Hens Dancing (21 page)

The final whistle blows and the boys line up to shake hands. Giles approaches, grinning and mud-spattered, as if he is auditioning for a soap-powder commercial.

‘Mum, we won twenty-nine to ten and I scored a try. James Lascelles scored one too, and Tom Jensen got a conversion.'

He is inured to my ignorance now, and always gives me a quick debriefing on the game on the way back to tea so I don't embarrass him when chatting to masters and other parents about it. Wish they didn't change the game every term; just as I think I have got the hang of one – cricket, for example – they have all switched to hockey or rugby and I have no hope of knowing what's going on. This term's mystery item is studs. Giles needs some safety studs. How does one come by such things, and how does one know that they are needed in the first place? And anyway, what are they?

‘Oh, I've got a bag of studs for Tom and he doesn't need them all,' says Mrs Jensen. ‘Giles can have some if he comes to the car to fetch them.' Thus my ignorance is left intact and Giles achieves his studs. Maybe I will learn when Felix needs them.

October 12th

Gawain is coming to stay. He rings to deliver his verdict on Charles.

‘Must have cost him a bit to sort Helena out. Those Petri dish babies are a few grand. You'd better watch out that he doesn't start defrauding Heavenly Petting and cutting down on alimony.'

‘Oh, he isn't that bad, Gawain. He's a good father.'

Very odd to be protecting Charles. It seems to help maintain my new relaxed Just Don't Care attitude, which is becoming more authentic every day. Off to the spare room to make it fit for a guest. This is always a fine work-avoidance scheme, and unlike washing-up or folding clothes, has novelty value. Open the door and discover it to be stuffed with numerous garments which were until now missing presumed lost. Had utterly forgotten that this was to be laundry room, and after initial enthusiasm for dumping piles of washing in here, have not been in for weeks. Tempted to throw all the clothes into the bin forthwith, as we have managed fine without them, but miserly instinct prevents me. Instead, put them back in piles dotted about the landing.

Make bed, plumping pillows and so forth, trying to achieve magazine-like appearance of comfort and elegance in the room. All going well until I notice the chair. Or rather, what is on the chair. A most antique cat
poo in the shape of a question mark. There can be no doubt about whose it is. Sidney specialises in lavatorial humour in the spare room.

‘Bastard filthy cat, Sidney. God, how I loathe and despise you.'

Rant around the room, venting spleen for a bit, then fetch rubber gloves and paper to clear it up. No need for either. The fossil comes away easily and is a worthy exhibit for the boys' museum. Have usual guilt pangs at the thought of the museum: it is drastically underfunded, and so far has only a cigarette butt belonging to George Harrison (courtesy of Rose and Tristan who met him and snatched it from the floor where he dropped it) and a piece of cake with a bite out of it. The missing mouthful went down the Prince of Wales's throat when he came to open a local old folks' home. Felix, having watched His Royal Highness closely for signs of regality, whispered, ‘How do you know he's real if he isn't wearing a crown?' but was convinced enough to put the cake in his napkin and smuggle it home.

In the barn, which houses the museum, a house martin's nest has been added to the exhibits. Remember David promising a glass case to the boys last time he was here. He has not been around for ages. Must ring him.

October 13th

Ring him. He has been in London, making furniture for film sets. Why is everyone else's life more glamorous than mine? Even Digger went to London, where he enjoyed the dustbins hugely.

‘What have you been up to, Venetia?' Some men's voices are neither here nor there on the telephone; others achieve a richness and depth of timbre which brings out flirtation. David's is one such voice. Find I am standing on one leg, winding the other around it and giggling.

‘Oh, nothing much.' Cannot in fact think of anything at all I have done, except clear up cat shit. Catch sight of The Beauty on tiptoe, reaching for a flowerpot in the garden, and have to cut short the conversation.

‘Oh, come over any time, we'd love to see you. I must go. Bye, David.'

‘Bye, Venetia. I'll fix up the glass case and bring it over at the weekend.'

October 14th

Purchase two hundred wallflower plants, rust and crimson according to the bundles they are in. Plant them along the front of the house. It takes all morning. Spend the afternoon worrying that it will look like a municipal
roundabout when they all flower in the spring. But at least I remembered them this year. A sign of success for sure. Although I did forget to sow the seeds I bought in February. Oh well, there's always next year.

October 15th

Power cut at teatime reminds me of the three-day week in the seventies. We still have the Aga, but Giles and Felix elect to make supper on the open fire anyway. We toast teacakes and wrap potatoes in foil and throw them in. Start gathering candles in the hall as night falls, and torches too. Hugely enjoy this, as Georgette Heyer often has meaningful interludes when the spirited heroine is handed her candle by a gorgeous Corinthian with whom she is involved in tempestuous dispute over something. Give an impromptu living history lesson by explaining to the boys that hundreds of years ago the family living here would all have met in the hall to be given their candle by the man of the house.

‘We haven't got a man in our house,' wails Felix, for whom the excitement is wearing off.

‘Oh, yes we have. Two, in fact,' says Giles, who has run to the window on hearing a car. ‘David's here and so is Gawain. Gawain's getting out of David's car. I didn't know they were friends.'

Our cosy firelit evening is abruptly invaded, and the peaceful pre-bath, post-tea house erupts in a chaos of stamping boots and voices and two tall, broad figures with the evening chill rising from their coats. David drops two of Gawain's bags at the bottom of the stairs, and addresses me coldly.

‘Would you prefer me to make another date to do the museum? I imagine you would like to spend this weekend in peace with your guest.' He appraises Gawain. ‘I saw him at the station, and he asked me how to get here, so I offered him a lift.'

‘Thank you,' I reply. ‘Presumably you've introduced yourselves to one another. Gawain is Felix's godfather.' Why should David be interested? Oh, well.

Gawain wraps me in a bear-hug. ‘Good to see you, gorgeous. How's the gang?' He has brought Felix a longed-for PlayStation, and is as desperate as Felix is to get it up and running. Try to tell him about the electricity, but he ignores me, and despite having to take a candle, remains touchingly oblivious as he heads up to Felix's room with a huge box of computer leads under his arm. ‘We'll be going places with this any moment now. Let's hit the controls, Felix.'

Such is Felix's excitement at this longed-for moment that he too has forgotten about the power. Giles and I roll our eyes to heaven and sit down again by the fire.

‘I'll leave you to it.' David extracts himself from The
Beauty, and her game on the rocking horse with him, and stands up to go.

‘Oh, not yet,' pleads Giles. ‘Come and see how we've got on with the tree house since you were last here. It's brilliant.'

David's protests are brushed aside and Giles drags him into the dusk. A moment of quiet, then Felix and Gawain erupt into the drawing room through another door, Gawain hopping with excitement and reminding me of Tigger in
Winnie-the-Pooh.

‘God, Venetia, this is so primitive. There's no electricity. How long has it been like this? It's great.' Gawain throws himself down on the sofa and opens a can of Red Stripe which he pulls from his pocket. ‘Where's that guy gone? I asked him in for a beer to say thanks for bringing me, but he said he knew you anyway and was on his way here.'

‘He's with Giles, outside.'

Firelight and candles suffuse the room with rosy, cosy glow. David and Giles finally come in again. Gawain leaps up to shake David's hand.

‘Listen, I've twisted Venetia's arm. We want you to stay and have supper.'

David's brows swoop up. He looks at me, hardly smiling.

‘How cosy, but I'm afraid—'

‘Oh, please stay. Please, David. It won't be fun
without you.' Giles and Felix drag him onto the sofa, and laughing, he takes off his coat and agrees.

‘I wish we never had electricity, it's much more fun,' says Felix when he is finally dragged up to bed, adding, with glorious inconsistency, ‘Can David and Gawain stay so we can do the PlayStation tomorrow?'

Seems to me that David and Gawain are unlikely to go anywhere. An hour with Gawain at his most bombastic has thawed David utterly, and exhausted me. They are playing poker, two candles in Wallace and Gromit candleholders illuminate the cards for them and the scene is deliciously rakish. David wins the first hand, and they are dealing again within seconds, scarcely aware of me as I begin to gather up plates, glasses and the ketchup bottle from the gloom beyond the firelight. Am light-headed with tiredness and with relief that David is here and I do not have to shoulder the burden of Gawain's machine-gun energy. I slink off to bed as the first candle gutters and is replaced with another.

October 16th

Set off on a mushroom-picking expedition with my mother. Gawain carries The Beauty on his shoulders, earning himself thousands of brownie points with me
because I can saunter along with a spring in my step as if I am seventeen, untrammelled by the pushchair or worse, the backpack. However, Gawain loses all the brownie points again as soon as we get into the woods. Forgetting The Beauty, he forges through hanging foliage. A terrible roar alerts me, and I turn to see The Beauty, peering red-faced from a frond of chestnut tree, her arms wrapped around it while her feet drum in frustration and fury on Gawain's collarbone.

‘Ow, stop it. You can't do that to me, I'm carrying you, for Christ's sake.'

‘Don't be such an idiot, Gawain, you'll drop her.'

I reach the sobbing Beauty as she is wrenched from her branch, and snatch her from Gawain. Scowling, he marches off into curling golden bracken where my mother is inspecting a fairy ring of fungus. Fury blasts my cheeks. I crouch to let The Beauty climb onto my back. She cannot. Making the most of a dramatic opportunity, she continues to sob woefully into my shoulder. We follow the others slowly, and her spirits lift with every sighting of Giles and Felix, now way ahead, dark blurs racing through the copper leaves, weaving between smooth grey beech trunks and moss-covered heaps of piled logs.

October 21st

It is Wednesday and Gawain is finally departing. He has not had a restful sojourn, but has survived. His relationship with The Beauty has deteriorated still further, and she will not now be in a room with him without bursting into tears. Am glad he is not her godfather, and that he lives miles away and will not be dropping in too often. He is a pitiful sight, leaning out of the train window to wave. Half of his face is hidden by reflecting sunglasses, but the bits above and below the shades are pale green and damp and spasms of trembling occupy him every few minutes. The doctor said this was to be expected, and that Gawain would be better within a week.

It is all my mother's fault. She administered a highly toxic mushroom in an omelette on Saturday night and poisoned him. For three days his life hung in the balance, or so it seemed from the fuss he made; the doctor said there was no danger at all.

‘I'm so glad you aren't dead,' were my mother's bracing words when she came to view him in his sickbed. ‘You could be. I thought they were wood mushrooms, but I've looked them up and they're yellow staining agarics, which are very similar but horribly toxic.' Her smile was sepulchral. ‘I'm amazed it hasn't happened before, actually.'

Moderately contrite, she salved her conscience with a
packet of orange and lemon cupcakes, presented, along with a half-bottle of vodka, to the invalid. Still too enfeebled and sensitive to look at them, he cringed away, shuddering. My mother ate all except the final orange-flavoured cake. This was given to The Beauty who was peering round the door, anxious that Granny might be in danger from the dreadful creature. My mother sipped briefly from the vodka bottle, then rose to leave.

‘I'll leave the rest of the vodka. I've just had one small shot myself, but you don't really need visitors, do you? You just need a big bowl by the bed.'

‘Why don't you send him back to London in an ambulance?' she demanded downstairs. ‘You've got enough to do looking after the children without sick artists as well.'

Shocked by her lack of sympathy, although secretly agreed, but felt I must be hospitable for as long as Gawain required a bed. His image as Corinthian superhero was a little tarnished by the sick bowl, and I discovered that Florence Nightingale will never be a role model.

*   *   *

Return from dropping Gawain at the station and on the way decide that autumn is the perfect time to reread
Anna Karenina.
The thought of lovely wicked Vronsky
speeds my path through the puddles and mud to home. Yum yum. Can't wait.

October 23rd

Must go on a date or similar excursion for fun and frivolity, with or without member of the opposite sex. Am becoming set in lemon-faced, lone-parent ways and need to get out. Have not been out for the evening since London trip. This cannot be healthy. Who can I go with and where can I go? Vivienne and Simon are on holiday, David is not answering his telephone, my mother is having her hair dyed in Cromer. I have no one to play with. Cabin fever takes possession of my brain and makes me choose a class with Fabrice Wrath's Seven Rhythms Ecstatic Dance Group as my outing. Must not admit the depths to which I am sinking to my mother, so ask Jenny to babysit and make her swear to secrecy and to tell anyone who rings that I am at the cinema.