front door with the kids in their arms and wide smiles of disbelief and excitement. They trod the stairs and took in every room of this, their new house. Our forever home . . .
Rae leaned close to the multi-paned glass and felt the cool breeze of the evening filter through. These houses were beautiful, traditional – grand even – but one thing they were not was efficient.
She wondered what it might be like to live in a new home, like Debbie-Jo and Lee; in a neat square box of a house where the doors didn’t rattle and instead sat neatly in their frames, and there were no chimneys to facilitate the breeze or suck the heat from a room in minutes. A house on a development in the countryside maybe, where everyone moved in at the same time; no old-timers, no new families, no hierarchy measured by length of occupation or size of backyard, just everyone in the same boat with a small square of lawn, easily mown. A house where each room was built to exacting dimensions, as if designed in collusion to hold nothing more than the identical flat-pack Swedish furnishings of your neighbour and their neighbour too, and a brand-new shiny kitchen where everything was squeaky clean to the touch. Not that she wanted such a kitchen, loving as she did the slightly worn centre of their house, with its gently rounded edges, smoothed over the years from the brush of her hip, and the almost imperceptible dip on the countertop where her hands had kneaded countless loaves of bread. The kitchen was her haven, where the scent of a thousand recipes lingered in the wood and the memory of each meal, prepared with love, danced in the air like the finest seasoning.
But yes: she wondered what it might be like to live in a house like that.
‘What are you up to?’ Howard’s presence took her by surprise; the question, though, was asked with an air of mock accusation to which she was accustomed. He found it funny, almost as if he hoped one day to catch her out, his predictable, quiet wife.
She turned and smiled at him warmly. ‘I was just thinking about new-build houses, on developments, and how different it would be to live somewhere like that. Not as grand, but probably cosy, neat.’
‘It would be different, that’s for sure. Cheaper, for a start!’ He gave a forced laugh and she wondered if he was nervous too. She found the idea most endearing: a touch of groom-ish anxiety even after all these years.
&nbs
p; It didn’t surprise her, however, that his first response had been a financial one. After his family, money was Howard’s passion. He loved making it and he loved spending it, often extravagantly.
She wasn’t sure if he had always been this way or whether she had only noticed it in recent years, along with other traits of his that now drove her to distraction. Not that she loved him any less – of course she didn’t – and she was sure that he too had a long list of things she did that drove him nuts, like leaving plugs of long hair in the bathroom, her apparently inefficient method of dishwasher-stacking, stealing his socks and of course her unhealthy obsession with lists. But certainly she noticed that as he’d got older there seemed to have been a recalibration in his tolerance levels. He was a little impatient with waiters and didn’t lower his voice in public, no matter what the topic. She feared he might be in line for a bop on the nose one day. It was all well and good while at home to offer his tongue-in-cheek misogynistic claptrap, cheerfully lamenting the current freedoms enjoyed by women, declaring that the world had been ‘a much better place when the men went out to work and the women stayed at home, keeping a nice house and raising the kids – everyone knew where they stood! Nowadays? Men are disenfranchised, confused, and it’s not bloody right! Yes, call me old-fashioned, but it was a better place then.’
Better for whom, she would wonder, while reminding herself to write down the word ‘disenfranchised’ – to look it up – and, like her husband, waiting for Hannah to leap with tiger-like precision on his views, verbally shredding his point with her intellect and panting at the exertion. It was a game they played. And one Rae found quite exhausting, as well as distressing.
Howard walked towards her over the soft, biscuit-coloured carpet of their bedroom.
‘You look very dapper.’ She eyed his navy dinner suit and the neatly pressed collar of his white shirt, which showed off his dark complexion, a gift bestowed upon him by his Italian grandma but denied to the alabaster-skinned Dolly.
The Girl in the Corner Page 3