WARNING TO READERS - This is a long, rambling, multi-part story and VERY British. The individual chapters will make more sense if read in sequence.
Chapter 19 Of fathers, feelings and friends.
I was up, showered, shaved and dressed early the next morning, the weather had turned mild again and it was a bright, sunny day and I wandered out into the garden with my coffee and was coming back in when Emma came down to the kitchen. She made herself a cup of tea and went back upstairs. When I heard her go into the bathroom and turn on the shower I knew that I had about ten minutes before she came back.
I poured out Mum's tea and took it up to her room. She was awake and, I suspected, a little bit hung over, I had found a second empty wine bottle from last night, in the kitchen. I sat on the edge of her bed and held out the cup. She sat up and sipped at her tea, handed me the cup back to put on her bedside table then took my hand.
"I'm sorry about last night," she said, "I have been really worried for the last two days about how you and Emma would take the divorce news, and I had quite a bit to drink and just got a bit sorry for myself and weepy, I suppose!"
"It's OK," I said, "There is nothing that you need to apologise to me for ......ever." I lightly brushed her cheek with the back of my fingers and she caught my hand and gently kissed the finger tips.
"We need to talk, you and I," she said quietly, looking deep into my eyes. "About what nearly happened between us last night ..... we were both in the wrong .....!" That was as far as she got, because at that point we heard Emma leaving the bathroom and coming along the hall.
"Morning, Mum!" She called cheerfully from the doorway, "Jay, can I ride into work with you this morning? My bike has a puncture...you will have to mend it for me later," she added.
"Yes, fine!" I called over my shoulder, "Hurry up and get yourself some breakfast because I want to leave shortly!"
I gave Mum's hand a squeeze. "We can tell Emma about the divorce after supper tonight, I'll have something nice for dinner ready when you get home, and then we can all sit down and talk." I told her. "Everything will be fine ....you'll see."
Emma followed me into the kitchen and made herself a bowl of cereal whilst I rummaged in the freezer and found a small fillet of pork which I put on a plate to defrost for our evening meal. By the time I had finished my coffee Emma was ready and I tossed her the keys and she went off to get into the car.
I was about to follow her when Mum came into the kitchen with her tea cup. "There is more tea in the pot if you want it," I told her. She was still just wearing her plain white cotton nightdress, and I could see the shadowy darkness of her nipples beneath the thin material. I noticed she had tied her hair back in a short pony tail since getting up. I could hear Emma tooting the horn out in the drive, "I'll see you later!" I said, and then quickly stepped up to her and took her face between my two hands and raised her lips to mine in a brief kiss. I felt the breath catch in her throat and her breasts push lightly against my shirt front with her quick intake of air. Our eyes met and locked for a couple of seconds and then I was sprinting out to the car, before Emma roused the whole neighbourhood with the car horn.
She was sitting in the driver seat and so I didn't argue, the L plates were on the car already I noticed, so I let her drive us in to work. I sat silently in the passenger seat, Emma's chattering washing over me, just thinking about those final few seconds in the kitchen with Mum; the touch of her lips and the press of her scantily clad body against me. I knew that I should walk away from what was happening, but I also knew that I wouldn't ....I couldn't.
The first thing that I did when we got in to the office was to check my diary. I had promised Mum that I would go up to London with her on Wednesday but had realised that I also had my Cities and Guilds written exam on Wednesday morning. Fortunately it was at nine o'clock and I figured that as Mum's appointment in London was not until 2pm I would be able to go to college and then get the train up to town and meet her at the solicitor's office in good time. We could then both come back later in her car.
Kitty was taking the same C&G examination as I was and we had arranged to meet at the garden centre and travel in to the college and back again together, I decided we could take the small van and then she could drop me off at Salisbury station on her way back.
When Maggie came in I poured us both coffees and suggested that we took them outside. The place was now starting to look truly good, less like a building site and more like a really high class garden centre. There was an area over by the main gate, in front of the customer car park, which we had decided to landscape; I had drawn up designs for Maggie's approval and Colin and Mikey were rolling out new turf over the prepared ground, whilst Kitty and the other student Neville were pegging out the shapes to be dug over for the new flower beds.
We sat on a bench in the sunshine and I cleared it with her to take the day off on Wednesday. Naturally she already knew about the solicitor's appointment as she had been with Mum when they saw the lawyer on Friday, but I cautioned her not to say anything to Emma until Mum and I had spoken to her later.
There was something that I had wanted to ask Maggie for the past three years and it never seemed the right time until now. "What is the real story about the bad feeling between Mum and Dad and the family?"
"Are you sure you really want to know?" she asked. I nodded, nothing that Mum could have done in the past would ever make me love her less and I was long resigned to Dad not being anything near perfect.
"Well," Maggie started, "Your Aunt Susan as you know, is almost ten years older than your Mum and I, by the time that we had left school she was already married to Andrew who was making a name for himself as a very skilled consultant mason and they considered themselves very upwardly mobile. Your mother was only eighteen when she met your father who was a lot older, in his late twenties. He was a dashing young Irishman, handsome as hell .... That is obviously where you get it from." She added in, laughing, "He was an officer in the Royal Engineers and stationed at Bovington Camp and your mother was a student nurse at the Royal Bournemouth hospital."
She sipped at her coffee and then went on, "I had already chosen to be a horticulturalist and was a first year student away at Essex University and the first that I knew about their affair was when your mum announced she was bringing Michael to a family gathering at our father's house in London, which was strange as being twins we were very close and called each other every few days, but she just hadn't told me about him. Later she told me she was so enthralled by him that everything else passed her by for a while."
