25. Carly
Chapter 25
Carly
A nthony’s here again. She hears them laughing even before she opens the door. This has been her family home for her whole life, yet suddenly she feels like an outsider, an intruder, someone who should be knocking before she walks in.
‘Ah, Carly, love.’ Her mum looks up as she comes into the kitchen, and waves her hand towards the draining board. ‘Look at the lovely dahlias Anthony’s brought. Grown them all himself too. Maybe you’d like some to take home with you? I’m not sure I’ve got enough vases to accommodate them all.’
What happened to Hello or How are you ? It’s all about Anthony these days. She hasn’t even sat down yet and her mum’s talking about her going home. Sam was right. This man is rapidly getting his feet under the table, and something needs to be done about it.
‘Hi, Mum. And hello to you too!’
‘Sorry. Enough of my babbling. Come in and have a cuppa. There’s fresh tea in the pot. Sit down and tell us all your news.’
Us? Since when was she expected to tell Anthony all her comings and goings? ‘Nothing to tell. Same old, same old…’
She pours herself a tea and pulls out a chair. She hates feeling awkward in her own home, but the strained atmosphere doesn’t seem to register with either of them. A newspaper is spread open on the table between them, and the pen laid down beside it makes it obvious they have been tackling the crossword together.
‘You don’t happen to know the capital of Senegal, do you?’ Anthony says, picking up the pen and chewing the end of it. ‘Five letters. Got a K in it. Assuming we’ve got three across right, of course.’
‘Sorry, no. I don’t even know where Senegal is.’
My mother tuts. ‘And you with an A-level in geography!’
I don’t rise to the bait. A-levels were a long time ago and I don’t remember much about lists of capital cities ever being on the syllabus.
‘Oh, well, I’d best be off,’ Anthony says, giving up on the crossword and hauling himself to his feet. ‘Maybe you can finish it later, Joyce. Things to do, places to go. You know how it is…’
They don’t kiss goodbye, which is a small mercy at least.
The kitchen falls silent in his wake. I drink my tea and watch her, but I can’t read the expression on her face. She doesn’t speak until she’s moved over to the sink and her back’s to me as she starts clipping the ends off the dahlia stems.
‘You do like Anthony, don’t you?’ she says.
‘I don’t really know him, Mum.’
‘He’s become a good friend. He knew your dad, and they had a lot in common. The allotment, the crossword…’
‘A good friend? Is that all?’ I know I have no right to ask, but she’s spent long enough delving into my love life, my choices, so it doesn’t feel too out of line to do the same to her.
She turns to face me. ‘Carly! What are you suggesting?’
‘Just that he’s here a lot, and that the two of you seem to be getting… what’s the word? Close, I suppose. Is there something going on here, Mum? Are you two a couple now?’
She comes back to the table, a single stem clutched in her hand, and sits back down.
‘Would it bother you if we were? Your dad’s been gone a while now, love, and I am entitled to a life.’
‘Of course you are. You’re still young.’
She laughs. ‘I wouldn’t say that, exactly. But I still have a few years left ahead of me, God willing, and it would be good to enjoy them. You know, to have someone around to have a laugh with, to go out with sometimes. It doesn’t have to mean he’s trying to replace your father. Nobody ever could. I hope you know that.’
She’s making me feel guilty now, for trying to trample on her chance of a bit of happiness.
‘It’s just that Anthony is so much younger than you, Mum. It unsettles me a bit. And Sam. Like I said, we know so little about him. Does he have his own house, for instance? Or a proper job?’
‘What you are asking is whether he’s some sort of gold digger, trying to take a gullible widow for everything she’s got! You’ll be asking about his prospects next, like some worried father protecting a daughter from a cad.’ She sighs. ‘Oh, Carly, you’ve got this so wrong. Anthony’s not interested in me in that way. He’s not about to move in or whisk me down the aisle, for my money or for my body! And I don’t see him that way either.’ She closes her eyes for a moment as if debating what to say next. ‘You do know your dad was the only man I ever went to bed with? And that wasn’t until we were married. Good job we turned out to be compatible and willing to learn as we went along, that’s all I can say about that. There was no try before you buy for us! If we’d hated it, we’d have been stuck with it, for life.’
Do I really want to hear about my own parents’ sex life? I shudder and try to put the thoughts of Dad without his pants on aside. At least they were happy.
‘No, I had a very strict upbringing, a very moral one,’ she goes on. ‘My parents had me late in life, and I think they found it hard coping with a child at all, let alone when I became a teenager. I was watched like a hawk as soon as puberty hit, believe me! No going off the rails or falling for some wrong ’un. They were sure every lad who came anywhere near me had evil intentions!’ A vision of the Bennets and the wayward and very determined Lydia comes into my head, although nothing they did was able to stop that particular teenager from running off with a cad, was it? Pride. Prejudice. Both have a lot to answer for.
‘Which is why I’ve always tried to be a bit more free and easy with you and Sam,’ she goes on. ‘Let you have your freedom, make your own mistakes, even if I might come across as a bit old-fashioned sometimes. Your granddad didn’t hold with all that free love stuff in the seventies, or unmarried girls going on the pill. He saw it as his job to protect me, and my honour, come what may. He’d have been after me with a shotgun, let alone any boy who dared to try it on. I’d have probably worn a chastity belt if they’d known where to buy one! So, I’m not about to start dropping my drawers for just anybody now, am I?’
‘Mum!’
‘Look, love, I’m going to tell you this in the strictest confidence, okay? It’s Anthony’s business, and his secret to tell, but if it puts your mind at rest…’
I’m curious now, but I wait as she gathers her thoughts.
‘Anthony is already in a relationship. He has a partner, someone he lives with, but… well, they can’t go out together, enjoy trips to the cinema or the garden centre. I fill that gap in his life, just as he fills the same gap in mine. What we have together is not love or romance or sex. It’s called friendship, Carly. As simple as that.’
‘And this partner? Why can’t they go out together?’ It suddenly dawns on me. Why didn’t I suspect it before? ‘Is Anthony gay? Is that it? You’re telling me that he’s still lurking in the closet, or his partner is, and they can’t be seen out holding hands? In this day and age? That you’re his… cover, if that’s the word for it?’
‘No, Carly.’ She puts the flower down at last. Its petals are a mangled mess now, she’s been squashing them between her fingers for so long. ‘Anthony is not gay. Absolutely not. He lives with a woman. Her name is Pauline, they’ve been together for twenty years, and he loves her very much, but she’s not able to go out and do all the things other women her age can do.’
‘Why not?’
She pauses for a moment, then takes my hand over the table. ‘She has Huntingdon’s disease, Carly.’
‘Oh.’ I wasn’t expecting that.
‘I don’t ask him for all the day-to-day details but I know it’s getting worse. Well, it will, I suppose. It’s not curable, I know that much. It affects her brain, her movements, her coordination. Her memory and her speech too. From what I can gather, she gets very depressed, and a bit out of control at times, violent, not that she can help it, of course. I’ve seen bruises on his arms. And yet he stands by her, cares for her, stays faithful to her. He even gave up his job to be there for her. She has carers who come in, obviously, but he works for himself, from home, these days, so he can be there as much as possible. And that means he doesn’t even have colleagues to chat to anymore. It can be very lonely, as I know only too well. So, sometimes he needs to get out and have a more normal life for a few hours. The allotment. Here… You surely can’t begrudge him that?’
I don’t really know what to say. I have misjudged Anthony so badly. And Mum too.
‘I’m so sorry, Mum. I shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions. Poor Anthony.’
‘Well, that’s exactly what he doesn’t want. People to pity him, or to feel sorry for him. He wants to be treated just like anybody else, and have a bit of fun when he can, a chance to escape from the reality of their everyday life every now and then. And when he’s here with me, we don’t talk about all that stuff he has to deal with at home. We play music, we plant flowers, we wander down to the allotments and take a flask, we sit here and do the crossword. And, yes, you’re right. Of course, he’s much younger than me, but our friendship gives us both something we need, Carly. It has nothing to do with age. Or sex!’
‘They aren’t married though? No kids?’
‘She knew she was carrying the gene. It’s genetic, apparently, passed on by her father. She never knew him. He did a runner when she was a baby, but he left her with that. A ticking time bomb. And, as soon as she knew she had it, she was determined not to tie Anthony down, much as he was willing, keen even, to marry her. And she refused to risk passing it on to any children. Got sterilised to make sure it never happened.’
‘That’s so sad.’
‘It is. He would have made a good dad.’
I flinch a bit, remembering saying the very same thing about Jack. ‘So, what happens now? When I see him? Do I pretend I don’t know, make out you haven’t told me?’
‘No, that would be silly. And dishonest. He’s not ashamed of his situation, he just prefers not to broadcast it, but I will tell him that I’ve confided in you. Besides, I get the impression things will be changing sooner rather than later.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Do you need me to spell it out for you, love? I don’t think that Pauline has long left, that’s what I’m saying. She’s had a few falls, infections, a couple of bouts of pneumonia, and she’s just getting weaker, less able to fight. Her body’s giving up, and Anthony believes that maybe she is too.’
I go for a long walk when I leave Mum’s. Life really is a sod sometimes, isn’t it? Who knows what deadly disease any of us might catch, or what bus might come whizzing round the corner and knock us down at any minute? Yet, here I am, wasting my life as if I have all the time in the world. Maybe my mother’s been right all along. I should have found someone by now, settled down, got married, had a couple of beautiful children. Be less Carly and more Rosie!
Why didn’t I meet someone like Syd? Caring, understanding, a real family man? Instead, I was stupid enough to pin my hopes and all my romantic fantasies on a man I can’t have. Just because he is drop-dead gorgeous and has beautiful deep-brown eyes, and makes my knees go weak! I must be the shallowest woman I know.