Caught in the Act

It felt as if they had never been apart. Carol took Dylan upstairs to meet the mob, and then thumbed the cork out of the bottle of champagne and poured it while Diana sat at the table. Dressed in a cream blouse, smart navyblue skirt and jacket ensemble, sensible shoes and a haircut that made her look like a cross between a social worker and—well—a vicar’s wife, re ally, Diana looked to Carol as if she was dressing up in her mum’s clothes, or maybe an adult version of their old school uniform.

She topped up Diana’s glass with champagne and lifted it in a toast. ‘Here’s to old friends.’

Diana tapped the side of the glass with her own. ‘Less of the old,’ she growled.

‘I hadn’t realised how much I’ve missed you.’

‘I was just thinking the same on the way here. Tell me about you and what you’ve been up to.’

‘No, first of all tell me what it’s like being married to a vicar—every year I’ve seen it on the Christmas cards and thought who in God’s name called your husband Hedley.’

‘I was hoping we were going to talk about you first,’ Diana protested.

‘re ally?’ Carol feigned innocence until Diana shrugged and conceded defeat.

‘OK, but it is your turn next. Hedley’s a family name—his great-great-granddad or someone started it. It’s been passed down from generation to generation to the first-born, which has been a boy since the dawn of time the way Hedley tells it—but fortunately, thank God, our first baby turned out to be a girl.’

‘Oh, I remember,’ said Carol, sliding the plates onto the table. ‘You sent me a card. Pink patchwork flopsy bunnies in a basket.’

Diana nodded. ‘That’s right. By the time we got to number four I couldn’t afford the bloody stamps, let alone find time to write the cards. Anyway, we called our eldest Abigail and then after that we had Lucy and Harriet. So when Dylan came along, as we had circumnavigated the whole first-born son thing, we agreed to give him Hedley as a second name. Although I think Hedley’s dad was a little disappointed.’

‘Who came up with Dylan, then?’

Diana raised her eyebrows, but before she could reply Carol jumped in, ‘It had to be Hedley—don’t tell me he was a Magic Roundabout fan?’ almost choking with laughter on her drink.

Diana’s expression confirmed what Carol already knew. ‘Dylan Thomas?—Not Bob Dylan?’

‘You are still a complete and utter cow, aren’t you?’ Diana said after a few seconds. ‘Yes, of course it was Hedley.’ She lowered her voice although the boys were upstairs playing on the computer and well out of earshot. ‘You get used to it after a while—and it could have been worse: his first choice was Ethelred.’

‘No?’ Carol stared at her open-mouthed. ‘You’ve got to be joking?’

Diana waved Carol’s expression away. ‘Do I look like the kind of woman who would joke about something like Ethelred? What would you have done?’

‘Left him,’ hissed Carol.

Diana grinned and shook her head.

‘Grabbed “Dylan” with both hands?’

Two hours, a re ally good lunch and a bottle of champagne later they were still at the table, sitting amongst the debris. The boys had gone back upstairs and Carol had broken out a bottle of Baileys.

‘…And the other thing is I’ve always wanted to ask a vicar—and you’re as close as I’m likely to get—did God call him? You know, like the whole voices in the head, road to Damascus thing.’

Diana shrugged as she opened the first of the stack of photo albums. ‘Oh, bloody hell I don’t know.’

‘I see your swearing is coming on nicely. So, go on then—was Hedley called?’

Diana looked her over. ‘You know, you haven’t changed at all, have you?’ she said, helping herself to a handful of After Eight mints. ‘I’ve genuinely got no idea. You can ask Hedley, if you like. He’s very keen to meet you and the boys.’

‘If I were married to him I would have had to have asked him by now.’

Diana shook her head. ‘I’m not sure I re ally want to know. Hedley is so rational about everything else. How would you feel if the man in your life was doing something because the voices in his head had told him to do it?’

Carol considered the idea and then nodded. ‘Fair point.’ She turned the conversation. ‘I can’t get over how little you’ve changed.’

‘You still look the same too. OK maybe a bit wrinklier, but not much—the good thing about getting older is that your eyesight goes too.’

‘I don’t feel any different,’ said Carol, topping up their glasses. ‘We just know more. Did you go into teaching? I feel kind of embarrassed that I don’t remember any of this stuff—how did we drift so far apart?’

Diana sighed. ‘I know exactly what you mean. The time goes so quickly. Other things come and fill the gap. I taught till I had the kids and then I went back part time when Dylan started school. I don’t think I could handle full time—now, how about you?’

‘How long have you got?’ said Carol, taking a pull on her drink—a gesture that would have looked altogether tougher and more hard bitten and worldly if the glass didn’t have a cocktail umbrella in it and she wasn’t sipping it through an extra thick milkshake straw.

‘Well, we’ve got half a bottle of Baileys left—do you think that is going to be enough?’

Carol, still sucking, shrugged. ‘Once that’s done all I’ve got left is a bottle of advocaat until Raf shows up. I suppose I could always try and make us a Snowball. Do you remember when Netty Davies made those ones with vodka as well as brandy? God, I don’t think I’ve ever been so drunk in my life. Maybe I should try and make a couple for old times’ sake?’

‘I told Hedley that you were a bad influence.’

‘For God’s sake, a bottle of champagne and two glasses of Baileys is hardly bad. Now come on, let me have a look at the photos,’ she said, settling herself down so that they were side by side.

Diana held the album closed, tight to her chest. ‘No, not yet. I want to hear all about what you’ve been doing and who you’ve been doing it with.’ She gazed around, as if she might be able to encompass the whole of Carol’s life with a look. ‘So tell me what you’ve been up to? And who’s Raf?’

‘I haven’t been up to anything wildly exciting,’ said Carol dismissively, trying to make a grab for the album, but Diana was way too quick for her.

‘OK, so you’re still nosy but defensive. How about we start with the easy questions? What do you do? Do you work?’

‘Good God, yes, I’ve got my own company. We design, build and maintain gardens. They did a double-page spread on us in the Mail on Sunday last year.’

‘See, that didn’t hurt, now did it? Garden design? Very trendy,’ said Diana appreciatively, her speech very slightly slurred now.

‘Not when I first started doing it, it wasn’t, and we’re not re ally at the trendy end of the market. I’ve got commercial greenhouses and a team of gardeners who do maintenance for the council now that the work is all out to tender. We do some private gardens, but mostly it’s lots of corporate stuff. It’s—er…’

‘Trendy?’

Carol laughed. ‘I was going to say bloody hard work but I suppose trendy will cover some of it, if you insist. And I love it.’

‘You’re not telling me you do the digging with those fingernails?’

Carol looked at her hands. ‘I did once upon a time and I still can. I just wear gloves. The practical side isn’t exactly rocket science, just good old-fashioned hard work but it’s great and I love the creative side of it—seeing the projects come together and get more beautiful over time. I’ll show you the garden later—it’s my other baby. It wasn’t quite where I saw myself ending up, but then again how many of us do do what we planned? I wanted to do something creative but I didn’t re ally know what.’ Carol held up her hands in a gesture of resignation. ‘Life has a way of taking you out on your blind side.’

‘Married, are you?

‘I’ll give you your due, Diana, straight to the heart of the matter, no messing,’ said Carol, miming an arrow flight.

‘Years of practice, a class of twenty-nine under-fives demands nerves of steel and a single-mindedness you can only dream of. So, are you married? You were married, weren’t you?’

‘Once upon a time, in a universe far far away.’