“Look, Tim, I know he wasn’t around much when you were little but he worked hard to provide us with all this,” she said waving her arm around the room.
He grunted in retaliation. “And who told him we wanted all of this? I know you didn’t, because you’re not and never have been materialistic,” he said and then plonked himself back down onto the settee with his shoulders slumped in defeat. “I would rather have lived in a hut, Mum, and have him play a game of cricket or kick a ball with me, than all of this.”
“Well, Jenny didn’t complain?” she said huffily. “And, I will remind you that you wouldn’t be in the position you’re in today if it hadn’t been for all his hard work. And another thing, it’s very easy to be blasé about money when you’ve never had to live without it, believe you me!”
Feeling exhausted with just the thought of his sister, he said, “Ah, Jenny, let’s not go down that road. I haven’t the energy…”
He looked at her long neck and proud shoulders, and felt ashamed. What was he doing arguing and upsetting his mum when she was only trying to help. “Look, I’m sorry, Mum,” he said feeling contrite. “I didn’t come here to upset you and thanks for talking but I’d better hit the road.”
He stood up to leave and she went to him. “It’s okay love, I know you’ll never get along with your father but even though he doesn’t say much he does love you and has been as worried as I have since Katie left,” she said. “And you know, Tim, there comes a time in everyone’s life when they have to stop blaming other people for the way things turned out and accept that life is what you make of it yourself.”
She looked distantly passed his shoulder as though she too was lost in her own memories but when he bent down to kiss her cheek she shook herself back into mum-mode insisting that he come home for lunch on Sunday and that she’d also ask Jenny and Greg. He strode down the path to his car grimacing, and that, he thought, was surely a recipe for disaster.
Chapter Fifteen
“Oh no, Sarah,” Katie sympathised. “But he was lovely and good looking, and seemed well, just perfect?”
She’d just arrived at Sarah’s house for dinner and had listened to the account of how she’d broken up with Mark. Lisa was already there sitting on the bench swinging her legs and crunching a raw carrot.
“I’ve told her she’s mad but will she listen, no Sirree Bob,” Lisa said at which all three burst out laughing. “Sorry, I’m going to have to sack this American woman before I go completely USA barmy.”
Sarah was dressed in a short black tunic and thick denier black tights and with a clasp in the back of her hair holding back the loose strands that threatened to tumble down at any minute – Katie thought she looked about eighteen.
“I know, but I can’t help it,” Sarah moaned, stirring a salad dressing. “He’s trying to be my knight in shining armour ready to save me from the perils of the big nasty world and I can’t stand it!”
Katie sighed and pinched a carrot baton out of the salad bowl. “But couldn’t you have told him to stop and given him another chance?” she said crunching but knowing full well the advice would fall on deaf ears.
“I did last week and he told me he just wants to look out for me to which I told him it was very kind but that I could look after myself - he just laughed and took no notice.”
Lisa groaned. “You see, now isn’t that just typical of men. They simply don’t listen to a word we say. Half of them think we haven’t got a brain of our own to think with…”
“Hmm, I don’t think we can class all men the same and in a way I sometimes feel sorry for them,” Katie said and at Sarah’s bidding carried the salad bowl and bread basket through to the table in the lounge. “I mean we say we want our men to be strong so that can admire and trust them to make us feel well looked after, and then in the next breath we’re chastising them for smothering us and not allowing us our own independence!”
Lisa jumped down from the bench following her with a bottle of Pinot Noir