Annie wore Mum’s dress at her wedding like the others, but nearly threw herself off the balcony when she realised she’d torn the hem with the heel of her shoe. “Oh, damn it! Damn it! Damn it! Look what I’ve done!”
“No worries!” Natalie, ever the seamstress, pulled needle and thread from her purse, “I’ll fix it! Don’t cry or you’ll muss your eyes and look like a raccoon!”
Catastrophe averted, Annie looked lovely and she married Steffen with a smile on her face. They live in Abergavenny now in a big house up on a hill that sits behind an iron gate. They own about five border collies and a Chihuahua and a huge, fat yellow cat. Aside from their numerous pets, they produced and raised had a daughter called and Isabella son called Daniel. Not twins. Isabella is married and lives in Lancanshire now and last I knew, Daniel was in Cornwall, forever single, as he enjoys the company of men far more than women. And who cares? He‘s happy and he‘s healthy and there‘s not one of us in the family who doesn‘t think he‘s brilliant.
It was on my birthday five years after that that Gryffin and Lakshmi gave us our next grandson. He arrived two weeks early and “Not at all too bloody soon!” Lakshmi said. His mother being one hundred percent Indian and Gryffin having the Egyptian blood, the baby was tiny, dark, and utterly beautiful. They called him Andrew after Lakshmi’s brother, an Army medic, who’d died when his helicopter was shot down in the red zone.
“It took them bloody long enough! They do everything so slowly!” Oliver exclaimed after we got the call. “Wow!”
“Personally,” I told him proudly, “I’m thrilled! That grandson of mine was born in Edinburgh! There’s another Scot in this family! They should have a pile more! Bring on the Scots!”
“Yes, yes,” Oliver used his best Edmond-like voice, “We’ll be certain we teach him to speak properly, of course.”
And then there was Warren. Now, there was a lad who had an interesting sort of life. Shortly after he finished performing in Austria, he moved back to Wales and into his grandparent’s old house where he puttered about for about a year giving music instruction from his front room. Soon enough, however, he found himself reunited with his lost love, Gwenllian Hughes. Now Gwen was a musician, too. She’d been classically trained on piano and guitar by her mother, but was blessed more so with an amazing Soprano voice that could send shivers through even the hardest heart. Gwennie had just gotten herself signed to a record contract and, being in London after ten years in Berlin, sought her old friend Warren out to collaborate on some material. I can tell you in no uncertain terms that it took little less than a few days before there was more than song writing going on. Theirs was a reunion fraught with composition, sex, passion, vast amounts of alcohol, and emotions and entanglements that neither of them were quite prepared to deal with.
Warren not only helped to compose many of the songs of Gwen’s debut record, but he played guitar on all of the studio tracks as well. When she asked him to join her on her first European tour to support that album, my son was gone in a flash. It was surreal to flip by stations on the television and occasionally see a video of Gwennie on some music channel. It was incredible how fast she became popular, but really was no surprise to anyone who knew her and Ollie and I had known her for most of her life. From the time she was a small child, Gwen had possessed a certain regal quality about her. It’s hard to explain. She had beautiful dark brown eyes and long, thick jet black hair. Her face was small and round, dotted with freckles. She had the cutest two dimples on either cheek and a constant expression of being excited to be where she was. Gwenllian was a pretty girl, but not breathtaking by any means and yet when she walked into a room people turned and stared. Medium height, small framed, a bit heavy breasted, she had a nice body, but was not particularly sexy, yet men yearned for her. Gwen snapped her fingers and people jumped. She was used to being obeyed.
Warren worshipped her. He had from the time he was a just a baby and it certainly seemed that she revered him in return. They grew up together and it only seemed natural that they would become involved as teenagers, and then be lovers as adults, even if the stress and grind of the tour and lifestyle was taking a toll on Warren. I could hear it in his voice, the strain and the stress of doing something he was no longer enjoying.
“I can’t wait until this blasted tour is over so I can go home,” He confessed one night through static on his mobile phone, “I’m so tired, Mum. It’s go, go, go all the time, one city to the next, one bus to the next or on to a plane and back off again into another hotel room and off to a show. It’s a blur, all of it. I’m so flipping tired. There’s people all over all the time, everybody wants something from you. I just want to go home. All I want is just to sit in Granddad’s old chair in my front room with a mug of tea and my headphones and be alone.”
“Well,” I said, “It must still be exciting!”
He sighed, “Excitement runs thin after a while. I mean, it’s fun up on stage. That’s all there’s really to look forward to, though. The rest of it is just…work. Gwen loves it. She was born to be in the spotlight. She‘s always off doing this or that. I don‘t get to see her much, honestly.”
“How’s she doing then?” Ollie asked, leaning toward the speaker so Warren could hear.
“Oh, she’s fine. She’s great. She’s at some rock star do with her pretentious rock star friends. I skipped it. I’ve had enough of that, thank you. I crave silence these days.”
We thought that there might be some tension brewing and it seems we were right. About a month later, the proverbial shit hit the fan.
The story as I understand it went like this. Warren accompanied Gwen to an awards ceremony where she won the award for Best New UK Pop Artist. After her formal acceptance, they went to an after party at a nightclub where they both got a bit pissed and became overtly friendly on the dance floor. Several photographers caught them at it and the photos quickly hit the internet. Not that Warren cared, in particular. It was all publicity, he told me, for him as well as Gwen, as he was a songwriter and the more people that knew he wrote songs for Best New UK Pop Artist the more likely he was to be able to feed himself. “It’s fine,” He assured us, “We weren’t having sex or anything! They’re not that graphic!”
Actually, they were fairly graphic. Oliver and I found the whole thing to be quite amusing. Our son was having his fifteen minutes of fame…or of shame, if he had been so inclined. We were so happy and proud of him, even in the face of his scandal. And then one day Oliver stopped by Warren’s house to make sure it was secure and he found our son in the garden stuffing his rubbish bins full of paper. Ren refused to tell Oliver or me what had happened, only that he’d had enough of the tour, enough of false friends, and enough of Gwenllian Hughes.
“She’s a liar. She‘s not the Gwennie we all knew. She‘s a phoney,” He was all he said to me, “She made a fool out of herself and a fool out of me. I‘m done with her.”
It seemed very odd that he would end not only his romantic relationship, but his entire friendship with Gen so abruptly. It made me quite sad because I knew they loved each other since they were children. Warren pretended he didn’t care, but I could see that he was destroyed. He was very quiet about it and never said another word, but a mother can tell when her child is hurting. Still, his father and I didn’t pressure him for details. He was, after all, an adult. As much as both of us were inclined to want to comfort and protect him, we both knew that all he’d do was tell us to mind our business. So we did.
We actually found out a few months later what had really happened when Gwen showed up, knocking on our door in the wood. “Hi,” She said sheepishly, doing her best to smile, but it was obvious she was nervous, “I was visiting my uncle in town and I thought I’d come by to see you. Is it all right?”