A Family Affair

by Janet Tanner

  And then he kissed her.

  Afterwards, she wasn’t at all sure how it had come about, only that both his arms were around her instead of just one and his mouth was on hers, quite gentle yet also firm, and his lips were moving against her lips. It happened so naturally there was no awkwardness at all, none of the nose-bumping she and Rowena had worried about, none of the yuckiness she had imagined. There was a moment when she wondered what she should do with her arms but they slid around him comfortably enough and before she knew it she was kissing him back.

  ‘You aren’t going to slap my face and run away then?’ he said, squinting at her.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Can I do it again?’

  She nodded. She couldn’t speak but her heart was shouting, singing: Oh yes! Yes please! Yes, yes, yes.

  He kissed her at least half a dozen times – she began by counting so that she could relay a full account to Rowena, but she was enjoying it so much she lost count. He smelled nice – of soap and grass and sun-warmed skin; he tasted nice – indefinable but totally delicious. And his arms around her felt good and his hard muscular back beneath her hands and the soft wool of his jumper beneath her cheek. Joy and entrancement rose in her, a heady wave, and in the space of half an hour, Jenny fell in love.

  Trevor and Rowena were already waiting in the gateway when they made their way back across the field. They were standing apart, Trevor sullen, Rowena flushed and aloof. They all cycled back along the lane together but when they reached Rowena’s house, Trevor waited a bit further along the road while Barry said goodnight to Jenny, and Rowena went into the shed to put her bicycle away.

  ‘Can I see you again?’ Barry asked. ‘Say Saturday?’

  ‘Yes, all right,’ Jenny said.

  ‘Shall I come to your house?’

  ‘No!’ Jenny said quickly. ‘I’ll meet you here.’

  When he had gone she ran to find Rowena.

  ‘Oh, he’s super! Super! I’m seeing him again on Saturday. Are you seeing Trevor?’

  ‘No,’ Rowena said. ‘I’m not.’

  ‘Why not?’ Jenny asked, dismayed.

  ‘I don’t like him. He’s not very nice.’

  ‘I thought he was. I thought … Why don’t you like him?’

  ‘If you must know he tried it on,’ Rowena said. She sounded highly affronted. Jenny didn’t like to press her. Did she just mean he’s tried to kiss her the way she and Barry had kissed? Jenny felt herself flush at the thought and with it came the guilty feeling that perhaps she had been too forward. Or did Rowena mean he really had TRIED IT ON – put his hand inside her dress or something? Either way, she could see she had a big problem on her hands if Rowena wasn’t going to be going out with Trevor again. Meeting Barry was going to be very tricky. But somehow she’d find a way. Nothing in the world was going to keep her from seeing him again.

  For the first time in her life, Jenny became deceitful.

  ‘You’re seeing a lot of Rowena these days,’ Carrie said when she got her bicycle out for the third time in a week and prepared to ride off yet again.

  The warm May weather had lasted into a perfect June and Jenny lived on a knife’s edge between blissful happiness and guilty terror. All she and Barry ever did was go for bicycle rides and walks, though they did once risk a visit to the pictures. Afterwards, Jenny had very little idea of what film they had seen – or been supposed to see since they had spent the entire time kissing and cuddling in one of the double seats in the back row of the balcony, so it was really rather a waste of money. They could do that just as well for free under the clear blue sky!

  ‘You really like kissing, don’t you?’ Barry said one day. They were lying in the long grass, their bicycles hidden in the hedge covered with tall white cow parsley.

  ‘Mmm.’ It was heaven, the sweet-scented grass tickling her neck, the evening sun warm on her face, the heady feel of him close to her. Even the feel of his hand lying carelessly on her bare leg was good. Then, as it began stealthily to creep up her thigh, she tensed.

  ‘Come on,’ he urged teasingly, his mouth tickling her ear. ‘Don’t be a spoilsport!’

  ‘Stop it, Barry!’ There was a tight knot of panic inside her.

  He stopped and she pulled him down to kiss her again, not wanting him to think she was really angry with him. But there was a distance between them now and suddenly she was angry, with herself as much as with him, because between them they’d managed to spoil all that perfection.

  ‘Don’t you like me any more?’ she asked, a trifle petulantly.

  ‘Of course I do.’ But he still sounded cross. ‘Come on, it’s time we went.’

  He got up and she followed suit reluctantly. She hadn’t had nearly enough kisses yet; she was still hungry for more and she couldn’t understand why he wasn’t too.

  ‘When will I see you again?’ she asked as they pedalled back along the lane.

  ‘Umm … Sunday afternoon. I’ll meet you at the crossroads up the lane from your house.’

  ‘OK.’ She should have felt happy again but somehow she didn’t. The shadow was still there. It felt like a nameless foreboding. She pushed it away. ‘See you Sunday then.’

  ‘Yeah.’ And he was gone, pedalling away, bent double over the handlebars of his green racing-style bicycle.

  We can’t go on like this, Jenny thought. He’s cross because I haven’t told Mum I’m going out with him. Rowena was beginning to be cross about it too, fed up with constantly providing alibis. She had been quite snappy with Jenny the last time they’d talked about it.

  ‘It’s ridiculous,’ Rowena had said. ‘You really should own up.’

  ‘I can’t!’

  ‘Well, I’m not going to tell lies for you, Jenny. I keep having this horrible nightmare that your mum is going to turn up at our house one evening and want to know where you are. And if she does I am not going to lie to her.’

  ‘She won’t! She wouldn’t do that!’ Jenny said, but she had to admit it was a nightmare that troubled her too. If Carrie suspected and followed her – if someone was taken ill – died even! – and they wanted to get hold of her in a hurry – if someone saw her with Barry (she always tried to hide her face if a car passed them in the lanes) – the terror of being discovered was growing stronger all the time. So far she’d been lucky – but how much longer could her luck hold? Sooner or later we’re going to be caught out, and it really would be better if I owned up first, Jenny thought.

  Owning up might even have its advantages; she’d be able to enjoy her time with Barry without the guilt, even do the things that other couples who were going out properly, without secrecy, did – although quite honestly there was nothing she really wanted to do one quarter as much as simply kiss and cuddle. I’ll have to own up, Jenny thought, but still she couldn’t bring herself to do it and she felt herself becoming silent and moody.

  ‘Jenny,’ Carrie said on the Saturday evening. ‘Is there something worrying you?’

  ‘No,’ Jenny said, but it sounded unconvincing even to her own ears.

  ‘I think there is,’ Carrie said. ‘You’re not at all yourself. Is it something at school?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Well, I have to tell you, Jennifer, that when I went to school for the parents’evening your teacher mentioned it too. You’re in a dream half the time. And I want to know the reason.’

  Jenny had begun to tremble violently as all the guilt and anxiety she had experienced these past weeks came to boiling point, a foaming froth of emotion.

  ‘Jenny?’ Carrie said, sharply, perceptively.

  Jenny said nothing but everything she was feeling was there in her eyes.

  ‘Jenny … whatever it is, you can tell me,’ Carrie said.

  Jenny shook her head, the longing to make a clean breast of it all vying with the fear of her mother’s reaction, and between them making her incapable of speech.

  ‘Come on, my love …’

  ‘I can’t,’ Jenny said. ‘You’ll be angry wi
th me.’

  ‘I won’t. Tell me.’

  Jenny swallowed hard and at last her trembling lips framed the words.

  ‘I’ve … Mum … I’ve got a boyfriend.’

  She saw the dark shadow cross Carrie’s face, then lift slightly.

  ‘Who is it? Someone at school?’

  ‘No. I met him at the youth club. He’s a mechanic at Compton Motors. Well – he’s doing his apprenticeship anyway.’

  Carrie frowned. ‘And how old is this … boy?’

  ‘Seventeen. He’s …’

  ‘Seventeen!’ Carrie repeated, horrified.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘When have you been seeing him?’ Carrie’s voice was low, controlled.

  ‘We go for rides on our bicycles …’

  ‘When you’re supposed to be with Rowena, I suppose! I knew there was something funny going on! I said you were seeing a lot of her all of a sudden! Where do you go?’

  ‘Oh – just around … Anywhere, really, where we can go for a walk, and …’

  ‘And what?’

  ‘Nothing, just talk and …’ But her cheeks were flaming.

  ‘I can’t believe this,’ Carrie said. ‘I thought I knew you, Jennifer. How long has this been going on?’

  ‘About three weeks …’

  ‘Three weeks. For three weeks you’ve been telling me a pack of lies so you could get off with this boy.’ She spat the word as if it were an obscenity. ‘What have you been doing with him?’

  ‘Nothing!’

  ‘Well, I hope not! Oh, Jennifer, Jennifer …’

  ‘You see? I told you you’d be cross,’ Jenny said wretchedly.

  ‘I’m not just cross. I’m disappointed. I never expected this. Not from you.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Jenny said. ‘I’m really sorry, Mum. I would have told you – I wanted to – but I thought you wouldn’t let me go.’

  ‘Well, you thought right there!’ Carrie said. ‘Seventeen! I never heard anything like it! Boys of that age …’ She broke off, her own thoughts choking her.

  ‘He’s ever so nice … If I brought him home, Mum … if you met him …’

  ‘You’re not seeing him again,’ Carrie said.

  ‘Oh, Mum – please, don’t say that!’

  ‘I am saying it. You’ll put a stop to it before it goes any further. Seventeen! He’s much too old for you.’

  ‘Mum … I love him!’

  Carrie laughed, a harsh explosion utterly without mirth.

  ‘Love? Jennifer, you don’t know the meaning of the word! And nor should you, at your age.’

  ‘That’s not fair.’

  ‘Life isn’t fair, my girl. You’ll learn that – but not too soon I hope. At the moment you should be concentrating on your school work and doing nice things.’

  ‘He is nice!’ Jenny was close to tears now. ‘You can’t stop me seeing him, Mum – you can’t! Rowena’s mother didn’t mind her going out with Trevor …’

  ‘Oh! Rowena’s mother knows about this, does she?’

  The idea that there was a conspiracy against her was the last straw for Carrie.

  ‘Mum … please … !’

  ‘You are not going out with him again, Jennifer, and that is final. In fact, you’re not going out of my sight for the foreseeable future.’

  ‘I’m supposed to be seeing him on Sunday,’ Jenny said. ‘I’ll have to go, if only to tell him.’

  ‘You are not seeing him again.’

  ‘But he’ll be waiting! I can’t just let him down.’

  ‘Where are you supposed to meet him?’

  Jenny told her.

  ‘All right,’ Carrie said, ‘I’ll go. I’ll tell him you’re much too young for any of this and I am not allowing it.’

  ‘Mum – you can’t!’ Jenny was appalled.

  ‘I certainly can. And I shall give him a piece of my mind at the same time. Tell him to find a girl his own age.’

  ‘Oh, Mum – please!’ Jenny was sobbing now.

  ‘Don’t be so silly,’ Carrie said scornfully.

  ‘I knew you’d be like this, I knew it …’

  ‘Then why,’ Carrie demanded, ‘were you stupid enough to go behind my back? You must have known you’d be found out in the end. I’m very disappointed in you, Jennifer.’

  And that was that.

  She hardly spoke to Jenny for the rest of the day; next morning at breakfast she was still cold and disapproving, boiling with barely contained fury underneath. Jenny was utterly wretched, deeply ashamed, unable to meet her father’s troubled blue eyes, anguished by the realisation that never again would she lie with Barry in the long grass, never again feel his lips on hers, his arms around her, tormented by the humiliating prospect of Carrie keeping her date for her, terrified at what she would say to him. Right up until the last moment she harboured the vain desperate hope that Carrie would change her mind, let her go this one last time, but that too disappeared when, after washing up the dinner things in stony silence, she took off her overall and went upstairs to change into a decent frock.

  Jenny followed her up, trembling, tearful.

  ‘Mum … please …’

  ‘I’ve said my last word on the subject, Jennifer. Now, tell me again, where is it you’re meeting him? By Bluebell Woods, was it?’ Jenny nodded mutely, knowing that further argument would only make things worse. ‘Right. I won’t be long.’

  It was said finally, brooking no further argument.

  As the door slammed after her, Jenny went to her room, lay down on her bed and cried until the tears ran dry.

  Half an hour later Carrie was back.

  ‘Are you sure you told me the truth, Jennifer?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘About where you were supposed to meet this boy?’

  ‘Of course!’ Jenny looked at her mother with fear-filled eyes. ‘What happened? What did he say?’

  ‘Nothing.’ Carrie stood in the doorway, arms folded across her chest, an avenging angel in a floral frock. ‘He wasn’t there.’

  ‘What do you mean – he wasn’t there?’

  ‘He never came. I waited ten minutes and more. He never came.’

  ‘I don’t understand …’ Jenny said.

  ‘Did you get a message to him somehow?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘You’d better be telling me the truth, young lady.’

  ‘I am telling the truth.’

  ‘Well,’ Carrie said, ‘I expect that’s the last we’ll hear of him, but if he should get in touch with you, you know what to tell him. Don’t you?’

  Jenny nodded. She was puzzled now as well as upset. She couldn’t understand why Barry hadn’t turned up. Had something happened to him? An accident, perhaps? Oh – he could be injured – dead even – and she wouldn’t know. The tears flowed again. In an agony of wretchedness, Jenny wished that she, too, was dead.

  The mystery was solved a week later.

  ‘Barry’s going out with a girl at the youth club,’ Rowena told her.

  ‘He can’t be!’ Jenny was devastated. ‘Who is it?’

  ‘One of the older girls. You know – the one with the bleached blonde hair – June Farthing.’

  ‘I don’t believe it!’ Jenny said. But of course it would explain why he hadn’t turned up that Sunday afternoon. He had someone else and, rather than telling her, he’d simply stood her up. It made no real difference, of course. It would have been over anyway. But the extra turn of the screw made it even more painful, if such a thing were possible.

  For the first time in her life, Jenny discovered what it felt like to have her heart broken.

  Chapter Seven

  ‘Look – I’m really sorry, Mr Button, but you’re going to have to stop driving for a while,’ Helen said.

  Cliff Button stared at her almost uncomprehendingly. Then he chuckled, a small dry sound.

  ‘You’m having me on, doctor.’

  ‘No, Mr Button, I’m not.’ Heather riffled the papers on her desk so tha
t the report on Cliff’s tests were directly in front of her. She already knew word for word what they said, but being able to actually refer to them somehow gave a weight of authority to her words, she felt, and at the same time absolved her of some of the responsibility of what was going to be a devastating blow for Cliff. ‘I’m afraid these tests confirm what I suspected. The turns you’ve been having are caused by epilepsy.’

  ‘Fits, you mean,’ Cliff said.

  ‘Well – if you want to call them that … yes.’

  ‘What else can you call them?’ Cliff was hiding his dismay with a show of impatience. ‘Fits.’ He shook his head in disgust. ‘I never thought I’d come to this.’

  ‘It’s not the end of the world, honestly,’ Helen said. ‘New treatments are being discovered all the time. We have to find the right one for you, that’s all. Once we get you stabilised the chances of it happening again reduce dramatically.’

  ‘And until then I can’t drive, you say.’

  ‘I think that speaks for itself, don’t you? You’d be a danger to yourself and others if you were taken ill when you were behind the wheel.’

  ‘It’s my job though, Doctor. I’ve been the taxi man in Hillsbridge since before you were so much as a twinkle in your father’s eye.’

  ‘I know.’ Helen remembered as a little girl being fascinated by the big black cab that was often parked near the Market Place. Long before that, Cliff had owned one of the very first motor cars ever seen in Hillsbridge, and Helen had heard Charlotte, her grandmother, relate how during the Great War she had hired Cliff to drive her and the boys – Jack, Helen’s father, included – to Salisbury Plain to see their brother Fred, who was in training there. Charlotte had never forgotten the excitement of riding in the open-top car with the wind tearing her hair down from its combs, and though the memory was tinged with sadness – for Fred had died in France – the story was still worth the telling. ‘Believe me, Mr Button, I do know that. But really I’m afraid it’s all the more reason why you mustn’t take any risks. Your passengers have a right to safety, don’t you think?’