A Family Affair

by Janet Tanner

  When she went into the kitchen, though, Carrie was looking hot and bothered.

  ‘It’s not ready,’ she greeted Jenny. ‘I’m running late. That dog’s led me a real dance this morning. First she messed all up the stairs and then I found her in the cupboard eating the cheese. A pound, I should think there must have been there, and she’s had the lot.’

  ‘Oh no!’ Sally was indeed proving a bit of a handful; Carrie seemed to be shouting at her for one reason or another most of the time. Jenny lived in fear that she would say the dog had to go. ‘Where is she?’

  ‘Out in the garden. Shut out in disgrace.’

  ‘I’ll go and play with her for a bit,’ Jenny said. ‘She’s just full of life, that’s all.’

  She went down the three steps from the alleyway into the back garden, but couldn’t see Sally anywhere. A feeling of foreboding filled Jenny. She called the dog’s name and went down the path to investigate behind the runner beans – the only portion of the garden not in view – but of Sally there was no sign. She ran back into the house.

  ‘Mum – she’s not there!’

  ‘What d’you mean – she’s not there? She must be!’ Carrie hurried out herself, calling for Sally and coming to the same conclusion as Jenny. ‘Oh my Lord – she’s got out! She must have gone over the fence!’ Joe had erected chicken wire all around the garden so as to make it secure for the puppy. ‘However did she do that?’

  Jenny was panicking. ‘Where is she? Suppose she goes down on the main road? She could get knocked down and killed!’

  Carrie humphed with such feeling that it almost sounded as if she was thinking that such a catastrophe would at least mean the end of her trials. ‘She’ll come back when she’s hungry.’

  Jenny was close to tears. ‘I’m going to go and look for her.’

  ‘I suppose I’d better as well. Just let me turn the ring off under those sausages. You go down across the field, Jenny, and I’ll walk up to the lane …’

  They went out, splitting up and calling the dog’s name loudly. Jenny ran down the path between the next-door semi and the units but when she reached the field she could see at a glance that it was ominously empty. The panic rose again, almost choking her. At that moment, she could not imagine seeing her beloved Sally ever again. She ran back again, face hot and damp with perspiration, hair flopping over it. A sense of nightmare had closed in, darkening the sunny day.

  Jenny could see Carrie at the end of the road, still looking and calling. She looked around wildly, wondering what to do next. And then suddenly, there was Sally, trotting along the opposite pavement for all the world as if nothing had happened.

  ‘Mum – there she is!’ Jenny yelled. ‘Sally! Sally!’

  Sally ignored her. Frondy tail waving, she ran through the gateway into Joyce Edgell’s garden.

  Carrie was closest; she came hurrying back along the road, every purposeful step showing her annoyance. As she turned into Joyce’s gateway, the front door opened and Joyce appeared, also clearly annoyed.

  ‘What’s going on?’

  Sally, clearly in no mood to lose her new-found freedom so easily, trotted up the path away from Carrie, for all the world as if she intended going into Joyce’s house. And Joyce aimed a spiteful kick at her. The dog skittered away, sufficiently unnerved by the unexpectedness of the attack to seek protection from her owner, and Carrie caught her by the collar.

  ‘Get that bloody thing out of my garden!’ Joyce yelled.

  But Carrie, who a few moments ago had been angry enough to do Sally harm herself, was outraged.

  ‘How dare you!’ she blazed. ‘How dare you kick my dog!’

  ‘She was trying to come in my house!’ Joyce blazed back. ‘She’d have wrecked the place!’

  ‘She’d have a job to do that!’ Carrie retorted. ‘It’s a wreck already.’

  ‘Keep your bloody mouth to yourself, Carrie Simmons! And keep that fucking dog under control, or I’ll do more than kick it next time!’

  She went in, slamming the door. Carrie dragged Sally back along the pavement.

  ‘Bad dog. You bad dog!’

  ‘She didn’t mean it, Mum, she just wanted to go exploring.’ Jenny was pleased, at least, to see how Carrie had leaped to Sally’s defence. ‘Don’t be too hard on her.’

  ‘Yes, well, she’s got to learn,’ Carrie said. ‘She can’t go wandering off like that, especially going into people’s gardens. And why did it have to be Joyce Edgell’s, I’d like to know?’

  Jenny dropped to her knees, fondling the silky coat and ears.

  ‘She hasn’t got very good taste yet, Mum,’ she said, lightheaded with relief.

  ‘You can say that again!’ Carrie agreed.

  But inwardly she was wondering if she was fated to have spats like these with Joyce to the end of her days.

  ‘I’m buying a house!’ Helen said to Paul.

  They were having a meal in a very new, very chic cellar bar in Bath; Helen had waited until they had finished their main course before broaching the subject. She had expected a barrage of questions which could be more easily answered if her mouth wasn’t full of spaghetti Bolognese, but in the event, Paul seemed hardly surprised.

  ‘I guessed you would, sooner or later. Where is it?’

  She told him, explained her reasons.

  ‘That’s a really nice thing to do,’ he said.

  She looked at him, a little surprised by the reaction. She’d thought he might be a bit put out, or even suggest, as Amy had done, that it wasn’t such a good idea.

  ‘Are you sure you’ve thought what you’re letting yourself in for?’ Amy had asked. ‘She’s not the easiest person in the world to live with, you know.’

  ‘We get along very well,’ Helen had said, a bit sharply.

  ‘And what if she’s taken ill? Can’t be left on her own when you have to go to work?’

  ‘We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,’ Helen had said, even more sharply. There could be difficulties, she knew, but she wasn’t prepared to let them stand in her way. This was something she really wanted to do.

  ‘Does she know yet?’ Paul asked now.

  ‘Not yet. I don’t want to say anything until contracts are signed, just in case anything goes wrong. I’d hate to raise her hopes only to have her disappointed.’

  ‘Well, I think,’ Paul said, ‘that is the nicest thing I’ve ever heard.’

  He was looking at her with such undisguised admiration that Helen was embarrassed.

  ‘It’s for me as well. I’m not being totally philanthropic.’

  ‘That’s what I mean,’ he said.

  The waiter materialised at her elbow, brandishing leather-backed menus opened at the selection of sweets and puddings.

  Helen glanced at Paul over the top of hers, uneasy suddenly. The way he had said it belied his usual carefully casual attitude to their relationship. She had told him she’d go out with him as long as he realised there was to be no commitment and he had seemed to accept that. They were both to be free agents, even having other dates if they wanted to. Nothing was to be read into anything, not even the physical intimacy they shared when they felt like it.

  ‘Just so long as you understand we’re just good friends,’ Helen had stipulated, and Paul hadn’t argued.

  ‘Suits me fine,’ he had said, and Helen had congratulated herself that what she had thought might be a problem was actually no problem at all. He’s a confirmed bachelor at heart, she had thought, relieved. He doesn’t want serious involvement any more than I do.

  Now she found herself looking at him and worrying. It wasn’t what he’d actually said – in fact, a man with more than friendship on his mind might have been put out by the thought of an elderly grandmother on the scene. In a way it was worse. Helen had the most awful feeling that Paul had far deeper feelings for her than he was prepared to admit to. That he was in love with her, even. It was the very last thing she wanted.

  I should never have agreed to go out with him
, she thought in panic. Even setting out the ground rules as I did, I’ve still managed to give him the wrong idea. Or encouraged him to think he’s in with a chance. Or something.

  The trouble was how could she put a stop to things now without causing the sort of ill-feeling between them that was the very thing she’d been afraid of? She was trapped – had been, really, from the moment he had taken a fancy to her. Even then, she realised, it had been a case of being damned if she did and damned if she didn’t.

  Why the hell couldn’t he have been happily married like Reuben Hobbs, so that no possibility of complications could have arisen to mar their professional relationship?

  Men! Helen thought crossly. Whichever way you look at it, they’re nothing but trouble!

  But for all her annoyance, in spite of all the problems it could cause, Helen couldn’t help feeling just a little bit flattered, and a little bit glad that someone like Paul might, just possibly, be in love with her.

  It had to be a very quiet wedding. For one thing, there was no time to arrange anything elaborate; for another there was no telling how Linda would be on the day. But at least she was having her wedding.

  Carrie had done her best to talk David out of it, using every argument she could think of, and putting them as forcefully as she always did. She felt sorry for Linda, but she was totally opposed to the ceremony which would, in all likelihood, make her son a widower before Christmas. She was already looking to his future, when, hopefully, he would meet someone else and forget all about this unhappy chapter in his life. In Carrie’s book, having been married already made him that little bit less eligible.

  But nothing she could say would change David’s mind. He had promised Linda, and he wouldn’t be swayed. Not that David ever could be influenced much once his mind was made up. There was a very stubborn streak in his nature.

  In the end Carrie had to capitulate and make the best of it, as she said to Heather, and the implication behind her words was clear. She’d seen two of her children married, and neither of them under circumstances she would have chosen.

  ‘I just can’t see the point,’ she went on. ‘Going through all this palaver when she’s only got weeks to live.’

  ‘If that’s what she wants,’ Heather said, ‘then it has to be worth it. I can understand her actually. And you should be proud of David. This must be a nightmare for him.’

  ‘For all of us!’ Carrie said, a little huffily. ‘Well, I shall wear what I wore for your wedding. There’s no time to make another outfit and I’m certainly not buying another hat. The one I’ve got hasn’t been out of the cupboard from that day to this.’

  Heather gave her head a small shake. Carrie would never change and in all likelihood the thing needling her most was that David was going against her advice.

  On the day of the wedding, however, she did manage to smile as she, Joe and Jenny left the house and walked down the garden path to where the hire car, with white ribbons fluttering on the bonnet, was waiting. Most of the neighbours had come out to their gates to watch, and even the children playing on the Green stopped their game and clustered round, some astride their bicycles, all ogling the spectacle. As the car pulled away there was a thud on the offside wheel arch and Carrie turned sharply, almost knocking her hat off as she did so, to see a football rolling away down the road.

  ‘Little devils!’ she muttered.

  A few years ago, Billy Edgell would have been the perpetrator of an outrage such as this, but Billy no longer played on the Green. The sort of mischief he got up to nowadays was much more serious and took him further afield. Carrie had seen him coming and going late at night with a sack and an airgun under his arm, and suspected that he was poaching rabbits and maybe pheasants too from one of the nearby estates.

  There was certainly at least one young Edgell amongst the youngsters on the Green, though – there were still enough of them left to carry on the family traditions!

  Another crowd of onlookers had congregated outside the church, some who had come purposely, armed with boxes of confetti or even a horseshoe or wooden spoon with a bow of ribbon round the handle, others whose laden shopping bags and baskets bore witness to the fact that they had been passing by on their way home from market. Again, Carrie managed to smile, but her heart felt heavy. How could anyone possibly rejoice in this farce?

  David and his best man, Tony Riddle, were waiting by the church door. They both wore carnations in the buttonholes of their smart suits, but David was very pale. Jenny gave his hand a squeeze as they passed and Joe clapped him on the back but it was all Carrie could do to keep a tight smile on her lips and she gave her head a small sad shake as they went through the porch and into the church.

  The organ was playing and the sun shining in through the stained-glass windows threw multi-coloured patterns of light on the pews and aisle. But Carrie found it difficult to approve even so. Although she had lapsed from regular worship a long time ago she was still a Catholic at heart and she found the echoing vaulted space of the parish church unfriendly and lacking in reverence compared to what she had been used to. A church should have statues and shrines and holy water and be imbued with the smell of incense. Anything less just wasn’t right.

  After a few minutes David and Tony came in and took their places in the front right-hand pew, immediately in front of Carrie, Joe and Jenny. Carrie turned around to smile at Vanessa, who was wearing a frilly organdie dress and drumming her new anklestrap shoes on the pew in competition with the music, and caught sight of Linda’s mother coming up the aisle. She looks like I feel, Carrie thought, as if that smile is going to crack her face if she has to force it for a moment longer. She nodded to her and Doreen nodded back, her chin nudging towards the back of the church. At the same moment the organ began to play the ‘Bridal March’. Doreen had stayed with Linda until the last possible moment, Carrie realised, with a twinge of anxiety as to how Linda was today, how she was going to manage to carry this off.

  The Linda who came up the aisle, however, did not look in the least like a girl under sentence of death. Though pale, there was a glow about her and to the entire congregation it was obvious that it was a glow of happiness. Somehow, in the short time she’d had, she had managed to get hold of a wedding dress that not only fitted, but suited her perfectly; the ivory lace was less harsh than pure white against her fragile skin, and the full skirt and puff sleeves concealed the fact that she was now painfully thin, whilst the nipped-in bodice emphasised her handspan waist. And it was ballerina-length, just as she had wanted. On her head she wore a coronet of diamante and pearls and she carried a spray bouquet of pink roses.

  Behind her came Wendy Young, her best friend, also in a ballerina-length dress of pink tulle. There had been no time to kit out the three bridesmaids she had planned.

  As Linda took her place beside David at the altar Carrie saw the look that passed between them and felt her heart turn over. Had she been wrong after all to be so sceptical about the wedding? But it was a fleeting thought only. As the service progressed the words of the marriage service only reinforced all her misgivings.

  How could they ever be of comfort one to the other? David might comfort Linda, but she would be unable to reciprocate. And there would be no children, either, to be raised in this union. Worst of all were the vows. When first David, then Linda, repeated the traditional words ‘’Til death us do part’ the whole congregation seemed to hold its breath as one, so that the words reverberated from the ancient rafters and filled the whole church with a heavy bitter sweetness. There were no sobs – everyone had themselves too tightly under control for that – but there were a few sniffs and rustles as handkerchiefs were found in pockets and bags.

  At last it was over.

  ‘That’s it then,’ Carrie said to Joe as they waited for David and Linda to sign the register, and Joe said: ‘It’s what he wanted, Carrie. It’s what they both wanted.’

  ‘Something to want for, though!’ Carrie muttered, almost to herself.

&
nbsp; And then she was walking, arm in arm with Jim Parfitt, in the procession down the aisle, much more slowly than usual because already Linda was tiring. As they reached the door the bells began to peal, but for all the joy they brought to Carrie’s heart, they might as well have been muffled and tolling.

  ‘There’s the church bells!’ Charlotte said. ‘Somebody must be getting married!’

  ‘It’s David Simmons and Linda Parfitt,’ Dolly said.

  ‘David Simmons? Not Walt Simmons’grandson?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But Walt hasn’t been dead any time at all! How can they have the bells?’

  ‘It’s special circumstances from what I can make out,’ Dolly said. ‘Oh – here’s our Helen come to see you! Can you open the door for her, Mam? I’m all over flour.’

  She was baking, as she always did on Saturday mornings after getting home from market – a treacle tommy and a big jam tart.

  Charlotte opened the door. Helen had pulled up so close that she almost fell inside as she emerged from the driving seat of her car, long-trousered legs first. Charlotte noted them with some disapproval. She was old-fashioned, she supposed, but she didn’t like to see a woman wearing trousers.

  Not that she’d say a word about that to Helen – unless of course she was asked, when she’d give her opinion straight!

  ‘Hello, Gran! You’re on the ball this morning!’ Helen said, smiling.

  ‘I had my orders,’ Charlotte returned drily. ‘This is a surprise, Helen. We don’t usually see you on a Saturday morning.’

  ‘Well, there you are – life’s full of surprises.’

  She looked like the cat that got the cream, Charlotte thought.

  Helen ducked back into her car and reached for a bunch of dahlias, paper-wrapped, that were lying on the back seat. She handed them to Charlotte.

  ‘For me?’ Charlotte asked.

  ‘For you – and Auntie Dolly, and anyone else who might appreciate them. I got them on the flower stall in the market.’

  ‘I didn’t think they were out of our Amy’s garden!’ Charlotte said drily.