by Jan Ruth
‘Looks like he’s forgiven,’ Linda said, and passed a white wine spritzer to Victoria.
‘They haven’t changed. They know how to work each other.’
The music gradually moved up a gear and Linda and Victoria found a table. Tina’s sisters were in full flow in their killer heels and fake tans, fake designer handbags weighed down with charms and trinkets. Their fake nails were studded with fake diamonds. Everything was fake; even one of the crowd had breast implants, and they were coveted and drooled over. The men and women all had the same hard faces, with black hair and soft, flabby bodies decorated with tattoos.
Victoria hated all that; their misguided belief that it made them better, more attractive, more envied. But who was she to judge? There were vast areas of her life which were just as false. They were just more cunningly disguised. She bought Linda another glass of wine, then checked her phone again. No messages.
Could she go now? Would it be rude? Would anyone notice, or care?
The older generation were struggling to hear what anyone said by then, or were already fast asleep, slumped in a chair. Tina’s father was a mess, loud and staggering about. Tina’s mother was crying. Marian took it upon herself to try and restore a sense of decency, although even she was almost defeated by the sheer complacency and tardiness of her daughter-in-law’s family, and had to resort to Daniel manhandling the old man into a cab.
Daniel seemed used to it, knew the right words and knew the right way to get hold of him. But then on watching this painful grappling, Marian was close to tears herself; clearly not understanding why his family - the silly fake women and their useless men - thought it was funny to see a once dignified man in his seventies behave like a desperate tramp. His grandchildren, dressed like miniature adults, captured it all on their mobile phones.
‘He’s not been that bad before,’ Victoria heard Daniel say, on his return.
‘Get used to it,’ his mother snapped. ‘They’ll all be on your doorstep with their problems.’
‘No. I married Tina, not her bloody family.’
‘Oh no, Daniel, let’s be absolutely clear. You have inherited all of them!’
The remainder of their conversation was lost, drowned out by deafening drum rolls and electric guitars then someone tapping a microphone and making some kind of introduction, but Victoria could still see their faces; Marian angry and tearful, Daniel calm and resigned.
On stage, the DJ had gone and a band was tuning up. Everyone recognised the introduction to the Snow Patrol track, Chasing Cars; and then there was a smattering of applause as most of the guests recognised Daniel’s daughter. Close up, she looked like a miserable blonde version of Amy Winehouse with the same kind of skinny, tortured body.
‘This is for my dad,’ Bluebell uttered, no smile. ‘This is for Tina, and my dad.’
Then Bluebell began to sing and everything changed. She had a massive, powerful voice. When it left her mouth it was as if the voice didn’t really belong in there, like it was a demon fighting to get out. She didn’t move much, all the expression was channelled through her face and her hands. Victoria felt her spine tingle. She glanced round the room and everyone was spellbound. Everything lifted to a different plane. The drunken chaos fell away, mouths fell open.
Four and half minutes, which connected everyone in the room.
Four and half minutes of understanding what the whole day was about. The lyrics could have been written for Daniel and Tina. The applause, the stamping and shouting was deafening. Then there was a strange sort of suspension of time until there was a reconnection with the harshness of the real world as the stage was plunged into darkness, and some bland recorded music filtered through the speakers. Victoria felt oddly cheated; she’d wanted more, much more.
Linda looked at her and mouthed, ‘Wow.’
Everyone was talking about Bluebell Woods and heading for the bar again, but Victoria looked at the empty stage in the dimmed light. Daniel had his arms folded around his daughter. After a moment she struggled out of his grasp and looked at the floor, and Victoria looked away.
Seconds later, Daniel was at the bar with Tina and saying hello to everyone, and asking Linda where Mike was. He nodded at Victoria but he didn’t remember her, not really. Hugs and kisses were exchanged, Tina’s ring admired, more promises to be better at keeping in touch.
‘Everyone says that don’t they?’ Tina said, slightly slurring her words, ‘But we’ve no excuse now, I’m back and I need all the friends I can get since it looks as though I’ll be trapped in the back of beyond. Dan said there were bears.’
‘It’s not the back of beyond, it’s the Snowdonia National Park,’ Daniel said patiently, then looked at Linda and Victoria. ‘Tina thinks a few fields and some trees make a wilderness. The bloody A55 is only a couple of miles away. The bears were a joke, love.’
It wasn’t quite true, the part about the isolation. Linda raised her brows at Victoria but they all laughed about the bears, and then they got on to the wedding ceremony, and why Daniel had been late. Every so often he was interrupted by Tina’s larger sister Mandy, trying to get to the bar for more bottles of Magners.
Daniel looked more relaxed than he had all day. A glass of champagne in his hand, his tie was in his pocket and the white hat back on his head, keeping some control over his dark hair, spiked up slightly with the addition of some gel. Tina leant against him, one arm around his waist, happy to let him do all the talking. Listening to Daniel and watching them both was like going back twenty-five years.
There were always together, him and Tina, always in some sort of trouble, most of it funny or it seemed so at the time. She remembered him driving some panicking stray sheep through the school corridors, everyone hysterical with laughter, skidding on the resultant mess underfoot, and he’d been suspended for a while after that. Then of course there was the cider, sex and smoking, and bunking off. Considering the more insidious pitfalls of present day school life, it all seemed small fry now, but at the time most of the school had admired Daniel’s nerve and couldn’t wait to see what he did next. Then Tina had an abortion when she was fifteen and it was suddenly all serious.
But Daniel always rescued her, he always played the big man to her beautiful vulnerable clown. Later, Victoria heard that Tina had ended up in a movie themed bar and Daniel was on a Whimpey construction site.
And she’d stupidly thought they’d blown it, everyone did.
Victoria had gone to university and married Max.
To love, cherish and obey...
Daniel might have left school with nothing, but somewhere along the way he’d acquired a PhD in life. It showed in his face, in his manner, in his laughing dark eyes, aged now, with not unattractive crinkles. Feature by feature, Daniel wasn’t classically good looking, but he’d always had a streetwise sexuality, a vitality which drew people to him. At school, in the confusion of teenage angst, Victoria could never decide if she actually liked him or not. He’d asked her out once, when Tina was in hospital having her tonsils out. Caught off guard and horrified by the implications, Victoria had turned him down.
‘Why not?’ he’d asked, all surprised.
‘Because you’re Tina’s boyfriend.’
Victoria had watched him shrug and walk away. She remembered feeling deflated that he didn’t seem bothered. He never asked her again.
‘...and then the whole bloody lot fell on me,’ he was saying, pulling up his trouser leg to reveal an untidy bandage... ‘massive oak beams they are. I knew I should have used acrow props.’
‘Did someone say alcopops?’ Mandy said, ‘get us a drink Danny boy,’ and nudged him with her bulk, but Daniel ignored her. He was squinting at Victoria. ‘I remember you now.’
‘She was Vick the stick,’ Mandy butted in, weighing her up out of the corner of her eye as she lifted another bottle to her lips, ‘vapour rub.’
‘Your mum and dad had all those posh flower shops,’ Daniel said.
‘Florists.’
He nodded slowly, sipped his champagne.
Tina said, ‘so, you married now then? Got kids?’
Victoria told them a bit about Emily and Richard, both at university. Married to Max.
‘What does he do then?’ Tina said, ‘What does your Max do?’
‘He’s a partner in a firm of accountants.’
‘Dan needs an accountant, don’t you Dan?’
‘Might do.’
‘Max is having a fiftieth birthday party in a few weeks, why don’t you come?’ she said rashly, knowing full well that Max would never take on Daniel Woods as a client. There was a good chance he wouldn’t even let him in the house. As soon as the words were out of her mouth, Victoria regretted it, but Tina’s face lit up, and anyway, what the hell, she just wanted them to be there.
‘Oh we’d love to, wouldn’t we Dan?’
‘Might do.’
*
Victoria and Linda didn’t leave till almost midnight. Inside, the hardened party goers had progressed through songs from the eighties onto a form of Irish dancing. Even Daniel and Tina had made their escape to the honeymoon suite. Outside, it was snowing hard and there was a careful scramble to get out of the car park. Barney Rubble was just sitting in his, going nowhere, lighting matches and throwing them into the snow. Bluebell was in the passenger seat, with the window rolled down, smoke curling into the cold air.
They reached Linda’s semi on the edge of the council estate. In the dark Victoria could make out a neat square with pots of shrubs and a Ford Fiesta. Next door had a full size trampoline in the front garden and four vehicles bumped up on the pavement. The front of the house was covered in a pulsing medley of Christmas lights, and there was an inflatable Santa and two reindeer lashed to the chimney, struggling to stay anchored in the wind. A huge dog looked to be tied up outside, and another smaller one inside, yapping and leaping under the net curtain at the smeared windows. Inside, looked busy and noisy.
‘Looks like a party,’ Victoria said, glancing nervously at the Lexus.
‘Party night every bloody night. Come in for a nightcap?’
‘Okay. Make it a small one though or I’ll be over the limit.’
They talked about the wedding and then they got on to Mike. He was living with a seventeen year old Polish girl above his garage down on the Morfa Road.
‘I mean, what I don’t get, is what does she see in him? A bloody middle-aged mechanic?’
‘Escape?’
Linda, quite drunk by then, was intent on telling Victoria the whole unabridged version of her marriage breakdown. Victoria didn’t mind, in a way it was good to fill her head with someone else’s problems. She poured herself a large glass of wine and resigned herself to calling a taxi. She didn’t fancy getting the Lexus up the mountain pass to Capelulo in the snow anyway. Linda said it would be fine, on her driveway.
The taxi came straightaway, the driver grumbling about the lack of fares because of the weather, but stopped before the steep incline at the bottom of the private road, the wheels starting to spin. Victoria watched it turn around and fade into the night, its headlights picking up the snow, swirling thick and fast by then. She began to tramp up towards the drive, glad of her wool trousers and boots again.
Victoria’s home was The Old School House. Built in 1892 it was a grade II listed building and one of its best features were the carefully restored stone mullioned windows to the front facade. Other than the security lights, and the old street lamps studded along the drive, it was in total darkness. It was private, its seclusion further accentuated by all the ancient oaks and firs. Then there were tall hedges of holly and six foot spiked iron railings surrounding the whole property. Max was keen on privacy and security.
Everything was enveloped in soft thick snow, muffling her footsteps. It was profoundly quiet; she could only hear her white breath, panting by the time she reached the front door. She stamped her boots free of snow, and turned her key in the lock.
‘Max? You in?’
She heard him then. Her stomach tightened, and for an anxious second, she wished she was still in Linda’s cosy sitting room.
‘Why are you in the dark? Max?’
He was in the kitchen. Max, tall and distinguished, good looking and popular. She threw her bag onto one of the chairs and shrugged off her fur coat. He looked at her then with his hard, baby-blue eyes, a nerve twitching in his face.
‘Where the hell have you been?’
‘Old school friend’s wedding.’
She picked up a beaker and went across to the sink but he grabbed her wrist, crushing her grip, and pushed his face close to hers. She winced and dropped the glass and it splintered on the granite work surface, cutting her hand.
‘Where’s my car?’
‘It’s perfectly safe.’
‘Where?’
When she didn’t reply he slammed his fist against the cupboard above her head. ‘I asked you where, Victoria?’
A beat passed. ‘Porth -Y- Felin Road.’
He put his hand round her throat then, and pushed her back hard against the kitchen units and she could taste his anger. He spat the words at her.
‘You, left my car, on the council estate?’
‘Max let go of me you’re scaring me.’
‘You left, a sixty thousand pound car, on the fucking council estate?’
She felt her resolve buckle then, her body suddenly limp. ‘Please...’
He pushed her then, pushed her away from him. Victoria crossed to the sink and ran her hand under the tap, watching the blood gushing down the plughole. And she wanted to cry, she wanted to hurt him, she wanted to run, she wanted to scream, she wanted to kill him. She wanted to do all of that, but Victoria knew she never would. Instead, she looked for the dustpan and brush, and swept up the glass.
Max was her husband. In sickness, and in health.
Till death do us part.
***
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