Chapter 6
6
Boxing Day – when as children, Isabel and I had happily eaten re-hashed leftovers and played with our new toys. We’d always secretly agreed that we enjoyed Boxing Day more than Christmas, it seemed more fun somehow, more relaxed. I suppose I had hopes that the same thing would apply that day.
Vanessa appeared after breakfast dressed in a new waxed jacket, new Le Chameau boots, and matching cashmere (ethical) hat, scarf and gloves that perfectly matched her blue eyes. She wanted us to all go out for a ‘lovely walk’ , so we could get some exercise and ‘blow the cobwebs away’ . She was met with little enthusiasm, evidently everyone was perfectly happy with their cobwebs and atrophying leg muscles, and anyway, it was still raining. She took a cup of coffee and pouting prettily, went back off upstairs to change.
I produced a buffet lunch complete with bubble and squeak, which I had assumed everyone would enjoy and then watched as Bunny picked out the strands of sprout, Jasmine ate nothing but crisps and the twins sulked because the eyeshadow boxes had been overused and subsequently confiscated.
John was in good form, jolly and talkative, telling me all about his new offices in Manhattan and their new rental apartment that was apparently in an area called Midtown and within easy walking distance of Times Square, Central Park, Broadway, the MoMA, and sundry other delights.
Sara didn’t appear until lunch had started, confident that someone else would be entertaining the twins, and when she did come downstairs complained that she had a headache and that there was no brie left on the cheese plate.
‘There’s a pantomime on at the village hall,’ I said. ‘ Cinderella , I’ve reserved us all tickets for tomorrow.’
The girls looked at each other and pulled faces.
‘Is there anyone famous in it?’ Poppy said.
‘Probably not. The vicar is playing the wicked stepmother and the milkman and his brother are playing the ugly sisters. It will be great fun.’
‘I’d rather stay here and read,’ Jasmine said cunningly, knowing as all children do that this was an occupation to which no parent would ever object.
In the end, we didn’t go. I didn’t notice anyone huddled away with a book, and nor did we get any sort of walk, so after four days we were all getting cabin fever and none of the girls were speaking to each other following a major disagreement about some reality star I’d never heard of.
It seemed that the last bright embers of my Christmas expectations were flickering and dying, and I felt powerless to do anything about it. It was such a shame; nothing was going as I had planned.
I began to feel rather angry too. My granddaughters were being rude and ungrateful, Sara and John seemed to have abandoned most of their parental responsibilities in the same way they had stopped clearing up after themselves since the moment they had arrived, and I was being treated like unpaid staff. Considering the trouble, effort and expense I had gone to, it was all so disappointing. I felt like a cross between some aged retainer, shuffling around with a damp cloth and a nanny distracting them all from yet another argument and finding something entertaining for them to do.
By New Year’s Eve, the weather cleared up and John and Vanessa went out for their walk. Sara buttonholed me in the kitchen as I cleared away after another meal and the girls watched television in the sitting room with the door closed. This apparently necessitated bringing all their duvets downstairs to huddle underneath, even though the heating had been on all day since they had arrived and I, for one, was boiling and had even opened a kitchen window.
‘Can I talk to you?’ she said.
‘Of course you can.’
‘Well, will you stop tidying up and wiping the worktops for a moment and sit down? And can you shut that window, it’s freezing.’
‘Right. This sounds serious,’ I said, ‘have you heard from Marty?’
Sara nodded. ‘He messaged me to say he would be back tomorrow.’
‘I’d rather he didn’t come here,’ I said, imagining Marty planting himself in my hallway bringing with him a supercilious sneer and a pungent whiff of his aftershave.
‘God, no. That’s not what I meant,’ Sara said, her eyes wide with alarm. ‘I want to ask if the girls and I can stay on here for a while. They don’t go back to school for another few days; I could pop into town and buy them a few things to tide them over. I brought a lot of their stuff with me anyway. Have a think.’
I thought back over the last few days of arguing and disappointment and shuddered. Perhaps it would be easier with just them? But what if it wasn’t? What if this awful behaviour just continued?
It was the start of a New Year the following day, a time when a lot of people plan new things. I wanted to achieve something with it, something for me for a change. If nothing else, the last week had showed me that I was turning into a martyr, a domestic drudge who seemed to be putting up with just about anything. Was that really me?
I’d had a good career, been a head of department, had organised people and events. I’d been married to the same man for nearly forty years, I’d produced two children, run my home efficiently and well. Was I going to allow myself to behave like this for the rest of my life?
Sara busied herself making me a conciliatory cup of coffee and bringing me the tin of Christmas biscuits which she placed at my elbow.
‘There aren’t many left,’ she said, ‘I think all the good ones have gone.’
I poked about amongst the Jammie Dodgers and broken digestives for a moment and then gave up and put the lid back on the tin.
‘Of course you can stay,’ I said at last, ‘I do understand things are hard for you all. It must be so difficult.’
Sara sighed with relief. ‘It wouldn’t be for long. Just a few weeks.’
Hang on, we had somehow gone from ‘ a few days’ to ‘ a few weeks’ .
What could I say? I wanted more than anything to be supportive and helpful because that’s what parents did in these circumstances.
‘Okay,’ I said, trying to sound both of those things, ‘of course, if you’re sure.’
‘I’ll tell the twins,’ Sara said, smiling for the first time in days. ‘Once John and his lot have gone, I’m sure they will settle down. You’ll hardly know we are here. And the school is only a twenty-minute drive. And I need to make an appointment with a solicitor. John has a mate who works in town, I could see him. Start the ball rolling.’
‘Well, at least have a talk and find out what your options are.’
Standing behind me, Sara swooped down to put an arm around my shoulders and kiss me on the cheek. She exuded an air of bitterness and my Chanel N? 5 bath oil.
‘Thanks, Mum. You’re the best. I don’t know what I would do without you.’
Was I the best? When in my head I was nearly screaming?
‘It’s fine,’ I said loosening her arm, which while affectionate was pressing uncomfortably on my throat. ‘We’d need to draw up some ground rules for everyone. What time you’ll be eating, what to do about laundry, that sort of thing.’
‘Of course,’ Sara said.
She came to sit next to me and put one hand over mine. Unfortunately, it was the one holding my coffee mug, and it slopped all over the table. Sara pulled a yard of kitchen roll off the dispenser and dabbed at it ineffectively.
‘The twins are out most afternoons after school, with their clubs and extra activities. We usually eat at about six thirty. They’re really not precious about food.’
‘That’s not the evidence that I’ve seen this week,’ I said, ‘they’ve hardly eaten a single meal without complaining about something. I’ve got a food delivery coming later; perhaps they could let me have some suggestions. And the broadband here is very slow. And unpredictable,’ I said, ‘you need to tell them that.’
‘Oh, they won’t mind,’ Sara said, leaving the pile of coffee-sodden kitchen roll in front of me, ‘and they look after themselves pretty well. Occasionally I have to go and rescue plates and bowls from their bedrooms, but as a rule, they are no trouble. I hardly know they are there most of the time. Gosh, I’m so relieved. I’ve been dreading asking you. I think I need a drink.’
She went into the pantry and found the bottle of sherry that someone had replaced empty on the shelf. She pulled a face and put it back. Then she took out the Cointreau and slugged the last of it into a glass, adding some ice cubes for good measure.
I thought of suggesting that she might be drinking rather too much than was good for her, but we were interrupted by a piercing and heart-rending scream from the sitting room, which suggested that Poppy was trying to take someone’s teeth out without benefit of anaesthetic, and the now familiar shout of ‘ Mum, tell her… ’
‘Oh, FFS,’ Sara said, putting her glass down as she went in to see what the fuss was all about.
I sat looking at my coffee and tried to organise my thoughts. But suddenly I couldn’t. There just seemed to be one problem after another. Perhaps when I was younger, I would have felt differently, but that day I wasn’t sure that I had the strength to cope with it all. I had a ridiculous urge to run away from everything, to sit on a beach looking at the sea, or in the middle of some woodland listening to the breeze. Somewhere no one could ask me for anything.
At that moment my mobile rang, it was Isabel. At last, some sanity.
‘ Bonjour ma soeur !’ she said cheerfully. ‘How’s my big sister this New Year’s Eve?’
She sounded so happy, and I could almost imagine her sitting in her warm, friendly kitchen on one of the mismatched chairs, her feet up on another. Perhaps she would have a big bowl of café crème in front of her. There would be sunlight streaming in through the windows, her husband, Felix, and their two sons would be out somewhere doing something useful and manly. Chopping wood perhaps or servicing Isabel’s car.
I almost said, the usual stuff: Oh, I’m fine, how are you? But suddenly I couldn’t, my throat seemed to close up and to my horror I found myself on the brink of tears.
‘We have been having a lovely time, slobbing around doing nothing,’ Isabel continued, not waiting for me to answer, ‘lots of food, far too much wine because our neighbours all gave us cases of the stuff when they came over, the Christmas tree fell over twice because one of the cats got in and tried to climb it, so there are pine needles everywhere. I really should get the hoover out but it’ll only get dirty again, so really what’s the point until Felix takes it away? I’ll do it when my menfolk have gone back to work. I’m enjoying the peace and quiet. We are having work done on one of the g?tes , and we are expecting delivery of a shepherd’s hut sometime in the spring, which is going to be very popular. I wouldn’t mind moving in there myself. Now, what’s the matter?’
My sister had always been able to do this. Swerve away from the subject and zone in on my mood, even though it seemed that she was being blithely oblivious to it. I felt somehow seen for the first time in days.
I took a deep breath. ‘Oh, you know. I think I might be all Christmas-ed out. This gap between Christmas and New Year always is a bit unsatisfactory, isn’t it?’
‘Are they being terrible? Are the girls fighting? Is Vanessa feeling out of sorts because she can’t go shopping? Is Sara moping around because of Marty?’
I stood up and dropped the wad of dripping kitchen roll into the bin.
‘All of the above,’ I said.
‘Poor you. When are they going?’
‘John says they are going home the day after tomorrow. Sara has asked if she and the girls can stay on, she can’t face going back home if Marty is going to be there. She seems to think he will have the new woman ensconced already.’
‘He wouldn’t? ’
‘I’ve no idea.’
‘So how long for? Sara and the twins, I mean.’
I lowered my voice to a conspiratorial level. ‘She started off saying a few days and then somehow it changed to a few weeks.’
Isabel gasped, and there was a silence which went on uncomfortably long as we both thought of something sensible to say. In the background I could hear a lot of shouting going on in my sitting room. Some argument about the television remote.
‘What on earth is that racket? What’s happening?’ Isabel said at last.
‘Sara’s sorting out the girls. In her own fashion.’
There was another lull in our conversation and then Isabel gave an excited ‘ oooh’. And then an even more excited squeak.
‘What? What’s the matter?’
‘Joy, I’ve had one of my fabulous ideas. Come and stay with me now ,’ she said, ‘have some fun for once.’
For a brief moment it was as though a door had opened up, and through it came the tempting and unrealistic vision of French sunshine, happy people, decent coffee, and garlic scented cassoulet. And the possibility of fun? That sounded very appealing.
‘I’m not sure,’ I said rather unconvincingly.
I was conflicted, confused by my own feelings. I knew that since my divorce I had been increasingly lonely, I had retired from a busy life teaching, and then almost immediately found myself living alone. Everything I was used to had changed. Where once there had been people, activities, and sometimes hardly a moment to myself, I was now living in a house that needed hardly any work, and occasionally I didn’t speak to anyone all day. And yet when the house was full of people and noise and bustle, that left me stressed and anxious. What was the matter with me?
‘You were going to come over here anyway, once Christmas and the New Year were over. You promised. Leave Sara and the girls to get on with things in your house, they probably need some time to process everything, things that you can’t do for them even if you wanted to. You could stay in one of the g?tes , I think there might be one ready by the time you get here, the one you stayed in last time, and the other one that’s being renovated, that should be ready too if my sons ever get their act into gear. Oooh, or you could move into the new shepherd’s hut when it arrives. It is so cute and cosy, really, it would be such fun. You could be our first guest in there, like a sort of product tester, and then you can let us know what changes we need to make. You could help me with the brocante . I’ve got such a lot of new things that need sorting out. It would be lovely to see you again. You haven’t been to see me for so long. Nearly three years.’
‘John is going to America,’ I said sadly.
‘And? You’re planning to pack for him and take them to the airport?’
‘Well, no. Of course not,’ I said, wondering if I should do exactly that.
No, of course I shouldn’t, what a ridiculous thought. He was a grown man with a wife, a family and a career. He wasn’t a kid needing lifts to football training or scouts.
‘Right then, it’s all settled. You can get John and his family off and leave Sara and the twins to calm down.’
‘She did say she needed time alone to think,’ I said, warming to the idea.
‘And this would be her chance to have exactly that.’
‘I don’t think it’s quite what she had in mind,’ I said.
‘No, I bet she thought you would just take over and be your usual efficient self, clearing up after them while she sits around doing nothing at all and the twins run you both ragged,’ Isabel said.
Yes, my sister was probably right, I had imagined this scenario already, only too well. But would it be a good thing to do, to leave her in my house while I went off to visit Isabel? Surely that was unacceptable. Bad mother alert.
‘I suppose she knows how everything works and where everything is. She says she feels safe here.’
‘Then that’s all you need to know,’ Isabel said, ‘stay as long as you like. You could help Felix in the bookshop or give me a hand with the stuff in the barn, I’ve got a load of marvellous things from a house clearance. Or you could just relax and get over the festive excitement.’
Festive excitement. There had been precious little of that, in fact the whole thing had been hard work and was gradually turning into a test of my endurance and peace-keeping skills, mixed in with huge meals that at least one person didn’t like. And what about the Christmas decorations?
I felt a surge of new anger. Sod it; Sara knew perfectly well where things went. She’d done it in the past when I’d sprained an ankle.
‘You know what I always say – “this too shall pass.” And then some other BS will come along to take its place,’ Isabel added.
Well, that was true, I knew that.
I wanted to feel angry, properly angry, just for once. For so many years I had put Stephen, the children, grandchildren and my job first. And myself last.
But like most women, I didn’t do anger very well. We hide it in so many ways. Swallowing it down so that other people can express their feelings and we remain the silent peacemakers. Would Stephen have loved me more if I had been more critical? Argued with him? Would John and Sara still think I was a good mother if I had told them what I really thought?
I might be sixty-three, but I surely wasn’t just there to be everyone’s referee and dogsbody. Was I?
I knew exactly how Stephen would have behaved – he would have huffed a bit and left it to me to sort out, probably with some comment about how he expected to be allowed to enjoy a quiet retirement without the benefit of teenage arguments echoing down the stairs. Well suddenly, so did I.
He’d had absolutely no patience with such a thing as a fussy eater. Eat it or stay hungry , had been his motto. The prospect of vegetarianism appearing in our family, of children not wanting parsnips to touch the carrots or sprouts to be picked out of bubble and squeak would not have sat well with him.
‘Be strong,’ Isabel said, interrupting my thoughts.
I’d heard that voice all my life, persuading me into things I wasn’t really sure about, places I didn’t want to go, escapades that had got us both into trouble. And yet she had always won me round, by sheer force of her personality. Her boundless enthusiasm for festivals, concerts, adventures, and escapades. I had always been the cautious one, longing to be more like her.
She was still talking.
‘You never know how strong you are until there’s no option. Take a break, think of yourself for once. Have a few laughs. Have some fun. You were married to a man who refused to wear T-shirts, who bought John a chemistry set for his second birthday, thought tinned fruit with evaporated milk was the best dessert ever invented and considered central heating the work of the devil. I hope you’ve taken that awful portable gas heater out of your bedroom; I was always worried you were going to blow up or succumb to carbon monoxide poisoning. John and Sara are both fully formed adults now, with mortgages and kids and electricity bills. It’s time you started the next bit.’
‘What next bit?’ I said wearily, wondering if I had any energy left.
‘The rest of your life, you twit.’