Bachelor Boys Read Free Page B

old. A photograph of the time shows the little girl I was: tiny and defensive, with anxious brown eyes under a fringe of wispy brown curls. This is the child who pulled a kitchen chair into her paved back garden, one glorious summer afternoon.
    I stood on the chair, gazing into the leafy well of the garden next door. That garden was my theater, and the show that day was particularly good. They had a paddling pool. Four-year-old Frederick and three-year-old Benedict were stark naked, splashing and fighting like a pair of noisy puppies. Both had Phoebe’s beautiful dark eyes. Little Ben had ringlets, and behaved (his brother would claim later) in an offensively ringletty manner—he sucked his thumb and was given to weeping big, photogenic tears.
    Frederick (equally pretty, but an unmistakable little devil) looked up at the top of the fence, and saw my earnest face through the clematis. He stared. I stared back, in a vacant way, as if watching television.
    Then he startled me by asking, “What’s your name?”
    He had noticed me, as so few people did. I was not invisible. “Cassie,” I whispered.
    â€œMy name’s Frederick. That’s Ben. That’s our mummy.”
    Phoebe, coming out of the back door with a tray of orange squash, walked across the lawn toward me. She wore a striped Breton shirt, and
denim shorts that showed endless bare brown legs. Her long, glossy black plait lay over one shoulder.
    â€œHer name’s Cassie,” Frederick informed her.
    â€œHello, Cassie. I’m Phoebe.”
    Feebee. I turned the funny name over in my mind, liking it.
    Phoebe put her tray down on the grass. She poured orange squash from a glass jug into a plastic beaker. She handed this libation through the clematis like Hebe dispensing nectar. I was not allowed orange squash at my house, and I sipped it reverently, amazed by the violent golden sweetness that flooded my tongue.
    â€œThank you,” I whispered, daring to hand back the drained beaker.
    â€œWould you like to play in our pool?”
    Of course I wanted to, but I shook my head. I didn’t have the language to explain that I wasn’t strong enough to break through the screen into Paradise. I couldn’t imagine what would happen to me if I did. I was beyond shy. Suddenly feeling exposed, I jumped off the chair and dragged it back to the house. I was partly sorry and partly glad that I had ended the conversation.
    I was reckoning without Phoebe. A short time later she appeared at the front door, clutching a German phrasebook. Haltingly, she told Gudrun (the au pair of the moment and a nice girl, if dim) that I would be next door until six. She held out her hand to me. I slipped my sharp little paw into her soft, cool palm. We walked next door and I became part of the beautiful picture. Dazzled, I sank down on the tattered lawn—still watching, but from a better seat.
    Phoebe gently persuaded me out of my dress and into the cool silver water. I felt the delight of it like an internal explosion, and Phoebe giggled at the look on my face. The two boys soon forgot I was a novelty, and threw open their game to include me. Frederick appeared to be loud and rough, and I was a little wary of him. But he was also kind, and he let me sit in the deep end of the pool where the lawn sloped. The game was that Benedict and I were daffodil bulbs and Frederick was growing us. He watered our heads with his red plastic watering can. We all thought this was hilarious.
    Time sprouted wings. The sunlight danced on the leaves, beads of water dried on my warm skin. Phoebe sat cross-legged on the grass, watching
us. Every so often she darted into the kitchen and emerged with more squash, or slices of apple. The grand finale, as I still remember, was a chocolate biscuit of astounding deliciousness.
    Jimmy came home. The boys flung their wet bodies at him, soaking his shirt. I wondered if he would be cross. He laughed and tickled Ben’s tummy.