by Gil McNeil
There was a brief flurry of interest when one of them spotted me with Nick in Sainsbury’s and promptly invited us round to supper; I think she quite fancied having a real live Television Reporter sitting at her dining table, which would have been fine if he hadn’t been on a flight to Jerusalem while we were starting on the rack of lamb in a herb crust. But she was persistent, and asked us again a few weeks later, when Nick was just back from another trip and completely knackered, so he only managed a brief bicker with a banker called Roger, with a wife who appeared to be called Pod, before he practically fell asleep at the table. And after that my temporary membership of the yummy mummies was rescinded.
The most scary ones were the Alpha Mums: the I used to have a Proper career, but I gave it all up for the children and now I’m quite bored ones. God, they were relentless. Organising birthday parties four months in advance, with the same skills they’d employed in Mergers and Acquisitions, busy networking on the PTA and lobbying to become school governors and racing their kids through after-school programmes that were so complicated they required advanced time management skills just to get to Wednesday. They made me feel like a complete amateur, wildly under-prepared and chaotic, only just managing to get to school on time while they’d been up at six making brioche and fermenting things. And if you had one of their kids to tea they always arrived with special instructions; wheat allergies or a penchant for only eating white food or taking all their clothes off at unusual moments. Or they couldn’t come until five because they had a viola class, or Japanese, or boffin maths, and they’d either behave so perfectly they were like Stepford Children and made yours look like lumpen yobs, or they were so appalling you longed for someone to come and pick them up. Never anything in between.
I think most of them were secretly desperate for a good nanny and a job that didn’t involve making your own Play-doh, but of course they’d never admit that, so I’m really hoping things will be a bit more relaxed down here; at least there won’t be anyone who used to be earning a six-figure salary before they sprogged, or many takers for Mandarin Chinese for Toddlers. And I’m going to make much more of an effort, so hopefully I won’t end up doing quite so much nodding at the school gates like one of those dogs in the back of cars. But I think I’ll start tomorrow, when the chip thing has died down a bit.
Jack comes running back with Archie.
‘Here you are, Mummy, I got some fabless ones.’
He’s got a tiny bit of sand on his shorts, but is otherwise totally pristine, whereas Archie looks like he’s had a tricky half-hour in quicksand and only just managed to get away.
‘Let’s get you dry, sweetheart.’
‘We’re having chippers for lunch, aren’t we, Mummy? Jack said, and I love chippers. Best of all, I do.’
He’s doing a celebratory dance while I try to de-sand him.
‘Yes, but not yet. It’s not lunchtime yet.’
‘Chips, chips, chips. We’re having chips.’
Oh, good. More disapproving glances.
I retreat inside our beach hut, which I’m loving more and more; we used to make camps in it when we were little, and I’d spend ages sweeping up sand with a pink plastic dustpan and brush and arranging plastic beakers, and making Gran drink lukewarm water with daisies in it, while Vin stood guard with his plastic axe in case of Viking invaders, which was embarrassingly stereotypical when I look back on it, but what we didn’t realise was quite how brilliant beach huts are for grown-ups. There’s no staggering up and down the beach carrying half a ton of assorted kit, or sitting shivering behind a windbreak being sandblasted and praying for rain so you can go home. And best of all, there’s no more wriggling out of wet swimming costumes under sandy towels or showing your naked bottom to half the beach. It’s just completely brilliant, and the council have painted them all different colours, and ours is a lovely pale blue. I’m having a little therapeutic sand-sweeping moment when the boys come back with a new friend.
‘Can he come and have chips with us, Mum, because he loves chips, don’t you?’
Archie’s doing his best pleading look and the new boy’s nodding enthusiastically. He’s got lovely big brown eyes and a very serious expression.
‘I do. I really love them.’
While we’re doing the obligatory let’s-go-and-ask-your-mummy chat I discover he’s called Marco, and he’s the same age as Jack, but with far nicer manners. In fact, he’s a total charmer, and before I know it all three of them are off to see his mum, who comes over with them to introduce herself, and presumably check I’m not a nutter. She says she’s called Constanza, and holds out her hand as if to shake hands, which seems rather formal, and then she says everybody calls her Connie, especially in England, where nobody can pronounce Constanza, and she’s just moved into the pub with Gran’s Gordon Ramsay, who’s actually called Mark. They met when he was in Tuscany, cooking in her uncle’s restaurant.
‘And he was called Marco too, which is coincidental, isn’t it, and he’s my favourite uncle, although he drives Silvia into madness, but she can be a difficult woman, very sharp, but she makes really good gnocchi, very light, and with sage, but not too much sage, or it can be too much. Too powering. And so, hello, and lovely to meet you.’
She’s still holding my hand, with Marco jiggling up and down, trying to start another round of chip pleading, and then there’s a huge amount of arm waving and the occasional Italian word, basta mainly, which I think means Stop it right now or I will have hysterics, or it might be pasta, in which case it’s her alternative plan for lunch, and then she smiles, and I can see where Marco gets his beautiful eyes from.
‘So, we have panini, and perhaps we have lunch together, yes?’
‘That would be lovely.’
She’s got a great tan, and bright pink fingernails with her hair up in silver clips, and she’s wearing a long white embroidered shirt and pretty sandals, so I’m particularly glad I’m wearing one of my new flowery shirts today, although I wish I wasn’t wearing such battered old flip-flops.
‘Marco, where is Nelly?’
They both look towards the sea.
‘Go and get her, please.’
He runs down to the sea and retrieves a small girl who, despite the fact that she’s wearing a sundress, appears to be swimming away from him as fast as she can.
‘She loves to swim. It’s her favourite thing. I was the same, I think. But the sea is warmer at home.’
Nelly is brought back, dripping wet.
‘Antonella. You promised. Only to your knees.’
She’s a paler version of her mother, with lovely dark hair which has gone into little wet ringlets.
‘I want to swim.’
Nelly’s certainly determined for someone so tiny, and there’s lots of arm waving going on as we make a tactful withdrawal with Marco to the chip shop.
Calm has been restored by the time we get back, and we sit eating chips and delicious ham rolls which are somehow even more delicious when they’re called panini. Connie tells me about buying the pub, and how they’ve had to borrow money from everyone they know, including Mark’s old boss, and most of her family, and I tell her if the shop hadn’t been Gran’s I’d have needed to borrow money from everybody I know too.
Archie and Nelly seem very taken with each other, and are planning a major castle-building extravaganza after lunch when it starts to rain, so we huddle inside the beach hut clutching our chips and Archie spills his juice all over my feet, while Connie tells us this never happens in Italy, and really it’s very beautiful how the English weather can do many different things in one day, and aren’t these little houses lovely, and maybe we can all live in one if we run out of money. The sun comes out again after a few minutes, and then Vin and Lulu arrive and we make a pot of tea on Gran’s old primus stove while the kids make a start on their sandcastles.
Vin’s getting anxious because Archie and Nelly are enjoying flattening their castles almost as much as they’re enjoying building them, and h
e’s worried they aren’t keeping up with Jack and Marco.
‘Do you think I should help them?’
He quite likes helping where sandcastles are involved, but gets rather tense if things are bashed flat when he’s still in construction mode.
Lulu shakes her head. ‘You’re hopeless. Stop being so competitive, Vin. They’re fine.’
‘Well I’m off for a swim, then. Anyone fancy joining me?’
Vin’s a very strong swimmer, especially if he’s not accompanied by anyone wearing armbands. But his idea of a nice long swim tends to be other people’s idea of a coastguard incident, so I’m hoping Connie doesn’t join him, unless she was a former member of the Italian Olympic team, because it would be such a shame to end our first afternoon together with Vin giving her mouth-to-mouth. And I’m still not convinced he knows how to do it properly; he worked as a lifeguard when he was doing his A levels, and spent the whole summer showing off and practising the kiss of life on my friend Fiona, but I’m sure he missed some vital bits out because it just looked like snogging to me.
‘If Nelly sees you are swimming she will come, too. She loves to swim.’
‘Vin’s putting luminous sunscreen on his nose.
‘That’s fine.’
I’m pretty sure he thinks he’ll soon tire her out and then he can dump her back on the sand while he has a proper swim, but Nelly doesn’t give up that easily. In fact, it looks like he might have finally met his match; she’s like a little seal and she just keeps on going. He’s very impressed, when he finally manages to get her back out.
‘She’s got so much energy, it’s extraordinary.’
‘I know. My mother says we should feed her less meat.’
Lulu hands Vin a towel. ‘She sounds like my grandmother. She always used to bang on about children not having too much rich food, and then they’d all sit down to crumpets and cake for tea, and we’d get palmed off with bread and butter. Horrible old bag.’
She obviously still minds about the lack of cake, and I don’t really blame her; if I tried something similar with the boys they’d probably call the police.
‘I love your English teas. I keep telling Mark we should do afternoon teas, in the restaurant, with muffets. I loves muffets. And scones.’
Lulu smiles. ‘I think you might mean muffins.’
‘Oh yes, I love them, too. And honey. And English jam. Damson is the best I think, or raspberry. But Mark says he wants to run a restaurant, not a teashop, and he can be very stubborn. He wants a vegetable garden, and we’ve already got chickens, and now he wants pigs. Honestly he does. And piglings. But if he thinks I will be looking after piglings he will be having a very big surprise. My family stopped being peasants years ago, and if I want to live in dirt I can go back to Calabria.’
‘I think chickens are sweet.’
Connie gives Lulu a puzzled look.
‘Do you? Well, you must come and see them, take some home with you, please. Because they are everywhere. There was one in Nelly’s bedroom last night. Horrible things. Eating my flowers.’
We head home at about five, after promising to go to the pub for supper later; Connie says the kids can watch DVDs upstairs if they get bored, and it’ll save me cooking which is great, especially as Ellen’s due to arrive soon, with Dirty Harry. They’re back on again and she’s completely blissed out about it, and I can’t wait to see her and show the house. Not that it’s looking much different from the last time she saw it, but still.
I’m washing shells in the kitchen when they arrive. Harry looks even more handsome than I remembered, with his nondesigner stubble and his battered old leather jacket. He gives me a long hug and whispers ‘I’m so sorry’ in my ear which confuses me, so I stand holding the washing-up brush having a panic attack about him being on the verge of confessing something tricky until I realise it’s the first time I’ve seen him since Nick died. He gives me another hug as he goes out into the garden with Vin.
Ellen’s standing watching me. ‘So, what do you think?’
‘About what?’
‘About the state of the dollar against the euro. Come in number twenty-six, your time is up. Harry, of course.’
‘Lovely. You make a perfect couple.’
‘I know, we do, don’t we, and it’s so great, because he’s being much less annoying this time; no long silences, or going out for croissants and not coming back for three weeks.’
‘He only did that once, and to be fair he did text you, didn’t he? And it was work, wasn’t it?’
‘Yes but he still should have called.’
‘Yes but then you’d have gone berserk with him, wouldn’t you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well they don’t tend to call if they know they’re going to get an earful.’
‘Funnily enough that’s exactly what he says. But a girl likes to be able to have a bit of a rant when she’s been waiting three fucking weeks for a croissant.’
‘Less of the F word please, Aunty Ellen, when your godsons are awake.’
‘They’re at the bottom of the garden.’
‘Yes but Jack’s on a new Swearing for Children mission, and he’s got hearing like a bat; he can hear a packet of crisps being opened anywhere in the house. Honestly. Try it if you don’t believe me.’
She laughs. ‘Fair enough. The house is looking fabulous, darling, or it will be when you’ve finished.’
‘In ten years, possibly. I just don’t think I’ll have the time, not with the shop.’
‘It’s very Vintage, you know, mixing old wallpaper with chintz, very eclectic. Christ, what on earth are they doing out there?’
There are hammering noises coming from the garden.
‘Making a camp, with bits of wood from the shed. Vin tried a few little improvements and it fell down, so he’s pretending he did it on purpose.’
‘Well I don’t want to worry you, but there’s a bloody huge dog running round out there now.’
‘That’ll be Trevor. He pops round most days.’
Actually, I’m getting rather worried about Trevor. He keeps turning up, and sitting outside the back door looking hopeful and waiting for the boys to come out to play; which they do at every opportunity. And we’ve got a growing collection of semi-deflated footballs to prove it.
‘Christ, if something that size turned up in your garden in London you’d call in Armed Response.’
‘He’s very friendly.’
‘He’d bloody have to be, he’s the size of a horse. He’s just knocked Archie over, flat on his back.’
‘No he hasn’t, that’ll be Archie taking a dive. He loves rolling round on the grass being licked, it’s one of his new Best Things.’
‘Some bloke’s turned up now.’
‘Does he look embarrassed?’
‘Very.’
‘That’ll be Mr Pallfrey, come to fetch Trevor.’
‘So have you made any other new friends, apart from old men and giant dogs? How’s Elsie?’
‘Driving me mad. She told me off yesterday for putting the pound coins in the wrong bit of the till.’
‘Sack her. I’ve told you. Just say Elsie, you are the weakest link. Goodbye. She’ll like that. They all love Ann Robinson, old bags like her.’
‘I can’t. All the other old bags would boycott the shop. And anyway she doesn’t mean it.’
‘She bloody does. Miserable cow.’
Vin comes back in.
‘Are we talking about Elsie, by any chance? I’ve told you, tell her to cheer up, or chuff off. I don’t know what’s happened to my bossy big sister, I really don’t.’
‘She had kids, that’s what happened. You can’t be bossy with babies, not unless you’re a complete cow, so you get used to compromising and cajoling and eating the leftover bits at supper, which isn’t exactly ideal training for being ruthless. It would be a perfect way to reprogramme people, anyone a bit too fond of bossing and shouting. Make them look after a two-year-old for a whole week, with no buying in
staff and no locking anybody in cupboards. Head of multinationals, chief executives former presidents, it’d be great television, Ellen: I’m an important person, get this toddler off me.’
‘I’ll tell the boys upstairs but somehow I don’t think they’ll buy it. Bit too close to home for most of them I’d say.’
‘Anyway I don’t want to be ruthless. I just want everyone to be happy.’
‘And world peace. Don’t forget that.’
‘Piss off, Vin. Or should I say Vinnie?’
‘Don’t you start. It’s bad enough with Gran. Lulu’s started calling me it now. Just don’t go all hippy on me, that’s all I ask. You can keep everybody happy and still tell Elsie to bog off, you know. It would make me happy, for a start. Is there any juice? Only I could do with a drink. Oh, and Mr Pallfrey says he’s very sorry, again, and he’s getting some trellis for the top of his fence. Not that Trevor’s going to have any problems with a bit of trellis, but at least he’s showing willing.’
Ellen snorts.
‘Juice? Are you joking? I think we can do better than juice, can’t we, darling?’
Oh dear. I think she might be talking pink zombies.
By the time we get to the pub I’m feeling no pain, and my face has gone numb. Ellen brought some champagne with her, and I always go a bit numb when I drink champagne, not that I get much practice. And she made us pink zombies too, so it’s a wonder I can still walk at all. Connie greets us all with a flurry of kisses like we’re long-lost friends, looking very glamorous in a black beaded top and black trousers. We’re all in jeans, and I’m worried we look a bit scruffy, apart from Ellen, who’s wearing a chiffon top that manages to be see-through and yet rather demure and Miss Marple at the same time, which is clever.
