Page 32 of A Touch of Magic at the Comfort Food Café
‘They are,’ I assure her. ‘They’re just not perfect. Neither were we. You’ve done a great job with them. You really have.’
‘Thank you,’ she says quietly. ‘And you look gorgeous, by the way. I feel quite frumpy standing next to you. I’m not sure I like it.’
‘Ha! You couldn’t look frumpy if you tried.’
This is completely true. Sally is curvier than me, with curly blond hair and a great smile. One of those ‘light up the room’ smiles, although I haven’t seen much of it tonight.
‘That’s a good point,’ she responds, with a hint of her usual sass. ‘Thank you for reminding me. Now, I suppose I’d better go and mingle.’
The room is fairly full now, a mix of excited-looking teens and adults. Ollie is chatting to my parents, and I say a silent prayer to whoever might be listening that my dad behaves himself tonight. He’s seventy-four now and he has slowed down a little. He talks about his prostrate a lot, and only goes to the pub four nights a week instead of seven. But he’s still a big, robust man, still as domineering as ever, and I never quite relax when he’s around.
I’m sure Ollie has heard all about our eighteenth many times over, and will hopefully be on alert for any signs of aggression in my father. The trouble with my dad, though, as it often is with bullies, is that he can unpredictable, jolly one minute, vile the next. In a split second his eyes narrow and his voice changes, and then anyone who knows him prepares to duck and cover. Ishudder a little at the prospect of spending time with them, and then remind myself I’m NAW.
I might not be a wuss, but I’m also in no rush to dash over there and start receiving my traditional interrogation. My answers will go something along the lines of: ‘Yes, I’m still single.’ ‘No, I don’t think moving to Dorset was a mistake.’ ‘Yes, it is lovely seeing the twins.’ And ‘No, I don’t regret not having children myself.’ The last one isn’t entirely true, but I don’t trust my parents enough to be vulnerable around them.
The truth would be that while I don’t sit around pining or weeping for the babies I never had, it is a little lump of sadness I carry with me. I would never let them see that, though. I have always maintained that it was a deliberate decision, not because I have never had a relationship that felt secure enough to bring a child into. When I was married to Will, we both said we might try for a family ‘in a few years, when the time is right’. Sadly, the time never was right, and at my age that ship has well and truly sailed.
I look at Lucy hitting the dance floor surrounded by her friends, and at Libby engaged in an intense conversation with a cute nerdy-looking boy with a long grunge-band hairstyle, and smile. At least I have them. I have been privileged enough to be a second mum to these magnificent creatures, and I don’t think it would be possible to actually love them more or be prouder of them if they were my daughters instead of my nieces. In fact, I know it wouldn’t.
I sip my champagne, and scan the room. I wave to people I’m familiar with– old friends of Sally’s, mums I vaguely know from doing school runs in days gone by, colleagues from her and Ollie’s work– and then tell myself to stop. I’m quite obviously searching for Aidan. I glance at my phone and see that it is only just after eight. The party officially started at half seven. He is not really late; he is just fashionably late. I have taken theastonishing step of actually giving him my mobile number, and there is no message from him. I have to assume that he is simply a little delayed, and have a bit of faith that he will be here soon. Huh, I think, snorting in amusement at myself– since when have I been any good at having faith?
Right on cue, one of the main reasons for that walks right up to me, a pint in hand. My dad is a tall man, beefy even though he is now older. My mum is at his side, the complete physical opposite. She looks like a little sparrow in comparison to his bird of prey. Always pretty, always neatly turned out, my mum looks fragile on the surface.
Appearances can be deceptive, though, and she is not a weak little woman. When she wants to, she stands her ground. She just rarely seems to want to. She usually defers to him, but when she is in the mood, she gives as good as she gets. They’ve never seemed happy together, and my childhood was punctuated by their ever-escalating rows. I thought that was normal until I spent time at friends’ houses and saw their mums and dads laughing with each other, no glowering in sight. Still, as my mum would be the first to point out, who am I to comment on other people’s relationships? I’ve certainly never been any good at managing my own.
I plaster on a smile and give her a kiss on the cheek. I turn to my father, and immediately carry out a risk assessment. Anybody who has grown up with a drinker knows to do that straight away. Within seconds, you learn how to spot the signs. How to differentiate between ‘three pints in and still within normal limits of behaviour’, and ‘absolutely smashed and about to go full-on lunatic’. It’s always fun, waiting for the moment when Jekyll and Hyde trade places.
Right now, he’s hovering between the two. Sally said he was hitting the whisky at her place, and he’s been here long enough to have topped that up with at least two pints of lager. We’ll beokay for a while longer. If he shows any signs of messing up Lucy and Libby’s party, I decide, I’ll take him down myself. No idea how, but I’ll manage it.
‘You look nice,’ my mum says, reaching up to touch my hair. The unspoken ‘for a change’ hovers between us, or maybe I’m imagining it. She’s been dying her hair a bright shade of red for years, ever since her natural copper tones started to fade. ‘I was told you were bringing adate?’
My dad snorts a little, and his lager jiggles in his glass. ‘I’ll believe that when I see it,’ he says, gazing around the room. ‘Maybe you’ve scared him off, like usual.’
My dad, for some reason I don’t quite grasp, has a theory that I terrify men. Apparently having a successful career, being financially independent, and not being desperate to mind-meld into a couple makes me intimidating. He once told me I was an ‘ice queen’ and gave off ‘frigid’ vibes. He’s a charming man.
The irony of all this is that Will left me, not the other way around, and as for me being the scary one… Well, I’m sure Martin/Scott would disagree. What my dad, and possibly others, perceive as me being cold is actually just me being afraid. It is the social equivalent of huddling up in a ball in the corner and hoping nobody hurts me. I could never in a million years explain that to him. He would laugh and tell me to toughen up. Or ‘just be bloody normal for once’, which was one of his favourite catchphrases when I was a kid. Looking back now, as an adult, I suspect my mum agreed with him. She certainly never objected.
While I have done a lot of growing up and changing, in the decades that have passed since I left home, there will always be a small part of me that thinks they might be right. It’s one of the reasons I don’t enjoy being around them. They make me feel even more vulnerable.
‘Maybe I have, Dad,’ I say, not ready or willing to rise to his bait. Sally joins us, and I see her eyes flicker between myfather and me. She is also scanning for those signs, hyper-alert to threat. I give her a reassuring smile to let her know I’m okay, and that this isn’t going to get out of hand.
‘It’s going great, Sal,’ I say, gesturing to the now-packed dance floor. ‘You’ve done a great job.’
‘Cheers!’ she says, raising her glass. ‘I have, haven’t I? Are you guys all right?’
‘We’re fine, love,’ Dad says. ‘But bloody hell, the prices in this place!’
‘The bar’s free, Dad,’ she replies, shrugging. She knows as well as I do that logic has no place in my dad’s universe.
‘I know that, but I looked at the list. Eight quid for a pint?’
Sally and I swap glances, and I guess we’re both thinking the same, that the free bar was a mistake. The cost alone might have put him off otherwise. I sigh inside, because every time I’m away from them, I forget how exhausting this is. Tip-toeing around his moods, constantly searching for flashpoints. He’s like an overgrown toddler who never matured, and we all indulge him because we’re scared of the consequences if we don’t. I catch my mum biting her lip, and I wonder what she was like before she met him.
‘Not to worry, Alan,’ she says, patting him on the arm. ‘Anyway, tell us about this man you’re bringing, Sarah!’
She’s deflecting attention onto me to avoid conflict, and I don’t especially love it.
‘Well, he’s invisible for a start,’ my dad interjects, laughing at his own joke. Sally rolls her eyes, but also sneaks a look at her watch. It is now almost half eight. Maybe he’s not just fashionably late, I think, feeling the slow thud of disappointment sink in. Maybe he’s just not coming. And who can blame him? I didn’t exactly sell it– ‘Can you pretend to be my date for the night to stop my nightmare family picking on me? Pretty please?’
