Chapter 4
Dot’s home and I’m so pleased to be with her again that I feel a bit giddy. She’s full of stories about her grandson, Sean, who’s definitely her favourite, though she says she could never choose between the two of them.
‘When he saw me, he said, “I hear you’re gay now, Nanna.”’ Dot laughs and I join in. ‘Oh, and he’s coming here, to meet you, on Thursday, if that’s all right. He’s got something on in London, he did say but I can’t quite remember, and he said it wasn’t much of a detour to come here.’
I’m thrilled at the idea of meeting this man who means so much to her, and I tell her so. But then I risk ruining the mood a bit by asking a question I’ve been thinking about.
‘Are they all right about you and me? Your family?’ We’ve talked about this before, but it’s an evolving thing and I like to keep checking.
‘Sean thinks it’s brilliant. You know he’s gay too. He says he’ll show me around the scene. He does make me laugh. And the others… well, I think they’re still a bit shell-shocked, truth be told. You don’t expect this sort of thing from your old mum or nanna, do you?’
I shake my head. I don’t know what you expect, having never been a mum or a nanna. But I can see that this would be a shock for them, at this stage of Dot’s life.
‘I’ve been thinking about your proposal,’ she says, and I find myself catching my breath.
‘Oh yes.’
‘There’s something that makes it rather difficult,’ she begins.
Here it comes, I think. And I’m feeling anxious about what it might be, but also pleased that she’s ready to share it.
I didn’t see this woman for sixty-two years, and she could have done anything in that time.
Anything at all. And I don’t mind, honestly I don’t.
Because I love her no matter what, but I don’t understand how anything from those lost years could impact us here and now. ‘Go on.’
‘You know how I told you about Geoff, about marrying him so he could stay in the UK and be with Rupert?’
‘Yes?’
‘Well, Geoff and I, we never…’ She trails off.
‘Never what, Dot?’ And then the moment before she says it, I realise.
‘We never got divorced.’
Of course. It’s so obvious now she’s said it. Because why would they, if neither of them wanted to marry anyone else? But I’m shocked too, because this means they’ve been married for decades. It’s incredible for a – what did Julie call it yesterday? – a marriage of convenience.
‘So if I wanted to marry you, which I do, I would have to divorce him, and truth be told, I’m not even sure where he is, Mabel.
When Rupert died, he went back to the States.
I think he couldn’t bear to be here any longer without him.
And we lost touch. So I find myself in a bit of a tricky situation. ’
I give myself a minute to let it all properly sink in. It isn’t anything awful. It isn’t that she doesn’t love me like I love her or anything like that. It’s a logistical problem. And that’s a relief, more than anything.
‘Well,’ I say, and it’s then I see that Dot’s been waiting for me to speak, to see how I feel about this.
I get up and go through to the kitchen, find my notepad again.
There’s the list, the one I’ve renamed. I show Dot what I’ve done, and she manages half a smile.
It’s been bothering her, all of this. I wish I could take the worry away.
And perhaps I can. I change the first item, to reflect that it’s now our list, rather than hers, and then I write down a second item.
Dot and Mabel’s first list
Marry me Get married
Find Geoff
Dot looks at what I’ve written and then at me. ‘Do you know what, Mabel? You make everything seem so simple and possible. I’ve been fretting about this ever since you asked, and here we are, with a two-point list, and I think it might just be all right.’
‘It will be all right,’ I tell her. It’s a sort of reversal of the roles we played when we knew each other before.
Dot always the bold one while I hung back, afraid.
And that’s when it strikes me that she’s right, about having so much more to learn about one another.
We’re no longer those girls we were. But it doesn’t mean we can’t be something else. Maybe even something better.
‘Will you tell me more about them? Geoff and Rupert, I mean?’
She looks like this is the last thing she was expecting. But I really don’t know much about how it all happened, and it seems as good a place to start as any.
‘Geoff ran this little café I used to go into sometimes between dropping the boys off at school and going to work. That’s how we met.
We used to chat a bit at the counter, and there was just something I really liked about him.
One day, it was quiet and he came and sat with me while I had my cup of tea.
We became friends. He told me about Rupert after a few weeks.
You had to be careful who you told about that sort of thing back then, as you know.
But he must have decided that he could trust me.
Well, I invited them over for dinner and they were a total delight.
So happy, so in love. I was so pleased to have them both as my friends.
‘We started to see each other more and more, and then it all happened, with Geoff’s visa and not being able to stay.
He never asked me if I could help, you know.
I don’t think he ever would have done. But I could see how heartbroken they both were and I thought about it and thought about it.
I was as sure as I could be that I was never going to want to get married again.
I had no intention of falling in love again, thought I was done with all that.
I asked Geoff to marry me over a cup of tea at the café and he almost laughed it off.
But I explained to him that it was the perfect solution.
He couldn’t stay in England, and he couldn’t take Rupert to live with him in America.
Their love wasn’t recognised in either of those places.
But if he married me, they could be together, and he could stay.
When he realised I was serious, he started to properly think it through, and we decided to go for it.
‘Rupert was on board, although he did say that he was terribly envious that I could marry Geoff when he couldn’t.
We talked it over for weeks, the three of us.
Evenings, after the boys were in bed and asleep, we’d sit up with a bottle of wine and we’d go over and over it.
We had to make sure it looked real, so Geoff moved in with me and the boys for a while.
Rupert pretty much moved in too, and then when enough time had passed, they went back to their own place.
’ She stops speaking, and I’m not sure whether it’s the end of the story or not. But I have a question.
‘What if you’d met someone?’ I ask.
‘Well, we talked about that, though I wasn’t looking for love at that stage of my life. I felt like I’d been burned by my first marriage and my head and heart were full of my boys, so I didn’t feel like there was any space for romance.’
‘Did you remain friends, the three of you?’
‘Oh yes, they were my best friends. They were great with the boys, stepping in whenever a father figure was required, and they kept me upright whenever things were hard.’
I want to ask about that, but I decide perhaps we need to leave something for another day. It can be emotionally draining, this kind of offloading.
‘When did Rupert die?’ I ask, instead.
‘Well, about ten years ago, it looked like there was going to be a change in the law, as I’m sure you know.
The law was going to change to allow same-sex couples to get married.
And we would talk about how Geoff and I would get divorced and they would get married, and I was so pleased for them.
But it never happened, because Rupert became ill.
Heart disease. He had a heart attack, then a bypass, and we thought for a while he was going to be all right.
But then he had another heart attack, a bigger one, and he died. Two weeks before the law went through.’
I don’t realise I’m crying until Dot reaches out to me and wipes a tear from my cheek with her thumb.
‘Geoff was inconsolable for weeks. Months. And then he came round one day and told me he was moving back to the States. I’d been expecting it, I think.
And I was heartbroken, in a way, but I knew I couldn’t stop him.
The topic of divorce just never came up, because it was too late for him to marry the love of his life, and I was sure it was too late for me to marry mine. ’
It’s good, having the picture filled in like this. I reach for my tea but it’s gone a bit cold and I wince when I take a sip.
There’s a clatter in the hallway and Erin stomps into the room, and it’s like a spell has been broken. A bubble burst.
‘Oh, you’re back,’ she says, smiling at Dot. ‘I brought this pizza home for me and Mabel, but you two can have it and I’ll make a sandwich.’
I look at Dot and she has a faraway look in her eyes, and I want to ask her where she is, but I don’t. I stand up and pick up our mugs and take them through to the kitchen, and Erin follows me and flicks the kettle on and starts to tell me about her shift at the supermarket.
And all that evening, I run over and over what Dot told me, trying to work out whether there’s a different way to look at it. One that might result in a happy ending for the two of us.