All She Ever Wished For. Claudia Carroll

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       TESS

       The present

      Thursday night, dinner with the Pritchards. Did I tell you about my in-laws to be? Because not many people can say that they’re genuinely fond of the family they’re about to marry into, but I can. Deeply fond of them.

      Honestly.

      Bernard’s parents, Desmond and Beatrice, are Anglo-Irish and now live in Donnybrook, the posh end of Donnybrook that is, in a once beautiful but now slightly dilapidated Victorian redbrick, surrounded by copper trees and with a banged-up Honda Civic sitting in their driveway on four blocks of cement. Untaxed, uninsured and ignored, much like the house itself.

      True, their home could be beautiful if the Pritchards only tidied it up a bit, hoovered and maybe ran a duster over the place every now and then, but then that’s all part and parcel of the Pritchard family charm. And we’ll just skate over the wilderness that’s their front garden, which right now is looking not unlike the set of I’m A Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here! In fact the one time my mother was here, her only comment was, ‘well, we may not live in a house that grand but still, I think I’d rather die of shame than invite guests into my house if it was that filthy. The Pritchards may well act like they’re posher than the Queen, but you’d want to see the state of their downstairs loo.’

      You can tell everything you need to know about a person, according to Mum, by just a single glance at their bathroom. I tried in vain to convince her that she was missing the point, because that’s the whole thing about the Pritchards; they seem to live their whole lives in chaotic squalor and it doesn’t bother them in the slightest. It’s all part and parcel of their whole ‘take us as you find us’ vibe.

      Beatrice and Desmond, you see, not unlike Bernard himself, could best be classed as ‘eccentric’. In an endearing way though, you can only admire them for all their warm-hearted, unaffected battiness. Desmond is a retired university professor (History of Art and Classics, just like Bernard himself). Meanwhile, his mum, Beatrice, used to work as a senior librarian and is now researching a non-fiction book, in her own words, ‘all about Oliver Cromwell, politics and religion in the English Civil War, 1642–1651. Not your thing at all, my darling’.

      In fact, I’ve a recurring nightmare that she invites me to her book club to discuss it and I am only hoping against hope that she doesn’t give me an early copy to read then start grilling me on it.

      I pull my car into the Pritchard’s driveway, narrowly avoiding the same pothole that’s been there ever since Bernard and I first started dating. There’s a gentle thud on the roof of my car and I realise that it’s Magic, the family’s jet-black tomcat and officially the unfriendliest animal in the world, who’s just jumped down from the branch of a tree to come and intimidate me.

      ‘Hi, Magic,’ I say, hopping out of the car and instinctively going to pet him, but he just squeals like I’ve actually done him physical harm and instead leaps up onto the bonnet of my car, tail pointing sharply upwards and hissing. Same as the big eejit does every single time he sees me.

      ‘Come on, Magic,’ I say soothingly, reaching out to placate him. ‘Can’t you and me be pals?’

      He responds with a cross between a yell and a squawk that’s so loud, next thing Beatrice is at the front door, still in her dressing gown and with a towel wrapped around her head. Almost as though I’ve arrived hours early for dinner and caught her off-guard, whereas actually I’m bang on time.

      ‘What’s that God-awful racket? Oh it’s you, Tess dear, how lovely to see you. Now, Magic, shut up you silly puss, Tess is our guest and you’d better play nice.’ Then she kisses me lightly and gratefully takes the bottle of wine I hand over.

      I think it’s worthy of note that it’s only half six and as she air-kisses me, I can’t help noticing that Beatrice already has a whiff of one G&T too many wafting from her. But then that’s the Pritchards for you. No exaggeration, but in this house they generally start Happy Hour at mid-afternoon and keep on drinking till it’s last man standing.

      ‘Oh and just ignore Magic; I know we all do. The idiotic animal actually thinks he’s a guard dog – do you know he’ll only eat Pedigree Chum? And he’ll only sleep outside in a little kennel that Bernard had to have made especially for him. Such a noodle.’

      ‘He’s … erm … certainly a little character alright,’ I smile.

      ‘And you’ve brought a little bottle of vino, how thoughtful of you. Come in and have an СКАЧАТЬ