Chapter Fourteen
It had been two days since Enya had sat through the excruciating afternoon with the Sutherlands.
She was exhausted, had barely slept trying to figure out the complex puzzle of it all, awash with shame that she was mixed up in the situation at all.
To think her main concern had been Aiden and Holly.
How she longed to talk to Jenny, to see Jenny, knowing that her friend offered the very best advice.
With the whole experience bottled up inside her, their lack of contact made everything feel harder.
She felt loneliness ripple through her veins and had barely ventured out, reluctant to leave the house for fear of bumping into Phil. It was a crazy state of affairs.
At least Angela was home, a sounding board and a friend, and she was in need of both.
Her sister sat at the kitchen table and slurped her cup of tea. ‘There is nothing like a good cup of tea at home. The tea abroad is never the same, is it?’
‘I guess not.’ Enya fought to remember, another reminder of what she had lost when she had become a widow, those lovely experiences, mint tea in Marrakech, sardines in Lisbon.
‘Even if you take proper teabags, I think it’s something to do with the water.’
‘Possibly.’ Enya nodded.
Her sister’s tan was deep, her hair sun-kissed, and she carried the languid air of one who was not yet revved up for life back in the real world.
‘Mum looked old, I thought.’
‘Ill or just old?’
Enya hated not seeing her parents frequently, but Jonathan had always reminded her that it was their choice to go sit in the sun and sip her inheritance through a cocktail straw on a nightly jaunt to the town square.
Not that he begrudged them and neither did she.
It beat popping on an extra jersey and dodging the rain in Keynsham while they watched daytime TV and went to bed earlier and earlier in the winter months.
She shook away the thought that this was what her life had become.
‘Tired maybe, and old, I don’t think all that sun is good for her skin.’
Enya stared at her older sister, who presently resembled a burnished walnut and was about as wrinkled. ‘Probably not.’ She smiled to herself.
‘So, tell me all about Aiden and Holly, what a bloody carry-on, Ens!’
‘You could say that.’ She took a chair opposite Angela and sipped her brew.
‘Poor Holly.’
‘Yes.’ She disliked how Holly was cast in this way, a capable, wonderful young woman who was now to be pitied, it seemed, because of a choice Aiden had made.
‘She’ll be fine though, she’ll come out the other end stronger and probably thankful.
Who wants to be with someone if there’s even the smallest possibility they want to be with someone else? ’
‘True.’ Angela nodded. ‘That’s what Jenny said, pretty much.’
‘You’ve spoken to her?’ She held the mug between her palms and cursed the increase in her heart rate.
It was awful, the feeling of exclusion, the grief at the prospect of losing her best friend, and this before she wondered what it all might mean for their business plans, the one thing that had been the light at the end of the tunnel when she considered losing her job of twenty-five years.
Jenny had still not responded to her heart text, and it had left her at a loss as to how best to proceed.
‘Mmm.’ Angela swallowed. ‘I hate feeling like I’m in the middle.’
‘You’re not in the middle! We’re adults. And we’ve all been around too long to let this rip a hole in our friendship, haven’t we?’ The quaver to her voice indicated this was not a rhetorical question.
‘We have, but you’re my sister, my priority, yet Jen is my friend and I hate that I’m speaking to both of you and yet you’re not speaking to each other, it’s awkward. Weird.’
‘Only if we let it be. I sent her another message after the heart, didn’t know what else to do really. I think it’ll be better when the dust has settled, when we’re all a bit calmer.’
‘And when d’you think that’ll be?’
There was something in her sister’s tone that suggested she might have a long wait.
‘I don’t know.’ She held Angela’s eyeline, this truth as sobering as it was unnerving.
She missed her friend so much, hated the feeling of unease here in her own home.
Hated that she had such a small circle, hated that Jonathan was not here to make everything feel a bit better. ‘What did she say to you?’
‘She’s angry, so she said lots of things that I know she doesn’t mean. Heat of the moment stuff.’
‘Oh God!’ Her sister’s admission did nothing to allay her concerns. Enya wished she hadn’t asked.
‘Let’s talk about something else.’ Angela echoed her thoughts.
‘You know I told you that Iris and her parents came over at the weekend?’ She shifted in the chair, not sure if this was in fact a better choice of topic.
‘Yes, what were they like?’ Her sister’s eyes blazed, she did love a gossip.
‘Iris is lovely, beautiful. I mean, not overly warm, but she was probably very nervous. Her mum is glam, has an allergy to some nuts, and she necked a bottle and a half of sparkling wine and danced with her arms in the air to a song in her head, which was... interesting. Not judging, but...’
‘Oh my God, you are so judging her! But carry on, I am here for this.’
‘And Iris’s dad.’ She paused, and rubbed her tired eyes. ‘Okay.’ She put down her tea and lay her palms on the table. ‘Do you remember I mentioned to you about that man in the car park?’
‘The one who smashed your car in?’
‘Well, he didn’t exactly smash my car in but there was an incident.’
‘I remember, you were giggly, said he was attractive; Alan Titchmarsh meets Gary Barlow.’
Enya stared at her with a look of utter bewilderment, and felt her face flush with embarrassment. ‘I might have said he was attractive, but I swear to God I never mentioned Alan Titchmarsh or Gary Barlow, neither of whom I find remotely attractive.’
‘You don’t? What’s wrong with you?’ Angela tutted.
‘What’s wrong with you ?’ Enya countered as they reverted to their teenage selves, which happened on occasion.
Angela took a gulp of her tea. ‘Okay, so maybe I might have fabricated the bit about Gary Barlow meets Alan Titchmarsh because actually that would be my ideal man.’
Enya pulled a face at her sister. ‘Are you serious?’
‘God, yes – I mean, think about it.’
‘I’d rather not.’ Enya sighed. Angela ignored her.
‘Someone who can tend to your garden, trim your bushes while serenading you with a song they’ve written just for you.’ Her sister looked into the middle distance, as if she were in her own world, a world Enya had no desire to enter. None at all.
‘Anyway, the point I was going to make, and here’s the kicker: the guy in the car park who I christened Handsome Car Klutz, HCK for short.’
‘Obvs.’
‘He’s Iris’s dad.’
‘What do you mean, he’s Iris’s dad?’
‘I mean, he is the father of the girl Aiden is going to marry!’ A fact that was as confusing as it was mortifying.
‘Flippin’ ’eck! That’s going to be interesting at the reception.’ Angela smirked. ‘What will you do? Play footsie under the top table?’
‘No, don’t start with that, it’s not funny!
I can’t even joke about it. He’s married, obviously.
And that’s it for me, I’m out.’ Just the thought was shameful.
‘And even if he wasn’t, it’s a non-starter.
Not possible. I no doubt got the wrong end of the stick, that’s what happens when you live the Arctic fox life and are entirely out of practice.
He was probably just being nice to me, chatty.
I’m sure he’s nice to everyone.’ She decided not to mention the undeniable attraction and the frisson of tension when he’d spoken to her in the shed.
Jonathan’s shed. She glanced towards the patio, where he now stood staring out at the garden.
‘It was just one of those weird things where he was dropping Iris off to get on a plane, and I was dropping Aiden off to get on a plane, and our kids met and fell in love on that plane, and that’s it, end of.
It’s those two we need to concentrate on and this. .. wedding!’
‘Oh my God.’ Angela put her empty cup down and placed her palms on the tabletop.
‘What do you mean, Oh my God ?’
‘You say it’s a non-starter, not possible, but I know you, Enya Brown. I know that look in your eyes. You like him, you like him, don’t you?’
Enya thought how best to proceed; with caution came to mind.
‘He’s married.’ She repeated, ‘married. He’s going to be Aiden’s father-in-law.
I’ve met him twice. I like him as a person, as a good sort for Aiden to get entangled with, but that’s it.
I don’t know him! Nothing is going to happen and I’d rather you didn’t mention it again.
’ She kept her voice steady, hoping not to belie the disappointment that tinged this fact or share her thoughts that he just might be a cad.
A cad who had rather conveniently signed a lease on a flat, indicating he was moving out on the very day he met her, or so he said.
.. She could smell the BS a mile off. ‘I mean, my God, can you imagine what sorting through that situation would be like for Aiden?’ His words came to her now, spoken softly in the midst of his grief.
I’m so glad I’ve got you, Mum, no matter what happens I’ve always got you, haven’t I?
A knock put a halt to their chat. Enya’s heart leapt as she opened the front door to Jenny and Holly!
It felt wonderful to see her friend, to be this close to her.
Jenny, however, could barely meet her eye and this swiped all possible joy from the reunion.
It wasn’t their presence that was disheartening, but rather the change in the way it felt that threw her completely.