A Surrey State of Affairs (52 page)

And with that, somehow, they were over the threshold, Ivan clasping Jeffrey in a bear hug, Irania taking off a fur-lined coat to reveal a black silk minidress, scarlet tights, and over-the-knee patent leather boots.

What could I say? What could I do? You can imagine my feelings on seeing the man who had absconded with my daughter and framed my husband for fraud come crashing into our quiet family Christmas. And yet there is something about Ivan, some irrepressible force, that has you graciously accepting his crushed flowers and hanging up his coat before you can say “b
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.” Jeffrey looked as if he might punch him, but Ivan clasped both his shoulders and said, “I am a new man. You must believe me, old friend.”

I turned to Sophie, fearing for her reaction, but she was simply giving the pair of them a cold, appraising look, and when I got closer she whispered, “Her boots are totally last season, Mum.”

And then we sat down to lunch, hastily eked out with some leftover new potatoes. Luckily, Irania did not eat much. Mother, for once, was stunned into silence, although she continued to stare at our visitors as if they posed an even greater threat to her person than the green comb did. As soon as the meal was over, she went to lie down. It was then that Ivan unscrewed the top of his vodka bottle, poured a generous measure into everyone’s port glass except Sophie’s, because she covered it with her fingers, and said, “Now we can talk. Now you can tell me you forgive me. I am ashamed of myself. For long nights I have lain awake. Irania here can tell you that.” He winked at her, and she giggled.

Jeffrey, who has never been able to bear a grudge, picked up his vodka glass, eyed the specks of gold floating in it like celestial dandruff, and clinked his glass against Ivan’s. There ensued a long catch-up—punctuated only by the Queen’s Speech—in which Jeffrey regaled Ivan with the highlights of his trip, and Ivan told Jeffrey how he had cleaned up his act, closed his recruitment business, and was doing a roaring trade in corporate liquidation solutions.

Eventually, after Rupert and Sophie had retreated to the other room to play cards, the conversation turned to future plans. Banging his vodka glass down on the table, Ivan said, “I want to settle down here. Spread roots. Be an Englishman in his castle. I’m selling my Moscow flat and I want to buy a house just like yours, with the roses around the door and the village pub a stroll away. I want Irania to stand in the kitchen looking out at the green
English lawn making cakes for our children. Our many children.” Another nudge, another giggle. Readers, you can guess where this conversation was heading. After another few glasses of vodka, and despite my kicking Jeffrey sharply in the ankle, he said to Ivan, “Old man, if you really like this house, you can buy it, you know. Connie and I fancy a change.”

There was a silence. I stared fixedly at the Lidl paper napkins, which featured a red robin with remarkably long eyelashes, and pondered the following dilemma. Which is worse: to have Ivan the Terrible take over my house, infiltrating every room with his malodorous presence, replacing my roll-top bath with a gold-edged Jacuzzi, or to open the door to a real estate agent?

Before I could formulate an answer, I saw that Jeffrey had reached over the table to shake Ivan’s hand and that Irania was staring at the French windows with a proprietary smile.

It was only afterward, when Ivan and Irania had left, and Jeffrey and I sat on the sofa together with a tube of heartburn tablets, that he told me the amount Ivan had offered was considerably more than what we could have hoped for on the open market. Revenge, he said, with a sheepish smile. “Don’t worry, Connie, it’s not going to go back to how things were with Ivan. No shooting trips when you need me,” he said, smiling guiltily. We talked again about the money, and the sense of relief that we would not have to have strangers traipsing through our home.

“And you can buy yourself a lovely hat for Wednesday now,” Jeffrey added, squeezing my hand. After thirty-four years, he has finally learned to say the right thing.

  
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 26

After the drama of yesterday, lunch with Alex and his parents was mercifully uneventful. It was wonderful to see Alex again, who really is a charming young man. He gave me an
illustrated hardcover book on the parrots of the world as a Christmas present, and remarked on how much my hair suited me longer. His parents were equally pleasant. Rather than any mortifying heart-to-hearts on the inadvertent rearing of homosexuals, we talked about the traffic on the M25, the weather, the sad decline of rural post offices, and the sad decline of the village pub.

Alex and Rupert repaired to Jeffrey’s study to watch
Casino Royale
on DVD while we chatted. I didn’t think that gay people liked action films, but life, as I have discovered, is full of surprises.

  
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 27

Once more unto the breach: today I went sales shopping for my mother-of-the-groom outfit. It was not an easy task. Last night I had lain awake deliberating on what would be the appropriate outfit to wear as a well-preserved fifty-four-year-old woman about to witness the civil union between my son and a geography teacher. I suppose if I had been truly desperate I could have sent myself in as a case study for that reality TV program with the two hectoring women, but instead I went to John Lewis. Sophie came along to pick up a few pullovers for the cold winter in halls and to advise. After a few unsuccessful experiments with outfits that made me look like, variously, a French maid and a nun, we struck on a combination that made me smile, and Sophie gasp, as soon as I stood in front of the mirror. I will be wearing a fitted mandarin-collared dress in puce-colored silk, a cream brocade jacket that falls in a flattering line over my hips, and a broad-brimmed, elegant puce hat.

Jeffrey will wear his suit. Like with so many things, as a man he has it easy.

  
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 28

Jeffrey and I took Mother back to her home, where she complained that the nurses had not taken down her Christmas cards yet, and then, when she found two in the bin, complained that they had. We have decided not to tell her about Wednesday. I fear the gay civil partnership will be too bewilderingly modern for her. It was bad enough the time that Rupert tried to explain e-mail.

  
MONDAY, DECEMBER 29

Jeffrey and I dedicated most of the day to carpet golf. I hope that in our new home we will have a flatter carpet; every time I got close to the overturned tennis trophy that we were using as a “hole,” the deep pile interfered with the path of my ball. I don’t understand why Jeffrey did not encounter the same problem.

  
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 30

Sophie just presented me with the most lovely surprise: a tailor-made two-man figurine for the cake, which she had crafted herself from papier-mâché made from yesterday’s paper. You can almost discern a news item about Gypsies on one of the grooms’ suits, but it is a touching gift. One more shepherd’s pie and twenty-seven more canapés to bake, and I’m ready for tomorrow.

  
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 31

11 P.M.

What a day, what a wonderful, wonderful day. Even as it went along, every moment seemed to acquire the light and the stillness of a photograph in the family album. The smile on Rupert’s scrubbed, glowing face; the way Alex smiled back at
him; their matching lemon ties and gray suits. Harriet, who appeared to be there on sufferance, turned almost the same color as my hat during the ceremony, and Edward had a coughing fit, but I have already edited that out of my recollections. Then there was the drive across the village green, which was brushed with frost; the short walk into the church, which the Church Flowers ladies had lined with cream roses and red poinsettias. Hazy winter sun fell through the stained glass, daubing color onto the faces of my dear friends: Mark and Tanya with little Shariah bundled up in a sequined blanket, Bridget in a velvet jacket, David wearing a pink tie that matched Ruth’s pink dress, Rosemary and Gerald and Miss Hughes all standing straight in a line. Alex and Rupert sat in the front-row pew, their shoulders touching. Reginald intoned a reading in his gentle voice, spoke of “love which binds everything together in perfect harmony,” and Jeffrey looked at me with enough warmth in his eyes to burn through the frost, enough to cure, even, Miss Hughes’s chilblains.