Things I Want My Daughters to Know_ A Novel - Elizabeth Noble [28]
When the children were finally excused to rampage in the next room, it grew even quieter. As though he’d been waiting for the perfect moment, Stephen’s dad leaned forward, elbows on the table at either side of his unfinished bowl of Christmas pudding, and looked first at her, and then at Stephen. She knew what was coming.
“So, how many more years are you two going to make me wait for grandchildren?” The stupid remark hung in the air like cigarette smoke. Jennifer felt tired. He may have been looking at Stephen, and referring to both of them, but he was talking to her. Trying to light her touch paper. It seemed a malicious sport to her.
She smiled as lightly as she could manage. Her voice carried a warning, but she doubted it would be heeded. “You have grandchildren, Brian—they’re those adorable noisy little people jumping on the sofa next door.”
“I mean your children—Stephen’s children. A man wants to see his son produce a family.” He sounded like some idiotic Victorian.
“Brian! Leave them be.”
Kathleen was trying to come to their rescue, but he was belligerent after a morning of drinking. His words were slightly slurred, and he didn’t even look at his wife when she spoke.
“I’m only having fun with them, Kathleen. Besides, haven’t I a right to know? They’ve been married for years.”
Jennifer looked at Stephen for help, or rescue, or even just for a shared moment of exasperation, but Stephen looked down at his place and swept away a few imaginary crumbs from the cloth. He wasn’t going to say anything, and she didn’t think she had ever felt more alone.
Kathleen’s smile pleaded with her, and Joanne and Anna looked embarrassed and sympathetic, and perhaps the tiniest bit curious, but no one was going to tell him to shut up.
She pushed her chair back—its legs squeaking unpleasantly against the floor—and stood up, forcing her voice to be calm and quiet, as she said, “You know what, Brian? You don’t have a right. You don’t have any bloody right at all.”
Then she turned and walked through into the kitchen. She grabbed her coat and handbag and opened the back door.
Kathleen loved her long, narrow garden and kept a bench on the patio right outside the door, on which she would sit and watch the birds at her birdbath. Jennifer sat down heavily, pulled her coat around her against the cold. Her breath came in clouds. She fumbled in her bag for a cigarette and lit it, taking a deep first drag. He could bloody well bugger off, the stupid, insensitive, nosy sod. She was too angry to cry.
Kathleen followed her out, her coat around her shoulders but her slippers still on. She sat down beside her.
“Can I have one of those?”
“You don’t smoke.”
“Nor do you!”
“Bloody well need one now.” She’d bought the packet a few days ago. It was the first one she’d bought for months—since Mum, really—and this was the first one she’d lit. It wasn’t really like her, and even as she drew deeply on the cigarette, she wondered what she was doing. Stephen would be cross. Maybe that was why she’d bought them.
“Well…me, too.”
Jennifer half smiled at her and passed the packet. Kathleen lit a cigarette with the shallow breath of the halfhearted smoker.
“You think you need a fag to get through a day with him, try a lifetime.”
It was the first time she had ever said anything remotely like that, and the statement hung in the air with their smoke and their cold breath, like smog.
For a moment, Jennifer stared at her in shock. Then Kathleen shrugged, nodded, took another pretend drag, and burst out laughing.
THEY DIDN’T TALK MUCH ON THE WAY HOME IN THE CAR. SHE was driving. Stephen had drunk several glasses of wine and port with his lunch, and his head was nodding before they’d gone five miles. She told him it was okay for him to sleep, and he’d reclined the passenger seat, balling up his sweater to make a pillow, and fallen asleep. She’d listened to the radio