‘This whole time I have been trying to feel enthusiastic about the wedding and about being married, but it feels like the handbrake is on. I can’t let myself enjoy it or be carefree, because I’m not carefree. I can’t move on when I still feel so… so duty-bound about everything.’
‘But why? You’ve always been so kind to everybody, nobody is expecting anything from you.’
‘You say that, but what happens if Mam and Dad need help in the years ahead? What if something happened to one of them and the other fell to pieces? What are you going to be like when they’re gone? I want to just be myself and plan my own life, but I feel this little vortex forming behind me that’s going to suck me back in. Do you know what I mean?’
‘I think so, even if I don’t see it that way. I don’t know what you want me to do or say.’
‘I want you to move on. I want you to become independent, so you can be a positive force in all this. If you’re on your own two feet, then the folks will feel liberated. They’ll live their lives fully. And then, if things play out in a serious way in the future, you and I can be a team. But now, all I feel is that the whole thing will fall to me. No matter what life I build with Andrew, all the problems of Parley View will land at my doorstep saying “Here Grace—fix this.” I can’t be some sort of family superhero.’
‘Who asked you to be that?’
‘Who will handle all the heavy stuff otherwise?’
‘What heavy stuff?’
‘Don’t be so evasive. You know what I’m talking about. The future.’
‘Grace, I know that I disappoint you. I know it but I am okay with it. Whatever happens I will do my best. If you’re here I will do my best, if you’re not here I will do my best. There’s no point planning for what you’re trying to plan for. I know that, more than anything, you would like me to see the world your way, to wake up to your way of looking at things and to become the version of myself that you’re most comfortable with. But then what? Are you going to keep checking in on me every few months to make sure I haven’t drifted? How are you going to ensure that once I’m fixed I stay fixed? But what about you—what are you going to do?’
‘Me? I’m the one who’s been holding it together all these years! You’ve been floating about like bloody Winnie the Pooh all your life, spending a whole day looking for a fishing rod, or thinking about the shapes clouds make, while Mam and Dad and I deal with money, jobs, problems, y’know, that sort of thing.’
‘Look. Whatever duty you have imposed on yourself towards me, I now absolve you from it.’ Hungry Paul knighted Grace on each shoulder with the toothbrush and continued, ‘I love you, but I don’t need you to look after me. I haven’t needed you for a very long time. I am not your responsibility. I am not anyone’s responsibility. I am only telling you this now because I think you’re ready to find out that you can’t help me. I am just sorry it took me so long to realise I was holding you back, but not in the way you think. I have been holding you back by letting you hold onto this precious, fictional version of yourself. You’re addicted to your own competence. I should have tried sooner to help you so that you could discover for yourself how impossible it is to help somebody.’
‘Look, I don’t mean to have a go at you, but what changes out of this? Mam and Dad still have to look after you.’
‘This is my home. I live here. They are my family. I love them. I love you too, even with your hot dog pyjamas and all. This isn’t a business relationship. It’s not a transaction. I spend my days with them. I am here whenever Mam wants a little company. I help her with stuff and we chat about this and that. I sit with Dad when he’s reading, and we watch TV together and talk about it afterwards. Nobody keeps count and nobody keeps score. We all think the world of you Grace, but you’re simply not here. You ghost in with your busyness and then ghost off, leaving a to-do list behind you. But that’s okay. I accept you the way you are. I don’t have any expectations of you. But I do wish you were happier, for your sake, but you’re not. You have this strange mix of a victim complex and a superiority complex. And yet, and yet, I am happy. So what do I say when you want me to substitute a bit of your unhappiness for what I have in my life?’
‘So, what’s your advice then? What do you think I should do? If you were the family superhero, what would you do?’ asked Grace.
‘We don’t need a family superhero. You have created a world for yourself where you have this load-bearing filial and sisterly duty, but it’s all over now, if it ever truly existed. The film is finished. You can just be Grace. Be whichever Grace you want. Disappoint us if you want. We’ll love you anyway. Yes, our parents will grow old and yes they will get sick and yes they will die, but that will happen to us two as well. Where you’re wrong is that you think that’s a problem in the future. But it’s not. The answer to that problem is to spend time with them now. Be in their lives so that when the worst happens—which we hope is many years away—there will have been ten, twenty, however many years of Scrabble, University Challenge, curries, walks, gardening and whatever else behind us. And then, when the time comes we’ll know what to do. Not because we’ll have it all figured it out but because we will have had the habit, the practice, of loving them and being with them, and the utter clarity that comes with that. Mam and Dad have enjoyed the wedding so much because they speak to you all the time and you’re calling over, and you’re including them. You being here has reminded them of how much they miss you when you’re busy. They don’t really want a holiday, they just want to know that you won’t forget about them when it’s all over. You need to go and be happy with Andrew, and unfetter yourself from this story you have about your role in the family. And then, when you come over—once a week, once a month, whenever you can, it doesn’t matter—just hang out and be yourself. No versions of Grace any more. Not world-on-her-shoulders Grace; not why-can’t-you-all-get-your-act-together Grace; no deferring-of-happiness Grace. Just come over, and who knows? Maybe I’ll have moved on. Maybe I’ll be a hotshot. Or maybe I won’t. But let’s not test each other. Let’s just be happy. While there is still time.’
Hungry Paul gargled with mouthwash, and then leaned over and gave Grace a hug. ‘C’mon. Teeth time,’ he said tapping the handle of her brush on the side of the sink.
It was difficult for Grace to hear some of that. The competitive side of her wanted to argue back, to counterpunch, but she knew Hungry Paul well enough, and trusted him enough to know that he didn’t care about winning an argument. All his life he had never wanted anything at her expense. And that’s what was hard to hear. An attack would be fine. An attack was something she was durable enough to withstand and retaliate against. But kind truth, gentle truth, was harder.
As she lay in bed, the single bed from her teenage years, she could hear Hungry Paul’s clumsy bedroom routine next door: drawers and wardrobe doors creaking open and closed, looking for something or other. Always, always onto the next thing. Downstairs she could hear her parents coming in from their walk in the evening cold, Helen offering Peter a cuppa, and Peter offering to warm up his wife’s hands.
Chapter 24: Wedding day
When Hungry Paul came downstairs the next morning—his body trained for early starts on Mondays—he found Grace was already sitting at the kitchen table in her dressing gown, drinking tea quietly and enjoying the gentle orange morning sky. She had just been out to fill the bird feeders, which reminded her of her own neglected feeders at home.
‘Hey champ,’ she said.
‘Hi,’ said Hungry Paul, kissing her on the forehead, ‘Married yet?’
‘No, not yet. I came down early in case Andrew had broken in and was waiting for me, but alas, all I found was a pot of leftover marrowfats. Did you sleep well?’
‘Like a baby, not that babies are good sleepers, as any parent will tell you. How about you?’
‘Slept like a tired log. I thought I’d be a bit wound up with wedding details,
but once I started reading one of the paperbacks on the shelf in my old room my head started nodding, so I just had to give up in the end.’
‘What book was it?’ asked Hungry Paul.
‘That Night It Rained—one of your old favourites.’
‘That’s a great book. Or should I say the first fifty pages are great. I have read them several times. I have also read the last page, so I can tell you how the crime is solved, if you’re interested? I’m going to make some porridge—can I fix you something?’
‘I’m okay thanks. I’ve had some muesli. Thanks for last night by the way. Our little chat, I mean.’
‘Ah, yes. Well, you know me, I don’t usually make speeches, but that was from behind the breast pocket of my pyjamas. I felt a bit talked-out afterwards actually. Just as well I’m not doing a speech today—are you doing one?’
‘Just some thank yous. Nothing complicated.’
They enjoyed a nice relaxed breakfast, not talking too much, Grace drinking tea from a Crunchie Easter egg mug and Hungry Paul from one that professed ‘I ♥ London.’
Before long Helen and Peter came down, full of babbling excitement and making breakfast with all the chatty chaos of a daytime cookery programme, family houses being so easily transformed from a monastery to a circus once the morning peace is broken and all the early energy of the day begins to gather. Helen turned on the radio and was fiddling around to try and find something other than news or white noise, not realising that she had accidentally bumped the FM switch to LW. Peter sat with his back to the wall and had a go at the unsolved crossword clues from the Sunday paper, which was a leisurely way to spend time on such a busy day, and something which did not go unnoticed by Helen. Hungry Paul took over responsibility for the radio, popped it back into FM, and before long they were listening to ABBA, a band nobody in the house ever put on by choice, but one which met with broad approval whenever they came on the radio by chance. It was nice for Grace to be in a busy house again.
After breakfast Peter answered the door to the wedding hairdresser, who had arrived with two aluminium cases of make-up and hairdressing gear. Even at 8am, she was already dressed as if she were on her way to the divorcée discount drinks night. Not long afterwards, Grace’s two bridesmaids arrived: Karen, whom she had known since college but didn’t see that much these days; and Patty, a girl from her old job who used to be her drinking buddy, back at a time in their lives when that was a synonym for best friend. Peter would have to stay on at the house until the wedding car arrived four hours later, an absolute eternity for an introverted middle-aged man to spend with three hyper young women and their hairdresser. Helen, who had opted out of the limelight and didn’t want to walk down the aisle herself, would bring Hungry Paul and Leonard to the church first thing to set out the flowers, tie bows to the aisle ends, and run the Hoover over the church carpet if necessary, as she reasoned that the usual cleaners wouldn’t have been in over the bank holiday weekend. Once they had set up the church, the plan was to check into the hotel early where they would get dressed and ready for the church service.
Helen became a little tearful when it was time to go, knowing that the next time they saw each other Grace would be in her wedding dress and things would be very much under way. She waited outside Leonard’s house and beeped with the engine running, as if picking him up for a high school date. Leonard came down the drive dragging his overnight case behind him in one hand and draping his suit bag over the opposite shoulder. He had spent a quiet and contemplative weekend at home by himself, where he had given the house a good clean and generally used his hands to keep his mind busy. On Saturday he had gone to the concert hall alone to see a performance of the Bach cello suites, his heart gently pulsing with the music as he indulged in a little aching over Shelley. Overall though, aside from a few little moments that he allowed himself, he didn’t wallow or daydream too much.
Leonard decided to sit in the front with Helen, rather than in the back with Hungry Paul, who was enjoying a bit of quiet with the window down. As the shotgun seat also brings stereo privileges, he was given first choice of the cracked CD boxes jammed in the cubby between the front seats. Leonard, being both a gentleman and a consensus builder, ran his choices by his other two passengers and got ready consent, both Helen and Hungry Paul having surprisingly good taste for people who didn’t talk about music much. In the end he chose an Everly Brothers Best Of, which was somewhat drowned out by the Fiat’s plucky engine, as it struggled with motorway speeds. Leonard did feel a little self-conscious as Phil and Don played song after song about heartbreak, worried that Helen and Hungry Paul might think that he was in a pining mood, so he overcompensated with inane chatter to the effect that he really loved a good old wedding.
When they arrived at the church, which was miles outside their own parish and at the junction of a country crossroads, it was open but unoccupied. Inside, the air still held the sacramental smells of Easter: incense, candles and exhaled prayers. It was a small cruciform building with a vaulted wooden ceiling but otherwise free of any grand features. On Grace’s instructions, they would only use the rows of seats in the central nave, leaving both transepts empty and available in case any locals dropped by for the mass, as she had been told locals sometimes did. Leonard briefly indulged his usual church habit of looking at the depiction of the Stations of the Cross; though not a believer, he admired the Passion as a piece of epic and timeless storytelling. The Stations in the church had flat, two-dimensional figures that had little in the way of real feeling. The eleventh station, in which Christ is nailed to the cross, had a cartoonish Roman in it, with an almost sadistic smile as he raised the mallet in his hand. Having spent many hours trying to capture Romans with sensitivity, the image jarred with Leonard. He knew that the legionary responsible would have had to drive the nail between the bones of the forearm near the wrist, while taking care not to severe any major arteries or veins. It would have been surgical violence, done without thuggery or glory. He wondered how that legionary became assigned to the job, which was surely a career backwater. Was it the same legionary who offered Christ vinegar and who was party to the drunken jeering? How does a man like that feel every morning, waking up sick with another day of brutality before him? Who would marry such a man? What would a man in that situation hope for from life?
Leonard was soon recalled from his daydream by Helen who asked him to help Hungry Paul lift the altar flowers in from the car. The flowers from Easter Sunday were still on display, so Helen put them to good effect around the church to cheer up the place on what was beginning to look like an overcast day. Leonard and Hungry Paul tied the bows to the aisle ends with all the inept enthusiasm of a schoolboy trying to teach himself to tie shoelaces. In the end Helen redid them herself, and asked the boys to do the cleaning-up instead, which turned into a two-man job with Leonard hoovering and Hungry Paul pointing out the bits he missed. It didn’t take long to make the church look well, its simplicity being hard to improve upon. Before they left, Helen couldn’t help pausing at the bottom of the aisle to enjoy the view that would meet Grace on her arrival, the butterflies from her own wedding day recreated from memory as she stood there.
They got to the hotel in plenty of time. It was an old country house with notions of castlehood; inside, it was a moneyed mix of old and new, and looked recently renovated. There was expensive modern art in the reception area, some of which looked a little formulaic for Leonard’s tastes, and real books lining the walls, though no sign of classics like The Mill on the Floss or That Night It Rained.
As each other’s plus ones, Hungry Paul had booked a room for himself and Leonard to share. They were brought there by an older concierge who made chit chat as best he could on the way, though Hungry Paul was unable to respond because of his internal panic over whether and how to tip a man who was old enough to be his father. Their room was bright and modern with a lovely view over the mountains and two complimentary bottles of water.
Though it seemed churlish to nit-pick, Leonard couldn’t help noticing that it appeared to have just one double bed, and a four-poster one at that.
‘You’re taking this plus one business quite seriously aren’t you?’ he asked Hungry Paul.
‘I thought there would be two beds, not one.’
‘What did you ask for when you were booking?’
‘I just said we needed a room for me and my plus one. But, when she checked, I deliberately told her I wanted a double room, not this!’
‘But this is a double room. A double room means a double bed!’
‘I thought that was a twin room! I mean I did doubt myself but then I figured that you have conjoined twins, so a twin room must be when the two beds are conjoined so to speak, and if you have double of something you have two of it—I mean if you asked for a double scoop of ice cream you don’t just get one giant scoop—so I thought there would be double the number of beds,’ explained Hungry Paul.
‘So what will we do? Will we see if there’s another room?’
‘We can try, but I know that Grace said that this hotel was booked out by wedding guests ages ago. The latecomers had to book the B&B down the road, so I think it’s going to be difficult unless someone we know is willing to swap.’
‘Okay, well that seems unlikely. Looks like we’ll just have to share then. I hope your pyjamas have a full trouser leg—none of this boxer short business, with hairy legs making their way over to my side,’ said Leonard.
‘I’m a paisley man like yourself, Leonard. Full and respectable coverage, though I do like to stick a leg out for coolness.’
‘Me too. Okay, so that’s that. Left or right?’
‘How about I take right as it’s closer to the bathroom in case I need a sleepy wee during the night.’
LEONARD AND HUNGRY PAUL Page 21