Chapter 12
TWELVE
AN ULTIMATUM
It is Boxing Day and after a leisurely breakfast and some frantic packing, they’ve driven to Nice airport.
She finds her daughter standing beneath the departure board. Her flight, it would appear, is on time.
‘Departures is all the way down there,’ Wendy tells her, pointing.
‘Yeah, I saw,’ Fiona says. ‘Might as well head over that way. Everything OK with the car?’
‘Yep,’ Wendy says. ‘I just parked it and dropped the keys in a box.’
They walk past shops and bars and then across a vast glass-roofed concourse before reaching a row of turnstiles where people are scanning their boarding passes.
‘Looks like this is where we have to part ways,’ Fiona says, hiking her backpack a little higher, then apparently changing her mind and dropping it instead between her feet.
‘It does,’ Wendy says, thinking that this definitely means that the conversation isn’t happening. Should she provoke it? Should she ask her daughter what it is she wanted to say? Or should she let sleeping dogs lie?
‘I’m actually a bit early,’ Fiona says, glancing at her phone. ‘Maybe we can grab a coffee over there?’ She nods towards a brasserie set bang in the middle of the space.
‘Coffee sounds great,’ Wendy says. ‘You should probably eat something too.’
‘I’ll get something on the plane if I’m hungry,’ Fiona says. ‘Though I might grab a last proper croissant while we’re here.’
They buy croissants and cappuccinos and perch on bar stools where they can watch the stream of travellers pass by.
‘I kind of like airports, actually,’ Fiona says.
‘I know what you mean. So do I. Well, except for all that security nonsense. That always makes me feel guilty, like I’m hiding something.’
‘Me too!’ Fiona says, pulling a face. ‘What’s that all about?’
‘These croissants are stale,’ Wendy says. ‘I think they must have been made before the Christmas break.’
‘Yeah,’ Fiona agrees. ‘They saw us coming.’ Then, ‘People are better looking in airports, aren’t they?’
Wendy glances around. ‘Maybe,’ she says. ‘Perhaps they’re happy because they’re going on holiday?’
‘Or suntanned because they just got back.’
There’s a pause in the conversation during which a man – red faced, sweaty, overweight – sits down next to Wendy with a pint.
‘Though there are exceptions, obviously,’ Fiona says pointedly.
Wendy follows her gaze and rolls her eyes. ‘You’re mean!’ she murmurs.
She glances at the man’s pint, sees the condensation rolling down the side, and wishes she’d ordered beer instead. And then she sees Fiona looking at it with a raised eyebrow and is glad she didn’t after all.
‘So,’ Fiona says, pushing her half-eaten croissant away.
‘So!’ Wendy says, mimicking her daughter and doing the same. Now, she thinks. Now is when it happens. Whatever she says, keep calm.
But, ‘I think I’d better get going,’ is all Fiona says.
‘Oh, OK,’ Wendy says, hiding her surprise, and offering a sad smile. ‘Let’s get you posted back to Blighty, eh?’
They stand and return to the turnstiles. ‘Passport? Boarding pass? Purse?’ Wendy prompts. ‘Nothing else is that important as long as you have those.’
‘Yep. Got it all,’ Fiona says, patting her pockets.
Mother and daughter hug. The time for any major discussion has run out, and that is probably just as well. It’s nice to end the visit on a relaxed note.
She decides she’ll reward herself with a little glass of wine the second Fiona’s out of sight, and then she’ll get her taxi back home. Her nerves are completely frazzled.
‘Thanks, Mum,’ her daughter says. ‘It’s been lovely.’
‘No, thank you for saving my Christmas!’
‘You’ll be OK, won’t you? I mean, with New Year and everything coming up?’
‘Of course I will,’ Wendy says. ‘And you enjoy yours. Try to get up to some mischief! Make up for your boring Christmas with little old me by going out dancing or something!’
‘OK, Mum, I will.’
She squeezes her mother’s forearms and breaks away, turning towards the turnstiles, but then pauses and looks back. ‘Oh, Mum?’ she says, and Wendy – who’d been about to walk away – has to interrupt her own movement to turn back.
‘Yes?’
‘There’s a couple of things I promised I’d say before I leave and I haven’t managed to get around to it.’
‘Oh, OK. Don’t worry. We can always talk on the ph—’
‘Todd’s getting married.’
Wendy frowns at her daughter. The words are so unexpected that they don’t really compute. ‘I’m sorry?’ she eventually replies.
‘Todd. Your son,’ Fiona says pedantically. ‘He’s getting married.’
‘Todd.’
‘Yes. In June.’
‘Wha… wh… why?’
‘Um, dunno. Because he wants to, I expect.’
‘But…’ Wendy says.
‘But?’
‘But that’s absurd.’
‘Yeah, ’tis a bit,’ Fiona says. ‘But you know Todd.’
‘But that’s crazy,’ Wendy says. ‘That’s utter madness.’
‘I wouldn’t necessarily go that far.’
‘I mean…’ Wendy can’t work out which aspect of this moment is the most ridiculous.
Is it the fact that her twenty-one-year-old student son is getting married to a girl he met a few months ago – a girl she hasn’t even met – or the fact that she’s finding this out here, at the turnstile of an airport, from her daughter?
‘Why are you telling me this now?’ she asks, starting to feel angry that she’s being informed in circumstances which won’t even let her think clearly.
It crosses her mind that perhaps this is Fiona’s intention.
‘Because Todd asked me to,’ Fiona says. ‘Sorry, I know it’s not ideal.’
‘Ideal? No, it isn’t. Why the hell didn’t he tell me himself?’
‘Probably because he’s a wimp. Dunno. Look, I really do need to—’
‘And why now? Why so soon? They only met a few months ago. Is she pregnant or something? Because even then—’
‘They met over a year ago, Mum. And no, her dad’s got Parkinson’s, actually. And she wants to do it while he can still walk her down the aisle.’
‘Oh. Right. Gosh!’
‘So maybe more sad than mad after all.’
‘It’s going to be in June, you say?’
‘Yes. It’s almost the longest day. The nineteenth or something.’
‘Well, I’ll be back mid April, so…’
‘There’s more, actually,’ Fiona says.
‘More?’
‘Yeah… Todd wants you at the wedding—’
‘Well, of course I’ll be at the wedding!’ Wendy says, interrupting.
‘OK, but he doesn’t want a scene.’
‘A scene? Why would there…? Oh, you mean with your father? Of course there won’t be a scene.’
‘So yeah, he wants you at the wedding—’
‘Yes, yes!’ Wendy says impatiently. ‘I’ll be there. I’ll phone him and discuss it all.’
‘But he wants you to be sober.’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘He only wants you there if you’re sober, Mum. If you’re not drinking at all. That’s what he said.’
‘I… He… What?’
‘He – Todd…’
‘No, I heard you, Fiona. But why are you – why is he saying this? Is she… is it… I don’t know, is she teetotal? Is it a religious thing?’
Fiona laughs at this. ‘No. Quite the opposite, really.’
‘The opposite?’
‘Yeah, that’s why he’s worried. The reception’s in a pub and there’s going to be a free bar. And you know what you’re like when there’s a free bar.’
‘But I don’t understand… And no, I don’t know what I’m like. I don’t even know what that’s supposed to mean.’
‘OK, well, have a think about it, Mum, and you’ll work it out. And if you still can’t work it out then talk to Todd because frankly I feel I’ve gone above and beyond the call of duty here. Plus I really do have to go now, OK? Or I’m going to miss my flight.’
‘Sweetie!’ Wendy protests. ‘You can’t just drop this on me and waltz off!’
But Fiona is pecking her on the cheek and spinning on one heel, now laying her boarding pass on the scanner and pushing through the turnstile. Then, with only the briefest of glances back and a flutter of fingertips over her shoulder, she is gone.
The taxi home is ridiculously expensive but Wendy doesn’t notice. On arrival at the cabin, she puts her credit card into the man’s reader and types her PIN code without even checking the amount. She might have authorised a 1,000-euro payment rather than the 190 euros the cab actually cost.
Mittens is waiting by the front door for food, and this, too – the washing and filling of the bowl – Wendy does in a trance.
She can’t believe what’s just been said to her, nor the lackadaisical way the message was delivered.
What a spineless so-and-so Todd is! Imagine asking your younger sister to tell your mother you’re getting married!
And that ‘You know what you’re like’. The phrase keeps running through her mind.
She can imagine Todd and Fiona discussing it.
Perhaps even Harry was there as well. You know what Mum’s like.
No way we can trust her with a free bar.
As if she’s ever made a scene. As if any of them have ever seen her drunk! Seriously, how dare they! What is wrong with everyone?
She glances through the window and sees Mittens looking in, clearly hoping for a second helping. But Wendy’s not in the mood, and when she stares right back he seems to get the message. She watches him blink, avert his gaze, then finally saunter off.
She sighs deeply. She inspects the knuckles of her left hand and rubs them with her other thumb. Madness! she thinks. The whole thing is utter madness.
She stares into the distance waiting for some kind of useful thought to crystallise. But when a thought finally anchors itself in her mind, it’s not particularly useful. Fuck them! is the only thing that comes to mind. Really!
She stands and crosses to the kitchen where, after a hunt for the missing corkscrew, she opens a fresh bottle of Chardonnay. Yes! she thinks. Fuck them all.
Wendy: I suppose you’re in on all of this?
Harry: Wendy? Hello?
W: Hi. Well, are you? In on all of this?
H: Oh, sorry, I thought that was a pocket dial or something. I seem to have missed the beginning of the conver—
W: Just answer the bloody question, Haz.
H: …
W: Harry!
H: And a merry Christmas to you, too, sweetheart. You’re drunk, aren’t you?
W: No, Harry, I’m stone-cold sober.
H: You don’t sound stone-cold sober. You’re slurring.