Chapter 11 #3
‘Sure,’ Fiona says. ‘Actually, there’s something I want to ask you, OK? And I don’t want you to get upset.’
‘OK,’ Wendy says, pulling the keys from the ignition and pausing.
‘Inside,’ Fiona says. ‘Let’s make that cuppa first.’
Wendy boils the kettle and drops teabags into mugs. But at the last minute, kettle in hand, she changes her mind and pours herself a glass of wine instead. She’s not sure what her daughter is about to ask, but she doubts that the conversation will be fun.
‘Really, Mum?’ Fiona says as Wendy puts the drinks on the coffee table. ‘It’s not even five o’clock.’
She has been expecting this. She’s getting used to Fiona monitoring her wine consumption and is prepared. ‘It may not be five o’clock yet, but it is Christmas Eve,’ Wendy says lightly. ‘Normal rules do not apply.’
‘Mum!’ Fiona says.
‘Lordy, do take a chill pill,’ Wendy says. ‘It’s a glass of bloody wine, not a syringe filled with heroin.’
Fiona makes a gasping noise and shakes her head.
‘What?’ Wendy asks sharply. ‘Seriously? What?’
‘I wanted to talk to you, that’s all.’
‘And? How does me having a sip of wine stop you talking to me?’
‘Because that’s—’ Fiona says.
They’re interrupted by a tap, tap on the window and both turn to see Manon’s face peering in.
‘Hello, Wendy!’ Manon says, when she opens the door. ‘I come on Wednesday but no one is ’ome.’ She glances over at Fiona and nods a hello.
‘Sorry,’ Wendy says. ‘My daughter’s here, so… Fiona, this is Manon, our post lady. And my French teacher, too.’
‘Hi, Manon,’ Fiona says, with a wave and a tight smile that’s the antithesis of ‘invitational’.
‘So, no lesson today?’ Manon asks.
‘Sorry,’ Wendy says. ‘Maybe after Christmas?’
‘Ah, yes! I almost forget!’ Manon says, before jogging off, presumably to her car.
‘What did she forget?’ Fiona asks.
Wendy shrugs. ‘Search me,’ she says, and then Manon is back, a cardboard box in her arms.
‘You have mail!’ she says brightly. ‘It’s good time, yes? I mean, with Christmas tomorrow.’
‘Oh, gosh!’ Wendy says, taking the box from her arms and studying the label. ‘It’s my Christmas supplies from Jill. I’d forgotten all about that.’
‘There is forty-four euro to pay,’ Manon says, pulling a slip of paper from her pocket. ‘I’m sorry. It’s you know… new. Since Brexit.’
‘Customs, then?’ Wendy asks.
‘Yes. Customs.’
‘Forty-four euros!’ Fiona mutters. ‘Another Brexit benefit, then.’
‘It’s fine,’ Wendy tells Manon, plopping the box on the sofa and heading to the kitchen for her purse. ‘Really.’
Once Manon has wished them a ‘Joyeux Noel’ and headed off, they open the box to find mince pies, a Marks and Spencer mini Christmas cake, a lump of Cheddar, a bottle of port and a Christmas card which Wendy props up on the bookshelf.
‘That’s ruined half my surprise, then,’ Fiona says, hands on hips.
‘What has?’
‘I’ve got mince pies and cake in my suitcase. You know that stuff won’t even have cost forty-four euros in the first place, right?’
‘I know,’ Wendy says. ‘Still, it’s sweet of her.’
They warm mince pies in the microwave and then both burn their mouths biting through the pastry. ‘Better leave those for a bit,’ Wendy says, pulling a face.
‘Indeed!’ Fiona says. ‘That’s molten lava in there.’
‘So you wanted to ask me something,’ Wendy reminds her, raising her glass, now refilled with Jill’s port, and clinking it against Fiona’s mug.
‘I did,’ she says. ‘But now we’ve gone all Christmassy so I’d feel like a bit of a killjoy.’
‘It’s fine,’ Wendy says. ‘Really. Go on.’
‘She seems nice,’ Fiona says, buying some thinking time. ‘The post lady.’
‘She is. She’s really nice,’ Wendy says. ‘A bit, you know… puritanical for my tastes. But nice.’
‘Puritanical?’ Fiona repeats, looking surprised.
‘Yeah, you know… doesn’t drink, doesn’t smoke. I’m sure she has her reasons, but all the same. It seems strange at that age. Plus, she’s gay, you know? She has a girlfriend.’
‘Which makes her more puritanical or less?’
‘Er, neither really. I was just saying.’
‘OK, you were just saying, but why?’
Wendy frowns, and takes a gulp of port. ‘No reason,’ she says. ‘I was just making conversation.’
‘Would you have told me she was straight, do you think?’
‘I might! Jesus, Fiona! I can never say anything right, can I? I was merely imparting a bit of information. I suppose I was thinking that the not drinking, not smoking thing was even more unusual because she’s gay.
But I guess that’s my own silly prejudice in assuming the gays are more fun. Now, can we move on?’
‘Because drinking and smoking are fun?’
‘Well, most of the Western world certainly seems to think so.’
‘OK, fine. Whatever, Mum.’
‘So is that what you wanted to talk to me about?’ Wendy asks. ‘Are you gay, sweetheart? Is that it?’ She’d intended it as a tease, but once the question is out there she finds herself holding her breath.
‘No, Mother!’ Fiona says icily. ‘That was not what I wanted to talk to you about. Forget it. I can see there’s no point even going there today.’
‘Going where?’ Wendy asks, genuinely confused.
‘No… forget it. Here’s another one for you instead. Are you and Dad getting a divorce?’
‘Oh!’ Wendy says, feigning surprise. ‘Gosh!’ She’s not sure quite why she’s feigning surprise. After all, it’s the exact question she’d been expecting. Perhaps she thinks that revealing she’d been expecting it might affect the believability of whatever she says.
‘I mean, you’ve hardly lived together for years, really. Not properly. Not permanently, anyway. You must have thought about it, haven’t you?’
‘Um, no, honey, I haven’t. Not really. Not in those terms.’
‘Hum. I’m not sure I believe you, Mum.’
‘Has your father said something about it? Is that why…?’
Fiona shakes her head.
‘I…’ Wendy shrugs, twice. She sips her port. ‘I don’t know what to say, sweetie. I know that’s not… I mean, things have obviously been… difficult. But you know that.’
‘Yeah,’ Fiona says, with meaning.
‘But I’m not sure we necessarily… I mean, most couples go through rough patches, you know. At some point they do, anyway.’
‘So this is just a rough patch?’ Fiona asks. ‘And you haven’t thought about splitting up once. That’s your honest answer?’
‘Yes. No. No, I really haven’t. Not in any concrete way. Because we still… Well, I do, anyway. I still love him.’
‘You do?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then why are you here, Mum? Why is he there?’
‘I don’t know the answer to that one.’
‘Right,’ Fiona says. ‘Great.’ She sips her tea and sighs deeply, then puts the mug down and raises her fingers to her temples.
‘What?’ Wendy asks. ‘Tell me.’
‘I just don’t believe you. Not after all this…’ She gestures at the room as if it sums up the state of their marriage, which in a way, Wendy supposes, it does. ‘I mean,’ Fiona continues, ‘I get that you might not want to tell me about it. And that’s fine. But—’
‘Honey,’ Wendy says. ‘That’s not what’s happening here.
These things… they aren’t easily explainable; they aren’t black and white like that.
The truth is… I don’t know. What is the truth?
I suppose the truth is that I don’t know what’s going on in my own head, let alone what’s happening in your father’s. ’
‘You know there’s a thing for that,’ Fiona says. ‘They invented this thing for working out what’s going on in someone else’s head. It’s called—’
‘Conversation, yes, I know. And we will. We’re going to. We’ve even talked about having that big conversation. But we need time to… to… I don’t know… To sort our own heads out first, I suppose. That’s what I’m trying to do by being here.’
‘So this isn’t a trial separation?’ Fiona asks.
‘No, it’s not. Not really. It’s just space, really. Space and time, to think.’
Fiona looks away, out through the darkened window. ‘The cat’s outside,’ she says, and Wendy turns and sees Mittens peeping in. ‘Shall I let him in?’
‘You can try,’ Wendy says. ‘But he’s pretty skitty.’
Fiona crosses and opens the door, but as soon as she does so the cat runs away.
‘You could fix it if you wanted to,’ she says when she returns. ‘This isn’t my… It’s not fair, really. I mean, it’s not my role. Or it shouldn’t be, anyway. I’m, you know, the child. Not the marriage counsellor or whatever. But you could fix it if you wanted to. You just need to be a bit less…’
‘Less…?’
Fiona shrugs.
‘Less what, Fiona?’
‘I don’t know. Just less.’
Wendy smiles at this. ‘Right,’ she says. ‘Good to know. I might try that.’
‘You can smile, Mum, but it’s true.’
‘You know there are two people in this equation. It takes two to tango, and all that.’
‘Meaning?’
‘Meaning that your father may not want to make it work. I mean, I know you think he’s the bees’ knees and everything, and that’s good, that’s fine, that’s how it should be. But he may prefer… something… different… But you probably know more about that than I do.’
‘I’m not sure what that’s supposed to mean,’ Fiona says.
‘Well,’ Wendy says, downing the remainder of her glass of port in search of courage. ‘It means—’
But Fiona interrupts her. ‘Actually. Can we change the subject? This is all starting to make me feel a bit queasy.’
‘Sure,’ Wendy says. ‘Me, too.’
‘Cat’s back,’ Fiona says coldly, tipping her head toward the window.
‘Already!’ Wendy says, jumping up, feeling thankful to the cat for the distraction. ‘I’ll put some cat food in a bowl and you can try to give it to him.’
It’s Christmas morning. Wendy wakes up early and takes pleasure in lying still, listening to her daughter’s gentle breathing.
Fiona had complained about both the hardness and the softness of the sofa after her first night, claiming that the mattress magically managed to combine both faults in a single bed.
So, this time, they’ve shared the upstairs double and Wendy hasn’t slept so well in years.
Memories have come flooding back of how the kids used to crawl in with them when they were little and scared or ill, or indeed simply fancied a cuddle.