Ashleigh Brett and Remy Hughes 2022 Aged 60 #7
Remy walked towards the house with a lightness to her being, this despite it being the saddest of days.
It was what her dad would have wanted, reconciliation between his girls.
The most fitting way to honour him. She filled the kettle, set it to boil, and put teabags in the old earthenware teapot, before sloshing milk into two mugs.
‘All right, Rem.’ His voice came from the kitchen door. She grimaced at no more than the sound of him.
Oh Christ!
Jamie walked into the kitchen. He was the very last person she wanted to see.
She stared at him, her mouth pursed. Having barely spoken to him in recent years, other than the most perfunctory ‘hello’ and ‘goodbye’ when their paths had crossed and only when it was absolutely unavoidable.
A thought persisted, that if she was talking to Ashleigh, then maybe it was time she spoke to him too, no matter how uncomfortable.
She’d keep it as civil as she could, just like she always had, including him, inviting him, for Sophie’s sake.
‘It was a lovely service, I thought.’
‘It really was,’ Remy replied curtly, reminding herself that it was good of him to have come and paid his respects to her dad. She poured the boiling water into the teapot and replaced the lid.
‘Elio did us proud, didn’t he?’
Us . . . She shuddered.
‘He really did.’
‘You still not talking to me then?’ He waggled his eyebrows.
‘You still think it’s funny?’ She turned to face him, his apparent amusement enough for her to momentarily forget her pledge of civility.
‘I don’t know what you want me to say.’ He looked a little sheepish, but with a smirk around his mouth, his lips parted over his sparkling veneers, stark against his perma-tan.
‘I don’t want you to say anything, Jamie, but we’re Sophie’s parents, Elio’s grandparents, and therefore I think it’s wise if we find a way to be around each other without awkwardness.’ She knew her therapist would be proud.
‘I don’t feel awkward when I see you.’
‘Just me then,’ she confessed.
‘Seems like it!’ He laughed. She didn’t. ‘You are so serious, Rem, you need to lighten up!’
‘Jamie, I have to be serious because it seems you think everything is a joke. You create mayhem and then scarper.’
‘I don’t!’ He laughed again, and it was akin to jabbing her in the ribs, provoking a reaction.
‘You do. You make every situation a little trickier. If I told you I was searching for an escaped mouse in a room, you’d throw a hundred snakes in and stand back. It doesn’t help! It makes everything much worse!’
‘Actually, one of those snakes would definitely get the mouse, job done.’
‘And how would you suggest we get rid of the snakes, a thousand wildebeest?’
‘You see, this is your problem, Rem, you’re never happy! You’d ask me to get rid of the mouse, I’d do it, and you’d still be moaning.’
His words, his suggestion and his dismissive manner caused fireworks of frustration to go off in her gut. Gaslighting at its finest. But that was nothing new.
‘Because your methods, your behaviour – it causes trouble and, actually, I’m not a moaner. I’m happy. I’m nearly always happy! And I have been since—’ She stopped talking, aware of going too far.
‘Since you chucked me over.’ He jutted his chin and folded his arms.
‘I chucked you over, as you put it, because you were a shit. A shit to me. The life and soul of the party to everyone else.’ She remembered so clearly what it had felt like to be so young, expecting Sophie and waiting for him to come in after a night out, stumbling through the door of their grotty flat in the early hours, reeking of booze and with a grin that told her a good night had been had by all.
All apart from her. It felt good to finally have the confidence to say it to him out loud, cathartic.
‘I didn’t mean to be, I was just a kid, and I didn’t – didn’t think it through, didn’t understand the consequences. It all felt like a bit of a game. I was just too young, too dumb to get it.’
‘And here you are in your sixties, Jamie, and you still think it’s all a bit of a game.
All the years I’ve spent being nice to you, making allowances, including you, because it felt like the right thing to do, and you slept with my sister!
’ She kept her voice down. ‘Sophie’s auntie!
You did that, Jamie! We are a family, and I know it takes two, I’m well aware, but .
. . what a rotten thing to do to us, to me. ’
‘We were drunk.’ His voice quieter now, he looked at the pointed tip of his boots.
‘Why do you think that makes it okay? Why does anyone? It’s not the law, that anything goes if you’ve had a couple of pints or a glass of plonk. It doesn’t work like that.’
He nodded.
‘All those years ago, but still it makes me feel – eeuw.’ She pulled a face. ‘You’re my ex; we were married, and you slept with Ashleigh.’ She shook her head to help remove the unpalatable images that popped up.
‘I don’t want Ashleigh, I never have, she just . . .’ He paused and exhaled from air-filled cheeks.
‘She just what, Jamie?’
‘She just reminded me of you.’ He spoke slowly and she felt a potent mixture of irritation and sadness.
She didn’t want him to have any feelings for her other than those of a platonic nature; it made her feel uncomfortable, disloyal to even be hearing it; and sad because he was an idiot and he was Sophie’s dad and she should have chosen better, should have waited for Midge.
‘I really don’t want Soph to hear us arguing. She is so busy with work and the baby, and is obviously upset over my dad,’ she pressed.
‘Yep, I don’t want her to worry about us, either.’
‘Well, look at that, we’re in agreement!’ She reached for the teapot, poured the tea, grabbed mugs, and walked back out to the garden, glad to be gone from him and to feel the fresh air on her face.
Ashleigh took one of the mugs from her.
‘Did I just see you talking to Jamie?’ her sister asked, taking a sip of tea.
‘Yep.’
‘How did it go?’
‘Same as ever. He’s a div.’ Remy rolled her eyes.
‘He is a div.’ Her sister smiled, as if thinking, like her, how lovely it was to be on the same page. ‘I’ve hated not being able to see you, not being able to chat to you, absolutely hated it.’
‘Me too.’ Remy sat back on the bench. Confession felt easy in the moment; besides, it was the truth.
‘At first I was so riled I didn’t want to speak to you or look at you.
By the time I’d calmed, months had passed, and then it was a new year, and I didn’t give it as much thought – it was no longer an obsession like it had been – but it also meant I gave you less thought, and then more months passed.
’ She took a deep breath. ‘I didn’t know how to undo it, how to start over, go back to the beginning. ’
‘I understand. But honestly? It’s been the opposite for me.
Each month that passed without contact, I’ve thought about you more and more.
Missed you more and more.’ Ashleigh took a swig of her tea.
‘I wanted to call you.’ She rested her mug on her thigh.
‘But didn’t know what to say. And I didn’t want to be picking over the conversation for weeks after, reading between the lines of all the things you had chosen not to share or didn’t say. ’
‘What a bloody mess.’ The day’s events suddenly threatened to catch up with her; she felt tired.
‘You could say that. It’s not too late though, Rem?’
The two shared a quiet moment of connection and Remy knew she’d hold it close to her heart for the longest time.
‘No, not too late, Ash.’
‘Are you two hiding?’ Midge called from the back door. ‘Come and help me out. I can’t have the same conversation with your Auntie Jan about her high cholesterol again. I just can’t!’
‘Okay. We’ll come in if we have to.’ Remy smiled at the man, and he let his gaze linger on her. It was everything, that look, that love, still there.
She was reluctant to go back inside, feeling a lump in her throat as she was reminded of the neighbours and relatives, all clad in black, the realisation of why they were all there. It had been possible to dilute this sadness out here in the back garden, building a bridge to her twin.
‘Is this a bad time?’
A voice came from the side patio. A nice voice. Remy turned to see a man in a camel coat standing awkwardly, a fixed smile on his handsome face.
‘No, it’s perfect timing.’ Ashleigh smiled at the man who had an Aston Martin. ‘Midge, Remy, this is Victor.’
‘Two of you!’ He pointed at them with his index fingers, his expression one of perplexation.
‘Yup!’ Ashleigh’s grin was wide, and she understood it had always been a novelty, the thrill of someone spotting the fact there were two of them.
‘Ah, monozygotic, I’m deducing . . .’
‘Exactly that.’ Ashleigh sat up straight, as if paying this man full attention for the first time, with an expression that suggested she might be ready to dive in, filled to the brim with enthusiasm for whatever might come.
‘Yes, a little over fifty-five years ago now!’ Remy added, for no reason other than to make her sister laugh.
And she did.