The Dilemma(26)

She certainly never smiled around the house but then neither did my father. Were they really that unhappy? She did seem slightly less severe when we looked through bridal magazines together, planning the wedding she and my father would give me when I eventually got married. I still don’t understand, for a woman so austere in every way, why it was so important to her. If she hadn’t made such a big thing about it, I wouldn’t have become so obsessive about having a party.

It’s not as if I wasn’t happy on my wedding day. I’d already moved in with Adam and his parents, and when I woke up that morning, Jeannie – Adam’s mum – brought me breakfast in bed. Adam wasn’t there because he’d gone out with his friends the night before and had stayed over with Nelson, who’d been warned to get him to the pub in time for pre-wedding drinks. Jess had come over to help me get ready – we’d gone shopping together and I’d bought a pretty, pale-yellow knee-length dress, paid for by Jeannie. She’d offered to buy me a proper wedding dress but I knew my parents would be horrified if I dressed like a traditional bride, and anyway, it was only going to be a small wedding.

I knew my parents wouldn’t come to the pub, so there were just the nine of us – me and Adam, Jeannie and Mike, Adam’s sister, Izzy, and her husband Ian, Nelson, Rob and Jess. It had been a happy couple of hours. To Adam’s disgust, Ian played soppy song after soppy song from the jukebox playlist.

‘Can’t we have a bit of Aerosmith or Queen?’ he’d groaned. ‘Bob Dylan, James Brown, even?’

Ian had laughed. ‘How about this?’

‘Unchained Melody’ had come on and Adam and Nelson had covered their ears until Ian pushed Adam and I together and insisted we slow-dance while they all sang along. By the time the song finished I was in tears, not just of laughter but also because Adam had stopped fooling around and as we danced, had held me tight and murmured promises of how he would love me forever. Even though Adam hates it, ‘Unchained Melody’ has become ‘our’ song.

My parents didn’t turn up at the registry office, which brought fresh tears to my eyes. But it struck me recently that I’d never really put myself in my mother’s position. It must have been a huge shock when she realised I was pregnant, and although our lives and experiences are very different, I know now that sometimes, when you’re least expecting it, your children can throw you a massive curveball.

I was at work when the call came through. It was Marnie. She was home from university for the summer holidays, working at Boots to earn some money before leaving for Hong Kong at the end of August.

‘Mum, are you busy?’

‘Well, yes, I’m expecting clients any minute now.’

‘Oh.’

‘Why, what’s wrong?’

‘I don’t feel well.’

‘Are you at work?’

‘No, I didn’t go in. I don’t suppose you could come home, could you?’

‘What, now?’ My meeting wouldn’t take more than an hour and I hoped that Marnie could wait until it was over.

‘Yes. I really don’t feel well, Mum.’

‘Are you being sick?’

‘Yes. No. Mum, could you just come home, please.’ For the first time, I caught the panic in her voice and all sorts of terrible illnesses flew through my mind, from a violent stomach bug right through to meningitis.

‘How bad is it, Marnie?’ I asked, already on my feet. ‘Do you need an ambulance?’ I kept my voice as calm as I could but the word ambulance brought worried looks from my colleagues.

‘No, I’ll be fine until you arrive. Can you leave now?’

I caught Paula’s eye and she paused, watching me. ‘Yes, I’ll be home in twenty minutes. Is that OK?’

‘Yes.’ I heard her voice break. ‘Thanks, Mum.’

In fact, I was home in less than ten minutes because Paula insisted on driving me rather than letting me walk, as I usually did.

‘Promise to let us know how Marnie is,’ she said, as I got out of the car.

‘It’s probably that bug we were talking about. Apparently, it’s pretty nasty.’

I expected to find Marnie lying on the sofa in the sitting room, but her anguished ‘Mum!’ drew me upstairs to the bathroom where I found her sitting on the floor, bleeding heavily. It took me a moment to realise she was having a miscarriage.

Later, at the hospital, once everything was over, there was so much I wanted to ask her – and so much I was beginning to understand. When she’d first been accepted to study in Hong Kong, she was ecstatic. By the time she came home for the Easter holidays, a couple of months later, she was telling us that she wasn’t sure she wanted to go.

‘Why not?’ I’d asked, amazed that she was thinking of giving up such a wonderful opportunity.

‘It’s so far away.’ We were having lunch at the time and she stabbed a potato half-heartedly with her fork. ‘I wouldn’t be able to come home for nine months.’

‘If you were really homesick, we could see about you coming home for Christmas,’ Adam said, and I flinched because I knew tickets at that time of the year would cost over a thousand pounds. He looked back at me, a look that said, Once she’s there, she’ll be fine. For now, she’s got cold feet and needs a safety blanket. ‘But isn’t it too late to back out now?’ he went on.