A Not Quite Perfect Family

by Claire Sandy

  Fern’s flabber had rarely been so gasted. ‘How’d you know about that?’

  The lack of response was telling.

  ‘Penny,’ sighed Fern. ‘Did she have me followed?’ Her voice rose to a disbelieving squawk.

  ‘She has her ways.’

  ‘Are we in a B-movie? Did she dust my knickers for fingerprints? Why are you so interested?’ Fern took a step closer, her fringe dripping into her eyes. ‘Are you jealous, Adam?’

  ‘I didn’t want the mother of my children making a fool of herself.’

  Fern’s nostrils flared. That was a slap to the face; as if it’s delusional to believe a younger man like Hal could find me desirable. ‘That’s just mean, Adam. Nobody made a fool of anybody. I was careful not to involve the kids.’

  ‘How old was he?’

  Ignoring him, Fern said, ‘This isn’t how I saw this going. What I was trying to say, what I still mean, is that the last eleven months don’t matter, Adam.’ She almost said ‘Ads’; the endearment felt denied to her still. ‘What I mean is . . .’What do I bloody mean? This version of Adam was the one she couldn’t talk to, the spiky one, the one she’d asked to leave. I’m not keen on this version of me, either. She marshalled her thoughts as Adam looked out over the modest skyline of their suburb. Best to just come out with it. Best not factor in how much depended on the next couple of minutes. She thought of the ‘evidence’ in the master suite and found the courage to say it. ‘We still love each other, Adam.’

  That skyline must have been fascinating, because Adam stared at it for some time. ‘This is so you,’ he said at last. He was quiet, thoughtful.

  ‘Good me or bad me?’ Fern was fearful, her voice as small as Tallie’s when she asked to come into their bed during a storm.

  ‘You accuse me. You belittle my accusation. Then you say you love me. Same old Fern, expecting me to fall into step and follow you around like a puppy dog. Like Boudi.’

  ‘Yes, Adam,’ said Fern, refusing to mirror his stony tone. ‘Same old Fern. Same old Adam. Same old kids. Don’t you see? That’s the beauty of it.’

  ‘If it were that simple . . .’ Adam made a growl deep in his throat and shot a look at the others, who’d found the croquembouche and lost interest in the terrace. All except Penny, who turned away, white-faced, when caught staring. ‘All our problems would still be there, Fern. Along with some new ones, just for fun. We don’t work, Fern. We fell apart. I refuse to be glued into place just because your boyband chum let you down.’

  ‘He didn’t!’ Fern was indignant. ‘I finished it.’

  ‘So your bed’s empty. That’s not my concern.’

  ‘This isn’t about bed. Well, it sort of is. But . . .’ Fern was choked by weeds. Adam had thrown her love back in her face. Her red, agitated face. ‘I’m going to cry now and it’s not fair because I can’t think when I cry and . . .’ She was off.

  They both turned away from the windows. Fern saw a blurry row of chimneys, a church spire piercing the rain clouds a few streets away.

  ‘Don’t cry,’ said Adam. He sounded as if he wanted to be fonder but couldn’t manage it. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Don’t say sorry,’ hiccupped Fern, hating the way tears overwhelmed her at times of stress. She’d cried all the way through her dad’s eulogy; there’d been snot all over the Order of Mass. ‘You’ll only think I made you say it.’ She wanted to ask Adam if he’d meant the word picture he drew of her as some ogress who pulled him and posed him like Tallulah did with her Ken doll. She scrubbed at her face with her fingers.

  ‘Go easy,’ said Adam. ‘You’ll rub your features off.’

  No point being sweet and funny now! Fern was haughty – apres-quarrel haughtiness was a habit she’d learned from her mother, one that had never done either of them an ounce of good – and she went back inside ahead of him.

  I have my answer.

  Like an octopus, her family had wrapped its tentacles around Fern, urging her to stay for the movie, to squash up alongside them on the L-shaped sofa and watch Doris Day flirt with Rock Hudson. Ollie had been suspicious; ‘Why are you going home on your own? What’s wrong?’

  ‘I’m fine, sweetheart.’ Fern had kissed him on his forehead, held her lips there for a second. ‘Bit of a headache.’

  Adam had barely raised his hand to say goodbye. Penny had seen Fern to the door, proprietorial and over-polite. ‘So lovely having you over to ours,’ she’d said.

  Fern bent down and shook the man by the shoulder. He woke, looked up at her, startled, his eyes wide.

  ‘You’re on my doorstep,’ said Fern.

  ‘Kde je? Musím s ou hovorit!’

  ‘English?’ asked Fern hopefully.

  ‘A leetle.’ The man unfolded long legs to tower over her. ‘Please. I am Patrik.’

  ‘You’ve been crying, Patrik.’ Fern shook her head as he struggled to translate. ‘Never mind.’ It looked as if Evka was going to get her happy ending. ‘Let’s get you indoors. One more inmate can’t hurt.’

  She heard the walls wheeze as she closed the front door. Homestead House would be full tonight, but there’d be an Adam-shaped gap where her ex should be.

  My ex. That had always felt clunky in her mouth. The last eleven months had rewound; Fern was as raw as the day he left.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  June: Café

  Confetti was trodden into the mud where the lawn used to be. The lanterns, dusted off from last year, shone down on a Midsummer wedding considerably more rowdy than the small family dinner of a year ago.

  Tables dotted all over the garden were littered with the debris of a good time had by all: smeared plates and streamers and overturned glasses. The wedding had reached the raucous stage, after the vows and the poems and the toasts and the grub, when ties are loosened along with inhibitions.

  Young, old and in-between were getting on down to Kinky Mimi, reformed for one night only. Adam squeezed his eyes shut, meaning every word he sang, as behind him Lemmy bashed out the rhythm in a sequinned maxi.

  Once again, Homestead House had embraced all comers, the garden swelling to accommodate everyone: the band; the dancers; the I-never-dancers; the makeshift bar; the cake on its special platter.

  This house loves a party. Fern had switched on every light indoors, so that radiant rectangles glowed in the warm evening of the longest day of the year.

  In time-honoured tradition, tiny bridesmaids were being twirled by the best man. Tallulah and Carey screamed as Ollie swung them round and round. Identically dressed, the two girls were now a BOGOF deal.

  Fern, keen to start serving coffee, began to push the rubble of the banquet onto a tray, glad that Tallulah had compromised about being a bridesmaid. It took forever to find that camouflage satin.

  A waltzing couple knocked into Fern.

  ‘Oopsh! Excoosh me.’ Nora’s speech was noticeably more slurred. It didn’t stop her bossing Walter about; luckily he spoke fluent Wife. They’d been dancing since the band struck up, Nora leaning on her Zimmer frame and on her husband, who was wearing a tuxedo several sizes too large for him.

  A warm breeze tickled the lanterns and ruffled Fern’s updo. She could sniff new beginnings in the air. And endings. The to-and-fro of life.

  Weddings always get me. Fern blinked away soppy tears and leaned her knuckles on the table, facing away from the dancing and singing. Get a grip.

  ‘Woo-hoo!’ Penny threw her hair around. ‘Wahey!’ She was practically mobbing the stage, if a corner of the decking constituted a stage, and if one woman in a fascinator constituted a mob.

  The Mimis’ number one fan, thought Fern, skirting Penny with a loaded tray, her expression carefully neutral as Adam socked it to the crowd, head back, knock-kneed, eyes squeezed shut.

  Every inch the suburban rock god. The offer to play at Nora’s wedding had been an olive branch, one Fern had gratefully grabbed when Adam had appeared two days after the humiliations of the engagement party.

  Sheepish, he’d waited t
o be invited in; if he’d had a cap in his hands, he’d have wrung it. Instead he had flowers, Fern’s favourites. ‘To say, not sorry, I know you don’t want sorry, but to say please, from now on, let’s be nice to each other.’

  She’d wanted to kiss him, but she hadn’t. So much of her life was about restraint, it seemed. ‘Yes, let’s be nice.’ She’d pushed the word out, a stone in her mouth. ‘Friends.’

  ‘Friends,’ he’d repeated, and they’d stared at each other until he’d handed over the peonies.

  Since then they’d spoken most days; her new friend was eager to do his bit for the wedding. Adam had lugged hired tables through the house, repeated directions over the phone to half-witted guests, calmed down Tallulah when she’d panicked that marriage might be ‘a male chauvinist pig plot’. He was around more, less apologetic about his presence, with time to chat about this, about that, about nothing.

  But when people who have loved each other talk about nothing, they’re having a very important conversation. Fern forgot to be bitter; it was exhausting.

  ‘Sexy!’ Patrik’s English was patchy, but he’d picked up the essentials. Splay-legged on a garden chair, he seemed to be enjoying the lap dance Evka was performing for him. ‘Shake that booty, hot mama!’

  ‘I love you!’ howled Evka, a born-again romantic who’d forsaken all others for her old love. She straddled Patrik and gave him a kiss that reminded Fern she had to Hoover the car.

  ‘Mind your backs! Coming through!’ Fern negotiated her way through the heaving, jiving throng. She was tipsy on atmosphere only; she’d been too busy hosting to take more than a sip of champers. But what champers! Fizz was one area where you got what you paid for; Fern could get used to Dom Perignon.

  On Donna’s shoulders, Amelie, now a bonny six months, chuckled like a Buddha in her ruffles and lace.

  She looks like Ollie! Fern paused, watching the little boho family of three jigging about in their best clothes. Perhaps love could transform features; perhaps Ollie’s fierce protectiveness and devotion had reached into Amelie on a cellular level.

  Untidy, disorganized, with no doorbell, the micro-flat two streets away made Fern’s fingers itch when she visited, which was often. She’d come to terms with the fact that they didn’t need her; the main thing was that they wanted her, so she sat on those itchy hands and didn’t wipe any surfaces or empty any overflowing bins or comment on their diet of Coke and sandwiches.

  ‘More!’ shrieked Penny, clapping like an electrocuted sea lion.

  ‘As you asked so nicely . . . !’ Adam was high on the buzz of performance. ‘This one’s the title track of our latest album, which also happens to be our last album.’ He detached the mike from the stand and lashed the lead à la Frank Sinatra. ‘We sold eight whole copies of that CD.’ As his audience clucked sympathetically, he added, ‘Even my mum refused to buy one.’

  ‘True!’ shouted Adam’s mother, who seemed to have drunk Fern’s share as well as her own, her matronly new frock tucked into the back of her control pants.

  In the centre of the action, Nora flagged. Ever vigilant, Walter shepherded his new wife off the dance floor.

  Dumping the tray, Fern grabbed a chair and set it down for Nora in a quiet corner where Binkie and Boudicca had retreated. They were united for once, avoiding the invading army of humans on their turf.

  ‘Here, Auntie.’ Fern plumped the cushion.

  ‘Don’t fush, Fern.’ Nora squeezed into the canvas chair along with her ruffles and bows and pleats. Her trailing veil was trimmed with mud. Evka had made up Nora’s face with a heavy hand. With the false eyelashes and the fake tan, it had been touch and go whether Walter would recognize his betrothed.

  ‘Best day of your life?’ Fern was confident of the answer.

  ‘It would be if you’d hurry up and therve the coffee.’ Nora slumped forward a little, putting her hand to her head, and Walter produced two tablets from his waistcoat pocket. ‘I can’t take them without water.’

  Happy to be needed, Walter tottered off in search of a tap.

  ‘I feel thorry for the me who didn’t know Walter,’ said Nora, watching his back recede into the crowd. ‘He’s changed my life.’

  ‘You’ve changed his, too.’ Fern carried out her usual covert checks on her aunt’s condition. The pressure of such a momentous day must surely be having an impact.

  ‘Thop eyeballing me!’ Nora was on to her. ‘I’m fine. Twenty nineteen eighteen. Seven o’clock.’

  ‘You’d tell me if you weren’t, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘I tell you everything.’

  ‘Yeah, you do,’ smiled Fern, hoping this rule would be relaxed regarding the wedding night. She already knew too much; Nora had sent her to the chemist with a prescription for Viagra. ‘Slip away if you need to. The annexe is all ready.’

  Nora’s inability to climb stairs – ‘Like a Dalek!’ Tallie had said – ruled out Walter’s two up, two down. The newlyweds would live in the garden, within nagging distance of Fern. ‘Tallie and Carey have made a banner of red felt hearts and they’ve strewn the bed with what look like weeds.’

  ‘It’s the thought that counts,’ said Nora unconvincingly, jamming on dark glasses as her left iris began to ricochet in time to Kinky Mimi. She’d been up half the night glueing diamanté onto the frames. ‘I don’t mind going, Fern, I really don’t.’

  ‘Going where?’

  ‘Up there.’ Nora pointed at the sky, still resolutely blue on the longest day of the year.

  ‘Oh shush, Auntie.’ A skeletal hand gripped Fern’s heart.

  ‘Let me talk about dying, dear. If I went tonight, I’d die happy. I never dreamed of such happiness during the years I was walled up with Mother. Walter and I agree; everything from this moment on is a bonus.’ Nora took off her glasses and fixed Fern with her one good eye. ‘What I can’t bear is . . .’ She reached for a hanky secreted in her corset. ‘Is leaving you.’

  ‘You’re not going anywhere just yet.’ Fern waggled her finger. ‘D’you hear me, old woman? I couldn’t easily do without you now.’

  Bearing a jug of water, Walter reappeared. ‘Now, now, ladies. No tears today.’

  ‘Shorry, hubby,’ simpered Nora, swallowing her tablet like an eager-to-please child.

  As Walter dabbed at his wife’s eyes – one of her false eyelashes had come adrift – Fern saw more evidence of love’s powers. Walter had willingly, ecstatically, bound himself to a woman with little time left, and none of it pretty.

  He truly is The One.

  ‘Look at our Adam!’ said Nora, as the guests cheered the leaping, falsetto finale, Kinky Mimi giving it their absolute all. ‘He’s like a youngster.’ She wrinkled her nose at Walter. ‘Reminds me of you. Being in love has taken years off Adam.’

  ‘Hmm,’ said Fern, taking up the dirty plates again and adding some more for luck. ‘If you say so.’ Nora, along with the rest of the family, had surprised her by taking readily to the new status quo.

  In the relative calm of the kitchen, Fern popped an apron over her finery. Water ran. Steam billowed. She needed respite from the high emotions of the garden. ‘Who’s that?’ Fern untied her apron at the command of the doorbell. ‘Ah. Maz.’

  ‘I know! I know!’ Maz put out his hand to stop her closing the door. ‘I’m not invited, I know, and that’s cool. I just want to hand over a present.’

  Taking the wrapped box, Fern said cagily, ‘Thanks, Maz, but as you know, I can’t let you in.’

  ‘God’s honest truth, I’m not asking to come in.’ Maz stepped back, put his head on one side. He looked thin and young. ‘I just want to, like, let you see I’m doing my best.’

  That’s all any of us can do. ‘We’re getting there, Maz. Don’t do anything to derail the process.’

  When Donna had shown Fern Amelie’s birth certificate, with ‘Masud Sikdar’ named as the baby’s father, both women had cried. It was no denial of Ollie, as Donna had feared. It was the right thing to do, the righteous thing to do. As is s
o often the case, it was also the hardest.

  ‘The second my name was put on that birth certificate, everything changed.’ The way Maz underlined his statements with splayed palms and wide eyes made them less believable, not more so. ‘That restraining order was over the top, man. I’d never hurt my own flesh and blood.’

  The restraining order was entirely necessary; Adam’s lawyer had wondered why they left it so long. No need to blot this day by arguing with Maz. Once bitten, twice shy was Fern’s mantra for dealing with him. I want to trust him, but . . .

  ‘Maz, I’ve got fifty people waiting for coffee.’

  ‘Let me help you!’

  ‘Maz, you’re seeing Amelie next Tuesday, with Donna and me. That’s the arrangement. Let’s stick to it.’

  ‘Will that Nora be here?’

  ‘No. That Nora will be on honeymoon.’ In Bognor Regis, or ‘the Vegas of the South Coast,’ as Nora had taken to calling it.

  ‘Good.’ Maz’s relief was understandable; like any red-blooded young man, he didn’t want to meet the doddery old dear who’d held him hostage. ‘Say hello to Donna and Amelie for me.’

  ‘And Ollie?’ Maz’s attempts to Tippex out the man looking after his daughter irked Fern. ‘One day, Maz, you and Ollie are going to shake hands and make your peace. For Amelie’s sake.’

  ‘Yeah. Well. Dunno about that.’

  Funny, that’s what Ollie always says.

  ‘Coffee!’ With Evka’s help, Fern ferried specially-bought cafetières to each knot of guests. ‘Cups are on the buffet table,’ she recited over and over. ‘Help yourselves to milk and sugar.’

  Everything was tickety-boo; Fern’s wedding list had been ticked to death. ‘Spoons?’ She pre-empted a question from Luc. ‘By the cups.’

  A little tiddly, Luc grabbed Fern and planted a kiss on each of her cheeks. ‘Bravo, Fern. What a ’appy day!’

  Reeling a little from the grab and the kisses, Fern mimed exhaustion. ‘This wedding has taken over my life.’

  ‘Your son is verree talented.’