Morgan began his account two days after the day in question. He knew it was going to be hard to get the facts and angle right. He was, after all, the son of a writer. And he had to use mostly fact. There were still so many around who knew the facts: Mum, Deirdre, Timothy, Samantha...
Morgan licked the point of his Uniball and began.
Please excuse all spelling mistakes. My dad has not tought me to use a dictionery as he promised to do in the holidays.
While she was clearing away breakfast things my Mum said: “Are you planning to have one almighty row over lunch, or would you prefer this time to have a series of minor explosions going off throughout the day?”
My father stretched, smiling a narsty smile.
“I think the latter, all things considered. Or maybe it would be fun to have no row at all. Have them waiting nervously all the time for something that never comes.”
“Oh, very suttle,” said my mother. “Anyone would think they were not family but enemies.”
“Can’t they be both? I must say that’s how I regard them.”
All this I’d heard over and over in previous years. By now it sounded rehearsed, like a play. One of my dad’s plays. Rows were an everyday occurrence in our house, and the terms of the rows never really altered.
“You only regard them as enemies because they’re my family,” said my Mum.
“They can be your family and still be your enemies,” said Dad. “In fact I remember when you and I were courting, you and Deirdre were constantly at each other’s throats. Both of you were feisty girls, after all.”
“Now you’re being ridiculous,” said Mum. “Of course I love Deirdre, and did then.”
But I noticed Mum disappeared into the kitchen and began the washing up. Running away from a fight — that’s how I saw it.
“Anyway,” said my mother ten minutes later, coming back with her arms white from soapsuds, “after all these yearly rows they won’t come expecting a good time.”
“I don’t know why we don’t stop asking them,” said Dad. “They don’t ask us to Greenacre Manor. Probably afraid we’ll use the wrong knives and forks.”
Deirdre’s husband Timothy had sold his father’s car hire companies when he inherited them and bought into traditional bricks and mortar, playing the squire to the point of ridiculousness (these are my dad’s words — he can be very spiteful). Uncle Timothy is Head of Religious Broadcasting at the BBC. Dad says his religion is tweed-suiting, pipe-smoking and Brideshead Revisited.
“I think you’re right,” said Mum. “Just make a row big enough to justify it and I’ll put my oar in and suggest we call it a day. It will follow naturally if we do that.”
“Hmmm. Not a bad idea,” said Dad. But I could tell he was having second thoughts about his proposal. He always gave the impression of enjoying himself in these annual rows, and I must admit I thought they were quite fun.
“I like Uncle Timothy,” I said. “Some of the things he says make me laugh.”
“They make me laugh, too,” said Dad. “Like his pretending to be still in love with Deirdre after all this time.”
“So the row is still on the schedule,” said my mother. “Is after the walk the best time for staging it? Because that’s what it is: a little play, stored away for when, if ever, you write your own Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf.”
“If that’s what I’m aiming for, the rows would have to be with you, Lois.”
“Well, God knows, you’ve had enough experience of them. Oh shit — that’s them now.”
My father cast an eye at the window, the Rolls outside, and the path that led from the front gate.
“Oh, God Almighty!”
For a household containing not one Beleiver we were very free with God’s name. When I wrenched my eyes away from Auntie Deirdre, who looked as if she was carrying a shopping basket in front of her under her dress, I caught a look on Dad’s face that was a mixture of relish and foreknowledge. He’d known in advance!
Exclamations took up the first two minutes of the visit.
“Well, this is a surprise!”
“Exactly what it was to us, too.”
“How far are you gone, Deirdre?”
“Do you know what it is?”
“Samantha, are you looking forward to having a brother or sister?”
This welcome on the front doormat was quite convincing. It was led by my Dad, who, being a playwrite of sorts, knew what people tended to say on all kinds of occasions. Mum hugged her sister, perhaps to hide the horrid display of jealousy on her face. Whatever Deirdre had, Mum had to be jealous of, even if she would have died rather than be pregnant again.
“No, we weren’t ‘trying,’ as they say,” said Deirdre, her voice high and a bit strident, “and yes we are delighted, the feetus is five months old, we’re doing all the right things that doctors and nurses recommend. All right? Sensation over?”
And she steamed ahead into the sitting room as if her shopping basket gave her all the rights of the lady of the house. There was a sparkle in her eye that suggested that she, like me, had something up her sleeve.
“Tim? What will you have?” gushed my father. “And Deirdre, what can you have?”
“I’ll risk a gin and tonic,” said Uncle Timothy. “We go on the principle of ‘one off, all off’ in our household, but I’m on leave at the moment. Deirdre will have pineapple juice, won’t you, darling?”
“Yes, darling, and so will you. The fact that we are away from our own household doesn’t let you off the ‘no alcohol’ regimen.”
Timothy sighed.
“I would swear if the children weren’t here. All my abstention valued as nothing if I have one little lapse.”
“Go away, children,” said Dad, waving an artistic hand towards the garden. “Your uncle doesn’t like being found out, Morgan.”
When we got outside in the hallway I put my finger to my lips and we listened for a minute or two to the conversation.
“So, then, you’re happy are you?” my father asked. “Not just putting a brave face on a nasty accident?”
“We’re over the moon! We talk baby talk all the time, and discuss colours for the nursery. We’re even more delighted than Samantha.”
“Maybe she’s too old to be totally pleased. At three — yes. At thirteen — no. They feel they’ll degenerate into the resident babysitter.”
“I didn’t realize you knew so much about growing families, Bernard.”
“I have a creative writer’s understanding of how people think and feel, Timothy.”
Same old dialogue. Dad, as a scriptwriter, ought to have been able to think up something better, or at least different. Samantha and I shook our heads and moved over towards the kitchen door, where Aunt Deirdre and Lois my Mum were well away.
“I’m not going to pretend it didn’t come as a shock,” said Auntie D. “We didn’t take out all our old Noddy books and Paddington Bears and look forward to reading them at bedtimes over and over again. But when all is said, Catholics are right about abortion. It is murder, and just thinking about it we felt like murderers. I’ve settled down to all the rules and the deprivations... This martini is heaven, though.”
“You’re a bit mean not letting Tim off his oath of abstention, I feel.”