For as long as she could remember, Ella Brodie had been expected to take after her grandmother. And Ella could remember pretty far back, though she never claimed, as some who wrote autobiographies did, to have perfect recollections of what people uttered over her while she was still in the maternity ward. But she was called after her Grandmother. She even looked like her grandmother (at any rate, they were both a little taller than average, and had wavy dark hair and unusually long eyelashes) and had what the family called her grandmother’s ways.
She had, sadly, lost both her grandmothers before she was born. But her grandmother on her mother’s side had passed away years previously, and though she and Ella’s mother had been quite close, there had not been one of those special bonds, and she had been one of those nice women, but not, nor would she have wished to have been, a role model. Her grandmother on her father’s side, Ella Monkton, had passed only a month before she was born, and it was entirely unexpected. They didn’t have the same surname. Her Grandmother Ella had remarried, and though a rebel in many ways (or so Ella was always told), had taken both her husbands’ names. Though not both at the same time. Ella the Second (as she hated people calling her and sometimes called herself) had a suspicion that at least some of it was because her grandmother’s maiden name was Smith, and there was nothing at all wrong with that name, but both Brodie and Monkton were – well, a tad more unusual, without being silly. Ella never quite liked to admit it, even to herself, but she was rather relieved that at least their surnames were different.
Ella the Second, as a child, toyed with demanding she be called Ellie, but the truth was, she didn’t really like the way it rhymed with Jelly and Belly, especially as, though not a fat child, she wasn’t skinny either. She had a middle name, which was Susan, and she quite liked, but at one point she was in a class with three other Susans, and Sue and Susie had already been claimed. Anyway, she was fond of the name Ella, and was also rather proud of her grandmother and wished she’d known her.
The thing was, Ella the First had always wanted to be an architect, and most certainly had the talent, but she hadn’t been able to fulfil that ambition. Ella the Second was brought up with that knowledge. Though she had never turned into one of those bitter or wistful people whose face is a constant reminder of what might have been, everyone in the family knew about it. And when Ella the Second, barely out of nappies, took great delight in making a tower with her brightly coloured building blocks that actually stood up of its own volition, there was great rejoicing. It seemed she was going to achieve her grandmother’s dream.
Only later on did it occur to Ella the Second, and she found no pleasure in the thought, that she was by no means sure that her grandmother was totally thwarted by others in her ambition. It wasn’t as if she were some frustrated Victorian or even Edwardian. She was born decades after women got the vote. She had seen the country’s first woman Prime Minister though she had never voted for her.
Fair enough, she may well have been expected to do a teacher training course instead of studying architecture. There may not even have been a course available to her. But there was no real reason why she couldn’t have at least tried to fulfil her ambition a little later in life. From all everyone said, Grandpa Brodie was a thoroughly modern man – the fact that his wife went back to teaching after her children were born proved that he had no objection at all to her doing work outside the home, and though they weren’t rich they were well enough off for her to at least try to make a go of it.
Ella the Second began to wonder – to voice such a thought would have been tantamount to heresy – if her namesake had known, inside, that she had been unlikely ever to succeed as a professional architect. But the real dash of cold water came when she was in her late teens and dating a boy called Maurice, who was studying to be an architect (needless to say, the family heartily approved of him) and she proudly showed him some of her grandmother’s sketches. She could see that he was troubled, and asked, half timorously, half rather stroppily, “What’s wrong with them?”
He paused. “Nothing, Ella. Not as drawings. They’re nicely done, and she obviously had a talent for drawing. But as architectural plans – well, they don’t add up. They couldn’t be done.” Though she didn’t really want to, she asked why, and when he explained, had to admit to herself that she could see what he meant. “Well, she never had the chance for proper training,” she muttered “That could have been sorted out easily enough.”
He gave one of those non-committal grunts, making it plain that he wished he hadn’t ventured his opinion, and he wished Ella hadn’t put him in a position when it was expected, but he still didn’t regret telling the truth. Still, she couldn’t help thinking that she’d have given a lot just to be able to produce drawings like that. Because despite her precocious exploits with the building blocks, it had become plain that she had neither the talent nor the inclination for anything of an artistic nature, though she had a way with words.
It also became clear that it wasn’t just what she thought of as the business with the drawings that meant that she and Maurice broke up. In her first year at university, she came out, and that couldn’t have turned out better. Everyone in the family was delighted, said her candour and courage were a credit to her, and some had suspected it all along. Things like that served as a reminder that despite everything, she had a loving and supportive family, and she determinedly told herself that when they weren’t quite so wonderful and supportive about other things.
Because there was still, even if rarely voiced, this lingering notion that she could have been an architect if she’d really put her mind to it, and really concentrated in the technical drawing lessons they paid for her to have for a couple of years, and not been so set on being a writer, though they insisted that of course they were glad she had that way with words. But their own words often tended to be along the lines of telling a good tale or making things sound quite interesting – not exactly damning with faint praise, but not taking it seriously or acknowledging that it was on a par with being an architect. She sometimes wondered if it would have been the same had she decided she wanted to be a doctor or a solicitor, but thought it best not to probe too deeply. Ironically, she did, at least partly, follow in her grandmother’s footsteps, and did some teaching, though in her case it was a creative writing course at the local Night School. As a child she’d always thought of some special, slightly and appealingly creepy building that only appeared after sunset when she heard that term, but of course it was only another use for the local technical college. She had started a couple of stories based on that childish miscomprehension, but nothing came of them, and she suspected that other writers had already done it far better.
It was there that she met Tania. They didn’t “click” instantly, but it didn’t take long. The family approved of her, perhaps not as much as they had of Maurice, but that was nothing at all to do with her gender. Even though, at that stage, they’d had a civil partnership ceremony but weren’t technically married, her parents always proudly referred to Tania as their daughter in law. Everything was fine, and yet …. and yet, as Ella once said – more than once – “They still wish I’d fulfilled Ella the First’s ambition for her!”
“Love, sometimes I think that’s in your head, not theirs,” Tania said, and that was when they had their first serious row. But though both often spoke before they thought, and had a tendency to be stubborn, neither bore a grudge, and soon it was over and done with.
They bought their first home together, and came to the joint decision that they wanted to foster children. Later on, they might think of adoption or even sperm donation, but for now, fostering was the ideal and not second best.
They went into it with open eyes – Tania’s parents had fostered until her father’s health issues had intervened - and knew it would bring them sorrow and frustration as well as joy, but often, just as they were beginning to think their best efforts, and all the love and patience they had to give were coming to nothing, there came a moment, seemingly completely out of the blue, that made them want to cry with happiness. They both loved children, but without sentimentality, and with a mixture of strictness and flexibility, that, in the end, almost always got results.
Daisy and Danny had been what the jargon everyone said they tried to avoid deeply challenging. It was no wonder. Their mother had died of a drug overdose, and their very young father, though a decent enough lad, just hadn’t been able to cope. They’d been in the care of both sets of grandparents, and Ella and Tania didn’t doubt that they all loved them, but one household had been oppressively strict, and the other seemed to set no boundaries at all. By the time 8 year old Daisy and 6 year old Danny came into their care they were not prepared to trust anyone, were passive and submissive one minute, impudent and surly the next, and both had night terrors and the kind of tantrums most children had outgrown by the time they were four or five. Ella and Tania clung to the fact that they were both bright, and though they had sometimes lashed out in anger, there seemed to be no serious malice in them.
Though they were keenly observant of their foster children – at that time, they agreed with the Social Services, it was probably best to take on nobody else apart from Daisy and Danny – it was easy to overlook the little changes, the slight improvements. But they did notice that the smiles, and both of them had lovely smiles, were becoming more frequent, and the ear-piercing shrieks rarer. They never dreaded visits from the Social Services – they’d only ever encountered understanding and common sense from them – but they had sometimes been a bit apprehensive, and had been especially so when they were looking after Daisy and Danny. But when Harriet from the Social Services came round one afternoon in March, they had a moment, and their shared glance bore testimony to it, of seeing themselves as others saw them, and they knew they had done well. The children chattered away confidently to Harriet, taking her hands quite naturally.
They’d already pre-arranged that Tania’s mother was coming round to take the children out to the park, so the adults could have a little chat about them.
“Well, what can I say?” Harriet beamed. “We might run the risk of getting all cynical at times, and sometimes with good reason, but we like a happy ending as much as anyone else , and the difference in those children – it’s like night and day. You have really made them a home.”
Harriet had no idea about what the family had planned and hoped for for Ella the Second. But she could not have used a better phrase. Ella had to blink back her tears, and for once, even Tania wasn’t quite sure what was going on in her mind, though she had some inkling.
Well, thought Ella. You would be proud of me, Grandma! I have made a home! With the help of the woman I love, I have made a home.
A year later, almost to the day, Ella and Tania were married, and their adopted children, Daisy and Danny, walked them down the aisle, all four of them holding hands.
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