Michelle Vernal Box Set

by Michelle Vernal

  Much splashing in puddles, bad language, and hissing on both their parts ensued along with bag waving as Marian tried to shoo the bird away until, finally bedraggled but not beaten, she slid into the sanctuary of the passenger seat.

  Eying her filthy pants with distaste, she tried to brush the worst of the mud off, muttering, “Thanks for your help.” When no reply was forthcoming, she looked across at her daughter. Registering her mutinous expression, Marian wondered whether perhaps she might be better off taking her chances with Jemima again.

  She didn’t get a chance to further consider her options, though, because Jess, not even waiting for her mother to do her seat belt up, had put her foot down on the accelerator and was haring off down the drive and out of Owen’s life once and for all.

  “Jessica!” Marian gasped. “What on earth has got into you? Slow down, for goodness’ sake.”

  Remembering it was not her car she was driving and that she had no axe to grind with Brianna, Jess grudgingly slowed. In the seat next to her, her mother’s sigh of relief was audible.

  “That’s better. I don’t fancy being sent home in a budget body bag. I’d probably wind up in Taiwan too.”

  Jess refused to smile, feeling her mother’s eyes upon her.

  “What were you ranting on about me being—what was it you said before? Hoity-toity?—yes, that was it.”

  Jess didn’t say anything, concentrating instead on the bends in the road ahead of her.

  “I hardly think that’s a fair comment because I’ll have you know, Jessica Jane, that I have been on my best behaviour today. I did not turn my nose up at anything and I kept my word and gave Owen the benefit of the doubt just like I said I would and guess what? Surprise-surprise! I liked him. He is a lovely young man, so if anything you should be sitting there saying I told you so instead of getting yourself into such a stew. So come on then, my girl, tell me what was it that got you in such a state all of a sudden?”

  “You, Mum! It was you who got me in such a state! You wound me up like you always do, because no matter what I do and no matter what choices I make, you always manage to make me feel like I don’t measure up! Not in my job and certainly not in my love life. Well, I am sorry I am such a big, fat disappointment to you. ” Jess banged her hands down on the steering wheel.

  “Calm down, Jessica. I have no idea where all this is coming from.” Marian looked at her daughter in alarm, wondering whether she was having some sort of breakdown.

  “Nothing I do is ever right where you are concerned and no one I meet is ever good enough, so I spouted off all that crap about Owen being a successful lawyer to make you like him. How could you not like him if you knew he was a lawyer? Only a professional will do for your daughter, after all. Except now he says I am not the person he thought I was and I don’t think he wants to see me ever again.” Jess broke into big gulping sobs.

  “Right, enough is enough, Jessica Jane Baré! You cannot drive in this state—you will kill us both.” Marian gestured at the tractor that was meandering toward them and taking up most of the lane. “You, my girl, are going to pull over and let Farmer Ted there on his tractor pass and then we are going to sort this ridiculous notion you seem to have about what makes me tick once and for all.”

  So it was that next to a field full of cows on a cold early winter’s afternoon in the depths of County Down, Northern Ireland, Jess and her mother had a long overdue chat.

  Marian toyed nervously with her rings, fighting back tears. “I have never meant to make you feel like you didn’t measure up. Good grief, Jessica, I am so proud of what you have achieved! I mean, just look at you.” She turned in her seat, gesturing to where Jess sat hunched over in hers, her face hidden behind a curtain of hair. Leaning over, she smoothed her daughter’s hair back from her face and tucked it behind her ear. “That’s better. I can see your beautiful face now and you are beautiful, Jessica.” Her voice softened. “Do you know that when I look at you, I can’t believe the baby your father and I raised is all grown up now? Where did she go, that little girl of ours, our firstborn who always had her nose buried in a book?” She sighed. “The time goes by so fast, Jess, and it only seems to speed up even more once you have children. We’ve made mistakes along the way. I know we have but we did our best and do you know that when I look at the life you’ve carved out for yourself, I’m fit to burst? There you are, with a wonderful career doing something you love, living in a fabulous city with fabulous friends and here’s me,” her right hand patted her chest, “finally getting to be a part of it all, even if it is only for a few weeks. If I have been disapproving of your choices in the past, it’s because you never brought anyone home who was anywhere near your equal.” She reached over and stroked Jess’s cheek. “Remember when you were little and you brought that sparrow inside that the cat had got at?”

  Jess nodded.

  “You were so determined to make it better. You even made it a little bed in an old shoe box and set up a nursing station in your wardrobe but the poor thing never stood a chance, even with all that TLC. You were beside yourself when it died.”

  The memory still made Jess feel sad. She couldn’t fix it—make it better—and it had been a lesson in life that had taken her a very long time to learn.

  “It broke my heart seeing you like that and I couldn’t stand to sit back and say nothing while I watched you get upset time and time again with the choices in men you were making. I just wanted you to be happy, not weighed down by someone else’s problems.”

  Jess wasn’t ready to be appeased just yet, so she sat head bowed, making little snivelling noises until her Mum did what she really wanted her to do. Unbuckling her belt, Marian leaned over and pulled her daughter into her arms, cradling her close. Snugged against her like she was, Jess felt like a child again. She wished she was because life had been a lot less complicated back then.

  “I know what I can be like.” Marian continued, “Lord knows your father tells me off often enough but I can’t help myself. It just bubbles up inside me, this need for people to think I am something special, and things just pop out of my mouth before I can stop them. I suppose putting on a posh front is my way of trying to hide behind what I really am.”

  Jess pulled away from the embrace and rubbing her eyes, she looked at her mother, wondering what she was going to say next. “What do you mean?”

  “A woman who did nothing much with her life, that’s what I mean, Jess. I was married at nineteen, remember, and I don’t regret that or the fact you girls came along so soon afterwards for one minute so don’t get me wrong on that count. It’s just that I never finished my hair-dressing apprenticeship and after awhile, staying at home and being a wife and a mother was all I knew how to do. That was fine at the time because that was what most women of my generation knew. We were the queens of the Edmonds cookbook. But then the times changed and suddenly women were getting careers and becoming independent. What we did—being homemakers—didn’t seem so important in society’s eyes anymore. Do you know Kelly tells me she can actually see people’s eyes glaze over when she tells them that she’s at home with the children?”

  It was true, Jess thought; she’d heard Brianna bemoan the same thing on numerous occasions and the derisive way in which Nick had described stay-at-home mothers had been appalling.

  “Then when my time did come, and you girls were at an age where I could think about what I wanted to do with the rest of my life, what did I go and do? I got a job selling knickers, that’s what.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with knickers, Mum—we all need them.”

  Marian raised a small smile. “Glad to see you still have your sense of humour and I know there is nothing wrong with it. I enjoyed my time working and the other girls were great fun but selling underwear was never going to set the world on fire, was it? And there was you, growing up with all this talent and making a life for yourself, independent of me. I was scared you saw me as a bit of a let-down and I never knew what to say to you, this high-f
lying, gorgeous girl of mine. I suppose that’s why I pushed so hard for you to meet someone and settle down because then you’d be living the sort of life that I could relate to. I’m so sorry, Jessica.” She broke off with a sob.

  Jess rubbed her mother’s back. “Oh Mum, you should never have felt like that. I am who I am because of you and Dad and all the opportunities you gave me. You were the people who gave me the confidence in myself to put myself out there and give things a go because I knew that if I failed, I could always come home and that you would always be there to pick up the pieces. Having that kind of stability behind you makes life a whole lot less scary.” She paused to fish out the packet of tissues she could see peeking out of the pocket of her mother’s handbag and handed her one. “You know, I think being a mum is the most important career choice any woman can make and I hope that if I ever become one, that I can do half the job you did with me and Kels.” She leaned in and kissed her mother’s cheek, noticing the lines that were there now where the skin had once been smooth. Lines that would one day etch themselves onto her face, too. Where had the years gone? “You were always there for us, Mum—all the running us around to this group or that. Dropping us off and picking us up from our friend’s houses, all those hundreds of packed lunches and afternoon teas that were always waiting for us after school. You put us first the whole way through. There is no sacrifice greater than being a mum. Just look at everything you still do now for Kelly and the kids. She’d be lost without you and although I might not always show it, I need my Mum, too.”

  “You do?” Marian’s eyes were the mirror image of Jess’s as they looked properly at each other. Nora was right, Jess thought; the similarities had always been there—she’d chosen not to see them for the longest time.

  “Of course I do. Who else do I know who can bake Yo-Yos like you?”

  Marian laughed, swiping at her tears with the tissue and then, taking the rest of the packet off Jess, she pulled out another and gave her nose a good blow. “Aren’t we a pair of silly gooses?”

  “Don’t mention geese!” Jess snorted. “Oh Mum, you should have seen yourself stomping around that puddle, wielding your handbag at Jemima.”

  Marian began laughing, too, and the tension that had filled the car such a short while ago dissipated.

  “I love you,” Jess said once she’d got her giggles under control.

  “I love you, too.”

  Marian pulled the sunshade down and wiped away the streaks of mascara her tears had left behind before turning her hand to Jess and swiping away the black smudges under her eyes. It reminded her of when she was a child and her mother would spit on a hanky before wiping her face with it when they were out. Just like she had done when she was a child, too, she wiggled to escape but to no avail. Satisfied she’d cleaned up the worst of the damage, Marian reached into her bag, producing a lipstick. “You need some colour; you’d scare the birds if I stood you out in that paddock, so come on, put this on. At least we’ve the same colouring.”

  Jess stared at her. Her heart was breaking, she felt physically ill, and her Mum wanted her to put lipstick on as if that tiny tube of colour would cure all ills? “I don’t need lipstick on in order to drive the car back to Dublin and the way I feel at the moment, I really don’t give a stuff what I look like. Let’s just get back on the road so I can get the car back to Brie’s.”

  Marian smile beatifically. “Well, you might want to give her a quick call and say we’ll be a bit late getting back. She’ll understand because we are not going back to Dublin, sweetheart, not until we’ve been back to the farm and you have sorted things out with Owen.”

  Jess shook her head. “No way. Nice try, Mum; you didn’t see Owen’s face, though. I have blown it with him. He doesn’t want to see me again.”

  “Now listen to me, young lady—just because we have had a heart-to-heart doesn’t mean I am going to stop sticking my oar in. I’m your mother and that’s what mothers do. It is our birthright. Now, put the lipstick on, then start the car up and do a U-turn.”

  Jess frowned at the narrow country lane; even if she did as she was told, she didn’t have a hope in hell of performing a U-turn—a six-point turn at best. She could put the lippy on, though. As she angled the rearview mirror and applied a layer of russet red to her mouth, her mother said, “Honestly, sweetheart, do you think I am about to let the best man who has ever come your way slip through your fingers so easily?”

  And as Jess put the lid back on the lipstick, Marian shook her head in that way of hers that spoke volumes.

  Unprepared to go Round Two with Jemima, Marian opted to wait in the car. “Don’t you dare come back out until you’ve kissed and made up,” she bossed, casting a wary eye across the drive. “And watch out for that bloody goose.”

  The front door of the cottage was locked, so Jess wandered around to the side of the house. Peering through the French doors, she spied Owen looking like he meant business as he chopped something at the kitchen bench. There was a glass of half-drunk red wine next to him and even from her vantage point outside she could smell the unmistakable aroma of browning onions. Typical male, she thought; food was the last thing on her mind. She watched him for a moment, trying to summon the courage to tap on the door until, feeling like a Peeping Tom, she at last knocked.

  Owen swung round, nearly tipping whatever the contents of the pot he had in his hand all over himself. She heard him swear and then grabbing a tea-towel, he wiped at the stain spreading down his pants, gesturing at her to come in with his free hand.

  “Jaysus, Jess! You scared the crap out of me! I nearly wore all the bloody stock!”

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.” She shifted from foot to foot, unsure of the reception she was expecting. “What are you making?”

  “A beef and mushroom in red wine casserole.”

  “Oh, that sounds nice—very, er, hearty.”

  He stopped wiping and looked at her. “It is but that’s not why you came back, is it? To see what I am cooking for dinner?”

  “Um, no, I came back to apologise, if you’ll let me.” Jess took his silence for acquiescence and so she told him of all that had transpired between her and her mother after they had left that afternoon. “You were right in what you said. It was me with the problem. I was trying to impress my Mum, who didn’t want me to impress her at all. Even though she was impressed because she thinks you are lovely, by the way. And as it turned out, that’s all she has wanted for me all along—to be happy. Does that make sense?”

  “Aye, in a roundabout way, it does.”

  “The thing is, Owen, I don’t think I can be happy without you. You are everything I have ever wanted and it took me so long to find you that I am absolutely terrified of losing you.” Jess felt her face flush with the sentiment and her hands grow clammy at the fear that he would reject her apology as being too little too late.

  “Where is Marian, by the way?”

  Jess frowned; she had just laid her heart on the line for him and he wanted to know where her mother was. “She’s waiting in the car and she said I am not allowed to come back out until we have kissed and made up.”

  “Well, then, we better not keep her waiting.”

  Owen took her in his arms and in that fleeting second before Jess closed her eyes, guiding her mouth to meet his, she saw the shadow of a young dark-haired girl smiling at her before, with a wave that Jess instinctively knew was goodbye, she faded away.

  Then they kissed and made up.

  Epilogue

  Two Years Later

  JESS AND OWEN BOTH said ‘Aye’ do in a civil ceremony held in the grounds of Glenariff Farm in high summer. All the guests said it was a beautiful service that went off well and that nobody had really noticed the celebrant’s mispronunciation of Jess’s surname thanks to Marian stepping up so smartly to put her right—“It’s Beret, dahling, not Bare.”

  Jess shouted her entire family over for the wedding with the proceeds of the best-selling novel she wro
te during her year’s sabbatical in Ballymcguinness. The bride did not wear white as she didn’t feel it was appropriate given the basketball-sized belly she was sporting. She did, however, wear a vintage 1930s gown she let out around the middle, having picked it up for a song at the Enable Ireland charity shop on George Street in Dublin.

  Nora, Brianna, and Kelly weren’t happy about having to wear second-hand bridesmaid dresses but once threatened by the bride-to-be with pink 80s puffballs if they weren’t compliant, they stopped their complaining and on the day looked gorgeous in their respective flapper dresses. The mother of the bride, meanwhile, was radiant in an outfit reminiscent of Mrs Middleton’s at William and Kate’s do.

  The only real hitch in the day was when Harry, Ethan, or Elliott (they each pointed the finger at the other) left the gate to the paddock open and several pigs—including Wilbur—tried to gate-crash the proceedings.

  Needless to say, roast pork was not served at the wedding breakfast and Jemima was not invited.

  The End

  Being Shirley

  By

  Michelle Vernal

  Copyright © 2014 by Michelle Vernal

  All Rights Reserved.

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