Obstacles to Young Love

PART THREE The Rocky Road to Seville 1991–1993

They’re late. Lunch is ready. It’s annoying.

William offers a second glass of sherry. This is very unusual, but they can’t just sit around with empty glasses, waiting. It embarrasses him to have to do it, he’s not a drinker, so he has to pass a little comment. ‘It is New Year’s Day, after all,’ he says. When he’s finished pouring he stops for a moment in front of the picture over the piano. It shows a Norfolk wherry sailing away from the staithe at Wells-Next-the-Sea. Naomi knows that, just for a moment, her father is sailing away from a staithe somewhere, and is happy. This worries her. She has become more sensitive to atmosphere over the years, and senses that something is afoot today. She feels uneasy, edgy, tense.

They’re having curry, in the English style, quite hot but not fearsomely so, and sweetened with sultanas and slices of apple. On the side there will be mango chutney, slices of banana and finely minced coconut. The curry can be held quite easily in the Hostess trolley, but the rice may dry out. It’s annoying that they are late.

‘Where are they?’ Penny cries.

‘They’ll have got utterly and totally arseholed last night,’ says Julian. ‘No discipline, artists.’

He’s very grumpy today.

‘Please, Julian, not in front of the child,’ says his mother.

‘I don’t like that expression, “the child”, Mum,’ says Naomi. ‘She does have a name.’ The words are a rebuke, but Naomi speaks them very gently and without any hostility. Penny is tense today. There’s that telltale working of her mouth when she isn’t speaking.

‘What’s “arseholed”?’ asks Emily.

‘It’s not a word you need to know, dear. It’s a word silly lawyers who’ve never quite grown up and still want to shock their parents use. It means having too much to drink.’

‘Dad used to get “arseholed” sometimes, didn’t he? He still gets “arseholed” sometimes when he takes me out for a meal. He has a double gin and then a whole bottle of wine and then he drives me home.’

‘Yes, yes, Emily. That’s enough. And does he indeed? Right.’

‘I prefer Dad when he isn’t “arseholed”. He’s much nicer. I don’t intend to get “arseholed” at all when I’m grown up.’

‘Yes, Emily, thank you, good, I’m really glad, you stick to that, but we’ve had enough of that word, thank you.’

Emily is six. She isn’t usually annoying, though sometimes she comes out with awkward things, the way children do. Once Auntie Constance, whom she doesn’t like – you can’t be made to like people just because they’re your auntie – had said, ‘You’re as bright as a button, aren’t you?’ and Emily had drawn herself up to her full height, which at the time was two foot eleven, and said, ‘I’m much brighter than a button, excuse me. I never saw a button do anything clever.’ Pink spots had appeared on both of Auntie Constance’s cheeks.

There’s a welcome crunch of gravel.

‘They’re here!’

Relief sweeps over Penny’s face. Emily dances up and down. She loves Uncle Clive and Uncle Antoine. She takes them completely for granted and has never seen anything funny in their being two men together, but then she has no concept of the idea of a lover. Long may she not have.

But it’s the delight on the faces of Penny and William that amazes Naomi. She hasn’t realised how far they have travelled since they first met Antoine over twelve years ago, when she was eighteen. How embarrassed they had been in 1978. How affectionate they are in 1991. Clive and Antoine enter with beaming smiles and exciting parcels. The whole mood lifts. Well, no, not quite. Julian’s mood doesn’t lift. He never exchanged another word with Teresa after Naomi’s eighteenth birthday supper, but to him Antoine will always be what Teresa called him, ‘That Frog poofter.’ On the surface it’s prejudice, but deep down it’s even sadder than prejudice. Deep down it’s a defence mechanism against the sight of a man being so much more at ease with himself than he is.

There’s a round of kissing in the French style, on both cheeks and slightly formal. Even William, not a natural kisser, manages to kiss both Clive and Antoine, and does it with a bit of panache. ‘You’ve turned us all French now, Antoine,’ he says with shy pride.

Clive and Antoine don’t kiss Julian, though. His face is set in unkissable mode. His face is like a Pennine crag.

And almost immediately Antoine is on the floor, level with Emily, in front of the cosy, crackling winter fire.

‘So, Emily, do you want me to help you with the jigsaw or do you want to finish it on your own?’

‘Help me, please, Uncle Antoine.’

Naomi and Clive give each other a long, loving hug. Julian pours himself another sherry. Antoine finds a piece of sky. Emily squeals with delight. Penny’s mouth moves anxiously. Something is up.

‘What about the presents?’ asks Emily from the floor.

‘After lunch,’ says Penny.

‘Are you sure, Penny?’ asks William.

‘Well, no. Yes, now.’

Naomi realises that this exchange is meaningful. She just doesn’t know what the meaning is.

‘Julian,’ she says.

‘What?’

‘The day you don’t hand round the presents, this house won’t be L’Ancresse any more.’

Julian pretends not to be pleased.

Clive and Antoine have brought lovely presents for everyone, they’re really good at presents, and living in Paris does help, though how they get them all on the plane is a mystery. But things like weight restrictions don’t matter to Antoine. He charms his way through.

In their turn, Clive and Antoine express great delight at the presents they have been given.

‘Late night last night?’ asks Julian.

‘Yes,’ says Clive. ‘Good party. Francis Bacon was there.’

‘Name dropper.’

‘Excuse me, we hate name dropping,’ says Antoine from the floor, where he has just found the piece that completes the funnel. ‘I was saying so to Brigitte Bardot only yesterday.’

‘Who’s Brigitte Bardot?’ asks Emily.

‘A beautiful French actress who was better treated by animals than by people,’ says Naomi.

‘But that’s not why we’re late, Julian,’ says Clive. ‘We set off in good time. Had a problem with the ruddy car. Hire cars!’

‘Right,’ says Penny firmly, finding a suitable cue at last. ‘Well, you’re here anyway. Lunch.’

They take their seats at the table. The dining room smells even more of disuse now that all the children have left home. The table is plainly laid, as ever, but there are crackers.

‘I know it’s not Christmas,’ says Penny, ‘but Emily loves them.’

‘Uncle Antoine loves them too,’ says Emily.

They pull their crackers, with much laughter as Julian is left without any of the insides of either of the two crackers he’s pulled, laughter which is killed stone dead when he says, ‘You see. Can’t even pull crackers.’

‘I’m sorry. I’m not in the mood for paper hats,’ he says, but Naomi says, ‘Julian!’ and she can wind this gruff, awkward brother of hers round her little finger. He puts on his paper hat – it’s a bright yellow crown – without protest.

‘What do you get if you cross a fish with two elephants?’ reads out Clive.

‘A very large bouillabaisse?’ suggests Antoine.

‘No. Swimming trunks.’

There is a loud, communal groan, but Emily laughs with delight.

Penny begins to serve the meal. She has made a special curry, not quite so hot, for Emily. Naomi waits for her to make some kind of disparaging remark to Antoine about the food. If only her mother had more self-confidence. The remark duly comes.

‘It’s only curry, I’m afraid, Antoine. Well, the food over Christmas has been rather rich and a bit bland, I mean, let’s face it, turkey is bland, there’s no getting away from it, so I thought it might make a nice change.’

‘It’s perfect, Penny. I like your curry. It’s one thing we French are not good at.’

‘Charming as ever, Antoine.’ William beams as he says this, trying to show that he’s not being sarcastic. But it doesn’t quite work. Everything he says sounds at least faintly sarcastic. It’s the schoolmaster in him.

‘Antoine’s charm is his weakness,’ says Clive. ‘You should see him in Paris. He makes Maurice Chevalier look like a yob. People have to meet him at least five times before they realise he’s sincere. It’s held him back enormously in the art world.’

‘How is business?’ asks William.

‘Not good. We struggle on. Couldn’t do it without Clive’s regular earning.’

Clive teaches English, and teaches it well. He has inherited his father’s talent.

‘He’s a strange one, isn’t he?’ says Clive. ‘The more way out his art gets – I mean, he’s letting the cat walk over the paint now – the more he dresses like a bank manager.’

Clive is in jeans and an open-necked shirt. Antoine is wearing a suit and tie.

‘Too many artists live their art instead of painting it,’ says Antoine.

‘What do you mean about the cat, Uncle Clive?’ asks Emily, who loves cats.

‘I slosh wet paint on a canvas and let her walk over it,’ explains Antoine. ‘The marks she makes become incorporated into the structure of the painting. She does it brilliantly. Sasha’s very artistic. She’s a natural. It’s the element of chance in life that I need, you see. You can have too much composition. There is no composition in life. Sacha is therefore an essential element in my work, and doesn’t she know it? She doesn’t even mind too much when I have to use turps to wipe her feet.’

Emily laughs. She is so happy about the cat.

‘I thought you were bringing your girlfriend, Julian,’ says Clive.

‘Just noticed, have you?’

‘Well, no, I noticed when we arrived but I thought maybe she was in the bathroom or something. It was only when we were all sat down and there was no empty chair that I was sure. It’s not easy, Julian, to broach the question of your love life with you. One usually finds one has touched on a sensitive spot.’

‘Well, this time it’s not sensitive at all, because it’s good riddance.’

‘Oh!’

‘She was coming. We had a row in the station.’

‘Terminal?’

‘Yes. King’s Cross.’

It’s not often that Julian makes a joke, so everyone laughs a little too much at it, and then realises that it’s rather heartless to laugh at his predicament, so they all stop laughing rather suddenly.

‘But you’re getting on all right with your partners at work, are you, Julian?’ asks William.

Naomi has never seen her father taking such an active role in the conversation. Something is definitely up.

‘Oh, yes,’ replies Julian. ‘Well, they’re all men. I don’t have problems with men.’

William goes round the table, pouring more wine. This is without precedent, not because he’s mean, he isn’t, but because he never even thinks about drink. But today he is drinking as well. Naomi’s anxiety grows.

Penny offers seconds, again with, to Naomi’s mind, an unnecessary verbal accompaniment. ‘I didn’t give you too much first time around, in case you all felt you’d been eating too much over the holiday period, or in case it was too hot for you. But I thought, you can always come back for more.’

Everyone comes back for more.

‘It is very good, Penny. No more self-criticism, please,’ says Antoine sternly.

Her father raises his glass. ‘Well,’ he says, ‘I think we ought to drink to Naomi, and wish her good luck with her sitcom.’

He’s ticking off the conversational boxes one by one, thinks Naomi, smiling with a modesty that, sadly, is not false, as they toast the success of her upcoming sitcom, which goes into production in a couple of weeks and will be on the screens in April.

‘Yes,’ says her father. ‘We’re very proud of our little girl.’

‘Dad, I’m thirty.’

‘That’s young. Only thirty, and a starring role in a sitcom.’

‘What is this sitcom?’ asks Clive.

‘It’s about a couple who keep having children. It’s about how the mother has to do all the work. It’s about the stresses of motherhood and of marriage, only it’s funny.’

‘Well, that sounds a good part,’ says Julian encouragingly. Only on matters to do with Naomi does he brighten in the family these days. Naomi almost wishes that he wasn’t so loyal to her. It makes it hard for her to criticise him for the rest of his unsatisfactory life.

‘I don’t play the mother,’ says Naomi. ‘I play the neighbour.’

‘But you’re regular,’ says her father. ‘You’re in it every week. Aren’t you?’

‘Yes.’

‘It’s a start. You’ll be back at the Coningsfield Grand. “Starring Naomi Walls from…”. What’s your series called?’

She doesn’t want to tell them. She still hopes the title may change.

‘It’s not quite decided.’