Second Chance - Jane Green [74]
‘See?’ Oliver is triumphant. ‘Told ya.’ And Holly slips in the audio CD of Harry Potter in a bid to keep them quiet.
‘Oh look at her!’ Maggie stands back and watches Daisy with a delighted smile on her face. ‘She’s a little you, Holly! She’s exactly like you. Gorgeous!’
‘And this is Oliver. Oliver, say how do you do to Mrs Fitzgerald.’
‘Mrs? Don’t be ridiculous, Holly. Mrs Fitzgerald is my mother-in-law. I’m Maggie to everyone, children included.’
Of course she’s Maggie, Holly thinks. How could she possibly be anything else? Holly has never been comfortable instructing her children to call her friends Mr and Mrs, but Marcus insists. Insists that all children are to call all adults Mr and Mrs, irrespective of how good friends they might be.
It is, she realizes, part of Marcus’s pomposity, part of his behaving how he thinks he is supposed to behave if people are to believe that he is from the upper-crust background he so desperately wants to come from. In line with his behaviour, Marcus has very clear rules about how the children ought to behave.
They are to shake adults by the hand, look them in the eye and say how do you do. They are to sit at the table and not speak unless they are spoken to. They are not to watch television during the week and only an hour on each day of the weekend. Daisy is to wear smocked dresses and patent-leather Mary Janes, and Oliver is to wear corduroy trousers and woollen sweaters.
Never mind that Daisy has a will stronger than anyone Holly has ever met, and getting her into anything that isn’t pink, purple and sparkly is a battle Holly doesn’t have the energy for.
Never mind that Oliver is nearly seven and wants to be a super-cool skateboarding dude, dressed in Gap Kids like all the other children in his class. Marcus seems to want the children to belong to another era and is bewildered and not terribly happy that Holly is clearly not following his instructions when he is out of the house.
‘They’re children, for God’s sake!’ Holly actually moaned to Marcus’s mother one day when Joanie was on a rare visit from Bristol.
‘They’re only little,’ Joanie agreed with Holly. ‘And we’re living in 2006, not 1886.’ Holly burst into laughter. ‘You just keep on doing what you’re doing and they’ll turn out great.’ Joanie nodded. ‘I think you’re a wonderful mother.’
‘Thank you, Joanie.’ Holly smiled at her, wondering how such a down-to-earth woman had produced a son like Marcus.
Holly stands at the kitchen sink, peeling potatoes, and stops for a few seconds, smiling as she gazes across the garden to the large old oak tree at the bottom, where Peter and Oliver are looking very industrious as Peter – rather bravely, Holly thinks – holds a nail and Oliver bangs it very carefully.
Peter came into the kitchen when they arrived and squatted down on his haunches so he was the same height as the kids.
‘You look like you’re very strong,’ he said to Oliver. ‘Do you have big muscles?’
Oliver nodded cautiously.
‘Oh good, because I need some help building a tree-house. Do you think you’d be any good at building a treehouse?’
Oliver almost squealed his answer, jiggling up and down with excitement.
‘Well, actually it is built, but the ladder is broken, and there’s no point in having a treehouse if you can’t climb up to it, is there? How are you with a hammer and nails?’
‘I’m really good with a hammer,’ Oliver said, although, as far as Holly knows, he’s never picked up a hammer in his life.
‘Come on, then. I’ll be the builder and you can be my second-in-command. Sound good?’ He extended a hand to Oliver, who immediately slipped his hand into it and nodded as he walked out to the garden, Peter stopping in the doorway and turning around to wink at Holly.
She watches Oliver chat away to Peter nineteen to the dozen, and echo Peter’s pose, hands on his hips as he surveys his work, in a bid to be just like him.
‘He’s lovely with kids, isn’t he?’ Maggie slides up next to Holly and smiles as she looks at them. ‘He misses Dustin and