by Carmen Reid
'Can I make one suggestion?'
He nodded.
'Please don't wear that T-shirt when you go with her to meet the family.'
'Oh yeah ... right.'
'Porn star!' He even had one top he'd worn round for Sunday lunch, quite blissfully unaware, emblazoned 'Masturbation is not a crime.'
'Do you really need to get married?' she asked. Marriage seemed far too complicated an arrangement for them both to rush into. 'Wouldn't it be better to try living together with the baby first?' she asked.
'We want to get married, Mum. Give it our best shot.'
She had to admire their enthusiasm . . . blind optimism: 'When?' she asked.
'Before the baby gets here. Deepa wants to go for June. The local church, hotel with a big garden. She wants the white dress, veil, wedding car – the lot. Bump and all!'
'And what do you think about that?' Eve wondered.
'Well, it's not really my style. But if that's what she wants . . . And she flunks it will bring her parents round ... so ... it's cool.'
'Hmmm. D'you want some tea?' she asked.
'Have you got cakes?' Even in a crisis, Tom could eat cakes.
'Yes. I have cakes. Joseph's getting married too,' she told him, trying to sound ultra casual.
'Oh yeah? Who to?'
'His girlfriend, Michelle.'
'Wedding frenzy then.' And that was all he seemed to want to say about it, which surprised her.
At the back door, as she stopped to kick off her muddy boots, he added: 'There's something else too...'
She turned to face him, foot dangling mid-air, and when he saw the hole in the toe of her sock Tom felt a stab of sympathy for his mother and wondered if he really had the right to put her through this.
'Yes?'
'I want to invite my dad... you know, Dennis, to the wedding. And maybe his family too, if they'll come.'
Eve carried on taking off her boots.
'I see,' she said finally. 'Well, you can't really expect me to be thrilled at the prospect of that.'
'No.'
She was beginning to wonder what she was going to be hit with next. Anna exposed as a playground drug dealer? Robbie offered chairmanship of Lego?
Dennis. Tom wanted to invite Dennis to the wedding ... as simple as that. Dennis, the dad who had walked out on her and Denny and Tom about sixteen years ago now. They had, of course, seen him since then. He'd had to get back in touch for the divorce. Then followed erratic cheques and even more erratic visits, when he breezed into the country, phoned from his all-expenses-paid Trusthouse Forte suites and chaperoned his dazed sons through several days of money, treat and sugar rush highs. They got everything they wanted at Hamley's, ate sundaes for supper, went to the zoo, whizzed round Hyde Park on their brand new roller-blades, skateboards – whatever it was he'd bought them that time. Then, at the end of his visit, they would be handed over to her for a sobering detox and back-to-reality bump.
Dennis the Dog . . . Dennis the . . . whatever really ugly word began with D. Dope? No. Dunce? No. Duplicitous dog shit. That was more like it.
'He's going to be a grandfather,' Tom was telling her. 'He might like to know.'
'Hmmm.' He'd never been too interested in playing at happy families in the past. Well... not with them, anyway.
'Careful you don't step on Robbie's cars,' Eve warned him as she put on the kettle and cleared a space for them both at the table in the chaotic kitchen. 'I'm going to break my neck one of these days.'
'Robbie's cars?!' Tom bent down to pick up a battered old tractor. 1 recognize this one.'
'Maybe Uncle Robbie will pass it on to his nephew – or niece,' she said and felt the 'laugh or cry? laugh or cry?' confusion coming over her again.
'I know, Mum,' Tom said. 'It's a bit weird ... but we'll be cool. Think how much fun it will be for Robbie.'
'What would you like to drink?' she asked him as the kettle came to the boil. He knew the wide selection on offer: three types of tea – all decaffeinated, herbal teas, fruit flavours, Carob Cup, decaf coffee ...
But his mother was pulling up a chair so she could reach to the top of the kitchen cupboards and she was bringing down the battered old biscuit tin, so now he knew just how rattled she was. This was the hard stuff, only to be used in emergencies – full strength Arabica roast. Still perched on the chair, she unwrapped the foil package and breathed in deeply with her eyes closed.
'Mmmm,' she said, 'I'm feeling better already.'
He was wondering if she still kept supplies of her other emergency drug when she jumped down from the chair and brought the tin over to him.
'Would you like one? Because I think I will. Counteracts the worst effects of the caffeine, you know.'
He looked into the tin and saw about six pencil-thin, three-centimeter-long joints, 'One hundred per cent organic grass,' his mother was saying now. 'Totally nicotine free and grown in a greenhouse in Brighton, so fairly clean conscience.' As he took one out, she added: 'Listen to me, I sound like a dealer. You know I only smoke in exceptional circumstances.'
'You old hippie,' he said.
'Oh thanks!'
They sat down, at the kitchen table in the disgracefully messy London flat he still thought of as home, to a steaming pot of coffee, lit up their spliffs releasing the unmistakable sweet smoke smell and talked it over a little.
'Is Deepa's family going to be OK about this?' Eve asked her son.
'We'll have to wait and see.'
'What's she studying again?' Eve felt embarrassed that she couldn't remember.
'Medicine. She's in her second year.'
'Ah, so I don't think "congratulations" is going to be the first word you hear from her parents.'
'No. But we're getting married. They'll like that.'
'They might not, Tom. Who knows? Twenty is young.'
'We'll be the same age you were,' Tom reminded her, unnecessarily.
'Yeah.' She breathed out a mouthful of smoke and swallowed down a cough. 'That's why I'm worried for you.' Her eyes were fixed to his. 'Twenty is young,' she repeated, 'especially nowadays. But we'll all try and help you out.'
Her hands settled down round the coffee mug again. Such nice hands, he thought, mummy hands. Small, warm and capable. The nails were short and often a little bit earthy and she always wore two clunky silver rings and, on her fourth finger, a chip of emerald on the daintiest of platinum bands. Despite the gardening, her touch was usually soft, due to some weekly ritual involving olive oil and salt and going to bed with socks as mitts. Completely fruity.
'Where is Dennis at the moment?' she asked. She let her sons handle any contact or correspondence they wanted to have with their father. She was determined to be uninterested.
'I'm sure he's still in Chicago. He'd have told us if there'd been any change there.'
Vigorously she stubbed out her remaining butt in the bronze ashtray she'd placed on the table, jangling all the bracelets wrapped around her arms.
'Deepa seems like a really good person, Tom,' she said. 'It might all work out very well. But promise me you'll do everything you can to be a great parent to your baby. Because every child deserves two good parents, even if they aren't together any more.'
'I promise,' he said and surprised her with a squeeze of the hand. 'Thanks, Mum.'
Once he'd gone, she opened all the windows and the back door, letting in a breeze, then sat down at the table again and reopened the emergency tin.
She was definitely going to smoke another joint. This was about four emergencies rolled into one: Joseph getting married, Tom getting married and becoming a father. The prospect of grandmotherhood, exactly two and a half years after the birth of her fourth child ... and Dennis. Jesus Christ, a reunion with Dennis and maybe even his new family as well.
Chapter Ten
All of Eve's London 'family' had been invited to her house for lunch to meet Deepa, talk babies and celebrate, for God's sake. That had to be better than sitting on the sidelines with
arms folded, disapproving, Eve had decided.
So all her children were going to come, along with the older boys' girlfriends, plus Jen and Ryan, of course. Their sons, Terry and John, were invited too, but as Jen put it: 'Oh, Sunday ... I think that's their day for shoplifting cider, burning cars and doing smack.'
'Ha, ha.'
Two other guests had already accepted: Harry, family hairdresser and friend – camp, over-dyed, a tad too theatrical and always ramping up the Italiano, but nevertheless a man who had been very kind to Eve and her boys when she first moved to Hackney and who had grown from a friend into a surrogate uncle. And Nils.
To everyone, apart from Jen and an extremely suspicious Anna, Nils was the vet and a new 'friend'. But Eve could see they all had a bit of a sparkle in their eyes when she brought him into the noisy, packed kitchen and introduced him.
Everyone else knew Eve's kitchen and no longer paid any attention to it, but Nils, there for the first time, couldn't sit down straight away; he wanted to wander about because there was so much to look at.
The room was full. Chock-a-block. There were dressers and shelves and cupboards on all the walls and every one of them was brimming with an array of kitchen stuff. Pots, pans, plates, glasses – all the usual things, yes, and then all the unusual things too: antique butter-dishes, six of them, different coloured enamelled colanders, a range of graters, Japanese teapots, rows and rows of battered and ancient cookbooks, jugfuls of utensils. And plants jammed into every nook and cranny, in potted groupings on the windowsills, on the floor, high up on shelves, ready to kamikaze down if they got too dry.
This was obviously a woman at home in her kitchen.
'Pour wine, please,' she ordered, handing him a bottle and several glasses. "Then sit.' She looked a little frazzled, hair in a messy bun, apron on, flitting between the rickety old gas cooker and the kitchen table where her guests were seated in a raucous huddle on mismatched chairs.
Her kitchen was scarily grubby for a hostess, she couldn't help noticing as she kicked toys and old toast crusts into a corner, hoping they weren't too visible.
It was her roasted roots lunch: chunks of sweet potato, squash, parsnip, carrot, shallots, garlic cloves, all baked and bronzed in oil and herbs from the garden, with mountains of homegrown salad. Then creamy meringues and strawberries for pudding.
Eve toed and froed from the table and the cooker, catching wisps of conversation and enjoying bumping into and brushing past Nils who was trying to help but seemed to be taking up all the available space round her work units.
Jen was talking pregnancy with Tom and Deepa, who now had a round, hard football of a bump tucked under her T-shirt.
Anna was wrapped up in the conversation Harry and Denny's model girlfriend, Patricia, were having about hair serums, which left Ryan, Denny and Robbie to debate engines.
'This is Duck, he's going back to the yard to see the Fat Controller.' Robbie was dredging along the tablecloth with a small green engine.
'Oh, I thought it was Percy,' Denny said.
'No!' Indignant little voice, chubby fist snatching up the toy and jamming it right under Denny's eye. 'Duck. He's a Great Western engine.' Sure enough, GWR was outlined on the side.
'How are you?' Nils asked her in semi-privacy at the kitchen sink.
'I'm OK,' Eve smiled at him. 'I'm sorry I've been so busy, I've had no time to see you till today.' This wasn't exactly true and they both knew it.
'It's fine,' he said, resisting the urge to touch her face, because whatever kind of an 'item' he and Eve were, it was still a secret one: 'It's nice to meet everyone.'
'OK, we're all done, come and sit down,' she told him, laden with the last platefuls of food for the table.
Finally, when everyone was served and all the glasses were topped up, she raised hers and said: 'Here's to Deepa and Tom. Congratulations you two, all the best days and worst nights of your lives are ahead of you!'
Everyone else chimed in and drank the toast.
Her eyes settled on her oldest son, Denny, who looked tired, she thought; blue-black circles under the eyes and his brown hair darker than usual because it was unwashed. She wondered if he was worrying about work or Tom or if he'd just been out late partying with Patricia.
She was trying to like Patricia, but it was against her natural instincts. Patricia was absolutely stunning, pale, pale, perfect skin, waist-long straight chestnut hair which she wore in a flawless ponytail with not the slightest strand out of place, and a figure that was 100 per cent pure model – the ideal woman pre-shrunk by 40 per cent in everything except height.
She held herself in a very self-conscious way, tipping her little chin up and down, laughing gently, somehow always aware she was being watched. Of course, she ate tiny mouthfuls of food and it bugged Eve that Anna watched and copied this skinny angel of perfection. Anna would be sending back her lunch plate barely touched, and tomorrow she would be going to school with a scraped-back ponytail in reverence of Patricia.
'So, Mum,' Tom leaned over the table to talk to her, 'How's it going?'
She smiled at him and said, 'Lovely, great... couldn't be better, hon. By the way, have you done anything about getting in touch with your father?'
'Yeah, I've spoken to him and ... er... he says he'd like to come. If it's OK with everyone.'
'Our dad? What? Dennis?' Denny was asking, just loud enough to make everyone else turn their heads and tune in. 'Have you invited him to the wedding?'
'Yeah, sorry.' Tom looked embarrassed by the attention. 'I was going to tell you a bit later. I was coming round to it.'
'Oh for God's sake,' was Denny's reply.
Tom rumpled his hair and added, 'D'you realize it's been six years since we last saw him?'
'Well, exactly.'
Eve was sure Dennis had found the sulky teenagers who'd greeted him on his last visit – and been vastly unimpressed with his swank hotel suite and extravagant gifts – too much like hard work. Since then, it had been Christmas cards only. He never did anything about birthdays.
'Anyway,' Tom was saying, 'I got him on the phone and told him all about the wedding and the baby.' Here he nodded at Deepa who gave him a tight smile. 'And so... he said he'd like to come to the wedding and see us all. He's going to bring his wife and daughters too.'
'Well, aren't you the guy with all the shock announcements,' Denny said but Eve shut him up with a glance. Jen and Harry were open mouthed with surprise, and Eve caught the quizzical look on Anna's face and suspected the inevitable psychoanalytical remark was coming right up: 'There'll be no more denial now,' her daughter said and Eve couldn't help a laugh.
'So, what did he say?' Eve, feeling a surge of curiosity, wanted to hear this blow by blow. She picked up Robbie's fork to manoeuvre food into his mouth, but was still concentrating on Tom.
'From the beginning, everything you can remember.' She smiled.
'Well . . .' rumple, rumple, scratch at nose. 'Well... he wasn't too happy about the becoming a grandfather bit. I can tell you that for free.'
Eve cackled.
'"You're getting married and becoming a father!"' Tom did a replica American boom for them. '"At 20! Are you insane?" That was his response.'
