Human debris
"Lizzie, you're here? I thought you'd still be in England."
I contemplate wanging Lydia round the head with a shovel, but decide that it's probably not worth it. George hovers behind her, pleasingly nervous.
"Course you didn't Lyds," he says. "We saw Phil and Aliz just the other day."
"Oh right," she says, brushes it off, and turns to talk to someone else. George looks awkward. Well, good.
"Oh the wedding," Lydia gushes to Mom. "You all should have been there, but then I guess that's not the point of eloping, is it!"
Mom giggles. Everyone else looks sour. Even Jane. I didn't think it was possible. She covers it up fast though. "Where was it?" she asks, clearly making an effort. More than the rest of us anyway.
"Treasure Island," says Lydia, starry eyed, and the sour looks miraculously disappear. Now I don't want to judge or be accused of snobbery, but even the name Treasure Island makes me laugh. My first thought is not class and beauty. It is Miss Piggy and Kermit. It is Tim Curry. It is scurvy pirates and blood and hangings. It is not weddings. Unfortunately, clearly from Jane, Mary, Kit and Dad's expressions, the same thought has occurred to them.
"Really?" asks Jane, her voice shaking. Dad whips his head round, attempting to not catch anyone's eye.
"Yeah, it was beautiful," says Lydia, oblivious. She gazes up at George adoringly and, to his credit, his smiles back, maybe with almost as much adoration in his eyes. Maybe.
Mary, who until now refused to even look at them, is now smiling widely. I can almost hear her singing Shiver My Timbers to herself. Kit, also, is attempting not to laugh. Somehow, Treasure Island has saved the moment. It may have even saved George. Mom looks round with blank astonishment at the circle of smiling faces. Even in her acute pleasure, she had realised the mutiny bubbling away. She was preparing to bat down comment after comment. Frankly, it may still be necessary, but right now, she beams and hustles us all into the house. "Well," she says. "Let's go in and have some tea." We enter the house and sit round, a little awkwardly, in the living room, half of us still trying not to look at each other. Mom brings through the water in a jug, and pours it onto the bags in the mugs, and in the middle of all this, I think of Will and Mrs R, and her bone china. Somehow, it makes me feel better. I hold onto it, and smile at George.
"It's funny how life turns out."
Lizzie turns and looks at me, raising an eyebrow. So far, in the last ten minutes of sitting on this damn fence, she has managed to say nothing, barely acknowledging my existence. "Funny?" she says, and I kind of wish I hadn't said anything at all.
"You know…weird."
She raises her eyebrows again and turns back, hands firmly laced around her coffee. "Weird," she repeats.
"Yeah, you know, how I only met you a year ago and now. Here we are."
"In-laws," she says, somewhat icily.
"Yeah. In-laws."
She kicks her booted heels against the fence and stares firmly out over the fields.
"Look," I begin, "I'm sorry it turned out this way."
She turns to me. "How long has it been going on?" she asks, straight out of the blue. "I mean, I was thinking about it last night, and I realise, it probably wasn't just this past month, was it?"
Damn. Just when things looked like they were going my way. "No," I say, eventually.
"How long?" she asks again, fire in her eyes.
"A while?"
She fixes me with a look that possibly could melt steel. "Was it before you "broke up with Mary King for me"?" she asks, aggressively slicing the air in quotation marks.
Damn again. "You know, it does no good to rake up…"
She shakes her head slowly and looks away. "You made me look stupid," she mutters, kicking the rails with vehemence.
"It was just, like, a few times we bumped into each other and, you know…"
"Insatiable lust?" she asks dryly.
This is getting us nowhere. We sit in silence for a few minutes. For the girl who never liked uneasy silences, she is letting this one drag. I find myself raking up conversation points. "Phil and Aliz said you saw Will in Wales."
She sighs heavily. "Yeah," she says.
"And you met Georgiana?"
She gives me a shrewd look. Double damn. "Yes," she says, eventually, almost as if she's enjoying the moment. Like a cat playing with a very stupid mouse.
"You liked her?"
"Yes," she says again. "Very much."
"Well…good. I had heard that she was just like Will these days!"
"She is."
The conversation withers and dies. She drains her mug and sighs, just as the back door clatters open and Lydia walks out.
"What are you doing out here?" she calls.
"Just talking," says Lizzie, and she swings off the fence and walks back to the house. "He's all yours," she says, and slams the door.
"Welcome!" chirps Lydia, throwing open the door, and stepping aside. "Well come on in!"
Mom bustles in, hands full of grocery bags and she exclaims over everything. I mean everything. It's like some kind of love in. Kit follows too, torn between interest and envy. She and Lydia are back pretty much as they were before. They irritate each other, they tear the other to pieces to the rest of us, they make out like the other knows nothing about anything, but really, truly, they adore each other. It's sickening really, but I'm pleased for Kit. Mary, however, has even less love for Lydia than she did a few days ago. Lydia said something about how she and George would need 'privacy' whilst they were home. Mom had giggled, and said in that case, they had better have Mary's room, over the bunkhouse. Mary had turned purple just at the thought that a) she was being turned out of her room and b) Lydia and George would be at it in her bed, but Mom didn't notice and bustled off to find clean bedding. Mary shared my bed instead, and spent the whole night muttering. Lydia then made it a little worse the next morning, by mocking her art, saying it gave her nightmares. Mary said something along the lines of 'well at least you were trying to sleep', interlaced with a few curse words, then stormed off. Understandably, she decided to not come on this little family excursion. I, however, did not feel such a luxury. I am here as moral support for Dad. We both slope into the house, and perch on the edge of kitchen chairs. George has the grace to look equally awkward. We've barely talked since that Saturday morning conversation. I guess that we'll sort things out between us over time, but right now, it's all a little strained.
"Good ride?" he asks, and Dad nods stiffly.
"Not bad," he says, and then silence falls again.
"Honey, you were going for take-out?" calls Lydia from the other room, and George gets up.
"Duty calls," he says, smiling slightly, and walks out.
Dad and I exchange glances and he sighs. "Never thought this would happen," he says, slowly.
"No. Me either."
He gives me a shrewd look. "Yeah, you did. You warned me, and I ignored you."
"Dad…"I begin, but he waves it off.
"I'm sorry," he says, and pats my hand. "I should have listened."
I shrug. "You were right though. There was nothing you could have done."
He raises his eyebrows and smiles, resigned. "Well, isn't that a comforting thought? I have one daughter who I cannot control, and one who is far and away smarter than me."
"Dad…" I try again, but he shakes his head.
"I'll get over it," he says slowly. "I guess I've never been able to control any of you."
I smile.
"You're all as stubborn as old mules."
He begins to laugh and squeezes my hand. Despite the 'old mules', I join in.
As soon as George returns with the food, Lydia ushers us out to the back out the house, past a couple of bedrooms and a bathroom. I hate to admit it, but the house is nice. Sure, it's small, but it is so much better than I thought it would be. I was prepared for something mouldering, infested with rats and cockroaches. This is clean and tidy. It looks like an advert for IKEA.
"So, what do you think?" Lydia asks me as we step out into the back yard, onto a deck. "I've done all right."
"The house is nice," I say, carefully avoiding her smug expression.
"Yeah," she says, looking back at it. "I mean, I would have liked to be in Tennessee, but it's not so bad here."
"Sure," I say, and lay out the napkins for her. "Why didn't you buy a place in Tennessee?"
She shrugs. "He thought it was a better idea if we were near college so I could finish. I mean, I wasn't that jazzed, you know, but Will said it was important and he'd only do it on the understanding that I graduated."
Wait. What? "Will? I thought Uncle Phil bought the house."
"No," she says, redoing the napkins I've already placed out. "Will Darcy turned up and said it was all on him." She rolls her eyes. "With certain provisos" she adds.
I feel entirely breathless. "What?"
"Yeah," she says. "I…oh crap." She grins guiltily. "I was supposed to say anything." She shrugs. "Oh well," she says, and smiles up at her husband as he appears with plates of pizza.
Did she just say…? For the second time in only a little over a week, I feel like I've been whacked in the stomach with a baseball bat. And, simultaneously wanged over the head with a shovel. I need to call Aliz.
So Lydia did turn up. Sorry to all of you who didn't want to see her. I have attempted placation with a few extra hundred words, and references to the Muppets. And if that wasn't enough, Tim Curry. That dude really should be in more films. Any film is better with Tim Curry. FACT.