Fireworks to Thailand

by J. R. Bonham

  “Oh!” began Louise, relieved it wasn’t something she might have done wrong. “I’ll certainly ask her. I expect she would be delighted if she can get out of work for one day.”

  She asked Jan when she got home and Jan agreed. In fact, she was delirious. What luck to be able to go to Wimbledon with her daughter. Yes, there would be a degree of responsibility but she could easily cope with that.

  The day they went was really hot. A scorcher. They set off at 5 am and arrived at 11 am, but they had to queue to get into the grounds. Once they were inside the girls became very excitable. Who should they see first? What should they do? Go and get some autographs or watch the tennis? Or go to the famous Wimbledon shop and buy some memorabilia.

  Jan was in charge of Louise and five of her friends. They were 16 and quite capable of looking after themselves, but Jan stayed with them. They were as good as gold. All Louise’s friends were great kids, Jan decided. No problems there. She hoped anyway.

  They looked to see which matches they wanted to see on the outside courts then they spotted Boris Becker practising with his coach and trainer. They watched him with awe and amazement. They also noticed Jimmy Connors sitting by one of the courts all on his own. They rushed over to him to ask for his autograph. He was delighted to oblige and spoke to the girls while they giggled. His heydey had been a few years before and he was there for the veterans’ matches in doubles, he told them. Of course, he was only in his mid-30s, not really a veteran but in tennis-speak, as he told them, he was ‘over the hill!’

  There was some space in the standing-room only part of Centre Court and Jan tried to get her girls in there. Martina Navratilova was playing and they really wanted to see her. They had to queue and eventually managed to get in there after waiting some time. It was very hot and after about half an hour of standing, Jan was starting to feel faint. All she wanted to do was sit down. She asked Louise if they would be OK while she went out to find somewhere to sit. Not far away. Louise assured her that they would stay there, they were really enjoying drinking in the atmosphere of Centre Court.

  Jan got to the bottom of the steps and half fainted into an official. He called the St John Ambulance by Walkie Talkie and they came rushing over and took her into their tent. Jan felt dreadful but she soon came around after they gave her some smelling salts. They told her to sit with her head between her bent knees and gave her cold water to drink.

  “The heat is really bad today,” one of the team told Jan. “One woman fainted into a pillar and had to be carted off to hospital.”

  “Oh, dear,” said Jan, “that doesn’t sound good. I’m in charge of a party of girls and we’ve come up from Devon for the day. We started off really early. Maybe I’ve not had enough to eat, or maybe it’s just the heat. I do have a history of fainting I’m afraid.”

  “You’re in good hands here. Just keep drinking the water, I expect you’re a little dehydrated,” one of the team told Jan kindly.

  She was relieved not to have fainted into a pillar like the woman who had to go to the hospital earlier. What would she have done then? Luckily she had acted fast enough in getting help when she recognised the telltale signs.

  Jan thought of the time she went to a football match with Geoff and they had to stand to watch. All of a sudden she fainted and they took her down to the front to recover. Geoff recalled the time, saying one minute she was there and the next she was on the ground!

  Jan recovered enough to go in search of the girls and they were still there, where she had left them. She felt so relieved.

  “Where did you go, Mum?” Louise was concerned for her mother.

  “Oh, I just went to sit down, the heat was too much. Very annoying because I had to miss some of the tennis.” Jan didn’t want anyone to worry about her, least of all her own daughter, or to think she wasn’t capable of looking after six girls.

  They found the coach in the coach park and no one was late. Jan sat with the other teachers and overheard the girls talking about their wonderful day. They heard them wondering if Boris Becker would make it to the final again – he had done so well the last year, winning Wimbledon. He was the youngest male ever to do so at the age of 17. Also their hero, Martina Navratilova – would she win the final again? Not forgetting, of course, Sue Barker, the inspiration behind their interest in tennis. She had hailed from Torquay too and she had won the French Open ten years beforehand.

  They were giggling and being silly because they all loved the brash Australian, Pat Cash. And that handsome young Swede, Stefan Edberg. This was the first time Jan realised her daughter’s interest in the opposite sex.

  A thoroughly good day out. Enjoyed by all.

  Chapter 15

  After their trip to Wimbledon, Jan decided to get in touch with Paula. She hadn’t heard from her for a while. She told her about the Wimbledon trip and they reminisced about the time they went when they were teenagers themselves.

  “That was a great time in our lives, wasn’t it?” Jan began. “When we were young and carefree.”

  “Oh, yes it sure was,” Paula agreed. “Time seems to go by so quickly these days.”

  Paula had only managed to have the one child, Susan. She had yearned for another, but it just never happened.

  Jan hoped that she wouldn’t bring up the subject of sex. Jan thought that her friend might be a little obsessed with it as she nearly always asked. There had been no change to the routine that Geoff expected ‘it’ every day, telling Jan that she shouldn’t withhold his ‘rights.’ He told her it was normal for a married couple to make love every day but to her, it was a duty that she never looked forward to.

  Jan heard from the dog breeder a week later that the mother had already given birth to six adorable West Highland puppies, all very healthy. Three boys and three girls.

  The whole family went up to North Devon to see the puppies. They met the breeder and were shown to a pen in an outhouse. The dogs were two weeks old by then and their eyes were open. They were crawling all over each other while their mother was trying to keep them in check. They were trying to find her teats and were feeding happily.

  “Aren’t they adorable?” Jan made the hypothetical statement rather than asking the question. “Which one d’you think, Steven?”

  “Ooooh, I like them all!”

  The breeder, a rather formidable woman in her 50s, said “Only one of the girls is already spoken for. So because you’ve come early enough you can have the second choice.”

  All the puppies were milling around, one was biting another dog’s ears and one was cowering in the corner. One, in particular, the larger one of the boys, came straight over to Steven and he picked it up.

  “This is the one!” he said without hesitation.

  “How d’you know?” enquired Louise eyeing up another one. She didn’t like the thought of being left out. She liked the look of the one which kept biting everything in its wake.

  “I just do! Look, it’s a boy,” he said while tipping it onto its back to have a quick look. “I think I always hoped it would be a boy. We boys have to stick together!”

  “Ain’t that right!” Geoff interjected.

  “Well, that’s it then.” Jan looked at Steven, cuddling his ‘baby’. “It looks like he’s chosen already,” she said to the woman who was standing nearby with her arms crossed. Jan didn’t want to take up too much of this busy woman’s time, so she started to round up the clan.

  They thanked the woman for letting them choose and for seeing the pups and their lovely mother and they went on their way. The woman promised that the puppy would be tagged with Steven’s name in case he got mixed up with any of the others. He would be ready to be picked up in eight weeks, after all his inoculations, and the Kennel Club certificate would be ready.

  “What shall we call him?” Steven asked in the car on the way home.

  “If you can’t decide for yourself,
Steven, we could all write down a name on a piece of paper. Not silly names. And then you can pick one out,” Jan suggested. “There’s no hurry for that now, you can decide when we’ve brought him home. It’s a good idea to see what he looks like because he will have grown by quite a bit by then. They change quite dramatically in the first few weeks, I believe. Now we can concentrate on our holiday and then we’ll have something to look forward to when we get home. You’ll have the rest of the school holidays to bond with him.”

  In the early part of the summer holidays, they went off to Mallorca to the same hotel as before – and had a marvellous time, all getting on really well. Geoff and Jan were getting on better than ever before, although she was a bit disappointed that he wouldn’t join in the beach games that were organised, preferring to just sit and sunbathe. She left him several times to join in the fun and games and even came back with a couple of small prizes that she had won.

  Louise and Steven made friends with some of the other children there, enjoying swimming and playing games. Jan was happy to let them do what they wanted and she trusted them to behave themselves.

  In the evenings after dinner they went and sat in the bar. Jan tried to chat to other holidaymakers in the hotel in passing, but she was afraid to ask them to join them because she knew Geoff would be cross with her if she did. Jan wished that Geoff would integrate and be a bit more sociable. He wanted Jan’s sole attention and she wanted to have conversation with other people. She was getting bored with the same old talk, either about the kids or Geoff’s work. Or they would just sit there and say nothing, both of them staring into space.

  Jan persevered and put up with it. Clare’s words were ringing in her ears, ‘you’ve made your bed, you must lie in it.’

  The day of collecting the new dog dawned. They were all looking forward to the extra addition to the family. Jan had bought a food bowl, a dog bed and some toys. The breeder had told them that she would provide some special food, enough for about a month. They only had to mix it with water. It had all the vitamins and minerals that a puppy needed.

  With preparations all in order, off they went to pick him up. They arrived at the breeder’s and looked all around for her. Out she came with a puppy in her arms, she had seen them arriving.

  “Is that him?” Was the first thing that Steven said to the woman.

  “It certainly is! Hasn’t he grown?” she said, smiling as she handed him over to Steven and he thanked her as he stroked his puppy.

  “Oh, he’s gorgeous,” Jan added. “Will his ears prick up? They seem to be a bit droopy.”

  “Yes, in a few weeks. I have all the food ready. He’s eaten already today but he hasn’t had a big meal, mainly because of the car journey. You can see how he goes, but he’ll be quite hungry by the time you get him home. Do let me know how he settles, he’s a very good chap, I’ll miss him. He has a lovely temperament. I hope you enjoy his company, I think I know you will.”

  Jan had remembered to put in the car a box for him in which to travel home. She gave the woman a cheque and then collected the Kennel Club certificate.

  Two miles down the road, the puppy was sick. Louise and Steven had the box between them on the back seat.

  “Ugh, he’s been sick,” they both chanted in unison.

  “Well, the woman said he had had a meal. But not a very big one,” Jan told them. “Just try and comfort him, but best not to take him out of the box in case he’s sick again.”

  He was sick four more times before they arrived home. Jan was worried in case they’d been sold a sick dog, but decided to see how things go.

  “It’s probably just the journey that’s upsetting him,” Jan tried to soothe them and then offered to swap places with Steven but he said he would persevere.

  They got home and took him in the house and he ran around into every room as if he was looking for something.

  “Oh, bless him, he’s missing his mother and his brothers and sisters!” Jan said. “He’s looking for them. Take him out into the garden and see if he wants a wee.”

  Steven took him into the garden and he ran round and round – then dashed straight back into the house.

  Jan laid out some newspaper in a corner of the kitchen near where his bed was.

  “You’re going to have to train him to wee on here when he’s not outside. At least it’s the summer and the door can be left open so he can go outside when he wants. You must encourage him to go outside for a wee. And anything else for that matter!”

  Steven took him out into the garden again where he promptly squatted down and did a wee like a girl dog.

  “Mum, he didn’t lift his leg like a proper dog! Does that mean he’s too young to do that or will he always do it like a girl?”

  “He’s young yet. He’ll learn by instinct and do it properly in time, you’ll see.”

  Steven put on his collar, a special one he had bought at the pet shop. Then he tried attaching it to a lead, but the puppy was having none of it. He rolled over and over and then he started biting at it.

  “Mum, he doesn’t like the lead! I can’t take him for a walk without it!”

  “Well, everything is very new to him. You can’t expect him to take to things straight away. You’ll have to be patient. Have you decided on a name for him yet?”

  “Well, yes, I think I have. I like Bruno but someone said that sounds like a Boxer, but he’s not a Boxer, he’s a West Highland Terrier!”

  “What about something Scottish? How about Hamish? Or Angus? Or MacTavish?” Jan suggested.

  “Oh, I like Hamish! We’ll call him Hamish. Louise! Dad!” Steven called out, “We’re going to call him Hamish. OK?”

  Louise came running into the kitchen, “I love it. Did you think of that all on your own?”

  “Of course!” Steven lied. Jan gave him a knowing wink and no one was any the wiser.

  Hamish settled into a good routine which was put in place by Jan to start with and carried on by Steven. He took his dog responsibilities very seriously. There were a few accidents but nothing serious. Steven would feed him a little at breakfast time and then take him for a walk before he went to school. On returning home from school, he would give him a walk and then feed him his dinner. After homework, he had playtime with little Hamish. They bonded magnificently.

  When Steven was at school, Jan would see to his every need and usually gave him a little walk when she got home from work at lunch time.

  One day Steven didn’t walk Hamish until quite late, after supper. He had been too busy straight after school but promised he would still get his walk. On his return, Louise noticed something strange about her brother.

  “Have you been smoking? I can smell it on you!”

  “No, of course not.” Steven denied the accusation. “I met a friend and he was smoking. It’s probably that you can smell,” said Steven a little sheepishly.

  “If you’re sure,” said Louise, but she wasn’t totally convinced. In fact, she was so suspicious of her brother that she went into his bedroom when he was out walking the next day. She was looking for evidence, like a packet of cigarettes or a lighter or matches. She was so against smoking, she had tried to persuade her father to give up smoking many years before. Whenever he used to light up, she used to say to him, “Oh Dad, not another one! It stinks.” Eventually, he did give up but it took some time. Jan’s asthma was getting worse, so he gave up smoking for the sake of her health and she was very grateful as she could breathe more easily without smoke in the house.

  Steven thought he had got away with it. He enjoyed going out with Hamish because a dog can’t tell tales. He didn’t really like smoking cigarettes very much, but peer pressure by his mates at school made him carry on. He wasn’t able to smoke at home as he knew his mother’s asthma was bad and as his father had given up, he would think him stupid to start.

  Even though Louise never found what
she was looking for in Steven’s bedroom, she became extra vigilant after his evening walks. A few days later she again smelled smoke on him.

  She didn’t say anything, just kept a permanent check on him.

  Chapter 16

  Betty was 70 when she had her second heart attack, just a few months after her first one. She went to the doctor who suggested to her that she ought not to be living on her own anymore at her age. She hadn’t enjoyed good health for some time and had already started worrying that the house was getting too much for her. Living alone was the one thing she worried about the most.

  “I just don’t know what to do. I’m at my wits’ end,” she told Geoff one day. “The doctor says I shouldn’t be on my own anymore. I’ve thought long and hard about this. I’d like to live in a flat, on my own, with people nearby who I could call on. I think they’re called sheltered flats. I love living in Shaleham but there are no flats available here. I could go into a flat in Shalemouth, but I don’t know many people there.”

  Shalemouth was a small town about ten miles away situated at the mouth of the River Shale. The harbour area was where there were a lot of smart yachts owned by rich Londoners who weekended there. Betty did most of her shopping there because there was only one small grocery shop in Shaleham. She looked forward to her one trip a week on the bus to Shalemouth, usually on market day where she could pick up some bargains.

  Geoff discussed the situation with Jan.

  “I’m really worried about Mum. Do you think she could come and live with us?” he mooted.

  “You must be joking!” she replied rather too quickly for Geoff’s liking. “I don’t think she’d want to anyway,” she added. “And we haven’t got room here anyway. The kids can only budge up for a couple of nights for visitors, not permanently, and I wouldn’t want them to anyway. Why should they?”

  Even if they had the room, would she want her mother-in-law on her doorstep every minute of every day? She thought not. They got on quite well in short bursts but she knew it wouldn’t work long term. She would interfere too much.