These Days of Ours

by Juliet Ashton

  Kate and Becca discussed this new friendship. ‘Has your mum, you know, realised?’ Becca would ask.

  With boyishly short hair, Mary was refreshingly free of make-up, just her ever-ready smile brightening her face. Always in jeans and plain shirt, Mary favoured a lace-up brogue. Kate concluded that Mary was either Amish or lesbian. ‘And,’ she added, ‘she’s not Amish.’

  Sincere, sensible Mary was obviously fond of Mum, and that fondness was obviously reciprocated, but Mum wasn’t noted for her broad mind. Kate feared what might happen when Mum finally woke up and smelled the coffee.

  Unexpectedly manifesting one morning on Kate’s doorstep, her face pale, her handbag gripped to her chest in consternation, Mum whispered, ‘You’ll never guess!’

  ‘Oh, Mum, I think I will.’

  Mary had told Mum that she loved her.

  ‘What did you say, Mum?’ Kate almost didn’t want to hear.

  ‘I told her the truth. That I’ve never really believed in lesbians.’

  Leprechauns: yes. Lesbians: no.

  Confused, querulous, Mum had spent the next few nights with Kate in her new house, an ordinary and proper suburban villa that sat comfortably in its plot alongside other similar homes. Red brick. White wood. Inside were rows of books, a magnificent freezer, whimsical cushions. In Kate’s room there was just a bed and a work of art on the wall. The Yulan House ‘shrine’ was now just part of the decor, and her cherished photo of herself as a tot with Dad hung over the log burner in the sitting room.

  It was a real home.

  The spare room still smelled of paint, but Mum barely left it. Kate didn’t want to meddle but Becca had no compunction about repaying the oldies for all their prying over the years. ‘Love is love, Aunty,’ she hectored. ‘What’s holding you back?’

  When they were alone, watching Antiques Roadshow together, Kate would suggest that, if love comes from God, might it be a sin to ignore it? ‘At least talk to Mary. She’ll be feeling hurt and rejected. She’s a good person and she doesn’t deserve that.’

  ‘Whisht, you.’ Mum resorted to Dublinese when her daughter turned the generational tables. ‘Don’t lecture me. It’s easy for you and Angus. Your love is . . . normal.’ Mum would twist in the chair at saying such things about Mary.

  There were things Mum didn’t know about Kate’s normal love affair. Locked out of Astor House at midnight by Angus, Kate had walked home in her slippers. Normal didn’t mean easy. She tuned back into her mum’s hen speech.

  ‘I thought it was foolish to fall in love at my age,’ said Mum. ‘And I told her so.’

  Sitting with Jaffa’s ashes in her lap, Becca shook her head. ‘You can’t choose who you love. I mean, look at me and Jaffa.’

  Kate caught Charlie’s raised, pencilled eyebrow. Even by her own standards, Becca was very drunk.

  ‘I didn’t make it easy for Mary,’ said Mum, implying that this was no bad thing. ‘I told her to stay away. But one day she disobeyed me and . . .’

  Kate remembered that day. Mum had moved back home at last, and Kate, worried about her mother’s state of mind, had dropped around with a Battenburg to find Mary in the kitchen. The two women were planning a rambling holiday in the Peak District.

  ‘And that was that!’ crowed Mum.

  So narrow-minded, so closed off, a dead end for philosophical thought of any hue, Mum’s consciousness had been expanded by love. Beneath the permed helmet of strangely blue hair a radical change had taken place, a transformation of outlook and behaviour that made the elderly Irish lady every bit as much a revolutionary as Trotsky. She and Mary, sitting in adjacent armchairs and calling out crossword clues, had managed to make single sex love utterly ordinary.

  When Mary smiled up at Mum – a perk of a same sex wedding is that both partners can attend the hen night – she didn’t see what Kate saw: a clingy, carping woman who could never be satisfied. Mary saw the love of her life. In a cardigan.

  The mention of her own name in Mum’s speech caught Kate off guard.

  ‘I wouldn’t have taken this step without the support of my darling daughter, Kate.’

  Darling daughter? Bemused, pleased, Kate bowed as everybody cheered.

  ‘Kate loved Jaffa!’ shouted Becca.

  ‘Shut up,’ said Aunty Marjorie, ‘about the feckin’ dog, Becca.’ She was out of sorts and had been since Mary’s arrival. It wasn’t just that Mary was a lesbian and had turned Mum into one (Aunty Marjorie’s take on events); Mary had usurped Aunty Marjorie as prime confidante. Uncle Hugh was still in shock at this turn of events, but he’d happily welcomed Mary into the family, proudly wearing the hand-knits she churned out for him at an impressive rate.

  Charlie spoke into Kate’s ear, his false eyelashes tickling her neck. ‘Did you sign the paperwork?’

  Kate nodded. ‘I now own only one Party Games shop.’ Kate had hung on to her first premises, a decision in equal parts sentimental and shrewd.

  ‘Now for the next phase of your life, eh?’ Charlie’s physicality had altered with the application of a Wonderbra. Knees primly together, his shoulder touched hers as if they were gal pals sharing gossip.

  ‘China here I come.’ Kate hoped she sounded more excited than she felt. The scale of organisation necessary had surprised her. ‘This time next month, I’ll be at Yulan House.’

  ‘Don’t forget to come home, will you?’

  Even if it was only lip service that was good to hear. ‘I’m only going for a month.’

  ‘Angus has been calling me.’ Charlie dropped his voice so only she could hear in the hubbub. ‘Late at night. Says he’ll do anything if you let him go with you.’

  ‘How does he sound?’

  Charlie sighed and they said it together.

  ‘Drunk.’

  The trip didn’t spell the end of the affair. That had happened months ago. As prophesied by Angus, Kate had walked away backwards, weeping at each step, unable to stand the demands on her time, her wits, her energy. And fearing for her safety; each time she’d swallowed Angus’s bad behaviour he’d dug deeper until he was chasing her through Astor House’s beautiful rooms, locking her in, locking her out, terrorising her.

  Daytime Angus accepted his fate. Night-time Angus railed against it until Kate changed her number. Her sense of duty, a stolid beast, was pep talked daily by Becca who’d been a rock from the moment she’d heard the truth.

  Charlie, this strange Charlie who smelled of hairspray, evidently wanted to chat about China but superstition – the sort she abhorred – held Kate back. To be thirty-seven and still planning a long-anticipated trip felt plain silly. To divert him she said the magic words – Anna and camper van – and Charlie was off.

  ‘Did I tell you we booked a week in Ibiza?’

  Two details sprang to mind whenever Kate thought of Anna. One was her breasts, two of the jauntiest little chaps one could hope to meet. Two was the fact that Anna was the same age as Friends.

  ‘It’ll be a riot,’ said Charlie, the v-shaped hairline of his soldier-short dark hair showing under his wig. ‘Unless Becca comes good on her threat. Then everything changes.’

  ‘It’s not a threat.’ Kate saw both sides of this latest clash; Becca, with her customary disbelief that other people had inner lives, couldn’t see the problem. ‘Writers can write anywhere,’ she stormed. ‘Why can’t Charlie move to Seattle and write there?’ As for Flo: ‘That child’s smothered with love! She can see Charlie in the holidays!’

  The Flo Charlie sketched in the air was a girl who needed both her parents however imperfect they might be, a girl who must be shielded from the fallout of divorce. The disabling guilt he carried around from the break-up was shared with nobody – least of all Flo – except Kate.

  As the evening hit a lull, the hens catching their breath, retouching their make-up, checking their phones, two new arrivals joined the booth.

  ‘Leon!’ shouted Mum, her face sweaty beneath her face powder. ‘And, um . . .’

  ‘Anna,�
� said Anna.

  ‘That’s mine, thank you.’ Becca unhooked Leon’s arm from Anna’s, as if the hot pant-wearing young woman was after Becca’s fifty-year-old pot-bellied husband.

  ‘Thought I’d better turn up when your texts stopped making sense!’ Leon punched Becca playfully on the arm. In profile, his nose disappeared as if sliced off by a malicious giant; the rhinoplasty Becca insisted on had decimated his fleshy conk. ‘You’re sloshed, treacle.’ Leon’s eyes lit up at the sight of Charlie. ‘Ooh, kinky!’

  Not a trace of rancour. Kate loved Leon. Salt of the earth, his devotion to Becca was absolute and unexamined; he was as committed to his wife as an orphaned monkey is to a wooden spoon with a face drawn on it.

  Anna settled on Charlie’s lap, and stroked his left fake breast. ‘This is kind of horny,’ she said, causing Kate’s mum to bless herself rapidly.

  ‘Mmm,’ said Charlie, looking very like a man trying to feel horny but only achieving embarrassed.

  Anna’s arrival in her sequinned shorts and strapless top had triggered spontaneous tummy-holding-in around the table. As the woman took the compulsory selfies, pouting duck-like, Kate wondered Do I dislike Anna because I dislike her, full stop? Or is it outdated, irrelevant jealousy? Anna’s sense of entitlement made Becca look like a beginner.

  Kate gave her tummy permission to flop. It was pointless. To rival Anna she’d need to build a time machine, return to 1990 and renounce chips.

  ‘Where we going after this, babe?’ Anna bounced on Charlie’s lap. ‘And don’t say home. Don’t be boring.’

  When Kate had left Angus, Becca declared that surely the time had come to deal with unfinished business. ‘You must tell Charlie about the mix-up with the notes!’ (She’d rebranded the deception as a ‘mix-up’.) Becca argued her case with the suave dexterity of a barrister and the bossy authority of a cousin, but Charlie had already met Anna. He and Kate were out of step again. She told Becca I don’t have your taste for drive-by shootings.

  That was the noble side of the coin. On the grimy flip side was Kate’s fear of rebuff, of her friendship with Charlie being tainted. If he knew she still carried a torch – and Jesus, her wrist was aching – he might subtly withdraw and Kate couldn’t bear that.

  Pushing her point home, Becca had growled, ‘You really are a daddy’s girl. Your dad didn’t insist on what he wanted so the poor man died without ever seeing China.’ There had been fear of going too far in Becca’s eyes but Kate understood she was whipping out the big guns. Furthermore, Becca was right.

  ‘I can’t put everything on black,’ Kate had said. ‘Never go to Vegas with me.’

  If Charlie wanted a fresh start with young flesh, that was his prerogative.

  There was an exodus of hens. Mum, Mary and Aunty Marjorie were all on the move, shrugging on windcheaters and amassing handbags. Maximum fuss. Maximum disruption. The people in the next booth, hell bent on snogging each other’s faces off, were roped into searching for Mum’s bus pass among the cushions.

  Kate realised something. Dad was Mum’s Julian. Mum had settled for Kate’s dad and now, in her sixties, Mum had discovered true love.

  ‘Come here, little Mum.’ It had been a relief to hand the baton to Mary but at times Kate missed the feel of it in her hand.

  ‘Get away, you soppy piece!’ Mum fought the hug before relaxing into it.

  From the other side, Mary put her arms around them both.

  ‘You have two mums now, Kate,’ said Mary.

  Love really did make everything easier.

  ‘Kiss Jaffa!’ Becca broke them up, brandishing the urn. ‘Kiss poor Jaffa!’

  ‘I didn’t kiss that little feck when he was alive,’ said Mum. ‘I’m not starting now he’s dead.’

  When the older ladies and their friends had moved off, a solid mass of geriatric good times, Becca cried, ‘More shots!’ as she and the others retook their seats. At the counter, Leon ordered coffees all round.

  You brave, brave man, thought Kate.

  ‘Don’t start,’ said Becca to Charlie.

  Charlie righted his wig. ‘I didn’t say anything.’

  ‘You were thinking,’ accused Becca. ‘About Leon. And his amazing job offer. And you shouldn’t because it’s none of your business.’

  Kate moved a glass from chucking range.

  ‘It’s very much my business,’ said Charlie. He pinned his glossy red lips together and made a visible effort not to go on the attack. ‘But let’s not talk about it while you’re . . . let’s not talk about it tonight.’

  Anna was gazing at the receptacle in Becca’s grasp. ‘I’m not a dog person myself,’ she said, unaware of the death stare this provoked from the urn’s owner. Anna often broadcast factoids about herself in this manner. ‘I’m more of a cat person. Aren’t I?’ She nuzzled Charlie’s neck.

  ‘Urgh. Get a room,’ said Becca.

  ‘Actually,’ said Anna, walking her fingers up her boyfriend’s 40-DD chest, ‘I’m a baby person.’ She pouted and Charlie squirmed. ‘A baby would suit me, wouldn’t it, Charlie? An ickle baby of my own? Pweez. One day you’ll gimme a baba, won’t you?’

  Lip curled, Becca hissed to Kate, ‘Poor cow’ll be waiting a looong time.’

  ‘Time to go.’ Kate stood, thankful that neither of the lovebirds seemed to have heard. She stood on tiptoe and shot a warning look at Leon over the late night drinkers’ heads.

  ‘Not yet.’ Becca shook off Kate’s arm and leaned over the table. ‘Don’t hold your breath, Anna. You know that child whose life Charlie is ruining by not letting her go to America?’ Becca had their attention now and she spoke over Kate’s attempts to close her down. ‘Flo’s not even his. Yeah. Good old Chaz shoots blanks. You could shag him for centuries and still have no need to buy a cot.’

  Joining them, Leon banged down the tray of coffees and put his face in his hands.

  ‘You’re drunk, Becca. Shut up.’ Kate turned to Charlie. ‘She’s off her head, Charlie.’

  Charlie stared at Becca, sombre beneath the glam makeover. ‘Wow,’ he said. ‘You really hate me.’

  ‘Let’s not do this now.’ Kate wished somebody, one of them, would move, go. Anna gawped, motionless.

  ‘Then when will we do it?’ Becca hugged Jaffa’s remains to her as if the charred dog was the only one who understood. ‘Kate, you should have let me tell him years ago.’

  ‘You knew?’ Charlie’s gaze moved to Kate and she shivered.

  ‘Charlie, take off the wig,’ said Kate. ‘I can’t talk to you all dragged up.’

  Standing, Charlie took off the hairpiece. The sudden masculinity of his short hair rendered his perfect maquillage eerie. ‘Anna. Let’s go.’

  ‘Stay.’ Kate changed her mind; he mustn’t leave. ‘You can’t just . . .’ She groped for words. The surroundings and the personnel were all wrong for this conversation. ‘Becca, what is wrong with you?’

  Already on the road to regret, Becca was ashen. ‘What’s wrong with him? Why can’t he just let Flo have an adventure instead of putting himself first? This job is important to Leon and—’

  ‘There is no job,’ said Leon. ‘I didn’t get the job.’ Leon sounded bereaved. ‘Sorry, princess, but we’re not going to the States.’ Awkwardly inserting himself into the booth, he put an arm around Becca.

  Pushing him away, Becca knocked over the coffee cups in her haste to put some distance between herself, her husband and the scene she’d caused. Leon said to Charlie, ‘This is all highly regrettable, mate. Believe me, if I’d known she was planning this I’d have done something.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Leon. I think it was spur of the moment.’ Charlie was ready to fight or flee by the look of him, standing tense in his LBD.

  ‘I’d better find the missus.’ Leon slipped away.

  Snatching up Jaffa who’d been left on the table, Kate rushed after him. ‘Here. For God’s sake don’t go without this.’

  ‘I prefer Jaffa dead,’ said Leon sadly. ‘He doesn’t crap in my
slippers any more.’

  ‘Did the job really fall through?’ asked Kate. This close, Leon’s ever-cheery face was rugged, marked by a long life that surely wasn’t all fun and games.

  ‘Put it this way,’ said Leon, after a pause. ‘There’s no way we’re going after that little sideshow.’

  ‘You’re a hero,’ said Kate.

  ‘I’ll get Jaffa thrown at my head if she ever finds out.’

  ‘Your secret’s safe with me.’

  Back at the table Anna, her head on Charlie’s shoulder, was working her way through her stock of insults. ‘What a cow. What a bitch.’

  Unable to disagree, Kate said, ‘It’s complicated,’ hoping it translated as You’ve only just arrived in our lives so please back off. It was unfair to expect a girl – that’s all Anna was – to comprehend the complexity of galling, glorious Becca. How could she empathise with the lengths Becca had gone to in her quest to feel valued? At times Kate herself had trouble scraping together sufficient empathy. Tonight was one of those times.

  ‘So she, what? She had an affair?’ Anna poked through the entrails, appalled but excited as if discussing the plot of a movie.

  Beneath his false lashes, Charlie winced as if somebody had stuck a blade in his side. ‘Can we get out of here?’

  Kate knew that two’s company, three’s a crowd, but she had the excuse of Charlie’s insistence that she go back to his flat with them.

  Showered, changed into jeans, Charlie was himself again, apart from stray glitter in his eyebrows. He was thin, too thin, in Kate’s opinion. The thinness was for Anna, who preferred the trendy, wasted silhouette of the archetypal hipster. The spare frame was easier to achieve for young guys; Charlie had ripped up his gym membership and now carried a well-thumbed carb counter in the back pocket of his – skinny – jeans. Kate found it ridiculous that anybody would alter their actual body shape for the sake of fashion; she was sitting it out until big bums were à la mode.

  ‘At times like this, people drink whisky for the shock.’ Charlie scratched his head. ‘But I’ve only got tea. Will that do?’