by Stibbe, Nina
Our mother spoke to Mr Lomax, who had popped round to do an odd job, and he helped her look on a road atlas. Mr Lomax was a member of the Institute of Advanced Motorists (which meant he could turn on a sixpence and park in a shoebox) and he was able to give her lots of tips for driving long-distance: have plenty of coffee stops and if you find yourself nodding off at the wheel, rock back and forth vigorously and open a window, and if the worst comes to the worst, get one of the children to tap you repeatedly on the head.
Halfway there my sister and I had some feelings of anxiety and whispered to each other during a coffee stop. Suppose the uncles and aunts weren’t pleased to see us? we asked ourselves. Suppose there wasn’t room in the house? But we talked ourselves round. I think we said that once we’d arrived and settled they’d see how funny we all were and inventive and good at games and so on, and we’d have a breakthrough and all cook a communal supper together and we’d sleep on fluffy cushions in a sitting room with the tail-end of a fire in the grate.
Arriving in Dorset, we drove into the mossy gravel driveway (mossy gravel gone spongy with years and years of dropped pine needles) outside a square Georgian house standing in all-around grounds (the sort I loved and still do). In the time it took to see how utterly lovely it all was, our mother discovered it had not been an invitation at all but an embarrassing misunderstanding, and after seeing the puzzled and embarrassed expressions we went away again and drove the hundreds of miles home. No one spoke except for Little Jack, whose garbles were like an irritating tune that soon you don’t even hear.
It was worse than Mr Dodd and Charlie and the vicar and the kitchen caper and everything. It was deeply shaming and my sister, for once, felt guilty. So guilty that she agreed with my long-held belief that she should join in with the play from time to time, and not begrudgingly but enthusiastically – just to ease the misery.
Aunt F: Christ! It’s Adele and the kids.
Uncle G: What the hell are they doing here?
Aunt D: They’ve turned up out of the ruddy blue.
Uncle C: Not that bloody menace and her brood?
Uncle G: Duck everyone, play dead.
The morning after our return from Dorset we had the embarrassment of going to tell the nice lady from Merryfield’s bakery that she wouldn’t need to look after Debbie or the ponies after all – we blamed an uncle’s tonsils – and the woman was very sympathetic and said he should consider getting shot of them.
My sister wanted to come up with something lovely to help our mother get over the utter humiliation and the long drive. We started by making bread rolls with a great lump of leathery dough given to us by the nice lady from Merryfield’s, who said there was nothing in the world better at cheering people up than freshly baked rolls. It reminded us of Mrs Lunt’s similar claim for jam tarts.
We divided the dough into four, put them into the oven and waited for them to be cooked. The nice bready smell did its best to make us feel better and then, while they cooled, we went and sat with our mother in her bed. My sister read to us from some funny memoirs and was about to offer to do more of the play, when Little Jack rushed downstairs and back again with a letter and a leaflet that had come through the letter box. The letter was the bill from Miss Woods’s shop and the leaflet was advertising the Summer Garden Party.
‘Not another bill,’ said our mother, looking at Miss Woods’s letter, and then, ‘Not another fair,’ looking at the leaflet.
And then we all felt the need for the bread rolls. My sister said she might pop across for some raspberry jam and our mother said could we make do without the jam due to her having no money handy to pay the bill. And in fact, could we steer clear of Miss Woods’s shop for the time being.
We had the bread rolls plain and discussed the Summer Garden Party. It was to be held on the first Saturday of the July Fortnight. It was going to be run as if the year was 1945 – its inaugural year. There were to be dog classes, terrier racing, a flower show, a white elephant and second-hand clothing stalls as well as a tea dance. There was even going to be condensed-milk toffees for prizes just as there had been in 1945 (‘the prizes will be cash in appropriate amounts and toffee from a wartime recipe in the waxy paper of yesteryear’). Little Jack loved the word yesteryear but said it should mean the year before this current year, not the olden times in general which we insisted it meant.
The Garden Party reinforced my sister’s feeling that we should dump Charlie Bates once and for all because it presented an opportunity to make a proper move on the much preferable (in her eyes) Mr Phil Oliphant. My sister decided to enter Debbie in one of the dog classes in order to firm up our acquaintance with Mr Oliphant, seeing as he was to be the senior judge in all canine events bar the terrier racing. Her goal was to make sure he met and shook hands with our mother, who would be standing beside me to the left of the collecting ring. Men found it almost impossible not to fall in love with her once they’d shaken her hand – or so my father once said. So it was essential I was there to position her while my sister manoeuvred Mr Oliphant towards us as he exited the arena.
My sister was sold on Mr Oliphant and constantly reminded me of his attributes. And overall I agreed, Mr Oliphant actually being a nice man whom people respected. You have to be extremely respected to be one of the judges at the Garden Party. And, thanks to my sister going round to his house looking for a pony, we were sort of friends of his, acquaintances anyway. Also he was handsome in a well-dressed-farmer type of way, unlike Charlie, who looked like something out of an old film – always smoking and looking sly and like he was about to kill someone with a hidden gun.
On the day of the party it took us quite some time to convince our mother to even come to the show, let alone to place her in the hand-shaking position for the dog judge.
‘I really can’t be doing with it,’ she said, sounding just like our old help, Mrs Lunt.
‘The whole village – no, the whole parish – will be there,’ I said.
Our mother groaned.
‘It’s going to be old-fashioned like the wartime of yesteryear,’ I said, which was wrong again.
‘Only a bit wartime-ish,’ said my sister, ‘but there’s a flower show and Mr Gummo’s showing his sweet peas and a rare alpine,’ she said, proving it was worth listening to gardeners when they speak. Our mother was fond of Mr Gummo since he’d covered the manhole and not minded about the rumours, and it was clever of my sister to have plucked that out of her memory when everything I plucked was such a turn-off.
Eventually, it was the idea of seeing Debbie in the dog show that appealed to our mother, and she went to her room to get ready and reappeared in a flimsy dress whose pattern could have been the dancing shadows of a wind-blown tree – but might equally have been a coffee stain. She’d taken to wearing hats in public and that day wore a floppy one to suit the dress. And sandals which were so flimsy it was as though there was no sandal at all, only a thin leather string looping her big toe and heel. She looked a dream.
I was telling the truth when I said that everyone in the whole parish of four villages would be at the Summer Garden Party. It was held every year in the grounds of Kneebone cottage hospital, which wasn’t actually in the village and only did varicose veins, bunions and appendixes. Not knee bones, or anything tricky or potentially fatal, the only death in twenty years having been a lonely chiropodist in a window leap.
The dog show element was very much just for fun and not like Cruft’s or anything where you had to take surgical spirit to the dog’s paws and put Carmen rollers in their hair. There were various classes, the first being the Dog Most Like Its Owner, in which Mrs C. Beard’s daughter, Charlotte, won first prize with their boxer dog, Minnie. Mrs C. Beard seemed thrilled, but Charlotte did not and she didn’t want her toffees of yesteryear.
My sister entered Debbie in the All-rounders, which was open to all dogs and was 50/50 (beauty/obedience). In the starting line-up, Debbie snapped at a little brown dog called Teasel. It was unlike Debbie to snap an
d my sister said so to Mr Phil Oliphant when he came round doing his close-up inspection of the entrants.
‘Debbie wouldn’t usually snap,’ she said, loud enough for the audience to hear.
Mr Oliphant suggested it might be the stress of the event and said Debbie was a lovely bitch in spite of the uncharacteristic snap. Then he went on to inspect Teasel and commented that Teasel looked like a teasel. Then he turned to my sister and said, ‘Doesn’t this little dog look exactly like a teasel?’
My sister nodded and agreed that Teasel the dog looked just exactly like a teasel, as if it was a good thing and amusing.
Mr Oliphant found nice things to say about all the dogs in the show, and of course Teasel won first prize.
My sister didn’t mind not winning and wasn’t surprised, especially after Debbie had snapped at the eventual winner (Teasel).
We stood at the rope, watching the last of the dog classes – the obstacle course with obedience aspect. My sister was delighted to report that Mr Oliphant had remembered her and had asked her if she’d found herself a pony yet.
‘What did you say?’ I asked.
‘I said yes, I had found a pony called Sacha and he was very nice but that my sister, you, were now looking for a pony,’ she said, beaming.
‘But I’m not,’ I said.
‘I know, but I said you are and he said he’ll keep his ear to the ground for us,’ she said, wide-eyed and nodding slightly, ‘and is more than happy to look at any pony we’re considering and give it the once-over.’
‘Why, though? I don’t want a pony,’ I said.
‘Him and Mum – you know,’ she said, exasperated, ‘just pretend you do.’
I was losing faith in Mr Oliphant. First of all, he was just too nice, and also I’d seen him walking round the show in a straw boater with his judge’s badge on and linking arms with a woman. And as if that wasn’t enough to put you off, there he was commenting that dogs looked like teasels when no one except him knew what a teasel was. My sister said he might’ve meant a weasel, but I thought he was just showing off knowing what it meant. I bet the owner didn’t even know.
‘I’ve seen him linking arms with a woman,’ I said.
‘That’s only his wife,’ said my sister. ‘The marriage is on the rocks.’
‘How do you know?’ I asked.
‘I just know, plus you don’t walk round linking arms with a wife if the marriage isn’t on the rocks. Linking arms is a sign, a very bad sign.’
‘Then why do it?’ I asked.
‘Don’t ask me, people just do it, it’s desperate. It’s instigated by the weaker partner,’ she said. ‘We did it in Science. It’s animal behaviour.’
Then I had to go and fetch our mother and Little Jack so that we’d be in time to introduce her to Mr Oliphant. We watched the last few dogs run through fabric tunnels and sit down. That bloody Teasel won again, which was pretty annoying. Then the dogs and owners filed out of the ring, followed by Mr Oliphant, and my sister waylaid him as planned.
‘Mr Oliphant,’ she called. ‘Mr Oliphant, I’d like you meet our mother.’ And he veered off course.
‘Hello, Mrs Vogel, how very nice to meet you,’ said Mr Oliphant, as he took her hand gently in his.
Our mother looked so pretty with loops of soft hair falling around her bare shoulders. Her sleepy green eyes looking so unusual and big under the floppy hat. She was by far the best-looking woman at the show – the pill-induced wooziness, and the light shapes in the dress pattern which moved like fluffy clouds in the summer sky, all adding to the general effect.
‘This is the dog judge, Mr Oliphant,’ my sister told our mother loud and clear. ‘He’s offered to help us find the perfect pony for Lizzie.’
‘Golly, what a very kind dog judge,’ said our mother. Mr Oliphant laughed as if she’d been joking, but I didn’t see what the joke was.
So Mr Oliphant had shaken her hand and been a bit mesmerized by her and had seemed – for all of the moments it took – to be in love with her, but then the woman I’d seen him linking arms with waddled up and claimed him back. I could see what my sister meant: the marriage did seem to be on the rocks. The magical atmosphere created by our mother’s prettiness, the sleepy sensuality brought on by a mixture of her nice eyelids and the pills, was washed away by this woman, like a bucketful of Jeyes Fluid dashed on to a grubby step.
‘Phil,’ she said, ‘you’re wanted in the committee tent.’
‘Am I?’ said Phil Oliphant, sadly.
My sister and I wandered off to see the small pets, while our mother and Jack went to see the pork pies in a tent. Apparently there was a clever one with a layer of chutney under the pastry lid that Jack had read about in a leaflet. A few minutes later Mrs Frink from the hunt announced that the organizers were looking for help to get the piano up on the stage, as the Talent Show was about to begin.
Everyone flocked to the stage to get a good seat. The deckchairs were soon all taken and my sister unfolded our rug again and we sat on it with Debbie in between us. Our mother and Little Jack failed to see us waving at them and stood on the other side of the stage, watching from behind a trestle table strewn with second-hand clothes, Little Jack nibbling the pastry off his pie.
The show began and two girls did a ballet routine called Goose Pond, which was meant to be like Swan Lake. Judging by its boringness, it probably was quite like Swan Lake and people started fidgeting. Then a boy sang ‘Blue Suede Shoes’ very quickly, which was slightly better than the ballet. Then a girl read a poem she’d written about a river flowing out to sea, which was easily the worst of the three.
Then a very small girl did a tap dance and burst into tears, which I didn’t count, and two girls did a reasonable gymnastics routine with one-handed cartwheels and the splits. The audience enjoyed it until one of the girls couldn’t get right down into the splits for the finale and it looked awkward and no one clapped. But overall, it was probably the best. So far.
Last, but by no means least, suddenly there was Miranda Longlady. My sister and I were agog seeing her up there. She was smiling the smile of an entertainer (mad but professional-looking) and wearing a yellow dress and a bowler hat. She took her time in setting up the stage. And looking at her, it was as though the sun had come out – this was partly because Melody, her egg-twin, was shining a strong torchlight upon her, and partly because the sun had in fact just come out. After welcoming the audience to the show, Miranda brought out Bufo, our mother’s frog puppet, from a little box. Bufo was shy at first and hid under Miranda’s arm. She’d put a yellow ribbon round his neck to match her dress and the ribbon around her hat. I hated her.
She began, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce you to Freddie the frog.’
I glanced at our mother across the trestle table. She was very alert and open-mouthed. I felt very awkward. I felt embarrassed to see Bufo up there, as though he was my child or brother or something, and I felt ashamed that our mother would see him. Her being in no fit state to be seeing frogs from her childhood that I’d lent without asking.
Freddie the frog soon gained his confidence and bowed. The two of them performed a hysterical routine, with Mrs Frink accompanying on the piano (as she had with the Goose Pond girls and the gym duo). They finished with a short, flirty, comical conversation. Miranda had become an accomplished puppeteer and when they were done, the audience laughed and clapped and called out, ‘More!’
Mrs Graham-Golding came on to the stage still laughing and clapping. Almost incapacitated, she had to lean on a chair while she got her breath back.
‘Oh my goodness me. Oh dear,’ she panted, ‘that was wonderful, was it not, ladies and gentlemen? Thank you, Miranda and Freddie.’ Miranda curtsied and Bufo waved. And everyone clapped again.
I looked over at our mother and we gave each other a long and wide-eyed stare. Then Mrs Graham-Golding appeared on stage again with her co-judge, Mr Frink from the hunt, to announce the contest winner. It was Miranda, of course, and Bufo, and she w
as called up to receive her little trophy and a bag of the wartime toffee.
I felt confused. My sister was clearly of the opinion that it had been a good result. My own overall feeling was of deep resentment and anger and jealousy and the feeling (yet again) that I wanted to punch Miranda in the face. I looked around and saw our mother step away from the trestle and waylay Mrs Graham-Golding in a similar fashion to my sister’s waylaying of Mr Oliphant (determined and a bit abrupt). I jumped up from the rug, but by the time I’d got close enough to hear the conversation, it was coming to an end.
‘I see, well, that is a shame. It’s a tricky situation,’ Mrs Graham-Golding was saying, ‘let me see what I can do.’
Soon after that, the judge appeared back on stage. She apologized for asking for the audience’s attention once again. ‘Just before we commence with the tea dance, I should like to announce that Freddie the frog, joint-winner of the Talent Contest, was appearing by kind permission of Miss Lizzie Vogel and the judges have decided that Lizzie should be awarded some toffee.’
There was a ripple of applause and I made my way up to take the little paper cornet from the smiling judge.
Miranda stood close to the stage. ‘What a freakish lot those Vogels are. First, they force the stupid bloody frog on me’ – she turned to Melody – ‘didn’t they, Mel? And now they want my glory for that little idiot Lizzie.’
Melody nodded vigorously until Miranda smacked the top of Melody’s head. And as I clambered off the stage, Miranda flung Bufo at me.
‘Here’s your frog back.’
I was happier than I had ever been. It wasn’t the justness, the frog back or the toffee. It was that our mother had acted for me, for us. It was the look we’d given each other across the trampled grass and the warped trestles. And that we’d been thinking the same thing.