From the moment they’d stepped over the threshold of the house where Paul had grown up, he changed. It was as if he became an entirely different person to the one she knew; a stranger. His mother fussed over him as if he was a five-year-old boy incapable of tying his own shoelaces.
Rachel would be a liar if she said she didn’t enjoy a bit of fussing when she went home to her parents, not that her mother was really the fussing type; Dad was more inclined to spoil her. But the way Tricia Cooper carried on, she made Paul look like some modern-day Little Lord Fauntleroy. God, it was sickening, all he needed was a pair of velvet knee-breeches and the transformation would be complete.
And boy, did Paul lap it all up! Not a trace of embarrassment did he show at being treated like a child. Both his two brothers and their partners were the same; his dad too. They sat back and let poor old Tricia run around them like a headless chuffin’ chicken on speed. That was when she wasn’t chasing round after the two grandchildren who were bored out of their minds and creating havoc at every turn. One of them had spilled a cup of juice over Rachel and hadn’t even said sorry.
Families did things differently, Rachel knew that: every family had their own rituals and customs, but she wasn’t keen on the way this family went about things. By rights Tricia should be the one with her feet up; after all it had been her birthday yesterday. But instead it was a constant refrain of ‘Can I fetch anyone a drink? How about a snack for anyone? Is that light bothering you, Dean? Let me pull that curtain across so you can see the telly better.’ As if Dean, Paul’s twenty-nine-year-old hulk of a brother, couldn’t shift himself out of his armchair to move the curtain himself!
But all this paled into insignificance compared to Rachel’s real gripe – the endless mentioning of Paul’s ex-girlfriend. With every reference to the wretched girl, Rachel felt her hackles rising up another notch; any higher and she’d be airborne. They had to be doing it on purpose, deliberately trying to make her feel uncomfortable, wanting her to know that she could never live up to Perfect Paula.
How cosily twee was that – Paul and Paula? It was enough to make Rachel puke up the full-English she’d struggled to force down an hour ago. Rachel was no lightweight when it came to knocking back a decent breakfast, but this wasn’t any old full-English, this was an epic fry-up that could have fed every single resident of Calcott Close.
And wouldn’t you just know, Perfect Paula’s parents lived two doors down and were here last night for the barbecue party in the garden. For most of the evening, when Rachel wasn’t trying to extricate Paul from his brothers and a rowdy group of his old neighbourhood mates who’d never moved away, Rachel could feel two pairs of beady eyes giving her the death-stare. ‘Hey!’ she wanted to yell at them. ‘If Perfect Paula was so bloody perfect, she’d be right here, wouldn’t she? She wouldn’t have decided she needed space!’
‘Can I do anything to help in the kitchen, Mrs Cooper?’ asked Rachel, coming down the stairs now. Paul’s mother was once again wearing the carpet out with her endless running backwards and forwards from the kitchen to the sitting room, where the rest of the family was watching a procession of cars follow one another round a race track.
‘No need,’ she said stiffly, ‘I can manage. Why don’t you join the others and enjoy the race?’
‘I’m not really a fan,’ said Rachel.
Tricia Cooper wiped her hands against her apron and shook her head. ‘That’s a shame, and perhaps I shouldn’t say this, but Paul’s previous girlfriend used to love watching a race with him. It was a shared interest for them both, you see. It’s important to share things, don’t you think?’
No, you shouldn’t say what you’ve just said!Rachel thought angrily. ‘Maybe I could learn to enjoy it, Mrs Cooper,’ she forced herself to mutter through gritted teeth.
‘Yes, maybe you should. And why don’t you call me Tricia. We don’t stand on ceremony here.’
No, thought Rachel, everybody sits down on their big lardy-arses and lets you wait on them hand and foot.
Paul had warned her that his family could be a tad much when they all got together, but he hadn’t said what a lazy lot they were, or that they tried constantly to outdo each other with their boasting over who had the flashiest car, or the latest mobile. Was this a wake up call for her? Run, Rachel,RUN!
Or was she overreacting? Wouldn’t Paul feel awkward with Mum and Dad politely but doggedly interrogating him?
Venturing into the sitting room where nobody bothered to tear their gaze away from the enormousTVscreen to look at her, not even Paul, Rachel’s heart sank a little bit further.
Until this weekend she had accepted that it was completely fine for her and Paul to have different interests, that it was even a necessary part of a healthy relationship; but now, and feeling so much of a spare wheel, a flat spare wheel at that, she wasn’t so sure.
It was in the car heading back to London that she began to convince herself that she had indeed overreacted to meeting Paul’s family. Alone with her, Paul was his old self.
‘I know what you’re thinking,’ he said.
‘You do?’
‘You’re thinking my family‘s a right bunch of lazy oiks and we should do more to help Mum. Am I right?’
‘Well, it did cross my mind. Not the lazy oiks bit,’ she added quickly, not wanting to appear too rude or critical.
‘I could see it in your face the whole time we were there,’ he said.
‘So why don’t you do more?’
‘It’s how it’s always been. Mum runs things her way, we do as she says, it’s as simple as that. She’s never worked, not outside of the home. She sees taking care of the family as her job. Old-fashioned and totally non-PC, right? Bottom line is, Mum likes to feel needed.’ He gave a short laugh. ‘You can’t change people.’
Was that true? Rachel wondered, giving him a sideways look. Wasn’t he expecting her to change to fit in with his family? Surely everyone changed at some point in their lives?
With every mile they travelled away from Shropshire and the nearer they got to London, the more she found herself returning to the familiar territory of her feelings for Paul. Solid feelings she could trust, and which chased away the doubts she had experienced over the weekend. Nothing more than being out of her comfort zone and having to share him, that was all it had been. Not forgetting the constant reminders of Perfect Paula. That was enough to give any girl doubts!
As Paul drove, concentrating on the road ahead of him, his right elbow propped against the side of the door, she thought of all the future journeys they would make together. Maybe the biggest journey of all through life – marriage.
With that thought came an element of smug happiness, that as perfect as Paula might have been, Rachel was the one sitting here with Paul. Paula was in his past, just as Rachel’s previous boyfriends were in her past. None of that mattered. All that counted was the present and the future.Theirfuture.
