Chapter Twenty-Eight
Enya had enjoyed her day off. In this new spirit of self-reliance, she had spent it at The Mall, Cribbs Causeway, letting her thoughts settle as she trawled the racks in John Lewis and Oliver Bonas, wondering what might be suitable for a summer garden wedding.
Unable to decide between a couple of frocks that had caught her eye, both long, loose and comfortable, one in cerise and one in tangerine.
She decided to go back next week with Angela and get a second opinion.
Jenny would never say no to a trip to the shops, which inevitably ended with a noodle supper or an iced coffee, weather depending.
Several women caught her attention, some looping arms with their friends, others laughing as they walked side by side in companionable chatter.
Despite venturing out and making the trip alone, it made her feel both lonely and self-conscious and she left with her head down, fighting the frustrating desire to cry, as panic, her old friend, wrapped its tendrils around her throat.
It was as frustrating as it was alarming and felt like a backward step.
It had been three days since she’d met up with Trish for a coffee and had decided against giving Aiden the details of their conversation, knowing that to hear so many doubts about him and his intentions, expressed by his future mother-in-law, would do nothing to bolster his fragile confidence.
Trish, she knew, wasn’t a bad person, but was just a mum doing her best, struggling to let go of her child, who clearly filled gaps in her life, and who she was worried might be about to make an emotionally costly mistake.
If nothing else, Enya could certainly relate.
It was more than their discussion about the kids, however, that replayed in her mind.
Her heart ached for the woman who had so eloquently described the lack of closeness, the loneliness that existed within her marriage.
Confirmation too that Dominic had spoken the truth, his flat was indeed a big step towards dismantling his marriage.
It made her feel sorry for Dominic as well, having heard first-hand that he wanted more, wanted to move forward, to feel energised, anything other than to feel that life was stagnating.
Not that it was anything to do with her and not that she would be commenting to either of them.
Knowing how they lived, however, made it easier somehow to check her phone at odd hours of the day and night to see if he had made contact.
He had not, which left her with a complicated mixture of relief and disappointment swirling in her veins.
During gaps in her day, mixed with searching for Jonathan in the places she used to find him, she thought about how it had felt to be in Dominic’s arms, the feel of him.
.. the scent of him... and her gut twisted with longing, as if her body paid no heed to the practicalities her mind cast out.
It was confusing to her, loving her husband so deeply, missing him with a longing that was acute, while allowing Dominic to nestle inside the cracks of her broken heart, helping it to feel whole again, just for a minute.
The Sutherlands were not her battle and certainly not her project.
She had quite enough going on trying to figure out her own life.
Although right now, in the blissful stillness of dusk, her only concern was what to watch on the TV, debating whether she could be bothered to stand up to go and seek cheese or ice cream, possibly both, and which of the fancy frocks she’d seen did she favour.
Pickle was curled against her on the sofa as a soft wind blew in from the garden, whistled along the hallway and glanced her face. She was thankful; the heat today, in this sultry early August, had been almost unbearable, without a breeze to stir the air.
The sound of a key in the front door heralded her son’s unexpected arrival.
‘Hello?’ she called, as much to let him know where to find her as anything else, not that their home was vast or palatial with only two rooms downstairs, it was no The Mount, but still.
His walk was brisk, his face contorted, as he plonked down into the chair.
‘All okay, love?’ she asked, knowing it was not.
‘Oh, everything’s just peachy, Mum.’
At no more than the tone of his voice, Pickle leapt up from the sofa and, with her tail high in the air, made for a quick exit. Enya didn’t blame her one bit.
She crossed her legs and sat still, knowing this was the lull before the storm, watching her son as his jaw tensed, his fingers flexed, and his foot bounced with energy.
‘What’s happened?’ she asked softly, trying to calm him.
‘What’s happened is that the wedding is off.’
‘Really?’ Enya sat forward on the edge of the sofa, unsure if this was a tiff, pre-wedding nerves, or the actual break-up that she had considered.
It was conflicting; once more, she felt sad that the upheaval to all of their lives was for nothing, the damage to both Holly and Aiden and their lives as co-parents unfathomable.
Yet now she also felt devastated for Iris, who’d had her dreams dashed, having got caught up in the whirlwind.
Her primary concern, however, was for her son, who, like her, had felt the ground fall away in front of him, as a plan that he thought was solid coiled away from him, no more than smoke.
That was, if it were true the wedding really was off – or was this no more than the jitters, something to be resolved? Her head ached at the new drama, feeling quite unable to handle another slice of chaos.
Aiden looked close to tears and her heart lurched.
‘It’s been cancelled.’
‘Cancelled? It’s not like a theatre performance or a train!’
‘Actually, it’s exactly like that. Something that either through lack of interest, support, poor timing or a human or technical cock-up is no longer happening!’
‘But—’
‘But what, Mum? What now?’ He sounded angry and she took a moment to remind herself that he was not angry with her but angry with the world, hurt, no doubt, humiliated, certainly.
The last thing she wanted was for this to escalate into a full-blown row.
This was, after all, his haven, even if it had, in recent times, pretty much stopped being hers.
It was a fine balancing act, as she did her best to remain assertive.
‘I’m just trying to understand what’s going on.’
‘You and me both. Iris and I have had a huge row and she said she didn’t want to get married, and I agreed. I just blurted it out. It was like a thump in the gut to hear her say that, and so I jumped in the car and here I am.’
‘I don’t know if that was the best idea,’ she ventured, ‘you can’t run out, run away, hide when things get tough. This isn’t a soap opera, it’s your life, and if you are going to spend it with Iris, you can’t sort things out if you aren’t present.’
She thought of Dominic, hiding in his boat shed, moving bit by bit into his flat so as not to detract from his daughter’s big day.
She guessed this news might hasten that and felt another ladle of guilt at the fact that this was where her mind went.
A quick sweep of the room and she double blinked, still no sign of Jonathan, even now, when she could really use the backup.
‘I just wanted to come home.’ He sounded young, so young, a reminder of his lack of life experience, of relationships.
‘You can always come home, you know that. Whether you are twenty-seven or seventy-seven, you can always come home. Although come to think of it, when you’re seventy-seven it will be your house anyway, or you will have sold it.’
‘I came here for you to cheer me up.’ He gave a wry smile.
‘Oh, you should have said! I can do that magic trick if you like, the one you used to love when you were little, where I got you to close your eyes and count to ten, then I’d disappear by hiding in the cupboard under the stairs, and then you had to count to ten backwards before I reappeared in front of you. ’
‘Well, there’s no point now I know how you did it. Where’s the magic in that?’
It was her turn to smile.
‘I wish I could make it all better for you, Aiden, I really do. What’s happened to cause the big change of heart, what did you row about?’
‘It escalated really quickly. I finished work, logged off my computer, sat with Iris on the terrace and she asked me what would happen if we were to have a baby and Holly asked me to have her child for Christmas, and I kind of froze and said we’d find a way to manage it.
The first thing that popped into my head was that I could have alternate Christmases, one with Holly and the next with her, or maybe we could all go out together, and she went. .. crazy!’
‘Right.’
Enya could see that for a young woman envisioning her lovely life with her new husband, the prospect of sharing him so uniformly with his ex would be far from appealing.
‘I mean, what did she want to hear? That I’d tell Holly to get lost?’ He snorted his disbelief that this could ever be a possibility. It was nice to hear this commitment, comforting.
‘Maybe, and probably not in such a harsh way, but if I had to guess, I’d say Iris is looking for reassurance and that’s understandable.
Usually, this early in a relationship, you start to question if the person you’ve fallen for really is as wonderful as you first thought or were you just dazzled!
’ She couldn’t help but return to the topic, knowing it was something she was still weighing up when it came to Dominic.
‘It’s that questioning and discovering the answers that builds a foundation, leads to longevity.
I think it’s all quite standard, but you guys are getting married .
You’re going from nought to one hundred very, very quickly.
And I’m not trying to smash your dreams or tell you what to do one way or another and it’s certainly not a told you so moment, but it’s all quite predictable because you’re moving so quickly. ’