“DO WE HAVE TO?” Charlotte yawned. “Grandma’s is like so boring.”
Stephanie frowned. “We haven’t seen her for ages and she wants to give Daddy his birthday present.”
Charlotte rolled her eyes. “Another skanky jumper.”
“And you know she loves to see you both.” Stephanie continued, picturing her mother-in-law’s expression of disapproval whenever her eyes fell on her grandchildren, “And that’s what families are all about – keeping in touch.” God save us.
“Daddy doesn’t even like her.”
“Don’t be so silly.” Nobody likes her! “She’s his mother.”
“So?”
Toby had already packed. He heaved his bulging rucksack into the hall and looked plaintively at Stephanie. “We’ve only got beef crisps left.” He wrinkled his nose. “I’ve gone right off them.”
“No eating in the car!” George clipped the lead onto Kelly’s collar and picked up his keys.
Toby’s mouth dropped. “Mum!”
“Don’t want crunching and crumbs! Or that thing making a silly noise all up the motorway!”
“Dad! That’s my Nintendo. I have to– ” But George had banged the front door.
Toby looked mutinous. “Dad is so unfair.”
“What am I going to eat?” Charlotte came down the stairs. “What’s all this lot?” She tipped Toby’s rucksack over with her foot watching as the contents spilled onto the carpet.
“Stop it! Leave his things alone.” Stephanie glared at Charlotte who rolled her eyes.
Stephanie watched Toby re-packing. He frowned in concentration as he fitted various gadgets, games consoles and extra-terrestrial weapons back into place.
“There!” He pushed a small plastic wizard into the last square centimetre of space.
“Have you got any clothes in there, Toby?” she asked.
Toby looked surprised. “No.”
Charlotte had a T-shirt, some stick-on tattoos and a bottle of glittery nail-varnish in a carrier bag. “Clean knickers?” enquired Stephanie.
“I’ve put them in your case,” her daughter replied sweetly. Charlotte added another dollop of mayonnaise to the three inches of ham she’d piled on the end of a loaf. Stephanie looked at Charlotte’s ever-lengthening legs and sent up a short prayer for her daughter’s metabolism. Let it remain in overdrive. Anyone else would weigh fifteen stone by now.
She went upstairs. Charlotte had indeed added her underwear to the case on the bed. In addition to two pairs of jeans, a very short black skirt, two more T-shirts, a sweatshirt, pair of glittery sandals, her new trainers and half a dozen CDs. Stephanie shook her head. “We’re only going for one night!” she yelled.
One night too long. George would be uptight all the way there and would barely speak once they arrived. Certainly Agatha was difficult – hyper-critical and contrary – but she wished George could be a little more relaxed and accepting. He always got in a foul mood before their occasional visits, was monosyllabic throughout the stay and would never talk about it afterwards.
“Come on,” she urged the children. “Dad wants to leave as soon as he gets back.”
“I don’t know why Kelly can’t come with us,” said Charlotte.
“Because Grandma won’t want her in the house and she doesn’t want to be cooped up in the car for hours.” And I’d have to listen to her ridiculous panting and smell her horrible doggy breath… “She’ll be much happier round at Sheila’s.”
One lot of canine noises was enough, she thought as George marched about barking at the children, who were putting on shoes with impossible slowness, stopping intermittently to thump each other and send George’s blood pressure soaring. Eventually they were all in the car – Toby engrossed in electronic warfare, Charlotte sulking and Stephanie’s nerves in shreds.
The silence was laden. As George pulled onto a garage forecourt and got out, Charlotte breathed out noisily. “God! Is Dad moody or what!”
“Shh!” Stephanie looked out of the window at George’s dark profile at the petrol pump. She got out of the car and caught up with him as he stalked off to pay. She pointed at the bright buckets lined up outside the shop.
“Shall we get her some flowers?”
George didn’t stop. “What’s the point? They’ll only be the wrong ones.”
Agatha had left the front door open for them as usual. As they came into the living room, calling, she made a fuss of getting up from her chair.
“Ah, there you are,” she said flatly.
“Hello, Grandma!” Charlotte strode in and plonked herself on the sofa.
“You’ve got very tall again,” Agatha said accusingly.
“How are you?” Stephanie kissed the papery cheek which blenched as it always did. George grunted.
“Isn’t that boy going to say hello?” Agatha ignored her son and nodded at Toby who slid his Nintendo back into his pocket.
“What shall we have? Tea?” Agatha lowered herself back into her chair. George looked out of the window.
“I do wish,” said Stephanie when he eventually came into the kitchen, “that you wouldn’t make an atmosphere the moment we arrive.”
George picked up the tea-tray. “It’s not me who does it,” he said firmly. He gave Steph a small nudge with his elbow.
“How long today before she mentions Teri?”
She smiled and for a brief moment their eyes met in conspiracy, then George turned and carried the tray back into the other room.
“Had a lovely long letter from Teresa,” Agatha said as she dropped another sugar lump into her cup. “Daniel’s vice-president now, you know. Such a land of opportunity.” She pointed at the mantelpiece. “Get that please.”
Charlotte obediently rose and handed her an envelope. “Lovely pictures of Edward and Sophie. She says they’re doing ever so well at school. Mind you, their schools are better than ours.”
“Of course they’re not.” said George. “Why do you think they all stay there till they’re twenty-five?”
“Nothing wrong with education,” said Agatha, fingering the photographs.
“It’s all right if you don’t have to go out and earn a living,” said George.
“Of course Daniel’s got a brilliant mind.” Agatha’s beady eyes were fixed on her son. “And with Teresa being so clever, of course the children have a head start…”
“The garden looks lovely,” Stephanie crossed the room to the French windows. “What beautiful fuchsias.”
“It’s not what it was.” Agatha put the pictures down. “I can’t bend any more and that gardener chap you got me, George, is hopeless. Well he’s not a gardener. Doesn’t know one plant from the next.”
“It looks very pretty to me.” Stephanie made herself smile at her mother-in-law.
“You should see next door. Now her garden really is something.” Agatha picked up her tea and stirred it loudly. “But then her son comes to do hers. Every Sunday!”
“She chose that gardener,” said George crossly as they took the bags upstairs. “She said she wanted the same one as Mrs Harbottle. All I did was walk down the road and get the damn man’s number.”
“Don’t take any notice.” Stephanie unzipped the case and lifted the children’s clothes out. “You just rub each other up the wrong way. Here take these,” she said as Charlotte came into the room.
But Charlotte had something much more pressing to report. “Mum! Guess what!” She stuck two fingers into her mouth and mimed throwing up. “She’s made steak and kidney pie. Gross!”
The hard line of George’s mouth softened slightly. “Well that’s something I suppose,” he said.
“I like to see a girl eat potatoes,” said Agatha approvingly as Charlotte took her ninth, “though what will happen to that boy I don’t know.”
“He’ll be OK,” said Stephanie.
“Not much goodness in toast,” said Agatha. “He should have had an egg.”
Toby wrinkled his nose. “I don’t like eggs. They’re all slimy.”
“Not if they’re cooked properly!” said Agatha triumphantly. “Your Aunt Teresa always had eggs. Helps the brain to function.”
“That’s why yours doesn’t,” Charlotte told her brother. He pulled a face at her.
“That’s why Teresa did so well at school,” said Agatha. “That’s why she went to university.”
Stephanie glanced at George. One Christmas when Charlotte was small, George had banged the table and shouted. “And much good it did her!” But today he appeared to be absorbed in his cabbage.
“So,” said Agatha, when everyone except Toby had waded through chewy apple crumble and custard. “Going to be fifty.”
“Looks like it,” said George.
“Dangerous age. Let’s hope you’ve got plenty of genes from my side. We all go on and on. Not like your poor father.”
“Oh, George is in great shape,” said Stephanie brightly. “It’s all that squash and walking the dog – his last medical said he was very fit.”
She glanced at George. She was surprised by the expression on his face. He looked touched, grateful even.
Agatha was unmoved. “That’s what they said about William. Never had a day’s illness in his life. Then bang – over he went. Just like that. On the way to the bathroom.”
“Well that won’t be happening to George,” said Stephanie, annoyed as she saw the anxiety cross Toby’s face. “The doctor said he’ll live to a hundred,” she added, smiling at the little boy and fixing Agatha with a warning look.
“Hmm.” Agatha pursed her mouth but said nothing more. “There’s some chocolate in that cupboard,” she told Charlotte a moment later. “Get it out and share it with your brother and we’ll have a nice game of cards.”
Charlotte stood up.
“And you two may as well go for a walk,” Agatha continued, addressing a point somewhere to the left of Stephanie’s ear. “You don’t want to be stuck in here with me all evening.”
“Oh don’t be silly, of course–” Stephanie began but George interrupted.
“Good idea!” he said briskly. “Help your grandmother clear up Charlotte!” He looked at Stephanie. “Get your shoes on.”
“My father died of desperation,” he said as he strode rapidly off down the road with Stephanie scuttling along in his wake. “And why do you think Teri buggered off to the States the minute she could? Everyone wanted to get away from her. God!” he said vehemently, “I hated it in that house.”
Stephanie put her hand on his arm. “Slow down,” she said. “It’s a lovely evening.” For a moment his arm stiffened under her touch. Then he slowed. It was one of those warm mellow nights, the sky a soft pink. They had reached the end of Agatha’s street of tidy 30s semis and George turned towards the town. “Let’s go for a drink.”
The High Street had changed even since the last time she’d been there. They passed Italian restaurants, coffee bars and small expensive boutiques selling candles and sculptures. “It was so dreary here when we were growing up,” said George. “No wonder she’s always moaning about it now – wouldn’t want people to enjoy themselves too much, would she!”
All at once an image of Cora flashed into Stephanie’s mind. Cora, who would get drunk and stand up in the middle of a pub and give an impromptu rendition of her favourite songs while Troy accompanied her on piano or guitar. Who would dance and flirt like a teenager.
“Mum knows how to enjoy herself,” Troy once told her accusingly. “She knows what’s important.” The reproach was clear. Cora would not nag and have a miserable face just because of a few money worries.
As if on cue, a young couple wandered towards them, arms wrapped around each other. As they approached, he squeezed her tighter into the bend of his arm, rubbing his cheek against her hair. The girl looked up at him smiling, eyes closing, squeezing him back.
Stephanie felt her heart doing the same.
“This looks OK.” George steered her through a green-painted door into the cool dim wooden interior of a wine bar. “Happy with red?” He picked up a wine list from the bar. “Go and sit down.”
Stephanie chose a table in the window. As she waited for George, she looked at her hands. She used to despair of them when she lived with Troy. They always seemed short and stubby and scarred from her DIY efforts, nails bitten or broken, fingers covered in cheap silver rings. Then she’d look at other women’s hands and wonder at their long shapeliness and manicured finesse. Now hers were the same, her nails rounded and polished, diamonds glinting against the gold of her wedding ring, skin smooth and creamed.
What would she have thought if she could have had a glimpse of these hands then? Known how she would end up. Manicured meant grown-up, rich, settled, happy…
A pretty girl in jeans and white cropped T-shirt came over and smiled, placed a dish of olives and peanuts in front of them. Stephanie looked at the strip of brown midriff as she lit the candle in the centre of the table. There was a small silver ring in her navel and the sight of it suddenly made Stephanie feel old.
George too seemed aged and weary tonight. She felt the distance between them and wondered at how it had happened. She looked at his hands as he placed the wine and glasses on the table. Once they had felt so comforting in hers. Then one day, without warning, she suddenly realised they didn’t hold hands anymore.
They were in Bath, watching a busker. He was playing a keyboard. Just some young guy with long brown hair and a faded T-shirt. She couldn’t remember his face, just his hands. She’d been mesmerised, fumbling in her bag for coins, unable to take her eyes from the long slender fingers as they rippled across the keys. George was impatient, wanting to move on, but she stood rooted, watching, unable to let go. She had this image in her mind, strange and powerful, of a dried hard sponge expanding in water. She wanted to cry, wanted to be touched by those hands. It was the sensuality she was hooked by. Or perhaps it was just desire…
George sat down. “You’re miles away.”
She jumped. “I was remembering when we went to Bath that weekend without the children.”
“Oh yes.” George poured two glasses. “We should do that again.” He didn’t meet her eyes and she was grateful.
“Yes, we should,” she said, pushing down the apprehension she felt at the thought. She took a sip of her wine. “This is nice.”
George gulped at his own glass. “I certainly need it!”
Stephanie suddenly longed to know what was really going on inside him.
“Did Agatha love your father?” she asked cautiously.
“She doesn’t know what love is.”
“Well, was she upset when he died?”
“I don’t know. Teri was heart-broken. She was in tears all through the funeral but I never saw Mother cry.”
“Did you?” Stephanie held her breath.
“I don’t remember.”
George had gone to the bar for another bottle. Stephanie picked up the match that had been left by the candle and ran it up the side, catching the soft trickle of wax against the wood. They’d been there an hour and she worried they should go back but George was adamant.
“She’ll tell them when to go to bed. They’ll be fine.” He was probably right. Charlotte particularly, appeared to get on with her grandmother strangely well when they were left to their own devices. Toby would be in a world of his own.
“My father would have liked you,” George said unexpectedly as he sat back down.
“I’m sure I’d have liked him,” she answered, uncertain what to say.
“It was a pity really,” George was matter-of-fact as he poured more wine. “He didn’t live long enough to see what I did with my life.”
“Yes,” Stephanie said, waiting.
“I wasn’t quite the failure they both predicted.”
“I’m sure it wasn’t like that really.”
“Oh, he never said anything – that wasn’t his way. Just looked at me sadly. Still, he had Teri. She was the golden girl.”
“I expect he was proud of you too.”
“What for? For failing all my exams and leaving school at sixteen.”
“You’ve made up for it since. Not bad. From selling insurance to running a big company.”
George looked at her and she saw the hurt in his eyes. “Too late. Mother made sure I knew how ‘disappointed’ he was.”
“Well you can’t believe everything she says.”
“It was constant. Reminders all the time that I had squandered all my opportunities. She’s never stopped.”
Stephanie fiddled with the candle. It was the deepest conversation they’d had for years.
“I don’t remember her ever helping me with anything,” George was saying, “or showing any interest. When I see you on the sofa all cuddled up with Toby…”
She pulled off a soft finger of curling wax and held it in the flame, watching the slow drip, drip. Her heart was beating hard…
“I can’t ever recall her reading with me. Or holding me. Not once. Imagine that…”
Something had happened to his voice and she looked up. His face was slipping.
“Oh George!” She felt tears spring to her own eyes but instinctively knew she must keep them back. She took his hand. He squeezed it tightly back.
“Why didn’t she like me?” His voice was thick now, bewildered, like a child’s.
“She just couldn’t show it.” Stephanie’s throat hurt. “She loves you really – she just can’t do affection.”
George shook his head. “She never wanted a son.”
She saw a tear drip from his jaw. Around them the bar had filled up. She became aware of the chatter and laughter. It was dark now and she was glad for him that the lights were low. “That was what was so lovely about you,” he said, so quietly she had to lean towards him to hear. “You were so warm. Always hugging me and holding my hand and –” he stopped and drained his glass, letting go of her as he refilled it.
She looked down. His use of the past tense twisted her heart. How must he feel? Guilt sat sickly in her stomach.
“I do love you, you know,” he said. She couldn’t tell if it was emotion or if he was slurring slightly. He’d drunk most of the wine himself. “I know I haven’t always been –”
“I love you too,” she spoke quickly, suddenly afraid of what he might say. “Shall we start to walk back?”
He shook his head. “Not yet.” He poured the rest of the bottle into his glass. “We never cuddle now, do we?” He took a long swig, almost emptying it.
She looked at her watch. “I hope Toby’s asleep. I hope he was OK being there without us.”
“Toby.” George was definitely slurring now. “That’s when it started, isn’t it? I was only trying to look after you. I was worried –”
“I know.” She stood up. “Come on George.” Her heart was hammering.
Agatha and Charlotte were already in the kitchen when Stephanie came down in the morning. Agatha was cooking sausages. Charlotte was sitting on a stool eating toast and looking pleased with herself. She licked her lips as Stephanie filled the kettle. “I’m getting a fry-up,” she said.
“Sets you up for the whole day,” said Agatha. “Don’t know what that boy wants. He’s somewhere in the garden.”
“OK,” said Stephanie tightly, “I’ll see to him. Are you making some for George?”
Agatha didn’t turn round. “If he can get himself down the stairs.”
Stephanie poked a tongue at her back. George rose early nearly every day of his life. He’d gone straight upstairs when they got in last night and by the time she’d exchanged pleasantries with Agatha and received a thinly-veiled critique of her parenting, he was out cold. She’d found a paracetamol for him in the bottom of her handbag this morning.
Stephanie had crept into bed, reflecting on the irony of the fact that the one night she actually wanted to wrap herself around him, she was in a lumpy twin bed three feet away.
She found Toby sitting under a tree deep in concentration over his G. “Would you like some toast?” she asked, squatting down beside him.
“Nah,” he said cheerfully without looking up. “I’m on the fifth level now.”
George’s face was impassive as he opened up his jumper.
“Very nice,” he said, folding the yellow and navy diamonds back into the paper.
“I was going to buy you something special,” said Agatha, “but you’ve got everything you need already.”
And George – amazingly – had crossed the room and put an arm across Stephanie’s shoulders, had reached out and ruffled Toby’s hair.
“I have,” he said levelly, looking straight at his mother. “I’m very lucky.”
“Hmmm.” She sniffed, made a fuss of rooting in the cupboard.
“Because I’m happy,” said George.
Agatha handed two packets of wine gums to Charlotte. “For the journey,” she said. Then she looked across the room at George and threw a glance at Stephanie before turning away. She muttered it but they all heard her. “Ignorance is bliss.”
“What did she say that for?” Charlotte frowned as she got into the car.
“Old ladies say ridiculous things,” said George slamming the boot. Stephanie sat silently. She realised her hands were shaking. There was something about the way Agatha’s eyes had suddenly cut into her just before she said it.
“Ignore her.” George had murmured to her as they carried the bags up the path, leaving the children to bid farewell. Stephanie had tried to nod and make light of it, tried to tell herself she was being paranoid and ridiculous but guilt throbbed away at her.
It was as if Agatha knew…