by Maeve Haran
Stella tried to ignore the faint pong of multiple dog occupation which, to her amazement, even stylish owners like Prue never seemed to notice.
Today her hopefully simple task was to photograph the fawn one. Even dog-hardened Stella had to admit that this particular pug was quite endearing. Of course they all had names beginning with ‘P’: Pugwash (naturally), Peaches and Pudding. She held out a doggy treat towards Pudding, the candidate for photography, and was steamrollered by Peaches and Pugwash. ‘Could they possibly go in the other room? It should only take five or ten minutes.’
‘Oh, but I’d like to dress him in various costumes, so we can see which is the cutest.’ Prue produced a tiny Venetian opera mask, a nurse’s apron and cap and – the pièce de résistance – a Santa costume. ‘If I really like the painting, I’m going to make it my Christmas card.’
‘But won’t the others be jealous?’ enquired Stella, straight-faced, as she snapped away with her beloved Fujifilm X-M1. Moments later she could have eaten her words when Prue brought the other two heavy breathers back into the room, produced two more Santa hats and expected Stella to capture all three dogs in one shot.
An hour later, exhausted, one step from committing a doggy massacre, Stella had what she wanted.
‘How long will it take you?’ Prue enquired eagerly.
‘Now I have three to paint, it will take a little longer and I will have to up the price I quoted.’
‘Then I hope you’ll capture their characters. They’re all completely different, you know.’
‘Absolutely,’ Stella replied, surveying the row of fish-eyed wheezy animals and trying to remember which one was which.
As she opened the front door at six-thirty, she had a brief fantasy that Matthew might have at least laid the table or unloaded the dishwasher. She’d seen how, when they retired, some of her friends’ husbands had taken over most of the shopping and quite a lot of the cooking. Some of them, to their wives’ amused but grateful astonishment, had become mini cordon bleu chefs, producing prawns with saffron rice or venison with juniper berries for weekday suppers which had previously consisted, when their wives were in charge, of shepherd’s pie or pork chops. Unfortunately, Matthew wasn’t one of them, though Stella was honest enough to admit she wasn’t sure how she’d take it if all her domestic duties were suddenly lifted from her shoulders. On the other hand, occasionally laying the table or making the bed wouldn’t go amiss.
Their daughter Emma arrived at seven on the dot with her children in tow. Jesse, at just sixteen, was pale and slender with a curtain of long black hair. In Stella’s view he was worryingly withdrawn, though when she had attempted to raise this with Emma she was soon put in her place. All boys his age were like that, had been the tart reply. A grandmother’s role, she’d soon discovered, was to keep her wallet open and her mouth shut.
Jesse had grown his hair even longer since she’d last seen him and almost looked like a child of the Sixties himself. He was a good-looking boy when he didn’t hide behind his luxuriant locks. Emma had had him in her mid-twenties, earlier than her peer group, and the pregnancy had, Stella suspected, taken her husband Stuart by surprise, if not rendered him speechless with shock. Stuart had only been working for a couple of years, with a well-known firm of radical lawyers who had, it seemed, a rather un-radical attitude to employees taking extended paternity leave. Not that Stuart had really tried.
Stella had sometimes wondered if Jesse’s withdrawal was partly due to not seeing enough of his father, and hearing his mother moan endlessly about this fact. The irony of it all was that Stuart was absent because he was helping other people, throwing himself into miscarriages of justice, giving a voice to the voiceless, as his boss liked to put it, and being altogether admirable. Unless you were his family.
Izzy was an exuberant eleven, as much ‘Look at me!’ as Jesse was silent and detached. She would burst into rooms, twirl around and bow, as if an eager audience constantly awaited her. She was a bright girl, supposed to be studying hard for entrance exams, but keener on capturing her life in selfies and sharing it with her two best friends, Freya and Bianca. Their world fascinated Stella, who had grown up when waiting by the phone was the only hope of communication, but it irritated Emma who was forever threatening to confiscate her smartphone, a sanction so deadly serious, that no one, least of all Izzy, believed her.
And then there was baby Ruby. Stella had been stunned when Emma broke the news that after a gap of ten years she was pregnant again. The first thought that had flown into Stella’s mind was that Emma was doing just what those dog owners did when their children left home – volunteering to be tied down again.
Of course, Emma had said that it had all been an accident.
‘I thought you’d be thrilled!’ accused Emma when she’d told her mother the news.
Stella hadn’t asked what Stuart thought because she suspected she already knew. Izzy, who Stella was babysitting one night when Emma and Stuart went out to dinner ‘for a chat’, disclosed that they had actually gone to see someone to talk about the situation. ‘Dad’s livid and told Mum she’d done it on purpose and they’ve gone off to talk to some lady called a Couplers’ Therapist in Croydon. They think I don’t know, but I overheard them shouting. What’s a Couplers’ Therapist, Gran?’
Stella tried not to smile at the misnomer, though coupling might be as good an answer as any. It usually was. ‘Someone who helps people sort out tangles that happen in all families. A kind person who listens and helps people see the other’s point of view so they come away happy again.’
‘Like Jeremy Kyle when a dad comes on who’s been to bed with the mum’s sister?’
‘No! The opposite of Jeremy Kyle! He makes people crosser!’
‘So they’ll be happy when they get back, then?’
‘The lady may need to see them a few times, but yes, I’m sure they will.’ At least, she fervently hoped so.
The solution had turned out to be Ruby herself. She was an irresistible baby, smiling, happy and sleeping through the night, enchanted by everything, especially the dogs that came to the house to be photographed or painted by Stella. Even the snappiest Jack Russell seemed to calm down when Ruby cooed at it, though Stella was always standing by to scoop her up, just in case. Stuart and Emma, to Stella’s relief, seemed to settle down again.
‘Hello, darling.’ Stella embraced her daughter. She had been about to add, ‘Stuart coming later?’ but decided even that might sound loaded. ‘How lovely to see you all.’ She wondered if she should tell Emma about Cameron Keene but it might sound a bit show-offy when Emma was probably feeling stressed. ‘Glass of wine?’
‘I can’t tell you how much I need it,’ Emma sighed.
Jesse, silent as usual, went into the garden to kick a football about with his headphones on, so that he was beyond any attempt at communication.
‘Can I play on your iPad, Gran?’ Izzy asked.
‘What does your mother say?’ Stella asked diplomatically, but Emma seemed eager for Izzy to leave them. ‘Go and find Pappy upstairs. Tell him I said you could use his PC.’
For some reason Matthew didn’t like being called ‘Granddad’. He said it reminded him of that song by Clive Dunn pretending to be an old geezer.
As soon as Izzy had skipped out of the room, Emma turned to her mother. ‘Stuart’ll be here later. He’s saving the world as usual. I’ve come to hate the words pro bono.’
‘Why, what do they mean?’ Stella asked.
‘For the public good, i.e., for free. It means it’s some worthy case of a deprived person, an asylum seeker from Ethiopia or someone on death row in God knows where, who can’t possibly pay but Stuart will have to spend his entire life fighting for them and because it’s a good cause I’m not entitled to complain.’ She seemed to catch her carping tone. ‘God, Mum, I sound like a bitch. It’s just that we hardly ever get to see him.’
Stella could see how trying that might be.
‘And I’m stuck at home all
the time with the kids.’
‘But I thought . . .’ Stella attempted, confused about why she’d had Ruby if she felt like this.
‘Anyway, I’ve finally come up with a solution . . .’
On these ominous words the doorbell rang, and since no one else, Matthew for instance, appeared to answer it, Stella had to get up and do so.
Suze burst in, clutching flowers and a bottle of Prosecco. ‘For my friend the rock chick!’ she announced fulsomely.
‘Not now,’ Stella shook her head discouragingly, ‘come in and help set the table. Emma and the children are here.’ The last thing Emma in her current state would want to hear was about her mother the muse.
‘Shall we wait for Stuart or go ahead and save him some?’
‘His dinner can be in the dog for all I care.’ This did not bode well for the progress of the Couplers’ Therapy. ‘Do you know, he accused me of sitting around all day just because I suggested he try and come home a bit earlier to help with bath time. He actually suggested that I’d only had Ruby so that I didn’t have to go back to work!’
‘Right, let’s put the spaghetti on,’ Stella responded, feeling herself getting into deep waters. The truth was, whatever she said would be wrong, especially on the subject of Ruby. She had been as surprised as anyone at Emma’s sudden pregnancy. On the other hand, she fully supported her daughter’s decision to go ahead if it was what she really wanted. A termination would have seemed somehow wrong in a settled, middle-class family, though she knew Suze, and any of her feminist friends, would have bitterly disagreed. ‘What did we fight for if not a woman’s right to control her own fertility?’ they would have demanded. But that didn’t really cover Emma’s complicated motivation.
Instead, she put her arms round her daughter. ‘That must be incredibly galling for you.’
Emma softened a little. She had put on weight with Ruby, but she was someone who looked good carrying a few extra pounds. Her hair was blonde like Stella’s but her skin had a kind of golden glow that must have come from Matthew’s side of the family. Stella’s own skin was pale with a tendency to freckles and so was Stuart’s. Maybe one of Matthew’s rather repressed relations had once had an affair with an Italian countess in generations past. If so, Emma was the lucky beneficiary. Jesse had the same pale, almost translucent skin that Stella had. Lucky Ruby and Izzy, like their mother, went brown like little walnuts in summer.
‘OK, well, if I’m not going to get sympathy I’ll have tea instead, or rather wine.’ She held out her glass.
‘You were getting sympathy,’ Suze commented.
‘Anyway,’ Emma banged down her glass, ‘I’ve got a little surprise for Stuart.’
This sounded so portentous that Suze and Stella got up, as one, and went to sort out the spaghetti sauce and lay the table.
Two
————
‘Where’s Pappy?’ Stella enquired of her granddaughter, who had suddenly reappeared.
‘He’s working on some incredibly important document to do with the council. He gave me his phone instead, which wasn’t much use, actually, as I wanted to start a test paper for my exams,’ Izzy announced, enjoying being holier-than-thou at the adults’ expense for once.
‘Goodness, it must be important. He can’t work his phone but he guards it like a terrier with a bone. Won’t even lend it to me when my battery’s flat. Matthew! Supper!’ Stella yelled up the stairs.
Stella began ladling out the spaghetti sauce, courtesy of Loyd Grossman.
‘Mmm,’ sniffed Emma, ‘you can always tell a homemade sauce.’
Catching Suze’s eye, Stella let this pass, given the general air of tense anticipation, and decided not to admit to the sauce’s provenance. Ruby would survive something in a jar for once.
‘Right!’ Matthew appeared, beaming and clutching a sheaf of papers. ‘I am just about to launch my Save Our High Street campaign. Let’s see what the bastards in the planning department make of that!’ He flourished the document with the same air of self-satisfaction she imagined on the face of Sir Walter Raleigh throwing down his cloak for Queen Elizabeth I. Of course, poor old Walter ended up minus his head in the end. She hoped Matthew’s old enemies at the council would be less barbaric.
‘Nice sauce, Gran.’ Jesse grinned. His pale face came alive when he smiled. ‘Can I have some Parmesan?’
‘Run out of it; you can have mature cheddar instead.’ She passed the block of cheddar over – rather inelegant, she had to admit – and as she did so she caught Emma’s raised eyebrow. Maybe baby Ruby wasn’t allowed English cheddar.
Ruby, meanwhile, liked the sauce so much she was plastering it all over her head until she looked like the victim of a particularly gruesome baby killer. She picked up the bowl and flicked the contents, with consummate aim, so that they landed on the pristine document that hoped to save Camley High Street from the wicked developers.
‘She doesn’t approve,’ laughed Jesse. ‘She’s probably a Tory. Hey, Tory Baby!’
Ruby cooed with delight at her new nickname.
At that moment the doorbell rang.
Jesse jumped up, the pleasure draining from his face. ‘It’s probably Dad. I’ll go.’
There was no need to ask if Jesse was aware of the rift between his parents.
Stuart came in bearing a large bunch of flowers and a bottle of red wine. He wore a pin-striped suit that was cut differently from the banker’s version and gave him a crumpled, radical charm. Like Jesse’s, his hair was dark, but Stuart’s curled over his collar. He wore black-framed specs that made Stella think of a young Elvis Costello. They even shared the same intensity. Stella was delighted to see that he handed the flowers not to her but to Emma, who put them down carelessly on the table behind her. They were even from a proper florist, not picked up in a garage or convenience supermarket.
‘Lilies, how lovely! I’ll get you a vase, Em. They do smell gorgeous. Now, Stuart, some spaghetti for you?’
Matthew, meanwhile, was dabbing his document with a washing-up sponge and trying to pretend he didn’t mind, which he obviously did.
She heaped the rest of the spaghetti and sauce in a bowl and handed it to her son-in-law. ‘Interesting case?’
‘Well, if I didn’t do it, no one else would.’
‘Stu isn’t of the “wretches hang that jury-men may dine” school of thought,’ Emma commented caustically.
Her parents looked bewildered, though her tone was unmistakeable.
‘Pope, Rape of the Lock,’ she enlightened them. ‘I’ve got an English degree, remember, though obviously I don’t use it while I’m lying around watching daytime TV.’
‘So,’ Stella suggested brightly, ‘tell us about your Save the High Street plan, Matthew.’
‘I’ve been reading up on planning,’ he replied enthusiastically. ‘It seems we need them to declare the high street a LASC.’
‘Sounds great,’ Jesse threw in, obviously desperate to lighten the atmosphere between his parents, ‘as in I’m going out on the LASC.’
Matthew looked at him as if he were speaking Swahili.
‘It’s a pun on LASH, Matthew,’ Suze pointed out. ‘The young talk of going out on the lash when they mean getting drunk.’
‘Oh. Oh I see. Actually, it means Local Area of Special Character. What we need to show is that Camley doesn’t need another late-night supermarket that doesn’t even pay staff the minimum wage, but that there are other ways of bringing the area back to life.’
‘Goodness, how on earth will you do that?’
‘Yes, Dad, if Mary Portas struggled with it, I’m not sure I’d put my money on you,’ Emma commented.
‘I rather hoped your mother would help. She’s the creative one, after all.’
Stella blinked, stunned but also touched that Matthew appreciated her artistic side.
‘Will you come down there with me and have a look?’
‘Of course.’
‘Maybe Matthew’s right.’ Suze couldn’t res
ist sharing the revelation of earlier in the day, whether Stella liked it or not. ‘Maybe you should try and get your famous friend involved. After all, Camley can’t boast too many rock gods, can it?’
‘What’s she talking about now?’ Emma asked rudely.
Suze thought it was time Emma stopped underestimating her mother, even if it was a natural trait in your offspring, which was why Suze didn’t have any herself. ‘Cameron Keene,’ she announced, with the air of a conjuror drawing a rabbit out of a hat.
Emma looked at Stuart. ‘Who’s he?’
‘Rock singer.’ Stu shrugged. ‘Huge in the Sixties and Seventies. Still incredibly popular. I think he’s gone on releasing albums, though God knows who buys them.’
‘Actually,’ Suze replied, needled, ‘he had a hit that went platinum and is on every lovers’ compilation ever released: “Don’t Leave Me in the Morning”.’
They nodded in recognition.
‘I know the one,’ Jesse exclaimed. ‘A bit like a male version of “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?”.’
Suze looked at him in surprise. ‘The very one. And do you know who inspired it?’
Emma and Stuart shrugged, beginning to look bored. ‘Is this some sort of oldies’ pop quiz?’
Suze looked straight at Emma. ‘Your mother.’
