by Heide Goody
“Do you understand?” she said. “No? Sorry. I don’t speak fish.”
She looked around. Granny’s mallet hung by the well but was a bit small for the task in hand so she went back to the henhouse and found a sturdy length of timber. The hunky merman, rather than take a hint, sat waiting for her on the lip of the well.
Ella hefted her club but didn’t strike.
“You see,” she said, “here’s the thing. I know they didn’t have dating websites and Tinder back in the dark ages but I’m guessing that it was pretty much a case of one king going to another — or one peasant going to another for that matter — and saying ‘I reckon my son should marry your daughter’ and the two kids having a look at each other and going ‘yeah, you’ll do’ and bish bash bosh, they were married.”
The merman’s gaze of passionate adoration didn’t waver. It was like talking to a sexually available brick wall.
“This fairy tale crap,” said Ella. “Whether you believe in arranged marriages or love marriages, both are infinitely preferable to this nonsense. In what universe does it make sense for a guy to marry a girl because she’s dropped her glass slipper or been poisoned by an apple or traded in by her kidnapped dad? You might as well just match people up by lottery.”
The merman gave her the slightest sensuous pout and jiggled his pecs playfully.
“Oh, and don’t get me started on true love’s kiss,” she said. “If anyone is fool enough to think you can tell if you’re going to love someone because of their kiss then they should be legally barred from ever getting married. It’s about… a shared outlook. And whether he makes you laugh. Whether you feel comfortable around him. It’s about seeing yourself being with them in five years, ten years, fifty. True love’s kiss? Bollocks, more like.”
The merman’s smouldering gaze intensified. It was starting to look more like a look of constipation than anything else.
“And true love’s kiss was only introduced in the later tales,” she told him. Fish boy was a good listener; she had to admit that much. “I read about it in one of Dainty’s books. The seventeenth century collectors of tales tidied up all the rude and disgusting bits. In the old old tales, the wolf isn’t the only one who eats granny’s flesh, the ugly stepsisters end up as blind, lame cripples and, in Sleeping Beauty, the prince doesn’t kiss her awake. Oh, no, he gets a bit of rape action in first. He…”
Ella stopped, struck by a thought.
“Oh, God.”
She ran back to the house, remembered why she was carrying a length of wood, ran back to the well and then, with a mutter of “Sorry handsome, back where you came from,” walloped the merman sideways back into the well and ran to the house once more.
“What’s the rush?” said the ogre, around a fresh mouthful of bird seed.
“I think I can wake mum!” she said as she skidded past and in the back door.
Her clattering entrance was enough to wake Granny Rose who snorted, woke and instantly declared, “I wasn’t sleeping.”
The wolf opened his eyes, licked his chops but otherwise persisted in his impression of a shaggy fireside rug.
“I’ve got an idea,” said Ella.
“Well, don’t brag about it,” said Rose. “Share it and we’ll be t’judge.”
Ella lifted up her mum’s hand and inspected her fingertips.
“It’s the Spinning Wheel Gambit.”
“Aye?”
Ella squinted and examined them more closely. It was odd, she thought, that her mum’s nails and hair hadn’t grown during her long sleep. She truly had been put on ice.
“She pricked her finger on the spindle of a spinning wheel and fell asleep.”
“I know t’story.”
“Although it’s the prince’s kiss that wakes her in modern versions, in one of the old versions, written by some Italian guy, the prince not only kisses her but forces himself on her while she’s asleep.”
“Filthy bugger,” said Rose.
“Giambattista Basile,” said the wolf.
“What?”
“The Italian guy.” He looked at them. “What? Can’t I be a top predator and well-read?”
Ella switched to her mum’s other hand and resumed her inspection of fingertips.
“Anyway, Sleeping Beauty becomes pregnant and gives birth to twins. Without waking up. The twins crawl up her body, looking for something to feed on. Because they’re hungry, right?”
“Filthy,” said Rose.
Ella could see a fleck of light brown underneath Natalie’s index finger nail. She picked at it with her own fingernail.
“And one of them,” she continued, “latched onto her finger and attempted to suckle. And sucked out the splinter. And with that…”
Ella gave up on picking at it, put Natalie’s finger in her own mouth and sucked.
Natalie sat bolt upright and thrust out her arms, an action that caused her to automatically punch Ella in the face. Ella staggered back and rebounded off the wolf (who did not appreciate being treated as a cushion).
Natalie Hannaford stared at her wet and now splinter-free fingertip, blinking eyes that she hadn’t used in thirty years.
“So, you finally worked it out then?” she croaked drily.
The sound of her own mum’s voice brought a lump to Ella’s throat. There were already tears in her eyes though mostly the result of a thump in the face.
“Mum.”
Natalie looked down at her, sprawled on the kitchen floor.
Ella had thought of this moment many times, yes, in the past twenty-four hours of course but also before that, thinking of what would it be like to meet her mum again, to stand before her (or sprawl before her, as it turned out) and say, ‘Here I am, mum. Here I am.’ In her imagination, she had prepared herself for the outpouring of emotion, the questions, her mum’s pride in what her little girl had become…
To be honest, she hadn’t expected her mum’s gaze to be so… not critical as such, but coolly analytical. It took her in from messy sea-washed hair, down to grubby feet. It made Ella wish she’d made more of an effort.
“Those are my clothes,” said Natalie.
“Um,” said Ella.
“They don’t fit you,” said Natalie.
Natalie gathered the bedsheet around her chest, swung her legs off the table and came down to Ella’s level, hands outstretched. The expected hug, the first touch of reconnection, didn’t come. Natalie, instead, placed her thumbs either side of Ella’s nose and gave it a tweak.
“Ow,” said Ella.
“It’s not broken,” her mum informed her.
“Okay,” said Ella.
Natalie stood, turned to her own mother and gave her the greeting that Ella apparently didn’t deserve. She took Rose’s face in her hands and kissed the woman tenderly on the cheek.
“I’m sorry I was away so long, mum.”
Rose said nothing, simply shook her head.
“And since when did you allow wicked wolves in the house?”
“He sneaked in while I was asleep,” said Rose.
“I like grandma’s house,” said the wolf. “What can I say?”
Natalie turned. “Ella.”
“Yes?” said Ella, knowing that this was now the moment, now that her mum had overcome the shock, now that she was ready to rekindle a long lost relationship.
“Put the kettle on,” said Natalie. “I’m parched. And we’ve got a wedding to get to, haven’t we?”
Chapter Fourteen
Roy’s phone buzzed.
After spending the wee hours placating the police, Civil Aviation Authority and RNLI with personal details, promises of good behaviour and a large donation to the local lifeboat fund, he had returned to The Bumbles and slept for a grand total of forty-seven minutes before the first of the wedding organisers appeared and demanded answers to questions that apparently only he could answer.
He now sat in the marquee on the lawn, which was to serve for both the civil ceremony and the post-reception disco t
hat day. Roy was not asleep but drifting off into a quiet thought-free space. In front of him, a team of earnest young men were enrobing a set of stage blocks in billowing silk fabric. It took four of them to hold the fabric clear of the ground, one of them to apply pins in hidden folds, and another to stand at a distance and advise them that they really needed to undo it all and allow a more graceful drape.
It was a surreal and genteel sight — the flowing silks, young working class types putting heart and soul into their job, the air filled with inane chatter. Roy could quite happily have sat there forever but now his phone was buzzing and he was forced to wake up properly.
Roy pulled out his phone. He saw that Buster was ready to chew some of the dangling ends of silk so he called him to heel and walked out of the tent and round to the driveway.
It was Wilbur calling.
“I hate you,” Roy told his good friend.
“Have you heard?” said Wilbur.
Roy yawned. He thought he’d be out of the way out here, but he saw another lorry pulling up and knew that more wedding-related paraphernalia was being delivered. Roy sank down on a staddle stone.
“Heard what? If it’s about your court appearance, I really don’t care right now.”
“No,” said Wilbur. “Not that. It’s about Jasper and your dad, and lots of other people too when you come right down to it.”
“Have you been on the pop?” said Roy, watching the huge lorry reverse up the drive.
“Not since breakfast, no. Listen, I was a bit worried about Jasper. He didn’t show up for the Fennington shoot.”
“Don’t care. Tired.”
“So, I rang up Binky. Best pals. Binky fagged for Jasper at Eton.”
“I know Binky. Life Guards. Stupid helmets.”
“That’s him. He told me that MI5 have declared some sort of critical something-or-other. Seems as though a whole load of folks have gone missing.”
“So, MI5 are worried about Jasper?” Roy said, struggling to grasp Wilbur’s point.
“Jasper and whole load of others as well. He was at Her Maj’s garden party at the palace yesterday and there was an incident.”
“What sort of incident?”
“Binky wasn’t sure of the details, but he says the place is in uproar.”
“I’ve not heard about any of this.”
“They’re keeping it hush-hush. They’re looking at all the minor royals now, making sure they’re safe. I thought of your dad when he said that.”
Roy laughed. “Dad’s not a minor royal!”
“Well, you’re four-hundred-and-something-th in line to the throne.”
“And he’s four-hundred-and-something-th minus one,” said Roy. “I think you need to be a little bit further up the pecking order to be called that.”
“Well you should keep an eye out, just the same.”
“For what?”
“Anything odd.”
At that point, a seven foot balloon unicorn appeared from behind the enormous lorry.
“Oh, I will,” said Roy. “I’m sure Jasper’s just out on a bender somewhere. He’ll turn up in a couple of days with a hangover and another nasty rash.”
The man with the inflatable unicorn couldn’t see that he was making a bee line for the holly tree that stood at the head of the path.
“Christ! I need to go, Wilbur. Chin up old sausage. Oi! Oi, you!”
Three women sat at the kitchen table in Rushy Glen, a pot of tea and a rack of toast between them. Rose was smoking a Park Drive reflectively. Natalie, now dressed in yet more of her old clothes (that, yes, did fit her slim figure far better than they would Ella’s more 21st century body shape), had gulped down the first cup of tea, devoured three rounds of toast and sat nursing her second cup. She’d been nursing it for half an hour, not saying a word until she looked at Ella and said, “You’re staring at me.”
Ella didn’t know how to respond to that.
“Aye, well this has all come as a surprise to us all,” said Rose.
“You think I’m your mum, Ella,” said Natalie.
“You are my mum,” said Ella.
The twenty-something sniffed and sipped her tea.
“Which is worse?” she said. “To lose a parent or lose a child?”
“I wouldn’t know,” said Ella.
Natalie shook her head.
“I’m back and… and you’ve got me back exactly as I was. Want to pick things up where we left off? Me, I come back and I’ve lost so much. I had a little girl.”
“I am that little girl,” said Ella, hearing the petulant tone in her voice and wondering if she was regressing back to her teenage self to make up for lost time.
“Not so little,” said Natalie. “I had this tiny dot of a girl, who loved chasing insects and singing made up rhymes and wanted to become a vet when she grew up. What is an eco-builder anyway?”
Ella frowned.
“You heard me when you were asleep?”
“It wasn’t a true sleep. I heard everything. I had… how long?”
“Thirty years,” said Ella.
“…thirty years to think and reflect.” Her brow furrowed. “Thirty years and you haven’t got married, got kids of your own?”
“Whoa,” said Ella. “You’re out of my life for thirty years and the first thing you want to know is why I’ve not had kids. Back off, lady.”
“You don’t want to leave it too late.”
“She’s picky, that’s what.” Rose tapped out cigarette ash into her saucer.
“It’s my life and I’ll live it as I like,” said Ella.
“Do you not like men?” said Natalie.
“I… what?”
“Lasses these days,” said Rose. “Think they can leave it as long as they like and then get that VHF treatment.”
“I will or will not have babies if I want to. It’s my bloody womb.”
“And I respect that,” said Natalie.
“Really? Because it sounds like I’m getting parenting advice from someone who is actually ten years younger than me.”
“And I’d already had you by that age.”
“Is that the problem?” said Ella.
“What?” said Natalie.
“You took a bullet for me. And are you now disappointed that I didn’t become the woman you wanted me to be? You want to plan my life for me?”
“I didn’t say that.”
Ella pushed back her chair violently and stood.
“You didn’t have to!”
Natalie threw her hands up in exasperation. Ella glowered.
Rose burst out laughing. Granny Rose wasn’t one readily known for producing gales of laughter. Ella and Natalie stared at her.
“What?” said Natalie.
Rose pointed at Ella. “She’s just like thee.”
“What?”
“Just like thee,” chortled the old woman. “Bloody wilful, that’s what.”
Ella looked at the young woman and tried to remember what she herself was like in her twenties. Natalie looked back, probably wondering if Ella was a reflection of who she’d be in another decade.
“We only get it from you, mum,” said Natalie.
“I think not,” said Rose. “Everyone knows I’m the very epitome of tolerance and forgiveness.”
“Oh, in that case, Granny,” said Ella, “I should tell you I crashed your car.”
Rose’s cup came down hard on the table. “Tha’s a bloody menace, girl. If tha weren’t full grown, tha’d feel t’back of my hand.”
Ella caught Natalie’s expression and they both laughed.
“Oh, yes,” agreed Natalie. “Tolerance and forgiveness.”
As Roy helped to get the unicorn past the holly tree without incident, the shutter went up on the lorry with a loud clatter. A tiny man with a beard stood on the tailgate, hands on his hips. Sequins covered his pointed hat, his wide-shouldered jacket and his flared trousers. Roy was momentarily stunned by the sight of the man who then jumped down with an exaggera
ted flourish. It wasn’t possible to discern his facial features, as he was wearing a pair of sunglasses that were roughly as wide as he was tall, in spite of his glittering stacked boots.
“Er, hello,” said Roy. “Would you be with the entertainment?”
“Not with the entertainment, brother,” said the small man, thrusting his fist to the sky and his pelvis towards Roy’s kneecap, “I am the entertainment.”
“All by yourself.”
“Better believe it, chief. You can call me Disco. Now, I’ve got sound equipment in here that’d make a roadie weep and think he’d gone to heaven and we’ve got —” He did a pelvic thrust and consulted his watch. “— only two hours to set up before the magic begins.”
“Well, quite,” said Roy.
“I’d normally have my six brothers to help me but they’re on an errand.”
“Six…?”
“So, I’m gonna need you to rustle up some muscle and help me get set up.”
“If you so say.”
“I do, posh boy.”
Bemused, Roy led the little man up towards the marquee and wondered where he’d last seen that gang of earnest young men.
Rose was loading the twin tub with her daughter’s and granddaughter’s sodden clothes.
“And this hasn’t been running right an’ all,” she said critically. “Not since tha stuffed it with six dwarfs.”
By the tone, Natalie knew that the cost of a new twin tub washer had been added to an itemised list that would soon be presented to Ella. Natalie remembered the time when, as a child, she had put her elbow through her mum’s glass-fronted sideboard while looking at the ornaments. Her mum had pinned the glazier’s bill to the kitchen wall and forced Natalie to pay it off out of docked pocket money. Some people never changed.
Ella had changed, had become a stranger to Natalie’s eyes, and Natalie knew she’d not made the best first impression on this woman who had once been her little daughter. Natalie put a fresh cuppa in front of Ella, following that truest of British traditions, of trying to mend bridges and fix family crises with tea.
“Thanks.”
Natalie tried to catch a glimpse of her own little girl in this older woman. It wasn’t easy. Ella looked more like Natalie’s mum than her daughter. It was, she supposed, nice to see Ella blossom into adulthood but, even though Ella was only in her thirties, there were already lines at the corners of her eyes, a tiredness that oh-so-slightly hinted at the old age to come and Natalie couldn’t bear that. If Ella looked old to Natalie’s eyes, what must Gavin look like now?