Narrow Minds (6 page)

I was still laughing as I waved John off then took a look at the post he'd brought me, maybe he wasn't so bad after all, there weren't even any bills, just a couple of bits of junk mail and an unexpected hand written envelope which I opened with a frown. Reading the contents I had to sit down.

Geoff's brother Philip was finally getting married; the marriage was at the end of May and was being held near Oxford. I am not a great lover of big family get-togethers for just any old reason but as this was going to give me an excuse to get closer to home I was most enthusiastic about the celebration and couldn't wait for the date to arrive.

Philip always surprised me, the first time I met him was when Geoff and I had lived in Birmingham, about thirteen years previously. I had answered the knock on the door and found myself face to face with a fairly scary-looking thug type. He's about 5'10' compared to Geoff's 5'8', with much more muscle. His short, light brown hair was the complete opposite to the long, backside length, flowing dark locks that Geoff had been so proud of in his younger days (I always tell people I married Cochise and ended up with Gandalf) and it didn't help that half this guy's face seemed to be missing, hidden under a collection of bruises, scabs and scrapes. (I found out later that he had had a run-in with a girder while doing some building work), he was also better dressed than my beloved who leans towards jeans with big holes in the knees and scruffy old T-shirts that invariably originated from either a festival or a rock concert.

‘Hello,' this oddball had said as I opened the door, then he stepped forward and tried to walk past me.

I had panicked slightly. ‘Whoa, hold it!' I had tried to stop him by standing in front of him. ‘Who the hell are you?' The man frowned and looked down at me for a moment. Then giving me exactly the same grin that Geoff gives me every morning, reached down, picked me up and gave me a hug, completely ignoring the squeaks. ‘I'm Geoff's brother,' he said and grinned again, the eyes and the smile were exactly the same. ‘You must be Marie, is he in?' He then pushed past me and I heard the same squeaks from Geoff as Philip picked him up and gave him a huge hug as well.

Since then he had found it hard to settle down. Unwilling to give up his bachelor lifestyle, he went through girlfriends like I go through shoes. We only really saw him at Christmas so I always bought a generic present for ‘a girl'. We never knew who would be with him and on a couple of occasions he was actually single. However, with his good looks, mischievous nature and quick wit he was never single for long. He wandered through life, concentrating on his sports, drinking too much, enjoying himself a little too much and leaving a slightly sad trail of disappointed but still hopeful women in his wake.

Later, after regaling my husband with the tale about the ram, I picked up the invite and studied it again. ‘Philip's getting married.' I couldn't stop my voice from heading upward in a surprised squeak at the end of that statement. ‘Who managed to reel him in and where has she hidden the negatives that are keeping him on a leash?'

Geoff laughed, it had always been a source of amusement to me that two children from the same parents, brought up in exactly the same environment could grow up so differently. Geoff, techno hippy programmer, spent his leisure hours reading or playing silly board games, completely teetotal. Until I had turned his life upside down, he had seemed to live entirely on copious amounts of tea and canned ravioli. Philip on the other hand, drank like a fish and played cricket and rugby, he's also connected with the local mountain rescue team.

Their attitudes to people differ as well, Geoff, at a party, is usually to be found with a cup of tea and a book, preferring not to get involved in the social hysterics that always accompany such occasions. He can, quite happily do without people at all, bumbling about, intent on his own agenda. A classic programmer, keep him in the dark, give him an interesting problem to solve and occasionally slide pizza under the door of his darkened room and he would be a happy hippy.

Philip can usually be tracked down to his local (even his mother knows that's the easiest place to locate him.) he will be found in the thick of the crowd that is laughing the hardest, he knows everyone and everyone knows him. When visiting, Geoff is often treated to a wide-eyed, non-comprehending look from some of the locals – ‘
You're
Cookies brother?' They're like each other's evil twin, it really is quite baffling.

I was still slightly shell-shocked when we went to bed that evening. I had spent fruitless hours boat-hunting and had had an argument with Charlie about living conditions and why she couldn't have a puppy. ‘We could have one if we still lived on the boat.' I had finally started using blatant blackmail to force them around to my way of thinking.

Charlie had thrown a tantrum. ‘I don't want to live on a stupid boat, I want to live here, but I don't want to live here, here. I want to live somewhere that's not rented, I want to live somewhere I can have a dog.' And with that she had stamped up to her bedroom, I could hear her ranting at her rats about the unfairness of life.

Lying in bed listening to Geoff breathing I thought again about Philip getting married, she must be some girl to get him to give up his life of decadence and self-indulgence, or maybe she just loved him the way he was and she was happy to live like that. Ah well! I would find out for myself at the end of May. There was a sudden bright light that flicked on in my head. End of May, there was something about that date that rang bells.

Quietly I climbed out of bed and went back downstairs to turn the computer on. Discovering what had rung the bells in my head, I started laughing. ‘Be really, really sneaky,' Helen had said. Well here was an opportunity for me to be just that. Checking another couple of dates and venues I grinned then wiped all traces of my internet search from the computer, it really wouldn't do to give the family time to formulate a defence, now would it?

Smiling and happier than I had been in months, I climbed the stairs back to my nice warm Geoff-filled bed. Now I was
really
looking forward to Philip's wedding, I hoped it would be a weekend that would be a point of change for us all.

At the beginning of May, spring didn't really seem to have made much of an inroad into the winter cold at all and it was on another cold and windy day that I found myself outside Sainsbury's in Durham waiting for Charlie. Sam had been picked up from school by Mickey and had gone to play at Aaron's house. I had some shopping to do and as Sainsbury's was just down the road from Charlie's school I arranged to meet her there at three thirty, she was late, as usual.

I felt my phone vibrate and sighed, wondering what her excuse would be this time. The text wasn't, as I expected, from my increasingly errant daughter, but from Jude at the old moorings. I read her text with an increasing amount of irritation. Just saying hello, she informed me that the weather was great and asked when we were coming down to visit, she signed off saying she had to go as Ruby, her young daughter, had just fallen over in the paddling pool.

I closed my phone with an irritated flick and looked up at the slate-grey skies, groaning as the first rain drops hit me in the face. Paddling pool! Either Jude had turned into some sort of child-abusing monster who made her children ‘have fun' in the cold, or they were enjoying far better weather than I hoped to see all summer.

My increasingly jealous thoughts were interrupted by Charlie arriving with a young man. Still lost in my gloomy reverie I waved vaguely when she introduced him, then, gathering up the shopping, ushered her away toward the car.

‘Are you all right?' I looked up from packing the shopping bags into the boot and frowned when I saw her still standing by the passenger door. ‘Central locking sweetie, it's open.'

‘Hmm?' Charlie looked at me vaguely then nodded hurriedly. ‘Oh, right.'

She fumbled open the car door and dropped into the seat with an even more graceless than normal thud. I shook my head and got behind the wheel.

‘Did you have a good day?' I pulled out of the car park and headed back toward home, the sky had now turned a beautiful black and purple, I sighed, puddles up to our knees again tomorrow.

Charlie nodded and placed her hands carefully on the dashboard. ‘Yeah it was great, I had Geography and Sarah said that …'

I let her chatter wash over me and concentrated on the road ahead. It was rapidly becoming invisible in the gathering downpour.

After about five minutes I realised that she was still speaking. It was normally difficult to get more than monosyllables out of her until she had got home, got changed and had something to eat. Even then she always spent a good half an hour moaning and telling me exactly what was wrong with her day, her life, her friends, her hair, her skin and a thousand other irritants that were usually at the forefront of her mind.

I looked over at her; she was still holding onto the dashboard and had reduced her speech to a sort of constant mumble interspersed with little giggles and burps. I took a careful sniff.

‘Charlie?'

‘Yes?' She swivelled her head slowly and carefully toward me and stared, unblinking, in my general direction. Her too-bright eyes looked worried and unnatural.

‘Why can I smell whisky?'

We pulled into the drive and stopped outside the house, Charlie bolted out of the door but was stopped mid flight. The house was locked up and I still had the keys.

I stood beside her at the door and sniffed again. ‘It's you, isn't it, have you been drinking?'

Charlie giggled then stuffed her fist into her mouth. Oh, this was no good. I wasn't going to get any sense out of her until I had sobered her up. I opened the front door and let her precede me.

At the bottom of the stairs, she turned and pulled herself very upright. ‘I think,' she enunciated carefully, ‘that I have had a very hard day and would like a little nap before tea.'

I nodded sourly and watched her stumble and scramble up the stairs. Following her progress overhead, I heard her go to the toilet and then stumble and crash back to her bedroom. The door closed with a thud and there were a couple of protesting squeaks as evidently she had fallen onto her bed.

I would give her an hour and then, so help me, all hell was going to break loose, I really hoped she was the type to get a hangover.

I gave her time to pass out then checked on her, she was face down, fully clothed on top of the bed, her face close to the edge, ah well if she was sick at least she wouldn't choke. I turned and with a slight start noticed three little pinched faces staring at me from the darkness of a big cage. ‘Hi ladies.' I bent down and gave each of the rats a bit of a ruffle. ‘Sorry, but I think you might be missing your evening run tonight, let me know if she throws up.' Covering her with a quilt, I left her to sleep and went back downstairs, I left her door ajar so that I could hear her move.

Checking on her an hour later she was still fast asleep. I left her again. Another hour and I decided that as Geoff would be home soon I had better get her up and moving. As I was walking up the stairs there was a sudden rustle of bedclothes and the rumble of running feet. She rushed past me and into the bathroom both hands held firmly to her mouth.

I waited outside as the sound of vomiting echoed around the landing. ‘Are you finished yet?' I stuck my head around the door, whoops no, I stood back outside the door and waited for the latest evacuation to finish.

Five minutes later a subdued young teenager staggered out of the bathroom. I decided that a sympathetic approach was not going to be in her best interests and even though she looked as though she was going to cry, I adopted a folded-arm and raised-eyebrow stance. ‘So are you going to tell me exactly how you got into this state?'

Charlie looked up at me, a couple of tears running down her face. ‘Whisky,' she gasped, ‘at lunchtime.'

I was horrified. ‘Do you mean you've been in this state all afternoon?' She nodded miserably. ‘Did you skip school?' She shook her head. ‘So, you were in lessons, completely drunk, all afternoon!'

Charlie slid down the wall and went for the sympathy she obviously felt she was being denied. ‘Mum, I think I'm dying. I feel so ill.'

I grabbed her arm and pulled her to her feet. ‘You're not dying, this is what alcohol does you daft thing. Why do you think that your dad doesn't drink, why do you think that I only drink a little, it's because we really hate feeling like this.'

‘How long is it going to last?' Charlie clutched her stomach. ‘I've got such a headache and I think I'm going to be sick again.'

I propelled her back into the bathroom and stood over her while she gagged and retched for another minute or so. ‘It's going to last longer than the good feeling did.'

She stared up at me, her hands holding on to the edge of the toilet bowl. ‘How long?'

I improvised, and pretended to think for a moment. ‘The rule of thumb is that however long you were drunk for the hangover lasts usually twice that time, then twice again.'

‘Oh nooooo!' Charlie wailed then abruptly stuck her head down the toilet again.

When she had finished I urged her to clean her teeth, then helped her back to bed. It was only five thirty but I didn't expect to see her until the next morning, thank God it was Friday.

I meandered back downstairs and sat staring into the fire until Geoff was blown, windswept and soaked, through the front door.

‘Wah!' he yelped as he had a short battle with the wind and the front door. ‘That's a bit frisky.'

I nodded and shuffled down from the sofa to sit on the floor next to the fire. ‘I had a text from Jude today.'

‘Oh yeah?' he shook himself out of his soaked coat and dumped his boots into the box by the door. ‘Is everybody well down there?'

‘I think so. She didn't say much, she had to rush off before Ruby drowned herself in the paddling pool.'