Chapter Remy #11
He appeared at the door; tea would clearly have to wait. Her dad ripped the paper from his first gift as the kids clustered on the carpet in front of him.
‘Oh, Maltesers! My favourite. Thank you, Soph!’
Sophie, her fabulous girl, beamed in the glow of his praise. ‘Happy birthday, Grandad.’
‘Can I have one?’ Bertie shouted.
‘In a minute.’ Her dad winked at him.
‘What’s this then?’ He took a stiff yellow gift bag into his hands and struggled with the silky black ribbon that formed a generous bow.
Ashleigh’s gift, obviously. She felt Midge staring at her and knew ordinarily she’d turn to face him, and he’d widen his eyes as if to say, ‘wonder how much that cost . . .’ and she’d smile at him.
But with Ashleigh’s words still ringing in her thoughts, her apparent unhappiness, and all they’d discussed, she didn’t want to do that. Not at all.
‘Fancy shower gel? Well I never!’
‘It’s Acqua di Parma,’ Ashleigh enunciated. Remy looked straight at Midge and pulled a face, I mean, come on!
‘Is that right?’ Her dad nodded, clearly no clue as to the value or brand. ‘Your mum gets me the stuff I like from Aldi. What’s the flavour I have, Ruthie?’
‘Oh, it’s like a spicy smell, very nice.’
‘And about fifty pence a bottle,’ her dad added.
‘Fifty pence?’ Ashleigh’s voice was shrill. ‘How can shower gel that costs fifty pence be any good for your skin?’ She was clearly rankled. Remy could only assume that the gift wrap alone on his present had set her back nearly a tenner.
‘What do you think shower gel is, love?’ He looked at Ashleigh in earnest. ‘It’s only water with a splash of chemicals and some smelly stuff shoved in!
All of it. You should look at the ingredients, and I guarantee they are all mostly water!
I mean, they might tart it up by saying H2o or aqua or some other such rubbish, but it’s all water at the end of the day. ’
‘Did they not teach you that at St. Jude’s?
’ Midge piped up, and Ashleigh scratched her cheek with her middle finger, giving her brother-in-law the subtle, childish and funny sign.
Remy felt her stomach roll with anxiety at the topic, which seemed to be all around her today, or maybe that was just her sensitivity to it.
Midge laughed and retreated to the kitchen to make tea.
‘Well, now I know!’ Ashleigh folded her arms across her chest.
‘That’s from us, Dad.’ Remy spoke as he lifted a white envelope and rattled it next to his ear.
‘Gift voucher?’ he asked.
‘Yep.’ She wished she weren’t so predictable.
‘Garden centre or B she knew more than most what it felt like to be a source of disappointment.
‘Come and give your nan a hug.’ Ruthie opened her arms.
Evie leapt from the rug and embraced Ruthie with a fierceness that was as tender as it was telling. Remy watched Ashleigh look away, aware of her words earlier and how she sometimes felt a little stuck.
‘I’ll see you very soon, littlest dove,’ her mum whispered to Evie with obvious emotion.
Remy smiled to hear the words of affection; it spoke volumes, letting her niece know that they might not see her all the time, but she was very much part of the fold.
It was a reminder to Remy that no matter what happened, or how much they might irritate each other or upset the balance of a gathering, they were still family, forever connected.
Ashleigh
Ashleigh smiled as she navigated the roads of West London, where the traffic, at this time of night, was manageable.
It made her laugh to think of her dad, opening his birthday gift, and extolling the merits of his fifty-pence shower gel.
She did the maths in her head and made a mental note to next year go to Aldi and get him almost a hundred bottles for about the same money.
It was always hard leaving, her mum’s expression one of disappointment, whether she was there for an hour, a week, a month.
It was never enough, leaving her with a new branch growing from the cold kernel of failure in the pit of her stomach.
This, she knew, came from a place of love.
They loved her, and they loved her being near them.
Golden, that was what Remy had said, not that this made dealing with the aftermath any easier.
She was looking forward to getting home, to smoothing things over with Archie after last night’s supper-time debacle.
Sex, she decided, would be nice, sex and wine, after she’d made him chuckle with an embellished account of their day: Everyone was up in arms!
We had to go forage for KFC! And then Dad was enquiring after his supper when he’d not long had lunch .
. . She felt a frisson of excitement at the prospect of the evening ahead, thankful that her husband still had that effect on her after all this time.
It had been a long day, but a lovely one.
Those hilarious moments ordering chicken in the car with Remy.
To see her after any time apart meant they built a bridge, and topped up their love, which would see them through to the next visit.
The very best part of her trip, however, was spending time with Evie.
There had been moments throughout the day, getting lost in the pantomime of life with her family, when it had felt like a breakthrough.
Watching her daughter interact so easily with her cousins, and not a cartoon in sight. She smiled now to think of it.
‘I liked today, Mummy.’
Her daughter interrupted her thoughts. Ashleigh adjusted the rear-view mirror and framed her daughter, wanting to capture this second like a photograph.
It was easy, relaxed, because Ashleigh let herself behave differently and feel differently.
Distracted by the mayhem, the noise, she didn’t carry the weight of the world on her shoulders, wasn’t, in those moments, worrying about Guy or the business or Ada or supper or winning her place at a table she felt she had no right to be at, or any of the other paper cuts of concern that occupied large chunks of her brain.
It was that feeling of freedom and lightness that had settled over her after laughing so hard.
Yes, it had on balance been wonderful, but she’d missed Archie too, missed him driving and allowing her to doze as she liked to on a long journey, missed his quips about Midge, who he privately referred to as Arnie on account of his very macho career and his good-looking, bare-chested, slight Terminator vibes.
Missed the post-visit dissection, where they would laugh over her mother’s slightly manic air, her burbled clichés, as she spoke in riddles and platitudes and threw salt over her shoulder and knocked on wood and crossed her heart and pressed her hands together in prayer to keep her family safe.
And Ashleigh didn’t doubt Archie would have loved her dad’s dire summary of her gift.
She hated having to admit to her folks that, yet again, Archie wasn’t in attendance because of a work thing.
She was determined to find a way back to him, to find a way back to being ‘them’, remembering when they had laughed as long and loudly as she and Remy had earlier, before life had placed her on a busy path that meant they conversed in short snaps as one ate breakfast and the other rushed out of the door. It wasn’t good enough.
Yes, she missed him and would tell him so.
He always found her parents’ ways amusing and it left her feeling a little torn, as she did too, but her judgement came from a place of affection, and she wasn’t sure he had the same right to comment as she and Remy.
Her sister’s words about his aloofness she’d analyse over the next few days.
To have her husband and twin closer would be nice, no doubt.
Trouble was, they were all a little late out of the gate to make the necessary changes, should have worked harder when they’d first met.
And maybe it was impossible to have that shared, easy closeness, and still keep her life compartmentalised.
One thing was for sure, she was too tired to think it through tonight.
‘I liked today too, very much.’