Hens Dancing

by Raffaella Barker

  ‘I am not wearing that,’ he hisses, when I hold up a matted purple knitted tunic.

  I am reluctant to let so charming an item go without a fight: ‘But it would look great over something long. Like a tabard.’

  ‘I hate tabards. And I hate all this sort of thing.’ He flings an expansive arm wide to include everything in the shop. Realise that I am not sure I know what a tabard is. Never mind. The big thing is to get out of the charity shop without either of us having a tantrum.

  December 11th

  Am at the sewing circle. Sewing. Badly. Try to rise above the frightfulness as Felix is very pleased with me, and skipped into school today making sure all his friends and their mums noticed his own immaculately behaved parent.

  ‘Mummy’s doing sewing today. She’s making costumes,’ he told Peregrine. Peregrine has a Roundhead haircut and is the most pampered boy in the school due to his mother having been forty-two and very rich when she had him, and because he is her only child after twenty years of trying.

  ‘Tho what?’ lisps poisonous Peregrine, ‘my mum hath been thewing ev’wy day and my coth-thume hath got sequinzth on it.’

  Peregrine has been wildly miscast as the Angel Gabriel. His mother, Trisha, is a hell-cat, and is only attending the sewing circle to interfere in other people’s work. Of course, she finished hers days ago, and it hangs on a rail at the end of the room, an example to us all, twinkling like something Gary Glitter might have worn in the seventies. She lords it over us for a while, then seizes my cloth and needle.

  ‘That is not blanket stitch, Venetia. This is how you do it.’

  As she hems the brown nylon, fashioning it, I hope, into a tabard, she sighs and glances at me contemptuously from beneath long, blue-mascaraed lashes. But what care I? She is my salvation, and makes the whole Joseph outfit for me. Hooray. Am now confident that Felix will be pleased with his costume for the play.

  December 14th

  Am sure that Christmas party invitations should be flooding in by now, and also seasonal cards to display on the mantelpiece, and if very popular, to hang on strings around the room. Today’s post yields only the telephone bill and a children’s gift catalogue. Resolve to do all my Christmas shopping right now from this catalogue. How splendid it will be in a minute, when I have chosen everything and dispatched the order. Getting along famously, and have just selected a Truth Machine for Charles, when I turn the page and recoil in horror. Utterly trashy, gaudy trembly letters announce Charles’s clockwork coffin, updated since the one Felix had, but no less loathsome. A whole page is devoted to parading its virtues.

  HEAVENLY PETTING ENTERPRISES

  brings you memories to treasure when Poochy

  passes on or Cheepy tweets his last. No pet will ever

  leave you with our clockwork mini coffins. Pop a pinch of

  your pet’s ashes in through the plastic opening lid and you

  have a personalised memento. It’s as easy as that!

  Wind the key and listen to evocative music,

  chosen to bring your pet back to life.

  Gasp at this brazen lie, then notice very small letters almost vanishing off the page: ‘In your mind and heart, if not in person.’

  This high treat costs £20. Charles is plumbing new depths. Telephone his answering machine to register disapproval, and get Helena instead.

  ‘Hello, Venetia, how are you?’

  ‘Fine, thanks.’ God. I sound just like the children. Must do better.

  ‘And how are you, Helena? When are the babies due?’

  A long pause, then Helena’s voice like acid down the line.

  ‘I thought Charles had told you. They’re due in ten days’ time. On Christmas Eve. They’re being induced so we don’t have to wait until after the Christmas break.’ She sounds as if she is talking about the arrival of a pair of curtains.

  I babble back, ‘Gosh, what a good idea. Bye, then.’ Slam the telephone down and burst into tears. Must stop being so pathetic about all this. Is a shrink needed? Telephone Rose for guidance.

  December 16th

  Giles and Felix depart for school staggering beneath mountains of costumes and Rice Krispie cakes. Party season has begun for them with a vengeance, and after the dress rehearsal for the nativity play, Felix is going to a cast party, while Giles is doing the same after the choir’s final carol service rehearsal in the chapel. Wave them off, propping The Beauty on the windowsill, and remain rooted for some time, not wishing to turn back towards the squalor of the breakfast table. Enchanting bird activity brings the yard to life. First, two bluetits swoop out from the eaves of the barn, and alight for a second to peck at the hen food Giles scattered earlier. They are joined by a chaffinch, rose pink and mauve and pretty as a flower, and a pair of yellow-hammers. A drab lady blackbird is next on the scene, and once she has tested the food, she calls to her mate, who swanks over, glorious in his glossy black plumage with show-off yellow beak. Wagtails, a gaudy cerise bullfinch and a group of greenfinches all gather too, and flutter low to scoop a morsel of food before lilting back up into the plum tree or into cosy nooks in the roof of the barn. The Beauty and I are enchanted. She keeps quite still, whispering ‘Chicks,’ delightedly every few minutes, sensing that to raise her voice will disperse them.

  Tell the boys at bathtime that Daddy and Helena’s babies will be there for Christmas. Have steeled myself for this moment and even bought special cereal with free trolls as a treat to give them in their pyjamas afterwards and so cheer them up.

  No need. Felix, cocooned in a towel being an egg, is the only one to register that I have spoken. His voice is muffled, but as he slowly extends each limb, hatching from his towel shell, he answers, ‘Yeah, I know. I’m making them a football team, but they’ll have to share one because I haven’t got time to colour in two. Will they like Arsenal? I’m not doing Cambridge United, they’re sad.’

  Giles, already in his pyjamas, is cuddling Rags in the bathroom armchair.

  ‘Mum, Rags is really fat. I think she’s got worms. Sidney had them, didn’t he?’

  ‘Let’s give her a pink pill. I’m sure there’s one left from last time I had them,’ suggests Felix.

  December 17th

  My mother just pips Charles to the post, and her car hiccups and lurches up the drive in front of his. They exchange stilted greetings in the yard and The Beauty and I emerge before an embarrassing silence can set in. The Beauty is effusive in greeting her relations and blows kisses, keenly aware of the majestic effect she creates in her cherry-red velvet coat with ermine trim and her white fur hat. Charles salutes my cheek and opens the door of his car.

  ‘I’m not going in that sports car,’ shrills my mother. ‘And neither is The Beauty. What’s wrong with my car?’

  Charles shrinks, clutching The Beauty awkwardly and shuddering.

  ‘It stinks,’ I reply, ‘and Egor’s in it and he’s white. His hairs will go all over everyone’s clothes and we need to look smart.’

  My mother bridles at the hint of any criticism of Egor, who is drooling away inside the car and wagging his tail, delighted by the mention of his name. Charles deftly proffers a solution.

  ‘Let’s go in Venetia’s car. It’s got the child seat in it anyway.’

  ‘All right, but I’m sitting in the front,’ insists my mother.

  Not surprisingly, we are late for Felix’s nativity play, and are forced to sit in the front row because those are the only places left. This pleases Felix. A broad grin spreads beneath his matted-wool Joseph beard when he arrives on stage. I smile back, sniffing, having wept silently through his solo rendition of ‘Away In A Manger’, performed in darkness as the cast assembled. My mother, on the other side of Charles, is also much affected, and mops her face with a huge pink silk handkerchief. Charles glances at both of us, sighs, and tries, unsuccessfully, to look relaxed. None of us has a camera. Peregrine’s mother leans over, fluttering her eyelashes (purple today) at Charles.

  ‘Shall I make copies for you
?’ she whispers, pointing at her camera. Irritated, I pretend not to hear, but Charles accepts eagerly.

  ‘How kind. Venetia appears to have forgotten to bring a camera.’

  ‘There was nothing to stop you bringing one,’ I hiss, too loudly, as the Angel Peregrine twinkles across to deliver the good news to Mary.

  ‘Sssshhhhh!’ says Charles, enjoying my being in the wrong.

  I seize an opportunity in a million.

  ‘It’s just like Helena’s immaculate conception, isn’t it?’ Charles presses his lips together. If looks could kill… Ha ha. They can’t.

  ‘Oh, bugger and bye bye,’ shouts The Beauty, jumping up as Felix leaves the centre of the stage to help some infant sheep find their positions. Dissolve into silent, stifled giggles. Shaking shoulders beyond Charles suggest that my mother has done the same.

  Mince pies and coffee afterwards and Charles disassociates himself from us and works the room. He hands one of his cards to Peregrine’s mother, and another to the headmistress. Overhear him offering to come and talk to the children.

  ‘For of course they must prepare for grief, even at this age.’

  ‘God, he makes me sick,’ I snarl to my mother. ‘In fact I’m glad he’s having more children, it means he won’t have to see mine so often.’ Choke on a mince pie as an arm and a gentle hand rests round my waist for a moment. Turn to find David behind me, and am struck by the contrast between him with his red felt shirt and easy, wide smile and the many pale-faced, balding and besuited fathers in the room. He has Felix in tow and they are both eating tangerines.

  ‘Hi, Venetia, I’ve just hauled this young star out from backstage; it’s time to go to Giles’s carol service, and Felix has promised to get me a seat in the gallery if I’m early, so I’m taking him now.’ Hardly have time to kiss Joseph-I-mean-Felix, before they are gone.

  ‘I suppose the children must have invited him,’ muses my mother. ‘Jolly nice of him to come.’

  By the time we arrive at the chapel, it is dusk, and snow is falling as if in silent slow motion. Inside, the smell of wax and holly and oranges and expensive scent mingles with the excitement and expectation in the air, to create an immediate sense of Christmas. We find seats at the back, and can just make out David’s red shirt next to Felix’s small, craning head at the other end. The rustle of coats and murmur of voices subsides as the lights dim for the candlelit procession. A silver-voiced boy sings ‘In the Bleak Midwinter’, and sends a shiver up my spine. The service is uplifting and joyous, and as we queue to leave I am able to smile pleasantly at Charles and to introduce him to David.

  ‘I think you may have met sometime at the house. Or maybe not,’ I add.

  Charles has not enjoyed his afternoon, although he did look pleased when Felix sang, and now slips Giles a fiver, saying, ‘Use it for something fun for you and Felix. You did well.’

  He turns to David and smiles briefly.

  ‘Good of you to come,’ he says, as if he had personally invited him, then looks at me. ‘If you don’t mind, Venetia, we should be going. I have to be in Cambridge in time for dinner.’

  ‘Can we go with David and get fish and chips, please, Mum?’ begs Giles.

  ‘And a video,’ adds Felix. ‘You said we should see Goldeneye next. And David and Granny both really want to see it too. They said so.’

  Bundle Charles into my car, hastily agreeing to everything in order to make my getaway without Charles learning too many of the slobbish details of our domestic life.

  ‘That fellow seems very familiar,’ he comments. ‘Cosy set-up he’s got with the boys. I should watch yourself there, Venetia.’

  Am so angry that I cannot speak, so resort to Radio One to torture him for the ten-minute drive home.

  December 20th

  First buds of the hyacinths I planted and left in the airing cupboard have now opened, releasing a tide of bluebell scent through the house. Very thrilling, as I left them in the dark much longer than recommended and thought they might not recover in time for Christmas.

  December 22nd

  Excitement at fever pitch. Felix and The Beauty have taken every sock in the house and laid them in a line from the fireplace in the dining room up to their bedrooms. No one is allowed to wear any of them until they have chosen their Christmas stockings. Giles, who was given a personalised stocking with his name embroidered on it at birth, ignores the sock queue and continues to sew lavender bags and make giraffe-skin purses. Like any convert, he is far more zealous than those who always thought it a good idea to make a few presents. His mission is to avoid spending any of his own money on Christmas. Can’t help admiring his resolution as I write the fifteenth cheque of the day, this one to the sewage man who has chosen this moment for his annual servicing of the cesspit.

  December 23rd

  According to Delia Smith, I am too late to start cooking Christmas dinner. I should have begun a month ago. Hate her smug line on preparing chestnut purée and getting up at seven a.m. to stuff the turkey and put it in the oven. Read her four essential shopping lists and realise that I am so inadequately equipped I may as well give up. Have no lattice cutter, no fuse wire or fuses, no spare set of Christmas-tree lights and no Tupperware. But I do have a Christmas cake, made by me and Felix a month ago (although Delia recommends three months, which would mean almost making it in the summer holidays). I have been spiking it with brandy every day, and am very proud of it. Giles fetches it from the larder and we peel off the layers of greaseproof paper to ice it. I can scarcely believe that we have made something so textbook.

  ‘Let’s do an arctic battle on it,’ suggests Giles. Twenty minutes pass while four favourite Warhammers and three pink-haired trolls are placed in exact formation on the snowy royal icing.

  We charge on through our pre-Christmas rituals, and go out to gather holly and mistletoe in the glittering bite of the frosty late afternoon, all bundled up in scarves and hats, boots and gloves. The children have red cheeks and bright sparkling eyes in an instant. Perfect, story-book afternoon, I think to myself, watching them dash to and fro as a vast pink sun descends to the horizon. Idyllic, and so much better than Delia’s thirty-six-hour countdown to Christmas spent tied to the cooker. How I love my life in the country with my brood. It has all been worthwhile.

  ‘Mummy, we haven’t got a tree.’ Felix hurls down a branch of holly in the lane and begins to howl. He’s right. I have forgotten the Christmas tree. It is a disaster.

  ‘Oh, God, how can I be so stupid? I knew I’d forgotten something. Quick, into the car, we’ll go and find one at that roadside stall we saw yesterday. They had lots, don’t worry.’

  Felix sobs all the way and it begins to rain. Our heaps of holly will be soaked. We will not be able to decorate the house with it. The stall is packing up, and has no Christmas trees left over three feet tall.

  ‘We can’t have those, they’re tiny,’ screams Felix. ‘The presents won’t fit under them.’

  I think of the mountain of unwrapped presents hidden in my study, the heap of washing-up in the sink, the forest of holly outside the back door and the unlaid and unlit fire in the drawing room. I, too, begin to weep. Giles pats my hand.

  ‘Let’s go and see if there are any at the garage, and if there aren’t, let’s ring David. He’ll be able to find us one.’

  Am very impressed by Giles’s calm competence. Do exactly as he says, and moments later am sitting outside a telephone box while he makes a deal with David. He comes back to the car looking delighted.

  ‘He’s going to bring it round in an hour,’ he says. ‘It was really lucky, he said he was about to go out and then we wouldn’t have got a tree at all.’

  Felix maintains a distrustful silence until the tree is standing in its bucket next to the fireplace and David is testing the lights. Astonishingly, they work. Calm and good cheer return, and Felix begins sorting decorations and hanging them. The stress of the episode leaves me light-headed and heavy-limbed with exhaustion. A drink is called for.
I offer one to David.

  ‘Please stay and have a beer or a whisky or something. It was so brilliant of you to save us.’

  ‘It’s fine, it was easy.’ David laughs it off, and turns to accept a pink sock The Beauty has brought him. Giles jumps onto the sofa arm next to me and whispers, ‘He said I mustn’t tell you, but David’s given us his tree, and now he hasn’t got one, so I think you should ask him to Christmas here.’

  Am mortified to think of him in a house barren and empty of twinkliness for Christmas, but somehow balk at inviting him here. Can’t face letting him in on the spectacle of us all in paper hats, and each wearing every item of clothing we are given on top of our Christmas Day outfits, in time-honoured family tradition. Will give him a present instead. Leave the room to rootle through my carrier bags. There is nothing suitable. I can’t give him the orange nylon beard I bought for Desmond, or the snooker cue planned for Giles. Shuffle some more, and into my hands falls the delicious purple shirt. Perfect. Could have been made for him. He will look lovely in it. Wrap it in a bit of wallpaper and return to the sitting room. Hiss at Giles, ‘Let’s give him this to say thank you,’ but Giles doesn’t hear; he has sidled over to where The Beauty and David are untangling a wooden apple from a tiny carved angel.

  ‘We’d really like you to come here for Christmas Day, David,’ he says, before I can stop him.

  I interrupt, hoping to deflect him from answering and saying yes.

  ‘Here. We’ve got you this.’ I thrust the parcel at him.

  Try to avoid his eye, but fail, and he is watching me intently, catching my expression of frozen embarrassment. He knows I don’t want him to come. Oh, it’s too awful. Maybe I do. Help. We’re too badly behaved for strangers to cope with, and there’s already Rose and Tristan. There won’t be room. David is still looking at me, doubtless reading all these thoughts as they flit through my tiny, transparent brain. Am so embarrassed, and have flushed crimson; can feel it above my polo neck. Must look like a beetroot-head. David squeezes my hand, then coughs, giving himself time to choose his answer, and somehow manages to convey huge pleasure and no noticeable offence.