Page 12 of One Moment in Time
‘You were?’ Brenda couldn’t help but smile. She’d been blessed to grow up with Ada, a mother who’d loved her very much, and now she was lucky to have these two women as her daughters. They were what made it all worthwhile. When all this was done and it was finally the right time to leave Colin, then if all she had was space, peace and her girls, she’d be happy.
‘Yeah, I was just thinking about our trip,’ Zara went on. ‘I’m soooo excited!’
Brenda couldn’t admit the truth: she was dreading it. The last thing she wanted to do was spend five days with Colin and she wouldn’t even have her work, her favourite TV shows or solitude to read her books to get through it. But at least she’d have her daughters there.
‘I am too, pet,’ she lied. ‘But I’m starting to think about packing and I need some clues.’
‘Okay, ask me questions and I’ll do my best to answer them,’ Zara offered and Brenda could hear the amusement in her voice.
Brenda opened with, ‘Okay, is it a week in the Lake District?
‘No.’
Brenda tried not to sigh. That would have been her top choice. Not far, very familiar, unfussy, and loads of little cafés for afternoon tea. Back to square one then. ‘Right. Is it a beach, a ski resort or a city break?’
‘A city break,’ Zara conceded and Brenda felt a twinge of relief. It must be London. Or maybe even Paris. At least a city break would be busy, with less opportunities for intimate moments. Maybe she could spend the time visiting galleries, or track down a theatre and go to a show. ‘But you’ll also need swimwear because there’s a pool.’
‘Indoor or outdoor?’
‘Both.’
Relief gone. An outdoor pool? In a city? Okay, so unlikely to be London. Maybe Barcelona? Amsterdam? She’d always wanted to visit the Van Gogh Museum, so maybe the girls had remembered that.
‘It’ll definitely be hot in the daytime but it could be chilly at night. Oh, and we’re flying there, so you’ll need passports and a cabin bag for the airplane.’
‘And do I need dress-up clothes or is it casual?’ Maybe she’d be able to suss it out that way. If it was all casual, then they were probably staying in an Airbnb and just doing low-key things, which suited her perfectly.
‘Definitely a bit of dress-up. You know – for going to bars and nice restaurants. We’ll probably do casual things during the days and then some fancy things at night. Definitely heels. Maybe a pair of strappy sandals. How many people get to celebrate thirty years of happy marriage? We need to celebrate this in style, Mum. You and Dad deserve this. Not to mention making the most of the fact that we’ll all be together. Anyway, that’s all the clues you’re getting. Nothing else, so stop snooping. Just let me and Millie take care of everything.’
For a second, Brenda was tempted to just blurt out the truth, but instead she went with, ‘Och, you’re loving all this mystery. Okay, my love, I’ll talk to you later. You have a good day.’
‘You too, Mum.’
There was no point in rocking the boat now. The trip was less than two weeks away, so in three weeks she’d be free, and she just had to focus on the positives of that. Especially since the negatives – telling Colin she was leaving, breaking the news to the girls, making plans for a new life – made beads of anxiety pop out of every pore. Was she doing the right thing or would this be the biggest mistake of her life? Maybe this was her midlife crisis. Perhaps she should just jack in her job, get a tattoo and start blaring Cher songs at two in the morning. That would be a far more palatable way to lose the plot, rather than upping sticks and leaving the husband you’ve been with for thirty years, for no other reason than you’re not in love with him any more and you’re bored rigid.
Was she just being a daft old fool? And making a horrible mistake?
‘Right, that’s the garden done for this week,’ Colin announced, making her jump. She hadn’t even heard him coming in the back door. ‘I was thinking about planting some tulips bulbs over by the shed. And maybe putting in some new veggies in the raised bed. Maybe some runner beans. Wouldn’t that be grand?’
Brenda had a fleeting mental image of herself picking up the knife she’d used to butter her toast and stabbing herself through the heart.Here lies Brenda Jones. Died due to boredom-induced hysteria. Leaves behind a husband who is consoling himself by planting fricking runner beans in his raised beds.
She immediately chided herself for being unkind and over dramatic. Neither of those things were in her nature, but the anxiety and trepidation over this situation were making her mind spin off on a tangent. This wasn’t about Colin and his transformation into Alan Titchmarsh in comfortable beige slacks. It was about her and her need for something more.
‘Grand,’ she managed, before biting her lip to stop herself blurting out anything more. That was the problem. Maybe she should, for the first time on God’s earth, actually say what she felt. Actually, it wasn’t the first time. He just hadn’t heard her before.
She topped up her coffee from the pot on the hotplate and automatically poured one for him too. Old habits. Meanwhile, he slid into one of the chairs at the kitchen table and automatically lifted his newspaper and opened it somewhere in the middle.
‘Colin, can we talk for a while?’
The look of alarm on his face would have been comical if this wasn’t so important.
‘Nothing bad,’ she rushed to explain, fearful that he’d make some excuse to flee the room. That was the issue in a real-life nutshell. She felt like she wasn’t heard. Like what she said didn’t matter. That, basically, she could run through here wearing a thong and coconut shells on her boobs and he’d barely raise his gaze from theGuardian. ‘I just wondered how you felt about this trip with the girls?’ she started gently as she sat down opposite him, no idea where the conversation was going or what she’d have the nerve to say, but somehow unable to say nothing.
He took a sip of his flat white. ‘Looking forward to it. Although, I’m going to be outnumbered. I’ve got a feeling I could be spending a lot of time shopping.’
Brenda felt her teeth grind together at the rank sexist stereotype of it. She hated shopping. Not that there was anything wrong with it but it just wasn’t her idea of a good time. Or Zara’s either. Millie, on the other hand, probably considered it one of her core skills and greatest talents.
Maybe it was exasperation, or perhaps just caffeine, but Brenda couldn’t let it lie. ‘Colin, do you ever get bored? I mean, look at us. We have a day off and I’m cleaning and you’re doing the garden. Shouldn’t life be a bit more interesting than this?’
