Chapter 35
35
A commotion at the door made everyone swing round. I knew before I looked over that Melissa had arrived. Ever since she was a little girl, she had certainly known how to make an entrance. And ever since she could be, she was also always late. Her excuse was that she had to be on time at work so she didn’t see why in her leisure time she should have to watch the clock. Over the years, we’d tried to explain that her tardiness impacted other people, but she literally didn’t care. How I’d managed to bring up two daughters who were so inconsiderate to others, I honestly didn’t know. Maybe when I lived closer to them, I hadn’t really noticed it, but now I was feeling a little more distance from them, both emotionally and geographically, I realised that it had actually been staring me in the face all along.
She flung herself in the vacant chair next to Lucy and when Lucy pointed out that it belonged to Rebecca, one of her best friends, the response was typically Melissa.
‘Oh, well, she’ll have to find herself somewhere else to sit, won’t she?’
When I glanced over at Mum, she was shaking her head in disbelief.
Melissa spotted me across the table and waved very nonchalantly. ‘Hi, Mumsy.’
She turned to her sister and they whispered to each other, thick as thieves as always. Maybe I should just be grateful that they had each other, I thought to myself, and despite the fact that they fought like cat and dog as children, they were the best of friends now. I vowed not to get stressed and knew that we had lots of time over the next day or so to catch up. I was looking forward to some time with my girls.
The waiter, who’d appeared at my shoulder, coughed lightly to get my attention as he took my napkin and laid it out on my lap.
The meal was absolutely lovely. I had baked camembert with pink onion marmalade and focaccia for a starter, which was delicious – I always seemed to overcook this particular dish. My main was pan-fried salmon on a bed of vegetable rice, its earthy spices tickling my taste buds, leaving a delicious aftertaste. Even though I said I was too stuffed to eat dessert, or pudding as we always called it in our family, I managed to put away a small portion of lemon panna cotta drizzled with a raspberry jus. However, it was divine. When you live alone it’s amazing not to have to think about and cook your own dinner and it really had been a splendid meal.
Feeling totally sated with the glorious food, I was so relaxed that I even managed to find the strength to make small talk with Claudia. It was, after all, Lucy’s special time and I wasn’t going to spoil anything by being a total bitch to the woman who in essence had stolen and then run off with my husband. Mum had once said to me that she wouldn’t have been able to steal him if he wasn’t, in her words, ‘proper up for it’. She’d always said that she never trusted him entirely and felt that he’d always had a roving eye. Something I’d clearly been too busy to notice.
I popped to the ladies’ before the main event started – none of us had any idea of what was to come as Lucy was keeping it a total surprise.
While I was reapplying my lipstick in the large ornate mirror, Mum wandered in.
She kissed my cheek and stood beside me.
‘Well done, darling. I’m so proud of you.’
Puzzled by her words, I turned to face her.
‘Me? I haven’t done anything, Mum.’
‘Oh, but darling, you absolutely have. You are the epitome of class and sophistication. You look fabulous and you are carrying yourself with poise and grace. Not everyone would have been able to do that in these circumstances. As much as I love my darling granddaughter, she hasn’t once thought about how this would affect her mother. As long as Lucy is OK, then all is well in her world. It’s about time she started to consider others.’
‘But she does, Mum. In her job she has so much to contend with. I just don’t think she has the capacity to think about much else.’
‘You can say that. I can say that she’s a selfish little madam who only ever thinks about herself.’
I went to interrupt her but she held her hand up.
‘She might be your daughter but she’s also my granddaughter and I am allowed to speak the truth. I still love her, of course. They are both amazing young women but, to be honest, with you as a mother and me as their Glamma’ (she had always refused to be called Grandma or Nan as she claimed these names made her feel older than she was) ‘how could they not be fabulous!’ She grinned and her eyes shone bright with mischief. She was wonderful and never ceased to make me smile. ‘Anyway, I’m busting for the loo. Wait for me and I’ll walk back out with you.’
The orangery had changed format when we returned and Becky guided us to our new seats, around a circular table, Mum on my left and both of us opposite Lucy. My heart sank as Lucy clapped her hands together and announced that we were going to play ‘Couples Truth or Dare’. I looked over to Mum in horror and could see her eyes blazing and nostrils flaring. Lucy glanced between the two of us and I saw a look of doubt cross her face. I knew everything about that face; I had been looking into it for many years and in that moment the penny finally dropped.
‘Oh, gosh! I’d totally forgotten that there would be single people here. Don’t worry. There are questions that will be suitable for you too, Mum. Although I’m sure now you have your new boyfriend, you’ll have lots to share about him.’
I couldn’t believe that my daughter had been this insensitive. Maybe Mum was right after all and I needed to acknowledge this quality in my daughter instead of constantly defending her actions, which I felt like I’d been doing for her all my life.
Mum leant towards me and whispered in my ear.
‘Hold your head up high, darling. I’m right here and won’t let anything awful happen to you.’ I turned towards her and she winked at me. ‘Stay classy!’
These two words were words she’d said to me throughout many circumstances since I was a young girl. ‘If you can be nothing else in life,’ she had told me, ‘you should be classy.’ By all means fall apart when a particular moment is over and you are alone, but in front of people, stay classy. Over the years, it felt like her mantra had been engraved on my brain and had got me through many tricky situations.
Nodding my agreement at her, I smiled at Lucy and saw her shoulders relax. The wedding planner handed her a silver box which she unwrapped the bow from and then reached for the Prosecco bottle and spun it. There were ten of us sitting waiting apprehensively. As it approached my side of the table, it slowed right down. It was hovering on me. I looked up and said a silent prayer. Dear God, please do not be this cruel to me. Not today. Thank goodness, it wobbled a bit more then landed on Mum. I let out the breath I’d been hanging on to.
Lucy picked out a card from the box and read the first question out loud.
‘How did you meet the love of your life?’
Now Mum loved an audience and everyone relaxed as she started to unravel her story, holding everyone captive. She was a wonderful storyteller and the girls had always preferred her at bedtime. They were totally mesmerised by her because she’d conjure up the most amazing tales.
‘Well, when I met Ron, the first love of my life, I was at the local institute which was like a community hall which held functions. I used to work behind the bar and one evening, I found myself staring into the eyes of the most handsome man I’d ever seen. I fell well and truly under his spell, and we were married six months later. Discovering very quickly that he couldn’t have children, at first we were devastated but then we looked into other options and twelve months later,’ she turned to me, ‘our darling Jo came to live with us. We were a perfect and incredibly happy little family. We had a wonderful life for five years, until he had a heart attack one day and we were robbed of his wonderfulness.’ I looked down at the table, willing the tears not to fall. ‘I spent my life bringing up Jo the best I could, in the way I hoped he would have approved of. I threw myself into my family and,’ she reached out for my hand, ‘Jo was and is my everything.’
The room fell silent, spellbound by her story.
‘But don’t we all love a story with a happy ending, ladies?’ Nods all around showed everyone’s agreement. ‘Fast forward to many years later when a friend of mine asked me to go to her crib club with her. To be honest, I’d got to the stage where I didn’t feel that Jo or her girls needed me any more. They had families of their own and I finally admitted to myself that I was incredibly lonely.’
A gasp escaped my lips. I hoped it wasn’t too loud but I did notice a few glances flicker my way. I hadn’t ever considered, even in the recent years of feeling this way myself, that my own mother had felt the same way. Honestly, I felt awful for never picking up on this.
‘I’m so sorry, Mum. I didn’t know that.’
‘I know, darling. I didn’t want you to know. It was my job to find what made me happy; it was not your responsibility to do it for me.’
‘But…’
‘But nothing.’ She winked at me again and smiled. Then, turning back to her attentive audience, she continued her tale. ‘At the crib club I was introduced to a man called Barry who I thought was the shyest man I’d ever met. But then, as time went on and we played crib together, I realised that he was actually the kindest, most loving, incredible, wonderful man I’d ever met. At first, I felt that I didn’t deserve someone in my life like him. That what Ron and I had could never be replaced. I kept my distance for a while but a friend of mine pulled me to one side and said that I should give him a chance. Then, when I allowed myself to do just that, I fell in love all over again. I never replaced Ron. I just found Baz and he’s amazing.’ There were oohs and aahs all around. ‘So this goes to show, ladies, that second chances do come along and when they do you have to grab them with both hands. Life is short and you have to live it to the full to do justice to the people who aren’t here any more to do that for themselves. We owe it to them.’ She looked over to me at that point and held my gaze before raising her glass to Lucy. ‘And of course, Lucy, my darling, your love and marriage will last forever so you won’t have to worry about anything like this.’
Lucy got up and walked around the table and gave Mum the biggest hug I’d seen her give her for years.
‘Thanks so much for sharing that with us, Glamma. And I’m no fantasist. I know not all marriages last forever but I can only hope that we’ll be happy together for as long as we can be.’
‘That’s right, darling. Always the optimist!’
We all laughed and it took away the tension.
‘Right!’ exclaimed Lucy. ‘Next question.’
When I groaned, I hoped that it wasn’t too loud.