For Your Own Good

Family members look out for each other in this delightful short story by Val Bonsall.

Gran and I usually saw eye to eye. But things had changed lately!

ILOVE my gran to bits, which is just as well because I’m currently living with her. It wasn’t a good year for me to change school, so when my parents had to relocate because of work, I moved in with her. And, like I say, it’s good.

But today, honestly, I could strangle her . . .

I come out of school and there she is at the gates, like I’m five years old or something.

“With it being such a beautiful day,” she says, “I thought I’d have a walk.”

That’s rubbish. She lives in a pretty village with woodland all around it to walk in, whereas my school’s in a nondescript suburb of the nearby town.

I know why she’s here. Encouraged by my mum, she wants to weigh up Cal.

I’d told my mum I’ve met someone and I overheard Nan talking to her on the phone last night.

“Yes, he’s at the same school as Amy, but I’ve not met him yet . . .”

Nan saw me then and hurriedly concluded the conversation.

She smiles now at Cal and introduces herself.

He smiles back and she suggests the three of us go for a coffee.

“You’re not in a hurry, are you, Cal?”

He says no. Oh, I could strangle him, too.

There’s a tea shop near the school I know Nan likes. However, she leads us on past it to a new establishment that I reckon she thinks we’ll prefer.

The milk for our drinks comes in an old-fashioned milk bottle and our cakes are on bits of slate.

Nan eyes the slates suspiciously.

“I’d prefer a proper plate,” she says. “China, a floral pattern perhaps . . .” She shrugs.

It is, of course, the case that she isn’t here primarily to take tea.

She wants to find out about my new boyfriend.

It is my opinion that the café rather overdoes it in its attempts to be “cool”.

But hey, it’s the height of subtlety compared with Nan’s conversation with Cal – or, rather, I should say, her interrogation of him!

“Have you any brothers and sisters, Cal? Where is it you live? What do your parents do? What newspaper do they read?”

This type of thing is very important to Nan. She has political views, you see.

That evening I again overhear her having a muffled telephone conversation with my mum.

I listen, hoping she’ll say how nice Cal is, but all I catch is, “Hard to tell, just seeing him in a café.

Maybe if I . . .”

I don’t catch the next bit as Nan’s dog, Fudge, starts barking.

All night I worry that the episode with Nan will have put Cal off.

But when I get to school next day, he’s fine. All he says about Nan is that he liked the trainers she was wearing, and then he invites me to a barbecue at his house on Saturday.

I adore all my grandchildren, but Amy was my first and is extra special to me.

When my daughter, Laura, and son-in-law had to relocate for a year, I was delighted to have Amy stay with me so she needn’t change school in what is an important year.

My house isn’t big, but with just me, there’s plenty of room and it’s been a real pleasure – though Cal is giving me a few sleepless nights, I have to admit.

It seems more serious than the other lads she’s been out with.

Laura’s picked this up, too, from Amy’s communications with her, so she’s on at me all the time, wanting to know what he’s like.

“Have you met him yet, Mum?” she asks me when we speak today.

“Yes,” I’m pleased to tell her.

“And?”

“We were in a café,” I say eventually. “Music blaring. I would have preferred somewhere less busy to make my mind up.”

We talk a bit more, then say our farewells.

Laura knows I’ve asked Amy several times to bring Cal here, but she always resists with some excuse

about how there’s nothing to do in the village.

She, however, is going to his family home tomorrow. A barbecue.

“Ah!”

Amy, coming into the room, gives me a look. “Pardon?”

“Oh nothing,” I say, “I was just . . . thinking.” In fact, I’m still thinking. “This barbecue at Cal’s: what time are you wanting to get there?”

“It starts at two.”

“Well, the midday bus into town will be too early and the four o’clock too late.

“I’ll give you a lift,” I add with a big smile.

It’ll be a chance to see him, even if just briefly, in his home environment, which must be more revealing than in a café.

“It’s OK,” Amy says. “I’ve ordered a taxi –”

“Taxi?”

“Yes, from the garage. I don’t want to put you to any trouble.”

“It’s no trouble,” I protest.

“Honestly, Nan, I’ve booked it now and I don’t want to let them down – they’re our neighbours.”

I can see she’s determined.

I’m sure Nan’s offer was part of this find-out-allabout-Cal thing she’s got going with my mum.

But I feel mean being a bit snappy with her about it, because she is very good about taking me anywhere I want to go.

The village bus service is rubbish. Nan’s always writing to councillors and people about it, though I guess Beverley thinks it’s great as it is, since she runs the taxi service from the garage on the main street.

It used to be Bev’s dad at the garage until he retired and she took over.

She worked alongside him and is a terrific mechanic, though she can’t be that far from retiring herself now.

Her husband drove the taxi, but a few months ago he ran off with the woman, very glamorous, from the posh cookery school in the next village.

Bev’s brother, Finn, came home then from wherever he was to help keep the family business going, and he now drives the taxi.

On Saturday, I’m ready well before one-thirty, which is when I booked the taxi for, and the phone rings.

It’s the landline, so I think it’ll be for Nan. Cal and all my mates use my mobile.

Nan answers it, then she hands it to me. It’s Finn.

“I’m so sorry, Amy, there’s a problem with the car,” he says.

He apologises more but I’m not listening. I’ve missed the midday bus and the one at four o’clock – well, it’ll be half over then!

What alternative do I have but to accept Nan’s offer of a lift?

The road on which Cal’s family live is not wide. Cars are parked on both sides.

Normally Nan would drop me at the bottom, but not today.

She takes me right up to the house, nearly hitting one of the parked cars as she peers down the driveway.

“Lovely garden,” she says approvingly.

I get out. Cal leaves the guests I can see happily talking at the back and comes to meet me.

“Want me to guide you out?” he calls to Nan, who is having a job turning her car, as I knew she would.

A woman who I later learn is his mother appears, all welcoming smiles and balancing a pretty china plate . . .

I said earlier that having Amy here was a pleasure.

The week after the barbecue, I’m tempted to amend that opinion as she sits in my conservatory firing questions at poor Finn!

“Where were you living before coming back to the garage, Finn? Did you live alone? Did you drive a taxi there or do something else?”

She was supposed to be going to the cinema with Cal.

But then I heard her phoning him and cancelling.

I caught her saying that she’ll see him tomorrow, but not what reason she gave.

Cal’s a lovely boy, from a very nice family. Just like ourselves, as I told Laura after I got home from briefly meeting them at the barbecue.

I’d like to have stayed longer, but I explained I had another errand to run.

I wanted to catch Finn before the garage shut – Bev closes it at six and he only works during daytime, too.

I’m not normally sneaky, but after Amy told me about ordering the taxi I began thinking how it would be good if it didn’t turn up. They’re not all reliable, are they?

And if it didn’t turn up – so my thinking went – Amy would have to accept my offer of a lift to Cal’s.

However, I knew it wasn’t likely Finn wouldn’t turn up. Everyone said how dependable he was.

As I say, it’s not normally in my nature to be sneaky. But I quietly phoned him and cancelled it.

It had been my intention to keep the conversation short, but it occurred to me there was a danger Amy would see Finn round the village and complain to him about letting her down.

It was the first time I’d spoken to him, but his voice sounded understanding so I ended up telling him the full story.

He said he did understand and he’d phone Amy a few minutes before he was due to collect her and tell her he was having car problems.

Amy came into the room at that point so I couldn’t say any more to him then.

There was no way I was leaving him out of pocket – hence my early departure from the barbecue to call at the garage and pay him what he would have charged Amy.

He was just returning from his last job of the day when I arrived.

“Oh, it doesn’t matter,” he said, when I asked him how much. “It’s good you’re concerned for your granddaughter. Just forget it.”

“No, please,” I insisted. We were in the little office area in the garage.

He tidied his hair, greying but still thick.

“It’s sweltering in the car. I was thinking about cooling down in the Red Lion’s garden for an hour.

“If you insist on paying me, come with me and buy me a pint.”

We stayed three hours, watching the changes to the summer-evening sky and talking about all sorts, including food, which led me to inviting him round here for a meal.

I like him. We get on.

I’m just hoping all Amy’s questions won’t put him off – she’s still at it.

“Is taxi-driving well paid, Finn?”

Cringing, I look across at him, but his face gives nothing away.

I go into the kitchen to get the posh ice-cream I’ve bought for dessert.

Amy comes in behind me. “The story Finn gave me,” she says, “about not being able to collect me because his car had a problem was rubbish.”

I wonder for a moment if Finn has confessed in my brief absence, but decide he would have discussed it with me first.

“Yes,” Amy continues. “I know from Maureen down the road that he took her to the airport just after phoning me.”

She frowns.

“Of course that would be a better job, more money. Which is why I stayed here with you today, Nan. He’s clearly dishonest and unreliable.

“Or so I thought,” she adds, “but I reckon he’s OK. Sound.”

She nods approvingly. I want her to go on thinking that, because I suspect Finn is going to be around a lot more, so later I tell her the truth.

I expect some indignation, but she just laughs and we agree that I was just looking out for her same as she was for me!

The End.