‘I know,’ he said, ‘but she won’t be pleased. We’re going out with the Bailey-Montfords and Mums has a bit of a keep-up-with-the-neighbours thing going with Liz B-M, so everything has to be perfect. Did you bring something dressy to wear tonight?’
‘You saw what I packed,’ said Tara, startled. ‘I don’t have anything very dressy with me, not for any day. I thought this was just a relaxed dinner with old family friends. You didn’t mention any special significance to this meal.’ Tara thought of her suitcase with its selection of casual clothes which she’d imagined were suitable for a family Christmas. She had a couple of sweaters, a white shirt styled like a man’s dress shirt, her chinos, jeans for any rambles in the snow with Finn, and an indigo corduroy dress she’d brought to wear for Christmas Day. She was currently wearing black jeans, a black polo neck and her beloved sheepskin coat. Because she’d packed in a hurry, she’d brought far too much but even so, none of this rapidly assembled wardrobe could be described as dressy. ‘Why didn’t you tell me we’d need to dress up?’ she asked.
‘I just thought you’d know,’ muttered Finn as he parked the car.
‘Know what?’ Tara was getting angry now. ‘I brought the sort of thing I’d wear in Kinvarra for Christmas. It’s suitable for there. Are you telling me that your mother is going to be dressed up like a dog’s dinner tonight and every night?’
Finn’s silence was enough of an answer.
‘Great. This is a great start,’ Tara said. Another black mark loomed.
‘Let’s not argue,’ begged Finn.
Tara gave him a resigned look. ‘You’re right,’ she said. Anyway, there’d be enough arguing in the Jeffersons’ without them being at it too. Gloria could argue at professional level.
Desmond Jefferson opened the door before they could ring the bell. ‘Hello Tara, Merry Christmas, hello Finn,’ he greeted them. A tall, shy man who looked like an older version of Finn, with the same unruly fair hair and the same kind, handsome face, Desmond Jefferson was often described by friends as ‘one of life’s gentlemen’. Until his recent retirement, he’d been a civil servant in the Department of Foreign Affairs. His current plan was to spend lots of time in his garden. Tara reckoned he just wanted to stay as far away from Gloria as possible, not that Desmond would ever say so. He was far too kind and liked a quiet life.
She kissed him affectionately on the cheek and handed him a small package. ‘A secret present,’ she whispered. ‘Fudge.’
Desmond smiled. ‘Our secret,’ he nodded, slipping the package into his trouser pocket.
Like Tara, he adored sweet things but Gloria kept him on a severe diet. There was no adequate excuse for this, Tara knew, because he was perfectly healthy, had no cholesterol problems and went for a four-mile walk every day.
‘Mums likes to fuss,’ was how Finn explained it.
Mums likes to control, was Tara’s personal version.
His mother was in the drawing room waiting for them. She glanced quickly at her watch, and then smiled, as if she hadn’t really been clocking the fact that they were very late. She was fifty-nine but looked at least ten years younger, thanks to rigorous dieting, monthly chestnut rinses in the hairdressers’ and a painstaking beauty routine. Dressed in a black satin evening dress that was a perfect fit for her tiny body, Gloria should have looked marvellous. But the hardness in her pale blue eyes and the taut disapproval in her jaw ruined the effect.
‘Hello, Gloria,’ said Tara, ‘lovely to see you. Your Christmas tree is nice.’ It was horrible, actually. God would strike her down for lying so much.
‘Thank you, Tara,’ said Gloria in her well-modulated voice. ‘So lovely to see you too. Finn,’ she added, sweetly reproving. ‘You haven’t shaved. We’re leaving in half an hour.’
Finn’s smile didn’t falter at the bite in his mother’s voice. ‘Didn’t have time, Mums, too busy with last-minute work,’ he lied, putting a pile of gift-wrapped presents under the tree and then giving his mother a hug. Tara never bothered hugging Gloria; she’d tried it once and it had been like embracing a shop-window dummy. ‘Just as thin and just as stiff,’ Tara had told Stella later. ‘She’s nothing but a shrew.’
‘She’s had years being on her best behaviour as a civil servant’s wife,’ Stella had said kindly. ‘I’m sure she really likes you, she’s just very formal.’
‘Stella, she’s the most un-civil person I’ve ever met. Now when are you going to wise up and turn into an old cynic like me?’ Tara laughed. ‘You expect the best of everyone.’
‘I don’t,’ protested Stella. ‘I hate to see you not getting on with your mother-in-law. She seems nice enough to me, you must give her a chance.’
‘She’s had six months since the wedding,’ Tara replied grimly, ‘and there’s been no time off for good behaviour.’
‘I’ll show you to your room,’ Gloria said now, rising graciously to her feet. ‘If you hadn’t been so late, you could have had coffee. Still,’ she gave Tara a rather contemptuous glance, ‘you’re here now.’
Tara said nothing. She knew she wasn’t imagining it. Gloria was a cow. As she led them from the room, Tara took a quick look around. The room was beautifully proportioned with big windows and, in daylight, it had a nice view of the trees in the front garden, but Gloria’s décor was positively arctic. Pale blue walls, an even colder blue rug and silvery grey armchairs dominated. Even with the heating on at full blast, the effect was cold. It was a million miles away from the comfortable charm of Meadow Lodge, where much of her parents’ furniture was beautiful but old and well loved. Everything in the Jeffersons’ house was defiantly brand new, as if Gloria consigned everything to the bin in a three-year cycle so she could keep up with the Joneses.
The Christmas tree was worse, decorated with far too few silver bits and pieces because Gloria hated ostentation and thought that less was more. Where were the elderly, much-loved decorations that the family would have had for years? Tara thought of her mother’s version of a Christmas tree: a riot of golds and reds, with battered cherubs and some wooden decorations they’d had for thirty years and which one of the family cats had systematically chewed. Rose had even held onto the now faded paper decorations that Tara herself had made when she was about six years old. Gloria would shudder at the sight of that tree.
‘I hope you brought your good suit,’ Gloria said to Finn as she marched up the stairs to the guest room.
‘Yes, Mums,’ said Finn.
Behind Gloria’s back, Tara stuck her tongue out at her husband, feeling like a naughty schoolgirl following a stern teacher to the head’s office.
Finn pinched her bum in return.
‘Is this going to be a very formal occasion?’ Tara asked innocently, ‘because I didn’t bring anything suitable.’
Gloria whisked around, her beady eyes slitted down to the size and texture of uncooked lentils. ‘It’s Liz and Pierre Bailey-Montford,’ she said incredulously, as if that fact alone explained why dressing up was a necessity. ‘You must remember them from the wedding?’
Tara could remember many things from her wedding, chief among them thinking that she must love Finn very much to marry him when she was getting Gloria as part of the deal. ‘Sort of,’ she said, deliberately hazy.
‘Pierre owns B-M Magnum Furniture!’ hissed Gloria, the veneer slipping. ‘Their house is two hundred years old. Liz buys all her clothes in Paris.’
That was what was she disliked most about her mother-in-law, Tara reflected: her criteria for assessing people were all wrong.
‘So this outfit won’t do?’ Tara knew she was pushing Gloria to the limit but she couldn’t