A Proper Family Christmas (17 page)

Richard laughed. He seemed glad that Annabel still felt able to snipe.

‘How about that Scottish one?’

‘Oh no. He’s even worse.’

‘Darling, I know we’ve been concentrating on Izzy, but I want you to know that I do realise what a big deal this is for you. I know you’ve had to do it sooner than you hoped for. Or rather, I know that you probably wouldn’t have done this at all if it wasn’t for wanting to help Izzy.’

‘I just can’t help thinking about Mum.’

‘Sarah is totally for this. She’s not in the least bit insecure in your love for her. And she loves you so absolutely that she would never stand in the way of your happiness. And Izzy’s health is your happiness. If your mum were here with us in the car, she would be pushing you through that door, telling you to be brave and calm and bloody get a move on. Because she loves you and she loves Izzy.’

‘You’re right.’

Indeed, when Annabel checked her phone one last time, she found two text messages. One from Izzy, which contained only a smiley face and a kiss, and one from her mother that said,
I’m thinking of you, darling. I love you very much.

‘So, are you ready?’ Richard asked.

Annabel nodded. She checked her eye make-up in the passenger vanity mirror one last time. Izzy had been absolutely right when she questioned the wisdom of wearing mascara. Annabel had been fighting back tears the whole journey and she already looked as though she had been awake for three months.

‘Just a sec,’ she said to Richard. Annabel got out her make-up remover pads and wiped the last of her eye make-up off.

Jacqui and Dave had been sitting in the lobby lounge at the Ridgeview Hotel for forty minutes.

‘I knew we’d end up getting here too early,’ Dave complained.

‘It’s better than getting here late. I want this to be perfect.’

Jacqui was sitting with her back to the window. She hadn’t always been sitting with her back to the window. She had previously been sitting so that she could look out on to the car park. But then, for superstitious reasons, she changed seats, as though not looking out to see if Annabel had arrived yet could somehow make her arrive more quickly. Of course, swapping seats did not actually stop Jacqui from turning round to check the car park once every thirty seconds. Likewise, she never put her phone down, in case Annabel called to say she was lost or late or, heaven forbid, not going to be coming after all. She was worse than Sophie waiting for that silly boyfriend of hers.

In the meantime, Jacqui refused all the young waitress’s attempts to bring her something to eat or drink.

‘We’re expecting some people to join us,’ said Dave.

‘Some people!’ Jacqui exclaimed. ‘We’re expecting our
daughter
and her husband.’

‘That’s nice,’ said the waitress, naturally having no idea whatsoever of the import of the occasion. ‘I’ll bring the menus back when they come then.’

‘Yes, please. If you could,’ said Jacqui.

‘Telephone voice,’ said Dave.

‘Stop it.’ Jacqui swatted him. ‘I can’t help it. I’m so nervous I’m practically wetting myself. I don’t understand how you can sit there and not be nervous at all.’

Dave reached for Jacqui’s hand. ‘Believe me, I am bricking it. Right now, I’m just praying I don’t fart through fear the moment they walk through the door.’ He blew an extravagant raspberry. ‘Can you imagine it?’

‘I’m trying not to,’ said Jacqui, but all the same a smile crept back on to her face. And then she started laughing. And it was while she was laughing that Annabel and Richard finally walked into the room.

‘Oh.’ Jacqui stopped giggling abruptly, as though a teacher had caught her. ‘I’m sorry. We were just—’

‘Laughing about how funny it would be if I farted just as you walked in,’ said Dave.

‘Dave!’ Jacqui looked distraught. What a thing to say!

Annabel’s smile was strained. Richard reached out his hand towards Dave to shake.

‘I was just saying exactly the same thing,’ said Richard.

‘Well, this is off to a great start, isn’t it?’ said Annabel.

Jacqui, who had opened her arms for a hug, let them drop to her sides when she realised that the gesture would not be reciprocated. Annabel put out her hand and they shook on it instead. Jacqui tried not to let her disappointment show. Dave also shook his daughter’s hand. It was as though they were meeting a local councillor to talk about a planning application. No one looking in on the scene would have guessed what was really going on.

Dave ushered Annabel to a seat on the sofa where he had been sitting. She tucked herself right up against the arm, leaving as much space as possible between her and Jacqui at the other end.

‘We thought we’d wait until you got here before we ordered,’ Jacqui explained. ‘They do a good cream tea here. The girls at work treated me for my sixtieth birthday.’

‘You’re never sixty?’ said Richard.

‘Oh, aren’t you sweet,’ said Jacqui. ‘I’m afraid I am. Since your Annabel must be—’

‘Forty-three,’ said Annabel flatly.

‘Yes. Forty-three. I knew that.’

‘Yes. We knew that,’ said Dave. ‘But she doesn’t look it, does she?’

‘Youthful looks must run in the family,’ said Richard.

Annabel rewarded him with another strained smile.

‘So …’ said Jacqui.

‘So,’ said Richard.

‘Did you get here via the ring road?’ Dave asked.

‘I don’t think there’s any other way,’ said Richard.

The conversation stalled. The four virtual strangers sat in silence for a while and all looked up gratefully when the ever-hopeful waitress reappeared with the menus she’d been trying to push all afternoon.

‘Kitchen closes in ten minutes,’ she said.

Everyone ordered cream teas. It seemed like the only thing they could do, given how hard the waitress had been trying to get Jacqui and Dave to order something. The food, when it arrived, looked delicious and Richard and Dave dived on their scones straight away. Neither Annabel nor Jacqui touched anything, though both dutifully buttered their scones as though they might. Like mother, like daughter.

The conversation stuttered. There was so much to talk about, of course, and yet where to begin? It was all too serious, too huge. So, instead of diving straight into the deep water and talking about the circumstances of Annabel’s birth, the newly reunited family talked about the traffic on the way to the hotel. They talked about how much time the Bensons had allocated to the journey that day because about three years ago, they had been invited to a wedding reception at this very same hotel, back when the Ridgeview had another owner and another name, and they’d arrived after everyone else was already seated. And the story about that wedding led to a brief discussion of the weather. The wedding had been rained on. In July! You could never rely on the British summer, could you? But wasn’t the weather great this year? The
Express
said it was going to be a difficult winter though.

Richard observed that the
Express
always seemed to lead with a weather story. No matter what was going on in the rest of the world: war, famine, royal weddings, the
Express
always seemed to be warning of drought or floods or both. Not that Richard and Annabel really read the
Express
, he added as an afterthought. The Bensons claimed they didn’t get it either. Dave said he was loyal to the
Sun
. Richard struggled not to look at his wife to see her reaction to that.

But it was so much easier to remain on the weather and the tabloids than talk about the other thing. The adoption.

They made small talk for the best part of an hour. The waitress came and took the plates away. She asked the two women if there was something wrong with the scones. Both were extravagant in their assurances that there was nothing wrong with the scones whatsoever. It was simply that they weren’t hungry.

‘All right,’ said the girl, who would help herself once she was safely behind the swinging doors to the kitchen.

With the table cleared, Jacqui placed her handbag in the space and opened it to finally pull out an envelope of photographs.

‘We thought you might like to see these,’ she told Annabel. ‘I know you’ve had a look at my Facebook page, but there isn’t much old stuff on there. This will make it easier for me to explain what’s gone on since you were born.’

Annabel shuffled forward to the edge of the sofa so that she could better see the photographs, which Jacqui now laid on the table one by one. There were pictures of a young woman in the sixties.

‘That’s me two years before you were born.’

Annabel tried not to see the resemblance between Jacqui and herself at the same age but it was undoubtedly there in the way Jacqui looked up through her fringe and in her shy smile.

‘Lovely dress,’ said Richard.

Next Jacqui laid down a picture of a young couple. He was in a badly fitting suit. She was in a blue dress with shoulder pads.

‘That’s me and your dad getting married.’

‘My dad?’

‘Dave. Sorry. That’s me and Dave getting married. That was about ten years after you were born.’

‘You really were apart for ten years?’

‘Yes.’

Jacqui told the story at last.

‘We were childhood sweethearts.’ She looked at Dave as she said that and he reached across the table to take her hand. ‘I went to the girls’ school and Dave went to the boys’. At the end of the day, the boys used to walk to the bus station past our school and some of them would hang around and try to chat us up. Dave was shy but I liked the look of him. He had a haircut like David Cassidy. I thought he was a total dish.’

Jacqui looked at the wedding photograph. ‘He’d lost a bit of his hair by then.’

Richard asked, ‘Have you got any photos from when you first met?’

‘No,’ said Jacqui. ‘No, I’m afraid I haven’t. I did but … After what … after what happened, I just couldn’t look at them. I didn’t know if I’d ever see Dave again and it was just too painful to think about. I’m afraid I threw them all away.’

‘It was for the best,’ said Dave. ‘I looked like a right plonker with that haircut.’

‘You looked lovely,’ said Jacqui firmly. ‘And I fell in love with you right away.’

‘Could have fooled me!’ said Dave. ‘She made me take her out four Saturdays in a row before she even let me have a peck on the cheek.’

‘Annabel was the same,’ said Richard.

‘No I wasn’t,’ said Annabel.

Jacqui carried on with her story. ‘So, we were fifteen when we first got together. It was all very innocent. Dave used to wait for me every afternoon after school and he’d walk me to the bus stop. I wasn’t allowed out on school nights but I was allowed to see him on a Saturday. We’d go to the cinema and get our tea at the chip shop on the way home. Dave always walked me right back to my house if we were out after dark. He was always a proper gentleman.’

Annabel nodded. But her nod was not so much one of agreement as one that said ‘go on’. All this reminiscing was taking up time they didn’t have.

‘Dave wasn’t in Coventry when I found out I was pregnant. He was away doing an apprenticeship. We’d had a bit of a row before he went but I was sure that we would be back on again when he came home at Christmas. I told my mother about the baby first. She seemed to be all right about it and I thought that everything was going to be fine. But then she told my dad and suddenly everything was different. He wasn’t happy in the least and after they’d talked about it, Mum said that when it came down to it they were both in agreement. There was no way I was blackening the family name with an illegitimate child.

‘I said that Dave would marry me when I told him all about it but Mum told me I was dreaming if I thought Dave would be pleased. She said that he had abandoned me already, when he left Coventry to do that apprentice scheme. He was trying to better himself and he would probably want to get rid of the baby so he didn’t get dragged back down. I don’t know why I believed them.

‘If I’d just been stronger,’ Jacqui gave an anguished snort. ‘If I’d just written like I wanted to, instead of listening to Mum and Dad. But they persuaded me they knew best and when Mum said that she’d heard a rumour that Dave had a new girlfriend, I didn’t know what else to do.’

Jacqui could not keep from crying.

Dave searched in his pockets for a handkerchief but found none. Richard offered his own, which was perfectly clean and nicely pressed. It was one of the things Annabel loved about him. His habit of carrying a proper clean cotton hanky when everyone else went for Kleenex.

Jacqui blew her nose loudly.

‘I never stopped thinking about you. You were in my mind every single day. There wasn’t a single night went by when I didn’t pray that you were safe and happy with your new family.’

‘I had a very happy childhood,’ Annabel interrupted.

‘That’s all I hoped for. That they were looking after you properly and giving you love.’

‘I had all the love I needed,’ Annabel confirmed.

‘They were great,’ said Richard. ‘Annabel’s parents. I mean, her adoptive parents.’

‘You can just say “my parents”,’ Annabel corrected him. ‘Dad died three years ago but Mum is still a huge part of my life. She’s the centre of my family, in fact.’

‘I’m so happy to hear that,’ said Jacqui. ‘So happy.’ She let out another honking great sob. ‘Oh, I’m sorry. I told myself I mustn’t get all emotional.’

‘But it’s a very emotional time,’ said Richard. ‘It’s OK, Jacqui. We understand, don’t we, Annabel?’

Annabel just nodded.

‘Oh, I’m such an embarrassment. People will be wondering what on earth is wrong with me.’

There was no one else in the room and the waitress had long since gone home, having placed the bill on the edge of the table.

‘Do you want to carry on?’ Richard asked. ‘You don’t have to.’

‘Of course I do.’ Jacqui pulled out the next photo. It was of herself and Dave and two little girls. ‘Chelsea and Ronnie. Your sisters.’

A rare shot in which neither was giving the person behind the camera the finger, thought Annabel.