16. It’s a shrine, darling #2
‘Hmmm?’ Dylan hummed absently. ‘Oh. Err, yeah. What?’ Priya glared at Dylan with wide eyes and flicked her head towards Greta. ‘Shit, yes, thank you. Thank you, Greta. Shall I see you out?’ For some reason, Dylan’s voice had become overly polite, as though Greta were a GP on a house-call.
Greta smiled softly. ‘It’s okay. I know where the door is. I just need my shoes.’
Priya placed her hand on Greta’s arm as she passed her, squeezing it gently, closing the gap between them so that she could whisper.
‘She’s not been herself for a while. Not since you.
Just be patient with her. Okay, hen?’ Greta covered Priya’s hand with her own, smiled and nodded before heading to the kitchen to wash her hands.
‘What the hell is wrong with you?’ Priya whisper-shouted at Dylan, who was seemingly still elsewhere despite being very much in the room. ‘Oi! Dunderhead!’
‘Huh?!’ Dylan finally said. ‘I am myself, what are you—’
‘Oh so you are here?! Go to her,’ Priya instructed.
‘But—’
‘Now!’
Dylan walked into the kitchen as Greta was drying her hands. Sensing her, Greta turned, leaning back against the sink as she drew in a long breath.
‘Did I overstep?’ Greta asked quietly, worrying the edge of the tea towel between her fingers.
‘No! Fuck, no. I just… I err. Jesus, what the fuck is wrong with me?’
‘You’re exhausted, Dylan. Stay here today and sort your mum. Text me later.’
Dylan just nodded slowly. The stark reality of her life thrummed in her arteries, a synchronised network of pulsating warnings that it would all be too much for Greta.
She could feel the words between them that needed to be said—the words she didn’t want to say—forming in her throat and moving toward her tongue.
There really was no world that existed in which they could be together.
‘I could still…we could try later?’ Dylan began to protest.
‘Stay here.’ Greta’s words were an instruction. Dylan nodded again and blew out a long breath, too tired to do anything else.
***
Instead of going home, Greta stopped at her parents’ house, not far from Dylan’s. She needed her family. Everything had been so strange, her world felt flipped. She needed the grounding words and reassuring love of her mum and dad.
‘Why do you look so dreadful?!’ Greta’s mum said, pulling her in for a hug.
‘Nice to see you too, Mum,’ Greta replied, catching the gaze of her dad who theatrically rolled his eyes.
Elaine held Greta out by the shoulders as though she were a map, her all-knowing eyes tracing every inch of her face.
‘Can I hug my daughter, please? Or are you going to burn her alive with your glare, Elaine?’ Edward said from behind them.
Elaine tutted, placing another kiss on Greta’s cheek.
‘Hi, Dad,’ Greta said warmly.
He scooped her into a hug that she completely melted into. ‘How’s my girl?’ Edward whispered in her ear. ‘Better?’ he continued, refusing to let her out of the embrace.
‘Getting there, I think,’ Greta replied. Her voice sounded strange as her dad’s tall shoulder pushed up against her chin.
Edward reluctantly let her go. ‘I’ll just get some wood for the burner,’ he said.
A smile tugged at the corners of Greta’s lips as Edward shot Elaine a look that told her to take it easy. He left the room as Greta busied herself making a pot of coffee.
Elaine took a steadying breath. Greta heard, her molars pushed together as she reflexively braced herself. ‘How are things with… Well, with that woman you were seeing?’
‘We weren’t seeing one another.’ She huffed out some air. ‘I wasn’t seeing her, Mum.’
‘Oh. Well, are you at least having some nice sex?’
‘Mum!’ Greta exclaimed, whipping her entire body around.
‘What?! Greta, it’s about bloody time. Would you not agree?!’
Greta did in fact agree, but this was not a conversation she was prepared to have with her mother. ‘I can’t believe you just asked me that.’
‘What? Five years is a long time to go without having those needs fulfilled. Your libido will crash soon, darling, with you being perimenopausal.’
‘I’m still very much menstrual, thank you, Mother.’
Edward appeared in the doorway, a basket of wood in his hands, spinning on his heels back into the garden at the words very much menstrual, as though he’d forgotten something incredibly important in the wood store.
‘Well, you’re lucky, but it won’t be long.’
‘Anyway, my needs really shouldn’t concern you, Mother.’
‘But they do, Greta,’ Elaine replied sarcastically. ‘I don’t want to know the bloody nitty-gritty, I just…what on earth is your father doing?’
They both turned to see Edward through the window, hovering in the garden, clutching his basket of wood as though it were a life raft.
Greta gave a throaty chuckle. ‘Come in, Dad.’
He tentatively walked back into the kitchen, his cautious steps giving him the appearance of someone dodging hidden land mines in the floor.
‘I was just telling Greta that we worry about her sexual needs.’
‘Mum!’
‘Lainey!’
Greta and Edward yelled at the same time.
‘Oh, grow up, the bloody pair of you,’ Elaine chided, shaking her head at them both.
‘Can we please talk about something else?’ Greta cringed, pressing her fingertips into her forehead.
Elaine raked her gaze over her daughter suspiciously, reading her expertly with narrowed eyes. ‘Did you stay out last night? Away from home, I mean? Did you stay… Where is your makeup, G?’ Her mum’s voice was slowly gathering excited momentum as it moved up an entire octave.
‘No, I— ’ Greta began her protestations before Elaine pulled out a classic.
‘Greta Vincent, do not lie to your mother.’
Shit. That was a twang on Greta’s Achilles heel. She dropped her head as Edward silently crab-stepped out of the kitchen, still clutching his basket of wood.
‘I stayed with a friend.’
‘You don’t have any friends.’
‘Oh charming.’
‘Not ones you’d stay with.’
‘Well I—’
‘Don’t lie to me, Greta,’ Elaine warned, as though Greta were fifteen again and had just presented her with the empty chocolate tray from her advent calendar in the first week of December.
Greta pressed her hands into her hips and blew out a long breath of exasperation.
Elaine pulled out a chair at the table and gestured for her daughter to do the same. ‘Talk to me, G. Please.’
Greta rubbed her forehead as she lowered herself onto the chair. ‘She’s twenty-eight, Mum.’ She blurted it out before her brain could ready a follow-up. She kept her head down, gaze fastened on the grain of the wooden table.
‘Was that supposed to shock me?’ Elaine replied unbothered.
Greta looked up, eyes frantically scanning her mum’s face. ‘Do you not find it shocking?’
‘What I find shocking, darling, is that my girl is circumnavigating this hard life alone. That every day you do such good in this world and go home to that…’
‘That?’ Greta urged with a head tilt.
‘Shrine to Muriel.’
The words slapped Greta as the salt of tears began pricking wildly at her eyes, gathering and glistening on her lashes.
‘It is not a shrine,’ Greta said adamantly, her voice treasonously close to giving way completely.
‘It’s a shrine, darling.’
The first tear rolled down Greta’s face, giving permission for the rest to fall. She sobbed, heaving sobs that bounded through her as her mum moved to hold her, stooping to her from behind.
Elaine pressed her mouth to the top of Greta’s head. ‘Is she good? This woman, is she a good person?’ Elaine said softly.
‘She’s incredible, Mum,’ Greta whispered.
Hearing the words aloud made her head spin, as though the word incredible had caused a tsunami in her tear ducts. The confession only made the sobs louder and the tears heavier.
‘Then we have nothing more to talk about,’ Elaine said softly into Greta’s hair. ‘Please, don’t let her go. Try, G. Please, try.’
Edward appeared behind them, tears rolling down his face, into his beard. He draped himself over them gently. ‘We couldn’t care less about age, G,’ he croaked. ‘We just need to see you smile again.’
‘I do smile,’ Greta sniffled.
‘Not with your eyes, sweetheart,’ he sobbed. ‘Not anymore.’ His big arms held the most precious things in his world as close as he could.