Hetty: An Angel Avenue Spin-Off

by Sarah Michelle Lynch

“I hate it when you two talk adult stuff, can’t we talk about how stupid my uncles are? And they’re five whole years older than me!”

  Joe guffaws and we thank the waiter when some antipasti is delivered along with a jug of water and a large glass of white for me.

  Joe winks at me, telling our daughter, “You’ve got to admit, they’re a double act, and they do keep Granddad and Grandma on their toes.”

  Jules hates to be called Grandma. She refuses to acknowledge Betty until she calls her Jules or Mummy Number Two. She’s no Grandma, she often refutes.

  “Was you that naughty at that age, Daddy?”

  “Were,” I correct her, and she sticks her tongue out at me.

  “I wasn’t. Quite the opposite. I think they take after their mother if you ask me. Your granddad and me were both very good boys.”

  I cough. “Yeah, right.”

  Betty laughs. “You two. God.”

  “Gosh,” I remind her.

  She huffs at me, taking one of the menus and trying to read the Italian. I find myself looking at her everyday and wondering how on earth I’m going to deal with the hormones that are to come.

  “Know what you’re having?” I smile into his eyes.

  “Of course. Know what you’re having?”

  “The seafood pizza, yes. And you’re having the same. We always have it.”

  “Because then we can both stink of fish together.”

  “Eww, you two are so, so gross,” she complains.

  “Just wait, my girl. One day, Elizabeth, a boy will be begging to stink for you too.”

  She covers her ears. “La la la la la la, boys are gross, boys are gross, so are you, so are you!”

  I laugh loudly and it ricochets around the room. There are no other diners here yet. We booked and got here early. I hope the other reservations aren’t put off by the crowds outside. Anyway we can’t see them anymore, now the waiter’s helpfully let the blinds down.

  Sometimes I’ll catch a look at Joe and my heart still aches, skipping a beat. True, it’s rarer nowadays that it happens, but that it still happens even now we know one another inside and out is a rare and beautiful thing. We could have easily ignored this thing between us, but I think he was stubborn, and I think that was because he’d seen what Jules and Warrick had. And he wanted that too.

  I twirl my wedding rings around my finger as Betty and Joe begin chatting about which bloody minded tricks they could play on the terrible twosome later. If there’s anything I did right in this life, it was giving my daughter such a father. I know Elizabeth will be knocking back any man who doesn’t match up to Joe. Let’s hope such an equivalent exists.

  I still remember our wedding day like it was yesterday, like it was the day I was reborn, renewed – the first day of my life.

  Betty was two years old when we gathered our friends and family together at a secret country house location. We erected marquees but it was such bad weather on the day, we had to take it all indoors. We married in a rather more formal way than anticipated, inside a ceremony room, which had no doubt witnessed plenty of marriages before. However, I didn’t see anyone or anything else that day as I walked down the aisle on John’s arm. I only saw him, and in my mind, it was just us in that room and nobody else. I didn’t notice any of the paintings or decorations or flowers – just him – standing there waiting for me, my one and only.

  I was shaking as I got closer to him. I was almost crying.

  He took my hands and smiled and I felt so much better. He was almost crying as well and it didn’t feel so nerve-wracking anymore.

  I heard Jules sniffling nearby and I had to try really hard not to look at her otherwise I would have been in floods of tears, too.

  I said my vows with a shaky voice. Warrick was holding Betty in his arms. He couldn’t have looked prouder that day.

  I think what it was – my emotional response that day – was that by then we’d been through so much together. It all meant so much more to be getting married and to be promising ourselves to one another, even after everything we’d been through.

  When I had Betty I almost died and Joe almost lost his lover and his daughter. But he proved himself to be the most wonderful and caring father in the aftermath as I recovered from emotional scarring, that when I finally did marry him, it was overwhelming to know that he was really mine.

  Now as I look at our beautiful girl, so bright and happy, and as I look at him, too, I know it was worth everything I went through.

  “I meant to ask. Have you had a buyer yet?” Joe’s looking up at me, hope in his eyes.

  “I have. But I’m thinking about it.”

  Etta’s Designs became big. It was a right place, right time sort of thing and I dropped so lucky. People wanted to know how to make their own clothes at home, as well. I gathered a number of people around me to make it happen. And it happened, with classes being set up, plus various clothing stores around the country. I’m more famous than Joe in certain circles, but happily, I go unrecognised most of the time. It became so important to me to help other people find peace and calm through their own crafts.

  However, I’m selling off some of the business because Joe and I have a plan. Against advice from his financial advisors and a bunch of other people, we’ll move back over here but after he’s played maybe two or three more seasons, we’re going travelling, and we’re taking Betty with us. Joe will teach kids all over the world to play (at camps) and I will continue to design women’s, children’s and baby’s clothing, all while other people see to the other stuff for me.

  Right now, everything seems pretty much perfect.

  However, I am reminded all the time of how lucky I am. I am reminded because, that lost, little girl I was once, she still remains. She is but a distant memory, but by no means disappeared; a part of me I am no longer controlled by, but a part of me nonetheless. Joe was right all those years ago – his love has never wavered, nor thankfully ever calmed, and bit by bit, he’s gradually pieced me back together. Motherhood is scary, but with him by my side, it’s been mostly a fairytale.

  And I’ve never forgotten Mars, either.

  I won’t ever forget him.

  My daughter may never want for anything, neither will Warrick and Jules’ kids, but they will always know that hard work is the key. Hard work and empathy.

  Empathy is what made me the businesswoman I am today, the mother I am, and more importantly, the partner I am to Joe, who needs me more than he’ll admit sometimes. He needs me to cheer him, to champion him and most importantly, to love him.

  We were just meant to be and fate in all her conniving, wicked glory, wouldn’t have had this union any other way.

  * * *

  JOE

  IT’S carnage sitting around the table with my daughter, wife, younger brothers, Mum, Dad, Granddad and step-grandma Wendy. Four generations.

  “Gonna eat faster than you!” Charlie challenges Harry.

  “Naw, gonna beat ya mate!”

  They start shovelling their food and I give Betty a little glance. She smirks but looks down at her lap, pretending she knows nothing.

  “AHHhhhhh! AHHhhhhh!” Harry cries, leaping up from his chair.

  “UGH! UGH! What’s that! UGH!” Charlie joins in, but unlike his brother, he merely peers at the offending item more closely. Slowly, he picks a plastic spider from underneath a pile of rice, then another, then another.

  Harry does the same once he realises they’re fake.

  “All right,” Charlie addresses the room, “who’s gonna confess, eh? Who?” He looks at Granddad Terry. “Granddad, you done this, hmm?”

  Terry who’s approaching seventy-five is hardly likely to have done this, but he shrugs his shoulder.

  “Betty?” Harry asks in a sickly voice, eyeing her closely.

  “Ewww, s’if I’d touch a spider, even dead or placcy they’re gross. Ewww.”

  Dad and Jules are shaking their head at me while the twins are conferring about how to get back at t
he culprit. Charlie’s going to be a physicist and Harry’s leaving for London to study ballet just as soon as Dad will let him.

  My gorgeous, exceptional wife sniggers. “Joseph, one is quiet, isn’t one?”

  “I’m innocent, innocent I tell ya,” I say, in my best American gangster voice.

  “Big brother, gonna get ya, ya nobhead!”

  I’m twice their age, therefore have double the experience, but my brothers round the table and try to pull me from my chair and drag me to a place of their choosing, where I will receive suitable punishment no doubt.

  “Put the man down,” Het yells, standing up and warning them with blazing blue eyes, “or you will deal with me and I will give you the death grip of deathliness and there’ll be no coming back from the death grip.”

  They cower in front of my blonde, beautiful wife. Something tells me they’ve always sort of been scared of her for some reason. Betty almost wets her knickers with laughter, she can’t get enough of her mother’s quick wit, dryness and undeniable zest for life.

  “This is only our bloody table, you know everyone,” Jules pipes up, “but you all just keep desecrating this sacred dinnertime togetherness, that’s fine.”

  Her sons peer at her a moment before they start digging back into their food, racing to the end of dinner as per usual. It’s a wonder they don’t both have perpetual constipation. My dad, as grey and as worn-out as he seems, still has a young look about him whenever he looks at his wife.

  “Where ya going on hols this year then, Joe, Hetty?” Wendy asks.

  I look at Het who knows where I want to go. Whether we’ll get to go is another thing.

  She purses her lips and replies to Wendy, “Joe wants to go around New England in a Winnebago or something but I’d rather lie on a beach as per.”

  I shrivel inside at her lack of enthusiasm for a trip I’ve always wanted to make.

  “And you, Elizabeth? Where would you like to go?”

  “It’s Betty,” our daughter smiles tightly, “and I wanna do whatever Dad wants to do, so maybe me and Daddy will go without Mummy.”

  “Mummy and Mummy Two could go to Ibiza, how about it Het?” Jules asks.

  “Now that sounds like a plan.” Jules and Het clink glasses from opposite sides of the table.

  “Son, sounds like we’re taking the children to New England and the ladies are off to Ibiza. I just wonder who’s gonna be their taxi if we’re 3,000 miles away.” Dad gives me a wry smile and I crack out a laugh.

  “Won’t need a taxi,” Het says, “we’ll roll home from the bar downstairs.”

  She and Jules laugh some more.

  “DONE!” Harry bellows.

  “DONE!” Charlie yells, even louder.

  “Can we leave the table, Mum? Can we go out?”

  “Can we? What time we gotta be home?”

  “Yes, just go. GO!” Jules shouts. “Keep phones on you at all times, curfew is ten.”

  The giant but younger brothers of mine leap up, clear away their plates and grab ice creams on the way out, picking up their bikes from out back.

  It’s so quiet now they’ve gone, it also feels like there’s an imbalance without their raging hormones in the room.

  I catch Betty’s nose wrinkling in the same way Het’s does and it makes me so happy inside, even if the wrinkled nose is in response to her highly hyperactive uncles. Deep down, Charlie and Harry would rather walk over hot coals than cross their mother, who they love and adore.

  “You almost ready?” I ask Betty, winking at her.

  “Yeah, just need to grab my bag.”

  “What’s going on?” Het realises she’s out of the loop.

  “Betty’s off to Aunt Liza’s for the night for a sleepover with Emily, Judy and Clara. That okay?”

  “I thought we were staying here?”

  “You thought wrong. I booked us somewhere.” I grin, feeling very pleased with myself. It’s rare I get one past my all-knowing wife.

  She goes silent and smiles quietly.

  “I’m so excited!” Betty says as she finishes her plate and takes it to the kitchen. “I’ll take those onesies you made us all tonight if you like, Mum?”

  “Sure, baby,” Het says, leaning her head back, and Betty gives her a kiss on the way to grabbing her stuff.

  It’s a relief to know that when we move back, Betty will have Liza’s two girls to hang about with, as well as Judy and Amber, Ruby and Vernon’s two girls. Her old friends will no doubt come and stay. I worry her accent is going to get picked on over here, but at these moments when I’m worrying myself, I just look at Het and remind myself she’d kill anyone who hurt our baby.

  “Dad, I’m ready to go,” Betty calls.

  I grab my car keys, kiss my wife and get in the car to drive her.

  ARRRIVING back at the house not long later, Het’s waiting for me in the reception hall.

  “How many selfies did you have to pose for?” She chuckles.

  “Only about thirty. Don’t worry about it.”

  “Should’ve let me go.”

  “That wasn’t the point. Tonight’s for you to relax and you’ve had some wines, right?”

  “Funny that, isn’t it? Letting me have wine when you’ve known all day we’re off for a dirty night away… hmmm…”

  “How do you know this will be dirty?” I quirk a brow at her.

  “Oh, Joseph. When is it not?”

  I crack up laughing. “True.”

  We pop our heads in and say thanks to Jules and my dad for dinner. “See ya later, Granddad. We’re all meeting for Sunday dinner at the Westwood, yeah?”

  Terry grumbles. “You mean that overpriced nonsense you put me through every time you’re over here?”

  “You mean that five star food which is better for your bowels, yes.”

  “Then we’ll be there,” he grumbles.

  “I can’t wait,” Wendy says, “bought a dress and everything.”

  “We’ll see you,” Jules adds, “have a good night. If there are any problems, Liza will call us. But I’m sure Betty will be more than fine.”

  “Love yas,” Het says, and I hustle her out before we’re here saying our goodbyes for ever.

  Driving her away in my Mercedes convertible with the top down (given the weather), she buffs her nails on her shirt, asking, “Where we going, stud?”

  “Where do you think, madam?”

  I start driving in the direction of the coast, to the place which has always been special to us, to where it really all began.

  I couldn’t have imagined then just how full and how rich my life would become, living my life with two girls I love and adore, two women I’m privileged to protect, love and care for. I feel like the luckiest guy on earth.

  When I first met my wife (months before we eventually got together), I was going out with someone else then. I previously thought that someone was it. Of course, when I met Het, any notions I’d had of love before then were completely diminished. Never did I know love until Henrietta, I know that now.

  Reema was an academic and told me she wouldn’t date a footballer. So academia it was, just to please a girl, because I was so scared of being alone. She went off to Oxford, telling me we could still be together, but she eventually used the distance card as the reason for why she’d found someone else. I was hurt and devastated and so ashamed of myself, for letting someone walk all over me like that.

  Suddenly free and single and able to finally pursue my feelings for Hetty, I was understandably scared and reluctant to dive in, headfirst. Reema never even asked me why I played football. Well, I played football because it was the only thing that got me through the tough times, it was the one thing always there, the one joy in my life I could always rely on. And the ex of mine, gorgeous and intelligent though she was, wasn’t a patch on Het. Not a patch. So if Reema the schemer could betray me so easily, the thought of Het doing that too… even the thought of it already killed me. I held back from Het for months even knowing I was in
love with her. I used to walk by the community centre just to catch a glance. I knew there were guys in her life – Dad told me about her lifestyle of meaningless fucks – but I continued to let her go about her life, not knowing that I was out there, scared but desperate, trying to work up the courage to worship the ground she walked on. I needed to man up, I knew that. Hurting in the aftermath of Reema, though – I had been left with severely cold feet when it came to love.

  Then I overheard a conversation between my dad and Jules one night. It went a little something like this…

  It was late, much later than they usually stayed up. They were around the kitchen table and I was about to walk in and get myself a bottled water from the fridge when I overheard Jules say, “You need to let her be. Hetty will come through this.”

  Jules had left the house after dinner earlier, saying she had an errand. I’d wondered where she was going. It was now clear she’d been to Het’s and was reporting to Dad on what had transpired.

  “I’ve tried everything to… to… give her some self worth,” my dad mumbled, almost stuttered.

  “It comes from within.”

  Dad huffed. “I try to tell myself I’ve done all I can–”

  “You have!” I heard the demand in her tone.

  “What her mother did to her, Jules… it’s like this rotten apple inside her… constantly brewing this evil broth… frothing and bubbling, mutating, evolving, infecting her every thought… making her feel unworthy.”

  Jules sighed. “Often, the people who make out they don’t need or want love, they’re the ones who need it most…”

  “No, Jules–”

  “Warrick!”

  “I told you already, I am not a professional anymore but I’m not going back on the confidentiality I promised to keep.”

  I heard Jules move around the room, as if pouring herself another glass of whatever she was drinking. I tried to keep out of sight, behind the sliding doors to the dining room round the corner.

  “Joe got hurt, but we know he’s crazy about her! Absolutely crazy. If he could just understand why she goes around, acting like she does…”

  “It’s not my place, or yours for that matter,” he told her, somewhat pointedly, “to step in. I want a promise on that, Jules.”