A Lesser Evil (57 page)
‘We won’t say anything to anyone else until Friday night,’ she warned him. ‘Maybe by then we’ll have worked out some plan about where to live and how we’re going to manage.’
‘If I do some overtime, maybe work Saturdays, we’ll scrape a deposit for a house together,’ he said. ‘There’s always emergency plumbing work in the winter months.’
‘Don’t you start worrying again,’ Fifi said firmly. ‘It will all work out fine, I know it will.’
Fifi was walking back to her bedroom from the bathroom on Friday evening when she heard her mother let out a kind of wail downstairs. ‘What is it, Mum?’ she shouted down over the banisters. ‘You haven’t burned your dress, have you?’
Her father came out into the hall and looked up at Fifi. He was ready in his dinner suit, just waiting for his wife to tie his tie, and his face looked stricken. ‘It’s President Kennedy,’ he said. ‘He’s been killed, shot by an assassin.
‘Fifi’s first thought was for herself:
why did it have to be today and spoil our party?
But she checked herself before she blurted that out, remembering her father had a high opinion of the President. ‘Oh Dad, how awful!’ she exclaimed. ‘Ought we to cancel the dinner?’
‘No, of course not,’ he said. ‘Our family is more important to me than a statesman, however much I admired him.’
A couple of hours later, Harry stood up after the waiter had taken all the orders. Everyone was talking about the assassination in Dallas and how President Kennedy died in his wife’s arms in the open-top car.
‘I know we are all shocked by John Kennedy’s death,’ he said, looking round the table at everyone. ‘It’s a terrible thing, a tragedy which will affect the whole world. But I’m going to suggest that we put it aside for tonight. This party to welcome Dan to our family is long overdue. Dan and Fifi’s first wedding anniversary passed without any celebration because of the deeds of evil men. We shouldn’t let more evil spoil our enjoyment of a family get-together.’
There was a cheer from his brother Ernest, and Robin made a little aside to Peter that he didn’t much care what went on in America anyway. Patty put a warning finger to her lips to hush him – she knew their father was just holding his sorrow in check.
There were fifteen round the huge table. Ernest and his wife Ann, who lived in Cambridge, and their two teenage sons, Robert and Michael. Clara’s younger sisters, Rose and Lily, who both lived in Somerset, had decided against bringing their four children as they were too young to be relied on to behave, but their husbands, Geoff and Fred, were both there. Harry, Clara, their children and Dan completed the family group.
All the men looked very debonair in dinner jackets, and the women were glamorous. Clara looked particularly lovely in a midnight-blue shantung dress with a boat neckline and Patty was surprisingly chic in black velvet.
As the waiters removed the dishes after the main course, Dan got to his feet and tapped a fork on a glass for everyone’s attention. A great deal of wine had been drunk with the meal and they were all very mellow.
‘I’d like to just say a few words, if you can stand it,’ Dan said. He looked down at Fifi’s upturned face beside him and smiled. ‘Being here with you all tonight means more to me than I can say. It’s the acceptance that for better or worse I am Fifi’s husband. I know it’s been all worse so far, but things are improving – Clara’s even stopped seeing me as a Teddy boy!’
Everyone laughed, including Clara, for they all knew that had been one of her favourite insults in the past.
Dan looked at Clara fondly. ‘Teddy boys ceased to exist some eight years ago. If you want to move with the times, Ma, you’re going to have to tell people I’m a rocker.’
There was more laughter, especially from the younger family members.
‘Fifi and I have had what could only be called an eventful first year, but not all of it was bad,’ Dan went on, looking round the table at each of the faces that were now his family too. ‘We got married because we couldn’t bear to be apart, and a year and a bit on, we still feel that way. I hope we’ll still be the same when we get to our golden anniversary.’ He reached in his pocket and pulled out a small package wrapped in pink tissue paper. ‘The actual anniversary day passed at the wrong time for me to make a grand gesture. Fifi told me that the first anniversary is ‘paper’; so I gave her a card. But that makes me look like a cheapskate. Well, this was cheap too, but I did put a lot of effort into making it.’
He handed the present to Fifi, who quickly unwrapped it.
‘Oh, Dan!’ she exclaimed as she found it was a small papier mâché heart on a pink ribbon, decorated with tiny pink flowers. ‘It’s gorgeous. You couldn’t have made it yourself !’
‘I did,’ he insisted, turning a little pink. ‘If you don’t believe me you can check your dad’s shed tomorrow. All the rejects are still in there.’
As Fifi looked closer she saw each tiny flower had been cut out, perhaps from a seed catalogue, and stuck on, then the whole thing had been varnished so it looked like a Victorian heirloom. It was quite the most exquisite thing she’d ever been given, and even more precious because he’d made it without her knowing.
‘Wait till I get you home,’ she whispered in his ear. ‘I’ll show my appreciation then. But right now you’d better tell them the other news!’
Dan tapped a glass again. ‘Just one more thing!’ He looked round the table with a big smile. ‘Fifi and I have some great news for you all. We’re having a baby!’
Fifi had been watching her parents as Dan spoke; she saw the surprise on their faces, and waited to see if it was an unwelcome one. But Harry leaped to his feet with uncharacteristic excitement, while Clara clapped her hands over her mouth and tears of joy welled up in her eyes.
‘Whoopee!’ Patty yelled. ‘I’m going to be an auntie!’
‘It was almost worth going through all those bad times for this,’ Dan whispered to Fifi a little later. There was so much joy from everyone, excited discussions about names for the baby, whether a girl or a boy would be best. Harry said he thought he’d make a better grandfather than he had a dad, Clara was just smiling and smiling as if a long awaited dream had just come true.
No one had asked questions about where they were going to live, or did they know what babies really meant. They had all taken the news in the way Fifi had hoped for but not expected – that a new baby to join the family was a very special gift to them all.
Another hour later, everyone was a little drunk. The dinner had been wonderful, and as it had been years since Harry’s brother and Clara’s sisters had been together, they were making up for lost time catching up on all the news. Even Robert and Michael, the cousins, who had at first looked as if they were prepared for the most boring evening of their lives, were chatting and laughing with their relatives as if they were with their own friends.
The waiter served the coffee and petits fours, and after he’d gone Harry got to his feet again, this time a little unsteadily.
‘Not a speech,’ he said. ‘I just wanted to say that Clara and I owe Dan a great deal. He not only took Fifi off our hands, he did it in such a way we didn’t have to fork out for the wedding.’
Clara gasped indignantly. ‘What a thing to say, Harry!’ she exclaimed.
‘It was a joke, dear,’ Harry said with a sigh. ‘Can’t you hear everyone laughing?’
Dan was spluttering with laughter, he loved Harry’s dry sense of humour.
‘If I may go on?’ Harry asked giving everyone a mock disapproving look over his glasses. ‘Well, what I’d intended to say has been kind of upstaged by hearing I’m going to be a grandfather. So I’ll just cut to the chase and remind you all again that the first anniversary is paper. I’m glad I’ll be pushing up the daisies when their golden one comes round.’ He handed Dan a large white envelope.
‘What on earth is it?’ Fifi said, looking curiously at her father.
‘Open it and see,’ he said.
Dan opened it and pulled out a glossy brochure of a new housing estate.
‘Our gift is the deposit on one of them,’ Harry said, then sat down rather heavily.
Dan just looked thunderstruck but Fifi realized it was the small estate of houses which were starting to be built around the time they got married. It was about a mile from her parents’ home.
‘You can go and choose the one you like,’ Clara said helpfully. ‘Just make sure you pick one with a south-facing garden.’
A year ago Fifi would have viewed this gift with grave suspicion. She certainly would have seen it as a method of controlling her. But she was older and a great deal wiser now. She knew it was given only because her parents knew she and Dan needed a permanent home of their own. They wanted her and Dan to be happy and secure, in a home with room for children, just as Harry’s parents had done for them. And since her mother had very high standards, excellent taste and would have gone into everything – bus routes, schools and even the nearest doctor – Fifi could expect these houses to be as good as they looked in the brochure.
No more kitchens on landings, sharing a bathroom with strangers. She could even burn a fish pie and no one would be able to complain!
‘That’s so lovely of you,’ she said, joyous tears pricking her eyes. She got up and ran round the table to hug and kiss both her parents. ‘And even more wonderful now we’re going to have a baby.’
‘You’ll have to be sensible and budget to keep up the mortgage repayments,’ Clara said a little waspishly, but her eyes were dancing and Dan knew she wasn’t feeling waspish.
‘It is
so
generous and kind of you,’ Dan said, getting up too and going over to embrace them both. ‘I’ll make sure you never regret it.’
Everyone around the table was trying to see the brochure, all talking excitedly at once.
‘I don’t like the design of some of the houses,’ Clara said in her more characteristic sharp manner. ‘They’ve put the kitchens at the front on some of them. I ask you! Who wants people to see into your kitchen?’
Dan picked up the brochure and looked at it. ‘I think it would be a good thing for Fifi,’ he said.
‘Why?’ Clara asked.
‘Well, she could do the washing up while she’s watching the neighbours,’ he said.
‘Dan!’ Fifi exclaimed. ‘You know I promised I’d given up being nosy!’
‘A leopard can’t change its spots.’ He laughed. ‘And Idon’t think I’d like you so much if you lost interest in watching people.’
Special thanks to Claire Ledingham at Penguin for her wisdom, tact and patience. And to Emma Draude for her support, interest and friendship above and beyond the call of duty.
MICHAEL JOSEPH
Published by the Penguin Group
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First published 2005
Copyright © Lesley Pearse, 2005
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ISBN: 978-0-141-90095-7