Learning to Love

by Sheryl Browne

  David nodded. ‘Just bricks and mortar to some, but a lifetime’s memories for her.’

  ‘Yes.’ Andrea studied him curiously, wondering why he’d worked so hard at appearing to be obnoxious initially.

  David glanced down, then back. ‘I do have a cleaner, starting next week hopefully, but it’s not a problem if your mother wants to go wild with the duster meanwhile,’ he said, with an unconcerned shrug. ‘The place could do with a good spring clean anyway.’

  ‘It’ll be more like a cat lick and a whisper.’

  David looked at her, confused.

  ‘One of Mum’s sayings, meaning: a quick surface clean rather than getting down to the nitty-gritty. She’s a bit hit-and-miss, I’m afraid, but I don’t like to take jobs off her. She finds that patronising, you know?’

  David obviously got the gist. ‘Fine by me. She can clean away as hit-and-miss as she likes, as long as she doesn’t look under the chairs in the lounge.’

  Andrea shuddered. ‘Oh dear. Make yourself scarce, if she does.’

  ‘I’m on my starting blocks.’ David laughed, and there was a definite twinkle in his eye this time, making him more human and accessible.

  Andrea studied him, trying to work out what circumstances had brought him here, a widower obviously torturing himself with his past.

  David looked away first, glancing down again and then towards the hall, relieved probably, that he’d been saved from further scrutiny by the doorbell.

  ‘You’re staring,’ Nita informed David, who was looking at his callers bemused.

  It was more likely to be Eva than Nita who had flummoxed him though, Andrea suspected. Eva was standing behind Nita’s wheelchair brandishing a huge courgette. The woman beside her, draped in faux fur and with a bunch of aubergines pressed to her fulsome breast, was also rather alarming.

  ‘Are you waiting for us to die of hypothermia, or are you going to invite us in?’ the woman asked bluntly.

  ‘Er?’ David glanced over his shoulder at Andrea, who shrugged apologetically. Nita, who only worked Monday to Thursdays on her work placement, had obviously wanted to check Andrea was okay, which was kind.

  ‘Yes, of course,’ David said, smiling uncertainly and standing aside.

  ‘Well?’ said the woman.

  ‘Sorry?’ David now looked extremely confused.

  ‘Are you going to help her in, or leave her on the doorstep?’ the woman went on curtly.

  ‘By her she means me,’ Nita clarified, with a roll of her eyes. ‘And she obviously thinks you’re a weightlifter. What do you want him to do, Mum?’ she craned her neck over her shoulder to eyeball the woman. ‘Carry me over it?’

  Ah, so this was Nita’s mother. No wonder Nita was looking so pained. Andrea tried not to laugh as the woman proceeded to look David up and down as if he were a prime cut of beef. ‘Hmm?’ she said interestedly, her eyes pinging wide.

  Nita sighed exasperatedly. ‘Mum, no.’

  ‘I don’t suppose you’re single, are you, by any chance?’ the woman asked, predictably, judging by Nita’s now mortified expression.

  ‘Oooh, Mum, will you just stop with the fishing expeditions.’ Nita scowled. ‘I’m seventeen years old! I’m probably only half his age.’

  ‘What? I’m not.’ The woman stood ramrod straight, her chin tucked in indignantly. ‘I only asked him if he was single. I wasn’t necessarily trying to net him for you, Nita.’ With which, she gave David another lingering perusal, beamed him a smile, then waltzed on in, leaving her daughter on the doorstep.

  ‘Meet my mother, Dorothea. Thea for short. Greek translation for gift of God,’ Nita offered in her wake.

  ‘I’d rather not,’ David mumbled.

  ‘Ditto,’ said Nita. ‘Don’t suppose you fancy sweeping me off my feet, despite Mother having first dibs on you, do you?’

  ‘No problem.’ David mustered up a smile. Then, as if it were second nature, he bent down to allow Nita to wrap her arms around his neck and lifted her into his own arms – which had Andrea, once again, quite unable to reconcile this obviously caring man with the uncaring one he’d insisted on presenting.

  She wished she knew more about his circumstances. Jake clearly needed someone to talk to, but she couldn’t help thinking David Adams needed to confide in someone too. Chance would be a fine thing, she sighed, stepping down to help Eva in with Nita’s wheelchair.

  ‘I can manage,’ Eva assured her, already having competently tipped it back and aimed it at the doorstep.

  Andrea didn’t doubt it. ‘I know. I just …’ A cold shudder running through her, Andrea paused, glancing past Eva to the blackened ruins of her house, the ashes of her life.

  ‘Quite fancy running in the other direction?’ Eva finished, parking the chair in the hall. ‘I don’t blame you. Doctor Adams is probably contemplating bolting out of the back door. Come on,’ she said, turning to wrap an arm around Andrea’s shoulders and steer her around, ‘one day at a time, my dear. You’ll get through this. We women do, you know. Meanwhile, we have a man in our midst whom I suspect may need rescuing.’

  She nodded up the hall and Andrea couldn’t help but smile as Nita’s tones drifted back. ‘Just don’t let your eyes linger anywhere near my boobs,’ she heard her warn David, as the two negotiated the lounge door. ‘She’ll be knitting baby boots and booking the font before you can blink.’

  Oh dear. Andrea laughed out loud as Eva manoeuvred the chair after them, looking like a land girl about to till the soil in her dungarees. ‘We’re making moussaka,’ she informed Andrea enthusiastically over her shoulder. ‘Thea’s idea. Rather a splendid one, I thought. Community spirit and whatnot, what ho?’

  Andrea knitted her brow and trailed after her. ‘Um, Eva, it’s really very kind of you, but we’re homeless, not starving,’ she pointed out.

  ‘Yet,’ added Thea as Andrea went into the lounge, from which Sophie swiftly exited, a horrified expression on her face and Chloe safely in her arms.

  ‘You’ve moved in with a man, darling,’ Thea went on as if it were perfectly obvious what she was talking about. ‘Clearly you’ll be needing a good square meal inside you.’ With which Thea deposited her aubergines on the coffee table. ‘Look at you, nothing but skin and bone,’ she observed, looking Andrea over.

  Andrea smiled wanly, torn between being flattered and hugely embarrassed.

  ‘Moussaka,’ Thea added decisively, following the aubergines with onions and tomatoes produced from her handbag. ‘Building bricks of life, my late husband always said, may he rest in peace.’

  ‘Finally,’ Nita muttered as David lowered her onto the sofa, a smile playing at his mouth.

  ‘From my own mother’s traditional Greek recipe, of course.’

  Andrea looked doubtfully at the courgettes and carrots Eva added to the pile.

  ‘Bit of home-cooked will soon put the roses back in your cheeks,’ Thea said, bustling across to tweak Andrea’s apparently pale cheek. ‘Give you strength to rebuild your broken home, you poor girl.’

  Andrea, wincing from the rather over-affectionate tweak, didn’t like to point out that she wasn’t actually thinking of rebuilding her home personally, with or without moussaka-shaped building bricks.

  ‘We’re all pitching in,’ Eva pitched in. ‘We’re going to be with you every step of the way. There’s a collection going on door-to-door as we speak.’

  ‘Oh.’ Andrea was now extremely doubtful. She didn’t want her neighbours feeling obliged to hand money over on her behalf. She’d have the insurance, eventually, if she ever had time to contact them.

  ‘Don’t look so worried, my dear,’ Eva said, patting her forearm. ‘We’re only asking for clothes. I don’t suppose there’ll be much in the way of vintage, but we’ll think about re-stocking for the shop when we’ve sorted out the essentials.’

  ‘No.’ Andrea sighed inwardly, thinking about the stock she’d lost, the 1920s Japanese silk kimono, a late 1960s gold brocade trouser suit, the 1960s Radley Moss crepe mini-d
ress Sally had found in a charity shop, along with the 1950s Eriko thee-quarter length coat. The ’70s Gucci bags. The ’80s silver sequined jackets … All unique. All irreplaceable. All gone, along with her Second Chance Designer dream. She hadn’t even got a home, she reminded herself, fear and dread for the future twisting inside her. Stock for the shop was way down on her list of priorities, but still it hurt to have her dreams ended in a puff of smoke.

  ‘Meanwhile,’ Eva went on as Andrea swallowed back a hard lump in her throat, ‘we’re selecting the best of the cast-offs for you to sift through for your family, and the rest is going towards a grand jumble sale to start up a bit of a kitty to help refurnish your house.’

  ‘Oh.’ Andrea blinked at her, taken aback. ‘Thank you, Eva,’ she said, overwhelmed, in every sense of the word.

  ‘That’s what neighbours are for, my dear,’ Eva assured her, giving Andrea’s arm another comforting little pat, then striding purposefully back towards the hall. ‘I’ll just go and get the éclairs and then we can all settle down and discuss our plan of action.’

  ‘Eclairs?’ Andrea arched an eyebrow at Nita, who only yesterday was bemoaning the size of her bum.

  Nita shrugged blamelessly. ‘What’s a girl supposed to do?’

  Andrea shook her head, feeling as bewildered as David looked. ‘Sorry,’ she mouthed as he walked towards her to the hall, looking ever so slightly cross-eyed.

  ‘No problem,’ David repeated his stock phrase. ‘I’ll just go and prescribe myself some Prozac.’

  Chapter Ten

  ‘Thought you’d want to know Ryan and Jake are off out,’ David said, coming into the kitchen where Andrea was making tea and wondering whether to invest in an urn.

  ‘Ryan managed to talk him out of his room, then?’

  ‘Yes, amazingly,’ David said, obviously relieved. ‘Not sure Jake’s going to be talking to me any time soon though.’

  ‘Catchya lata,’ Ryan interrupted, poking his head around the kitchen door. ‘By the way, you do realise there’s a Women’s Institute meeting in the lounge?’

  Andrea swapped amused glances with David. ‘It’s the Save the Kellys Committee. Whatever you do, don’t get too close to the door or they’ll whip you in and knit you up a sweater.’

  ‘We’re outa here.’ Ryan retracted his head in a flash. ‘Come on, Jake,’ his wary tones drifted back from the hall, ‘let’s go catch the bus, before they start hugging us and ruffling our hair.’

  ‘Stick close to Ryan, Jake, and do as he says, okay?’ David called after them.

  Jake didn’t answer, and David looked utterly crushed.

  Andrea guessed why. Most children that age wouldn’t have let that comment pass without an ‘I’m not a kid’ retort. Some retort. Jake, it seemed, wasn’t talking to his father at all.

  ‘I take it he didn’t know?’ she asked quietly, pushing the kitchen door to, once the boys had left. ‘About your, um, indiscretion; assuming that’s what it was?’

  David searched her eyes, seeming to debate, and then nodded tiredly. ‘Indiscretion,’ he repeated, his mouth curving into a sad smile, ‘quaint way of describing destroying three people’s lives. Four people’s.’

  He stopped, tugging a sharp breath, as if the memory physically pained him. ‘I’m not sure. He, er … He knew something was wrong. Heard Michelle and me …’

  ‘Arguing?’

  David nodded, glancing away. ‘Michelle … She was ill. Leukaemia. Lymphatic. I didn’t handle it very well. Her decision, I mean.’

  Decision? Andrea’s heart lurched. ‘To?’ she gently urged him on.

  David breathed out. ‘She … Michelle, she was pregnant. She decided against therapeutic abortion. And she insisted on delaying anti-leukaemic treatment until the third trimester for the baby’s sake. It wouldn’t have made a great deal of difference to her life expectancy in the long term, but in the short term …’

  All this David said with his eyes fixed to the floor. ‘I wasn’t there for her,’ he went on tightly. ‘I should have been.’

  He glanced up at last, such anguish in his eyes, Andrea felt utterly wretched for him. He’d lost his wife and his child?

  ‘I’d better go.’ He looked quickly away again. ‘I have some reading to catch up on. I’ll be in the study, if you or the Kelly Committee need anything.’

  Feeling utterly devastated for him, Andrea watched David walk away, his hand going through his hair, visibly hurting. Of course he would be. Whatever he’d done, with or without details of where he had been when his wife needed him, Andrea realised she had no right to judge him. Because, no matter the abrasiveness she’d first encountered, it was obvious the man was carrying his guilt around like a lead weight.

  It was too soon for him to consign it to history, undoubtedly, but David Adams needed to try to forgive himself in order to move on. As did his son. How could they do that when they’d both separately erected brick walls?

  She’d take him some tea, Andrea decided. It probably wouldn’t help much, but it might send out the right signals, that she wasn’t about to despise him, no matter that he’d seemed to want her to. So he wasn’t perfect. Was anyone? Was she?

  After a quick check on Chloe, who was napping in David’s bed, oblivious to the chaos all around, bless her mismatching pyjamas, and then Sophie, who was washing her hair, Andrea tapped on the door to the study. Then waited. Then wondered whether to go on in when David didn’t answer. She tapped again.

  Still nothing. Andrea was about to step away from the door when he opened it. ‘I brought you a cure-all cuppa.’ She offered him a smile. ‘It’s got its work cut out I know, but, well, it’s warm and wet, anyhow.’

  He looked at her, seemingly unseeing for a second and then gave her a short smile back. ‘Thanks,’ he said, reaching for the cup.

  ‘No problem.’ Andrea assured him, holding his eyes.

  Eyes where dark shadows danced. Those of a man, Andrea realised with a jolt, who might actually have been crying? She stared at him, feeling the despair which seemed to emanate almost palpably from him now.

  ‘David, if you ever want to …’ she started, and then stopped as her mum’s not-so dulcet tones drifted up the hall.

  ‘Eva Bunting, get out of my kitchen immediately!’ Dee bellowed. ‘And take that furry fleabag with you!’

  Referring to Thea and her faux fur, Andrea assumed, despairing.

  David smiled bemusedly. ‘I think the Kelly Committee have taken over the kitchen.’

  ‘Lord help us.’ Andrea rolled her eyes and dashed off to referee.

  ‘Deirdre, my dear, don’t you think you might be getting a little paranoid?’ Eva asked Dee across the casserole pot they were fighting over. Eva had a hold of one handle, Dee hung onto the other and both, it seemed, were reluctant to let go.

  ‘Paranoid, pfffffff! Don’t try to distract me with your long words and privileged education, Eva Bunting, you great fat …’ Dee looked Eva up and down, taking in her dungarees distastefully. ‘… lesbian, you!’

  I don’t believe this. Andrea turned back to her pan, whammed the flame up under it and threw another batch of aubergines in, careless of the instructions on Thea’s recipe to fry gently.

  ‘For your information, it wasn’t privileged, Deirdre,’ Eva supplied plummily. ‘Mummy scrimped and saved to put me through university, actually.’

  ‘Well, for your information …’ Dee tugged the casserole pot towards her. ‘… this mummy scrimped and saved to put her daughter through university, too.’

  ‘In which case, my dear …’ Eva gave the pot a tug back in her direction. ‘… we have something in common, don’t we?’

  ‘That’s as maybe, but not …’ Dee tugged the pot back again. ‘… my casserole pot!’

  ‘Girls, girls,’ Thea said, whisking egg yolks heartily, oblivious to the danger of the ingredients already in the casserole pot ending up all over the floor, ‘stop with the arguments, or you’ll spoil our lovely lunch.’

  Our? Oh,
no, please! Andrea’s eyes sprang wide. They weren’t intending to stay, were they? Uh-uh. Absolutely not. David would barricade himself in his study and stay there. And Andrea might blooming well join him.

  ‘All done!’ she trilled, turning the ‘darkly’ browned aubergines over and dousing the gas.

  ‘It is not,’ Eva declared.

  ‘Not what?’ Dee eyeballed her over the pot.

  ‘Not your pot. It’s the doctor’s.’

  ‘What doctor’s?’

  ‘Doctor Adams.’ Eva eyeballed Dee back. ‘This is the doctor’s house.’

  ‘Oh, no it isn’t,’ Dee huffed, giving the pot another tug.

  ‘Oh, yes, it is,’ Thea chipped in, coming across to pluck the lid off the pot. ‘He lives here,’ she announced as she scraped the aubergines in. ‘He’s upstairs in the shower, right now as we speak.’

  Dee knitted her brow. ‘With Andrea?’ she asked, turning to blink mystified at Andrea.

  ‘No, dear.’ Eva sighed. ‘Andrea’s not in the shower, is she? She’s here.’

  Dear Lord, please beam me up. Flushing down to her décolleté, Andrea opened her scrunched eyes to see Thea bustling back from the work surface with the sauce.

  ‘Uh-uh. Enough!’ Andrea shouted over Thea’s revelations that she wouldn’t mind sharing a shower with Doctor Adams. That sauce was hot. And those two dotty women were still clutching that pot.

  ‘Thea, thank you so much for all your help, we really appreciate it, but I think Mum and I can manage from here,’ Andrea suggested, her tone slightly more subdued, if a little demented.

  ‘Oh, it’s no bother.’ Thea waved away her concerns with the flap of an extravagantly bejewelled hand. ‘We only have to season it and then pop it in the oven and—’

  ‘It’s ever so kind of you, Thea, but I think we’d rather—’ Andrea started.

  ‘—then we can all put our feet up with a nice sherry and watch a DVD,’ Thea finished. ‘How does that sound?’

  ‘Um?’ Andrea opened her mouth and then closed it. And swallowed. The last thing she wanted to do was offend anyone, but … She glanced desperately from Thea to a still miffed Dee and then to Eva. Then quickly at the floor as a long overdue tear plopped down her cheek.