A Crowded Marriage (11 page)

“Cool. Can I go and see?”

But he'd already gone; out of the back door leaving it swinging on its hinges, and running down the lawn to the bottom of the garden, the soles of his trainers leaving dark imprints in the wet grass.

“A pond?” I moved closer to the window. “I didn't think Eddie was interested in gardening.”

“He's not, usually, but he's got a thing about fish at the moment. Don't ask. Where's Alex, incidentally? I assumed you'd all be coming today?”

I watched as Rufus flew into Eddie's arms. Eddie swung him up and round in the air, laughing.

“Oh, he's gone into work. Giving the commute a trial run, but he was a bit late this morning because he went for a wander with Piers first.”

“Strolling round his new estate, eh?” she said with a wry smile. “How's it going?”

I stuck my finger in the cake mixture and licked it. “Well, stupidly we got here a day early. I got the dates muddled up, so we saw the cottage at its very worst, before it had been cleaned, and then had to go to a rather stuffy dinner party last night.”

“Oh Lord. Nightmare. What's it like?”

“The cottage? It's OK. I'll be fine for a bit.”

“A bit?” She turned, wooden spoon raised. “I thought this was on a permanent basis?”

I stuck my finger in the mixture again, avoiding her eye. “We'll see.”

She eyed me knowingly. “I see. Cold feet already. How is Lady Muck?”

Hannah wanted no part of Eleanor's smart county set, who organised charity balls and played tennis and hunted, and referred to it snidely as “filling in time between haircuts,” but I think it rankled that she couldn't even turn the invitations down. After all, she was Alex's sister-in-law; an invitation to kitchen supper at the very least might have been forthcoming.

“She's fine,” I said lightly. “She's been very sweet, actually.”

“Sweet,” she snorted. “I've heard that before, and then I've heard that she turns very sour.”

“What d'you mean?”

“Sue Fountain told me. Eleanor was all over her when she wanted Theo to be in some gymkhana team that Sue organises, and then when she saw her at a party, she cut her dead.”

“Perhaps she didn't recognise her.”

“Nonsense, she'd been lobbying her morning, noon and night, banging on her door in the village, she knew exactly who she was. Val Harper said the same. Said she couldn't have been nicer when she wanted her to make some curtains for her right before Christmas, but then once she'd done them, she completely ignored her at the Carol Concert. She's not to be trusted.”

“That's a bit harsh. Just because someone's a bit fickle, doesn't mean they're not to be trusted.”

“Does in my book.”

“Trusted with what, anyway? What have you heard?” I said lightly.

Hannah turned. “Well, nothing scandalous, if that's what you mean.”

“No, I didn't, I just meant—”

“No, Imo, I haven't got a clue about her private life. I'm sure she's got a blissfully happy marriage, and I'm equally sure,” she said flashing me a look, “that you wouldn't be stupid enough to come down here with Alex if she hadn't. I do credit you with some intelligence, you know.”

I breathed in sharply. “Yes, well, absolutely. I agree. And I think she and Piers
are
very happy. He's been terribly kind, actually.”

She gave me an arch look as she took her tray of buns to the oven. “I think we both know the man's a complete prat,” she remarked, shutting the door with a bang. “Come on,” straightening up, “let's go and find the others.”

I followed her slowly down the garden path, biting my thumbnail. If Hannah was deliberately trying to feed my neurosis she was doing a very good job of it. She'd always known which buttons to press, but then I did tend to leave my buttons lying about a bit. I watched as she marched on thick calves down her lawn, huge hips swinging from side to side, every inch the formidable Scout mistress.

Mum and Eddie had their backs to me. They were standing by a rather muddy crater, showing Rufus the fish as he crouched down at the water's edge.

“Look, Mum.” He turned as I approached. “They're enormous!”

I bent to look. “Oh, yes, huge. And what fantastic water lilies!”

“Plastic,” beamed Mum proudly, puffing away like mad on a cigarette. “All the greenery, the watercress—everything.”

“Yes, and the thing is,” Eddie was hopping uncomfortably from foot to foot in the mud, “the fact that they're not real means the fish aren't getting the oxygen they need from them, and if they're not getting the oxygen, we aren't reaping the benefits of the photosynthesis which is so good for one. The whole thing's hopeless!” he wailed.

“Nonsense,” said Mum sharply. “It just means it's much more attractive and you don't get all the nasty slimy green stuff you usually do with ponds.”

I made a sympathetic face as I greeted my brother-in-law. “She'll be gone soon, Eddie, and then you can ship in as much oxygen-giving greenery as you like.”

“I'm sure he won't,” retorted Mum.

“Perhaps I'll have a mixture,” said Eddie diplomatically. “How are you, Imogen?” He regarded me anxiously.

Knowing this wasn't just a social enquiry I gave a wan smile back. “I've got a bit of a twinge, actually, Eddie. Right in the small of my back.” I gave it a rub.

Hypochondriacs, in my experience, fell into two camps. There were those who hated other people to be ill because it stole their thunder, and those who liked it on the grounds that if someone else had got something, statistically it reduced the chances of them getting it. Eddie fell into the latter category, and his day was made if you admitted to an ailment, so long as it wasn't catching.

“I find a little rubbing oil helps enormously,” he advised eagerly. “And you're probably lying on much too soft a mattress. My mother suffered terribly from back pain, but a hard mattress really sorted her out.”

“It would take more than a hard mattress to sort your mother out,” remarked Hannah drily.

“How is your mother?” I asked, ignoring my sister. Eddie's brow wrinkled. “She's been falling over a lot lately. I'm rather worried about her. I'm thinking of getting her one of those bleeper things, you know, an alarm.”

“Oh, yes, I know. To put round your neck.”

“Like a noose?” murmured Hannah wistfully.

Eddie didn't rise. “Come on, let's go to the pub. That's the plan, isn't it?”

“Ooh, yes.” Mum quickly stubbed her cigarette out and went hastily down the slippery mud bank.

“Why so keen?” I asked, eyeing her suspiciously. Mum liked a drink or six but much preferred a smart wine bar to a country pub.

“Your father's going to be there,” she confided, “and he's bringing Dawn. You haven't met Dawn, have you?”

“Er, no.”

“Oh, she's marvellous, Imogen,” she breathed, taking my arm as I fell in step beside her. “Your father met her in Curry's—she was senior sales assistant on washing machines and tumble dryers—but he's taken her away from all that, and now she wants to be a doctor.”

“Oh, right. Is she bright?”

“Breathtakingly stupid,” she chortled. “Isn't it priceless? She's going to specialise in neurology, apparently, and her mother—ooh, you must meet the mother.” She lit another cigarette, eyes sparkling.

“Must I?” I said nervously.

“Yes, they come as a package. Dawn never goes anywhere without her mother, a huge woman in a purple coat, who just sits, solidly, for hours on end without saying a word. She looks like Stephen Fry in drag. No one can remember her name, not even your father, and he's known her for three months so now it's too late to ask. Oh, they're terrific, darling.”

“Great,” I said uncomfortably as Hannah caught my eye.

It was marvellous that Mum could be so relaxed about Dad's girlfriends, and lovely that we could all still get together as a family, but the delight Mum took in her ex-husband making a fool of himself was sometimes discomforting. She hadn't always been so phlegmatic about his love life. When Dad had first gone off with Marjorie Ryan, a great family friend who used to share a house with us in France, and whom Mum had modelled Dior gowns with in the sixties, she was devastated. “Heartbroken?” Kate had asked me once when I was telling her all about it. I'd hesitated. No, but then that wasn't Mum's style. She didn't shatter easily. Didn't crumble. I think she'd been relieved when he'd moved on to Audrey, a rather dumpy marketing executive with dozens of cats and none of Marjorie's style, had perked up tremendously when Audrey had been traded in for Michelle, a peroxide-blonde hygienist, and was positively enchanted by Dawn, the shelf-stacking embryonic neurosurgeon.

“She's obviously quite tough,” Kate had commented, and I suppose she was. I'd certainly never seen her cry. Her parents, my grandparents, had been killed in a car crash when she was four, and she'd been brought up by her godmother, a rather remote figure who bred Border Terriers in Northumberland. I think Mum—when she was allowed home from boarding school—was treated like one of the puppies; fed and watered, but otherwise expected to get on with it. As a result, she'd grown an extra layer of skin that was quite hard to penetrate. Conversely, though, she was very loving, and Hannah and I had enjoyed an idyllic childhood with plenty of nurturing and cuddles, a far cry from her own upbringing, and, one suspects, deliberately so.

As we all trooped off to the pub at the end of the road I watched her leading the way, supremely elegant in her floaty linen coat and long, aquamarine silk scarf, genuinely thrilled to be getting another peek at Dawn. I wished I'd inherited a few more of her genes; wished I wasn't so easily upset. I straightened my back as I held Rufus's hand along the busy road and resolved to be more like her.

We passed Hannah's local, an attractive whitewashed pub with leaded windows and lots of hanging baskets, and went on to a rather forbidding red-brick place called the Royal Oak. A couple of tough-looking teenagers were standing outside, smoking.

“Why are we going here?”

Hannah shrugged. “Dad suggested it. God knows why. It's a dive.”

Happily it had a garden, albeit practically in the car park, and we limbo-danced around the dustbins and beer barrels to get to it. Dad was already in situ, having commandeered a large wobbly table with benches and a brolly, and sure enough, beside him was a girl decidedly younger than me, I thought with a pang, and opposite her, a woman in a purple coat.

“Imogen darling,” boomed my father in his best John Gielgud voice, which is nothing like his native Welsh one, as he stood up to greet us. “How simply wonderful.” He kissed us all, including Mum, and pumped Eddie's hand. “Now, I don't think you've met Dawn yet, have you?”

“No, I haven't,” I agreed, smiling as I shook hands with the pasty-faced girl with too much eye make-up and artificially straightened dark hair.

“Hello.”

“Hi,” she muttered, avoiding my eyes.

“And her mother…” went on Dad, “er…” He gestured hopelessly. I put out my hand but Dawn's mother was either consumed with shyness or hadn't heard. She clutched her handbag grimly and gazed past me, making no attempt to take my hand.

Dad rubbed his hands. “Er, right. Now. Drinks, everyone?”

“I'll do it,” Eddie offered.

“Right you are, lad.” Dad beamed and sat down smartly, notoriously tight.

My father had been considered rather good-looking in his day: his piercing blue eyes and high cheekbones were quite startling, and he had a lot of dark hair, which Hannah and I were convinced he now dyed, but he was only about five foot eight and as such, suffered rather from small-man syndrome. He never walked, always strutted importantly, head thrown back, very much the actor, sweeping his hair back from his brow and making grandiose, theatrical gestures with his hands. His acting career when we were young had mostly revolved around the theatre, but now it was more television-oriented he was becoming slightly better known. Recently he'd carved something of a niche for himself as the Attractive Older Man, and appeared regularly in a hospital soap opera, as well as having the odd cameo role in period dramas. Increasingly, Alex and I would be having supper, trays on our laps in front of the telly, and Alex would cry, “There's your old man!” as Dad, hand on hip, would swagger into view in a powdered wig and gaiters, or sweep round a hospital corridor, white coat flying. He was always delivering lines like, “I'm sorry, Mrs. Brown, I'm afraid it's terminal,” whilst a dewy-eyed nurse looked on adoringly, or, “Quick, man, saddle the horses!” as he swept out of a manor house in breeches. Sometimes he simply forgot he wasn't on screen and swaggered down Winslow High Street, where he'd recently bought a little terraced cottage, in much the same way. As he got up now to help Eddie with the tray, it seemed to me he swept an imaginary cloak over his shoulder first.

“How about some crisps, laddie?” he boomed.

“Oh, sorry, Martin, I'll get some.”

“No, no, these are on me,” Dad said loudly, brushing him aside and striding ostentatiously to the bar as if he were making some extravagant gesture. When Eddie had sat down and Dad was out of earshot, Mum turned innocent eyes on Dawn.

“I gather you're going to be a doctor?”

If Dawn found it odd to be lunching with her boyfriend's ex-wife she didn't show it. She sipped her Baileys nonchalantly and stared opaquely at Mum.

“Yeah, well, I was, only I can't now 'cos I haven't got biology GCSE, and the fing is they say you need that to go on to the next bit.”

Mum's brow puckered. “Oh, what a shame. How very demanding of them. But then I suppose, if one is cutting people up, one should know the basics…?”