Hens Dancing (14 page)

‘Maybe it's under Lila's mattress,' I suggest. ‘A kind of hard Lilo.'

‘Aha,' says my mother, her expression becoming thoughtful. Desmond hands me The Beauty. She is tinted orange, as if with Man Tan, by the sandy damp of Lila's garden path. He confounds my love interest theory by pulling back a curtain and revealing a dank, larderish room, more like a cell as there is no food in it, just a marble shelf along one wall.

‘Look what I have to endure,' he says. ‘I've been on the goddam slab for an hour this morning. But then Lila needed some wood chopped, and she says that a bit of exertion is good for the circulation, so she let me get up for a few chores.'

Lila the canny slave-driver is innocently scraping her precious cream off the floor and into a glass. She wipes her hands on a dainty little towel.

‘Let's go for a walk, or rather a scramble – the cliff is like brown sugar,' she says, keen to get us out of the house.

We tramp in single file down the cliff path, Desmond
nobly carrying Ten Ton Tessie, as my mother has christened The Beauty. Lila skips ahead, nimble as a goat, and turns to take a photograph.

‘God, you look as though you are on day release from some institution,' she yells up to us, and I do see what she means. Desmond's arm is still in a sling, but he does not let this cramp his style, so is wearing bluebottle sunglasses and has perched The Beauty like a parrot on his good shoulder. She beams and points her fingers at his eyebrows, but doesn't dare touch the springy mass of them. My mother is wearing her usual uniform of thick black jacket, long wool skirt, black tights and large hat. I never got round to taking off my old-maid white cotton nightie this morning, but managed to add a pair of harlequin leggings for relaxed seaside wear. Thus clad, I look like a faded bag lady, with strange swirls and mini roundabouts on my ankles where I have failed to apply my fake tan properly. Fortunately, Lila is much cheered by this, and scrambles back to join us, amiably suggesting lunch in the café a mile along the beach.

Wish profoundly that Giles and Felix were with us, instead of in some shopping mall in Cambridge with their father, as we stroll along the shore. Sand scrunches and gives beneath my feet, dirty, streaky blond where the tide lapped it this morning. The sea is teal blue, heavy and still like oil, and inviting. I cannot resist. The first moments are hell, numb toes bump pebbles beneath the water
and I stumble, holding my stomach in so that there is less of me to feel the frozen ring of water encircling my flesh. Shut my eyes, and, emboldened by piercing squawk commanding my presence from The Beauty, I launch into silken blue sea, so clear that the sand and stones at the bottom and my pale marble limbs are visible. Twenty strokes towards the glittering horizon and the water becomes a little colder, a little deeper. The others tire of watching me and walk on, leaving silence, the sea and me. Lovely. Nature's beauty treatments triumph once more. This must be better for me than a day with Mo Loam, and so much cheaper.

Idyll no sooner experienced than lost by cavorting splash twenty yards away. Terror-fuelled adrenalin has me racing for the shore at Olympic speed with
Jaws
music thudding in my head. Almost die from unusual amount of exertion, and have to lie, as if washed up, just beyond the tide on dry land. Coughing and wheezing, heart palpitating, I stand up to scan the horizon, hoping, now I am safe, to see a great white fin and know I have survived a dice with death. Instead, a smiling puppy-faced seal bobs in the shallows, rolling over to reveal sleek black barrel body and little fins. I half long to run back into the sea and cavort with dear cuddly creature in the manner of youths and maidens in Greek myths, but am too shaken. Wave, and am convinced that seal flaps a fin back at me. The others have vanished. I decide to catch up. Remember
Simon telling me that you can get anywhere if you run twenty paces then walk twenty paces. Arrive at the café almost as soon as the others, and hardly puffing. Excellent. This shall be my new gait. Bungaloid and cosy, the café has been a pit stop since Charles and I first came to Norfolk. As I walk through the door, the smell of walnut cake and Camp coffee fills me with indiscriminate nostalgia. Can still dimly remember the days when Charles had turned his back on his army training and was trying to be relaxed. He even liked my family at first, or pretended to. Mention this to Desmond, who looks blank but says ‘Yes,' enthusiastically.

We all have crab sandwiches, and marvel at the seal story. My mother unearths a half-bottle of wine from the clear-fronted drinks refrigerator. She is thrilled.

‘What luck. Someone must have left it here. It says Thistle Hotels on the label.'

‘Stolen from a minibar and swapped for crab sandwiches,' Lila suggests. Half a bottle is just enough to make our table appear more civilised than it is, as The Beauty blows her chips out of her mouth and across the floral cloth, and the rest of us pay homage to the crab sandwiches by eating them in silence.

August 14th

Insane morning spent packing for three children, self and Rags, with The Beauty shadowing me and behaving as if at a jumble sale with all my piles. The whole summer is a disaster. Can't believe it is holiday time again. None of us wants to go anywhere, especially separately. Begin to weep while counting underpants in Giles's room. Giles and Felix are going to Club Med in Sicily with their father and the poison dwarf tomorrow, and The Beauty and I are going to Ireland with Rose and Tristan, who have taken a cottage somewhere remote. Rags has been farmed out to Smalls, and we take her there at lunchtime with her bed, bowl and one bone as luggage. Smalls's address is The House with Blue Windows, and we find it perched halfway up the one street of a tiny hamlet where all the cottages are built from uncut flint and are identical except for Smalls's window frames. Opening a wooden door, we troop into a garden occupied by three caravans and a number of ducks, basking as if moored, in the shade. Rags bounds towards a large white drake with a pompon on his head, but stops in her tracks when he rises, quacking, and waddles into a wall of hollyhocks. Smalls emerges from the largest caravan, his hands stained blue, his tiny green hat and leather jerkin, making him a convincing leprechaun. ‘Woad,' he says.

If only I were not rendered idiotic with exhaustion,
would be able to ask him to explain ancient dyeing technique to the children. As it is, just manage to remember Rags's dietary requirements and areas of neurosis before Rags, like a heat-seeking missile, discovers an ancient, shivering lurcher tucked in a drawer by the kitchen door and wages war. Try to kick Rags, miss, stub big toe, and in great pain mutter to Giles, ‘You sort everything out,' and retreat to the car, tears welling, to curse and suppress waves of nausea. A few minutes pass and the sound of snarling terrier diminishes. Smalls and the children come out.

‘We've tied her up,' says Giles. Smalls opens my door and hands me a tiny brown bottle.

‘Basilicum,'
he says. ‘Pour a drop into your palms and inhale the aroma.' A powerful Mediterranean odour fills the car, and I recognise it vaguely. ‘It's basil, and it lifts you out of exhaustion and revitalises you after a hard day. People in offices should use it to get rid of sick office syndrome.' Smalls has never said so many words to me; this is evidently a ruling passion. Try not to look disparaging, but evidently fail.

‘Just try it, you look as if you need a boost,' he urges.

‘I will,' I promise, and drive off rolling my eyes and having negative thoughts. Afternoon of much labour, including stacking logs which were delivered in our absence at Smalls's, and block access to yard utterly. Why have they come? It's summer. Who ordered them? Cannot be bothered to discover answers to these questions.

Boys stay up late packing. Felix is taking twelve cuddly toys, two
Beanos
and half a packet of chocolate biscuits. Giles has tapes, Walkman, cricket magazine and bat. We watch the news and Sicily has a heatwave of monster proportions. More packing of sun cream, hats and water pistols follows. Wish and wish that I had followed my instincts and said no to Charles taking them away to ghastly caged oven of organised sports. Anxiety and exhaustion now making my legs ache; I fear that self-pity may be about to flood in. Suddenly remember
basilicum.
Sprinkle it about with vigour and inhale. Superb. Better than sex, as far as I can remember, and much easier to come by.

August 15th

Some strange impulse of masochism has placed me on the train with my three children and enough luggage to fill the
Titanic.
Car has gone for a rest cure with David, who promised to give it an MOT and fix the stereo. Hope he is to be trusted. The Beauty uses the opportunity, and the platform of the table, to perform a range of her finest kung fu noises and air chops before settling down to shred my newspaper. Felix, having mysteriously acquired batteries for his Gameboy, has become an automaton,
and Giles wishes to spend all my money on the contents of the buffet trolley. Other passengers pretend not to look as The Beauty flicks the open end of a crisp packet around the carriage, and the contents whirl and settle like snowflakes on seats, briefcases, shoes and the floor. My longed-for plastic cup of coffee cools on the table across the aisle and I dare not even remove the lid in case of accident.

Suddenly a grey-haired woman bears down upon us, her eyebrows snapped together in dreadful rage: ‘I can't bear this.'

I find this unreasonable. My children have made a mess, but they have not been fighting, swearing or even bickering. I bridle, but she brushes me aside.

‘My dear girl, you simply must have a chance to have your coffee. Let me hold your baby and you sit there for five minutes.'

Thank God I didn't speak. This is an angel disguised as someone's mother-in-law. Tears of gratitude rush as she gestures to the seat across the aisle, and thrusts me towards it with the sports pages, all that is left of my paper. Plonking The Beauty next to the window with a toy, she takes my place, crunching her Liberty-print bottom onto the crisp-strewn seat, and says brightly, ‘Now then boys, let's play I Spy.'

Astonished, Giles and Felix comply. All tension dissolves in me, and has vanished utterly by the time I
reach the end of the report of England's tragic defeat in the Tour de France. The rest of the journey is accomplished in peace, The Beauty having fallen asleep on the table, clutching her kangaroo and surrounded by crisps and the little milk pots given out with tea and coffee.

Charles meets us at Liverpool Street and is elegance epitomised, tall, straight-backed and immaculate in a pale suit. The army taught him to stand quite still, and seeing him before he sees us as we walk towards the head of the platform, am struck by how unusual this is in the rush and pause that is a crowd in a station. Helena only becomes visible when we are almost upon her, hopping from one little foot to the other, trying to see us over people's heads. Like the angelic mother-in-law, she is wearing a Liberty-print dress.

‘Hello, Charles, hello, Helena. Gosh, what a nice dress, did you make it?'

Why can I not manage to keep my mouth shut? And why, when I open it, does everything sound wrong? Fortunately the boys create a diversion by hugging Charles. He pats their heads feebly.

The moment of parting is immediate. I am left by the entrance to the underground watching their backs as they head out through the station to their car and the drive to Heathrow. Had planned brilliant self-defence against the boys going, of pretending I had decided to send them to Scout camp. Thought this would protect me from heart-break
of not going on holiday with them. But the back of Giles's head, hair gleaming and nit-free, as he looks up to say something to Charles, Helena's nod and Felix turning to wave at me are more than I can bear. They are a family. There they go, up the escalator in a family group. They are off on a family holiday. And I am not. Sit on my case sobbing into The Beauty's neck while she pats my head and says ‘Aaaah.'

August 17th

In Belfast, in McDonald's. Not a good place to relax; have to change The Beauty's nappy by squatting on the floor of the ladies' loo and making my knees into the changing mat. She likes this and lolls her head back, looking up the skirts of those washing their hands. Rose, Theo, The Beauty and I have just eaten three McChicken sandwiches and two Egg McMuffins and we feel a bit sick. Soon forget this in Mensa-level intelligence test of attempting to put hired baby seats into hired car, followed by equally challenging map-reading moment. Eventually we are on our way, heading to Donegal and our cottage on the beach. Tristan will be there when we arrive, having flown direct to a landing strip on the sand, from his meeting in Denmark yesterday.

As soon as the babies fall asleep, Rose and I regress to teen-hood, with Joni Mitchell in the tape machine and much ground to cover in the fascinating parallel universe of film stars we have crushes on, make-up and clothes. Rose is driving, leaving me to guide us across to the west coast, which despite having no comprehension of left and right, I manage.

Very underwhelmed by landscape, which is scattered with DIY bungalows and dour grey villages, until we cross the border and climb an uninviting hill to find Donegal billowing ahead of us, wild, empty and romantic. Narrow streams, boulder-ridden and gushing white water rise and vanish again into the hills and still black lochs lie cradled in valleys. The Beauty wakes as we are descending towards the sea, and she and Theo become raucous.

‘Ten minutes more,' pleads Rose. ‘Do you think you can keep them happy?'

I sing a medley of nursery rhymes, but fail to keep their attention. The Beauty hurls her toy mobile telephone at me, clonking me on the temple.
‘Ow,'
I shriek, and she bursts into tears. Theo tries to be brave, but as The Beauty reaches a crescendo, his lip crumples and he too wails. Mercifully, we spy a petrol station, and I leap out of the car and purchase many bribes and consolations. Rose shakes her head, watching in the mirror as Theo is corrupted with a square of chocolate.