Home Truths Page 8

  ‘Well, would you like to go through your piece about St George?’ Pip asks.

  ‘I know it off by heart,’ Tom says proudly, and launches into a fast, monotone delivery. Pip can see the Financial Times quivering. She surreptitiously kicks Zac under the table. Tom finishes his recitation to applause from the table and the 8 a.m. GMT pips from the radio.

  ‘If babies are such a great thing, if They're such a miracle and stuff – why do they make their mums so poorly and so mega grumpy?’

  Pip wasn't prepared for this. Usually when she walked Tom to school she was entertained with a diatribe of the personal hygiene habits and physiognomic misfortunes of his teachers, which merely required tuts of her disapproval whilst she bit back laughter.

  ‘Seems a bit stupid to me,’ Tom continued darkly. Pip wasn't sure what to say. Was Tom about to probe for the facts of life? She felt uneasy, having not yet discussed with Zac the information and terminology he was prepared to give his son. ‘Did I do that to her, to my mum, do you think? When she was having me, did I make her puke like mad and be a grumpy old moo?’

  Tom was asking Pip about something on which she had actually no authority to answer. ‘Perhaps,’ she answered cautiously, having never actually discussed the vagaries of June's first pregnancy, ‘but excuse me, young man, your mum is not an old moo.’

  ‘But she is grumpy,’ Tom muttered. ‘I thought she would be chuffed about having a baby but all she does is grumble and puke.’ He allowed Pip to take his wrist as they made to cross the road. ‘there's going to be buckets of blood too, of course, when the baby comes. And do you think Mum'll scream her head off – like that woman on Holby City last week?’

  Pip couldn't really answer that one, not knowing June's take on epidurals.

  ‘I can see why you don't want all that madness,’ Tom said darkly, with much sage nodding.

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘You and Dad,’ Tom shrugged. ‘Don't tell my mum I said stuff like that about her and stuff.’

  Pip and Tom were about to step off the kerb when they saw the squirrel. Tom was still young enough to point and declare ‘Hey! Squirrel!’ as it bolted into the road. And then came the car at the same time and they both foresaw the death of the squirrel by a second or so.

  ‘Oh God,’ Pip gasped, helpless not to be transfixed by the spatter of guts, the barb of torn limbs, the stark stare of sudden death.

  ‘Gross!’ Tom said, not quite sure if he was thrilled or distraught.

  ‘we'll cross the road further down,’ Pip said.

  ‘Do you think It's really dead?’ asked Tom.

  ‘Yes,’ said Pip, ‘I do.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Poor little thing.’ ‘Poor little thing. Do you think it was a boy or a girl?’

  They crossed the road and Pip began to gamely tell Tom that babies didn't cause their mums to feel poorly and be grumpy, all that was down to chemicals causing a lady's body to be able to grow and carry a baby. And anyway, mums and dads so want to have babies that a bit of yukkiness now and then didn't matter at all in the long run.

  ‘Tom?’

  Tom was quietly sobbing though the school gates were in sight.

  ‘Your mum is fine – please don't you worry about her. She doesn't mean to be grumpy and she can't help feeling a bit yuk.’ Pip gave Tom a hug. ‘Do you want your dad to talk to her? I promise you she can't wait to give you a little baby brother or sister.’

  ‘Not the baby,’ Tom sniffed, ‘the squirrel.’

  happy st david's day!!! Pxxx

  Fen stared at the text message Pip had sent her and wondered for a moment whether St David's Day was something She'd forgotten that they celebrated despite having no Welsh blood in the family. Funny old Pip, Fen smiled, texting back.

  and to you. F + C xx

  Fen knew Pip would start to text her at length but soon tire of the thumb effort and phone her instead. The call came a couple of minutes later.

  ‘Happy St David's Day.’

  ‘Same to you, with bells on.’

  ‘What are you up to today?’

  ‘Oh, the usual – puréeing things, changing nappies, singing daft songs, spending the afternoon with women I have nothing in common with other than postcode and the fact that our babies were born in the same month.’

  ‘Shall we meet up, then? I'm not clowning today – and I'd love to see Cosima. And you.’

  Fen looked around her home. It was a tip. She ought to prioritize the chores and say no. ‘OK,’ she said, ‘That'll be lovely.’

  ‘Kenwood?’ Pip suggested. ‘It's equidistant. Let's have coffee and cake. See you in an hour or so?’

  Fen looked at the clock. It was ten o'clock and though Cosima was dressed beautifully in Catimini, Fen was still in her dressing gown. She opened her wardrobe and perused her pre-pregnancy Agnès B skirts and John Smedley cardigans. It was a perverse, masochistic ritual she taunted herself with almost daily. She didn't dare hold them against herself, let alone try them on; scrambling instead into yesterday's cargo pants. Packing Cosima in a snowsuit that made the baby resemble the offspring of the Michelin Man and Laa-Laa the Teletubby, Fen crammed essentials and non-essentials into the changing bag and just about remembered to grab her own jacket before heading out of the house.

  Big Red Bus, Cosima!

  Look at that little fluffy doggie!

  Can you see the blue car, baby girl? Yes, it is a blue car, a nice blue car. Blue, blue, blue car blue.

  Walking through East Finchley, Fen and Cosima passed buses and dogs and cars of various descriptions. However, there was little to point out to Cosima about the Bishops Avenue other than Great Big Houses and Great Big Trees and Great Big Cars.

  But then Fen saw the young man with the flowers.

  She slowed her pace. He was some distance ahead, fixing a bunch of flowers – tulips, they looked like – around the trunk of a tree. Fen was captivated; how often had she passed by a tree, some railings, displaying a bunch of bedraggled flowers as a memorial to a life lost? But such flowers had simply been there and, usually by the look of them, for quite some time. Had she ever actually seen someone placing such flowers? No, she hadn't. Had she ever seen flowers tied to this tree-trunk? She didn't think so. Not until today. She was approaching him, the man now fixing a bunch of daffodils alongside the tulips. Fen was close enough to see that some had orange trumpets, others white; a cut above the bog-standard yellow for sure.

  Should I cross the road? Should I treat him as the bereaved – give him space and peace so he can have his ritual as solemn as is fitting? He looks so young. Who did he lose?

  And the young man was offering a daffodil with a broken stem to Cosima. ‘Happy St David's Day,’ he was saying.

  ‘Oh!’ Fen chirped. ‘A lovely flower! A lovely daffodil. Are you Welsh?’

  ‘No. Will she eat it if I give it to her?’ the man asked.

  ‘Probably,’ said Fen.

  ‘Here, you have it, then,’ he said, worrying his hand through his already tousled jet black hair as if he was genuinely concerned. ‘Put it in her room. Or something.’

  ‘Oh. OK. Thank you.’

  The man paused. ‘My sister would like it.’

  Fen looked at him. Christ, how awful. Suddenly she wanted to know details; how awful. She should say something. ‘I'm sorry for your loss.’

  ‘Thank you,’ the man said, and he genuinely seemed touched. ‘She was twenty and was killed three years ago. My mum lives in Manchester and I've promised her that I'll replenish the flowers each anniversary.’

  ‘Was it a car?’ Fen asked, cringing that this sounded both tactless and interfering.

  ‘No, a motorbike,’ the man said.

  Fen regarded him. He was fresh-faced and slightly gawky, looked as though he should be putting up leaflets about drama soc at Oxford or Cambridge, rather than road-kill flowers in East Finchley. How old was he? Early twenties? Had he been a younger or older brother to his late sister? ‘How long do the flowers last?’<
br />
  ‘Longer than in a vase, bizarrely,’ he replied, ‘but I hate seeing commemorative flowers all withered and limp. I always come back and check. I take them down before they've passed their best. You could say my sister was in full bloom when she was cut down. So I don't think she should be remembered any other way.’

  ‘What was her name?’

  ‘Kay. What's your name?’

  ‘Fen.’

  ‘Short for Fenella?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Fen, charmed. ‘Not many people know that.’

  ‘I was at college with a Fenella.’

  ‘What's yours?’

  ‘Al.’

  ‘Short for Alan?’

  ‘No, Alistair.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘Know any Alistairs?’

  ‘Nope, You're my first.’

  ‘What's the baby's name?’

  ‘Cosima.’

  ‘That's pretty.’

  ‘I think some people think It's a bit pretentious.’

  ‘Is the mum a bit arty-farty then?’

  ‘The mum?’ Fen was simultaneously shocked and charmed again. ‘I am the mummy.’

  ‘No way! I thought you were the nanny.’

  ‘No. I'm the mother all right.’ ‘Cool. I see. Wow.’

  There followed a pause that was simultaneously awkward yet heightened as they both scrambled around for some other common ground, just something to say, to prolong conversation.

  ‘Anyway, we'd better go – we're meeting my sister at Kenwood,’ Fen said, as if She'd been miles away and had suddenly come to. ‘It's been nice talking to you. And I'm sorry – about Kay.’

  ‘Thanks. Thanks. Nice to meet you too – and Cosima. How old is she?’

  ‘Eight months old,’ said Fen, now really wanting to know how old Al was and whether he was younger or older than his late sister. They'd paused too long for her to ask now. ‘Bye, then,’ she said, a little reluctantly. And just a little coyly too.

  Fen walked on. She stopped and turned. Al was looking after her. She waved and he raised his hand. She strolled onwards to Kenwood House, breaking into a sudden grin every now and then. Flattery. How good it felt. ‘I don't know whether to be charmed or insulted,’ she said to Cosima as she walked. ‘I thought I had “Frumpy mum” written all over me.’

  The unusual incident, the unexpected attention of a stranger, the break from the drag of just a normal day, served as a tonic that Fen wanted to keep private for utmost potency. So when Pip said how bright she looked, Fen didn't mention Al. She didn't say that attraction is a peculiar, sly thing that can work wonders on the complexion. She pointed instead to a good night's sleep at last and that Cosima had gobbled up pear purée that morning that had no orange tinge to it whatsoever.

  ‘It wouldn't be wise to tell Auntie Pip anyway,’ Fen chattered at Cosima as they walked back. ‘Auntie Pip would only give me her worried look – her “Motherhood has made my sister loopy” look.’ Fen stopped at Al's flowers. Cosima was fast asleep. Fen tucked the fleece around the baby and stroked her cheek. ‘I feel a bit ambivalent that I should feel just slightly flattered that Al thought I was the nanny, not your mother. He said “Wow” when I corrected him. What did that “Wow” mean exactly? That I look good for my age? That I'm a yummy mummy? That I'm the first person He's met with an eight-month-old baby? I can't remember the last time I wowed someone. Daddy just calls me silly.’

  Waterworks

  ‘Mr and Mrs York! Mr and Mrs Holmes and Master Holmes! Mr Holden, Ms McCabe, Miss Holden-McCabe! Welcome one and all.’ Django genuflected flamboyantly throughout his roll-call, much to everyone's amusement. He was wearing the jeans He'd worn to Woodstock, tessellations of denim patchworked together, teamed with a shirt swirling brightly with paisley motifs. His belt was all buckle, in the bashed bronze form of a mounted Red Indian, bow and arrow poised. Pip had seen similar go for princely sums on ebay. ‘Cuppa tea? Something to dunk?’

  ‘Can I have squash?’ Tom asked, but directed the question to his father. ‘And something to dunk?’ Although Django was certainly the most exotic adult he knew, Tom still passed all requests via his father first.

  ‘You can, my boy, you can,’ Django responded to Zac's nod, ‘but you'll have to tell me how to squash it – I'm sure to have the ingredients.’

  ‘You just untwist the bottle top, pour in about a centimetre and then top it up with water. Even water from a tap,’ Tom explained helpfully despite being somewhat incredulous. It occurred to Django only then that they were talking different types of squash. He realized with some relief that he needn't attempt to juice the pumpkin. And he realized with some disappointment that he did not own the bottled cordial to which his step-grandson-thing-or-other alluded. Good job, really, because he hadn't a clue what a centimetre was anyway. A dash he knew intrinsically, a dollop too; he could do a smidgeon blindfolded and had always denounced the pinch as miserly. Feet and inches he was fine with, metric however was another matter; one he staunchly felt did not matter. ‘I have some cherry syrup,’ he said quietly to Zac. ‘Do you think that might do?’

  ‘I'm sure it will,’ Zac said, laying an affectionate hand on Django's shoulder. ‘But what on earth do you use cherry syrup for?’ he asked as they walked on up the path and into the house.

  Django stopped. ‘Do you know, I don't think I've used it for anything. I think It's unopened. I've had it ages.’

  In the event, Django couldn't find the cherry syrup but he did have cherry brandy and decided that a smidgeon watered down excessively with flat R White's lemonade wouldn't do the boy any harm at all. He was right. Tom acquired a liking for it and asked for more.

  ‘I hope you left the beds for the blokes to do,’ Pip said, all stern, ‘like I suggested in my letter and on the phone.’

  ‘Yes, I have,’ Django sighed, ‘but only because You're so bossy I didn't dare do otherwise.’ He didn't confess to certain relief at Pip's directive; that he didn't actually feel like shunting and shifting divans about any more, didn't feel he could. ‘there's a zed-bed out in the shed,’ he added, ‘though I've used its mattress to lag the water tank.’

  ‘can't I sleep in the shed?’ Tom sighed, looking imploringly to Zac before winking beguilingly at Django.

  ‘Have you been incorrigible?’ Django asked him.

  ‘No, actually, I've been exemplary,’ Tom said. ‘Miss Balcombe told me That's what I am in some things – like maths. It's just that Pip told me all about the shed.’

  Django's contrived haughty expression softened. ‘In the summer,’ he said, ‘if you promise to be as incorrigible as Pip was when she was young, before she was bossy, I promise to banish you to the shed for a night. Now come along, troops, we have a party to plan. There's only two months to go.’

  No one would hear of Django sleeping on the sofa; they were reluctant enough to let him give up his bed but the deal was settled on Django sleeping in Fen's bed and Tom sleeping in Fen's room on the zed-bed plumped up with two sun-lounger mattresses, Fen and Matt in Django's bed with Cosima in her pop-up travel cot, Zac and Pip in her old room with Cat's bed dragged through, Cat and Ben on various cushions and beanbags in her room. ‘You're the youngsters,’ Django had told them, ‘you won't have the spinal issues of those over a certain age.’

  ‘Shall I point out that I'm older than Matt?’ Ben joshed.

  ‘No, don't do that,’ Django replied. ‘You know how I enjoy my theories.’

  At the crack of dawn, Django came across Fen boiling a kettle in the kitchen.

  ‘Did Cosima wake you?’ she asked, alarmed.

  ‘No darling,’ Django said, ‘just the infernal need to pee. Not that you'd want to know the finer details of my water-works. It's an age thing.’

  ‘And a pregnancy thing – I remember it well,’ Fen groaned. She took the kettle from the hob. ‘Can we buy you an electric kettle for your birthday?’

  ‘No thank you,’ Django said, ‘far too dull.’

  ‘I don't suppose you'd like a microwave
then?’

  ‘Absolutely not. What would a seventy-five-year-old want with one of those?’ Django said.

  Fen poured boiling water into a Pyrex jug and immersed a baby bottle to heat through. ‘I'm trying to reclaim my boobs,’ Fen explained, with a tone of regret and a look of guilt, ‘not that you'd want to know the finer details of my lactation.’

  ‘Quite,’ said Django. He paused. ‘Matt must love it – the bottle feeding – enables him to feel hands-on and useful.’

  ‘Absolutely,’ said Fen. ‘I like watching him.’

  ‘Watching or checking?’ Django posed. ‘It's good for him to feel useful – because, you see, you are so very capable, Fenella.’ Fen was taken aback by the use of her name in full and she detected a subtle note of warning from Django. ‘It must be easy for Matt to feel left out a little – on account of you being so very capable.’

  Fen felt a little defensive but it was too early and she was too tired to express it with much vehemence. ‘It's not that Matt does things wrong,’ Fen attempted to explain, ‘It's that he doesn't do things quite right. It's often easier for me just to do it in the first place. It saves time. And tears.’ With that she took the warmed milk upstairs to feed a now grumbling Cosima.

  Fen gazed down at her daughter, sucking contentedly on the bottle, locking eyes with her and sharing silent waves of intense love. She looked over to Matt who was sound asleep. How strange to feel simultaneously grateful but also resentful of the fact. Though nothing, not even a much-needed simple lie-in, was worth trading these silent waves of love, yet still Fen felt a little put upon that Matt never woke instinctively in advance of the baby stirring. However, though she knew that He'd be happy for her to boot him out of bed and be on early-morning bottle duty, she also knew She'd only lie there wondering if the bottle had been mixed correctly, whether it was the right temperature. She'd end up double-checking anyway. So what was the point in not doing it herself in the first place? There was no such thing as a liein. Did it slightly offend Matt? She rubbished the notion – he understood, didn't he? He understood that It's a mother's prerogative to be finicky. It's out of love for the baby anyway. No bad thing.