Rubric's Cube

Chapter 6 Children - they need the previous generation?

Anne rushed in, kissing us each with the exuberance of her eighteen years.

"Oh I'm glad to be free of work for a couple of days."

Olivia asked "Aren't you working tomorrow?"

"No, they're redecorating the shop, putting some new optical machines in. We'll be up to Specsaver's standards on Monday."

"It won't be long till dinner, love."

"OK Mum, I'll get changed."

We ate the delicious mackerel fish in comparative silence.

Anne banged her fork down.

"Well you three, what's up? Jason's got an excuse but you two. What's the matter?"

I said, "Anne dear, they're worried about the future. How they get by with the farm and getting older. I'm just worried about the now."

"Why the future? Mum, Dad it'll be alright won't it?"

"Let's not talk about it now," said Mark,"no point in raking it over. Not till I can see it clearer."

"Well I'm not letting you two upset Jason anymore, so I'll take him away for the evening. Is that Ok?"

"I don't think an evening's clubbing would suit me," I half chuckled.

"No, but you can meet Beth and I'm sure you'd like that."

"Yes, I would."

Mark and Olivia exchanged a glance of puzzled regret and resignation. Their first-born had fled the nest, but wasn't letting her parents share in her new life. But why?

Anne's chugging 2CV came into life, and the dim headlights barely lit the way. Maybe her younger eyes saw more than mine. She drove confidently any way. I opened farm gate and closed it after the car.

Having shut the flimsy door, settled and found the seat belt Anne drove on, handling the eccentrically designed horizontal push pull and twist gear-lever skilfully. As we turned onto the metalled road she exclaimed, "Whew, I thought Mum and Dad would want to come!"

"They're more sensitive than that. But they are sore at being excluded."

"You haven't told them anything." 

"No, it was your secret, but you can't leave them in the dark for ever. They might think things are worse than they are. That's cruel."

"Well, you see for yourself and tell me what you think on the way home."

"Ok love."

We drove in silence, or perhaps in the confines of the car, where the twin cylinder engine seemed to occupy the passenger space, in a background noise that precluded conversation.

We arrived at a Victorian three storey terrace which had been converted into flats.

Anne bounded up the steps, and I followed more sedately. I didn't feel like bounding anywhere just now.

The buzzer heralded the unlocking of the front door and I followed Anne up the un-carpeted staircase to the second floor. The door was open and Beth stood and welcomed her sister with a hug.

She more formally took my hands in both her strong ones, and then said very quietly, "I'm sorry about Ellen. You must feel horribly adrift."

There she had hit the truth. Despite her ever present reserve with me, maybe in view of Anne's revelation it was her usual reaction to the male of her species, even so she had found so accurately what was in my soul at that moment.