The Family Holiday

by Elizabeth Noble

  49

  Joe was in the garden when Laura showed up, hoping he would be. The other night – before the Arthur stuff, and the Saskia drama – when he’d dropped her off, there had been a moment, she was certain, when he had thought about kissing her mouth, not just her cheek, and she had considered letting him. It hadn’t happened, but it had been in the air – the possibility of it.

  It was odd – it had happened only two days ago. It felt like longer.

  There had been a strange dynamic in the house. Maybe it was her. She was restless. She’d picked up a book, but read the same page three or four times and retained nothing. The kitchen was sparkling clean, much more so than hers at home. She tried a couple of yoga poses, but couldn’t settle to that either. Something was up between Heather and Scott, and she felt it had to do with Ethan, although no one had said anything. She and Heather had gone backwards: those moves towards closeness they’d made the other day, lying on the mats under the tree, seemed never to have happened. Heather had taken Hayley and Meredith out, and Scott was pacing around anxiously.

  She should have been there. But she couldn’t quite feel guilty about the time she’d spent with Joe. And she was back now. This part was so much nicer than the other. Was it selfish to want more?

  Today he kissed her cheek, lightly and swiftly, before either of them had time to think about it. It was platonic, except that it wasn’t.

  There was no pretence this time that she had stumbled across him randomly, or that he just happened to be there. It was clear to both of them that they’d sought each other out. They sat side by side on the bench, not quite touching.

  ‘How’s it going?’

  She exhaled sharply. ‘How long have you got?’ she half joked.

  ‘All day. If you like.’ He wasn’t joking. ‘What’s up?’

  ‘Nah. Not to worry. Parent stuff – don’t want to bore you.’

  ‘Okay. I won’t give you a cheesy line about how you never could. Bore me.’

  She laughed. ‘For which I am duly grateful.’ He gave a small, ironic bow from the waist. She’d much rather talk about him than about her. ‘You said you were married. You never said whether you’d had kids.’

  ‘No kids. I would have liked some. One, even. It was Rachel, my wife. She said she wasn’t ready.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘What she meant was she wasn’t ready to have them with me. She has three now. Two boys and a girl. Oliver, Archie and Amelia, if the Christmas card she sends me every year is to be believed. The first was born less than a year after we split up. Closer to nine months, actually.’

  ‘God, I’m sorry. That’s rough.’

  ‘It’s okay.’ He gave her a broad smile. ‘I’m glad she didn’t have them with me, if she knew it wasn’t right.’

  Laura had the strange thought that she couldn’t imagine what had made Rachel think he wasn’t good father material. She couldn’t imagine someone wanting to cheat on him either. ‘It’s not too late.’

  He looked amused. ‘For what?’

  ‘For kids. How old are you?’

  He laughed. ‘Forty-three. And I know it’s not. The thing is, with me, it was never just an urge to have kids. It was always tied up to being with the right person to have those kids.’

  ‘And did you think she was? The right person?’ He looked at her sharply. She blushed. ‘I’m sorry. I’m being too personal.’

  ‘It’s fine. I like it. You’re direct.’

  ‘Nosy.’

  ‘Straightforward. I wish more people were. My tolerance for bullshit is very low, these days. I wasn’t sure she was. That’s the truth of it. Rachel and I met and married quickly. I was thirty-three or so, and all my mates were getting married, getting mortgages, getting serious. She was a few years younger, but she definitely drove it. Not to sound pathetic, but I let her. Like a lemming. Truthfully, I knew the day I married her that I wasn’t a hundred per cent in it.’

  ‘You did it anyway.’

  ‘Cowardly, I suppose. Church was full, champagne was on ice, honeymoon was booked. Then again, I didn’t know whether that was normal or not. I loved her. I just think you should probably only marry someone you can’t imagine living without. And I wasn’t there.’

  ‘You could be talking about me.’

  ‘Really?’ He turned to her.

  ‘I wanted to be married. I wanted desperately to be a mother. I think we differ there. Alex – my husband, my ex – I loved him. But on the day, when I was in the big white meringue of a dress, it wouldn’t have been true to say I couldn’t imagine living without him.’

  She remembered being in the back of a Rolls-Royce with her dad on the way to the church. It had rained – nothing dramatic, just a persistent chilly drizzle that fell all day from a leaden sky. The photographer was conciliatory, telling her weather like that made a good light for photographs, but in truth it had felt, if not ominous, then slightly … dampening. Daphne had gone ahead, and her brothers were already on duty, showing guests to pews and handing out orders of service. Bridesmaids huddled in the vestry in their puffed organza sleeves. Charlie hadn’t trusted his voice – she’d appeared in the living room, and his eyes had filled with tears when he’d seen her, and the tears hadn’t been far away in the back of the car. He tried, several times, to say what she thought would be profound things to her, but each time emotion interrupted, so he was reduced to holding her hand tightly in his, patting it with the other, and smiling. Perhaps he’d been going to ask her if she was sure, if she could imagine a life without Alex, and if she had answered that she could, perhaps he would have told the driver to keep going, past the church where 150 people were waiting.

  How different everything would have been.

  But there would have been no Ethan. And that was unimaginable.

  ‘Why did you do it, then?’

  ‘Same as you. I believed. I wanted to believe.’

  ‘Was he a good husband?’

  Laura thought about it for a moment. ‘On paper.’

  ‘Ouch.’

  ‘Until he wasn’t.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘Genevieve.’

  He sucked air between his teeth. ‘Okay.’

  ‘He’s a cliché made flesh. She’s young, all tits and teeth, high heels …’

  ‘God.’

  ‘… and I’ve been so angry. More angry than hurt.’

  ‘Aren’t they two sides of the same thing?’

  ‘I just never thought it would happen to me. I had a vision, you know, of my life. Of my marriage. I never thought I’d end up alone, at my age, starting again.’

  ‘I don’t think anybody does.’

  ‘You’re all right.’

  ‘It took a while. Perhaps we’re a pair of incurable romantics.’

  ‘Oh, I’m very much cured of anything romantic, believe me.’ She hoped she hadn’t sounded bitter.

  ‘That would be a tragedy, in my opinion. I mean, how old are you, Laura?’

  ‘Older than you.’

  ‘Not an answer.’

  ‘So …’

  ‘So …’ He had come close to her now. ‘Come and have a drink with me.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Tonight. Tomorrow. I have no other plans.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Mine. You know where.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I’d like it, and I think you’d like it too.’

  Their faces were as close as they’d been when they were saying goodnight in the cab of the van. She could hear his breathing. And she sensed the lioness again, pacing.

  She wanted to kiss him. The tiniest incline of her head would see her lips meet his. The same for him. She hadn’t kissed anyone but Alex for twenty years, more maybe. And she hadn’t been kissed by him in a long time. And she hadn’t realized until just this very moment how much she had missed being kissed.

  50

  The next morning, Hayley decided she’d given Ethan as wide a berth as he needed
, and went to look for him. He was in the small snug at the back. Without a television or a view out to the garden, there was little competition for the space, and he’d been hiding out there without being bothered much since he’d got back. He was lying across the sofa, his gangly legs hanging off the end, his arms behind his head, the ever-present Gallagher brothers on full blast in his ears. She could hear the beat in the still room.

  He looked up when the door opened, and Hayley thought she saw relief replace irritation on his face when he saw that it was her and not one of the grown-ups. She shut the door behind her. ‘You okay?’

  Ethan grunted a sound halfway between a yes and a no, translatable only by a fellow teen.

  Hayley slid into the chair next to him, and pulled her legs up to her chest, hugging them and resting her chin on her knees.

  He took his headphones off, but didn’t say anything else. Hayley figured it meant he was listening, at least.

  ‘Quite the drama, you caused.’ Not unkindly said.

  ‘Yeah. Sorry about that.’

  ‘No need to be.’

  He shrugged.

  ‘It could have been me, you know.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Me who left the cover off. I do shit like that all the time. We all do. We’re kids. Could have been Meredith.’

  ‘But you didn’t. Meredith didn’t. It was me. You’re just being nice.’

  ‘Just being real. I know it seemed like Mum was just making more drama – making Nick take Arthur to the hospital and all that. It’s just how she is – nothing personal. You shouldn’t think it was about you. She’s … a thorough parent. I suppose it’s partly how she’s wired. Partly because she was on her own with us for so long. She’s a worrier. A bit of a neuro.’

  ‘Mine too.’

  ‘Maybe they all are. She’s drummed all this stuff into us all our lives – I’m allergic to nuts. Mildly, to be honest. It was worse when I was a kid – I’m meant to be growing out of it – but she goes on and on and on about it, like I don’t get it. That’s just one thing. Then there’s wound care. She’s big on wound care. Makes us sneeze into our elbows. Heads. Never mess with a bang on the head. Get it checked out.’

  Ethan smirked.

  ‘You know, when we moved here, she was thrilled we wouldn’t be able to learn to drive until we were seventeen. It was sixteen in New Jersey. One more year of not worrying like crazy, she said. She’s nuts.’

  They sat quietly for a moment. Hayley’s monologue had made the silence companionable, though.

  ‘I get my provisional licence in a couple of months.’

  ‘Cool. I’m pretty terrified, to be honest. Driving a stick shift seems really hard.’

  ‘A manual car?’

  ‘Yeah. All the cars in America are automatic. Practically all …’

  ‘Do you see your dad?’ Ethan stared ahead.

  If she was surprised by the gear change in conversation, Hayley didn’t let on. ‘Not really. I mean, we barely did even when we lived in the States.’

  ‘Is that okay?’

  Hayley shrugged. ‘We were really, really little, when they broke up. He was never around much.’

  ‘Don’t you want him to want to see you?’

  Hayley considered. ‘I don’t think about it much.’ She paused. ‘I really like Scott. He’s great. I mean, I’m not saying he’s a dad to us, or anything.’

  ‘He’s your stepdad.’

  ‘Yeah. But he doesn’t push that. He’s like … a great friend. Good to talk to, you know. Really kind. Makes awesome pancakes.’

  ‘That’s cool.’

  Hayley nodded. ‘Yeah. What about your dad?’

  ‘My parents only broke up this year.’

  ‘I think I sort of knew. How was that?’

  ‘Shitty. And a relief.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Shitty because Dad moved out. He has a new girlfriend, a new flashy house, all that. He really, really hurt my mum. She’s been in bits pretty much ever since. And a relief because they weren’t happy. Things had been crappy for a while. Quite a while.’

  ‘Like fighting, and stuff?’

  ‘Fighting, sulking, some world-class passive-aggressive chat …’

  ‘Sounds grim.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Do you see him?’

  ‘He says I’m welcome to go there whenever I want. But it’s weird.’

  ‘Weird how?’

  ‘Weird because she’s always there. Genevieve. I think she lives there, and they just pretend she doesn’t. Like, the master bedroom is full of her stuff. And the shower has all this girly crap in it. If she has her own place, I feel like she’s hardly ever there. Weird because I know it hurts Mum when I go. It feels disloyal.’

  ‘I get that.’

  ‘She’s really young. Like I don’t even know if she’s thirty. It’s a ridiculous age gap. He’s such a fucking cliché. It’s embarrassing.’ He didn’t say that she was attractive. And sexy. And that that confused him even more. He didn’t want Hayley to think he was a pervert.

  ‘So I don’t go that often. And he doesn’t invite me, anyway. He says to think of it like it’s my home, but I don’t.’

  ‘That’s tough. I’m sorry.’ He looked at her for the first time. She smiled. ‘We’re cousins now, kind of, right?’

  ‘I guess.’

  ‘So we could hang out, you know, after this holiday. If you like.’

  He smiled back. It was the first genuine, unguarded smile she had seen him give. ‘I would. Thanks.’

  Hayley nodded, as though a deal had been brokered. She made a fist and gently punched his leg, then stood up. ‘Wanna hit balls on the tennis court? You can use Scott’s racquet.’

  ‘I have to warn you, I’m pretty rubbish.’

  ‘That’s fine. I’m a really good coach.’

  Ethan laughed, which made Hayley glad, and stood up. ‘You’re on.’

  51

  Nick and Charlie sat with the sun on their backs, and their feet dangling in the pool. Nick was in shorts, but Charlie had had to roll up his chinos and take off his socks, and Nick had had to put his arm out to help his father sit on the edge. Nick’s legs were tanned and muscular, while Charlie’s had a bluish-white hue, and gnarled varicose veins. His father’s legs made him sad, marking his age and his increasing frailty more clearly than his animated, familiar face ever did. But it was what Charlie had wanted, to sit, dangle his feet and be near his grandchildren. Meredith was in the pool with Bea and Delilah. Arthur was napping inside, Heather listening for him. She said she was happy pottering in the kitchen. The small girls were deliriously happy in the company of their new cousin, splashing and giggling, climbing out of the pool to walk round (they preferred to run, but Nick kept admonishing them – ‘Slow down, slow down’), jump in, and repeat, over and over again.

  ‘God, what I wouldn’t give for a fraction of their energy!’

  ‘You and me both, Dad. They’re the proverbial Duracell bunnies.’

  ‘They’re amazing.’ Charlie shook his head in fond wonderment.

  ‘They’ll be spark out by seven thirty. Sleep for twelve hours.’

  ‘Lucky devils. All so simple, isn’t it, when you’re that age? Eat, sleep, play. Eat, sleep, play.’

  ‘I’m so glad we came. Thanks, Dad, for all of this. They’re clearly loving having all the family around.’

  Charlie touched Nick’s arm. ‘I’m so glad.’

  ‘It’s a year tomorrow.’

  One date Charlie hadn’t forgotten. He hadn’t needed Daphne to fix that one in his mind. He would remember the phone call, and Nick’s voice at the other end of the line, for as long as he lived. It was the worst call he had ever taken, in a long life with a fair share of horridness, and the very worst news he’d ever had. The very worst.

  A lot of that was shock. You didn’t expect it. It came from so far out of left field, and it hit you so hard, news like that. His beloved son had lost his wife. His young, lovely, loving
wife. His adored grandchildren had lost their mother. In an instant. On an ordinary day.

  He’d stood alone in the hallway, staring at a photograph of Daphne, sinking onto the stairs, because he’d felt his legs start to give way beneath him, trying desperately to think of the right thing to say, realizing there was absolutely nothing, that letting Nick cry, and listen to him crying, was all he could do. The time for rallying would come, but for that moment, it was all. It had been 364 days ago, but it might have been yesterday.

  ‘They’re good, right?’ Nick’s voice broke. Charlie knew what he was asking.

  ‘They’re very good. They seem very good indeed. You’re doing wonderfully.’

  Nick exhaled at the reassurance.

  ‘And how are you, my boy?’

  Nick smiled at his father. ‘Ah. More of a work in progress.’

  ‘Understandable. A year is nothing. Nothing at all.’

  ‘Thank you for saying that. Sometimes people give me the impression that a year is long enough for me to have got myself together, sorted.’

  ‘People who haven’t lost what you’ve lost. Only those people could even think that, let alone say it.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘I’ve been a work in progress since the day your mother died. I think I’ve progressed as far as I’m ever going to, to be honest. I miss her every day. Sometimes every hour of every day.’

  Nick almost laughed. ‘A guy in the pub – a mate, or a sort of mate – a few weeks, maybe couple of months ago, he said I should get back on the horse. Back on the damn horse – get back out there. Can you believe it? He’d been drinking. He was all arm around the shoulders, home-truths time. He said I needed to “get back out there, find a new mother”, find myself a new wife. That I shouldn’t wallow.’

  Charlie blew out his cheeks. ‘Wow.’