‘I don’t know why it’s upset her,’ Alice was indignant. ‘I’m not suggesting she does it.’
‘And nor can you, Mum. It’s for young, fit people. Johnny’s got it into his head that you have done it or will do it and take him with you. He’s a very imaginative child and now you’ve said this to him he believes you and is upset that you’ve let him down.’ Laura dumped her bag on the kitchen table and slumped down on a chair, her face creased with frown marks, making her look quire disagreeable. Alice hoped she didn’t show such a face to Douglas, but then, she thought darkly, perhaps if she did he’d call the wedding off.
‘I’ve let Johnny down. I have not,’ she retaliated. ‘I’ve always wanted to try it and Dad would never have let me. No that’s not true, he would have let me but he’d have been so anxious I wouldn’t have enjoyed it, and I may seem old from where you are, but I don’t feel it and Dad’s death has made me feel that I must do things I’ve always wanted to do now while I’m fit, before it’s too late.’
‘But his other granny…’ Laura wailed.
‘That’s up to her,’ Alice said childishly, annoyed that Laura had not stood up for her. In a more rational moment she might have realized that Laura must keep in with Douglas’s family, but it rankled that they expected her to be just like Douglas’s mother, the other granny. ‘I thought that everyone was worried about Johnny being so withdrawn and if the thought of paragliding has brought him out of himself, surely that’s a good thing, darling?’ She tried to keep her voice calm.
‘He’s overexcited about it now.’
‘Oh Laura, at least that shows he’s got some spirit. The psychobabble talked about children today is utter madness; whatever they do they are “labelled” with some weird condition. I read recently that many of these so-called conditions are made up, perhaps by doctors coining in money from anxious parents. Things like high spirits, mischievousness, all normal, childhood behaviour, are turned into a disability.’
It was exasperating that Laura was being sucked into this new family. Alice imagined Elspeth, who was some years older than she was, as a sour, dried-up old woman jealous of the young or perhaps of anyone having a good time, though Elspeth, like her, was a widow, living with the terror of loneliness. Her son’s first marriage had broken up and she must feel afraid that it could happen again, or that Laura, his new wife, might spirit away her grandchildren. She should feel empathy towards her instead of irritation.
Laura got up and paced the room. ‘You don’t understand, Mum. His other grandparents, on his mother’s side, are to some extent; set in their ways too, though they don’t interfere like Elspeth does, and at least they are predicable. You used to be like that when Dad was alive. I knew you were at home or working with Margot, or at your art course, calm and mostly in a good mood, but now you’ve changed, got all these mad ideas, test-driving a car you’re never going to buy, talking of paragliding, extreme skiing and goodness knows what else. You’re going to be a grandmother and…’
‘But I’m still young, even if you think I’m not, Laura.’ Evie’s description, ‘glammy granny’ echoed in her head. She hated the fact that these people were judging her before they’d even met her, though she was guilty of doing the same thing herself.
‘I expect Zara and Johnny’s grandparents are at least in their sixties, not that that is old today, Laura, but our life has changed forever now that Dad’s gone. I love you, we are still a family, but I want my independence to do things I want to do without everyone getting upset.’ She stretched out her hand to Laura but she didn’t seem to notice, so she went into the kitchen, Laura following her.
‘I don’t feel I can rely on you any more,’ Laura muttered, piercing Alice’s heart.
‘Of course you can, darling, but now I won’t be sitting here with Dad, nor am I going back into the nursery with Evie’s baby. I’ll help out, of course I will, but I’ve things I want to do and you and Evie must respect that and, to a certain extent, fit into my life. I want to travel,’ she said a little wildly, wishing she had someone to travel with, feeling that her children and Douglas’s mother were determinedly spinning a web to trap her and tie her tightly to them.
‘You’ve got to meet the other grandparents, Mum,’ Laura said, watching Alice load up the dishwasher. ‘Douglas’s ex in-laws live in Surrey. Naturally they want to keep in touch with the children, they promised their daughter they would and they are quite nice to me. It’s almost as if they’re afraid I won’t let them see the children if they’re not, though of course I will,’ she laughed awkwardly. ‘It would give me a break sometimes to send them there and they have a nice house and garden for them to play in,’ she added as if reassuring Alice that that was the main reason she encouraged these visits. ‘But Elspeth,’ she went on, ‘lives in Richmond and she thinks as you will be their step-grandmother you ought to get together and agree on the rules and things for the children.’
Alice bit back her despair, the feeling of entrapment. She remembered Sybil, her own mother-in-law, so different to Cecily who’d lived such a colourful life. Sybil had married a politician and her life had been taken up with entertaining all sorts of people important to his career. Her husband had died before Alice had a chance to meet him but Sybil devoted the rest of her life to her house and garden, bridge parties and good works and she disapproved of Julian choosing such a young and scatter brained bride. But she and Laura, like countless other women, had to learn to tolerate their mothers-in-law, and now, the thought hit her, she herself was to be a mother-in-law to Douglas and perhaps he was not ecstatic with the idea either. Would she have to conform to these new duties pressed upon her? ‘Wear beige and shut up,’ a friend had once described it, having just become one herself.
‘Getting married is always a fraught time.’ Alice remembered her own wedding, her mother geared up into overdrive about flowers, champagne and wedding venues, when all she wanted was to slip away with Julian, just the two of them, alone with their love.
‘But it’s going to be hard, without Dad. Who is going to lead me up the aisle?’ Laura’s eyes filled with tears.
Alice reached out and hugged her daughter, feeling her quivering in her arms, it was on the tip of her tongue to ask if she shouldn’t postpone the wedding a little longer, make sure she really was doing the right thing, but before she could think how to put it, Laura said, ‘Douglas suggested one of my godfathers but James is usually drunk, so it has to be Frank. Do you know where he is, we haven’t seen him for ages?’
‘I didn’t want to say too much about who to have instead of Dad, as it’s so painful to think he won’t be there, but Cecily brought it up and suggested Frank too – though of course it’s entirely your decision darling who you want to lead you up the aisle. She wrote to him, just trying to make contact with him asking him to get in touch with you.’ she added quickly in case Laura was annoyed she hadn’t been consulted first. ‘We must ask him to the wedding anyway and if you want him to give you away you can ask him yourself, or have you someone else in mind?’
‘I do want him, I was thinking about it, there’s no one else I want, but what shall I do if Cecily can’t find him?’
‘If there really is no one else then perhaps I could do it. Times have changed now, darling, haven’t they? And I’ve heard of mothers taking the father’s place.’
‘Yes but it would be good to find Frank, no offence Mum, but I would like him to do it. Do you think he would?’ Laura said.
‘I’m sure if you asked him,’ Alice said, thinking of the last time she’d seen Frank. He’d been a few years younger than Julian; he could be in his fifties now. She tried to imagine him with greying hair, wrinkles and perhaps a beer belly, but all she could see was that image of him in a photograph taken many years ago. A tall, young man with laughing eyes and an irrepressible smile, who thought life, was to be snatched up in handfuls and enjoyed.
She hoped he hadn’t changed lost that enthusiasm for life. She could do with someone on her side,
someone who could show her family and Douglas’s that there was much more to her than just being a grandmother.
10
‘I know I was so lucky having such a happy marriage to such a special man,’ Alice said to Margot as they sat over coffee in the garden of the V and A, watching the children splashing in the pool in the courtyard. ‘So I probably can’t understand why Laura should just settle for Douglas, not to mention having to be judged by his mother and the other grandparents, his ex in-laws.’
‘I suppose it’s hard to accept that one of your children is going to make their life with someone else, I know I’ll find it hard to accept it with my boys,’ Margot said, ‘but most people’s marriages aren’t perfect, so she’ll be just like everyone else, muddling along.’ Margot looked away, not wanting Alice to see the disquiet in her eyes.
‘You’re right, but all the same I feel she’d have more chance of real happiness if she married someone without all these ties. After all she’s only twenty-four and I can’t help feeling she’s so lost without her father, she’s settled on Douglas. He’s a nice man, kind, but there doesn’t seem to be much excitement between them, the sort of “can’t keep their hands off each other” that both of us knew.’ Alice remembered that sensation now, the constant urge to touch Julian, be close to him. ‘Don’t you remember?’ she said, regarding Margot intently, wanting to open up the conversation, dissect these new roles of her of being a mother-in-law and a granny, both thrust upon her without warning.
Margot was staring into space, making Alice wonder if she’d inadvertently hit a sore spot in her. Margot and Glen always seemed happy enough, though no one knew what went on in other people’s marriages and what one person put up with another could not. Glancing at her friend, she sensed that all was not right but she knew better than to pry. If Margot wanted to confide in her she would.
As if she guessed she was being watched, Margot seemed to pull herself back to the conversation. ‘It’s all a toss-up; well all life is really, isn’t it? Who knows who is going to get ill, lose all their money, love the wrong person, we just have to do our best to get on with what life throws at us.’
‘True, but I just think Laura could find someone who has not already been through a marriage and has children to bring up. I’m probably being unfair to Douglas, after all Nick would be even more of a disaster as a husband and Evie will have to bring up his baby on her own.’ Alice would have liked to confide her fears that she wondered if Laura was also in love, or more likely lust, with Nick too, but she decided against it. She trusted Margot not to spread it around, but it was best not give more life to the subject.
‘Douglas is dependable and has a good job, loves his children and in his own, perhaps low-key, way loves Laura,’ she went on.
‘You can’t ask for much more than that,’ Margot said, ‘though I know you think he snapped her up to keep house. You don’t think she jumped into it because Evie is having a baby, do you?’
Alice frowned, ‘I don’t know. There’s always been a sort of rivalry between them and Nick… the father of Evie’s baby is… terribly attractive… and…’ Again she hesitated, wondering whether to tell Margot about Laura’s feelings for him.
‘But Laura is more like Julian, sensible, not the sort to fall for that sort of man. I’d say Laura’s just settling for safety and security, and you say he is a kind person,’ Margot said.
‘He is, and I think he does love her – more slow burn than raging fire that might last longer – I just wish she’d wait a little longer.’
Alice had not taken her own advice. The moment she’d met Julian she’d known he was the one. It was hard to explain, she’d had a couple of lukewarm boyfriends her own age and then she’d met him at her cousin Beth’s wedding. Perhaps it was the romance of the occasion: a wedding held in a castle beside a beach in Scotland, the sea gleaming like black satin under the light of the moon, the way Julian danced holding her close and yet not too tight or leering over her as some of the older men did. They’d spent the evening together and met up again the following day. She’d been twenty, younger than Evie and yet she’d known he was the one.
‘No one can ever know if they’ve made the right decision if things change,’ Margot pushed away her empty cup. ‘You did wonder sometimes, didn’t you, what sort of life Julian had before you knew him, after all he’d had many years of independent life before he married you, and you’d barely left uni and hadn’t lived much.’
Alice frowned, she’d forgotten that, but surely her curiosity was just the possessive anxiety of a young woman feeling a little insecure with the situation? The boys of her own age hadn’t done much – left school, gone to uni, bummed round the world on gap years. Julian had done all that and moved on to a serious job with serious responsibilities, and, she’d assumed – accepted – had many more love affairs than a man around her own age.
‘I was a bit jealous then, but looking back I think that in a complex way all his experience in life was what drew me to him, made him more interesting and he was so attractive and he loved me and…’ Her mouth wobbled, ‘I do miss him so much.’ She fumbled for her handkerchief and blew her nose.
Margot patted her arm, ‘Of course you do and it was bloody bad luck he had to die so soon. But apart from being dull, there’s nothing weird about Douglas is there?’
‘No, I don’t think so, you just never know today, do you?’ Alice said in a worried voice, seeking reassurance.
‘No,’ Margot said gravely, her eyes troubled. ‘You never know, life is full of surprises, and not all of them good ones.’
Alice had expected a joke, even a bawdy putdown, and this remark surprised her. ‘Odd remark, Marge, have you had any strange surprises recently?’ She kept her voice light, though watching her friend’s face she saw the tight lines pull round Margot’s mouth and a sad, faraway look glaze her eyes. Had something happened in her family, her marriage? She sometimes felt they all walked on tightropes, half waiting to fall.
‘God no,’ Margot’s mouth smiled but it didn’t reach her eyes. ‘Don’t mean to sound deep, but we all took chances when we married, didn’t we? No one knows how things will turn out. I bet you never thought you’d be a widow so soon,’ she said gently.
‘No, I never thought of death at all, well not until we were really old,’ Alice said. ’I certainly never imagined Julian wouldn’t be here for his daughter’s wedding. Laura is hoping we find Frank so she can ask him to lead her up the aisle.’
‘If you can’t find him, you could do it. It would make quite a splash, two beautiful women coming down the aisle together.’ Margot giggled, ‘As long as the vicar doesn’t marry you off to Douglas by mistake?’
‘Don’t say that,’ Alice looked horrified.
‘I’m sure Frank can be tracked down. You said Cecily has left messages. We’ve just got to wait for him to come home and find them.’ Margot seemed to be her old self again, throwing out reminiscences of him and reminding Alice of some of their female friends who’d known Frank well and could still be in touch. Alice, caught up with thinking of him and wondering if he would be found, thought no more of Margot’s remark about the difficulties of marriage or the pain in her eyes.
11
Finding Frank to give Laura away on her wedding day became even more imperative when Nick, hearing of the problem, suggested cheerfully that, if needed, he would oblige and step in for Julian.
‘He means well, Mum,’ Evie scolded Alice when she complained at his arrogance and his cheek. ‘After all, like it or not, he is now part of the family.’
‘But not a part we want, or need,’ Alice responded, annoyed with Nick for seducing her daughter and fearful for Evie being left in the lurch with a baby to care for. These new family combinations disturbed her. She’d barely got used to life without Julian and now her girls were changing the balance of the family even further with their surprise couplings and instant grandchildren.
‘It’s too late now, Mum, and he’s only trying to h
elp.’ Evie went on, her voice, far away at the end of the phone, crisp with impatience.
‘He should have thought of that before he went to bed with you and got you pregnant,’ Alice said, before cursing herself for her remarks as, true to form, Evie got all huffy and rang off.
Later, when she’d cooled down, Alice felt sorry she’d spoken so harshly to Evie, though she couldn’t help feeling upset with her for getting herself caught in this way. If she had to sleep with Nick, she should have taken precautions, but with Evie alone in the cottage going through a pregnancy that was not welcomed by the rest of the family and would bring more pain to Nick’s, she should have bitten her tongue to keep the balance on the tricky tightrope between parent and adult child. She explained it all to Cecily when she went to visit her that afternoon on her way back from looking at fabrics for her downsizing client. She’d have to return to Suffolk soon to fetch the curtains Edith and Amy had almost finished. She didn’t like doing the trip in a day, preferring to break it with a night at the cottage and to see Evie, though now, with this set of affairs, she dreaded facing Evie’s angst and probably Nick strutting about, so pleased with himself.
‘No need to martyr yourself over Evie,’ Cecily said firmly, her pearl grey eyes like steel as they regarded her. ‘She’s old enough to make her own decisions, and, unlike my generation and possibly yours, able to get reliable contraception without being married or preached at. I suppose with all this sperm donation and everyone sleeping with whomever they fancy we’ll all be related to each other by blood eventually, and I must say I’m glad I won’t be around to see it.’ She moved restlessly amongst her many cushions on the sofa.
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