It was Eve’s turn to sink back onto the sofa, her elbows on her knees and her head hidden in her hands. It was her turn to be choked by sobs. Big heavy sobs that shook her shoulders and tears so big, they rolled through the fingers that covered her face.
Skinny sat helpless. He had never thought about Eve; never dreamt that someone else could have problems. He’d just fancied a pint, that’s all. However, he was a kind and sensitive soul at heart and it saddened him to see her anguish. He tried to pat her arm and say, “there, there, it’ll be OK, you’ll see,” but instead, he gave up after a few robotic movements and a spluttered gurgle. Eve looked at him and laughed in spite of herself, wiping her eyes with the same tissue that she’d just used on his nose. “I’m sorry,” she choked, trying to regain her composure. “I’m OK now; I don’t know what came over me. Don’t mind me.”
“You can have the other sandwich if you want it,” said Peter gently, not sure if he was saying the right thing. “I’m not hungry anymore.” His look was a concerned one and told her that he meant well. Eve sniffed and laughed again. She looked over at him and ran her salty hands through her tufted hair.
“Look at us,” she said with a weak smile. “What a pair. You want a drink, I want that sandwich and Doctor Radcliff won’t let us have either!”
Skinny nodded thoughtfully, the sound of the doctor’s name bringing them both back to reality. The pair sat staring out of the window, Eve’s hand still clutching her handkerchief, resting in a fist on Peter’s skinny thigh, his dressing gown having gaped open in the heat of the moment. Skinny’s head bent towards Eve, as if he wanted to rest it on her shoulder if logistics had allowed. Their shared daze was restful after the revealing of their inner souls, which they were completely unused to.
“I know,” said Eve after a period of quiet (in which Trefor got rather bored and prepared to put down his pencil), “let’s sort us-selves out. You know, help each other.”
Peter looked at her, his eyes pleading with her to shut up and just open her blouse, so he could take a proper rest. “Yeah,” she said, beginning to get to grips with the idea. “We’ll make some rules and we can make sure that the other sticks to them.”
“I don’t understand,” said Peter, not really wanting to.
“Yeah, you stop me eating too much and I’ll stop you drinking.” To Eve it all seemed so simple. “Look, let’s get some paper and we can write everything down and we can sign the bottom. We can make two columns, one for each of us.”
Peter felt concerned. He was having visions of himself running along the street with a ham sandwich in his hand and Eve thundering up behind him. How on earth could someone who couldn’t even get off the sofa alone, stop someone else eating something? Why would he want to? If you don’t want to eat something, don’t eat it, if you do, do. It was the same with his drinking, if he didn’t want to do it, he wouldn’t. It was just that he did want to do it. And, actually, right now would be ideal.
“We can talk to each other when things get difficult, you know, like a helpline? We can offer each other support and advice. Look, I’ll get something to write it all down on.” Eve got to her feet and with more energy than she’d had in weeks, set off to find some paper. Peter felt himself dozing off in the chair, exhausted after the events of the afternoon. He was awoken by the crash of delight as Eve charged back into the room with a Snoopy notebook.
“Here, look, I’ve got some paper and a pen. Now, we’ll do two columns like I said and you can have one and me the other. Now, what shall we call it? It should have a name. It can’t just be called the rules…” Skinny was at a loss.
“It could be a Treaty – no, we can’t call it that – that’s what biscuits were called when I was little!” Eve was getting overexcited and Peter’s head was beginning to thump. He needed this to be over and done with.
And, so, in that dingy room, the Hungry-Thirsty Pact was drawn up.
The Hungry-Thirsty Pact Rules
For the period of six weeks, or until Peter’s plaster is removed:
Peter is not allowed to drink alcohol,
Eve is not allowed to eat anything that is not in her diet plan.
Every morning, before opening time, Eve and Peter shall go for a walk in the park in order to feel better. Walks during opening hours must be up the back road.
Eve could have talked about the pact all night, she felt so excited about it. Peter seemed to be having trouble keeping interested, but Doctor Radcliff had said that his attention span might be limited, so she persevered. Eve wanted to have lots of subclauses, but Peter said that what they had was probably enough. Too many rules make things complicated, he said.
She was itching for Evans the Newsagents to open so that she could get some coloured pens and special paper and write it up properly. Peter, on the other hand, couldn’t really care less and was still trying to distinguish the noises from the streets below. That sounded like the Davies brothers’ truck, its exhaust pipe battered from their rough farm track, and that was surely Andy Watkins’ bark at the moon impression?
They eventually compromised by Eve dragging the sofa back over the exact spot from whence it came so that the rectangle of dust, coins and other objects that one didn’t really want to deal with on such a special night, were hidden once more. The television was turned on in time for the highlights and Peter eventually found that the only way he could get comfortable was to lie back on Eve’s chest with her arms under his, nestling inside the dressing gown that draped gently over his plaster. And there he fell into a peaceful sleep with Eve gently kissing the top of his head, breathing in his scent and smoothing his hair with her nose. She felt as if she were the happiest woman alive.
Chapter 43
Sweetmeats
Big sisters are an important element of any younger sister’s life, regardless of how old they actually are. As children they will probably have assumed the role of “older and wiser”, either by default or through parental needs for a willing babysitter and role model. Alex had always taken her role quite seriously and Lettie’s chaotic life had given her plenty of chances to perfect the art.
Alex was surprised by Lettie’s resignation in the face of the affair that never was and her relative keenness to move on. They sat one sunny evening in Alex’s back garden on the old chairs under the copper beech. The ancient beech was far too large for the garden, but Alex and Rich had inherited the love for it from the previous occupants and now repeated to their more cautious friends that if it should fall on the house, well, never mind, the house was insured.
It was a beautiful evening and the jug of Pimms on the lichen-covered table was complemented by Rich playing the Snuffly Camel Game with the kids on the lawn. Alex and Lettie wished they were wearing straw hats and cotton dresses in order to make the view a perfect centre spread for a “Being Twee in the Countryside” magazine and the dog twitched in his dreams.
After chatting about their days, ensuing fair play in the complicated rules of the Snuffly Camel Game and deciding that their mother, Grace, had a secret that she was not telling them about, the conversation inevitably moved onto Dougie.
“Well,” said Lettie, fishing a bit of cucumber out of her empty glass and popping it noisily into her mouth, “it’s been a good experience and what it has shown me is that there are good people everywhere. I shall put this down to Fate and look out for my next lucky conquest.” Alex laughed and pushed her thick hair back from her face.
“Oh, and where is he going to spring from? Wanting more whipping for his cappuccino or finding a bone in his carrot cake?”
“Well, he certainly won’t be finding any carrot in it, but have faith, oh doubting sister, it’s Sally’s wedding this weekend. All those years of writing to each other and describing how our weddings would be and now she’s actually doing it – I can’t quite believe it! But anyway, I reckon it’ll be my lucky day. I shall be wearing my lucky pants and a big smile and not even the groom will be able to resist my allure, although from wha
t I’ve seen of her photos, he’s an ugly bastard and therefore she’s welcome to him.”
Alex smiled and replenished their glasses whilst Lettie gently threw peanuts at the dog, sniggering as he twitched them away in his sleep.
Chapter 44
The Toad in the Hole
Lettie turned up to the church deliberately bang on time, in order to miss as much as possible of the tedium of having to hang around with guests enthusiastically greeting everyone but her. She knew no one but the bride and no one but the bride knew her. In addition to this everyone was having far too good a time, showing off the new hats and excessive make-up that only seem to come out at weddings, to even think about making a lone woman, with neither a hat or excessive make-up, feel comfortable and involved.
Men, stuffed into smart suits with shiny peach cravats and gold waistcoats, eventually ushered the guests in to the church. Obviously the frantic dieting of the ladies involved in the wedding had passed the ushers by and the peach silk handkerchiefs that were supposed to poke cheekily out of a breast pocket were soon limp and damp from the pressure of regularly mopped brows. Lettie was the last in and turned for one final look as she was handed the order of service. She saw the beautiful bride step out of the car in a blur of peach and gold, surrounded by small children clutching posies that would, by the end of the day, be simply balls of oasis on ribbons. Feeling a glow of warmth and goodwill flow over her, she walked into the mercifully cool church with a renewed determination to make the most of her friend’s special day.
She and Sally had been pen friends since the age eight – a ploy by two teacher friends to get their pupils to write more. Most of the friendships had petered out after a few descriptions of families and photos of pet cats had been exchanged. For some reason Sally and Lettie’s had continued and the friendship had grown as they had. Cats and sisters changed into boys and haircuts as topics of conversation and the wedding phase had been at around age ten. Each would describe theirs in detail and then the other would write back having made their own grow further in extravagance and ridiculousness. Their fathers would certainly have stepped in had they known what was being set up. They had made a pact at age eleven that, no matter what became of their friendship, they would invite the other to their wedding.
Lettie couldn’t quite believe that it had finally happened for her friend as neither had taken the path to this point that they had anticipated at age eleven. She was waiting in fascination to see whether the day would be anything like what Sally had predicted and was looking forward to seeing Sally and her husband whisked to their chain hotel reception on a white cloud pulled by unicorns.
The organ changed from a seemingly random collection of notes to the thunderous bellows of Mendelssohn’s Wedding March and the congregation fell quiet and, as one, craned their necks to gasp at the beauty of the bride. Sally near galloped up the aisle, her face beaming with love for the man at the end of it and the, soon to be redundant, elderly man at her side only managed to keep up with her strides due to the fact that the current fashion in bridal wear was long and straight.
The service would be described afterwards as “beautiful” as the bride and groom trotted out their vows whilst gazing lovingly into the vicar’s eyes.
The groom managed to prevent his wife from skipping back up the aisle and they posed spontaneously for well-rehearsed photos, allowing Sally to give the grateful Lettie a huge wink that reminded her of why she was really there. Once at the hotel, photos and confetti turned into Buck’s Fizz and canapés as the guests mistakenly mingled with guests from the other wedding that should have been in the Bracken Suite, rather than the Long Rooms. Frantic waiters tried to separate the two with far less skill than the average sheepdog clearing a hill.
The reception room was as romantic as one that had yesterday been a conference venue could be. Wall-mounted projector screens were bedecked with gold balloons and grand jardinières were sited over the floor sockets; their top-heavy loads being the bane of any parent’s day as children skidded precariously around them. Sick of polite non-conversation, Lettie was thankful to be herded to her table, intrigued to see whose company her friend thought she would enjoy.
The family on her table consisted of seven and eleven-year-old boys with their eight-year-old sister and fractious parents. It seemed as if it was the first time that the parents realised that their darlings had no table manners whatsoever and enjoyably loud whispers told Lettie that it was His fault, as He let them eat in front of the television. If she had had her way, they would all eat together around the kitchen table where they could discuss the day’s happenings and gently mould their offspring’s manners into a form that was acceptable in company.
The children seemed blissfully unaware of the scrutiny and gave a fine reinforcing display of slouching with their elbows on the table, popping non-vegetable bits of food into their mouths with just a fork and chewing them unselfishly for all to see. Loud burps, that would have been funny in the sitting room in front of cartoons, suddenly seemed a horrible reflection on obviously disjointed family values.
After the meal, the speeches began and Lettie dutifully listened as the obligatorily rowdy “friends’ table” whooped and cheered at any tenuous opportunity, allowing any unconsidered crappy joke to be appreciated. They “whoo’d” as the groom told how he met his wife, “whe-hey’d” as he confessed to almost fancying the bridesmaids and “get-in-there’d” as he stated that he was the luckiest man alive. But even the friends’ table struggled to maintain the momentum as Sally’s father stood up and began his life’s work – a poem written about his beloved daughter including every weary stage in her life. The rhyming couplets dragged their way through her birth, toddler diseases, first day at school and second place in the netball competition until Lettie finally gave up her loyalty, and allowed her mind to wonder.
Looking around the assembled guests, Lettie gave herself the task of finding someone who looked comfortable in their wedding attire. Straining buttons, splitting side seams and bra strap extensions revealed how too much corporate entertainment had taken its toll since the outfits had last been worn.
Shoes that were delightfully dainty when in a shoe shop being admired by friends, were now pinching as swollen feet fought to get them kicked off. Underneath one table was a carrier bag containing trainers that the prepared owner had insisted on bringing, to allow him to dance later like he used to all those years ago.
“… it was when she was first at school, she was too scared to go in the pool…”
A little closer to home was the man who had been allotted the joker card of being sat next to her. The man’s table card said Mr Clive Peters, but to a wine-filled Lettie it could just have easily have said Mr Tall Dark and Handsome, although with perhaps a small caveat of “well, ish” underneath. He was sat looking as if he was enjoying the speeches, having laughed in all the right places and she remembered catching the gentle nodding agreement of his head through the service in the church earlier.
“…and then she had a little sister, she was so sweet, you had to kiss her.”
He had obviously eaten at the kitchen table with his parents as a child. A brilliant white shirt that wouldn’t beam with sweaty patches on the underarms, unlike so many of the other bad choices around the room, was matched with a dark green tie and coordinated nicely with a white rose with plenty of foliage in his buttonhole. When Lettie had first sat down, she had felt that he was too handsome to be bothered to talk to someone like her. However, he had in fact turned out to be the perfect companion – filling her glass, helping her off with her own jacket and his silver cufflinks had flashed hypnotically at regular intervals as she basked in the smell of his aftershave.
“…and then at un-i-vers-ity, oh such a lot of fun had she”
Lettie’s eyes rolled involuntarily to the back of her head and she leant forward, elbows on the table (such a bad example to the children), the weight of her boredom resting fully on her palms. Suddenly, bringing her ba
ck to wedding mode with a bump, she felt a small tug at the sleeve of her dress. Quickly retrieving her smile, she turned expecting to accept just a little more wine, thank you, but instead found Clive with a pitiful hangdog expression on his face as he whispered very quietly, “Shoot me. Please?”
That was it. As the wine trickled gently from her nose, the floodgates opened to gales of submerged laughter; this was going to be a good wedding after all.
Lettie pulled the knot of her scarf round to the back of her neck, held the ends above her head, rolled her eyes and lolled her tongue out of the corner of her mouth. He laughed in the way one always laughs when not allowed to: silently, shoulders shaking and face crumpled in pain.
Clive then grabbed a fork and jabbed it into his upper thigh. Lettie hung a spoon from her nose. The rest of the table now realised that they had lost them and watched, tutting in envy as their mirth gained more attention from the glazed eyes that should have been fixed on the speech maker. Wine flowed, glasses chinked and the two started chatting in a world that didn’t include poets, polite laughter or sugared almonds.
“So, was that the worst speech you’ve ever heard?” enquired Lettie.
“Very nearly, but I did go to one wedding where the groom stormed out as the bride’s father kept ‘mistakenly’ referring to him by the bride’s previous boyfriend’s name.”
“I went to one where the bride was making a speech and she sneezed and farted. I think the guests laughed for a full ten minutes.”
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