by Georgie Hall
I hurry into the garden where wine glasses are brimming and Miles has persuaded Joe to join him in song, Jules’s historic guitar fetched from the conservatory complete with its Keep Music Live stickers.
Although I let the side down by being pretty tone deaf, we’re a musical family, especially Joe, who runs some riffs while Miles makes his introduction.
‘Ladies and gentlemen, kinder and canines! My boy Joe here and I are going to sing you a number you’ll be familiar with. Join in any time you like.’
Mum and Dad are rapt, beaming proudly. I might be the professional actor, but it’s my brother who has always been the star turn in our family, and Joe’s his protégé.
Miles smiles questioningly at me, seeking a truce. I look away, unable to quite forgive the word lamenting or my suspicion that there’s something I’m not being told.
‘Birds do it, bees do it,’ Joe starts.
‘Even educated fleas do it,’ Miles’s tenor joins in loudly.
‘Let’s do it…’
We all come in on, ‘Let’s fall in love!’
Out on the lawn, my nieces giggle shrilly as they clack croquet balls through hoops. Beneath the table, the Jack Russell is sitting on my feet like Arty used to. He rolls over ecstatically when I ease off a shoe to tickle him as we all join in singing the Cole Porter classic (although we soon start to invent many of the things that fall in love because we don’t know all the words). Could we get any more quintessentially middle class than this? Boater hats, striped blazers and a couple of black labradors maybe?
Dad’s delighted, florid face sun-rayed with laughter creases. He and Mum hold hands while they listen, which makes us all feel sentimental.
I sing loudly that chimpanzees in zoos and courageous kangaroos do it, then break off to suggest to Reece in an undertone that he could check whether Jules needs help but he just reaches for the wine bottle and says, ‘Your sister married me precisely because I’m not the sort of lentil-knitting sub-dom who checks on his wife in the kitchen.’
I stick my tongue out at the back of his head and realise too late that Summer’s videoing me on her phone as she pans round the scene. I smile and wave to cover up, imagine Paddy laughing when he sees it later.
And all at once I feel a sense of loss that scalds my skin in a way that isn’t a hot flush or a blush or even cayenne pepper. My absent husband laments his marriage… It’s the burn of lost love, I realise, this feeling, an indignant longing.
Somewhere along the way, I’ve lost the woman he fell in love with too.
It’s almost two o’clock. Paddy’s match will be about to start. Maybe I’ll wish him luck, a small gesture of rapprochement. I haven’t done it in years, and it will be a part of the new, better me who will live a more redemptive, fulfilled and generous life. Lament no more, Patrick Hollander.
I hurry to stand at the highest point of the garden where my phone obligingly finds a signal and I call his mobile.
But it’s not Paddy who answers. It’s a woman, sharp-voiced with urgency. ‘Eliza, thank goodness! We’ve been trying to get hold of you on your parents’ number.’
‘Who is this?’
‘Dinah Price, Simon’s wife. Paddy can’t speak on his phone right now, I’m afraid. There’s been a bit of an – incident. Is your lunch finished? Are you free at all?’
‘Oh God, what’s happened? Is it an accident?’
‘I’m rather afraid there—’
The line drops out. I now have no signal. When I hurry inside the cottage to call back from the landline, it goes straight to voicemail.
‘I have to go out!’ I tell Jules.
‘What, now?’
When I explain, she’s straight onto logistics. ‘Best you drive over there, I agree. Call them back on the way. Leave everything here to me. I’ll tell the others and play it down until we know more, let them enjoy lunch. I can drop the children home, pick up those books for the girls you keep promising me. Here’s a bottle of water, you must stay hydrated. Oh, and I meant to check that Joe’s still vegan? I made him Portobello and roasted tofu, but there’s plenty of lamb if he’s reverted.’
Even amid a menopausal menu crisis, Jules is clearer headed than I am at my caffeine-high best. Kissing her gratefully, I hurry out to the car.
It’s only when I’m out of the village racing through open countryside that I realise I’ve left my handbag in the kitchen and my mobile beside it.
11
Over Time
Beyond the boundary, the church clock strikes the quarter hour as I run to the pavilion. A thin crowd is there to watch the first few overs, waiting batsmen dotted along benches shaded beneath the veranda or sitting round picnic tables out in the sun. I target the first familiar face, a ruddy-cheeked tail-ender. ‘Where’s Paddy?’
‘Been in a fight, has he?’ he chortles, pointing inside. ‘Hope you’re not afraid of the sight of blood! There’ll be more if Dinah doesn’t get her kitchen back soon, haha.’
The club room smells of hard-boiled eggs and bleach. Trestle tables gleam with striped oilcloth; empty cake stands lined up for the feast to come. A trail of dark red splatters on the floorboards leads me to the utility recess between the changing rooms and kitchen, euphemistically known as the ‘physio suite’ because it contains a couple of exercise balls and an ancient massage table on which my blood-soaked husband is sitting, two brightly-aproned Florence Nightingales in attendance.
My cry of alarm makes him look up, startled. Although most of his face is obscured by an ice-pack, I can see one eyelid is swelling darkly, a fresh cut dissecting the eyebrow above it.
‘Christ, what’s happened?’
‘That was quick, Eliza!’ Dinah greets me with relief. Mid-sixties, elfin and well-bred, she’s wearing a Keep Calm and Make Tea pinny and a matching don’t-panic smile. Beside her, in a spotless on-trend barista’s apron, a much younger blonde is holding an ice pack to Paddy’s face like a giant powder puff.
‘What happened?’ I rush to his side. I feel fiercely protective. ‘My poor love, what hit you?’
He looks at me intently. ‘Googsgersganigis.’
‘Sorry?’
Dinah steps closer. ‘He’s bitten his tongue, poor chap.’
‘He said it looks worse than it is,’ the blonde with the ice pack explains.
Paddy nods. ‘Gugugozegeed.’
‘Just a nosebleed,’ Icepack Blonde tells me.
‘Paddy, it’s a head injury! You need checking over.’
‘Try not to panic, Eliza,’ Dinah says tartly, ‘the club’s first-aider has reassured us it simply needs cold compression.’
‘Where’s this first-aider now?’
‘Right here, aren’t you, Patrick?’ Icepack Blonde strokes his arm. ‘He refused to let us take him to A & E.’
‘Gauguin gluggy gruyere.’
‘Of course you don’t want to go there!’ Icepack reassures him, dabbing away. I wish she’d stop stroking his arm like it’s a plush toy.
‘Out of the question now there’s so few of us left to do the tea.’ Dinah’s steely. ‘The wicketkeeper’s new girlfriend fainted at the sight of him and another helper put her back out trying to stop her fall. They’ve both had to go home. Which is why I’m so glad you’re here, Eliza.’
‘Igaigongegiza oogun!’ from Paddy.
‘“I said don’t get Eliza to come”,’ Icepack translates brightly, turning to look at me in that glazed way younger women do, not seeing me at all, just my age range. ‘It’s funny, because Dinah was saying only last week that it would take a miracle to get Paddy’s wife to ever help with a match tea.’
Dinah smiles tightly. ‘And here she is!’
I gape at her. Surely she didn’t get me here today just to help with tea?
(And if so, did she punch Paddy to do it?)
*
In my experience, the wives and girlfriends who make village cricket match teas generally fall into two categories, Royal and Casual.
Royals are a
cake-baking, Archers-listening, whites-washing dying breed. They’re old-fashioned, well-meaning, rallying stalwarts who stay until the last ball’s bowled but never expect to join the players in the pub. Nothing is too much trouble for the team. Royal Teas are traditional affairs, full of foolproof Mary Berry classics. Dinah is exemplary at them.
Casuals are the sugar rush, a sun-worshipping, app-filtered younger brigade. Decorative, excitable and eager to impress, many only last a season or two, treating the teas like Bake Offs, well aware that the fun starts with the first round in the pub after the last over. Icepack Blonde, I suspect, is a Casual Tea.
I belong to a subcategory, Absent Tea.
*
Remembering my sister’s warning about being gaslighted by our own hormones and getting things out of perspective, I try to stay calm.
‘You’re surely not intending to bat?’ I ask Paddy.
‘Igakkingorff!’ His eyes plead with mine.
‘Who are you telling to fuck off?’
‘Actually, he said he’s batting fourth,’ Icepack corrects.
‘That’s ridiculous!’ I protest.
‘Exactly what I said,’ Dinah backs me up. ‘Simon won’t drop a player of Paddy’s calibre from the batting order unless at least one limb’s severed, but surely he should be in eighth or ninth? It hardly sets a gold standard when one’s fourth man is looking so—’
‘Heroic?’ coos Icepack, and I swear Paddy looks pleased with himself. ‘We all love your husband.’ – she tells me – ‘He’s so rugged, isn’t he?’
There’s a definite alpha-swagger to the way he waves her nursing ministrations away and makes to stand up. ‘I’ve gogago and gange.’
‘He’s saying he’s got to go and ch—’
‘I worked that out, thanks!’ I push him back down. ‘You’re not going near that changing room until I know how this happened and that you’re not concussed, Paddy.’
I think I must have pushed a bit hard because he’s clutching his mouth in pain.
‘Igotits ingace gy eyailate!’ he tells me, eyes martyred.
I look to Icepack for help, but she holds her hands up. ‘Something about “tits in the face” and “jailbait”?’
Groaning, Paddy looks away.
‘Nobody knows how he got like this, Eliza,’ Dinah tells me gently. ‘All I can tell you is that Simon couldn’t get hold of Paddy to confirm he was playing today, then he turned up ten minutes before the match, covered in blood.’
Somebody’s covering up a lie. Paddy definitely told me he was running an errand for Simon this morning. I can feel the hormonal red mist rising, my overactive imagination whirring: is my husband our cricket team captain’s henchman with a violent flipside I’ve never witnessed? Is that the reason his phone gets ‘left in the truck’ so often at the workshop? Do these mysterious ‘errands’ involve money laundering, drug running, human trafficking? Does the man who laments his marriage spice his life up with danger?
‘Ge truck Gailgate! Gargoot in gy gace!’ He grimaces in pain.
I spot a bottle of water nearby and hand it to him.
‘Ganks.’ He drinks some with relief.
‘Does that feel better?’
‘Guch.’ He speaks very slowly, ‘The gruck gailgate hit gy gace!’
As he says it, a small roar goes up outside, local outrage mixed with grudging applause.
‘Jonesy’s been caught!’ someone shouts into the clubhouse. ‘Third man’s going into bat, Paddy! Standby! And put a bloody helmet on. This fast bowler’s like a trebuchet.’
This triggers my memory, the fog lifting. I hurry after him as he heads towards the changing room. ‘You got hit in the face by the truck’s tailgate?’
‘Yes!’ He looks at me over his shoulder. ‘Getting gy kit gag out.’
‘I knew something like this would happen! It’s been sprung like a mantrap since he fitted the new hydraulics. He keeps saying he’ll adjust it. Now this. ‘What if it had been one of the kids? Edward?’
Looking annoyed, he disappears inside. Icepack Blonde puts a hand on my shoulder, pink Shellacs digging in. ‘I’ll make you a cup of tea shall I, Eloise?’
‘And we’ll start on the match tea!’ Dinah cries, beaming at me. ‘You are the saviour of the day, Mrs Hollander. I might even overlook all those cakes you’ve promised us over the years!’
‘What do you mean, promised?’
*
I’ve sneaked out behind the pavilion to update Jules, using Paddy’s phone and a borrowed powerbank, my voice low. ‘I can’t figure out how to escape. I have spent years trying to avoid being in this situation. They suck you in, groom you, control you until you can only think in scotch eggs and banoffee. I’ve been trapped in there for an hour wrestling cling film and folding paper napkins. And Dinah seems to think I never bake the team a cake. How can she forget all my red velvets? I’ve got Paddy’s truck keys and I’m playing a lemon drizzle straight between her eyes.’
‘Do be careful of that truck,’ Jules warns.
‘I’m not going near the tailgate. Poor Paddy. It must have caught him smack in the face.’
‘And you thought he’d been beaten up by Warwickshire’s underworld mafia!’ Jules hoots. She loves that bit.
I decide not to reveal that Paddy’s whereabouts between eight and two today are still unaccounted for. ‘He’s already forty-two not out and cracking fours like he’s swatting flies.’
‘Your husband’s the last of his breed.’
‘We have bred more,’ I remind her, although I secretly doubt any are as tough as Paddy.
‘And we’re going to drop the ones you prepared earlier off on our way back to London, although Joe tells us he’s stopping off with a friend there overnight?’
How hurt I’d felt when he told me that he wanted to catch up with the old schoolmate who’s now at UCL rather than staying over with us. But at least I’ve guilt-tripped him into booking an evening train so we’d get a proper farewell before he goes to France.
Then Jules says, ‘We’ll take him down with us. Much nicer than the train. He’s thrilled with the idea.’
I’m not, especially when she adds, ‘We’re just finishing the washing-up then we’ll set out.’
‘Already?’
‘Mum and Dad want to go up for a nap.’ She lowers her voice. ‘Lunch got very testy. The food went down a storm but Dad did one of his “your mother and I can’t take it with us” inheritance numbers. I’ll tell you about when I drop yours off. You will be back?’
‘How can I?’ I groan. ‘Match tea is at least half an hour away. Dinah’s checking her sandwich points with a spirit level and protractor as we speak. I just want to run for the hills.’
‘So do it! Lay the lemon drizzle at her feet and politely tell her to shove her bloody teas. Then scarper. For both our sakes. I think Miles might have taken what you said in the larder a bit too literally.’
‘What did I say?’ But she’s already rung off.
I lean against the wooden wall for a moment. I’m ravenous, but I haven’t dared sneak so much as a triangle of coronation chicken in medium sliced white while Dinah’s policing her feast. Remembering my larder raid, I dig through my pockets, pulling out a bag of sultanas and helping myself to a few. I feel a rib dig of anger as I replay Miles telling me that Paddy had complained nobody fancied him.
Applause from outside as the runs count up. The LMCC’s battered hero is exactly where he wants to be: at the crease, batting for glory, somewhere I can’t demand to know where he’s been and why he lamented our marriage. Lamented.
Hell hath no fury like me marching across to the pickup truck and pulling open the driver’s door.
The lemon drizzle cake isn’t inside the cab, but there are crumbs everywhere, the plastic container it had been stored in discarded on the back seat.
I’m no detective, but I think we can safely deduce that Paddy ate the cake, and that he did so between 8 a.m. and 2 p.m., his location unknown. He may also have eate
n previous cakes I baked for his cricket club’s teas, possibly every one of them.
Well, the LMCC is getting a contribution from me whether they like it or not. Let them eat cake!
Grabbing the container, I empty the contents of the packets in my pockets inside and carry it back into the clubhouse.
‘Where have you been, Eliza? The urn needs checking!’ Dinah doesn’t look up from arranging cream horns, little golden phalluses that make me think of the Ann Summers parties I hosted back in the day.
‘Rustling up a deconstructed raw vegan cake!’ I decant my larder booty out onto the vacant Emma Bridgewater stand, where it rains down prettily, Jacob’s crackers and all. Then I break up the Bournville to scatter on top.
‘Deconstructed is somewhat outré,’ she says sternly. ‘Eliza, are you feeling all right?’
‘Menopausal,’ I admit. ‘Very, very menopausal, Dinah. Isn’t it just PURE UNADULTERATED HELL?’
‘Gosh.’ Dinah’s left eye quivers. ‘Is it? One hardly remembers.’
‘It’s the anger I can’t handle, Dinah. You must remember that? The ANGER that makes you want to KILL? The Lady Macbeth “unsex me now” anger, our hot blood boiling within.’ I lift the knife by the malt loaf and start hacking slices from it. ‘I can take the hot flushes and low libido and forgetfulness, it’s the murderous urges that do my head in. DIE, DIE, DIE, SOREEN!’
‘Maybe you should go home and lie down, Eliza?’ Dinah suggests faintly.
‘Are you sure? I don’t want to let you down.’
‘I think that’s best.’ She manages a twitch of a smile.
‘I’ll come and help another time,’ I promise. ‘Bring another raw vegan cake!’
As I head back to the rust bucket, Paddy scores his half-century to a roar of approval. He holds up his bat, supremely pleased with himself.
Fifty not out.
I know the feeling.
12
Killing Time
New Neighbour and Death-Stare Baby watch eagle-eyed from their half-landing window as my sister reverses her eco hybrid beside the rust bucket so neatly it could have been airlifted in.
