Straight on Till Morning

by Lynne Barrett-Lee

  ‘What the hell was all that about?’ he hissed at me the minute the bedroom door was shut behind him.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You! Lashing into Andy like that! What the hell did you think you were doing? She’s in floods!’

  ‘Good!’ I snapped. ‘About bloody time too. If I never see the witch again it’ll be way too soon!’ My hands were still shaking. I couldn’t believe how angry I was. Give me one excuse, I thought. Just one. And I will be out of the front door before you can say fairy fucking Godmother.

  ‘That was bloody obvious. What the hell got into you? How could you be so vitriolic? The poor woman! She was only – ‘

  ‘Poor woman?? How could I? Jonathan, the woman is monstrous! Don’t you see that? Have you never been able to see that? Don’t you realise what she’s about? She’s never forgiven me, never!’

  ‘Forgiven you for what, for God’s sake?’

  ‘For existing, you idiot! For coming into your life and stealing her little girl away from her!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘God, you really don’t see it, do you?’ I shrieked. ‘You never have!!’

  ‘What the hell’s got into you?’ he said again, eyes bulging with shock. ‘I’ve never heard such ranting! Christ, Sally, she was only trying to help, for God’s sake! I know full well she drives you up the wall at times, but that’s your problem, not hers.’

  ‘WHAT?’

  ‘You heard.’

  ‘Oh, yes. I heard. But I’d like to know quite what you meant by that. What did you mean by that?’

  He didn’t speak for a second. Long enough to make me realise he was going to say something I wouldn’t want to hear. Which he did.

  ‘Your problem,’ he said again. ‘The chip on your shoulder has always been so bloody massive you can’t see it. Stealing? For God’s sake! You’re paranoid! ’

  ‘WHAT?’

  He drew a hand over his forehead and exhaled noisily. ‘Look,’ he said, waggling a finger in front of my face. ‘She’s not trying to take over. She just wants to be involved. She is Morgan’s Godmother. Don’t forget that. Why can’t you let her? What the hell difference will it make to you to let her get involved a little? You’re always complaining you have too much to do – so let her do some of it. If you don’t like her suggestions all you have to do is say so, for God’s sake! Not reduce the poor woman to tears! What’s the matter with you?’

  ‘What’s the matter with me? God, Jonathan, you really don’t have a clue, do you? Just say so, eh? Ri-ight. Just like that. God, you make me so mad!’

  He stared at me. It was true. He really didn’t have a clue. It felt like a punch.

  ‘Look,’ he said, lowering his voice now and frowning. ‘Come back downstairs and let’s sort this out.’

  ‘Absolutely not,’ I said. ‘No way. Not a chance.’

  ‘But you can’t just –’

  ‘Oh, yes I can, Jonathan. You just watch me.’

  My expression must have told him he was wasting his time. He turned on his heel and marched out of the room.

  A dismal ending to a miserable week. And an inauspicious start to the next one. Had I an atom of intelligence, I might have seen it coming. And I might have stayed in bed for the duration.

  We had made up in – us grown ups – after a fashion, in the morning, in that over-polite and rather nauseating way that grown ups are required to do. It was a necessary evil. Right though I was about bloody Androulla, I still had to be a grown up. Yes, she hated me. Yes, I had stolen her little girl from her. Yes, it was all to be expected. No matter that it was actually her problem, in fact. It was not my fault that she’d not been able to have another child after Richard. Or anything to do with me that she should become a full time nanny to Morgan when Tricia had died. Or that the four of them (in Cowes, darling) had agreed that should one couple die then the other would adopt their precious babes. Or that she saw Tricia’s death as largely the same scenario, except in the sleeping arrangements.

  Grrr . It was nothing to do with me. I was still in bloody college. But in Androulla’s head that made little difference. I came, I stole, I conquered. There was nothing to be done about it, except make up and be polite. But only after a fashion. I would, I’d agreed, speak to Morgan about the hymn, and I would, should she wish it to be changed, try to change it. But only because by then I’d already spoken to Morgan, who, as expected, cared about Praise my Soul not a jot. A pyrrhic victory, perhaps – I had now morphed, I knew, into Mrs Nasty from Bitchville, particularly in Jonathan’s somewhat myopic eyes – but I didn’t care any more. I was sick of it all, I was hurting for Nick, and I’d had enough rows to last me a lifetime. Or so I thought.

  Morgan’s absence of care in the matter of memorial hymn selections, however, had not been out of deference to me. She’d asked me again if I would come up and have lunch with her, and had sounded dismayed when I’d said I couldn’t manage it. Yet she wouldn’t elucidate why.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ she’d said, with an edge of irritation in her voice. ‘It was nothing important. I guess you’re up to your eyes in it with Kate’s big production.’

  I ignored the tone. ‘You said it!’ I answered brightly. ‘But, tell you what. I’ve got Wednesday off next week. How about I come up early and we spend the whole day together? Lunch, shopping – whatever you want to do.’

  ‘Wednesday,’ she repeated. ‘I don’t know. I’ll have to see. Yes. Why not?’ She sounded distracted.

  ‘Morgan, look, if it is something urgent, I really wish you’d tell me – ‘

  ‘No, no,’ she replied. ‘Just some things I wanted to run through with you. That’s all. If you’re too busy, they’ll just have to wait, won’t they? Wednesday week. Fine.’

  ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘I’m sure,’ she said firmly. ‘Nothing important. Really. I’ll see you on Friday for the show. OK?’

  I put down the phone with the unsettling impression that her ‘nothing’ was something I should be worrying about.

  On Tuesday, however, I received the final invitation list and table plan from her in the post, together with a chirpy, much-more-Morgan-like note. Perhaps it was nothing. I gave the list a read through. On our side the usual suspects (plus bloody Androulla on the top table, the COW), and on Cody’s, a mind boggling, tongue twisting selection of double barrelled, unpronounceable names.

  ‘What about Carl?’ asked Kate, who’d come home from her rehearsal in her usual artistic high-dudgeon.

  She sat down beside me. ‘Where’s he on this plan?’ She pointed at the A4 sheet and frowned. ‘He’s not on there,’ she said. ‘Why not?’

  I had, in fact, addressed this problem already, when Morgan and I had first run through the guest list. As it was, I now felt Carl should be invited. Contrary to Morgan’s opinion that he was a yob and a low-life, he had turned out to be a perfectly OK young bloke, and Kate was clearly serious about him. So what that she wasn’t quite seventeen? It may well turn out she’d get through half a dozen Carls before settling down with someone. But on the other hand it might not. Plus I felt she could do with some like minded support among the Cholmondley-Wotsits and Flibberty-Giblets. There’d be precious few people there she had anything in common with.

  But Morgan had been adamant. For a start, she’d pointed out, he’d be as good as on his own. Unless we wanted to stick him on the grandparents table, or slot him into a group of Morgan’s media friends. Which was, she’d said firmly, an absolute no-no. He could come to the disco, and that was final. And, anyway, what was wrong with that?

  ‘Because, well, because he isn’t, Kate,’ I said now. ‘There’s only so many people can be accommodated in the marquee and we did say it would be – look, he is invited to the disco,’

  ‘Oh, right. Well that’s really nice. Really sisterly of her.’

  ‘– and I’m sure he wouldn’t want to come to the wedding himself anyway. I mean, you’ll be on the top table and busy w
ith all the formal stuff, and, I mean, who would he sit with? Gran? He’d be a bit stuck out on a limb, wouldn’t he? And is it really going to be something he’d want to spend –’

  ‘Mother! That is entirely beside the point! He’s my boyfriend! How could she not invite him?’

  ‘Kate, look. I know he’s your boyfriend, and I know he’s very special to you, but it’s simply not possible for us to invite everyone who happens –’

  ‘To be as insignificant as the bride’s sister’s boyfriend. Well that’s fine, Mum. Just fine. I’ll leave you to tell her she can find another bridesmaid. If he doesn’t go then neither do I.’

  So then I had a row with Morgan.

  ‘No,’ she said snappily, when I called her on the Wednesday morning. ‘Absolutely not. Tell her to stop being so precious. I’m not having some loud mouthed spotty oik at my wedding and that’s final.’

  This was so unlike Morgan I was open-mouthed with shock. And Carl was not loud mouthed or spotty or an oik. I said so.

  ‘That’s not the point, Mum! I don’t want some bloke I don’t know from Adam leering out from my wedding photos, thank you very much. Just because he happens to be the yob Kate’s currently infatuated with. No.’

  I wasn’t altogether sure this wasn’t more to do with the Hillbilly-Twiglets and Mabelthorpe-Sprouts, and Morgan’s anxiety that someone like Carl would show her up. Or, indeed, the ‘nothing’ she wasn’t talking about. I didn’t say so. Instead I said, ‘couldn’t we find a space for him somewhere? Just to keep Kate sweet? There’s no point having all this bad feeling over something so unimportant, is there? Perhaps we could squeeze him in on Gran’s table –’

  ‘No! It’s my wedding, mum,’ she went on. ‘Not hers. And as far as I’m concerned it’s up to me who I invite. Isn’t it?’

  Not quite. ‘Er, largely,’ I said carefully.

  ‘So it’s not.’

  ‘Well, yes it is, but we also have to consider – ‘

  ‘Fine then,’ she said. ‘Invite who you like. Invite the East Grinstead W.I. if you want to. Don’t mind me. I’m only the bride. Do what you like, mum. Fine.’

  And then she put down the phone.

  I called her straight back but the line was engaged. Not a bit like Morgan at all.

  On Wednesday afternoon, she rang back and apologised, and said we’d look at the seating plan when she came down on Friday night to see Kate’s show. Though not to me – I was at work – but to my mother, who was by now installed with us and on backstage-duties (and who I hadn’t – thank the heavens – had any rows with as yet).

  She’d then phoned me at work to let me know, bless her. She too had noticed that Morgan sounded a bit strained, and not like her usual sunny self.

  ‘But it’s just wedding nerves,’ she’d reassured me when I got home that evening. ‘Never known a wedding yet that didn’t cause family arguments. Don’t worry, dear. It’ll all come out in the wash. Now then, I’ve hunted high and low, but I’m all out of red cotton. D’you think anyone’s likely to notice if I finish off this torn gusset with the taupe?’

  Thursday was row free, thankfully, though somewhat hectic on account of the fact that Kate’s first show was that evening, so I had to work through my lunch in order to leave early. I was losing weight at an alarming rate. It was all being gobbled up by the thing in my stomach. The worm of pain that was eating away at me. Nick hadn’t been at Amberley at all during the week, and though on Monday I had thought this to be a good thing, I was wrong. Each day without him was worse than the last, and I was getting to the stage now where I felt that if I didn’t see him, I would quite possibly just curl up and die. Every new row seemed to make me shrivel further. Just see him, that was all I asked. Just a restorative glimpse. I wondered for the eight-millionth time since last Friday whether he’d be coming to the Drug U Like dinner. I didn’t know the answer and there was no one I could ask.

  ‘Of course he’ll be going,’ said Ruth, on the Friday. ‘Absolute certainty, I would imagine. But what good will that be to you? You’ll have Max with you, won’t you?.’

  This was her latest appellation for Jonathan, after I’d told her about the weekend’s debacle. She had found the whole business uproariously funny, and had taken to calling me the second Mrs de Winter. And Androulla was Mrs Danvers, of course. Quite so. The thought was very satisfying, somehow. Though I hoped she wouldn’t be urging me to leap off a balcony and plunge to my death any time soon. Hoped, but hadn’t ruled out. I shook my head.

  ‘Jonathan’s not coming,’ I said. ‘He’s running some Dental tutorial in Brighton on Saturday, so he’s staying down there for the night.’

  Ruth tutted at me, grinning. ‘Too much bother to zip back, eh? That’s highly convenient for you.’

  ‘No it isn’t! Ruth, I told you. I have made up my mind. I have absolutely no intention of seeing Nick again.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah. And I’m a vestal virgin.’

  I wished she wouldn’t keep doing that. I was feeling wobbly enough about it as it was. How many times had I picked up my mobile this week? How many times had I nearly caved in? Oh, God. Billions. It was like a disease. I tutted at her irritably. ‘I wish Jonathan was coming to be honest, because at least then I wouldn’t feel so vulnerable, but he hates that sort of thing. No. That’s not true. He likes that sort of thing, but only in its right and proper format. Him big shot professional, me dutiful little wife.’

  When I got home from work I fully expected to find Morgan there, but she still hadn’t arrived.

  ‘Friday evening traffic,’ suggested my mother, who was once again beavering with a thimble on her finger, the contortions of the Debbie Davies Dancers having put paid already to many a badly sewn seam. ‘Don’t fret so!’ she said soothingly. ‘You’re looking peaky enough as it is. Go and take the dog for a tinkle. She’ll get here.’

  ‘Probably decided she can’t be bothered,’ observed Kate as I clipped on Merlin’s lead. ‘Probably too busy hob nobbing with her posh London friends to faff with something as provincial as our little show.’

  ‘Kate, how can you say that?’ I chided. ‘Gran’s right. It’s probably just heavy traffic, that’s all.’

  But by the time I had returned from walking Merlin she still hadn’t arrived, and I began to find myself wondering if Kate wasn’t right after all. Morgan had said more than once this week that she was up to her eyes in it. But to just not turn up. No phone call or anything. It really wasn’t on. Yet another thing to worry about. Why was it that it took being a mother to understand the simple fact that mothers worried? Oh, God – why was life doing this to me? This week of all weeks. Was it payback time? Was it karma, perhaps? I tried calling her several times, but there was no answer from either her flat or her mobile, so I had to content myself with leaving a message, plus a note in the kitchen with directions to the community hall, after which we set off there ourselves. Starlight Express. How I wanted to be on one. With Nick. Second star to the right, please, driver. And straight on till we get someplace else.

  I had never seen Starlight Express, and it was more enjoyable that I had perhaps expected, my previous exposure to the Debbie Davies Dancers having been an ambitious re-working of the Tempest, set, bizarrely, in a post-holocaust London and featuring a variety of unusual costumes, many of which seemed to be made out of plastic lemonade bottles, and which rattled and squeaked with such violence and regularity that they drowned out best part of the script . Oh, and the sound system exploded in Act two.

  So, scope for improvement, and they all did magnificently. The scenery stayed up, no one fell over, no one fluffed their lines, the costumes hung together and no bottoms were laid bare, and nothing, as far as the audience could tell anyway, spontaneously combusted or broke. Indeed, so slick and polished was the production that the only small blip in the proceedings was when just at the big scene between Dinah and Diesel, my mobile phone went off.

  I pulled it from my bag as soon as the show ended.
The call had been from Morgan. She’d left a message on voicemail.

  ‘She’s not coming,’ I told my mum as we made our way back to the car park with Kate’s costume shortly after. The dining car herself was staying on for half an hour to soak up the plaudits with her friends. Amanda’s dad would be bringing her home. Her wonderful performance had made me more tearful still.

  ‘Well, there wouldn’t be much point now, would there?’ She waited while I opened up the boot, then lay Kate’s costume carefully across it. I followed suit with her hat. ‘No matter,’ she said brightly. ‘I doubt Kate really cared that much. And perhaps she can come down tomorrow instead.’

  ‘She didn’t say so.’

  ‘Well, you can ring her in the morning, can’t you? No point fretting about it now.’ She paused at the side of the car, looking at me over the dew-frosted roof, her hair made orange candyfloss by the streetlamp behind her. ‘Are you all right, dear?’ she said suddenly. ‘You haven’t seemed yourself at all just lately. Is it Ruth?’

  ‘Ruth?’ It took a moment for me to work out what she meant. So it is with liars. I put my car key in the lock.

  ‘Are you worrying about her?’

  I shook my head, feeling dreadful that I’d made such a big deal of it.

  My mother tipped hers to one side and looked at me thoughtfully.

  ‘Something else, then?’

  I shook my head again. Shrugged. ‘Really, mum. Nothing. Nothing in particular.’

  ‘Well,’ she said, with an expression that made it clear she wasn’t fooled in the least,‘You’re doing way too much, you know.’

  ‘Mum, I’m fine. Anyway, you’re a fine one to talk.’

  ‘I’m retired, Sally. I have no one to look after, no house to run, no family to organise, no job to worry about and nothing else to do. I watch you, you know, rushing hither and thither, never a minute to yourself. You need to slow down a bit. Stop running around after everyone –’she paused to smile. ‘Me included, I’m ashamed to say. Look, I know it’s a busy time and there’s lots to arrange, but it will happen. You don’t have to organise every little thing yourself. Darling, the world won’t end if you leave it to look after itself for five minutes, you know.’