Читать книгу The Forget-Me-Not Flower Shop - Tracy Corbett - Страница 17

These were the kind of Saturdays Patricia enjoyed. An early game of tennis, lunch with girlfriends, followed by a spot of shopping before coming home and relaxing with a glass of wine. David was rarely home at the weekends any more, which suited her. She’d stopped asking where he went a long time ago, figuring his answers weren’t truthful anyway, so what was the point in torturing herself.

As she lay on the sofa, enjoying her second glass of wine, she spotted a line of cobwebs running across the ceiling. Knowing the sight of them would annoy David, she got up and fetched the handheld hoover.

Turning up the volume on the stereo, she climbed onto the leather sofa and stretched up so she could reach the wooden beams.

Maybe she should care more about the state of her marriage. But life without David around was much easier than life with him, so she ignored the elephant in the room and dusted around it.

If she removed David from the equation, her life was good. She enjoyed her ‘lady of leisure’ status, spending precious mummy time with her beautiful daughter, and found entertainment in the form of friends and home furnishings. Their house, The Pines, was all her dreams come true. Five double bedrooms, a swimming pool, two acres of garden and a kitchen that Gordon Ramsay would be envious of. The house was large enough that even if her husband was home she could engineer it so their paths didn’t cross for several hours.

It wasn’t an ideal situation, and she was aware that she suffered from a hefty dose of denial, but what were her choices? Leaving David would only cause Amy distress and reduce her own standard of living, which she’d worked flaming hard to achieve. She’d put up with his philandering ways for over twenty years. She was owed this luxury, she’d earned it.

As she sang along to Aretha Franklin’s ‘I’m Every Woman’ she knew her reasoning for staying in the marriage was flawed. Her submissive attitude towards David’s womanising would hardly endear her to the feminists of this world. Well, tough. She was no Germaine Greer. She had ‘made her bed’, as her mother used to say, and there was no one to blame but herself.

The music abruptly switched off. She nearly fell off the arm of the sofa.

‘What in God’s name are you doing?’ David’s annoyance sent a chill of dread through her.

She hadn’t heard him arrive home. Bang went her relaxing Saturday. ‘I’m dusting. What does it look like I’m doing?’

His expression conveyed just what he thought about her churlish response. ‘Get down. You’ll break your neck, you stupid woman. We pay a cleaner to do that.’

Such touching concern. At what point had ‘babykins’ become ‘stupid woman’? She climbed down from the sofa. ‘You’re home early?’

‘I wasn’t aware I needed your permission to come home.’ He switched on the TV.

She was about to point out that she’d been listening to music when she realised her feelings no longer mattered. ‘I was merely making an observation.’

He slung his leather jacket over the armchair and flicked onto Sky Sports. ‘Did you pick up my dry cleaning?’

She internalised a sigh. ‘Of course I did.’ When had she ever not? ‘They couldn’t get the stain out of your suede coat, I’m afraid.’

Annoyance dominated his handsome features. And he was handsome, there were no two ways about it: tall, his hair thick and dark with flecks of distinguished grey, broad muscular frame. He was a classic model of a man, chiselled and timeless. He’d fit right into the cast of Mad Men, both in looks and attitude. ‘Did you complain?’

Patricia unclipped the nozzle from the cleaner. ‘No, because they’d warned me when I dropped it off that it might not come out.’

‘I hope they didn’t charge you.’ He was as tight with money as he was with his affections. Well, towards her at any rate.

Before she could comment, the front door slammed. Amy came rushing into the lounge. ‘Mummy, are you here?’

‘In here, darling.’ She placed the hoover in its box. ‘Is everything okay?’

Amy didn’t see her father sitting in the chair. She rushed over, enveloping Patricia in a hug. ‘Guess what, Mummy? I’m getting married!’

Whatever Patricia’s initial reaction to this news might have been, it was overridden by David rising from the chair like a mythical creature emerging from the sea. ‘No, you most certainly are not, young lady.’

For the briefest moment Amy looked thrown. She clearly wasn’t expecting her dad to be home when she made her big announcement. But any doubt was fleeting, and her confident demeanour quickly returned. ‘Yes, I am, Daddy. Ben asked me to marry him and I said yes. This is what I want.’

‘It might be what you want, but it’s not happening.’ David turned back to the TV, his interest caught by a Chelsea goal. In his mind the conversation was over. He was used to winning arguments with very little resistance. Patricia thought him a fool if he imagined his daughter would be as easily dismissed as his wife normally was.

‘I’m sorry, Daddy. But my mind is made up.’ She turned to Patricia, taking her hands. ‘You’ll support me, won’t you, Mummy?’

Before Patricia could answer, David interrupted. ‘No, she won’t. Now stop being ridiculous.’ He pointed a finger, using the same tone he used with Patricia when she tried to stand her ground. ‘You are not getting married and that’s final. Instead you’ll concentrate on finishing your A levels, go to university as planned and stop being ridiculous. Do you hear me?’

Far from backing down, Amy calmly responded with, ‘I’m eighteen, I don’t need your permission. I love Ben and I want to spend the rest of my life with him.’

The veins in David’s temples throbbed. ‘You cannot possibly know what you want. You’re a child. Grow up and use your brain, you’re a smart girl.’

‘Smart enough to know what I want.’ Amy folded her arms.

Go, Amy! thought Patricia, before registering that perhaps she should be siding with her husband on this issue.

‘Clearly not.’ David took a step towards his defiant daughter. ‘And what’s more, I forbid you to see Ben again. It’s time I put my foot down. I’ve been too lenient. No boys until you’ve finished school.’

Her husband could be such an arse at times. Fancy making such an ultimatum. Didn’t he realise that Amy would rebel against such a dogmatic approach?

Amy turned to her mum, her golden hair lit up from the early evening sun spilling through the windows. Her blue eyes flickered with love, hoping for support.

David’s stare was no less intense, although it dared Patricia not to side with him. She was caught in the middle.

It was a while before she found her voice. ‘Shouting isn’t getting us anywhere. We need to sit down and discuss the situation in a sensible manner, like the adults we all are.’

‘There’s nothing to discuss.’ David wasn’t in the mood to be reasonable. ‘She is not getting married.’

‘Yes, I am!’ As Amy had inherited her stubbornness from her father, Patricia thought David could hardly complain that his feisty daughter wasn’t backing down.

‘Both of you, please. This isn’t helping.’ She squeezed Amy’s hand. ‘Sit down, darling.’

‘I’m fine standing,’ David said.

Instead of pointing out that he wasn’t the ‘darling’ she’d been referring to, Patricia led Amy over to the sofa. ‘This has rather come out of the blue, sweetheart. You can’t expect us not to react to such life-changing news or query your decision.’

‘But he’s not querying it, Mummy. He’s telling me no without even hearing my side of things.’

‘I don’t need to hear your side!’

Patricia placed her palm gently against Amy’s cheek, ensuring she had her daughter’s attention. ‘I’m listening, sweetheart. Talk to me. Tell me your side of things.’

Ignoring various interruptions from her dad, Amy raced through her and Ben’s plans for the future. ‘He adores me, Mummy. He has our whole lives planned out. We’ll marry in the summer, spend a year travelling, he’ll go off to film school and I’ll go to university. In four years’ time we’ll move to Hollywood where he’ll get a job working at one of the film studios and I’ll set up a dance company.’

David advanced on the sofa. ‘Dancing is a hobby.’

Amy glared at him. ‘It’s what I want to do. To become a famous choreographer and run my own dance company.’

David laughed, a mean, hard sound. ‘You need to stop daydreaming and focus on your academic studies. Aim for a career in something useful, like teaching or nursing. Something that won’t waste your talents.’

‘My talent is for dancing. Something you’d be aware of if you’d taken any interest and come to watch me compete.’

‘Dancing is not a proper career.’ He banged his fist down on the back of the sofa. ‘And neither is film-making. How deluded are the pair of you? This is nonsense.’

Amy returned to Patricia, ignoring her dad as if he’d never spoken. ‘In ten years’ time Ben will be directing films, I’ll be the successful owner of a chain of dance studios and we’ll be financially secure, with three kids, a dog, a convertible and living happily ever after.’

David swore, something he rarely did. ‘Of all the idiotic, childish …’

Patricia tuned out. She was torn. Her gut reaction was that eighteen was far too young to marry. She hadn’t been much older herself and look how things turned out. She didn’t want that for Amy.

But her daughter was a different creature. She’d always been so mature for her age, a determined child who’d achieved everything she’d ever set out to do. Telling her not to do something would never work. David should realise that. After all, he was exactly the same. And who was to say Amy wouldn’t succeed just as predicted? If anyone could do it, her daughter could. But still, it didn’t alter the fact that getting married before you’d finished education wasn’t the best idea.

Patricia needed to reason with her daughter, not dictate. ‘Weddings cost a lot of money, darling. Not to mention all this talk of travelling and living abroad after university. How are you planning to pay for all this?’

‘It doesn’t matter how they’re planning to pay for it, it’s not happening.’ David’s yelling made her jump. ‘Stop asking stupid questions and tell her to grow up.’

Sadness and humiliation settled over Patricia, weighing her down. It was one thing to put up with David’s rudeness in private, but allowing him to be so dismissive in front of Amy was no example to set for her daughter.

‘Don’t speak to Mum like that.’ Amy stood up. ‘How dare you be so rude to her? At least she’s trying to be reasonable. If anyone’s acting childishly it’s you.’

Oh, God. This was just getting worse. Her eighteen-year-old daughter had more gumption than she did. No wonder Amy couldn’t wait to fly the nest and make a life of her own. Look at her role models.

‘I’ll talk to your mother any way I choose.’ David shook his fist at Amy.

‘And you do, don’t you? You’re always putting her down and making unkind remarks. Well, you’re not going to bully me the way you do Mum. I’m out of here.’

‘Come back, I haven’t finished,’ David shouted to Amy’s retreating back.

‘Yes, you have!’ Amy stormed out of the front door, followed by David.

And then there was silence.

Patricia slumped against the sofa, alone with her thoughts, the unfinished dusting and flaming Sky Sports.