by Sue Margolis
Everything was sugar-free, gluten-free, fat-free, fun-free.
At Arthur’s last birthday party, Victoria had decided not to hire a clown. Instead, a Japanese chef came and taught the children to roll vegetarian sushi. That was followed by a Japanese tea ceremony. Worst of all, Victoria insisted on no presents. Instead, a goat was donated in Arthur’s name to a village in Africa. When the children arrived empty-handed, Arthur burst into tears. Then one child, whose mother hadn’t gotten the message about the goat, arrived with a plastic remote-controlled truck, which Victoria confiscated and returned to her on the grounds that it wasn’t recyclable and would only end up in a landfill site.
This year there was to be a clown and presents. According to Val, it was Arthur’s father who had come to his rescue. She had been speaking to Simon in an attempt to broker a truce between him and Victoria. During their conversation, Simon had let it slip that he had told his wife “in no uncertain terms” that he would pay for the party only if there were presents and a proper entertainer.
What Val didn’t know but Amy did was that Simon had also set Victoria an ultimatum: She had to get a shrink or the marriage was over. “What choice do I have?” Victoria had said to Amy. “I still love him, so I agreed.”
“So you’re going home?” Amy had asked. “Not that it hasn’t been great having you. And if you’re not ready to go, don’t. Feel free to stay as long as you like.”
“That’s kind of you, but we’ll be leaving after the party. Lila will be home in a few days. I’ve upset one child by moving him out of his home; I’m not about to do the same to his sister.”
Amy assured her she was doing the right thing by agreeing to see a therapist, but she could tell her sister felt threatened by the idea. Being a patient would undermine her sense of power and superiority.
Simon arrived at half past two. Amy opened the front door. “Hi, Si. How you doing?” He was carrying a large box covered in Spiderman paper.
“A lot better, thanks. And apparently it’s you I’ve got to thank. How on earth did you manage to get through to Victoria? She never listens to me.”
“It’s you who got her to agree to see a shrink.”
“Yes, but you did all the groundwork.”
“Maybe it was easier for me,” Amy said, “because I’m not married to her. There isn’t that inevitability that it’s all going to end in a fight or one of you walking out.”
“I guess.”
“You know, Victoria’s got a lot of issues to sort out, and that’s going to take time. You’re going to need to be patient.”
“I know. That’s what worries me. I’ve put up with her behavior for so long. I’m just not sure how much more I can take.”
Amy urged him to hang on.
“I’ll do my best. Thanks again, Amy. You don’t know how much I appreciate what you’ve done.” With that he gave his sister-in-law an affectionate squeeze. “So I hear from your mum that you’re stepping out with a rather eligible architect slash artist. Is it serious?”
Amy paused and allowed her face to break into a smile. “Dunno … could be.”
“Good for you.”
No sooner had Simon walked into the kitchen than Victoria started berating him. “Simon, I told you specifically to wear chinos and a shirt, and here you are in jeans.”
“What difference?” he said, putting Arthur’s present down on the table.
“And for God’s sake, mind the food,” Victoria scolded.
Amy could sense an altercation developing. It was nipped in the bud by Arthur appearing and launching himself at his father. Simon picked him up and hugged him so tight that Arthur screamed that he couldn’t breathe. Simon put him down. “Here you are,” he said, handing Arthur his present. “This is from me and Mum.”
Arthur ripped into the paper and began tugging at the box. His mother warned him to take it easy or he would break what was inside. “Yay!” Before him was a radio-controlled yacht. “Let’s take it to the pond and try it out.”
Simon promised they would go with Charlie after the party.
Just then the door buzzer sounded. Amy looked at the kitchen clock. It was too early for Arthur’s friends to be arriving. “Oh, God, this is either Mum or Dad,” Amy said to Victoria. “I hope we didn’t make a mistake inviting both of them. What if they start fighting?”
“It’ll be fine,” Victoria insisted. “They’re grown-ups. They’ll behave. And I wanted them here. Now that Simon’s mother and father are gone, they’re Arthur’s only grandparents.”
“I think you just want to get Mum and Dad back together again,” Amy said with a good-humored chuckle.
“Hey, don’t pretend you wouldn’t like it.”
Amy couldn’t.
When Amy opened the door, it wasn’t just her parents standing on the mat. With them were Trevor and Joyce. Phil and Val were carrying presents for Arthur.
“Surprise!” Joyce cried. “Now, don’t panic, Amy. Your dad and I discussed with Val and Trevor whether we should all come today, and we decided it was the most civilized thing to do. We even drove over in the same car, and we all got along like a house on fire.”
Well, aren’t we the very picture of a modern and postnuclear family, Amy thought, but she didn’t say anything. Instead she greeted the group with delighted astonishment. “Right. Yes. Absolutely,” she said. She looked at the four of them. Her dad and Trevor were standing behind the women. Phil was jingling the change in his pocket. Trevor was rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet. Amy suspected the men had discussed the recession and cricket and had discovered they had absolutely nothing left to talk about. Val was putting on a brave face, without doubt because it was Arthur’s birthday. The only person who seemed totally relaxed and at ease was Joyce.
Amy greeted her with a double kiss. Once again she smelled alcohol on her breath. This clearly went some way toward explaining her demeanor.
Having ushered them all in and welcomed them with more kisses, Amy suggested they go into the living room.
“So where’s the birthday boy?” Joyce said, clapping her hands.
Amy said she would see if she could find him. Instead she headed into the kitchen.
“What? The porn poetess is here?” Victoria hissed. “In my house?”
“My house,” Amy said.
“Whatever. Get rid of her. If the other mothers find out what she does, I’ll never live it down.”
“Victoria, calm down. I’ve told you, Joyce is lovely. Now come into the living room and say hello.”
By then Arthur and Charlie were already there, whooping and cheering and tearing into presents. Val had bought “a little something” for Charlie so that he wouldn’t feel left out.
Victoria took one look at Joyce and winced. “What does she look like?” she muttered to Amy as she took in the bright blue eye shadow, the gash of red lipstick, and the low-cut top that exposed several inches of crepey cleavage.
“Now, this must be Victoria,” Joyce cooed. “I’ve heard so much about you from your dad.” She turned to Phil. “These girls of yours are such beauties. Of course they take after their mother.” She winked at Val, who seemed pleasantly taken aback by the remark.
Victoria extended her hand to Joyce. “How do you do.”
“Oh, not so bad, thanks. Now, then, no need to stand on formality with me. Come here and give me a kiss.” Joyce grabbed hold of Victoria and pulled her toward her so forcefully that Victoria collided with the woman’s shelf of a bosom. As Joyce’s arms engulfed her, Victoria went boss-eyed and looked like she might choke.
At that moment, Simon appeared. Victoria introduced him to Joyce.
“Now, then, aren’t you a handsome fella. I bet you’ve broken a few hearts in your time.”
Amy shepherded everybody, including the boys, out to the garden and said she would be along shortly with glasses of wine. Joyce stopped off on the way to use the “little girls’ room.”
Amy and Victoria went back to the kitchen
.
“My God, that woman is so loud and over the top. And she stank of booze. Couldn’t you smell it?”
“As it happens, I did.”
“So she’s not only a pervert, she’s a lush. Fan-bloody-tastic.” Victoria pulled the Saran Wrap off the guacamole. Amy had considered telling her sister about Phil’s penis extension and decided against it. Right now, she was glad she had. Straws and camels’ backs suddenly came to mind.
Victoria’s anguish was relieved by the arrival of the clown. Lulu, a bulky lass, ambled into the kitchen, followed by Amy, who once again had been dispatched to answer the door. Lulu was in full costume: clown face, bowler hat, jacket covered in sparkly stars, stripped leggings, and a pair of purple Doc Martens. Her assemblage was completed by a pair of outsized heart-shaped sunglasses.
It was a moment or two before Victoria looked up. She was using pastry cutters to create space-rocket-shaped sandwiches and cursing the tuna mayo for daring to ooze out at the edges.
“Nightmare,” Lulu said to Victoria by way of greeting.
Victoria shook the clown’s hand, took in her getup, and smiled with approval. “I know,” she said. “I think I put in too much filling.”
“No, I meant the traffic. The traffic was a nightmare.” Lulu put down her ghetto blaster and bag of magic tricks and took off her sunglasses. Apparently the A3 had been chockablock from Guildford to Clapham. She was gagging for a cuppa—two sugars, thanks. Ooh, and a biscuit would be nice. Digestive if you’ve got it. Amy invited her to sit down and said that she happened to be in luck with the digestives. Lulu explained that she hadn’t eaten since breakfast on account of Jessica having developed an anal fissure.
“And Jessica would be your partner?” Victoria said, attempting to be right on for once.
“What? No. She’s my pet rabbit. You know, Jessica Rabbit. I spent the morning with her at the vet.”
“Of course. I just assumed … I’m sorry.”
A mug of tea and half a packet of chocolate digestives later, Lulu said she was desperate for a cigarette, which she was more than happy to smoke in the street. Victoria said she couldn’t possibly do that because the children were arriving and would see her. Amy suggested she go into the bathroom and lean out of the open window.
The open window did not stop the smell of marijuana escaping from the bathroom and into the kitchen. Victoria’s nose was soon twitching.
“What’s that strange smell?”
If Amy told her it was weed, Victoria would throw Lulu out and the party would be over. She couldn’t do that to Arthur.
“Oh, it’s old Mr. Fletcher brewing coffee.”
“It doesn’t smell like coffee.”
“It’s one of Brian’s posh blends. I gave the old boy some beans as a present last Christmas.”
At that point, Lulu emerged from the bathroom and announced that she had her shit sufficiently together to start the party. This was just as well, as it was past three and most of the children had arrived. Much to Victoria’s embarrassment, not to mention Charlie and Arthur’s fury, most of the boys were in football shirts. Simon was herding them into the garden, where they were running riot. The idea was that parents deposited their offspring and returned half an hour before the end of the party for a glass of wine.
Lulu went into the garden and put the ghetto blaster on the lumpy, scruffy patch of grass that passed for a lawn. The next moment the kids’ noise was being drowned out by “Monster Mash.” “Okay, everybodee … It’s … party time. And we’re starting with … balloon bending.”
“Yay!”
For the next couple of hours Lulu segued from magic tricks to sing-alongs, from puppets to face painting. The adults all said they were exhausted just watching her. To give Lulu a break, Amy and Victoria supervised tea time, which went down better than expected because Val had come bearing fondant fancies with Day-Glo icing, chocolate fingers, and salt and vinegar Hula Hoops. Victoria tried to stop her from dishing out the fatty sugary contraband to the children, but Amy guilt-tripped her into allowing it by saying, “Aw, just look at all those excited little faces. How could you possibly refuse them?”
As Lulu departed to wild cheers and applause from the children, their parents started to arrive—mothers mostly, some with babies and toddlers.
Amy overheard a few quizzing their offspring about how much sugar they’d consumed. One woman caught sight of a leftover fondant fancy and picked it up as if it were a dead rat and showed it to her friend. They both eyed Victoria and started muttering. Amy heard the word “hypocrite” uttered more than once.
While Simon and Trevor supervised an impromptu kids’ disco in the living room, other mothers and a few fathers stood around in groups discussing house prices, loft extension nightmares, or the gîtes in Périgord that they’d picked up for a song, thanks to the recession. Education was the other biggie. Mothers who had been showing their children flash cards from the moment they emerged from the birth canal and had started them at Mini Maestros, Little Hawkings, and Smarty Artists soon after were now concerned that their five-year-olds weren’t being sufficiently challenged at school. Most of the mothers admitted to visiting their child’s teacher regularly to point out that little Inigo or Tamsin was gifted and to demand that the school ramp up its act. They seemed at a loss to understand why the teachers were so unhelpful.
By then Amy and Victoria were wrapping up slices of birthday cake and adding them to the going-home bags. Phil and Val were loading the dishwasher, reminiscing about their daughters’ childhood birthday parties. Victoria nudged her sister and jerked her head in their parents’ direction as if to say, “Look how well they’re getting on.”
Victoria was wrapping another slice of cake in kitchen paper when Arthur appeared.
“Mum, what’s a member?”
“A member is somebody who belongs to a group. For instance, you are a member of the school chess club. Why do you ask?”
Arthur looked confused. “Do members go to hot, moist centers?”
“Activities sometimes happen at sports centers, but I’m not sure they’re hot and—” She broke off. The penny had dropped with the most almighty clang. “Omigod! Where’s Joyce?”
Arthur said that she was in the garden, “doing poems for the mummies and daddies.”
“What?”
By now all the adults were exchanging glances. Phil went to the kitchen window, which looked out onto the garden.
“Joyce says that Volvos are soft, red, and wet,” Arthur continued, “but that’s wrong. Granddad drives a Volvo, and it’s green and made of metal and it only gets wet in the rain or when he takes it to the car wash.”
Amy let out an involuntary snort of laughter. Victoria glared at her and shot off into the garden. “I cannot believe that bloody woman!” Fearing things might get violent, Amy followed, but Phil overtook them both. He grabbed hold of Victoria’s arm. “Leave this to me.” His tone brooked no argument.
He began trotting toward the far end of the garden, where a group of parents were hovering around Joyce, who seemed to be holding a spontaneous poetry recital. It was clear that the parents didn’t quite know where to put themselves, but they were too polite to walk away. As she spoke, an empty wineglass in her hand, Joyce was wobbling and swaying so much that she could barely stay upright.
“His manhood arose,” she proclaimed, arm outstretched like a Greek tragedian who had downed one too many Chardonnays. “A tower of vermilion, penetrating a forest of curls/Her swollen mound aglow/He gave her his pearls.”
Chapter 12
WHILE PHIL WAS bringing a precipitate end to the poetry recital, Amy did her best to convince her sister that Arthur was far too young to decipher Joyce’s erotic metaphors and that his childhood innocence remained untarnished.
“How can you be so sure?” Victoria snapped. “You have no idea what this has done to Arthur’s moral compass.”
By now Simon was on the scene, having been brought up to speed by his mother-in-law. “
Victoria, stop being so bloody neurotic. Believe me, our son’s moral compass—such as it is—has come to no harm.”
Victoria grunted and then started ranting about how Phil had brought shame on the family name by consorting with Joyce. Simon told her not to worry, since the Walkers weren’t quite up there with the Montagues or the Capulets. Victoria demanded to know how he could make jokes at a time like this and raced off to speak to the parents. She passed Joyce and Phil on the way. Phil was half guiding, half frog-marching an unsteady Joyce toward the back door.
“How dare you humiliate me like this?” Victoria spit. “How dare you?”
Phil raised a hand as if to let his daughter know that she should back off and he had the situation under control. He and Joyce were only a few feet from the door now. Everybody could hear what they were saying. “Haven’t you got any bloody sense?” Phil barked at her. “How could you do that here? At a child’s birthday party? What were you thinking? Victoria is mortified. How much have you had to drink?”
“Pop Tart, I had two glasses of wine. No more. I promise.”
“Rubbish. You were pissed as a pudding before we got here. You know it and I know it.”
Amy heard Victoria offering the parents “my most profound and heartfelt apologies.” None of them claimed to be angry or offended by the recital, which, it transpired, had come from Joyce’s self-published collection, Pudenda. In fact, most of them said they’d found the whole thing highly amusing. Their only concern was for Arthur, who had gotten bored with the kids’ disco and had decided to hang around with the adults. Everybody felt guilty for not noticing him.
Victoria was convinced that they were just being polite in claiming to find Joyce’s display funny. “I’ll never live it down,” she said to Amy on the phone late on Sunday night. “I’ve told Simon we’re going to have to emigrate. It’s the only thing for it.”
Amy burst out laughing. “Behave. Nobody’s emigrating.”