Did The Earth Move? (27 page)

'All warmed up?' the DJ's voice boomed from the speakers. "Then it's time to salsa.'

Eve and Joseph had slowed to a stop. She thought she should probably stop dancing with him now because she was feeling so ridiculously flustered.

'Shall we?' he asked. He hadn't let go of her yet.

'I only salsa with Jen.' This sounded so breathless, she was starting to blush.

'Why?'

'I always lead.'

The music was pumping up, warm and irresistible. Only a strip of gold and pink sunlight remained on the edge of the velvet blue sky so the dance floor was growing darker, more secretive, lit only by a row of flaming torches.

He pulled her closer and together they stepped back down into the throng. 'So, lead me,' was all he said, but the words so close to her ear, his body so close to hers, his neck almost touching her face ... What was he trying to do to her?

'I'm sorry, Joe.' She broke out of his hold. 'I really need a drink... to cool down.' She turned and walked away as quickly as she could, hoped he wasn't following.

From the safety of the bar, she watched the dancers. Deepa was really going for it, positively bouncing. Eve wondered for a moment if she should go and tell her to calm down. But then thought she was being too much of a clucky mother hen. Deepa was a medical student who knew her own body. It was her wedding, let her dance if she was up for it. Tom was laughing with her, twirling her round.

And then Eve's father was by her side, insisting she sit down and have another drink with him. 'Something a little stronger this time, surely?' He eyed her orange juice suspiciously.

'So... Martha seems very nice,' she challenged him.

He spoke about his
new friend
and the wedding ... Tom ... her other children, but the only words she really heard, really registered, were said in the serious, hand on arm moment when he told her: 'It's never too late, Eve. When you get to my age, you don't regret the things you've done, just the things you haven't done.'

'What are you talking about, Dad!?' She shied away with a smile.

'Your dancing partner.'

'Ha... right.' Deep swallow of the champagne he'd pressed into her hand.

'Robbie needs a poo.' Her two youngest children were in front of her now. Robbie white with exhaustion because it was hours past his bedtime, both of them damp-haired with sweat from the evening of dancing.

'Duty calls,' she told her father and carried the toddler off to the Portakabins at the back of the marquee.

'Eve,' Jen crossed her path: 'There's something I've got to tell you ...'

'Can it wait a moment? We're on our way to the loos.'

'Joseph's socks... It's a sign,' Jen said and just walked off.
What ?
Eve put it down to too many glasses of champagne.

Squeezed into the tiny cubicle, with Robbie asleep, head in her lap, she listened with horror to the goings-on in the cubicle beside hers.

Dennis's daughters, Sarah and Louisa, were in there sniffing coke, making hyper-giggle jokes about getting the drugs free from the DJ, 'but you know that means he'll want something later' – more hilarious, drugged-up laughter.

Eve couldn't bear it. These two beautiful girls – one of them could have been hers, she couldn't shake this illogical thought – with everything ahead of them.

But she couldn't face them herself, didn't feel it was her place.

So when they'd finally left, she bundled Robbie up in her arms and marched out to find Dennis. He was on his own at one of the smaller tables, looking round the room with a big tumbler of gin and tonic in front of him.

'Hello, Dennis.' She managed a smile and pulled up a chair so she could sit beside him, Robbie asleep in her lap, dead weight on one arm.

After their polite chitchat about the wedding, she worked up the courage to tell him about his daughters.

'I see,' was his reply. He picked up his drink, drained the glass dry and then pulled at his cufflinks. Weirdly, she remembered this habit of his and it seemed so odd not to know someone at all any more and yet remember their nervous tics.

'They're "in the loos",' he said finally. 'That's very Evelyn of you, isn't it? Shouldn't hip and groovy Eve say "crapper" or "shithouse" or something a bit more with-it?'

'That's hardly a very grown-up response, is it?'

'Well, what the hell do you expect me to do,
Eve?'
He said her name with a sneer.

'Can't you stop them? Can't you at least talk to them?' she asked. 'They're your children.'

'If £15,000 worth of rehab can't help them, what the hell am I supposed to do?' He waved the barman over and gestured to his glass. I'm just their father. The guy with the deep pockets who goes on paying – for clothes, for schools, for horses, for holidays. And I'm so looking forward to paying for cars, abortions and nose jobs. That's all they want, my money, and then they throw this crap back in my face.' He was speaking too loudly now.

'Oh for God's sake,' she hissed at him hoping to quieten him down.

'Well, what do you expect me to do?'

'Jesus, Dennis.' She felt furious with him, out of all proportion to the situation. A floodgate was loosening and any moment now ...

'Maybe they want you to love them, to pay attention ... to be a
parent,
for God's sake,' she heard herself spitting out. 'To parent, Dennis, it's a verb. It's about putting in the hours: wiping bottoms and noses, helping with homework, teaching your children to walk, to talk, to read, to swim. You watch wet and cold football matches every week, you patch grazed knees, read long and repetitive bedtime stories, listen to long, complicated girlfriend woes. You make breakfast, lunch and supper, day after day, week in, week out and persuade them to eat it... And your reward for this, d'you know what it is?' Her voice was starting to crack with effort. 'Your reward is happy, well-adjusted children who love you to bits, but grow up, move out, move away and start lives and families of their own.'

He took a mouthful from his glass, swallowed, then told her: 'Well you always were the perfect parent. No-one can fault you there. But a lousy wife,' he added. 'The kids always came first. And you know what? It doesn't surprise me that you're on your own with even more children. There was never going to be room in your life for anyone else. How could there be, when you're so busy being the perfect mother?' She felt as if he'd slapped her in the face. Tears were springing up in her eyes. How dare he?

'Just shut up, Dennis,' she said furiously. 'You have no idea. You have no bloody idea. I've had to do it all on my own. Don't you think I wanted to get close to someone else? But what you did made it too hard.'

She was aware that someone had stepped up behind her chair, but she was too upset to stop.

'The boys don't need you now, Dennis, they don't need your money, or to be impressed by you, or to admire your job . . . They needed you when they were small. And you let them down.'

Dennis's wife Susan had come up to the table and both Tom and Denny had materialized. There were hands on her shoulders, rubbing her neck.

'It's OK, Mum,' Tom was saying, crouching down at the table, trying to be the peacemaker.

'If you and the boys want to get to know each other now, fine,' she said, much more calmly. 'But I'll never understand what you did and I'll never forgive you for it.'

Dennis picked up his glass and drained it down, then set it carefully back on the table. When he looked up at her, it caused her a stab of pain to see tears in his eyes. 'I'm sorry, Eve. I'm sorry to you all,' he said. 'There doesn't seem to be much else I can do.'

'Well . . . sorry is a start.' This was Joseph's voice. It took her a moment to register that it was Joseph standing right behind her, that his hands were on her shoulders once again.

'I think we should go now,' Susan told Dennis. 'Do you know where the girls are?' He gave a bitter laugh in response to this and stood up.

'Good night, everyone. Enjoy the rest of the evening,' was all he said. Then he took Susan's arm in his and together they walked out of the tent.

Denny let out a gasp of air and a: 'So that's that then.'

Eve was wiping tears away with Joseph kneeling down at her side: 'It's fine. You're going to be fine,' he said. 'He deserved everything you said, OK? Every word.' They looked at each other and Eve was aware that something important had happened, some final hold Dennis had still had over her was falling away.

Tom felt he was interrupting but there was something he had to ask his mother: "This isn't exactly the perfect moment,' he said, 'But do you know where Jen is?' Eve saw the anxiety on his face. 'Deepa wants to speak to her because she's feeling really odd and she's starting to worry.'

'Oh my God!' Eve passed her sleeping toddler to Joseph, jumped up and sped round the tent.

When Jen and Deepa came back from the toilets, where they had adjourned for a cramped examination, Tom and Eve could tell by the excited, if somewhat surprised, expressions on both faces that something was definitely happening.

'Yes, it's labour,' Jen told Tom nice and quietly, so the assembled crowds wouldn't all be in on the act. "Three centimetres. Time to get back to London.'

'But we're only half an hour away from the big send-off,' Deepa protested. 'Can't we just wait for that and then we'll zoom off in our wedding car as planned? We'll just take it straight to the hospital.'

Jen wasn't so sure. 'Twenty minutes, max,' she compromised. 'And I'll go in the car with you, in case you need a midwife sooner than you think.'

The couple smiled at this, because it just seemed too ridiculous.

'Look at me, I'm fine now,' Deepa told her. 'It's not anything more than a stitch every once in a while.'

'Yeah well . . . things will probably be really slow and steady and nothing will happen for hours, but you never know, your waters might break and it'll be a great big rush.'

The suggestion of her waters breaking at her wedding seemed to galvanize Deepa. 'OK, everyone into a circle for the send-off.'

It was the perfect ending. All the guests encircling the couple, clapping and singing to the music as Deepa and Tom went round kissing and hugging everyone in turn and trying not to get too overcome with emotion. It was hopeless by then, Eve just gave in and sobbed horribly loudly, one arm round Janie, one round Denny. Deepa had told her mother and sisters what was happening and gradually word was getting round. The send-off was reaching a hysteria level of excitement and concern.

'Oh Deepa, take care', 'We love you', 'God bless', was being shouted to them as they climbed into their wedding car – a shiny white chauffeur-driven VW Beetle – and told the alarmed driver of the change of plans.

'Are you staying on a bit?' Joseph asked Eve as the car moved out of sight, relatives being almost mown down in their final attempts to kiss the bride and wish them the best.

'No!' Eve told him. 'She's in labour, they're headed for the hospital. They're waiting at the first parking place on the road for me to bring Jen. You know, in case—'

'Oh my God! Come on, then. Why don't you and Jen get going? I'll follow on with Robbie and Anna. You might need another car... or another person.'

'Well...' She saw how fired up he was... hard to refuse. 'Well, I need Robbie, I've got the car seat, but why don't you take Anna home and wait for news, OK?' She handed him her house keys.

The little Peugeot engine hummed and rattled all the way up the M23 to London. She'd lost the Beetle miles back, but she was determined to get to the hospital vigil in time. In fact, she kept checking the hard shoulder, scared that the Beetle would be pulled up there with her first grandchild too well on its way to be stopped. They were with Jen, she reminded herself, they would be fine.

She looked at her little boy, zonked out in his car seat in the back, and remembered Jen bringing him loud and kicking into the world. She hadn't let Joseph come to the delivery. She'd thought it was too weird, considering they were apart and he was seeing someone else by then. But he had rushed down anyway, to the same hospital Deepa was heading for now. And she had let him see his son when they were both bathed, dressed and ready for visitors.

He'd held the baby on his lap and stroked the damp silken hair, too moved to say anything.

The perfect parent? A lousy wife? Dennis's words were still ringing in her ears. They had hurt so much because weren't they, in some ways, true? There was no room in her life for a partner, because she didn't want there to be. She had told herself that she wouldn't have to face the pain of losing another love, if she didn't have one.

She pushed her foot down harder, hummmmmm, the roads were empty but the car was straining to get past 90. If the police caught her now, they were going to enjoy her explanation.

By the time she made it to the labour ward waiting room, running down long lino-ed corridors with a still sleeping toddler in her arms, Deepa and Tom were in a delivery room with Jen alongside them.

'It's going well,' the nurse at reception told her. 'She's having a slow first stage but she's coping very well. There's nothing to do but wait, I'm afraid.'

Eve was only halfway down her first cup of vile hospital tea when she was astonished to see Joseph approach the reception – Joseph and a very pale Anna, still in pink sari, holding his hand.

He was trying to explain to the nurse why he was there when Eve went up to greet them.

'Oh hello.' He was relieved to see her. 'Anna insisted. She just absolutely would not go home when the rest of you were here. And, I... well, I could see her point.'

'Is the baby here yet?' Anna's obvious excitement was going to keep her awake all night if necessary. It was already 1.30a.m.

'No. But Deepa's doing fine. You'll just have to come and drink tea with me. If it's OK with Sister Leanne.'

Sister Leanne said she would prefer it if they all went to the hospital canteen and she would send someone with news straight away.

A little group of Styrofoam cups had gathered between the four of them... because Robbie was now awake, bright-eyed, wanting to play, before the news finally came just before 4a.m.