Mum in the Middle

by Jane Wenham-Jones

  Ingrid gave me a sudden smile and her face changed completely. It instantly reminded me of the way David lit up. She was still very attractive, with her good skin and lively eyes and she must once have been really beautiful. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve got a whisky?’

  Rob appeared in the doorway as I was tipping us both generous measures, following my hand with a look I remembered well.

  ‘I thought we’d go out to dinner,’ he said heavily. ‘Is there somewhere you particularly like? I’ll make a booking …’

  I frowned, irritated. ‘I don’t know. I can’t think at the moment – ask Tilly.’

  Ingrid looked at him. ‘There’s a new French place – La Reine – opened behind the Co-op,’ she said coolly. ‘People say it’s good.’

  She turned to me. ‘Did you enjoy the gallery opening?’ she asked. Her expression was unreadable, but something in her tone made me wonder if she disapproved of David taking me out.

  ‘Yes, it was lovely,’ I said smiling.

  Ingrid didn’t smile back. ‘Not really my sort of thing.’

  When Rob had retreated back into the other room, and I’d distributed mugs, signalling to Tilly to leave us in peace, I sat on a stool, enjoying the glow as the alcohol hit the back of my throat.

  ‘What a day,’ I said to Ingrid, trying to fill the silence. She nodded.

  ‘I’ll wash the jumper and get it back to you,’ I said.

  ‘There’s no need. As I said, it lives in the car.’

  ‘I’m sorry we were interrupted just then,’ I tried. ‘I had no idea Rob was turning up today.’

  Ingrid looked back at me, eyebrows raised. ‘I’ve never clapped eyes on my ex-husband since the day he left.’

  Lucky old Ingrid! I’d forgotten the all-pervading nature of Rob’s presence. I’d reluctantly made up the sofa bed in the conservatory and he’d disappeared to survey it but I could feel his vibes from here.

  I’d refused to go out. My mother was exhausted and it was obvious she needed to stay another night. Gerald went off to buy a toothbrush and I found him a t-shirt of Ben’s and some jogging bottoms.

  ‘I’ll do spaghetti,’ I told Tilly crossly. ‘You can lay the table and then get back in here and tell me what’s really going on. And why the hell you didn’t ask me!’

  ‘I did try to phone,’ said Tilly, pulling forks out of the drawer.

  ‘You didn’t leave a message.’ I countered. ‘Because you knew damn well I’d say no.’

  ‘And I just sort of mentioned it to Daddy, and he sort of jumped at it.’ She busied herself clanking spoons. ‘I don’t think he wanted to spend the whole weekend in the hotel …’

  ‘Hotel?’ Before I could grill her, the doorbell rang and she shot away.

  ‘Hey!’ She sounded jubilant. ‘Fancy going to the Fox?’

  Gabriel came through to the kitchen and hugged me. ‘Am so glad your mum’s safe,’ he said. ‘Grace told us Ingrid had brought her home.’

  ‘Oh God, I’m sorry – I should’ve let you know, it’s been all go–’

  ‘No worries. What happened?’

  By the time I’d told the tale, Tilly had her jacket and shoes on. ‘What about food?’ I said, as she swung her handbag over her shoulder.

  ‘I’ll get something out.’

  ‘Are you able to come for a drink later?’ Gabriel looked at me sympathetically. ‘I expect you can do with one after all that.’

  ‘She’s got Granny here – and my father!’

  ‘A veritable houseful,’ I said, pulling a face to Gabriel to indicate it had not been my doing.

  Tilly had an arm through his. ‘See you later!’

  I was going to have serious words with my daughter, I fumed. Dumping her father on me and now waltzing off and leaving me stuck with him. Why wasn’t she working? I was going to tell Rob in no uncertain terms that he needed to have a stern word with her about responsibility. If she’d chucked that job in and expected me to bail her out, she could think again.

  But Rob got to me first. After we’d had supper, during which, I had to grudgingly admit, he was charming to my mother and kept up a stream of chat with Gerald about the implications of EU fishing rights in a post-Brexit world, which sounded exceptionally tedious but in which Gerald appeared enthralled, and I had cleared up and said good night to my mother (who was still apologising), and Gerald (who now looked as if he could sleep for three days), my ex-husband poured us both another glass of the red wine he had at least had the decency to go out and buy and announced he had something to say.

  I sat down on the sofa opposite him, noticing he had commandeered the big chair and was sitting in it as if he owned the place, and wondered what was coming.

  ‘We have to talk about Tilly,’ he said importantly.

  ‘I know,’ I said shortly. ‘She’s not happy in her flat and wants to give up her job. I was hoping you’d speak to her.’ I took a mouthful of wine. ‘This is good. I like Fleurie.’

  Rob looked at me as if I were a child who’d interrupted the teacher. ‘Did you also know I’ve just paid off her credit card again?’

  Again?

  ‘Er no,’ I said. ‘I didn’t know that.’ I waited. Rob breathed heavily and flared both nostrils in the way he always did when about to express his disapproval. I felt a giggle rise inside me and shoved it down hard, arranging my features into a display of equal censure. ‘But she always has had champagne tastes and beer money …’

  ‘It’s not funny,’ said Rob tightly. ‘She’s got to learn to budget and live within her means.’

  ‘Yes, she has. I’ve told her that too. I’m not laughing at the debt, I’m not really. I just …’ I stopped, knowing Rob would not share my hilarity at the workings of his nasal passages. ‘I feel slightly hysterical from the shock,’ I offered. ‘How much was it?’

  ‘Three thousand pounds.’

  I felt my jaw plummet. ‘Three grand?’ I squawked, my horror genuine now. ‘What had she spent all that on?’

  Rob raised his eyebrows. ‘Living, she said. It was two last time.’

  ‘But how could she? Especially for a second time. Didn’t you make her promise? Cut up her card? She can’t just be allowed to–’

  Rob glared. ‘Of course I did!’

  ‘Well, she obviously didn’t take much notice!’ I shook my head in frustration. ‘Because she knows you’ll bail her out. Like you did when she was at drama school. I keep telling her she needs to go to work. She took far too much time off over Easter and then I suppose she couldn’t pay the rent. I really thought YOU’D be the one to come down on her like a ton of bricks. You can’t just keep–’

  ‘Don’t blame me!’ Rob’s voice rose. ‘This isn’t my fault, Tessa.’

  I recognised the tone. ‘Are you saying it’s mine?’

  Rob gave a martyred sigh. ‘You do rather favour the boys–’

  ‘What?’ I swallowed another large mouthful of wine and tried not to spit it all over him. ‘How can you say that? I treat them all exactly the same.’

  Rob gave an infuriating, patronising smile and took another sip from his own glass. ‘The problems arising from being the middle child is a well-documented phenomenon,’ he intoned, while I slumped back and gawped. ‘She feels she’s never had as much attention or praise as her brothers.’

  ‘Did she say that?’ My annoyance deepened. Tilly had always been able to wind Rob around her little finger, but this was pure manipulation.

  ‘Not in so many words, but it’s clear where the root of the trouble lies–’

  ‘It’s not “trouble”,’ I snapped back. ‘Lots of young people on low incomes run up credit card debt trying to pay the bills. I’m not happy about it, but don’t you tell me–’

  ‘She feels she’s failed,’ Rob persisted. ‘She wants to be an actress and instead she’s serving up chips.’ His face showed he didn’t think much of it either. ‘And you spend a lot of time saying how proud you are of Oliver and she feels–

  ‘I’m proud of ALL
of them,’ I said hotly. ‘And Oliver does work hard. Remember when he was a Christmas postman? He was up at–’

  ‘And Ben upsets her with his personal comments.’

  ‘Oh Rob, for God’s sake.’ I sloshed some more wine into my glass, grinding my teeth. ‘She and Ben have always wound each other up. She has plenty to say to him too.’

  ‘And–’ noting his pointed expression, I leant over and gave Rob a refill too – ‘they are adults …’

  Rob looked sceptical. Clearly Tilly had been laying it on with a trowel.

  ‘And I don’t think my sister helps, with her endless beauty advice …’ my one-time husband continued stuffily. ‘She increases our daughter’s inferiority complex.’

  ‘What?’ I was almost choking now. ‘Caroline adores Tilly and she gives us all beauty tips. Tilly looked pretty pleased to me with the handfuls of freebies Caroline brought down …’

  ‘The fact is she feels in everybody’s shadow. She’s not academic like Oliver, or musical like Ben and let’s face it, she was always a bit gawky, wasn’t she? She was the tallest in her class.’

  ‘So what?’

  Rob looked at me once more as if I were particularly thick. ‘That’s difficult for a girl. You take it for granted – being pretty and small-boned. She told me she feels she lumbers about like an elephant next to you and Caroline. We should be trying to boost her self-esteem.’

  I was stunned into silence, not knowing which was more startling. Rob’s unlikely transformation into an expert on the female psyche or him paying me the first compliment I could remember in twenty-five years. Pretty and small-boned? I gave my thigh a surreptitious pinch, both to see if it had miraculously become lean and honed, and to check I wasn’t dreaming.

  He was still talking. Holding forth about how loving and caring Tilly was and how all he wanted was to see her settled and that he was convinced her overspending was a cry for help.

  ‘Or it could be,’ I put in, still needled by the way all my daughter’s apparent, hitherto unchartered, areas of dysfunction were being laid at my door, ‘simply the result of taking too much time off and having no cash.’

  As I said it, I felt a small stab of remorse. Perhaps it had been horrible for Tilly to be in a flat with someone she no longer got on with, doing a job that wasn’t at all what she wanted. Perhaps I hadn’t listened enough, or shown enough understanding. Been too caught up with moving and work, and new friends and Fran and my mother, and that fucking Facebook page …

  ‘And she’s been so supportive to me …’ Rob was saying.

  I snapped back to the issue in front of me. ‘What are you doing here? Tilly said something about a hotel–’

  Rob drank some wine without meeting my eyes. ‘It’s nothing. Only for a few days …’

  ‘Has Fiona thrown you out?’

  Now he shot me a look of irritation. ‘We’ve agreed to have a short time apart.’

  ‘Oh?’ I raised my eyebrows.

  ‘She’s been in charge of a difficult project at work and there’ve been problems with the neighbours. We were going to be moving and then the offer on the house fell through. She’s upset, that’s all.’

  There was a small silence. ‘The stress has affected our relationship,’ he finished stiffly.

  I nodded, struggling once more to keep a straight face. There was something surreal about sitting opposite Rob, here, in my own house, discussing his domestics.

  ‘Well, I hope it can be resolved,’ I said nicely.

  ‘She thinks I’m controlling,’ he added in a sudden confessional burst.

  I pressed my lips together and attempted to fix my look of polite concern. From the little I had gleaned about my ex-husband’s new partner, she sounded terrifyingly in charge herself. Tilly had reported that the house was like a show home, with everything speck-free and folded to precision. Fiona had an Excel spreadsheet for her shopping list, used towels in strict rotation and was a devotee of leaf shine. She and Rob had always seemed a match made in heaven.

  Rob was looking pained. ‘We had a rather regrettable row over some book cataloguing.’ There was a tiny pause. ‘She was tired,’ he finished.

  ‘Oh dear,’ I said, having a sudden flashback to one of Rob’s seminars on the correct way to stack a dishwasher, and feeling a small frisson of sympathy for Fiona.

  ‘Got almost aggressive,’ he said with forced jollity.

  I nodded. ‘So you’ll be going back to the hotel tomorrow, then,’ I said firmly.

  ‘I think Tilly thought Sunday,’ Rob said casually. ‘I said I’d buy her an outfit for her interview and I thought we could both spend some time with her, boosting her confidence …’

  A pang went through me. ‘I didn’t know she had an interview.’

  ‘I thought a friend of yours arranged it.’

  It was fair enough, I thought, as I boiled the water for some calming herbal tea and Rob opened another bottle of wine. If Tilly had seen her father and he’d been helping her out financially, it was only natural he should hear her news first. I tried not to mind. But I couldn’t help thinking it would have been nice if she’d sent me a short text – just to say the friend of David’s with the theatre company wanted to meet her – even if it was Rob she went to with her overdraft.

  But I wouldn’t make a thing of it – I was not going to give Rob the satisfaction of seeing that Tilly had wound me up, as she was so adept at doing.

  After all, perhaps she simply wanted to tell me in person – as it had indeed been my new friend who’d brought it about – here I reflected fondly on David’s dark curls and crinkly eyes and thought how good it would be if he could meet me this Sunday, and with the wine sloshing about my veins and clearly lowering my inhibitions, I even allowed myself a small vision of him coming back for coffee in my-then empty-again house and kissing me for rather longer than the previous peck. Of my suggesting we made ourselves comfortable on the sofa and then him leaning towards me, and saying …

  ‘Have you thought about double glazing?’ Rob was in the kitchen doorway, handing me another glass. ‘You’ve got quite a draught coming in that front bay.’

  Chapter 22

  I also, it transpired, had a leaky tap in the downstairs loo as well as the flushing problem (Aaron still hadn’t shown), dodgy-looking electrics in the conservatory, some rendering to be patched up on the external back wall and guttering that needed attention.

  By the time I was preparing to wave off my mother the next morning, I was cursing myself for not being assertive. His voice was drilling through the slight headache I had, and my nerves rattled with exasperation.

  It had been a long evening, with Rob increasingly repetitive and maudlin as he’d climbed his way down the red wine, alternating as his top choices of sparkling conversation between what I should to do my house with what had gone wrong with him and Fiona.

  I had drunk too much myself, as my dry mouth and thumping head had reminded me this morning when I’d been woken at 4 a.m. by the sound of my mother wandering the landing and Gerald gently, and at some length, persuading her back to bed.

  I looked at the thinning hair on the back of ex-husband’s head as he followed Gerald outside with the bags. How the hell had I been talked into him staying another night?

  ‘He’s only trying to be helpful,’ said Tilly defensively, after his latest observation about the state of the paintwork. ‘Don’t be so horrible.’

  I was saved answering by my mother coming down the stairs. ‘I do hope I haven’t left anything behind,’ she said. ‘I have to keep checking where my handbag is …’

  ‘I’ll check your room, Granny.’ My daughter bounded up the stairs and my mother looked at me sadly. ‘I’m sorry for all the worry I’ve caused.’

  ‘It’s fine, Mum.’ I gave her a bright smile. Gerald looked tired this morning. I hoped he’d manage.

  Tilly reappeared. ‘There’s nothing there or in the bathroom.’

  My mother smiled. ‘Thank you, lovey. Now where’s that
man gone?’

  ‘I’ll tell him you’re ready.’ Tilly ran fingers through her unbrushed hair and went out of the front door.

  ‘There’s no need to come to this doctor’s with me,’ my mother said. ‘Gerald will take me. You’re too busy.’

  ‘I want to support you,’ I told her. I need to know what we can expect and how soon … ‘I want to hear what he has to say …’

  ‘Well, we’ll see.’ My mother looked anxiously around the room. ‘We don’t want to go mob-handed …’

  ‘Let me know when you get the date through.’

  We stood awkwardly for a moment until the others came back in. ‘David’s over the road …’ said Tilly.

  My solar plexus gave a jolt. ‘Oh! Is he coming in?’

  ‘Dunno. He’s talking to Jinni. I waved but I didn’t want to go over like this.’ My daughter indicated the pyjama bottoms she was still wearing beneath one of Ben’s sweatshirts and laughed. ‘And she’s probably having a go at him …’

  ‘We should get going.’ My mother had her hand on Gerald’s arm. We all trooped outside. David’s empty car was still parked opposite. There was no sign of Jinni.

  Eventually they were gone, amid a last minute flurry over imagined forgotten items and assertions from Gerald that he would look after her. I waved with relief and unease.

  Then I hurried back into the house, not wanting to be seen staring at the empty vehicle, thinking pain-killers and strong coffee.

  Was David in there with Jinni? She clearly hadn’t been so quick to tell him to sling his hook this time …

  ‘Just what I need too!’ said Rob, as I rinsed out the cafetière.

  ‘Ask Tilly to get some more milk, then …’ I held up the last quarter inch in the bottom of the carton.

  ‘Why don’t you keep more in the freezer?’ said Tilly, appearing in the doorway. ‘Like you used to?’

  ‘I do,’ I said shortly. ‘One of you got it out and didn’t replace it.’ I glared at her. ‘I don’t even drink the bloody stuff!’

  Rob frowned. ‘Go on, Tilly.’

  She changed and went immediately, since Rob had asked, and came back some time later with biscuits and Hello magazine and the news that Jinni was going away for two days.