Just Between Us

by Cathy Kelly

  The Christmas tree was worse, decorated with far too few silver bits and pieces because Gloria hated ostentation and thought that less was more. Where were the elderly, much-loved decorations that the family would have had for years? Tara thought of her mother’s version of a Christmas tree: a riot of golds and reds, with battered cherubs and some wooden decorations they’d had for thirty years and which one of the family cats had systematically chewed. Rose had even held onto the now faded paper decorations that Tara herself had made when she was about six years old. Gloria would shudder at the sight of that tree.

  ‘I hope you brought your good suit,’ Gloria said to Finn as she marched up the stairs to the guest room.

  ‘Yes, Mums,’ said Finn.

  Behind Gloria’s back, Tara stuck her tongue out at her husband, feeling like a naughty schoolgirl following a stern teacher to the head’s office.

  Finn pinched her bum in return.

  ‘Is this going to be a very formal occasion?’ Tara asked innocently, ‘because I didn’t bring anything suitable.’

  Gloria whisked around, her beady eyes slitted down to the size and texture of uncooked lentils. ‘It’s Liz and Pierre Bailey-Montford,’ she said incredulously, as if that fact alone explained why dressing up was a necessity. ‘You must remember them from the wedding?’

  Tara could remember many things from her wedding, chief among them thinking that she must love Finn very much to marry him when she was getting Gloria as part of the deal. ‘Sort of,’ she said, deliberately hazy.

  ‘Pierre owns B-M Magnum Furniture!’ hissed Gloria, the veneer slipping. ‘Their house is two hundred years old. Liz buys all her clothes in Paris.’

  That was what was she disliked most about her mother-in-law, Tara reflected: her criteria for assessing people were all wrong.

  ‘So this outfit won’t do?’ Tara knew she was pushing Gloria to the limit but she couldn’t help herself.

  Gloria stood by the spare room and let Finn and Tara enter. ‘I would have thought that was obvious,’ she said venomously.

  ‘We won’t be long,’ Finn said, interrupting before war broke out. ‘Tara has other clothes.’

  ‘Yeah, my lap dancing thong and my feather boa, you old bag,’ Tara muttered under her breath as she dumped her bag on the floor.

  ‘Don’t wind her up,’ pleaded Finn when the door was shut and they were on their own.

  Tara sat down on the duvet, which was hysterically floral, as though the fabric designer had accidentally jumbled up two different patterns on one piece of material. It gave her a headache just to look at it.

  ‘I don’t wind her up,’ she said. ‘I simply don’t understand why your mother plays games all the time, that’s all. If she wanted us to bring formal clothes, all she had to do was telephone and tell us. But no, that would be too easy.’ Tara was getting crosser thinking about it. ‘Instead, she lets us come and then goes overboard with disapproval because I haven’t packed a cocktail dress. That’s being manipulative, pure and simple. I’m fed up with it.’

  ‘Tara love, please don’t get upset.’

  Finn sat down beside her and held her. ‘Can’t we have a nice Christmas, please?’

  Tara laid her head against his shoulder, relishing the comfort of being close to his lean, muscular body. Tara never seemed to have time for the gym but Finn went religiously. ‘I’d love to do that,’ she murmured, ‘I’d love our first Christmas as husband and wife to be special, but I don’t know how I can cope with your mother, Finn.’

  Finn stroked her hair gently. ‘Christmas reminds her of Fay, that’s all. It’s difficult for her.’

  Tara sighed. Fay was Gloria’s sympathy card. Gloria’s younger child and Finn’s twenty-seven-year-old sister, Fay had gone off travelling after a huge blow-up with her mother and had refused to talk to Gloria since. Although Tara had never met her, because Fay’s dramatic departure had been two years ago which was before Tara and Finn had even met, she sounded like a bit of a free spirit. Fay now lived in California, practised psychic healing and corresponded with Finn and Desmond, but hung up when her mother came on the phone. Clearly, psychic healing could only do so much.

  If it had been anyone else, Tara would have felt sorry for a mother who was cut off from her daughter. Tara loved her own mother far too much to ever do such a thing. But knowing Gloria for the past eighteen months, Tara could see why someone would be driven to travelling to the other side of the world to escape her.

  ‘We’ll have a nice Christmas,’ she reassured Finn.

  ‘Thanks, babe.’ He looked so grateful. It was the least she could do. She’d bite her tongue when Gloria was being bitchy.

  Tara decided to wear the corduroy dress, plenty of lipstick, and a big, jaw-clenching smile. Gloria, who’d obviously decided to modify her own behaviour, said nothing and the foursome set off in a taxi with Finn and Desmond chatting happily as if they hadn’t noticed anything was amiss.

  At the restaurant, Tara had to start biting her tongue when she met the others. If Gloria had pulled out all the stops in the dressing up department, she had nothing on Liz Bailey-Montford who was dressed as though Hello! were due to photograph her at any minute for a ‘lifestyles of the rich and tasteless’ piece. Jewels gleamed at ears, wrists, neck and fingers and her silver and black plunging dress was a dizzying combination of sequins and beading. Tara was blinded by the glitter.

  There was obviously plenty of one-upmanship between the two supposed best friends because Liz had brought along her daughter and son-in-law as backup and wasted no time telling everyone that Serena was doing a masters in art history and Charles was a tower of strength who worked with his father-in-law in the furniture business.

  ‘I don’t know what we’d do without Charles,’ Liz said, ‘he’s so capable.’

  Charles had a blank, unintelligent face and Tara thought he didn’t look as if he was capable of changing a light bulb. But he’d obviously lucked out by marrying Serena who was heiress to the B-M furniture kingdom, so he couldn’t be that dumb.

  There were lots of double kisses, oodles of ‘oh you look wonderful, Gloria! Doesn’t she, Pierre?’ and it took ten minutes for everyone to be seated, according to a table plan, naturally. Tara hated table plans. She liked sitting beside Finn and hated all that rubbish about sticking him as far away from her as possible and putting her beside someone she didn’t know.

  Pierre, on her right side, appeared tired, while Charles, on her left, looked uninterested until he found out that she worked on National Hospital, and then spent the next ten minutes plying her with stupid questions about what the stars were really like.

  ‘Theodora, I mean, Sherry,’ he said with glazed eyes, ‘she’s fabulous, isn’t she? Is she like that in real life?’

  ‘You mean man-mad?’ inquired Tara, bored. ‘Men adore her.’

  Charles backtracked hastily. ‘Oh no, I don’t mean that. I just admire good acting.’

  ‘Of course you do.’

  The waiter arrived and Gloria and Liz ordered melon and plain fish.

  ‘Thank you,’ Gloria said sweetly to the young waiter, who beamed back. ‘Can’t be too careful,’ she added to Liz. ‘Melon is the only option. A moment on the lips…’

  ‘…a lifetime on the hips,’ finished Liz and they both giggled.

  Tara watched in astonishment. Nobody would recognise her stony mother-in-law in this giggly woman across the table. Talk about street angel, house devil.

  ‘I might have melon too,’ said Serena thoughtfully.

  ‘Nonsense!’ Gloria was kind but firm. ‘You don’t need to diet, pet. You’ve a lovely little figure.’

  Despite being seated apart, Liz, Gloria and Serena talked to each other noisily across the round table. Finn and his father were laughing over some story, while Pierre and Charles had livened up enough to argue over the wine. Tara sat silently and watched it all, thinking of the wonderful time Mum, Dad, Stella, Holly and Amelia would be having by now in Kinvarra. Nobody could magic
up an air of festivity like Mum, and by now, the house would be filled with the smells of Christmas cooking, with Mum’s absolute favourite, Frank Sinatra, belting out love songs from the kitchen. Holly and Stella would be laughing as they stuffed the turkey and Dad would be gleefully sorting out glasses for the traditional Miller Christmas Eve drinks party which always kicked off between half eight and nine. Everyone came to the party; all the close family friends and relatives, half of Kinvarra almost. Mum and Dad had been hosting the party for as long as Tara could remember and it was like the official signal for Christmas to start. Entire families turned up, people were delighted at the opportunity to let their hair down, drink flew around at a fierce rate and such was the spirit of fun that people who’d originally apologised that they could only drop in for a moment would have to be decanted drunkenly into taxis at half eleven before the family went to midnight Mass.

  It would all be incredible fun, with no pretensions. Her longing to be there overwhelmed Tara and she felt a lump swell in her throat. It was so easy to forget how important family were until you weren’t with them.

  She tuned back into the here and now to overhear Serena, Gloria and Liz discussing clothes.

  ‘I love your dress,’ Gloria was saying warmly to Serena. ‘You can never go wrong with a little black dress and a nice gold necklace.’

  Tara glanced over at Serena, who looked quite overshone, despite the LBD, by her flamboyant mother, but who did have a heavy gold necklace hanging from her neck. Tara was not a jewellery person, which was just as well because Finn certainly didn’t have the money to shell out on chunky gold stuff. They just about managed the mortgage and the bills on both their salaries: TV script writing wasn’t the money-spinner everyone thought it was. That was why Tara longed to get into writing for someone like Mike Hammond. She loved working on National Hospital, but if only she could work on a film script or one of the big-budget television adaptations that Mike was involved with, well, she’d be on the road to fame and fortune.

  ‘…well,’ her mother-in-law was saying, ‘these media types don’t put the same store on dressing up as we do.’ She lowered her voice. ‘They’re really quite casual, which can be inappropriate on occasion.’

  Tara knew exactly who Gloria was referring to. Bitch. Double bitch.

  She glared across the table at Finn who seemed oblivious to it all.

  ‘Does Sherry have a boyfriend?’ asked Charles, unable to get his mind off her.

  ‘No, rumour has it she’s a lesbian,’ snapped Tara, although the lie backfired because Charles drooled even more; no doubt at the notion of being sandwiched in bed between the beauteous Sherry and another stunning woman.

  Trust him to be one of those blinkered men who saw gay women as some sort of kinky challenge. She’d have to tell him it was a joke. She gave up on Charles and turned to Pierre, who looked grey in the face and was trying to keep awake.

  ‘Are you looking forward to Christmas?’ she asked brightly.

  Pierre fixed her with a glassy stare. ‘No,’ he said and turned back to his wine.

  Think of tonight as research, Tara told herself firmly. Writers couldn’t write unless they observed. But despite her good intentions, separated from Finn and stuck in conversational limbo with Charles, the evening crawled past.

  Pierre came out of himself enough to keep ordering bottles of wine but remained monosyllabic otherwise.

  ‘Poor darling Pierre is worn out,’ Liz admitted. ‘The pre-Christmas rush has been so busy. What about you, Tara? Do tell us all about the glamorous jet-set life. Do you get to see many stars?’

  ‘Sherry, the girl who plays Theodora, is a lesbian,’ interrupted Charles, sounding shocked.

  Tara gasped theatrically. ‘Charles, you old tease. You know I was joking! She loves men.’

  That shut Charles up. She turned to Liz. ‘I know them all,’ she sighed. ‘All the stars. We’re like one big, happy family.’ Ooops, another lie. The big television stars wouldn’t have any time for lowly script editors like herself.

  ‘Really.’ Liz leaned big bosoms on the table in her eagerness to hear all. Tara could see the young waiter’s eyes popping out of his head as Liz’s plunging dress front plunged further still. ‘You mean Daniel Anson, from Anson Interviews?’ Liz named one of the country’s biggest chat show hosts. ‘You know him?’

  Tara nodded. Well, she had stood behind him in the canteen one day; that was almost meeting.

  ‘What’s he like?’

  Tara thought about the contents of Daniel Anson’s tray that day: burger, chips, diet soft drink. He’d thrown his packet of cigarettes and a disposable lighter onto the tray when he was searching for change.

  ‘Very normal,’ she said.

  ‘Tell us about Dr McCambridge on National Hospital.’ Serena looked animated for the first time all night.

  ‘He’s handsome,’ said Tara truthfully. ‘He has that special something that really works on camera…’

  ‘Animal magnetism,’ growled Serena.

  Finn, who knew from Tara that the actor could be hard to work with, smothered a giggle. Tara smiled across at him. She could just about cope with the evening if Finn was with her.

  ‘Welcome back,’ she mouthed.

  Finn raised his glass to her. He was going to have another hangover in the morning, Tara reflected.

  It was just after eleven when the taxi deposited the Jeffersons back at Four Winds.

  Tara, exhausted after an evening of trying to be polite under difficult circumstances, wanted nothing more than to fall into bed and cuddle up to Finn. But Finn and his father decided that liqueurs were the order of the day.

  ‘It’s less than an hour till twelve, let’s stay up and toast in Christmas,’ suggested Desmond.

  ‘Great idea.’ Finn fell onto the big grey armchair and held out his arms for Tara to sit on his lap. Mindful of Gloria seeing this as another breach of decorum, Tara sat on the side of the chair instead and put an arm round Finn’s shoulders.

  Gloria disappeared on some errand.

  ‘What would you like, Tara?’ asked Desmond, poised over the drinks cabinet.

  ‘Er…’ Tara didn’t know. She generally drank wine and wasn’t fond of spirits apart from the odd gin and tonic. ‘Baileys?’ she hazarded, ‘in honour of the Bailey-Montfords? Maybe not.’ She grinned to herself. Baileys was creamy and smooth, while the B-Ms were hard to swallow.

  She heard a shocked gasp and looked up to find Gloria had reappeared and was staring at her grimly.

  ‘Did I say that out loud?’ laughed Tara. She must have drunk more wine than she’d thought. ‘Sorry, Gloria.’

  ‘They’re nice people,’ said Desmond, peacemaking, ‘but it’s not easy to be catapulted into a group of people who know each other well. I’m sure you and Finn would have preferred to stay at home.’

  He gave Tara a big crystal balloon of Baileys anyway and she took it with a murmured ‘thanks’, humbled by Desmond’s gentle reprimand.

  Gloria asked frostily for a crème de menthe, ‘very small, please, Desmond,’ she said, shooting a poisonous look at Tara and her generous glass.

  ‘I’ll get mine, Dad,’ volunteered Finn. ‘I need to see what you’ve got.’

  Desmond took his brandy over to the other big armchair and Tara watched while her husband fiddled around in the cabinet before pouring himself an enormous glass of Cointreau.

  ‘You’ll die in the morning,’ she whispered as he sat beside her.

  ‘I need to block out the arguments,’ he whispered back, nuzzling her ear. ‘Total inebriation is the only way.’

  Everybody sat and sipped their drinks in silence.

  ‘This is nice,’ said Tara politely, trying to lighten the atmosphere.

  ‘It’s a pity you didn’t enjoy dinner.’ Gloria’s tone was glacial.

  Tara shrugged. If Gloria wanted to be like that, it was her business.

  ‘Mums and Dad, did I tell you we’re going skiing in March?’ Finn said.

&nb
sp; ‘No, you didn’t. Good for you, son.’ Desmond was envious. ‘I love skiing.’

  ‘We’d half-planned to go at Christmas,’ Finn said, ‘but we didn’t want to let you down, of course,’ he added hastily.

  Tara said nothing. She hated these stilted family conversations. In her home, everyone talked nineteen to the dozen about anything and everything. Not like this. It was as if Finn and his father were afraid to say the wrong thing in case they inadvertently upset Gloria.

  Still, she glanced at her watch, another interminable forty minutes to go and it was officially Christmas Day, and they could all go to bed.

  ‘I hope it wasn’t too much of a sacrifice to give up skiing for Christmas with your father and me.’ Gloria’s voice dropped plaintively, ‘I feel that Christmas is for families.’ Her thin face was taut under its perfect layer of base.

  ‘We know that,’ Finn said easily. He never displayed even the slightest irritation with his mother. Tara wondered what the secret was.

  Gloria sniffed as though she might possibly cry. Tara didn’t think tears could squeeze themselves out of the space between Gloria’s eye liner and her pinched little eyes.

  ‘I know it’s selfish of me, darling, but I love having my family around me at this time of year.’ She shot a venomous glance at Tara, who bridled. It was clear that Gloria didn’t include Tara in that sentence. Tara glared furiously at her mother-in-law. Then the little demon flicked on in Tara’s head.

  Rose Miller would have recognised the wicked glint in her daughter’s eyes but Gloria carried on regardless.

  ‘As it’s your father’s first non-working Christmas, I thought the three of us should be together.’ Another martyred sigh.

  Tara had had enough of her drink and decided she’d like a rapid exit. ‘Why doesn’t Fay ever come home for Christmas?’ she asked innocently.