Page 46 of A Midlife Marriage

‘No.’ He shook his head. ‘You know yourself, Kay. Your mother was gone long before then. Long before.’

And how could she argue with that? Swallowing back a cruelly sudden grief, she pulled her sunglasses down and made a fist of her hand, balling it at her mouth as she leaned on her elbow. It was true that her mother had been gone longer than a year. So much longer, she couldn’t place the last time she had been present: wholly present. Pieces had fallen away so quietly, no-one had noticed. If her mother had forgotten an appointment one week, she’d remembered the next. If she couldn’t remember where she had met Kay for coffee one day, she would have no problem recalling both the place and even the table they had sat at, the next. It wasn’t until the gaps started to overtake the whole that they knew. Her father was right; of course he was. Coming out to lunch like this, where her mother would spend half the time asking where she was, and the other half staring into space, no-one could say she had been present. Composing herself, she pushed her sunglasses back on her head. ‘Can I ask who?’ she said. It was still wrong. Who on earth would her father know well enough to ask them to marry him?

‘Of course you can.’ He didn’t hesitate. ‘Elizabeth Parsons.’

‘Lizzie!’ Kay’s jaw dropped. ‘Lizzie, dad? You hardly know each other.’

‘Actually,’ he said. ‘I remember Elizabeth very well from when you first started at the school. I’ve always held her in the highest regard. And your mother and I always exchanged Christmas cards with her.’

Kay stared. She was remembering the way Lizzie and her father had chatted for so long at her retirement party. The way Lizzie had handed her cup over, the way her father had taken it, the fluid synchronisation of the movement. ‘This is ridiculous!’ she said tightly. ‘You’ve known her for a couple of weeks!’

‘In which we have met frequently and spoken every day.’

‘Met frequently? Where?’ Slapping a hand on her chest, she stopped talking and took a deep breath.

‘Elizabeth,’ her father said simply, ‘has made me smile again.’

There was nothing she could think of to say. Words that would be easy for him to hear … words like,I’m happy for you, dad… or,If you’re happy, dad… were simply too hard for her to form.

‘I don’t want to keep looking back, Kay.’ His handkerchief was out again, a shaky hand dabbing a watery eye, and Kay could not look at him. ‘I wouldn’t change a single thing,’ he said, ‘but with what is left, I want to be able to look forward.’

‘But why the rush?’ she rasped, and when she swallowed it was like swallowing nails.

‘Well.’ He paused. ‘Lizzie is ninety. And I am eighty-six. It’s probably best we count in weeks, rather than years.’

‘But you don’t have to get married!’ Her fist was at her mouth again. She could barely contain her anger. ‘What about Mum? What would she think?’

And for the longest time her father didn’t answer. He folded his hands together and dipped his head. ‘Your mother and I,’ he said, as he looked up, ‘had a long and happy marriage, Kay.’

‘Sixty years.’

’Sixty years,’ he echoed. ‘Where Elizabeth didn’t even manage one day.’

Kay clamped her mouth shut.That’s not a reason,she’d been going to say.That’s not a reason to marry someone!It was only the stamp of family that stopped her. It didn’t matter that he was eighty-six and she was fifty-two: the roles remained. She could no sooner tell him what he could and could not do, than Alex could tell her.

‘I would like to be able to give Elizabeth that,’ he said. ‘So, I have asked her, and she has accepted. On the condition,’ he added, ‘that you have no objections. That was her only request.’

Her jaw was tight, her lips thin as wire as she picked up her glass and said, ‘So that’s what this is all about? To see if I have any objections?’

‘Yes, I suppose it is.’ He nodded. ‘And of course, if you’re not comfortable, we wouldn’t expect you to attend the ceremony.’

She turned. ‘Attend?’

‘It would be very simple, Kay. Elizabeth has no relations, and we’re not going to any expense. A registrar can perform the ceremony at the retirement home, and after that, I have decided to move there myself. I think it’s time.’

Hand shaking, she lowered her glass. ‘You’re going to move, Dad?’

‘It’s what I want, Kay. We enjoy each other’s company very much, and at my age that’s all I can ask for.’ He blinked. ‘Actually, it’s more than I can ask for.’

Kay didn’t speak. She looked across to the swans, their tapered bodies, perfectly aligned as they glided across the water. The movement was so smooth, so coordinated, the river remained a mirror, not a ripple rising up to spoil the glassy surface.

‘You asked me what your mother would think?’

Slowly, she turned.

‘I can’t answer that,’ her father said. ‘But I know that if it were the other way round, I would want to see your mother happy.’

It didn’t matter that she was angry. It didn’t matter that as she looked at her father now, she felt bewildered by the speed at which he was making decisions. It was of no consequence that she felt betrayed for herself, and her mother. It didn’t even matter that it was Lizzie, a woman she had always admired. She had no choice. If she left her father today, withholding her approval, he would phone Lizzie and tell her and all that would have been achieved was a raising of the level of unhappiness inthe world. Turning back to the river, she picked up her glass. ‘If it’s what you want,’ she said. ‘I have no objections.’

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