The New Mrs D (21 page)

‘What?’

The clapping was beginning to subside as the crowd seemed to consider the possibility of there being an unhappy outcome to the big proposal after all.

‘Just thank you. Thank you for telling me you love me. That couldn’t have been easy for you but I’m glad you did it. I’m a different, stronger woman now and it’s all because I was here with you and,’ I turned to point at my friends. ‘. . . and them. This has been an amazing ten days − life changing in fact. All of you, in very different ways, have taught me to really believe I’m someone to love.’

As I turned to make my way to the stage at last, he held my arm back. As I met his gaze once more, I saw sadness behind his smile. ‘Why Bernice?’ he begged. ‘Why did you want to know about Ginger right now? I need to know.’

I opened my mouth to speak but before I could reply, Adonis called me again.

‘Come on lovely lady. Come up to the stage!’

Taking in the faces around me once more, I saw Ginger and Edvard in a close embrace, the gift of a painting bonding them in shared memories of a lost mother. I saw Hughie and Greta, side by side, facing every day together with what looked for all the world like unending good humour, with years of marriage behind them and a battle against the ravages of the demon cancer before them; one fought with tenacity, bravery and togetherness. At last, I spied Linda – by herself again after a brief moment of joy amongst forty-two lonely years. It was a contest, this bloody little thing called love.

‘I’m coming, I’m coming!’ I called out. ‘Just give me one more second!’

Hugging Chris to me, I whispered my answer in to his ear before feeling a tap on my shoulder. I turned around to see Michaela and Greta.

‘I know you are nervous,’ Michaela said. ‘I know you’ve been afraid to be yourself. But if you are going to go back, it’s time for change. Live your life your way. Remember what I told you about meraki? If nothing else, your own life should always be lived with one great, big helping of that.’

‘She’s deid right aboot that,’ Greta added, coming forward to plant a huge kiss on my cheek.

I smiled at them both. ‘Well, I’m not sure I’ve been as good at that as you two are,’ I said. ‘But I’m going to try from now on.’

Over a hundred faces watched me as I headed towards David, taking one last look back through the crowd again to find Linda, Hughie, Greta and Michaela all standing together and smiling at me. I read the words on Linda’s lips:

‘Are you sure?’ she said.

I nodded, before leaping up to the stage and falling into David’s open arms. I loved him and he was my husband, but I was a different woman to the one he had been forced to leave behind almost a fortnight ago. Somehow, we would make this work, but on my terms. I at least owed it to him to try.

‘I love you, Mrs Dando,’ he cried, hugging me tightly to him.

‘And I love you, Mr Dando,’ I replied, sinking into his embrace.

‘She said yes!’ Adonis shouted, somewhat prematurely. And the crowd went crazy again.

‘What took you so long?’ David asked, looking puzzled.

‘I just wanted to thank Chris for making this all happen,’ I lied. ‘He told you to come here, didn’t he?’

Before he could reply, Adonis parted us by thrusting a microphone at me. ‘A song! A song!’

‘Yes, please, Bernice,’ David said, stepping back to let me take the stage. ‘I want to hear that beautiful voice every day, starting from now. The one you’ve been hiding from me all this time.’ And then, quietly into my ear he said, ‘I get it now, Bernice. I understand what you were trying to say the other night. I felt sick and, yes, cheated, seeing you surrounded by all those young guys. I know what you were trying to say and life is going to get better from now on, I promise.’

‘David,’ I said, giving him a look that I’d borrowed back from a younger, sassier, and flirtier me. ‘I know it will, because I’m going to make it better. With or without you.’

He gazed at me, uncertainly, as though I was someone he didn’t recognise. I smiled, kissed him on the cheek and took the microphone, remembering a ten-year-old girl who had stood on a stage in her local town hall to represent her school in a regional singing competition. A girl with the voice of an angel, but the confidence of a fawn just taking its first, tentative, wobbling steps. As the hall fell silent for the sweet tinkling of a piano, she had opened her mouth to sing. . .

‘Why did you drag me all this way, paying a pound for the ticket too, to see you standing there with your mouth open and nothing coming out?’

My mother was laughing, not in a cruel, teasing way, I thought, but in a trying to make light of a bad situation way. She couldn’t hug me and tell me it was alright. I knew now it was because her own mother had never hugged her to tell her everything was alright.

‘I’m sorry, I was really scared, Mum,’ I said, wiping snot and tears from my face with my coat sleeve.

‘You don’t have to be sorry. We can’t all be great singers like I was, can we George?’

Dad stayed silent. Yet, as he’d turned the key sternly in the car door to let me in to the back seat, his disappointment had seemed to me to be deafening.

Almost thirty-three years later, the same girl – now a married woman – had sung
Islands in the Stream
naked on a beach. Instead of feeling embarrassed and ashamed of her body, as she’d looked out at a crowd of nudists of every shape, size and age, and she had felt somehow, freer. Normal, yet extraordinary, like every person on the planet.

In amongst the sea of faces looking at me, I spied Chris, his face full of angst and I felt it too. It didn’t feel like a
good night for singing. I still wasn’t sure if this was the right thing to do. David and I had a lot to discuss. Nevertheless, it was the night I was going to show the world I’d found my voice again.

‘What shall you sing, lovely girl?’ Adonis whispered into my ear.

‘I am
not
a girl!’ I said sharply.

On the last night of my holiday, in front of a live audience, I found my voice again, belting out what David would call another of those ‘cheesy tunes’, a Britney Spears song. It was about someone who was not a girl, and not yet a woman, even though I hadn’t meant to request it and I was far too old to mean it. Or maybe . . . just maybe . . . I had only just grown. Maybe it was a good night for singing after all.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

They broke the mould when they made my husband. Even back then, he wouldn’t take a bath.

T
he flight was supposed to leave Skiathos airport at ten past one in the afternoon and Chris had promised us a lift at eleven. But he was nowhere to be seen as I sat on the patio, taking in a last, long look at the garden and its incredible, distant blue view of Greece’s glittering Aegean Sea, where Greta had dipped her toes on the first day just to enjoy its silky warmness and thank God she was alive to feel it.

I was going home, but I wasn’t sure how I was going to live from this day on. I had no job and only the prospect of the happy ending I was promised on the day David and I said our vows, a fortnight ago, to hope for. Last night we had all danced together under the stars and, as Chris made his excuses and left early, David and I had ended our night sitting on the beach under the stars talking everything through. At the end of the night, after saying my tearful goodbyes and exchanging contact details with all my new friends, I had gone back to my apartment alone to mull things over and David had staggered to his rented room in the town. I still wasn’t sure what I wanted. But today we would fly home together to see if we could work it out.

As I’d hugged Greta one last time she had touched my chin affectionately. ‘Remember what they say, Bernice, live to regret the things you do, not the things you don’t do.’

Logging into Facebook to post a final status to England, I heard a car pull up to the gate. It was time to go. I could do it later.

I put the phone back in my pocket and stood up to take one last look inside Chris’s apartment.

‘Goodbye, beautiful little apartment,’ I sighed, before catching my reflection in the mirror. ‘Ah, there you are,’ I said to my reflection. ‘Beautiful Bernice.’

‘Yes, there you are, Mrs Dando.’

I turned to see David standing in the doorway and my heart leapt. For after everything, he was still the love of my life. And still achingly gorgeous.

‘Have you come to take me home?’ I asked.

‘You know it,’ he said, sighing in contentment. ‘Unless you want to stay of course?’ he laughed, just as Chris walked in the door. ‘You do owe me a honeymoon after all.’

‘The apartment’s free if you want it, mate,’ Chris said. ‘I haven’t even begun to advertise it.’ He passed the key I’d left on the drawer for him to David. ‘Oh, and Hughie says thanks for the good times Bernice, but he has to go back to the wife now.’

David gave me a puzzled glance as Chris and I smiled knowingly at each other.

‘It’s a long story,’ I said.

I was unable to shake a deep sense of remorse for Chris. I still hadn’t had chance to apologise properly for my behaviour the previous evening when he had poured his heart out to me, and I needed to. Now that his feelings were out in the open, I knew this day couldn’t be easy for him. But at least I knew, having told him my suspicions about Ginger, that he would understand why I’d been so horrible to him.

There was a tap at the door and Mita came in, carrying clean sheets for the room. As usual, her cleavage spilled over her top as she bent over in front of us to change the sheets. I thought I saw David’s eyes steal a fleeting glance at her breasts but scolded myself for looking for it. Chris was watching me, with what I knew now was likely to be a partly forced smile. But today was a new day.

‘It would be awesome to stay on,’ I admitted. ‘But the girls are expecting me back and there’s the question of my finding a new job.’

‘Well, there’s no hurry for that,’ David replied. ‘I can keep us. There’s more than enough for the two of us to live on, maybe even three?’ He winked at me and I blushed. I would have to break the ‘no baby’ thing to him when we got home.

At quarter to two that afternoon, thirty-five minutes behind schedule, our plane home left the tarmac on its way to East Midlands Airport. It was a gloriously sunny, hot day and the let’s-stand-together-and-drink-it-in-together-darling sea was especially glittery that afternoon. In spite of the new, yet uncertain life ahead of me, I felt sad to leave it all behind.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

I’ve just finished reading a book about narcissism. Absolutely nothing in it about me. What a waste of time that was!

‘V
iewing porn in a mutual way is different to using it alone.’ The counsellor looked at me over brown-rimmed spectacles, tapping her temple with a pencil. ‘It can be used as a bridge to bring a couple together, whereas lone use can build a wall that cuts one partner off, drawing sexual energy away from the marriage and widening the distance between you.’

‘It’s not that I think there’s anything wrong with it,’ I replied. ‘It’s just not my thing. And I do object to him doing it alone.’

‘Do you have a particular thing you like, David?’ she asked him.

‘Well, er . . .’ he began, tugging at the collar of his shirt and looking uncomfortable. ‘I don’t like hardcore porn and don’t really get any kicks from watching men and women together.’

‘So you only like to watch women?’

‘That’s about the size of it, yes.’

‘So, just lesbian porn then?’

‘Well, sometimes it can be just one woman. The thing is, watching straight sex doesn’t really float my boat. That’s not going to help.’

‘You see?’ I interrupted. ‘He’s conditioned himself to only like one sort of thing, what would be the point of me watching something I just don’t get?’

‘Well, maybe you could try acting out some of the fantasy things David likes watching together then?’ the therapist said.

‘Roll around in the mud you mean?’ I replied, remembering a time when I had done exactly that.

‘No, no,’ David cut in quickly. ‘I wouldn’t want you to do that.’

‘I know,’ I said. ‘Because it wouldn’t be the same if it was your wife instead of some porn star.’

‘No, that’s not it . . .’ David began.

‘Listen, this anger, although understandable, Bernice, is getting you nowhere. You have to stop looking to the past. The only way to move forward is with forgiveness and trust.’

‘Well,’ I replied. ‘If I’m honest, I’m not sure if I can.’

The therapist took off her glasses and rubbed her eyes. ‘I see,’ she said.

And without her glasses on, too. At least someone was cured today.

Something told me it was time to re-evaluate my life. A little while after the therapy session, I went to see Smother – the logical place to start.

‘Mum, I need to talk to you. Can I come in?’

‘Oh, I’m so glad you’re here. I want you to come look at something for me.’

Smother stood back to let me into her house, before limping along ahead of me to the lounge.

‘What on earth is the matter with you?’ I asked, not really wanting to hear the twenty minute, all about her ailments answer.

‘And the doctor says I have to put antiseptic ointment on them twice a day. But I have this frozen shoulder now, so I can’t reach down there.’

I zoned back in at ‘can’t reach down there,’ and shuddered.
Dear God, no.

‘You don’t want me to . . . ?’ I began, pointing to her nether regions.

‘It’s only for a couple of weeks,’ she replied, looking unfazed. ‘The pain is unbearable. I have to wear panty liners for all the leakage.’

‘Boils?’ I said, suppressing a sudden urge to run from the room and stick my head in the toilet. ‘How on earth do you get so many of them down there?’

‘It’s my rich blood.’

‘If this is what it is to be rich, I think I’ll stick to abject poverty,’ I said. ‘But seriously, Mother, you need to get a nurse in. I’ll do most things, but not that. Not on your life.’

‘Charming,’ she answered, beginning to get the familiar bitter look she always wore when I refused her anything. ‘So, I have to have strangers messing about with me instead of my own daughter?’

‘Yes, you do,’ I said. ‘Now, Mum, I need to tell you something. David and I have been having some problems.’

‘Already?’ she said, looking astonished. ‘You’ve only been married a month.’

‘I know. But things are a little, shall we say, difficult? And the truth is, they always have been, so I . . .’

‘It’ll be fine,’ she cut in, pointing me towards a chair. ‘Sit down. Hey, talking of weddings, have you heard I got invited to Jeremy Mathers’ daughter’s wedding?’

‘Who on earth is Jeremy Mathers?’ I asked.

‘You know, the guy I speak to on the internet.’

‘What guy? Oh, Mum!’

I was getting sucked into talking about her again. I took a deep breath and continued with the plan.

‘Mum, I’m not sure if David and I are right for each other after all. There are some problems that I don’t know if we can repair, but I want to try.’

‘Oh, don’t be silly,’ she said, waving me away with her hand. ‘Marriage takes hard work and commitment. You’ll get there. Jeremy was just telling me the other night about his first wife . . .’

‘Mum!’ I cut in. ‘Sod Jeremy bloody Mathers! Will you listen to me?’

‘Well, that’s nice isn’t it?’ she replied haughtily. ‘Forget your old mum’s life, let’s talk about you.’

‘Yes,’ I said quickly. ‘For once, let’s.’

‘Pah!’ she laughed. ‘
For once!’

‘Mum, I need to ask you something,’ I continued on determinedly. ‘Was Dad ever proud of me?’

‘Of course he was!’ she snapped. ‘He was proud of you and he told you enough times.’

‘No, he didn’t.’

‘What?’ she said, getting angrier by the minute. ‘Of course he did. He told you all the time!’

‘That’s not how I remember it,’ I replied sadly. ‘The last time we spoke alone before he died, he was going on about Sal.’

‘Sal wasn’t born then.’

‘I know that. I mean, he was throwing her scan picture back at me like he was ashamed or something.’

‘He could hardly talk,’ she said. ‘How do you know that? Your dad was thrilled to be having a grandchild, actually.’

‘He was?’

‘Of course! Oh, dear, you have got your memories a little muddled.’ She walked over to the wall cabinet and opened a drawer. ‘I still have that picture in here somewhere,’ she said, poking around inside.

‘That’s nice,’ I said, still reeling from the idea my dad had been pleased I was pregnant.
Could it be true?

‘Here it is!’ She pulled out the faded and tatty paper folder with the picture in it and waved it at me.

‘So you kept it?’ I said. ‘That’s funny, because the last thing Dad tried to do was give it back to me.’

As Smother waved the picture at me, a piece of paper fell out of it onto the floor. ‘Ooh, what’s that?’ she said, stooping to pick it up.

‘See,’ I said dryly. ‘He’d been trying to rip it up with his one good hand.’

‘No,’ she said, ‘I had this out many times to look at it myself. I only took it out of the proper frame a while back, after it got broken in the house move.’ She pulled the piece of paper closer to her face and squinted. ‘This looks like your dad’s handwriting.’

‘Really?’ I stood up and peered over her shoulder. It was indeed Dad’s writing. Or at least, a scrawly, post-stroke version of it. ‘It says “To Bernice.”’

She handed me the letter and sat back down again. ‘Probably some daft poem,’ she said. ‘He wrote a lot of silly things towards the end. It was like he knew he hadn’t got long. Did I tell you Jeremy lost his wife to cancer? Poor man. Now
she
was a piece of work by all accounts.’

As Mum’s continual chattering about ‘Jeremy’ faded away to a faraway place in my head, I opened the piece of paper properly and read the spidery writing in Dad’s note.

To Bernice,

Now you’re going to be a mum, share as much laughter, experience of life and joy in those moments with your child for as long as you can. We didn’t do enough of that, you and me. Go on holidays, see as much of the world as you can cram in, go to the beach, share an ice cream on a sea wall after the spray gets all over it, row a boat out as far as the eye can see from shore (even if you might get soaked) and have picnics on a sunny hillside, somewhere remote. Laugh till your eyes run and you get hiccups. Be so silly sometimes that people stare at you in restaurants and shake their heads. Without the occasional nod of disapproval, your life is barren. Take trips – enjoy and savour each and every one. And when your children are old enough to stand on their own two feet and can do it without always having to look back for you, you will know you did the best job you could.

And wherever you go and whatever you do, let NONE of the experiences you share with your child be ‘guilt trips.’ I can give you plenty of postcards from there; it’s not a fun place. But do go to the often quiet one called LOVE. Believe it or not, you can go there by yourself too. Because even when you believe it may have left you, real, unconditional love whispers in your mind rather than shouting in your ear while you’re achieving your goals, at play and especially when things are going badly and you need to lean on it for a time. It watches you grow and is the voice in your head when you are gathering your thoughts. It stays quietly in the background, there to pick up whenever you need it. It envelops you, yet it helps you grow independently of it, confident, steady and knowing it’s okay to step into scary, new places to be true to yourself.

Thank you, to you and Michael for making me proud, excited and desperate for February to get here! I can’t wait to be a granddad XXX

‘. . . and his daughter thinks I’m only after his money, but I told her . . .’ My mum’s voice jabbered on and on, as she chattered, oblivious to the tears that now spilled down my cheeks.

I wiped my eyes and hugged the twenty-two-year-old piece of paper to my chest, and my heart ached for my dad. He hadn’t been trying to give me the picture back, he’d known he hadn’t long to go and was trying to show me what he’d written. Knowing how proud he was and how hard he found it to speak from his heart, he’d most likely not had the courage to show me before he knew it was the end. Maybe he had never intended to show it to me. But one thing I knew for sure now, Dad had lived in Mum’s shadow even more than I had.

‘Oh, and you’ll never guess what else? I think I might have to have an eye operation,’ Mum went on, not stopping for a second to ask me what was in Dad’s letter.

‘Actually, Mum,’ I said quickly. ‘I’ve got an appointment in ten minutes, so I’m just going to shoot off. Do you mind if I keep this?’

‘Oh, really? Okay,’ she said, looking annoyed that I wasn’t staying longer to listen to her stories about Jeremy. ‘But didn’t you want to tell me about you and David? Are there problems?’

I thought I detected a hint of a smile and right then I knew it was time to go.

‘Oh, it’s nothing really,’ I told her. ‘You’re right, I was just being silly.’

‘I thought so,’ she said. ‘But don’t forget. I never see you that much anymore and I do need help with these medications, you know. Was it one of his daft poems then?’

‘Yes,’ I replied, stuffing the note into my pocket and heading for the door. Talking to Mum about anything was just useless, I knew that now. All I could do was mourn the mother I was never going to have and let life roll on. I had to take her as she was, and that was that. I kissed her on the cheek, not having ever known if she really loved me. Feeling like perhaps my mother could never really love anyone, except herself.

‘I love you, Mum.’ I told her – and left.