How to Break Your Own Heart

by Maggie Alderson

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Sonny. ‘It looks terrible now, but in a couple of weeks, you’ll have a beautiful vegetable garden. I promise.’

  He was smiling at me in that sweet shy way of his, and I knew he meant it. While I had mostly got over my embarrassing initial lust attack for him, the more time I spent with Sonny, the nicer I thought he was.

  16

  If I hadn’t had such a lovely time in the garden with Sonny and Hermione, I don’t know whether I would have survived the visit to my parents.

  I got there at four so I would be able to help my mother with the final dinner preparations before Stormin’ Norman got home. Everything would have to be perfect from the moment he walked in through the door just after 6 p.m., or we would all pay for it.

  Mum was in the kitchen putting the finishing touches to his birthday cake when I arrived and was clearly delighted to see me.

  ‘How has it been so far?’ I asked her, as I sat and polished the glasses while she concentrated on icing ‘Happy Birthday Paul’ on top of a cake in the shape of a Formula One car, presumably a Ferrari, as it was covered in garish bright-red icing.

  That was one of the ‘surprises’ he expected every year – a novelty cake. It was lucky Mum was such a handy sort of a person by nature. She could knit and sew and crochet and all that, so she had simply added cake decorating to her set of craft skills.

  ‘It’s been all right,’ she said. ‘He’s in a pretty good mood at the moment, because the school has come out higher in the academic league tables in the year when he was acting head for three months – so do remember to congratulate him. And it looks like a record number of boys are getting into Oxbridge this year too, so he’s pretty happy.’

  That was a relief. I could remember once visiting my parents when the school had dropped in the league tables. A weekend in Gaza would have been more relaxing.

  After that we spent a very pleasant hour, just Mum and me, setting the table, putting the ‘Happy Birthday Dad’ banners up in the hall and the dining room and arranging his presents in a display on the sideboard in the dining room, all according to unbreakable tradition.

  Just before five, Dick arrived, having taken the afternoon off work specially. I was pleased to see that, after a couple of weeks, his face was almost back to normal and he was able to pass off his still-swollen black eyes to my mother as injuries sustained during a ‘charity rugby match’ which had got a bit out of hand. He’d pre-briefed me on the story.

  It was all very jolly, but then the first problem arose. My mobile rang and it was Ed, saying that he was running late and wouldn’t be at Maidstone until nearly seven.

  I could have killed him – and told him curtly that he would have to take a taxi from the station to my parents’ house. I couldn’t leave in the middle of Dad’s celebrations to pick him up at the station, it wasn’t possible. Ed wasn’t happy about that and snapped at me. Lovely.

  Hoping to avert more tension later, I found the mixed case of wine he had sent down as Dad’s birthday present and opened two of Ed’s favourite reds so they would be at the perfect drinking point when he arrived. I could pretend I’d done it specially for Dad, and everyone would be happy, I thought.

  Then I took two bottles of champagne from the box and put them in the fridge to chill. Mum saw me and a funny look came over her face.

  ‘I’m not sure I’d do that,’ she said.

  ‘But Ed’s bought it specially for Dad’s birthday. I thought we could have it for pre-dinner drinks. It’s Krug…’

  She looked pained and my heart sank. ‘Your father has discovered Prosecco,’ she said.

  ‘Lidl?’ I asked, tentatively. She nodded. ‘Oh God,’ I said.

  We didn’t need to say any more. We had a shorthand where things like this were concerned and I understood immediately. When Dad ‘discovered’ something, everybody else had to love it too.

  The thought of Ed being given a glass of budget supermarket Prosecco was so awful I almost started laughing, but I knew it wouldn’t be funny when it happened. I took the champagne out of the fridge and put it back in the box with the rest of the wine.

  ‘And I’d hide those other bottles you’ve opened too,’ said Mum, bustling past with the centrepiece, a horrendous creation of red gerberas and white carnations. ‘He’s joined a wine club.’

  I sank down on the nearest seat and put my head in my hands.

  Dick came in, took one look at me and absorbed the whole situation in an instant.

  ‘Incoming?’ he said.

  ‘Wine club,’ I replied.

  ‘G and T?’ he said, holding his first finger and thumb wide apart, to signify how strong it might be.

  I nodded my head vigorously.

  Dick’s kamikaze cocktail certainly took the edge off it all, and by the time Stormin’ Norman arrived home, I’d stopped caring that Ed seemed to have turned his phone off. I’d have to try and warn him about the wine situation when he arrived. Perhaps by using Morse code.

  ‘Isn’t this lovely?’ Dad was saying, as we stood in the hall after greeting him at the door with the enthusiasm he expected.

  He had one arm around my shoulder, the other around Dick’s, which wasn’t easy for him, as we were both taller than him. We got our height from Mum’s side of the family. He was a shortarse.

  ‘Oh, and look at that lovely happy-birthday banner,’ he was saying, as though he had never seen it before. ‘Aren’t you all sweet to me?’

  As though we would dare not to be, I thought, but I kept smiling. As long as he stayed happy, we would all have a nice time, and Dad in a good mood really was great company, so it was worth it. Actually, it was worth it just to avoid him in a bad mood, but anyway.

  ‘Now, what we all need is a drink,’ he was saying. ‘Joan, you bring the glasses, and I’ll go and get a few bottles of something.’

  He stalked off towards the utility room, which I’d discovered he’d commandeered as his new cellar, rubbing his hands, and Mum came through with a tray of champagne glasses – the saucer kind, which Ed said should only be used for Babycham, and even that was too good for them.

  Dick and I stood in the sitting room mainlining dry-roasted peanuts and pulling faces at each other to our great mutual amusement, until Stormin’ Norman appeared with two bottles of Prosecco.

  ‘Have you ever had this before?’ he was saying. ‘It’s terrific stuff. You’ll never guess where I got it. There, try that.’

  He handed me a glass and I raised it to him. ‘Happy birthday, Dad,’ I said.

  ‘Oh, don’t make a fuss,’ he said, beaming with delight that everything was just as it should be – i.e. just as he liked it.

  The Prosecco was OK actually. It wasn’t sweet, just a bit thin and soapy. I thought it was fine, but I knew Ed would rather set fire to himself than drink it.

  ‘What do you think?’ Dad was asking, his slightly bulging eyes staring at me keenly. ‘I bet your oenophile husband has never had this before. It’s not French, you see, and I know what a snob he is about French wine.’

  ‘I think it’s very nice,’ I said quickly. ‘Delicious. What do you think, Dick?’

  ‘I think I’d like a bigger glass,’ he said, and everybody laughed. Dick always knew how to keep things light.

  One thing I did notice about the Prosecco was that, even in the stupid paddling-pool glasses, it was very easy to drink a lot of it, and by the time Ed arrived we were all half-cut – which was probably why I failed to get out into the hall before Dad, so I didn’t have a chance to warn Ed what we were drinking.

  ‘Ah, Edward,’ I could hear Dad saying, as I realized my gaffe. ‘Come in and have a drink – I know how fond you are of a glass.’

  I jumped up as they came into the room, hoping to be able to race over and hiss, ‘It’s Prosecco…’ in his ear under the cover of a welcome kiss, but it was too late. Dad was already proffering him one of the terrible glasses

  – I think they’d had them as a wedding present in 1965 – and Ed
was looking at it as though it were an alien artefact.

  ‘Isn’t it lovely, Ed,’ I said loudly. ‘Dad’s bought a whole case of Prosecco.’

  Dad turned on me, a deep frown beetling his brow.

  ‘Oh Amelia,’ he said furiously. ‘You’ve ruined it. I wanted to see if Ed knew what it was, and you’ve completely ruined it. You really can be so stupid.’

  I caught Mum’s eye as I slumped back down on to the sofa – or couch, as my parents called it – another thing that made Ed twitch. She gave me a tight little smile and I nodded back at her. I wouldn’t let her down.

  ‘So, what do you think, then?’ Dad said, smiling again as he locked Ed in his bug-eyed stare. He was standing so close to him, Ed was practically backed up against the bare brick fireplace.

  Ed took a sip and I held my breath.

  ‘Oh, that’s very nice, Paul,’ he said, smacking his lips and holding the glass up to admire the colour – a sort of pale urine. ‘Very refreshing. Cheers. Happy birthday.’

  He looked over at me as Dad clinked his glass loudly and winked.

  In that moment, I forgave Ed every single bit of his earlier birthday childishness, and he continued to behave perfectly throughout dinner. Under cover of taking his bag up to our room before we sat down at the table, I had been able to warn him about the wine club. He took it very well, and I flung myself into his arms.

  ‘Thank you for being so lovely,’ I said.

  ‘That’s all right, Melia,’ he said. ‘I’ve been a bit of an arse about this weekend and I’m sorry about that. I know you only do it for your mum, and I love her too, so I’ll stick it out for both of you. As for your a-hole of a father, I really don’t know how someone so utterly dreadful produced such a beautiful daughter, but I promise I will play along with him and his gruesome Romanian wine, or whatever it is, OK? For you and Joan and dear old Dick. Plus, I’ve got Paris to look forward to.’

  ‘We’ll always have Paris…’ I said, and he laughed.

  Then I took him over to my suitcase and showed him where I’d hidden two empty bottles of his wine – now decanted into the bottles that had previously held Dad’s wine-club red, until I had poured it down the drain outside the kitchen door.

  ‘Ah, Moneypenny,’ said Ed, taking me in his arms and kissing me quite passionately.

  So Ed behaved immaculately at dinner. But Dad didn’t. He was a little bit annoyed I’d opened the wine before he came home, until I convinced him I’d done it so it could breathe and would all be perfectly à point for dinner and to ‘show’ Ed. I knew I was being disloyal to my wonderful husband by saying that, but I just wanted the evening to go smoothly, for everybody’s sake.

  Ed played along brilliantly about the wine. Professing thrilled astonishment that a non-vintage South African Pinotage could be so ‘opulent and perfumed’ – to use his description – even though we both knew it was actually a Cos d’Estournel ’90.

  I didn’t dare let Mum and Dick in on the secret, because I was already terrified I might burst into hysterical giggles at any point, as Dad got more and more puffed up about his bloody wine club. When he eventually proudly told Ed that the wine in question had cost him £3.99 a bottle, I had to leave the table in a hurry.

  ‘That’s marvellous,’ Ed was saying, with ambassadorial diplomacy as I sped out of the room. ‘It really is amazing the quality you can get these days. This tastes like a wine I would sell for nearer £150 …’

  So it was all going swimmingly. Mum’s food was delicious, as always, greatly enhanced by the wonderful wine, and Dad loved his presents, which he opened after the novelty cake had been produced, ‘Happy Birthday’ sung and the candles blown out, with him beaming like it was all a big This is Your Life surprise. Even though it was exactly the same every bloody year.

  Then, when we were all having a glass of indifferent cognac – Dad’s present to himself – Ed congratulated him on the school’s results. I’d told him about them when we were upstairs, keen to foster good relations between the two of them, and Ed had risen to the occasion.

  ‘Ah, yes,’ said Dad smugly, leaning back in his chair, a heavy mahogany carver – reproduction, of course. ‘Yes, we’re very pleased with the school. It’s performing extremely well, and we have a very high level of parental satisfaction as well as our success in the league tables. But what I want to know is, when are you and Amelia going to produce a grandson I can educate there?’

  ‘Oh, Paul,’ said Mum in an indulgent tone, clearly hoping to move the subject on. She knew how sensitive I was about it.

  ‘ “Oh, Paul” what?’ said my father, his thick black eyebrows forking down dangerously.

  Mum said nothing. It was already too late.

  ‘Well,’ roared my father, his face now getting red, which was a very bad sign. ‘ “Oh, Paul” what? What’s wrong with a man asking his son-in-law when he might be expected to produce a grandchild? It’s hardly unusual, is it? What is unusual is for a healthy young couple to be married for – what is it, Amelia, fifteen years? – and not have bloody children. It’s not like you can’t afford it, is it?’

  I just sat completely still, looking studiedly down at my plate, praying for it to stop. I looked up under my eyelashes and saw that Dick and Mum were doing the same. It was what we did when Dad went off on one at the dinner table, which had happened with great frequency in my childhood. Like every Sunday lunch.

  I looked covertly to my left and saw Ed was still looking straight at my father in astonished amazement. He’d never seen him quite this bad before.

  ‘So, go on then, Edward,’ bellowed Dad. ‘What have you got to say for yourself ? Is there a problem we should know about?’

  ‘Now come on, Paul,’ said Ed, in what I thought was an incredibly reasonable voice in the circumstances. ‘ That’s a bit unfair…’

  ‘DON’T “PAUL” ME!’ shouted my father. ‘You can call me Paul when you’re a father – when you’re a man, not some pansy wine-swilling snob.’

  I’m ashamed to say I continued to sit there in silence. What can you say when your father behaves like that to your husband? There’s nothing to say – except perhaps, Fuck off and die you hideous old psycho I’m never speaking to you again. But you can’t do that, when your lovely mum is sitting there close to tears and you know she would be left with the old bastard and his fury.

  So I just sat there mutely and so did everyone else, praying he would calm down. Very carefully, I reached under the tablecloth and found Ed’s hand to squeeze. He squeezed it back.

  Then, as usual, Dick saved our lives. We all had our roles in the catastrophe of our family and that was Dick’s.

  ‘Hey, Dad,’ he said, like nothing unusual had just happened. ‘I nearly forgot – I’ve got you another present. It’s that Michael Schumacher Formula One computer game I was telling you about. Shall we go in your study and have a look at it?’

  I think the three of us breathed out simultaneously when they left the room. I felt like bursting into tears, but I wouldn’t let myself for my mum’s sake. She was so brave about Dad’s temper.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Edward,’ she said, putting her hand on his arm. ‘Paul has never been good after too much to drink, but he won’t listen, he insists he can handle it. I’m so sorry about what he said.’

  ‘You don’t need to be sorry,’ said Ed, taking her hand and kissing it.

  I got up and started clearing the table. That was my way of dealing with it. Keep busy. Bail out. There was too much to say about what had happened even to start. My father’s outburst was monstrous, but the subject he had brought up was even harder for me to deal with. What was really doing me in was that, while his approach was completely unacceptable, he did have a point.

  My mother had asked me several times over the years in her own gentle way if Ed and I were planning to have a family, or if there was anything I wanted to tell her – were we having problems? But I was always evasive. I just found it too painful to talk about.

  Of course
I wanted children was the answer, but I didn’t even know if I was fertile or not because, with his belt and braces approach to contraception, Ed had never given me the chance to find out.

  I had considered secretly coming off the Pill and putting pinholes in all his bloody condoms, but it didn’t seem right to conceive a child by stealth. And besides, eagerly anticipating the conception was meant to be something couples joyfully did together. Ha bloody ha.

  Taking out my frustration rinsing the dirty plates, as my mum liked, under a steaming Niagara of hot water, I wondered yet again how I could have been so offhand about such a fundamental issue at the start of our marriage.

  I remembered mentioning it to him quite casually early on – ‘when we have kids…’ or something like that – and being surprised to find he was quite so set against it. But at twenty-five I hadn’t freaked out, because there was plenty of time for all that and at that stage I was still so impressed with my new life with him, the flat in Mayfair, the eating out and all, I had other things to think about.

  Plus, I had been so convinced he’d come to his senses about it eventually, there really had seemed no point in fretting unnecessarily.

  But, by the time I hit my early thirties, things began to feel a bit more pressing. Most of my girlfriends from school and uni days were having babies by then, and as each one became a mother, a kind of curtain was drawn between us.

  My best friend, Louise, in particular, had made a big effort to keep me included and involved, and as a result I had a special relationship with her daughter, Posy, but in some ways that made it worse. Opening an envelope to find one of her gorgeous drawings just reminded me of what I was missing.

  I was so wrapped up in these thoughts as I rinsed and stacked that I didn’t notice Ed had come into the kitchen until he wrapped his arms around me from behind and nuzzled into my neck.