Highly Unsuitable Girl

by Carolyn McCrae

  We hired a man and a van and moved and I moved in on April 1st. An agency is taking over the day to day running of the properties with Gemma keeping me informed as and when. Phoning Miriam to explain the change in circumstances wasn’t easy. I said I’d get out as often as I could but it could not be as often as in the past. She said she understood but I’m not so sure she did, she sounded surprisingly down, almost angry, that I wasn’t going to be out next month.

  The children’s schools don’t break up until 12th but I’ve persuaded headmaster and headmistress to let them miss the last week so they can spend as much time as possible with their father. I was really nervous about visiting them but remembered just in time how nice Dot had been. Funny how life’s experiences occasionally can come in useful.

  Tomorrow I’ll not only be wife but step-mother. How on earth will I cope? What on earth am I letting myself in for?

  This might, just might, be the best thing I’ve ever done in my entire life.

  The Registrar had been prepared for a solemn death-bed ceremony but quickly adapted to the atmosphere of laughter and hope that filled Geoff’s room along with the flowers.

  “Wow!” Geoff had said as Anya had walked into the room on Gezza’s arm to the sound of The Beatles All you Need is Love. James had researched the music that would have been around when they had first got married and he had found he rather liked The Beatles, stoically ignoring his siblings’ teasing for ignoring the superior claims of Blur, Oasis or Take That. Anya had thought carefully about what to wear and had discussed it in detail with Rose. She told her how their first wedding had been informal, how she had worn a denim skirt and cream t-shirt and wondered whether to do the same this time. Rose had been horrified. ‘You must be really really glamorous.’ So she had decided on the dress she had worn to the Golf Club Ball, she knew Geoff would get the joke. David and Linda acted as witnesses because neither Kathleen nor Margaret had replied to the invitations so carefully hand-written by Rose and James.

  “Is that it?” Gezza asked when the registrar pronounced his father and Anya man and wife. “There’s not a lot to it is there?”

  “No need to make a fuss.”

  “We didn’t the first time did we?”

  Geoff and Anya found themselves telling the children about their first wedding and their life in Liverpool. Anya did most of the talking with Geoff prompting her, picking out the good times, ignoring the difficulties. The children had the sense not to ask what had gone wrong.

  “Now it’s time for you children to go.” Anya handed an envelope to Gezza. Go downstairs and there should be a car waiting for you. When you’re in the car open the envelope, it’s our wedding present to you, your Dad’s and mine.”

  “Not to mention that you want to be left alone.” Gezza tried to laugh off his embarrassment.

  “Enjoy yourselves. I’ll see you at home by 9 tonight. No later. You have to do as I say now!”

  As they shut the door behind them Geoff and Anya could hear their children’s giggles.

  “Where are they off to?”

  “A stretch limo is taking them to the Hard Rock Café in Piccadilly.”

  “They’ll be OK? Saturday afternoon?”

  “Of course. The guy who runs it stays at my place in Barbados, he’s going to look after them. A group I’ve never heard of but who are, apparently, something hot in the charts, will be sitting at the table next to them and will, casually, engage them in conversation. They’ll be absolutely fine.”

  “That’s some present.”

  “Your present too. Now, husband of mine, budge over.”

  Anya slowly took off her dress and slipped under the sheet next to her husband.

  “The nurses?” Geoff did not want to be caught in bed with his wife.

  “There’s a ‘Do not Disturb’ sign on the door. At least I asked James to put it on the door as he seems to be pretty reliable.”

  “But Anya. I can’t…”

  “Of course you can’t. But I can.”

  On the day after the wedding the children spent the time giving Anya and Geoff a thorough account of their afternoon in London. Anya made a mental note to offer the band a free stay at Fishermen Rock as Rose told them in awestruck tones how they had started talking to these lads on the table next to them and how they had joined them and, at the end of the meal taken them to the recording studio where they had seen the band work on their new album. Even Gezza had been impressed. Anya noticed tears in Geoff’s eyes as all three children took turns to interrupt each other to add detail upon detail of their treat.

  Every night Anya turned on her computer and wrote something in her diary. They were precious days, they were important, she would need to be able to relive them all her life. The end was going to come very quickly.

  Monday 10th April 1995

  Geoff’s 45th. Invited Kathleen and Margaret to join us for a small party. I made the point, rather forcefully, that we would be celebrating on the correct day. Just this once G was having his proper birthday. It was all too much for G so after all that fuss we left after only a few minutes.

  Some days were better than others. Some days Geoff wanted to talk and Anya would sit, holding his hand, listening as Geoff told her things about the children and their lives. She wanted to know everything he could tell her.

  Friday 14th April

  Good Friday. Very quiet in the hospital. Spend day with G. Kids with K. G having good day and he told me about his life with Fiona. He said I needed to know to understand some of the things the kids wouldn’t want to do. If ever I meet the woman I won’t be responsible for my actions. Before she left she told the children that their father had raped her when she was a virgin. How could she! What mother would say that to her children even if it were true! Times were so different then, and she’d led him on for years. G called her a prick teaser more times than I can remember. And then when it finally happened she made G feel so guilty. And then to tell that stupid story to the children! Words for once absolutely and utterly fail me.

  Some days she would lie down on the bed next to him and hold him in her arms, carefully avoiding drips and tubes. It would have been funny, he said one day, if it weren’t so sad.

  Tuesday 18th

  Doctor wanted to have a word. She was very nice. We’ve chatted briefly before, in the corridor or in G’s room, but this time she wanted to see me in her office. She said he was getting weaker. Could we cut down on the visits so he could conserve his strength? I argued that surely time without his children would be just lying there waiting to die, not living. We agreed a compromise, me and one child at a time. More and more drugs are being forced into what’s left of his body and each day he talks less and our visits are shorter.

  The time spent at home seemed filled with the practicalities of living, cooking, eating, washing, ironing, cleaning. The children sometimes wanted to talk, sometimes they didn’t. Anya felt the best thing was to let them do pretty much what they pleased as long as they were always home in time for dinner each evening when they all sat down together, as a family.

  Sunday 23rd April

  It won’t be long now. I put the ‘Do Not Disturb’ notice on his door and lay on the bed with him. He knew I was there but said nothing. I tried to keep my breathing in time with his, as we had done when we first slept together. He lifted his hand and touched me on my breast. What he was trying to say?

  The next day he was not aware she was in the room. She talked to the doctor and a few hours later she and the children, along with Kathleen and Margaret sat together silently waiting for the end.

  Tuesday 25th April

  He’s gone. We sat all night, me holding one hand and Kathleen the other, the kids huddled together by the window. I couldn’t help thinking, as we waited for my twice husband’s breathing to stop, that the tableau was a metaphor for his life. Poor love, torn between two strong women. Why had he chosen the wrong one? But then, maybe, in the end, he hadn’t. I was right all those years ago, I searched for
the words in the diary, ‘wherever I went, whatever I did, I ended up with Geoff’.

  We came home all together, even M & K, and sat in the lounge not knowing what to say or think or do. I wondered briefly what I would feel if one of these children, already the centre of my life, died before I did. How would I cope? It was Gezza who pulled us all together. ‘Dad wouldn’t want this.’ He said. ‘Let’s put some music on and eat.’ I made a supper that we all picked at while listening to the music tape James had compiled for the wedding. Such a two edged sword: the grief of loss and the guilt of thinking ‘thank God it’s over now we can get on with our lives’. An unsuitable thought? Surprisingly Kathleen handed over the Philips emerald ring. How she’d wangled it off Fiona I have no idea. Perhaps she did it with an imperious message on an answer phone.

  The first week of her widowhood was the most difficult time Anya hoped she would ever have to live through. Gezza spent a great deal of time in the garden, Rose in her bedroom and James in the study on his computer. None of them seemed to worry about going out or the beginning of the summer term. She let the schools know they would be late back from holiday, they were very understanding.

  She shopped, cooked, cleaned, washed and ironed. She was in touch with Kathleen and Margaret regarding the funeral arrangements, letting them make most of the running though they were appalled that, as Geoff’s widow, it was she who had to sign all the paperwork and to whom the Funeral Directors turned for confirmation of instructions. ‘Had Geoff known this would happen?’ she had asked herself ‘Probably’ and she had smiled. She was not unreasonable in her dealings with Kathleen and Margaret, letting them discuss the date and time and details of the service with the vicar. She wanted nothing to do with that side of things. It wasn’t Geoff lying in the hospital morgue, it wouldn’t be Geoff disintegrating in that coffin underneath the soil a few feet above the coffin of the father he had never known.

  Monday 1st May

  Geoff why did you get me into this? I’ve got no experience, nothing to go on, I can’t even think back to my childhood. The children are bereft without their Dad and are just going with the flow, doing what’s asked of them, without any arguments. No doubt those are to come. The montage of photos for the wake was a good idea. Every evening we sit on the floor surrounded by photographs. It usually ends in tears. I can’t think that’s a bad thing. But sometimes there are laughs. There was one square photo from an Instamatic camera of you in a pink flowery kipper tie, purple shirt and brown flared trousers. I’m learning so much about them. I’m not pushing them about things like sharing out household chores. That’ll wait till they’re back at school, then I’ll have to start getting them into some sort of routine. At the moment I’m just making sure there’s food on the table at mealtimes (and they’re there to eat it) with clean clothes on their backs.

  I suppose it’s a start.

  Anya sat looking at, but not seeing, the words on screen.

  Nothing in her life would ever be the same again.

  Chapter 15: Responsibilities

  Kent, March 1995

  Anya occupied a front pew with the children, her children now. James held her hand tightly, as did Rose, Gezza sat slightly apart, as befitted the eldest child, but he wished he could be holding onto Anya as his brother and sister were. Kathleen occupied the front pew on the other side of the aisle. With her were Margaret, Maggie and Matthew. Anya knew Tim would be in the pew behind them but she made sure she never caught his eye. Anya was most relieved that there was no sign of Fiona, David had told her both of Geoff’s re-marriage and his death but she made no appearance at her ex-husband’s funeral.

  As Anya had feared with Margaret and Kathleen making the arrangements, the service was overlong and depressing; the contrast with the recent wedding could not have been sharper. The only slightly uplifting part of the service was David’s eulogy. As he brought his memories to a conclusion he looked across at Anya.

  “We all have our particular memories of Geoff, I have shared some of them with you but no-one has more than his beloved Anya.”

  She felt rather than heard the gasp of disapproval from Kathleen and Margaret but Anya was grateful to David for singling her out. Geoff’s world, his friends, acquaintances and most of all his family, needed to know the new order of things.

  “You should know that Anya and Geoff have loved each over nearly a quarter of a century. It has not been easy for either of them and they went their separate ways for a time, but theirs was a love that endured against all odds. In her hands now are the children who are Geoff’s legacy. Anyone who knew Geoff knew how much he loved his children but they also know how much he loved Anya. He told me to tell you all that he has loved Anya more than was sensible since he was too young to know better. It was his particular joy in his last days that his children would be in her care for the rest of their lives and that she would be in theirs.”

  Many of the congregation seemed unaware that Geoff had married Anya again and there were some whisperings and disapproving looks as she, with the children, took precedence over Kathleen in the procession to the grave.

  Gezza stood behind Anya, his hands on her shoulders, while she held on tight to Rose and James’s hands as the time-honoured words of the funeral service were spoken and Geoff’s coffin was lowered into the ground above the coffin of his father.

  With eyes filled with tears Anya looked across the grave to Kathleen.

  How must it feel to bury your son in the same grave as his father? Anya couldn’t imagine the pain Kathleen was feeling and looked quickly away. She didn’t want to meet Kathleen’s glance now she was just beginning to understand the ties that bind a parent to a child. Her heart was breaking at the sound of their handfuls of soil and bunches of spring flowers from the garden hitting the wooden coffin. The four of them clung together as more earth was thrown over the coffin and the brass plaque with the words Geoffrey Ian Philips, born 10 April 1950, died 25 April 1995 disappeared from view forever.

  “All those years he was married to Fiona he always talked about you.”

  David handed Anya a glass of champagne. They were trying, against all the odds, to make the wake a celebration of Geoff’s life.

  “I think I realised that, towards the end. We did quite a lot of catching up you know.

  “He understood about you and Tim.”

  “What about me and Tim?” She looked around the room and saw that Tim had not come back to the house.

  “He understood the way you played against each other. How you were attracted to each other in a destructive sort of way. A love hate relationship he said. He never minded. He would never have divorced you if…”

  “… if it hadn’t been for his mother.”

  “He would have been happier if he’d hung onto you.”

  “But then he wouldn’t have had the children.”

  “True, but would that really have mattered?”

  Anya looked across the room at Geoff’s children and she realised how much she already cared for them. “Oh yes, that would have mattered. Look at them, they’re lovely children, they will be wonderful adults.”

  John handed them both a full glass, carefully removing the empties. “Gezza has just informed me that he wants to be called Geoffrey now.”

  Anya sipped her champagne. “I suppose we all have to grow up sooner or later, perhaps it takes times like these.”

  Wednesday 3rd May 1995

  So that’s it. The funeral’s done with, the paperwork and public bit of death is over. All we’ve got to do now is live with it.

  The children were brilliant, dignified and responsible. I don’t think anyone told them what to do, I certainly didn’t. They spent much of the wake showing photographs to people I must once have known but have forgotten. Most of the same people would have been in this house at T & M’s party. 25 years ago, give or take. I reminded David and John about immovable objects and irresistible forces, I wanted to know who they thought would win, the battle is surely not over yet.<
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  It’s really odd but now Gezza is Geoffrey I see so much of the young Geoff in him. They aren’t alike physically, but it’s just the odd look, the occasional gesture. It’s his 16th birthday at the weekend so we must do something then and then they’ll be back to school next week. Somehow we will establish something like a version of normality.

  The day after the funeral David phoned Anya.

  “I’m so sorry Anya, but the court wants to review the children’s situation now their father has died.”

  “They waste no time.” Anya couldn’t help the harshness in her voice “I’m sorry David, it’s just that I think the Social Services and courts or whoever runs these things should let the children grieve, just for a few days at least.”

  “I suppose there are so many occasions when children are left un-cared for, they have to be on the safe side.”

  “Possibly, but aren’t they aware of the changed circumstances? I mean they do realise that the children have a step-mother now don’t they?”

  David couldn’t give a direct answer to the direct question. “I need to draft your petition to them. We need to discuss everything and get all the paperwork spot on. I’m afraid I will have to be intrusive as they will want to know everything about your circumstances, even the reasons you re-married Geoff.”

  “You mean on his death-bed.”

  “We must act quickly, we need to be ready for whatever the court may throw at you. You will be formally adopting the children I presume?”

  “Well. Yes. I suppose so. I hadn’t thought about it. I haven’t asked them.”

  “Can I come round? Go over all this face to face?”

  “Can you make it Monday? The children go back to school on Tuesday and they must be involved, but they do need a bit of a recovery weekend. Also, in case you’d forgotten, it’s Gezza’s, I mean Geoffrey’s, sixteenth birthday on Saturday. He doesn’t want a fuss so we’re just going to have a quiet day all together, though I suppose Kathleen and Margaret will have to be invited.”