by Vivien Brown
‘Do you fancy a dance?’ Ollie asked Jenny, once they’d downed a beer each and the music was in full swing. ‘I know it’s probably not cool to be seen dancing with your big brother, but let’s face it, we don’t have anyone else to claim us, do we?’
‘Not unless James turns up!’
‘James? Who’s James?’
‘Oh, nobody you’d know.’
‘Really? Boyfriend?’
Jenny blushed. ‘I wish! No, there is no James. I’ve just been teasing the girls. Winding Beth up really. She can be so gullible! But, yes, a dance would be good. So long as they don’t put a smoochy one on. You may be my favourite brother but …’
‘I’m your only brother!’
‘And a great one you are too, but come on, let’s dance. And then you can buy me another drink. It’s thirsty work, all this bridesmaiding!’
It might be winter, but the room was buzzing with the heat of too many over-active bodies. Ollie shrugged off his jacket and slung it over a chair to claim it for later, and Jenny did the same with her bag. They picked their way through an assortment of flailing arms and legs to find a space large enough to join in with what just about passed as a twist, and spent the next twenty minutes or so putting their worries about their dad aside and just having fun.
‘Ha, ha! Look at the state of Aunt Jane’s hat. I think someone must have sat on it!’ Ollie pointed across the room to where Jane was trying to stick a bunch of stray feathers back into its misshapen brim. ‘Oh, Jen, we should have weddings more often. I’d forgotten what a laugh they can be.’
‘Don’t let Nat hear you say that. She was so deadly serious about everything, with her lists and all. Thank God everything went off okay.’
‘Better than okay. She’s enjoying herself now, though, isn’t she? All seriousness gone. The lists in the bin hopefully, where they belong.’ They looked across at their sister, being whirled around in ever-decreasing circles on the dance floor by Josie, her friend from the office, with a glass of bubbly slopping about precariously in her hand. ‘She’s having a whale of a time.’
‘Of course she is. She’s just married the love of her life.’
‘Every girl’s dream, eh?’
‘Don’t tell me men don’t want the same thing! Now, where’s that drink you promised me? I must have sweated out the equivalent of two gin and tonics at least.’
‘Gin? That’s an old woman’s drink. You’ll have another half of lager, and like it.’
‘Oh, will I now? There are things about me you just don’t know, Ollie Campbell, and my passion for a drop of gin is clearly one of them.’
‘Okay, you win. Can’t deny a girl her passions! Ice and lemon?’
‘Yes, please.’
They returned to their table and Jenny sat down and kicked off her shoes. As Ollie headed towards the bar, he saw her reach for her mobile, its screen flashing with an incoming call. By the time he came back, with a drink in each hand and a bag of crisps tucked under his arm, she had gone.
He sat for a while, gulping down his pint and watching the others dance. His two grandmothers sat together at a table near the door, heads bent towards each other, trying to chat above the din, and Aunt Jane had obviously decided her hat was beyond saving and had allowed a little girl who couldn’t be more than about five or six to wear it. With Natalie’s stole wrapped around her tiny shoulders, with ample room to spare, and trying to balance in a pair of shiny blue stilettos someone must have discarded while they danced, the child paraded up and down along the edge of the room like a catwalk model, and made him laugh out loud. She reminded him of Jenny in a way, in the days when she would be engrossed in playing with her plastic tea set and her line of dolls and teddies, living in a little world of her own, happily amusing herself in a room where everyone else was older.
Where was Jenny anyway? Since she’d taken that call, she’d vanished into thin air. The mysterious James, maybe? He wasn’t at all sure whether to believe her protestations that he didn’t exist. Now that Natalie had tied the knot, and with Beth growing ever closer to Sean over the last few weeks, it would be good to complete the hat trick and find someone for Jenny too. If she hadn’t already found him, that was. As for himself, well … despite his one rather half-hearted attempt at speed dating, he wasn’t really looking.
‘Ollie?’ Jenny had crept back up behind him, her hand now resting on his shoulder.
He turned around. ‘I was wondering where you were. Come on, your gin’s getting warm. It started out with ice, honest, but now …’
‘In a minute. First there’s something I need you to do.’
‘What? Now?’
‘Yes. Now.’
‘Well, I hope it involves raiding the buffet or carrying in another case of champagne, and you don’t just need me to come and unblock a loo or something!’
‘As if! No, really, I do need you to come with me. Outside.’
‘What’s the matter, Jen? This sounds serious.’
‘It is.’ She pulled him to his feet and through the door that led out into a small corridor, past the toilets and then out towards the car park. They passed the best man, coming out of the gents, still doing up his flies. ‘All right, mate?’ he slurred, clearly the worse for wear although it was barely seven o’clock, patting Ollie on the back and peering down the front of Jenny’s dress.
‘Fine,’ Ollie replied, as Jenny pulled him away. ‘… I think.’
And then they were outside and approaching a car with its lights on, lurking in the shadow of the trees.
‘Ollie, there is something I haven’t told you. A secret ….’ Jenny had stopped still on the gravel.
‘Is it James?’
She looked mystified for a second or two. ‘James? No! There is no James. No, it’s something else. Something I swore not to tell you, and it’s been really hard not to, I promise you, but now … well, now I don’t have to keep it a secret any more.’
Jenny pushed him gently towards thecar, an interior light coming on as its back door swung open and she slipped away back into the darkness, leaving him staring, disbelievingly through the open door. At Laura.
She was sitting in the middle of the back seat, but as he moved nearer she leaned away from him and lifted something out of some kind of container on the seat beside her, something wrapped so tightly he couldn’t see what it was.
He stepped towards her, feeling as if he was suddenly in a weird unbelievable dream. He hesitated with one foot on the sill, not sure what to do or why she was here. ‘Laura? What are you …?’
‘Ollie,’ she said, quietly. ‘You’re letting all the cold air in. Come on, get inside and shut the door. Please.’
He climbed in and closed the door. An elderly woman he thought he vaguely recognised turned around and smiled at him from the driver’s seat as the light faded and went out, Aunt Clara? The familiar light perfumy smell of Laura’s hair caught in his nostrils as she inched towards him and, although he could barely see her face, her arm brushed against his through his thin white shirt and he knew that all he wanted to do was hug this woman, who he still loved with all his heart, and never let her go.
‘Ollie,’ she said, before he could move, her voice wavering as she dipped her head towards the bundle now lying in her arms. ‘I think it’s time you met your daughter.’
Chapter 45
Kate, 1997
I wish I could have known. Wish I’d had the chance to tell Trevor how grateful I was, for everything he’d done for us, and how sorry I was for not giving him the chance he deserved. Natalie’s room had taken a long time to complete but it only been finished for a month when the next heart attack struck. He’d worked so hard, never just sitting back and letting the builders get on with it. He’d been there every day, watching, supervising, helping to fit wardrobes, getting down on his back on the floor to fiddle with the plumbing, wielding a paintbrush as if he was about to create a work of art. He’d been in his element, seeing his generous gift come to fruition, but was
it the physical effort of it all that had pushed him over the edge? I’ll never know. None of us will.
‘He’s not going to make it this time,’ Mum sobbed, sitting at his hospital bedside, just staring at the monitors. ‘His heart is too weak. He hasn’t opened his eyes, Kate. I’m not sure if he even knows I’m here.’
‘Talk to him anyway. They say hearing’s the last thing to go, don’t they? Say all the things you want him to hear and maybe he’ll hear them.’
‘I will, love. I will.’ She grasped for his hand on top of the blanket and gave it a squeeze. ‘There’s no need for you to stay. Nothing you can do. Get on home to the children.’
‘Maybe you should go home too. Get some rest. Come back later.’
‘No, Kate. I need to stay. And Trevor needs me to stay. I’d never forgive myself if something happened while I wasn’t here. And, besides, like you said, there are things I need to tell him. By ourselves …’
Reluctantly, I walked away. As I stopped at the end of the ward and looked back, I could see Mum leaning low over the bed, hear the low mumble of her voice speaking quietly into his ear. A woman in a pale-pink overall appeared with a tea trolley and started trundling it from bed to bed. That’s what Mum needed. A good strong cup of tea. And for Trevor to open his eyes, of course. But he didn’t.
I stepped into the lift and headed for home. I never saw Trevor alive again.
***
Jenny stared at the chessboard for a moment, picked up one of the pawns and dropped it carefully into her pink plastic shopping bag.
‘Jenny! What did you do that for? I can’t finish the game now.’ Ollie stood up angrily and flung his arm out wildly across the board, knocking all the remaining pieces flying, and Jenny ran out of the room and up the stairs, probably worried he was going to do the same to her.
‘Ollie, it’s not her fault. She just wants to play.’ I bent to retrieve a bishop that had rolled right up to my feet.
‘Well, let her play with her own things. I don’t grab her stupid dolls, do I?’
‘She didn’t mean any harm. She’s just collecting bits for her pretend shop. You only had to ask nicely and I’m sure she would have given that piece back.’
‘What’s the point? There’s nobody to play chess with now anyway.’
‘I’m sure your dad will have a game with you, if you ask him.’
‘He’s not here though, is he? And when he is here, he’s always too busy. I like playing with Granddad Trev. He doesn’t get cross with me.’
‘I know.’ I gulped back a tear. ‘Granddad Trev was a very patient man, and he had all the time in the world for you, but you can’t play with him any more, Ollie. You do understand that, don’t you?’
I watched Ollie run his sleeve over his face, then look down at his own feet.
‘But it’s not fair. I don’t want him to be dead.’
‘None of us do, but we can’t change things, sweetheart. It’s very sad, but we have to get used to not seeing him any more.’
Ollie slumped down onto the carpet and picked up the king, twirling it in and out through his small fingers.
‘It doesn’t stop us thinking about him, though, does it?’
He shook his head slowly.
‘Now, why don’t you tidy away all the pieces in their box? I’m sure Granny will want you to keep the chess set. It can be your special reminder, and every time you play a game with it you can think about Granddad Trevor and know he’s watching over you.’
‘Will he help me to win?’
‘Oh, I think he’s already done that, Ollie, just by teaching you to play so well.’
‘He taught me lots of other things too.’
‘Did he? Like what?’
I sat down on the sofa and felt my son sidle along the floor and snuggle against my legs.
‘He showed me how to screw things with a screwdriver so they stick together, and how to get a paintbrush into all the corner bits and round the light switch, and how to cut up wood with a saw …’
‘Did he? That sounds a bit dangerous.’
‘It’s not dangerous if you do it properly, Mummy. Granddad showed me how to be safe. He said being safe is the most important thing.’
‘He was right. It is. Being safe, and being loved. He was a really good granddad, wasn’t he?’
‘The best,’ Ollie said, and then he threw himself onto my lap and burst into tears.
***
The house seemed so much bigger once Natalie had moved into her new room. She liked nothing better than wheeling her chair inside and closing the door to her own private space. She could leave her shampoo and toothbrush and towel wherever she liked in her small en-suite bathroom knowing the others were not going to push them aside or, worse still, use them themselves. The room gave her a level of independence she so badly needed just at a time when she was old enough to manage it and enjoy it. Her confidence grew before our eyes.
Upstairs, we no longer had the jam-packed sardine-tin existence we had been struggling with. Beth and Jenny learned to share a room quite amicably, as long as Jenny always remembered who was the older sister and therefore the boss, and Ollie just carried on being Ollie, although the chess set came out less and less often now and he spent as much time as he could on some sports field or other, or pounding around a running track. I sometimes thought that all the physical exertion was his way of dealing with his grief but, if it was, it seemed to work, and I knew as well as anyone that we all had to find our own ways to grieve.
In our bedroom nothing much felt right.
‘Not tonight, Dan. I’m too tired.’
‘Yuk! Your breath smells of beer and curry. I don’t know why you don’t try cuddling up to Rich instead of me, you spend so much time with him lately. And I’m sure he probably smells exactly the same.’
‘No, Dan. That hurts. Leave it for now, eh?’
***
If there wasn’t a book of excuses out there somewhere, I could have written one. It wasn’t that I hated him. Or that I still felt red-hot angry with him for what had happened to Nat, or for cheating on me. Well, not consciously. That had subsided, somehow, into something else. Something I couldn’t quite name, but had learned to live with. But there was a new barrier now, a blockage, something lying there unseen and unspoken between us.
He swore that he had never loved Fiona, but I couldn’t quite get the image of them together out of my head. Naked and twisted together, sperm and egg uniting in a way, a natural way, that ours had struggled to do. My babies had been made in a dish, but hers had come out of something real. It didn’t matter to me whether love had come into it or not. Dan had done something unforgivable, with this random woman, this now-dead random woman, something that he had never been able to do with me.
He had created a child, without any medical intervention, naturally and seemingly as easily as shelling peas, and then, knowing how that would make me feel, he’d hidden the fact, lied about it.
I couldn’t help thinking that it was the lie that hurt the most.
NUMBER FIVE
Chapter 46
Beth, 2017
Beth hadn’t seen Ollie for a while and was starting to worry about him. With all this available booze about, she couldn’t help but worry he was outside somewhere knocking it back and that all his hard work of the last few weeks, trying to stay away from it, was about to disappear down the drain, but when he came back into the room he looked as if a huge weight had lifted from him. Beth didn’t think she could ever remember him looking so happy and so sober both at the same time.
‘Ollie? You okay? What’s up?’
‘Beth, Mum, I need you to come with me.’ He pulled them both to their feet.
‘What? What for?’
‘It doesn’t matter what for. Just come. And Nat. I want Nat with us too. Where is she? Can you go and grab her for me, Beth? Meet us over there …’
‘But she’s dancing.’
‘Please. She won’t mind. Not when she sees who’s h
ere.’
Beth sighed. What was going on? He was rounding the family up like sheep and herding them towards the door. He’d be grabbing the grannies next, and Aunt Jane if he could catch her. It was only as she went to get Natalie that she spotted Jenny on the other side of the dance floor. She had the most enormous grin on her face and was signalling something, making silly little winks and pretending to rock something in her arms.
‘What?’ Beth mouthed silently, dodging Jane as she whirled past in the arms of a man she didn’t recognise, giggling like a schoolgirl. And then it dawned on her, in a blinding flash. ‘Laura?’
Jenny nodded and bounded across the room, grabbing one side of Nat’s chair as Beth grabbed the other, and together they swished and swooped their way across the room and followed the others into the corridor.
‘In here,’ Ollie said, pushing open the door of the ladies.
‘Ollie! You can’t go in there.’
‘No? You just watch me!’
‘But … Oh! Laura!’ Beth squealed. ‘Oh, my God, you’ve done it. You’ve only gone and done it!’
Laura was sitting in a small red velvet chair tucked away by the mirror in the corner, still wearing her coat, the baby clutched tightly to her chest and wrapped up in a big white blanket so only her tiny face peeped out at the top, an elderly woman who could only be Laura’s Aunt Clara beaming with pride beside them.
‘Yes, I have.’
Beth wanted to throw herself at Laura and scream with delight but she was aware of her mother standing beside her, very rigid and still, open-mouthed with shock.
‘Laura … is this … is this what I think it is?’
Ollie stepped forward and rested his hand protectively on Laura’s shoulders. ‘Yes, Mum, it definitely is. Laura and me … we have a daughter. You have a granddaughter. At last. And her name is Evie. Evie Rose …’
‘Oh.’ Kate’s hand flew to her face. ‘But how? When? Why?’
‘How? Well, it might have had something to do with the birds and the bees, or was it a gooseberry bush and a stork? Mum, do you really want me to spell it out for you?’ Ollie laughed. ‘Look, it doesn’t matter about any of that, does it? Laura’s had a baby, with a lot of help and support from her aunt here. And, yes, I wish I’d known sooner, but I didn’t, and there’s nothing I can do about that now. But she’s here. Our little Evie’s here, and I couldn’t be more proud. Or happy. I’m a daddy at last and nothing else really matters right now. We can talk about the details later. But for now … well, here she is. Don’t you want to give your new granddaughter a cuddle?’
