I always thought my brother-in-law Bob was a good looking guy, but in my opinion had two main failures. One, he was impressed by people who he thought and acted as though they had money and could manipulate him to their advantage. Two, most of his female companions were a little weird. Before I married Pam, his sister, his current girlfriend's parents at that time owned a reasonable house, belonged to a sailing club at which they kept a small sailing dinghy, and visited most weekends taking my brother-in-law with them. The way he spoke about them you would think they were royalty and owned luxury yacht. After Pam and I married he would always introduce any new girlfriend to us first. The next girlfriend he introduced refused to eat in front of people. They would spend the odd day with us, we would offer her lunch and later an evening meal, but she would always decline and just sit in an armchair while we sat at the table eating.
The next girl he introduced was a blond bombshell, curvy, cuddly and affectionate snuggling up close, when they sat on the couch together, she seemed the perfect partner for him. However, according to him she was only a friend who he happened to be teaching to drive; what a waste, even his sister commented on it. Then came the stick insect, tall, skinny, no lips no tits, and always wore trousers, hardly ever wore a skirt or a dress, she looked more like a man than my brother-in-law did. Vivian, that was her name, apparently her parents were killed when she was young and was brought up by her uncle and aunt who had two sons and a daughter of their own. Vivian referred to them as brothers and sister but in fact they were just cousins. Whether it was because she had to compete with her cousins that caused her to become a domineering bitch with a mouth on her, I couldn't say. She would say. "Please or offend I'll say what I think," and 9 times out of 10 people were offended by what she said, and she didn't like it when it was done back to her, and I would give her as good as she gave. Neither of us liked the other.
Everyone said it would never last, but we should have known better since the uncle owned an engineering company which employed the two sons on the administration side, not the production side, they never intended to get their hands dirty. When they eventually married the wedding was supposed to be a grand affair and anyone who was involved had to wear morning dress (top hat and tails) which as best man I had to hire. Why is it that when you are involved with people who think they have money, you always seem to be paying out for one thing or another. Well they got married and bought a house down in our part of the country, and near us. Oh joy. After a couple years she became pregnant and gave birth to a boy and became obsessively overprotective wrapping this kid up in cotton wool.
Most years our family, me, my wife and son would go on holiday with my wife's parents but one particular year they also asked my brother-in-law and his family. I said that was fine we would have a year on our own, but my wife's parents worked on her and she worked on me until I relented. I can't say I enjoyed the holiday one bit, Vivian was a drag, wanting to stay in most of the time on the pretext she had a headache, the couple of times she did come on the beach with us she wouldn't let the kid play in the sand wiping him clean every time he got a speck of sand on him, she was a real pain.
Over the years the two families didn't really mix with each other, Vivian dominated their activities and who they visited. The few times we did see them, after we would comment on Vivian's masculinity, things just didn't seem right. Having finished with a few tools borrowed from my brother-in-law, Pam said that I should return them as soon as possible, and decided to take them back that night. Now my brother-in-law was employed on shift work and I had no idea what shift he was working, but it didn't matter all I was doing was dropping off tools.
Vivian opened the door, I asked for Bob, she told me he wasn't there as he was working nights. All I wanted to do was drop the tools off. She asked me if I would take them through and put them on the bench in the shed of course that's what I did. However as I was walking through the kitchen towards the door into the back yard she asked me if I would like a coffee. "Yeah great, milk and one sugar," she said she knew, in that grating voice. Returning to the house after dropping the tools off in the shed I made myself comfortable on couch, Vivian placed two cups on a small coffee table then sat beside me. It was the first time that I really looked at her and noticed she was wearing a skirt and blouse, it was one rare occasion, wondering if it was for something special. We made small talk, I asked how things were, Justin was fine, he was in bed, Bob always seemed to be working, and they were struggling a bit to make ends meet. Just as I finished my coffee and put the cup down Vivian burst into tears.
Being a sympathetic sort of person (I don't think) I asked her what the problem was and if I could help. Well in one way I can't say that I was surprised, but in another I was when she told me that they were having marital problems. She thought Bob was having an affair and was serious about the girl. According to Bob he's working a lot but Vivian didn't know whether he was working or with the girl.