CHAPTER 2 #2
At that moment, Jeanette made her way through the crowd with the birthday cake.
Annabel moved a side table in front of Dotty, as per her mother’s instructions, and took the cigarette lighter from the pocket in her dress.
The cake was covered in perfect, snow-white icing, with ‘Happy Birthday Dotty!’ piped in cheerful yellow lettering.
Delicate yellow flowers decorated the top and a matching ribbon was tied around the outside.
Springtime yellow was the perfect choice, Annabel mused, pleased with her mum’s decision.
It was bright and cheerful, just like Dotty.
Annabel lit the candle that stood in the middle of the cake and, as it flickered into life, Noel led the guests in singing ‘Happy Birthday’. The beaming birthday girl leaned forward in her chair, ready to blow out the candle.
‘Make a wish!’ called out one of the guests.
Instead of the full complement to match her age, there was just a single ‘100’ candle standing in the centre.
Dotty closed her eyes and smiled as she made her wish, then took a deep breath and blew.
The candle was soon extinguished and the guests began to clap.
But then it flickered and came alive again, much to Dotty’s bemusement.
Encouraging shouts of ‘Blow harder, Dotty!’ and ‘Give it some welly, girl!’ came from around the room. Dotty looked puzzled, but took another deep breath and had another go.
After the fourth attempt, the penny dropped and Dotty chuckled, realising that she’d been had.
‘Oh, you rascals!’ she said, slightly out of puff.
‘Is this one of those fancy candles that won’t go out?
’ she asked, causing much amusement around the room.
‘Fine way to finish an old biddy off on her birthday!’
“Sorry, Dotty!” Annabel clutched her hand and gave a wry smile. “Blame William, it was his bright idea!”
Dotty looked across to see William grinning at her. He gave her a wink and she wagged a finger at him, but couldn’t keep the smile from her face.
The last of the visitors had made their farewells by late afternoon and the family moved through to the comfy chairs in the sitting room.
Jeanette directed the catering staff in their tidying up and Sarah set off to make tea for everyone, while Annabel helped her grandmother into her favourite chair beside the fireplace.
Monty joined her, sitting loyally at her feet with his head on her knee.
‘Well, that was a big success!’ Annabel sighed contentedly, slipping off her shoes and curling up on the sofa. ‘Did you have a nice time, Dotty?’
‘Oh, I’m exhausted!’ the old lady puffed. ‘But it was marvellous! I had a wonderful time. It was so kind of everyone to come. And all these lovely cards!’ She pointed to the sideboard, which was a sea of birthday jollity. ‘I was very touched.’
‘And the old colonel was a bit of alright too, wasn’t he Dotty?’ William quipped from the hearthrug, where he was getting out the Lego to keep his children entertained. He waggled his eyebrows suggestively at his granny, making her giggle like a schoolgirl.
‘You never change, William Penrose, you cheeky boy! But it’s been wonderful to have you all here together.’ Dotty beamed at them all. ‘I know it’s a long way for you all to come. Especially for you, Noel, having to fly all that way! I do appreciate you making the effort.’
‘It’s no effort, Ma, it’s only Portugal; just a few hours on the plane. It’s an easy journey, very doable. You know we’d love you to come out and stay with us for a while. Maybe later in the summer, after I’ve had my hip done? I think you’d enjoy it; it’d be a nice change.’
Dotty appeared to mull it over for a moment, then shook her head. ‘It’s very kind of you, dear, but it would be awfully hot. You know I can’t stand the heat. In one hundred years, I’ve never had a foreign holiday yet, and I’m afraid I don’t intend to start now!’
‘But that can’t be right,’ Noel’s brow creased in confusion.
‘We went on that holiday when I was very small. Don’t you remember?
’ Noel asked. ‘It was one of my very first memories as a child, I must have been about two or three. Surely you remember, Ma? I’ve no idea where it was, but it was incredibly hot and humid!
I’ve a memory of someone doing that old nursery rhyme ‘Round and Round the Garden’ on my hand, and sitting on a wooden box with no clothes on, being fed soup from a bowl! ’
Everyone chuckled at the unlikely image he’d painted, but Annabel noticed the flicker of a shadow pass across her grandmother’s face.
It was for the briefest of moments, then her smile was back, but Annabel had seen it.
Had Dotty really forgotten? Her mental agility had been so sharp for so long, was she worrying now that her memory was starting to fade?
‘Why would you eat hot soup in a hot country?’ little Lucy, piped up. ‘That would just make you hotter. Ice cream would have been better.’ Everyone laughed at the comment.
‘And you shouldn’t go out in the sun with no clothes on, Grandad,’ chided four-year-old Aiden, not wanting to be outdone by his big sister. ‘You’ll get all sunburnt with no clothes on, that’s what Mummy says.’
‘What do I say?’ asked Sarah on cue, as she came back into the room with the tea tray. She put a plate of biscuits on the coffee table and handed out mugs of tea.
‘That nude sunbathing is off limits, apparently!’ quipped Annabel.
Later that evening, while William and Sarah were putting the children to bed and her parents were tidying up, Annabel sat and enjoyed a moment of calm with her grandmother.
Dotty smiled, looking at the card from Buckingham Palace. She pointed to the photo of the Queen. ‘It’s a lovely snap of her, isn’t it? I do like her in lavender, don’t you? I think it’s her best colour.’
‘I’ll be sure to let Her Majesty know you approve of her colour choice.’ Annabel teased good-naturedly. ‘So tell me, dearest Ancient Relic, how are you feeling?’
‘Old!’ Dotty quipped without missing a beat.
They both laughed. ‘Oh, I can’t really complain.
The old bones are a nuisance, but the marbles are still present and correct,’ she tapped the side of her head, ‘And that’s the important bit!
But never mind me, how are you, sweetheart? You look tired, is everything alright?’
The tenderness in her grandmother’s eyes made Annabel well up.
She knew her so well, she always had done.
She recognised every shade and nuance on her granddaughter’s face, far better than Jeanette had ever done.
It was Dotty to whom Annabel had turned for comfort and advice when she was growing up, whom she would call if she had a problem at school or needed cooking advice while away at university.
And that would never change. Despite her granny’s advancing years, she always seemed to understand and to strike the right balance between providing a listening ear and offering useful advice.
‘It’s Luke,’ she sighed.
‘Ah,’ Dotty nodded her understanding. ‘Things not going well?’
‘I just don’t know where we’re going.’ She shrugged.
‘We’ll have been together for five years in August, but instead of growing closer together, it feels like we’re drifting further apart.
He’s been acting so differently lately; we used to socialise together, but these days he’s only interested in nights out with the football lads.
And when we do have time together, he just seems to want to veg in front of the TV. ’
‘Have you spoken to him about it, told him how you’re feeling?’
‘I’ve tried. But he gets so defensive and somehow always manages to turn it around and put the blame on me, like I’m the one with the problem.’
‘Gaslighting.’ Dotty nodded sagely.
Annabel couldn’t help but burst out laughing at hearing her centenarian grandmother utter such a twenty-first century colloquialism. ‘Where on earth did you pick that up?’ she asked.
‘My friend Pam in the post office.’ She chuckled.
‘Her Wendy’s boyfriend does it to her all the time, apparently.
Not a pleasant fellow, by all accounts. But it’s a term from my era, would you believe?
It comes from a film from the forties with Charles Boyer and the beautiful Ingrid Bergman, it’s very good!
But I digress, sorry; do go on,’ she smiled.
‘I suppose I’m just wondering if we’ve actually got a future together or if it’s time to call it quits.
I’ll be thirty-six next birthday and I do want to get married and have a family.
And, as Mum never tires of reminding me, my biological clock is ticking.
’ Annabel rolled her eyes at this. ‘I guess I just don’t want to waste any more time if he’s not the one I’m meant to be with. What should I do?’
Dotty reached over and took her granddaughter’s hand in hers. ‘You need to tell him, darling. Hard as it might be, you need to be sharing this with him.’
‘But how, when he stays out till all hours and refuses to tell me where he’s been?’
‘Well,’ Dotty replied carefully, ‘if that’s the case, maybe you’ve answered your own question.’
Tears welled in Annabel’s eyes and she sighed. ‘But the thought of ending things and starting out again feels completely terrifying!’
‘You are one of the strongest women I know, my love. I like Luke, but you mustn’t stay with him if he isn’t making you happy anymore.
Please, darling, you deserve so much more than that.
You are perfectly capable of standing on your own two feet and living an independent life until Mr Right comes along.
And these days, there are so many modern ways to meet someone.
There’s Tinder and Grindr, for a start . . . ’
‘Woah, woah, woah!’ Annabel laughed and held up a hand to stop her granny. ‘Is this Pam again? I need to have a word with her! What ideas has she been putting in your head?’
Dotty’s eyes twinkled mischievously, ‘I do love Pam and her stories, she keeps me up to date on all sorts of things!’
‘I can only imagine!’ Annabel raised an eyebrow in mock horror.
‘But in all seriousness, those dating apps sound awful! My friend Jenny at work uses them and you should hear some of the tales she tells me. She’ll spend a couple of weeks chatting online with some guy who’s perfect on paper, only to meet him and find out that his profile picture is about ten years out of date.
Or he’s used someone else’s picture. Or he’s only after one thing.
It all just sounds exhausting.’ Annabel sighed at the thought.
‘We may have come a long way on the technology front,’ she continued, ‘but I’d much rather go back in time and meet someone the old-fashioned way, like how you and Grandpa met.’ Annabel looked over at the ornate frame on the mantelpiece, showing her grandparents on their silver wedding anniversary.
‘It was at a dance, wasn’t it? In London, during the war?’ Annabel turned back to her grandmother and she saw that look again; as if a cloud was passing across Dotty’s face as she, too, gazed at the photograph.
Dotty had never shared much about her younger years, which had always been a huge disappointment to Annabel, the historian.
She would have loved to have heard about her wartime experiences in London, but Dotty had always brushed it off, with a glib, ‘Oh you don’t want to hear about all that; no great heroics, we all just did our bit,’ and would then change the subject.
Annabel had put it down to her avoiding painful memories, having lost both her parents during the war and her brother, Thomas, a few years later.
‘Dotty?’ she probed.
‘Sorry my love, I was miles away!’ she resumed.
‘Oh, he was a good man; the very best of men. I knew he’d always take care of me.
And Noel, too. We were very lucky. It wasn’t a bed of roses all the time, you understand, but we shared the same values and wanted the same things.
And we tried every day to make each other happy. ’
‘You must miss him very much. We all do.’ Annabel smiled sadly at her grandmother. ‘Dear Grandpa.’
‘Every day for seventeen years.’ Dorothy sighed.
‘But that’s life, I’m afraid. Nothing lasts forever, good or bad, remember that.
And there’s no need to rush into anything new.
’ Dotty patted her hand. ‘Maybe you just need a bit of time apart from Luke, a bit of space to think about things. A little break somewhere nice and a bit of “you” time to see how you really feel. You’ve got Easter holidays coming up soon, haven’t you?
’ Dotty asked. ‘Why don’t you take yourself off somewhere nice for a change of scenery? ’
‘Yes, that’s a good idea. I asked Luke if he fancied having a few days away somewhere, but he said he’s too busy at work.’ She sighed again and looked out of the window.
The evening sunlight was making the patio daffodils glow and the sea sparkle a perfect shade of turquoise in the distance. She suddenly felt an overwhelming sense of calm and an idea formed.
‘Dotty, can I come and stay here with you?’