Chapter Twenty-Eight #2
‘That actually sounded a lot like a “told you so” moment in disguise.’
She pulled a face at him. Maybe it was.
‘Anyway, you don’t have to worry about any of that because we’re not moving at all. It’s done. She doesn’t want to get married and that’s absolutely fine with me.’
‘It doesn’t look like it’s absolutely fine with you. Judging from your expression, it looks like the bottom has fallen out of your world.’
He looked up at her, clearly deep in thought. ‘I just love her so much,’ his voice quavered, ‘I want to marry her, and I want her to want to marry me!’
Enya stared at her son’s face, this the moment of crisis that, were it simply infatuation, might mean things unravelled quite quickly, his get-out-of-jail-free card, the instant where the scales fell from his eyes.
The row that blew things up. It didn’t seem to be the case – the opposite, in fact.
He looked heartbroken, inconsolable, and like a man searching for the answers so he could put things right with the woman he loved.
‘I know, love. So talk to her. That’s the only way, talk to her!’
‘I know.’ He stood. ‘I’m going to have a quick shower, change.’ He plucked at his shirt. ‘Nan called me earlier to ask what we wanted as a wedding present. I’ll give her a shout.’
‘Don’t scare Nan with the detail, tell her you’ll let her know.
No need to say anything rash. A shower will make you feel better.
When you come down, I’ll make you something to eat.
’ Her son stood with a reluctance to his posture.
‘This will all sort itself out, Aiden. I have no doubt it will have a different complexion by the morning.’
He gave a single nod before heading off to shower.
‘Oh lordy,’ she whispered, trying to understand how the prospect of her peaceful evening had been so ruined in such a short space of time.
She headed to the kitchen and outside, with the intention of diving back into the book she was reading.
The garden such a beautiful haven at this time of year.
It struck her then how easy it was to give the advice.
Maybe it would be a good idea to speak to Dominic, to hear his voice, tie up loose ends, just to be connected, knowing how wonderful it made her feel.
There was so much unfinished business between them it was excruciating.
It sounded so simple and yet was anything but.
The last thing her son and Iris needed was more complications.
And what exactly did she want to talk to him about?
She shook the idea from her head and listened to the voicemail her sister had left.
‘Both dresses sound bloody awful, why can’t you go for something more “mother of the groom” and less “hippy on a break from the commune”? I mean, seriously, cerise or tangerine? It’s like you do it on purpose! I’ll come over and we’ll go find you something nice and suitable. Call me back.’
It made Enya laugh, she dreaded to think what something nice and suitable might look like to her sister, but suspected the word peplum might be used.
She shuddered at the thought. Not that she needed a new frock now, not that anyone had to worry about her suitability as mother of the groom.
As per her conversation with Aiden, there wasn’t going to be a groom as there wasn’t going to be a wedding.
She’d wait, however, to see how things developed overnight before she broke the news, or indeed believed it to be their final decision, reminding herself that young people were gloriously impetuous, and that young love, for that was what it was beginning to look like, could be spectacularly volatile and that it might be a case of all change please, all change! before sun up.
Her phone buzzed in her hand. Angela, it seemed, couldn’t wait to be called back. ‘What the bloody hell?’
Enya drew breath. ‘It’s not you who has to wear it. Cerise and tangerine are my colours of choice, even if they’re not yours.’
‘I’m not talking about your hideous taste in dresses, I’m talking about the fact that I’ve just got off the phone to Mum. She’s having kittens.’
‘Well, congratulations to Mum! Siblings for Madam Pickle Paws!’
‘There’s nothing funny about this, Enya.’
Angela did this, took on the role of punisher and educator when the need took her.
Being six years older seemed to give her sister a sense of moral responsibility and the belief that, as the elder, this was absolutely fine.
Her sister wasn’t done. ‘Aiden just called her to say that the wedding is off.’
Enya looked up towards her son’s bedroom window and shook her fist. So much for reminding him not to scare his nan with anything rash.
‘Mum and Dad have paid for flights. They’ve organised for Benedita to come in and water the plants, they got her a key cut.’
Enya decided not to point out that they could easily ask Benedita not to water the plants, and that their neighbour having a key might not be a bad idea.
As for flights, she would offer to reimburse them if they were out of pocket.
She felt her anxiety rise as yet more administration and hassle fell on to her shoulders.
‘Mum’s really upset. She’s booked her hair appointment, Dad went to the pharmacy and got extra tablets for travelling, they’ve bought insurance.’
‘Angela, I get it.’ She closed her eyes and did her best to control the irritability that flared at her sister reciting the many ways that Aiden had inconvenienced his grandparents.
‘But do you get it, Enya? It’s so bloody annoying, all this back and forth and for what?’
This a prime example of how the world and his wife saw fit to dump their anger and frustration on to her shoulders, and she was more than a little pissed off by it.
‘I don’t know for certain the wedding is cancelled.
I don’t know much! It might be a small bump in the road that they will get over or it might be the beginning of the end.
But what I do know is that it’s not my fault and it’s really unfair for you to call and shout at me!
Good God, I am getting sick of it! Literally, every conversation I have ends with me being either quizzed or berated for something that is nothing to do with me! ’
‘I’m not shouting at you!’ Angela shouted, ‘but I’ve had Mum on the phone shouting at me!’
‘I see, so we have to pass it on, do we? Not sure who I should call, I’m trying to think who deserves a random pasting for absolutely no bloody reason!’
‘I knew you’d be like this.’
‘Like what?’ It was Enya’s turn to shout.
‘Like it’s all a big joke, like everyone else is in the wrong to be getting flustered, while you either just laugh it off or get defensive.’
Enya sat on the sun lounger and took a moment. Her heart jumped as she tried to contain it all, as yet again she found herself in the middle of a Venn diagram of shite where all the circles overlapped, and she was slap-bang in the centre of it all.
‘I’m not laughing it off, Angela, but I might be trying to offer a bit of perspective.
At the end of the day, it’s about Aiden’s happiness, his future, and if he and Iris decide not to get married, the last thing I will be worrying about is whether Benedita is or is not watering Mum’s sodding spider plants. ’
‘Well, I’m not going to wait on tenterhooks while they decide whether it’s a goer or not.
I’m ruling myself out. I love my nephew, you know I do, but if you think I’m schlepping all the way over to Bath for the bloody wedding of the year if they change their minds again, you can think again.
I’ll explain to Aiden that his mother is a dipstick, refusing to take my concerns seriously, and I’ll send his gift first class, but I’m not holding my breath. ’
‘Schlep all the way to Bath?’ Enya laughed. ‘It’s only forty minutes on the ring road from your house and let’s face it, you schlep all the way to Portugal for a free holiday and that’s a lot further!’
‘I go to check on my parents, unlike you, who can’t seem to find the time, and for your information, it’s only forty minutes when the roads are quiet. At rush hour it can take us fifty-five, especially up by the cinema when it’s chucking-out time!’
‘Whatever!’
‘Whatever yourself!’ Angela ended the call.
Enya stared at the phone, her blood bubbling with indignation and with the inexplicable desire to laugh.
As someone had pointed out to her quite recently, it was that or cry.