‘I was really angry with him,’ I admit. ‘I was yelling at him and everything. I mean, he’s got this whole new life now, he even took her on holiday to Egypt! I’m pretty certain Mum would have liked Egypt.’
‘I’m pretty certain you would have liked Egypt, too,’ Gubba replies, rubbing my hand. ‘I understand why you’re angry. You’re allowed to be angry.’
Fighting back the tears, I shrug. ‘Redheads and the sun don’t mix,’ I mutter. ‘Might have been nice to have the chance, though. I’ve never been on a proper holiday.’
‘I know, pet.’
‘The thing is, I think I’m more sad than angry now,’ I tell her as the tears finally start to flow. ‘He’s thriving without us; he has everything we don’t. I felt like he was rubbing my face in it.’
Gubba doesn’t respond right away. Instead, she brings me in for a cuddle and allows me to sob.
‘It’s all very unfair, isn’t it, ducky?’ she says softly. ‘Just because you’re eighteen doesn’t make it any easier. We don’t get to choose our parents, I’m afraid. If we did, I’d have chosen my best friend Elsa Rennie’s mum instead of mine. When we were sixteen, she used to let us smoke indoors and would sneak us a bottle of white wine at Christmas.’
I start to laugh. ‘That’s your definition of good parenting?’
She sips her tea and smiles. ‘Oh no. We got away with murder. That’s why I’d pick her. My mother was harsh, to put it mildly. She couldn’t even tolerate me having friends over.’
Gubba doesn’t talk about my great-grandma often but when she does, the stories she tells are never particularly flattering. Mum said that she was cold and mean-spirited.
‘Your dad was nice though, wasn’t he?’ I ask, feeling marginally less tearful. I tear off a piece of kitchen roll and blow my nose, too lazy to reach for one of the several boxes of tissues placed around the house.
She purses her lips. ‘He was a very nice man. . . very placid. Loved his garden. He put up with a lot from my mother. Christ, even the fishmonger put up with a lot from my mother. She was notoriously difficult. Your great-grandfather William was just a tad hopeless on his own; he wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer, shall we say. But his heart was in the right place, and he loved me dearly. That I know.’
‘I wish I could be so certain,’ I reply. ‘Sometimes I do wonder.’
‘Oh, your dad loves you,’ Gubba assures me, without hesitation. ‘Just maybe not quite as much as he loves himself. You might be just eighteen Kate, but your dad is the one with a hell of a lot of growing up to do.’
‘Agreed,’ I reply. ‘Even Ed’s got his shit together more than my dad has– and Ed talks to his car!’
She halves the last Kit Kat with me. ‘You’re very fond of Ed, aren’t you?’
‘Well, yes. I love him.’
She smiles. ‘Just be careful, love. Your mother married the first boy she fell in love with. Remember, it’s a big world out there.’
‘Well, you married your first love– that didn’t turn out so badly.’
‘Me?’ Grandpa Tom wasn’t my first love, ducky.’
I nearly drop the remaining Kit Kat into my tea. ‘What? Then who was?’
‘My first love was Joseph Harris when I was seventeen. I worked in his parents’ shoe shop, down Cross Street and his mum made him walk me home after my shift so that no one would take advantage of me. She was a kind woman. Fond of the Church.’
She starts to laugh. ‘He took advantage of me for six months. His mother had no idea.’
‘Gubba!’
‘I thought he was the bee’s knees. Blond hair, blue eyes, about five ten.’
I’m on the edge of my seat here. ‘So, what happened?’
‘He joined the Navy and I never saw him again. He wrote a couple of times, but the letters soon stopped. I was heartbroken. I heard years later that he’d married a fellow officer.’
‘And then you met Grandpa?’
‘I did, and he was the complete opposite of Joe, in all the best ways. All I’m saying is, there’s no rush.’
‘I know,’ I reply. ‘You don’t need to worry. Marriage and babies could not be further from my mind right now. I have a law degree to complete and a world to change first!’
