Perfectly Ordinary People(55)

‘Oh, OK,’ I said. ‘I didn’t know that. Or maybe I did, from way back when. And they ran a business together in Brighton?’

‘Huh,’ Mum said. ‘That’d be news to me. Sounds like you know more than I do.’

‘A restaurant, I think someone said.’

‘Yeah, perhaps,’ Mum said vaguely. ‘That does ring a bell.’

‘What rings a bell?’ Dad asked from the doorway, making us both jump.

Personally, I would have gone for it at that point and tried to extract the cat from the bag, but Mum got there first, saying, ‘None of your business. Get out! Honestly! Always thinks it’s about himself, that one. If the ladies can’t even have a chat in private . . .’

Dad placed the dirty glasses on the worktop and backed out of the room, bowing. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘So very sorry, m’lady!’

Once he’d gone, Mum mouthed ‘close the door’ at me, so I gave it a kick.

‘He’s always been a bit funny about her,’ Mum said, speaking quietly. ‘About Ethel.’

‘I barely remember her, that’s the truth. But in the few memories I do have, she seemed OK.’

‘Yes,’ Mum said. ‘She was always nice enough to me.’

‘So you don’t know what she wants to speak to him about, and you don’t know why he’s avoiding her either?’

Mum gave a dismissive shake of the head. ‘You know what your father’s like,’ she said. ‘Anything that makes him uncomfortable . . . Well, he just doesn’t get around to things, does he? It’s called subconscious avoidance, I think.’

‘Or conscious,’ I said. ‘But yeah. He’s certainly good at it.’

‘You know I always thought it was maybe because she might be . . .’ Mum started. But then she wrinkled her nose and started scrubbing at a frying pan instead.

‘She might be what, Mum?’ I asked.

‘No, never mind,’ Mum said. ‘I shouldn’t have said anything. It’s just conjecture anyway.’

‘What is?’

‘Forget it.’

‘Mum!’ I said. ‘You can’t do that!’

‘I think you’ll find that I can,’ she said. ‘And I’m not saying anything further, so you can forget about making a fuss.’

I found Ethel’s number on the phone pad. Luckily my mother is as predictable as she is organised. So I took the pad to the loo with me and copied the number to my phone.

When I got back to the lounge, it was packed solid with bodies and a glance out of the window revealed it had started to rain.

‘So the great debate,’ Uncle Tom said, when I entered, ‘is Cluedo or Pictionary?’

‘Or Risk?’ Peter offered.

‘Oh, God, not Risk,’ I said. ‘That goes on for ever. We’ll be here till next Wednesday if we play Risk.’

‘Next Tuesday,’ Mavaughn said. ‘It’s “We’ll be here till next Tuesday.”’

‘You’ve obviously never played Risk,’ I said.

‘Exactly,’ Tom said, looking smug. ‘Which is why it’s Cluedo or Pictionary.’

‘There are too many people for Cluedo,’ Mum said.

‘There are too many people for anything,’ Mavaughn said.

‘Why not Taboo, then?’ Alice asked. ‘We’ve played Taboo with massive groups of people before.’

‘Taboo?’ I repeated. ‘That sounds dangerously like Scruples.’ Nobody smiled. If anything, the word Scruples still had the capacity to elicit a few glares.

‘It’s not,’ Harry said, flatly. ‘It’s nothing like Scruples at all.’

‘Sounds perfect, then,’ I said. ‘As long as you’re sure we can play with . . .’ I started to count, but Alice had apparently already done so. ‘Fifteen,’ she said. ‘Seventeen once Jake and Abby arrive.’

‘Jake said he might drop in for coffee,’ I reminded her. ‘I’d count them out for this one.’ Of late, my brother’s visits tended to be rare, fleeting and unpredictable.

‘So fifteen, then,’ Alice said. ‘We can divide up into teams.’

As people moved around the room, reorganising themselves for the game, I thought back to that horrific Christmas and my recall of the argument sparked a new thought – a potential ending for my mother’s unfinished phrase. ‘You know I always thought it was maybe because she might be . . .’

Because what if she’d been about to say, Jewish? Could that really be the reason that my idiot father wouldn’t call her? Surely not. Surely even he . . . ?

But then again . . .

And then, hating myself for even having the thought, I wondered, Ethel? Is that a Jewish name? And I wondered if I dared ask Abby.



Unfortunately for my cousins, Wagamama did not belong to Ethel, but she was the proud owner of a Brighton café and it was there that she agreed to meet.

We’d barely spoken on the phone because she’d been in the doctor’s waiting room when I’d called, but I didn’t mind at all. She’d agreed to meet me – that was the main thing. Finally I was going to speak to someone who might know something about my grandparents’ lives, and perhaps even why my father’s relationship with them had been so strained.