A Merry Mistletoe Wedding

by Judy Astley

  ‘Hello – are we early?’ Jimi came in through the back door carrying a bottle of wine, which he put straight into the fridge. ‘I thought white wine, assuming we’d be in the garden. I don’t know why food in the garden doesn’t suit red but I can’t get it out of my head that it just isn’t right. Is that mad?’

  ‘Probably. But I do agree. Anyway, we’re having chicken and various salads, so I think white is a top choice. But there is red as well, in case.’

  ‘Oh yes, there’s Dad. I think he’d drink red with anything. Ice cream, soup, oysters, you name it.’

  Thea laughed. ‘You’re not wrong there. Red wine and also Jack Daniel’s. Is Rosie with you?’

  ‘She is. She and Elmo are in the car having a difference of opinion over Elmo’s jeans. Rosie has told him he shouldn’t be showing the world what brand his underwear is and he is pulling a full-on teenage sulk. I’m leaving them to it and they can come in when they’ve agreed to differ. So,’ he continued, helping himself to a stick of celery, ‘good summer? You’ve got quite a tan.’

  ‘It’s been a great summer, thanks.’ She smiled ridiculously broadly. She couldn’t help herself – who knew you could be this happy?

  ‘Oh, that good, was it? Ooh-er! You’re looking great on it, whatever it is. And I think I have a good idea what “it” is.’

  ‘Stop it! But thank you. And yes, it was wonderful to spend so long with Sean without having to rush back here for work and stuff. Shame it’s over.’ She chopped at a large handful of parsley, adding, ‘For now, anyway.’

  ‘Oh? “For now” sounds interesting. Or did you just mean you’ll be back there for half-term?’

  ‘Something like that, yes. Jimi? Can I tell you something?’

  ‘Er, I dunno. Is it, you know, girl stuff? Because if it is …’ He looked quite nervous and she laughed at him.

  ‘No! Nothing serious. It’s just Mrs Over-the-Road, June, she was here a few minutes ago and said that Rich had called by, looking for me. It was definitely him because he’d got Benji with him.’

  ‘Great dog, shame about the bloke,’ Jimi said.

  ‘I don’t suppose he phoned you or Mum or anyone, did he?’ she asked, realizing immediately that it was probably a daft question. Rich had had little enough to do with them when they were together; he was hardly likely to start ringing round and asking after everyone’s well-being at this point. Unless there was something he wanted.

  ‘Me? I don’t think he ever had my number, so no. Can’t speak for Mum though. But wouldn’t she have called and told you?’

  ‘Not if he asked her not to.’

  ‘Oh, I think she would. She’d probably tell him to piss off. She always knew where her loyalties lay when it came to Rich.’

  That was true. Anna had been wary of Rich, and although when he’d left she’d been sympathetic and generous with the tissues to mop Thea’s many tears, Thea couldn’t help thinking at the time Anna was suppressing the urge to do a triumphant air-punch. The words ‘I told you he wasn’t a keeper’ remained tactfully unsaid. That must count as quite an achievement for her.

  ‘Didn’t he leave a note or anything? You didn’t miss a phone call?’

  ‘No, nothing. It was only last week apparently. I’m wondering if he’s still around.’

  ‘Would you want to see him?’

  Thea thought for a moment, standing by the sink with a pan full of potatoes ready to boil. ‘I don’t think so. There’s nothing left to say. I wouldn’t mind giving Benji a cuddle though. Of the two of them, he’s the one I miss.’

  ‘There you go then. Might as well forget about it.’

  Emily was very quiet. Thea noticed that she didn’t eat much but kept stroking her pregnancy bump and shifting about in her chair. She’d chosen the softest of the seats and she was in the shade but still looked hot and uncomfortable. It wasn’t surprising, Thea supposed. This was what nine months pregnant looked like and it seemed as if it felt a lot worse. At least the children weren’t playing up. For once, there were no arguments between them: Alfie and Milly were down on the swing quite amicably taking turns and not screaming at each other.

  ‘Are you OK, Em?’ she asked, pouring her some more water. ‘Do you want to go inside and lie on the sofa for a bit? I could bring you some pudding. It’s Eton mess.’

  ‘No thanks, Tee. I’m fine. Just a bit achy. It’s only a few days to go now. I hope you’re ready for having the children to stay on Friday?’

  ‘If it is Friday,’ Anna said. ‘Could be any minute, I’d say. You’re looking pretty twitchy.’

  ‘No, it’ll be Friday. And even if for some crazy reason it isn’t, it’s got to be after today because it’s not the first of September till tomorrow.’

  ‘What’s that got to do with it?’ Mike asked. ‘What have you got against August?’

  ‘School year,’ Sam told him. ‘Em’s determined this baby will be the oldest in its year, not the youngest. Me, I’m not bothered about that. It can come out as soon as it likes. It’s been like sleeping next to a radiator – just what you don’t need in a hot summer.’

  ‘Well, you know what you should have done at the time, don’t you?’ Jimi said, laughing. ‘But hey, it’s a bit late now.’

  ‘Jimi, shut up. Not in front of children.’ Rosie nodded her head in the direction of Elmo, who put his hands over his ears and rolled his eyes skywards. ‘Anyway,’ she went on breezily. ‘Er … this table is all very jolly and Cath Kidston, isn’t it? Does nobody have matching crockery any more?’

  ‘God, Mum,’ Elmo groaned. ‘You didn’t need to change the subject quite so thuddingly.’

  ‘I’m only saying. All these flowery cushions and the spotty tablecloth look gorgeous and festive and I love the pink and purple water glasses. But if you’d actually got married, Thea, like you were going to, you could have had proper matching plates and things too. The best thing about a wedding is the present list.’

  ‘Oh, nice one, Mum, even better,’ Elmo said, doing a sarcastic slow handclap.

  ‘Yes, well done, Rosie. One of your better efforts,’ Jimi said.

  ‘Hey, it’s OK, I don’t mind,’ Thea reassured them. ‘I couldn’t be happier, in spite of my tableware failure.’ The moment was perfect. She must tell them right now, just as soon as she’d been inside and fetched the pudding. She got up and collected the last of the finished dishes together and carried them into the kitchen, took the big bowl (a car-boot sale oddment, blue with pink spots, probably not to Rosie’s taste) out of the fridge and came back out only to find that Anna had decided it was a good moment to announce something too.

  ‘OK, all of you,’ she began once Thea had started passing the dishes of pudding along the table. ‘I know we vaguely mentioned it last year but now we’ve decided it really is time to move. The house is way too big for us, far too expensive to run and we could do with an adventure and some travel. We’ll have a bit of a look round, start thinking of what we’d like to do in the next however many years we’ve got left and when we find somewhere we like then we will sell the house.’

  Thea mentally stashed her own announcement away for later. It could wait a little bit, even though she was dying to tell them.

  ‘That’s a bit sudden, isn’t it?’ Jimi said. ‘What brought this on?’

  ‘Well, it’s not that sudden. We talked about it last year, first off. But what really brought it on was having it valued,’ Mike said, helping himself to more of the creamy goo that was rapidly turning sloshy, even though Thea had kept it in the coldest part of the fridge for the last hour. Perhaps June Over-the-Road had been right and September was going to be glorious. She’d give a lot still to be in Cornwall with Sean and felt a little stab of missing him. He should be here, right now, sitting beside her with his hand resting on her thigh and warming her through her dress.

  ‘Oh, you can’t move away!’ Emily’s voice was close to a wail. ‘What about us?’

  ‘It’s not that big a country, Emily,’ Thea said. ‘Look a
t me and Sean. We manage to see each other absolutely loads. And they might not go far away anyhow. Could be just up the road if they find the right thing.’

  ‘But they might go off to France or Ireland or something. People do, especially old hippies like them.’

  Mike laughed. ‘Not so much of the old, thank you!’

  ‘Sorry, Dad, but you’re not thirty any more, are you? And, Thea, you’re single and only have yourself to think about. You can just fling a few things in a bag, get in the car and off you go without any hassle,’ Emily told her. ‘You try organizing a load of children for a trip. Even getting them into the car is a nightmare, let alone packing and sorting for them and all that.’

  ‘Hey, calm down, Em, we haven’t gone yet. It won’t be a rush job. And of course it all hangs on someone liking it enough to part with the folding money we’re after,’ Mike told her. ‘Great pud, Thea. In fact, lovely lunch all round.’

  ‘Well, I’m glad it won’t be a rush,’ Emily said. ‘Because with a new baby and these two, I don’t want to go anywhere that isn’t my own home for absolutely years.’

  ‘Not even at Christmas?’ Thea asked, feeling nervous. She could say it now.

  ‘Christmas?’ Emily managed to stretch the word over several octaves. ‘Definitely not Christmas. Especially not Christmas! And anyway, why are you even mentioning it? It’s months away. It’s not like you. You only like last-minute talking about it.’

  This was the moment, even though Emily had already taken her spanner out of the bag and shoved it firmly in the works.

  ‘I’m talking about it now because …’ Thea began, conscious that they were now all looking at her and sensing there was something big to report. She hesitated one more second, still wondering quite how to come out with her news and rather enjoying the suspense of the moment.

  ‘Ooooooh!’ Emily gasped. ‘Oh bloody hell!’ Everyone turned to look at her and she grinned.

  ‘What is it? Emily, are you all right? Is it the baby?’ Anna got up and rushed to her.

  ‘I must apologize to Thea about this very pretty cushion I’m sitting on,’ she said. ‘It seems my waters have just broken and I’ve made it all soggy. Sorry to interrupt, Thea, but I seem to be in labour.’

  FIVE

  ‘The bag. Where’s the stuff, Sam? And the birth plan – it’s in the bag, which should be in the car boot. You did put it all in, didn’t you? I did ask? At least three times?’ Emily, who had sounded so laid-back about the waters and the cushion, had gone into instant organizing mode and was directing operations from Thea’s garden bench, waving her arms around as if she were conducting the last night at the Proms.

  ‘Everything’s in the car.’ Sam was calm and reassuring. ‘Jimi’s got the house key and he’s going to pick up the children’s overnight kit so they can stay here with Thea.’

  ‘Yes, I’ll be off there in the next half-hour,’ Jimi said. ‘Shouldn’t you be on your way, Em? Maybe go?’

  ‘Yes, do go, darling,’ Anna chivvied her. ‘Sam’s phoned the hospital and they’re ready for you.’

  ‘It’s OK. Whatever happens it can’t be born till after midnight. It just can’t.’ Emily stayed where she was, seemingly in no rush to get going. Thea tried hard to assume that after two previous babies, Emily knew what she was doing, but there were a lot of long moments in which Emily did huffy breathing and the intervals didn’t seem very far apart. Even she knew that meant something fairly momentous when it came to childbirth.

  ‘The children’s things are in another bag in the hallway,’ Emily, in one of the between-breathing breaks, told Jimi. ‘Apart from Alfie’s toy rabbit which is on his bed. He must have his rabbit.’ She turned back to Sam. ‘We should have brought everything with us this morning, not just the hospital kit. Why didn’t you just fling all their things in the boot as well as mine?’

  Sam shrugged and took another sip of the coffee that Thea had brought out for them, along with more water for Emily. ‘Because you insisted this baby wouldn’t be born till Friday. I’ve thought all the time that seemed a bit late because I’m sure it was after that drunken party in November—’

  ‘Sam, please! Nobody here needs those kind of details! Owwwww!’ Emily got up from the bench and leaned forward, gripping the edge of the table and doing slow, noisy breathing followed by a low, long groan.

  ‘Why is she mooing? It’s like the sound she made that time I saw her doing yoga out in her garden, but louder and worse,’ Elmo murmured to Thea. He looked frightened. Thea was keen for Emily to go now – she wouldn’t wish the possibility of giving birth in a lay-by beside the A4 on her or anyone. How fast could the arrival of a third baby be? You heard of people who took only half an hour and the baby was born on the kitchen floor. Perhaps this would be the day she found out what all the boiling of water, such a feature of any soap-opera birth, was for.

  ‘It’s a nature thing,’ Thea explained, giving him as much of a hug as she trusted a boy of only just sixteen could tolerate from an aunt. He didn’t squirm away. ‘You have to breathe your way through the contractions. It’s to make you relax.’

  ‘She doesn’t look relaxed.’

  Thea couldn’t argue with that. Emily, who had gone back for a refresher course of childbirth classes in the belief that something must have changed since she’d had Alfie six years before (she wasn’t about to miss out on any innovations), was now letting her mouth hang loosely open. Her head was back and her eyes were closed. Anna went to put an arm round her for support but Emily wriggled free.

  ‘Mummy?’ Milly prodded her mother’s arm. ‘You look all funny. Are you going to die?’

  ‘Definitely time to go.’ Sam – at last – discovered a sense of urgency and gave Milly a hug. ‘Be good for Thea and be nice to Alfie. We’ll call as soon as we know whether you’ve got a baby brother or a sister. Emily? Come on. You can’t have a baby on a damp lawn.’

  Emily, who was now wearing a pair of Thea’s leggings and the baggiest long top Thea could find that would fit over the baby, waved a goodbye to them all and headed for the house, leaving behind a chorus of good-luck wishes. By the time she’d reached the front door she had to stop again for another session of mooing, this time while bracing herself against the post at the bottom of the stairs.

  ‘I hope she makes it in time,’ Anna said, looking anxiously after the two of them. ‘Should you go too, Thea? Or maybe me or both of us? Suppose she ends up having it in the car?’

  ‘Sam won’t let that happen. He’s very proud of those smart leather seats,’ Mike said, chuckling.

  ‘I can’t go – I’ve got the children here for the night. Don’t worry, Mum, she’ll be fine. It’s not far.’

  Thea crossed her fingers in the hope that what she said was true. She felt excited for her sister but also tense. Although she’d watched several episodes of One Born Every Minute, she’d never actually seen anyone in labour in real life before and had been startled at how earthy Emily had suddenly become once nature took over during those contractions. Emily, who was normally quite prim and controlled, had turned positively animal. Thea felt a surge of hope and delight about the idea that one day she and Sean might have a baby of their own. They hadn’t talked about it yet but she remembered that time on the beach last Christmas, before they’d properly got together, when he’d said that he’d like some children one day. Would he cope with seeing her like that? It didn’t seem to bother Sam in the slightest; he’d been more concerned with borrowing a towel for his car seats.

  Just before she, Elmo and Jimi left, Rosie helped Thea take the last of the dishes into the kitchen and loaded them into the dishwasher. ‘I see Emily’s managed to make this afternoon all about her, as usual,’ she said. ‘I mean, I don’t want to be horrid about your sister but she is always a bit of a drama queen.’

  ‘Well, she could hardly help the timing,’ Thea said, resisting the urge to take over with the cutlery; she hated the knives being loaded blade-side up. She had visions of someone accidenta
lly tripping and landing on one. Maybe she wasn’t so unlike Emily after all.

  ‘No. Well, that’s true, I suppose. But whatever your news was going to be just faded into the background after the soggy-cushion event. I’m dying to know what it is. Is it hats or knitting?’

  Thea laughed, trying to work out what she meant. ‘Hats or knitting? Knitted hats?’

  Rosie plonked a saucepan into the dishwasher. ‘Oh, you know what I mean.’ She stopped and had a quick look over her shoulder to check for anyone who’d overhear, then went on in a dramatic half-whisper, ‘Is it something to congratulate you for? Hats for a wedding, knitting for a baby … Or …’ She stopped suddenly. ‘Sorry. Oh God, I’m being really tactless, aren’t I? Suppose it’s neither but you wanted both? Maybe you’ve been promoted to head teacher, or you were going to say you’ve won the lottery or something. Sorry, Thea, just delete everything I’ve said. I’m an idiot.’ Rosie flapped a tea towel to cool her reddening face, and Thea was very tempted just to blurt out the wedding plans to her but managed not to. If she couldn’t tell the whole family all at once then she really wanted her parents to know first and Rosie, as she’d just proved, was something of a blurter. She would never keep it in till Thea found the right moment for the rest of them. It would have to wait. Besides, with Emily having the baby, they’d all got plenty to think about. She and Sean would tell them together – he’d said he hoped to be up to visit her at the weekend.

  ‘Rosie, really you haven’t said anything idiotic, not even close. And what I was going to say, well, it can keep for another day.’ She went to the fridge and took out a can of Coke. ‘Here – go and give this to Elmo. He was looking a bit shell-shocked about Emily mooing. I expect he could do with something to cool him down.’

  Rosie laughed. ‘OK. Though I have to say it isn’t such a bad thing for him to see. Now he’s coming up to the age of … well, possibly getting it on with a girl, or at least considering it possible, perhaps he’ll remember Emily going into labour and it’ll make him think twice about taking daft risks. I’ve already bulk-bought condoms in case. Jimi says it’ll only encourage him but I remember teen boys. They don’t need encouragement – their hormones do that for them. They just need practical solutions.’