Goodness, Grace and Me

by Julie Houston

And I could well imagine who he was ‘seeing to.’ Did I tell Grace I’d seen her husband with another woman when he was supposed to be still in London? I did not want this responsibility. It was going to be bad enough keeping Jennifer’s little transgression from her mother, but this was something else.

  I felt tainted by these underhand goings-on, and decided I needed fresh, clean air in my lungs so, after dropping India off at her birthday party, I drove straight to Dad’s allotment. I knew I’d find him there, pruning the last of the roses or making a bonfire of the autumn leaves. He did have a bonfire on the go, and the acrid smoke it was generating was so thick he didn’t see my approach. He was standing, slightly stooped, feeding a mixture of dead vegetation and dry wood into the rapacious mouth of the fire. When he sensed my presence, he left what he was doing and, picking up a dirty mug, came towards where I stood by his shed.

  ‘Alright, love? Are you by yourself?’ He looked around in the hope that I would have Kit or India with me. He adored all his grandchildren, but India, being the youngest and the last, was particularly revered.

  ‘Just me, Dad,’ I said as I breathed in his smell. The same, almost pungent, smell of flat cap, corduroy jacket and freshly dug earth he seemed to have always carried. ‘All the kids are out socialising so I thought I’d come and pick your brains on how I’m going to do this garden of mine.’

  I’d tried to tell him my plans on the phone, but he was becoming increasingly hard of hearing with every passing year and it was always debateable as to whether he’d fully grasped what I was trying to tell him. Hating his disability, he would pretend to have heard rather than admit to his deafness.

  ‘How’s Mum?’ I asked now, as we made our way down through the adjoining plots towards the overgrown path that ran behind their house.

  ‘Oh, you know, love. Much the same. Keeps on insisting she’s told me things and then gets on me case when I’ve no idea what she’s talking about. She apparently booked a holiday t’ th’ Isle of Man a couple of months ago, and only told me about it yesterday.’

  ‘To go when?’ I asked in surprise.

  ‘Next Friday.’

  ‘Blimey, that’s short notice. Are you going?’

  ‘Well, it looks like it. I don’t mind Douglas – we went there for our honeymoon you know – but I do worry about what else she’s bin up to. For all I know it could be Douglas next week and a trip up t’ Nile week after.’

  I giggled, but squeezed his hand in sympathy. I had an awful feeling this could be the beginning of some sort of dementia. She’d been behaving rather oddly for the last year.

  Very little had changed in Mum and Dad’s house since I’d left to go to university twenty years previously and I hadn’t really lived there since. The curtains were different but the pink, three-piece Dralon suite was still the one of my childhood. Dad’s snooker trophies still held pride of place in the corner cabinet along with the sherry and bottle of advocaat that he would dilute with lemonade for my elder sister Diana and me at Christmas, adding a cherry apiece in order to make Snowballs.

  Mum was washing up at the sink as we walked down the garden path, and on seeing us she wiped her hands and came to open the door.

  ‘Hi,’ I said giving her a kiss. ‘I hear you’re off to Douglas next week.’

  ‘No we’re not. Your dad’s got it wrong again,’ she snapped, glaring at him. ‘We’re going to the Isle of Man. We’ll be able to sit on the beach and get a nice tan.’

  ‘But, Mum,’ I said gently, ‘it’s the middle of October. You’ll need to wrap up warm if you’re going to the Isle of Man.’

  ‘Whatever,’ she said dismissively, sounding like Liberty. ‘Now then, have you seen our Patricia lately?’

  Patricia? Who the hell was Patricia?

  ‘Do you mean Diana?’ I asked, glancing at Dad for help. He just shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘Yes, Diana. She’s not been to see us for ages.’

  ‘Keturah, love, she was here yesterday. She called in on her way home from work and brought you your magazine.’ Dad raised his eyebrows at me.

  ‘Well, it wasn’t the one I like. I don’t know why she bothers.’ Mum sniffed and looked me up and down as if assessing what I might have brought her.

  ‘I’m hoping Dad can help me sort out a little garden,’ I said, sitting down and changing the subject. ‘I want to live ‘the Good Life,’ Mum, you know, make a herb garden and grow some easy vegetables. Maybe rhubarb and strawberries?’ I glanced at Dad for approval.

  ‘What do you want to go to all that bother for with all the money your Nick earns? Get yourself down to Sainsbury’s and buy the stuff. Better than off the allotment any day – comes without the dirt and slugs.’

  I realised she was doing two things here: making out that Dad’s allotment, and as such Dad himself, was a waste of space, and having a dig at me because financially, despite my not having a bean at the moment, I was better off than she’d ever been. She was becoming as caustic as the soda she regularly used to unblock her sink. When had she metamorphosed from the loving, caring, slightly scatterbrained mum of my childhood into the irascible old woman that stood before me now?

  My mum had always hated her name, Keturah, especially as a teenager in the fifties when, apparently, she’d tried to modernise it by shortening it to ‘Kat’. She’d longed, she always said, to be called something like Lana or Rita, after Hollywood movie stars, but, despite her pleas to shorten and update her name, very few people had taken it on board and she’d simply had to put up with the biblical-sounding name that was handed down through the generations. Despite having spent much of her adult life at loggerheads with my Granny Morgan, part of Mum seemed to shrivel and die when Granny had finally shrugged off her mortal coil four years ago at the age of ninety-seven. Like a couple of twittering sparrows, they’d spent years warily circling each other, one of them occasionally giving the other a quick, triumphant peck. With her mother gone, she’d appeared to lose direction, to lose sight of who she was, where she’d come from and, more importantly, where she was going.

  ‘Listen, love, I’ll pop over to your place tomorrow morning,’ Dad now interrupted my thoughts, ‘and you can show me what you want to do. I don’t mind giving you a few tips.’

  Mum pursed her lips before nodding in my direction and stating, ‘Well, make sure she pays you, Kenneth. Tell her your hourly rate.’

  Trouble was, I don’t think she was joking.

  ‘Mum, I’m starving, what is there to eat?’ Kit had his hands on the shopping almost before I’d staggered in from the car.

  ‘Is that all I am to you? Food?’ I panted, trying to disentangle tight white polythene from my stiff fingers which looked, after carrying so many bags, slightly gangrenous.

  ‘Not at all,’ he grinned, grabbing a sesame-encrusted French stick before cutting himself a piece of cheese the size of a door wedge. ‘You’re pretty good at muddy football boots and French homework too – don’t undersell yourself, Mother!’

  Kit paused only to finish his mouthful and then went on, more gloomily, ‘Talking of French, can you give me a hand, Mum? I’ve got a French test on Monday and I’ve absolutely no idea what it’s on about. Old Juan goes mad if you don’t get it all right.’

  ‘Juan? I didn’t know Mr Kerr was Spanish. Kerr doesn’t sound a very Spanish name does it?’ I mused. ‘I must say he must be very clever if he’s Spanish and teaches French too. You should listen more, Kit. He’ll teach you a lot.’

  ‘Mum, for heaven’s sake!’

  I turned to see both Liberty and Nick shaking their heads.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Mum, just think about it. Juan? Kerr?’ Libby raised her eyebrows pityingly while Nick laughed out loud and patted my head. Very condescending, I thought.

  ‘And I’m working my socks off just to keep him at a school where he learns things like that?’ I tutted. ‘Right,’ I went on, ignoring the Everest of dishes that was waiting dispiritedly by the dishwasher ready to be loaded, ‘from no
w on, just call me Harriet Titchmore. Bring on The Good Life!’

  Stopping only to grab the potting shed keys from amongst its fellows in the dresser drawer, I breezed out into the garden leaving Kit muttering, ‘Harriet Tits More? Who the bloody hell’s Harriet Tits More?’ into his cheese sandwich. I was instantly reminded of the very similar response I’d given to my mother’s question about Patricia a couple of hours earlier, but pushed it to the back of my mind. I didn’t want to think about anything unpleasant just at that moment, and knowing that my lovely old mum was acting a bit strange wasn’t a happy thought.

  I was going to live The Good Life. We might have very little money just now, but people from miles around would flock to gaze in wonder at my serried ranks of green beans, flawless strawberries, scarlet and rude with fecundity, and a veritable cornucopia of Brussels’ sprouts. Ah, season of mellow fruitfulness. Yesterday’s rain had, as if by magic, cleared away completely, leaving a perfect, warm day. Ralph-Next-Door already had a bonfire lit, sending a pungent trail of wood smoke spiralling lazily skywards and I breathed it in, intoxicated by its musky odour and the fact I was free for a couple of hours to do just what I wanted. And if I just didn’t think about what might happen if Nick carried on this crazy idea with David Henderson, didn’t think about the very obvious chemistry I’d witnessed between Nick and ‘Little Miss Goodness’, I could stop the panic that threatened to overwhelm me if I dwelt too long upon it.

  Shit! One fingernail down as I struggled with the potting shed lock. Swearing under my breath, and then aloud and more profusely as the key refused to turn, I contemplated returning to the house to seek help from Nick. No way! This garden was my baby and, as with all my children, its birth depended on my labour alone. Swearing and panting at the door in much the same way as I had at the midwives who’d attended my three labours, I was interrupted by Ralph’s pale, moon-like face appearing over our dividing garden wall. Hoping he hadn’t been privy to the whole litany of swear words (there was one that I blushed to hear, never mind use) I was more than relieved when he offered to come over and use his superior masculine force on the door.

  Yesss!! I was in business. Armed with more metalwork than the hardware shop in the village, I shuffled down to the flat, sunny patch at the bottom of the garden that I’d had my eye on for weeks.

  Three hours later, I surveyed my efforts with more than a modicum of satisfaction.

  True, the string that I’d used to stake out an area roughly fifteen metres square had the distinct appearance of a dog’s back leg. True, I’d screamed out loud and jumped up from my knees, disturbing Ralph for the second time that afternoon, when the cold feeling on my leg which I’d assumed to be the edge of the garden fork, turned out to be a worm of unbelievable proportion stretched nonchalantly across my ankle. And true, five more fingernails had met the same fate as the first. But what the hell. I was a gardener extraordinaire.

  Now for the bonfire. Having been a fully paid-up member of the gardening fraternity for only a couple of hours, I obviously didn’t have a great deal of garden rubbish to dispose of, but if both my dad and Ralph thought it mandatory to be a pyromaniac as they went along, who was I to argue? Not wanting to be left out, I scouted around for fallen leaves, dead branches and any other garden litter that I could utilise. After ten minutes spent scouring the immediate vicinity I had a mound no bigger than a couple of inches high, consisting mainly of leaves that, as a result of yesterday’s rain, were as damp as, well, as a damp squib. In frustration I shaded my eyes against the lengthening shadows and scanned farther afield. Up in the very top corner of the garden was Nick’s compost heap (not Nick’s own personal compost you understand – he is quite house-trained) a rusting water butt, and – hey ho – a very substantial pile of garden litter.

  It was like being back on one of the Bonfire Night raiding expeditions I’d carried out as a child. With Diana and her mates in charge, I was allowed to tag along behind them as they descended onto the neighbouring Westfield Estate rec which lay low behind the run-down woollen mills whose Victorian outline still dominated the November late afternoon gloom. Like scavenging rats we would break cover, making a dash for the neatly built bonfire, intent on seizing anything that could be extricated and filched away without too much difficulty. The same deliciously potent brew of guilt and excitement now urged me on as I set off to raid Nick’s abandoned pile. He really was quite an anorak when it came to the garden, whereas I was more than happy to haphazardly fling a few dozen packets of wild-flower seeds every spring and hope for a vestige of summer blooms a few months later. His garden bonfires, very much like his cooking, were indicative of his precise and determined nature. If he was going to do a job, then he was going to do it well or not bother. A feat of engineering that would have won the admiration of German car designers, Nick’s present bonfire had not yet realised the necessary dimensions that would signal its readiness for setting ablaze.

  With one measured pull, I released a couple of armfuls of dry branches that had once graced the elderly apple trees that grew in the small orchard adjoining our garden. Several wheelbarrow trips later and I’d transferred about half the pile to mine. If he remonstrated with me later, as I knew he would, I could always say he’d promised, in front of witnesses ‘with all his worldly goods to me endow.’

  It wasn’t much of a fire; it smouldered sulkily for a while, reminding me of Darren Slater in my class when asked to do anything that might involve his having to put pen to paper or tax his brain. Completely absorbed with my fire, I neither heard nor saw Libby until she shook my arm.

  ‘Mum, I’ve been shouting for you for ages. Dad wants to know if he’s cooking tonight.’

  ‘Hello, darling, I don’t seem to have seen you all weekend. How was your evening at Beth’s?’

  ‘Fine,’ she said dismissively, obviously not willing to divulge anything. ‘Does Dad know you’ve nicked his bonfire?’

  ‘What makes you think it’s his?’ I asked nervously.

  ‘Well, the fact that this morning he was putting the finishing touches to it after he picked up Kit and me, and the fact that it’s now half the size it was, is really a bit of a giveaway.’

  ‘Yes, well don’t you dare tell him it was me. I can always pretend that those kids from down the estate have been engaged in an early chumping raid.’

  ‘What’s it worth?’ Libby asked, grinning.

  ‘A fiver.’ I declared firmly. ‘Final offer, take it or leave it.’

  ‘Done!’ she affirmed, and we giggled, shaking hands on the deal. It wasn’t often I had my elder daughter on my side against her father and, despite knowing it was financial gain rather than maternal loyalty that manipulated her thinking, it felt good.

  Liberty idly kicked some stray dead leaves on to my somewhat depressed bonfire and demanded again whether Nick was to cook.

  ‘Yep, tell him to start one of his specials, and I’ll be up in a minute. I just want to tidy up here a little.’ I was ready for a long soak and a large gin.

  Ten minutes later I was steaming in a hot tub while India, never one to miss a soak en famille, was stripping off her kit and getting ready to join me. Thank goodness I’d married a man who could cook.

  ‘Mummy, when will I get bosoms?’ India was surveying my partially submerged chest with detached curiosity.

  ‘When you’re a big girl, darling.’ My eyes were closed, and I felt wonderfully relaxed after an afternoon spent at one with nature.

  ‘And when will I get bosoms?’

  I opened one eye to find Nick standing over me, gin and tonic in one hand, leering lasciviously like a dirty old man.

  ‘Silly man,’ India giggled, ‘men don’t get bosoms.’

  ‘They do if they’re lucky,’ said Nick, eyeing mine meaningfully.

  ‘You’re on my list of jobs to do,’ I said, taking the gin and spilling some of it down my naked front. ‘You’re definitely on my list!’

  I watched Nick’s retreating back as he went back downstairs t
o start supper and smiled at my reflection in the mirror, piling my hair up on my head while simultaneously hoisting up my bosom – no mean feat – and relished the idea of sex with my husband. The afternoon spent in the sunshine and fresh air (or perhaps it was the effects of the huge gin and tonic) had given my skin a warm glow – and for some reason made me feel particularly horny.

  I’d put ‘Have Sex’ on my Saturday morning list because, quite frankly, I wasn’t having it. I didn’t mean, I wasn’t having it, but Nick was. I meant both of us weren’t having it. With each other. Nick had been getting home incredibly late for months – this David Henderson thing had obviously been occupying him for a lot longer than I’d imagined – or we were both so knackered once we’d rolled into bed, that even one round of rumpy pumpy wasn’t generally on the bedtime menu.

  A sudden vision of ‘Little Miss Goodness’, and the possessive way she’d called Nick Nicky had me sitting bolt upright in the bath. Were Nick’s recent late nights out a result of business talks with Mr Henderson or knee-touching dinners with Mrs? Though I’d never once doubted Nick, that was before throwing Amanda Goodners into the equation. She seduced people, young and old, male or female. I knew. Both John, my brother, and I had been there.

  Leaving India blowing bubbles in the now cooling bath water, I hurriedly towelled myself dry, headed for the bedroom and began searching. Searching for the red – no, one could surely describe it only as scarlet – basque that Grace had given me last Christmas and which, to my shame, I’d tossed into my knicker drawer and never retrieved. Ah, there it was. Realising I’d have to grease myself all over just to get the damned thing on, I liberally rubbed ‘Aromatics’ body lotion onto every inch of skin and set to work.

  So where was the actual bra bit? Surely not these flimsy scraps of lace that looked like half-doilies peeping out from a plate of my mum’s home-made cherry buns?

  ‘Ooh, you look like one of those rudey ladies in Kit’s comic.’ India, skipping into the bedroom, came to a sudden standstill, mesmerised. ‘And your botty’s hanging down!’