Summertime

by Raffaella Barker

  The heath is golden in the late afternoon light, criss-crossed by small grey roads like ribbons and undulating for miles. We cut the car engine and wind down the windows to listen. There is a hint of woodsmoke in the air and the distant buzz of a tractor engine floats over the still gorses and scrubby plants. The children scramble to get out but Hedley makes them wait.

  ‘Now listen, you lot,’ he says in a voice full of quiet menace, ‘if you burst out of the car screeching and shouting, that’ll be it, we’ll hear nothing. But if you manage to keep quiet, we’ve got a good chance of hearing the nightingales. Are you ready?’

  Delivering a speaking look in response to the threat in Hedley’s voice, Giles then Felix tiptoe from the car, led by Tamsin who has The Beauty by the hand and is guiding her across the road and into a clearing in the gorse to listen. Am tempted to shout at Hedley and ask him to refrain from bullying my children, but do not want to break the silent spell. I follow, silent, ears straining for something I half expect to sound like the opening of one of Mozart’s flute concertos. And then a flutter of something disturbs the tree next to us and the evening is filled with a silver sound; highly wrought, plangent and at the same time joyful and vigorous. Even The Beauty is silenced, and gazes in wonder up at the tree. I have the creeping sensation caused by all my hairs standing on end, and tears prick my eyes. Am weepy with emotion, and have to wipe my nose on my sleeve three times in the opening aria. The nightingale serenades us for several magical minutes, and gradually, out of the gorse and scrub, figures emerge and join us until there is a crowd of people listening beneath the tree.

  ‘Who are all those people?’ Felix hisses.

  ‘They’re twitchers,’ I hiss back. A tall one, wearing a green cagoule and dangling a new and expensive pair of binoculars, glances at us, and frowning, shakes his head.

  ‘How do you know?’ Felix tugs my jacket, pulling me down to whisper in his ear.

  ‘Because there are always twitchers on the heath, looking for rare birds. That’s why they’ve got binoculars.’ Am silently congratulating myself for not pouring scorn on twitcher outfits and pack behaviour when Giles steps back and links arms companionably with me.

  ‘Mum,’ he says after a moment, ‘I wish David was here, don’t you?’

  Hug Giles back very hard, sniffing again as I realise that I haven’t even thought of David for an age. Last conjured him into my mind when searching for a hammer in the woodshed two days ago. My thoughts were not fond, but were concerned more with the chaos and teetering danger of the logs and planks, and whether he would ever come back to sodding well do something about it.

  But now, on this schmaltzy evening with the children behaving beautifully and Hedley not shouting for once but being a perfectly pleasant companion, I suddenly suffer a heart-stopping pang of loneliness. Why has David not been in touch since the wedding? What can have happened? I must make a proper attempt to speak to him when we get home. The awful truth is that I have become accustomed to his absence. Shiver, and hug Giles more tightly, rubbing my chin on top of his coconut-matting hair, my arms going almost twice round his narrow ribcage. Look up and notice with irritation that Hedley, who was watching The Beauty, has turned and is gazing at me and Giles with a peculiar arrested expression. Anxious to change the mood, I make a face at Felix, who has zoomed up to me. He roars with laughter and shouts, ‘Come on. Let’s go home, I’m starving.’

  Hedley drops us off without getting out, or turning off his engine, and I am so relieved that I agree to his suggestion that we all come to lunch in half-term without hesitation. After all, anything could happen between now and then. Maybe David will be home.

  May 21st

  The hen Concubine, willing consort to every despotic cockerel we have had here for the past five years, is unwell. Administer Rescue Remedy when I find her staring blankly at a wall, but it is no use. By teatime she has taken to her bed in a disused bicycle basket under the washing line, and has closed her eyes, something hens don’t do very often. The other hens ignore the need for solemnity, and spend the afternoon scratching around her sickroom, groaning and clucking. Dastardly, the cockerel, son of Mustard and Custard, who have gone to live in the village as wild, free birds, is a typical male, and having peered nervously into the bicycle basket to offer help, is now giving vent to his feelings with some crowing practice on top of the hen house. The scene is far from tranquil, and becomes busier still when Giles and Felix return from cricket practice in the village and start patting a basketball around the yard. It has been a treat of a spring day, the sky high and truly blue beyond the whispering soft green buds and unfurled leaves brought visibly forward into full bloom by the warmth of the air. Winding down the zigzag path to the pond I inhale the rich blossomy perfume of the balsam poplar but am interrupted from halcyon thoughts by the squeaking bounce of pram wheels and heavy breathing which herald The Beauty. She is wearing purple sunglasses and a floral apron and has three dolls in her pram and also a cap gun. She is ready for anything.

  ‘Time to bath Tiny Baby,’ she says breathily, and hurls the smallest of the three dolls into the pond without ceremony. Wonder if her rough approach to baby care is instinctive, or if I have somehow imbued it in her. Perhaps by being on the telephone too much? Or by my constant shouting and swearing at the dogs? Am now praising Rags to the heavens, as she has shown her own motherly instincts to be finely honed and has dived into the pond to rescue Tiny Baby. The Beauty receives her child with much fuss. ‘Oooh Bay-bee, Oooh Baybee. Get dry now,’ she urges, busily kissing Baby’s slimy head while keeping a beady eye on me for approval.

  Giles advances across the garden bearing a shoebox. He presents the stiff corpse of Concubine.

  ‘Look, Mum. She must have been dead for hours because she’s got rigor mortis.’ Felix joins us, carrying a spade.

  ‘We’ve got to bury her, Mum, and we’ll have to make the hole really deep or Lowly will dig her up again.’

  Am moved by their responsible and mature approach to death, and by their desire to give a dignified burial to this little hen.

  ‘Let’s put some flowers in her coffin,’ says Felix, stroking the soft neck feathers. He and Giles perch the shoebox in a tree out of dog reach and go off to pick flowers. They are back within moments.

  ‘Mummy, why aren’t there any flowers in the garden?

  ‘Oh dear, are there really none out yet?’ Clearly should have gone to Chelsea, if just to purchase samples on the last day and stick them with cut stems into my garden to give the illusion of glamorous planting for a few hours.

  ‘Go and have a look in the wood then, there’s plenty of wild ones.’

  A suitable bunch of cow parsley and pink campion is collected from the outer regions of the garden, while I survey the borders, which are empty of colour but choked with thistles and tufts of grass. Must buy some bedding plants or at least do some weeding so my few perennials have a chance to see daylight this summer. But when? Roused from reverie by Concubine, now cosy beneath a blanket of cow parsley, wobbling pastily in her coffin as Giles and Felix process to the burial ground. Scooping up The Beauty from her baby bathing, I follow them down into the wood.

  ‘Where shall we bury her?’ I ask Felix, who is bashing nettles with his spade to make a path for me and The Beauty. He considers for a second, then says, ‘Let’s put her next to the rat.’

  ‘No way,’ says Giles, disgusted. ‘We should do it where we’ve got other graves, not next to vermin.’

  ‘Well, we haven’t got any other graves, and we had to bury that rat to stop Rags bringing it back into the kitchen,’ Felix points out. ‘We usually just throw dead animals over the hedge, don’t we, Mum? You always say it’s a family reaction to Heavenly Petting.’

  Realise that my approach to pet death has been much too cavalier, and that, contrary to my beliefs, the children were paying attention when the three goldfish went over the wall into the potato field. Recall my mother’s reaction on hearing of my disposal methods on this occa
sion.

  ‘It’s a kind of heavenly fish and chips. It seems right. It seems good,’ she mused when I told her.

  Dig a fine hole, and make it double the depth I think it should be, remembering from childhood when grave-digging was a regular chore, that the corpse is always bigger than one expects. Giles lowers Concubine in and we all peer at her for a moment before scattering earth and stamping it in. The Beauty is very taken with the whole ceremony, and capers about on top of the grave saying, ‘In the hole, in the hole, down, down, down.’ Then, chillingly, as we are all standing around, ‘Come on boys, let’s pretend to cry.’ Is this how psychopaths begin their career?

  Spend the evening alternately in mourning and on the telephone trying to arrange the purchase of new bantams. My mother, summoned by Felix who is trying to persuade her to help him write a Greek tragedy for his WarHammer figures, appears just as I have persuaded The Beauty that it is bedtime and indeed dark, by hanging a black towel across her window.

  ‘I know you liked that hen, but I think black curtains is going a little too far,’ remarks my mother, sliding into a chair at the kitchen table and reaching into her bag for her vital paraphernalia. Ever since I can remember, she has needed two packets of cigarettes, a lighter and a notebook and pen on the table in front of her to be able to enjoy herself. And if there’s a bottle and a glass, so much the better. She has recently added a portable ashtray to her permanent accessories, a gift from Giles last Christmas, and this now rests next to the glass Felix is filling for her.

  ‘I’ve read that you can get lap chickens,’ she says. ‘I don’t know what kind they are, but there are some hens that love to sit on your knee and watch television with you. A couple of those would be nice.’ She puffs enthusiastically at her cigarette and pours us both another drink. Noticing that she has little use for it at present, Felix appropriates her notebook, opens it at a blank page and pulls a chair up close to hers.

  ‘Granny, can we have the Argonauts killing a troop of Bloodthirster elves? And can we set it in the future, like Star Wars?’

  Can clearly see the whites of Granny’s eyes as she rolls them heavenwards and sets to work.

  May 22nd

  Oops. Forgot to go to lunch with Hedley yesterday. He rang to ask us just as Concubine began to fail, and the drama wiped it from my mind. Wonder why he didn’t ring to remind us? A short tussle with the answerphone reveals that he did. And, not surprisingly, he sounds cross. I think I’ll send a postcard to apologise.

  May 23rd

  Email David a businesslike message.

  Did you get my email about the wedding? Why didn’t you reply? Please ring me. There are things we must discuss.

  Yours, Venetia

  Cannot understand why there has been no communication from him, and can only assume that I was right all along and he has gone to live in the treetops with a bikini-wearing beauty. Am not sure when I should accept this as a fact. Certainly not today.

  May 25th

  The postman has broken down in our garden. He is sitting in his van right outside my study window, making work in there impossible. How can people in offices close deals, make phone calls and generally get on, with other people sitting right next to them? I find that even if there is a window and a car between me and someone else, I am utterly distracted by their presence. Suppose it is the novelty. Having given him a cup of tea and a newspaper (last Sunday’s broadsheet, which he does not look pleased with), and agreed that it is a lovely day, I retreat into the house, wondering where I can go. Am faced with staying in the kitchen or skulking in doorways off the hall until his mechanic arrives from miles away. The sitting room and my study are too exposed. Feel it would be rude to shut the windows now, but can hear every breath he draws, which means he can hear my telephone conversations. Ring Hedley anyway, to thank him for the very civil card the postman has brought asking us to lunch again in a couple of weeks. Again I accept, but have every hope of remembering this time. Tell him so, and see the postman smirk disbelievingly.

  Too much. I poke my head out of the front door and ask with great courtesy, ‘How long will your mechanic be, do you think?’

  The postman is lolling with sunglasses on, and starts when I speak, tapping his mobile phone to simulate impatience.

  ‘Oh, not more than an hour and a half,’ he says.

  Retreat into the house again and sit at my desk, mentally running through the list of two-person chores I keep in my head for opportunities such as this. Reject the putting-up of the hammock as it might suggest to him that he could spend the rest of the day in it, but linger on moving The Beauty’s sandpit round to a shadier part of the garden. Just as I am mustering the courage to go and ask him, his mobile telephone warbles, and after a short conversation, he puts on his jacket, takes off his shades and trudges off down to the road with a bundle of letters. I should have offered him my bike.

  May 28th

  Well within the allotted time, a cheque from Sophie the Lesbian arrives. For the full amount! I am a top businesswoman and will soon take over the world like Ralph Lauren. Hooray, hooray! Wonderful, balmy morning with hens clucking like mad and eating grass with zeal as if they are equines. Or bovines. Had forgotten the lovely, peaceful summer ritual of a dozen young cows arriving on the water meadows beyond the garden. And had forgotten how much I love springtime and what energy comes with it. Suddenly the landscape has become Turneresque, and what was formerly just an emerald backdrop for the swooping barn owl, has become the rural idyll personified. Can vaguely remember some stuff about Rousseau and getting back to nature, so decide that now is the moment for the children to make a vegetable garden and generally start living off the fat of the land. The Beauty and I have beetroot with chives for lunch to celebrate, from my present ragged vegetable patch, and I become very excited about an earthy, natural existence, but with reservations about sandals.

  After lunch, while The Beauty sleeps, I weed the potential new vegetable garden and am suddenly struck with a design for a shirt with a wiggle of string weaving in between the buttons. During the evening, having persuaded the children that they would like roast chicken with bread and mayonnaise for supper, I have time to make this garment using my pale blue linen shirt and a ball of twine. Despatch to Rose with two cardigans (my last, where can I find some more?) and a feather-trimmed skirt, as she says she has girlfriend clamouring for my garments after I sent her the ice-blue pipe-cleaner one which I called ‘Ice Cold in Alice’.

  Am enjoying making up names as much as designing the garment itself, and have employed the children at fifty pence an item to make individual labels for them.

  May 31st

  Am devastated. A parrot arrived this morning. From David, for the children. Another animal to be cared for by me no doubt, is my first Bad Fairy thought upon opening the door to a harassed courier and the acid-green monster. Would have sent it back to the depot, but most unfortunately the children heard it issue a ripe wolf whistle at me, and came running.

  ‘I’m Gertie,’ squawked the parrot. ‘Dirty Gertie, dirty Gertie. Have you got pants on, Missus?’ All three of them roll on the hall floor, paralysed with mirth as I grimly sign for it. Am sure it should go into quarantine. In fact, I think it must go into quarantine. No need to ring the Foreign Office and disturb them with little daft questions, I’ll just book Gertie in. Right now. Why has David done this to me?

  June

  June 1st

  I am, according to the children, Hannibal Lecter and Attila the Hun and every other ruthless swine to have walked on earth. Gertie is installed at Golden Graham’s Pet Haven, a parrot hotel near Cambridge which Charles told me about. I was drawn to it by his saying, ‘Actually, they’re among our best clients. Parrots seem to be very difficult to keep alive.’

  ‘Don’t tell the children,’ I hiss, ‘but I am very much hoping that Gertie lives out her days there.’

  ‘I wouldn’t be too complacent,’ Charles responds, and I can tell that he is enjoying this conversation and e
specially relishing my desperation. ‘You know they can live to be eighty years old if they’re tough, and those green ones are among the toughest. Nice for the children, though. He’s a decent chap, that fellow David.’ He rings off before I can make a decent retort. I grind my teeth and stand on one leg, arms above the head and other leg folded against inner thigh. However, yogic magic is not strong enough to overcome my outrage. Topple off balance and reach again for the phone, dialling the numbers I have for David over and over, and listening in despair to the clicks and long tones, but never to his voice on the other end saying ‘Hello’.

  June 3rd

  The vegetable garden is coming on apace. Sort of. I am interested in it, so is The Beauty, but this morning, when I asked Felix to go and fetch the spade from it, he said, ‘What vegetable garden?’ thus giving the game away, and revealing himself to be entirely lacking in spirit of Rousseau.

  Rather discouraging to read the seed packets and find that we are two months behind with planting, and have little hope of catching up, so will be eating lettuce in the winter and tomatoes next spring if we plant them now and madly mollycoddle them. The Beauty is keen to do this, and I find a stash of seeds in her pocket when changing her to go out to lunch with Hedley.

  Cannot decide what to wear, and cannot remember when any consideration beyond sartorial last occupied my mind for more than three minutes consecutively. Is it, I wonder, a ploy of my brains to prove that my future is as a mover and shaker in fashion, or is it that I am an airhead? Find the latter possibility much more likely than the former, but am distracted by the more immediate puzzle concerning the whereabouts of my other shoe. Arrive late for lunch, thanks to prolonged, fruitless shoe search. Have had to wear purple high-heeled boots, much to the chagrin of Giles.