by Ali Harris
FF>> 26/09/01>
I’m standing nervously on Ryan’s parents’ doorstep in the salubrious street in Marine Parade, a.k.a the rich part of Leigh-on-Sea. The house is an impressive double-fronted, Edwardian detached property with a huge stone driveway and two big stone lions guarding the front door. There’s even a fountain in front of the house. No wonder he still lives at home. He’s probably got his own wing. This is not at all what I expected. Suddenly I am petrified. My finger is hovering over the bell as I summon up the courage to press it, silently cursing my boyfriend of a week. I mean, what was he thinking asking me here already? And what was I thinking saying yes?
I press the doorbell and take a deep breath. I feel completely inappropriately dressed. I refused to ditch my Converse when Freya the fashion editor tried to get me to wear some heels. However, I did concede to ditching my parka for this grey funnel-neck coat. I muss up my fringe so it covers my eyes a little, throw my shoulders back, adjust my bra and wipe my hands on my jeans. On the advice of Lisa, the beauty editor and my desk buddy from work, who is determined to get me out of my make-up rut, I’ve slightly femmed up my overall look by ditching the heavy kohl and I’m all pink-glossed lips and blushed cheeks. When I left my flat I thought I almost looked pretty but now I realize I just look stupid. I wish I’d just been me, but more than that I wish I’d said no to Ryan when he asked me to come.
I hear someone walking towards the door. This is madness. I’m about to turn and walk back down the front path when the door swings open and a vision of glamour with bleached blonde hair wearing a Juicy Couture tracksuit opens the door. She looks more LA than Leigh-on-Sea.
‘Molly? Hiya! I’m Jackie, Ryan’s mum. I’m so glad to finally meet you, darlin’!’ She throws her arms out and envelops me in a hug.
Finally? I’ve only been seeing your son for a week!
Molly?’ she repeats, pulling back with a dazzling white but warm smile. ‘Come in, darlin!’ Don’t be standing there on the doorstep, you make the place look messy!’
She laughs as she ushers me in, the gold of her watch face and Tiffany heart-locket necklace glowing like the sun.
I look around the hallway, desperately hoping Ryan will appear when Jackie spontaneously envelops me in another highly perfumed hug. Isn’t this how boa constrictors kill their prey? Just when I think I might pass out, she pulls away but holds on to me tightly at arm’s-length and studies me appraisingly. I slide my eyes to the left and right to see if I can see any sign of Ryan in my peripheral vision. Just then she lets me go and I resist the urge to rub my arms.
‘Now, darlin’,’ she smiles as she heads towards the giant staircase, ‘you have to excuse me still being in me slopsies!’ She gestures at her pink tracksuit. ‘I’ve just been throwing some lunch together and now I’m going to put some make-up on . . . ’
She looks like this without make-up?
‘ . . . get dressed and come back downstairs.’ And she disappears up the stairs, calling, ‘Make yourself at home, darlin’!’
I gaze around me. Where the hell is Ryan – well, apart from emblazoned all over the walls? Everywhere I look there are huge portraits of the family. There are several of Ryan’s mum and dad with their arms wrapped round each other, in one they look like they’re actually French kissing. Then there’s Carl and Ryan photographed through the years. In the hallway are gigantic blown-up studio prints of each of them as babies, naked and sitting on a shag-pile like something from an Athena poster. There’s a cute one of Ryan as a toddler on the beach in his wetsuit standing next to Carl. They’re there on the beach again as teenagers, both running up the sand, wind whipping their hair after a sailing session. There’s a montage of Ryan grinning mischievously in his football kit, clutching various trophies. In one of the pictures Carl’s arm is thrown proudly and protectively over his little brother’s shoulder. There’s photographs of the whole family all tanned and smiling on holiday, and another studio portrait but this time of all four of them wearing white shirts and blue jeans where they clearly couldn’t sit still long enough for the photographer to take a classic picture of them, so instead they are mid-hysterical laugh, like someone has told a joke. Or they’ve taken a look at their matching outfits, my (rude) teenage self points out.
I stand awkwardly staring at them all and practically faint with relief when Ryan finally appears.
‘Molly! I didn’t realize you were already here. ‘MUM!’ he bellows. ‘You should have told me Molly was here!’
Jackie peers round the bannisters at the top of the grand spiral stairs, now wrapped in a towel and brandishing various make-up brushes. I quickly avert my eyes.
‘Sorry Ry-Ry, I thought you knew. Besides, Molly’s a big girl, I told her to make herself at home. She’s one of the family now, right, darlin’? Ooh, introduce her to Nanny Door, will you?’ and she disappears again.
I looked sideways at Ryan. ‘Ry-Ry?’ I mouth.
‘Ignore her,’ he grins good-naturedly. ‘She’s just trying to embarrass me.’
An hour later and Ryan has shown me around. He told me on the tour that Dave and Jackie bought it twenty years ago and put a big extension and conservatory on so it now boasts five bedrooms, a beautiful kitchen-diner with an enormous island unit and shiny granite surfaces, as well as a cavernous lounge, dining room, cinema/games room and a gym. If my mum saw it she would literally vomit with a mixture of jealousy that she doesn’t live in such luxury and immense snobbery about their interior-design style. It’s all glass coffee tables with fresh flower displays, huge modern appliances, an enormous state-of-the-art cinema and sound systems, a gigantic hot tub in the garden, vast black leather sofas and bold, oversized statement chairs. It’s garish and not at all to my taste, but strangely, it works.
We walk back into the lounge and Ryan introduces me to Nanny Door, a spritely septuagenarian who’s been widowed for ten years with ocean-blue eyes and a smile just like Ryan’s. She lives down the road from Ryan’s parents, is fiercely independent but comes over for lunch every weekend.
‘Hello lovey, my name’s Doreen,’ she says, putting down the newspaper and heaving herself out of a pink throne. ‘But you can call me Nanny Door. Everyone does. Bleedin’ ridiculous thing,’ she grumbles at the chair as she stands up. ‘Who does Jackie think she is, Posh bleedin’ Spice?’
‘Nanny Door!’ Ryan admonishes with a laugh and I can’t help but join him.
‘I heard that, Mum!’ shouts Jackie from another room and Nanny Door cackles mischievously.
‘Anyway, pleased to meet you, Molly.’ I have to say, you ain’t what I expected. I thought you’d look like that Helen from Big Brother. Oooh, she did make me laugh. Did you watch it, doll?’ She affects a Welsh accent and widens her eyes. “I love blinkin’ I do!” Ah ha ha!’ she cackles. ‘Ohh, it were classic, weren’t it?’ She chuckles again and then shuffles closer and studies me with her piercing gaze. ‘You’re prettier than her though, dear. All Ryan’s other girls have been blonde before, ain’t they, Ryan dear? And a bit lacking in the old woo-hoo . . . ’ she taps her head ‘ . . . brain department. But you look like you’ve got your fair share of marbles!’ And she smiles up adoringly at her grandson who towers over her. Ryan throws his arm around her shoulders, kisses her on the head and leads her into the dining room where lunch is being served.
Jackie is wearing what looks like a black lurex minidress, with a gold snake-style belt around her impressively trim-for-her-age waist. Dave’s come home from a job and changed into a pale-pink Ralph Lauren jumper and jeans, and Carl crashes in with his new hairdresser girlfriend, Lydia. He’s absolutely besotted by her, and rightly so. She’s got this incredible presence, not just due to her incredible figure. My teenage self definitely wouldn’t approve – if I’d met her in school I’d have probably labelled her as just another ‘Heather’ but I’m surprised to find myself instantly drawn to her. We sit down in the light-flooded dining room and Jackie brings in a real ready-made spread. And when I say ready-made, I m
ean it’s literally silver-foiled Waitrose ready meals all the way. It’s kind of a relief.
‘The first thing you have to know about Jackie,’ Dave announces proudly as he digs into a silver-foil tray that has been put on a grand silver platter, ‘is that she don’t cook. In fact, we actively encourage her not to cook. Firstly, because she’s too busy keeping us all on track, making herself look beautiful, doing her charity work, running my accounts and keeping the house looking nice. But also because she’s bloody awful at it!’
‘Well that’s good,’ I laugh, touching Ryan on the knee. ‘At least he won’t ever expect too much from me, I can’t cook either!’
Jackie smiles good-humouredly at me. ‘Good on you, Molly babes!’ She turns to Dave.
‘You’ll fit right in here, gal,’ Nanny Door says to me, digging into her overflowing plate like she hasn’t eaten in weeks. ‘Every weekend I come here praying that my Jackie ain’t tried to make anything herself. I don’t know who she gets it from.’ Her wicked smile suggests that she knows only too well.
‘Well, culinary skills or not, it didn’t stop me falling in love with her, did it, Jacks?’ says Dave with a loving wink at his wife.
‘Oh Dave, you big softie . . . ’ Jackie flaps her hand, her diamond-encrusted eternity ring catching the light as she does so.
‘I knew it as soon as I saw her walking down Southend Pier with her mates. It was 1969 and she was wearing this tiny minidress and white wet-look boots.’
‘And he had this luscious long hair and a tight roll-neck on with flares,’ Jackie adds dreamily. ‘He told me I looked hip, offered me a cigarette and then kissed me.’
‘I was only seventeen, but I knew I’d met the girl I wanted to marry,’ Dave continues. I note how they tell the story as seamlessly as relay runners. ‘When you know, you know, right Jacks?’ he says, offering her the story baton.
‘You do, Dave,’ she says with a smile. ‘And we did.’
‘Hey Dad, I bet if you’d known Mum couldn’t cook you’d have changed your mind about marrying her!’ Carl pipes up with a deep laugh but Dave just looks lovingly across the table at his wife. It is like the rest of us are no longer in the room.
‘Nothing would have changed my mind about this girl,’ he says solemnly. ‘As soon as I saw her, I was a goner.’ And he takes his napkin off his lap, stands up and blows his wife a kiss across the table. I watch in disbelief and a little bit of horror as Jackie stands up and pretends to catch it and put it down her cleavage. I want to laugh, but I sense that this would absolutely be the wrong thing to do. Then Dave shakes his head as if he’s just come out of a trance and smiles widely around the table at us all as he lowers himself back down into his suede-backed dining chair.
‘They say the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, but I’m living proof that ain’t true!’ And he picks up his knife and fork as if with these words he has just gained philosopher status.
‘The only living proof I can see is that fast food ain’t good for your waistline!’ chips in Nanny Door with a cackle and everyone laughs, including Dave.
‘Ryan learned to cook out of necessity more than anything, didn’t you, bud?’ Carl says, rolling his eyes at his dad. ‘Has he cooked for you yet, Molly?’
I smiled. ‘No, there’s been a lot of talk, but no action so far . . . ’
‘Ooooh!’ chorus Jackie and Dave.
‘No, what I meant was . . . ’ my voice trails off and I stare desperately at Ryan, but he’s too busy laughing to save me. Instead, Nanny Door stretches out her hand to me and squeezes it. ‘We laugh a lot in this family, darlin’,’ she said. ‘You’ll soon get used to it.’
And that’s when I start laughing too.
It doesn’t take me long to realize that despite the lack of cooking skills, Jackie is not to be underestimated. After lunch I watch in amazement as she efficiently marches around her house, the sergeant major to Ryan, Carl and Dave’s soldiers. She organizes Ryan’s teaching calendar and after-school coaching. She files Dave’s invoices whilst advising Carl on negotiating a fixed-rate mortgage on the three-bed property he’s hoping to buy. Half an hour later she’s looked at the plans of his house, proposed an extension, found a spare slot in Dave’s diary for his company to do the build, called her solicitor and asked him to work on behalf of Carl, organized a charity event at the school, called a gardener to mow Nanny Door’s lawn and contacted a local furnishings store and asked for them to send carpet and fabric samples for Carl’s future house. That he hasn’t even bought yet. She’s a one-woman marching band, and she doesn’t play a duff note.
‘Your mum’s a force to be reckoned with,’ I say to Ryan later that afternoon as we’re lazing on the leather sofa in the lounge.
‘I know,’ he smiles, ‘she’s pretty amazing.’
I lift my head off his chest and look at him. ‘Do you think they like me?’ I ask, suddenly desperate to be accepted into the bosom of this warm, loving family that’s so far removed from my own.
‘I know they do,’ he replies, and strokes his finger across my cheek as he draws me in for a kiss.
When it comes to saying my goodbyes that evening, Jackie pulls me into her arms once again whilst Ryan is busy bear-hugging his dad and swapping football banter with Carl. But this time I’m ready for it. I’m surprised to find I even enjoy it.
‘It was lovely to meet you at last, darlin’,’ she smiles and brushes a little clump of my fringe off my face in such a maternal way that it makes me want to cry. I’m not sure I’ve let my own mother ever do that. The last time I let her touch it she was trying to tug it into two tight, neat plaits. That was just before I cut it all off and dyed it Molly Ringwald red.
‘It was lovely to meet you too,’ I reply with a shy smile. ‘Now I can see why Ryan has always been so reluctant to move out . . . ’
I glance around the hallway again and instead of being disparaging of the giant photo displays, it becomes clear that this is a genuinely happy family. It makes my throat ache when I think of the single, stilted wedding photo of Mum and Dad that sits on our mantelpiece next to a particularly horrifying school picture of me looking like Wednesday Addams.
Jackie laughs and hugs me again. ‘My boys are my life,’ she says. Then she holds me out at arm’s length and studies my face carefully like she did earlier, her carefully painted pink lips now drawn into a serious line. ‘I just hope you’re ready for Ryan to be yours. He’s fallen hard for you, Molly darlin’, and I don’t want him hurt. My little boy isn’t used to heartbreak. He came out of the womb smiling and I want him to stay that way.’
I shake my head dutifully, wanting to please her so badly.
Jackie smiles and kisses me on the cheek, leaving a pink imprint, and turns back to her son. ‘You got a good one here, Ry,’ she smiles.
Ryan doesn’t answer he just strides over and kisses me full on the lips as his family whoops and cheers around us.
‘That’s one for the wall!’ Jackie says, clapping her hands in delight. ‘Get the camera, Dave!’ she says. Maybe we have more in common than I thought. ‘Now do it again!’ she cries. And Ryan and I stand in the doorway and kiss. I never thought I’d say this but maybe I could get used to these PDAs after all.
As Ryan shows me out of the house, his mum standing behind him, I realize that we’ve just become an official couple. But I’m not sure who made the final decision: Ryan or his mum.
Just Can’t Be Away From You Kiss
It’s impossible for anyone to understand the complete lure of love until you’ve been in it. Before Ryan I was the Queen of the Commitment-phobes. I swore I’d never give myself wholly to a guy, that I would keep my independence, retain the biggest part of me for myself, my career and my best friend, Casey. My main concern in life was to have freedom, excitement, adventure and travel – not love.
Funny how things can change in a heartbeat, isn’t it? Because suddenly Ryan was there and all I wanted was to be with him all the time. He was intoxicating, addictive
. In those early weeks, being with him was more alluring than anything else I could have imagined; you could have offered me a flight to the moon and I wouldn’t have gone if it had meant being apart from him.
I know some people are dubious of someone experiencing a volte-face like this. But I bet they just haven’t been there yet themselves. They haven’t felt that overriding thrill of meeting the person that they want to spend every minute of every hour of every day with. Someone who understands you more in a few short weeks than the people who have known you your whole life.
But I was always burdened by the feeling that this kind of sudden, intense relationship wasn’t meant to happen to a girl like me. I just didn’t believe I deserved it.
Now? Now I would give anything to feel that way again. That’s why the best advice I can give anyone is to not be afraid to give love your all. Even if you end up hurt or bruised, it is, as Tennyson acutely observed, and I duly realized albeit too late, ‘Better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.’
FF>> 29/09/01>
I’m in the place that has become the most natural and comfortable place in the world for my body in the past four weeks, spooned in Ryan’s arms on his black leather couch and sipping on a fresh berry smoothie that Ryan has made. Well, not his couch, it’s his parents’. It’s a Saturday afternoon and we’re at his house. It’s where we’ve been for the past three Saturdays, spending every delicious moment of the day together. After wasting so many years actually getting together, now we’re like children with sweets, gorging on the pleasure of each other’s company.
‘Molly . . . ’ Ryan says softly into my ear. ‘Can I ask you something?’
‘Sure I say’, turning my face up towards him. He strokes my hair and nuzzles his lips into my neck and I close my eyes in rapturous delight.