Things I Want My Daughters to Know_ A Novel - Elizabeth Noble [85]
“Sounds like a plan.”
“Come on, then. Let’s go to bed. I want to take you to the hospital in the morning. I want to introduce you to my dad.”
IT WAS, AS PROMISED, FREEZING UPSTAIRS. AMANDA CHANGED into her nightshirt, leaving her socks on, and brushed her teeth as fast as possible. Ed was already in her bed when she got back.
“Love the socks. That look really gets me going.”
“Take it or leave it. It’s too sodding cold for bare feet.”
“Get in here and let me warm them up….”
He held back the duvet and she dived at him, grateful for his solid warmth. She put her cold feet up between his knees, and they lay wrapped together. They kissed for a while, lovely lazy kisses, both their faces on the pillow, but they were both tired, and, anyway, just lying together was enough, tonight. You could hear the sea, faintly, outside, she realized. They hadn’t drawn the curtains, and outside the clear sky, unpolluted by city lights, was studded with bright stars. Amanda felt calmer and quieter than she had for a long time. They hadn’t talked about much of any significance—they’d barely had an hour alone in each other’s company, and they’d spent most of that not speaking at all. It didn’t matter. She snuggled up against him, and they were both asleep within five minutes.
BARBARA’S JOURNAL
Writing that bit, about when you were born, got me to thinking about your dad, so this one is about him…glossing over isn’t really fair. I have to remember that this is for you, and not for me.
Your Dad
I haven’t been very fair to your dad. I always say that I let you make up your own mind about him, and that it was your choice not to have much to do with him, but we all know that isn’t quite fair, don’t we? I wasn’t exactly cheering for him stage right.
He’s dead, of course, so this is a bit late in the day, but I’m going to write it, anyway.
I know I never exactly encouraged conversation about him, either. Do you even know, or remember, how we met? I bet you don’t. That isn’t fair. I’m sorry. Maybe he told you….
Actually, it isn’t all that interesting. We met like a million other people our age met. At the pub. I was twenty-one and he was twenty-six. Those five years felt like a lifetime to me, at first. We both still lived at home. You did, then. He was working for his dad. The family had a furniture store, a million years before MFI. They sold dining sets, and three-piece suites and bedroom furniture. His mum ran an upholstery workroom at the back of the shop. You could buy things on layaway. Do you lot even know what that is? The business did well, and Donald was their only child, so he knew it would be his eventually. He had that about him, you know, that certain confidence. We weren’t talking rich, but comfortable, and, more to the point, secure. I was working at Lilley and Skinner, selling shoes. This was a job I hated. Other people’s feet did not do it for me. I used to talk all the time about doing something different—going to teacher training college, something like that. What I really wanted was my own shop. I was obsessed with haberdashery—ribbons and buttons and trimmings…little things in little boxes, all neat and shiny. But I was all mouth and no trousers; I never did anything about it. I got my wages on a Friday—all cash, I remember, in little brown envelopes—paid my mum some board and lodging, and spent the rest on clothes and cigarettes and going to the pub. My dad despaired of me, I know he did.
So I used to go to the pub with my mates, and Donald used to go to the pub with his. First off I fancied his friend Charlie, so I got talking to Donald just to get closer to Charlie. In the way of things time eternal, Charlie