CHAPTER 9
Jeanette Parrish sighed heavily as she heard a car draw up to the house. Guessing who it was, she glanced out of the window. Right the first guess. Mother. Carping, criticising mother. What would it be this time, she wondered? Oh well, soon find out. She hurried to the door and opened it before the older woman had time to ring the bell.
‘Hello mum. Nice to see you. Would you like a cup of tea or something?’
‘Yes. Tea would be nice. No, you come with me to the living room. I want a little talk with you. Lynn can make it. Where is she?’
‘In her bedroom. I’ll get her,’ said Jeanette.
She took Catriona’s coat and hung it up on the coat rack, then went upstairs.
‘Lynn. Your gran’s come. Can you make us a cup of tea, love?’
‘Gran? Oh no. Not again. That’s the third time this week. Do I have to see her?’
Jeanette nodded sympathetically. ‘Well, she is your gran, Lynn. I know she can be a bit overpowering, but she’s family just the same. We’ll be in the living room.’
Lynn sighed. ‘All right, mum, but don’t expect me to stay. I do have my homework to do. The exams come up next week after all, and I do need to revise.’
‘I know, my love. Keep at it. I’m proud of you.’
Catriona seemed to be in a bit better mood than was usual. She simply nodded as Lynn came in with the tea on a tray, saying nothing as the girl left the room and went back upstairs to her interrupted study.
Jeanette’s mind wandered as Catriona’s voice droned on. She was well accustomed by now to thinking her own thoughts while at the same time putting her mouth into automatic pilot to such good effect that her mother genuinely believed she was being listened to. As a form of self defence, it was extraordinarily effective. Sugar lumps. Something Catriona had said about sugar lumps, of how she preferred them to loose sugar.
The reference loosened the bonds of memory, and her mind drifted to another time, a happier time, a time when she was full of hope, when life seemed to be getting easier. It was love, of course. Love altered everything, in spite of her mother’s acid comments. She hadn’t approved, that went without saying, but for once, Jeanette didn’t care. She had tried, she really had tried try to understand Catriona’s attitudes, but in the end, had learned to ignore them and go her own way as much as she could. Walrus had never been welcomed into the house. On the rare occasions he had visited, he had been subjected to her mother’s full force disapproval.
Jeanette’s mind came back to the present.
‘... old enough already.’
‘Sorry mum, I was miles away. Can you say that last bit again?’
‘I was saying,’ said Catriona with heavy patience, ‘that after Lynn leaves school she should go straight to work. She’s spent quite enough time in studying. Any more would be a waste.’
‘Um. I think she’s planning on going to university,’ said Jeanette. ‘If her A level results are good enough, that is. Her teacher seems to think they will be.’
‘University? Certainly not. You can’t afford to keep her there. Besides, it would be a waste. No, I’ve made up my mind. She can start looking around immediately. There’ll be plenty of other school leavers on the job market soon, and she needs to get in good and early.’
‘Well, I know it’s a bit expensive, but if that’s what she really wants to do, and I know it is, I think I can manage it,’ said Jeanette.
‘Absolute nonsense,’ said Catriona. ‘You never went to university, and I’m sure you were clever enough for it, but you had to work.’
‘I still have to work,’ said Jeanette.
‘Of course, ever since that idle husband of yours left you, just as mine left me. They’re all the same. Anyway, you can’t afford it. Lynn going to university, that is. No, she gets herself a job and starts repaying something of what it’s cost to bring her up.’
‘I don’t mind,’ said Jeanette.
‘I do,’ came the reply.
‘She has other ideas,’ said Jeanette.
‘Yes, I’m sure she has. She’s always been spoiled. Well, I’ll have a talk with her and knock that nonsense out of her head.’ She sighed. ‘If only your Uncle John was still alive, there’d be a place in his shop for certain. I put plenty of my own money into it, I know, and he would owe me for that if for nothing else. But there it is, he died too early.’ She managed to make it seem like John’s own fault.
‘I think Lynn could do better than a shop assistant,’ said Jeanette.
‘I’ll be the judge of that,’ snapped Catriona. ‘There’s nothing wrong with shop work. You leave her to me.’
What, thought Jeanette miserably, is going to stop you?