Summertime (16 page)

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.

June 7th

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.

Dear David

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.