"So what do I do on a Bank Holiday Monday?" Lauren asked her mother over early morning coffee, feeling at a loose end and fidgety. "The television is as crap as it is in Larkhall. Same repeats as usual, every year."
"That's freedom for you," Remarked Yvonne ironically. "The bastards would have you either take to the roads and all get stuck on the M25 or else watch this load of mind rot…….."
She saw the disappointed look on Lauren's face and regretted what she had said and her mind sprung out a third solution.
"…….or better still, why don't you go round and see Cassie and Roisin and the kids. I'm sure they'd love it."
"Brilliant."
The light was turned on in Lauren's face. It provided the perfect combination of a gentle ride in the car and something utterly different. She loved the idea of being Auntie Lauren again. This was something that she had been reaching out for. For so long, they had been at the sending end of home made cards which she had treasured and kept in a safe place
in the cell. She reached for the mobile and was very surprised to find everyone in.
"Do you want to come as well, mum?"
"I'll leave it for today. If you go on your own, then they'll have more time for you. They'll have a lot to catch up. You know how it is. Trigger will keep me company."
Lauren saw the sense in the remark. Trigger's ears flopped down into their usual position as he sensed that he would be deprived of an outing. He made a sorrowful sound in his throat as he saw Lauren get ready and about to leave. Lauren sensed that the dog was
wary of letting her go out of his sight and made a big fuss of him first before he flopped down onto the rug.
She got into the Mercedes and adjusted the chair position very carefully. It had been a long time since she had driven any car and she was far more conscious of every single move than she was used to. She stalled the high performance car while it was in mid turn before gingerly easing it down the drive. She swung clumsily onto the main road, nearly getting the front offside wheel stuck in a ditch before revving the car off down the road. Fortunately, Cassie's and Roisin's house was away from the major roads so she was able to take it easy. It still felt very fast and highly sensitive and a low performance runabout would have been far more to her taste than the very stylish car she was driving.
She pulled up outside their house and sat back in the driver's seat. At least, she's got there, she reflected, practice makes perfect. At least the outside of the house looks familiar.
"Lauren," Roisin exclaimed, throwing her arms round her. "Come in and make yourself comfortable. Children," she added talking over her shoulder," come and see Lauren who's back with us again."
Lauren's eyes took in the familiar friendly clutter of the house and Cassie coming up just behind her. It was all as she remembered, how she dreamed the house looked like, could it be nearly two years ago when she last set foot in it. Michael and Niamh came in behind Cassie and this took Lauren by surprise. They were both bigger than she remembered, being frozen in time. Michael in particular was starting to grow noticeably and was no longer quite the child that she remembered and was verging on becoming a teenager.
"It's lovely to see you, Auntie Lauren," Niamh piped up and Lauren impulsively hugged her." Did you like our cards we sent you?"
"I kept them in a special place and treasured every last single one of them. They really helped me get through…."
"……get through what?" asked Michael.
"You know, when you aren't feeling so good about yourself. It happens to everyone in prison," Lauren explained lightly.
"Why did you go to prison?" he asked with a directness that was not childish naivety but had an edgy quality about it that verged on aggression.
"Michael, there are certain questions that you just don't ask," Niamh corrected her elder brother. She was starting to get worried about him as he was gradually changing and she didn't understand why. As children, they had always been close and played games together. More recently, he had started to become more aloof and had started to hang round with his friends. It was almost as if he were playing a part that she couldn't understand.
"Don't see why," He muttered under his breath too softly for anyone to hear properly.
"Kids, just leave it out," Cassie chimed in. "Give Auntie Lauren a rest and a bit of space."
"Do you want a drink?" Niamh offered.
"I'd love one. A large glass of coke as I'm driving." Lauren's mouth was dry from the drive. She sank back into an armchair and took a big swig from the glass.
"We have missed you," Came the answer, uttered without reproach.
"I'm sorry if you've had to make do with Yvonne as stand in for me. She can still tell jokes better than I can."
"Still, it's nice to see you back. You're not going away again?" The little girl added anxiously.
"There is no chance of that happening, Niamh. Mum took me out to go shopping with her and that was too much for me. I've got a lot of time to make up for, well just everything and everyone."
Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed Michael hang back awkwardly. It was as if he didn't know how to position himself in comparison with Niamh's child like naturalness of manner.
"How's your cricket going, Michael? You were good at it last time I talked to you."
Instantly, Lauren felt the words coming out all wrong. Then, Michael was the typical enthusiastic boy who would grab her attention as a receptive audience and such words addressed to him would have been natural and would have got an instant response. Now, she felt his chilly awkwardness and self-consciousness of early adolescence and she had pitched her words just two critical years short for him.
"All right, I guess. It's a stupid game. Can't see anything in it."
"I'm sorry about that…." Lauren started to say.
"Don't be sorry," He cut in. "Anyway, I play computer games with my friends. It's much more fun. We play Russians against the Americans and how much each other can kill……."
Michael immediately started launching into a complicated description of what he and his friends did, freezing Niamh out of the conversation, not deliberately but by just not acknowledging that she was there. Niamh sighed to herself as this was becoming typical of her brother and, increasingly, there was a tendency for everyone to adjust round him.
"Michael," cut in Roisin while Cassie was in the kitchen, "give your sister a chance to talk, please."
The boy coloured but shut up while Niamh started to talk about what she was doing at school and quickly led into the one topic that united them both, even if she didn't want to talk about it, as it wasn't very pleasant to recall.
"……..and Michael and I went away to see our father and grandma. We didn't enjoy it. For a start, grandma's cooking was terrible." Niamh pulled a face.
"Nothing beats home cooking," Came Lauren's heartfelt response before adding a little inanely or so she thought. "I'm sure they love you in their own way."
"They would if only they didn't……" blurted out Michael in an unguarded moment before chopping off the sentence short.
Roisin was listening intently as this was the first time that the children had properly talked about the visit. She sat back, all ears while Lauren was doing a very good job of getting Niamh to talk.
"What was the problem, kids?" she asked in her most deliberately easy going way.
"I'm sure they both love us but they are both sort of stick in the mud. We had to sit up stiff and straight at the table. The house is lovely and right in the country but we weren't allowed to touch anything in case we broke anything. We weren't allowed near anything that might break, like her ornaments, like everything."
Niamh was rattling away easily enough but Lauren got the sense that she was picking out the easiest topics and steering away from more delicate matters. She went along with what the little girl wanted to say.
"What sort of food did your grandma cook you?" Lauren enquired casually.
"Ooooh," Niamh scoured her memory. "Overcooked bacon and runny eggs." Ykkkkh. And she insisted that we ate up every bit. Dad was no help. He always took Grandma's side….."
"It will happen in families where adults stick together……."Lauren said, thinking of her grandparents but irresistibly driven to consider the times that mum could not never say how she really felt while Charlie was around. That wasn't two people acting freely as
equals but Charlie's tyranny taking over as he took over everything. Sheer honesty drove her to qualify that remark.
"…….provided that they really agree with each other."
"Dad's different. He doesn't think for himself because grandma's always around. He's never tried to."
"Yeah, right," Michael joined in. He had been sulking in a corner but Niamh's chatter was the way he thought and it emboldened him to join in.
"There must be a good side, like the country. Didn't they take you out for walks."
"They did." Niamh paused in reflection, a faint smile of pleasure on her face. "But even then they managed to ruin things."
"How did they manage that?" came the softly spoken prompt.
Cassie heard the drift of the conversation and, as the meal was cooking nicely, popped her head round the door and were all ears while keeping one eye on the cooking. It was far more than her natural curiosity, which prompted it. She didn't know what on earth she and Roisin were going to hear but instinct told her that it would be critically important.
"Well, we have to be up at a ridiculous time for a start."
"It might be reasonable if you had a long way to go and could make the most of the day."
"Right, but not when they were both on at us all the time if we were a second late."
"Okay. I hear what you're saying."
"That wasn't the worst of it. As soon as we got going, they started their talking……"
At that point, Niamh blushed slightly and shut up. It was as if she had stumbled on something painful and recoiled at the memory. Michael looked closed up inside and his eyes were glued to the floor. An embarrassed silence hung on the air, the sort of silence that had never been known before in their house, which was known, most of all, for a free and easy relaxed atmosphere. It was foreign to all of them, unsettling. Cassie and Roisin were both at a loss as to what next step to take and weren't prepared for this from their children. Lauren was no better and her mind was a total blank. She felt as guilty as hell for intruding on them.
"Kids, this is a hard one to ask either of you. I wouldn't ask it unless I thought it might help….."
Niamh and Michael looked warily around them, prepared for the very worst news that there could possibly be but it surely couldn't be that dreadful day when dads told them that mum was in prison.
"……..I was going to ask you if you love your dad and grandma."
"Do we have to?"
"I guess it's expected of children that they do but there are times when families fall out…."
Niamh was looking for a way out and something told her to ask Lauren the very same question.
"Do you love your mum and dad, Lauren?"
Lauren's face turned white. This was a rerun of her trial jumping out of nowhere. She was due to see Meg Richards and would mentally prepare herself for the session. She wasn't expecting this playing Auntie Lauren.
"You've seen Yvonne, kids. I love her because she acts like a real mother to me, to look after me and protect me and there isn't anything she wouldn't do for me, jump into the water if I were drowning….."
Niamh gave a big smile of satisfaction. This was like mum and Cassie.
"My dad has been dead for a few years but he was a bad man. He had a hold over me for all that and could make me do what he wanted, make me believe that I loved him and he loved me. Perhaps he did love me but not in a way that was good for me. Not all kids are like the way they are made out in children's storybooks. Does that help you?"
Both of them nodded their heads vigorously.
"I don't know your dad and your grandma, kids. They are nothing like as bad as my father but perhaps they just don't understand you, your mum, Cassie and everything."
Niamh and Michael grasped eagerly at the word 'understand.' That meant something and explained why they were angry at their father and grandma and felt guilty about feeling that way.
"Perhaps you care to tell us about what really happened on your holiday?" Cassie asked gently.
The dam finally broke and both children poured out the tale of their constant sniping at Roisin and Cassie in the most narrow minded way. Everything made sense now, the way they were caught in the crossfire. Michael was as voluble as Niamh and he looked fresher, more open, more himself.
"So that's why you didn't want to stay with them"
Again they nodded, immensely pleased to have got the weight off their minds.
"We've got some sorting out to do, Roash." Cassie said quietly.
"And can we play games like we used to?" asked Lauren, her own face lit with child like anticipation.
In answer, both of them dragged Lauren onto the carpet while Cassie leaped into the kitchen to stop everything from starting to burn.