Don’t You Forget About Me(76)

Unfortunately, both of us forget Geoffrey is the sort of nightmare guest who thinks turning up forty-five minutes before he’s been invited is an act of conspicuous efficiency, as opposed to wildly inconsiderate. His shiny new reg Volvo is squatting on the drive like Mr Toad’s chariot when the taxi drops me off.

It irks me so much that Mum is a passenger in this, both literally and figuratively. I hope I’m never in a marriage where I don’t feel I can say: No we’re not setting off an hour early so our hostess has to grit her teeth and miss the shower she’d planned, sit back down.

‘Hi,’ I say, in the living room doorway, as Milo singsongs, ‘Hiiiiiii, Auntie Georgina,’ back.

Geoffrey sullenly throws his cava down his throat without looking at me or speaking, while Mum and Mark say hello.

An unusually antsy Esther bustles off to get me a cava and I sit down. Mark says: ‘How’re tricks?’ and we make small talk. I can see Mum’s mind whirring as she tries to find a topic that is both relevant to the company and totally neutral.

I could tell her, from my time with Robin, that if your partner makes your social life much harder for you, you might have picked the wrong partner.

‘Here she is, right on time! Look at that, Esther,’ Mark says, standing up, as a mobility adapted van sweeps into the drive.

‘It’s a miracle, the care home must be on fire,’ Esther says, as Nana Hogg emerges on to the gravel. With much fanfare and exertion – by others – she’s put in a wheelchair and conveyed into the house. She announces her preference to be on the sofa, which displaces a clearly displeased Geoffrey, much to my delight. She gets her knitting out, mauve hedgehogs of soft yarn, and starts clacking away with the needles.

Mark says to me: ‘That’s a lovely idea about taking flowers to your dad’s grave on his birthday with Milo, by the way. I’ve got time off and I think Esther can take leave too?’

‘Yep. The teachers say Milo can have the day off school,’ she says.

‘Patsy and Geoff, you’re very welcome to join. We’re thinking of heading there for one, and having a spot of lunch after?’

Mark’s guileless decency is actually a fiendish weapon here. If I was saying this, it would have side to it. Mark is genuine. It makes Geoffrey look all the worse.

‘Hnph,’ Geoffrey says.

‘I’m sure we can come along,’ Mum says, embarrassed.

‘Why?’ Geoffrey says, rankled.

I’m bug eyed. Is he really going to be a git about this, with an audience? This is unexpected. He’s so furious about me, he’s not able to do the greasy backhanded routine. It’s war.

‘It would’ve been his sixty-fifth birthday,’ Mum says.

‘He’s not there though, is he.’

An awkward, shocked silence, soundtracked only by the clink as an on-edge Esther totters around, refilling glasses.

‘In the sense he’s not going to rise up out of the ground and start offering us carrot cake?’ I say to Geoffrey, the first moment we’ve spoken. He looks suitably revolted that I’ve dared. ‘This is a blow, I had no idea.’

‘There’s no need to go,’ Geoffrey says, turning back to Mum, ignoring me.

‘She can go if she wants,’ I say.

‘You are nothing but a troublemaker, and should pipe down,’ Geoffrey says. Back to Mum: ‘You shouldn’t go because he was an awful old philanderer and the whole thing’s a sham. Just tell them no, Patsy. Enough. They’re old enough to hear it.’

Wow. He’s doing what he did to me, with an audience. I already know Mum must’ve known. But did Esther know? I glance at her and she’s looking startled, in my direction. I can’t tell if she knows and she looks equal parts baffled and concerned.

Milo says: ‘What’s a Fillunder?’

‘YOU’RE AWFUL,’ Nana Hogg suddenly says, to Geoffrey, ‘An awful man.’

All heads turn. In the excitement, I’d forgotten she was here and I suspect everyone else had too.

‘Nan!’ Mark says.

‘Stop ordering her around,’ she prods a knitting needle towards me, ‘Like you order her around,’ a second knitting needle prod at Mum.

Bloody hell, Nana Hogg is phenomenal.

Geoffrey has gone purple.

‘I’m not going to stoop to insulting an elderly lady, however—’

‘I’ve seen your like before. My friend Margie’s husband Hamish used to make her and the kids eat bread soaked in beetroot juice while he had steak and spent his pay packet down the bookies. You remind me of him. A nasty sort.’

‘Nana, you really need to stop …’ Mark says, desperately.

I start quietly laughing. I’m not trying to be outrageous but I can’t help myself. It’s bloody brilliant.

‘On what possible basis are you calling me a bad husband?’ Geoffrey says to Nana Hogg.

‘You’re a bully. Let her go to her husband’s grave.’

‘I’m not stopping her.’

‘You literally just told her not to go,’ I say. ‘And slagged my dad off. And called him a philanderer.’

‘Yes and I wonder which of his children takes after him.’

My mouth falls open.

‘Don’t you dare speak to my sister like that,’ Esther says, surprising us all. This has turned into a bloodbath, a one-set stage play. Mum is like a statue, eyes wide. Mark’s aged a year in minutes.