“There – recorded in Dartington. 1978.”
“Well done, Sherlock. Actually, we should so watch that again. The second series.”
“1978 – the year before you were born, yes?”
“Yes, what of it? Seriously, though, can we watch that again?”
Ellie rolls her eyes. “Forget your boy crush on Benedict Cumberbatch for a moment, and focus on the real-life mystery.” She waggles her eyebrows. “Bit peculiar, right, your Mum, your Dad, Max Reigate, all hanging out in Dartington? Your Mum getting all misty-eyed over his music?”
“Just because they lived in the same place, doesn’t mean they knew each other.”
“Come on, it was the 70s. Everyone knew each other, man!”
I flick her on the forehead. “And whatever they were smoking back in the 70s got into your brain. While you drool over Max Reigate, the rest of us are going to look at your baby photos.”
I take the tea tray into the front room, and leave Ellie there while I go up to get her albums from the bedroom, where we keep them. Sorry, from our bedroom – there’s another one now, that we’re assembling. I know exactly where they are, but I sit down on the bed and take some breaths first.
Why would Mum act like that? It was properly weird. I mean, it was just a CD. One of her CDs, it turns out, thanks to Ellie acting like some kind of magpie, apparently (still not sure of the story there). But even so. Crying? When your son has the happiest news ever, that your family line will be continued? I shake my head. Really odd. Beyond odd.
“Sweetie, are you coming?” I hear from downstairs. Ah, Ellie. Never has liked being alone with my parents for long.
I exhale and push myself off the bed. Ellie’s little pseudo-mysteries are all very amusing but no reason for me to start sharing her hormone-addled nonsense. I lean under the bed and pull out the albums, from next to our keepsake box. The box is full of anniversary cards and an array of other mementos from our lives, stretching back years. We should look through it again some day. But not now. I return downstairs with the albums.
I sit on the floor beneath the sofa, albums on my lap.
“Here we go,” I say, opening up the first of her albums.
I turn over page after page of Ellie looking like a small otter, lying on a woollen blanket, just after she was born. Mum gives the obligatory oohs and aahs. Dad stays silent but does a little nod of his head in acknowledgement every so often. About ten of those new-born photos. Ellie at her mother’s breast. Move on from that. A bit dodgy to stare at your mother-in-law’s chest. Then Ellie naked in a bath, Ellie naked in a paddling pool, Ellie (amazingly, with clothes on) propped up on some swings. Ellie, when a little older, chasing some ducks. All the things that babies are meant to do. And all the things that proud parents are meant to capture and treasure forever. I feel a bit let down with Mum and Dad. I glance at them, and Mum squeezes my shoulder.
“You’re so lucky – you’ve got all of this to come!” she says. And there are the misty eyes again. Jesus. What’s with her today?
She’s a whole lot soppier than I ever imagined. So I just smile and squeeze her hand back. Can’t be doing with those tears over-spilling. Although I wouldn’t mind gently berating her over the photos. There’s a bit of me that’s missing forever. I don’t remember chasing ducks. I don’t remember much before the age of, I guess, three or four. The first memory I can pin down is of sitting eating a daffodil in our garden in Kingston, when I was about four. Because that’s where the albums that we still have start. I vow that if we ever move, I will not entrust something so precious into the hands of removal men. I will carry the albums myself, swaddled in tissue, as precious as if they were the baby itself.
But at least I still have my parents, unlike Ellie. I should be grateful. I turn to Ellie, to see how she is dealing with looking at her parents’ faces (and her mother’s breasts) again. Whether she is wishing she could have told her parents the news, that they might have known of their grandson’s soon-to-be existence. But no. My Ellie is sleeping, a little bit of drool coming down from the edge of her mouth. She must have been like that for a little while, with none of us noticing. Good job she has the knack of day-sleeping. We’ll need that when the baby is born. Or Leo, as he now seems to be called.
I tap Mum and Dad to get their attention and nod towards Ellie.
They give little amused smiles and gesture their heads to the door, showing they realise they should leave. I close the photo album softly, take the half-eaten cupcake from Ellie’s lap, and pull the sofa-throw over her. I tiptoe from the room, Mum and Dad behind me.
Out in the hall, they whisper their renewed congratulations and we make future plans.
“You’re still on for dinner tomorrow night, are you?” Mum asks. “It won’t be too much for Ellie?”
I nod my head. “It’ll be fine. She just missed her after-lunch nap earlier.” No reason to tell them why.
“Great,” says Mum. “See you at seven tomorrow.”
I nod and give her a hug. There’s another big handshake from Dad. “Really proud, Will. Can’t wait to meet your little son.”
There’s no mention of the earlier tears. We’re in happy land again.
Dad takes their proudness out into the street. Going to the window, I see him shepherd Mum into the car. Why they’ve driven, I don’t know – it’s so close and there’s a lovely walk by the river. Maybe Mum is ill. Maybe that’s it. She was looking a little green around the gills, unless that was just the jacket reflecting off her.
After they’ve left, I realise we didn’t ask about the hammer. I could shout after them, but that would wake Ellie. Never mind. There’s always tomorrow.
-Ellie-
It’s pretty obvious why Gillian was on the verge of crying yesterday, I think to myself, as I get ready to go out to Will’s parents for dinner (because, of course, we are seeing them again). Like, not specifically why she chose that moment, over the CD. But generally.
Jealousy.
Or over-cotton-woolling, non-chopping of apron stringsing, over-mummy’s-boying. You get my drift. Not letting go. Even her jacket – that dreadful, 80s power-shoulder-pad thing – was green. That says a lot, right?
She was like that before we got married, me and Will, three years ago. Took me to one side, did the ‘are your intentions honourable?’ bit on me. OK, not quite in those words. But she actually said: “You do understand the phrase ‘in sickness and in health’, don’t you? You’ll have to look after him, if things don’t go right. Like I’ve always looked after him.” Classic jealousy. Classic not wanting another woman in the life of her precious son. When my father gave me away, I half-expected her to tell Will to give me back again. She knew I knew her game, though, because she covered her tracks. “And give him a family,” she said. “That’s what he needs.” Presumptuous. What if I wanted to put my career first, like everyone else? I knew she didn’t really mean it. Otherwise why would she be getting all teary now?
Although, to be fair, she had looked after him. My God, she had. Over looked after him. Like, he won’t do any of his own admin, ever. When we got married, I was trying to get all our papers together, prove to the registrar we were able to get married. I had this little pack of documents, and I asked Will for his birth certificate, and he was like “Oh, Mum does all that stuff.” So I was like, what do you mean, and he said “Yeah, she looks after that, for all the ID stuff, she just takes care of it.” First time, apparently, that