Straight on Till Morning

by Lynne Barrett-Lee

  Russell dropped the three bags of crisps he had clamped in his teeth. ‘An hour on your knees on the floor, Ruth? Thought that would be just up your street. Dib dib dib,’ he said. ‘Dob dob dob.’

  ‘Dib sodding dob yourself, Russell,’ she said now, scowling as she accepted the pint he was holding out to her and gulping a good two inches from the top. ‘What the hell does that mean anyway? And I mean, can you imagine? Me? Bounding about in a cagoule? Wearing track suit bottoms? Not wearing mascara? Running?’ She put her glass down and cycled her arms.

  Russell re-routed his gaze to her chest and opened his crisps.

  ‘Er, no, frankly, Ruth. I went out with an Akela once,’ he announced. ‘Very hands-on. Very capable. Not as hot as you in the chest department, I’ll grant you, but she could tie a mean sheepshank.’

  Ruth looked at him disdainfully. ‘Well I don’t think I could shank a sheep if my life depended on it,’ she announced, with some feeling. ‘The nearest I’ve got to being under canvas was when I lost a contact lens at a party last year and took out a barbecue awning.’

  ‘It’s not tents,’ I said. ‘It’s cabins, Dennis said. And the memo said nothing about nautical pursuits.’

  The memo had said nothing of substance at all, in fact. Just advised us of a series of upcoming dates and urged us to decide which ones suited best. None, regrettably, in my case. I’d already checked Jonathan’s diary.

  ‘Tents, cabins. What’s the difference? It’s all rustic, isn’t it?’ she growled. ‘All a million miles from hot water, radiators and watching EastEnders. What else do you need to know?’ She stared moodily into her beer. ‘And there’s bound to be climbing – I mean, why else go somewhere so hilly? And stuff in boats, Sal, you mark my words. There’s always stuff in boats. Kayaks or canoes at the very least. Perhaps I should develop hydrophobia or something. And they always do that swinging-off-rocks thing as well – what’s it called? Wassailing?’’

  ‘Abseiling.’

  ‘Exactly. That. I’ve seen that Julie Walters film. I know what’s coming, believe me. Pant wetting territory, for definite.’

  The Drug U Like bum bag took on a whole new significance.

  ‘I doubt it’ll be anything of the sort,’ I reassured her. ‘Probably no more than a bit of hiking and having to make a raft out of two oil drums and a plank without anyone punching anyone else on the nose. That kind of thing. Jonathan went on one once. Russell’s right. It’ll be just like Scouts, but without all the woggles and community singing. I think it might be rather fun.’

  Ruth slapped her hand on the table. ‘That was it! That survival programme! They had to sleep under banana leaves for a week and dig their own toilet and eat buffalo testicles for dinner! Oh my Lord! It makes my blood run cold.’

  ‘There are no buffalo in Wales,’ Russell told her. ‘Only sheep.’

  ‘Sheep? Sheep? God! That’s even worse! At least you know where you are with a testicle.’

  ‘What a load of nonsense,’ observed Jonathan when I got home from work and told him about it the following day. He looked hollow eyed and tired, and like he’d run out of anything happy to think about, which these days was often the norm. As well as the surgery in Oxted he worked at, he was a partner in a rather swank practice in Wimpole Street, and on Mondays and Tuesdays he worked up there, and had done for almost five years. I wondered, often, how much he really enjoyed it. The rigours and stresses of celebrity dentistry were encroaching ever more on his humour, to my mind. He was still in his suit and his overnight bag was standing in the corner, where it would sit until such time as I did something with it.

  ‘Maybe so,’ I said. ‘But compulsory nonsense. So I rang and checked with Lydia earlier and I’ve put myself down for the one on the twenty-fifth. It’s only three days. I’ll be back on the Tuesday.’

  He was hacking the end off a baguette, and bacon was spitting under the grill. He had a pathological unease about me speaking to his secretary, in case, I presumed, we ganged up on him. But as he’d been in London it made sense to circumvent him. He didn’t like being called while tinkering between the lips of B-movie actresses and bleaching the teeth of his boy band pubescents. He paused in his sawing.

  ‘The twenty-fifth? You can’t go then! That’s the weekend my parents are coming, isn’t it? What on earth possessed you to put yourself down for those dates? What am I supposed to do with them all weekend?’ he started sawing again. ‘You’ll have to change it.’

  I shook my head. His face was stony.

  ‘I can’t,’ I said. ‘There were only three options, and the other two were no good. One of them’s when Morgan’s down to sort things out with the dressmaker, and the other one clashes with Bob and Androulla.’

  Truth be known, everything clashed with Bob and Androulla. Principally because I clashed with Bob and Androulla. Or more specifically, Androulla. By virtue of things I could do nothing about. I clashed with Bob and Androulla because I was not Tricia, didn’t play bridge, was married to Jonathan, and was not Morgan’s mum. Androulla, however, was Morgan’s fairy Godmother. And therein lies a tale or six. But to dwell on it’s bad for my health, so I don’t. Suffice to say that I would have sped off to Wales like a shot to avoid Bob and Androulla. But as neither Russell or Ruth could make those dates, I had traded off Bob and Androulla avoidance for the almost comparably joyous occurrence of not having to schlep around all weekend after Jonathan’s mother. A happy, happy clash, all told. A win-win situation. I folded my arms across my chest and wondered quite when this combative streak had taken hold of me.

  ‘Oh,’ he growled, flipping his bacon over and frowning. ‘That’s great, then.’ He turned to direct a flinty look at me. ‘Can’t you get out of it? Can’t you just tell them it isn’t convenient? People have commitments. They may be American, but they can’t expect everyone to just drop everything at their say-so.’

  Which was rich given that in the not too distant past we had done exactly that for Bob and bloody Androulla. I’d got two precious tickets for Miss Saigon, but, oh no, Bob and Androulla, who resided these days in a villa-with-four-toilets just outside Fuengirola, were going to be in the country for the weekend. A one-time-only not-to-be-missed offer. Couldn’t possibly miss them. Our plans weren’t so much dropped as fired floorwards like scuds.

  Though it had said as much on the form. And, yes, it had crossed my mind that had I asked to be excused then not a soul would have castigated me for it. But Jonathan’s mother. Bob and bloody Androulla. Way too tempting by half. And besides, this was my career, wasn’t it? I never made a hint of a squeak of a murmur at any of his lofty pan-global trips.

  ‘I know that,’ I said, judging the temperature and finding it salad drawer chilly. ‘But it’s important I go. They’re well aware that people have commitments. Of course they are. But what about my commitment to my job? My career? It’s not going to look very good if the senior optom can’t be bothered, is it? I have to impress these people.’

  Jonathan, obviously far from impressed at the notion that my job might be anything other than an optional extra, pulled out the grill pan again and stabbed irritably at the bacon, shaking it off on to his slabs of baguette.

  ‘And it’s only three days, Jonathan. I will get all the food in. I will make up the beds. I will plan all the meals. And Kate will be here, don’t forget. It’s hardly as if you’re being abandoned.’

  And they were his parents. I lifted the grill-pan from where he’d dumped it on the work surface and took it over to the sink. ‘And what about dinner?’ I asked him. ‘Is that all you’re having? And where’s Morgan? Wasn’t she coming down with you tonight?’

  ‘She’s taken the dog out with Kate. And I’ve got tennis coaching. It’s Tuesday, remember?’

  His tone was accusatory. Silly me. Tuesday, ergo tennis, ergo rush back from London, ergo tennis gear, sandwich and doughnut required. Ergo wife required. And wife, of course, late home. Well, God! Frankly. Quite apart from the utter rid
iculousness of a man of fifty-two spending his time being coached in something, period, it was always something. If not tennis, then cricket, or bridge, or bloody golf. I wondered if I shouldn’t have a summer schedule posted up somewhere, like TV stations do.

  ‘Of course,’ I said, refusing to feel guilty, but looking it nevertheless because my face was so used to it. ‘I’d forgotten. Shall I see if there’s a KitKat somewhere?’

  His eyes flicked up in response to the edge in my voice then he bent and reached into the fridge for the bottle of ketchup.

  ‘I’m perfectly capable,’ he said, unscrewing the lid and jerking a thick red coil onto his plate. He screwed it back on again, grim faced and rigid, then poured himself a mug of tea. ‘Oh, you go off on your camp,’ he whined as I stood and watched him put the cosy back on it. ‘Don’t you worry about us. We’ll cope.’

  Marriages are like wasps. Or black Spanish bulls. Irritable creations, inclined to quick temper. A little like Jonathan, in fact. I watched him gather his tea and his sandwich and I wondered, not for the first time just lately, why it was that women were so hopelessly drawn to men who were so remote and testy. The Mr D’arcy effect? The Heathcliff moment? Was that what had done it for me? Why were men-with-a-problem so attractive to young women? Sure, it made for good fiction, with all the swooning and uncertainty, but was it such a good blueprint for longevity in marriage? Forget the grand passion – shouldn’t niceness be part of the deal? What a twat Jonathan was. What a blind, stupid fool. Had he made the tiniest, the teeniest, the most infinitesimal gesture towards being nice to me, towards accepting-with-good-grace that I had a right to a life, I would have probably – no, definitely – have decided not to go.

  In any event, once he’d departed into the garden with his tea I spent a vaguely enjoyable couple of minutes seething and scowling and making faces at his back out of the kitchen window. No one offered to make me a cup of tea. No one offered to make me a bacon sandwich or iron my tennis shorts or remember that I had a suit awaiting collection at the dry cleaners or that I might just be tired and in a bad mood and in need of careful handling or for someone to be nice to me now and again.

  ‘Bollocks, then,’ I said to the teapot. ‘I’m going.’ And I poured myself a large Pimm’s instead.

  Chapter 6

  I though, then, long and hard, about the wisdom of actually going away for the weekend. I had so much else to do, what with the wedding, and my mother’s on-going save-the-refuge campaign, and the business of getting Kate to her dance class rehearsals, not to mention the creation of no less than five Starlight Express costumes, a job pressed on me on the rather dubious credentials of having run up a couple of hasty tutus last year . It would, I knew, be rather fun to escape for a couple of days – apart from one or two overnight Continuing Education courses, I hadn’t been off and done anything on my own for years. It felt rather exciting to be Someone With Career Commitments. Jonathan was always swanning off somewhere and I was always the one left behind holding the iron. We always used to say how nice it would be once the children were older and I could accompany him on conferences, but I sometimes wondered if I actually remembered that right, because somehow it never seemed to happen. Perhaps it was just me that had thought it. Because he never seemed particularly enthused if I mentioned it these days, and in any case, there always seemed to be something, or someone, who needed me to stay at home.

  I was busy. Required. Indispensable. Needed. Shouldn’t things like that make me feel good? An image of Nick Brown’s face swam across my dutiful thoughts. But there was a wedding to get organised. A scant four months off now. And I was the one who was doing it.

  Not that I minded, really. If there was one single thing that marked me down as the suburban middle-class woman I strenuously tried not to be, it was my absolute and completely barking-mad conviction that planning Morgan’s wedding would be fun.

  Morgan and Kate used to play Barbie flat share together. They would set out little rooms for the dolls, walled in by paperbacks, and I would bring them little cups of milk, and tiny jam sandwiches and cut up Cadbury’s fingers and fragments of crisps, which I would decant into tiny bags made out of sweet wrappers, and which they would both fall upon with rapturous delight. But that, I thought now, was a long, long time ago.

  Because there was to be, it seemed, no easy girly camaraderie round the kitchen table today. A kitchen table that I had fondly looked upon as the hub – nay the very pinnacle, of happy, fulfilling family life. What could be nicer? Saturday afternoon, Jonathan exiled to the drive with bucket and chamois, and me and my gals, all smiles and enthusiasm, doing girl-stuff and frippery and guest lists and flowers. Or not. Half an hour into favours and typefaces and cake permutations, and a perceptible tension had settled over the proceedings. Kate was wearing her tales-from-the-crypt frock. It lent a certain macabre chill to her words.

  ‘What, that? You’re joking, right?’

  ‘No, Kate,’ said Morgan, in a tight, clipped voice. She had already weathered Kate’s rant over the issue of her chignon, and now it seemed she must brace herself for more. She had extracted a photograph from one of the files in front of her, and had placed it under Kate’s disdainful gaze. ‘Of course I’m not joking. This is the dress –’ she lay the photo on the table and pointed ‘– and you have a circlet of freesias for your hair. And this really cutesy little embroidered drawstring bag. And I’ve seen these gorgeous little brocade ballet pumps and –’

  ‘Hang on. Hang on,’ said Kate, animated enough to cantilever forward the better to glare at the glossy picture in front of her. ‘You mean this is the dress I’ve got to wear?’

  Morgan blinked at her. ‘Yes. Of course. What did you think it was?’

  Kate didn’t elaborate as to quite what she thought it might be because she was now too busy gaping in horror. ‘And ballet pumps?’ It was more spit than speech. ‘Ballet pumps? You’re not serious. You cannot be serious!’

  Jonathan, who was supposed to be outside and not getting under our feet and so on, had wandered into the kitchen in order to rinse out his chamois leather at the sink. ‘You cannot be seeeeerious!’ he said, with uncharacteristic gaiety and in a very silly voice. It was nice to see him smiling for a change.

  ‘Oh, shut up, Dad. It’s not funny,’ snapped Kate, with sudden animation. ‘She cannot be serious. You cannot be serious, Morgan. No.’

  Oh, the joy of wedding preparations. Morgan snatched the photograph back from her sister and whipped the look-at-me-I’m-getting-married-and-isn’t-life-just-peachy expression from her face . It had begun to droop anyway. She slapped on a big-sisterly menace one instead. ‘I am deadly serious, Kate. Deadly. This is it and you are wearing it.’

  ‘You’ll look lovely,’ I chipped in hopefully from my end of the table, wondering if this might be the time to go and unload the washing machine or worm the dog. Merlin, who was ever alert to a possible slaughter situation, click-clacked over the quarry tiles to lay in wait in the utility room.

  ‘Lovely?’ Kate shrieked, stabbing at the photo with a black talon. ‘Lovely? In that! I’ll look like an old lady’s knicker drawer! How can you possibly imagine anyone could look lovely in a dress that looks like it’s been made out of nursing home curtains? It’s hideous! It’s ghastly! It’s all ribbony! It’s gross!’ She slapped the back of her hand against the photo in disgust. ‘It looks like a cake, Morgan! It looks like a pair of bloomers. Ye-arrrrgh! Ye-uurg!’ (or something like that.).

  Jonathan, chastened, flapped his leather in the air. It made a loud snapping sound and shot drips all over the table.

  ‘Oh! Tsk! Da-ad!’ said Morgan.

  He gathered it into a lump again and peered over his younger daughter’s shoulder to squint at the picture. ‘For goodness’ sake, Kate. You only have to wear it the once. Only for a few hours. It’s hardly going to kill you.’

  She nodded at him thoughtfully. ‘Hey, yeah, right, Dad. But who’d know the difference if it did? Because
I’ll look like a crematorium flower arrangement anyway.’

  At which point he glowered and scuttled back to the garage. Morgan, clearly more than a mite peeved at this flagrant dismissal of her sartorial acumen, started gathering all her photos and colour copies together and bustling them into order on the table top. ‘Hmm,’ she said, darting a look of disdain at her sister. ‘Which will be an improvement in my opinion. Right now you just look like a crematorium. Besides, what do you know about style anyway? Sancha thought it was really pretty.’

  Sancha, the other bridesmaid, was Cody, the groom’s, niece. We’d met her just the once, at their engagement party. Though she had a Smartie coloured brace and an eating disorder she also had a baguette bag and an account at Harvey Nicholls. Morgan was very taken with details like that.

  Kate was not. ‘Morgan, Sancha is twelve, for God’s sake. Twelve year olds know nothing about anything. Twelve year olds don’t mind being trussed up like comedy toilet roll holders. Twelve year olds don’t have breasts and – and – and well, feelings! She might think she’ll look a babe in a bloody Bo-peep ensemble, but more fool her, I say. I mean, look at it, will you? It’s got puffed sleeves for God’s sake!’

  Which juncture was the one at which I would normally have bustled in and inserted a tart ‘Don’t swear, please, Kate,’ or ‘enough of that, thank you, young lady’ or similar, but my precise form of words was arrested mid-think by what Morgan said next, which was ‘Yes, Kate. I know.’

  Or, to be accurate, not so much what she said, but the way she said it, which was somewhat akin to the passage of a lone tumbleweed across a bleak plain. Kate, obviously either oblivious to the sudden and dramatic drop in temperature, or too busy with her own internal ranting to notice, answered, ‘But why? I mean, what are you thinking of? Do you really hate me that much?’

  In actual fact,’ Morgan said, suddenly all expansive and smiling, ‘there was another style I rather liked, as it happens. A shift dress. In satin. Very nice, in fact. But, alas, no good.’