A Winter's Wedding (13 page)

14. A Surprise Visit

Emily was sitting at Arabella’s desk, doing her best to avoid the resentful glances from Jane Maxwell and one or two others. It seemed that Emily’s temporary promotion to the position of editor had really ticked off some of the staff, especially the ones who were older than Emily, or had been at the magazine longer than she had. There was talk of Emily being made deputy editor when Arabella came back to work. Even good old Petra Dunwoody seemed a little miffed; Emily thought Petra was rather overdoing the politeness in recent days. And no doubt Jane was doing her best to spread dissent within the camp, Emily thought dryly. Well, they were getting no extra information from her regarding Arabella’s sudden absence. The official line was that Arabella was taking some time off to remodel her home; and the infamous arrest had been an unfortunate mistake. Nobody believed it for a second – but they still hadn’t discovered David’s infidelity, the twins or the house fire.

It was such a shame it had come to this, Emily thought sadly. She wished she could tell everyone the truth about Arabella getting divorced – but, of course, she could not. For any sign of weakness in an editor would be seized upon in the cut-throat world of magazine publishing. And Arabella might be tipped over the edge now, if her own story were to be emblazoned across one of the minor gossip rags.

Emily sent her boss a text every day to let her know that things were going okay. Arabella was having some privately funded therapy for her anger and rejection issues, and was also waiting to find out if she was going to stand trial for arson. In the meantime, she was resting (and crying a lot) at home and had told Emily she was to go ahead and do whatever she wanted at the magazine.

‘I’ve given enough of my life to
Stylish Living
,’ she’d said, the last time she’d spoken to Emily on the phone. ‘Right now I need to put my own well-being first.’

And so Emily was putting together a major feature on de-cluttering. It was going to be a very glossy booklet for the January issue; a timely thing to do considering recent events all round. But this wasn’t just the usual advice about putting cooking ingredients in a wooden trough to make wiping the larder shelves easier, or storing rolled-up bathroom towels in pretty wicker baskets. No, this was a radical feature on total de-cluttering – stripping rooms right back to the bare walls and starting all over again. This was nothing short of a lament on the modern disease of hoarding – a disease that particularly affected women, since they were the ones lumbered with the ‘gathering’ gene.

Emily had chosen a palette of soft greys and whites for her big idea, and she was busy sourcing coffee tables with built-in storage. She had photographed her own wardrobe for the cover, spending hours lighting it just so. She wanted women everywhere to share her new-found de-cluttering confidence. She wanted women everywhere to give their old things away, to say no to buying new clothes every weekend, or even every season. She wanted women everywhere to address their emotional needs, instead of just pottering up and down the High Street looking at clothes and trinkets, and feeling bored and unfulfilled and inadequate.

She was almost beginning to relax into the task when there was a phone call from the reception desk down in the foyer to say two people were asking for her.

‘I wasn’t expecting anyone today. What company are they from, please?’ Emily asked absent-mindedly.

She picked up a photograph of a vintage-style peg bag, and placed it beside her other selections for the laundry room section. Then she put it aside again; she would have no floral peg bags in this feature. She’d have traditional wooden pegs in a thick glass jar – something that would never date and would never need to be replaced.

‘They’re not from a commercial company, Miss Reilly. This is a personal visit.’

‘What’s that you said? Who are they again?’ Emily asked, flicking through her scrapbooks for a wooden peg supplier.

‘They say they’re your parents, Miss Reilly. They’ve come to London to surprise you.’

‘What did you say?’

‘Emily, love – surprise!’ Emily heard her father call down the phone, and then she heard the receptionist asking him to please not take possession of the handset again.

‘They have certainly succeeded in surprising me,’ Emily said to herself as she closed her eyes and suppressed an urge to panic.

‘A Mr and Mrs Reilly … Shall I send them up?’ the receptionist said again.

‘Just one second,’ Emily gasped, snapping out of her self-pity.

Her heart was twanging like an elastic band. She stood up suddenly, and then sat down again. There was no way she could let the staff meet her parents. If that happened, she’d have to resign with immediate effect. Her parents were simply so loud and spirited and
Irish
that she’d never be able to live it down. She’d never be able to live them down.

‘Miss Reilly, are you still there? Is there a problem?’

‘Yes. I mean, no … there’s no problem. I’ll come down immediately,’ Emily said shakily, slamming the phone into its cradle and bolting out of the office.

She’d have to take them out somewhere – anywhere, as long as it was a long way away from the magazine. All she needed now was to give that vinegar-faced Jane Maxwell yet another excuse to look down on her. All she needed now was her poor father blathering on about politics. And her hiccupping mother, shuffling along behind him and looking bored rigid. Emily ignored the lifts and went galloping down the stairs. Her breathless rasping was echoing round the bare grey walls.

‘This cannot be happening to me,’ Emily said to herself. ‘It just cannot be happening.’

She burst into the bright, airy communal lobby (
Stylish Living
shared the building with several other publications) and glanced frantically around for her parents. Please let this be a practical joke of some kind, she pleaded silently. She didn’t know who would play a stupid trick like this on her, but she still hoped it was a trick. But no, it was only too real. There they were, as large as life! Her father was chatting away merrily to the owner of the magazine. What rotten luck that Mr Carson was passing through the foyer at the same time Mr and Mrs Reilly bowled up looking for their beloved only daughter.

‘I’ll tell you what’s at the heart of the problem back home,’ her father was saying. His hands were outstretched like a plaster saint. ‘It’s a bunch of numbskulls in charge. The half of them never even finished secondary school, never mind gracing the corridors of a university. Now, I think you’ll agree with me, you just can’t let anybody off the street into power.’

‘Well, now …’ said Mr Carson nervously, looking left and right and up and down for some excuse to flee, ‘… many of our own MPs are very well educated, but they haven’t always acted as they should … And I certainly wouldn’t be an expert on Irish politics, Mr Reilly.’

‘That’s
Northern
Irish politics, do you mean? Irish politics is that other crowd down in Dublin.’

‘Daddy, is it really you? How lovely to see you,’ Emily almost shouted. ‘What a lovely surprise. Come on away from Mr Carson, now, and don’t be keeping him back. He’s a busy man, Daddy; you’ve no idea how busy. How did you all get introduced so quickly, anyway?’

‘Ah, Emily, I overheard your father asking after you,’ Mr Carson explained, a bead of sweat on his upper lip.

It was a rare thing for the owner of the magazine to be lost for words, but this bedraggled couple had scared the living daylights out of him. The fact that Emily’s parents looked like two extras in a Tim Burton film didn’t help matters. Those clothes of theirs were years old. For all Mr Carson knew, one of them might have a cut-throat razor in their pocket.

‘Emily, love, how are you?’ Mr Reilly said.

Emily’s father held out his arms to her, and his smile was as bright as sunshine. Emily was mortified to see he was wearing a pair of white leather golfing shoes with tassels on them, a shiny tan suit that must have been thirty years old, and an ancient, padded
yellow
anorak with at least six blue toggles swinging off it. His thick grey hair was combed into a steep quiff and worn long at the back. He gave the impression of a cheesy 1980s bingo caller about to climb Mount Everest.

‘Hello, Dad. Hello, Mum,’ Emily said, equally brightly.

How could she let Mr Carson witness her acute embarrassment? She wished she could snap her fingers and transform her parents into two tiny glass marbles that she could scoop up and drop into her pocket. Then she felt a wave of hot shame envelop her; it swept up and down her body like an electric shock. Would there ever be an end to this cycle of guilt and shame? she wondered.

‘Hello, Emily,’ Mrs Reilly said slowly. She raised one hand in greeting and then let it fall heavily, as if she were too weary to hold her hand up for another second. ‘It’s nice to see you.’

Emily thought her mother was slightly tipsy. Mrs Reilly was sitting on a black leather banquette near the reception desk. She was wearing a pink tweed coat and carrying a very large pink handbag. The effect was slightly marred, however, by a pair of dark brown woollen tights sagging over extremely spindly ankles. And yes, a pair of grey Converse trainers completed the ensemble. Emily’s mother had always preferred comfortable footwear to what she called ‘court shoes’. Her hair was also far too long for a woman of her age. With those untidy curls and awful brown tights she looked like a cross between Shirley Temple and a bag lady.

‘What the hell … ? I mean, what are you doing here?’ Emily whispered as her father enfolded her in his arms.

Mr Carson saw his chance and sprinted towards one of the lifts. Emily saw him jabbing the lift button a dozen times before the doors finally began to open, and he immediately slithered through the chink. The doors closed again, and Mr Carson was swept away to blessed freedom.

‘Well, now … What do you think we’re doing here?’ Mr Reilly began. ‘We’ve come to London to see our only child. And to say thanks again for saving us from that little spot of bother we had with the poker club. And sure, we never go anywhere. So I thought I’d take your mother here on a bit of a holiday.’

‘A holiday,’ Emily croaked, wondering if they’d spent all their benefit money on the travel costs.

They’d be broke now for a fortnight, so she’d have to reimburse them when they went home again in a couple of days.

‘Aye, a couple of weeks’ holiday will do us the world of good. Get away from the old routine, you know? Get away from the same old streets and the endless rain, and the motormouths and gossips. And those cheeky hoods throwing beer bottles at our back door. The parents should be ashamed of themselves, letting their kids drink in a public place.’

‘Two weeks, Dad? Where are you staying?’ Emily asked weakly.

‘We’re staying in your house, Emily – where else would we stay? This is a budget holiday we’re on, do you see? We haven’t got the money to be checking into the Ritz.’

‘I know that, yes, but I’ve not got a house. I’ve got a flat on the third floor of a house – and no spare room. And I’ve to go to work every day, Dad,’ she said, but it was no use.

‘We can sleep on the floor, love. We can throw the sofa cushions down and make a bed; don’t be worrying about us. Just give us a key and go on to your work each morning. You work away, love, and we’ll come and go as we please. Sure, we’ll be out all day, anyway – looking at the sights. We’d hardly come all the way to London and then spend the whole visit sitting on our arses, would we?’

‘Just how did you get here, Dad? Did you fly?’

‘Aye, and now our arms are killing us, I can tell you,’ he laughed. ‘No, seriously, we got the ferry in Belfast, love. We just took a mad notion yesterday, do you see? And then we got a train from Liverpool, and then a nice man at the train station showed us what Tube to get on. And here we are.’

‘Where are your bags, though?’

‘What bags? We don’t need any bags. Haven’t you got soap and towels at your place? Your mother has our night things in her handbag, and we’ll buy some odds and ends in the shops as we need them. We hadn’t really time to pack a load of stuff – and we hadn’t a nice suitcase, anyway.’

‘Are you in trouble, Dad? Were you playing poker again?’

‘I was not playing poker.’

‘Were you, Dad?’

‘No, I swear it.’

‘Promise me.’

‘I promise. Are you not going to hug your mother? She made a real effort to dress up for you, Emily. And you know that boats give her a bad stomach. I thought she was going to throw up when it got a bit rough halfway over. I’m telling you, her face was as green as grass.’

‘Oh, Mum,’ Emily said, remembering her mother’s terrible nausea on boats. ‘How are you feeling now?’

‘I’m not so bad,’ said her mother dully.

Mrs Reilly glanced around at the gleaming white walls and metallic grey ceiling. She seemed mildly disappointed by the foyer in Emily’s building.

Perhaps she was expecting something grander, Emily thought crossly. Perhaps she was expecting a doorman in a green coat with gold epaulettes, and a massive flower arrangement on a mahogany desk. Well, she’d just have to settle for a black leather couch and a glass desk with a vase of daffodils on it.

‘You see an awful lot of scruffy types in London,’ Mrs Reilly added. ‘I’ve never seen anything like it. Even on the Falls Road itself you wouldn’t see such poor raggedy people.’

Emily went over and sat down beside her mother. She sat deliberately facing away from her father, so that he had no choice but to leave the desk and come and join them. Otherwise he would have tried to involve the receptionist in their conversation. That was her father all over, Emily seethed – any amount of time for complete strangers, but hardly a minute for her. She had no idea what they were doing here in London, but no doubt she would find out soon enough.

‘Raggedy people,’ Mrs Reilly said, and then she yawned and closed her eyes.

‘I expect they’ll be the immigrants?’ Emily’s father said. ‘You see them everywhere, wearing those big puffy coats. I expect they find it cold over here?’