I am, according to the children, Hannibal Lecter and Attila the Hun and every other ruthless swine to have walked on earth. Gertie is installed at Golden Graham’s Pet Haven, a parrot hotel near Cambridge which Charles told me about. I was drawn to it by his saying, ‘Actually, they’re among our best clients. Parrots seem to be very difficult to keep alive.’
‘Don’t tell the children,’ I hiss, ‘but I am very much hoping that Gertie lives out her days there.’
‘I wouldn’t be too complacent,’ Charles responds, and I can tell that he is enjoying this conversation and especially relishing my desperation. ‘You know they can live to be eighty years old if they’re tough, and those green ones are among the toughest. Nice for the children, though. He’s a decent chap, that fellow David.’ He rings off before I can make a decent retort. I grind my teeth and stand on one leg, arms above the head and other leg folded against inner thigh. However, yogic magic is not strong enough to overcome my outrage. Topple off balance and reach again for the phone, dialling the numbers I have for David over and over, and listening in despair to the clicks and long tones, but never to his voice on the other end saying ‘Hello’.
June 3rd
The vegetable garden is coming on apace. Sort of. I am interested in it, so is The Beauty, but this morning, when I asked Felix to go and fetch the spade from it, he said, ‘What vegetable garden?’ thus giving the game away, and revealing himself to be entirely lacking in spirit of Rousseau.
Rather discouraging to read the seed packets and find that we are two months behind with planting, and have little hope of catching up, so will be eating lettuce in the winter and tomatoes next spring if we plant them now and madly mollycoddle them. The Beauty is keen to do this, and I find a stash of seeds in her pocket when changing her to go out to lunch with Hedley.
Cannot decide what to wear, and cannot remember when any consideration beyond sartorial last occupied my mind for more than three minutes consecutively. Is it, I wonder, a ploy of my brains to prove that my future is as a mover and shaker in fashion, or is it that I am an airhead? Find the latter possibility much more likely than the former, but am distracted by the more immediate puzzle concerning the whereabouts of my other shoe. Arrive late for lunch, thanks to prolonged, fruitless shoe search. Have had to wear purple high-heeled boots, much to the chagrin of Giles.
‘You’re really weird, Mum. You should try to act more like a grown-up,’ he says witheringly on the way, deaf to my protestations that there is nothing I would like more than to be serene and adult in every aspect of behaviour and appearance. Still brooding on what exactly being grown-up looks like to disdainful eleven-year-olds, when we reach Crumbly. Hedley is nowhere to be seen, so after ringing the bell, we retreat to lean on the car while Giles aims small stones at an old paint pot by the front door.
Summer is in full frill and flourish. Hedley’s house has woods to one side, and untamed vegetation which runs down a small valley before swooping up to a flint church standing on the next mound of high ground. According to Rev. Trev, the gardens at Crumbly were famous in three counties a few years ago, but now nothing but wild flowers remain, and the gnarled shapes of ancient azaleas and rhododendrons which flank a wide ride down towards the common. At the end of this ride, three beehives form a picturesque boundary, and Giles leads us towards them, stating, ‘Tamsin said that Hedley was always mucking about with the bees. He’s bound to be down here.’
And as the words leave his mouth, a startling figure leaps in front of us, swaddled to the hilt in white, his movement curtailed by padded clothes, his face obscured by a broad-brimmed, black-veiled hat. The Beauty is horrified. She shrinks back against me weeping, ‘Mummy, it’s a mummy, it’s a horrid mummy, not a proper mummy like you,’ conjuring the image from the Tintin book I was reading the boys in bed this morning. Her sobs turn to shrieks as the mummy squats down in front of her, and having moved too hastily, loses its balance and tips over to lie, legs and arms wiggling like an upside-down beetle.
‘I hate that thing,’ she wails, and yanking my hand, begins to pull me back towards the car. Giles and Felix have run on ahead, but hearing The Beauty’s cries, they come back to save her. However, one look at the wriggling figure on the ground and they collapse into unstoppable giggles. The Beauty can never maintain an angst-ridden pose for long, and her tears dry the instant she sees her brothers are unafraid. The mummy’s head falls off, as I have been expecting it to for some minutes, and, also as expected, Hedley’s reddish face and his black caterpillar eyebrow are revealed.
‘I was just sorting the hives out a bit,’ he says, ignoring the mirth of our whole party and concentrating his gaze on Lowly, whom we accidentally brought with us because he was asleep in the car and no one noticed him until it was too late.
‘Let’s go and have a drink now, shall we, and after lunch we’ll come and see if we can get some honey. I’ve got more suits somewhere.’
‘How kind,’ I hear myself saying, not meaning it at all, as I am allergic to honey and swell up like a balloon if I so much as lick a drop. ‘The children would love to do that, wouldn’t you?’
Glare furiously at Felix, panting and sniggering behind us, and aim a kick at Giles when he mumbles, ‘Not really, I don’t like bees,’ just out of Hedley’s hearing.
‘It’s such a beautiful day,’ I witter as we approach the front door. ‘We’ve been so lucky with the weather this spring, haven’t we?’
Am always quite amazed when I hear platitudes and clichés such as these emerging in an effortless string from my mouth. They are so at odds with image of self as a free spirit and higher thinker. Soothing second thought that the weather is vital as social currency, and it doesn’t matter what you talk about as long as you keep talking, enables me to babble on drearily as we enter the house. Hedley departs through a series of doors off the shadowy wainscoted hall to change out of his bee-keeper’s outfit. Felix is spellbound in front of a suit of armour. ‘Look, Mummy, it’s real. I love it,’ he whispers. ‘How do you get into it?’
‘Don’t be silly, you can’t just get into armour. You aren’t even medieval,’ says Giles scornfully. Look round expectantly for signs of other guests and find the dining table laid for seven, which is a big relief. Find Hedley pretty hard work on my own, and cannot depend on the boys at all at the moment as they prefer not to speak to me or indeed anyone, in words of more than one syllable and sentences of more than one word. Doorbell and voices announce the arrival of fellow lunchers. Am delighted to recognise Simon’s booming tones.
‘Well, what have we here? The Knight of the Round Table, is it? I say, careful there, old chap. I SAID CAREFUL—’ Almighty crash follows and then much wailing. Felix has clearly become closely involved with the armour. He appears wearing the helmet, through one door into the dining room, where The Beauty and I are delicately sipping fruit juice, and Hedley simultaneously enters through the other. Both of them recoil in horror at the sight of the other.
Cannot decide whom to apologise to or for, and beam with extra joy as Vivienne and Simon come in to support us all through the difficult moments of removing Hedley’s precious helmet from the head of an hysterical Felix. Tornado of chaos erupts. The helmet will not budge. The only bit we can open is the visor, which rises and falls obligingly, while the catch at the back which unhooks the neckpiece is stuck fast. WD40 found and applied to no avail, and Felix starts shrieking that he is the Man in the Iron Mask and will never escape, never. The Beauty sobs in sympathy, Vivienne tries to comfort her and earns a black mark from me for giving her a sip from a glass of Coke. The Beauty, canny even in deepest distress, grabs the glass from Vivienne’s unsuspecting and therefore limp grasp, and swigs the lot before giving a throaty burp and demanding, ‘More.’ Glimpse this displeasing scene out of the corner of my eye as Simon and Hedley yank at poor Felix as though he is a rugby ball, and Giles photographs the drama and makes irritating remarks.
‘Mummy, why did they phase out armour?’ Can he not see for himself?
Finally, just as everyone is losing interest and I have picked up the telephone to make the numbingly embarrassing call to the fire brigade, there is a pop like a champagne cork and Felix is free, tear-stained but beaming with relief. ‘It just suddenly came undone,’ he says, holding up the helmet.
Ice well and truly broken by this start to lunch and Vivienne has The Beauty on her lap and is dealing with the wild reprobate fork-flinging and demented expression that the quantities of Coke have caused. I am therefore able to converse freely with anyone I choose to, and to drink several glasses of red wine.
On the way home, driving with flair and vigour, I say to the children, ‘I think Hedley’s quite nice really, don’t you?’
Felix stiffens next to me. ‘No, he’s really grumpy,’ he says, adding, ‘I’d rather have gone to the parrot hotel to visit Gertie than go to Hedley-stupid-Sale’s for lunch.’
Giles leans over from the back and grins, ‘Guess what!’ He pauses for effect. ‘Tamsin says he’s got false teeth.’
June 5th
Rose telephones.
‘I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want to get your hopes up, but I took those things you sent to The Blessing, and they loved them. They want to order ten more. Can you make ten?’
Am overwhelmed. Immediate reaction is to say ‘No way,’ but conquer it.
‘What did they say? How much did you say the clothes were? Have they sold any yet? Oh, Rose, do you think I can give up the Vanden Plaz brochure contract now?’
Rose is cautious. ‘No, I think that would be a mistake, but you should be able to if your stuff goes down well. I charged them one hundred and fifty pounds per garment. I know you only said one hundred, but really Venetia, you’ve got to be able to make something out of this, and don’t forget, you have to make the garments.’
Extraordinary. Can Rose honestly think I knitted those cardigans, or cut out and sewed that skirt? Just shows how little idea she has about sewing or clothing manufacture. I think the skirt even had an old label in it from the chain store I bought it in years ago. Still, if that’s what she thinks, who am I to disabuse her?
She is still talking, but my mind has wandered. Staring out of the kitchen window, I spot The Beauty flitting behind the washing line, an egg in each hand and three of the most scraggy-looking hens following her. Her voice carries in on the balmy spring air.
‘Come on hens, let’s have a boiled egg and soldiers now.’
Suddenly do not want to think about work, so cut Rose short.
‘Sorry, I’ve got to go. I’ll send you them as soon as they’re made, shall I? Bye.’ Slap telephone back in its cradle and it immediately rings again. I ignore it and walk out into the yard, growing visibly taller, as taught in my yoga class, by breathing deeply and exhaling and thus experiencing total serenity. For a millisecond. Ghastly wailing indicates that The Beauty’s boiled-egg breakfast with the hens has not gone well. Follow the sound round to her sandpit and meet a circus-ring scene. The three hens are lying in a row in The Beauty’s sandpit, evidently enjoying a dust-bath. The eggs are neatly placed in the sand in front of them, and The Beauty is prancing about waving a magician’s wand and glaring.
That’s not right,’ she scolds. ‘Don’t sit down. Make toast.’ Scoop her up and we return to the house where the anwerphone flashes. Play back the message and I almost pass out with the enormity of what I have just missed.
‘Hi there, Venetia. It’s David here. How’s the parrot? By the way, I ordered it from a pet shop in Norwich, so it doesn’t need to go into quarantine, you know. I suddenly realised you would think it came from the jungle. Look, we really need to talk. All our lines are down, but I’m in the nearest town for a couple of days, so I’ll call you again.’
How can I have thought I was reconciled to being on my own again? My heart is thudding and rushing madly. The message finishes too soon, leaving the house horribly empty and far too quiet. I play it again. Kick the hall door, disappointment at missing him spreading like nausea. The Beauty eyes me severely. ‘That’s quite enough now, Mummy,’ she says. ‘Never do it ever again.’
June 6th
Minna and Desmond appear, dovetailing with us as we turn in through the gate, hot and thirsty after school. The children run to them, kicking a tiny dust cloud in the yard, and are enveloped in Minna’s fragrant embrace. She swings The Beauty up into her arms, and approaches me with Desmond. They are like a couple from Hello! magazine, bronzed and blonde with the children lolloping around them and huge sparkly smiles decorating their faces. The only element missing is the snow-white towelling bathrobe. I have never seen such a display of coupledom.
Heart sinks rather as a huge tower-block stack of photographs is placed on the kitchen table.
‘We thought you would be longing to see the pictures of the wedding and the honeymoon,’ says Minna. We flick through, and apart from noticing that I have not seen the shoes I am wearing in the pictures since the wedding, I remain silent until a picture of me aiming a covert kick at Bass the hippy is reached.
‘Do you know, we’ve still got their camper van,’ I remark to Desmond. He claps his hand to his forehead and then reaches across me to clasp Minna’s hand.
‘You are always right, angel,’ he says, smiling into her eyes in an idiotic fashion. ‘You said I’d forget to tell Venetia about the van, and I did.’ He sits back again, contrition writ large. ‘Bass sent me a postcard from Madagascar weeks ago, right after our honeymoon. They’re joining a commune there, and they want you to have the camper van as a present. They think it will help you reach a level of karmic consciousness where you will be able to see Bass without kicking him in future.’
Godsake! as The Beauty would say. Anyway, jolly nice to be given a camper van. Shall now have it towed to the garage to have the battery charged.
Desmond and Minna, murmuring and fluttering at one another like a pair of doves in spring, stay to supper and leave after dark, driving off into the still silver landscape illuminated by the low disc of a rice-paper moon. Find that I am wide awake and my senses are jangling, so wander around the garden, enjoying the whispered rush of the grass beneath my feet and the odd creaks and shrills of night creatures. For once I am outside on the right night to appreciate the ghostly blooms of the white rose, Wedding Day, and the night-scented stocks I planted with this moment in mind. Except this moment is flawed. I was not supposed to be alone in my garden on a moonlit summer night. I lean over the wall looking away down the water meadow, over the stream which glints pewter light. And with desolating clarity I suddenly realise that I want to be married. Am immediately ashamed of this desire. I have after all got children, a home and a career. This should be more than enough for the emancipated modern woman. Surely it is greedy, and belittling, to want to be married as well. It is not feminist, not emancipated, certainly not necessary, and sadly, not likely.
Nonetheless, acknowledging my shameful desire is curiously uplifting. I continue my stroll, and find myself singing Van Morrison. Pause to do a spot of moon-dancing, but have to stop immediately as it makes the dogs anxious.
David rings this evening, as I am about to go to bed. It is another perfect night. I stand in the doorway, watching bats flit in the half-light and house martins swoop towards me, humming more Van Morrison and indulging in total fantasy. He is proposing that we marry immediately and have a honeymoon in the Tuscan Hills with every cliché in attendance. I am accepting gracefully, with tears sparkling in my eyes.
‘VENETIA. CAN YOU HEAR ME? I SAID THE PARROT MUST HAVE DISTILLED WATER.’
Oh, for heaven’s sake. Why is everyone so animal obsessed? I would like to give them all to Pet Rescue myself. Somehow manage not to convey this to David, and skirt around the parrot’s present whereabouts, not wishing to admit that it is, as we speak, running up a room service bill for sunflower seeds and sundries in David’s name at its hotel in St Neots. Am brisk and irritated when I can get a word in, but on the whole, this is David’s one-way conversation.
‘I’m sorry I haven’t been in touch, it’s just been such an engrossing project and there is never a moment when someone doesn’t want you for something …’ He bangs on about jungle life and I become increasingly petulant. He seems to take it for granted that I am delighted to be stuck at home on my own, with no messages from him and no indication that he is anything to do with us any more.
Suddenly, as if from a great distance, I hear a voice which I recognise as mine saying, ‘I’m sorry, David. We can’t go on like this. I think we both know it’s over, so let’s not pretend otherwise. When you return to England you can collect Digger and Lowly and the parrot. I’m sorry.’
My ear is throbbing and red hot, I can’t believe I’ve said these mad, no-going-back words. There is a silence, then David speaks, his voice flat and sad. ‘I suppose this was bound to happen. What can I say?’
I can think of plenty that he could say. How about, ‘Will you marry me?’ How about, ‘I will love you for ever. I would do anything to win you back.’ Or, ‘I’m catching the next plane home, darling.’
But I don’t make these suggestions. I just say goodbye and hang up.
June 9th
Make a tank top adorned with miniature rosettes found in a charity shop in a Julip horse set. Get bored of sewing each tiny rosette on by hand, but remember that my mother always used Copydex to hem curtains and attach our school name tapes. Find a pot in the playroom and have the job done in moments. The end result is most pleasing. I christen it ‘Gymkhana’, and am about to post it off to Rose when I remember that there is a pair of ancient jodhpurs in the dressing-up box. Can I get away with selling them too? I have enough rosettes left to decorate the front pockets and the opening at the bottom of the leg. Finish this job and wrap the whole ensemble in tissue paper, adding a small plastic horse from The Beauty’s farm as a treat. Cannot believe that this is all considered work, and that I am being paid for it. Have decided not to tell anyone David and I have split up until I can say it to myself in the mirror without crying.
June 12th
Felix asks to send an email to David. Flailing and panicking, I decide it is best that he just does it. After all, there is no reason why the children can’t continue to have a very good relationship with him. They are in charge of the parrot or will be if I ever let it return from the hotel, and they’re supposed to be looking after Lowly the Weirdo. Felix spends hours on his email, and prints it out to show me.
Today a police officer called PC Baxter came to our school. He is the liaison officer of Norfolk. There are 1400 policemen and policewomen in Norfolk. First he talked to us about what you get if you call 999 and what you get is the police, the fire brigade and the ambulance. Actually, we know this isn’t true because when The Beauty calls 999 sometimes when Mummy is in the bath the police just ring back and say DON’T. You can also get the coastguard on 999. Then he talked about his code name. It was Foxtrot Romeo One Zero. After that he talked about different kinds of handcuffs. We are going to the parrot hotel to see Gertie next time we stay with Dad.
Love Felix
Cannot help glowing with pride as I read this interesting and informative email, then shriek in horror as I reach the last line.
‘Oh no, you haven’t sent it, have you? Quick, get it back.’
Felix gives me a pitying look. ‘Don’t be stupid, Mum, you can’t. Can I go to the Dancing Hamsters?’
Wonder for a moment if this is a new skateboard hang-out in the village, but realise swiftly that it is a web site. Felix crashes the computer three times while looking for it, but I am so alarmed by the possibility of confrontation with David over the parrot hotel that I don’t care.
Felix then redeems himself utterly by finding a site called freakytoys.com and we manage to buy five hundred plastic trolls for three pounds. Very excited as they will trim several cardigans, and maybe even a travel rug. I like the idea of moving into Lifestyle, and also enjoy the modern sensation of being in the middle of the countryside and effortlessly buying things off the internet. Of course, cannot even begin to find my way around without Felix and Giles, but as they are almost nerds in their computer knowledge, I am poised on the cutting edge.
June 15th
A taxi pulls up just as I am about to collect The Beauty from nursery. It contains Gertie, her cage and a bill from the parrot hotel for seventy-eight pounds plus the forty-seven-pound taxi fare.
‘Hello darling,’ chirps Gertie, swaying rhythmically in the passenger seat. ‘I love this one,’ she adds as the vintage-tunes channel on the taxi radio delivers the opening bars of Andy Williams singing ‘Music To Watch Girls By’.
Without hesitation I adopt a gormless expression and a thick Scandinavian accent. The driver, scratching his head and reading his directions, is no match for my Norwegian trawlerman voice, and is alarmed by my expression as I approach his side of the car, leering horribly.
‘I dunno what they’re playing at, sending parrots all around the countryside,’ he says, hopeless acceptance writ large on his countenance. ‘And this one hasn’t shut up since we left St Neots. It’s got quite a vocabulary too. I reckon it’s spent time in the nick or somewhere else pretty rough.’ He sighs then says, ‘Course, you don’t know what I’m saying, do you, love? I think I’ll take it back to the pet hotel. They’ve got an account with us, so there won’t be a problem with the fare that way.’
Spirits soar for the first time since I dumped David as I watch Gertie accelerate off down the road again in her taxi, still chatting away. The last thing I hear as they round the bend out of sight is her fruity wolf whistle, and her appreciative squawk to the taxi driver, ‘Nice pants darling.’
While I am gloating over my quick-witted escape, Charles rings to say he would like the children next weekend.
‘I’m surprised you can remember what they look like,’ I remark sourly.
In the gap that follows I hear him buttoning his lip before replying, ‘Don’t turn into an old cat, Venetia, you can’t afford to.’ Am gobsmacked by this, but unable to think of a riposte because he is so right. Relationships going wrong on all levels now. Have fallen out with everyone except The Beauty, and if the boys find out that the parrot doesn’t need to be in quarantine, and worse still, I have turned her from the door, they will never speak to me again. Must now get on, as The Beauty awaits. Macaroni cheese does not make itself and the boys will be back from school in half an hour.
June 17th
Children depart, leaving me wretched. Had forgotten how awful it is when they go away with Charles, as they have not been for months. The Beauty appears not to know who he is, and when he invites her to climb into his immaculate people carrier, she shrinks and clings to my legs.
‘I will not go, no, I will not,’ she says stoutly, but is won over by Giles who rustles a packet of sweets from the other side of her car seat. Charles slams the doors and rubs his hands together, smirking like a slave trader with his cargo.
‘I expect you’ll be putting your feet up and relaxing for the next couple of days,’ he says to me, managing to make it sound like a gross act of self-gratification, akin to eating forty doughnuts. Manage to smile and make jolly thumbs-up signs as they glide down the drive and away, but when I walk back into the kitchen, the clock ticks loud and slow.
June 18th
Get through the day by cleaning out two garden sheds and making a bonfire. Am as manic as Rumpelstiltskin about my business and only stop at teatime because the dogs have joined me in the garden and are taking it in turns to trip me up in order to remind me to feed them. Go into house to do so, and become afraid of the yawning evening ahead. Cannot face doing internal spring cleaning, so hover for a while, reading cereal packets on the kitchen table and eating biscuits from the tuck shop the children have created in a turret of Lowly’s castle. Time crawls, and am finally forced to watch television.
Enjoy Baywatch hugely. There are mad-looking plastic crocodiles wrestling with butch men, and girls with bosoms that jut like cliffs. Everyone is the colour of maple syrup with proper blonde hair, not former blonde hair like mine. Make a mental note to buy colour-enhancing shampoo next time I am out, as it will be much cheaper than highlights at the hairdresser, and there is no occasion to merit a big spend on hair at present. Baywatch ends while I am thinking about my hair, so I never discover what happened to the crocodile in the lifeguard’s bath. Speculate fruitlessly for ten minutes but give up, and am disappointed to find that the evening has still hardly begun. Telephone my mother to moan, but she is not there. Peta the basket-weaver answers the telephone, and offers me a place in her all-female drumming circle.
‘We start at eight with meditation for half an hour. Do come, but leave your ego at home,’ she titters. ‘And do be sure to wear hemp or hessian, we try to be reasonably medieval at all times.’
How does my mother put up with her? She must be hypnotised, as I seem to be.
‘Let me just see if there’s anything on the calendar,’ I mutter, dropping the telephone and charging into the kitchen, brain whirring uselessly. Stare at the wall for a while experiencing ebb and flow of adrenalin but still no excuses, before finally turning to the calendar in a vague hope of escape being offered through its pages. Today’s date leers out at me, and I gaze at it with horror. I am already going out. Hedley has asked me to supper. How can I have forgotten? Should I try to get out of it? I can’t. Anyway, I need something to do. He said he would be on his way back from somewhere and would pick me up at seven-thirty. He is presumably hosting a soigné dinner party. It is seven now and I have crescents of filth under my nails and cobwebs in my hair from the barn-clearing. Must get soignée right now. It is only when I am in the bath that I remember Peta, and the dangling telephone.
Hedley’s car heater is whirring as I step in, even though the rain of this afternoon has evaporated into milky mist and the air outside is warm.
‘It’s stuck on,’ Hedley yells above the roar of the heater. ‘You’ll have to keep your window open.’ Am glad to do so, as a very natural aroma is seeping towards me from Hedley, and a dead rabbit lolls next to me on the seat. Hedley reaches to remove it and it thuds to the floor, disappearing beneath mounds of newspaper and old crisp packets.
‘I’ve been doing silage,’ he yells, noticing my shrinking away. ‘The dog caught that just before we came in.
I’m going to give it to the owl-sanctuary man in the village.’
‘Make sure you don’t forget, or your car will become a midden,’ is my only contribution to the conversation. It doesn’t matter, though; Hedley is in high spirits, and hums a bit of La Traviata as we go, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel in time. The journey to his house from mine involves a thread of the smallest lanes, high-banked with corkscrew bends and a small unbridged ford. Wood pigeons clap a retreat from the road outside Crumbly as we slow to turn up the drive; they flutter through low-lying mist to vanish into the dusk creeping in from the distant fringe of woodland.
Hedley unlocks the house and vanishes to change, and I wander through into the hall and on to the sitting room. The house smells of of beeswax and lilac and order; making my way slowly around the books and pictures, I try to imagine what it would be like to lead an existence in such a rarefied atmosphere. Am sure I could become accustomed to it. Peer into the dining room to see how many people are coming tonight, but the room is pitch-black with shutters and curtains barring every chink of light. Clearly this evening is one of those kitchen suppers I always wear the wrong clothes for. Pause to inhale a fragrant bunch on the dresser, and admire the taste of the Constance Spry disciple who has put pale mauve lupins in a jug with flaming orange roses and red-throated honeysuckle. The smell is intoxicating, and I float on it into the kitchen in search of a drink – nectar will probably be available, or some other ambrosial juice. Cloud nine musings suffer a setback in the kitchen, and Hedley following me into the room hears my exclamation.
‘What’s the matter?’ he asks nervously, wiping the front of his shirt as if afraid jelly or gravy has planted itself there. Tear my eyes away from the kitchen table which has been laid with candles, more roses and honeysuckle and two places.
‘Just us?’ I say brightly, and Hedley’s one brow, groomed upstairs to a fine satin-black sheen, flattens like a Plimsoll line, belying his nonchalant answer.
‘Oh yes, I just wanted to talk to you about Tamsin, and see if we could organise a pony for Giles to use a bit more.’
‘Well that’s very nice, but I have to be home for my babysitter by eleven, she’s got toothache,’ I say, with no planning and no blushing at all. Breathtakingly successful lie. I could have used similar on the basket-weaver and would like to write it down so as to practise the crisp yet regretful tone. Hedley accepts this non sequitur without comment. Hugely relieved, I slug back my first glass of wine and become very overexcited. Half of me is shocked and nervous to be having dinner alone with a man in his house, and half of me is enjoying the fantasy of moving in and becoming chatelaine of Crumbly and never having to write another corporate brochure or plunge the sink myself again. Hah! That would show David. Hah! More wine and malevolence and revenge begin to occupy my whole mind. It would serve David right if he came back to collect his things and we were all living here in the lap of luxury. The fourth glass of wine has me tittering and smirking, talking non-stop, secure in my alcohol-fuelled belief that I am marvellously clever and very attractive. Hedley’s eyebrow begins to slant towards the ceiling as coffee succeeds food and wine continues to flow. Fortunately for self-preservation, the beeper on my watch, which I set in sobriety earlier, goes off at half past ten. Leap up from my seat as if I have been scalded, as does Hedley, who starts running around the kitchen flapping a tea towel.
‘It must be a smoke alarm. We must have caused a fire somewhere. Quick, open the window. No, on second thoughts don’t. Keep it shut, and shut all the doors.’
Like a clockwork toy he whirrs manically about the room, bouncing off doors and walls, gradually losing impetus until he comes to a halt in front of me, an arrested expression on his face.
‘You made that noise,’ he says accusingly.
‘Yes. I did. I’ve got to go home now.’
‘Ahh yes, the babysitter. Come on then.’ Frowning and over-revving the car, he drives me home in silence. Luckily left a few lights on at my house, and am out of the car almost before Hedley has stopped at the gate, so desperate am I that he should not realise that there is no babysitter and no children. Cannot rid myself of the notion that my situation, with family away, is more provocative than that of a woman who lives alone all the time. Why is this?
June 19th
A Sunday morning of unsurpassed loveliness, making lounging in the hammock imperative, after which I shall of course set about accomplishing some of the goals I set myself for the weekend. Have actually not got around to doing anything at all and it is already midday. Minna and Desmond, still rose-tinted and holding hands all the time, have just been over. Sticky moment when Desmond said, ‘So is David ever coming back, or has he succumbed to a jungle girl?’
But managed to answer in similarly light vein, ‘Oh, I dare say he’ll turn up to collect his dog if nothing else.’ And we all laughed. Surely that counts as having told them? And I didn’t cry.
Spend the afternoon nurturing small seedlings and planting them in rows in my vegetable patch. Straight lines astonishingly difficult to achieve, but vital to the zigzag pattern I am planning for my parsley edging. End up making most satisfying implement with two balls of string on sticks. It looks charming, like a couple of toffee apples with a thread of toffee linking them, and has the extra merit of being free, whereas the one in Horty Hortus costs forty-nine pounds.
Wind billows warm yet persistent from about three o’clock, and by mid-afternoon rain is pelting down on my bedraggled seedlings. Put my only plastic cloche over the zinnias, having reasoned that as I have only one row of them, they need to be saved, and retire to bed to watch the clock until the children return.
June 20th
Blazing heatwave causes ill temper all round. Felix excavates an old stick of chewing gum from the floor of the car on the way to school, and finding it disgusting, attempts to spit it out of the window. Of course, he misses.
‘It’s gone down the side, Mum,’ he yells.
‘Well get it out.’
‘I can’t.’ Shrill crescendo is muffled as he dives between the seats, thwacking my ear on the way. Wish I had a car with a glass partition to protect me from abuse and noise pollution of my children. Bad mood exacerbated by arrival at school, late, and the sight of a group of mothers who have miraculously already acquired suntans and uncrumpled summer dresses and the right shoes. Cannot face going over to them, and doubt that I would make it anyway, as my summer skirt has lost all its buttons and is staying up thanks to The Beauty’s dressing-gown cord. My shoes are last summer’s plimsolls, which I thought were fine when I put them on this morning, but now a horrible smell emanates from them and if I move my toes, their environment is revealed to be squelchy. Make do with a cheery wave and zoom away, hoping I look as though I am very busy. Notice in the rear-view mirror that the one in strawberry pink with freckles sprinkled prettily across her nose is gesturing madly at me, but with iron discipline persuade myself not to be paranoid. Much later, after visiting the village shop and the post office and having a lengthy discussion about strawberries with Mrs Organic Veg delivery, I go to the loo and discover that paranoia was spot on. Felix’s chewing gum is lodged on my shoulder like a small but deformed cousin of the parrot Gertie and no one has told me.
June 23rd
Should not be complacent, but am beginning to relax about Gertie. The children enjoyed their visit to her at the weekend, and Charles, who can do no end of selling at the parrot hotel, is delighted to take them there whenever they want. But the boys are perplexed.
‘Why does she keep saying, “Call a taxi and take me home”?’ asks Felix. ‘Does she mean here, or does she mean the jungle?’
‘The jungle,’ I say emphatically. ‘Was she coughing?’
‘No, why?’
‘Oh, they cough in the later stages of quarantine,’ I lie glibly.
Summer morning of spectacular loveliness and we have breakfast in the garden in straw hats. It is Saturday, and my mother is staying. She and I are reading the papers while Giles and Felix are squashed into the same chair reading an email from David. I suppose I can’t stop him sending them, but I have stopped using the computer myself to avoid the anguish of reading his missives. Giles and Felix do it all on their own now. The Beauty has absorbed the scholarly mood of the morning and has found an old copy of Vogue in the log basket. This she hugs to her chest while dragging her small orange chair over to sit next to the boys.
‘Is it good news?’ she asks politely as she settles herself with her magazine open but upside down and sliding off her lap. Giles glances at her and grimaces.
‘Mum, can’t you do something about The Beauty? She’s getting worse and worse. Look at her.’
I look. She puts her chin up and turns deliberately away.
‘Don’t look at me,’ she orders. ‘I won’t have it.’ She has been very keen on headgear since Desmond and Minna’s wedding, and today she has chosen a lime-green tutu, upside down and pushed back like a hairband on her head. This is worn with flower-shaped sunglasses and a swimming costume.
‘Very Busby Berkeley,’ says my mother, lowering her newspaper to look, ‘but I don’t see what’s wrong with her, Giles; she looks odd, I agree, but she always looks odd.’
Find this a bit rich myself, coming from the High Priestess of Odd, who today is sporting an orange turban underneath her straw hat, and a long purple velvet skirt, even though it is baking hot. Am about to say so when am engulfed from behind by Felix, who puts his hands over my eyes for a fragment of a second, then dances off shouting, ‘I’ve got a joke, David’s sent me a new joke. It’s totally cool.’ He rushes back and slumps on the grass at my feet, and shoots a mischievous glance to see if Granny is listening. ‘Mum, Mum, why does Tarzan wear plastic pants?’
‘I don’t know, maybe to save on laundry?’
Withering look accompanies the answer: ‘No, silly. He wears them to keep his nuts jungle-fresh.’
‘Felix!’ Of course Granny was listening, and manages a scandalised expression which no one pays any attention to, as we are all giggling stupidly.
‘I like nuts,’ coos The Beauty.
Pick up the printed-out email from David as it flurries across the grass towards my newly weeded rose bed. He has drawn a cartoon of Tarzan flitting from tree to tree in his plastic pants with an arrow pointing to the trapezes.
I make these, he has written. I will send you one. Gertie will love to swing on it with you.
Scrumple the paper up and hurl it on to the breakfast table where it rolls into the butter dish. Has David stopped to think how I will hang his stupid trapeze vine? Or is he secretly mailing a Tarzan, complete with rubber knickers, to do it for me? Doubt somehow that he has thought that far ahead, and comfort myself with the near-certain knowledge that he will never get round to it.
The hens approach the table, groaning thoughtfully, and fix us with the unwavering gaze of the gormless. Wonder what gormful would look like as I retreat into the cool of the house and await the post. This promises to be most satisfying, as am expecting some new ribbon samples.
June 27th
Ribbon, ordered by old-fashioned telephone method, arrives three days late and is all wrong. Am despairing of ever getting my new career off the ground, and have nothing at all left to wear, as all my clothes have been trimmed and sold. Enjoy futuristic fantasy of self aged eighty with gnarled fingers trying to stitch a toothpaste trim on to a neoprene cardigan. Am about to give up on work for the day to follow my instincts into the garden for carrot and radish work and a little rose-tying, when toothpaste notion grabs me again. It could be great. So could neoprene. Especially for surfers. Draw some hopeless pictures, look at them. Realise they are hopeless and so go and get out The Beauty’s Fashion Fuzzy Felts.
In no time, have created beautiful sample of cardigan and Copydexed it to a piece of white card to be sent to Rose. Post it on the way to nursery to collect The Beauty and experience utterly fulfilling moment of having cake and eating it. I am a working mother, and today it’s going according to plan. Hooray.
Float into the nursery school on a cloud of conceit, scarcely stopping to glance at the lesser mortals around me. Cloud evaporates, though, when The Beauty shows me her morning’s work, and she appears to have made a very similar garment to the one I have just posted, only hers has pink appliqué flowers on it. I shall capitalise on this undermining of my talents as a designer and call my company Child’s Play. Am rather pleased with this notion and try it out on Hedley when I see him driving past, as The Beauty and I are footling about near the road on our way back from the nursery. I wave and he stops and reverses back to me and The Beauty, who has climbed on to the garden wall for a better view. With her bunches and dungarees, she looks exactly like one of the Waltons.
‘Hello man,’ she greets Hedley.
‘Hello child,’ he replies with a very real attempt at a winning smile. He points at The Beauty’s jacket picture which I still have in my hand, and taking off his glasses, leaving a red mark on either side of his nose, he attempts neighbourly pleasantries.
‘I’m pleased to see you’re hard at work,’ he says. ‘That one looks rather good, doesn’t it. Most useful. Sort of thing my ex-wife wears.’
Rather touched by his enthusiasm, but can’t face telling him that this one is not my design but is a playgroup daub done by The Beauty, and conceit falls another notch as a result of his mistake. Maybe I should employ The Beauty as chief designer and just concentrate on marketing as I have such good ideas, particularly the name of the business.
‘I thought I’d call it Child’s Play,’ I mention, casually tucking the picture behind my back before he sees The Beauty’s name across the corner. Hedley is still in his car, and at this he revs the engine and crashes into gear.
‘You can’t call it “Child’s Play”! You may as well call it “The Emperor’s New Clothes” and be done with it. Don’t for God’s sake let them start thinking it’s easy, or they’ll just make their own. Have you no sense?’ he yells, and departs in a cloud of disapproval. Very lowering.
June 29th
Children at school, The Beauty asleep and I am sewing individual lavender heads on to my pink cooking apron. Rose telephones, delighted with the neoprene drawing.
‘It’s great. Get it made up as soon as possible. I wonder if you can find something that will seal real toothpaste so you can use it. The colours are so tingly, so minty.’ She coughs. ‘Anyway, sorry, mustn’t get carried away,’ and her tone changes. ‘I’m afraid you’ve got to look for better manufacturers,’ she says regretfully. ‘The garments you are trimming just aren’t up to it. Also, you’ll never be able to keep up with demand.’
Rumbled. Actually, I had wondered how long it would be before she noticed that these are my clothes. Amazing that she still hasn’t cottoned on to this detail. ‘Don’t worry Rose, I’ve got some great contacts,’ I say, running my eye down the jumble sale and car boot column in the local paper. ‘I’m in negotiation with them now. We should have new clothes to trim by Monday.’
June 30th
Horrible wolf-whistling outside the house at first light indicates the return of Gertie. How she travelled eighty miles from St Neots is shrouded in mystery, but she is there on the gravel, on her perch, a brown envelope dangling beneath her. This time the bill is for three hundred and sixty-two pounds including carrier. Having opened the bill, I leave her outside the front door, singing ‘Old MacDonald’ at the top of her voice, and pray she will not wake the children until I have composed a pithy email to David.
I shall have to call the RSPCA if you don’t stop forcing that parrot to travel across country through the blazing summer. She will remain at the parrot hotel until you collect her, as I would rather not take responsibility for the life of such a valuable creature which does not belong to me.