‘That’s right,’ said Nicolas, rather less firmly.
‘Don’t be so silly,’ said Joyce. ‘If all I was going to do was sit and talk to your father all night we might as well have stayed at home.’
‘You got that, Nicolas?’ asked Barnaby. ‘So let’s hear it for Dolabella.’
‘He’s also understudying Lepidus.’ Enthusiasm warmed Cully’s voice. ‘A much bigger part with some great lines.’
‘My favourite, Tom - very apropos, actually - is “’Tis not a time for private stomaching”.’
This rather contrived witticism went down a treat. Cully laughed, Nicolas laughed. Joyce, well into her third large glass of Muscadet, laughed so much she got hiccups. Barnaby, under cover of his nicely ironed napkin, looked at his watch.
Going home in the cab, more than a little what Jax would have called ‘swacked’, Barnaby reflected on the disappointing dullness of the day. Not that it was the day’s fault. Poor old day. What was it after all but an ordinary common or garden stretch of time that had had totally unrealistic expectations placed on it? No wonder it couldn’t come up to scratch.
Barnaby sighed and heard the wife of his bosom growl softly. Ran his finger round his tight collar to loosen it and noticed Joyce had taken her shoes off. He wished he could take his shoes off. And everything else come to that. Get into his old gardening trousers and a comfortable sweater. Still, look on the bright side - it would soon be Sunday morning. He was allowed bacon and egg on Sunday.
The other three were still chatting away. Barnaby was pleased but surprised when Joyce had explained that Cully and Nicolas were coming home with them and sleeping over. They had not done that for a couple of years - the last time being when they were between flats with their stuff in storage and a six-week wait for their new place to become empty.
It was gone midnight when the cab pulled up at 17 Arbury Crescent. Twelve fifteen on Sunday, 13 September. The actual date. A second chance, as it were, to transform the ordinary into the extraordinary. Perhaps because of the wine, perhaps because of a sudden rush of memory, a concentrated longing to turn the moment round and maybe even transform it, possessed Barnaby. He reached out and touched his wife’s arm.
‘I just wanted to say—’
But she was talking to Nicolas. He was paying for the cab and needed extra change for the tip. Barnaby fumbled in his pocket saying, ‘I’ve got that.’
‘All done, darling.’
Joyce had handed five pounds over and was getting out of the cab. Around them, silence. Barnaby’s neighbours had retired, the other five houses that made up the crescent were dark.
As he put his key in the front door, Barnaby came to a decision. He would let the day go. He would let the whole idea of celebration go. He was a 58-year-old man, not a child to expect magic and fireworks just because he was living through a specially significant twenty-four hours. Anyway, wasn’t all of his life significant in some way or other? The very ordinariness of it was in itself cause for celebration. He had everything a person could possibly want. Cultivate your garden, he told himself sternly. Grow up. Count your blessings.
In the kitchen the dirty glasses and champagne bottles were still on the table. Everybody took off their coats. Joyce asked if anyone wanted a cup of tea. Cully yawned and said if she didn’t lie down soon she’d fall down and Nicolas said the evening had been great and thanked Tom and Joyce for a wonderful time. Barnaby gravitated to the kitchen window and gazed out at his garden. Enjoyed the beautiful illumined plants, was impressed by the magnetic pull of dark shadows.
He blinked, looked and looked again. Something was standing in the middle of the lawn. A very large thing, glowing with a pure dazzling radiance. He shifted his face closer to the glass, squinting. Became vaguely aware that someone was opening the kitchen door and wandered outside.
It was a lawn mower. A silver lawn mower. Every bit of it had been painted silver. Handle, wheels, grass box - the lot. Attached to the crosspiece of the handle by shining satin ribbons were lots and lots and lots of silver balloons.
Barnaby tilted back his head and looked at them, bobbing and moving gently against a dark sky, soft with stars. The heart shapes had writing on them which for some reason, just at this minute, he couldn’t quite read.
And there was music flooding from the open windows of his sitting room from which his daughter and her husband leaned out, smiling. The Hollies, ‘The Air That I Breathe’.
‘I think I’m coming down with a cold,’ said Barnaby to his wife who was walking slowly across the grass in his direction. He produced a large white hanky and trumpeted into it.
Joyce took his hand and murmured softly, ‘If I could make a wish, I think I’d pass ... can’t think of anything I need ... no cigarettes, no sleep, no ... Oh, Tom! I’ve forgotten.’
‘No light ...’
‘That’s it. No light, no sound, nothing to eat, no books to read ...’
‘Making love with you ...’
He put his arms round her then and she leaned into him, resting her head on his shoulder. They stood quietly as more and more stars gathered, holding fast against the relentless movement of time that changes all things. And then they began to dance.