Summertime (11 page)

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 radar-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.

May 1st

Absence of domestic harmony due to breadhead mother (me) having failed to get any milk for breakfast, and having left cricket whites on the washing line all night so they are now sopping wet thanks to heavy dewfall. Put them on the Aga to dry, and rush to take Minna a cup of calming vervain tea, hoping to make a virtue out of the no-milk crisis. No time to make the children breakfast, they must do their own; nuptial activity is all. The hairdresser arrived two hours ago, as did the flower girl. Both are upstairs with Minna in her bedroom discussing the construction of her headgear, which is part-tiara, part-flower garland. The Beauty is also there, transparent and pink-eyed with exhaustion, but spellbound by this reconstruction of Minna from beloved family member to High Queen of Barbiedom.

Entering the bedroom to prise her away, I am instantly mesmerised by the scene which has so captivated The Beauty. We are in a fragrant bower of springtime loveliness. Minna, wearing a floral dressing gown and an expression of celestial calm or vacant
terror, depending on how you interpret it, is sitting in front of the mirror with Cascade bowed over her feet like Mary Magdalen, anointing her toes with shimmering pink polish. Cascade's wedding-day outfit of silver pac-a-mac and matching thigh-high boots is less biblical. Her mobile phone lies on Minna's dressing table, and I note, covetously, that it too is wearing a special silver outfit. Scent, rosewater, puffs of Evian and hairspray mingle to form a diaphanous cloud above the heads of Minna's ministering angels who hover, murmuring blandishments in dove-soft voices. The Beauty, rapt, passes a cotton-wool bud to the hairdresser and turns back to her unblinking contemplation of Minna's reflection in the mirror. Minna's head quivers, and out of it rise bean-sprout tendrils of ice-blonde hair, slicked with unguents: the hairdresser must be giving it some sort of fabulous lengthy treatment therapy. I glance at my watch and realise that we are running out of time.

‘Minna, when will they get started on doing your hair?' I say, alarmed that we will be late. She turns wide, half made-up eyes towards me.

‘They've done it, it's finished,' she says.

Oh, what a fool I am. When will I learn to keep my mouth shut? Gabble wildly, trying to improve the situation.

‘Oh yes, I see the tiara in there now, I just thought they hadn't done that bit yet.'

Back on the landing, the door closed on the fragrant temple, I find aroma of burnt toast indicating that the children have had their breakfast. Begin the absurdly difficult task of finding them all and posting them into their clean clothes. The house has gone native; piles of garments are strewn everywhere, crumpled and thrown aside like unwanted jumble-sale items. Somewhere among them are the things I ironed for the wedding.

No washing-up has been done for two days, and Lowly has smashed three plates in the kitchen jumping up to steal the chicken carcass from the night before. Don't suppose it matters much, as the wedding is being catered for by a caravan of dreadlocked reggae freaks who took one look at my cooking arrangements and made a plateful of bacon sandwiches for my house guests when they arrived to set up this morning. Their caravan has a side window, like a fish and chip van, and through it I see them swaying to the beat of music I can only just hear because there are so many other sounds competing with their ghetto blaster. Chief among them is the strumming of Peta the basket-weaver's lute, and some foul coughing from behind the orange camper van to indicate that Bass has risen and is ready to face the day.

Somehow find myself outside, still searching for white plimsolls and my hairbrush. Wonderful birdsong and truly fresh May-time smell of blossom and the warming earth distract me for a moment from the mini Glastonbury that my garden has indeed become. Bass has found it necessary to park his camper van in the middle of the lawn, where it sets the tone and is the focus of interest for all the hens and the ducks, who are scratching and clucking around it, in happy anticipation of breakfast. Peta, her boyfriend and a tandem occupy the next pitch on the lawn. The boyfriend has laid his gold suit out flat on the grass, and is doing a head stand, lost in topsy-turvy contemplation of the garden. Peta, still clinging to her yards of red felt and white muslin, has made a kind of nest or pyre for herself to sit on, and is plaiting her hair with beads and strumming the lute. She is wearing a long pink dress with trailing sleeves and, apart from her glasses and the tandem, looks as if she has just stepped out of a medieval tapestry.

Thankfully, none of the happy campers is in the tent, when I unlace the entrance and peer in. All the jam jars of bluebells and pink campion have released a wonderful scent, and the air seems hallowed and expectant. I unlace several panes to let the breeze in, and my spirits soar as light fills the space. Despite all Siren's attempts to ruin it, the tent is a triumph.

Felix appears at my side, hair on end, mud spread liberally across his cricket flannels, a button already missing from his white shirt and a guilty flush mounting. He holds out a tennis ball, flat on his palm as if I am a donkey and he is presenting me with an apple. We both look at the ball.

‘It's a ball,' I say intelligently.

‘There must have been something wrong with the window, Mum, the ball only bounced really softly. But the glass went everywhere. I tried to clear it up but there's still a bit of glass in the hall. And those people with the boy who can juggle are here again, in fact I think they slept under a table in the backyard because there are loads of duvets and stuff everywhere. And anyway they say they need to set up the PA again because they missed a bit yesterday. They just want to move a few tables out of the way.'

Wish Desmond and Minna had got married in Las Vegas and just shown us the photographs afterwards. Deal with Bass in a frosty fashion he is oblivious to, and rush back to the house. Not a hope of lavishing time and bath oil and hair care upon myself. Grab a handful of festive-looking pink clothing from my wardrobe, recently improved by the addition of sequins, pink glass beads and some tiny crystallised fruit I found in a sweetshop in Cromer. Discard the clothes again and scurry in pursuit of The Beauty, who has put on a
bath hat and some surf sandals from last summer and is hurtling along the corridor, running into bedrooms and through the queue for the bathroom, squeaking, ‘Peekaboo, it's my birthday,' at the seemingly millions of strange people changing in every corner of the house. She finds a captive audience in Cascade and Giles, who are playing a game of Worm on Cascade's mobile telephone.

‘Mum, look, I've scored forty-seven this go,' says Giles, unable to look up from the bleeping green-lit screen. The Beauty claps her hands together three times.

‘Come on now, sing Happy Birthday to Me,' she commands them, but breaks into a vile roar when I scoop her up and peel off the sandals, vest and bath hat and start trying to cram her into her angel outfit. Leave her sobbing and drumming her heels and scramble into my clothes, rejecting the electric-pink T-shirt saying
Try it, you'll like it
in favour of a knitted vest which I think the height of chic until Cascade looks up from Worm and says in a voice which isn't meant to be patronising, ‘Oh, boy. A camisole, that's such a great retro look. It makes me think of land girls and stockings and the Second World War …' While she rhapsodises, I remove the camisole, but can hardly get it over my vast land-girl arms. Chastened, late and irritated, I put on
the suggestive T-shirt and hasten, with half-dressed children, to church.