The Really Complicated Family Ch. 05

I sat there in the hospital room looking across at my dying mother and it all made sense.

Grandma Lawrence, nasty and cold; Mum seeking some kind of warmth and affection from a cousin gets pregnant at a tender age. Treated like a pariah by her family, baby Veronica is taking on by Grandma to spare the shame of having to give her up for adoption but treated like an outcast her whole life knowing what a disappointment she was and not knowing love.

Ronnie went to an all-girls boarding school, finding a sense of belonging and friendship, leaving with great A-levels and a penchant for her own sex, qualified for Cambridge and stayed in education – anything to mean that she wouldn't have to go 'home'.

She returned to the family home, never hers, just once more for the funeral of Grandma Lawrence, which was where I first met her and was introduced to the bright but distant, fantastically sophisticated cosmopolitan woman who was my 'Aunt'.

Mum, I now realised, was terrified that this woman with whom she had only corresponded through birthday cards when she remembered could blow her and Grandma's façade off of the refined but really grubby pretence of a happy family in front of the whole congregation at this tiny village church were Grandma her worshipped so hypocritically for so many years.

I now knew why Mum seemed angry rather than sad that day and why our journey south was so full of snapped orders and barked telling's off. It also made sense of Mum talking to Ronnie like she was a naughty and wayward younger sister, and needed keeping in line. Ronnie had never done anything wrong in her life, other than be born into my family.

Veronica was a new person to most there, and clever enough to ignore the shocked faces of the three or four elderly women who stared at her and chatted coven-like as soon as she had turned her back, nodding at Mum, who didn't, or at least chose not to, notice.

Ronnie would later tell me she went to the funeral with one intention, to spit on Grandma Lawrence's grave, returning later that night much the worse for the booze she'd drunk at her hotel. Crying in hysterical silence she was minded to raise her skirt and piss on it, but it was next to Grandpa Lawrence who was the only person she'd ever loved so she decided just to spit, adding a fine string of venomous abuse and the last of her half bottle of vodka, suggesting that tea total Grandma Lawrence would need as she was surely burn in a hell of her own devising.

I held my half-sister-half-second cousin tight while she recovered her breath. Here we were; an angry Lesbian, an angry, disappointed bi-sexual that couldn't sustain a relationship with a man and ended up screwing her own brother, who's only other sexual partner had been his mother. Shit, it couldn't get any more fucked up if we tried.

Tim came back into the room carrying two cups of coffee and handed them both across to us. The revelation had to come and by Christ, it was going to happen with Mum in the room. It was only fair he knew the whole truth.

"Tim, I'd like you to meet someone," Tim looked around the room, "Tim this is your eldest sister Ronnie."

Tim looked at Ronnie, saw her red eyes and taking her coffee cup knelt on the floor and hugged her for ages. At the moment I was so proud of him, so proud in fact I knelt and hugged the pair of them. From the corner of my eye I noticed a nurse peek around the door seeing us embracing, smiled and walked to where the Doctor was stood. He appeared at the door.

"We're ready now Doctor," said Ronnie, and silently he moved towards the various machines and turned them off.

"She'll just drift off," said the doctor, "no pain. She's already left the party guys," he said with a soft smile, "It's just the last of faint sounds of the waltz you can hear." He bowed slightly to Mum and then to us and left us. We sat, none of us knowing when she died. According to the Doctor technically it had been five hours ago.

He came back and told us that he had issued all of the paperwork that meant we could arrange Mum's funeral. They gave us the number for the local Co-op funeral director and even rang them to come and collect Mum and take her to their chapel of rest.

We followed the trolley out to the black van and saw Mum into it for the last time, as the sun came up.

"Well, I don't know about you two," said Ronnie the redness in her face fading, "But I'm fucking starving, is there a good breakfast café round her somewhere Timbo?"

"Err yeah," he said bleary eyed, "that there is, follow me!" We left Ronnie's car in the hospital car park and walked across the road to a parade of shops were a small café was just opening up for the morning trade, it was a little after six.

"Good Morning!" said Ron to the owner who was starting up a huge grill, she looked up at the menu board behind him, "Three of the biggest full English breakfasts you can make please, and three mugs of tea while we wait."

We sat at the counter and he placed the mugs of tea before us, telling us the meals would be ready in about five minutes. He looked at our red faces,

"You just come from the hospital?" he said. We nodded, "Please accept my deepest sympathy for your loss," he said refilling our almost empty tea mugs and we thanked him, "aww, you're not my first and you sure as hell ain't going to be my last. Still no more pain at least." He turned to his grill and flipped the six eggs on the grill expertly and without breaking one of them.

I looked at Ronnie and Tim and raised my tea mug in salute to my sister and brother,

"No more pain guys," I said.

"No more pain," said Ronnie.

"None whatsoever," said Tim.

Mum's funeral was in Manchester, Ronnie had contacted some of Mum's family and a couple of them came north for the service. In discussion with one of Mum's cousins I found out the name of the cemetery that Grandma and Grandpa Lawrence were buried. The day after the funeral we brought her ashes south to a small church on the outskirts of Okehampton in Devon and thanks to the local council she went in with her Mum and Dad.

I had taken a week's compassionate leave and a week annual leave and stayed with Tim. We slept together every night, although we didn't make love. It wasn't a conscious decision by either of us but we did sleep naked and held each other cuddling up for comfort and warmth.

On the Saturday before my Sunday departure we went out to a country pub restaurant for lunch, and chatted about what to do next. Our closeness and familiarity with each other meant that when the waitress asked if Tim would like another drink while I was in the restroom, she added "and another Diet Coke for your wife?"

In was just close enough to hear, and he smiled at me and I returned it full well, blushing redder than usual.

"Yes please," he said.

"Elaine, I've been thinking," he said once I sat down, "There's nothing in Manchester for me now, my job is OK but I could live without it, and once I sell the house, I'd have enough banked to keep me going until I find a job down south. Could I stay with you for a while?"

I moved my chair closer to his and leaned over and kissed him on the lips, the first time we'd ever done such a thing in public.

"No," I said, "you can't stay with me for a while," he looked intrigued, "but we can live together if you'd like?"

"Live together," he said beaming, "But... are you sure?"

"Tim, I absolutely insist," I whispered in his ear, "anyway, I'm no good at sleeping on my own anymore." Which was true; OK it was the fact that you don't normally have a man with a prick the size of a donkey's throwing you down and fucking your brains out when you were on your own after all.

We finished our meal, paid the bill and walked out to the car park where I pinned him to the car and snogged the shit out of him, eating face like a couple of hormonal teenagers. By the time we got home the passing, gaining a sister, the funeral, the journey to 'THAT' grave and the month or so of abstinence was forgotten and we all but ran from the car to the front door, giggled the door open with me starting to unbutton my blouse and undo the button and zipper on my skirt before he'd even opened the door. Once in, he turned to lock the deadbolt on the door, turning back in time to see my blouse and skirt fall to the floor, and to me unhooking my bra and starting to slide out of my panties almost in one movement.

"So Mr Barnes, you going to fuck me or what?"

"Oh well, seeing as you put it so nicely Mrs Barnes," he turned, picked me up and to my amazement carried me, naked, up the stairs to his bedroom where he laid me down and stripped naked himself in seconds, bearing down on me with his huge prick sticking out in front ready for me.

We fucked, twice in fact. This was interspersed with an extremely enjoyable period of oral sex in the classic 69 with me on top as usual. I loved sucking his huge cock and was gradually working up the courage to deep throat him (thanks again Cosmo). He was no slouch either and licked, sucked and slobbered over my pussy and anus, using his long fingers to great effect.

I didn't let him come in mouth as I wanted that penis in me, I didn't care which hole even, I just wanted to be ordered on to my hands and knees and be held down by him while he fucked my rather shapely arse off.

We woke next morning and fucked again, showered, fucked again in the shower, showered again, then had some lunch, and only the soreness of my battered and abused puss stopped us going for round three.

I promised I would come and see him the next weekend I would phone him and have a chat. OK, I basically promised him phone sex every night but what the hell - he'd fucking earned it, and we did have a lot to talk about.