Summertime

by Raffaella Barker

  ‘Oh, Venetia, it’s so wonderful. I was just about to ring you. You will never believe this – never. Desmond has asked Minna to marry him and she has agreed.’ There is a pause, and the deep intake of breath required for a huge puff on the celebratory cigarette crackles down the line. I am speechless. I must digest this extraordinary news. My brother Desmond is getting married. Surely he is not grown-up enough? He is certainly old enough, and has been for years, but old is not the same as grown-up.

  ‘Gosh, that’s fantastic. When? How? Where?’

  Have a sense of urgency, and a potent desire to have the whole thing sewn up before Minna changes her mind. But perhaps she won’t. After all, they have been together for nearly two years, which is certainly a record for Desmond. My mother’s excitement is gathering force.

  ‘Wait there,’ she commands. ‘I’ll just pop into Aylsham for a bottle and I’ll come over to tell you everything.’

  She arrives with Egor, her bull terrier, hanging out of the passenger window of her car, yapping hoarsely. This sets Rags and Lowly off, and Digger joins in, so there is a hellish cacophony of dog reverberating through the house. The telephone rings, and I leap to answer it. Pick up the receiver but am distracted from saying hello by The Beauty, who has thrown herself at my mother and is warbling, ‘Grannee, Grannee. Come and have a cuppa tea now.’

  ‘No fear,’ says Grannee, ‘no tea for me. I’m celebrating with vodka and tonic.’

  ‘Vodka tonic, vodka tonic. No fear,’ parrots The Beauty.

  ‘… CAN YOU HEAR ME, VENETIA?’ blares in my ear. It is David sounding tetchy. Decide to punish him by pretending I can’t hear him.

  ‘Hello? Hello? Is anyone there? Oh, well, there must be something wrong. I expect whoever it is will try later.’ I hang up and turn to greet my mother. She and The Beauty have settled at the kitchen table, and are watching in admiration as the bull terrier Egor and his idiot offspring Lowly run in circles of pleasure, holding one another’s tails.

  ‘Do look, Venetia. They are clever,’ coos my mother, sloshing vodka into two glasses The Beauty has brought her from the cupboard. She sighs, leaning back in her chair, and muses, ‘I must say, I always thought you would be married before Desmond. In fact, I never thought Desmond would be married at all. It’s marvellous.’ The telephone rings again and I battle with my better self, my bad fairy alter ego telling me not to answer it. Better self wins and I grab the phone.

  ‘Hello, who is it?’

  ‘Hi Venetia, it’s me, David, missing you already today and I’ve only just got up.’ Decide to ignore this, particularly in view of my mother’s remarks, which have deflated me to the size of a worm. Almost burst getting the words I want to say out without sounding resentful or expectant.

  ‘Guess what David, Desmond’s getting married!’ The silent jaw-dropping I can imagine down the line from Bermuda is as expressive as any exclamation.

  ‘Darling, do get off the phone, I want to tell you everything.’ My mother has tired of the dogs and is poised for a chat at the table, and The Beauty has found a straw and is making purposefully towards her glass.

  I cut in on David’s laughter and the tumble of questions he is asking. ‘Sorry, David, I’ve got to go before The Beauty starts on the vodka. Call me later, darling.’

  Barely hear his resigned ‘OK then,’ before hanging up and moving across to the chair opposite my mother and as far as possible from The Beauty, who is stripping off her red corduroy skirt in favour of a pair of Chinese trousers from the dressing-up box and a pink feather boa from my bedroom. Sip the first delicious mouthful of vodka and tonic, experience great dizziness and rosy glow of well-being, decide there is no room for resentment or jealousy today and get stuck into wedding details.

  ‘Where are they getting married? I don’t think Minna’s got any parents, has she? What’s she going to wear? When did he ask her? Oh, God it’s so exciting.’ Jump up, grab The Beauty and waltz around the room, dizzy with disbelief that this can be happening to the unmarriageable Desmond.

  The ash on the end of my mother’s cigarette has grown as long as a catkin, so lost has she been in silent musings. It is flicked off now, and a businesslike puffing recommences.

  ‘No, she’s an orphan. I don’t know what happened to them, though. Do you?’ My mother pauses to refill her glass, adding, ‘Actually, I’d rather not know, if you don’t mind. It might be gruesome. Anyway they want to get married here. And I’ve already asked dear Rev. Trev, who doesn’t seem to mind that neither of them are spinsters of the parish.’

  ‘That’s because he’s got a crush on you,’ I remark cynically, but am ignored. My mother is in full sail, her black beret sliding towards her left ear and giving her the look of a crazed French Resistance officer.

  March 21st

  Easter weekend looms, and according to the weatherman it will be snowing for the whole four days. I don’t care because Rose is coming to stay, along with her son Theo who is The Beauty’s best friend, but without her husband Tristan, whom she referred to on the telephone as ‘that snake-witted hell-hound’.

  Am rather inspired by this moniker, but also worried, as I recognise it as similar to the abuse I frequently heaped upon my ex-husband Charles in the final stages of our marriage. Now I can simply call him dreary, which indeed he has become, and which is a vast improvement on being a hell-hound.

  Chugging and loud banging on the front door announces a Parcel Force van with a lumpy package from David. The Beauty falls on it crying, ‘It’s my Happy Birthday,’ and tears at the string and tape binding it shut. Inside are three vast balloons, one for each of the children, and three water pistols shaped like aliens. A note is attached to the smallest of the aliens: DO NOT SQUIRT YOUR MOTHER ON PERIL OF EXECUTION BY GREEN SLIME. The final item in the parcel is wrapped in pink tissue paper.

  ‘I bet this is for you, Mum, it’s all girly,’ says Felix, handing it over. The tissue unfurls to reveal a pair of sandals with velvet soles and purple and orange flowers garlanded across the top. They are enchanting. I put them on and they fit me perfectly. Burst into tears. Felix groans, ‘God, don’t start crying again. What’s the matter this time? Look, here’s a letter from David. It might cheer you up.’

  Darling Venetia,

  I think I’ll be home in a few weeks. I’m writing this in my room. The windows are open and rain is crashing on to the balcony, so work is off for the afternoon. I’ve sent Desmond a pair of Elvis shades from the market here to wear at his wedding. They’re Graceland rather than GI, and have thick gold arms with squares cut in them for Desmond’s sideburns to stick through. I bought these shoes for you to walk all over me in. Metaphorically. Mind you, I wouldn’t say no to literally … You are my dreams, xxxx David xxx

  Most pleasing. Almost worth him being away if this is the sort of treatment I can expect. Float to Budgen’s supermarket on a cloud of pink pleasure, and still wrapped in unreality, purchase seventeen long tubes of mini Easter eggs for the Easter-egg hunt. Absently proceed to eat two with Felix and The Beauty while waiting for Giles to come out of school. This returns me to earth with a thump of nausea. All of us feel sick, and The Beauty has turned an unbecoming caramel colour all over by the time I realise Giles should be out, and I go into the school to look for him. Find him in a darkened room with other low-lifers, playing on someone’s Nintendo. Cannot understand how the school can allow this form of brainwashing to go on, and stand in the doorway muttering furiously while Giles and his automaton friends continue to perform thumb wars on their consoles. Giles waits until we are out of earshot of his friends before turning to me in raging contempt.

  ‘God, you’re so embarrassing. None of my friends have mothers who talk to themselves and ban Nintendo. Why can’t you get a grip on your own life and stop interfering in mine?’

  Very impressed by his astute summing-up of me, but dismayed not to be in the position of power. Have to regain the moral high ground. But how?

  March 23rd

  My posit
ion as mistress of any high ground, moral or literal, is becoming pronounced fantasy. Am paralysed with agonising pain in my foot, and cannot even drag myself to the doctor who is two miles away. The first twinges occur at lunchtime, after a strenuous morning in the garden with The Beauty. Our mission there is to glean lovely branches and wild flowers to create posies for the bedrooms and magnificent displays of twig and leaf for downstairs. However, it would seem that I have done this once too often. The garden looks as though a plague of locusts has visited it: all the trees are hunched and defensive, lifting their branches out of harm’s way and well above my secateurs, and the few crocuses and grape hyacinths that have bothered to flower so far have been chewed by the hens and cower, soggy and downtrodden, in the mud. Am forced to hop and leap in order to grab a branch of pussy willow (not yet in leaf but in the warmth of the house it soon will be), and this may have contributed to the afternoon’s foot disorder. The Beauty is entranced by flower-picking, and is clad as a mini land girl in pink shorts, knee socks and a T-shirt with a hula-hula girl on it which David sent her. Can’t help feeling that she could do with tights and a cardigan as well, but bitter experience has taught me not to try to elaborate on her sartorial decisions once she sallies forth from her bedroom.

  ‘Mummy. Do a wee like this,’ she suggests, pulling her shorts down and squatting behind some daffodils in a very earthy fashion. Am saved from joining her by Lowly and Rags, who bustle over and lick her boisterously so she topples into long wet grass. Back in the boot room removing outer garments and tripping into the dogs’ water bowl, I experience the first twinge of pain in my foot, then immediately forget about it in the search for vases, followed by the washing of same to erase terrible cabbage smell and internal coating of green slime. The Beauty has removed the heads from the few primroses and crocuses we have picked, so decide to go for the Zen look and float them in saucers of water. Playschool simplicity of this form of arrangement very pleasing. By the time all the flowers are roughly where they should be, and the house smells green and fresh like spring but still looks like a rubbish dump, the foot has taken over, and I hobble to the telephone to beg my dear kind friend Vivienne to bring the children home from school for me.

  The doctor arrives at the same moment as the boys and Vivienne, and far from adopting the bedside manner and extreme discretion we all expect from our GP, he grins broadly and announces to the room at large that I have gout. I am outraged, mainly because Vivienne, and my mother who has materialised quite unnecessarily, both start giggling. The doctor giggles too, eyeing Vivienne appreciatively, drinking in her rippling copper hair and short skirt above long, gout-free legs.

  ‘I can’t have gout. I don’t drink port, and I’m not old.’

  ‘Yes you are, Mum, you’re very old,’ says Felix, clearly believing these to be words of comfort, and a reasonable explanation for my condition. Giggling reaches a crescendo, my mother leading the field, delighted with this evidence of my depravity outstripping hers.

  ‘You’ll have to wear slippers and carry a walking stick,’ she crows, and The Beauty takes this as an order, and fetches my beautiful new sandals and an old cane with a curved handle from the chimney pot in the hall where all cricket bats, tennis racquets and other sporting implements live. She looks very much like Little Bo Peep with a shepherd’s crook, as the stick is taller than she is.

  Find myself having to gaze at the floor and set my jaw to stop hysterical laughter or tears brimming over. Fortunately, Giles is hanging around, swinging on the Aga rail. He is hungry and also single-minded.

  ‘Mum, if you can’t walk, shall I make our supper?’

  What a marvellous, responsible child I have produced, ready to step into the breach and be helpful.

  ‘Oh darling, would you? You can have whatever you like if we’ve got it.’

  Just about to turn smug expression towards my mother and Vivienne, and set up camp on high ground, when he adds, ‘Great. We’ll have pizza and ice cream, but I’ll only do it if you let us play on the Nintendo afterwards. For an hour.’ Outmanoeuvred. Last vestiges of strength depart and I feebly nod agreement, hoping none of the adults have noticed the depths to which I have sunk.

  Smile sadly but bravely at the doctor as he leaves, hoping he will reconsider his verdict if I am saintly. He scarcely notices me, however, as he is buzzing around Vivienne. He shakes hands with her three times, looking at her as he tells me, ‘You may find it improves tomorrow. If not, maybe a friend could bring you into the surgery and we’ll sort you out with some medication.’ He breaks off, scribbles something then looks over his glasses at Vivienne.

  ‘You’re a violin teacher, aren’t you?’ he says, without preamble. Vivienne nods, and the doctor is at a loss. He turns briskly back to me. ‘Gout is a serious condition, so don’t leave it without treatment. And no chocolate over Easter.’ He wags his finger as if I am Bessie Bunter and Parson Woodforde rolled into one, and departs. I am hard put not to hurl my stick at him. Only prevent myself because I do not wish to seem any more dyspeptic than I already do. Wish my mother and Vivienne would stop carousing and become solicitous.

  Later

  After several hours in which I did not become resigned to having gout, I am miraculously healed. Don’t know if it was the arrival of Rose, or the delicious behaviour of the children who put The Beauty to bed, and put on their pyjamas without being asked, or if it was the vile green stew of various herbs my mother concocted, or indeed the massaging effect of velvet-soled sandals, but something has cured me and I must send a postal order to Lourdes forthwith, or at least go to church. Church is probably easier, especially as Easter Sunday is the day after tomorrow.

  Vivienne, my mother, Rose and I have eaten fabulous supper of mussels and brown bread. Mussels made even more delicious by the fact that I had no hand in their endless scraping, but sat and talked to Rose about my very unfulfilled New Year’s resolution to find a new career, while my mother and Vivienne slaved over the sink, removing mussel beards and managing not to mention the word gout once. Rose and I decide that with training, I could become a part-time driving instructor, but otherwise am only qualified as a housekeeper, and not if they came and looked at the state of my laundry and storage cupboards. David telephones. I ask him if he thinks I would be better as a driving instructor or a housekeeper. ‘Neither,’ he says without hesitation. ‘You should find something where you can make use of your skills.’ There is something about his voice on the telephone that makes me feel we are having a steamy, intimate conversation, even when we are just talking about the weather in Bermuda.

  Have to remember I am in the room with others. Cough and ask him, ‘Well, what are they, and how do I fit them in between school hours and term time?’

  He considers for a few expensive moments, then suggests, ‘What about being a lifeguard?’

  Choke with laughter and find I am missing him painfully, unless it’s the gout. ‘Oh, come back soon, we miss you badly. I’m wearing the shoes right now.’

  ‘Well, if all goes to schedule, we’ll be finished by the end of the month, so I’ll be back then. I’ve got to go now, I should be at work.’ He sighs, then speaks again, and it is as if he is right here, next to my ear. ‘Anyway sweetheart, what else are you—’ There is a beep and a click and he is cut off.

  March 25th

  Easter Sunday dawns with an uncanny heatwave. Bright sunshine beams in through all windows, highlighting the Plimsoll line of fingermarks around the house at Beauty level. She and Theo, Rose’s son, have been up since first light, and show no signs of flagging by church time, as they are engrossed in creating a small tinker homestead inside the dog’s wooden castle. This folly, which David built a year ago when Lowly was small, fills the boot room and most of the hall. Lowly is now much too big to fit through any of its doors, but can be brought in over the battlements if bribed with cheese-flavoured crisps, his favourite form of nourishment. Anyway, The Beauty has made it her own, and I find her inside, with Theo and two pairs of cho
colate ears, which suggest that bunny bodies have been devoured. Giles appears at another entrance as I squat and reach in, trying to grab a limb of either The Beauty or Theo, who have tucked themselves into the labyrinthine heart of the castle.

  ‘Mum, please can I miss church, I just want to finish my book in peace.’ Giles has put on his most long-suffering and yet wounded expression. I know just how he feels. In fact, I feel the same. Decide to be generous-spirited to him, as self must be sacrificed anyway.

  ‘All right darling, go back to bed. But could you crawl in and get The Beauty out first?’

  Squeaky laughter issues from the castle, followed by a cheery farewell. ‘Bye bye Mummy, see you soon. Theo’s such fun, isn’t he?’

  Suddenly perk up. I won’t take her. She can stay here with Rose and eat chocolate. Church will be a sanctuary. A whole hour without toddlers or washing-up. See the light. This must be how people get religion. Find vast brown tweed coat of David’s and put it on over my nightie. No time to get dressed now, and anyway, nightie is my favourite garment at the moment, as it is the only thing I have ever managed to dye, and is newly papal purple thanks to Dylon machine wash. Cannot believe that I have allowed so many years of my life to pass without experiencing the joy of dyeing clothes. In fact, I would have continued in this drab and grey existence, but for the happy accident which caused The Beauty to place a tub of dye in my shopping basket as I was selecting nails at the hardware shop. Great excitement and a ceremonial dipping followed, with each of us supplying one garment. Felix chose his school games shirt, and hurled it in before I noticed.

  When discovered, he was defiant: ‘It’s the only white thing I’ve got. And anyway, it’s too small so I can’t wear it for school.’ Giles tried not to join in at first, but was seduced by the velvet richness of the colour in the sink and brought a pair of boxer shorts to the dip.