A Not Quite Perfect Family

by Claire Sandy

  ‘And Tallulah hasn’t?’ snorted Nora. ‘This home is as broken as any you’ll see in them documentaries.’

  ‘How can you say that?’ Fern’s pledge to be nicey-nice forgotten, she reacted shrilly. ‘Our children are loved and cared for and—’

  ‘And and and.’ Nora’s head wobbled. ‘And you gallivant around town with some man.’ She spat the word as if it was an insult. ‘You’re no spring chicken, Fern. You’re making a fool of yourself.’

  Perhaps that barb landed too close to Fern’s deepest fear, but she heard herself say, in a voice full of repressed anger, ‘It’s you who’s making a fool of me! I do everything I can for you but nothing’s ever good enough.’

  ‘Everything you can? Where were you when Mother was dying?’

  ‘Eh?’ Taken aback, Fern scowled.

  ‘Did you visit? Did you help?’

  ‘Auntie, I was fifteen.’ Fern’s memories of her grandmother’s death were vague compared to classroom romances and youth club discos. ‘I know it must have been hard for you.’ Fern rewound, ratcheted down the volume, got a hold of herself. You’re dealing with an old lady.

  ‘Hard?’ The word didn’t hit the spot for Nora, who unleashed a harrumph the like of which Fern had never heard. ‘All I ask is a place to lay my head for a while.’

  The ‘while’ had stretched to eight months so far. Fern held this behind gritted teeth.

  ‘You’ve stuffed me in the attic with the rest of the rubbish.’

  ‘It’s a loft, Auntie. A refurbished loft with spotlights and underfloor heating and a new bed.’

  ‘You make me use a bathroom that makes no sense.’

  ‘It’s a state-of-the-art wet room.’

  ‘You talk over Alan Titchmarsh.’

  That should have made Fern laugh. It didn’t. She was beyond laughter. ‘Maybe we should leave it there,’ she said.

  ‘No wonder Adam got away from you. This other chap will disappear, too, mark my words. You’re just like your father. Not a bit of use. He never visited me and Mother, you know.’

  Everybody has their tipping point. Expert practitioners like Nora found them with ease. Fern’s tipping point was hearing her dad criticized when he wasn’t there to defend himself. The volume rose again, right up to eleven. ‘Are you surprised? Why would anybody visit you? You’re mean and you’re cruel and you think the worst of everybody! No wonder you’re on your own.’

  Nora’s usual battle expression, a smug mask, fell away to leave a broken, crumbling look.

  Immediately regretting what she’d said, Fern gulped. It’s the truth, she thought, knowing that didn’t excuse her. Perhaps it had to come to this. Perhaps this was how Nora managed her affairs. I’ll help her all I can with the practicalities but this poisonous woman has to go!

  Turning, her head in the air, Nora was sanctimonious. ‘I know when I’m not wanted. I’ll go. This minute.’ She put one slippered foot in front of the other.

  ‘If only,’ said Fern, who didn’t believe a word of it.

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Nora. ‘Oh dear, oh dear.’ She fell awkwardly, slumping to one side before landing full length on the floor.

  ‘Auntie!’ Fern dashed round the table and knelt beside her.

  A scream from the doorway. Tallulah and Evka gazed down, mouths agape.

  ‘Mummy, you’ve killed Nora!’ shrieked Tallulah.

  ‘She died of broken heart,’ said Evka.

  Fern nodded, taking it all in.

  The doctor, peachily young but tired-looking, did his best to be kind despite his weariness. ‘It was coincidence. Your aunt’s collapse was always going to happen. It’s pointless blaming yourself.’

  Drained, a pulse drumming in her temple, Fern peeped through the glass slit in the door. She saw a sliver of Nora, her eyes closed, her white hair mussed on the pillow.

  When Fern approached the bed, Nora’s eyes flicked open. ‘What’d he say? Bad news, no doubt. Typical doctor.’ She fussed with her sling. ‘This is going to get in me way at home.’

  ‘You’re not coming home just yet.’ Fern pulled the hard chair with the plastic upholstery closer to the bed. ‘You haven’t been completely honest with me, Auntie.’

  ‘Don’t tell me yet, Fern.’ Nora looked every second of her years, her pale face apprehensive. ‘Have you seen what’s on the telly?’ She gestured weakly to the set clamped to the wall.

  ‘There’s no escaping Roomies,’ said Fern, fussing with Nora’s covers.

  Although turned right down, a small ghostly Adam sang: You wish you could reach out and find a friend Who’ll be here today, tomorrow, until the bitter end.

  ‘Let’s keep chatting, Fern, and then tell me later.’

  ‘That’s fine by me. Where were we up to? I think you’d just left school.’ The hours that needed filling at the hospital had been the first opportunity the two women had ever had to really talk. Nora’s life story, once begun, poured out. Fern had the distinct impression that Nora had never talked about herself at this length, or in such detail. Nobody’s ever been interested enough to ask.

  ‘That’s right. I was sixteen and quite a looker, although you’d never think it to look at me now.’ Nora fingered her flossy white hair. ‘This was gold, then, and I wore it piled up on me head.’

  ‘What did you want to be?’

  ‘I had one big ambition. I wanted to be a librarian.’

  As dreams go, that sounded do-able.

  ‘But,’ said Nora, on a sigh, ‘Mother fell ill, so that was that. My brothers had left home and I was the only close family she had. I looked after her.’

  ‘Nana didn’t die until thirty years later, though.’

  ‘She recovered, but she was prone to relapses.’

  ‘What was actually wrong with her?’

  ‘Bad nerves,’ said Nora. ‘She suffered terribly.’

  Hmm. Fern’s dad, the kindest of men, had grown impatient with Nana’s malingering. Every time one of her offspring went against her – proposing to the wrong girl, moving away – Mother would have ‘one of her turns’. No doctor ever found a reason for these turns; all pronounced her to be in perfect health. ‘Did you never have a job, Auntie?’

  ‘Mother liked to have me near her. Nobody knew her funny little ways like me. I didn’t have time for a job. Mother didn’t believe in paid help, so I kept the house clean, and I cooked all our meals. Mother was most particular. She had standards.’

  As long as somebody else did the work. ‘You loved her very much, didn’t you?’

  ‘Yes.’ Nora pursed her lips and nodded. ‘Yes, I did.’ She shut her eyes. ‘Mother never once said thank you.’

  ‘Not for anything?’

  ‘I didn’t want thanking, don’t get me wrong. I knew me duty. But just once would have been nice. A little appreciation.’ Nora opened her eyes and stared fearfully at Fern. ‘God forgive me for speaking ill of the dead!’

  ‘If it’s the truth, there’s no harm,’ said Fern, sensing the old lady needed permission to unburden herself. ‘It’s only me, Nora. You can tell me.’

  And so it all came out. How Nora realized she’d been chosen from childhood, as the only girl, to be the one who walled herself up alive with mother. ‘There was a deal, of sorts,’ said Nora. ‘If I remained at home then eventually I’d get the house.’ She cupped her hand around her mouth and whispered, ‘I hated that house, Fern!’

  ‘Tell me about the good times.’

  The good times seemed to consist of a snail’s-pace constitutional every Sunday, when Mother would comment on the state of the neighbours’ gardens, plus the occasional foray to a Julie Andrews film at the local cinema. ‘We rarely had visitors; Mother chased them away, didn’t she?’ Nora asked, guiltily.

  ‘’Fraid so, Auntie. She was chilly. I was scared of her.’

  ‘She was always right, though.’ Like a rescued cult member, Nora couldn’t quite shake off the brainwashing. ‘She lived by the Bible, and she made sure I did too.’

  Fern
couldn’t recall anything in the Bible about being an old cow. ‘What about romance?’

  ‘Mother was very careful to protect me from the lusts of men.’ Nora raised an eyebrow as if daring Fern to comment. ‘I’m as pure as the day I was born, and that’s the way I like it.’

  Just as well, thought Fern. It’s unlikely to change. ‘Was she protecting you, or keeping you for herself?’

  ‘A little of both,’ conceded Nora. ‘She warned me about . . .’ Nora looked both ways and mouthed ‘sexual relations’. She narrowed her eyes. ‘The pain. The horror. The endless laundry.’

  ‘That sounds more like war than sexual relations.’

  ‘Keep your voice down!’

  A picture built. It wasn’t that Fern had formed the wrong impression of Nora – all her faults and failings were present and correct – but now she understood her.

  ‘You and Nana,’ said Fern. ‘You lived in a bubble, didn’t you? Home. Church. Early to bed.’

  ‘We did.’ Nora was tired, her eyelids fluttered. ‘I don’t understand the outside world, Fern. I don’t like it.’ Her head sank. The tablets were working.

  ‘And you’re afraid of it,’ said Fern gently, putting her snoozing aunt’s good hand beneath the covers.

  Nana had taught her daughter well. Nora had swallowed it all whole: the world is full of sin; men are dangerous; trust nobody. No wonder she can’t show love, thought Fern, pausing to look back at her aunt. Nobody’s ever shown her how.

  A text landed. Fern scrabbled for the phone before it could wake the patient.

  A wavery voice came from the bed. ‘Is that your fancy man?’

  ‘Sleep, Auntie!’

  You. Me. A dirty weekend in a 5 star hotel. Yes?

  Fern gulped.

  YES.

  CHAPTER NINE

  March: Entremet

  ‘Fern? Make it quick.’

  ‘Is that the new way to say Hello, what can I do for you, Adam?’

  ‘I’m being interviewed. I’ve had to leave the journalist in my club.’

  ‘You own a club?’

  ‘I’m a member of a club, in Soho.’

  ‘You used to say those places were pretentious ghettos full of arsewipes.’

  ‘I used to say a lot of things, Fern. I’m not being rude, honest, but what’s up?’

  ‘You’re having Tallulah to stay for the weekend.’

  ‘Am I? I can’t.’

  ‘Well, you can. Be warned; she’s just found out what castration means and she’s very pro it.’

  ‘Why can’t she just stay at home with you? I’ll come over as usual.’

  ‘I’m going away for two nights.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘So I’ll drop her off on Friday, about five.’

  ‘No, hang on, you can’t just land this on me.’

  ‘This is your daughter, Adam. Evka’s going to be out much of the time, juggling her lovers and visiting Nora. Ollie and Donna have too much on their plate with his jobs and the baby to have energy to spare for Tallie. She’ll love staying with you. Penny can spoil her rotten.’

  ‘But, no, hang on, there’s a band meeting in the diary this Friday.’

  ‘Have it at your place. Adam, you have responsibilities. This weekend I’m not there to take the strain for us both. You’ll enjoy it.’

  ‘I know I will – it’s not that. I loved evenings when it was just me and Tallulah in the house. But—’

  ‘See you Friday.’

  ‘Where the hell are you going anyway?’

  ‘Sorry. You’re breaking up. Bad line.’

  The foot in Fern’s hand was unlovely. It was at the end of an equally unsightly leg belonging to Mr Gibbs, who was blissed out as Fern ran her hands over his hairy toes.

  It helped to think of something else when Mr G was in. His feet smelled like the bits of cheese Fern would find forgotten at the back of her fridge. Hal, she thought, and instantly felt better.

  And nervous. Even a rusty dater knows that a minibreak in a swanky hotel takes a couple to the next level.

  Adam intruded on the daydream, barging in the way he used to do when she was having a dreamy bubble bath and he wanted to talk about wiring. He’d been on her mind since their phone conversation, his image hovering in a way it hadn’t for a while. Fern no longer woke up every morning to the raw shock of missing him. It was easing. She was recovering. Fern remembered when she hadn’t wanted to recover; when she’d clung to the pain because it was something.

  She’d never compared the two men in her life. To keep the competition fair, she imagined them side by side at the same stage of their lives, as she worked her way up Mr Gibbs’ ankle with sure, steady strokes.

  At Hal’s age, Adam had been thin enough to satisfy Penny with no need to diet. His face had been Fern’s favourite face, composed but witty. A different design to Hal, but every bit as sexy; I’m a sucker for good looks. That surprised Fern. If asked, she’d have said that a sense of humour, or kindness, or the ability to cook a sausage without burning down the house was more important in a partner than beauty.

  Now Adam was a badly drawn sketch of himself. Everything was a touch farther south than before. Those big, beautiful pansy eyes were smaller, as if they’d seen too much and needed a rest. There are physical results to ageing that surgery and exercise can’t erase. I should know. Fern gently put down the foot and stood in front of the full-length mirror, appraising herself with neither false modesty nor over-confidence.

  Unbidden, a girl came to mind. The girl who’d interrupted her and Hal mid-naughtiness in the studio. She’d had all the litheness of youth, all the benefits that young women don’t even know they’re enjoying, with their clear eyes and their plump skin and their moustache-less upper lips.

  ‘Are we done?’ Mr Gibbs sounded disappointed. ‘Sorry about me bunion, lovie.’

  ‘Stop asking. I’m not giving you any details, Fern. You’ll have a whole weekend without making any decisions, without doing anything. And I’ll have you to myself for forty-eight hours. With a lock on the door.’

  ‘But the expense, Hal!’

  ‘Don’t spoil the romance.’

  ‘I find it hard to log out of being in charge.’

  ‘For once, you’ll be massaged and pampered, instead of doing it for others.’

  ‘Are you sure, Hal? I can’t help feeling you should be taking some sweet young thing, like that girl at your studio.’

  ‘Her? She’s a bitch. Steals my Cup-a-Soups. What’s a should, anyway? If I did what I should, I’d be working for the family firm, doling out financial advice, with stupid letters after my name. Until the day I killed myself with the office stapler. Look, Fern, if I can withstand my mum’s disappointment I can certainly choose which woman I see.’

  ‘Be nice to your mum, Hal. I bet she’s lovely.’

  ‘I am nice to her! My family aren’t close like yours. The emotions run in straight lines. We don’t talk. I mean, really talk.’

  ‘Shame. Mind you, I barely ever talk to my own mother.’

  ‘Take your own advice then, and be nice to her. Ring her as soon as we stop talking.’

  ‘It’s complicated. There are old wounds that haven’t healed. Every time we talk we manage to hurt one another.’

  ‘Then visit. Talk it out.’

  ‘She lives in Corfu.’

  ‘Book a plane ticket. Say your toyboy sent you.’

  ‘Don’t call yourself that!’

  ‘I like it. It’s daft. It doesn’t describe me, I know. So where’s the harm?’

  ‘If you’re a toyboy, then I’m a cougar.’

  ‘And the problem with that is? Seriously, Fern, jump on a plane. After the weekend.’

  It was so simple to an onlooker. To a younger onlooker. Hal couldn’t imagine the gut-wrenching poignancy of being at the beginning of some kind of an end, however distant that may be. He’d find out, when he caught up, that life wasn’t so simple.

  Commenting on the plushness of Adam’s apar
tment, Fern took care to look as if this was her first sight of its splendour. ‘Cor,’ she said. ‘This is a bit spesh.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Penny, before Adam could.

  A cheer went up from the sunken seating, and Tallulah stood behind her mum.

  ‘Don’t be shy,’ wheedled Fern. ‘That’s only Kinky Mimi.’ She accepted the hugs and the kisses as the boys of yesteryear bore down on her.

  ‘You haven’t changed a bit.’ Lemmy’s new teeth flashed like neon lighting fitted into a tired old room.

  ‘It must be, what, eighteen years?’ Keith was still attractive, in a man-next-door way. He walked carefully, as befitted a man with his problems.

  Tears suddenly in her carefully-made-up eyes, Fern was moved to see the old gang back together. ‘They were great days, weren’t they?’ she said.

  Penny pushed through the throng of beer guts. ‘And they’ll be great again,’ she said, tapping her notepad with a pen. ‘If we can get on with the meeting.’

  Setting Tallulah up in a corner with her homework, Fern hugged her tightly. ‘You’ll be OK?’

  ‘I’ll be with Daddy.’ Tallulah found the question silly. ‘Will you be OK?’

  ‘Yes, darling. You’re very kind to ask.’ Fern waved at the band. ‘See you!’

  ‘Hang on.’ Adam scooted across. ‘When are you picking up Miss T?’

  ‘Lunchtime Sunday. About two. If that’s cool.’

  ‘Or Tallie and I could go for a roast in the pub and I’ll drop her home after that.’

  ‘Please please,’ squealed Tallulah, who considered pubs awfully grown up.

  ‘Good plan.’ Fern turned to go.

  ‘You look nice.’ Adam spoke low, like a spy passing information.

  Penny, watching them like a meerkat sentry over Kinky Mimi’s heads, ordered ‘Mind the rug!’

  Fern stepped back hastily. The rug, a vile leopardskin number, was a sacred relic, sent to Adam by the mighty Lincoln Speed himself, in celebration of the Roomies platinum disc. Everybody – except, predictably, Fern – had decided to find the rug ‘beautiful’ rather than the ‘smelly’ it so obviously was. Tallulah had made it clear that Adam must leave it to her when he died, although she added, ‘You’re not allowed to die, Daddy.’