Happy Birthday and All That (4 page)

‘But she does say the silliest things. At that party she said, “Deeko is my favourite brand of napkins.” I mean who has a favourite brand of paper serviettes?' Were they talking about her? Deeko was her favourite brand of napkins, but she couldn't remember telling anyone, least of all those two.

‘I don't think she's very practical. She always looks a bit, well, faraway.'

‘Off with the fairies my mum used to say.'

Wish I was, thought Posy, wish I was. She fingered the small disc of the Flower Fairy mirror in her pocket; it was the Poppy Fairy. She'd meant to put on some mascara and lipstick and had, as usual, forgotten. There had been a time when she'd not felt dressed if she went out without earrings and make-up. Now she didn't even wear her own watch. Its battery had run out and she carried Frank's in her pocket. It had some sort of cheap metal on the back that brought her out in a rash.

‘Want some coffee?' It was Caroline to the rescue. ‘I think you can desert your post.' Posy hadn't really been signing people in, they'd signed themselves in.

‘So how's life at the Parousellis?' Caroline asked.

‘Oh you know, same …' said Posy. ‘Isobel slept through the night twice last week and James joined the Cubs but this week
he wants to leave. Frank's gained two pupils and lost one. If you hear of anyone who might be interested …'

Posy knew that Caroline probably wanted to know if there was any gossip about Al, anything that Frank might have told her.

Now that the worst of the divorce was over, Posy sometimes envied Caroline. Imagine being able to live on toast and jam and Diet Coke if you wanted, and not having to make proper dinners. Men always seemed to want to eat something proper and fattening. Caroline had lost piles of weight. Al was meant to have Finn on Saturdays or Sundays, so Caroline could have a whole day to herself, but it usually ended up being just an afternoon. Al was always oversleeping, or the van broke down and he was stuck somewhere with the battery in his mobile running low.

‘Fancy coming round for some coffee?' Caroline asked.

‘Just a minute …' Posy could see Tom on the other side of the room. He was trying to drive the tractor up the slide, whilst two girls in sparkly pink- and purple-striped velour leggings pelted him with pieces of the vanilla-scented playdough. She knew that Kate must have made it. She could smell that it was real extract, not cheap artificial essence. She picked some lumps of it out of Tom's hair, and a big clod out of the hood of his fleece. What a good shot one of the girls was. Then she heard Isobel crying and retrieved her from her car seat on the stage. She stopped crying straight away, but Posy could feel the unmistakable bulge in her nappy. She took her off to a freezing side-room, the store of Sunday school collages in balls of tissue paper, dangerously tall stacks of chairs and damp floor cushions that belonged to nobody.

‘At least you can't crawl yet,' she told her as she wiped and dried and packaged her up again, dismissing as usual thoughts of the possibly carcinogenic gel in the nappies.

She gave Isobel to Caroline and went to wash her hands. The light in the Ladies seemed impossibly bright. She caught her
reflection in the mirror in the instant before she had adopted her usual expression, a resigned, things-could-be-much-worse smile. So that was what she was really like. Her eyes looked as though they had been punched out, her chinline was undefined, her lips were like a pair of dead worms.

‘I am turning into a playdough woman,' she thought.

Back in the hall she said, ‘Coffee next week would be great.' She would have to pull herself together, knock herself back into shape. ‘What day suits you? Any day's good for me really.'

‘Tuesday morning?' Caroline offered.

‘Or afternoon? Tom's at pre-school in the morning, say about one-thirty, that would give me time to do his lunch … I'll just check.' She found her DoDo diary under a box of breadsticks and some tissues in her bag. There was a column for each member of the family. Week after week, page by page, the same things came around - ballet, toddlers, preschool, Frank's guitar pupils, music club, Tumble Tots - sometimes it calmed her to see it. Her days were prescribed, stretching out in front of her and behind her. Had they really managed to do all of those things? It should have been like a metronome, keeping them all to time, but colds and tummy bugs and mysterious viruses so often interrupted the flow that she sometimes wondered if she'd ever pick up the beat again. The whole world would go marching on without her, leaving her stuck for ever at 3.47 a.m. looking out of a bedroom window with a sticky bottle of Calpol in her hand.

‘Oh no. The health visitor's coming. I don't know why. I expect Isobel's on the At Risk register or something.'

‘Probably she fancies Frank,' said Caroline. ‘Or she wants to see how the experts do it.'

‘Monday afternoon?'

‘Fine.'

‘Oh, that's my birthday. I hadn't even written it in. Well you come to me then. Come after school for tea.'

Posy had no idea why she'd said that. Politeness she
supposed. She'd invite Flora and Kate round too; that would make things all right.

Posy hated being a Virgo. It was so dull and brown and sensible. If only she'd been an interesting Gemini, or a beautiful Aquarius, or anything else. Not that she took any notice of any of it, of course. Also, how come, she thought, she'd been called Posy, not Flora? Well Flora had already been used up as Flora was older. But why Posy? If only she'd been called something a bit less ditsy and diminutive she might have amounted to something, she could have been somebody.

She'd been up in the night with Isobel, but only twice. Now it was 7.14 and the children were awake, but Frank wasn't. She had woken from a lovely dream that seemed like a birthday present in itself. She had found a whole set of orange Le Creuset saucepans, still boxed, in the Oxfam shop for £6.99. The shop had been about to close, and when she had offered a ten-pound note for them, the woman behind the counter had fiddled about, trying to find the right change. Posy had immediately said ‘Oh, keep the change', and the woman had given her a Gift Aid form to fill out. Posy had woken delighted with her purchase, her beneficence, and the thought that the woman had taken her to be a taxpayer. She lay there smiling and pretending to be asleep.

‘Dad,' whispered James in a stage whisper loud enough to wake the neighbours, ‘Dad, wake up. It's Mum's birthday and we have to get her presents.' Tom was doing his usual heavy breathing close to her ear.

Posy made some impressive cartoony snoring noises. Perhaps, she thought, we could tour the world, and play in all the capital cities: ‘The Family Parouselli - Mouth-Breathing and Snoring Entertainers of Kings'. She kicked Frank to wake him up. He would sleep through anything - Isobel crying, the cat being sick on the floor on his side of the bed, a child having a coughing fit, the strange and sinister noises that came from the Common.

‘Dad! We have to make her a cup of tea … Dad come on … I'm not allowed to do the kettle yet,' James said. Poppy and Tom started to thump Frank on the legs, but still he slept on. Posy tried some more kicks, and then rolled over, deftly pulling the quilt off him and wrapping herself in it.

‘Hell!'

‘Come on, Dad. We've got to get Mum's presents, and Mrs Fleance said that if you shout “Hell”, and you aren't a vicar, then that's swearing.'

At last he was up; they'd be late for school at this rate. She could hear Isobel snuffling and kicking the bars of her cot. Frank pulled on the heavy, mustardy, velour dressing gown she'd given him for Christmas. It was meant to be luxurious, old gold, like a smoking jacket perhaps, but cat fur, Isobel's Ready Brek and Frank's morning aromas of Old Holborn and bacon sarnies had given it the character and appearance of an old yellow Labrador.

Posy loved birthdays, especially the children's, and doing all the stuff for them. She had a slight fear of her own birthday though, not a fear of getting old, but of what she might get.

She hardly ever bought things for herself. She only ever had one or two lipsticks at a time. Even a £2.79 nail polish from Superdrug constituted self-indulgence. In her mind that equalled a pack of Ladybird socks for Isobel, around two days' dinner money for James or Poppy, or a session of Tumble Tots for Tom. It was a pity that she didn't reckon her allocation of treats in terms of the number of pints of beer consumed by Frank each week.

If someone gave Posy a scarf, that would be her scarf until it fell into holes. She would use whatever the present was for ever even if she didn't much like it. She was baffled by some of the things she saw in the shops - the plasticky flowers that danced, radios with lips that synched in time to the music, slippers and mobile phone covers with Groovy Chicks on, Bagpusses that stuck to the insides of car windows, fibre optic
feng shui fountain lights - things that would all soon be so last year. If anyone gave them to Posy she would be compelled to wear them out, or to keep them for good. She knew that there must be people who simply threw them away once the craze for Shaun the Sheep rucksacks or whatever had passed.

She was horrified by the toys that the children got with Happy Meals, or rather the vegetarian version consumed by the young Parousellis, which consisted of the sour chips and a flaccid, almost empty roll. She pretended that Flora hadn't told her that the shakes were made not with milk, but beef fat. When, after an hour, the toys were discarded she was compelled to give them a permanent home in the square Ikea basket devoted to action figures, even if the children didn't really know who the things represented, and would never see the film they were designed to promote.

But here they came with the tray, the tea, and the presents.

‘Happy Birthday Mummy!' ‘Happy Birthday Mummy!' ‘Happy Birthday Mummy!' Hugs and kisses all round. Frank perched on the end of the bed, holding Isobel, whilst Posy opened her presents. He could hardly bring himself to mouth these clichés.

‘Happy Birthday and all that,' he muttered, hardly looking at her.

‘Badedas. My favourite!'

‘That's from me,' said Poppy. ‘It was my idea to get you bubble bath. Can I have some tonight then?'

‘Maybe a tiny bit. I don't think it's very good for children's skin.'

‘Please Mummy. I am a girl. I did get it for you.'

‘We'll see. Now what's in this one?'

‘We'll see means no,' said James in his most smart-aleky voice.

‘It's got shampoo in it,' Tom said.

‘You aren't meant to tell her, Tom,' Frank said.

‘Well, she did ask,' said James.

‘How lovely. My favourite shampoo.' It was a bottle of Superdrug Coconut Oil Shampoo for Dry Hair, the brand Posy chose because it combined not having been tested on animals with being very cheap.

‘We knew you must like it as it's the one you use,' said Poppy.

‘Very clever,' said Posy. ‘Very, very clever.'

‘They were doing three for the price of two, but Dad said one was plenty,' said James.

‘James. You don't have to tell her that,' said Frank.

‘I'm glad you didn't waste any money,' said Posy. ‘My hair might not be dry any more once I've used the whole bottle. Very wise.'

‘These are from me,' said James.

It was a pale-blue nylon scrubby puff with some Dove soap and body wash.

‘Another one of my favourites. Aren't you clever to get all of my favourites?'

‘We got it all at Superdrug,' James explained.

‘Even cleverer,' said Posy.

‘Don't forget your cards.'

‘Cards are my favourite bit, specially home-made ones,' said Posy.

‘I think cards are boring. Unless they have money or toucans in,' said James.

‘Grown-ups like cards. I didn't know you were so keen on toucans.' She must remember this, perhaps find him a rainforest-themed birthday card with a pop-up toucan.

‘Not boring clothes toucans like Aunt Bea once sent us.'

‘What is he on about?' asked Frank.

‘Clothes toucans?' asked Posy.

‘You know, Mum. When you swop them for pyjamas or something. Toys “R” Us toucans and Smith's ones are what I like.'

‘Oh those toucans,' said Posy. ‘I'll remember that.' And she
would. When James's next birthday came round she found herself searching every shop in Southampton until she found a rainforest card.

‘Come on you lot. You'll be late for school,' said Frank in a rare burst of parental zeal. They made it to school on time. Posy opened her cards whilst the rest of them ate breakfast. Frank didn't send cards. She had four from James, all on a Robot Wars theme, five from Poppy, hearts, flowers and rabbits, and a picture that Tom said was of a tiger. It was orange, black and angst-ridden. She had a card from Aunt Is and Aunt Bea, something floral from the Bee Centre shop with, oh joy, a twenty-pound note. That was it for now.

Just an hour later she was slumped outside the pre-school. It was 9.15. James and Poppy were in school, Tom and his cronies were banging on the hall door.

‘Open now! Open now!' the little gang shouted. Posy wondered whether the pre-school ladies found the children menacing, but they were locked safely inside the building, putting the finishing touches to the day's activities which included string paintings and a Chinese takeaway set up in the Home Corner with real (cold, cooked) noodles to ladle into foil dishes. They were oblivious to the mini-siegers at their gates.

Isobel had fallen asleep in her pushchair and so would be awake and needy when they got home. No time to do anything, again, or anything ever again.

Looking back towards the school Posy could see a group of mums in Lycra cycling shorts, all laughing and stretching their hamstrings prior to their run. They went running straight from school, or went to their gym, or to play badminton. Probably, Posy thought, to return to sparkling homes and notes from their cleaners saying: