“You get up right now because we’re going to drive your father back to meet Mandy at a location that I am going to arrange now.”
I lifted my mobile and rang Mandy’s number. She answered on the second ring.
“Hi, Ruby. How’s it going?”
“Feckin fantastic, thanks. Can we meet up please so that I can give you your father back in one piece as if he stays here much longer I may be forced to deliver him in bits and I know which tiny itsy bitsy bit I’ll be throwing you first.”
“Oh God, I’m sorry, Ruby. Dad persuaded Luke to go out for a drink. I didn’t think it was a great idea as he seemed upset. Is Luke okay?”
“Oh, nothing a good sleep and a dose of liver salts won’t cure in the morning, I’m sure. Needless to say, he’s not allowed out to play with your father any more. What’s your mother doing?”
“She’s just gone out actually. All dolled up and saying not to wait up for her.”
I raised my eyes to heaven and prayed for the poor unfortunate specimen she was bound to hook up with.
“So how are you finding life, now that your parents are staying with you?” I asked, shaking my head to rid it of all horrible images of Beverley doing whatever she did once she was let loose on the country.
“It feels funny to have them staying with me. Funny but nice in a weird way. It’s nice to be able to say, ‘Sorry, can I phone you back? My mum and dad are here.’ I know that they’re far from perfect, Ruby, but it’s something I’ve dreamt of for years.”
I could only empathise with her and, after I had manhandled Luke up to the bedroom and taken his boots off, I bundled his father into the car (wishing that I had a gun and gag) and prepared to drive to Lurgan where Mandy had agreed to meet me.
Chapter 53
“The nerve of him. The absolute cheek. I swear to God I don’t think I’m the only one in our house whose parentage is confusing. I don’t know where they got Luke from but I thank God that he in no way resembles the cretinous, disgusting individual who apparently is his father.”
“So it went well then?” Frankie said as she curled into a more comfortable position on her sofa where she was lying contentedly, wearing cosy pyjamas and slipper socks.
I had called in to vent my frustration the following evening after a particularly harrowing day at work. Luke was so hung over that he missed a photo shoot because of it and I was thoroughly fecked off because my car had broken down on the way to Lurgan the evening before which left me stranded for another two hours with the feckwit father-in-law-to-be which was an extremely unpleasant experience that nearly gave ‘road rage’ (side-of-the-road rage, that is) a new meaning.
“I do not need all this confusion and disruption,” I said. “I used to look at you and feel real sympathy for you, what with that shit excuse for a father and husband leaving you and the children in the lurch, the nasty interfering granny-in-law always causing problems, the bitchy stepdaughter putting in her tuppence-worth and all while your mother was having a freak attack in the background. And my conclusion is that I take my hat off to you because I don’t know how you did it and with children and being pregnant too. I’m exhausted just saying it.”
“And I’m exhausted listening,” Frankie said, putting her hands around the mug of coffee she was drinking. “Shall I tell you how I managed to cope, Ruby?”
“Please do. I need all the help I can get and my hormones are fine. I think.”
“I got through it all with a lot of help from a very good friend of mine. She’s slightly highly strung and very feisty. You wouldn’t want to mess with this one.” Frankie clicked her tongue and sucked her teeth (in the manner of a dodgy builder about to price a job). “She’s the one who saw me through it all and I’m always here for her too. I don’t know how much help I’ll be but at least I’m here.”
I smiled and knelt down beside her while she stroked my hair.
“How is dear old Nebby Peg these days?” I asked, referring to Frankie’s ex-granny-in-law who was the biggest pain in the arse and the most malicious woman I had ever met.
“I think she’s all right. The children don’t really see much of her. I think she scares them to be honest.”
“Is she still in the old people’s nursing home?”
“I believe they had to move her to a more secure facility,” Frankie said. “I think the staff were finding her rather hard to manage.”
“Well, wouldn’t you wonder at that?” I said in mock disbelief which was followed by a snort.
“Ruby, it only seems bad at the minute and it’s probably because everything has happened at once and knocked you for six. It could be a blessing in disguise though, as at least if it all happens now hopefully everything will be resolved by the time the wedding comes around. There have been a lot of blessings in disguise lately. Perhaps I had started to take life too seriously and worry about silly things so the Man Above decided to give me something very real to concentrate on with my cancer scare. Believe me, I’m not half as wound up as I once was. It’s just not worth it.”
“You were due to have another check-up recently, weren’t you?” I said, my hand flying to my mouth as I suddenly remembered. “I’m so sorry! I forgot all about it in the midst of everything that has been happening.”
“I think you could be forgiven, Ruby,” she said. “You’ve had quite a lot on your plate recently. There’s no need to worry anyway. They got it all and I couldn’t be happier. I’ve actually already booked my next smear test. Can you believe it?”
“Yes, I can, actually,” I smiled.
“So tell me more about your lovely father-in-law-to-be then. You’re so funny on that theme.”
“He is the most annoying, irritating, obnoxious, vile man in the country. Standing talking to himself in my kitchen and taking credit for the size of Luke’s whatsits.”
“Yuck!” Frankie said, her hand poised in the air still holding the cup she was about to drink from. “That’s gross.”
“Yeah. A bit like him then.”
“Hi, Ruby,” Angelica said as she came into the room. She held out her arm for Frankie to fix the clasp on a bracelet for her.
“You’re very dressed up for a school night,” I commented, much to her amusement.
Her hair was jet black these days and she was wearing skin-tight black jeans with long grey boots and a grey woollen figure-hugging top with a belt.
“I’m meeting the girls for a Chinese in town and then we might go and see a late film. I hear that the new vampire movie is very good.”
“Jaysus, Chinese and a vampire show! If anybody had suggested that as a good night out before, would you even have contemplated it?” I said, looking at her in fascination. She had grown up terribly in the last few months.
Frankie laughed and nudged me on the head with her toe.
“Ah, I suppose I better go and attend to my husband-to-be,” I said, getting to my feet with a sigh, “and show him what a dab hand I am at treating hangovers.”
“Is he still suffering then?” asked Frankie.
“Of course, and I am my usual sympathetic self.”
“Which means he’s getting dog’s abuse obviously.”
“He feckin deserves it for bringing that lunatic into my home and then having the cheek to doze off, leaving me to deal with him.”
“Just remember that all this is no picnic for him either,” said Frankie. “I complain about my mother and you’re not thrilled with yours at the minute either but at least they’re normal and they care. They always looked after us well and didn’t feck off to another country only to come back years later to embarrass us and act like eejits.”
“Yeah, well. Water under the bridge and all that. Hopefully in time we’ll not be looking at them like that any more,” I said but was far less confident than I sounded.
The house was in darkness when I arrived home and I concluded that Luke must have gone to bed early. I flicked on the kettle, looked through the local paper and threw my shoes off, thinkin
g that I might have a bath and an early night myself.
Once I had finished my drink, I headed to the bedroom and to my dismay discovered that it was in darkness with no sign of Luke anywhere. I sincerely hoped that he wasn’t out with his father again as there was only so much crap I could put up with in any given forty-eight-hour period.
I quickly punched in his number and he answered on the third ring.
“Where are you?” I demanded.
“Going to the bus station.”
“Eh . . . why?”
“To meet your mum. She phoned earlier and said that she was coming down but that she didn’t want to drive. Believe me, Ruby, I wish you had been here as my stomach is doing back-flips and my head feels like it has been jammed full of cotton wool.”
“Well, you will act like a gulpin and go drinking with your father who could drink a sailor under the table.”
“I won’t be doing it again.”
“I’m delighted to hear it but, getting back to the matter in hand, why has Mammy decided to come here? What’s wrong?”
“She wouldn’t tell me anything over the phone. Said it would have to wait until she saw us.”
“Oh God. I’m nearly afraid to ask.”
“I guess you’ll find out soon enough.”
Chapter 54
The first thing on Mammy’s mind was, naturally enough, the McQueens. She said that the solicitor she usually dealt with had intended to look up Bartley Monroe’s last will and testament, in order to further clarify his intentions regarding the cottage – but then he had been signed off work with a bad back. She thought that the other fella in the office was a bit shifty-looking, so she didn’t want to talk to him about it. So, instead, if he sent her a copy of the will she would bring it for us to look at.
At which point we explained that she had more chance of being bitten by a dinosaur than she had of us understanding any of the legal gobbledegook likely to be in a typical will.
“Some help you are, Ruby!” Mammy complained.
“Mother, did you ever attend my graduation from law school?”
“No.”
“Well, there’s your answer then. You need a specialist to look at a will, to decipher what all the different terms and references and clauses mean. God alone knows why they have to make these things so complicated!”
“Obviously so that you’ll have to pay a solicitor an obscene amount of money to translate it all for you,” Luke said, “and advise you on where to go next.”
“I suppose I’ll just have to leave it and wait until my solicitor comes back from being off sick. There’s no rush really when all is said and done.”
“So,” I said, trying not to smirk, “what was the lovely Judith’s reaction to the fact that you weren’t in a position to sell her the cottage?”
“I think she was a bit upset. She gave poor Aisling a right mouthful and started shouting at the other staff. It was very embarrassing actually.”
“Hopefully, now she knows that she can’t have it, she’ll lay off and leave you alone and let you get on with things. Mammy, you didn’t really want to sell, did you?”
“I wanted to do what was best. I told you that already, Ruby. And if that meant selling up then I would have done it but, as it happens, I am glad in one way that I’m not moving as I do love my wee cottage.”
I smiled a self-satisfied smile. “I knew that all along, you know. If you had sold it I would have gone mad. I know how much it means to you and seriously you’re going to have to stop worrying about Luke and me and how we’ll manage. We’ll be fine.”
“Have you booked anywhere yet for the reception?”
There was silence as Luke and I stared at one another and he chewed his lip and I shrugged my shoulders. I had barely thought about it – there had been so much else going on – but now that the subject had been raised a prickle of fear rose inside me and again the image of a tent sprang to mind.
“I thought not, so I booked it for you.”
Again there was another silence as Luke and I furrowed our brows and wondered what was coming next.
“I had to pull a lot of strings but eventually we came to an agreement and it’s all arranged.”
“I do love a good guessing game, Mammy, but I really would love it if you’d put me out of my misery and tell me what you’ve done.”
“I’ve provisionally booked the wedding suite in Monroe Manor for you. I spoke to Harry McQueen himself and he assures me that it will be a day to remember. You can examine menus and have a look at the honeymoon suite when you next come to see me.”
“Perhaps you should open your own wedding-consultancy business and give good old Gabriel a run for his money,” Luke said, laughing nervously and looking at me.
I didn’t know what to say or how to feel. I had the mental image in my head of a tent and then I remembered the gorgeous room that Frankie and Owen had stayed in at the weekend and how nice the food had been and could feel myself start to mellow slightly. That, however, was before I took into account the fact that Mammy had gone behind my back, essentially usurping the wedding planner who had annoyed my head for so long, and booked my wedding reception, the most important day of my life, in an establishment that was owned by the two biggest shysters in the country.
I took a deep breath, looked at Mammy’s face and smiled (or maybe grimaced would be the right word).
“Gabriel’s not going to be very happy with you,” I commented. “You’re stealing his thunder and putting him out of a job.”
“Well, actually, I asked him to come down and meet me and we did it together.”
“You what?” I shouted.
“Well, you would never have done it yourself.”
“Feckin right I wouldn’t have done it!”
Luke got up from his seat and was now pacing around like a wild animal.
“Ruby, can I have a word in private, please?” he asked in a pleading tone of voice.
We went into the sitting room, leaving Mammy sitting sipping a mug of tea.
“What?”
“Please don’t fly off the handle again. It’s all you seem to do these days. Your mammy has done that for us because she cares that you have a nice day. It won’t be the easiest day for her, y’know. Watching her only daughter getting married and not having her husband there to share it with her. So please, Ruby, for me, go along with it and make her happy. She deserves it. She’s such a good mother.”
“I agree. I actually was going to relent but not before I smacked Gabriel around the head for taking liberties.”
“Rubbbeeee!”
“Oh okay, just a small slap then.”
We rejoined Mammy in the kitchen where she was sitting and nervously awaiting my return if the way she was wringing her hands was anything to go by.
“So when are we going then?” I asked.
“Going where, dear?”
“Well, correct me if I’m wrong but were you not the one making suggestions about going to view rooms and look at menus or did I just imagine that?”
“So you’re okay with it then?”
“No problem at all. It’s a lovely setting and so handy and, now that dear Judith won’t be hankering after the cottage, I’m sure she’ll have all the time in the world to devote to being my right-hand woman. I might request that I deal directly with her only, for all my little whims. I think Gabriel and I should arrange a meeting with her as soon as possible actually.”
Luke put his head in his hands and Mammy grinned broadly.
“Why not? I think that’s a very good idea. Gabriel is so talented at what he does and such a lovely boy. I wonder how he and his wee friend are getting on now?”
“Honestly, he really isn’t a five-year-old and the last time I looked his little friend was a six-foot-tall, well-built, strapping waiter called Darryl.”
“I know. Isn’t love funny? It can come in all shapes and sizes.”
“Indeed it can.”
“I’m sorry for intruding
, Luke, but can I ask how your mammy and daddy are getting on?”
“They’re getting on all right, I think. I haven’t seen too much of them and, although they’re staying with Mandy, I don’t think that she’s seen a lot of them either.”
“Any word of them moving to a place of their own?”
“I think they’re still trying to get their financial affairs straightened out.”
I went to my mother and hugged her tightly. “Thank you. I do love you and I’m sorry for everything.”
“I love you too, Ruby,” she said gently. “And don’t you ever forget it.”
Chapter 55
Three months had passed since that fateful night when Mammy had informed us that Monroe Manor was to be the venue for our wedding and to say that it had been eventful would be an understatement in the extreme. Luke’s parents were still living with Mandy (quelle surprise) and making no effort to move – although Mandy didn’t seem to mind. Her magazine column was going from strength to strength as her mother kept insisting on going out to all sorts of wild and exotic nightclubs where Mandy got no end of fodder for her gossip groupies. She had met Gabriel at one of these hotspots one night and informed us that his partner had a strong Donegal accent – therefore Mammy had been right – love did come in all sorts of shapes and sizes. Gabriel had been in touch a few times and strangely enough I had become fond of him. I still threatened him if he made stupid suggestions but grudgingly I had to admit that he had grown on me.
As for me, I was still the same, apart from the fact that I had decided to content myself and do no more research about my adoption until the wedding was over.
Christmas was coming (a time where I morph into The Grinch for two weeks whilst everybody around me is full of the joys of Rudolph and cooking sherry) and work was busier than ever as we all tried to tie up loose ends before the holidays. Luke and I had decided to spend Christmas in Donegal this year and as a gigantic gesture my mother had invited Mandy and her deranged parents along too. I had protested at first but Luke had seemed so pleased that they were being included, and that we were acting like a normal family, that I shut my mouth and decided to offer it up for all my sins.
Anyone for Me? Page 29