A Family Affair by Patricia Dixon

Author:Patricia Dixon [Dixon, Patricia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloodhound Books

CHAPTER 32

They sat in silence, sipping scalding sweet tea from tin mugs. Perhaps his fellow gardeners had sensed tension in the air, or taken the hint when Ernie just about managed a curt nod when they attempted to pass the time of day, but he and Honey had been left alone. Him to seethe. Her to wait.

Eventually, the need to vent took over.

‘It’s funny, isn’t it, that if you tell someone something often enough they start to believe it.’ Ernie was glad when Honey remained quiet and let him ramble on, ‘Like the colour of my hair for a start. Auburn it was, when I were a lad, just like Nora’s was in the letter. And yet they all convinced me… her, and my supposed grandparents, put it down to the Irish genes coming through.’

Ernie could hear Molly now, rhyming off the same old story. That over in Enniskillen there was a whole load of relatives with the same colour hair as him.

‘She got away with my eye colour because my dad’s…’ he stalled on that word because Walter wasn’t his dad.

Jesus, that cut him to the quick because he was a good man. It also wasn’t his fault he’d brought up another man’s son, so Walter couldn’t be held accountable or hated. Neither could anyone who wasn’t duplicitous. Right then, the only person he blamed was her, Molly, and then Beryl.

‘Not one other person in our family looked like me. I was tall and lanky, whereas dad was short and stocky. I stood out like a sore thumb at gatherings, weddings and the like, but nobody, as far as I know, questioned it. Everyone believed Saint Molly.’

A gentle nudge was followed by, ‘Well wherever we get our hair colour from, I’m glad I share it with you, or I did until yours went grey.’

He glanced at Honey and saw her nervous smile and was instantly awash with shame. This wasn’t her fault, either. And it must’ve taken guts to be the one to speak up. He might be a fool, but he was an honest one and Ernie accepted he could sometimes be gruff and spoke his mind too much about too many things. Still, that didn’t make it right to be so with Honey.

‘I’m glad too, lass. An’ I’m sorry for being a grumpy bugger but it’s knocked me sideways, has this.’ He wished Nancy was there because she’d have known what to do and made it right, and it was thinking of her that brought on the strangest sensation, like he might cry.

He wasn’t having none of that so took a gulp of his tea. The sweet hot liquid burnt his tongue and throat as it went down, but did the job, washing away the emotions that were on their way up.

‘It’s okay, Grandad. I’m used to you being a grumpy bugger and I had a feeling you’d react this way and I get it, I really do. But if we can, let’s try and keep calm and talk it through.

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