The Sunday Lunch Club

by Juliet Ashton

  Sam wrinkled his nose. ‘Are you the same woman who tells me off for always talking about work? We have all week to discuss software, Anna. I’m busy.’ He pulled Isabel to him. She squawked, they laughed, Anna tried to do the same.

  He was right; she’d often warned him about becoming a mummified old bachelor who lived for his job. It was good – no, great – that he had something to distract him. But the job equals me, she thought, ashamed once more by her capacity for melodrama. I’m losing him again was a thought Anna couldn’t fight off, even though she was the one who’d dissolved their marriage.

  A whine went up, like a petulant police siren. Paloma had ‘gone off’, as Storm called it.

  Santi, his mouth full of cake, motioned to Neil to take the baby off his knee.

  ‘Sweetie, I’m eating,’ said Neil.

  ‘So is Santi,’ said Anna.

  ‘He’s better at Paloma stuff,’ said Neil.

  ‘At changing a baby’s nappy? It’s hardly a technical challenge.’

  ‘Have you ever changed one?’ Neil nodded tartly. ‘There you go.’

  With Paloma under one arm, Santi hurried out. Anna saw the sideways look Sheba gave to Neil, and seconded it. She doesn’t miss a thing, thought Anna.

  ‘Come here to me, Anna.’ Dinkie regally held out her hand, rubbing Anna’s fingers when her granddaughter did as she was told. She lowered her voice, asked in a purring undertone, ‘Are you pregnant, love?’

  Anna swallowed hard. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Ah.’ Dinkie held her gaze.

  ‘Thirteen weeks. How did you . . .’

  ‘It’s all in your face, pet. You know your granny is an auld witch, don’t you?’ Dinkie was the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter: she could tell when thunder was on its way, and when one of her brood was lying. ‘I knew each time your mammy was carrying one of youse.’ She let go of her hand. ‘Every baby is a blessing, Anna.’

  The straightforward acceptance broke something in Anna. Tears streamed down her face. Sam was first at her side, an arm around her shoulders, asking, ‘Hey, hey, what’s all this?’ like he used to do when they were married.

  The others followed suit, apart from Luca, who held back; Anna was grateful for his discretion. Nobody felt it necessary to tell Dinkie how the baby was conceived; Dylan was air-brushed into ‘an ex-boyfriend’.

  ‘And does this new fella mind?’ Dinkie made a small hmm at the modern way of dating. ‘Wouldn’t have happened in my day.’

  ‘Not all men are like Grandpa.’ Maeve was misty-eyed on sentiment.

  ‘That reminds me. Storm, do your special job, lovey,’ said Dinkie. She pressed a box of matches into his hands, shooing him towards the shelf over the radiator. Once her great-grandson had lit the tea light in front of Grandpa’s photograph, Dinkie sat back, relaxed again as the room let out a satisfied aw! ‘It’s like your grandpa’s here with us,’ she said.

  ‘Still watching over us.’ Anna usually left the soppy stuff to Maeve, but today she was full of gratitude for the family’s untidy love.

  Lighting Grandpa’s candle was a task Storm never whinged about. Silent, they all gave Grandpa a moment in the spotlight, respectfully taking in his clean-cut face, crystallised in the nineteen sixties. Smart, confident – cocky even – he had stayed ebulliently young while his wife shrank into the arms of old age. The jut of his cleft chin gave a hint of power and strength; his charisma had endured long past his life, partly because of endless retellings of the story of how he and Dinkie met.

  ‘Story!’ said Storm, who showed zero interest in most adult conversation, but always requested the story.

  It didn’t take much to set Dinkie off; as a Dubliner, storytelling was in her genes and she beckoned to Luca. ‘Come closer, Luca, darlin’. You’ll enjoy this.’

  The room went quiet. This tale was a cornerstone of Piper mythology, polished to a sheen by constant retelling. Any of them could have recited it alongside her.

  ‘Now then.’ Dinkie’s voice was sweet and dry, like candied leaves. ‘Imagine me, sixteen years old. Hard to imagine me that young, I know. There I was, stepping off the boat from Ireland. I had on me best shoes and they were killing me.’ She stuck out an ankle as if she could still see the buckled courts on her wide, flat, octogenarian feet. ‘A little case in me hand, a St Anthony necklace under me vest and me best hat on.’ This hat was infamous; she described it again. ‘Jesus, it was gorgeous that hat. Felt. Dark green. Like a beret, but posher. I don’t mind saying it – old women are allowed to be vain – but I was lovely. Fresh, with the dew of Ireland still on me silly face.’

  ‘Then,’ said Maeve, ‘you saw Grandpa.’

  ‘Well, now, let’s be honest, Grandpa saw me.’

  An oooh went up; like a panto, the story had long-established call-and-response set pieces. Luca, catching on, came in late with his ooh and everybody laughed.

  ‘The port was big. So many people rushing around, and they looked so hard . . .’ Dinkie looked at the ground for a moment, as if the carpet had been replaced with the echoing floors of Holyhead, busy with sharp heels and heavy boots and ground-in dog ends. ‘I wanted to turn around, run home, back to me parents, back to our warm kitchen. I felt so small.’

  As one, they all said it: ‘You are so small, Dinkie.’

  ‘I was jostled all over the place. Nobody had a speck of manners. Some big eejit almost knocked me over and didn’t even look back, never mind apologise. Then . . .’ she paused, ratcheting up her audience’s anticipation, ‘this chap steps in front of me and puts out his arm, like this.’ Dinkie crooked her arm. ‘He says . . .’

  They all recited Grandpa’s line – ‘May I be of any assistance?’

  ‘I’d been warned about you English!’ Dinkie waggled a finger at Sam, who put up his hands in defence. ‘I was haughty with him. Mother had warned me not to talk to strange men. He persisted, chasing after me as I stumbled off in me hat. He said—’

  Again the audience supplied their grandfather’s dialogue: ‘My name’s Charlie Piper. Are you catching the London train, miss?’

  ‘Still I ignored him. Out of the corner of me eye, I could see he looked like a movie star.’

  Anna and Josh enjoyed a secret smile; their grandmother was stretching the truth, but they also benefited from her bias. All Dinkie’s geese were swans.

  ‘He was guiding me, touching my elbow, and the crowd didn’t seem so bad. After a while he says—’

  ‘Where are my manners?’ they chanted. ‘Let me take your bag.’

  This was one of Storm’s favourite parts. Cross-legged on the floor, he shouted, ‘You thought he was a thief!’

  ‘I said, “Oh no you don’t!” and he laughed, and when I heard his laugh I knew that not only had I met a good man, but I’d met my man.’

  Laying his head on Neil’s shoulder, Santi let out a contented sigh.

  ‘Bold as brass, he sat beside me all the way to Euston. “Tell me about yourself, gel,” he said.’ Dinkie’s approximation of her husband’s cockney accent was fond and devilish. ‘He bought me a cuppa and a bun the size of me head and I chattered about life back in Dublin. Nobody had ever been interested in me before. It was like . . .’ Dinkie was lost for a second. ‘It was perfect,’ she whispered.

  ‘Then,’ prompted Storm, ‘then, Dinkie?’

  ‘We had a smoke and a laugh and suddenly we were at Euston station. He saw me to the barrier. Just about to say goodbye. Then he saw the look on me face.’

  ‘You were frightened.’ Anna was moved again by this part of the legend.

  ‘London was so much bigger and dirtier than I’d expected. I was a lost lamb. Then your grandfather turned to me and he said . . .’ She paused, let them do it for her.

  ‘You’re going to be all right, gel, because I’m going to look after you.’

  ‘And so he did.’ Dinkie wrapped up her party piece. ‘Afterwards he told me he’d fallen for me on the train, and that was that.’

  ‘They didn’t waste m
uch time.’ Neil was wry, filling in the newcomers. ‘Two months later they were married, and then Dad came along soon after.’

  ‘Whisht you, you cheeky so-and-so.’ Dinkie wasn’t really annoyed; she had a salty side. ‘He worked hard, looked after me and your da, devoted himself to us. Then, when little Alan was six years old . . .’

  Maeve said wistfully, ‘Grandpa was taken.’

  No, he died. Anna disliked euphemisms. She looked at the black-and-white face behind the shimmering candle. The glimmer in Grandpa’s eye explained why a God-fearing Irish colleen of sixteen would ignore her mother’s warnings.

  ‘One night, Charlie was late home. He was never late and I had this terrible foreboding. I tucked little Alan into bed, slung on me coat, to go out looking. None of these mobile thingies in those days! I opened the front door and wasn’t there two policemen coming up the path. Jaysus, the looks on their faces. I felt for them, bringing that news to a family. There’d been an accident at the factory, they said. He was gone.’

  Silence fell in the room.

  ‘You had to look after Dad all on your own.’ Anna felt the echo keenly.

  ‘Your dad was no trouble,’ said Dinkie, lovingly lenient.

  The look that travelled between Anna and Neil was so practised and quick that nobody else noticed. As the audience dispersed, as the final slivers of cake were handed out, Luca gravitated back to Anna.

  ‘No trouble?’ Neil was surly. ‘Remember what Dad said to me when I finally told him I was gay?’

  ‘Of course I do,’ said Anna, looking over her shoulder. This seemed neither the time nor the place to dredge that memory out of the murk.

  ‘He told me I got it from Mum’s side.’ Neil glowered, as insulted now as he had been then. ‘It. As if homosexuality was a disease.’

  ‘Dad is . . . well, he’s Dad.’ Anna and Neil rarely discussed their father. ‘He’s a man of his generation.’

  ‘So? Those two . . .’ Neil jabbed a finger in the direction of Maeve and Josh, currently going through Dinkie’s collection of Daniel O’Donnell cassette tapes. ‘Those two don’t have any concept of what he’s really like.’

  ‘They grew up in his house, Neil.’ Anna pretended not to know what he was talking about; this hadn’t been aired with Luca yet. ‘They put up with his moods, with his opinions being the only ones worth having, with him getting his way. A lot of men his age have to rule the roost.’ Sam hadn’t been like that; they’d been partners. ‘Times have changed, thank God.’

  ‘Not in this family.’

  ‘Mrs Piper . . .’ It was the first time Sheba had spoken. Her accent was strong, guttural. ‘It’s time to—’

  Dinkie cut in tersely. ‘Thank you, Sheba. You can go.’

  ‘But you must—’

  ‘I said thank you.’ That tone was reserved for grave misdemeanours. Anna had winced under it when she’d broken Dinkie’s favourite ornament, or missed Mass. As Sheba left the room, Anna’s antennae wiggled.

  ‘Don’t you like Sheba, Dinkie?’

  ‘She’s grand.’ Dinkie was short.

  ‘Are you sure? Dinkie, you know I worry about you being in here. Is Sheba, you know, kind to you?’ There had been a touch of anger in the set of the woman’s shoulders as she left.

  Changing the subject, as she always did when she was disinclined to answer a question, Dinkie asked Isabel what she saw in Sam because it surely couldn’t be his money or his looks, but Anna didn’t join in with the laughter.

  ‘Quick drinkie poos?’ Neil’s suggestion was met with ardent nods as Dinkie’s visitors passed through the sliding doors of Sunville out into the early evening.

  ‘That pub looks . . . awful,’ laughed Anna, pointing to a dive on the next corner.

  ‘It’ll do,’ said Sam.

  It did do. Sitting round a beer-puddled table, they compared notes on Dinkie’s new home.

  Josh was inclined to make the best of it. ‘It’s warm and she’s safe,’ he said, head dipping, eyes on his drink; he tended to hang back at family get-togethers. ‘At least we don’t have to worry about her having a fall on her own.’

  Anna hadn’t realised Josh worried about such things. She hadn’t realised he worried much about anything; it seemed to be Josh’s destiny to be the one everybody else worried about. She worried now, taking in his thin frame, wondering why he let his hair grow so long, detecting signs of neglect. ‘That’s true.’ She decided to make the best of it; Making the Best of It was one of Dinkie’s skills. ‘She has all her familiar stuff around her.’

  ‘Grandpa’s looking down from the shelf,’ said Maeve.

  ‘And from heaven,’ said Neil, setting down a tray of drinks. ‘Don’t forget heaven.’

  ‘What’s the matter with you today?’ Anna felt Maeve and Josh sit back in their seats; they rarely got involved when big sis and big bro locked horns. ‘Why all the bitching?’

  ‘Me? Bitching?’ Neil’s ruined cherub face looked affronted. ‘Santiago, was I being—’

  ‘Sí.’ Santi was engrossed in arranging Paloma’s blanket around her, like a snow cloud. She was a burst of light in the grotty pub.

  Neil gave in. ‘Sometimes it gets to me, you know? All that stuff about Grandpa. How come Dad’s the way he is if Grandpa was so perfect?’

  Maeve scowled. ‘What’s wrong with Dad?’ she said indignantly.

  ‘He didn’t come to my wedding, for a start.’

  ‘Not that again!’ Maeve snorted. ‘They live in Florida, Neil. Mum wasn’t well.’

  ‘She looked as fit as a bloody fiddle on Skype.’ Accustomed to being listened to at his ad agency, Neil expected the same treatment off duty. ‘We all know why they didn’t come.’

  ‘Can’t we move on?’ asked Santi, sounding older than Dinkie.

  ‘His parents came.’ Neil jerked his head at Santi. ‘They’re Catholics too, so Dad doesn’t have the excuse of religion. Dad’s bigoted. He’s disappointed. He doesn’t like his son being gay.’

  ‘Bullshit,’ said Maeve.

  Josh said nothing. But he said it loudly.

  ‘He sent you a present, though.’ Anna remembered the size of the cheque. For the first time, that struck her as odd; the last thing Neil needed was money.

  ‘And did you notice Dinkie’s behaviour today?’ Neil was red with annoyance. His lips thinned as he said, ‘Barely looked at Paloma.’

  Isabel leaned against Luca, her mouth to his ear. Anna heard her whisper, ‘You get used to it. All the lunches are like this. It’s better than telly.’

  ‘Dinkie loves babies!’ Maeve was as miffed as Maeve ever got, which was hardly at all.

  ‘But does she love this baby?’ Neil pointed at the oblivious Paloma. ‘This baby with two dads?’

  Luca shifted, looked at the ceiling, his thighs spread. Anna heard him make a small, exasperated noise. She said, ‘Neil, you’re talking as if we’re in the dark ages. None of us think twice about this stuff. We all love Paloma, the way we love you and Santi.’

  ‘I’m not talking about us,’ said Neil, encompassing them all with a wave of his arms. ‘I’m surprised at you, of all people, defending Dad.’

  That got everybody’s interest.

  ‘What does he mean?’ Maeve sat forward.

  ‘Nothing, he means nothing.’ Anna opened a bag of crisps and said, surreptitiously, to Neil, ‘You can be such a shit.’

  They stared each other out. Anna won. She’d been winning staring competitions with Neil since they were tiny. ‘He’s just stirring,’ she said to Maeve and Josh, who, despite the diversion of the crisps, were looking from one to the other in bewilderment. ‘Dad and I get on fine, you know that.’

  ‘Don’t fight,’ said Josh.

  Anna crooked her little finger, held it out to Neil. ‘Paxies?’

  ‘Paxies.’ Neil curled his finger around hers. ‘Sorry.’ He was chastened. Neil always went too far, and then he always felt terrible about it. As families do, with their elastic love, they forgave him.

&nbs
p; Walking to the car, Neil and Anna went ahead, conspiring.

  ‘Did you see how panicked Josh got when he thought we were falling out?’ said Anna.

  ‘They think of us as surrogate parents,’ said Neil. ‘They never minded when Mum and Dad argued.’ He eyed her, as if wondering whether to go on. He did go on, of course; Neil rarely held back. ‘Does it ever bother you, the way Mum and Dad exploited us? Making us look after Maeve and Josh all the time?’

  ‘It was hardly exploitation. We were babysitting, Neil. And Dinkie was always around to take the strain when they were away.’

  ‘True.’ They shared a nostalgic moment. At their grandmother’s house, Neil and Anna had been relieved of their duties, allowed to regress, run slightly wild. They’d stayed up late, had ice cream instead of dinner, were never asked to account for Maeve or Josh. Without saying a word against their parents’ behaviour, Dinkie showed she understood.

  ‘Sometimes I feel as if we had a totally different childhood to those two.’ Neil looked back, checking they were out of earshot. ‘We know what Mum and Dad are capable of. And Maeve and Josh . . . don’t.’

  It would have been so easy to tell him about the letter. Neil would . . . what, exactly? He’d understand, yes, but nobody could ‘solve’ the problem it presented. And he’d be so upset. She hugged him, so suddenly that he jumped, before hugging her back.

  ‘Maeve and Josh,’ she said, into his ear, ‘must never know.’

  ‘We agreed that at the time. It’s still for the best.’

  ‘Listen,’ she said, surfing on their candour. ‘You didn’t really mean that about Dinkie not loving Paloma?’

  ‘I did.’ Neil stopped dead. ‘Look at me, Anna.’

  ‘What exactly am I meant to be looking at?’

  ‘How old am I?’

  ‘You’re forty-four. Next question.’

  ‘How long have I been out as a gay man?’

  ‘Fourteen years.’

  ‘Which means that for thirty years I pretended to be something I’m not. Now I want to be accepted. Is that too much to ask? Perhaps you think I’m being petty when I complain about Dinkie or whinge about Dad not coming to the wedding.’ Through gritted teeth, he said, ‘Do you honestly think anything on earth could make me miss Paloma’s wedding?’