Summertime Read online

  ‘Yeah right, Mum. Honestly, you are cracking up.’ How right he is. But David will be home in just a few days, and the wedding will have happened. Find myself openly praying to God that none of us are eaten by South American insects, and also that Minna does not change her mind.

  April 26th

  Hysteria is mounting. Minna and Desmond have arrived to stay with my mother in order to finalise preparations, and we discover that very little has in fact been organised. Terrible lists mount up by my telephone and by my mother’s, all beginning crisply with our five organised items. These are: Cake, Car, Hymns, Drink and Glasses, and each one merits a big tick as well as being crossed through with a red line to denote doneness. Everything else sprawls on torn bits of paper, bobbing in a sea of question marks and doodles and causing Minna to burst into tears if she accidentally comes across any of these litanies of incompetence. Having quarrelled with Desmond and my mother about the correct moment for the bridal couple to depart from the reception on their honeymoon, Minna appears on the doorstep at lunchtime, with just four days to go, her suitcase in one hand and her wedding dress in a navy-blue body bag over the other arm.

  ‘I can’t stay with them,’ she sobs, ‘they’re ganging up on me.’

  ‘Poor Minna, no need to cry,’ says The Beauty, taking control of the situation and leading Minna inside, holding her hand very gently as if she is made of glass. Must agree with The Beauty that Minna is looking fragile. Even her forehead has lost weight, and she is now almost transparent in ethereal blondness, with perfect shining nails, coiffed hair and a faint tint of sunbed on her limbs. Putting my arm around her as she sits forlornly on the sofa, I cannot fail to notice the contrast between her twig shoulders and featherweight limbs and my own, which are solidly rounded like duck-down cushions. Time for some disciplined exercise, I fear, but no point thinking about it until after the wedding. Damn, should have got it together months ago. Will now be sack-of-potatoes mother of bridesmaid in all the photos. Wonder if I can employ a stand-in mother for the formal ones. They must have supermodel types at the local agency. Or perhaps Minna knows someone glamorous in London who wouldn’t mind the job.

  Suggest it, and Minna looks at me as if I am mad. ‘Don’t be so ridiculous,’ she says crisply, subsiding on the sofa and dropping her head into her hands. The Beauty busies herself making Minna comfortable, flourishing a flannel and advancing to clean her face before selecting a pink crocheted blanket from her dolls’ pram.

  ‘Like Barbie,’ says The Beauty approvingly, placing the blanket around Minna’s tiny frame before moving off to the playroom to find more dolls to mollycoddle.

  ‘It’s all going wrong,’ Minna sobs as soon as we are alone together. ‘Desmond has turned against me. We’ll have to cancel the wedding and my aunts are coming and one of them lives in the Hebrides, so she’s probably set off already, and I’m so miserable.’ Her voice has been rising on a crescendo, but she now casts herself face first into the sofa to wail unreservedly. The Beauty returns cradling a mutant baby in her arms. From the splodges on its cloth body, I recognise it as Mouldy Baby, one of The Beauty’s favourites. The name is all too accurate, the splodges being mildew, brought about by Lowly mistakenly thinking the doll was his toy and recently taking it out into the garden for a few weeks. Mouldy Baby, The Beauty and I regard Minna with curiosity and sympathy.

  ‘I thought it was women who were meant to become like their mothers,’ moans Minna from deep within the sofa, ‘but Desmond has started drinking and smoking as much as your mother, and now he’s taken to wearing that horrible velvet cape of hers. Nothing has been done about loos or chairs or even a floor for the tent for Saturday, and whenever I ask them they just cackle and pour more gin and say, “Don’t worry, we’ll take care of it.” But they won’t! I know they won’t.’ Minna pauses to slam her hands down by her sides and then to blow her nose.

  The Beauty shakes her head and her eyes fill with tears. ‘No, they will not. They will not take care,’ she agrees sorrowfully, sending Minna into a further paroxysm of gloom.

  ‘And that awful Peta woman is threatening to come and turn the tent into a red womb. She says she’s going to do a performance of a Roman birthing ceremony at the party in the evening. How can we stop her?’

  I am fascinated by this prospect. ‘What can she mean? Is she bringing someone in labour, do you think?’

  Minna wails. ‘Oh, God, don’t even suggest it.’ I quickly change the subject.

  ‘All right, let’s have some lunch.’ Try to suppress my own mounting panic that Minna might decide to bolt and leave Desmond on our hands, and employ soothing tactics.

  ‘We’ll make a list over lunch. After all, we’ve still got four days, and we can get through a lot with the right sort of list.’ The Beauty brings a box of tissues and we begin.

  April 27th

  List now sixteen pages long and Minna has drunk three bottles of Rescue Remedy and taken up smoking for the first time in her life. She and Desmond are not speaking to one another and it snowed again in the night. I have gone off weddings, but am very keen on outfits. Managed to persuade Minna to let me alter her wedding dress slightly, and she agrees that the addition of white angora pom-poms around the hem lends an air of insouciance. Making the pom-poms, with doughnut-shaped pieces of card and hours of winding white angora, was as calming for her as a huge hit of Mogadon. Am thinking of marketing pom-poms as executive stress toy. Perhaps with a launch campaign on the front of Brides magazine. Must ask Charles what he thinks.

  April 28th

  The loathsome Bass and Siren have been here for seven hours erecting the tent, and have so far only achieved one end of it. Despite there still being snow on the ground, Bass has taken his shirt off and replaced it with a fur waistcoat over his pimply naked torso, a sight designed to put me off my rabbit-skin cape idea for The Beauty. Their camper van is parked bang up against the wall of the house and I can feel as well as hear the thud of relentless techno music from their car stereo. Can only be thankful that Minna has gone to spend a day at a beauty sanctuary near Norwich and knows nothing of the new depths of incompetence being mined back here at the house. Felix and Giles are dropped off after school, and wander about at the periphery of the tent, hands in pockets, looking supercilious.

  ‘Come on guys, give us a hand with this,’ urges Bass, his arms full of festooning tent wall, and within moments the boys are stuck in, heaving on guy ropes and becoming plastered in soggy bits of grass. For as the tent rises, it becomes clear that this is not the meringue-white marquee of our dreams, nor does it have a satisfying striped lining to lend an air of celebration. This structure is more akin to Wellington’s campaign tents in 1815, with its streaks of mud and black stain, its primitive lacings and its mossy skin of dried grass cuttings.

  ‘Why is it so dirty?’ Giles asks Siren.

  ‘Oh, they’re always like that,’ she says authoritatively.

  ‘But don’t you clean it?’ he persists.

  She tosses her purple hennaed hair back, twining it up into a bun secured by a butter knife from my kitchen, before she answers, ‘We do, but you can’t dry something this size, so it’s always like this. All big tents have grass and stuff on them.’

  Complete tosh. I think back to the gleaming, huge tent hired by the village for a charity dance a couple of months earlier, to the spotless Hunt Ball tent, and to the bright white tent Vivienne hired for her sister’s wedding last summer. Not a mark on it, and it was twice as large as this one. I bite my lip and move to talk to Desmond. He is ecstatic with the work Bass and Siren have achieved, and I start to feel like the Bad Fairy in this pantomime.

  ‘It’s brilliant that the guys have done all this today,’ enthuses Desmond. ‘And Siren’s got some great backdrops to hang because their lining got stolen, and the floor will be here on Friday night—’

  Bad Fairy puffs of green smoke are about to pour out of me. ‘Friday night, but Desmond, your wedding is on Saturday, and we’ve got to set up the t
ables and lay them and put chairs at them and decorate the tent …’

  I am cordially at one with Minna now; Desmond is as absurd and annoying as Bass and Siren. Persuade him to get the floor here on Friday morning, and turn to face the next challenge. Siren enters the tent carrying a Day-Glo green and black tiger-striped strip of fabric with PULSE written on it in giant pink script.

  ‘I’ve got loads of these backdrops to hang instead of a lining, and I’m making one especially for Minna. I’m going to sew it up tonight, so it’s all nearly sorted, isn’t it?’ she says, beaming moronically. I have to do three deep breaths ending with an exhalation, as learnt in my active birth classes before The Beauty, to stop myself removing the butter knife from her hair and stabbing her with it.

  Harness every ounce of diplomacy to say confidingly, ‘The thing is, Minna’s in a real state and she’s refusing to listen to any of us. She says the tent has got to have apple blossom and nothing else in it, and she especially asked not to have anything with writing on it or any colour except white, or anything big.’ Shrug my shoulders, hoping to signify that I think Minna is crazy not to want her wedding tent full of filthy old bits of acid rave paraphernalia. Can see Siren’s tiny brain trying to remember what else she has brought, and pray that I have covered all of it in asking for only white and apple blossom.

  To my relief, Siren is bemused but biddable, just nodding and murmuring, ‘Yeah, right. So you don’t want any of these?’

  ‘Well it’s not me, it’s Minna, and it’s her day. I think we’ve got to let her decide.’ I hardly dare to breathe as the backdrops are rolled up and returned to the truck, and Siren passes again, still nodding, and agreeing, ‘Right, so she wants a really natural look for this gig. She’s on a weird rustic trip, right?’

  ‘It’s not a gig, it’s a wedding,’ pipes Felix, and shuddering I retreat into the house to inspect the monstrous list of undone duties.

  April 30th

  Ravishing day with warm sun, chirruping birds and the scent of spring clinging to every leaf and flower. Have to take my vest off to avoid unpleasant hot flush sensation ruining my morning. Morning not entirely salvaged by this manoeuvre; the prospect of David’s imminent arrival is all I can cling to as madness and disorder swirl about me. Minna has become catatonic, which is a marked improvement on her former hysteria. Her oldest friend Cascade, who lives in California, has come to support her for her last few days of single girldom, and despite having a name nearly as stupid as the vile tent people’s, she is an asset. Giles is fascinated by her gadgets, which are so many and so varied her whole body seems to beep and whirr as if she is a robot. Her clothes are all made of cutting-edge nylon and come in every shade of bruise, from magenta to evil fungal yellow. Even with these sartorial disadvantages, she is enchantingly pretty, with an elfin face and long straight pale hair. Giles finds her the coolest being on earth, and to Minna she represents steadfastness.

  She has even effected a rapprochement between the bridal couple and took Minna to the rehearsal yesterday. Felix, Giles and The Beauty failed to attend as I was involved in a fierce altercation with Bass the Moron over the flooring for the tent. His promises that it would be here this morning are now visibly empty, as I knew they would be, and I have taken the law into my own hands and ordered a floor from another company which will arrive in half an hour.

  I want to kill Siren and Bass, and in fact all of Desmond and Minna’s friends. People keep turning up saying they want to help. They clomp through the house in search of Desmond or Minna, then, having found them toiling with apple blossom and wire in the tent, these helpers throw themselves on to the grass, open cans of beer and proceed to soak up the sun which has schizophrenically taken the place of the blizzards we had earlier in the week.

  Despite the attendance of Bass and Siren plus henchmen until eleven every evening, the tent still looks more like a low-grade shelter for also-ran cattle at an agricultural show than a celestial wedding venue. Siren has a roll of white crêpe paper which she is attempting to suspend from a high wire, but otherwise she and Bass have given up all pretence of working and are intent on getting stoned and turning my garden into a happening event. A sound system has been set up, and mellow music pulses out, but not loudly enough to stop the hens moving in and contributing their mite. So far three eggs have been found next to the stage, and Bass has a blob of chicken shit between his naked shoulder blades, a memento of one of his many siestas under the awning. Siren has brought her child, Tree, with her today, and he is teaching Felix and Giles how to juggle, using three of the plates delivered this morning. The so-called helpers have a flurry of activity at one o’clock which results in a picnic on my doorstep of smoked salmon bagels. I am absurdly touched when they offer me one, then immediately furious to find myself such a pushover. I skulk in the house, darting out like a spider now and again to issue an order, but fearful of moving too far from the phone and missing David’s call. Finally forced outside when an articulated lorry surges up the drive and disgorges an ant-like army of men with furniture. The scene shifts in mood from an early seventies rock festival to an old Charlie Chaplin movie where everything is speeded up. In double-quick time the lorry doors are clanking shut and the ant men are departing waving cheery ant waves.

  The tent is transformed. A wand has been waved, and apart from the small blot of Siren standing on tiptoe tying crêpe paper into a stupid bow, the interior is a glow of dazzling and efficient prettiness with tables, cloths, napkins, chairs, floor and even a cake stand. Burst into tears of relief, and am about to take my car and camp at the airport because I cannot bear another moment without David being here, when a phone is brought to me.

  ‘Hi, sweetheart. It’s David. What’s the matter?’

  Am wailing now. ‘Oh, thank God. Where are you? I need your help. There’s something I haven’t told you—’

  ‘And there’s something I haven’t told you.’ His voice is a caress, but not close enough.

  I stop crying and say suspiciously, ‘Where are you? Why aren’t you here?’

  ‘That’s what I was trying to tell you. They’ve stopped everyone’s vacations. The project is running into debt already and there’s another twelve weeks to shoot. People are getting ill.’

  He stops, and then he seems to whisper, ‘Venetia, I don’t know how to say this. I can’t come back, because if I do, I’ll lose my job. I’m sorry, honey.’

  For a few moments I have no reaction except irritation that he is calling me ‘honey’. Then it sinks in. Shaking, whisper, ‘How could you?’ and without waiting for any more self-justifying rubbish, I jab the off button on the phone and escape back into the house in search of peace. Downstairs, it is impossible to find. Every room is occupied by little groups, beavering away at something or other like workaholic gnomes.

  Find sanctuary in my bedroom, and also The Beauty, who greets me with a smile and tells me, ‘I know a little girl called Generous. She’s got brothers and a polar bear.’ Nod weakly and subside on the bed for a bout of frenzied weeping. Heart begins to harden like quick-dry cement, and I struggle to remember that David does not know that the wedding is here, in his house, or my house that he lives in, at any rate. This cannot mitigate his behaviour, however. To ring up the day before the wedding is too much. Just too much. Does this signify the end for us? Will we ever—

  ‘Mummy, look. Generous is holding hands with Mouldy Baby.’

  Thinking time is up after a matter of seconds. The Beauty has plumped her dolls on the bed next to my head and is demanding participation. The chaos she has created on my dressing table is crying out to be untangled, and voices from downstairs are becoming increasingly high-pitched.

  ‘Venetia, we need to know where you want this. Where are you, anyway?’ is followed by a strident ‘Coooeee.’

  ‘Oh, no,’ I groan at The Beauty, ‘it’s Peta. Come on, we’d better go down and get on with life.’ Cannot help adding, ‘Bastard, sodding bloody bastard,’ under my breath, but The Beauty’s ra
dar-sensor ears catch what I said easily. She follows me down the stairs, chanting, ‘Soddin’ bluddy bastard’ with relish.

  Peta the basket-weaver has leant her bicycle against the gate and is untying a vast bundle bound by rope.

  ‘I’ve got the performance planned, but we do need a projector,’ she beams, ‘and if there were a few loud speakers I know the womb sound effects could make this an unforgettable happening.’

  Desmond, who should have gone off somewhere to chill out by now, ambles over, the picture of affability, and asks how she proposes creating the ‘happening’, and Peta, brightening at the prospect of a bridegroom to convert to cat worship and basket-weaving, polishes her crystal on her skirt, holds it up between her face and Desmond’s, and starts to chant something.

  I interrupt before the first verse is over, trying to muster an expression of sorrowful helplessness.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Peta, but Minna is in a real state and her latest decision is that the whole wedding must be really simple. We’ve had to cancel almost everything.’ Pause and cough, which is often my reaction to telling a big lie, hoping Peta does not notice the microphones and podium for the identikit Elvis Minna has booked. ‘Anyway, I’m afraid I’m going to have to stop you right there and send you home before Minna sees you. We mustn’t have her getting in a state again before her big day.’

  Desmond is goggling at me in blatant disbelief, but luckily Peta misses this. She looks at the trusses of cloth regretfully, but begins to pile them back into their bundle, silent for a moment as she digests my words.

  It is one o’clock in the morning when we finally finish laying the tables, placing the chairs and twining apple blossom round the tent poles. Everything is ready, and if it wasn’t for the fact that Bass and Siren are still here, ‘kipping in the rig’ as they put it, and the unbearable absence of David, all would be perfect. Have decided not to allow David’s vile behaviour to affect the wedding at all, and have joked airily and trilled with ready laughter when anyone has asked what time he is coming, as if nothing could be further from my thoughts than David. After all, what could be nicer than hosting a wedding for God knows how many people for my brother without so much as a boyfriend, let alone a husband of my own, to share the responsibility? Tra la la. So glad we tested the wedding champagne at supper. Had to make sure it was a good one.