‘What ants are the biggest?’ Daisy was telling jokes to her grandmother as the two girls splashed around in the bath.
‘I don’t know. Tell me.’
‘Elephants!’
They all giggled.
‘And why was six scared of seven?’
‘So do tell us. Why was six scared of seven?’
‘Because seven ate nine!’
Again they all laughed and Daisy was getting into her stride. Effie was trying to wash her neck.
‘And what do you call two burglars?’
‘I want to guess this one’ yelled Rosie as the bar of soap slipped from her fingers.
‘Well? Go on then. Guess.’
But Rosie only grimaced and Daisy triumphantly shouted out ‘a pair of knickers!’
‘Good one!’ chortled Effie, ‘now get on and wash that face of yours.’
‘I don’t think that was very funny’ complained Rosie.
‘That’s just because you’re stupid and..’
‘I am not’ an incensed Rosie shouted back, spurting water over her sister’s head from the mouth of a plastic duck. ‘Hey....’ Daisy retaliated with a cupful of her own and a full scale water fight was soon underway with a large quantity of the contents of the bath ending up on the floor amidst much noise of shouting and yelling, which Effie was doing her best to control, while secretly enjoying it, when the bathroom door opened and Cathy came in, booming out ‘what’s going on? Now you two just stop that at once, just look at the place. Water everywhere. You’re totally in my bad books’ and turning to her mother ‘and, Mum, what on earth happened? Can’t we have a bit of order around here.’
‘Actually, Cathy, I think they were just having some fun. I’ll mop it up, don’t worry. Come on girls, out you get.’ Effie did her best not to sound defensive or apologetic but was inwardly annoyed for having put herself in a position yet again where she was on the defensive with Cathy.
The girls were prancing naked around the bathroom, dodging Cathy’s attempts to get them to put their pyjamas on, apparently immune to her fury. Nor was Effie much help and the level of excitement was rising when Jim put his head round the door.
‘Hey, girls! If you want to behave like wild animals you’d be better to get dressed and come and watch fifteen minutes of that wildlife programme I recorded. `That OK, Cath?’
‘Anything to get them to return to civilisation.’
Ten minutes of noise and struggle passed before both girls were in their night wear, teeth and hair brushed, ready for the promised TV.
‘Now, fifteen minutes, that’s what I said’ asserted Jim ‘and I don’t want any more nonsense or fights or silliness – otherwise...’ he made a sudden scary face, ‘you’re dead.’ Which only made the girls laugh but they did settle down in front of the television as the image opened up of the African plains and a herd of elephants lumbered into view. The two were immediately quiet, glued to the screen.
‘I think we all need a drink’ said Jim as he pulled the cork out of a bottle. `You’re not rushing off, Effie? So what’s got into those two tonight?’
‘All I can say is..’ said Cathy looking towards her mother and then hesitating as though she’d changed her mind. ‘Anyway, let’s leave that. What I really wanted to say, Mum, really to ask you, is if you’d be able to look after Daisy and Rosie at half term in a couple of weeks. Margie and her husband - you know the lady who lives near you - have asked us to stay a night at this posh hotel where they have great food and a pool and all, and Hannah’s going to stay with her grandmother for the Saturday night. So, well, we wondered if you’d be all right with our two, just for one night.’
‘We’d really appreciate it if you would and the kids would love it. They always do’. Jim was looking straight at Effie. She had not allowed herself to look at him in weeks. She felt Cathy’s eyes were on her and she forced herself to look back. But the eyes she engaged with were not accusing. If anything they were pleading. Out of the corner of her eye she glimpsed something similar from Jim’s blue eyes, though she couldn’t meet them.
‘Of course I’ll have them. Absolute pleasure. So when exactly?’
‘I think it’s end of October. I’ll just check in the diary.’
Cathy rose just as Rosie came hurtling through to the kitchen sobbing and threw herself at her mother ‘he’s eating it, Mummy, he’s eating the baby!’
‘Who is, darling?’
‘The big lion. The daddy lion!’ she sobbed.
‘We’d better see what they’re watching’ said Jim as he strode off into the living room with the others trooping after him, Cathy clutching a distraught Rosie in her arms, to find Daisy staring at the TV as though transfixed. She was watching a huge bull elephant that was swaying around a smaller elephant, occasionally nudging its rear quarters with its trunk. The larger creature seemed to have a second trunk swaying from its body and for several minutes the whole family stood staring as the bull swung this enormous appendage and nuzzled into the female who seemed not the least bit interested but did not move away. They watched in a mixture of amazement and awful realisation as the enormous animal lifted up its great hulk of a body like some ancient wrinkly old man to mount the female and direct the wandering snake into her backside. She submitted amidst some huffing and puffing sounds at which point Rosie, who had stopped crying and was avidly watching, called out ‘What’s it doing, Daddy. What’s that long thing?’
‘They’re mating’ answered Daisy in a matter-of-fact tone.
‘What’s mating?’
‘Everyone knows what mating is’ pronounced a scathing Daisy ‘anyway, that’s what the man said.’
An earnest commentator’s voice could be heard in the background: ‘and so Samso the bull elephant finally finds his mate and deposits his seed to guarantee the next generation, a process which will take nearly two years before a new life sees the light of day on the Mazumbulu Plains.’
Jim suddenly roused himself: ‘Hey, kids, it’s time for bed, I said fifteen minutes and time’s up.’
Cathy switched off the television muttering something about ‘really suitable bedtime viewing!’ to Jim as she ushered the girls out of the room, while Daisy, not to be silenced, announced that she knew what the long thing was, though she wasn’t going to tell, and she also knew that mating was to do with planting seeds and making babies and the long thing was a pipe that blew them in, like blowing through a straw, or maybe that was what the trunk did, she added, momentarily confused. ‘Well, I want one’ Rosie was calling out as the two were ushered upstairs. It was Effie’s cue to go. She waved goodbye to the retreating children, receiving an enthusiastic wave in response from Rosie who called after her ‘gran’ma, can you get me one of those pipes for Christmas?’
She didn’t wait to hear Cathy’s response. It had been a long day and Effie felt relieved to get back to her own house. She hesitated between a cup of tea and a glass of Sauvignon from an open bottle of wine in the fridge, plumped for the wine and headed for her desk. She needed to take stock, and settling herself, she opened up her diary, turning to the page headed ‘Oliver’ in the green colour. There was a certain inevitable tendency for her comments to turn into a list of things she liked or disliked. In the ‘like’ column she put as positives
In the ‘don’t like’ column she put:
Then there was something else she wanted to put down which she wasn’t sure where to place and decided she needed another column which was headed ‘neutral’ and here she wrote: ‘not rushing to engage in physical closeness.’ Was she fine with that or was she beginning to wonder what he was waiting for? She had definitely not minded being ensconced in the shower-room with him. On the other hand there had so far been nothing like the excitement of her initial encounter with Kenneth nor, dared she consider, the business with Jim which still lingered as that guilty, troubling nut. How warmly Jim had spoken to her about the children and half term. She wrote: ‘I didn’t realise how much I miss physical contact. I thought Jack had killed it off completely and now I’m not sure what I want. I need to think about Jack and then I need to think about Jim. I’ve got to get things in order. Ordering is my best bet.’
She could hear Susie telling her that people weren’t to be judged like a shopping list. But ordering things was important, wasn’t it? A sense of order and pattern in the universe mattered, which was why it certainly was puzzling to face the obvious disorder currently besetting her life. She could still hear Cathy’s voice echoing around the kids’ bathroom: ‘can’t we have some order around here!’ But there had been something else from her daughter too: that pleading look in her eye. Had there been a slight change of gear? Her cynical self put it down to the fact that she wanted her mother to babysit at half term so they could go off on a jaunt. But so what, and what about Jim? He had certainly sounded sincere in his request, and that was a relief as was the idea that they were trying to get on better. So could she look forward to some relief of that awful guilt?