morning, piles of fluffy pancakes heaped with fruit at seven a.m. Freshly made bread and delicious salads at noon.’ A soft smile curved her mother’s lips. ‘Do you remember when I said I missed falafel and you made them? They weren’t readily available then,’ she told her daughter. ‘It was just a passing comment but I got home two days later to find freshly made falafel and home-made hummus in the fridge.’
‘You old romantic.’ Flora smiled over at her dad.
‘I still barely spoke to her,’ he admitted. ‘I didn’t know what to say. But I listened.’
‘And then on Valentine’s Day I came in, so tired I could barely drag myself in through the door, and waiting for me was the most beautiful breakfast. Home-made granola, eggs Benedict, little pastries. And I understood what he’d been telling me for the last year. Not with words but with food, with his actions. So I slept and then I took him out for dinner to say thank you. We got married six months later.’
‘If you want to be wooed with flowers and lovely words, then Alex is never going to be the man for you, Flora,’ her father added. ‘And maybe he really does think storage and stability is enough. But maybe those words mask something more. You need to dig a little deeper. See what’s really in his heart. A pancake isn’t always just a pancake.’
Flora bit into the mince pie. The pastry was perfect, firm yet melting with a lemony tang, the filling spicy yet subtle. When it came to food her dad was always spot on. Maybe he was right here as well.
‘Thank you,’ she said, but she couldn’t help checking her phone as she did so. Nor could she deny the sharp stab of disappointment when she saw that Alex hadn’t replied.
Was her father right? Was Alex’s matter-of-fact proposal a cover for deeper feelings and if so would she be able to live with someone who would never be able to say what was in their heart? Live with the constant uncertainty? Flora sighed; maybe she was clutching at straws and there was no hidden meaning. Maybe storage was just that. The question was how willing was she to find out and what compromises was she willing to make?
And if a practical marriage was the only way to keep him, then could she settle for that when the alternative was losing him for ever?
* * *
‘That’s you and your mother. You must have been about eighteen months.’
Alex stared at the photo, lovingly mounted in a leather book. It was one of several charting his mother’s brief life from a smiling baby to a wary-looking teen, a shy young bride to a proud mother.
‘She looks...’
‘Happy?’ his grandmother supplied. ‘She was, a lot of the time.’
Alex struggled to marry this side of his mother with the few pieces of information his father had begrudgingly fed him. He put the album back onto the low wooden coffee table and stared around the room in search of help.
Alex had never really known any of his grandparents but he had always imagined them in old, musty houses filled with cushions, lace tablecloths and hordes of silver-framed photos. The light, clean lines of his grandmother’s sitting room were as far from the dark rooms of his dreams as the slim woman opposite with her trendy pixie cut and jeans and jacket was from the grey-haired granny of his imagination.
‘My father said she cried all the time. That she hated being a mother, hated me. That’s why...’ he faltered. ‘That’s why she did what she did.’
His grandmother closed her eyes briefly. ‘I should have tried harder, Alex. I should have fought for you. Your father made things so difficult. I was allowed a day here, a day there, no overnight stays or holidays and I was too scared to push in case he locked me out completely—but he did that anyway. In the end my letters were returned, my gifts sent back. He said it was too hard for you to be reminded of the past, that he wanted you to settle with your stepmother.’
Letters, gifts? His father hadn’t just returned material items. He had made sure that Alex would never have a loving relationship with his family.
His grandmother twisted her hands. ‘If I had tried harder then I could have made sure you knew about your mother. The colours she liked, her favourite books, the way she sang when she was happy. But most importantly I could have told you that she loved you. Because she did, very, very much. But she wasn’t well. She didn’t think she was a good enough mother, she worried about every little thing—every cry was a reminder that she was letting you down. Every tiny incident a reminder that she was failing you. In the end she convinced herself that you would be better off without her.’
Alex blinked, heat burning his eyes. ‘She was wrong.’
‘I know. I should have made her get help.’ She closed her eyes and for a moment she looked much older, frailer, her face lined with grief. ‘But she was good at hiding her feelings and she was completely under your father’s control. He couldn’t admit that she wasn’t well; it didn’t fit with his vision of the perfect family. And so she got more adept at denying she was struggling but all the time she was sinking deeper and deeper. I knew something was wrong but every time I tried to talk to her she would back away. So I stopped trying, afraid that I would lose her. But I lost her anyway. And I lost you.’ Her voice faltered, still raw with grief all these years later.
Alex swallowed. ‘Can you tell me about her now?’
His grandmother blinked, her eyes shiny with tears, and glanced up at the clock on the mantelpiece. ‘Goodness, is that the time? My son—your uncle—will be collecting me soon. I always spend Christmas Eve at their house. You have three cousins, all younger than you, of course, but they will be so excited to meet you.’
Christmas Eve, how could he have forgotten? ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t think...’
His grandmother carried on as if he hadn’t spoken. ‘I’m just going to ask him to collect me in the morning instead. You will stay for dinner? There’s a room if you want to spend the night. We have a lifetime of catching up to do. Unless, there must be somewhere you need to be. A handsome boy like you. A wife?’ Her eyes flickered to his left hand. ‘A girlfriend?’
Alex shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘There isn’t anyone.’ But as he spoke the words he knew they weren’t entirely true.
Alex wasn’t sure how long his grandmother was gone. He was lost in the past, going through each album again, committing each photo to heart. His mother as a young girl on the beach, her graduation photos, her wedding pictures. There was a proud, proprietorial gleam in his father’s eyes that sent a shiver snaking down Alex’s spine. Love wasn’t meant to be selfish and destructive; he might not know much but he knew that. Surely it was supposed to be about support, putting the other person first. Shared goals.
Pretty much what he had offered Flora.
And yet it hadn’t been enough...
His brooding thoughts were interrupted as his grandmother backed into the room holding a tray and Alex jumped to his feet to take it from her. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘There’s not much, I’m afraid. I’m at your uncle’s until after New Year so rations are rather sparse.’ She directed him to the round table near the patio doors and Alex placed the tray onto it, carefully setting out the bowls of piping-hot soup and the plates heaped with crackers, cheese and apples.
‘It looks perfect. Thank you for rearranging your plans. You really didn’t have to.’
