The Wadhams: An Unexpected Offer

By Karen Byrom

Illustration: Shutterstock

We’re delighted to bring you the continuing adventures of Life & The Wadhams, featuring the younger members of the family. Not yet met the Wadhams? Read the background on My Weekly’s best-loved family, then come back and enjoy the next generation’s adventures as Mike and Polly Wadham’s elder grandson, Alex Clark settles into family life with wife Natalie and toddler son William in their flat above Pretty Polly’s, the hairdressing and beauty salon which Natalie runs. They’re now expecting twins, and running out of room…

Surrounded by a sea of paper hearts, Natalie Clark laughed as her assistant Iris jumped in vain to try to catch and pull the last one down from the ceiling of the hairdressing salon.

“Just get the steps out,” she suggested from her half-supine pose on the comfy chair normally reserved for clients.

Valentine’s Day had come and gone in its usual flurry of clients keen to look their best for their all-important dates, and it was time to get the Pretty Polly salon back to normal.

Normally, she’d have been up and helping Iris but her rapidly growing bump kept her floorbound. Soon, she’d have to give up work, she knew – long days on her feet administering hair and beauty treatments didn’t tally with a twin pregnancy going into its sixth month!

Iris laughed and gave up the struggle.

“Let’s just leave it there. Hearts aren’t just for Valentine’s Day, you know.”

Natalie grinned. “There speaks a woman who finally swiped right!” she teased. “Remind me again how gorgeous Gareth is …”

“He’s just as it says on the Tinder!” Iris confirmed jokingly. “Long brown curly hair, brown eyes, clean shaven, six foot tall, funny, witty – and now I know he’s generous, too.” She fingered the pretty locket her new boyfriend had presented to her on Valentine’s Day, and smiled happily.

“Unlike my red-headed, bearded, poverty-stricken partner.” Natalie sighed.

“Who is also gorgeous, kind, funny and generous with his time,” Iris pointed out firmly. “And actions speak a thousand words you know.”

“You’re right.” Natalie smiled. “He’s been brilliant with Gran – even if he does call her an old bag under his breath. But he’s helped me so much in sorting out Grandad’s funeral and making sure she’s OK, all alone in that big house. Not that she seems grateful,” she added reflectively.

“Has she thawed towards William yet?” Iris asked.

She’d gathered over the past few weeks that Julia Jameson was not your typical doting gran or great-gran. She’d had little to do with Natalie in her growing years, and had shown no interest in William at all since his birth over two years ago.

“Not noticeably.” Natalie shrugged. “We only take him along when we really have to. There’s nothing for him to play with that in that old house, not even a tattered teddy, and she refuses to turn on the telly during the day, so I can’t even plonk him in front of CBeebies.”

“You’re a saint to keep going back,” Iris opined.

Natalie laughed. “I’ll be glad when we’ve finally sorted out Grandad’s estate for her, and don’t have to go so often. But I do want to try to build a relationship of some sorts with her. She is my gran, after all, and despite all her proud denials, I know she is lonely.

“And Dad is as useful as a chocolate teapot, so it really is down to me.”

“And Alex, and William, and the bumps,” Iris added. “When are we getting to know what you’re having, by the way?”

She knew Alex and Natalie had found out each baby’s sex at their last scan, and was determined to winkle it out of her boss before the actual birth.

But Natalie wasn’t telling – not yet, anyway.

The bell above the door went, and Natalie turned to greet the incoming client – only to give a startled gasp at the sight of the older lady with severe bobbed white hair coming through the door.

“Gran! What a nice surprise. Iris was just asking how you were.

“Iris, this is my gran, Julia. Gran, this is Iris.”

Julia inclined her head briefly at Iris, then looked around the small salon that was Natalie’s pride and joy.

“So this is where you work.” She sniffed disparagingly, and Iris bristled, offended on Natalie’s behalf.

“You do know Natalie owns the salon, Mrs Jameson?” she said firmly but calmly.

“So I believe,” Julia Jameson replied. “That’s why I have come, to have my hair styled by my granddaughter.”

And you can just butt out. The implication behind her words was clear, though Julia would never have used such a vulgar word as butt.

“Well, fortunately I’m free of clients till 1pm,” Natalie said, sighing at the thought of the paperwork she now wouldn’t be able to catch up on. “Give me your coat, Gran, and take a seat, and we can discuss what you’d like.”

“I’d like it washed, trimmed and styled in its usual way,” Julia said shortly. “And then I’d like you to take me upstairs to your flat. There is something I want to discuss with you. In private.”

She glared at poor innocent Iris as if the girl was hiding a keyboard behind her back, ready to broadcast Julia’s secrets to the world through social media.

Iris glared back and looked about to say something cutting in reply, but Natalie gave her a pleading look, and she shut her mouth firmly.

Her boss would tell her everything later anyway.

But before Natalie was ready to confide in Iris, she had to share Julia’s suggestion with husband Alex.

She waited until William was safely tucked into bed, and Alex replete with his favourite dinner, was leaning back on the settee, arm firmly around her as she cuddled into him.

There wasn’t much room for both her and the bump, but somehow Alex managed to keep her from falling to the floor.

“Gran was round earlier today,” she ventured.

“Seriously?” Alex raised an eyebrow. “I thought she’d shrivel into ashes if she ventured out in daylight. What did she want?”

“She wanted to show me these.” Natalie struggled to a sitting position and withdrew a sheet of pamphlets from underneath the cushion where she’d placed them previously, to prevent William drawing on them. He was in a creative phase with his crayons.

“And these are…?” Alex asked.

“Homes for Sale schedules. She wanted to know what I thought of them.”

“Seems sensible for her to move from that big house,” Alex concurred. “Though she’s maybe being a bit hasty. Let’s have a look.”

He flicked through the schedules, then looked at Natalie in puzzlement.

“This isn’t downsizing. Some of these houses are bigger than the one she has now. What’s she thinking about?”

“Haven’t you noticed?” Natalie took the papers from him and began reading aloud.

“Each and every one of them is suitable for dual occupancy. They all have an annexe or a granny flat. Oh, Alex, she wants us to move out of here and into a bigger property with her.”

“What!” Alex was incredulous. “Julia does? The woman who has more or less ignored you for over twenty years, wants you to go and live with her?”

“And you, and William, and the bumps,” Natalie clarified.

Alex snorted. “She’s just looking for a handyman and a housekeeper for her old age. I hope you told her to stuff it where the sun don’t shine. You did, didn’t you…?”

Natalie flushed.

“I think you’re being a bit unfair. Yes, she put it as if she was doing us a favour, rescuing us from ‘this poky flat’, as she called it, but I think she’s lonely, Alex. She’s lonely and frightened of the future, of living alone with no one to care for her. To care about her.”

“So, what did you say?” Alex asked.

“I said I’d discuss it with you and we’d think about it,” Natalie said. “And Alex,” she rushed on, “I think we should. Think about it at least.

“We can’t go on living here when the babies are born, or not for long anyway.”

“But we can’t afford to pay for a house like one of these,” Alex pointed out reasonably.

“But we could afford half of one, if we sell or rent out the flat,” Natalie countered. “That’s what she’s suggesting. And it will all be done legally, with her half coming to us when she passes. She’s got it all worked out.”

“All worked out in financial terms, maybe.” Alex snorted. “But we’d have to live in her pockets!”

“Would that be so bad? It works for your mum and dad. And it worked for your grandma Polly and grandad Mike. Didn’t they have your old aunt Clara living with them?”

“Great-great aunt Clara,” Alex confirmed. “I never met her, but from all I’ve heard she was an old battle-axe, and Gran had a lot to put up with.”

“Tell you what,” he went on, noticing Natalie’s crestfallen face. “Why don’t we discuss this idea of your gran’s with them? We can go round there tomorrow after tea, and see what they all think about it.”

Natalie gave a whoop as she kissed him. She didn’t notice his grin over her shoulder. His family would think it was a terrible idea – they’d soon persuade Natalie not even to consider it.

But alas for Alex, the conversation didn’t go quite as planned.

Hi parents Jim and Pinky were as dubious as him at first, until Polly put her pennyworth in.

“It works for us,” she pointed out.

“But, Mum, we all get on so well,” Pinky countered. “You’ve always been so supportive of us all.”

“And yet we’ve all had to make adjustments,” Polly pointed out. “Just as I had to do with Aunt Clara, when we came to the same living arrangement.”

Mike’s ears pricked up at the mention of the old lady who had brought him up.

“Is Aunt Clara coming for tea?” he asked hopefully.

“No, darling, but Natalie and Alex are here. They’re asking how we got on living with Aunt Clara.”

“Oh, she was an old termagant,” Mike said in a moment of clarity.

“But she added a real richness to our lives,” Polly added. “And not in monetary terms, though we were able to afford a family house, thanks to her. But no, she was there for all our ups and downs, and no matter how snippy and snappy she could be in private, she backed us to the hilt against everything the world threw at us.

“And she was like a second gran to you three, Pinky. You must admit it.”

“Yes,” Pinky nodded in agreement. “We loved her and were terrified of her in equal measure! But she was always part of Dad’s life, before ours. Natalie’s gran hasn’t been interested in her – why would she suddenly be interested in William?”

Polly shrugged.

“People change, circumstances change.” She turned to Alex. “I’m not saying you should take up her offer. But I don’t think you should dismiss it out of hand. You’ve been lucky enough to have a large and loving family around you all your life. Natalie’s only had her mum, really.

“Maybe this is a chance to change things.”

Jim put in his oar. “And it’s not as if you would actually be living in the same house,” he pointed out.

Alex looked thoughtful. Over all others, he respected his dad’s opinions.

“OK,” he turned to Natalie. “I’m not saying yes yet. But we’ll talk about it some more when we get home.”

Join us next month for more adventures with the Wadhams clan!