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Twenty-two Years Before I Do
Audrey first saw her mother kiss a man who wasn’t her husband when she was six years old. Audrey’s nactor at the time, Felicity, was in the garden running over a monologue for an audition. Audrey’s questions about why dolphins weren’t fish were proving a distraction, so she’d sent Audrey to play alone in the house. Audrey was making a den for her toy horses in the hall cupboard when her mother came in. For some reason, Audrey stayed silent, she did not call out a ‘hello’. Vivien looked through to the kitchen, up the stairs, but she did not look along the corridor to where the cupboard door was half ajar.
Audrey watched as her mother pulled a tall man who wasn’t her father in through the front door. She pressed her lips against his, pushed him against the wall, and slid a hand between his legs while the man groaned. Audrey stayed silent. Then Vivien laughed, pushed the man back out of the door, wiped away her smudged lipstick, and hurried up the stairs. Audrey went back out to the garden and began to cry.
‘What’s wrong, hun?’ Felicity asked her.
Audrey shook her head, pigtails bouncing back and forth. She didn’t know.
‘You want a snack? I’ve finished doing my lines,’ Felicity offered, holding out a hand to Audrey. They ate bread and butter with sprinkles, and Audrey forgot what it was that had upset her.
Three days later, Audrey and her parents were eating roast chicken at the kitchen table. They had busy lives, but whether her mother was in a show or her father was writing all night, they always carved out time to have Sunday lunch as a family.
‘Audrey, since the sun’s out, shall we put the loungers out in the garden this afternoon?’ Vivien suggested. ‘We’ll get some buns from the bakers, make lemonade, set ourselves up for the day.’
Audrey nodded enthusiastically. One of her favourite things to do was simply sit with her mother in the garden or in their den, and they’d make up stories together. ‘Our plays’, Vivien called them. Audrey would invent characters and Vivien would put on their voices. It was a simple pleasure they could indulge in for hours.
‘More scandal in Westminster,’ said Audrey’s father, nodding towards the paper he was reading as he spooned herb roast potatoes onto his plate. ‘How these politicians think they aren’t going to get caught, kissing people in broad bloody daylight.’
‘Makes politics less tedious, though, doesn’t it,’ said Vivien, patting his hand.
‘Mummy kissed a tall man,’ said Audrey, emphasis on the word ‘tall,’ as though this was the most remarkable part of the story. Both her parents looked across the table at her, open mouthed, which she took as a cue to tell them more.
‘Mummy kissed the man with the big shiny shoes. She touched his privates in the hall. Mrs Dunlop at school said we shouldn’t do that. Mary Carter has three brothers, so she said she sees their privates all the time, but Mrs Dunlop said brothers aren’t the same as other boys.’
Audrey watched her mother go completely white. Her father laid his newspaper down on the buttery potatoes and a greasy smudge started to seep through the grey paper.
That was the last Sunday lunch they ate together as a family.
