Summertime (29 page)

This is the wrong thing to say. Hedley's eyes bulge, and he is about to scream at me when the phone begins to trill from the depths of the muck heap.

‘For Christ's sake,' Hedley yells, charging like a tiny bull at the muck heap, and burrowing into its steamy heart. He finds the phone without much difficulty, but the ringing has stopped. Wiping it on his trousers he advances towards me, clearly expecting to kiss me.

‘Now Venetia, tell me what you've been doing, dear heart,' he beams. I dart backwards behind my car, trying to make light of my desire to escape.

‘Oh goodness,' I gabble, ‘I think you need a lovely glass of something to cool off, don't you? Let's go and look in the fridge.' From behind the car it is a simple stride in through the front door, and I am on my way to the kitchen, Hedley in pursuit, smelling fulsome and delivering a monologue against lawyers who insist on sending weedy letters instead of allowing action.

‘… And I told them I meant it, and I am prepared to tie myself to the railings for my principles,' he
fulminates, leaning against the sink, shedding crumbs of well-rotted manure around his feet. The kitchen has the celestial and yet clinical smell and appearance of a room which has just had the benefit of a cleaning lady's bleach-and-mop technique, and the aroma of Hedley is unbearable in it, as indeed is the sight of him coated in pig sewage in this pure, contemplative space. Pour him a glass of iced water from a jug in the fridge and open the kitchen door into the garden, taking a reviving gulp of air before turning back to him.

‘Come on. Let's go and sit outside.'

Hedley follows me into the garden, mumbling, ‘Why on earth can we not just stay in one place?' I pretend not to hear him. I sit down at a table brushed by the skeletal leaves and flowers of a herbaceous border, which is in collapse now until autumn.

‘Actually, this bed could be dug over now, you know,' I say brightly, but Hedley is not taking the bait.

‘There's something on your mind,' he says brusquely.

With the sense of stepping out over the edge of Cromer Cliffs, I shut my eyes and hear myself answer, ‘I'm sorry, I can't marry you.'

Am actually quite amazed, as I had thought I was coming to confess that I had not yet told David I was getting married, and that I must do so before Hedley and I could fix a date, so would he mind waiting
a bit. I was going to talk about slowing everything down, allowing time for adjustment and then maybe a wedding next year sometime. And yet here I am, saying it all over again.

‘We're not suited, Hedley, and my children would drive you insane.'

He swallows, shakes his head, and clasps his hands tightly together. He coughs.

‘I don't think they would,' he says quietly.

This is terrible. He and I are stuck in his garden, with shock and silence between us and the sun burning angry through the trellising and on to Hedley's face. I do not know what to say, or how to leave. My sense of relief is overwhelming. Part of me would like to leap up and dance around the garden, but I also have a sense of hot shame at causing this mess. I stand up, and the heat on my skin breaks into dots of perspiration. My throat closes in claustrophobia. I must leave. I am shaking, and my mouth is dry.

‘I've got to go, Hedley. I'm sorry,' I mutter, and without touching him, I turn and walk up through the garden to the green door in the wall which leads to the front drive and my car.

August 31st

Drain-rodding is not usually an evil of the summer, but this morning finds me lying in the yard with my arm down a manhole, wiggling the rods in what feels like treacle. I am tentatively enjoying my freedom, but am wondering if I will ever have a moment to think about it properly. The weather has changed abruptly, and a brisk cool wind is catching the yellowed leaves and twirling the first of them off the trees and down on to the lawn. The Beauty, appropriately clad for wet work in her rubber ring and dark glasses but no clothes, is helping me, oblivious to the mottled blue of her limbs. Two of the rabbits are galumphing around us. Giles glides past on his skateboard, faintly interested in my work, and surprised to see the rabbits, whose existence he has still not acknowledged since their return home from the auction.

‘What are they doing here?'

Scrabble to my knees to make the most of a chance for an acid riposte.

‘You bid for them at the auction,' I say sweetly, ‘and now they live here. They have two meals a day, non-stop water and a hogweed delivery during the morning.'

‘Excellent,' he says vaguely, and scooping one foot along the ground he skims away towards Felix, who
is sitting on the doorstep strapping pads to his knees. ‘Come on Felix, you don't need those.'

‘I know I don't, but I like ‘em,' Felix grins back, ‘and I need to wear them before we go to Dad tomorrow, in case they don't fit and I have to get him to take them back.'

They swoop off down the road towards the village, their voices a low murmur, occasionally amplified when one makes the other laugh. I watch them until they slide round the corner, and return to the drains, grinning goofily with pleasure at their friendship.

Am under a spell of love for them at the moment, which makes me oddly benign in view of their useless animal husbandry. I just don't care. They were both so gentle and solicitous when I told them I was not marrying Hedley, that I wept. They hung around me, hugging and offering to bring me Rescue Remedy, and I howled.

‘Mum, you can still change your mind if you really want to, you know,' said Giles, passing me a handkerchief after a couple of minutes of my sniffing sobs. ‘We'll manage.'

And in his determined voice I could hear his fragility and his strength, and I wept even more.

‘We'll find you someone else,' said Felix, stroking my limp hand against his cheek. ‘There's bound to be someone nice, a bit like David but here more of
the time.' He sighed. ‘It would be really good if David could just come back, actually.'

Sobbed for several moments more, during which time Giles kicked Felix, grimacing and trying to prevent me from hearing him as he whispered, ‘Don't go on about David.'

Recovered by stages, until I could sit up and smile at the two of them and The Beauty anxiously watching me. I blew my nose and took a deep breath. ‘We're fine on our own, aren't we?'

And in the same way that uttering the words ‘I can't marry you' to Hedley informed me and set my fate on a new course I was not aware of seeking, asking this of the children, watching their vigorous agreement, confirmed it for me. We are fine. We will continue to be fine and I am free, and both lucky and happy to be with my children.

The Beauty potters by my side and I experience a real sense of empowerment and fulfilment that is increased by the removal from the drain of one shoe (The Beauty's), one rubber gnome (the neighbours'), and a pair of sunglasses which I know were once mine, and very expensive. Glugging noises and a foul smell suggest that the drain is now functioning properly, and in triumph The Beauty and I remove to the bathroom for a deep-cleansing session. This takes longer than
expected, as The Beauty insists on washing my hair for me, and it is only as we come downstairs again much later, that I remember the rabbits. They are loose. So are the dogs.

Empowerment splinters, dread surfaces and I race into the garden expecting genocide. However, a miracle has been worked. All three dogs are lying under a tree panting, flat out on their sides, dead to the world. The rabbits, who had been assisting us with the drain-rodding, are hopping on the grass beneath the washing line, looking like exemplary Beatrix Potter rabbits, perfect in every way. The others are snug in their Roman palace, with no murder by the Senate or other high-ranking notaries having taken place at all. Adrenalin returns to normal levels and, having put the rabbits away, The Beauty and I return to the house to pack for their weekend with Charles and Helena, the first since the not-to-be-spoken-of holiday.

September 1st

Charles comes early to collect the children. Am just performing an experiment with some pairs of silk long johns I have dyed. Inspired by The Beauty's sartorial genius, I am trying to make soft pants to wear as alternative leggings or pedal pushers. Have washed these to shrink them, and have paid Giles and Felix a pound to model them for me while I decide how to adapt them.

‘Good God, what are you doing to those children?' Charles demands, a hectic flush spreading across his face and reminding me of Hedley. Giles and Felix are playing the fool, and both scream with laughter and collapse on the grass.

‘We're supermodels,' flutes Felix, wiggling along in front of us, one hand camply on his hip. ‘We only get out of bed for ten thousand pounds, so give us it now.' More wild sniggering, and then, to my horror, The Beauty trundles up to Charles, and without so much as saying ‘hello', turns her back and flicks up her skirt to reveal no knickers.

‘I'm a mooneee, a mooonneee. Mooo, mooo,' she
squeals, and lurches forward into a somersault and then a curtsy. Charles is aghast.

‘Really Venetia, have you no control? The twins would never behave with such an absence of decorum. Unless under that child's influence,' he adds, glaring at The Beauty, now rolling with her brothers down the slope in the lawn. I watch the soft pants gathering grass clippings without regret. They will not do. Perhaps something shorter, like old-fashioned swimming trunks, might be the answer? Charles strides off towards the children and stands over them, cupping one hand and slapping the back of the other as if he is a boxing referee counting the combatants out.

He fails to persuade any of them to get up, and picks his way back to me, his every movement suggesting distaste. He coughs and, fixing his eyes firmly on the roof, says, ‘I know it's no business of mine, but those children would be a lot better off if you found yourself a husband. I don't know what happened to that fellow David, but he had a good effect on them. Especially her,' he says with relish, removing his gaze from the chimney pots in time to see The Beauty pull down her eyes and push up her nose to make her favourite ghoul face at Felix.

‘They're all a bit exuberant at the moment. They'll calm down once they get to Cambridge,' I say soothingly.

‘That's the trouble,' says Charles, his voice doomladen. ‘We're not going home to Cambridge. We're going to a country house hotel for the weekend with Helena's parents. I nearly said no when they asked us, but then I thought it would be a nice change for the boys. They seem to get rather bad-tempered around the house otherwise.'

Cannot imagine their tempers being improved by a hotel, but the children all appear thrilled.

‘Has it got a swimming pool and a tennis court? Can we have room service? When are we going?'

Even The Beauty catches on to the mood of extravagance, and rushes to fetch her small suitcase, shouting, ‘Shall we go in a helicopter?'

Charles is touchingly thrilled by their enthusiasm, and drives away chatting animatedly wth all his passengers. Wave them off and return to the garden for aimless wandering, and to avoid feeding remaining four-legged and feathered dependents. This is a failure. As soon as I am alone, contemplating the simple beauty both to eyes and nose, of a small area of the garden where purple-headed lavender gives way to floating ghostly blooms of Rosa Alba and then to a dense green wall of yew, now in its prime and sprouting mad AstroTurf sprigs of impossibly bright new growth, my ears are assailed by the rattling groan of enquiring hens. All of them, usually busy at the compost heap or out on
the road begging from passers-by, are now at my heels. The leading hen and her spouse have twisted their heads round so that one eye can look up to watch me, and the other eye can scan the ground so as not to miss a choice worm or caterpillar on the grass. They do not even peck at the borders, as the ground has become too dry and cracked for anything but dust-baths this month.

It is quite impossible for me to achieve serenity when surrounded by a posse of moaning hens; so am forced to return to the yard and resume my usual role of provider. Have to focus on the colour blue to prevent bad temper. Do not entirely succeed, and dole out corn in a fit of graceless irritation, brooding on my circumstances.

Everything to do with domestic life takes for ever, and is endlessly repetitive. Full of optimism and nesting instincts, we surround ourselves with it when in the first flush of love. Look at Desmond and Minna. There they were, a few months ago, with nothing more to worry about than whether Minna should have her nails done, and whether to listen to Waylon Jennings or an Elvis bluegrass set in their car. Now they have a mortgage, a window box to water, a cat called Ghetto and a vast stack of photograph albums to fill. A baby will be next, and all their Elvis memorabilia will be put in a box in the attic to gather dust.

Have fed the hens now, and refilled the old sink that they drink out of. Will just give the dogs something quickly, and can then go and lounge in the garden with work to do and ill-tempered thoughts to think.

An hour has passed, during which I have fed the dogs, and been impelled to worm them, as could no longer stand for another moment the way Rags glides across the kitchen floor on her bottom. Have also de-flea-ed them and washed their beds, then unblocked the washing-machine filter because their hair clogged it. Sudden zeal for dog hygiene on my part is fuelled by guilt, as Digger has developed dreadful swellings on his back and I have not noticed. Perhaps they have only just come. Must take him to the vet on Monday.

The telephone has rung six times, but have not been in the mood to answer it, as wish to wallow in self-pity and frustration a bit longer. Must stop this negative thought process and get on with the day. Some yoga in the garden should do the trick, but first must change into appropriate Zen gear, as combination of Chinese pyjama top and an ancient print dress worn as a skirt because the top half has so many holes, is now hopping with fleas and also revealing too much of me through gaping seams and missing buttons.