Page 5 of The Mother-in-Law

‘Mum came from a well-to-do family,’ Nettie explains. ‘Middle-class Catholic. Dad was a country boy, no connections, no money.’

I take a moment to chide myself for the assumption I made the moment I walked into the house—that Diana had married Tom for his money. It’s a sexist assumption but, in my defence, perhaps understandable, given the disparity in their looks—Diana being statuesque and striking, and Tom, well . . . neither statuesque nor striking. The fact that she married him for love raises Diana a few notches in my opinion.

‘And how about you, Diana,’ I ask. ‘Did you just know?’

‘Course she did!’ Tom says, framing his face with his hands. ‘How could you not, seeing this face?’

‘Actually I’ve been trying to tell him I’m not interested for nearly forty years but he just keeps speaking over the top of me,’ Diana says wryly, and Tom lets out a hearty guffaw.

After her earlier formality, it’s nice to see this side of her. I allow myself to hope that once we’ve spent some more time together, we’ll laugh about this first meeting when she wouldn’t allow me to help with dinner (probably as we potter around in the kitchen together). Maybe one day I’ll even start helping her with her charity. Yes, it will all be fine. Diana might not be the easiest nut to crack, but I’ll get there. Before long, we’re sure to be the best of friends.

I was thirteen when my mother, Joy, died. Mum was aptly named—always having fun, never taking herself too seriously. She wore headscarves and dangly clip-on earrings; she called people ‘dear’ and sang loudly in the car when the radio played a song she liked. At my birthday parties she wore fancy dress, even though none of the other adults did, and she had a pair of tap shoes that she liked to wear, even though she’d never learned how to tap.

That was the kind of person my mother was.

The only times I saw Mum dress in black—without so much as a headband or hair piece or adornment—was when she attended a conference or dinner with Dad. Dad is the polar opposite of Mum—conservative, serious, gentle. The only time Mum reined in her personality, in fact, was for Dad. ‘Dad’s job is to look after us, our job is to look after him.’

Dad never recovered after she died. Apparently statistics indicate that most men remarry within three years of a previous relationship ending, but almost twenty years on, Dad is still happily single. ‘Your mother was my life partner,’ he always says, ‘and a life partner is for life.’

Dad hired a housekeeper after Mum died, to cook and clean and shop for us. Maria was probably fifty, but with her black hair flecked with grey and rolled into a coil, she may as well have been a hundred. She wore skirts and pantyhose and low-heeled court shoes, and floral aprons she sewed herself. Her own children were grown and the grandchildren hadn’t shown up yet. She came from noon until 6 pm every day. She was always there when I got home from school and it seemed like it was the best part of her day. It was the best part of my day too. She’d empty my bag and rinse out my lunchboxes and chop up fruit and cheese on a plate for my afternoon tea—things Mum wouldn’t have done in a blind fit. With hindsight, some teenagers may have felt smothered by Maria. But I just felt mothered.

Once, when I had the flu, Maria came for the whole day. She pottered around, checking on me periodically, bringing me water or tea or a cool cloth for my forehead. A couple of times, when I was dozing and heard her enter the room, I let out a little moan just to hear Maria fussing. She’d kiss my forehead and bring me water. She even fed me soup with a spoon.

It was, hand on heart, one of the best days of my life.

Maria left when I turned eighteen. She had her first grandchild by then, as well as an aging dog with glaucoma, and besides, I was nearly grown so there wasn’t much for her to do any more. After that, Dad got a cleaner and started doing his grocery shopping on his way home from work. Maria kept in touch with birthday gifts and Christmas cards, but eventually her life got filled up with her own family. And that’s when I realised I neededmyown family. A husband, some children, an old blind dog. Most importantly, I needed a Maria. Someone to share recipes, to give wisdom, and to drown me in waves of maternal love. Someone who wouldn’t leave and go back to her own family because Iwasher family. I didn’t have a mother any more. But one day, perhaps, I’d have a mother-in-law.

After dinner, Tom tells us to go hang out in the ‘den’, which is a room with soaring cathedral ceilings and floor-to-ceiling bookshelves and masses of leather. It reminds me of a gentlemen’s club. It has an enormous TV that rises up out of a cabinet, as well as an actual bar loaded with spirits. Ollie has been called into the kitchen to help with coffee and dessert (which I assume means they want to debrief about me), so I am kicking back in the gentlemen’s club with Nettie and Patrick.

‘So,’ Patrick says from the bar. He is making us some sort of cocktail, which I don’t need because I’ve already had two glasses of wine, but he seems so happy messing about with all the spirits that I don’t have the heart to tell him. ‘What do you think of Diana?’

‘Patrick,’ Nettie warns.

‘What?’ A smile curls at the corners of his mouth. ‘It isn’t a trick question.’

I scramble pathetically for something to say, but honestly, there isn’t much. Diana spent most of dinner intermittently asking if anyone wanted more vegetables. She deflected any questions I asked her, and apart from her little chuckle about her first meeting with Tom, she remained frustratingly distant all evening. If it hadn’t been for Tom and Nettie and Patrick, it wouldn’t have felt like a social function at all. All I know is that Diana is nothing like I was hoping.

‘Well . . . I think she . . . is . . .’ I roll several words around in my mouth—nice, interesting, kind—but none feel right and I don’t want to be insincere. I am, after all, not just here to impress the parents. If things work out between Ollie and I, I’ll be spending alternate Christmases with Nettie and Patrick for the rest of my life, so it is important to be real. Problem is, it’s too early to bereallyreal. Meeting the family, I realise, requires you to be a politician. You need to know where to throw your support at the time that yields maximum results. I decide to do as my mother always told me and find something true to say.

‘I think she is a wonderful cook.’

Patrick laughs a little too heartily and Nettie looks daggers at him.

‘Oh come on, Nets.’ Patrick gives her a poke in the ribs. ‘Listen, it could be worse. At least we have Tom, right?’

I smile, but it’s cold comfort. I’ve had such a clear picture of what I wanted in a potential mother-in-law—no father-in-law, not even Tom, could take its place. Patrick, on the other hand, seems to have accepted his frosty mother-in-law without too much concern, despite the fact that she clearly isn’t his cup of tea either.

‘Well,’ I say after a few minutes, when Ollie has still not shown his face and I get the feeling Nettie wants a moment alone with Patrick. ‘I might see how dessert is coming along.’

I walk through double doors into the great room that feeds into a wide kitchen, centred around a huge granite island bench. Ollie and Diana are at the island with their backs to me and appear to be arranging items onto a cheese board.

‘It doesn’t matter what I think,’ Diana is saying.

‘It matters to me,’ Ollie says.

‘Well it shouldn’t.’ Diana enunciates her words like a librarian or piano teacher, crisply and properly, not in the least uncertain. I pause in the doorway.

‘Are you saying youdon’tlike her?’