by Sue Watson
“Emma’s having a birthday party soon. Since Jack left it’s not been much fun for her so I’ve promised her that when the divorce money comes through we’ll celebrate her birthday properly. I don’t suppose you’d consider making a special cake?” She said, clutching at my wrists in a rather desperate way.
“I’m flattered,” I said, “but these days I barely seem to have time to do anything except look after Grace and Tom!” I felt a bit mean because she was having a rough time with the divorce and everything but it was such a big commitment.
At the end of the party it was obvious that all the kids had had a great time and as their parents cleared the last of the grown-up finger buffet we gathered our stuff together. I helped Al into his VW Beetle (he was having a tussle with prickly tinsel and pink hibiscus) and the manager of the hotel came out, holding the cake board with what now looked like an erupted Mount Etna. “Amazing cake,” he commented, as he handed it to me.
As I drove back home with a happy little girl and an unusually smiley husband, I thought maybe things weren’t so bad. I’d never forget her jumping up and down on the dancefloor, shouting along to the music. I was still smiling when we returned home and as we got through the door, the phone rang. Grace rushed to answer it. “Hi Nan,” she squealed. It was Mum, calling to wish her a happy birthday.
“Where’s she calling from?” I asked.
“New York!” squeaked Grace. I smiled. I’d almost forgotten about Mum’s latest jaunt – she’d joined an amateur dramatic theatre group in Bolton and they were doing a two-month experimental life swap with another ageing Am-Dram off Broadway. I couldn’t remember the play but I was sure it was something inappropriate for her age.
Grace spoke to her for a few minutes then hung up. “Mum, can I play with the rounders set that Emily bought me?” she asked, still jumping up and down with energy. It was almost dark but it was her birthday; I was about to say yes when Tom cut in.
“Grace, honey, it’s late and we’re all very tired. Let’s play tomorrow.” I could see she was disappointed. But she’d had a good day, so she accepted it and went to bed.
As soon as she’d gone up, Tom went into the lounge and turned on Match of the Day. I sat down next to him and put my head on his shoulder. It really had been a lovely day and I was feeling closer to him than I had in a while. I turned my head and started kissing his neck.
“Stella, I’m very tired,” he said. “I really just want to catch up on the scores and go to bed.”
He gave me a quick, dismissive kiss on the forehead and turned back to the TV. Clearly the day hadn’t had quite the same effect on him as it had on me and I couldn’t understand why. I thought we’d had such a perfect time together, as a family. Was Tom really that tired? Or was it something else?
I moved away from him and watched mutely from the doorway as he groaned and cheered the teams on, hoping that he might change his mind, or at least talk to me for a while. But even though he must have known I was standing there, Tom didn’t look up from the screen once. So after a while I closed the living room door behind me and with a sigh went to bed.
12 - Mum, Mountains and
Midnight Blue Lace
Over the following weeks, the distance between us increased. “I’m sorry, Stella,” Tom said one Friday morning before leaving for Leeds (he was freelancing for Emmerdale). “You know how tight money is at the moment and I just can’t turn work down.” He pecked me on the cheek without even looking at me and as he walked out of the door, I knew I needed to do something, so I called Mum in New York.
“Hello love!” she shouted (she always shouted long-distance). “I’ll have to be quick, it’s nearly curtain-up!”
I told her about Tom.
“You need to get away for a bit,” Mum yelled. “A family holiday for the three of you. Spend some time together dear.”
“You must be kidding.” I said. “Tom still hasn’t forgiven me for spending a few hundred pounds on Grace’s birthday party. I don’t think a family holiday is on the cards!”
“Yes but it doesn’t have to cost much love. Look, I meant to say a while ago, but I forgot. I have lots of those flying miles thingies…”
“Air Miles?”
“No, I think they’re for BA. Anyway you can use them if you like. Then you won’t have to pay for the flights.”
“That’s very kind of you Mum, but even the accommodation would be too much.”
“Well it’s up to you dear. But if you want my opinion, you should seize the day and a stitch in time saves nine you know. I was talking to Beryl the other day and…”
“Thanks, Mum, I’d better go, the potatoes are boiling over,” I interrupted, before she could trot out any more clichés.
However, the more I thought about it, the more I realised that Mum could be surprisingly lucid sometimes. I suddenly had a vision of Tom and I, hand in hand, Grace running alongside us, on a sun-kissed beach, like something out of a Thomas Cook ad. Could a holiday be the answer? Essentially, apart from our honeymoon over ten years before we hadn’t actually spent much time alone together – perhaps that was the problem? When I was working away he’d be at home with Grace and if he had to work away, I’d cover the home front. I knew Tom would initially balk at this, given his concerns about cash but surely he couldn’t say no to a free holiday. And once that chilled white wine and warm sunshine trickled in, he’d take me in his arms and realise that some things were special and worth working on.
A few days later I was preparing dinner when Tom came back downstairs and sat at the kitchen table to read the news. I thought again about our honeymoon in Greece – all blue water, sunny white beaches and burning cocktails suffused with love and longing, but our money troubles seemed to be getting in the way lately and we just weren’t communicating like we used to. I glanced at him squinting over his paper and belching and I was suddenly desperate to recreate some of the romance Tom and I had once shared. If Mum could sort the flights then all we needed was accommodation and I had a card up my sleeve for that. Kath, an old friend from the Drama Department, had inherited a little place on Kefalonia, the same island on which Tom and I had spent our honeymoon, and she’d said in the past that I was welcome to use it. I snuck upstairs and called her.
“Money’s a bit tight so I was wondering how much it would be to rent it from you and head off in Grace’s October half term,” I asked her, hopefully. Tom had rather reluctantly agreed to take some time off so we could do things as a family and this would be the perfect time to go away.
She sounded doubtful. “Well, there’s no air-conditioning and October can still be very warm. The hot water’s a bit iffy too. It’s also very isolated Stella – it’s halfway up a mountain. You’re welcome to stay there for free – it’s very basic,” she added.
This was great – surely even Tom couldn’t say no to a totally free holiday? I went back into the kitchen and mashed the organic sweet potatoes. As I stirred the rich onion gravy for the home-reared pork sausages, I considered the best way to approach this whole thing. As the three of us were round the table, eating my perfectly-prepared dinner I dived in. “Tom, I have some great news. Mum has offered her Air Miles so we can all go on holiday in Grace’s half term.”
Grace looked up, delighted. I explained Mum’s offer and she said, “Yay Nan! Are we going then?”
Tom’s shoulders sank. “No we’re not, we can’t afford it and I just wish you would accept that.” Grace crumpled and I wanted to scream at him but this would cause a huge row and that would be the end of any family holiday.
“Oh Tom, don’t be so grumpy. It would be really good fun. Grace would love it and if you just thought about it, so would you. I mean, we can do it for almost nothing. Free holiday – free flights?”
“Daddy pleeeease,” started Grace. That’s my girl, I thought proudly, with both of us onto it we’d soon wear him down.
“We can’t afford it because we will still spend more than we would here,” he was shaking his hea
d, adamantly.
“Tom it can be done on the cheap and I promise I won’t complain if we don’t eat out. We can cook and have picnics. We can really keep the cost down.”
“Oh God! I don’t know.” He looked up at Grace, who was smiling hopefully and had her fingers visibly crossed. How could he refuse? “Oh, well I suppose if it doesn’t cost anything. And you have to sort everything, Stella,” he muttered, going back to his food and shaking his head like a family holiday was something to be endured.
His reaction was a bit of a downer, but Grace was ecstatic and I refused to let it spoil things. Grace and I danced around the kitchen. I knew this holiday would bring us back together – it was something we all needed and given time, Tom would come round to the idea and realise it wasn’t going to break the bank.
“It’s all about sex darling,” said Lizzie, who I called as soon as Grace was in bed and Tom was safely stationed in front of the TV.
“What’s about sex?”
“Well, if there’s a problem, that’s always the first thing to go,” she said, and I heard the click of her Zippo as she lit a cigarette.
“We haven’t had sex for ages – weeks and weeks.” I said uncomfortably, taking a large gulp of the red wine I’d poured to console myself for Tom’s lack of enthusiasm.
“I don’t care what they say, if things ain’t going on in the bedroom – well, they ain’t goin on,” she announced.
“It’s really not about sex, Lizzie.”
“Sweetie – EVERYTHING is about sex,” she said, exhaling loudly and no doubt blowing out a mouthful of smoke. “If you can sort the sex side of things out – everything else just falls into place.”
I wasn’t convinced, “Yeah, but when someone’s distant it’s the last thing you want to do. I just feel so vulnerable and unattractive and…”
“Stella, whatever it takes, you need to get him back into bed. And back into your life.”
I had a week before we were due to leave and as I hung up I realised she was right. We’d only had sex once in the last few months. At first it was a relief – all that jerking around when all you want to do is curl up in bed with a good book and a bar of chocolate but I was starting to feel paranoid. I’d never been the: ‘come and get me, my name’s Temptation’, kinda gal in the bedroom. I was more Janet Reger than Ann Summers and not into Rampant Rabbits, baby-doll nighties or fluffy handcuffs. I’d rather be pursued courteously, like an early Mills and Boon heroine with a gentle teasing off of the bodice rather than any lewd ripping scenarios. And I think it went without saying that for me this tasteful encounter would always be followed by a post-coital cup of tea and a slice of homemade date and walnut.
But maybe Lizzie was right. It would have been good for my self esteem (but not my bank balance) to buy something utterly fabulous with ribbons from Agent Provocateur. However, I decided that the cost – when revealed on our credit-card bill – would probably give Tom permanent droop and therefore defeat the object of the exercise. I nipped to our local M&S instead. Arriving at the store and trawling through Ladies Lingerie to reignite the passion in my marriage, I lighted upon a midnight-blue polyester affair with matching dressing-gown. Nothing too raunchy or expensive, more Joan Collins than Jordan, with a little bit of what my mother would call ‘important’ lace here and there.
As I secretly inserted it into my suitcase I got a little thrill. Passion was on the menu…
13 - Lost in Translation
We arrived on Kefalonia very late in the afternoon and it was just as magical as I’d remembered with the sun beating down and the skies a shattering blue. We picked up our hire car (the cheapest, oldest car Tom could find) in the port of Argostoli, a beautiful, quietly bustling place, colour-washed, with a warm, pine-scented breeze. Afternoon siesta was over and the square was slowly coming to life as shutters opened and tablecloths unfurled for evening trade in the warm open air. I looked at Tom, he smiled and I just felt so good; we were back where we belonged, a little older and wiser, but still in one piece, still together…just.
This time however, we’d brought a little person with us and our little angel wasn’t as enamoured with the place as I was, letting it be known that she was tired, cross and hungry. At times like this, Grace could cut up rough and she held my holiday hopes in her nine-year-old palm. I watched my dream of sipping cold white wine and nibbling mezze alfresco as the world went by slip suddenly from my grasp. Something that had seemed so simple years ago when we were alone and first married was now insurmountable.
“I want a crêpe and a Coke,” Princess Grace demanded, rather ungraciously. I wanted lemon-drenched calamari, tzaziki and a feta-and-olive filled Greek salad.
“Sweetie, don’t be a pain. There’s nowhere here that does crêpes,” I said, really hoping our first night wasn’t going to involve some huge family row over pancakes.
However, Grace was clearly old enough to read and knew when Mummy was telling a barefaced lie. “There is somewhere that does pancakes, Mummy,” she declared, pointing and defiantly jangling her skeleton charm bracelet (a gift from my mother). “I can see that sign – it says, ‘World of Crêpes’ over there, over THERE,” she urged, “and that’s what I’m having.” With that, she stomped across the square, a girl on a mission who quite clearly wasn’t going to take ‘no’ for an answer.
“I won’t have this,” I said to Tom, “it’s our holiday too.”
Tom, as always, was far more reasonable and understanding of our daughter (and possibly more scared of her) than I was. “She’s tired and it’s easier to just let her have a crêpe,” he said to me in that cajoling way which made me seem very unreasonable and even younger than Grace. Irritatingly, he had a point, so we trawled after her and I reluctantly sat down on a green plastic chair in the neon-lit ‘World of Crêpes.’ When the crêpes arrived they were less than impressive and chewing on flabby, tasteless batter I thought this isn’t going to be like our honeymoon at all. I felt hot, itchy and absolutely fed up.
‘Crêpe-gate’ had started us all off on a bad footing and it was about to get worse. After filling ourselves with cold, duvet-like pancakes and warm fizzy cola we wearily climbed into the hire car and set off with a loud bang in a plume of black smoke to find our villa. I was navigating and it was dark, two things that just don’t mix. Once he’d worked out the gears, the mirrors and the lights by banging on the dashboard and swearing a lot, Tom began driving cautiously through Argostoli. He didn’t actually ask me any navigating-type questions so I naturally assumed he knew where he was going. I settled in my seat to point out all the stars and the full moon shimmering over the water to Gracie who didn’t really give a toss because she was playing Mario Bros on her Nintendo and I was just being irritating.
An hour and a half later, we were still driving. By now I’d stepped into the breach and was in full ‘navigating’ mode – keen for Tom not to notice that we’d been going round in circles and just passed ‘World of Crêpes’ again for the fourth time. Praying he hadn’t spotted the big neon crêpe sign, I glanced over discreetly to discover that God had let me down again and my prayers had been ignored.
“No, no, no, we’re back where we started. That’s the crêpe house!” He banged his head on the steering wheel. Here, let me do that for you, I thought, irrational hatred suddenly pulsing through every vein.
“How hard can it be to read a bloody map?” he snarled.
“It’s pitch-black,” I raged through gritted teeth. “How hard would it have been for you to read the bloody map in daylight before we set out and – call me old-fashioned – plan a pissing route?”
“I do everything,” he spat, “so when something goes wrong it’s always my fault.”
This just wasn’t true, and as much as I’d have loved to expand on my critique of his holiday planning there was really no point in arguing with him in this mood. And right on cue, Grace was now screaming from the back seat, “I want a wee!”
We eventually arrived at the so-called villa and a
s we pulled up and got out of the car we were engulfed by the heavy stillness. My heart sank; I truly, deeply hoped we’d got the wrong place. It was completely deserted, on a steep hillside and probably as old as said hillside. The ‘villa’ was little more than a grey shack with shutters, the only light a bare bulb hanging outside in the mothy blackness. As we tentatively approached, hoping we’d got the wrong place frantic shouting came from inside and it seemed that Yannis the caretaker had arranged a welcome committee. A bearded bear of a man, he appeared on the worn, wonky steps of the building waving a set of keys and laughing maniacally. Apparently delighted to see his ‘guests’, he rushed towards us with wife, chickens and various children in tow.
“Great,” I said. “Tom, where’s the nearest hotel? If this is the reception desk I don’t want to see any more.”
Despite their enthusiasm and friendliness, we just weren’t in the mood. Tom and I were tired, disillusioned and filled with a dark, mutual hatred. Grace, who had just woken from her slumber on the back seat, had her hair on end and a truly horrified look on her face. She was prone to a bit of nocturnal wandering and saying incomprehensible things if woken abruptly and now wasn’t the time for her to do the sleeping-walking-talking thing. It occurred to me that it might put the wind up Yannis’s kids if Grace suddenly started speaking in tongues like the child in The Amityville Horror so I glided quickly over to her side. In an attempt to keep her under control, I clutched her arm. I was relieved – if a little embarrassed – when she shook my arm away and snapped, “Mum, get off me you freak!” She was obviously wide awake and behaving as normal.
Yannis ignored the mother-daughter scuffle and did his best to introduce us to his wife Anna. He opened the door to the villa, ushering us in with both hands like we were livestock. “Krevatokamares, krevatokamares,” he insisted, still ushering us forward and nodding enthusiastically.
