by Claire Sandy
‘Bless you, Evka, I’m not looking for security,’ said Nora. ‘This is the last great adventure of my life. Well, to be frank, it’s my first great adventure.’
‘Marriage is prison cell, not adventure,’ said Evka, her one sexy eyebrow arching while the other, less sexy one flatlined.
‘Adventures come in all shapes and sizes,’ said Fern. For Nora, they involved fried-egg sarnies, early nights and round trips to the hospital for MRI scans. Under her breath, she said to Evka, ‘See, love’s the only true adventure.’
‘I miss Patrik,’ said Evka vehemently. She looked at Fern, astonished, as if it was Fern who’d said something outrageous.
‘Do something about it, then.’ Fern took Evka’s seat when the girl slipped out of the room.
‘For obvious reasons,’ said Nora, enjoying holding court, ‘we want to move quickly. Maybe a month or so.’
Fern knew who’d have to organize Nora’s extravaganza. ‘Hold on a darn tooting minute, Auntie. A month?’ She didn’t have the first idea where to source doves.
Ollie had an idea. ‘Get married on Midsummer Day. We always have a party then anyway.’
Yesses all round. Kids are so resilient, thought Fern. Midsummer was an anniversary she’d rather forget. ‘I’d better get cooking,’ she said, opening the fridge to see what ingredients she could bully into a semblance of dinner. As she began to peel things, chop things and suspiciously sniff other things, normality returned to the kitchen. Tallulah wandered away. Donna took Amelie on a tour of the garden. Binkie yowled a protest about his empty dish.
‘Auntie,’ said Ollie. ‘I think we’ve found a flat. One-bedder, opposite the library. It’s dinky but there’s a shared garden for madam to sit out in.’ He threw a glance Fern’s way. ‘Not too far from Grandma.’
It’s hard to look over somebody’s shoulder when you’re pretending not to interfere, so Fern was relieved when Ollie said, ‘Oh, just take it, Mum,’ and handed her the estate agent particulars. She gasped at the asking price of the flat, which was little more than a series of interconnecting cupboards.
It was Nora who’d noticed that the young parents didn’t want to leave the house on their date nights. She’d brought it up with Fern, pulling rank as an elder. ‘You know why Ollie and Donna don’t want to go out, don’t you?’
‘Maz,’ Fern had sighed.
The conference with Maz’s parents, an elderly Bengali couple who were mystified by their son’s behaviour, had gone well. Despite Donna’s ongoing cynicism, Maz was promised limited access if, and only if, he played by the rules. ‘After what happened with Nora, you need to win our trust,’ Adam had said, and Maz had nodded, tears in those liquid eyes, before continuing to behave just as he wanted.
It was Fern’s belief that Maz’s feelings for Amelie were real; the immature fool just couldn’t resist using the baby as a stick to beat Donna with. He turned up at the door unannounced, ‘bumped into’ Donna at the mall, and texted late at night that he’d apply for full custody.
It was all immature bravado, but Adam and Fern fought fire with fire, taking out a restraining order. Only temporary, the order would give them breathing space. The security camera fixed to the porch should have made them feel safer, but had the opposite effect. When Donna had put her foot down and declared an end to date night, Nora had said to Fern, as she poked her hard in the shoulder, ‘They fall asleep on those nights out. Donna fell face-first into her spaghetti at that snazzy Italian restaurant last week. Ollie told me they shout over the music in the discotheque, talking about Amelie. Don’t you see, Fern? They don’t want or need a break from their baby.’
Fern had to abandon her preconceived take on Donna’s unplanned motherhood; far from being a burden, Amelie was the young couple’s adventure.
‘They’re naturals,’ said Nora. ‘Amelie’s the making of your son. You don’t have to look over their shoulders and test the bath water and tell them over and over what Ollie did at Amelie’s age. They’ll figure it out as they go along.’
Fern had heard echoes of Adam’s warning to stop meddling all those months ago. Somehow it had been easier to take it from her aunt.
Then Nora had owned up about her own, colossal meddling. ‘Don’t shout. I’m sick and it might kill me if you raise your voice in anger. Fern . . . I’ve offered them the deposit for a place of their own.’
Fern hadn’t shouted. She’d merely gasped.
‘Ollie’s a proud one, but I said if it’d make him happy, he could look on it as a loan.’
The women had shared a thought. The loan would be an inheritance before too long.
Unable to condemn Nora, Fern saw parallels with her own youth, when another aunt had conjured up a home for her to live in with her own baby. Fern hadn’t been able to resist asking, ‘So, Auntie, you’re not broke, after all?’
‘I reckoned you wouldn’t let me stay unless you had to. You always were a soft touch, Fern, and there was nobody who loved me enough to take me in. I was terrified.’
‘You were terrifying.’
‘I’m sorry I lied, dear.’
‘I’m not!’ There’d been room for one more in Fern’s heart; it seemed to be made of elastic.
Back in the kitchen, tossing vegetables into a wok, Fern faced up to a disagreeable fact: by the end of Nora’s Big Day, she’d have lost a second mum. To Walter.
It was hard to cast the prospective groom as a wicked seducer; he was whistling tunelessly as he helped Nora out of her chair, both of them almost but not quite toppling over. They went upstairs for a lie down before dinner. Fern suspected it was a euphemism.
Jogging past the kitchen, Ollie retraced his steps, reappearing. ‘Mum,’ he said. ‘Sorry for suggesting Midsummer. I forgot, you know, Dad leaving and everything.’
‘Doesn’t matter,’ said Fern. ‘It’s a lovely idea.’ After Midsummer Night, she and Adam would be onto their second everything since the split. Time galloped heartlessly on.
‘You OK?’ Ollie looked frightened, as he always did when his mother was out of sorts.
He still needs me to be stable, thought Fern, with a poignant burst of love. ‘I’ll be OK if you give me a hug.’
A hug was delivered. It smelled of Sudafed and burritos. ‘Hugging gets easier when you’ve had a baby,’ said Ollie.
Staring and staring, Boudicca bored a hole in her mistress’s head. Fern was ironing the whole gamut of human clothing, from tiny frilly pants to ripped jeans. She’d cleared out the fridge, ruthlessly sending half-eaten yoghurts to their death in the pedal bin. She’d lined up Nora’s bedtime tablets. All the while, she’d ignored the whippet’s beady eye.
‘OK, OK, I give in.’ Fern attached Boudicca’s lead and allowed herself to be dragged out into the lavender dusk.
‘Fern!’ Donna, in sweats, Amelie on her hip, called from the step. ‘Do you fancy a passenger?’
Boudicca stood stock still, the picture of heroic patience, as the little human they were all so bloody keen on was strapped into a pushchair. Didn’t they know there were squirrels to chase, and poo to inspect?
‘This’ll give me a chance to have a bath.’ Donna said ‘bath’ with a disbelieving groan, as if she’d won the lottery. She held up her arm and sniffed the fabric of her hoodie. ‘Yew. Nobody warns you that babies have something against their mummies achieving basic hygiene.’
‘Use the fancy bath gloop.’ Fern knew the restorative power of a long, hot bath; often it was all that stood between her and a jail term for murdering her entire family with a whisk.
‘Before you go, there’s something I need to get off my chest.’ Donna tucked Amelie in, primped her hat, tickled her soft brown cheek. She straightened up. ‘About you and Maz. The way you encouraged him.’
Boudicca went from paw to paw. Humans were so slow. Especially her humans.
‘If I’d thought for one minute that he was going to—’
‘I’m not angling for another apology.’ Donna was so sure, so firm. Fern was dealing
with another woman, not a girl. ‘I go too far, Fern, and sometimes I need to say sorry. You let us live here and you sat up all night with Amelie just to let me sleep. You’re the last person I should get angry with.’
‘I went behind your back.’ Fern had looked hard at her own behaviour and didn’t like it much. ‘I thought I knew best. But you did, Donna.’
‘You wanted to believe we could all get along. I want to see the good in people, too, but there’s a lot of my parents in me and I only see the shadows.’
‘Any sign of your mum and dad defrosting?’
‘Not gonna happen.’ Donna let out a pretty sigh. ‘You can’t fix everything, Fern.’
To Boudicca’s relief, that seemed to be the end of this bout of yada-yada-yada. His mistress, deep in thought, walked far too slowly for the dog’s liking as they made their way to the park.
Pointing out birdies and bow-wows to the uninterested, snoring baby, Fern took a different route to the rut worn in the grass by Pongo and Maggie and Tinkerbell. She’d been avoiding them.
‘Butterfly!’ cooed Fern, like a kids’ TV presenter.
Amelie wiggled in her sleep.
Hal had been Fern’s long, hot bath. He’d been her reward, her haven. The speed of change in Fern’s life had been dizzy-making since last Midsummer. In a year when nothing stood still, Hal had been a constant, a calm centre.
‘Squirrel!’ Fern had been thinking so hard about Hal that the chap strolling through the park gates seemed just like him. It took a second for her to realize it was Hal.
It’s fate. Fern stood stock still, her knuckles white around the buggy handle. I brought him to me. She let out a hybrid cry/laugh and regretted her decision to leave the house without mascara. Perhaps I deserve another bath . . .
Pausing, Hal looked just like himself, right down to the last Hal-ish detail. This shouldn’t have been a surprise, but it cheered her enormously. Jeans. Creased white shirt. Deck shoes. Buoyant hair that she used to grab when he was inside her. Hal swept a look around the park and Fern grinned, rehearsing what she’d say, hoping she didn’t look embarrassingly overexcited. Starting towards him, Fern picked up speed and the buggy bounced on the grass.
Looking over his shoulder, Hal held out an arm to a girl who ran to catch up with him. Neatly glueing herself to his side, she let Hal wrap the arm around her.
Fern made a sharp right, as if the pushchair were an offroad vehicle, and plunged into the trees.
‘Boudi!’ Fern brought the dog to heel as she squatted behind a tree, peeking out at the couple.
They were talking. Not laughing, which pleased Fern. This new, mad Fern. Fern wanted to believe that only she could make Hal titter. He’ll certainly bloody laugh if he spots me hiding here. She crouched, inching the pushchair around the tree so as to keep its bulky trunk between her and the meandering couple at all times.
Didn’t take him long to replace me. It was a teen thought, unworthy of a woman pushing her grandchild, but Fern was smarting as if somebody had just pulled a plaster off a scratch on her heart. Forcing herself to look straight at the girl, one detail leapt out at Fern; the swishy-haired, boy-hipped lovely was about Hal’s age. No stretch marks under that sundress. Her nipples probably pointed to the heavens when released from her bra.
Putting a hand over her eyes, Fern let out a long breath, pushing out all this dumb nonsense. Whether or not the girl had cellulite was beside the point – although it would be nice if she did, if her nickname was something like, say, Satsuma Bum.
The connection between Fern and Hal had been what made them, it, happen. Perhaps he had a connection with this infuriatingly slender young person. Perhaps he didn’t. Either way, it’s none of my business. Fern had been the one to pull down the circus tent; no point complaining when Hal found somebody new to play with.
Homestead House shuddered with activity. Televisions blared. Radios stuttered. Boudicca barked and Binkie hissed, as Amelie, who’d slept like a doll since her walk in the park, began to bawl.
‘Mummee!’ yelled Tallulah down the stairs.
‘Can’t hear you. Come down,’ said Fern, which she always said when somebody she’d given birth to insisted on shouting at her from the other end of the house.
Tallulah ignored her, which she always did. ‘I’m throwing you down a letter.’
A soft toy, Pluto – or was it Goofy? Fern always mixed them up – landed in the hall with a piece of pink notepaper tied around his waist.
Dear Mummy, read Fern, flattening out the note on the worktop. I refuse to be a bridesmaid. You can’t make me. I’m allergic to big dresses. I’ll run away and tell the newspapers. Signed your loving dorter T xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Composing a reply – something diplomatic along the lines of you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to, but it would make Nora so happy; she could resort to threats later – Fern noticed something missing.
Guilt. That vague air of guilt that had dogged her, like a personal weather front, since she’d started seeing Hal. She thanked fate for stepping in and stopping her approaching him at the park.
Secrecy was said to be titillating, but Fern had felt seedy. Even though she was a free agent, even though Adam had ‘moved on’, as they say.
Fern rotated her shoulders, let her head drop back. Tension she’d been carrying around had simply dissolved. Hal was a comet in her sky; the light had been bright and fabulous, but temporary.
I behaved better than Adam. Unlike her ex, she’d waited a decent amount of time. Unlike her ex, she hadn’t introduced Hal to the children under false pretences.
A world without Penny might look very different. Fern felt her neck, rubbing at the tender part. Penny’s presence made the separation take hold. By now, Fern would have broken and called Adam in the middle of the night; they might have talked out their differences. The thought of Penny beside him in bed, listening in, had made a sweet, tearful, conciliatory call impossible.
A text showed up on her phone. Fern, avid for news from France, snatched up the mobile.
Quadruple test shows high risk. Am considering amniocentesis. Let’s not Skype tonight. Just want to sleep. L xxxxxxxx
High risk. The two words seemed bolder than the rest of the text. Fern longed to speak to Layla, but she respected her friend’s request and looked around for something else to do. The best response to impotent turmoil was physical activity.
Heaving the recycling bag out to the bins, Fern saw Evka smoking in the dark garden, dragging on the cigarette ferociously as if trying to teach it a lesson.
Evka turned at the rustle of household waste. ‘You give worst advice.’ Her voice was dense with tears. ‘I call Patrik. I say “you are my adventure”. He say “ha!” He say “too late.” He is in love with Veronika.’
‘Oh. Oh no.’ From the way Evka said it, this mention of Veronika merited a response.
‘Veronika is slag. Veronika is stupid. Veronika eats with stupid slaggy mouth open.’
‘I have a vivid mental image of her now.’
‘Patrik says “I do not love you any more.” So I say I never love him, he is bad in bed, like making love to sock puppet. I cut off call. Patrik rings back so he can cut off call. And now I want to die under wheels of iconic red London bus.’
‘You can’t die, Evka, you’re taking Tallulah to school in the morning.’ When there wasn’t even the ghost of a giggle in response, Fern told Evka she knew how she felt. ‘The end of things is hard. But we’ll prop each other up.’
‘I am limping duck now.’
‘Yes,’ smiled Fern. ‘You’ll fit right in here.’
‘Men are bastard sods,’ said Evka, with none of her usual vehemence. You’d almost think she secretly liked bastard sods. Unusually nervous, she chewed at her lip as she said, ‘Fern, I must tell you . . . there is something you must see. In penthouse.’
‘Really?’ Fern, troubled by Evka’s expression, said light-heartedly, ‘Is it worse than PVC boots?’
‘Much, much
worse than horny boot.’ Evka reached out and grabbed Fern’s hand, hard. ‘It changes everything.’
‘This is like old times,’ said Adam.
‘Not that old,’ said Fern.
‘No, well,’ Adam shrugged apologetically. ‘What I mean is, it’s great to have everybody together, doing what the Carliles do best; stuffing their faces.’
All the main players were on stage, milling around the marble island in Adam’s penthouse, picking at the delicacies that had been laid out with a finesse Fern aspired to but never achieved. The scene was Instagram-worthy, everybody in their best duds to celebrate the happy couple’s engagement, gathered around a feast in a bang-on-trend kitchen.
‘This spread looks delicious,’ said Fern to Penny, proud of her selflessness, hearing Evka’s Slavic tut. Evka didn’t believe in ‘everybody getting along’; she believed in burying love rivals in unmarked graves.
‘I have this brilliant A-list caterer,’ said Penny, as if knowing phone numbers was a skill. ‘Madonna has his mini quiches flown to her in Los Angeles.’
‘No crisps?’ asked Nora, forlorn despite her new dress and the blue eyeshadow she’d aimed at her eyelids.
‘No Twiglets?’ Tallulah wavered between shock and unhappiness.
‘Well, no,’ faltered Penny. ‘But why not try an aged Parmesan beignet?’
Tallulah looked sad for Penny and her strange ideas. ‘There’d better be Arctic Roll for afters.’
Fern, who’d seen the croquembouche in the fridge, said, ‘Manners, Tallie. Eat what you’re given.’ Even if what you’re given is unpronounceable and completely inappropriate for a tiddler like you. She fussed with the neckline on her blouse. It felt wrong, as if her whole outfit had gone completely out of fashion as soon as she set foot in the penthouse. A desire to run made her toes tap in her one decent pair of heels. Evka’s dispatches from the front line had scored a thick black line under the vague daydreams she sometimes indulged in. The ones where a switch was flicked and all was ‘back to normal’. This, Fern told herself, is normal now.
‘Adam is crazy for the avocado mousse,’ said Penny, whose summer plumage was as showy as her winter gear. Her floral dress was boned, pulling in her waist and supporting what Fern was pretty certain were bigger boobs than this time last year.