Hens Dancing (30 page)

‘Mummy, it says “Two out of three ain't bad.” What does it mean?' Have no interest in cryptic canine messages.

‘Oh, I expect it's from Digger. It must mean the puppies,' I suggest. Dress at top speed, staring at my card without opening it. Savouring the fact of having it. It is here. It is mine. It is, undoubtedly, a Valentine's Day card. How I have longed for this moment.

The boys depart, leaving twists of torn pastel paper, and charge downstairs to show my mother Rags's card and to see what The Beauty got. Hear them all clattering and shouting in the kitchen. Heart thuds madly as I approach the card. Feel exactly as I did when opening my A-level results, tight in the throat, my skin electric, my teeth clenched. Pick it up, turn it over, but am too overexcited to read the envelope, even though I know I should be poring over the postmark. Tear the envelope wide open. No card. This is terrible. No blooming effusions or lines of poetry. I wanted it to be Byron. I wanted someone to have chosen:

She walks in Beauty like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and light
Meet in her aspect and her eyes

But no one has. A slip of paper falls out and onto the floor. Tears well and swim in my eyes as I pick it up.

Admired Venetia, look out of your window.

Thrilling, just thrilling. Rush to the window, fling open the curtains and look. There below, where I was digging in deepest mud a few days ago, is heaven. A tiny, intricate knot garden, gravel gleaming between the curves and swells of the hedging, and seats with backs like scallop shells at either end. Four slender trees stand among the box, their branches naked save for a thread of silver stars. The whole garden is not much bigger than my kitchen. It sparkles, still damp with morning dew; precious and perfect as a jewel.

The back door opens, and Giles and Felix, in wellingtons, charge into the yard, The Beauty riding piggyback on Giles's shoulders. They run through the orchard, scattering a trio of hens who are making a meal out of some worms in a molehill. The boys pause beneath my window and survey the knot garden critically.

The Beauty, sensing a celebration, claps, and shouts, ‘Hooray.'

‘Cool,' says Giles. ‘He managed to get it finished in time after all.' Felix sits down on a bench.

‘Mum will probably cry when she sees it,' he remarks. ‘I would if I were her.'

‘What do you mean? I think she'll really like it,' Giles is indignant.

‘I mean that kind of crying she does when she's happy. You know, like at the school play.'

‘Oh, yes. She will.' Both fall silent for a moment. ‘Come on. Let's go inside. It's freezing.'

The first sun for days struggles through and dances on the leaves and stars and branches in my new garden. I lean in from the window and turn to go downstairs. David is on the threshold of my room.

Raffaella Barker, daughter of the poet George Barker, was born and brought up in the Norfolk countryside. She is the author of seven acclaimed novels,
Come and Tell Me Some Lies
,
The Hook
,
Hens Dancing
,
Summertime
,
Green Grass
,
Poppyland
,
A Perfect Life
and most recently,
From a Distance
. She has also written a novel for young adults,
Phosphorescence
. She is a regular contributor to
Country Life
and the
Sunday Telegraph
and teaches on the Literature and Creative Writing BA at the University of East Anglia and the Guardian UEA Novel Writing Masterclass. Raffaella Barker lives in Cley next the Sea, Norfolk.

Come and Tell Me Some Lies
The Hook
Phosphorescence
Summertime
Green Grass
A Perfect Life
Poppyland
From a Distance

COME AND TELL ME SOME LIES

Gabriella lives in a damp, ramshackle, book-strewn manor in Norfolk with her tempestuous poet father and unconventional mother. Alongside her ever-expanding set of siblings and half-siblings, numerous pets and her father's rag-tag admirers, Gabriella navigates a chaotic childhood of wild bohemian parties and fluctuating levels of poverty. Longing to be normal, Gabriella enrols in a strict day school, only to find herself balancing two very different lives. Struggling to keep the eccentricities of her family contained, her failure to achieve conformity amongst her peers is endearing, and absolute.

Come and Tell Me Some Lies
is Raffaella Barker's enchanting first novel – a humorous, bittersweet tale of a girl who longs to be normal, and a family that can't help be anything but.

‘Funny … Clever and touching'
Guardian

THE HOOK

Christy Naylor was forced to grow up quickly. Still reeling with anger after the death of her mother, she abandons college in order to help her father uproot from suburbia and start a new life on a swampy fish farm out in the sticks, a prize that he won in a shady game of poker.

Amid this turmoil, looms the mysterious Mick Fleet, tall, powerful and charismatic. Unsettled and unsure of herself, Christy is hooked on his intense charm. She knows nothing about him yet she feels like she is being swallowed up in his embrace and she plunges into a love affair blind to the catastrophe he will bring…

‘Stylish and insightful … With the pace and verve of a thriller'
Independent

SUMMERTIME

After one year of being ‘buffered from single-motherhood' by her boyfriend, David, Venetia Summers suddenly finds her life unravelling as he is sent to the Brazilian jungle and she is left alone in Norfolk. As chaos reigns in her home and her three children run wilder than ever she finds her life further complicated by a bad-mouthed green parrot, a burgeoning fashion career designing demented cardigans and her brother's outrageous wedding. As emails languish unanswered, phone lines cut out and long-distance relationships prove both vexing and bewildering, life and love take some very unexpected turns.

‘My advice is not to read
Summertime
in public. You'll giggle, you'll snort, you'll make an exhibition of yourself … I loved
Hens Dancing
, and this is better yet'
Country Life

GREEN GRASS

Laura Sale has grown tired of her life. Her daily routine of dividing her time between pandering to the demands of her challenging conceptual artist husband, Inigo and those of their thirteen-year-old twins Dolly and Fred, has taken its toll. She longs to remember what makes her happy. A chance encounter with Guy, her first love, is the catalyst she needs, and she swaps North London for the rural idyll she grew up in. In her new Norfolk home Laura finds herself confronting old ghosts, ferrets, an ungracious goat and a collapsing relationship. As she starts to savour the space she has craved, and she takes control of her destiny, Laura finds it lit with possibility.

‘I love Raffaella Barker's books – so funny and acerbic' Maggie O'Farrell

A PERFECT LIFE

The Stone family live a seemingly fairy-tale existence, complete with fire pit barbeques and seaside picnics in their idyllic home in rural Norfolk. Nick, Angel and their four children appear to lead a charmed life.

But if everything is so perfect why is Nick away all of the time? Why is every conversation between husband and wife filled with growing silence? And why does their eldest child seem so disillusioned?

We all want a perfect life, but at what price?

Come and Tell Me Some Lies
is Raffaella Barker's enchanting first novel – a humorous, bittersweet tale of a girl who longs to be normal, and a family that can't help be anything but.

‘To write well and with such open-hearted affection is an achievement'
Observer

POPPYLAND

On a freezing cold night in an unfamiliar city, a man meets a woman. The encounter lasts just moments, they part barely knowing one another's names, they make no plans to meet again. But both are left breathless.