Nevertheless, he trudged off, hands thrust deep in pockets, tattered jeans trailing in the sand.
‘Doesn’t exactly look the part, does he?’ said Rosie fondly. ‘Amongst all these Boden types. You’re looking more relaxed today, incidentally,’ she said, eyeing my frayed old Monsoon shirt approvingly. ‘You looked terrible yesterday.’
‘Thanks,’ I grinned. ‘That was me trying to smarten up my act. D’you think I can get out of this game by dint of the fact that I arrived late? I don’t think I’m on a team, and I’ve just come on, too. Doesn’t that incapacitate me?’
‘Course it does. Always used to at school, and anyway, you can be deep square leg with me.’ She got up and hauled me to my feet. ‘We might stand, though, just to show willing. Over here, Clare!’ She grinned and did a mock catch to show she was prepared. Clare nodded approvingly and, when she turned away, Rosie lit a fag.
‘Anyway, the children are loving it,’ she said, blowing smoke out in a wispy line and gazing fondly at her elder two, leaping up and down in the queue to bat, whilst Phoebe played with a bucket by the shore with some other toddlers. ‘Oops, look out,’ she murmured. ‘It’s the ageing Lothario.’
‘Might I join you ladies? Out in mid-field?’ Theo was suddenly upon us, appearing from nowhere. His hair was greyer than I remembered. Longer too. He kissed my cheek, unnecessarily close to the mouth.
‘I must say, Annie, you’re looking quite lovely this evening,’ he purred. ‘And if I’m not very much mistaken this is Rosie Howard, who I distinctly remember trying to chat up at a dinner party at the Osbornes’ once, to no avail.’ He twinkled lecherously at her. ‘And I thought I was being charming and amusing!’
Rosie smiled sweetly back. ‘Well, that’s a lethal combination, Theo, and pretty hard to pull off. Are you sure you weren’t being drunk and outrageous?’
He laughed good-naturedly. ‘Well, I do usually get the MP prize.’
‘Most pissed?’
‘Precisely.’
‘Ah, then clearly you blew it. You see, I’ve got one of those at home, so why on earth would I want another – Ooh, I say, good shot, Clare!’
We watched in awe, as Clare sent the ball sailing way up to the sky and into the dunes. Roared on by the crowd of excited kids behind her, she set off for first base.
‘Drop the bat, drop the bat!’ they all yelled, as she tore past Dan, and as, unbeknown to her, one of her pendulous white breasts dropped out of her bikini top.
‘I’ve dropped it!’ she yelled, throwing down the bat. ‘Hasn’t she just,’ murmured Theo as she pounded furiously along the sand, head thrown back. She spotted him out of the corner of her eye and, keen no doubt to impress him with her athleticism, gave a huge grin, bare breast bouncing happily.
‘Clare! Darling!’ Michael’s hands went up in horror as he tried vainly at last base to intercept her.
‘Oh no you don’t!’ she cried, shoving him roughly aside. ‘I’m going for a second!’
‘By golly, she is too,’ muttered Theo excitedly in my ear. ‘Look, the other one’s come out!’
Sure enough Clare was streaking now, bare-chested like a bust on a galleon’s prow, as she set off on a lap of honour, tits swinging joyously, impervious to her husband’s and children’s horrified faces.
‘Mum!’ screamed Becky, fists clenched, pink-faced and appalled.
‘Clare!’ Rosie and I shouted, frantically clutching our chests.
‘Can’t stop me!’ she chortled, streaming past us. ‘Oh God,’ I moaned, ‘she’ll never forgive us. Never. This will go down in the annals of history. Our cards will be marked for ever and it’ll be our fault for not stopping her.’
‘Why is Auntie Clare running around with no clothes on?’ said an awestruck voice in my ear as Michael finally, with a valiant lunge, rugby-tackled his wife to the ground at last base with a mightly ‘Ooomph!’ I turned to see Flora wide-eyed behind me.
‘This isn’t one of those embarrassing grown-up parties where you all chuck your car keys in the sand, is it?’ she said in disgust.
‘Sadly not,’ murmured Theo. If he’d had a Terry Thomas moustache, he’d have twiddled it. ‘Although I must say, I’d snap up the ones to your auntie’s Volvo any day. Magnificent,’ he purred. ‘Truly magnificent. That’s what a woman should look like, not like those two anorexic washboards over there.’ He nodded dismissively at Helena and Céline, who, along with most of the batters, were clutching each other, crying they were laughing so much.
I looked anxiously back at Clare, who, puce in the face with horror, was smartly swatting away Michael’s attempts to restore her modesty and frantically pulling her top up herself.
‘Thank you, Michael. I can manage.’
‘I wonder if I can be of any assistance?’ Theo mused quietly. ‘Smooth ruffled feathers and all that?’
He reached into the cool box at his feet and pulled out a couple of glasses which he dexterously filled with champagne. ‘Excuse me, ladies.’
Rosie giggled as Theo sauntered over with the bottle under his arm, just as Michael was being shooed away like a dirty fly.
‘Looks like she’s unwittingly played her trump card,’ she observed. ‘Snared her prey in one fell swoop and – oh God, look!’ she said in awe. ‘Now she’s going to get pissed!’
We watched as Clare took the glass and, uncharacteristically, knocked it back in one. Theo proffered another and, pink with humiliation, but not objecting to the arm he put around her shoulders, she allowed herself to be led away to be commiserated with on the rocks.
The rounders match continued; in a less professional manner without Clare at the helm, perhaps, but with more enjoyment from the kids, who, after all, it was supposed to be in aid of, and who took over with alacrity, employing their own school rules and yelling instructions to their parents. Flora ran off happily to join in with her cousins and other friends she hadn’t seen since last summer, and I watched her go, pleased.
Without the gym mistress’s beady eye upon us, Rosie and I sank down in the sand again, leaning back on our elbows, legs stretched out before us, happily dissecting the rest of the assembled party, analysing marriages, clothes, highlights – before I stopped suddenly. At first I’d assumed Adam had just dropped Flora and gone, but then I saw him over by the fire, chatting amiably to Dan and snapping open a can of beer. He was alone. Cozzy wasn’t with him, and for that I was grateful. Adam and Dan rocked with laughter at something one of them had said, clearly delighted to see each other again.
‘I’m afraid Dan’s got no sense of propriety,’ muttered Rosie uncomfortably. ‘He doesn’t know he’s supposed to knee him in the balls.’
I smiled. ‘Men don’t. They don’t take sides. They’re much more relaxed, and actually …’ I hesitated. ‘… nicer than us in many ways. They accept people’s weaknesses and carry on regardless. They don’t hunt them down and damn them to hell for ever, as we do.’
‘I suppose,’ she said doubtfully. ‘And I wouldn’t expect Dan to take sides, anyway. They were always friends. Why should they stop now?’
Michael approached the pair of them, also patently pleased to see Adam, and pumped his hand enthusiastically. They’d always got on well, too.
‘Let’s face it,’ said Rosie grudgingly. ‘For all his faults, he’s an amusing guy. Good company. Just a complete dead loss as a husband.’
‘Mm,’ I murmured softly, knowing she’d like more from me than that. More: ‘Dead loss? Complete bastard, you mean!’ But I couldn’t oblige her. Couldn’t give her the affirmation she was looking for.
It was lovely to see him here, actually; greeting other fathers who wandered up, men he’d known for years and whom he hadn’t seen for a while, and who, I noticed, all drifted up to say hello. No pointed remarks. No recriminations, whilst the women, who were aware of his presence, stood back, kept their distance, out of loyalty to me, perhaps. And I saw the pleasure on Adam’s face, too. Saw the unexpected delight he took in being recognized and accepted
by people who, a couple of years back, he might have scornfully written off as predictable middle-class bores who played the money markets, skied in Switzerland at Christmas and went to Cornwall for their holidays. More than anything though, I saw the pleasure on Flora’s face. It brought a lump to my throat. Yes, both my parents, her expression seemed to say, as she chatted, glowingly, to a friend she hadn’t seen for ages. Mum’s over there, and that’s my dad. Yes, fine to be in the same place together. They get along fine.
I caught her eye. She flushed and grinned and I nodded back. Yes, it’s OK, darling, I don’t mind. He can stay. For a bit.
The evening sailed on into a beautiful sunset. The rounders players drifted back to the fold, and the barbecue was loaded up with steaks, chops and sausages. Children were fed first, a few younger ones tired, hugging blankets and sucking thumbs, and being shepherded on to rugs to eat and spill their orange squash. Parents stood around in happy groups, getting more and more intoxicated, the men munching the children’s burgers instead of waiting for their steaks. I moved around, reacquainting myself with people I hadn’t seen for ages, drinking and laughing, and, suddenly, it felt good. Suddenly I was glad not to be in a Corsican villa, swatting mosquitoes away having been delayed for eight hours at Gatwick, but here, under an English sky, with the gun-metal sea stretching out like a ripple of silk before us, the gulls swooping and calling, amongst friends and family.
Michael, as usual, strummed his party piece by the fire after supper, some Beatles, some old Cat Stevens, but actually, it didn’t feel too corny and, helped by the alcohol, we all joined in, including the cooler teenagers. I even noticed Dan singing along to ‘Wild World’. It was easy to mock, but there was value in what Clare tried to do here. Whopping great dollops of family value: if only she didn’t go at it so doggedly, with such a vengeance, with a metaphorical clipboard under her arm. But someone had to organize it and, in many way, it was a Herculean task. I looked around for her. I couldn’t see her, but Michael was getting happily pissed with Adam, so she was probably safely counting cutlery somewhere.
Through my sozzled haze, I was dimly aware that Flora had joined Theo’s boys and another couple of older girls for an illicit swig of beer in the dunes. I hoped it wasn’t more than that. I swung around anxiously to see, and caught Adam’s eye over the fire. In one eloquent exchange I knew that no, he’d checked, and she wasn’t far away, and he had his eye on her. Extraordinary, that when it came to Flora, he could be so responsible. I leaned back in the cold sand with a sigh, and gazed up at the dark vault of the heavens above. I listened to the sea, beating its endless rhythm against the shore as it had since time immemorial, and wished that life could always be this simple.
Chapter Fourteen
The following morning, Flora and I sat side by side on the warm back step which led from the kitchen to the garden, pulling at croissants and sharing a pot of tea. Aside from the house martins and the swallows swooping low over feathery whirls of grass, and a few pale green butterflies flitting about the buddleia, all was still and quiet. In fact, it took me a moment to realize we had the place to ourselves.
‘He’s not here,’ I observed, peering cautiously round into the study window, which protruded to the left of us in a wide bay. ‘He’s usually in there, tapping away by now.’
‘Unless he’s still in bed,’ commented Flora, dunking her croissant in her tea.
‘No, he’s always up before us. Must have gone for a walk. It is a lovely morning. Probably down on the beach. Oceanside.’ I affected his deep American drawl and Flora giggled.
A silence ensued as we gazed into the hazy horizon: the low sun was just breaking through the morning mist, glancing on the water in the creek and lighting up the fields of corn and barley on the other side, heralding another beautiful day.
‘Mum?’
‘Hm?’
She drew up her bare knees under the T-shirt she slept in. I knew by her tone it was something heavy.
‘I had a chat with Dad last night.’
‘Oh yes?’ I said lightly. ‘Yeah. Well, in fact, he had a chat with me.’
I stayed silent, continuing my contemplation of the view. She glanced at me. ‘Don’t you want to know what about?’
‘Well, you’re obviously going to tell me, Flora, whether I want to hear it or not.’
‘He’d had a row with Cozzy. That’s why she didn’t come last night, and when he drove me to the beach, he was just, well, talking about what might have been.’
‘And what did he think might have been?’ I said with measured quietness, fixing my eyes intently on a seagull perched on a buoy out at sea.
‘Well, if he hadn’t … you know. Messed up.’
‘At least he sees it as his mess,’ I commented. ‘Oh he does,’ she said eagerly. ‘Very much so.’
‘Don’t say very much so. It’s what footballers say when they’re being interviewed by Gary Lineker.’
‘Sorry. But he does, really. He knows he was at fault and irresponsible, and – and something about a terrible betrayal of trust, but – well, what he did say was that you and him got married awfully young. And that he hadn’t exactly played the field.’
Played the field. My daughter’s vocabulary as learned at the knee of her philandering father.
‘What are you saying, Flora?’ I said evenly. ‘Well, just that I think he – you know – regrets it. Regrets what a bish he made of it, and really wishes it was different.’
‘Really.’ My hands were tightly clasped. Hot, through the knees of my pyjamas. ‘And what about Cozzy?’
‘Oh, I don’t think he’s ever really been serious about Cozzy. I mean, she’s fun and nice and pretty, but, you know, she’s very young.’
I nodded. Couldn’t speak for a moment. My throat felt tight. Constricted. I cleared it. ‘An amusing diversion.’
Flora considered this. ‘Yeah. Yeah, you’re right.’
‘Get to the point, Flora.’
‘Well, it’s just that … I think if you played your cards right, I think Dad would come back for good. He really misses you, Mum. Both of us.’
I turned to look at her for the first time. Her eyes were wide and earnest. ‘Flora, we had all this a year ago, remember? Remember he rang? Begged us to have him back, and you shook your head and we both agreed?’
‘I know, but it was different then. You were like … I don’t know, so low. So sad.’
‘Pathetic?’
‘No, but it wouldn’t have been right. He’d have been doing us a favour. And he didn’t really know himself, then. Didn’t know for sure if he’d be off in a few months with someone else. And you weren’t in a position to stop him, Mum, you were all sort of defenceless. But now you’re much more, like, up. Together. And it would be much more of an equal partnership. You could, like, call the shots more.’
I marvelled quietly at my adolescent daughter’s knowledge of relationship games. Whence did it spring? EastEnders, or Northanger Abbey?
‘Flora,’ I boggled, ‘one small point. I’m marrying David. Where exactly is this conversation going?’
‘Nowhere. I’m just telling you, that’s all, before you do!’ Her voice was getting shrill now. ‘Before you do get married. I mean – better I tell you before than after, surely?’
I struggled. ‘But – but you like David, surely?’
‘Yes, of course I like David! But I’m not the one marrying him, am I?’
She turned angry, tear-filled eyes on me, and I gazed back, digesting this non sequitur, as a car tore briskly up the gravel drive beside us. I gulped. Turned to look.
‘He’s back,’ I muttered. ‘It’s Matt. Must have been shopping.’
Flora frantically blinked back her tears. ‘There’s someone with him. In the front.’
‘Oh,’ I breathed, staring. ‘I forgot. It’s his son. He’s been to pick up his son.’
We watched as a small fair-haired boy in glasses got out of the passenger door, pulling a huge backpack after him.
/> ‘His son!’ echoed Flora in disbelief, our previous conversation suddenly forgotten.
‘Yes, I forgot to tell you,’ I said hurriedly. ‘His son’s staying for a week. He lives over here with his mother. He’s about your age, I think.’
‘Oh terrific!’ she stormed. ‘That’s all I bloody need. Some arrogant gum-chewing Yank hanging around for my entire summer holiday – thanks, Mum!’ And with a strangled sob, no doubt due to a combin ation of factors, she got up off the step and fled back into the house.
My heart still beating fast, I stood up to greet them. What had Adam been saying? And why was he fostering false hope in her, for something he had no intention of following through? And how badly had I been falling apart last year, for her to have had the maturity to know I couldn’t handle having him back then? But now, now that I was ‘up’, apparently I could?
I swallowed hard as they came towards me, trying to forget my inner turmoil and to smile kindly at the boy, whose eyes didn’t leave the grass. All I got was the top of his head: a mop of blond curls like a Franciscan angel. He was small for his age, and skinny, wearing old jeans and a plain, pale blue T-shirt.
‘Tod, this is Annie,’ said Matt, with an arm around his shoulders. ‘And if you’re quick, you’ll just catch the back of Flora, just pounding up the stairs, there.’
‘Tired and bolshie,’ I muttered apologetically to him, holding my hand out to Tod. ‘Hi, Tod, good to see you.’
‘Hi,’ he muttered, raising huge and limpid blue eyes for a split second from the grass.
‘I’m going to show Tod his room, and then take him around the place. Give him the lie of the land.’
‘Good idea,’ I agreed, my eyes glued, now that I’d greeted the boy, to Matt. I couldn’t get over the change. He was wearing a clean cornflower-blue shirt I’d never seen before, and his hair had been washed and cut. Gone were the dark locks straggling around his brow, and his eyes, as he looked down at Tod, had lost their dark, haunted look. The effect was staggering.
The Wedding Day Page 19