‘I was but I jacked it in. And Frankie lives here so I pop down periodically. Um, Ella, this is Frankie Parks. Frankie, my Aunt Ella.’
We shook hands, her shyly, me trying to hide my deep interest. She was prettier than I’d expected from Ginnie’s description, with slanting green eyes, high cheekbones and long tawny hair, and if she was liberally pierced the holes weren’t on display, except for the row up the side of one ear, which Tabs sported and were pretty much de rigueur for this age group. She was lovely, and as we chatted and made small talk about the village, I discovered she was Dan and Jennie’s daughter and that she’d grown up here, as I had. She grimaced and said she didn’t imagine much had changed since then and that the most exciting thing was still the mobile library rolling into the village and everyone taking bets on how pissed Odd Bob would be at midnight mass. I laughed, and thought how like Ginnie to be worried about what school she went to, rather than whether she had a sense of humour; although, actually, I was surprised at Hugo. So far he’d brought home textbook Sloanes, whom his mother had purred over and played the name game with: ‘The Parker-Thomases? Oh, but Lucinda is my goddaughter … she’s your mother’s goddaughter, too? So you must go to Norfolk with them! Yes, exactly – Holkham! Ascot? Yes, we do, but not with the PTs, with the de Lyles. No! But I grew up with Candida de Lyle! Absolutely, we go to Fife – de Lyle heaven!’ And so it went on.
This one was much more Josh’s type, in point of fact. Oh, yes, he had a type already: a rather quirky, interesting one. And Frankie was much more in that mould. I sat on the chair Hugo had pulled up, deciding I wouldn’t stay long: wouldn’t intrude on their tête-à-tête.
‘How’s Granny?’ asked Hugo politely, and I thought how handsome he looked in his blue-striped shirt and chinos, hair flopping over one eye like a blond Harry Styles. Although he’d lost a bit of weight.
‘Oh, you know: stiff upper lip and all that. Didn’t you see her when your mum brought her back to your place?’
‘No, I’ve been staying at Frankie’s. Seen a lot of Grandpa, though.’ He grinned. ‘He’s having the time of his life.’
I was rather shocked. Even my children, who I thought were more liberal than Ginnie’s, were shaken and saddened by their grandparents’ separation.
‘Well, I can see he is, Hugo, which is pretty alarming after forty-odd years of marriage, don’t you think? Poor Granny!’
He flushed. ‘Yes, but poor Grandpa for a lot of those forty years, wouldn’t you say?’ Despite his pink cheeks he looked me in the eye. ‘I stayed with them, don’t forget, all last year when I worked in the pub. And, trust me, you’d sympathize.’
‘Well, yes, I know,’ I said awkwardly, realizing he knew what he was talking about. There’d be no shaming him into being the outraged grandson. ‘I’ve lived there too. She can be tricky.’
‘Tricky? I swear to God, Ella, she rules his life. She tells him what to do, what to wear, what to eat, completely dominates him. He has to plant this, and mow that, chop wood and bring it in, and the only bit of fun, right, was this book club, run by Frankie’s mum. And she was so down on that. She made him leave in the end.’
‘Well, I think it all got slightly out of hand,’ said Frankie nervously. ‘Became an excuse for the repressed of the village to let their hair down, if you know what I mean.’
I didn’t, but nodded, eyes large.
‘Yeah, but it was like the scales had dropped from Grandpa’s eyes – in a clatter. A glimpse of what he didn’t have. He realized there was more to life than trailing round Waitrose ticking Granny’s shopping list and being told which socks to wear. No joking, he had to go and change them once. He’d got his weekend ones on on a Tuesday. Anyway, after the book club, I reckoned it would be only a matter of time before he met someone like Maureen.’
‘You’ve met her?’
‘Oh, yes, he’s often here in the pub with her. Everyone’s met her.’
‘But don’t you see? That’s so shaming for Granny! This is her village; she’s queen bee!’
‘I don’t think it’s like that, though,’ put in Frankie, gently.
‘No, it’s not,’ Hugo said. ‘I’ve asked him.’
‘Really?’ I said, relieved. ‘Oh, good. I wasn’t sure. I mean, he told me it wasn’t, too, but then he also said Granny hadn’t been interested in – well …’ Perhaps I wouldn’t go into his grandparents’ sex lives.
‘No, it’s platonic. They just laugh and play cribbage and cuddle a lot. All the things Grandpa really likes. And they go off looking for country pubs together, that type of thing.’
I was silenced. Nothing too terrible there, surely? And why couldn’t my mother play cards and go to the pub occasionally? What was so ghastly about that? And I knew the life Hugo was describing at the Old Vicarage. When I was young, I couldn’t wait to get away, particularly once Ginnie had gone. I imagine for Dad it must have been even worse when I left. I remembered his eyes filling up when he’d dropped me at the flat in London when I was eighteen. Driven away looking sad. How narrow his life must have become, how shrunken, so he could barely breathe. He’d loved having Hugo there, that I knew, but Hugo had only borne it because he’d fallen in love in the village. When I’d suggested to Josh he might do the same in his gap year, he’d looked horrified. Suddenly I felt rather grateful to Maureen for making my old dad, whom I adored, so happy. But what of my mother? What for her? A descent into becoming an even more miserable, bitter old woman? Minus Dad, who, I realized, with ever-weakening arthritic hands, at least held her reins to some extent. But now that he’d let go of whatever tenuous grip he’d had, who knew what sort of a monster she’d turn into, untethered? And she was in my back yard!
‘Gather she’s with you now?’ said Hugo sympathetically, sinking into his beer.
‘Well, no, not with me. Just staying for a bit,’ I said quickly.
‘Ah. Right.’ He nodded politely, but looked unconvinced. It occurred to me she could be there for ever. What had I done? Been outmanoeuvred, that’s what. I felt prickly with fear. I recalled my sister pretty much trotting back to her car having deposited her: driving away at speed.
‘Well, I think it’s jolly good of you, anyway.’ He wiped some froth from his upper lip. ‘Mum said she wouldn’t have her under any circumstances.’
‘I thought it was your dad!’ I squeaked. ‘Thought it was Richard!’
‘Oh, no, Dad’s pretty relaxed. Well, you know,’ he grinned disarmingly, ‘we all do as we’re told. History repeats itself and all that.’
Except in your case, I thought privately. Richard and Araminta do as they’re told, and you always used to, but recently you’ve broken out, Hugo: chucking in your much-trumpeted internship this summer, not working too hard at Cambridge – Ginnie had muttered something about end-of-year retakes, so quietly I almost hadn’t heard – skulking down here with a girlfriend your mother wouldn’t necessarily have chosen. No wonder you admire your grandpa.
I left them, after a bit, with mixed feelings. Grudging admiration for my father and Hugo and wonder at my sister’s rigidity. What was her problem? Just because Hugo wasn’t throwing himself into university life – and was on the darts rather than the cricket team, when he could have been a blue – so what? He had to be his own man at some stage. And what could be nicer than popping down here in his car, which apparently he did every weekend, instead of heading to the debating society as he had done at school? And this girl was lovely, surely?
As I left the village I drove slowly past the duck pond and then the gates to the Old Rectory. At that moment, I realized, they were opening by remote control. I hit the accelerator, not wanting Dad to think I was snooping – not that he’d mind – and in my rear-view mirror caught a glimpse of two bicycles emerging from the gravel drive. One was pedalled by the red-headed Maureen, skirt billowing, the other by my Dad, wobbling on unmistakably an ancient bike of Ginnie’s, tweedy legs at right angles, bellowing with laughter. They were both obviously oblivious to me: off on some private, hilari
ous adventure of their own. It occurred to me that Daddy hadn’t even mentioned Buster. He’d been devoted to that dog and it had been mean of my mother, who only ever complained about him, to take him. But perhaps he didn’t need Buster now? He’d been his companion, his solace in a cold home; but now he had a proper companion, one he could talk to. I left the village with a lump in my throat.
Arriving at my farmyard sometime later I realized I was shattered. Emotionally drained and tired out. Buckinghamshire and back was a long drive in one day and I was also starving, not having eaten at the pub, and dying for a pee. Ignoring the chickens, who, the moment they spotted me, charged, head down, clamouring to be fed, their rolling gait redolent of fat old women running for a bus, I belted for the back door. Polly, the Indian Runner, nearly caught me but I opened the door and slammed it firmly on her beak, only to run the dog gauntlet instead. Baying with delight, Maud and Doug leaped the length of the room to greet me – Doug, the mongrel, jumping so high he licked my mouth – whilst Diblet thumped his tail in his basket, too weary to move. I knew the feeling. Behind my pack of marauding wolfhounds, though, a far more intimidating welcoming committee was at my kitchen table. In my hurry, I’d missed the cars in the yard, but I spied them out of the window now, one of them being my mother’s, which had clearly been collected from Ginnie’s.
My mother and sister were both installed around the stripped pine, patently waiting for news. Newspapers and coffee mugs littered the table – they’d obviously been there for some time – and Mum’s face was pale and tense. In the background, Joshua, in a dressing gown, eating peach slices straight from the tin, exited stage left. Giving me a faintly apologetic, ‘Hey, what could I do, they like, barged in’ shrug, he sloped off to attend to urgent screen-viewing business in the playroom. I couldn’t help but think that for all my sister’s angst about her own son, he had at least been up and dressed and in pressed chinos. You could take the boy out of his mother’s house, but you couldn’t entirely take the mother out of the boy.
‘Well?’ was writ large on Ginnie’s and my mother’s faces, but even they had the self-control to let me fend off the dogs, throw grain from a handy bin under the sink into the yard for the poultry – was that so difficult for anyone else to do? Couldn’t swing their arms or something? – and duck smartly as one of the holiday guests, Mrs Braithwaite, clearly looking for me, peered in at the kitchen window. As I surfaced gingerly from under the sink, hoping she’d gone, I bumped into Ottoline, who came bustling out from the sitting room, a pile of clean linen under one arm, Horace, the cockerel, under the other.
‘He’s been raping Ladyboy again,’ she told me, flinging wide the window and tossing him out, to indignant squawks. ‘She sought refuge in the fireplace but he tracked her down, the little bastard.’ She plonked the ironing she’d done on the side.
‘Oh, thanks, Ottoline,’ I said gratefully. The only person who actually helped around here and whom my family were regarding like the cleaning lady, clearly hoping she’d kindly leave the stage, so that they could interrogate me.
‘Coffee?’ I asked her rebelliously, filling the kettle to dagger looks from Mum.
‘Why not?’ Ottoline said after a pause, checking herself before exiting. We didn’t often stop for coffee but she recognized the need in my voice.
Josh stuck his head round the door. ‘Doug’s done a turd in the playroom,’ he informed me.
‘Well, clear it up, then,’ I said savagely, banging the kettle down on the hob.
‘I would, but it’s not, like … hard. Squidgy. You’d be better at it.’
I ground my teeth. Shut my eyes.
‘OK,’ he sighed. ‘Let’s leave it. It’ll be hard in a few days.’
‘Yes, but meanwhile I’ll know about it, won’t I, Josh?’ I grabbed a roll of kitchen towel and stormed in. ‘Can’t just tiptoe around it in my dressing gown pretending it’s not there, like you!’ I yelled.
I dealt with it, flushing it down the lavatory, and whilst in the loo I pulled down my jeans for a much-needed pee. Obviously I hadn’t shut the door properly so it slowly swung wide as I was in mid-flow, exposing me. I thus had a bird’s-eye view of my son making ‘She’s stressy’ eyes at his sister, who appeared to be curled up in her duvet in some dark corner of the playroom – she raised her eyebrows expressively back – and as I emerged, doing up my trousers, my mother and sister exchanged ‘Is it always like this?’ looks. Fury mounted.
‘Well?’ Mum demanded pointedly as Ottoline opened the back door and told Mrs Braithwaite I’d be with her in a minute. Mrs Braithwaite’s face was stony and unamused, much like my mother’s, but Ottoline firmly shut the door on her.
‘Well, what?’ I asked angrily, shrinking behind the dresser, out of Mrs Braithwaite’s line of sight.
‘Well, how is he? What did he say?’
I was aware that Josh and Tabs had lowered the volume on the TV in the next room. A bare toe pushed the door open a bit.
‘Well, he didn’t say a lot, Mum, really,’ I said, struggling for control. ‘What he did say was that he didn’t think it was such a bad idea for you both to have some space. And, actually,’ I added bravely, ‘I rather agree with him.’
‘Space!’ she spat incredulously. ‘What does he think he is, a teenager? He’ll be saying he needs to chill next! What is this – a gap year? I hope you told him to jolly well come to his senses.’
I think it occurred to all of us that I probably hadn’t been the best person to do this.
‘Well, I – you know …’ I scratched my chin. ‘I – sort of – kind of suggested he think hard about what he’s doing. About the situation. And his actions. But it’s difficult, Mum. I mean, you don’t own him, you know.’
There was a silence as we all absorbed this.
‘HE’S MY HUSBAND!’ she roared, making us all jump. Even the bare foot in the doorway. ‘What d’you mean, I don’t own him? I’ve been married to him for forty-two years! I surely stake some sort of claim, have some say in his conduct, particularly if it’s as unbecoming as it is. Is he still seeing that tart?’
‘Actually, I don’t think she is a tart. Or not in the sense you mean. I think he’s just having some jolly good fun with her. In a very Enid Blyton-type way. Cycling to pubs, playing cards, that sort of thing.’ Obviously I wasn’t looking at my mother as I said any of this. I wasn’t that heroic. I pretended I had urgent business wiping down the front of the Aga, my face averted. I heard her silent incredulity behind me, though. Would have smelled it at twenty paces.
‘Cycling to … playing … Ella, are you condoning your father’s relationship with this woman? LOOK AT ME, PLEASE!’
I gripped the Aga rail in fright. Turned. ‘No. I’m not. I’m just saying I think it’s good clean fun, that’s all. And that’s what he lacked in his life. Some fun. A laugh.’
There was silence in the kitchen as I held my mother’s icy, furious, pale-blue gaze. Ottoline and Ginnie studied their nails. My mother was coming to the boil.
‘I played cards!’ she stormed. ‘I played bridge, every Tuesday! He never asked to learn, or to play with me!’
Because it was the one evening she went out, and he had the house to himself. We all knew that. The one evening he could watch any channel he liked on the television. Even rent a DVD. I massaged my temples. It was all so complicated, of course. Years and years of history, of disappointment, resentment, tempers held under pressure. Years of Dad biting his lip. It wasn’t about playing cards.
‘I think what Ella means,’ Ginnie began, and I looked at her gratefully, thinking it was about time she effing well piped up, ‘is that Daddy wants to – well … he wants to …’ She lost her nerve. ‘Just relax a bit,’ she finished lamely.
‘Relax!’ Mummy turned on her furiously.
‘And laugh,’ I added. ‘Laugh until his sides hurt and the tears roll, like he used to.’
I’d deliberately conjured up an image of my father which we were all familiar with, but hadn’t seen f
or some time. My father could laugh until he cried, usually at something terribly silly. You’ve Been Framed on the TV: people slipping into ponds, being soaked by exploding hosepipes. An anecdote he’d tell and have to stop before he got to the punchline, unable to get it out he was laughing so much. Often at Christmas, at the head of the table, when Ginnie and I were younger: happier, less starchy times, when Mum had had a drink and would smile indulgently at him, not snap as she did these days. Once, when he’d been weeping with mirth, she’d leaned across and fondly mopped his face with a napkin. Not recently, of course. Recently she’d say: ‘Oh, Angus, for God’s sake, control yourself!’ As if he was incontinent. He used to cry for other reasons – in church, at weddings; anything to do with the war. ‘Two men coming to attention,’ Mum used to scoff. He was an emotional man, and my mother wasn’t.
‘When did you last see him rock with laughter like that?’ I persisted.
‘Nothing’s quite so funny as you get older,’ she snapped.
‘Yes, it is. It can be. What’s age got to do with it? And, anyway, I saw him like that today.’
‘With that woman,’ she seethed, and I realized I’d gone too far. ‘What sort of devoted daughter are you, Ella? You go down there as my envoy, to plead on my behalf, and see him having a laugh with some red-headed trollop who’s not your mother and think: Ah, yes, that was the problem! That’s what my father needed and wasn’t getting – good luck to them! How can you be so heartless? So – so disloyal!’
I hung my head. Put like that … If I’d thought the interview with my father had gone badly it was nothing on this. My mother got to her feet.
‘You thought I was a drudge. A drag on your father, all these years.’
‘No, Mummy, I –’
‘I won’t be staying here,’ she said, trembling. ‘I can’t stay now, now that I see the way the land lies. Now that I know where your sympathies are.’
‘No, Mummy, it’s not like that,’ I said desperately. ‘I’m trying to help, really I am. I’m just trying to be even-handed, that’s all. To make you see that it’s not all Dad’s fault!’
My Husband Next Door Page 13