Summertime

by Raffaella Barker

  May

  May 1st

  Absence of domestic harmony due to breadhead mother (me) having failed to get any milk for breakfast, and having left cricket whites on the washing line all night so they are now sopping wet thanks to heavy dewfall. Put them on the Aga to dry, and rush to take Minna a cup of calming vervain tea, hoping to make a virtue out of the no-milk crisis. No time to make the children breakfast, they must do their own; nuptial activity is all. The hairdresser arrived two hours ago, as did the flower girl. Both are upstairs with Minna in her bedroom discussing the construction of her headgear, which is part-tiara, part-flower garland. The Beauty is also there, transparent and pink-eyed with exhaustion, but spellbound by this reconstruction of Minna from beloved family member to High Queen of Barbiedom.

  Entering the bedroom to prise her away, I am instantly mesmerised by the scene which has so captivated The Beauty. We are in a fragrant bower of springtime loveliness. Minna, wearing a floral dressing gown and an expression of celestial calm or vacant terror, depending on how you interpret it, is sitting in front of the mirror with Cascade bowed over her feet like Mary Magdalen, anointing her toes with shimmering pink polish. Cascade’s wedding-day outfit of silver pac-a-mac and matching thigh-high boots is less biblical. Her mobile phone lies on Minna’s dressing table, and I note, covetously, that it too is wearing a special silver outfit. Scent, rosewater, puffs of Evian and hairspray mingle to form a diaphanous cloud above the heads of Minna’s ministering angels who hover, murmuring blandishments in dove-soft voices. The Beauty, rapt, passes a cotton-wool bud to the hairdresser and turns back to her unblinking contemplation of Minna’s reflection in the mirror. Minna’s head quivers, and out of it rise bean-sprout tendrils of ice-blonde hair, slicked with unguents: the hairdresser must be giving it some sort of fabulous lengthy treatment therapy. I glance at my watch and realise that we are running out of time.

  ‘Minna, when will they get started on doing your hair?’ I say, alarmed that we will be late. She turns wide, half made-up eyes towards me.

  ‘They’ve done it, it’s finished,’ she says.

  Oh, what a fool I am. When will I learn to keep my mouth shut? Gabble wildly, trying to improve the situation.

  ‘Oh yes, I see the tiara in there now, I just thought they hadn’t done that bit yet.’

  Back on the landing, the door closed on the fragrant temple, I find aroma of burnt toast indicating that the children have had their breakfast. Begin the absurdly difficult task of finding them all and posting them into their clean clothes. The house has gone native; piles of garments are strewn everywhere, crumpled and thrown aside like unwanted jumble-sale items. Somewhere among them are the things I ironed for the wedding.

  No washing-up has been done for two days, and Lowly has smashed three plates in the kitchen jumping up to steal the chicken carcass from the night before. Don’t suppose it matters much, as the wedding is being catered for by a caravan of dreadlocked reggae freaks who took one look at my cooking arrangements and made a plateful of bacon sandwiches for my house guests when they arrived to set up this morning. Their caravan has a side window, like a fish and chip van, and through it I see them swaying to the beat of music I can only just hear because there are so many other sounds competing with their ghetto blaster. Chief among them is the strumming of Peta the basket-weaver’s lute, and some foul coughing from behind the orange camper van to indicate that Bass has risen and is ready to face the day.

  Somehow find myself outside, still searching for white plimsolls and my hairbrush. Wonderful birdsong and truly fresh May-time smell of blossom and the warming earth distract me for a moment from the mini Glastonbury that my garden has indeed become. Bass has found it necessary to park his camper van in the middle of the lawn, where it sets the tone and is the focus of interest for all the hens and the ducks, who are scratching and clucking around it, in happy anticipation of breakfast. Peta, her boyfriend and a tandem occupy the next pitch on the lawn. The boyfriend has laid his gold suit out flat on the grass, and is doing a head stand, lost in topsy-turvy contemplation of the garden. Peta, still clinging to her yards of red felt and white muslin, has made a kind of nest or pyre for herself to sit on, and is plaiting her hair with beads and strumming the lute. She is wearing a long pink dress with trailing sleeves and, apart from her glasses and the tandem, looks as if she has just stepped out of a medieval tapestry.

  Thankfully, none of the happy campers is in the tent, when I unlace the entrance and peer in. All the jam jars of bluebells and pink campion have released a wonderful scent, and the air seems hallowed and expectant. I unlace several panes to let the breeze in, and my spirits soar as light fills the space. Despite all Siren’s attempts to ruin it, the tent is a triumph.

  Felix appears at my side, hair on end, mud spread liberally across his cricket flannels, a button already missing from his white shirt and a guilty flush mounting. He holds out a tennis ball, flat on his palm as if I am a donkey and he is presenting me with an apple. We both look at the ball.

  ‘It’s a ball,’ I say intelligently.

  ‘There must have been something wrong with the window, Mum, the ball only bounced really softly. But the glass went everywhere. I tried to clear it up but there’s still a bit of glass in the hall. And those people with the boy who can juggle are here again, in fact I think they slept under a table in the backyard because there are loads of duvets and stuff everywhere. And anyway they say they need to set up the PA again because they missed a bit yesterday. They just want to move a few tables out of the way.’

  Wish Desmond and Minna had got married in Las Vegas and just shown us the photographs afterwards. Deal with Bass in a frosty fashion he is oblivious to, and rush back to the house. Not a hope of lavishing time and bath oil and hair care upon myself. Grab a handful of festive-looking pink clothing from my wardrobe, recently improved by the addition of sequins, pink glass beads and some tiny crystallised fruit I found in a sweetshop in Cromer. Discard the clothes again and scurry in pursuit of The Beauty, who has put on a bath hat and some surf sandals from last summer and is hurtling along the corridor, running into bedrooms and through the queue for the bathroom, squeaking, ‘Peekaboo, it’s my birthday,’ at the seemingly millions of strange people changing in every corner of the house. She finds a captive audience in Cascade and Giles, who are playing a game of Worm on Cascade’s mobile telephone.

  ‘Mum, look, I’ve scored forty-seven this go,’ says Giles, unable to look up from the bleeping green-lit screen. The Beauty claps her hands together three times.

  ‘Come on now, sing Happy Birthday to Me,’ she commands them, but breaks into a vile roar when I scoop her up and peel off the sandals, vest and bath hat and start trying to cram her into her angel outfit. Leave her sobbing and drumming her heels and scramble into my clothes, rejecting the electric-pink T-shirt saying Try it, you’ll like it in favour of a knitted vest which I think the height of chic until Cascade looks up from Worm and says in a voice which isn’t meant to be patronising, ‘Oh, boy. A camisole, that’s such a great retro look. It makes me think of land girls and stockings and the Second World War …’ While she rhapsodises, I remove the camisole, but can hardly get it over my vast land-girl arms. Chastened, late and irritated, I put on the suggestive T-shirt and hasten, with half-dressed children, to church.

  May 2nd

  Email to David – jolly nice of me under the circumstances:

  Still have confetti in my hair and marabou trim on my mind post-wedding. Also, can feel a new career burgeoning, as about ten people asked me where did I get my cardigan and five of them have commissioned me to make them one as soon as possible. Am I perhaps dreaming or still drunk? Somehow, the tangled muddles and tensions of yesterday morning dissolved, and Desmond and Minna’s wedding was a most moving, joyous, glamorous occasion. Minna was the ultimate Jane Austen heroine for the twenty-first century, radiant and ethereal (and humorous with the pom-poms) while Desmond was twice as large as life and wildly excited, punching the
air as Rev. Trev said, ‘I now declare you man and wife.’

  Many tears shed by Granny and self as the darling little bridesmaid tripped down the aisle with her brothers, her tiny ballet shoes twinkling with sequins, her dress an angelic ivory with the strawberry marabou around the hem, and her virtuous expression defying anyone to chastise her for hurling her bouquet into the font as she passed it. Granny’s sniffing intensified at the touching sight of Egor following the bridal procession, a blue satin bow around his neck and his little pink eyes matching the apple blossom tucked into his collar. Coming out of church, he took charge and led the procession down the village, only stopping to pee once on a parked car.

  Cannot bear to think how the party might have then sagged and collapsed due to an inaugural free-form dance performed by Peta and two of her sidekicks in the middle of the tent. Minna, in her new role as wife, took a firm line and hissed at an astonished Desmond, ‘Get that freak show out of my party,’ before turning on her heel and walking out to stand beneath the drifting confetti-pink petals of the cherry tree. Atmosphere not helped by the unconscious form of Bass, the creep who put the tent up, rolling out from under a table as revellers sat down to lunch. Managed to deal him a swift and savage kick while pretending to pick up a napkin. Placement not all it should be, as I was next to two empty spaces, one which should have been filled by you, and the other by Hedley Sale, the guy who let us use the field. As neither of you showed up, I looked very unpopular until my mother beckoned me over to where she and Rev. Trev were quaffing wine and toasting everything in sight.

  Speeches were made. Desmond’s best man, thanks again to your absence, was his drummer in Hung Like Elvis. He bounced on to the stage in his chalk-thick pinstripe suit and black shirt with dark glasses on and a cigar in his mouth. He made a perfect, short and funny speech, bowed, but thought better of leaving the stage at the end and bellowed into the microphone, ‘Thanks guys, and here’s one for the toast to the happy couple:

  Hooray, hooray, the first of May

  Outdoor fucking begins today.’

  As you can imagine, it didn’t go down that well with everyone. Rev. Trev said he must remember to add it to his sermon notes and there was a lot of fidgeting and muttering, during which the sound system whined and expired. Then Siren, the girl version of Bass the tent creep, wafted up to the stage in a long yellow paper toga which looked like lavatory paper, and stared expectantly at a loudspeaker. Terrible moans and squawks filled the tent as Peta and her friends, who turned out not to have been expelled by Desmond earlier, leapt to fill the sensory void with their fiddles.

  All appeared lost, and even the sun departed to be replaced by drizzle, when there was a clopping noise outside, and Hedley Sale, the landowner, arrived in a pony trap with his stepdaughter Tamsin. It was just what was needed; Tamsin leapt out, bowed to Minna and Desmond and lowered the tiny step to the little brass-decorated door. Minna was thrilled and got into the trap, with Desmond looking acutely embarrassed, and they did a lap of honour round the outside of the tent, observed by all because I had taken the panels off earlier when it was hot.

  Someone did something to the sound system and it boomed back to life, and the whole party became more relaxed. Two of Minna’s friends from the hen party came and admired my cardigan. They couldn’t believe I’d made it myself, or rather decorated it myself, and one of them said she thought it came from that shop Rose loves called The Blessing. I was, as you can imagine, thrilled, as even though I have never been there, and never will, as you have to be a member of their club to get in, it is the height of chic.

  And as if by divine intervention, the weather changed, the drizzle spluttered, paused, then coughed and became a deluge, accompanied by timpani thunder and much flashy lightning.

  ‘Splendid good luck to have this happen,’ agreed the redoubtables from the older generation who had wanted to leave moments before.

  The party really got going, and then didn’t stop. Have to admit, I got pretty exhausted and retreated to the playroom with The Beauty where we watched Grease. Music still pounded from the tent as darkness fell, and a few people like my mother and Rev. Trev and Hedley Sale came into the house to eat boiled eggs. The Beauty fell asleep on the sofa with her posy clutched close to her, and Giles and Felix, now changed into their usual sludge-grey clothes with logos, vanished out into the party. At midnight, I decided I had had enough, and carried The Beauty up to my room. Horrified to discover the door locked and whispering and giggling going on in there. Yelled, ‘Will you please open my door,’ and was ignored. The Beauty woke up and began to yell, and I was about to give up and go and sleep in her room with her, when Hedley (Sale) who was drinking brandy with my mother and the vicar in the kitchen, came bellowing up the stairs like a bull and started hurling himself at the door, bawling, ‘Get out of her room, scum.’

  Very impressive. The door was opened in seconds and two very young and embarrassed tousled blondes came out, the boy one covered in lovebites. Felt about a thousand years old as I nodded in graceful acceptance of their apologies, and Hedley frogmarched them away. Rather wanted to change my sheets, but was prevented by the sight of Minna’s friend Cascade asleep in the airing cupboard. God knows what had happened to her bedroom.

  Anyway, today was spent picking up glasses and finding things in strange places. One of my shoes was on the village signpost, looking so depraved this morning, and I discovered a table lamp in the freezer when burrowing for ice cubes for Bloody Marys.

  Wish you hadn’t been in the wrong place,

  Love Venetia xxxxx

  May 4th

  Email from Minna and Desmond, saying could I fax their wedding certificate, as they need it for the second hotel they are going to in order to secure the honeymoon suite. Cannot find it, but use it as an opportunity to get the boys out of bed and usefully occupied in searching the church, the tent, the house and then the dustbins for it. Gout has recurred. Most depressing to be hobbling with a stick, but pain too great to soldier on. I limp around the kitchen trying to clear up, thankful that everyone has left and none are there to see me fall victim to antique disease. Couldn’t face the school run, so have given the children the day off, and am washing up in a daze, half the time seared with pain and the other half floating as if I am a meringue, fluffy on the outside and gooey in the middle on a cloud of fatigue brought about by three sleepless nights with The Beauty in my bed.

  She, however, is buoyant, and has been getting married to her imaginary friend Generous since first light. Watch her parading around with a tea towel on her head, singing ‘Twinkle, Twinkle’.

  Searching again for the wedding certificate, this time in The Beauty’s sock drawer, I have a strong sensation of having missed my chance. This pursuit of someone else’s marriage contract is as near as I will get to being married now. The Beauty is moving inexorably to the centre of the stage, and I must accept that from sister-in-law of the bride, my next move can only be downhill. How many years before I am mother of the bride? As for me being the bride for a change, fat chance. Shake off mawkish thoughts, and attribute them to gout. Giles finds the certificate in a packet of Shreddies he is trying to eat, and we fax it immediately. Sense of achievement this brings is colossal.

  May 6th

  Gout is receding now, thanks to a foul diet of vinegar and potatoes. Decided to try this torture after reading that it was popular with Byron. Am not sure that he had gout, but feel confident that he must have, and am in any case desperate. Will try anything I can think of, and no one more contemporary seems to find gout a problem. Cannot even find it on the internet. Am therefore planning to become an internet millionaire with a site called gout.com. Have not yet convinced anyone that this is a good idea.

  May 7th

  Have not had an email or telephone call from David since before the wedding. Am coldly furious with him.

  May 8th

  A pea-green knitted hat and shoulder bag set I mail-ordered weeks ago have arrived, but do not give me the dash o
f hippie chic I had hoped for. Their inadequacy encourages me to believe that there is a market for my designs. No matter how I position my head and arrange my expression, the hat looks like a hot-water bottle, while the bag must surely have been a pyjama case in a previous incarnation. Even my new-found enthusiasm for trimming things founders on these depressing items. They must go.

  Spend three-quarters of an hour rewrapping them and trying to find the address to return them to. Hang endlessly on the telephone listening to Vivaldi’s Four Seasons in an attempt to speak to the mail order company. No one answers, although the music is occasionally interrupted by an electronic voice promising, ‘An operator will be available shortly.’ Spend almost forty minutes waiting for said operator, tethered by the spiral wire to the telephone. Finally give up because my ear overheats, I am on the brink of tears, and it is time to collect The Beauty from nursery school.

  Take horrid hat and bag and post them on the way to the nursery, addressed to an unconvincing PO Box number. In sending them back, I experience happy sensation of having unspent, and therefore saved money. This quickly changes to a belief that I have in fact made a profit by returning the goods. I am therefore quite justified in not working too hard on my cider brochure today. Just as well, as The Beauty’s return from nursery tends to limit creative flair on my part.