The Afternoon Tea Club Read online

  ‘Can we tell our friends about this scheme? I think my friend Elsa would love to go for a drive somewhere. She’s housebound at the moment,’ said the girl in the yellow cardigan.

  ‘Yes, of course,’ said Taynor. ‘We’d like to get the community involved as much as possible. We’re here to hear what you have to say and then act upon it. All suggestions very welcome. Right, so we’d like you to have a think about what activities you’d like to do and if you decide to come back next week could you write out your ideas and put them in our suggestion box? We’ll put the box at the side here, by the table, next week. Then we can discuss it all the following week, when we’ve read through what you’ve got to say. Oh yes – sorry – I forgot to tell you, we’re going to be here next week as well, so do please come back and have afternoon tea with us again – same time, same place – and bring any friends along who might be lonely or a bit fed up or whatever. We’ll also collate some name stickers next week for you to wear, which will make it a whole lot easier to remember each other’s names. So now we just need to ask if you’ve enjoyed this afternoon? Oh and I need to let you know that we might have to change the venue in the future, depending what’s in the bookings diary here, but if that’s the case we’ll let you know in advance. So now I also need to ask you, if you could and if you want to, please give us your contact details, before you leave, in case we need to cancel next week’s tea or let you know anything else.’

  ‘Right! So if none of you have any further questions, we’ll just say, thank you for coming along today. We hope you’ve enjoyed it and we hope to see you next week,’ said Eileen, with a slight bow.

  Everybody started to clap. The tables of elderly women and the gents were quite animated by now, discussing the fact they were to be part of something – ahem – meaningful, and a social experiment, no less! Marjorie marvelled at the fact that Eileen and Taynor had managed to get an unrelated group of people, chatting freely together as if they’d known each other all their lives.

  But best of all, Marjorie noticed, it had established the buzz of a sudden sense of, yes, pride in the room. Were the grey heads really starting to sit up and feel counted?

  Marjorie liked that feeling, herself, too. So, yes, she might come back next week. She hadn’t intended to at the outset; she’d just been doing it to appease Gracie. But now she might ask Lou if she wanted to come. Perhaps Gracie would even pick Lou up and drive them both here. Lou would love it here as she always had plenty to say about everything. Marjorie smiled at that thought.

  Oh well, it took all sorts to make a good pie!

  Chapter 2

  The idea of afternoon tea with a group of total strangers had not, initially, sat well with Marjorie Sykes.

  ‘When you reach a certain age,’ she’d told her daughter, Gracie, ‘you only really want close friends and family around you.’

  But following her discussion with Gracie, when the flyer about afternoon tea at the community centre had landed on their doormat, and the subsequent afternoon tea meeting, she was now – surprisingly – warming to the idea.

  She’d shared Gracie’s flat with her for the last four years, and that had been lovely, of course, but forays out with her daughter or anyone else for that matter were sporadic. Her remaining friends were thin on the ground for one reason or another – mainly due to Oliver – or now lived elsewhere and Gracie was often shattered when she came back from work at night, after her train then bus journey from the out-of-town secondary school where she taught English. So Marjorie had very little interaction with anyone on a regular basis, apart from the man in the corner shop or the postman or occasional visits to see her doctor.

  Her only child, Gracie, slim with a blonde bob, was the apple of her eye. She’d recently won an award from her pupils where she taught, who were encouraged to vote for the best teacher in their school each year. ‘It’s a new in-house award, following that incident last year when that boy attacked one of the tutors,’ Gracie had explained to her mother. ‘It’s the Head’s latest idea to help improve relationships between the staff and students. The children vote on three categories: respect, approachability and clarity of instruction. It’s supposed to make the kids think about the role of a school tutor in their lives; and for us, it highlights any grey areas where we should be making improvements.’ Gracie possessed a certain calm and poise and knew how to mete out the right degree of encouragement to her students, concentrating on their positive attributes rather than the negative, in order to encourage rather than discourage. Her approach had clearly earned the children’s hearts.

  Yet, her daughter’s marvellous achievements aside, Marjorie was miffed to note that Gracie was being decidedly pushy, these days, about her mother needing to do something meaningful with her life instead of ‘moping around all day’.

  Admittedly, helping Gracie with the shopping, cleaning and washing took care of morning duties, but – apart from daytime TV – what was there to actually do during the long tedious hours until bedtime? She daren’t admit to her daughter that most afternoons she simply sat on the sofa ploughing her way through books she’d acquired from the library because there really wasn’t much else to occupy her time.

  ‘Why don’t you go do some voluntary work, Mum? Or help an elderly person with their cleaning or something?’ Gracie encouraged, when her mother had moaned about the lack of activities during the afternoon.

  But she was eighty-two, for God’s sake! Not some idle teenager being encouraged that there was more to life than being ‘poked’ or snap-chatted by all her friends or whatever the latest devices-related craze was. Didn’t the years of bringing up a family entitle her to a bit of peace, now she was old, craggy and tired? In the mirror, a grey-haired lady with a plethora of facial lines, born from far too much angst, stared back at her. Even with make-up, she looked tired.

  That said, no one had told Marjorie about the inevitable boring bits she’d duly experience as she got older – especially the hardly-anything-to-do-all-day bit. And she didn’t want to admit that sometimes she felt like screaming, trying to think up new things to do every single day. That was tiring enough in itself! Yet she realised having nothing meaningful to do on a daily basis had made her withdraw from life. Sometimes she paced the flat; sometimes she could only bring herself to stare out the window, arms folded, at the communal patio, watching the birds pecking at seed on the bird table she’d bought and set up, mainly to give herself something to look at when she had nothing better to do. Oh, she’d been thrilled when the other residents had congratulated her for that. But even though she was thoroughly fed up with things at the moment she certainly knew she didn’t need another ‘Life Goal’ at her age.

  ‘Besides, I still have a few friends, as you well know, daughter dear.’

  However, it did irk Marjorie that the few friends she had left were all occupied by grandchildren or great-grandchildren and didn’t see her very often. And being as Gracie was divorced with no little ones to occupy Marjorie’s time, she couldn’t even fulfil her own longed-for role as a grandmother. Marjorie often remarked that it was ‘High time you got married again, Gracie dear, and gave me grandchildren! You’re in your late forties now, sweetheart. No time to waste!’

  And then their conversations would turn into a testy argument, with Marjorie wagging an index finger and Gracie insisting that since the collapse of her marriage – not due to them being childless, but because Harry had gone off with some ‘young thing’, as Marjorie put it – she’d wanted nothing more to do with men.

  ‘I’m loving all this free time by myself, Mother. I can do what I want, when I want, which is great. Thought you – of all people – would understand that? I tried pandering to Harry’s every need and where did that get me, huh? Still went off with someone else! What is it with you and I, picking the wrong men all the time?’

  Marjorie had sighed.

  So, no grandchildren for her, then. No rocking babies gently to sleep. No fun days out with tantrums in the park abou
t whose turn it was on the swings. Nope! A life of solitary confinement, occasionally seeing friends whose lives weren’t embossed with the embroilment of family life, was her luck of the draw.

  Thus Marjorie’s life, when she wasn’t moping around the house, consisted of occasional visits to the library to borrow and return books, just to give her a reason to get out of the house; or occasional walks in the park with Gracie, providing her daughter was free on a weekend; or taking her oldest and best friend Lou to the chiropodist, to get her toenails cut; but no excursions to get a nice cup of tea somewhere afterwards. So it was far from an exciting existence and, yes, she conceded privately, Gracie was right; it was aimless at best, pointless at worst.

  Living with her daughter hadn’t turned out to be full of the promise she’d expected. But, tedium aside, Marjorie knew it was infinitely better than living by herself after Oliver died.

  And thank the Lord he had!

  Just as well he’d had his stroke because Marjorie couldn’t think of any new ideas about how she could possibly get rid of him, without getting the blame!

  Yes, that sounded bad. But Marjorie’s husband Oliver had been a bully, both emotionally and physically, for most of their married life. Marjorie couldn’t remember when it had first started. Possibly it had begun when he’d left the army ‘under a cloud’. He’d been very morose around that time. But each subsequent job hadn’t worked out for him, either. Not that Marjorie was making excuses for him, but she belonged to an era that truly believed in their ‘for better or worse’ vows.

  Yet excuses aside, he’d hit her a lot. Oh, he’d been very apologetic at first, which had sucked her in, believing him to be remorseful. But it had continued. Thrice she’d been to hospital; once for concussion, once for a broken arm, once for her miscarriage due to his aggression. He’d become increasingly abusive after Gracie was born because he couldn’t stand the fact that – suddenly – all Marjorie’s attention was poured onto their new-born child.

  ‘There are three of us in this relationship. Not just you and ruddy Gracie! Remember that, woman. Now go get me my dinner before I really lose it with you!’

  Fortuitously he’d never laid a finger on Gracie. Marjorie knew she’d have had to leave if he’d done that. But when she’d turned to her mother for moral support and advice, her mother had shaken her head. Unfortunately, she was one of those women who considered it wrong to interfere in another person’s relationship, whatever the circumstances.

  ‘Yer makes yer bed, yer lies in it!’ was her comment when Marjorie turned up, the first time it happened, to discuss Oliver’s behaviour.

  Another time, when she’d had her mother around for Sunday lunch – hoping for once that Oliver wouldn’t let himself down in front of them – the meal had started off okay, until Oliver mentioned the fact that Marjorie had bought him the wrong shaving gel that morning. As Oliver raged, Marjorie had overheard her mother calmly tell Gracie, ‘Just leave them to it, lovey.’

  Marjorie had no siblings and wasn’t sure what response she’d get if she offloaded to her friends. She knew everyone had their own problems and where could she have gone for respite with a young child in those days? So she put up with their situation and suffered in silence.

  However, Marjorie had been mortified when Gracie told her mother, on her eighteenth birthday, that she intended to leave home and go travelling for a year with friends.

  ‘Oh but, Gracie, you can’t just leave! You’re my life!’

  ‘Well, I know that, Mum. But I need some time out on my own – everyone’s doing it before college or university! Besides, if I’m being really honest, I, um, I just can’t stand being here any longer. I can’t tolerate the awfulness of things any more. There’s really no reason for you to continually suffer at the hand of Daddy. Why don’t you leave him? Or ring the police? Or you could go and live somewhere else? Anyway, me and my mate, Rosa, will probably go and look for work in London, afterwards, because anywhere’s better than being here!’

  ‘But, Gracie, you can’t leave. What about your education?’

  ‘It can wait, Mum. Other students have time out and this is no different. Besides, I really think you should do something about Daddy.’

  But Marjorie had always been frightened of Oliver and simply didn’t know what to do. And even if she had told someone about her troubles with him, would they have wanted to get involved in all that? She suspected they’d have told her to leave him. But she was a housewife and funds were limited at best. She had no access to surplus money in order to move away, so she’d felt trapped.

  Gracie had never understood the reasoning behind her father’s venom. Weren’t you supposed to have loving, caring parents around you as you grew up? She’d tried to intervene once, standing between her beloved mother and crazed father. But she’d got a furious verbal diatribe from him. He hadn’t hit her but he’d sworn and yelled loudly enough to warn her off interfering again. And he’d also frightened their friends away over the years when they’d rung – often by brusquely telling them Marjorie or Gracie were out. So they’d stopped ringing. At school, Gracie had tried to explain to her friends what was going on at home.

  ‘He’s completely unreasonable, so never call me at home, okay? It’s too risky. We’ll make plans for the weekend here at school instead.’

  Marjorie had been so wrapped up in avoiding Oliver’s fury or trying to placate him that she’d forgotten what kind of impact it might have been having on their young daughter. The result of which was that her darling Gracie wanted to leave home. Yet why should Gracie suffer the consequences of her father’s actions?

  ‘Oh, darling, I’m so sorry it’s come to this,’ Marjorie had said, sobbing, as the reality of Gracie’s words hit home. ‘I know I should’ve sorted it all out, somehow, years ago. But I’ve never really known what to do about your father. Look, please stay. We’ll work something out, Gracie. Please don’t go, sweetheart. Oh, I couldn’t bear it if you left!’

  But Gracie had stood her ground.

  ‘It’s not your fault, Mother. He’s unresponsive to reason. It’s domestic violence, pure and simple. He’s a wife-beater and it’s a criminal offence. There’s no other way to dress it up. So I can’t stay. I can’t stand seeing what he does to you every day and feeling helpless about what to do. It’s not right. You should report him, even though I know you’re scared. Anyway, my leaving will help – I know he didn’t want me so that makes me part of the problem.’

  ‘Gracie, none of this is about you!’ Marjorie had pleaded. ‘Are you listening to me? None of it. It’s his doing. He’s the problem. Good God, I should never have let it get this far. But I thought I was dealing with it in my own way. Darling, please! I’m so sorry it’s come to this.’

  ‘I know you’re sorry, Mum, and I just wish I could make it all better for you but nothing I say makes any difference. It still goes on. Anyway, my friends have booked the trip now, so I’m sorry to disappoint you but I’m … I’m going.’

  Marjorie knew she had to concede to her daughter’s wishes. But she daren’t tell Oliver. And so one morning, before Oliver was awake, she smuggled Gracie away to the bus stop. Time away from the family would probably be good for Gracie. She was young; she had prospects and her own life to lead. Marjorie knew she couldn’t hold her back indefinitely, even though she secretly wanted to hold on to her forever. And then, needing someone to tell, she’d gone round and offloaded to her best friend, Lou, sobbing remorsefully on her lap, whilst Lou had patted her friend’s head.

  ‘Oh, I thought summat was amiss with Oliver. I’d heard talk. And your poor girl. But you can’t be standing for all that nonsense, love. Tell him I’ll send my son Derek round if he comes for yer again!’

  But Marjorie was convinced things would only get worse for her if she tried that suggestion. Instead, she found the courage to secretly buy a pay-as-you-go mobile phone, so she could ring Lou privately when things got too bad. Unfortunately, Oliver found it and smashed it to smithereens and
then punished her.

  ‘You’ll not be going behind my back and gossiping with your friends about me!’ he’d shouted at her, as Marjorie cowered in a corner, quietly sobbing.

  He’d once, laughingly, justified his treatment of Marjorie to their friends, on an impromptu night out. They hadn’t known what was going on until then. ‘A good beating is all these women understand!’ He’d smirked at their shocked faces.

  Oliver’s temper had continued to simmer under the surface until Gracie got married and moved to Dorset. Gracie’s husband, Harry, was a police officer, but he’d told Gracie there was nothing anyone could really do unless her mother made a formal complaint or someone saw her bruises. So Gracie persuaded her mother to wear a light sleeveless summer top at their next summer barbecue and then, when Harry finally saw the bruises for himself that day, he stepped in to have a serious word.

  ‘Fuck’s going on, Oliver? What’s this all about? If I ever see anything else like this again or if I bloody well even hear about it, I’m doin’ you! So think on, mate!’

  Outraged, Oliver had then been careful to hit Marjorie where the bruises weren’t so easily spotted! But the frequency, Marjorie was relieved to note, dissipated.