Flying Under Bridges (11 page)

‘Everyone
is waiting,’ she said at last.

‘Waste
not want not,’ Mrs Cameron replied, taking her time to preserve one cheese
cracker and a single centimetre sliver of liver pâté left from the canapés.

At last
Mother settled herself for her meal. She carefully wiped her mouth with her
napkin. She was the only woman Eve knew who did that before she started eating.
Adam already had a spoonful of starter halfway to his mouth when Mother
intoned, ‘For what we are about to receive may the Lord make us truly thankful.’
There was an embarrassed and English wave of muttered ‘Amens’ from most of the
table, but a rather firm response from John. Eve made a mental note to check
his car. Probably had one of those silver I’m-a-Christian-so-don’t-road-rage-me
fish on the back of it. The family picked up their spoons to begin.

Mother
carried the conversation baton. ‘So, Mr Antrobus, how lovely of you to come
here on this sad business.

‘Please
call me John.’ John smiled at Shirley who smiled back. ‘You all seem to be
coping very well.’

Mother
nodded, thrilled with her own fortitude. ‘The strength of a good family.’

‘Indeed.
Nothing like it.’

‘Nothing
at all,’ muttered Martha.

Mother
ignored her youngest daughter and wiped a small tear that threatened in her
right eye. ‘Also I think we feel that Derek is still watching over us.’ She
smiled bravely at Father’s portrait and his beloveds munched on.

‘You’re
new to Edenford?’ asked William.

‘Yes,
yes. Lovely town.’

‘And
what does Mrs Antrobus do?’ probed Pe Pe, smiling.

John
looked confused. ‘My mother?’

Pe Pe
gave a little pleased chuckle. ‘No, I meant your wife, but I take it you’re not
married?’

‘No,
but I’m in the market.’ John glanced at Shirley who looked down at her plate.
He didn’t glance at Eve. She knew why. Eligible young man. Attractive young
man, but her pheromones screamed double gusset, closed access. It would be nice
to be in love again. Just once more. To be that excited. That special.

Mother picked
at her food with extreme care. It wasn’t that she had inspirational hopes for
the starter. Even she seemed to know that God wouldn’t stoop to a message in a
melon ball.

No, in
the last year Mrs Cameron had developed a new relationship with her digestive
system. It had become very precious. Food had become something to follow as it
made its way through the system and then wait for anxiously until its reappearance
at the other end. She was obsessed with the idea of being regular. Consequently
she had become thinner and thinner. She was a shadow of her former self but
even then only in very bright sunlight. There was very little of her left for
the Lord to love.

Adam,
however, wolfed his starter. ‘Hogart, Hoddle and Hooper? Didn’t you just have
some trouble in the office?’

Eve
wanted to kick him. ‘Don’t start, Adam.’

‘Something
about a woman getting pregnant.

Mr
Antrobus nodded. ‘Tricky. Good solicitor, but she wasn’t married. She had no
one to take care of the baby.’

Martha
decided to take an interest like a cat might open an eye to a three-legged
mouse. ‘Are you not in favour of women working, Mr Antrobus?’

John
blushed. ‘It was playing havoc with the office.’

Adam
sucked in some air disapprovingly. ‘Chinese father, wasn’t it?’

‘Yes.
Yes, I believe so.’

‘Adam!’
Eve warned, but he was all innocence.

‘What?
I like Chinese people. I’m always very polite to Mr Wong/Fong, whatever, when I
collect the takeaway. I just don’t want to eat the bloody meal with him. What’s
wrong with that?

Maybe
the woman should have thought about other options…’

Adam
trailed off.

‘Well,
she couldn’t have an abortion,’ boomed Pe Pe, whose present pursuits made such
an idea unthinkable.

Mother
nodded sympathetically. She didn’t really like the subject at the dinner table
so she simply whispered, ‘It’s against God’s will. Now would anyone like to…?’
Change the subject, she was probably going to say but William had the facts at
his fingertips.

‘Did
you know there are over one and a half million abortions in the United States
every year? I was reading a very disturbing report. It’s not all done by
qualified surgeons, you know. No, quite often abortionists are literally the
dregs of the medical profession who couldn’t make a go of it successfully in
private practice. There was one state where a dermatologist opened an abortion
chamber.’

It was
the sort of conversation that left nowhere for anyone else to go. Why was
William reading such a thing? Why a dermatologist?

‘So,
Mrs Hogart, Hoddle and Hooper, let me see — your skin is dry, you are a
solicitor and you’re having a baby. I can cure all three with a simple
abortion. I simply place this nozzle attachment on an ordinary vacuum cleaner
and—’

Mr
Antrobus cleared his throat. ‘Anyway, we paid her off. Well, she couldn’t
expect to carry on efficiently.’

‘Why
not?’ Martha enquired. No one knew, so Adam moved on.

‘Well,
Mr Antrobus—’

‘I want
to know why not,’ persisted Martha.

‘Leave
it, dear,’ instructed Mother. Martha clenched her jaw and fought back by
lighting another cigarette.

‘John,
please, call me John.’ Mr Antrobus smiled at Adam who smiled back.

‘John,
of course. I do hope you’ll take an interest in local affairs.’ He looked
around the table. ‘I trust you will all be helping me in the elections at the
end of the year? We’ve got some very exciting platforms for the town.’ Adam was
a local councillor. Eve couldn’t imagine what exciting platforms he could be
thinking of. The last election had hinged on a heated campaign to stop people
leaving dogs’ mess on the verges near the church. Eve’s husband crunched
through a melon ball as he spoke. ‘I’ve got some very exciting ideas.

‘Adam
did the notice board, you know,’ confided Mother. ‘The one on the Green. It was
Adam’s idea.’

Adam
smiled modestly. ‘Simple idea, really. I thought let’s have a notice board on
the Green for everyone in Edenford to keep in touch with council activities. I
only wish it had been that simple. You see, I wanted something nice in oak to
match the beams in the War Memorial Hall…’

‘Adam’s
on the Heritage Committee.’ While Adam held court, Mother provided the
subtitles.

…. but
the planning people decided we couldn’t have oak. It had to be something “fire
retardant” and that obviously wouldn’t be oak, which is made of, well.., oak.’

‘Nightmare,’
prompted John.

‘Absolutely.
I mean, I’d already ordered it and it cost two hundred pounds. Thankfully it
was sorted with some fire retardant creosote or something. It did look nice.’

‘Apparently
the smell will wear off.’ Not all Mother’s subtitles were helpful. Adam ignored
her.

‘We had
a bit of a ribbon cutting with the Green Committee when it was put up.
Councillor Hodson made a speech, which was nice.’

‘Shame
about the dog.’

‘Lillian!’
Adam was getting irritated, but he kept smiling for John’s benefit. ‘It was
nothing. Really, the creosote was still just a trifle sticky and Mrs Hodson’s
terrier got its back leg stuck to one of the posts while the junior school were
playing something from the … what was it?’

‘Michael
Jackson’s
Thriller
album.’ It was a sound Eve would never forget.

‘That’s
it. Lovely arrangement for descant recorder.’ Adam adored that board. He kept
walking past and patting it. It had had more contact from him than Eve had in
years.

‘The
vet says the dog will be fine …’ Adam swallowed and sucked on his teeth at
the same time before finishing his sentence ‘…. any day now.’

There
was a pause as the table reached a dead end in this conversational bypass.

‘It’s
so nice to have lunch with an ordinary family.’ Mr Antrobus smiled at the
gathering. Mother smiled back.

‘Ordinary?’
laughed Adam. ‘I don’t know. Mother here nearly served the meal on skates!’

Everyone
laughed and in the mirth of the moment, Adam accidentally shot a melon ball
across his plate and on to the floor. Mother blanched. Her precious carpet. She
hadn’t thought to put a plastic sheet on the carpet. Adam stooped down to pick
it up.

‘Sorry,
Lillian. Effect of gravity, eh? Same thing happening to Eve’s body, isn’t it?’
He laughed at his own joke and Eve wanted to fly away there and then.

Martha
had had enough jollity. ‘You shouldn’t let him speak to you like that, Eve.’

‘Martha,’
managed Eve.

‘It’s a
joke, for Christ’s sake,’ exploded Adam. ‘Sorry, Lillian, but I mean really.’

William
was getting impatient. ‘Look, I wonder if we shouldn’t get the will reading
over with. I expect there will be matters to discuss.’

‘I
doubt it, dear,’ said Mother.

‘Mother,
this is important. I need to know where the business stands. If Pe Pe and I are
going to have a baby—’

Mother
clapped her hands. ‘You’re going to have a baby!’

‘Well,
not yet.’ Pe Pe explained. ‘You see, William is having a problem with his sperm
and—’

William
went ballistic and threw down his napkin. Melon juice spun in the air, hovered
and descended on the carpet. ‘There is no need to tell everyone.’

‘I’m
sorry, darling, I only . .

William
headed for the garden to commune with his testosterone. Pe Pe smiled at us all
and gave a slight sigh.

‘He’ll
be fine. He has some issues but he’s dealing with them.

Mother
hated issues so she went to fetch several damp cloths and see to the main
course, while Adam set about topping up glasses. He limped to the sideboard to
fetch the near-empty bottle of Blue Nun. The mere mention of another man’s
troubles in the trouser department had reminded him of his own brush with
zipper death and he held his hand protectively across his nether parts. Shirley
closed her eyes in quiet contemplation and Pe Pe played with a flower on her
dress sheath. Perhaps she would write one of her books to help William.
Seven
Simple Solutions for Non-Swimming Sperm
or
How to be Happy with Fewer
Sperm.

There
was a short silence until John said, ‘It’s to do with stress, you know.’

Adam
poured himself the last of the wine and smiled uncertainly. ‘What is?’

‘Men
having trouble with their sperm. It’s a modern thing. Apparently it’s the
stress men have to deal with today.’ John munched on his bread roll as if these
were conversations the family had round the dinner table every day.

‘That’s
what I was saying to Eve,’ declared Pe Pe, thrilled to have found an ally. She
simpered at the guest, while the rest of the table tried to decide where to
head next. ‘But what is the answer?’

‘Keep
healthy,’ said John. Adam sucked in his stomach and nodded agreement, while
John continued, ‘I think men have a duty to the next generation to look after
themselves. I have regular checks on my sperm count as well as the usual
cholesterol and blood pressure. That way when I do get married, the woman will
know what she’s getting.’

Adam
thought about this. ‘Like selling a house with the survey done? Kind of
insurance against things going wrong?’

‘Exactly.’

No
doubt everyone knew Pe Pe would go too far with this unsolicited information. ‘And
how is
your
sperm?’ she enquired.

‘Oh
perfect, thanks, just perfect.’ John smiled reassuringly round the table and
everyone was terribly relaxed.

Mother
brought in the main course.

‘A
little treat!’ she announced with a flourish. ‘Tiger prawns!’ She put down a
large tray of creatures who had in their time swum rather better than William’s
sperm. While he served, Adam picked up the conversational ball again.

‘Do you
play golf, John?’

‘Well—’

‘You
should, you know. Great game to help you get on. Great club here. Tricky to get
in but I could have a word. Great bunch of lads. As a matter of fact, it’s on
the cards that I might just be captain this year. I’m not saying it will happen
but there has been talk, hasn’t there, Eve?’

Eve
couldn’t deny it. ‘Yes. There has.’

‘So I
might be in a position to help you out.’ Adam ripped the shell off a large
prawn before launching on. ‘What sort of music do you like, John? Personally, I
think you have to go a long way to beat the Tigress of Tiger Bay.’

To his
credit John looked puzzled. ‘Sorry?’

‘Bassey!
Shirley Bassey. You a fan? Well, who wouldn’t be? She’s sixty-one you know. You’re
shocked, aren’t you? It’s hard to believe she’s even seen forty. That’s what
comes from not letting yourself go.’ Eve was sure Adam looked straight at her.
She knew that look. That look that said she hadn’t so much let herself go as
driven her body to the quayside and waved it goodbye. Adam pulled the head off
his prawn with some vigour and swanned off for five minutes on the relative
merits of
Gold finger
against some more modern material.