by H. E. Bates
Pop, ignoring whatever slight reproach about matrimony there might have been in Ma’s voice, said ‘Good egg!’ and shouldn’t he go over and give ’em a bit of encouragement or something like that?
‘Something like what?’ Ma said.
‘I dunno,’ Pop said. ‘Like champagne.’
‘Give us a chance,’ Ma said. ‘I’m still on Guinness,’ and turned to give a sip to little Oscar, who in fact took several sips and then solemnly wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
‘Let’s leave the champagne till it gets dark,’ Ma said. ‘Why don’t you get some fun and games organized? I thought you said we were going to have races?’
Pop, leaving Ma to carry on with the business of filling up glasses, suddenly became more acutely aware of the sound of bells. For some reason they always reminded him of Christmas. They made him think of snow on holly, musical chairs, Paul Jones, and Postman’s Knock. They inspired him to fun. And suddenly in a brilliant burst of enthusiasm he was laughing in his most rousing fashion and shouting:
‘Everybody in the pool! Going to have Blind Man’s Buff in the pool!’
Ma laughed rousingly too. That was a good one. Trust Pop to think of that.
‘Who’s going to start it?’
Pop was tempted to say Edith, but suddenly realized that he’d better do it himself, so as to hot it up from the start.
‘I will,’ he said. ‘Come on, everybody in. Kids an’ all. Angela, Edith. All in. General, where are you?’
Presently everybody was in the pool except, it seemed, Mariette. Somehow this evening Mariette was always missing. Where was Mariette?
‘She’s gone to fetch Oscar a woollie,’ Ma said. ‘She’ll be back.’
Presently Pop was in the pool, eyes bandaged, playing Blind Man. With one corner of the handkerchief ever so slightly raised he could easily tell the difference between Edith, Ma, and Angela and so knew which of them to chase at the right time. Not that he could miss Ma very well; she took up such an expanse of the pool. Several times Edith shrieked, stumbled in escape and wildly went under but there was a time when he grabbed lusciously at what he thought was Angela Snow, only to find that it was Mr Charlton.
When it was finally Mr Charlton’s turn to be Blind Man it was Primrose who allowed herself to get caught. Mr Charlton was exactly the right type for her, she had decided. He was her dream. In the wood she had actually shed a tear or two and now to be caught by Mr Charlton made her confusedly happy. In her joyful confusion, when it was her turn, she immediately caught the Brigadier, who then wandered about the central parts of the pool like a searching spider, desperately hoping it would be Angela he touched. His singular misfortune at running several times into the large bulk of Ma finally made her so sorry for him that suddenly she pushed him flat into Angela’s arms and for a suspended second or two he remained there, until Pop shouted in lyrical encouragement:
‘Kiss her, man! Kiss her!’
To everybody’s astonishment the Brigadier actually did, still with the handkerchief over his eyes, standing in water up to his armpits, half as if at a baptism, half as if embalmed.
The whole thing, so unexpected, made Ma laugh so much that she had to go and rest at the side of the pool. While she was there, choking afresh at the sight of Mr Charlton passing and finally torpedoing Edith Pilchester at the deep end, Pop joined her and said:
‘Charley boy’s getting fresh tonight. Mariette’ll have to watch out. By the way, where is she all this time?’
‘I expect she’s gone to have a lay-down.’
‘Good God. Lay down? What she want to lay down for?’
‘She’s just resting.’
‘Resting? What’s she want to rest for? It’s only eight o’clock.’
‘The doctor says she’s got to,’ Ma said blandly. ‘Anyway for the first month or two.’
In a positive whirlwind of joy Pop raced twice round the pool before finally jumping in, feet first, at the deep end. As he landed almost on top of Edith Pilchester, blindfolded now, he told himself in a shout that he hoped it would be a girl. Another Mariette. No, he didn’t. He hoped it would be twins. He hoped in fact that all his family would one day have twins. He hoped that if Angela and the General ever got married they too would have twins. He hoped even Edith Pilchester would have twins. Why not? He wanted them all, every one of them, to have a life of double richness.
In a second whirl of excitement he grabbed Ma from the side of the pool and ducked her four times in rapid succession, at the same time shouting to Charley:
‘Get the champagne, Charley boy. Pink and red! Plenty of ice. It’s your night, Charley boy.’
With a thump on the back that almost broke Mr Charlton in two he urged Charley boy on his fruitful way to the house and then found himself standing, some moments later, in a sort of delirium of suspense, on the diving board.
For some seconds longer he stood there gazing down at the blue water and all the faces of the people he loved. Across the golden evening the peal of church bells, together with the song of a late blackbird or two and in the near woods a bubbling call of pigeons drifted in on a high chorus of midsummer sounds that exhilarated him like laughter. This was life, he told himself. This was how it ought to be.
A moment later, laughing too, he dived. The evening air flowed past him like silk and from across the meadows came the scent of drying hay.