Home Truths

‘I’m sure it will,’ Zac said, laying an affectionate hand on Django’s shoulder. ‘But what on earth do you use cherry syrup for?’ he asked as they walked on up the path and into the house.

Django stopped. ‘Do you know, I don’t think I’ve used it for anything. I think it’s unopened. I’ve had it ages.’

In the event, Django couldn’t find the cherry syrup but he did have cherry brandy and decided that a smidgeon watered down excessively with flat R White’s lemonade wouldn’t do the boy any harm at all. He was right. Tom acquired a liking for it and asked for more.

‘I hope you left the beds for the blokes to do,’ Pip said, all stern, ‘like I suggested in my letter and on the phone.’

‘Yes, I have,’ Django sighed, ‘but only because you’re so bossy I didn’t dare do otherwise.’ He didn’t confess to certain relief at Pip’s directive; that he didn’t actually feel like shunting and shifting divans about any more, didn’t feel he could. ‘There’s a zed-bed out in the shed,’ he added, ‘though I’ve used its mattress to lag the water tank.’

‘Can’t I sleep in the shed?’ Tom sighed, looking imploringly to Zac before winking beguilingly at Django.

‘Have you been incorrigible?’ Django asked him.

‘No, actually, I’ve been exemplary,’ Tom said. ‘Miss Balcombe told me that’s what I am in some things – like maths. It’s just that Pip told me all about the shed.’

Django’s contrived haughty expression softened. ‘In the summer,’ he said, ‘if you promise to be as incorrigible as Pip was when she was young, before she was bossy, I promise to banish you to the shed for a night. Now come along, troops, we have a party to plan. There’s only two months to go.’

No one would hear of Django sleeping on the sofa; they were reluctant enough to let him give up his bed but the deal was settled on Django sleeping in Fen’s bed and Tom sleeping in Fen’s room on the zed-bed plumped up with two sun-lounger mattresses, Fen and Matt in Django’s bed with Cosima in her pop-up travel cot, Zac and Pip in her old room with Cat’s bed dragged through, Cat and Ben on various cushions and beanbags in her room. ‘You’re the youngsters,’ Django had told them, ‘you won’t have the spinal issues of those over a certain age.’

‘Shall I point out that I’m older than Matt?’ Ben joshed.

‘No, don’t do that,’ Django replied. ‘You know how I enjoy my theories.’

At the crack of dawn, Django came across Fen boiling a kettle in the kitchen.

‘Did Cosima wake you?’ she asked, alarmed.

‘No darling,’ Django said, ‘just the infernal need to pee. Not that you’d want to know the finer details of my waterworks. It’s an age thing.’

‘And a pregnancy thing – I remember it well,’ Fen groaned. She took the kettle from the hob. ‘Can we buy you an electric kettle for your birthday?’

‘No thank you,’ Django said, ‘far too dull.’

‘I don’t suppose you’d like a microwave then?’

‘Absolutely not. What would a seventy-five-year-old want with one of those?’ Django said.

Fen poured boiling water into a Pyrex jug and immersed a baby bottle to heat through. ‘I’m trying to reclaim my boobs,’ Fen explained, with a tone of regret and a look of guilt, ‘not that you’d want to know the finer details of my lactation.’

‘Quite,’ said Django. He paused. ‘Matt must love it – the bottle feeding – enables him to feel hands-on and useful.’

‘Absolutely,’ said Fen. ‘I like watching him.’

‘Watching or checking?’ Django posed. ‘It’s good for him to feel useful – because, you see, you are so very capable, Fenella.’ Fen was taken aback by the use of her name in full and she detected a subtle note of warning from Django. ‘It must be easy for Matt to feel left out a little – on account of you being so very capable.’

Fen felt a little defensive but it was too early and she was too tired to express it with much vehemence. ‘It’s not that Matt does things wrong,’ Fen attempted to explain, ‘it’s that he doesn’t do things quite right. It’s often easier for me just to do it in the first place. It saves time. And tears.’ With that she took the warmed milk upstairs to feed a now grumbling Cosima.

Fen gazed down at her daughter, sucking contentedly on the bottle, locking eyes with her and sharing silent waves of intense love. She looked over to Matt who was sound asleep. How strange to feel simultaneously grateful but also resentful of the fact. Though nothing, not even a much-needed simple lie-in, was worth trading these silent waves of love, yet still Fen felt a little put upon that Matt never woke instinctively in advance of the baby stirring. However, though she knew that he’d be happy for her to boot him out of bed and be on early-morning bottle duty, she also knew she’d only lie there wondering if the bottle had been mixed correctly, whether it was the right temperature. She’d end up double-checking anyway. So what was the point in not doing it herself in the first place? There was no such thing as a lie-in. Did it slightly offend Matt? She rubbished the notion – he understood, didn’t he? He understood that it’s a mother’s prerogative to be finicky. It’s out of love for the baby anyway. No bad thing.

An hour later, swathed in his voluminous velvet dressing gown, his hair not yet pony-tailed and so fanning around his shoulders in silver skeins, Django sat in state, in the huge old Windsor chair in the kitchen. He looked like a Norse god, or straight from a William Blake painting, receiving his house guests one by one. First Tom, who scampered down, hair in hysterics, to see where his roommate was. Then Zac, to check his son hadn’t actually woken Django. Then Pip, to check Zac and Tom were helping themselves to breakfast though of course she found Django busy rustling up his panffles, because he’d offered to make his highly complicated hybrid of pancake and waffle and Zac and Tom had readily accepted. Cat and Ben appeared because the scent of maple syrup warming over pancakes or waffles or some such, had drifted evocatively into their room and filled them with hungry memories of American breakfasts. Next came Fen and Cosima, the baby dressed immaculately down to the colour-coordinated tiny hair grip gathering together the few strands she had, while her mother wore mismatched socks. Finally, Matt emerged, still sleep-crumpled but characteristically cheerful.

‘The morning is for Chatsworth, the afternoon is for lolling and party planning, and the evening is for the Rag and Thistle – for men who are over the limit,’ Django announced.

‘Over the limit?’ Zac and Matt asked.

‘Over the age limit,’ Django said, with an apologetic ruffle to Tom’s wayward hair.

‘I see,’ said Cat, hands on hips with consternation that wasn’t wholly mock, ‘while we womenfolk keep the home fire burning?’

‘And do the washing-up,’ Django added calmly. The men cheered. The baby cried. Let the day begin.

* * *

If Django was a perk of being married to, or partnered with, a McCabe girl, it was definitely a high point of a trip to Derbyshire to share an evening at the Rag and Thistle with their eccentric host. While Zac, Matt and Ben donned a change of shirts, Django certainly dressed for his big night out; watched by Tom fascinated with the provenance of each article of clothing. Django gathered this was a delaying tactic but it was his pleasure to spin yarns about his threads. Whether they were fact or fancy was of little relevance to Tom. He’d further embroider it all at school next week anyway. Tales of Django Gramps and his pink shirt with the gold buttons. Real gold. A gift from the King of Kathmandu.

To Matt, Ben and Zac’s urbane, understated signatures of Ted Baker, Gap and Paul Smith, Django added a certain flamboyance with his Astrakhan waistcoat, his Pucci neckerchief, his peculiar multi-seamed corduroys and yet another great big fuck-off belt, this one with an amber-encrusted buckle. The only item no one had seen before was the excessively floral shirt.

‘I knew a woman who worked at Liberty’s,’ Django explained nonchalantly. ‘Her name was Maureen. The summer of 1970. She was spectacular.’ And with that, the men left.

While Fen checked on Cosima, who was compliantly sound asleep, Pip served up the casserole Django had left simmering and Cat poured the wine.

‘Come on, Fen,’ Cat muttered to herself, ‘I’m starving.’

‘Cravings?’ Pip probed.

‘Unfortunately not,’ Cat said, ‘but not for want of trying.’

‘Django’s recipes would be perfect for pregnant women,’ said Fen, who’d appeared and sat herself down in a chair with a great exhausted sigh, ‘on account of all his bizarre combinations.’

‘I’ve just found a walnut,’ Cat said, chewing thoughtfully. She detested walnuts and was privately slightly irked that Django appeared to have forgotten this. ‘God, I’ve only been away four years.’

‘They’re very good for you,’ said Fen.

‘Isn’t there stuff one should eat if you want to have a boy, and other stuff if you want to have a girl?’ Cat asked her.

‘Apparently there is,’ said Fen, ‘but I couldn’t tell you which was which. Would you like one more than the other?’

‘No, no,’ Cat said, ‘but I would like just the one – I don’t think I have the space for twins.’

Fen glanced at her sister’s slender frame with gentle envy.

‘You certainly wouldn’t have the space in that Clapham place,’ Pip remarked. ‘What’s happening with all that?’

Cat sighed. ‘Apparently, we’re under contract until June. I keep telling Ben it’s never too early to scout around. There’s no harm in planning. It’s fun. I’ve always really loved Tufnell Park,’ Cat enthused, ‘and Parliament Hill. I know it can be expensive – but what an investment. Then we’d all be within a mile or so of each other. And I’d have Hampstead Heath on which to push my pram and have picnics. It’s Nappy Valley, isn’t it?’

‘You need to conceive first,’ Fen said.

Cat giggled. ‘Each time we have sex, I hold my legs up for about five minutes. Ben thinks I’m daft.’

‘It’ll happen when it happens,’ Fen tried to reason.

‘I hope it happens soon,’ Cat said wistfully. ‘I’m doing everything right with the folic acid and the yoga and the magazines. Or watching repeats of Location Location Location. I’ve always had a thing for Shaker kitchens and tumbled mosaic tiles in bathrooms.’

‘You need to find a job,’ Pip interjected. ‘You have a little too much time on your hands at the moment, methinks.’

‘And expensive taste,’ said Fen.

‘That’s easier said than done,’ Cat muttered. ‘I have looked. There’s nothing. Not even freelance work.’

‘Maybe you should think tangentially,’ Pip suggested.

‘You mean settle for less?’ Cat said gloomily.

‘No,’ Pip said gently, ‘but perhaps you have to consider the bigger picture rather than fixate on details.’

‘You’re so sensible,’ Cat muttered with slight irritation.

‘What do you expect me to say?’ Pip said.

‘It was something he said,’ Fen interrupted.

‘Who?’ Cat was confused. Hadn’t they been focusing on her?

‘Django,’ said Fen, ‘about that flowery shirt. About a woman called Maureen.’

‘Who was spectacular!’ Pip mimicked.

‘I wonder who she was,’ Fen said. ‘A spectacular woman called Maureen, who defined Django’s summer of 1970.’

‘We can ask him,’ Cat suggested. ‘He’s bound to be fantastically verbose when he comes rolling home with the boys later.’

‘Come to think of it, I do remember him in other floral shirts,’ Pip said. ‘They were probably all Liberty. Perhaps they were all from this Maureen.’

‘When you have children, there’s so much you leave by the wayside,’ Fen said pensively.

Instinctively, it didn’t seem right to Pip or to Cat to tease their sister just then for contradicting her previous conceit.

‘Flowers by the wayside,’ said Fen, her voice cracking. ‘Sorry,’ she mumbled, ‘sorry.’

‘Are you OK?’ Pip asked. ‘Is everything all right?’

‘Are things no better with Matt?’ Cat asked.

‘I don’t know,’ said Fen, ‘I don’t know. I’m just tired, I suppose.’

Django’s posse was the centre of attraction at the Rag and Thistle, especially when it became known that the main topic of discussion was the forthcoming infamous seventy-fifth birthday party to which, it seemed, all the clientele and staff of the Rag and Thistle, plus their pets, had already been invited.

‘I was thinking of three marquees,’ Django proclaimed, accepting a complimentary pint of Guinness with effusive thanks, ‘the Good, the Bad and the Ugly.’

‘But Django,’ Zac pointed out, ‘how will you decide which guest goes in which tent?’

‘Marquee!’ Django objected.

‘Marquee,’ said Zac. ‘It’s rather subjective. I mean, take Matt, he’s bad and ugly.’ Matt raised his pint.

‘I didn’t see it like that,’ Django mused, as if he now found Zac’s take rather interesting. ‘I envisaged a natural progression from tent to tent—’

‘Marquee,’ chorused Ben, Matt and Zac.

‘Mar-bloody-quee,’ Django sighed. ‘You know: a suitable, conducive environment to assist the three key stages of any good party. Conduct starts off good, behaviour then worsens until hopefully proceedings become downright shameful. Each marquee would have food to facilitate, cocktails to complement and soft furnishings to, well, accommodate.’

‘McCabe,’ said Mr Merifeld the landlord, with a grave shake of his head, ‘sounds right costly to me.’

‘Merifield,’ said Django, ‘what’s money? I can’t take it with me and I am well into my eighth decade.’

‘Marquees don’t come cheap,’ said Mr Merifield.

‘Tents it is then!’ Django exclaimed, to much raucous approval.

By the time the four men made their somewhat unsteady passage up the garden path after a lock-in at the Rag and Thistle, Django’s party had been planned to an imaginative degree; the minutiae mapped out down to the wording of the invites, the order of speeches and cleverly themed playlists for each hour.

‘The devil is in the details,’ Matt justified, with drunken solemnity.

‘Then the devil can come too!’ Django proclaimed. ‘Who’s for a cup of tea or a nightcap?’

‘Nightcap,’ said Ben.

‘Nightcap,’ said Matt.

‘Nightcap,’ said Zac.

Ben gave Django a hand, while Zac checked on Tom and Matt tiptoed in on Cosima and Fen, who sleepily protested that he reeked of booze.

‘Django,’ Ben said cautiously, while he searched under the kitchen sink and found a bottle of cognac shoulder to shoulder with Domestos, ‘are you happy with your health? Is all well?’

In the context of the lightness of the evening’s conversation, Ben’s question surprised Django. ‘I’m in rude health, doctor,’ he declared, placing four enormous brandy balloons on a tray.

‘Any concerns?’ Ben pressed. ‘However minor?’

‘I can’t shift and shunt the beds about like I used to,’ Django joked.

‘It’s my job to notice that you appear to go to the loo a lot,’ said Ben. ‘Have you noticed an increase in this? Pain? Discomfort? Any change in the old waterworks?’

‘You cheeky whippersnapper,’ Django protested, ‘don’t you go calling my waterworks old.’

‘I’m just saying perhaps a check-up might be a good idea,’ Ben said evenly.

Django didn’t reveal that he’d thought the same himself. He didn’t tell Ben he’d gone so far as keeping an appointment with the GP.

But the GP turned out to be a girl who looked no more than twelve. Don’t doctors seem younger and younger these days? I’d really rather not discuss my waterworks with a young lady. I had to invent a sore throat as the purpose of my visit. She told me to go easy on the Tabasco. And she recommended Strepsils. Jolly nice they are too.

‘Django?’ Ben was saying. ‘There are basic steps you can take – restrict fluid intake after 6 p.m., cut down alcohol and caffeine. Limit spicy food. Increase fish, carrots, broccoli. And exercise.’

Django nodded thoughtfully. ‘Life would be a bit of a bore,’ he said.

‘Just cut down on some stuff and increase other things. Invent new stews,’ Ben suggested.

Django was about to respond but then Matt and Zac were joining them again, switching the conversation back to party planning.

He’s Not There

If the devil is in the details, if the pleasure is in the planning, then the fun is in the fantasy. Though Fen knew well enough how reality can let a daydream down, that Monday she made sure she forgot. Though she was aware that the planning might well be pointless, she happily indulged herself. Though she knew that her own guardian devil was guiding her, she turned deaf ears to her conscience. All her conscience wanted to say was Think about it – what is the point? But for Fen, just then, the point was that her imagination had been ignited and running with it was fun. And wasn’t it refreshing to have the energy and the desire to spend a little time choosing what to wear? And didn’t it seem entertainingly decadent to put mascara on in the daytime? And wasn’t it fun to think about something other than baby food for a little while? And when it all seemed suddenly fanciful, questionable even, Fen simply justified that Cosima needed some nice fresh air. And wasn’t a stroll up Bishops Avenue as good a route as any? And if further corroboration was needed, then a date with Cat at the café in Kenwood House provided it.

*

‘He’s not there,’ Fen said to Cosima as they walked up the Bishops Avenue, ‘but there again, why would he be?’ She walked on, mulling theories on coincidence, unrealistic expectations and downright improbability. She stopped to pick up Cosima’s teething rings. She looked back over her shoulder to the tree and the flowers. ‘Shall we leave a little note?’ she asked. ‘There’s no harm in that. It would be friendly, wouldn’t it – might make his sad task a little less so.’ She turned the buggy and retraced her steps.

Hi Al!

Cosima and I were passing.

I noticed a couple of Kay’s daffodils were looking peaky so I’ve removed them.

Hope that’s OK.

Fen.

‘Shall we leave Mummy’s mobile number too? I mean, it’s no big deal, is it, it’s just a friendly gesture – communication being a global thing.’ Fen added her number after her name.

She set off for Kenwood in earnest and thought to herself how she’d just done the right thing.

It’s not like I’m hoping he’ll call. It’s not like I’m swept up in daft daydreams. She spent the rest of the route distinguishing between the Daydream and the Distraction.

There’s a major distinction between the two. A daydream can be pointless, a distraction useful.

It was with a spring in her step that she crunched along the sweep of gravel driveway heralding Kenwood House.

Cat was already there, sitting in the converted coach house, caressing a cup of tea. Fen zoomed the buggy over to her, mimicking a screech of brakes with her voice. An elderly couple looked slightly alarmed, as if that was no way to handle a buggy, as if babies should be in nice coach-built prams, not bizarre three-wheeled monstrosities.

Though they’d spent all weekend together, Fen gave Cat a kiss and a hug. She took Cosima from her buggy.

‘Here, you cuddle your Auntie Cat,’ she told the baby. ‘Mummy’s going to get herself an enormous slice of cake.’

‘You’re chirpy,’ Cat told Fen on her return, declining the gateaux that Fen had bought.

‘And you look miserable,’ Fen commented, giving Cosima an organic sugar-free rusk. ‘Everything OK?’

‘I feel glum,’ Cat admitted, ‘and I want to be allowed to feel glum. So thank God you’re not Pip.’

‘What’s up?’ Fen asked, spooning butter-cream from the cake’s surface directly into her mouth.

‘I’m not pregnant. I don’t have a job. I don’t like Clapham. Ben’s never home and I wish I’d stayed in Colorado,’ Cat declared.

‘Cat,’ Fen said, ‘you’ve only been home two minutes.’

‘It’s been three months,’ Cat corrected. ‘I’ve had sex forty-two times and have sent out nineteen pre-emptive letters for jobs. Nothing.’

‘Cat, you make the former sound like a chore and you’re being unrealistic about the latter,’ Fen admonished her lightly.

‘And you sound like Pip,’ said Cat, ‘so stop it because I need you to be the one who there-theres me.’

Fen paused to consider this. It was true. Go to Pip for practical advice and accept her authority. Go to Fen for a hug and be assured of some plain sympathy. ‘It takes time,’ Fen soothed, ‘both take time.’

‘You got pregnant overnight!’ Cat objected.

‘It wasn’t planned,’ Fen said.

‘Then it’s not fair,’ said Cat.

Fen looked at her younger sister apologetically and put her hand over Cat’s. ‘Come back to mine this afternoon,’ she said. ‘Let’s look at my books and magazines. There’s sure to be Ten Top Tips For Tip Top Fertility or something.’ Though Fen made it sound as though she was doing Cat the favour, privately she liked the idea of a way out of the mums-and-babies group.

‘What’s wrong with Clapham anyway?’ Fen asked. ‘I thought it was meant to be quite a happening place?’

‘I stick out like a sore thumb,’ Cat said. ‘All the women bustle about with perfect children, or sit smug behind the wheels of their SUVs.’

‘But that’s your goal too,’ Fen said, ‘that’s what you’re hoping for. And actually, it doesn’t sound dissimilar to this part of North London.’

‘But while it’s not happening for me, it makes me feel so isolated,’ said Cat, ‘and it’s made me realize that I really want to be nearer to you. And Pip. I felt less far away when I was living in Colorado – how mad is that? I feel lonely stuck over the river. Ben’s really upbeat about his job but he’s working really long hours. I haven’t made any friends. I miss Stacey and the gang in Boulder. And I miss my mountain.’

‘Your what?’ Fen asked.

‘Flagstaff. Remember that hike we went on? That’s my mountain. You saw where Ben and I lived, Fen. You saw the awesome wilderness right on our doorstep. You filled your lungs with that crystal-pure air. You stayed in our gorgeous apartment. You hung out with our mates. You saw how people drive SUVs out there because of the terrain, not fashion. You had a taste of our quality of life.’

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