She stared at the book for so long her eyes became rough and dry with the sensation of not blinking. She picked it up, holding its fragile weight in one trembling hand.
Time to go back there, to walk knowingly into the pain and betrayal of Mads’s sad, short life. Cord flicked through the pages, flinching at the sight of the small, difficult handwriting, spanning the years, childish even in adulthood. She blinked, trying to focus, and let the pages fall open where they might. 1981. The handwriting said 1981. The summer she had sent Mads away, the summer their adult lives began really, though Mads and Ben saw it long before she did.
Cord’s heart hammered in her throat and she sank back down on to the sofa, hunching into the corner. There was nothing else now except the soft yellowing pages, and the spidery, silver pencil scrawl. Words, Mads’s words written firmly and deliberately onto the paper for her to read after all these years.
Chapter Twelve
The Children’s Book of British Wilde Flowers
1 August 1981
Hello, Book. Every year I think you won’t be here and you are. And it’s so strange when a whole year has almost gone by to simply pick up where I left off on the line below. 1980. I was preoccupied with my spots I see from reading above & with some nonsense at school but when I remember last year it’s really the summer of Cord and me having identical cheesecloth shirts from Littlewoods and the hours spent on the steps of the beach hut here listening to the Radio 1 Roadshow & the day we got ALL of “Bits and Pieces” right. This year, I think from her letters and the phone call we had that it’ll be the Police. She likes Stewart Copeland, I like Sting. Although I like Kate Bush better, but Cord doesn’t really like Kate Bush. I’ve tried to get her to listen to her but she won’t. I’m a bit bored of “Walking on the Moon” for the twentieth time, to be honest.
Ben likes Kate Bush. I heard him mention her once last year. I was fifteen, now I’m almost seventeen. More grown up.
When I can’t sleep at school I think about you here underneath the house in your tin, wrapped up warm and safe. I like so much to think about you during the year, to know you’re waiting for me, the only one I can tell it all to. The girls at school think I’m crazy. I’m not crazy.
I wish Aunt Julia was still here to ask these things.
I do miss her so much. I couldn’t tell her quite how much because she’d have stayed & I know she wanted to go back to Australia. She’s sick of this country. She hates Mrs Thatcher. She wants sunshine again. She only came back to look after me and I’m grown up. Well, almost. I do miss her &
They interrupted me! I was sitting on the porch writing away and they arrived! We had a good long chat & a walk along the beach. Cord still exclaims at every change. The Harrisons’ beach-hut front door is red now, the sea grass has moved and spread over the dunes over there, there’s a tree pitched and fallen into the water almost by Bill’s Point. I went inside quickly with them, then came back to Beeches so they could unpack. I’m still always a bit terrified I’ll be in the way and they won’t love me any more or want me to come over.
Here’s some things I noticed.
Althea’s floaty floral skirt is from a shop in Beech Ham Place, I heard her say this. Her hair is goldier than before, it’s definitely got dye in it.
Cord’s pixie boots are from C&A and are very fashionable.
Ben is reading John Wyndham “Day of the Triffids” and I recommended it to him in a letter so that’s wonderful
Tony is coming in two days after his play finishes. They told me his play is “The Seagull” which I suppose I must read even though it’s by a Russian man & depressing. Still, I must and I will. Just in case, the old reasons, just in case.
Reminders:
Be relaxed with them and STOP being too keen. You are sixteen now & you are the cleverest in your class and probably the year.
Royal Wedding: I am not so keen on the Royal Family but everyone else is this summer, it’s practically the law. I thought her dress was silly & it’s jolly strange to have a train so long. Imagine if you had to run suddenly if there was a fire – what then? – but when I said that at Gwendolen’s house the other girls were horrified. Gwendolen said I was unpatriotic. Which made me want to snort with laughter. Gwendolen’s mother has a picture of the Queen in the kitchen. Anyway, make sure to show them the Commemorative Silver Crown of the wedding given me by Daddy – so unlike him, but he was given it by someone at work to give to me. It is in its blue plastic casing (TSB not Midland, the Midlands one is black) and it is very large & thick, I want to spend it as it is 25p but everyone seems to think this is not the done thing. I tried to pay for an ice cream up at the shop yesterday and they said it wasn’t nice to use that to pay for it. I couldn’t tell them I’d come down here on my own & was staying in our house & that I didn’t have any more money till the Wildflowers arrived. Cos I’d rather be in our house alone and a bit miserable waiting for them than at home with the ticking clocks, waiting for Daddy to come back from work, furious about something . . . I miss Aunt Jules. Don’t be a sheep like everyone else when you grow up, she used to say. They’re all sheep at the moment.
2 August
Now They Are Here: More reminders.
Ben may not want to kiss you again so try to work out if he does. Do you want to kiss him?
(Yes.)
Ben is different even after only one day of seeing them, I can tell.
He hates Tony and I tried to talk to him about it yesterday. He says he’s seen through him. I know Tony is weak, but that’s partly why I like him so much. He makes you feel human. Cord is the same. They’re sometimes rather selfish and like attention but what they really want is love and to be told they’re doing the right thing. I can see it but Ben doesn’t see it like that.
Althea is different. Fame has finally changed her. She is a bit less fun, more thinking about herself & her appearance. She is on a diet all the time. She doesn’t enjoy it as much as she used to I am sure. I cut out the interview with her in “Good Housekeeping”, it is at their London house by the river, there is a photo of her in the sitting room, she is wearing a silk shirt with a bow at the neck and silk trousers & she is spreading her arms wide. The room is beautiful, huge windows, photos of them all around, paintings on the walls, there are gold candlesticks and the wallpaper is of lots of flowers. It is like a more elegant version of the Bosky. I have only been to their London house once. I stared and stared at the photo trying to take it all in. She gets more glamorous as she gets older but less joy.
Finally Cord – I just smiled when I wrote that! My darling friend, it’s so wonderful to see her again. She is the same & there is some reserve about her these days but she really does make it all worthwhile. I can live the rest of the year having had the sunshine of her company for a few weeks. In fact she asks me about me and wants to know all these things but I just want to hear her talk, or hear her sing . . . it’s very funny as I often don’t know what to say as I have no life beyond them really & working hard at school. Perhaps I should do more research into myself (only a part of a joke, perhaps I really should).
Bye, Book x x x
3 August
I love the Wildflowers a lot but I do forget I have to get used to them each year. I am a solitary little bean, that is what Aunt Jules once called me & it’s true. I spend so long each year dreaming of them & then the reality is a bit overwhelming. Sometimes, they seem to be tearing themselves apart with these internal battles I don’t really understand. Perhaps because I’m older I notice it more. Tony & Ben. Ben & Althea. Cord & Althea. Althea & Tony.
There’s some row about when Cord goes to study singing, she wants to go early and they want her to sit A levels. There’s some other business about Tony’s friend Simon coming for lunch: Althea doesn’t want him to come, and Cord says it’s because she went out with him years ago. And Tony’s still furious with Althea because of the business over the dress she wore for his investiture, & whether it was indecent or not. Some MP has even asked
a question in the House of Commons about dress codes for ladies for official functions. WHAT A WASTE of people’s time. It was a bit short, but who cares?
Tony says she was taking attention away from him on the day of his knighthood. It was 3 weeks ago & even I who think he can do no wrong think he’s being a bit of a baby about it. Cord sides with him – of course. Ben is with Althea, although he also says she’s no better than his father.
The girls at school are desperate to know what Althea’s like as we all still watch “H Hall” every week even though it’s gone downhill these days. I don’t tell them anything about her & I like that. I like having secrets. I store up the summer memories to sift through them on my own when I need them. The place mats in the sideboard of old horse paintings. Cord’s T-shirt, with a smiling sun on it. The faces of the kings and queens on the sticky old cards we play Racing Demon with when it’s wet. The new mugs, from Habitat, brown and green, awfully chic. The taste of Benson & Hedges that Ben and I smoked. (We picked them because of Benson – Ben Son – because Ben kept laughing at it. I wish I wasn’t his son, he kept saying.)
Like keeping a jar of sunlight for the winter, or like animals in hibernation until the sun comes. I think about all these things the rest of the year. Aunt Jules used to say everything can’t always be magical all the time like Christmas every day but they are to me.
5 August
Ben, Cord & I went into Swanage today, on the bus. Ben went to the cinema to see “Clash of the Titans”, all he does is watch films, talk about films! We went to Boots (the Chemist) and Cord bought a really disgusting lipstick called Sheer Pink Mink, she saw it in London and has saved up for it with birthday money and I couldn’t say it’s absolutely the wrong colour for you, she’s so happy to have it. But it doesn’t suit her at all and she just folds her lips in and runs it round them, no application in a mirror or anything, no practising. She’s off the Police. Her music taste has got even worse in the last year. In fact it’s abismell. She likes Shakin’ Stevens, Olivia Newton-John, Elaine Paige! She owns the single of “Memory” & she’s supposed to be musical. I keep trying to get her to listen to other people. We both still like ABBA and look at pictures of them though they are slowing down this year. We can sing “One of Us” together & do the harmonies, at least I sing the tune, she does the harmonies. She does have a lovely voice. It makes me want to cry when we sing it . . . it’s beautiful, and being in love is awful, really.
(But “Memory” from “Cats” . . . no way. Still, for her I pretend to like it when we listen to it.)
She seems much younger than me, & doesn’t talk about boys. I think of it like this that she keeps her heart locked away whereas I want to give mine to someone, I have all this love inside me that’s never been spent, like money in a piggy bank. I like Baryshnikov. I have his picture up at school and she let me put it up above our bed too. He is gorgeous. I like Adam Ant too. And I like
Her hair much better this year (plaits gone, hair longer & nicely wavy) and she is a little thinner & tanned. She was awfully tubby last year, puppy fat they all said but it seems to have come off a bit this year. Never would say any of this to Cordy who is beautiful anyway – her eyes, she has such beautiful eyes just like her father’s, silver grey, utterly serious, thick black eyelashes / brows. Cord doesn’t really care about how she looks, she likes lipstick & eyeshadow & pretty things but never spends hours in the bathroom. She is beautiful when she smiles and laughs which she does all the time but she’s more interested in singing than shopping. She would practise all day if she could but she can’t sing too much or her voice will be ruined.
Imagine being Cord and knowing what you want to do, having your life all mapped out already. I can see it – become a big star, be the best singer in the world, marry a handsome conductor, live in a huge mansion with loads of children & servants, sing at the next Royal Wedding when Prince Andrew gets married.
10 August
Althea & Tony had friends over for drinks, actors from some old play of Tony’s who are staying in Studland, and their friend Simon & his wife & two old friends of Althea’s, ex-models, they were sort of awful. A very late night. We mixed gimlets for them. Two women appeared at the bottom of the porch steps and asked for Althea’s autograph! Althea signed it but Tony was Not Very Happy. He said they shouldn’t have bothered them. Althea: They didn’t want you, dearest, they wanted me. The others all laughed at that a lot.
More facts:
Tony has a new shirt from Austin Reed. Very nice, two or three of them in fact, checks, greens and browns.
New Panama hat he got from somewhere near the Ritz he told me. “I will take you to tea at the Ritz, you and Cord, when you’re up in town some time Mads.” He said that yesterday, I think he did it to annoy Althea, after the people who came for drinks. There was a big row after that I know.
Althea has lovely headscarves she ties up just so, so only a peep of her shining gold-red hair shows.
New garnet earrings from Tony for their wedding anniversary.
She is reading “Princess Daisy”. (NB. Read it too?)
Mrs Gage is making coronation chicken sandwiches for us to take on a picnic tomorrow to Worbarrow Bay. I said to her, “You made coronation chicken sandwiches for our picnic there last year.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Yes, you did.”
“You don’t know,” she says, in quite a nasty way. “I didn’t, that’s all.”
Oh, but I do. I wrote it down. I’ve got it all written down. I know about you too, Mrs Gage, that when you were little you had a lazy eye & you picked your nose. You were called Eliza Proudfoot and they wouldn’t play with you, Tony & Aunt Jules & Daddy. Aunt Jules remembers it all, you see, and she tells me. She was in love with Gary Cooper, that’s why Althea calls her Gary, do the other Wildflowers know that or even care? No, she’s just always been Gary to them. There was a time Mrs Gage saw Aunt Jules crying under a hedgerow because of something terrible that had happened to her, and she spat at Aunt Jules, & she said she had it coming to her. Maybe I will never see her again.
13 August
I kissed Ben today. Properly, in a grown-up way.
Or rather I let him kiss me. Been meaning to for ages, to see what it was like. I let him touch my bra. We were at the beach hut & Cord didn’t want to smoke because of her voice so she went back and we stayed out for a bit & I flirted with him, to see if he would flirt back. It’s very easy to do it with boys when you know how. That is what I’ve learned this year!
So I leaned over and let my front brush against him, that’s what it is. Also then stroked his arm & said thanks.
Ben gets erections all the time, he’s such a boy still even with the I’m-so-grown-up wearing a leather jacket I got from some market in Camden. I can tell when he gets them – covers up with a cushion or something like a “Beezer” or a “Dandy” annual he always has nearby which is sweet because who reads those babyish comics any more.
We kissed for 10 mins? It was boring after a bit. He was nervous, shaking hands. Kept licking me & my face. He said he liked my eyeshadow. (The eyeliner.) He whispered ‘Thank you’ ½ way through. It made me sad. I don’t know why.
I like him so much, and he’s different now to me. He’s grown up.
But weirdly while we were doing it I thought about Cord & how angry she’d be if she found us. Don’t know why but I know she wouldn’t like us kissing. Ben tried to push me back on the daybed in the beach hut and I pretended to be offended & said no. I would have let him do it to me only I don’t want to lose my virginity to him like that. Although it might be a good way to get it over with. But I don’t think I’d enjoy it just yet so I said no.
He is very sweet. He said I was the 1st girl he’d kissed. I said your first kiss? (He’s my third, a boy at the Clifton College dance and someone at Bethan’s party at Christmas.) He said something I didn’t understand about other times & new starts. He doesn’t make sense sometimes & he goes into his own world. He tried t
o take my hand on the way back, and I wouldn’t, in case they saw us. But I said I’d meet him tomorrow.
18 August
Ben & I hold hands now when we walk to the beach, behind Cord so she can’t see. Sometimes, when we are on the swing on the porch, we touch each other under the blanket if it’s sure that no one else will see. I like it, and the secrecy of it, having our own secrets when it was always Cord before. Cord bosses me round more than ever, I wonder what she would think if she knew.
Today we walked as far along as the beach goes towards the chain ferry, for an hour or so, just talking about things. When we were sure no one could see we held hands. We sat on the beach & let the water go on our toes. Our shoes were next to each other, touching. Ben stroked my face and I held his hands and looked at his fingers, and the stump where he lost them. I kiss the hand & the stump, kiss it & hold it to my cheek. I can feel a pulse underneath, beating fast.
We both know we are having a holiday romance like the lady in Mrs Gage’s advice column in “Woman’s Own” who met a Spanish waiter that Cord likes to read aloud. We joke about it.
I would ‘sleep with him’ now if he asked me. I think about him more than any of them now. More than Tony for once & Tony was always the hero of my whole life. But really now I see he’s an old man.
Ben has a glint in his eye when he smiles. He has big hands, and he’s taller than I realised, when we lie on the couch in the beach hut his feet bang up against the wall. When he’s above me his blonde hair flops in his face. His arms are tanned with little white spots on them. He has a line of blonde fuzzy hair leading down to his groin.
The Wildflowers Page 16
