It would be dangerous to be seen to have squirrelled things away.
Forcing the girl into her special high chair, always a struggle, I almost burst out laughing: ‘Too bad Grandad couldn’t be here,’ I shout to my mother as she clatters the vacuum cleaner back into the cupboard. ‘He’d have a heart attack seeing all that booze.’
Mother doesn’t like even the word, ‘booze’.
‘Poor old soul,’ she says. ‘If only he’d agree to have his teeth done it would be something.’
‘Might be worse when he bit the nurses though.’
Both he and Hilary bite the hands that feed them.
‘Poor old soul,’ Mother says again, as if this were some kind of incantation. She will not think badly. Often I feel I’ve had to do the job for both of us.
I stir the food in its microwave dish and blow on it. Hilary is held upright by two strong waist bands and two rigid, vertical cushions either side of her head. Her face is at the same level as mine as I sit to feed her and she opens her mouth in anticipation. A few of Shirley’s church friends have arrived, bringing more food, and somebody now puts Strauss’s waltzes on, very loud. Hilary is suddenly so excited she bangs down her wrist in the dish, splattering chunks of ham and spaghetti rings, laughing furiously. The kind of thing that usually has me cursing with frustration (my trousers are splattered). But I’m cool tonight. We’re on the home straight.
Then it vaguely occurs to me, is this what being mad is like? I aim a spoon into the glistening pink wetness of gums and lips. Her head waves perilously.
‘Would you like an aperitif, sir?’
It’s Shirley coming up behind me in excellent mood with a tray of chilled white wine.
It will look odd if I don’t act merry and do some drinking. The party was my idea, wasn’t it? Though I’ll have to keep a clear head. The most important thing to remember is, since Frederick is to be put to bed in the spare bedroom, I shall have to get up there pretty smartly. But in a way that is part of the plan. I am hardly likely to forget.
And no, I will not go to the bathroom again.
The Romantic Fort
I always find parties of this kind in friends’ houses somewhat dull. Okay, you have a lot to eat, a lot to drink, that can be nice, and maybe you manage to brush thighs, bump arses with some pretty women jiving about the furniture. But mostly you just find yourself sitting on the stairs with a plate of sausage rolls, trapped into conversations so irretrievably humdrum that even an argument with one’s wife would be exciting by comparison; this between getting up every couple of minutes to let somebody climb upstairs to the loo. At best you might find another man reasonably intelligent and sufficiently interested in your own line of business to share a bottle of whisky with till it’s time to go home.
Which is why we’ve never had a party before, I suppose. I remember Shirley was very eager to have a housewarming do years ago when we moved into the Hendon place. ‘Parties are for fun,’ she said. ‘You’re the one who’s always saying he wants to have a good time.’
And it’s true. Parties are for fun. But the only people who really seem to have any are the ones who break through all inhibitions and get into snogging and petting and even bonking people they’ve never met before. Those are the kind who have fun. And the fact is that much as I envy them, I would never be so much of a beast as to do stuff like that with my wife around, or even amongst people who know her. Often, I’m afraid, one must come to the conclusion that one’s inhibitions are the best part about one.
Other people are different of course. Some are quite shameless and have always done exactly what they want when they want. So it is that towards midnight, my chosen hour for the sale of my soul, I will slip discreetly out into the hall away from the guests in lounge and breakfast room, down the passage, through the cloakroom to the study, a lighted cigarette between the fingers of one hand, a big tumbler of whisky in the other, only to find Gregory and Peggy sprawled across two armchairs, more or less humping each other.
Why didn’t I lock the door, for Christ’s sake?
It’s an odd party because we’ve invited such a mix of guests, many of whom we haven’t seen for so long we can barely remember what they look like. We sent out sixty odd invitations but have no idea how many people are actually going to come. Twenty? A hundred? The invitations said eight thirty, but by nine only Shirley’s friends from the choir have arrived, well-behaved, carefully-dressed people happy to drink a glass of white wine, eat snacks and speculate about their dictatorial organist/choirmaster’s private life. The women take it in turns to hold Hilary in their arms and say how well she is looking. One, in a strapless black velvet outfit, looks just the kind decked out for pleasure she won’t have. I can’t help noticing her thin knees and calves and thinking of Marilyn.
Peggy phones to say she’ll be late and can we put Frederick to bed or he’ll become a monster. ‘Grandma’ll read you a story,’ I tell him, thinking to kill two birds with one stone, have both of them out of the way. For Mother, after barely a glass of Soave, can be heard fervently praising the Lord in conversation with a plain weasily little man with his arm in a sling.
‘I don’t want Grandma to read a story. I want to stay downstairs. Five minutes, Uncle George.’
‘Your mummy said bed.’
‘Then you read, Uncle, I want you to read.’
He says this because he thinks I’ll refuse. He’s a sharp little lad with whom I feel a certain affinity. But as it happens I’m quite glad to be out of the fray for a while.
I take him upstairs, make him clean his teeth and sort through the kiddies’ books people have occasionally given us, not realising Hilary will never be able to understand them. What would he like? Tom Thumb? He says the giant scares him. Eating the children. But it’s only stalling. Nothing would scare Frederick. I tell him it’s only pretend, there are no giants, nobody eats children. But I agree to dig out the Ugly Duckling instead. Where unfortunately, I reflect as I read, it is the welcome transformation that doesn’t convince.
I kiss my nephew goodnight. Having got the door closed, I take the opportunity to change my soiled trousers and, before going downstairs again, size myself up in our wardrobe mirror. Five-ten. Blond. Pale-skinned, straight-nosed, clear eyes. Perhaps a little serious-looking, but certainly nothing loony about me. In the end, if I have to insist before a court of law on any one thing, it will be my complete normality, my modernity. Show me, I’ll say to the jury, just one, just one part of my overall vision which is out of line with the dominant social philosophy in England today. I bet you can’t. I just bet. But watching myself in the mirror I can see the tension about teeth and jaws. I have big jaw muscles.
Hearing noises at the top of the stairs I walk down the long landing to the other bathroom where Mother is struggling to change a particularly dirty nappy before putting Hilary to bed. I take over, for the girl’s heavy and helpless and needs washing. I work quickly and efficiently and, though I say it myself, gently. Hilary always rouses a quite terrible gentleness in me. I wipe carefully inside the folds of skin around the pale warm split bun of her crotch. And talc generously.
At a certain point, my mother touches my shoulder and smiles at me with a bright winsome look. ‘I think you’re magnificent with the girl.’ For some reason she says it in a whisper. Then in her normal voice. ‘I’ll put her to bed now. You go down and talk to your guests. It’s your party.’