School Run (43 page)

‘You can’t do that!’ her mother had gasped. ‘We don’t come from that kind of family.’

‘Actually,’ replied Rebecca airily, ‘I’ve already secured a situation and I start on Monday. Don’t look like that, Mama. Times have changed!’ Indeed they had. A great big boat called the Queen Mary had just been launched and you could also travel on a train called The Flying Scotsman which went at a staggering 100 miles an hour! The world was moving on and Rebecca was going with it!

Like so many girls of that era, Rebecca started off as a typist. Her boss was a kindly man who ran a fashion design business in the east end of London and spotted that his new girl had a flair for clothes and an eye for a needle. That had come from mother who was always saying, ‘necessity is the mother of invention’. So when the war began – who would have thought that she’d see two in her lifetime? – he installed her as his ‘second hand man’ until he came back.

When he didn’t, his widow suggested that Rebecca took over. It wasn’t easy, even after the war, because materials were in such short supply but Rebecca, with her insistence that nothing was impossible (a trait she’d apparently inherited from Papa), would scour jumble sales and markets so that she built up enough to hire George with his tall, dark good looks as her chief salesman. George was everything that Norman hadn’t been and her mother hated him on sight. ‘So brash,’ she had shuddered. ‘Talks too much about himself.’

On Rebecca’s thirty-seventh birthday, just after the beautiful Princess Elizabeth walked down the aisle with her handsome groom, George gave her a box of chocolates and suggested that she might like to share them and the rest of her life with him. ‘Chocolates?’ her mother had gasped. ‘Couldn’t he think of something more original?’ But Rebecca was lonely and the ‘single’ American soldier whom she’d met in a bar during the war, suddenly had a wife to go home to. If she didn’t get married again soon, she might never have that baby she wanted so badly.

George, it turned out, was one of those husbands who didn’t ‘do’ birthdays unless it was his own. Over the next few years, as the business expanded, Rebecca found herself buying him a silver tie pin, a gramophone and even a little Morris Minor now petrol rationing was finally over. By the time the young Elizabeth walked down Westminster Abbey again, this time as their new Queen, George and his roving eye had left for good. But not before he’d finally given her a birthday present. A secret one that she couldn’t tell anyone else about, apart of course, from mother.

Together they decided to move to the country where no one would know them. With the money from the sale of her business, Rebecca bought a little fashion shop in a small town in Buckinghamshire and informed her new neighbours that she was a widow. Little Henry, named after her father, went to the local school and her mother cared for him while she was at the shop. It wasn’t easy but when Henry flew into her arms after work, Rebecca was filled with such love and thanks that her heart ached with happiness. ‘You’re a natural,’ her own mother would nod approvingly.

The years went by and so did the birthdays. As Rebecca’s business expanded through sheer hard work, she was able to afford some wonderful parties for her son. Shortly after a group called The Beatles shot to fame, she even hired a conjurer! Meanwhile, Rebecca was not short of admirers.  Peter gave her a silver hand mirror and took her to the film of West Side Story in 1961. Steve took her and little Henry, who wasn’t so little by now, to see England win the World Cup at Wembley five years later. William gave her a jewellery box (although she graciously declined the ring inside) in 1971 when they were all getting used to the ‘new money’. How would they manage without shillings and pence!

It was hard when her mother died, just before Elvis Presley. Very hard. She gained some comfort from her latest admirer Jeremy who bought her a memorial rose tree which she planted in her little garden. Now that showed thought! It wasn’t that Rebecca was a materialistic woman but she had learned, over the years, that a birthday present could tell you a thing or two about a person.

‘You’re not going to marry that man, are you?’ her son Henry had demanded. By then, he had grown into a good-looking man with his father’s charming smile and Rebecca, who couldn’t bear the thought of doing anything that her beloved son disapproved of, reluctantly turned Jeremy down. Besides, as Henry said, wasn’t she too old at sixty-six to get married again? So instead, she sold her business and started a degree course in psychology because she’d always been interested in the way that people tick. ‘I might be a pensioner,’ she told the local reporter when he did a piece on the oldest graduate of the year, ‘but I like to keep active!’

Instead, it was Henry who announced his impending nuptials just as Prince Charles announced his engagement to Lady Diana Spencer! Rebecca was thrilled. She had grown to love Cathy whom Henry had met at university and when they had their first child during the week they started building the Channel Tunnel, she wept with joy. Bex, named after her, adored her gran and was often found curled up on the sofa with her watching television or playing chess.

But then, for her eightieth birthday, a year after Nelson Mandela was released, her son gave her an unexpected birthday present. Stocks and shares which, he admitted freely, he’d bought from her own money which he ‘looked after’ for her. Too late she heard the warning bells so she wasn’t too surprised when, on the eve on the Millennium, just after her ninetieth, Henry announced he was leaving his wife and child and that, by the way, those investments were now worth next to nothing.

Enough lies had been told. It was time to come clean. ‘I don’t mind being poor again but there’s something I need to tell you all,’ she’d announced to the three of them. And that’s when it had all gone wrong.

‘Your guests are arriving now,’ said the girl with the silver nose stud gently. Secretly she hoped the old lady wouldn’t be too cross with her. If she hadn’t happened to find Rebecca Wright’s address book by her bed, she might not have been so bold. But she couldn’t bear the idea of this dear old lady celebrating her centenary without the people she loved best in the world.

Then a pretty young woman came into the room, wearing a blue and white spotted dress – she was a fashion designer apparently, whose designs, it was rumoured, were often worn by a friend of a guest at a recent Royal Wedding! Behind was a man with roving eyes who, despite being sixty-odd, was giving her the ‘once over’. That fitted the stories too!

With bated breath, she watched the pair making their way over to the old lady’s chair where she sat in her pretty pink chiffon dress with her thin fine grey hair neatly permed. She couldn’t hear what they were saying but she could imagine. Hadn’t old Mrs Wright told her exactly what had happened before she’d had her stroke three weeks ago?

‘George, my second husband, had had a relationship with a young girl who worked for us,’ she’d said with a far away look in her eye. ‘The girl was going to have the baby adopted but I persuaded her to give the baby to me instead. You could do that in those days. It didn’t save my marriage but I did have the child I’d yearned for until I told my son the truth. Should have done so years ago but somehow I was too scared in case he rejected me. Of course, that’s what he did, along with Bex who realised I wasn’t her real granny after all.’

If only Mrs Wright could talk right now! Then again, it didn’t look as though she needed to, from the way her granddaughter was sitting next to her, holding her hand while her son held the other.  Perhaps she’d been right to ring them after all! To explain that they really needed to be here.

‘I’ve missed you,’ Bex was saying, stroking her hands so they felt warm again just as they had when she’d worn mother’s knitted gloves. ‘It doesn’t matter that you’re not really my gran. You feel as though you are and Mum says that’s what really matters.’

‘I’ve been a fool,’ said Henry who was, thank goodness, holding Bex’s hand too which suggested they’d made up. His eyes were wet and she could tell he meant it this time. ‘I know I’ve lost all your money, Mother, but I couldn’t bear it if I lost your love too.’ He glanced at his daughter. ‘Or yours.’

Rebecca’s eyes tried to speak because after the stroke, her words wouldn’t come out of her lips. Parents never stop loving their children, she wanted to tell them both. Just as children never stop loving their parents even when they’ve been dead for years and years like her own.

Then her granddaughter placed a small brown parcel with string on her lap. ‘I know you said ‘No presents’ but this doesn’t really count because it was yours anyway. Shall I untie it for you?’

There was a flash of wood. And then a carved flower. And then a key. Rebecca could hardly believe her eyes. It was the same music box that her father had given her, all those years ago, and which she had passed down to little Bex. It had stopped working (through over-winding) some years later but now the tinny sound of ‘Happy Birthday’ was filling the room and all her guests stopped chattering and stood quietly to listen just as they had done in old Mrs Moore’s shop.

‘I had it mended,’ said Bex. ‘It was Dad’s idea.’ And then Rebecca’s heart filled with something that ached and yet also made her feel floaty with joy and relief. They knew now, her son and granddaughter. They knew something she had learned long ago. That when you got to her age, there was only one present that really mattered. A gift that couldn’t be bought. Or wrapped up. Or hidden away. Or opened too soon. A present called love. A deep, warm, forgiving, family love that went on for ever and ever, even after you’d gone, leaving future generations to do their loving – and make their mistakes – for you.

What was it her father had said as they’d walked home with those new shoes that were going to sort out the Germans? That was it.
‘There’s a time for everything. And one day, my dear, you’ll understand.
’

What's Her Name?

Claire and Andrew. Andrew and Claire. If I say it enough times, I’ll be bound to remember it. Won’t I?

‘It’s not difficult, love,’ says my husband over the top of his laptop (whatever happened to reading in bed?). ‘They’ll only be here for a short time after all. I’m sure you’ll be OK.’

He puts a hand out to touch my arm encouragingly but all I can say is that I wish I had his confidence. Blast my middle-aged memory! I can remember the ‘Andrew’ bit all right because he is, after all, our youngest son – the one who has so far failed to settle down even though he’s in his early thirties; unlike his older brother who married his first girlfriend. Her name is easy enough to remember but I don’t have to use it very often because they live in Australia which explains my husband’s current obsession with Facebook.

Claire and Andrew. Claire and Andrew.

‘It sounds,’ says my husband with just a tinge of irritation in his voice, ‘as though you are chanting.’

Well I am, in a way. I mean, I’ve got to get it right this time. I can’t even begin to tell you how many times I’ve called Andrew’s various girlfriends by the name of the predecessor. Last Christmas, I kept addressing this stunning leggy blonde as ‘Angela’ when she was really called Lois. If you ask me, the two didn’t look very different but when I tried to explain that, Lois didn’t seem to understand. Maybe that’s why she left before Boxing Day, pretending she had a windsurfing lesson in Hyde Park. I might not be the same as I used to be but I’m not stupid.

Andrew wasn’t too happy either. ‘It’s embarrassing, Mum,’ he said as he prepared to drive Lois back. ‘Now she thinks I’ve got another girl on the go.’

I sniffed. ‘So you didn’t tell her about Angela with the false eyelashes then?’

Andrew raised his eyebrows (so like his father’s before they turned grey) and shrugged. ‘Mum, that was ages ago and talking of false eyelashes, it didn’t help when you borrowed them to decorate the Christmas cake. Now please don’t start asking when I’m going to settle down. I’ll know the right girl when I meet her.’

Humph! I was short of a moustache for my Father Christmas icing figure and besides, if you ask me, my son met the right girl years ago. Her name was...

‘Remember Charlie?’ The laugh in my husband’s voice brings me back to the present. I snuggle into his side and say ‘How can I forget?’ as he puts his arm around my waist.

‘You thought she was a bloke until she turned up. She played a mean game of Scrabble on New Year’s Day and she was almost as much of a looker as you.’

‘Get away!’ I nudge him playfully in the ribs.

‘Didn’t stop you calling her Lizzie, though, did it?’

All right. All right. That’s because I quite liked Lizzie with the motorbike. She was the one the year before (my son’s girls all seem to last a year and then they’re suddenly not quite right for him). Had a sense of humour, did Lizzie, and funnily enough she didn’t seem to mind too much when I kept calling her Joanna. You’ve guessed it. She was the one before that who brought all her cats with her to stay because she couldn’t bear to leave them behind. I don’t mind cats but our dog does.

‘Fancy another mince pie?’ My husband hands me a plate and I nibble one feeling like a naughty teenager, holding my hand underneath it so I can try to catch the crumbs. That’s the nice thing about not working any more and having grown up children. We can do things like go to bed early on  Christmas Eve, especially when Andrew and Claire aren’t due to arrive until tomorrow morning.

Andrew and Claire. Andrew and Claire.