Hens Dancing (29 page)

Quaver, ‘Come in,' and David's head appears, his hair haloed with sawdust. We look at one another for an eternity.

‘Can I turn the electricity off?' he says.

‘Yes, do.' I keep my eyes half-closed, and hope mortification is not spreading pink across my cheeks. He tiptoes into the room, now keeping his eyes averted from my listless form. ‘I'm sorry to bother you, but I need to get to the fuse box. Can I bring you anything? I think Smalls is making some tea. Or would you rather be left in peace?' he adds solicitously.

‘I'm fine, just shut the door.' So unfair. Bloody hell. Why does the sodding fuse box have to be in my bedroom? David flicks a switch and I hear the answerphone
click and bleep as dark and silence envelope the house. Groan atmospherically. David glances again at my slumped form.

‘We'll keep the noise down, you rest,' he says kindly. ‘You need to get your strength up.' He leaves the room laughing, I am sure. Turn over and see that the Smartie tube is not under the blanket at all, but next to me on the pillow. I am revealed as Bessie Bunter figure rather than glamorous consumptive type.

January 25th

Burns Night. My mother telephones and recites ‘Wee sleekit timorous beestie' to Felix and Giles in turn. She wants them to learn it off by heart. They sound as if they are speaking in tongues, but Giles assures me, ‘It's the proper Scottish accent for the poem. Robbie Burns used to talk like that. Granny said so.'

Anniversary of my divorce. Is it something to celebrate? Can't decide if it would be tasteless. Charles has no such qualms, but this is because he has forgotten all about it. He telephones briskly from the office. Minna puts us through, but chats for a moment first. She and Desmond have been to the Canary Islands to escape the weather here.

‘Yeah, it was windy, but I managed a bit of topless most days, which isn't bad for January.'

She needs no prodding to talk about Charles's business.

‘The clockwork coffins have generated ever such a lot of attention,' she tells me, ‘and the demand for them is huge. I think Heavenly Petting could give up frying dead animals and move into the ghoulish gift market full time. I'll put you through to Mr Denny. Ask him.'

Charles does not want to talk about business, however. Nor about our divorci-versary.

‘Venetia, hello. Helena's frantic that the twins should not be vaccinated. I say they should. She's pretty het up about it, so I said I'd ask you. What did you do about The Beauty?'

‘Charles, you can't ask me to get involved in your decisions with Helena about your babies. I can't remember what I did about The Beauty, anyway. But she doesn't have a nut allergy.'

He is perplexed. ‘Why should she have a nut allergy?'

‘Oh, it's another thing people get very het up about. You'll soon see. Do you know what day it is?'

‘Yes, of course I do. It's Burns Night.'

‘Anything else?' I use my most dulcet tone, but it is ill received.

‘Yes. Yesterday the twins were one month old, so as
you can imagine, I'm exhausted and not in the mood for playing calendar guessing games with you.'

Hang up, delighted to think of Charles being forced into unfamiliar, murky waters of babycare.

January 28th

Giles has refused to go and stay with Charles and Helena this weekend. I ask him if he is upset about the babies. He is sitting on his bed, looking tired, his shoulders sagging and his voice small and sad.

‘It's not that. It's more difficult to explain.'

Hug him and sit closer on his bed, heart palpitating, awaiting awful traumatic revelation.

‘Dad's house is different from here,' he says, diplomatically averting his eyes from the shredded newspaper stuck to my shoe, and the dark patches of cleared-up puppy pee on the carpet. ‘And I feel homesick there, even though I'm with Dad. I'd just rather wait until everyone stops thinking about Holly and Ivy-Eff all the time.'

‘All right then, I'll tell Dad. But remember,
never
call her Ivy-Eff when you're with Dad.'

Revived miraculously, Giles sits up. ‘It's only so we know which ones we're talking about,' he cajoles, and
then, in a much stronger voice, ‘And can I have our Holly and Ivy up here? Felix and I are doing an episode of
Animal Hospital.
David's helping us and he's lending us his digital camcorder. Look, I've already got Lowly.'

He pulls back his duvet to reveal the slug-shaped dome of Lowly's belly as he lies on his back, paws beneath his chin, sound asleep on the pillow.

February 1st

Very cross-making day of being utterly ignored by everyone, even the puppies. The episode of
Animal Hospital
turns quickly and surreally into a tiny film for real television. House fills with gaffer tape, cables and huge fluffy brooms held upside down. All this equipment, and the stupid idea of putting the dogs and the children on the local news, comes from marvellous Marion, a so-called friend of David's who is a producer for the local television station. Try to get Giles to find out if marvellous Marion is David's girlfriend. Giles grins at me.

‘I know she's not, because David said to me, “I bet your mum thinks Marion is my girlfriend.”' Giles is silent for a moment, watching Marion's lithe frame leaning over to show David a shot she might use of the puppies' castle. ‘But I think she'd like to be, don't you, Mum?'

‘Honestly Giles, I am depressed by the coarse tone of your mind.'

‘What about yours? You're the one who asked.'

All supremely irritating. David should not use my house as a pick-up joint for lissom journalists. Huh.

February 3rd

Letter from Charles announcing possible merger and subsequent flotation of Heavenly Petting with a pet shop chain. Visualise this as Noah's-ark-style manoeuvre, with rickety and antique animals sailing away with all Charles's money. In fact it means the opposite. Charles will become a squillionaire. Wonder if I will too. Hope so, but doubt it. Can't even remember how many shares I have. Resolve to become literate in pension schemes, life assurance and shares this year, and purchase the
Financial Times
in Aylsham. Spend a happy hour reading the classified advertisements and eating doughnuts at the kitchen table. The advertisements are top quality and include blissful-sounding holidays. Indulge in fantasies for a while, then flick through the headlines without seeing anything I need to know, and use the rest of the paper to line the puppies' castle keep. They look sweet nestled in the pink newsprint. Have a brilliant idea. Compose an
advertisement to sell them and fax it to the FT classifieds. Most efficient morning.

February 6th

Charles collects the boys and takes them to Centre Pares for the night. They are thrilled to have him to themselves, and all three of them drive off very animated, talking about what they will do first and whether they can go dry skiing. Wave them down the drive, scanning conscience to detect any lemon-faced feelings. There are none. This is what I wanted for them when Charles left. His twins have been a catalyst to change, and he is beginning to see the point of having Giles and Felix to himself. Not quite sure about The Beauty, but am convinced she will cope. Return to the kitchen to find her standing on the table surveying the wreckage of breakfast. Lips pursed, she shakes her head in disapproval.

‘Tut tut tut,' she says, and, brandishing a dustpan brush, she begins to clear the table. Crockery catastrophe is averted by Sidney, who jumps onto the table to scavenge and distracts her. Sidney insinuates his way towards the butter dish. The Beauty joins him. Sidney shoots out a long pink tongue and achieves a slurp of butter. The
Beauty extends a dainty finger and dips its tip in, alongside Sidney's tongue.

‘Mmmmmm, yummy yummy,' she smiles.

February 9th

Marvellous Marion telephones to ask if she can use the puppies' castle as a location for a children's programme.

‘Which one?' Hold my breath, hoping and praying that she will say
Teletubbies.

‘It's called
Soppy Dog.
It's about a Cabbage Patch dog with learning difficulties, but a lovely, gentle, funny character.'

‘Sounds ghastly,' I bark, and realising I sound like some old sergeant major, add, ‘I mean, it sounds wonderful, and we'd love you to film it here. Will it be a series?'

‘Yes, it will take about a week to shoot. Would ten thousand be all right?'

Just manage not to scream, but say airily, ‘Ten's fine for that, yup.'

Put phone down and dance about, singing with joy. Must ask David to build some more things immediately. We will become like Shepperton Studios. Hooray. Rich, rich, rich. Must give David a cut, in fact, or go into business with him. Where
is
David? He is supposed to be here.

February 10th

Sudden landscaping interest has arisen today, because marvellous Marion has sent a lorry load of box-hedging plants to say thank you for
Soppy Dog.
Having no artistic flair myself, am flummoxed by all this evergreen twiggery. Telephone Rose.

‘You must have a knot garden,' she says. ‘I'll get Tristan to draw a plan and I'll fax it to you.'

Awful Zen fax arrives with absurd garden nothing like mine, having very straight lines, lots of tiny white chip gravel and smooth concrete paths. Look out of the study window at weed-strewn wilderness and become despondent. Take fax to David, who is in overdrive and is now creating a grotto in The Beauty's room. He is hammering and singing ‘Sorrow' by David Bowie. It is one of my favourites. Stand behind him, listening, mesmerised by the rhythmic hammering and murmured song.

‘The only thing I ever got from you was sorrow.'

He knows all the words, and carries on through the verses until Digger, curled on The Beauty's bed, notices me and thumps his tail. David turns his head and smiles a greeting. Have astonishing sensation of being quite naked with him looking at me. So powerful is this feeling that I find myself glancing down to make sure my jeans are still there. Start blabbering to hide my confusion.

‘I wonder – I don't suppose – would you be interested? No. What I mean is, can you make a knot garden?'

He looks utterly blank. I pass the fax. He stares at it and then at me again. Fear I have offended him somehow.

‘Don't worry. I'll just go and plant the trees any old how. It can't be hard.'

Rush outside in a chaos of irritation that David is not making the knot garden for me. Why am I so neurotic that I can't even have a conversation now without thinking I'm naked? Must change my life and get out more. Or not. Perhaps I am one of nature's hermits. David shouts out of the window at me.

‘Sorry, I got the wrong end of the stick. Of course I'll make you a knot garden. Don't do any digging now. I'll draw a plan and do it for you. But I can't for a few days. So just leave it or you'll do your back in.'

‘All right. I'll just do this row of plants before it's time to collect the boys,' I yell back, relieved that I no longer feel naked, and enjoying the hot physical exertion of the task. Once again have become a peasant from
Anna Karenina.
Dig a satisfactory square for my seventh tiny box plant, and am heaving taupe-coloured clay wodge into the wheelbarrow, when shooting pain cleaves my spine at the waist. Ping, just like a trouser button, except that instead of the midriff sagging, my vertebra has turned red hot and spiked. Stagger inside shrieking for help and collapse in agony on the kitchen floor.

February 12th

In bed officially now, with two Florence Nightingale attendants, one with purple hair, the other about two feet tall. Drug haze clears enough for me to identify them as my mother and The Beauty. Both have acquired starched aprons, red crosses and little hats like napkins. They flit and glide about my room, plumping cushions, tweaking the bowl of snowdrops and black hellebores and generally ministering. Have been given elephant tranquillisers or equivalent, so am in mad pink-edged, soft-focus world, and have no cares or responsibilities at all.

February 13th

Telephone interrupts fluffy thoughts. It is a minion from the Mo Loam Temple to Beauty.

‘Mrs Denny, you have missed your appointment and must pay the full fee of a hundred and twenty pounds immediately. There is a waiting list here, you know.'

‘But I've already paid a deposit,' I protest, still on cloud nine, but coming back to earth with a bump.

‘This is immaterial,' drones the minion. ‘Shall I book you another appointment to redeem your deposit, or shall we call it a day?'

‘Do what you like.' Slam telephone down and weep for several minutes. The Beauty brings her kangaroo over to comfort me.

February 14th

Valentine's Day again. Am allowed to get up today, but can't be bothered. Self-pity has overtaken backache, thanks to wonder drugs, and I lie in bed with no prospect of being sent any cards and the future as a crippled old mother of three before me. Not even a beauty treatment glistens on the horizon. My mother is still installed, looking after the children. She will probably have to stay for ever. Through my bedroom door I hear muffled voices and pattering feet. The gravel crunches beneath car tyres, heralding the postman. Must get up. Pattering feet get louder and louder.

‘Mum, Mum, even Rags has got a card. Felix hates his
again
this year. The Beauty's got two. Look, look.'

Quite absurd at my age to mind so much about Valentine's Day. I shall rise above it. But I want a card. Why has everyone except me got one?

The children swarm into the room, a bundle of envelopes coloured blue and pink and green like sugared almonds in their hands. Felix waves a duck-egg blue one.
It has tiny gold stars dusted across it, and it encapsulates everything that I love about stationery.

‘Look, Mum. This one is for you,' he says. Giles has opened Rags's card and is reading it to her.