by Liann Snow
"D'you want some more dad?"
"Certainly. Pile it on! The gravy's wonderful. Isn't it, Faith?"
"It is."
"Dad! Dad!"
"What? What? Carol. Why are you hopping up and down like a monkey?"
"Dad! You're a vegetarian now! We all are!"
"No! You mean that delicious pie wasn't meat? I can't believe it. I thought it was steak and kidney! Faith?"
"It's true, Don, it's soya beans or something. Let Carol tell you. She's quite an expert."
"Well my girl, I can see we're going to have to have quite a chat about this."
"Yes. I can show you all the leaflets and the recipes I showed mum!"
"What are we waiting for?"
~ ~ ~
Later that evening. Carol is in her room, reading. Faith and Don are sitting at the kitchen table. All the dishes have been cleared away. The washing up has been done.
They both look exhausted.
"Was it difficult with Phil?"
"At first. Very. We had a lot of stuff to sort out. Going back years. Not just Eva."
"Is it better now?"
"Much. And you and Carol?"
"Girl-talk."
"It's alright. I wasn't asking what you talked about. But did it go alright?"
"Very well. She's much happier, and so am I."
"I'm glad."
"Can I ask you something Don, that's been puzzling me?"
"If you like."
"What about football, Don? Tell the truth! Do you like football?"
"I love football. I'm telling you, I gave up a lot for that girl."
"She said you did, love football, I mean. But did you see any?"
"I watched it on the telly. I never saw Man U live except that once, when I first went up to watch Spurs play them. That was the weekend I met Eva, in her own right I mean, not as my sister-in-law –"
"She was always your sister-in-law. Still is."
"Of course you're bitter, Faith –"
"No, I'm not. I don't know why not, I'm just not. I didn't mean anything by that, but to state a fact, that's all. Neither of us is a saint, Don. You took your chances. I took my chances, too. We both got something out of it. Learned a few things."
"You're quite the philosopher, Faith. Amazing."
"Someone once said I was perfect, Don."
"I could agree with that, Faith. You're definitely one in a million. Are you going to tell me who it was?"
"No, that'll have to be my secret."
~ ~ ~
I decided there and then to let Don off the leash, as it were. I'd let him do what he wanted to do, go off to the football, go visit his brother, go off out and about as, and when, he wished. There was no way I would criticise him or complain, so long as he treated me and Carol with courtesy and took care not to humiliate us in public.
I felt sure he'd be off again some bright Spring day after some young thing, now that he'd got the taste for it. Someone at work, perhaps, or down the pub. It wouldn't be another Eva, though. She really was one in a million, a one off, an unrepeatable offer! The real price of which was in the small print.
It wasn't that I didn't care about Don, the thing was, though, I didn't feel possessive about him anymore. Over these last few months, I'd discovered one very important fact about me, about Don, even about Carol. We'd all, all of us, been trying for years to live a conventional way of life that didn't suit us, and we had been doing this to try to satisfy other people, including each other.
I, for one, wasn't willing to do that any more, not now I'd found out my true character. Carol certainly wasn't going to do it anymore either, she, poor kid nearly made herself ill trying. I certainly wasn't going to blame Don if he wanted to break away from the straight and narrow, too. I'd be a hypocrite if I did and I was going to try really hard not to be that anymore.
= CHAPTER 12 =
Saturday, February 4
Carol goes off to clubs and suchlike now, almost every night of the week. I don't think I could stop her, even if I wanted to. She's not at school anymore now, anyway, and she gets enough from her job in the design studio to pay a bit for her keep and still have plenty to go out on, even though she is only a junior there.
She's always got some girl or other hanging round. She's quite a success on the scene, I should say. Seems to have given up older women though, which may be a good thing.
The oldest of the friends that she's introduced me to, is that Louise I used to bump into at the club. I'm not sure that Louise likes me much more than she did before, but then she was always one of those people whose expressions and body language I find totally unreadable. She has always been a friend to Carol (or Cags, as she insists on calling her) apparently, ever since Carol came out. Seems she soon figured out I was Carol's mum, and because she knew about Carol's secret affair with Eva, she felt pretty weird around me and Joan, who of course was Eva's official partner. I suppose that would explain her behaviour, but I'm not sure it excuses it. Louise turns out to have been the other end of most of Carol's everlasting phone calls as well, and I'm told now, that from her position as confidante to both Joan and Eva, she was able to keep Carol constantly up to date on every move I made. Both my fling with Joan, and my whatever it was with Eva, turn out to have been well observed and reported.
I'm not at all sure how I feel about any of this. Embarrassed might be a good word to use. However, I console myself with the thought that Louise acted as a friend to Carol during a very difficult time. A far better friend than her mother ever was. I try not to think that there was any malice intended in any of Louise's actions.
I don't think Carol goes to the Scene these days, she and her friends tend to go to more glamorous-sounding clubs up the West End. I have a suspicion though that she met Eva there initially, at one of the earliest Dyke Nights. Long before I showed my wary face.
It all seems such a long time ago now. Days of innocence, in a way – of ignorance, certainly.
Most of Carol's friends seem nice enough young women, though they don't have much to say for themselves. They just sit and stare mostly, while they wait for her to do whatever it is she does to get ready, looking, with their brutally short haircuts and serious eyes, for all the world like little forest animals (if little forest animals wore denim, heavy work boots and silver studs in their noses). I imagine Carol tells her friends how her love life got tangled up with her mother's (and her father's). Maybe that's why they stare. Perhaps they can't believe it.
We don't see much of Don these days. He virtually lives up at Phil's, surprisingly enough. I think Phil's been magnificent about it all. He was so bitter that time we had our little chat, but then time can heal the deepest wounds, can't it? The hurt between him and his brother goes back a long way, deep into their childhood. Perhaps it needed someone like Eva wreaking destruction in both their lives to bring them back together. She may have had a good effect there, in a round about way.
Talking of Eva, not that we do, that much. I assume that none of us are in contact with her, and I hope that none of us are. But to be honest, I couldn't bank on it, if you know what I mean. She may be waiting in the wings somewhere, for her cue to take centre stage again, who knows?
All I can say with certainty is that she doesn't figure in my personal life!
Who does? Well, you might well ask.
The thing is, I saw that girl in the street again, just the other day. You know – the one with the bike. (Brought back some memories, that did. Such a lot has happened since I first saw her. Or rather, saw someone else seeing her.)
Anyway, there she was wheeling her green bicycle along the pavement just like before. Only this time I was out on the street too, instead of inside the shop looking through a plate glass window, and she turned her curly head towards me and I took my opportunity in both hands, and I gave her a look, just like the one I saw someone else give her nearly a year before. Anyway, believe it or not she immediately winked her dark eyes at me!
Sent a shiv
er down to my toes...
So...
THE END