Page 63 of Jenny James Is Not a Disaster
He pulls a face, and it makes me smile—he is forty years old, but that tone of voice can still stop him dead in his tracks.
“It is a really great motorhome,” says Charlie, undeterred. “And Mum’s been writing all about our travels in it. She has a blog called the Sausage Dog Diaries.”
I cringe a little inside but keep my face neutral, steeling myself for the digs that I fear will inevitably come next.
“A blog?” repeats Richard, smirking as he puts down his beer. “Bit of a comedown from that award-winning novel you always told us you were going to write, isn’t it, sis?”
I sense Luke tense slightly next to me, and he responds: “Actually, it’s great. Very popular. She has... how many followers now, Charlie?”
Charlie whips out his phone, briefly consults, then looks up in surprise. “Just over five thousand,” he announces.
Richard frowns and looks over at the screen. “What are her socials like?” he asks, getting out his own phone. Shannon and Ethan join in, and before long, all four of them are comparing platforms and totting up figures.
“Those are pretty good numbers...,” says Richard, looking up at me with interest. “You could probably monetize this, you know? One of my clients is a motorhome dealership, and they’re always looking for new sponsorship opportunities.”
I grimace—I can’t think of anything worse. I have kept my distance from the technical side of all of this and would actually be happier not knowing any of the figures involved. The only way it works is if I pretend I am just writing for myself.
“You’d have to talk to my manager about that,” I reply, nodding toward Charlie. “I’m just the creative genius...”
“We need to post some new content, Mum,” Charlie says, after studying his phone some more. “Have you got a few stocked up and ready to go? We went to so many places last week, there must be more.”
I nod. There is. But it is raising questions that I have so far avoided—like how do I continue with the Sausage Dog Diaries if I stay here? How do I hit the road and find my joy if I’m nothitting the road at all? These are issues I am not ready to address yet, and I am relieved when my mum firmly tells everybody off and informs them that there is no place for phones at her dinner table.
The evening rambles on for a couple more hours and finishes off with a cutthroat game of Monopoly that Luke wins by a mile. It’s the first time I’ve seen him display a ruthless streak, and it does amuse me to see Richard annihilated by a last throw of the dice that sees him land on Luke’s hotel-laden Mayfair.
The teenagers have taken over the attic room for the night, and they are the first to make their excuses and leave, after they’ve helped my mum clear the table and load the dishwasher. She was always very insistent on us doing our fair share of the chores, and I’m glad to see that she’s not gone soft in her old age.
My parents leave next, my dad tired but happy, and then Luke takes Betty off for her nighttime business before turning in himself.
Richard and I are left alone in the dining room, and the atmosphere is suddenly less convivial. We were never close, truth be told, and from everything I’ve seen since I’ve returned, I think it’s unlikely we will suddenly become confidants.
“So,” he says, making the most of Mum’s absence to put his feet up on one of the upholstered dining chairs, “what’s it like to be back? To be the prodigal daughter?”
“Hmm,” I say, checking that she’s definitely gone before I also put my feet up, “from what I remember of that story, the prodigal son’s brother wasn’t exactly pleased to see him...”
“Well, can you blame him?” he asks. “He was the one who stayed, slaving away in the fields, while the youngblood went off partying and having fun. Then the slacker comes home and gets given a coat of many colors!”
“I think you’re mixing up your Bible stories... and I can promise you, Richard, that I have not been off partying and having fun. And anyway—don’t you live in Falmouth?”
It is petty and irrelevant, I know that—but I feel attacked, and I have had a few too many of Dad’s bright green cocktails.
“Falmouth is just over an hour away, Jenny. With you, we had no idea where you were. You don’t know what it was like, after you left. None of it was easy.”
I close my eyes and nod. He is right, I know, but I am not overly keen on getting into it.
“Fair enough, Richard. But I was only seventeen, and you also don’t know what it was like before I left, because you were off at uni in Glasgow. I didn’t feel like I had any choice. It might sound stupid now, but I really didn’t.”
He pats his jeans pocket, and I can tell that he is pondering sneaking outside for a cigarette. He swills down the last of his beer and looks across the table at me: “I can imagine, a bit. I know what they were like, even with me—why do you think I went all the way to Glasgow when I could have studied anywhere?”
“But it wasn’t the same for you!” I splutter, suddenly struck by the unfairness of it all. “They never told you where you could go, when you had to be in, who you could see... and I’m pretty sure they never tried to get Rebecca arrested just because she didn’t suit their idea of the perfect girlfriend!”
“Easy, tiger—I’m not comparing it directly. And yeah, they were definitely more on it with you—but it was there for me as well. All those times it seemed like I was doing whatever I wanted, it was because I’d told them I was seeing Rebecca, and they liked her so that was fine. Truth be told—or not, because I’d never want her or my kids to hear this—but I’m not sure I was ever even in love with her; it was more what they wantedthan me, and I just went along with it. Plus, I used her as an alibi—half the time I was out with my mates, or going to barn parties, or otherwise misbehaving. I basically decided that it was easier to lie to them than to confront them.”
I ponder this and try to really remember that time in our lives. Richard had always been portrayed as the perfect son, with the perfect partner. It is disconcerting to picture him secretly disobeying them for all of that time. “I suppose,” I say after a few moments, “that you always had the farm thing as well, much less than me.”
The “farm thing,” as I call it, was an ongoing source of mild disagreement for a few years in the run-up to Richard going to uni. Dad wanted him to go to agricultural college, to take over the ropes—Richard never did. He stood his ground on that one, but I wonder now what toll it took.
“Yep,” he says, nodding. “They let me go, obviously. They knew my heart wasn’t in it and eventually they accepted that—but I still felt it, you know, that underlying sense of disappointment? The feeling that I’d let them down, somehow been selfish? They never said it, but, well... as you know, our mother is the absolute mistress of expressing her disapproval in a million tiny ways. She is the emotional paper-cut assassin.”
