Hens Dancing (19 page)

Determined not to be intimidated, I turn on my heel and walk across to the changing room, grabbing the nearest garment.

‘I'll try this,' I say languidly, and shut myself in the cubicle.

I have brought in a fluid, strappy ink-blue dress. Size ten. Completely unsuitable for me, being the wrong size and totally impractical. It also costs more than a washing machine. There is no way I can have it. What the hell, I may as well try it on. It slides onto my body and hangs from my shoulders, a vision of chic slenderness, a caress of wondrous fabric. I love it with all my heart, mostly because it is size ten, but also because it is truly heaven. I must have it. I must. In a fever of adrenalin I dress myself and rush to the cash till brandishing my credit card. The girl slides the card through the machine and stands surveying her perfect nails while the machine grunts and sighs. Affecting disdain, I too survey my nails and try to control my panting breaths. Am sure something will prevent me from having this scrap of pleasure, this tiny
size-ten indulgence. Sure enough, Perfect Nails is calling for assistance.

‘Your card has been declined. Do you have any other means of paying?' The paper bag with my dress inside it is on the counter between us. She taps her fingers on it possessively. I try to look nonchalant again.

‘Oh dear, what a bore, I can't think why that's happened. There's plenty of money in my account. Masses, in fact,' I lie, beginning to perspire in my red wool jacket. ‘Can I write a cheque?'

The girl arches her perfect brows. ‘Not if this is your cheque card,' she says softly, her tone especially designed to make me feel like a Category A criminal. Am now close to tears and cannot think what to do. Fumble for a tissue as my nose begins to drip. Can't find one. Use the back of my hand.

‘What's the matter, Venetia? Why are you taking so long?' Had utterly forgotten Rose's existence from the moment she popped out to the chemist until now, when she has popped back in looking alarmed. Salvation. Explain my crimes to her and stand at her elbow watching with ill-suppressed delight as she flings her card at the assistant.

‘Here, I'll do it. You can write me a cheque, Venetia.' Could swear that Perfect Nails is disappointed; she would rather lose her commission than see me walk out with the dress.

‘Let's go and drink cocktails and look at everything,' says Rose, and I hurry after her through the streets and into a bar, rejoicing that it is six in the evening and I have no childcare ahead of me. No bathtime, no de-nitting, no evening of ironing. I can drink Americanos in smart hotels until dawn if I like. I do like; so does Rose.

September 24th

Thumping hangover not improved by the arrival of Theo at my bedside at seven in the morning. He is clutching a book, a pair of red wellingtons and a plastic train.

‘Thomas the Tanker. You read it and take me for a walk,' he urges. ‘Come on. I say you read it.'

Groan and turn over. ‘Go and find Daddy, Theo, he'll read it, he didn't get drunk last night.'

‘You're a silly old lush,' says the tiny tormentor before departing. Am rather impressed by his vocabulary and repeat his words to Rose when we meet some time later in the kitchen. She rolls her eyes.

‘He copies everything. He heard Tristan saying it to me because I couldn't get up this morning.'

A morning at the Royal Academy with Lila prancing about in ballet pumps and a black polo neck as if she is Audrey Hepburn does nothing for the hangover, but an
afternoon at Rose's health club sees it off. Am able to approach Gawain's party with poise and courage thanks to the hour spent sweating out poisons in a seaweed wrap. New dress and new hair give the final boost, and I arrive at the gallery with Rose and Tristan, my heart thumping in excited anticipation at the thought of the ravishing, prizewinning portrait of me.

The show is in a room much less intimidating than the Concept hairdressers', more like a big sitting room and painted the colour of wet sand. I see Gawain at the other side and begin to thread confidently between throngs of guests to greet him. Feel as if I do this all the time, and, more importantly, am sure I look as if I was born to go to cocktail parties. Hooray, am ready for a top-notch evening, and will flirt with everyone. Huge fun. A shadow looms, quite literally, and Charles appears in my path, blocking my view of everything except his ghastly sidekick. Helena bobs and titters like a small tugboat at his elbow.

‘Charles. How weird to see you here.'

‘Not as weird as seeing yourself will be,' he smirks, ‘look at this.'

He takes my arm and steps to one side. And I am met, face to face, by myself. Experience shivering breathless-ness, as if iced water has been poured down my back. Cannot stop staring at the haunted, horrible version of myself. Me as I do not like to think of me, with bags
under the eyes and a too-small shirt with buttons missing gaping pinkly over my stomach. Me with sadness in my eyes and a sunburnt nose. Me with lank strands of hair hanging around a tired, lonely face.

‘It's a marvellous piece of
veritas,
' says Helena, her beady eyes fixed on me, drinking in my horrified reaction.

‘God, it's depressing,' is all I can say. I grab a glass of wine from a passing tray and gulp it in one.

‘Darling, beautiful Venetia. I'm so glad you came.' Warm hands are on my back replacing iced water sensation, and I am engulfed by Gawain hugging me, kissing my shoulder and grinning delightedly. ‘There's a photographer here who wants to take a picture of you with your portrait for the
Standard.
Come and meet Vernon, the gallery owner, and the sponsors. In fact, come and meet everyone. You look gorgeous. It's great to see you.'

And Gawain sweeps me off, away from Charles and hateful Helena, and over to an important-looking table where there is champagne instead of the usual gallery white wine, and flashbulbs are popping like balloons at a children's party. Immediately become overexcited. All this attention is astonishing, and compares favourably with an evening at home doing the ironing. I try this line on one or two people who look at me with mild distaste as though I have mentioned haemorrhoids or boils or some other defect. Decide to pretend from now on that I lead
an exotic life and am usually sinning on tiger skins in the manner of Elinor Glyn and wearing silk camiknickers. Try out this version on a Young British Artist friend of Gawain's; he scuttles away in terror. It is perhaps best not to admit to any form of existence beyond the here and now.

Events speed up. People, compliments and glasses of champagne whirl like a carousel until it is late, the lights are low and I am dancing in a nightclub with Gawain. Don McLean is singing ‘American Pie'. Rose and Tristan are arguing by the bar. I have no husband to argue with and therefore not a care in the world. I lean on Gawain and close my eyes. Surely there can be no better sensation than that of having someone's arms around you? Particularly someone as handsome as Gawain. Can't believe that I've never noticed this before. Handsome and talented. Why did I never take him up on all those propositions he has put to me through the years? ‘Gawain Temple is a genius, and this is the picture which shows it', was the headline in today's newspaper preview. Lucky I didn't see it before the show or I would never have come. Loved the party, though, after Charles and the poison dwarf had gone, and spent much of it nodding and trying to appear artistically worthy. All very intoxicating. Just as well I am catching the nine-thirty train tomorrow morning and can't join Gawain and his friends for a party on a houseboat at lunchtime.

Drift off to sleep in the indigo darkness of Rose's super-minimalist study-cum-spare room, conjuring an image of myself as a Tess of the D'Urbervilles type, tending the fruitcakes and their piglet siblings with my rosy-cheeked children all wearing cheesecloth blouses and breeches. Gawain can be Angel. Can't remember his role, so have to change the plot to Georgette Heyer. Fall asleep while deciding which Regency hero he could possibly resemble.

September 28th

Back in the school run rut, a million miles from my life as a glamorous artist's model, I seem to be no closer to Tess or Georgette Heyer either. Terribly stormy weather means we are all wearing cagoules and wellingtons rather than cheesecloth, and the piglets have become malevolent; a pink bit me yesterday morning when I attempted to give it an apple. The Beauty and Felix are both festering with my vile cold and are now at the streaming-snot and raised-temperature stage. Giles has no symptoms, so he and I rise at dawn to prepare for school. Rather wish he was ill too so that I wouldn't have to bother. I have the light-headed, carefree sense of not having been to bed, which I know will later turn into
wrung-out-rag fatigue, caused by a night of pouring Calpol and cough mixture into alternate children, with a few minutes of sleep between each pharmaceutical call. The bathroom mirror confirms that all the benefits of two nights in London and the squandering of a fortune on my appearance are now as dust, and I have developed a tic in my left eye which I fear is permanent. Irritation rises while in the bathroom because David has still not mended the dripping cold tap and I know nothing of washers. Will ask Giles to find out how at school. In Home Economics. Bundle the ill people into the car in their pyjamas, and pass Giles a small surgical mask.

‘Here, put this on so you don't inhale the germs from those two.'

Giles stares at me in horror. ‘No way, Mum, I hate masks. I won't catch their germs, I'm in the front. Why do you keep winking like that? It makes you look evil.'

Cannot believe his intransigence. He should be deeply impressed at my foresight and top-class parenting. He should not mention my tic.

‘Please wear it, Giles. I've got one too, I'll wear mine if you wear yours.' I put it on and mumble, ‘See, it's fine.'

He is flattening himself against his door now, cringing away from me, only partly as a joke.

‘Mum, you're crazy. You can't drive around with a mask on. And your eye winking. You'll be arrested.'

Felix interrupts from the back seat.

‘Mum, Mum, you've got to wipe The Beauty's nose. It's like toffee, it's really gross.'

Turn around to look with the mask on and both The Beauty and Felix burst into tears.

A day for the gas oven, but I do not have one. Instead put my head in the Aga to retrieve a baked potato at lunchtime, and manage to burn my forehead on the door. Leap away immediately but ghastly scrunching, singeing noise suggests that damage has been done. Back to the mirror, where worst fears are confirmed. I now have a sore like a streak of strawberry jam across my temple, too big to hide with hair. The baked potatoes are also burnt. No lunch. The ill ones choose this moment to trail into the kitchen in their pyjamas, both clutching teddies, both with white faces and purple smudges beneath their eyes. They range themselves in front of the Aga and deliver a monstrous array of coughs, one after the other. Sidney, perhaps in sympathy, goes into a paroxysm himself under the kitchen table and regurgitates a skinless shrew at my feet. I need help. I send an SOS message to my mother forthwith.

September 29th

She arrives, twenty-four hours later, in her wellingtons and appears to have become twice her usual size due to her costume of yellow rubber fisherman's jacket. Felix and The Beauty are still coughing and corridor-creeping at night, and I am a zombie, beyond gas ovens.

‘I've been bailing out the pub,' she announces. ‘They lent me this coat.'

Scrutinise her closely, but can detect no signs of red wine or other beverages. Mystifying.

‘Why aren't you drunk, then?'

She draws herself up to express innocence outraged, and looks down her nose at me.

‘That is not my way,' she says piously. ‘The pub was flooded and we had to form a human chain with buckets to empty it and then pile sandbags in the doorways. I'm worn out, and when I got home, I found that that fool Desmond had left the bath running while he went to answer the telephone, so the ceiling below has fallen in. I left him dealing with it, and I've come to stay until he has mended it.'

Divested of her coat, she is back to her usual proportions except that she has a hot-water bottle tucked into her skirt. Decide not to mention it, as she may feel I am being critical.

Felix is delighted to see her. ‘Hooray, Granny's here,'
he shouts, and The Beauty runs and buries her face in her skirt, murmuring, ‘Granneee, Granneee.'

Granny is astonished by the strength of their feeling. ‘Have you been torturing them or something?' She looks more closely at me. ‘Goodness, perhaps you're the one being tortured. What happened to your head?'

Depart to collect Giles, early for once to avoid explaining, and purchase two bottles of red wine as bribes to prevent her changing her mind and going home. Listen to Willie Nelson on the way to school and brood on my inability to lead a grown-up life without prop of mother to keep me going. Should I by now be standing on my own two feet, or does divorced status confer special privileges usually reserved for the sick?

Catapulted into grown-up level of hysteria upon reaching home again. Charles has telephoned in my absence to say I am needed at a very urgent meeting of the directors and shareholders of Heavenly Petting on Thursday, and can he please cancel having the children next weekend as Helena is worn out so they're going to Barcelona. My mother prowls back and forth in front of the Aga, and delivers this message with a snarl. We put the children in the playroom with a video of
Some Like It Hot
in order to have a therapeutic anti-Charles session in peace. Both bottles of red wine are consumed as we rant and fantasise. Charles will be humiliated, his constant dipping into capital for holidays, new golf clubs and
cars will be revealed and he will be made to apologise. I wish.

September 30th

Have evicted three superwasps from Giles's bedroom this evening and have painted my toenails water-lily-leaf green. Fire lit, hair washed, mother returned to her own home, Aga burn healing. Have borrowed Giles's school briefcase for the meeting, but have not yet thought of anything proper to put in it. Giles suggested tuck, so it contains a Penguin biscuit and a carrot so far. Might put my book in as well, as I'm sure I won't finish
Frederica
tonight, and am immersed. It is an especially fine example of Georgette Heyer's ease with the mayhem of Regency family life. I am poised and businesslike and ready for Heavenly Petting tomorrow.