We enjoy leisurely breakfasts at the weekend. Maude made pancakes on Saturday morning. This usually means that she can call Augusta for a
catch-up as the kids eat pancakes in something approaching quietness. I tried to slip away for a quick shower to galvanise myself for a day of occupying
and pleasing 2 small children and 1 wife.
‘I can see your winky through the glass!’
I’m usually joined in our compact bathroom
by at least one child. Casta led the incursion. Maude and Aurora brought up the
rear with an urgent mission to paint toenails under the bright light that only
the bathroom can offer.
I stepped out into the now bright lights of the bathroom and
kilted myself in a warm towel. The girls were temporarily distracted in
choosing their colour of nail varnish. Maude was temporarily distracted, or
possibly transfixed, by my middle-aged physique. She stared a cold stare at my
top half.
‘What are you looking at darling?’
‘Nothing. But it’s funny the way you kind of curve at the
waist now.’ She turned to the girls and giggled ’a bit like a lady.’
Aurora giggled behind her hand and Casta launched herself into
a loud guffaw which convinced me that she had no idea what had just been said.
‘But seriously’, my
wife continued, ’Isn’t it amazing how our bodies have disintegrated? That blue
would really work girls.’
Tonight I tried to remind Maude of this tonic of an exchange
as we shared the sofa and watched television. She was tapping her bare foot on my knee to the beat
of one of her favourite ‘oldies’ : ‘Together
in Electric Dreams’.
‘Would you mind not resting any part of your disintegrating
person on my person. I fear you might
leave some kind of residue.’
Maude glanced at me and laughed a loud laugh which again convinced me that she
hadn’t heard a word I’d been saying.
She was lost in a reverie – possibly one
in which she was riding through neon Las Vegas in the back of Phil Oakey’s
convertible.
‘Oh I wish I could go back...’ Maude was slightly glazed and
seemed to be thinking aloud.
’…Go back to that
Happy Place. Where all the sixth form boys gave me longing looks and whispered
to each other. This was always playing at the school discos.’
‘I thought that this suburban idyll with me and the girls
was the ‘Happy Place’ to eclipse all other happy places, darling.’
The TV stopped playing the Happy Place song. Maude collected
herself and retrieved the remote control from somewhere under her bottom. She
looked around and seemed slightly startled that I was in the room:
‘Sorry Darling, did you say something? If it was the offer
of a cup of tea, yes I’d love one.’
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ReplyDeleteThe real language of families is almost always a private one. It's a joy to read someone else's coded talk.
ReplyDeleteMind that belly though! (My girls--teenagers--are also relentlessly critical of my bodily appearance).
Looby is right - it was a joy to read this coded talk.
ReplyDeleteTo know that this grown-up-ness - this marriage; my partner; the kids; these middle-aged bodies - are where we arrive.
I snorted with recognition at the 'belly' bit and at the 'disintegrating bodies'.
This is ageing. Eh?
But beware too many reveries that look back with longing at being nubile and desired.