‘I’m not talking about your hideous taste in dresses, I’m talking about the fact that I’ve just got off the phone to Mum. She’s having kittens.’
‘Well, congratulations to Mum! Siblings for Madam Pickle Paws!’
‘There’s nothing funny about this, Enya.’
Angela did this, took on the role of punisher and educator when the need took her. Being six years older seemed to give her sister a sense of moral responsibility and the belief that, as the elder, this was absolutely fine. Her sister wasn’t done. ‘Aiden just called her to say that the wedding is off.’
Enya looked up towards her son’s bedroom window and shook her fist. So much for reminding him not to scare his nan with anything rash.
‘Mum and Dad have paid for flights. They’ve organised for Benedita to come in and water the plants, they got her a key cut.’
Enya decided not to point out that they could easily ask Benedita not to water the plants, and that their neighbour having a key might not be a bad idea. As for flights, she would offer to reimburse them if they were out of pocket. She felt her anxiety rise as yet more administration and hassle fell on to her shoulders.
‘Mum’s really upset. She’s booked her hair appointment, Dad went to the pharmacy and got extra tablets for travelling, they’ve bought insurance.’
‘Angela, I get it.’ She closed her eyes and did her best to control the irritability that flared at her sister reciting the many ways that Aiden had inconvenienced his grandparents.
‘Butdoyou get it, Enya? It’s so bloody annoying, all this back and forth and for what?’
This a prime example of how the world and his wife saw fit to dump their anger and frustration on to her shoulders, and she was more than a little pissed off by it.
‘I don’t know for certain the weddingiscancelled. I don’t know much! It might be a small bump in the road that they will get over or it might be the beginning of the end. But what I do know is that it’s not my fault and it’s really unfair for you to call and shout at me! Good God, I am getting sick of it! Literally, every conversation I have ends with me being either quizzed or berated for something that is nothing to do with me!’
‘I’m not shouting at you!’ Angela shouted, ‘but I’ve had Mum on the phone shouting at me!’
‘I see, so we have to pass it on, do we? Not sure who I should call, I’m trying to think who deserves a random pasting for absolutely no bloody reason!’
‘I knew you’d be like this.’
‘Like what?’ It was Enya’s turn to shout.
‘Like it’s all a big joke, like everyone else is in the wrong to be getting flustered, while you either just laugh it off or get defensive.’
Enya sat on the sun lounger and took a moment. Her heart jumped as she tried to contain it all, as yet again she found herself in the middle of a Venn diagram of shite where all the circles overlapped, and she was slap-bang in the centre of it all.
‘I’m not laughing it off, Angela, but I might be trying to offer a bit of perspective. At the end of the day, it’s about Aiden’s happiness, his future, and if he and Iris decide not to get married, the last thing I will be worrying about is whether Benedita is or is not watering Mum’s sodding spider plants.’
‘Well, I’m not going to wait on tenterhooks while they decide whether it’s a goer or not. I’m ruling myself out. I love my nephew, you know I do, but if you think I’m schlepping all the way over to Bath for the bloody wedding of the year if they change their minds again, you can think again. I’ll explain to Aiden that his mother is a dipstick, refusing to take my concerns seriously, and I’ll send his gift first class, but I’m not holding my breath.’
‘Schlep all the way to Bath?’ Enya laughed. ‘It’s only forty minutes on the ring road from your house and let’s face it, you schlep all the way to Portugal for a free holiday and that’s a lot further!’
‘I go to check on my parents, unlike you, who can’t seem to find the time, and for your information, it’s only forty minutes when the roads are quiet. At rush hour it can take us fifty-five, especially up by the cinema when it’s chucking-out time!’
‘Whatever!’
‘Whatever yourself!’ Angela ended the call.
Enya stared at the phone, her blood bubbling with indignation and with the inexplicable desire to laugh.
As someone had pointed out to her quite recently, it was that or cry.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
‘Who were you talking to?’
Enya rubbed her eyes; she hadn’t heard Aiden come down the stairs or into the garden, and the last thing she wanted to do was concern him or let him think that his pitifully small contingent at the wedding of the year, should it go ahead, was going to be even smaller. He did, right now, have enough to contend with.
‘Only Auntie Angela.’
