Hens Dancing Read online

  While Desmond is occupied, I grill my mother further: ‘Were you there as well? What was the fight about?’ Notice that she is behaving uncharacteristically. She is pale, and has a straw hat jammed down over her eyes, but even so she winces in direct sunlight. She has left her wine untouched, slopping a crimson stream onto the bluebells, and is drinking Felix’s Lucozade in noisy gulps. Of course, she has a hangover.

  ‘No, but I was very stupid.’ She sighs and shakes her head. The Beauty, who can’t take her eyes off Granny, squeals and claps. ‘Very stupid,’ repeats my mother. ‘I stayed up far too late with the Foxtons. The Gnome brought them in and then went off to write a sonnet inspired by the stars or a comet he’s seen through a telescope on a mountain in Pakistan. I don’t know; anyway, he wasn’t there. And I soon discovered why he scuttled off.’ She pauses, sips her wine, shudders and begins to look normal again.

  ‘They want to make a sculpture and put it in the Wilderness, just outside The Gnome’s caravan. They want to do the skeleton of a giant pig. It sounds hideous, but I felt so sorry for them. Now I don’t though. It’s bad enough having The Gnome there without a dead pig arriving.’ She lights another cigarette, and stops looking quite so undead.

  Desmond butts in: ‘She hasn’t been to bed. She stayed up with those oldsters quoting Latin all night. No wonder she looks rough.’

  My mother coughs and groans colourfully, ‘No, no, I did go to bed, but it was light by then.’ She breaks off to shake her head sorrowfully at The Beauty, who is still rapt and gazing with her head on one side. ‘Poor Granny,’ says Mum with feeling, ‘poor old Granny.’ I pass her an egg sandwich and feel positively ancient and also depressed that none of this excites any emotion within me, save relief that I wasn’t there.

  May 10th

  Dusk has fallen. I am businesslike in yellow rubber gloves and the horrible red wellingtons, planting out the ranks of sweet peas I have grown. They are slightly depressing. I don’t understand why some are the picture of health, yet others look like heroin addicts, long, pale and trembling with yellowed extremities. I plant them alternately and hope that the healthy ones will improve their etiolated companions.

  The Beauty retired hours ago and is sound asleep with her green-velvet kangaroo’s ear resting against her nose and her thumb in her mouth. This set-up was quite her own idea, and is instantly effective. As soon as the kangaroo ear touches her nose she is asleep, and if it strays in her sleep she reaches out to bring it closer. The downside of this form of baby hypnosis occurs if we go away and forget the kangaroo. It has only happened once, and would have been terrible had I not realised just as we were driving through Norwich. Another kangaroo, identical in every aspect save colour (the new one is blue with red triangles, the old one green and purple), was purchased and The Beauty did some delighted heavy breathing.

  She is dreaming of bouncing around in the velvet pouch, but her brothers are less satisfactorily occupied. From my stooped toiling in the garden I can hear pauses and thuds as Felix makes a teddy-bear stepping-stone path around his room. Now and then cuddly toys leap from the window and Felix’s muffled voice follows: ‘Sorry, Mum, that was a dud. It didn’t work as a stone.’

  From Giles’s window I hear what sounds like an elderly and lugubrious woodpecker at work, but is in fact Giles knocking in his cricket bat. Knocking-in and boxes are things I did not know about cricket. Man’s stuff which I would rather Charles had to deal with. Knocking-in is a mini Labour of Hercules, requiring you to thwack your bat with a cricket ball for a total of six hours. The idea is that this will stop the bat splintering to matchsticks when it first confronts a bad ball on the pitch. I can’t help wondering why the manufacturers don’t do this bit. I would happily pay extra for a mechanical Swedish masseuse to do the job, and it would be much more effective than the efforts of a small boy and his mother. In fact, it would be a perfect job for the poison dwarf, Helena. She could be hitched up with some paddles on her hands and tied to the factory conveyor belt. Must remember to suggest it as a nice little earner next time Charles comes for the boys.

  The box, on the other hand, is nothing like a box but is the same as an oxygen mask except that it covers a different area.

  ‘It will be jockstraps next,’ I say to Giles with a stupid snigger, when I go to turn his light out. He sees nothing funny about jockstraps and looks at me severely.

  ‘I know, otherwise your willy flaps out from your shorts like a hose. That happened to Paul Bilton last week.’ Still not the flicker of a smile from Giles, and his blue eyes are fixed on my face so I am not allowed to either. Whatever happened to lavatorial humour? Such base thoughts are interrupted when I reach to close the curtains.

  ‘Giles, Felix, quick! Look! Deer. Rags is barking at them.’

  Giles, Felix and I are in a line on Giles’s bedroom windowsill, hanging out of the opened top of the sash. Beyond the garden wall, a veil of green has crept across the field which was bare earth a few weeks ago. Enjoying tender ears of young corn by the mouthful are two red deer, one with antlers big enough to hang a coat on, the other delicate and almond-eyed like Bambi’s mother. Clockwork yapping from their feet reveals Rags’s presence, although she is invisible in the fading light. We all want to be nearer, and run downstairs and out through dew-soaked grass to the wall. The deer lift graceful necks and look across at us but do not move. Giles climbs over the wall and tiptoes to pick up Rags, who is dribbling with excitement and wriggles madly to escape. Still the deer stand, nibbling corn and blinking at us, as green leaves and grasses turn grey and ink, and birds swoop low as the darkening sky swallows the last pink drops of evening light.

  May 13th

  It is Wednesday. David the carpenter and Digger the dog reappear after a long weekend and both look sheepish. As they should. There is a Pompidou Centre arrangement in the bathroom, and the two henchmen have not been along to clear it up as David promised they would when he left on Friday to join a party of friends for a weekend in Bruges. Apparently he has been wined and dined by a handbag designer who owns a petit château. I am in sour-lemon mode and it sounds to me like a particularly shallow and silly feature in a glossy magazine. Cannot resist saying so.

  ‘But isn’t that the sort of thing you write?’ David asks blankly.

  ‘Certainly not. I write brochures for corporate entertainment.’ Hope to sound lofty, but fail. David ignores me and goes into the kitchen to put the kettle on. This is the final straw. Not only is he destroying my house, and spending glamorous weekends in the manner that I should like to be spending them, with people I am sure would be my friends if only I knew them, but now he’s helping himself to my kitchen. I huff about for several minutes, ostentatiously filling the dishwasher. David, a stranger to the placatory gesture, leans against the Aga watching me with narrowed eyes. Become sick of this oafish appraisal.

  ‘It’s rude to stare,’ I snap, wiping the table.

  ‘I wasn’t looking at you, I was thinking,’ he says absently, and is clearly still elsewhere in his thoughts. He starts to leave the room, but turns, hearing me slam saucepans into the sink.

  ‘You know, if you find this all too much, it might be better if we call a halt to it,’ he says. ‘It seems to wind you up having us here.’

  Sensation of being winded, and overpowering desire for the new-look bathroom.

  ‘Oh, I don’t mind, really,’ I laugh, ‘it’s fine. I’m really excited about it.’ He pours coffee, rolls a cigarette and lights it.

  ‘Well, try not to let it get to you,’ he recommends, then adds, ‘Are you all right?’ I am fine. To me, the smell of coffee and new roll-up is heaven. I remind myself that I gave up evil toxins when my husband left. Have to leave the room to prevent myself snatching both items from David and consuming them. The Beauty wakes. She and I agree that Cromer is where we want to be and depart. As we head down the drive in a spin of gravel, I glance in the rear-view mirror. One of the Scaven henchmen is looking up at the bathroom window, from which David is loweri
ng a sheet in the manner of a stork delivering a babygram, except that the baby is my loo. My banshee shriek upsets The Beauty and we have to listen to the garage hits on Vibe FM all the way to Cromer to cheer her up. She has acquired this taste from Giles, who makes the school run even more of a trip from hell than it has to be by forcing us all to share the sounds of vile local radio station Vibe FM. If I make a bid for Radio Four, he sighs and tuts like a bank manager all the way to school, except that his remarks would not pass muster in Barclays or Lloyds:

  ‘Oh, Mummy, sixty is so slow, we’ll never get there if you drive like this.’

  This line alternates with, ‘When can we get a decent car?’

  May 14th

  Giles’s joy knows no bounds this morning. We pause at the first junction on the way to school and Carmel and Byron Butterstone flash by in a mink-coloured slink-mobile.

  ‘Let’s see if we can keep up with them,’ I joke. ‘They always go at about a hundred miles an hour because they’re always late.’

  ‘That means we’re late,’ Giles points out. I catch a glimpse of Bronwyn Butterstone’s helmet of groomed and sprayed chestnut hair and the hint of a sage silk shirt and become consumed with rage – either road rage or wardrobe rage, I’m not sure which. Steeling myself until my knuckles are white, I grip the steering wheel and, hissing to myself, ‘I’m sure she’s had plastic surgery’, I put my foot down and we shoot off in pursuit, Giles a mound of giggling flesh next to me.

  ‘Mummy, you look so funny,’ he gasps in pauses, and then explodes again. A mile on I conclude that the winsome Bronwyn Butterstone can audition for Brands Hatch; I, however, cannot.

  ‘Mum, I feel sick,’ croaks Felix in the back, while The Beauty crows and shrieks with pleasure at this new, improved version of her favourite amusement ride, The School Run. A nicely positioned tractor prevents ignominy, and we follow the Butterstones into school nose-to-tail. Very pleasing, except that when Byron and Carmel get out of their car they are unaccompanied by sweet wrappers, crisp packets and Rags the terrier.

  Felix and Giles stuff litter into my hands and aim covert kicks at the dog. ‘Just go, Mum,’ hisses Giles when I reach to embrace him.

  Arrive home to what looks like a Council of War on the Scaven Warrior front. My mother, the henchmen and David are sitting in a circle in the garden on various bits of my bathroom, drinking mugs of tea and swapping roll-ups for straights. My mother’s specs have broken, and one arm is rising straight up from her head. She looks as if she is chief Mekon for the day and also Scaven High Priestess, due to the flowing nature of her coat, which has no sleeves, just ragged holes.

  Digger and Egor the bull terrier sniff one another but the wrong message is transmitted. Egor mounts Digger, and my mother can’t control her mirth and snorts tea out of her nostrils. Rags rushes to join in and a dogfight explodes as our neighbour, a Christian, approaches up the drive. I have identified her as a Christian by the fish logo on the back of her car; it is the same as the one on Felix’s godfather Gawain’s car. Gawain is not a Christian, he got it under false pretences by sending off to the Christian Union to fool the police into thinking he was a godly teetotaller.

  The Scaven Warriors jump about kicking the ball of tumbling dog, while my mother and I clutch our sides and can’t stop laughing. Have noticed that this seems to be a genetic failing in crisis, and Giles has it too, and probably The Beauty, who is clapping and cackling on the doorstep. She stops, though, spouting instant tears and yelling, when the Christian squats down in front of her and holds out a friendly hand. The Beauty recoils and raises her shoulder, shrugging off the proffered hand. The dogfight subsides, thanks to David’s well-placed blow with a length of overflow pipe, and birdsong erupts, loud and implausible, around us. The Christian coughs and speaks.

  ‘I wonder if you could come and get your duck? She’s had ten ducklings and they are all over my vegetable patch.’

  Am sick of animals and their fecundity. I wish Simon would come and cull them all. My mother breaks off her conversation with David, in which they have been saying vile things about Rags.

  ‘How lovely to have ducklings, would you like to give them to me?’ The perfect solution, as my pond has dried up and is just a muddy pit. I agree at once.

  ‘What a brilliant idea, and you can help me catch them.’

  Armed with a red candlewick dressing gown unearthed in the barn, we set off with The Beauty to catch ducklings. My mother hobbles in an embarrassing fashion, having broken the heel off one of her shoes in the dogfight. The ducklings are milling about in a bed of euphorbias and look as though they are clockwork as they whirr along behind the duck.

  ‘We’ll head them into this run, then you can throw that thing over them,’ says the Christian. It sounds foolproof and simple. It is a fiasco. The mother duck flies straight out of the run and then zooms up and down quacking at her trapped children who keep appearing out of the sleeves and around the edges of the flung dressing gown. Moments later the euphorbias are quivering again, with anxious duck noises emerging. Suddenly the mother duck breaks cover and, head held high, quacking encouragement, she leads her fluffy string past us, through the hedge and out into the water-meadow.

  ‘They’re going to the stream. I doubt if many of them will survive to return with her this evening,’ says the Christian in a voice of doom, and she looks at me as though it is my fault. My mother also looks at me reproachfully.

  ‘We’ll try again tomorrow, then.’ I try to keep good cheer uppermost in my voice until we are out of hearing. ‘Why did you look at me like that? I couldn’t help it.’

  My mother shakes her head. ‘Far too hasty in your approach – it’s always been your trouble.’

  I decide to let this deeply provocative remark go, and ask instead, ‘So what do you think of the bathroom?’

  ‘Oh, they didn’t show me; we were talking about sculpture. David seems to have a much better idea than that pig thing for my Wilderness. He wants to make a bacchantine temple.’ She bends to smell a branch of apple blossom at the bottom of the drive. ‘How lovely spring is,’ she muses.

  I take deep breaths to prevent the sour-lemon words within me from coming out. I succeed. Instead of saying, ‘Typical, trust him to see what you’re made of,’ I say, ‘That sounds splendid.’

  ‘Anyway, I’ve asked him to come and have a drink tomorrow evening so he can see the garden. You can come if you like.’

  ‘How kind,’ I smile, and my mother gives me a sharp look.

  ‘It’ll do you good to get out without your children. When is That Man having them, anyway?’

  ‘He’s coming with the poison dwarf to fetch the boys on Saturday. They’re taking them to Centre Pares for the night.’

  My mother snorts. ‘God, how pukesome. Still, a weekend off. I’ll have The Beauty, you can go to London and have fun, or do whatever you like.’ She sees me trying to think of an excuse and raises a hand. ‘It can be payment for the ducklings if you ever catch them. And think of the bliss of escaping from this junkyard of bath stuff.’

  May 16th

  Life is a bed of rose oil and I am blissed out after aromatherapy, and only a third of the way through my weekend at heavenly health farm. My friend Rose is joining me this evening for a couple of lettuce leaves and a celery stick, and I have not a care in the world. Even Rags is taken care of; David is house-sitting for me and will get on with drawing up the plans for the plumbing system, which presently resembles the Minotaur’s labyrinth sans string and Ariadne. But anyway, I just don’t care.

  Everyone here wears sorbet-coloured tracksuits, and some sportier folk even have tinted sun visors. I can see three oldsters, backs curved like commas, arms bent into marathon-runner mode, trotting in a little line around the gracious and groomed gardens as I write. One in mint, one in peach and one in plum. Musing as to why the particularly nasty palette of colours for shell suits are always given edible names, I photograph the line as they stagger past. Proof, should anyone require it, that it�
�s not all sybaritism here. No, no, no.

  Am feeling so on top of the world, I can’t keep still. Book myself into a cranial osteopathy session, remembering the beatific effect this invisible treatment had on The Beauty when she was born. Charles and my mother had been withering in their condemnation of alternative therapies, and when I summoned the cranial osteopath, Charles left for two days. He said it was as a protest; I now realise it was to go and frolic about with pygmy Helena.

  Anyway, Yvette arrived, a true exponent of hippy culture with batik T-shirt, more or less see-through, droopy tits (of course) and yellowed toenails. I was determined not to be put off by her appearance, but Felix, who had popped his head round the door, vanished downstairs yelling to my mother, ‘Quick, Granny, there’s a witch in Mummy’s room and she’s putting a spell on the baby.’

  By the time my mother had bustled up, huffing fury at me and Yvette, the treatment was over. The Beauty, who had been yelling, was languid and sleeping, and has scarcely cried since, unless in protest at perceived poor treatment. Even my mother admits that there was something in Yvette’s magic. All she did was rest The Beauty’s tiny head in her hands. Truly cosmic; I can’t wait for it to happen to me.

  May 18th

  Nature has gone wild during my two days away, and this morning I saw three wild orchids among the many primroses on the roadside, a joyful gathering of flag irises in a meadow and also a jay. It was dead, unfortunately, but I was nonetheless delighted to see it and add it to my bird count. So far I have heard more than I’ve seen, including cuckoos, woodpeckers and assorted owls. Since cranial osteopathy I am convinced that my senses have improved, and I am now much like the six-million-dollar man except in muscle power. It is as if I have been put through a car wash and had all the detritus scraped off everything. Even breathing has become a joy, with spring scents mingling and hitting me in the lungs. I am becoming a nose. I mean this in the perfume sense, not physically, thank God, although Giles told me the other day: ‘You’d be really pretty if your nose wasn’t so big, Mum.’