Silver Wedding (31 page)

‘Of course I don’t forget you, silly thing, but not all the little bitty things that you think were never off our lips, this promotion, that remark that the Palladians passed about Desmond, the time that Anna was at the same reception as Princess Di.’

‘It was Princess Michael of Kent.’

‘Well you know what I mean, Deirdre, it’s not some kind of score card, you know, points for this, minus points for that.’

There was a silence. A long silence.

‘I’m not criticizing you, you do know that?’

‘Yes, Mother.’

‘And even if Kevin and I hadn’t liked Desmond, which was not the case, whatever we were allowed to get to know of him we liked very much … But suppose we hadn’t … what would have been the point of saying it or letting it be thought? We weren’t going to live your lives for you.’

‘I see.’

‘When I was married to Kevin my parents were delighted, they crowed and brayed and made me very very uneasy.’

‘You should have been pleased.’

‘No, I was suspicious. I thought that they wanted me off their hands and I also thought they equated money with some kind of happiness or success. Your father didn’t give me much of either.’

‘I don’t believe you!’ Deirdre’s mouth was wide open.

‘Why shouldn’t I tell you this? You and I are middle-aged women, we’re talking about life and love. Your father was what they call now a chauvinist pig, in those days we called it a man’s man and were meant to be grateful that he wasn’t chasing the ladies. He stayed at his clubs every evening until late, you remember that growing up, don’t you? I bet Desmond was at home to get to know his children.’

‘He wasn’t a member of any clubs.’ Deirdre sounded wistful.

‘And weren’t you the better for it? Anyway I always thought I would neither encourage nor
discourage
any of my children, let them choose for themselves and go along with it.’

‘Barbara’s wedding …’ Deirdre began.

‘Nearly put us in the workhouse. What a bloody shower, Jack’s family. They gave us a wedding list of their guests from their side of the family as long as your arm … we decided to do it the way the young couple wanted it. Though Barbara has often said to me she wished they had had less of a send-off, nothing ever lived up to it.’

‘Barbara said that?’

‘She says it every time she has a glass of sherry, it’s hardly breaking a confidence to tell you. She says it in the golf club, and she tried to say it the night she was in the audience at the
Late Late Show
but apparently they didn’t get a mike to her.’

For the first time Deirdre laughed a genuine laugh, and the waiter was so pleased he came running with a plate of bon bons and a refill of coffee.

‘And I know you think I should be happy with my six grandchildren, your three and Barbara’s three. But I never see yours. They grew up without us, and when we did meet them they were like white mice they were so afraid of us. And I was sick to death of Barbara’s three when they were at the poisonous stage, we were unpaid unthanked babysitters and now that they’re nice and interesting I don’t see hide nor hair of them. And I don’t think that Gerard is going to give us any news in that direction, but that’s his business. I don’t
want
to send him out to mate just so that I can have more people to call me Grannie.’

She looked lively and eager, she did not look like someone who wanted more people to call her Grannie, let alone someone who had grown-ups who did.

‘And suppose you and … er Tony … get on well on this cruise, why don’t you think there might be a chance of … well, something more permanent?’

Deirdre somehow felt that if he were accepted by Mother’s cronies at home and by her sister and brother he couldn’t be quite as common and unsuitable as she had thought at first.

‘No, that’s not on the cards.’

‘As you said earlier, it’s not such a barbarous idea.’

‘Well, it is really, Deirdre. Or his wife would think so anyway.’

‘He’s married. Mother, I don’t believe it.’

‘Oh but you must, I assure you.’

‘Does anyone know, is his wife sort of around, are people aware of her?’ Deirdre’s voice was very concerned.

Her mother was silent for the first time. She looked at Deirdre with a strange expression. It was hard to read her look. It was partly sad and partly as if she had known that things would be like this. There was a little frisson of impatience in the disappointment.

She didn’t answer Deirdre’s question, she never answered it. She called for the bill, and they walked together back to her hotel.

She said she had a little more shopping to do, and she sent her love to Anna, and to Helen. There was no point in sending love to Brendan, they both knew that he was only rarely in touch. No rapport of weekly phone chats had been established between Deirdre and her son on Sunday nights as there were between Deirdre and her mother.

Eileen O’Hagan said she wished Desmond well, and thought that he was quite right to have left the Palladians or the Palazzos or whatever they were called. A man had to do what a man had to do. And so had a woman.

She said she would send a postcard from somewhere that looked nice and exotic.

She said since Deirdre hadn’t offered that she would be sure and give Deirdre’s warm wishes to Tony and tell him that Deirdre had said Bon Voyage.

And as she left her daughter who would get the tube back to the station where the Metropolitan line would take her back to Pinner and the table full of preparations for a party 110 days away, Eileen O’Hagan reached out her hand and stroked Deirdre’s cheek.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said.

‘What for, Mother? Why are you sorry? You gave me a lovely lunch. It was really good to see you.’ And Deirdre meant it.

‘No, I’m sorry that I didn’t give you more.’

‘You gave me everything, I was only being silly,
you
said yourself that I was the most contented of your children. I never knew that.’

Her mother opened her mouth as if to speak but closed it again, and when Deirdre turned to wave she saw that Eileen O’Hagan’s lips were moving. She thought she was just mouthing goodbye.

She was too far away to hear her mother saying, ‘I’m sorry that I gave you no notion of happiness. Only how to pretend you are happy and that’s no gift at all. It’s a burden for your back.’

Deirdre waved again just before she went down the steps to the tube station, and she hoped her mother would stop mouthing at her. After all, here in Piccadilly Circus the whole world could be passing by, and there could be anyone, just anyone, who might see them. Someone from Pinner or someone from Dublin. The world was getting smaller and you should always behave as if you were under some kind of observation, because when it came down to it, that’s what we all were most of the time. Under observation.

9
SILVER WEDDING

THEY HAD SET
the Teasmaid for seven o’clock.

Desmond had grumbled that it was too early, they would both be worn out by the time the thing began. But Deirdre said it was better far to be ahead of themselves instead of running after themselves all day. Be up and organized before the caterers came.

‘They’re not coming until three o’clock,’ Desmond had said.

‘Everything has to be cleared away for them.’

‘God Almighty, Deirdre, we’re not going to spend eight hours clearing the kitchen worktops. And isn’t it all done already anyway?’

She took no notice of him, she poured him out a cup of tea.

For years, since they had moved into separate beds in fact, they had this morning ritual of the electric teamaker on the table between them. It somehow soothed them into the day, took the little edges off the
slight
sense of morning disappointment that they each seemed to feel.

‘Happy anniversary,’ he said and reached out for her hand.

‘And to you,’ she said, smiling. ‘Will we give our presents now or later?’

‘Whatever you like.’

‘Maybe later.’ She sipped her tea and ticked off in her mind all the things to be done. She had an appointment at the hairdresser, and a manicure as a special treat. Her new outfit was hanging on the wardrobe under its cellophane wrapping. She hoped it was a good choice, the woman in the shop had been very pushy, kept calling her Madam and speaking to her as if she wasn’t there. Madam would look very well in pale colours, Madam doesn’t want to grow old before her time. Madam could do with a little detail on the shoulder if Madam really insists that she won’t wear shoulder pads.

Deirdre would like to have worn pads, almost everyone did nowadays like the women in
Dynasty
and
Dallas
, but she remembered that time years ago when she had bought a very upholstered-looking jacket and Maureen Barry had laughed at it and called it Deirdre’s Marshal Bulganin outfit. She daren’t risk that again. Or risk even the memory of it.

She knew that whatever Maureen wore today it would be stunning, it would take all the attention away from her, away from Deirdre whose party it
was
. The woman in the shop said she couldn’t believe that Madam was really celebrating a silver wedding, but that was in the shop. The woman was anxious to flatter her and make a sale.

The woman hadn’t seen Maureen.

She would take the limelight today as she had taken it twenty-five years ago. When the bride had looked pink and frightened and flustered, and the bridesmaid had looked dark and cool and elegant in a plain pink linen dress and a big pink flower in her hair. And Frank Quigley had never taken his eyes off her. From one end of the day to the other.

Would it be the same today? Would the great Frank Quigley remember his passion for Maureen Barry with regret as the one thing he didn’t win in his life? Knowing Frank he would probably have turned it into a success rather than a failure. Look at the bigger and better prize he had won. Married to the entire Palazzo fortune. He wouldn’t have had that if Maureen had accepted him all those years ago.

But she wouldn’t think destructive thoughts. Not today, today was her day more than her wedding day had ever been. She had worked hard for it, put in long hours, long years. Deirdre Doyle would have today.

Desmond looked at his face in the bathroom mirror. It looked back at him, younger he thought than it had done a while ago. Or maybe he just imagined that, because he felt better. He didn’t have that constant pain in the base of his stomach that
he
used to have going in to Palazzo. He enjoyed leaving the house now. Mornings were so much easier.

He had suggested that he and Suresh Patel start a newspaper delivery service in the area. People would like to have a paper to read in their homes if it arrived before seven. And it was a great success. It was run by the owlish boy who kept the accounts meticulously and also delivered the papers before heading off to school. He dropped the
Daily Mail
into Rosemary Drive for Desmond too, and it meant that he could read it and leave it for Deirdre.

He was annoyed with her that she had not wanted Suresh Patel and his wife to come to the silver wedding.

‘It’s only for people who were at the ceremony,’ she had complained.

‘John and Jean West weren’t there,’ he had countered.

‘Don’t be silly, Desmond, they’re our next-door neighbours.’

‘Well Suresh is my partner isn’t he?’

‘Only very recently, and anyway he won’t know anyone.’

‘Half of them won’t know anyone.’

‘Be reasonable, can’t you, his wife doesn’t even speak English. What am I to say to people, this is Mrs Patel, Desmond’s partner’s wife who can only nod and smile?’

He had left it. But it rankled. He felt sure that if Suresh Patel was having some ceremony in his house, the Doyles would have been invited. But it wasn’t worth a major row, if he had won then he would have had to look after the Patels all evening. And there were so many other things to concentrate on. Like his son was coming back … of his own free will to be there for the celebrations. Perhaps now that he too had been able to escape from a world that had frightened him they might have more in common. Perhaps the old prickliness would have softened if not gone altogether.

And he would be glad to see Father Hurley again, he was a kind man. Even in those bad far-off days when priests were meant to be disapproving of sin and anticipating the sacrament of matrimony and everything. There had been no condemnation when he had gone and asked Father Hurley if he could arrange to marry them as quickly as possible. Even quicker.

‘Are you sure?’ Father Hurley had asked.

‘Oh yes, the tests were positive,’ Desmond had said, fighting the panic.

‘No, I meant are you both sure this is what you want to do? It’s for life.’

It had been an odd question at that time. Desmond had paid little heed to it. The only important thing had been could the priest get them married in three weeks, so that their child would not be impossibly
premature
. The child that was never born. The child that miscarried on Christmas Eve.

He wondered had Father Hurley ever thought about it, whether the priest who had after all baptized Anna realized that she was born a full fourteen months after the shotgun wedding. And that a sister or brother had been lost before that.

Desmond sighed. Father Hurley probably had enough to think about in an Ireland which was rapidly catching up with the rest of the world in terms of godlessness. He would be unlikely to spend time speculating about what had happened in marriages made a quarter of a century ago.

Anna woke around seven in her flat in Shepherd’s Bush, she went straight to the window to see what kind of day it was. Good, a bright crisp autumn day. London was lovely in autumn. The parks were at their best. She had been walking last night with her friend Judy, and they had seen possibly a dozen different shades of gold and orange on the trees. Judy said that in America up in New England they had special tours and holidays for Leaf Peekers, for people who came to peek at the leaves changing colour. You could organize that in London too.

Anna was going to work for the morning. She would only be in the way in Rosemary Drive, things would be up to high doh there, the less people there were about the better. She would go there around
three
, the same time as the caterers, just to keep Mother out of their hair and from driving them up the walls. She had begged Helen not to turn up until five, the official time that the celebrations began. The thought of letting her sister Helen loose on any house where professional caterers were preparing a meal was enough to frighten anyone.