My Life On a Plate

by India Knight

  I am carrying our huge, heavy travelling bag, a basket containing teddies and books, a paper bag containing sandwiches and an armful of newspapers (fat chance). I emerge from the train a couple of hours later looking, I expect, as harassed as I feel. There are crisp crumbs down my front and a fruit juice stain on my sleeve.

  Julian is at the station waiting for us. The boys spot him first.

  ‘Julian!’ they shout, beside themselves. ‘Hello, Julian! We love you! We brought you a picture of a mouse, didn’t we, Jack?’

  Jack nods shyly, holding out his hand for Julian to hold.

  ‘I do football at school now, Julian. I like Man U,’ squeaks Charlie.

  ‘I like mouses, and David Beckham,’ Jack says. ‘Do you?’ But he says it too quietly, staring at his toes, though beaming, and Julian doesn’t hear, so that my first words to him are a reproach: ‘Jack was saying he likes David Beckham. And mice.’

  ‘Does he indeed,’ Julian booms. ‘Do you, young man?’ He ruffles Jack’s fluffy hair affectionately. ‘And why is that?’

  ‘Because I love him,’ says Jack, thinking hard. ‘He can run so so fast.’

  ‘He can,’ says Julian. ‘Hello, Clara,’ he adds, kissing my cheek. ‘Good journey?’

  ‘Fine,’ I say. ‘Grubby-making’ – I point at my juice-flecked cardigan – ‘but fine.’

  ‘Goodo,’ says Julian. ‘You were always good at getting food down yourself.’

  What am I supposed to reply to this – ‘Well, you know me and my Down’s syndrome, Julian’? But he’s not expecting an answer, and besides there’s no need for me to be so defensive. The remark wasn’t made unkindly.

  ‘Anyway,’ he says, gesturing to the car. ‘Let’s go.’

  The house is beautiful: solid, Georgian, wisteria-covered. Its drive is very long. The boys shout out greetings to the sheep and cows we pass. Julian and I make small talk, rather as if I were his maiden aunt: super weather, lovely cow parsley, oh look, a pheasant. The house is full, he tells me: me and the boys are here, Evie and Flo are arriving after lunch, as are Digby, baby Francis’s father, and Digby’s wife, Magdalen. Miss Johnson, Julian’s closest neighbour, is coming to lunch today, which cheers me up. Hester, Digby’s sister, might come up tomorrow with her children.

  We eventually clamber out of the Land Rover and on to the gravel, to be greeted by the frenetic barking of Julian’s many dogs. Julian’s third wife, Anna, is standing by the door in jeans and cashmere sweater. She looks effortlessly rural and plainly heterosexual. I wonder how she does it, and immediately feel inappropriately dressed.

  ‘Welcome,’ she says, kissing us. ‘Lunch in half an hour. You’re staying in your usual room. Do you need a hand with your things?’

  ‘We’re okay, thanks,’ I say. ‘Come on, boys. Charlie, could you hold this basket, darling?’

  ‘We want to stay with Julian,’ Jack wails. ‘We want to see the chickens.’

  I look at Julian, who nods, amused. ‘I’ll take these creatures to meet my fowl,’ he says. ‘We’ll have a drink before lunch, I think – drawing room, quarter of an hour or so.’

  ‘Okay,’ I say. ‘Thanks. And boys,’ I add, looking stern, ‘please behave.’

  ‘We will,’ they say in unison, and go marching off towards the chicken coop, leaping and skipping around Julian like a pair of puppies.

  *

  We’re staying in the Cherry Room, a scarlet extravaganza that features cherry-printed curtains and a cherry-strewn bedspread. The room is large, and someone has laid two small camp beds at one end for the boys. We won’t be needing them. Sans Robert, they can sleep with me in the massive four-poster. I feel a twinge of irritation – deep grievance, if we’re going to be technically accurate – at his absence, and shoo it away. Now is really not the time.

  I brush my teeth – trains, like planes, always make my mouth feel plaquey – and wash my hands. I sit on the bed. I want to change my clothes, but don’t. A small vase of bluebells is by my bedside. I look at my watch: ten minutes to go. I wish I didn’t always feel such a guest. I sigh, bounce on the bed as if testing its springs, glance at my watch again: eight minutes. I might as well go down early.

  I’ve been coming to Julian’s for some years, but even though I know my way around, I still don’t know where anything lives. The house is quiet as I stiffly come down the stairs, and fragrant with the smell of furniture polish and flowers. There’s a muted noise coming from the kitchen, but I turn left and start walking towards the drawing room instead.

  When I reach it, the first thing I notice, as ever, is the bank of family photographs that dot every available surface. I don’t know why I always clock, chippily, that there are a dozen or so pictures of Julian’s blood-children on display and one of me (on my wedding day). They are not going to change, these photo displays, and yet I always glance towards them hopefully every time.

  Standing by the fireplace, Julian, fine-boned, grey-haired, faintly fierce, is looking patrician and talking to Miss Johnson, who is wearing a three-piece suit and sitting in an armchair with her legs squatly open, like someone about to burp in an eighteenth-century print of life at the Garrick Club. Short and stocky to the point of boxiness, Miss Johnson wears suits, smokes cigarillos and likes nothing more of a morning than shooting the rabbits that scamper across her lawn. These are known as ‘the buggers’.

  ‘Clara,’ she says, looking up at me with her beady currant eyes. ‘Bloody good to see you, my girl.’

  ‘Hello, Myrtle,’ I say, bending down to kiss her. I rather love Miss Johnson, whose possible sexual orientation is never mentioned.

  ‘Snorter?’ says Miss Johnson. She is, I notice, drinking a whisky on the rocks. ‘Give the girl a snorter, for God’s sake, Jules.’

  ‘Something soft, please, or I’ll fall asleep.’

  ‘Can’t have that. I was hoping you might walk the boys with me,’ says Miss Johnson.

  ‘Er, yes,’ I say, confused. ‘Where are they, Julian?’

  ‘In the kennel,’ roars Miss Johnson.

  ‘I, um, why?’ I ask, feeling – as I often do down here – that I don’t know the script, or even the language. I feel like a foreigner, like I should be pointing at things, or indeed people, with a simple smile, saying, Pliz, what is?

  ‘Best place for them,’ says Miss Johnson.

  I stare at her, mouth slightly open.

  ‘Jack and Charlie are in the kitchen with Anna. They collected some eggs,’ says Julian, smiling broadly. ‘Myrtle’s referring to her dogs, Clara.’

  ‘Oh, I see,’ I practically shout, dizzy with relief. ‘ I thought…’

  ‘Thought I’d locked the blighters up,’ chortles Myrtle.

  ‘Well, yes.’

  ‘Wouldn’t harm them,’ Myrtle says. ‘Wouldn’t harm them a jot. Plenty to learn from our canine brothers.’

  ‘All the same…’

  ‘Where’s that man of yours, Clara?’ asks Julian, handing me a glass of cranberry juice. ‘Arriving on the evening train?’

  ‘He couldn’t make it – he’s got tons to do,’ I say, noticing, as I utter the words, that they sound pretty feeble. Julian raises an eyebrow, but says nothing. He often does this vis-à-vis Robert. It annoys me.

  ‘Lunch is ready,’ says Anna, who’s just come in. She’s nice, Anna – she’s just like Julian without the willy. Prettier, I suppose, but talk about birds of a feather: Julian and she are so finely attuned to the inaudible intricacies of comme il faut upper-middle-class country life that they barely need to communicate at all.

  Anna’s two children are away at boarding school; she misses them, she says, as she leads us into the kitchen. ‘But you know how it is. I was sent away at seven myself and you do get used to it. You love it, actually, after a while,’ she adds affirmatively, risking a coda: ‘Adore it, in the end.’

  I’ve given up staring at her in slack-jawed horror when-ever she mentions this – which she does surprisingly often for one so contained – but the ghost of a shudd
er still passes through me as I imagine what it would be like if Charlie, this time next year, were waiting for the train at Paddington station, all packed up and ready to go, clutching his tuck-box, his bare knees and trembly lip prepared for the decade of boarding school ahead.

  ‘It’s wonderful now, you know,’ continues Anna, unprompted. ‘It’s not like in my day – or even yours, Clara. They all have mobile phones and they wear their own clothes most of the time.’

  I smile at her in a manner which I imagine to be comforting, don’t tell her that mobile phones are hard to cuddle up to, and try to push away my own memories of lacrosse, grey meat and the kind of wet mornings when you missed home so much it hurt all around your chest.

  Lunch – steak and kidney pie, mash, carrots, apple crumble – is a jolly affair, mainly because of the boys and Miss Johnson’s boisterous high spirits. I eat quietly, quickly, lavishing praise on each mouthful in a way that strikes me as peculiarly ingratiating.

  Julian sets off again after it to collect Digby and Magdalen from the station. I lie on the lawn near the children, who wander off and bring me back interesting things – stones, twigs, bits of sheep wool – to examine. The children’s forays are so comprehensively exploratory that Jack is soon covered in mud from the stream that trickles through the garden; both the boys’ wellies are covered in duck poo. We go back up to the room so that I can change Jack’s clothes.

  ‘Is it cartoon time yet?’ asks Charlie, throwing his muddy self on the bed and flicking on the television.

  ‘Not quite, I don’t think,’ I tell him, dragging an immensely reluctant Jack into the bathroom. ‘And get off the bed, Charlie, for God’s sake. You’re filthy.’

  How is it possible to get mud into your actual nostrils? I scrub at Jack with a flannel, ignoring his squeals of protestation, and wander back into the bedroom in search of clean clothes. The flickering TV screen catches my eye.

  ‘And coming up after the break,’ says the female presenter, ‘we have modern dance’s newest sensation, Sam Dunphy. Don’t go away.’

  ‘I’m coooooold,’ Jack howls from the bathroom. ‘I need my cloooothes.’

  ‘Is Jack all bare?’ asks Charlie. ‘Where are the cartoons? Can I play with my Gameboy, Mummy?’

  ‘Muuuuummmeeee,’ hollers Jack.

  ‘Yes. Coming,’ I say, rifling through our bag for a T-shirt and trousers and running back into the bathroom. ‘Quick, Jack, let’s put these on,’ I tell him. ‘Quick! I want to watch something on the TV.’

  ‘My name is Squirtle, Mummy,’ says Jack, putting one leg into the trouser hole and pausing. ‘Like in Pokemon. Because I like Diglet and Squirtle best.’

  ‘Hmm,’ I say. ‘Can you manage now, Squirtle?’

  ‘Yes,’ says Jack. ‘I’m nearly four.’

  ‘Shout if you get stuck – I’ll just be through here.’

  Charlie is sitting on the bed in his vest and pants, holding his Gameboy, which is making an extraordinarily loud noise.

  ‘Charlie, could you turn it down? I’m trying to listen.’

  ‘Bee beep, bee beep, BEE BEE BEEEP,’ says Charlie in time to the noise. I don’t think he’s heard me.

  Jack wanders back into the room. ‘Diggy dig, diggy dig,’ he says. ‘That’s what Diglet says in Pokemon.’ The sound pleases him enormously and he repeats it. ‘Diggy dig, diggy dig,’ he says, louder this time. The phone by the bed starts ringing.

  ‘BEEP!’ says Charlie. ‘Gotcha!’

  ‘Diggy DIG!’ shouts Jack, as Dunphy’s face fills the screen.

  Why isn’t anyone picking up the bloody phone?

  I press the volume button on the remote. ‘He’s a hunk,’ I say, out loud.

  ‘I’m a hunky monkey,’ says Charlie.

  ‘I’m a hunky lunky,’ says Jack, who loves rhymes. ‘I’m a hunky dunky.’

  I can’t hear properly, though at least the phone has stopped ringing. ‘Great to be in London,’ Dunphy is saying. ‘Intimidating… big venue… staying with friends.’ I press Volume again, to no avail. The boys are in full flow and it’s like being in the zoo. ‘Walking along the river,’ Dunphy says, ‘something something, restaurants.’ Outside, Elvis the dog (named by Evie) starts barking.

  ‘That’s it,’ I shout at the children. ‘Complete silence, now.’ They look at me, unimpressed. ‘Complete silence,’ I repeat. ‘The first person to speak is a baby girl.’

  ‘In nappies?’ asks Jack.

  ‘In nappies and a bib. Now, silence.’

  Jack sits on the bed, his hand clasped over his mouth. Charlie buries his face in a pillow and turns the sound off his Gameboy.

  ‘What’s been your most memorable experience of London so far?’ the presenter, who is called Candy, asks Dunphy.

  ‘Well,’ says Dunphy. ‘I like the buildings a lot. And I love Kew Gardens.’

  ‘I suppose you go there to get away,’ says Candy. ‘You’ve been getting an awful lot of media attention…’

  ‘Speaking of which,’ says Dunphy, ‘there was a, ah, memorable interview. Perhaps I shouldn’t say this…’

  ‘Do,’ says Candy.

  ‘The girl, the woman – she gave me nits.’

  ‘Nits?’ says Candy.

  ‘Yeah,’ says Dunphy, smiling a very white smile. ‘She insulted me and then she gave me nits.’

  Candy, sniffing a good anecdote, leans forward. So do I.

  ‘How did she do that?’

  ‘The insulting? By asking me if I was a Morris dancer.’ My mouth drops open. ‘Actually, by asking me if I was a gay Morris dancer.’ Candy raises an encouraging eyebrow, but Dunphy is busy laughing softly to himself.

  ‘I lost my temper a bit,’ he says, still smiling his – oh, okay – sexy smile. ‘I shouldn’t have, really. It’s quite funny, in retrospect, don’t you think? And then’ – he shrugs – ‘the next day my head started itching. I think they came from her.’

  ‘Well,’ says Candy. ‘There you have it. The professionalism of the press. I don’t suppose you’d tell us who she was?’

  ‘Mm,’ says Dunphy. ‘No.’

  Oh, my God. Oh, Holy Mary, Mother of God. Oh, utter fuck.

  ‘Hey,’ says Charlie. ‘Was that the Smurfy man?’

  ‘Yes, darling, it was.’ My head is suddenly itching me like mad. I switch the television off, jump off the bed and start pacing about the room.

  ‘Has he got our nits?’ says Charlie.

  ‘I think he might have.’

  Charlie hops off the bed and takes my hand. ‘Don’t worry, Mummy. Don’t look worried. He was nice about it.’

  ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Yes, I suppose he was.’

  ‘He was happy,’ says Jack. ‘Diggy dig.’

  ‘We need a chemist,’ I say, dialling Flo’s mobile number. I leave a message on her voice-mail – ‘Nit lotion, Flo, urgently needed. Please stop off on your way down.’

  Christ. How embarrassing. And how… thought-provoking, in certain respects.

  Soon the gravel crunches again with the sound of Julian’s tyres.

  You know how the Sloane Ranger is supposed to be defunct? Well, it isn’t. There are still plenty of people around whose idea of a good time is having a food-fight and then debagging someone named Piggy or Fruity or Jumbo. Digby, whom I love despite myself, is the only person I know who taps the side of his nose meaningfully to impart the news that someone is Jewish, even though no one asked. Digby can make himself weep remembering the Empire. He worships Churchill. He thinks wars are ‘sexy’ and, when he thinks something is ‘sexy’, feels compelled to shout ‘Woof’, accompanying the unlovely exclamation with a vague, malcoordinated swivel of the hips – a swivel which tells you all you need to know about his prowess on the dance floor, or – God forbid – in the sack.

  What is it with posh men and dancing, incidentally? Why does any well-bred dance floor resemble a red-faced, slack-tongued spastics’ convention? Actually – let’s not beat about the bush – what is it with posh men and sex? Why can’t they
do it? Kissing: comprehensive, Labradorial facial licking. Foreplay: one squeeze on each breast, as if testing avocados for ripeness. Rumpo: ‘Bloody hell, bloody hell, waaaah!’ They simply can’t get the hang of it. And then, six seconds later, a complacent, self-congratulating ‘Did you come?’, the question posed almost rhetorically, as if the answer – ‘Yes, baby, oh yes, yes, torrentially’ – was obvious, the implication being that, thanks to Jumbo or Fruity or Piggy’s expert ministrations, you have, for the first time, realized that women can be multi-orgasmic, and are on the verge of weeping with joy and gratitude.

  Where was I? Ah yes, Digby. Well, here he is: rah rah rah. Six foot one, ruddy-faced, wearing moleskin trousers, a shirt from Thomas Pink and a ‘fun’ waistcoat embroidered with… well, naked black women wearing banana skirts, it seems, though surely this can’t be right. I’d hate to make him sound like a cartoon (he’d be Foghorn Leghorn). I sidle closer to him to get a better look.

  ‘Hi, Dig.’

  ‘Clara! Marvellous that you came. How are you?’

  ‘Very well. Hi, Magdalen.’ I kiss Digby’s demure, fragrant wife and stroke Francis’s forehead. ‘Your waistcoat, Digby. It’s, uh, unusual. Where’s it from?’

  ‘Excellent, isn’t it? Really excellent. Magdalen’ – he gestures at his wife – ‘got it for me last Christmas. It’s some bird called Josephine Baker, famous dancer, apparently, Paris, 1920s.’ He rolls his eyes and waves his palms about. He’s going to say it, I think to myself. Any minute now, he’s going to say it. Any minute… ‘Marvellous sense of rhythm,’ he says, on cue, while I let out a snort of laughter – I gave up on the indignation years ago. ‘Those people. Johnny, er, Bongo, as I know you like me to call them, Clara. Bloody good dancers.’

  ‘Good dancers? Takes one to know one,’ I say sweetly.

  ‘Yah, Dig’s a bit of a devil on the dance floor,’ says Magdalen, bursting with pride.

  Digby shouts ‘Yah!’ and breaks into an exuberant little routine of his own device, wiggling his not inconsiderable bottom to and fro and pumping his arms up and down to an imaginary tune all the way to the drawing room. We follow him meekly.