Similar Differences

by Jay Howard

  ~~~

  Moira swept into the hallway on a blast of cold wind. “Darling!” she greeted Elaine, with a strong embrace. “I’ve been too long in Canada; I’m in great need of strong coffee. I’d forgotten just how dire the transport is here. I travel nearly five thousand miles in nine hours and then it takes four hours to travel the last hundred miles.”

  Elaine hugged her back. “Oh, Mom, I’m so glad you came. I’m just feeling totally lost in a family situation where I don’t know the family.” Much to her consternation she suddenly burst into tears. “Oh, jeez, what the fuck?”

  “I do wish you’d stop this habit of swearing you’ve got into lately,” Moira said. “You’ve been tense, unsettled, for months, but that’s no excuse.”

  Andrei followed them in unobserved and saw Elaine twist out of her mother’s arms and turn away from her, shoulders tense. He quietly took Moira’s suitcases up to her room.

  “There, there,” Moira said, rubbing Elaine’s back briskly. “It’s OK. It will all make sense soon.” She took her daughter’s hand and led her towards the kitchen. “Roza Maria, are you there?” she called.

  “Moira!” Roza Maria shouted with joy. She rushed forward and pulled Moira into an embrace. “Oh, my dear girl, it is much too long since I’ve held you.”

  Elaine stood back, surreptitiously wiping her eyes, wondering about their history together.

  Moira took Roza Maria’s hand and turned to her daughter. “Elaine,” she said, “the first thing you need to know is that Roza Maria and Basil effectively raised me from when I was ten. She was the one who fought to keep me on the straight and narrow, admittedly a losing battle but at least she tried. Her wisdom and love, just knowing that she was there for me, always on my side, made the difference between a bit of wildness and going totally off the rails.”

  “Oh, you…” Roza Marie’s smile creased the skin around her mouth and eyes. She flapped her free hand against Moira’s arm, her cheeks flushing in embarrassment.

  “No, no, it’s true!” Moira took her daughter’s hand too. “This is the first piece of the puzzle for you.” She looked down at the floor while she gathered her thoughts. She looked up into her daughter’s eyes and took a deep breath. “When my brothers died, my parents, your grandparents, retreated into themselves and I was left to fend for myself. Roza Maria and Basil filled the void for me, became parents to me in every meaningful sense of the word.”

  “What brothers?” Elaine asked. “Why have I never heard about them before?”

  “I’ll tell you everything, but please, coffee first.”

  Roza Maria gave Moira a gentle push. “You two go to the green salon. I’ll bring you coffee.” She beamed at Moira, held both her shoulders and gave her another kiss, then pushed her again towards the door. “Go! Go! You need to talk.”

  The green salon was the smallest of the ground floor sitting rooms, designed for a few friends to sit and chat intimately. Moira collapsed into a sofa and pulled Elaine down next to her. “It feels so strange to be back here.”

  Elaine snorted. “Nowhere near as strange as it feels to find this place I knew nothing about is now mine.”

  Roza Maria brought in a tray of coffee and iced buns, placing it on the table in front of them. She beamed at Moira and left again.

  “Mom,” Elaine said when they were alone again, “I’ve been looking at a stack of photos of people I guess are all family. What happened exactly? Why have I inherited…” she waved her hands, lost for words, indicating the house around them, “when it belonged to your parents? Why didn’t you inherit? What happened to your brothers?”

  “Whoah, there! Give me a moment, please!” Moira reached for the pot and poured the fragrant brew. “I’ll dish all the dirt for you, but let me tell it my way. You can ask questions afterwards.” She leaned back with her coffee and her eyes lost focus as her mind travelled back in time. “Why don’t you bring down some of those photos,” she said eventually, “and we’ll talk about them?”

  Elaine rushed up to her room and gathered several albums, topping them with a box of loose photos. She sat back down next to her mother and placed them on the table, taking onto her lap the box which, to her mind, held the most intriguing photos, the casual shots rather than the formal occasion photos from the albums. She riffled through them and found the one she wanted. “Are these your brothers?” she asked.

  Moira took the photo and sadness almost overwhelmed her. “Yes,” she said, and bit her bottom lip. “That’s Geoffrey,” she said, indicating the boy on the left, “and that’s Simon. I took that photo, just before they died.” She fished in her purse for a handkerchief. “A couple of months afterwards they went swimming together. We think, from what people on shore saw, that Simon got cramp and Geoffrey tried to save him, but Simon panicked and pulled Geoffrey under with him. They were both strong swimmers, but there’s an undertow on that section of coast, where the river flows in, and they both got caught in it.”

  “So it was just you left?”

  “Yes, and, as I’m female, the title of Baron that Queen Victoria conferred on your great great great great grandfather – I think that’s the right number of greats – passed to your great uncle when your grandfather died. The family is quite extensive, as you’ll find out.”

  “Is that why there was the rift between you and your parents? You weren’t good enough just because you’re a woman?”

  Moira turned towards her daughter and took both her hands. “No.” She looked deep into her beloved daughter’s eyes. “It’s because of who I fell in love with.”

  Elaine jumped up, anger blazing through her. “He was a racist, a bigot!”

  Moira smiled wryly. “Actually, I think it was mostly because he was a snob. Your father was working as a street cleaner at the time. You have to remember this was a long time before the Race Relations Act. There was an awful lot of discrimination and that was the only job he could get to support himself while he studied.”

  “Pops is the finest man I know! How could they judge him just on the color of his skin?”

  “That’s how it was back then.” She looked appraisingly at Elaine. “How it is now is that you compare every man you meet to your father and you find them wanting.”

  “I’m not going to accept second best for a husband.”

  “No more would I, so we married in a registry office and we went to Canada to build a life together. My father insisted my mother should never contact me or even mention my name to him from that day. But here I am, back where I was born, and my daughter is now chatelaine.”

  “Grandmother knew about me, enough to name me in her will,” Elaine mused.

  “She wouldn’t disobey your grandfather, refused to take my phone calls, never answered my letters… I got angry and stopped trying long before you were born. But it appears she got round the ban by getting all the news about us from Roza Maria. Roza and I have written to each other ever since I left England.” Moira nursed her cup and her eyes lost focus as she stared back across the years. “Everything happens for a reason,” she said eventually. She put her cup down and took Elaine’s hands. “Perhaps this is the change you’ve been needing. Perhaps this is the country where you’ll find your perfect husband, as I did.”

  “I don’t need a husband, and I don’t know if I want a change as huge as this one.”

  “Whatever,” Moira said. “Just don’t close off options until you’ve thought it all through.” She went to the sideboard and poured two shots of single malt whisky into cut crystal tumblers. She gave one to Elaine. “For now, here’s to my mother, your grandmother, who loved you.”

  They solemnly clinked glasses, both wondering where Lydia’s legacy would lead.

  Popping the Cherry

  Marie popped her head around the twins’ bedroom door. The children both looked up, one face scowling as only a seven-year-old boy can scowl, the other beaming her delight at having got her way about which game they played.

  “You two OK ther
e for a little while if I pop down to the greenhouse?” Marie asked.

  Heather nodded vigorously, setting her brown curls bouncing on her shoulders. “We’re giving Annabel and Trixie their supper,” she said, lifting a tiny plastic cup to one doll’s mouth, “and then Jody must help me bath them and put them to bed.”

  “No, no bath time,” Marie said, her tone making it clear that this was not going to be open to debate. “No running water or using anything electrical while I’m not in the house.” She paused, looked from one pair of grey eyes to the other. “Agreed?”

  Heather pouted but nodded. Jody looked relieved. “Don’t want to play this stupid girls’ game anyway,” he mumbled.

  “Why don’t you put the dolls to bed and then play dressing up?” Marie suggested then left them to it.

  Jody went to the window and watched his mother hurry down the path. She was struggling to keep the hood of her rain jacket up, the blustery wind driving the rain almost horizontally at times. He sighed heavily, his hope of getting out to play with his favourite toy guns and bow and arrows as remote as the sunshine they hadn’t seen for a week.

  “Jody,” Heather called, “you’re supposed to be putting the children to bed with me.”

  He turned from the window and plodded over to his sister. He picked Annabel up and tossed her into one of the tiny cots.

  “Jody!” Heather shouted. “You’ve hurt her!”

  Jody shrugged and leaned back against the dressing up trunk while Heather settled the dolls under their quilts, murmuring soothing words to stop Annabel crying.

  “OK,” Heather said eventually, “get off the lid and we’ll play dressing up next, like Mummy said.”

  Jody remained where he was. His moment of inspiration had a devil dancing in his eyes when he spoke. “Not this stuff,” he said. “Mummy knew we were playing Mothers and Fathers, so when she said ‘dressing up’ she must have meant dress up like they do when they go out. Come on!” He dashed off to their parents’ bedroom and pulled the wardrobe door open.

  Heather stood in the doorway. “Are you sure this is what Mummy meant?”

  “Positive,” he said, and pulled his father’s white dress shirt off the hanger. His tee-shirt was off in the twinkling of an eye and he disappeared inside the shirt. It had been hung with the buttons done up to keep it in shape but his head popped up through the collar without a problem. The sleeves hung down below his knees and he laughed, flapping his arms up and down. “Give me a hand, Heather, roll them up for me.”

  She sidled into the room and complied, then helped Jody find the ready-made-up bow tie, the one with velcro fastening. She giggled when he started to do a little jigging dance in his finery, especially when he added his father’s black leather shoes and clomped around the bedroom.

  Jody stood in front of the full-length mirror and admired his appearance. “Come on, Sis,” he said, “you need to look smart too if we’re going out dancing.”

  They both looked through the dresses hanging from their mother’s rack. Heather found the turquoise dress with masses of sequins on the bodice and down the full skirt. She loved sparkly things. She stripped to her knickers and slipped inside the dress. As it was a calf-length dress for her mother she had to hold it up with both hands. Jody got out the strappy sandals their mother wore with the dress and Heather pushed her feet into the ends, her heels resting half way up the soles. She tried to dance but could only shuffle forwards, dragging the sandals across the carpet. When she got to the dressing table she pulled the dress above her knees so that she could climb onto the stool, letting the sandals fall off her feet.

  Jody wandered over to investigate his father’s bottles of aftershave. Heather opened her mother’s make-up bag, selecting a scarlet lipstick to wipe across her puckered lips. She checked her reflection, turning her head this way and that, smacking her lips together a few times before moving on to the mascara. That turned out to be a trickier job than she’d expected; with the first couple of brushes she managed to get some on her lashes, even more on her cheeks. The third time she poked herself in the eye. Jody laughed at her cries of anguish.

  “It’s not nice to laugh when someone hurts themselves,” she said accusingly. She threw the mascara wand on the dressing table, leaving black smears across the polished surface. She rubbed her eye furiously, smudging the mascara even further down her cheeks.

  Jody was now bored again. “What next?”

  Heather paused and thought about it. “After you’ve been out dancing, you say goodbye to the babysitter and then check on the children and then go to bed.” She was positive about this as she’d been awake once when their parents had returned.

  They both went to their own bedroom. Jody stayed by the door while Heather went and rearranged the quilts over her dolls.

  “Sssh!” she said, one finger to her lips. “They’re both sleeping well.” She led the way back to their parents’ bedroom, and let the dress fall down her wiry body. She stepped away from it and went to her mother’s side of the bed to retrieve her nightie from under the pillow. “Get your jimjams on,” she instructed Jody.

  He grumbled but complied. “I can’t wear the bottoms,” he said. “They’re way too long and the waist is too big.”

  “Just wear the top.”

  He rolled the sleeves up, and then rolled them some more before he could see his hands out of the ends. “They don’t go straight to sleep,” he said. “I’ve heard them making noises for ages after they go to bed.”

  “I wonder what they do?” Heather said. “I can’t see any games in here.”

  A flash of bright red among the white tissues in the small bin by the bed caught Jody’s eye. He reached in and lifted out a limp piece of rubber. “Looks like they play with balloons,” he said. “Bet Dad had to throw this one away as he spat in it too much.”

  They both recalled helping blow up all the balloons for their party the previous week. They’d each had to throw a couple away when their mother objected to how much spit they’d got in the balloons. “It looks horrible,” she’d said, “sliding around in there. Yuk! And what if it burst over one of your friends’ heads?” They’d both giggled, thinking about it. “It would hang off their nose like a bogey!” Jody had shouted, making Heather laugh louder.

  Heather examined the deflated red balloon her brother held up and wrinkled her nose. “Put it back in the bin. Let’s find some more new ones.”

  Jody opened the bedside cabinet drawer and saw half a dozen red balloons there. He looked at them dubiously. “I think these might be very expensive ones,” he told his sister. “They’re wrapped up separately, not like our party balloons, all in one big bag.”

  “Pass one over,” Heather said. “I’m sure Mummy won’t mind if we only take one.”

  Jody handed one to her and watched her open the foil. She raised it to her nose.

  “Smells like my cherry sweets,” she said and began to blow it up. She licked her lips. “It tastes like them too - here, you try it.”

  Jody licked the balloon. “It does; definitely cherry flavour. Do you think Mummy will buy us some fruity balloons if we ask?”

  Heather finished blowing the balloon up. “It looks like a cherry, too, all shiny red and it’s got a little stalk too!”

  Between them they managed to tie a knot in the end. Heather stood up on the bed and started jumping up and down, patting the balloon towards the ceiling. The nightdress slid from her shoulders, freeing her near-naked body to jump higher.

  Jody pulled his father’s pyjama top off and jumped from the bed to the dressing table stool. “To me, Sis, over here.”

  She batted it towards him and he jumped from stool to bed to reach it before it dropped back to the floor. Heather took the chance to jump to the stool, Jody jumped to the chair, they both jumped back to the bed, each trying to pat the big cherry-coloured balloon every time they jumped. Their shouts and laughter got louder and louder, their leaps more and more daring, their bounces on the mattress higher and
higher.

  The door opened. Their mother stood there, mouth open, taking in the scene before her, the scattered clothes, the cosmetic-smeared face of her daughter. But mostly her eyes were transfixed by the red inflated condom. She grabbed up a brooch from the dressing table, captured the condom and pricked it with the brooch pin. The loud bang was followed by a moment’s stunned silence.

  “You popped my cherry!” Heather wailed, ever-ready tears forming in grey, accusing eyes.

  “I… what?” Marie flushed scarlet, and then started laughing.

  “What’s funny?” Jody asked.

  All Marie could do was shake her head, holding her hand over her nose and mouth, wiping away the laughter tears. After a while she got herself together again and cleared her throat loudly. “Come on, you two, you know you’re not allowed to bounce on the bed or wear my clothes or use my cosmetics, so off to the bathroom and wash your face, Heather. Jody - put your father’s shoes and my sandals away. I’ll need to launder his shirt again.” She leaned down to pick it up, then hung up her turquoise dress. Lastly she picked up the burst condom and put it in the bin.