by Sandie Jones
‘Not at all,’ I replied, embarrassed by the boys’ concerned looks. ‘I’m just—’
‘You said you’d be hungry, though, didn’t you?’ she went on. ‘You said you’d be wanting tea when you got here?’
I nodded mutely. This isn’t tea from where I come from.
‘You feeling okay, Em?’ Adam asked.
‘Ah, young love,’ chirped Pammie. ‘I remember when my Jim used to fuss over me.’
‘Mum’s gone to a lot of trouble,’ said Adam quietly.
‘I’m fine, and it’s lovely, honestly – I’m just taking a break,’ I said, head down.
‘But Em, you’ve hardly touched it,’ she went on. The ‘Em’ seemed to sound sarcastic, like a taunting child in a playground.
I looked at her then, square in the eyes, careful to keep my features soft. She returned my stare, but I could have sworn there was almost a glint of smug satisfaction.
‘So, how’s things in the recruitment business?’ James asked me brightly.
Another tick. Adam’s certainly made himself busy.
‘I’m sure Emily doesn’t want to talk about work.’ Pammie laughed.
‘Sorry, I . . .’ he faltered.
‘I don’t mind,’ I said honestly. Anything to distract me from what was on my plate. ‘It’s still pretty strong in the sectors I work in, though the ever-present threat of online recruiting is snapping at our heels.’
He nodded. ‘And I guess the IT industry is hotter than ever?’ he said, patting Adam on the shoulder. ‘If anything this fella says is to go by.’
‘Ah, has he been bigging himself up again?’ I said, laughing. ‘The hot-shot IT executive.’
‘Something like that,’ James said, smiling.
‘I keep telling him that it’s old hat,’ I joked. ‘This tech thing will never last.’
I looked at Adam and he offered a smile, but it didn’t reach his eyes.
James laughed and I felt I should look at him, but I could feel his eyes on me and didn’t know where to direct my gaze.
‘Maybe I should get my welly boots on and start shovelling manure with you, bro,’ said Adam, returning what I now saw as a patronizing pat of James’s shoulder. Funny, it hadn’t looked like that when James did it to Adam. I chastised myself for encouraging sibling rivalry; having a brother myself, I should know better.
James toyed with an errant sprout with his fork.
‘So, do you live locally?’ I asked, desperate to dispel the atmosphere that had flooded the room.
He nodded. ‘I’ve got a casual agreement with a guy a few villages away. He lets me a lodge on his estate in return for keeping the gardens neat and tidy.’
‘Trouble is, it’s this lass’s father,’ added Pammie.
I pulled a face and looked at him. ‘Ah, I see.’
‘It’s complicated,’ he said, as if to justify himself. ‘Another fine mess I’ve got myself into.’
I smiled. ‘So, how’s the horticultural business? Keeping you busy?’ I didn’t think it was my place to make conversation, but both Pammie and Adam were on mute, preferring instead to devour their dinner.
‘I love what I do,’ he said, with real conviction. ‘And, as people who love what they do often say, it’s a vocation, not a job.’
‘Ah, I used to say that when I was working in a shoe shop,’ I said. ‘All those poor feet needing help and assistance. I would have done it for nothing, such was my passion.’
His face broke into a wide grin, his gentle eyes not leaving mine. ‘You’re one of life’s true warriors. I thank you from the bottom of my heart.’ He held a hand to his chest and, for a moment, it felt like we were the only people there. The sound of Pammie and Adam’s knives and forks scraping their plates clean brought me back into the room.
‘Excuse me for a second,’ I said, rising from the table and pushing my chair back.
I’d eaten all I could manage, and my body was beginning to fight back, my intestines gripping and twisting. I didn’t know whether I was more panicked by that or the unsettled feeling that James had created in me. I was sure no one else had noticed, so did that mean I’d imagined it? I sincerely hoped so.
Once we’d cleared the table and tidied away in the kitchen, I waited until Pammie and James were out of earshot before leaning into Adam.
‘Do you fancy a walk?’ I asked him quietly.
‘Sure,’ he said. ‘I’ll get my coat.’
‘Where are you off to?’ Pammie asked Adam in the hall. ‘You’re not heading off, are you?’ There was panic in her voice. ‘I thought you were staying.’
‘We are, Mum. We’re just going for a stroll, to work off that delicious dinner.’
‘We?’ she asked. ‘What, you mean Emily’s staying as well?’
‘Of course. We’ll stay for the night and go home tomorrow after breakfast.’
‘Well, where is she going to sleep?’ her voice was quieter now.
‘With me,’ he declared.
‘Oh, I don’t think so, son. Young James is here as well. There’s not enough room.’
‘Well then, James can sleep on the sofa, and Emily and I will take the spare bedroom.’
‘You can’t be sleeping together in this house,’ she said, her voice wobbling. ‘That’s not right. It’s disrespectful.’
Adam laughed nervously. ‘Mum, I’m twenty-nine years old. It’s not like we’re teenagers.’
‘I don’t care how old you are. You’re not sleeping together under my roof. It wouldn’t be right. Anyways, Emily said she was staying in a hotel tonight.’
What? It was a good job I was still in the kitchen as it took all my resolve not to shove the tea towel in my mouth and bite down on it. At what point did I say I was staying in a hotel?
‘Emily was never going to go to a hotel, Mum,’ Adam said. ‘That wouldn’t make sense.’
‘Well, that’s what she told me on the phone,’ she said indignantly. ‘If she’s going to stay here, she can sleep on the sofa. You and James can sleep in the spare room.’
‘But Mum . . .’ started Adam. I walked into the hall to see her hand in the air, her palm just a few centimetres away from his face.
‘There are no buts. That’s the way it’s going to be, whether you like it or not. If you loved me and respected me, you wouldn’t have even asked.’ The tears began to flow then, slowly and quietly at first, but when Adam didn’t go to her, the sobs became louder. I stood there dumbfounded, silently willing him to stand strong. When her shoulders started to heave, Adam took hold of her and held her to him. ‘Ssh, it’s okay, Mum. Sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you. That’s fine. Of course it is.’
‘I never said—’ I started, before Adam’s eyes told me to stop.
‘Whatever you’d like us to do,’ he said soothingly, rocking her back and forth like a baby.
He looked at me and shrugged his shoulders apologetically, as if to say, ‘what more can I do?’ I turned away from him as he went up the stairs.
There was the tiniest frisson of anger bubbling up inside me and, if I hadn’t had too much to drink, I most probably would have left and driven home. Had I known that James would be here, and that I’d be expected to sleep on an old sofa, I would have stayed with my parents. I wanted to be with Adam, and I thought he wanted to be with me, but here I was, having to pander to his Mum’s needy behaviour and defend myself.
‘You don’t mind, do you?’ Pammie asked, a little brighter now, as she fetched a duvet and pillow down from upstairs.
I fixed a smile on my face and shook my head nonchalantly.
‘It’s just that there have to be boundaries. In our day, we wouldn’t think about getting into bed with anyone before getting married. I know it’s different now, but that doesn’t mean I have to agree with it. I don’t know how you young people do it, just sleeping with anyone that takes your fancy. It’s such a worry for me and my boys. Next thing we know, we’ll have some tart turning up claiming to be pregnant with their child.’
Was she talking about me? I took a couple of deep breaths and exhaled just a little too loudly. It wasn’t quite a sigh, but there was enough for her to pick up on.
‘Oh goodness,’ she went on. ‘I’m not saying you’d do something like that, but we can’t take our chances, can we? And if it’s not pregnancy we have to worry about, it’s catching a disease.’
Why was she using the term ‘we’ instead of ‘he’?
‘Here, let me get that,’ said James, coming in and taking the two corners of the duvet cover that I was reluctantly holding up for his mother. He shook the cover down.
‘I’m sorry, and it’s lovely to have you here, but had I known you were staying . . .’ Pammie was still going on.
‘Mum, why don’t you go and get a sheet from the airing cupboard?’ said James. ‘We can lay it on the sofa.’
I watched her as she left the room, and then turned to look at James. It was taking all my willpower not to blow my cheeks out in exasperation.
‘Sorry,’ he said. I obviously wasn’t hiding my feelings very well. ‘She’s just old-fashioned.’
I smiled, grateful for his acknowledgement.
‘You can sleep in my bed if you like.’
It was an innocent comment, but it made my cheeks colour all the same. I plumped up a pillow that didn’t need plumping.
‘I’ll bed down here with Adam,’ he continued. ‘It’s not the most romantic Boxing night for you two, I know, but I’m afraid it’s the best I can offer.’
‘I appreciate it,’ I said genuinely, ‘but it’s fine, really it is.’ I looked at the lumpy, uneven cushions on the sofa. ‘I’ve slept in worse places.’
James raised his eyebrows and smiled, displaying a dimple I hadn’t noticed before. ‘I’ll take your word for that.’
I suddenly realized how my comment could be misconstrued. ‘I mean, when I used to go camping with my family,’ I said. ‘We used to go to this place in Cornwall, which to an eight-year-old was like something out of an Enid Blyton novel. The babbling brook, the cows that used to sit down if it was going to rain, the boulders we had to find to hold the tent down, the gnats that were friends with the fairies . . .’
He was looking at me as if I was mad. ‘I used to read a lot of books and write a lot of stories as a child,’ I said apologetically.
‘That’s nothing,’ he said, as if in competition. ‘When I was younger, I battled monster pterodactyls and woolly mammoths . . .’
‘Ah, you were a reader too,’ I said.
‘I was nine, what can I say?’ he said defensively.
We both laughed. ‘It sounds like we both had overactive imaginations,’ I said. ‘I sometimes wish I was that age again – life was a lot simpler. Now, you’d have to pay me to sleep in a field with a noisy stream, dirty cows, uncomfortable rocks, and biting flies!’
‘So now this old sofa is looking strangely appealing, eh?’ he said. I smiled.
‘Where are you two lovebirds going to head to then?’ asked Pammie, as she came back into the room, busily unfolding a sheet.
‘Emily’s very nice,’ said James, ‘but she’s my brother’s girlfriend, so I’m not sure what you’re implying and what that says about me.’ He laughed heartily.
‘Oh, my goodness,’ Pammie shrieked. ‘I thought you were Adam!’ She turned to me. ‘They look so alike – they always have done. Like peas in a pod.’
I kept my smile painted on.
‘There’s a lovely pub about a mile or so down the road,’ she said. ‘If I remember rightly, they’ve got a few rooms there too. They’ll probably be all booked up, what with it being Boxing night and all, but it might be worth asking, seeing as you said—’
‘You ready?’ called out Adam as he came down the stairs, hat and gloves in his hand.
I was too dumbfounded to respond immediately, so Pammie did it on my behalf. It seemed she was good at that.
‘Yes, she’s here. You two go and have a lovely walk. I’ll make a fresh brew for when you’re back.’
I wrapped my scarf tightly around me, covering my mouth just in case the words I was thinking came tumbling out.
‘Sorry about that,’ Adam said, grabbing my hand as we made our way down the dimly lit lane.
Relief flooded through me. So I wasn’t going mad. He’d noticed it too.
‘I know it’s not ideal, but it is her house,’ he went on.
I stopped stock-still in the middle of the road and turned to face him. ‘That’s all you’re apologizing for?’ I asked.
‘What? I know it’s a pain, but it’s only for one night, and we’ll get up and go early tomorrow. I want to get you back to my place.’ He came towards me, and his lips brushed mine, but I stiffened and turned my head away.
‘What’s wrong with you?’ he said, his tone changing.
‘You don’t get it, do you?’ I said, louder than I’d intended. ‘You’re completely blind to it.’
‘What are you talking about? Blind to what?’
I tutted and almost laughed. ‘You go around in your cosy little world, not letting anything bother you, but guess what? Life’s not like that. And all the time you’ve got your head stuck in a little hole, shutting all the sound out, I’m out here taking all the shit.’
‘Is this for real?’ he asked, about to turn back to the house.
‘Can you not see what’s going on here?’ I cried. ‘What she’s trying to do?’
‘Who? What?’
‘I told your mother that I’d have a little tea and she’s forced a full Christmas dinner on me, and I also told her that I’d be staying over, and she assured me that was all right. I would never have come had I known . . .’
‘Had you known what?’ he asked, his nostrils flaring ever so slightly. ‘In our house, tea means dinner. And are you absolutely sure she agreed to letting you stay with me? Because she’s only allowed one girl to do that, and we’d been together for two years. We’ve only been together, what? Two months?’
His words felt like a physical blow to my chest. ‘It’s three, actually,’ I snapped.
He flung his arms in the air and, exasperated, turned around to walk back up the lane.
Had she asked me if I was staying? Had I told her I was? I know I definitely didn’t tell her I would be staying in a hotel, but could she have assumed that was what I meant? I couldn’t think straight anymore.
Adam was still walking away, and I rolled fast-forward in my mind to see him crashing back into Pammie’s house with little me trailing behind him twenty seconds later. I couldn’t let that happen.
I cried then, real tears of frustration. God, listen to me. What was I doing? Making a defenceless old woman out to be some kind of maternal monster. It was crazy. I was crazy.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said, and he stopped, turned around and walked back towards where I stood, a snivelling mess in the middle of the road.
‘What’s wrong, Em?’ He put his arms around me, pulling me towards him. I could feel the warmth of his breath on the top of my head as my chest heaved up and down.
‘It’s fine. I’m fine,’ I said half-heartedly. ‘I don’t know where that came from.’
‘You worried about going back to work?’ he asked gently.
I nodded. ‘Yeah, I think the stress must be getting to me,’ I lied.
I wanted to tell him what had really upset me. I didn’t want there to be any secrets between us, but what was I supposed to say? ‘I think there’s a chance your mother could be a vindictive witch?’ It sounded ridiculous, and what proof did I have to back the theory up? Her selective memory and a penchant for over-feeding people? No, any opinion I had on his mother, that she was deranged or otherwise, would have to remain unsaid for the time being.
8
I’d intended to stay out of Pammie’s way for a while, just to give me time to calm down and re-evaluate her odd behaviour. After all, I was sure that was all it was, just a mother looking out for her son. If I stayed on that line of thought, I could begin to und
erstand it. But three weeks after Christmas, two days before my birthday, she called Adam to ask if she could take us both out to celebrate.
I tried everything to get out of it, but I was beginning to run out of excuses. ‘I’ve got to arrange something with Pippa and Seb,’ I told Adam. ‘And the office said they wanted to take me out.’
‘You can go out with them anytime,’ Adam said sternly. ‘Mum wants to treat us.’
‘Treating us’ meant going to a restaurant of her choice, in her home town – Sevenoaks. So even though it was my birthday, we were still having to do things on her terms.
‘Oh, Emily, it’s so lovely to see you,’ she gushed as she reached the table where we’d been waiting for her for over twenty minutes. Her eyes travelled up and down, as if sizing me up. ‘You look . . . well.’
She was sweetness and light whilst we ate our starter, and I was beginning to relax, but then she asked what Adam had got me for my birthday. I looked across the table at him, and he nodded, as if giving me permission to tell her.
‘Well, he’s taking me to Scotland,’ I said excitedly. I watched her face flicker between confusion and displeasure. Her mouth formed an ‘O’, but no sound came out.
‘I’ve not been up there for years,’ said Adam.
‘And I’ve never been,’ I said, chipping in.
‘W-well . . . when will you be going?’ she stuttered.
‘Tomorrow!’ we both exclaimed.
She looked like somebody had pushed her, as she slumped back into the chair, the air sucked out of her.
‘Are you all right, Mum?’ Adam asked. ‘You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’
Pammie shook herself, and it took her a few seconds to find her voice. ‘So, where will you stay?’ she asked eventually.
‘I’ve booked a really nice hotel for a couple of nights,’ said Adam. ‘Auntie Linda said we could stay with her, but I didn’t want to impose.’
I felt ridiculously triumphant. ‘Auntie Linda said we could stay with her,’ I repeated in a sing-song voice in my head. ‘So there.’ I lambasted myself for being so immature.
‘Oh, well, I’m shocked,’ she said. ‘I had no idea.’
I wondered why she thought she should.
