Love and Marriage by Margaret Thornton

Author:Margaret Thornton [Thornton, Margaret]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Severn House Publishers
Published: 2016-08-21T16:00:00+00:00

Thirteen

A bright and sunny morning with not a cloud in the sky boded well for the wedding of Alec and Norma at midday.

It felt strange to Janice to be waking up in her old bedroom with Phil at her side. They had driven there the previous night so that Janice could spend some time with her father and, of course, with Ian, who she guessed would be feeling rather mixed up and unsure of himself. She had been pleased to see, however, that he seemed more resigned to the situation.

‘It’s all change, though, isn’t it?’ he remarked to his sister when they managed to snatch a few moments together. Alec was showing Phil the attempts he had made with the small garden area. ‘It’s all happened at once: you getting married and now Dad. But I s’pose I’ll get used to it.’

‘You must try to get along with Norma, you know, Ian. If it wasn’t for her Dad might still be feeling sad and sorry for himself.’

‘Yeah … She’s all right, I suppose,’ Ian admitted, rather to Janice’s surprise. ‘Quite nice actually but she’s not like Mum.’

‘And that’s just as well,’ said Janice. ‘We’re all different and you can’t make comparisons.’

‘Mum was a smashing cook, though, and I don’t know what she’ll be like – Norma, I mean. She’s made us a few meals since you left; Dad was pretty hopeless in the kitchen, you know.’

‘Yes, I know that. He never helped with that side of things in the hotel but he helped in other ways.’

‘Norma’s meals were OK. She made a quite decent steak and kidney pie and a toad-in-the-hole. She even got Dad helping a bit, ’cause he’s had to manage when she’s not there. But she’ll be there all the time soon, when they come back from Wales or wherever they’re going.’

Alec and Norma had planned a few days’ honeymoon in north Wales at a small hotel in Llandudno. They would be travelling in her car as she was an experienced driver. That was something that Alec had never learned.

‘So I have to go and stay with Uncle Len and Aunty Jean while they’re away,’ said Ian, a trifle grumpily. ‘I don’t know them all that well. We haven’t seen them so much since Mum died.’

‘Len’s very busy with the garage,’ said Janice, ‘but he’s OK is Uncle Len; very easy to get on with and so is Jean. She’s a good cook, too, from what I remember.’

Leonard Cartwright was Lilian’s younger brother who owned a garage on the outskirts of Blackpool. He had said that either he or Jean would drive Ian to school each morning and he would catch the bus back at the end of the afternoon.

‘It’ll be all right, I suppose,’ said Ian with a shrug, ‘but I’d rather come and stay with you and Phil.’

‘And we’d love to have you,’ said Janice. ‘It just isn’t possible at the moment. We’re not in our own home so we can’t really invite guests to stay.

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