CHAPTER 20
The internet is a wonderful thing. I look back at how things were before we got it, and I simply do not understand how the hell we coped. Siân has a different take on things, of course. We might be a double act, but we don’t always sing in unison. Harmony, perhaps. Well, most of the time.

Steve came up with a rock night on at a sports club right next to Sarah’s place, and when Tony realised where she lived he laughed out loud, which startled Jim but warmed me.

“Bloody hell, girl, you say she’s working in Canterbury? If she’d been working in Dover she’d be going past our front door and Jim’s school every morning!”

I gave him the stoneface. I was getting quite good at that by now.

“Tone, that was one of my worries, that you’d bump into each other without a safety net, aye? Look, let me do the arranging here, let her think it’s her idea. Knowing her, she’ll be well up on who’s playing when and where. Told you: she’s a rock chick, likes to shake her stuff when she can”

There was a warmer smile on his face at that. “Yes, I remember. Oh indeed… What date?”

He fished out his diary. “Got a match on the Sunday… get Mum down. Sod it, I’ll have to talk to her properly. Arris? You arrange first, then the girls?”

I rang Sarah from home the next day. She rang me back an hour later to let me know that she had found exactly the Friday night music we had all known she’d spot, and it was all set. I was worried, and I had said so at length in bed the night before. My sister could be an obstinate cow, especially if she felt she was being pushed, even if that push was in a direction she desperately wanted to go. If she took our little plot the wrong way, it might break our family.

I hadn’t slept well in the end, so Siân did most of the first part of the driving, which was boring in the extreme. I had put up some proper sandwiches rather than rely on motorway services and their stupid prices, but we still ended up sitting in some crap place where the waiter/server/whatever seemed to think that making a latte consisted of nothing more than adding a lot of partly-warmed milk to a cup of filter coffee. Ugh. I know Siân was asleep when we pulled off the London Road for Sarah’s place. My phone bleeped, and I shook her awake to see what the message was.

“It’s from Arris, sweetheart. ‘All is in place. Me getting changed in bathroom’ she says”

“Can you shout Sar? Get the kettle on, get the taste of that so-called latte out of my mouth”

We were there. I have already described what happened next, and it still leaves me with wet eyes when I think back.

Tony had left at around two, but I could see there was a tug of war going on in Sarah’s head. I slept as well as I could, but it wasn’t enough to make up for the nights awake worrying about our plotting and its possibly toxic fall-out. Siân was still dribbling into her pillow when I got up, far too late for a guest. Sarah had been thoughtful enough to leave me a dressing gown on the back of the door, and thank god it wasn’t a girly frothy thing but a simple extra-large towelling robe big enough to swim in.

That brought memories up yet again, and I realised that the years of living, quite simply, as herself had given her utter relaxation in her role. I mean, it wasn’t a role, of course; she was simply a woman, full stop. It was her sense of style I was noticing now. She loved her heels, to Mam’s real and sometimes feigned horror, but she was a woman who went for neither froth nor what is often erroneously called ‘sexy’. I suppose her style could be summed up as ‘confident woman’, the mini-skirts and boots declaring that she had legs to be proud of and wasn’t frightened of being looked at because of them. Not tarty at all, not in the way such things so often were, but self-assured.

Of course, the three of us knew better, four if I included Sarah. I did what I had to in the bathroom and stumbled down to see if she was doing us breakfast. Guests have privilege, after all.

She was in the living room, bustling around with an air of tension as she stuffed bedding and other debris away. I was still yawning, and I knew my hair was all over the place, so the energy on display left me a bit sideways.

“What’s brought this on?”

Arris laughed happily. “Visit from the prospective mother-in-law in an hour and a half!”

Sarah hit her with one of the pillows. I noticed, as Sarah was going into an obvious fit of panic, that Arris was holding something behind her back. “Hush!” she called, and held out a blouse and some jeans.

“I know what you’re worrying about, girl. Just put these on!”

Twenty minutes later, I was trying to get some order into the bird’s nest of my sister’s hair before letting my wife do the same to mine, and at the appointed hour we heard the doorbell ring. The change in Sarah was absolutely amazing, and I realised that I was finally seeing the face she gave to the public, the woman who operated with confidence and efficiency. This was mini-and-boots, this was strutting dance. What it wasn’t was anything like the frightened and abused little girl who lived behind her eyes, the terrified new woman who had sat with me as I gave an ultimatum to our parents.

What a superb actress she was. I gave Arris a look as Sarah answered the door, and there was no need for words. Arris gave me a shrug and a half smile, and then we had company.

All confidence, no fear. “Hello Enid, Jim, kettle’s on”

I heard a rumble from the door and a laugh from my sister. “There’s the order. See you when you get back!”

Jim was a little larger than I remembered, but his grandmother was a lot smaller than I had expected, given Tony’s solidity. Sarah rushed off to the kitchen to get the teas, and Enid simply stepped up to myself and Arris, pulling us both into a hug.

“Thank you for this”

Siân looked over my shoulder. “They haven’t done anything that anyone else wouldn’t have done!”

Enid released us to hug my wife and give her a swift peck on the cheek. “He was smiling last night. That isn’t nothing. Thank you”

We settled back down as Sar brought in the tea and some squash for the little boy, who settled into some kid’s comic or other, and Enid was straight to the point. She was clearly a no-nonsense woman.

“I remember when Tony first met you, and he raved about this gorgeous girl he’d met in Wales, and how it was such a pity she was on the wrong side.”

Sar was almost blushing. “One silly joke when drunk….”

I realised I was missing something, but Enid just ploughed on.

“Yes, indeed. I should tell you now that Tony has indeed told me about you. All about you”

Sar’s face went abruptly from pink to bone-white. “Ah”

“You are not what I expected. I can’t see any man in you at all”

Arris broke the mood with some snorting that eventually turned into a raucous laugh.

“Cause she’s never had a man in her, poor girl!”

Enid moved across to Sarah and gave her the same firm hug she had earlier given the rest of us.

“Thank you. You have made my son smile, and I can’t see any way I could ever repay that in any way that would be in any way adequate. Oh dear, I am babbling”

I smiled, and took my wife’s hand. ““It has taken a lot of years to get my sister smiling again, and Tony has done that, so I think the accounts sort of balance out. We have given Sar her instructions and they are simple. Each day is a gift, to be enjoyed as it comes, and if things go well, then good, and if not, there is always another day. We are going to see where this goes, with no preconceptions. I say ‘we’ because it is about time this stupid woman recognised the fact that she is not and never has been alone.”

The older woman laughed with real warmth, and at that I was certain that she was one of the good people that Sarah had needed around her. I began to suspect that she would indeed be around my sister, and quite probably long term.

Tony was soon back, with fish and chips and a couple of pots of mushy peas. Sar got the kettle going again, and we ate in silence for a while, Jim’s eyes flicking from face to face. I realised he had said almost nothing since arriving, and as we piled the paper and plates in the kitchen a little later I prodded Sar.

“Got anything for the littl’un?”

“Eh?”

“Pudding, sweet, afters?”

“Ah, er, yeah…”

She had some rather expensive chocolate in the fridge, and there was a little moment of hesitation before she sorted her priorities. There was a grin, and off she went.

“Want a bit of chocolate for afters, Jim? Enid, can he?”

Tony looked up, and I bit down hard on what I was about to make a joke of, that it was mothers who spoke for children. The pain and loss in the room were palpable, clear in the silence of one little boy. The spell broke as Jim looked up and smiled in the most genuine way I had yet seen him do anything.

“Can I have chocolate, Daddy?”

“Yes, son. Say thank you nicely to Sarah”

“Thank you, Sarah. Daddy says I can”

Enid smiled again. “Elaine, have you seen much of the town yet? We are actually from Suffolk, so there are still things here Tony hasn’t bothered to show us. Hint, boy. Hint”

Jim looked up at that, a little stain of chocolate by his mouth. “Daddy, can we show them the ponies?”

Siân smiled. “Where are these ponies, little man?”

“My name is Jim Hall and they are on the cliffs by the ships!”

She was in a teasing mood. “English ponies can climb cliffs?”

“No, silly, they are on the flat grass behind the cliffs! Daddy, tell her!”

The big man smiled. “Langdon cliffs, girl. Right above the ferry port, the Eastern Docks. They brought some ponies in a few years ago, Welsh or Exmoor or some such. They crop the grass naturally, keeps it looking good but not like a bowling green. Good views up there, right over to France. Ah, we’d need two cars”

Siân laughed again. “Not far from here, are you? If I run you over, you can bring yours back here”

They were gone only five minutes or so, and on their return we filed out with the obligatory cameras and flasks of tea, as well as the rest of Sarah’s expensive chocolate. As we left the house, my wife nudged me, but I had already seen. Two people’s hands had brushed together and then immediately clung, fingers interlaced. It was only a short drive past a very big castle, but as soon as we were out of the car it was hand in hand once again, and as Tony began to name every single bloody ship in the harbour as well as those coming and going, the more sensible of us followed Jim as he showed us his promised ponies. A few minutes later, he tugged sharply at his Nana’s sleeve and pointed back past the rest of us to Tony and my sister.

I could see neither doubt nor fear in their kiss. Siân drove us most of the way home to Wales that evening. It was my turn, at last, to sleep.