The Vintage Teacup Club (16 page)

‘Dad, come on.’ Chris looked serious. ‘Are you going to say something or am I?’

‘What is it with the awkwardness?’ I said.

‘There’s something I’ve been wanting to talk to you about, sweetheart,’ Dad said.

‘Oh, is there?’ So that’s why he’d been acting so oddly lately. ‘What’s up, Dad? Is it about the wedding? Look, I’ve told you before, I’m not expecting you to pay towards it. Dan and I have it just about covered. OK, not quite but we will soon.’

‘It’s not that, Jen.’ Dad looked down. He looked
tired right now, older than he should.

‘What Dad’s trying to tell you,’ Chris said, sitting up straighter. ‘Is that Mum called him the other day.’

‘Mum?’ I said, my voice hoarse. I put down the fork that had been en route to my mouth. Mum wasn’t in touch with us. She didn’t call up, for a chat, just to see how we were doing. She hadn’t even sent a birthday card for ten years.

‘When? What did she want?’ My chest and face burning hot.

‘About two weeks ago,’ Dad said. ‘I wasn’t really expecting it,’ as ever, master of the understatement, ‘you know it’s been twenty years since we last saw her? And ten since those last birthday cards.’

Chris put his hand on mine and squeezed it, he didn’t even have to look at me to know what I was thinking. Dad obviously felt the need to say all this out loud, maybe it was his way of making it more real. Chris and I didn’t need reminding though, the dates were engraved on both of our minds.

When we were kids we’d tried to forget about Mum. Dad was so busy most of the time, keeping an eye on me and making sure Chris went along to his special playgroup and doctor’s appointments. He’d keep us entertained with games and activities so that we didn’t have much time to sit around talking or thinking about it. But looking back now there was something missing. Dad had changed. It was as if he was stuck
on tramlines, taking us to the places we needed to be but otherwise keeping to the house. If he had any time to himself he’d be out the back with his carpentry, sawing and nailing something together. Friends and family would call up, or come by, but he’d hardly say a word to them, just ‘yes’ or ‘no’ or ‘fine thanks’. Even as a child I knew that he just wanted all those people to leave him alone. We were a unit and we muddled along together. We got along OK. Most of the time we were happy, in fact. In spite of the challenges he faced, Chris always wore a smile and we used to play together a lot. We were just like other kids.

Then one day when I was seven, Emma, pretty and slim and the most popular girl in my class, came up to me in the playground. My heart had lifted, I was finally going to be asked to join in her game of French elastics. ‘Laura dared me to ask you something,’ she said, a laugh bubbling up in her voice. I could see her friends on the other side of the playground watching on. ‘Why’s your mum never there to pick you up after school?’ She tilted her face waiting for my response.

My alice band was really digging into my head, and the plastic teeth were sharp. I tried to think of an answer. The stupid hairband was too small, I thought as I moved the side bits, I’d told Dad the red one was better. Emma came closer to me. I could see all the freckles on her nose now. She smelled of
strawberry Hubba Bubba. ‘Is it because you don’t have a mum?’ she asked, glancing back at Laura and the other girls, who were laughing.

I’d come home crying that night. I can still remember the raw feeling in my throat from sobbing, it had stung as I gulped my juice while Dad calmed me down. That was when he told me what had happened: that Mum had loved us all, but it hadn’t been working living together, and one day Dad had come home and she wasn’t there any more. As teenagers Chris and I found out from Uncle Dave, Mum’s brother, that soon after leaving us Mum had moved in with an ex-boyfriend of hers in Eastbourne. My guess is it was actually right after she left, but Uncle Dave didn’t say that. I think he was probably trying to soften the blow.

‘I’m sorry that your mum didn’t stick it out with your dad, because he’s a good bloke,’ he’d said. ‘But we all make our choices.’ Uncle Dave was a Hell’s Angel. His choice was to spend his life on the road with other bikers, never tied down, so we didn’t see him much, but Chris and I had always enjoyed it when he stopped by.

‘I couldn’t believe it when I heard her voice.’ Dad shook his head and looked away, recalling the recent memory. ‘But there she was.’ He looked back at me. ‘Our phone number’s never changed, has it? I suppose she knew it by heart.’

‘Are you really telling me she called two
weeks ago,’ I said, his words finally sinking in, ‘and you didn’t think to mention it till now?’

‘I know,’ Dad said. ‘I’m sorry. You just seem to have a lot on your plate at the moment. I should have said something sooner.’

I felt sick to my stomach. I turned to face Chris.

‘Look, Jen, I only heard about this yesterday. And it’s weird for me too, believe me.’

‘It was you she really wanted to speak to, love,’ Dad said, looking at me, his eyes weary and sad. ‘It was actually you she called about.’

‘Me?’ My voice come out as a whisper. ‘Why?’

‘Because … she’d been in touch with your Cousin Angie. Found her on Facebook, she said. Angie told her to leave you be, that you had other things to think about, with the wedding and everything.’

My heart was racing now. I waited for him to finish the story.

‘The thing is,’ Dad started, ‘Sue – your mum – I don’t think she really took it in, what Ange said. I guess she only heard the part about you getting married.’

‘Jen,’ Dad continued, cautiously. ‘She thinks she should be there.’

‘Be where?’ I snapped back.

‘At your wedding,’ Dad said. ‘Your mum wants to
come.’

*

Chris and I moved to the living room while Dad loaded the dishwasher. I’d told them both that there was no way I was going to return Mum’s call. It really was as simple as that.

‘You can take some time to think about it,’ Chris said. ‘Your wedding’s not tomorrow.’

‘Time to think about what?’ I said. ‘I don’t see how you can be so understanding, Chris. How dare she do this? She’s got two children, she can’t just call up wanting to talk to me.’

‘I don’t want to be in the middle of this, Jen,’ Chris said. ‘I’ve already got in the way of your relationship once, and I don’t want to again. If you want her there at your wedding, you should let her come.’

I shook my head. It was a mystery to me how Chris seemed to have let go of the resentment everyone expected him to have.

‘I mean I’m not justifying what she did,’ Chris said. ‘Of course not. But I pity her, that’s all. For whatever reason the fact she couldn’t cope with me back then stopped her being your mum, too. Now we’re all adults and things are different, we can make our own choices, and maybe you should give her a chance.’

‘Chris, I’m not having this conversation,’ I said. ‘You’re my family, Dad is my family – and Mum, Sue, whoever she is, is just a woman who abandoned us.’

‘OK. I still think you should sleep on
it,’ Chris said.

‘I don’t need to sleep on it.’ I felt something build up in me, anger, frustration, I don’t know what, but it seemed like no one in my family could see that there was no discussion to be had here, and I knew I was in danger of taking it out on Chris. ‘I’ve talked enough tonight. I’m going home.’

I got back to the flat just before nine, with a heavy heart and a head busy with thoughts. Bath and bed, that was what I needed. As I turned my key in the lock, though, I heard raised voices. I’d completely forgotten that Dan’s best friend Russ was coming around tonight.

‘Hi Jen,’ Dan called out from the living room, where the two of them were playing MarioKart with the volume up high. Half-empty foil cartons lay strewn across the coffee table, curry dripping on to the glass top. Russ was swigging from a bottle of Becks. ‘
Woahhhhhhh
,’ Dan said, staring at the screen and moving the controller so that his kart went over to the left, ‘the lava nearly got me that time.’

Russ called out ‘Hi Jen,’ and flashed me a cheeky grin. I went into the kitchen to fix myself a cocoa. It was chaos in there, as if they’d raided it before settling in the living room. I put the kettle on and then started to tidy slowly and methodically, putting empty glasses and dirty plates in the dishwasher, trying to calm the annoyance welling up in me as I realised I was barely making
a dent in the disarray. I took my cocoa into our bedroom, changed into my pyjamas and got into bed. I looked at the clock and willed it to go faster, it was only nine-thirty. I got out a copy of the Marian Keyes I was halfway through and looked for my page, but the shouts from the front room were too loud for me to concentrate. Instead I just lay in bed, my mind racing. All I wanted to do was sleep, but the noise was getting louder – each time I closed my eyes and started to drift off I’d be woken up again. At around half one I heard Dan see Russ out. He creaked open the bedroom door and crept in, but noisily, in that drunk-person-being-quiet way.

‘Dan,’ I said, looking up. ‘You don’t need to tiptoe. I’m not asleep.’

‘Oh hi babe, I thought you would be. It’s late, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, pretty late.’ I rolled over, away from him, and tried to make myself drift off. Dan didn’t seem to have a clue how wound up I was. Then I turned back around, unable to hold in my frustration any longer. ‘Did you really think I’d be able to sleep with all that noise you and Russ were making?’

Dan was taking off his T-shirt and had got it stuck over his head. His words muffled through the cotton, ‘Oh, sorry about that,’ he wrestled himself free, ‘but you know I haven’t seen Russ for ages.’ He undid his jeans, pulled them off and climbed into bed beside
me. ‘And you said you’d be at your Dad’s till late, didn’t you?’

‘I didn’t feel like staying after all.’ He cuddled up to me in bed. Why couldn’t he tell that things weren’t OK?

I pushed him away and sat up. ‘Dan, this is my flat too, and I want to be able to get to sleep when I’ve had a long day.’ My voice was shrill, I didn’t sound like me.

‘Fair enough,’ he said. ‘I’ll be quieter next time.’

‘But Dan,’ I went on, not able to stop myself now, as the words came pouring out. ‘We’re not students anymore, you know.’

He looked at me, confused. ‘I know that, Jen,’ he said. He reached out an arm to touch me but I moved away.

‘Don’t touch me. Just don’t.’ I carried on, my voice louder now. ‘I get tired of being the grown-up, sometimes I need an adult to be with too. I’m spending all this time planning for our future and you—’

‘Hang on, Jen. This isn’t fair,’ Dan said, firmly, his brow furrowed. ‘I’ve been working all hours this past week, just to get money so that you can have the wedding day that you want, and—’

‘So what are you saying?’ I said, sitting up straighter. ‘That it’s not the day
you
want? That you’re not bothered what we do?’ I felt a lump come to my throat. ‘Don’t do me any favours, Dan, please.’

‘What?’ Dan said, searching my face for something he’d missed. ‘Where’s this all coming from? Of course I want our wedding to be great
too. And it will be.’

‘But it won’t.’ I was resolute. ‘It won’t be.’

I thought back to the vintage dress I’d splashed out on and which was now hidden away in my wardrobe. I hadn’t even dared to tell Dan how much it cost. I knew that even with the extra hours he’d been putting in we were at risk of going over budget. Bigger than all of that, though, was the thought that my mum, after all this time, was trying to muscle in on our day. Where did I even start with that? How could I explain how that felt to Dan, or to anyone? My head spun; this was it, our dream wedding day was going to be ruined by debt and family drama.

Dan looked at me, his brow creased, and even in the heat of the moment I knew I wasn’t thinking straight. I couldn’t understand where all of this anger was coming from. The stress of the evening at Dad’s, and the last few weeks, had reached fever pitch and I no longer felt in control.

‘Jen, don’t be silly – all that matters is you and me getting married,’ he said, staring straight at me. ‘I thought we’d talked this through?’

‘Silly?’ I said, shouting at him now, gathering up the spare blanket and wrapping it around me. ‘You think I’m being
silly
now?’ My cheeks were burning with fury. ‘Can’t you see it’s all going to be ruined?’ I turned my back on him and marched out of the room, but as soon as I’d closed the door my eyes blurred with
tears.

I took the blanket and dragged myself into the living room. It still smelt of curry, but Dan wasn’t there, and that was a good thing. I curled up on the sofa with a cushion under my head and stared up at the white wall. A shaft of moonlight was cutting across it. I could hear the distant hum of motorway traffic.

Our argument echoed in my head. Was this what married life was going to be like? Cross words and compromises? As I thought of how dismissive Dan had been, my dress and my mum’s reappearance slipped right down my list of worries. It felt like he didn’t understand me at all. I pulled the blanket closer around me, and
closed my eyes.