This is an instalment of an autobiographical series. See right for more information.
As I came to the end of my speech, I was dizzy with relief. The ordeal I’d been dreading for weeks was over. My muscles relaxed and I felt as if I’d never be able to function again. My hands were still shaking.
As well as the transcript of my speech, I was also holding a folder containing the letters and I now – as suggested by Pat - put it down on a nearby side table.
‘I’m leaving the letters behind,’ I said. ‘I don’t need them any more.’
I hardly dared look up. My parents hadn’t yet said a word. What was their reaction to my first ever attempt at standing up to them?
Were they monsters or were they real human beings? Could the gulf between us ever be crossed?
Their faces were inscrutable. They weren’t shocked or angry or even embarrassed. What were they?
Then my mother shrugged.
‘Oh well,’ she said. ‘Things said in the heat of the moment, you know.’
Coming from her, that was almost an apology, and I almost wanted to hug her.
She’d never said sorry to me about anything and one of her precepts was ‘Qui s’excuse, s’accuse’. This I’d always taken to be a hangover from her aristocratic background and its associated arrogance (in my opinion).
She’d made an admission of guilt, but was smoothing it over by making light of her words.
That was OK. It was a start.
‘What I don’t understand’, said my father, squirming in his chair and looking like a small boy as he always did when emotions were in play, ‘is why you were in such a hurry to be married.’
What hurry, I thought. It hadn’t seemed like a hurry to Frog and me. On the contrary, the months had seemed agonisingly long. Why wait when you knew what you wanted?
Anyway, I knew how to deal with that observation.
‘We’d known each other for nearly a year,’ I said. ‘How long had you and Mum known each other when you got married?’
I had the answer, of course, but I wondered if my parents remembered, or had made the connection.
Strangely, Frog and I had married at almost exactly the same age as my parents. We had been 25 and 26 and they had been 24 and 27. Neither of them had had mothers around though. And their fathers didn’t appear to have been close. My mother’s father appeared in only one of the photographs from the occasion and my father’s father not at all.
‘A year,’ said my mother.
Sometimes her outspokenness was a blessing.
Were they monsters or were they real human beings? Could the gulf between us ever be crossed?
Their faces were inscrutable. They weren’t shocked or angry or even embarrassed. What were they?
Then my mother shrugged.
‘Oh well,’ she said. ‘Things said in the heat of the moment, you know.’
Coming from her, that was almost an apology, and I almost wanted to hug her.
She’d never said sorry to me about anything and one of her precepts was ‘Qui s’excuse, s’accuse’. This I’d always taken to be a hangover from her aristocratic background and its associated arrogance (in my opinion).
She’d made an admission of guilt, but was smoothing it over by making light of her words.
That was OK. It was a start.
‘What I don’t understand’, said my father, squirming in his chair and looking like a small boy as he always did when emotions were in play, ‘is why you were in such a hurry to be married.’
What hurry, I thought. It hadn’t seemed like a hurry to Frog and me. On the contrary, the months had seemed agonisingly long. Why wait when you knew what you wanted?
Anyway, I knew how to deal with that observation.
‘We’d known each other for nearly a year,’ I said. ‘How long had you and Mum known each other when you got married?’
I had the answer, of course, but I wondered if my parents remembered, or had made the connection.
Strangely, Frog and I had married at almost exactly the same age as my parents. We had been 25 and 26 and they had been 24 and 27. Neither of them had had mothers around though. And their fathers didn’t appear to have been close. My mother’s father appeared in only one of the photographs from the occasion and my father’s father not at all.
‘A year,’ said my mother.
Sometimes her outspokenness was a blessing.
Frog then had his say which, being unprepared, was short and slightly repetitive, but I was glad he said something. It was important that he showed support for me by joining in and vital for him to reveal that he was a real person with feelings as I didn’t think that was something my parents had ever credited him as being. Because he wasn’t like them they didn’t see him as fully human or worthy of respect.
I’d found it difficult to understand how they could have written such awful things about him in the letters, without thinking that he might be reading them. They didn’t know that Frog and I were already living together but even so what sort of a relationship did they think we had, for me not to share the letters with him? And for both Frog and me to share some of what was going on with Frog’s parents?
The letters had hurt both Frog and his parents and that was an outcome my parents had not considered. Even if my parents had changed to a degree in the way they behaved towards him, I couldn’t forget what they’d said. I was angry for all of us – me, Frog and Frog’s parents.
Again, I realised that Frog had a lot more going on emotionally than I had credited him with. I wished I’d spent some time helping him prepare a speech.
I’d found it difficult to understand how they could have written such awful things about him in the letters, without thinking that he might be reading them. They didn’t know that Frog and I were already living together but even so what sort of a relationship did they think we had, for me not to share the letters with him? And for both Frog and me to share some of what was going on with Frog’s parents?
The letters had hurt both Frog and his parents and that was an outcome my parents had not considered. Even if my parents had changed to a degree in the way they behaved towards him, I couldn’t forget what they’d said. I was angry for all of us – me, Frog and Frog’s parents.
Again, I realised that Frog had a lot more going on emotionally than I had credited him with. I wished I’d spent some time helping him prepare a speech.
My parents listened to him without comment.
I wondered if this whole situation was as alien to them as it was to me. Perhaps they simply didn’t know how to react or what to say.
My ‘alternative arrangements’ were my old schoolfriend, Trish’s daughter, who’d offered Frog and me a bed for the night if we needed it. Her support touched me as I’d always found her family harmonious and perfect. I rang her and said I thought we could manage to stay with my parents.
Not that I wanted to, but I felt that to leave now would be cowardly – even more cowardly than I normally was. It was also unkind and might lead to a permanent rift, and I didn’t want that.
I’d tried to get away from the problem by living in Devon but it had followed me down and I knew now that physical distance did not mean emotional distance.
I still flipped between my parents’ view of Frog and mine. My (non) relationship with my parents still drove a wedge between Frog and me. I wanted it sorted.
The next day was fine, so my mother took her pre-lunch glass of wine out into the garden. My father sat inside with his pre-lunch whisky. He didn’t trust the sun. He’d suffered heat rash all over his body when in Calcutta with the navy during the war. My mother, being half Scandinavian, was fanatical about light. Whatever the temperature, if the weather was fine you had to be outside.
I sat inside with my father.
I’d always found him less scary than my mother. He tended not to hit below the belt and his letters, while equally devastating to me, had perhaps come from a better place than my mother’s. Or perhaps I was simply more willing to excuse him.
‘I didn’t need to marry someone like you,’ I said. ‘I had you as a father.’
He looked so pleased that I stood up and gave him a hug, as prescribed by Pat.
It didn’t feel too bad.
Then I went outside to join my mother.
‘You’ll never change him, you know,’ she said, smiling ruefully.
Did that mean she’d changed, or thought she had? Had I been working on outdated information all this time?
If that was the case, why on earth hadn’t she said something? I wasn’t a mind-reader. Words could only be cancelled out by words.
I’d always found him less scary than my mother. He tended not to hit below the belt and his letters, while equally devastating to me, had perhaps come from a better place than my mother’s. Or perhaps I was simply more willing to excuse him.
‘I didn’t need to marry someone like you,’ I said. ‘I had you as a father.’
He looked so pleased that I stood up and gave him a hug, as prescribed by Pat.
It didn’t feel too bad.
Then I went outside to join my mother.
‘You’ll never change him, you know,’ she said, smiling ruefully.
Did that mean she’d changed, or thought she had? Had I been working on outdated information all this time?
If that was the case, why on earth hadn’t she said something? I wasn’t a mind-reader. Words could only be cancelled out by words.
As we all made our way to the kitchen for lunch, my father leant against a wall with a silly smile on his face.
Both my parents drank huge amounts and I could remember them arriving back from parties and my mother racing to the bathroom looking green without even stopping to say hello to us children. I’d only occasionally seen my father wobbly, however.
This was perhaps one of those times, but he looked happier than I remembered ever seeing him.
Both my parents drank huge amounts and I could remember them arriving back from parties and my mother racing to the bathroom looking green without even stopping to say hello to us children. I’d only occasionally seen my father wobbly, however.
This was perhaps one of those times, but he looked happier than I remembered ever seeing him.
To be continued . . .
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