Jogging Memories Ch. 05

"The only person I remember knowing is my Mum and she is now a frail old lady, not the strong supportive mother who was always there to clean up my mess for me," Tommy said. "This mess isn't going to clear itself up in five minutes."

"No, it won't, Bob. Until today I didn't know your mother was still alive. Rachel told me this morning. You had told me a long time ago, before we became engaged, that both your parents were dead."

"I can't remember why I would say that to you. Possibly I wanted to make a complete break with the past. Maybe I lost my memory twice, I really don't know. You have all your memories of me and recent ones, so for you to touch me is natural. For me, you are a complete stranger and to be touched by you is, well, strange. Not unpleasant, just strange. On the other hand, for me to touch you, feels, well ... inappropriate somehow."

"Sorry for touching you, Bob. What I really want to do is kiss you and hug you, Bob. I haven't seen you for a week, but Rachel explained what state your mind is in and I am not sure what to do about it either."

"Awkward." Tommy sucked at his teeth. "Tell you what, come up and sit on the bed next to me and you can see my family that I do remember, through my old family photos, OK?" He held out his hand. Without a hesitation she took it.

"Great idea," she laughed, "Maybe I could bring a couple of our albums over tomorrow?"

"Equally good idea, Jennifer," Tommy replied.

"Please call me 'Jen', it was only my mother that called me Jennifer."

She kicked off her shoes, climbed onto the bed and wriggled next to him, getting nice and comfy, "I suppose calling you 'Bob' sounds strange to you? What does your Mum call you?"

"Tommy, I've always been called Tommy," he smiled in recollections from for him the recent past. "I had a Great Uncle Tom when I was very much younger and we were each clearly defined in the family. He was always Tom and so I was Tommy. Even when he was ... well gone, my name stuck with me, even after I grew up and left home."

"Tommy is a nice name, I've always liked it," Jennifer said, "Our eldest son is Tom, christened Thomas. I had no idea it was your original name."

"Did I suggest the name, Jen?"

"Oh no, my grandfather was a Thomas and my father's middle name was Thomas. We have always had Toms in the family, so the first born was insisted on by my side of the family and you acquiesced without an argument."

"Well, I suppose I got used to Tommy but it is only a name, Jen. To you I am Bob, so please keep calling me Bob, it might help prise out those dormant memories. According to my trick cyclist, Phoebe, that is."

"Oh, 'Phoebe', is it?" she smiled with one eye brow raised, "Plus this lady Alicia, earlier. You seem much more flirty than the old Bob I know! Do I have anything to worry about, sweetheart?"

"Absolutely not, Jen," he protested, "I am just a naturally friendly person. I don't know anybody well enough for me to mean anything by it other than wanting to get on with everybody. Like us, you and I. We need to get to know each other again, slowly, and hope that in time the lights get switched on again in my head."

"OK, Bob it is then. How do you feel about your Mum meeting her new daughter-in-law and all the grandchildren?"

"I think she'd be absolutely delighted, Jen," he smiled, "I think I'd like to meet my kids too, only I'm very worried about what affect my not recognising them would have."

"Honey," Jennifer rested her hand on his again, this time without any hesitation, "They will understand that you are not yourself. I will make them aware of your condition before they see you. They will accept that you are ill and need looking after and helping through this problem. It will be just like all the times you helped them through when they were poorly. You maybe can't remember them at the moment but many's the broken night we've had because they have been sick."

"You're pretty smart, Jen," he chuckled, "For a babe!"

"Oh! First I'm a stranger, now I'm a babe, eh?"

"OK, this time I am flirting with you," he laughed, "I think I might be permitted that, though, eh?"

"Yes, I suppose so. No, of course you can flirt with me, Bob, I really want you to!" she laughed, cheerfully bumping shoulders with her husband, "Although you do have a lot of bare bare-faced cheek, much more than you used to have!"

"Have a look at these photos my Mum brought along, Jen, I think near the beginning is one of me actually showing my bare cheeks!"

<<<>>>

"So, Aunt Emma, do you know what Mum's up to tonight?"

"Not sure, JJ," smiled Aunt Emma. She wasn't really JJ's aunt, just Jennifer's best friend, but she had been the Morris children's acting aunt ever since the eldest two were toddlers and Jennifer was almost through carrying Tigger to full term. "She called me yesterday and asked if I could come over while she had to go out for three or four hours."

"She's probably going on a date, making the most of it while Dad's conveniently out of the way!" JJ snarled, "She wore enough make-up to impress a theatre stage manager and sufficient perfume to attract a blind man."

"That's an unkind thing to say," Emma replied soothingly, putting down the plate she had been drying up at the sink and turning to face JJ, "Your Dad's off on a training course, isn't he?"

JJ snorted, "Huh! Who goes on a training course for more than a week, including two whole weekends, without coming home halfway through and with no clear idea when he's coming back? I don't swallow that bull from Mum for a minute."

"Oh, JJ, do you think there's been some trouble brewing between your Mum and Dad?"

"Like, yes! Like Dad's disappeared, without even taking his mobile phone with him. Like he's not at work but we know he's definitely not on a course. I rang his boss, who knows absolutely nothing about any course. He thinks Dad's off sick."

"Really?" Emma looked surprised, "Jen didn't say anything, I assumed this course was just a Monday to Friday thing. I've not been around much at weekends since my Mum's been poorly. I wonder what's going on, now?"

"Mum's a dirty skank!" JJ cursed, "That's what's going on."

"JJ!" Emma spluttered, "You can't call your Mum that! Anyway, your Dad would never leave your Mum, just as your Mum wouldn't ever give up on your Dad. He's one in a million, he's lovely your Dad is."

"Yeah, he is, I agree totally, but her? ... I don't know what she is any more. Aunt Em, do you think Dad is getting a bit too old for Mum?"

"No, pet, of course not. Your Dad may be older in years, but he is fit, fitter than, well a lot fitter than your Uncle Richard, for instance, and Rich is fifteen years younger than your Dad."

"Yeah, but Dad's so quiet, docile, even. Mum's got him completely wrapped around her little finger," JJ snapped. "She screwed that bloody 'Wetshirt' Western, the sports master, the Christmas before last, I thought that would finished Mum and Dad off at the time."

"Well, I don't know where you heard-" Emma started.

"It was all around the school, Aunt Em, I couldn't show my face anywhere. In fact, I still can't."

"That was just a nasty rumour, spread by the girls who went on that school trip to Yorkshire that summer. I heard that they all fancied your Dad. He was the fittest parent on that trip. He was even fitter than that sports teacher who was with them. Well, that's what I heard, so why would your Mum fancy that teacher that I hear nobody likes when she already has a hunk of her own at home?" Then Emma giggled, "I remember Tom said that all the girls in his class who had been ignoring him for years suddenly started to talk to him, hoping they could work their way into sitting on your Dad's mess table. His Susannah got quite upset."

"They are just silly girls," JJ snorted, "My Mum, on the other hand, is worse than silly, she's just plain stupid and risking throwing her marriage away."

"Look JJ, I admit that I did hear a bit about this so-called affair. Your Mum told me at the time that the rumours were all blown out of proportion. It was just an innocent Christmas dinner kiss with her PTA colleagues, when all the rest of the Committee had the same hug and peck on the cheek greeting."

"No, Aunt Em, I saw the bloody pictures, lots of them ... and very graphic they were, in a bedroom the pair of them alone, with no clothes on. Bloody pornographic they were."

"Must've been photoshopped or something," Emma suggested, with a little desperation, "You know, putting faces over other people's bodies, I've seen some of your computer art, JJ, it's really good."

"This wasn't faked, Aunt Emma, it looked much too real for me, I felt sick. Even Tigger saw the images at school, I only found out yesterday. My bloody ex-mates at school won't let me forget about it in a hurry either."

"Oh. Your friends know about this too?"

"Yeah, all the girls went very snooty, spreading it about like I'm as big a slut as my Mum. As for the boys? Well, the best of them won't have nothing to do with me. The worst kind though were for a few days like, all over me, as if I was into boys as badly as my mother. As if! I had to dish out a few reminders in the shape of good sharp slaps."

"Well, boys are like that, you know, they want to ... JJ, I don't believe I'm talking to you about this!"

Emma was embarrassed. She had known JJ since before she was about two years old. The only girl in the Morris family, JJ was slight, elfin, if compared to her tall well-built brothers, but she had rough and tumbled with them as equals throughout her childhood. Now here she stood in her Mum's kitchen with her chin pushed out, her dark, unruly, curly hair almost covering her face, clearly missing the Dad that she adored. Emma thought JJ was close to tears, and her heart went out to the girl. She spread her arms out and JJ naturally fell into them.

"There, there," Emma said, rubbing her back and shoulders, comfortingly, "I'm sure that whatever argument is going on between your Mum and Dad, they will resolve it and get back together again. That must be where your Mum has gone tonight, to go and see your Dad. You know how much they both rely on each other. They have far too much time and effort invested in their relationship and in you three kids, for any lasting rift between them. They have too much at stake to throw it all away now."

JJ started to sob, her torso soft and yielding in Emma's comforting embrace. Emma looked towards the door, listening for signs of Tigger. The low sounds of gunfire and explosions from the TV, evidence that the youngster would be concentrating on the screen and be oblivious of the operations or occurrences in the kitchen; "not my department", she could imagine him saying, to which she smiled.

Tom had gone out immediately after Emma had given them their tea, to visit his pregnant girlfriend, as he did most evenings. Emma wondered, not for the first time, what did parents teach their children about the facts of life and how careful you should be? She knew that this slip of a girl, now virtually a woman, was always knocking around with beefy outdoor guys, many of whom would have raging teenage hormones. And JJ was so ... well, if she made herself up, wore her hair differently, and put on a dress occasionally, every boy of her acquaintance would have to admit that she was really very pretty.

"Alright now, pet?" Emma ventured once JJ's shoulders had stopped their heart-rending shudders, before gently releasing her hold on the girl.

JJ looked up, "I guess. Sorry for losing it there." She looked abject, lost, to Emma.

"Come and sit down in the conservatory, JJ," she suggested, "We'll be more comfortable out there and we'll get more warning of any approaches from Tigger or Tom, and even your Mum when she gets home."

She led the girl through the kitchen door into the conservatory. Emma had long envied Jen her conservatory. Triple-glazed, it was thirty foot long and twelve feet deep, running along the back of the house, exposed to the warming rays of the sun throughout the day and centrally heated through radiators, situated under the three foot high brick walls that the glazing panels rested on, for the evening and winter, like tonight. The sitting room, where the large wall-mounted flat screen was fixed, did not have to be traversed, so the girls would be undisturbed, at least for the duration of the movie. Until Tigger wanted a snack that is; that boy was continually ravenous. They sat next to each other on one of the comfortable settees, Emma still with a comforting arm around JJ's shoulders.

"We are all worried about your Dad," Emma said, determined that the time to put cards on table were here. "He's been in a quiet fug for a long while now, and has retreated deeper into his shell. I know your Uncle Rich is very concerned about his best friend. He tries to hide his feelings but I know Richard rings here all the time, and that he sneaks out to see your Dad on odd evenings, trying to get him to open up about what's worrying him. Uncle Richard tries to hide this from me, too, but he is not very good at it, quite frankly."

"Yes, Uncle Richard is round here all the time," JJ pondered, "I suppose that's why Dad seems to try to avoid him at the moment. I know that when you don't want to talk about any of your problems, you still get pestered from pillar to post. Mum's on at me all the time, she gets on my tits, to be honest." They both smiled at the expression and, probably, the different images each of them formulated at the same time. "With all my friends at school against me, I've only had Dad to talk to and he's disappeared on me now."

"Well, honey, you know that if you are unhappy speaking to your Mum or Dad about anything," Emma offered, "Or if your Dad isn't available, you can always sound off with me, I promise nothing personal we discussed would ever get back to either of them."

"I know, Aunt Em," JJ smiled.

"Well, what do you want to talk about?"

"What, now?"

"Yes, now, while you have stuff on your mind that you want to share and we are alone and likely to be undisturbed," Emma insisted, "This may be the best time, while your Mum is out and big ears," she motioned with her head towards the sitting room, "Are ringing with the latest superhero or action movie." Emma looked into JJ's eyes. "I'll kick off this talk then, what are you currently doing about boys and sex, huh?"

"Aunt Emma!" JJ exploded, her eyes open wide enough to fill her face.

"Well, you are old enough, both to talk about it and to actually 'do' it," Emma pressed on boldly; they were in virgin territory now, for either of them. "I know your Mum worries about you at camp because she has said as much to me. How are you knowledge wise, for instance, about the 'facts of life'?"

JJ squirmed with embarrassment, "Well, I know the basics, obviously."

There was a pause.

"Theory basics or practical basics?" Emma persisted.

"Aunt Em!" JJ exclaimed.

"JJ, if I tell you my secrets, maybe you could tell me yours, OK?"

"Like what secrets?"

"Like, for example, how your Uncle Richard and I have been trying for a baby for years and we have been trying again really seriously these last few months now," Emma said quietly, "Only it's probably not going to work and that's another secret."

"Why not? You are not too old to have a baby, are you?"

"No, it is just that I have taken tests and so I know that I am just fine, everything is working as it should be and my doctors have confirmed that to all intents and purposes I'm fertile," Emma chewed her lip. "Rich, though, won't go in for any tests. He thinks that because he can ... well, because he can get it up and come with fireworks all the time, he thinks he's fine. So it's his unshakeable belief that the problem must lie within my waterworks and not his."

"So," JJ couldn't help giggling, "Uncle Richard is probably shooting blanks, and doesn't know or is even prepared to admit it?"

Emma joined her in laughing, "No, he did get me pregnant once but I lost it almost straight away."

"Oh, Aunt Em, I didn't know."

"Only your Mum knows, and mine, and Rich, of course. Something has gone wrong but he doesn't appear to want to know."

"Poor you, Aunt Emma," JJ grinned mischievously, "Maybe you should take a leaf out of Mum's book."

"I couldn't do that," Emma insisted, "Some girls just aren't made like that."

"Well, that's the kind of girl I want to be."

"Good. Well, JJ, the 'facts of life', now where were we? Theory or practice?" Emma persisted.

"Aunt Em!" JJ exploded.

Then JJ sat quietly for a few minutes, realising that a threshold was passed that she could never have even approached with her mother, particularly now. And never, no, never, not even with her father. That would be far too embarrassing. She decided that she would answer positively, without the embarrassment she would have felt with her contemporaries, and, heaven forbid, her Mother.

"Theory only," she breathed.

"OK, then, how far have you got testing out the theory?" Emma asked as JJ's eyes grew large as saucers, "As regards, kissing, touching, and being touched?"

"Nothing!" JJ cried, "I'm not ... you know, a girl like that, and, anyway the boys aren't really interested in me, no way."

"Oh, yes way, the boys are very interested in you, take my word for it. Or if they haven't up to now, they will very soon, believe me."

"No, I'm too plain, ugly."

"JJ, you are really pretty, as smart as fresh paint, and quick-witted. I can only guess that your legs are slim, toned and shapely from all that fell-hiking you do, even in the winter last week. Not that anyone's ever seen your legs since you were about 12! And I know you've got tits, girl, cos I felt them through your shapeless jumper when we squeezed each other in the kitchen."

Emma giggled, and, after a protesting snort, JJ joined her in a tinkling chuckle of her own.

"Aunt Em," JJ owned up, "I've never even kissed a boy."

"Never?"

"No, I don't want to start because I don't want to be, well ... disappointed."

"Ah, the 'D' word. Well, take this from an old married woman, that disappointment comes with the territory, my girl. Accept that and, in time, boys and men may be surprisingly good to have around most of the time."

"I would take your word for it, Aunt Em, but eugh! Boys are disgusting, dirty and smelly. My brothers, well I know I am supposed to love them, but most of the time they are horrible to me so I am just as horrible back to them."

"Being horrible by degrees, at least to the point of keeping the boys on their toes, JJ, is what we girls do best. Keep 'em guessing, on the wrong foot all the time and they soon learn. They just need a little training. First though, like with any wild animal, they need catching. If you do it right, though, they won't even know they've been caught until they are trapped."

"Trapped?" JJ's eyes grew impossibly bigger, "Like 'Gosh, I'm pregnant' trapped?"

"No, I don't mean that exactly. 'Hooked' is a better word for it. It means that they've taken the bait you've dangled and they want more and are concentrating their focus only on you. Believe you me, pet, it's for their own good. Now, is there a boy you know or don't quite know yet, that you think would be nice to know?"

"Well, there is this boy, Brick Alexander-"

"Brick?" Emma interrupted, "Is he a bit ... thick?"

"No, his name is ... er, I'm not sure, actually. Bernard or Bertrum, or something unfashionable like that and has been called 'Brick' for a long time. Just like we call George, 'Tigger'," JJ explained.

"What's he like, then?" Emma asked, "This Brick boy that you like?"

"He's tall and broad-"

"Like the proverbial, is he?" interrupted the laughing Emma, who was, after a tentative start, thoroughly enjoying a lovely girlie chat with this girl. Emma had known and loved JJ for so long and she was becoming more delightful with every minute, changing from being a child into a woman. This conversation was opening up a new and delightful relationship with this special girl.