Summertime

by Raffaella Barker

  Knowing Giles’s views on girls, I open my mouth to refuse, but not quickly enough. My mother pounces on the opportunity to infiltrate the Sale headquarters.

  ‘Oh, what a kind offer. Giles would love that. We’ll come and collect him later, shall we?’

  Try to override her, but to no avail. ‘I think we should ask Giles himself if he wants to go,’ I suggest feebly, convinced that he will refuse. Oddly, he says yes. Am convinced that he has not heard properly, and repeat to him as we head for the house to gather a few belongings, ‘This is definitely a girl, you know.’

  Giles looks at me patiently. ‘I know, Mum, stepdaughters usually are girls. Can you pass me my trainers, please.’

  He drives off with Hedley Sale. Cannot rid myself of the conviction that he is an early Christian martyr being fed to the lions, but my mother says this is pathetic, and due to my hangover.

  We retreat to the kitchen, noses tipped red with cold from too long in the shadows and weak sunshine of the afternoon.

  ‘I must say, that man may not throw Giles to the lions, but he certainly is very hard work,’ sighs my mother from the armchair, where she has slumped with a warming cigarette. ‘I wouldn’t want to be too neighbourly with him, Venetia, oh, no.’ She shakes her head, brooding on the nastiness of Hedley Sale. Am incensed by this.

  ‘Well why did you force poor old Giles to go?’ I snap.

  ‘I didn’t force him, he wanted to go. And Sale is letting us use the field, so it would be churlish to refuse him a simple request of one small boy for a day.’

  ‘That makes him sound even more sacrificial,’ I point out, then change the subject. ‘So what did you all have for lunch today?’

  My mother is defiant. ‘Oh, goodness! I’m afraid we haven’t had time for lunch today, what with one thing and another. But I think there’s some cheese somewhere. You’ll manage. I must go. I have things to do.’

  Her hair is flailing madly now it has escaped the confines of her hat, and three rings glow witchily on her right hand. She looks as if she may whip a crystal ball out from inside her cardigan at any minute and start seeing the future. Can’t think where she gets the energy for all her plots and intrigues.

  She departs, leaving me with the customary back-from-away sensation of irritability and exasperation. No matter how short the absence or how devoted the child carer, I always find that I am punished for going to London. When I return, the whole house has an air of reproach about it. The Beauty generally contracts an unattractive ailment; anything from conjunctivitis to eczema, or a nasty cut that will serve to agitate me and bring on a guilt attack. Then there is the pile of dirty washing, mournful and neglected in the laundry basket, and, if I steel myself to address the school bags, there is a shoal of letters from school requiring home clothes, money for outings and homework by the tome, all of which I have missed the last possible date for. Term has only just begun, but today I find a frosty missive from Giles’s form master, requesting that: Giles must remember to wear proper uniform for the school photograph, or forgo the opportunity to be in it or any of the team photographs for which he is eligible.

  There is no chance that Giles will have remembered his blazer for the crucial day, which has passed. We will doubtless be sent the photographs and will thus have the permanent reminder of a blank space in the team to say that I slacked from my duties as children’s factotum and secretary, and went to London on a mission of fun and frivolity. Pull myself together from this festering state of mind, and try to make a cup of tea. The fridge holds more annoyance, there is no milk and the wrapping for the cheese my mother had earmarked for lunch is empty in Lowly’s basket, along with Lowly.

  Decide to go and find The Beauty and Felix. They are not, as I expected, playing on the swing in the garden, but are sitting in the dark in the playroom, noses close to the television screen, watching cartoons. Grab them and hoist them, protesting, into daylight and the hall to find outer garments.

  ‘Come on you two, let’s go to the sea and have a walk, and then chips and an ice cream for tea. We can collect Giles on our way home.’

  Felix wriggles and refuses to look for his shoes.

  ‘Aw Mum, do we have to? I’ve been outside today. I don’t need to go more than once a day or I’ll get too much exercise. Please can we stay here and watch something?’

  ‘Mummy, you’re a filthy girl. Don’t do it in the house,’ scolds The Beauty, pointing at my wellingtons, with their tidemark of brown slime from pumping the garden. Cannot believe they are so reluctant to do something that I, as a child, considered the most wonderful treat possible. Despair rises as I try to avoid looking into their cross little faces and pile them into the car.

  Why am I doing this? What is the point of trying to impose my own childhood upon them? They don’t want it, and I feel let down by them not wanting it. Ghastly vicious circle making everything more difficult than it need be. But what are the alternatives? Ask Felix what his idea of a perfect day is, and find he has schizophrenically changed his tune: ‘To go to the seaside and have chips, then throw stones into the sea and sticks for Rags,’ is the entirely satisfactory answer.

  Cannot help feeling blessed in Cromer, where we sit on the pier with chips and watch the glittering sea rise and fall through the boards beneath our feet, and Felix regales us with his new joke repertoire, the best of which is: ‘What do you call a quarrelsome composer? Answer: “De-Bate Hoven”.’ Dusk meets the sea as the early-spring sun wanes, and we almost forget to collect Giles, so engrossed are we trying to get skimming stones to bounce three times.

  Crumbly House, with the ‘b’ silent, has gates with stone gryphons and a potholed drive. The front door is shut, and when I knock on it, the sound of my knuckles is swallowed by the density of the oak. Leave the children in the car listening to the Top Forty, and wander round to the back of the looming brick building. Warm yellow light spills from a window and the door next to it is open. I knock and go in, unable to rid myself of pulsing nervousness. The big kitchen I have entered is empty, but plates on the table and a dog stretched in front of the hearth suggest that people are nearby. I call out ‘Hello,’ in a relatively normal-sounding voice, then jump and scream as a hand touches my elbow.

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ says Hedley Sale behind me, and I turn to see Giles deadpan with embarrassment at my reaction, following Hedley and preceding a girl of his age who is wearing jodhpurs. Giles and the girl are carrying riding hats and have clear eyes and flushed cheeks.

  ‘We’ve been riding Arrow in the woods,’ says the girl, flashing a friendly smile, aimed to put meat ease. ‘Shall I go and get your other children out of the car, so you can have a cup of tea?’

  Nod feebly, aware that this child is Giles’s age, and yet has more poise than I will ever have, even if I live until I’m ninety. She and Giles step outside and are swallowed by the purple night. Hedley puts the kettle on and pulls out a chair for me. He perches on the table edge nearby, and wipes his face with a large red handkerchief, blowing his nose loudly.

  ‘Thank you for letting us have Giles. Tamsin has loved it, and she’s had a difficult time.’ He pauses, clearly wanting some response beyond a nod.

  ‘What sort of difficult time?’

  He clears his throat before replying. ‘She’s my stepdaughter, she is the product of my wife’s first marriage. And my wife has recently left me for her personal trainer.’ He pauses again, and gets up to fill the teapot from the boiling kettle as he adds, ‘Her female personal trainer.’

  Am not sure I know how to respond to these intimate revelations from someone I hardly know, and have to bite my tongue hard to stop myself saying, ‘Oh yes, Mrs Organic Veg told me that.’ Fortunately the children reappear in a rush of voices and slithering-off of boots and coats. Tamsin offers crumpets with Marmite and sits them all down at the other end of the table in a chattering group, which The Beauty particularly adores being part of.

  ‘What a nice girl,’ I say, wonderingly, watching Tamsin as she t
ies a napkin around The Beauty’s neck and pours her a cup of milk. Hedley smiles, looking incredibly pleased, and I realise that in my several encounters with him he has always been glowering. For no reason I can work out, I suddenly say, ‘My boyfriend is working on a film in South America. He won’t be back for months.’

  This has not come out as it should have. Hedley’s one brow rises, making him look years younger, and he says, ‘Really?’ getting about a thousand intonations and suggestions out of the one word.

  A hot flush of embarrassment covers me and I get up to depart, hurrying the children so they leave their crumpets unfinished on their plates.

  April 21st

  The Beauty and her brothers are to be bridesmaid and pageboys for Desmond’s wedding. After my abortive trip shopping in London for clothes for them to wear as normal guests, had decided that the boys could just wear coats over normal clothes. But their new role in the spotlight calls for more. Minna says she told me weeks ago that this was to be their role, but I have no recollection of it. I have ten days to find or make something for two fussy sons and a very opinionated daughter. Nonetheless, panic aside, am hugely proud. Have bolt from the blue brainwave while watching Giles play in a cricket match during a hailstorm, and have decided that the boys must wear cricket whites. The Beauty’s outfit is more of a challenge. Veer madly between wanting to make her into a sequinned pearly queen from the East End and an angel from a Titian painting.

  Plumping temporarily for the former, I purchase many yards of pink and electric-green net from a market stall and then spend a time-warped morning in a haberdasher’s shop where the array of dyed feathers, trims of marabou and lace and yards of sequins derange me utterly. Under the pretence that I am a deft needlewoman, I buy three hundred pipe cleaners and twenty squares of felt, plus two bulging bags of kapok while I am in there. Vivienne, whom I meet in a café for lunch, does not attempt to disguise her amusement.

  ‘You can’t sew, Venetia. You’re suffering from delusions. You even have to glue your children’s name tapes on with Super Glue.’ She smiles the smug smirk of one who can effortlessly thread a sewing machine and run up a pair of curtains. ‘You’ll never do anything with all that stuff.’ I grunt a protest, my mouth full of bread, and she tones things down a little. ‘All right, all right, you can sew on name tapes, but I did once find you gluing them on, and you tried to bribe me to do it for you.’

  Defend my purchases stoutly. ‘Well, I thought the children would like them. Anyway, they’re bound to be useful, that sort of thing always is.’ We stare for a moment at a bunch of candy-striped red and white pipe cleaners wrapped around a tinsel feather. ‘Mmm, very useful,’ says Vivienne.

  April 23rd

  Awake to find a thin stratum of snow covering the garden and decide that The Beauty’s bridesmaid outfit, more carnival queen than chaste bridesmaid, will not do. Her little arms would freeze, and anyway, she must not upstage Minna, and the trailing train of net, pipe cleaners and feathers as customised by me and the children, is a show-stopper. Have so enjoyed this sewing experience that I have also customised several of my own garments, and am especially pleased with the ice-blue cardigan (a run-in-the-wash casualty) hemmed with white pipe cleaners twisted into heart shapes. May well be appropriate colours for the winter wedding which seems to be approaching. Howling wind accompanying the blizzard of snow outside is pierced by the telephone and a tinny, echoing grunt which I make out as David. He mumbles away, interrupted by shrieks of ‘What?’ and ‘I can’t hear you’ from me.

  ‘I’m supposed to be catching a plane next Thursday, I’ll be home on Friday night,’ he yells, suddenly deafening me as the line clears for a moment.

  My reaction is instinctive. ‘All right, no need to shout.’

  There is an offended pause before David, now muffled again, says crossly, ‘You could try to sound pleased,’ and puts the phone down.

  Wonder why he didn’t just send an email, now my preferred form of communication with just about anyone I can discover to have an email address. Am now on fondest terms with the chimney sweep, whose email address is sooty@sweep.co.uk, and would like to expand my pen-pal repertoire.

  The Beauty and Felix are out in the garden gathering snowflakes and what appear to be hailstones in a bucket. They have donned protective clothing, and I am aghast to see my precious pink straw hat shielding Felix from the weather. Bought it on the pipe-cleaner day, during a mysterious and so far unrepeated mini heatwave, unperturbed by the knowledge that I have nothing that even slightly goes with it. The hat, and related summer outfits, are an irrelevance today. The Beauty is leading the way sartorially; her beloved army man’s tin hat and a pair of very large wellingtons are for once spot on rather than eccentric. She and Felix rush into the house when called, bringing a cloud of chilled air and their ice collection. Each hailstone and drip of melted snow is placed in its own space in an ice-cube tray and secreted in the freezer until needed.

  ‘We’re going to collect a lot more and make an ice sculpture for the wedding,’ announces Felix, pausing to discard my hat in favour of an orange one with a bobble on top.

  ‘Gnomic,’ he gloats, flashing a cartoon, daft smile at his faint reflection in the kitchen window before slamming out into the storm. I shuffle upstairs beneath a pile of laundry and try not to think about hypothermia. Remember that this sort of weather in April is known as the Lambing Snow, and probably Vivienne and Simon are up to their elbows in maternity work. We have this and the Blackthorn Winter before we are safely through to spring.

  Start rethinking The Beauty’s outfit around a small rabbit-skin cape I used to have when I was little, and wonder if Desmond and Minna’s London friends will think she is a refugee Eskimo and send an SOS to Unicef. Reach the children’s rooms and am astonished and somehow deeply irritated to discover Giles still in bed and asleep. Nonetheless, decide not to wake him as cannot face dealing with his extreme truculence. School, as is so often the case, is closed for a day, I can’t remember why, but it’s a good thing, because we can concentrate on the wedding outfits.

  Unearth spare cricket trousers from a box smelling of mould and worse in the attic, and find that they have all got green knees and are wilted and defeated-looking, not at all the crisp white flannel Rupert Brooke garments of my dreams. School regulation ones are now made of drip-dry nylon, so even though these are pleasingly clean and folded in Giles’s drawer, I cannot bear to use them. There is nothing for it but to set to at the sink with the proper flannels. Am employing methods used by ancient peasant women, and pummelling the knees with stones, when my mother and Rev. Trev arrive in a transit van. Pleased to be caught at such a domestic moment, I dally at the sink waiting for them to come in. This takes a great deal of time, and they finally stagger into the house heralded by Felix and The Beauty, swaying beneath a large hunk of painted wood.

  ‘Do look, Trevor has lent us this marvellous altar-piece,’ puffs my mother.

  ‘What for?’

  She glares, not liking my tone of blank unenthusiasm.

  ‘Well, we can put it behind the drinks table – it’ll look marvellous, won’t it?’ I know better than to ignore the menacing frown accompanying this question.

  ‘Yes, yes, it’ll look marvellous, but where are you going to put it right now?’

  ‘I thought the best thing would be to have it in the sitting room, propped on the mantelpiece so it’s out of the way,’ she says brightly, and the harassed Trevor Heel nods enthusiastically.

  ‘Yes, the church would be so much happier about lending it if they thought it was in your charming parlour,’ he pleads, and compassion for his predicament thaws my mounting outrage. Clearly my mother has been taking advantage of his devotion to her.

  ‘All right then, but you’ll have to fix it to the wall with something or it could slip and collapse on The Beauty.’

  Rev. Trev’s haunted expression intensifies, and he lurches forward with his end of the altarpiece, muttering, ‘Oh, we couldn’t have that, oh
no, no, no.’

  ‘It won’t, it’s got hooks. Come on, let’s finish this and have a drink to celebrate.’ My mother, with the strength of six ordinary grandmothers, heaves her end of the slab up, and pulling poor Trevor behind her, totters through to the sitting room.

  ‘Did you steal it from the church, Granny?’ asks Felix admiringly. Rev. Trev shuffles uncomfortably, but Granny is serene as she flops back on the sofa, undoes the buttons of her scarlet felt jacket and fishes in her pockets for her cigarettes.

  ‘Ahh, such dreadful weather, but apparently there’s going to be a heatwave next weekend, so we needn’t worry. What did you say, Felix darling? Oh, no, we would never steal anything. That is not our way. We’ve just borrowed it while the church doesn’t need it, haven’t we, Trevor? Now what about getting me a small drink, Felix love? Just a drop of gin and tonic would do the trick, and I’m sure Trevor would love one too.’ She reaches for her glasses, keen to watch the dispensing of the drinks. ‘No, no, a bit more than that, please. Always think of it as Ribena, darling.’

  Felix does, with intoxicating results.

  April 25th

  A small wooden crate containing two cases of butterflies (dried and pinned) and one of beetles, less dried and seeming to crawl about a bit, unless it’s just the jolting of the packaging, is delivered to the door just as we are leaving for school. David has attached a card saying, All local to the Tarzan set. Working on lizards to bring by hand. See you next week.

  We are all overjoyed. Or not. I hate the crawling ones, which were evidently sedated, not dead, and are now ricocheting about in their see-through plastic box. It is only a matter of time before the children let them out and terrible germ warfare begins with bot flies and weebles (or is it weevils?) burrowing into everything, especially skin. Share these fears with the children on the way to school. Giles claps his hands over his eyes.