by Sophie Hart
‘She’s such a nightmare!’ Aimee burst out, slamming her hands down on the table so violently that her tea sloshed over into her saucer. ‘I don’t know how much more I can take of her, I really don’t. She’s so horrible to me, so rude.’
‘Can you speak to Jon about it?’ Julia suggested sympathetically. ‘He must have noticed the way she speaks to you sometimes. Maybe he can have a word with her, ask her to tone it down a little?’
Aimee shrugged uncertainly. ‘I don’t know. He seems blind to everything where she’s concerned. Mind you, she’s the same with him. They have their mutual adoration society going on, where neither can do any wrong in the other’s eyes. She’s brought him up to believe he’s wonderful and he thinks she’s amazing in return. Sometimes I even wonder whether there’s room for me.’
‘Of course there is. Jon loves you, anyone can see that. Valerie will just have to learn to take a back seat.’
‘Thanks, Julia,’ Aimee smiled. ‘Does offering life advice and motivation to the bride-to-be come as part of your package, or do we have to pay extra?’
‘I’m very cheap. I can be bought for the price of half a carrot cake,’ Julia joked, indicating the plate which they’d scraped clean between them. ‘Seriously though, make sure you don’t lose your own identity. Jon’s got his business, and Valerie has all her committees and charity work. You need something of your own too.’
‘A baby?’ Aimee suggested ruefully.
‘Only if it’s right for you. You’re still very young, aren’t you?’
‘Twenty-three.’
‘Exactly. Plenty of time to build a career or travel a bit before then. What did you say, you wanted be a teacher? Well, why not? Do some research on the internet, send off for some prospectuses. What’s holding you back?’
‘I… um… Nothing, I suppose.’ Aimee drank the last of her tea thoughtfully, wondering what Jon would say if she turned round and said she wanted to put off having kids for a couple of years. That she wanted to go and study – perhaps do her teacher training – instead. Somehow, she didn’t think he’d be supportive.
‘Just make sure you do whatever makes you happy,’ Julia insisted. ‘You only get one life. No point in wasting it.’ Personally, she thought that Aimee should run as far away as she could from Jon and his overbearing mother, but it wasn’t her place to say. ‘Anyway,’ she continued brightly, deliberately changing the mood. ‘Are you ready to get back out there? Those ironing board covers aren’t going to choose themselves you know.’
‘And we simply have to make sure that stupid girl gets the right toilet brush holder, or else I shan’t be able to sleep at night,’ Aimee parodied, in a perfect imitation of Valerie, as she and Julia burst out laughing.
‘Come on, let’s go,’ Julia grinned.
The two of them were still giggling as they walked away.
24
‘The first time you marry for love, the second for money, and the third for companionship’ – Jackie Kennedy
Breakfast at Gill’s house was not dissimilar to feeding time at the zoo, she reflected, as she looked around the messy table at her noisy brood. It was especially true at the weekends, when she encouraged everyone to sit down together and take longer over their meal, without the need to race off to work, or school, or nursery. On Sunday mornings, Gill liked to get her whole blended family around the large table in the small kitchen, where she dished up fried eggs, bacon, beans, sausages and endless rounds of tea and toast.
Of course, it was rarely quiet or harmonious, with all of the kids trying to talk over one other and squabbles breaking out quicker than Gill or Mike could step in to quash them. But to Gill, the weekly sit-down was important, and she hoped it helped introduce a family bond that was sorely lacking at the moment.
‘Have you finished with that sausage, Freddy? Then stop prodding it with your fingers and give it to me.’
Freddy dutifully got up from the table and carried his plate across to Gill, washing his sticky hands in the kitchen sink.
‘Can we play football today?’ he asked beseechingly, looking up at Mike.
‘Not today, kiddo. The weather’s too bad for that.’
Freddy stood on tiptoe to get a better look out of the window. It was raining heavily; that blustery, grey, depressing March weather that you think will never end and makes you long for summer sun and blue skies.
‘How many calories in eggy bread, Mum?’ Kelly asked thoughtfully, having just polished off two large pieces.
Gill shot Mike a warning look. Kelly had become increasingly interested in fat content and calories recently, her girlfriends at school apparently preoccupied with diets and ‘being skinny’.
‘I’m not sure, love. But it’s a Sunday treat. Don’t worry about it.’
‘I don’t want to get fat,’ Kelly said vehemently. ‘I mean, it’s okay when you’re your age, Mum, and you’ve had loads of kids.’
‘Thanks, Kel,’ Gill replied, her voice heavy with sarcasm.
Sammy sat quietly, drinking orange squash, while Paige finished her last piece of toast and pushed her plate away. Seeing that everyone had finished, Gill moved in to clear up and wipe down the table, drying it hastily with a tea towel.
‘So we can’t go outside and play in the garden?’ Finlay asked despondently.
‘I’m afraid not. But,’ Gill began, her eyes sparkling. She’d anticipated the wet weather and prepared accordingly. ‘I do have something fun for you all to do today.’
Paige looked up with interest, as Sammy cried out, ‘The zoo! Are we going to the zoo?’
‘No, it’s not the zoo. But this,’ she began, indicating the now clean table in front of her, ‘is going to be our creative space for today.’
‘Is this something else to do with the wedding?’ Kelly sighed.
‘Got it in one, Kel!’ Gill hurried out of the kitchen, leaving a room full of inquisitive faces behind her. She returned a few moments later carrying a small cardboard box, and two big carrier bags. The bags were full to bursting, their plastic stretched taut and thin, offering a glimpse of the shiny, sparkly contents.
There was a collective ‘Oooh’ from the kids, as they sat up excitedly, craning to see what was inside. Kelly feigned disinterest, but Gill noticed that she hadn’t moved from her seat, a sure sign that she was intrigued.
‘Is it a present?’ Sammy asked, as Gill placed the box in the centre of the table.
‘Not exactly.’ She tipped the carrier bags upside down, and the next moment the table was awash with ribbons, lace, tubes of glitter, coloured pens and pencils, beads and sequins, all prompting more excited cries. It was an explosion of colour and sparkle.
Freddy knelt up on his chair, reaching across the table and pulling out a piece of stiff, white card from the box. ‘What’s this?’ he asked, holding it up.
Finlay snatched it off him, running his finger under the words as he read out loud: ‘Mr Michael Marshall and Ms Gillian Skinner request the pleasure of your company to celebrate their marriage—’
‘Wedding invitations,’ Paige breathed, snatching the invite from Finlay.
‘Hey!’ he protested, trying to grab it back.
‘No need to fight, there’s a whole box of them there,’ Gill appeased them, reaching in and passing another card to Finlay, before handing one to each of the children for them to look at. They had simple black lettering on plain white card, with no decoration or embellishment.
‘Great,’ Kelly deadpanned. ‘Why are you showing them to us?’
‘We need your help,’ Mike explained, coming over from where he’d been stacking the dishwasher. ‘All of you.’
‘I can help,’ Finlay said eagerly. ‘What do you need help with?’
Gill sat down at the table, unconsciously picking up a piece of silver ribbon and twirling it between her fingers. ‘Well, we thought that as we’re a pretty unique family, we needed pretty unique invitations. This is where you guys come in. I’ve had these invitations printed in the
most basic style possible, and I think they look pretty dull right now.’
Kelly nodded her head in agreement, and Gill shot her a look.
‘We want all of you to help us decorate them, that’s why I’ve bought all this stuff,’ Gill waved her arm, indicating the crafting paraphernalia in front of them. ‘There’re stickers, and stamps with ink pads, and a heart-shaped hole punch, and all kinds of exciting stuff. Sammy, ask someone to help you if you want to use the scissors. But other than that, you’ve got free rein to do whatever you want.’
Five bemused faces stared back at her.
‘So we’re allowed to draw on them?’
‘We can put glitter on them?’
‘Can we stick bows on them?’
‘Yes, yes and yes,’ Gill laughed. ‘The only rule is no drawings of SpongeBob SquarePants, okay?’ She looked sternly at the twins, which made them giggle uncontrollably. Both of them were obsessed with the cartoon character, and all of their schoolbooks and notepads were covered with pictures of him. Gill had been livid one day when she’d found a scribbled image of SpongeBob on the hallway wallpaper. Freddy and Finlay had both blamed each other.
‘Can I be excused from this?’ Kelly drawled. ‘I think I’m too old for colouring in pictures of flowers – you know, now I’m not at primary school any more.’
‘Yeah, I thought you might say that,’ Gill began. She’d fully expected Kelly’s objections – was there anything her teenage daughter didn’t object to these days? boys and clothes seemed to be the only exceptions – and come up with a plan. ‘What I really need is someone with extremely neat handwriting to address the envelopes for me. Here,’ she continued, handing Kelly a gold pen and a printed list of invitees.
Kelly took them from her, reading through the names with a critical eye.
‘Who’s Stuart North?’
‘Mike’s friend from work.’
‘Right,’ Kelly said, in a tone Gill couldn’t quite read, as she continued skimming. ‘You’re inviting Hayley? I thought you didn’t like her?’
‘Kelly, she’s your godmother. Of course I like her.’ Gill’s body language indicated otherwise.
‘But when she left her husband, you had that big argument where you said she was behaving like a tramp, and she said that you should—’
‘Kelly,’ Gill cut in sharply.
Kelly stared back with a practised look of innocence, her lips forming the question, ‘What?’
‘So can we start?’ Freddy asked. He’d uncapped a red felt tip pen, and it was poised over the first invite, awaiting Gill’s permission.
‘Go for it,’ she confirmed, grateful for the interruption.
The children were surprisingly tentative at first, as though awed by the gravity of the task they’d been given. Finlay reached for the PVA glue and a tube of silver glitter, as Sammy ripped into a packet of love heart stickers.
‘I’m going to draw some doves,’ Paige announced, sketching them lightly with a pencil and frowning at what she’d done.
‘Haha, they look more like a dogs,’ Freddy teased, leaning over to look.
‘Shut up! At least I’ve been more imaginative than scribbling hearts all over it. Oh look, hearts, yawn,’ Paige shot back, in a silly, high-pitched voice.
‘I think the doves look cool,’ Finlay assured her. ‘Can I put some glitter on them?’
Paige eyed him suspiciously. ‘As long as you’re careful.’
Finlay took her warning seriously, his tongue hanging out in concentration as he oh-so-carefully added a neat line of silver sparkle along the doves’ wings. After that, he appointed himself Chief Glitterer, adding a touch of sparkle to everyone’s decorations.
‘What does RSVP mean?’ Freddy wondered, as he frowned at the writing on the card.
‘It’s French,’ Kelly informed him, looking up from where she’d been industriously writing names and addresses on the envelopes. ‘It means “please reply”.’
‘That’s right, Kel,’ Mike chimed in, adding, in a bad French accent, ‘Répondez s’il vous plaît.’
‘It’s Kelly,’ she muttered back, but her voice lacked its usual bite.
‘Reppy silly play,’ Sammy repeated, making everyone laughed. Pleased with the response, he began parroting it over and over, bouncing his head in time with the words, ‘Reppy silly play, reppy silly play.’
‘Enough now, Sammy,’ Gill groaned, putting her hands over her ears. ‘Concentrate on where you’re putting those stickers. And try not to put them over the actual writing, darling. Our guests need to see what time the wedding starts.’
Sammy looked down at the invitation in front of him. Realising his mistake, he tried to scratch off the offending sticker with his nails, tearing off the top layer of paper and leaving a messy streak of grey across the middle of the invite.
‘Shall we put that to the bottom of the pile?’ Gill smiled, tactfully handing him a fresh one from the box. ‘Maybe try a new one, hmm?’
Miraculously, everyone seemed to settle down and (relatively) quietly get down to work, drawing and colouring and sticking industriously. Paige picked up the hole punch and made a line of heart-shaped holes across the top of one of the invites, weaving purple ribbon in and out then tying the ends in a bow. Sam ran riot with a flower-shaped stamp and a yellow ink pad, while Finlay wrote ‘LOVE’ in the border of half a dozen invites using the stencil kit he’d found.
Slowly but surely, a higgledy-piggledy pile of invitations began to build up, every one completely different. Beside them, Kelly’s carefully labelled pile of envelopes ran almost as high, and when Freddy began to get fidgety, Gill gave him the job of sticking all of the postage stamps.
‘Right way round, please,’ Mike’s voice boomed, as he peered over Freddy’s shoulder to see him putting the stamps on any old how. ‘You’ve turned the Queen upside down! How would you like it if you had to stand on your head all day, hmm? You’d probably be sick,’ he chortled.
Freddy began to laugh too, kneeling up on his chair and twisting his body so that his head was hanging upside down. ‘Look at me,’ he squealed, chuckling even harder. ‘I’m an upside down queen!’
Gill burst out laughing, shaking her head as she glanced across at Mike and they caught one another’s eye. She knew they were thinking the same thing – how rare these moments of family togetherness were, and how she hoped there’d be many more to come. It was such an unusual occurrence to have everyone sitting down together, the room full of laughter and good humour, with no arguments or bad temper.
By the time the kids had finished, even the envelopes had been decorated, with doodles of wedding bells and bows and rudimentary brides and grooms. When Gill looked at the clock, she was astonished to find that the task had kept everyone occupied for the whole morning. It was now almost one o’clock, and as she glanced out of the window she noticed that the rain had blown itself out; the grey clouds had gone and the sky was brightening.
‘Well as you’ve all worked so hard, how about a treat for lunch? Anyone fancy Al’s Diner?’ she suggested, naming their local American-style burger bar. There was a chorus of cheers in return.
‘Can I get a hotdog?’
‘Can I get a peanut butter milkshake?’
‘Yes, yes, you can all have what you like – within reason. Now head upstairs and get changed. We can post these on the way,’ she added, nodding at the envelopes on the table.
There was a sudden stampede as everyone rushed out of the room to get ready, feet clattering up the stairs and wardrobe doors slamming.
Gill and Mike stared around their bombsite of a kitchen, the remnants of the morning’s activities scattered across the table, with pieces of lace and stray sequins on the floor, and everything covered in a fine layer of glitter.
‘Well, I think that went pretty well, don’t you?’ Gill laughed.
‘It was a genius idea.’
‘And that’s why you’re marrying me,’ Gill grinned, as she leaned in for a kiss.
25
‘In marriage, a man becomes slack and selfish, and undergoes a fatty degeneration of his moral being’ – Robert Louis Stevenson
‘Are you okay to watch Jack today?’
It was Saturday morning, and Julia had just come racing down the stairs into the living room. She was clearly in a hurry.
‘Huh?’ Nick wandered through, eating a slice of toast. ‘What time?’
‘In about an hour. I’ve just had a call from Valerie, and apparently there’s been some sort of crisis. She wants me over there asap.’
Nick shook his head. ‘No can do. It’s Jonny’s birthday, remember? He’s booked that five-a-side pitch, then we’re all off to the pub.’
‘Can’t you cancel?’
Nick frowned. ‘No. We’ve had it arranged for ages. Besides, they’ll be a man down, and you can’t have five-a-side with nine players. You’ll just have to tell Valerie you can’t go.’
‘I can’t do that, it looks so unprofessional.’
‘It’s a Saturday. She hasn’t given you any notice. She’s got to realise that you don’t just jump when she snaps her fingers.’
‘Unfortunately, Nick, yes I do. That’s the industry I’m in.’ Julia could feel her frustration growing. ‘She’s paying me a lot of money, and I need to be available to her for that.’
‘So take Jack with you.’
‘He’s not a handbag I can shove in the corner! Believe me, Valerie is really not the kind of person who is sympathetic to childcare issues.’
‘I’m sorry, but I’ve made plans and I can’t change them.’
‘I thought you wanted to spend more time with Jack,’ Julia shot back. ‘You said you were feeling left out – now’s your time to bond.’
Nick’s face fell, and Julia immediately regretted her flippant comment.
‘Oh, it’s going to be like that, is it? I open up to you, and you use it against me whenever I don’t do what suits you? Thanks, Jules, thanks a lot.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Julia apologised through gritted teeth. ‘I’m just feeling pretty stressed out right now, and I’d appreciate some help.’
