Summertime Read Free Page B

gruesome. Anyway they want to get married here. And I’ve already asked dear Rev. Trev, who doesn’t seem to mind that neither of them are spinsters of the parish.’
    â€˜That’s because he’s got a crush on you,’ I remark cynically, but am ignored. My mother is in full sail, her black beret sliding towards her left ear and giving her the look of a crazed French Resistance officer.
    March 21st
    Easter weekend looms, and according to the weatherman it will be snowing for the whole four days. I don’t care because Rose is coming to stay, along with her son Theo who is The Beauty’s best friend, but without her husband Tristan, whom she referred to on the telephone as ‘that snake-witted hell-hound’.
    Am rather inspired by this moniker, but also worried, as I recognise it as similar to the abuse I frequently heaped upon my ex-husband Charles in the final stages of our marriage. Now I can simply call him dreary, which indeed he has become, and which is a vast improvement on being a hell-hound.
    Chugging and loud banging on the front door announces a Parcel Force van with a lumpy package from David. The Beauty falls on it crying, ‘It’s my Happy Birthday,’ and tears at the string and tape binding it shut. Inside are three vast balloons, one for each of the children, and three water pistols shaped like aliens. A note is attached to the smallest of the aliens: DO NOT SQUIRT YOUR MOTHER ON PERIL OF EXECUTION BY GREEN SLIME. The final item in the parcel is wrapped in pink tissue paper.
    â€˜I bet this is for you, Mum, it’s all girly,’ says Felix, handing it over. The tissue unfurls to reveal a pair of sandals with velvet soles and purple and orange flowers garlanded across the top. They are enchanting. I put them on and they fit me perfectly. Burst into tears. Felix groans, ‘God, don’t start crying again. What’s the matter this time? Look, here’s a letter from David. It might cheer you up.’
    Darling Venetia,
    I think I’ll be home in a few weeks. I’m writing this in my room. The windows are open and rain is crashing on to the balcony, so work is off for the afternoon. I’ve sent Desmond a pair of Elvis shades from the market here to wear at his wedding. They’re Graceland rather than GI, and have thick gold arms with squares cut inthem for Desmond’s sideburns to stick through. I bought these shoes for you to walk all over me in. Metaphorically. Mind you, I wouldn’t say no to literally … You are my dreams, xxxx David xxx
    Most pleasing. Almost worth him being away if this is the sort of treatment I can expect. Float to Budgen’s supermarket on a cloud of pink pleasure, and still wrapped in unreality, purchase seventeen long tubes of mini Easter eggs for the Easter-egg hunt. Absently proceed to eat two with Felix and The Beauty while waiting for Giles to come out of school. This returns me to earth with a thump of nausea. All of us feel sick, and The Beauty has turned an unbecoming caramel colour all over by the time I realise Giles should be out, and I go into the school to look for him. Find him in a darkened room with other low-lifers, playing on someone’s Nintendo. Cannot understand how the school can allow this form of brainwashing to go on, and stand in the doorway muttering furiously while Giles and his automaton friends continue to perform thumb wars on their consoles. Giles waits until we are out of earshot of his friends before turning to me in raging contempt.
    â€˜God, you’re so embarrassing. None of my friends have mothers who talk to themselves and ban Nintendo.Why can’t you get a grip on your own life and stop interfering in mine?’
    Very impressed by his astute summing-up of me, but dismayed not to be in the position of power. Have to regain the moral high ground. But how?
    March 23rd
    My position as mistress of any high ground, moral or literal, is becoming pronounced