Iris nudged her with her elbow. ‘One month old, can you believe it, Granny Brown?’
Enya laughed at the nickname, which she knew Iris and Aiden had picked just to annoy her. She refused to rise to the bait. ‘It’s gone quickly.’
‘It has. And I wanted to say,’ Iris licked her lips, ‘you know we’re okay, don’t you?’
‘Yes.’ She studied her daughter-in-law’s face. ‘I know you’re okay. Is this your way of telling me you’renotokay? Because it’s an odd thing to say, so now you’ve got me worried! Should I be worried?’
Iris laughed out loud. ‘I’m saying we’reallokay.’
‘Well, good.’ Enya stared at her, waiting for her to get to the point.
‘I remember when I was learning to ride a bike, I was about five, Dad bought me a fabulous little pink bike with a basket on the front, streamers on the handles and stabilisers. I took to it like a duck to water, riding up and down the drive, going around and around inside the house, which was a building site in those days,but I absolutely loved it! That taste of freedom, I felt like I could go anywhere, see anything, be anything! It was just brilliant.’
Enya narrowed her eyes at her daughter-in-law. ‘I feel like there’s a moral message here, some kind of allegorical tale developing, and I’m waiting for it to land.’
‘And you’d be correct.’ Iris smiled at her. ‘Dad wanted to take the stabilisers off, and my mum railed against it,‘No way!’she yelled.‘She’s too little, she’ll fall over! She’ll scrape a knee, break a bone, go through a window!’I just remember all these terrible scenarios being bandied about, making me feel scared – was that what would happen if my stabilisers came off? My dad went along with it for a while, but I was getting faster and faster, and more and more impatient, until one day he took the bike to the garage with me following him. And he pulled those training wheels off. He put them in a box, and he said,‘You don’t need these, Iris, you’re going to fly!’I got on the bike, and he was holding on to the back of the seat. I remember how it felt very different. Initially, I lost quite a lot of my confidence – gone was that feeling of invincibility, like I could go anywhere, and take on the world. I felt a little anxious, a little wobbly, but I was okay, because my dad had his hand on the back of that seat, and I knew as long as he didn’t let go I was always going to be all right and we raced up and down the drive, which is quite a way.’
Enya laughed. She’d been along that driveway, and it was quite a way. The thought of an exhausted Dominic running with one hand on the bike was funny.
‘Then after a few turns, I looked around to smile at my dad, and realised he wasn’t holding on anymore, and I don’t think he’d been holding on for quite some time. I hadn’t noticed. I was just flying! Going along on my own, at my own pace, free! And it felt wonderful.’
Enya noted the glint of tears in Iris’s eyes and sidled closer to the girl she loved.
‘I realised years later that the reason my mum wanted me to keep those wheels on was only in part because she thought I might break a bone or go through a window. It was far more about keeping me little, keeping me small.’
They both almost instinctively looked over at Amelia.
‘She didn’t want me to grow up that quickly. She wanted me to be dependent on those training wheels, wanted, I guess, for me to be dependent on her, she loved me that much, I was her purpose.’
‘Okay,’ Enya nodded, ‘I understand the analogy. I can even imagine the scene. And you are one of the most beautiful and independent, free-thinking, strongest women I’ve ever met. It’s my pleasure to know you, and an even greater pleasure that you’re married to my son. I guess what I’m struggling with here, darling,’ it was her turn to nudge the girl with her elbow, ‘is where the moral message for me is among all this? Are you saying I should get a bike?’
Iris turned to face her. Her voice was low, her tone level. ‘I spoke to my dad.’
‘Oh! Good, good! How is he?’
Iris held her gaze. ‘I spoke to him about you.’
Enya felt her legs sway a little; she took a stuttered breath and shrank back against the wall, grateful of the support.
‘He told me how he felt, told me that there was this, this spark between you, Enya.’
‘I don’t...’ She shook her head; it was exposing and embarrassing and all the things she had worked so hard to avoid. ‘I...’
‘Please, please don’t deny it. If it was a terrible issue, or a bad thing in my view, do you think I’d mention it?’
Enya undid the top button of her blouse and pushed up the sleeves of her Fair Isle jersey, suddenly feeling a little too hot as shestruggled for breath. ‘Nothing, nothing happened, it was just, I don’t know how to describe it.’
‘I think it’s an opportunity, Enya, for you both. For two of the people AJ and I love most in the world. It could be wonderful, we just want you both to be happy. No,morethan that, you both deserve to be happy.’
Enya wondered if she might actually faint.
‘Dad told me he’s carried you in his thoughts since he first met you.’
‘He, erm, I don’t know what to say.’ Enya ran out of words and fanned her face with her hand.
‘I believe him, I think whether you’re present or not, he’s thinking of you. So I guess my question is, are you ready to take off your stabilisers? Are you ready to chuck in your training wheels?’
‘I don’t know,’ she whispered, staring at the girl who was encouraging her to seek out her happiness. ‘The last thing I want is to make life difficult for you and Aiden. Supposing, supposing I did take off my training wheels and crashed and burned, what does our family life look like then? What would happen at Christmas, birthdays, all the times we would have to be together, it would be excruciating!’ She spoke quickly, as flustered as she was overwhelmed.
