it too.
Fly quick, my little stick
Carry me across the stream!
sang Esben in the story; and only now, four years later, did Amelia recall that Mummy had been nearly crying the whole time. Mummy had tried very hard not to cry, Amelia remembered, throughout those first weeks, and Amelia had tried as best she could to help her, putting her arms round her neck, and bringing her cups of tea in bed, all slopped in the saucer. For Amelia herself, this had been a fairly happy time, but only because Mummy, in the teeth of everything, had forced it to be so: like a skilled gardener forcing strawberries out of season with the aid of artificial heat and light.
Fly quick, my little stick,
Carry me across the stream!
—and across the stream they had been carried, Mummy guarding and watching over her every inch of the precarious way.
Mummy. Mummy, guardian of the years, the gravitational centre of all that happened. Mummy, who loved her as no one else would ever love her again—how was it—how could it be?—that it was to Mummy alone that Amelia could not tell the story of her afternoon with Daddy and the girlfriend?
She’d been able to tell it to Dorothy all right; tell her everythrilling detail, from Rita’s low-slung hairstyle to her pink, tapered finger-nails and her imitation-crocodile boots. Had told her, too (making them both laugh in the telling), how Rita had fidgeted about the room, pretending to be interested in Adrian’s books, pulling out first one and then another from the shelves in a silly, vacant sort of way, not a bit as if she wanted to read them, but rather as if she was trying to annoy them, to punish them for being beyond her, and for keeping secrets from her within their quiet covers.
Mummy would have loved to hear all this, and would have laughed just as heartily as Dorothy did, and with a good deal more appreciation. She would have delighted, too, in Amelia’s account of the phone-call to Poor Derek, all about a chocolate-covered Swiss roll which someone had brought to Wimbledon as a present to someone else, and would now be mortally offended if it wasn’t taken round instantly (by Derek) to somewhere in Wood Green.
“But, Derek, if you don’t take it today it’ll get stale !” Rita kept howling; and then, “But that’s not the same thing at all !” she shrieked, evidently in response to a suggestion of Derek’s that for a quarter the price of his petrol, the Someone in Wood Green could buy their own chocolate-covered Swiss roll.
“ Men! ” Rita had exploded, slamming down the phone, and while Adrian continued to work on his report, she proceeded to explain the whole thing to him, including the price of chocolate-coated Swiss rolls at Tesco’s as compared with Marks and Spencer.
“ You wouldn’t have let me down like that, would you, darling?” she finished, folding her arms round Adrian’s neck from behind: and Adrian, his eyes still on his work, agreed absently and quite at random that No, of course he wouldn’t.
“And I wish I could be there when he says ‘ What chocolate-coated Swiss roll?’” Amelia would have finished her recital gaily; and Mummy would have loved it. They’d have laughed and laughed.
Why, why, then, was it so difficult? So impossible, even? And yet it had been so easy with Dorothy—with anyone, in fact, except Mummy. Anyone else at all. The girls at school, for instance, there’d be no difficulty at all about telling them —though of course in this case she’d select from her material on a rather different basis. With them, she’d be borne along on their expectations as on an incoming tide, telling them the things they wanted to hear, throwing in factsand oddments of truth when and as convenient, but not allowing such items to take over too much and spoil the total effect.
Yes, she would admit, with perhaps a little yawn, to show how blasé she was about the whole thing, yes, it is a bit of a responsibility being a stepdaughter. You know what
Fly quick, my little stick
Carry me across the stream!
sang Esben in the story; and only now, four years later, did Amelia recall that Mummy had been nearly crying the whole time. Mummy had tried very hard not to cry, Amelia remembered, throughout those first weeks, and Amelia had tried as best she could to help her, putting her arms round her neck, and bringing her cups of tea in bed, all slopped in the saucer. For Amelia herself, this had been a fairly happy time, but only because Mummy, in the teeth of everything, had forced it to be so: like a skilled gardener forcing strawberries out of season with the aid of artificial heat and light.
Fly quick, my little stick,
Carry me across the stream!
—and across the stream they had been carried, Mummy guarding and watching over her every inch of the precarious way.
Mummy. Mummy, guardian of the years, the gravitational centre of all that happened. Mummy, who loved her as no one else would ever love her again—how was it—how could it be?—that it was to Mummy alone that Amelia could not tell the story of her afternoon with Daddy and the girlfriend?
She’d been able to tell it to Dorothy all right; tell her everythrilling detail, from Rita’s low-slung hairstyle to her pink, tapered finger-nails and her imitation-crocodile boots. Had told her, too (making them both laugh in the telling), how Rita had fidgeted about the room, pretending to be interested in Adrian’s books, pulling out first one and then another from the shelves in a silly, vacant sort of way, not a bit as if she wanted to read them, but rather as if she was trying to annoy them, to punish them for being beyond her, and for keeping secrets from her within their quiet covers.
Mummy would have loved to hear all this, and would have laughed just as heartily as Dorothy did, and with a good deal more appreciation. She would have delighted, too, in Amelia’s account of the phone-call to Poor Derek, all about a chocolate-covered Swiss roll which someone had brought to Wimbledon as a present to someone else, and would now be mortally offended if it wasn’t taken round instantly (by Derek) to somewhere in Wood Green.
“But, Derek, if you don’t take it today it’ll get stale !” Rita kept howling; and then, “But that’s not the same thing at all !” she shrieked, evidently in response to a suggestion of Derek’s that for a quarter the price of his petrol, the Someone in Wood Green could buy their own chocolate-covered Swiss roll.
“ Men! ” Rita had exploded, slamming down the phone, and while Adrian continued to work on his report, she proceeded to explain the whole thing to him, including the price of chocolate-coated Swiss rolls at Tesco’s as compared with Marks and Spencer.
“ You wouldn’t have let me down like that, would you, darling?” she finished, folding her arms round Adrian’s neck from behind: and Adrian, his eyes still on his work, agreed absently and quite at random that No, of course he wouldn’t.
“And I wish I could be there when he says ‘ What chocolate-coated Swiss roll?’” Amelia would have finished her recital gaily; and Mummy would have loved it. They’d have laughed and laughed.
Why, why, then, was it so difficult? So impossible, even? And yet it had been so easy with Dorothy—with anyone, in fact, except Mummy. Anyone else at all. The girls at school, for instance, there’d be no difficulty at all about telling them —though of course in this case she’d select from her material on a rather different basis. With them, she’d be borne along on their expectations as on an incoming tide, telling them the things they wanted to hear, throwing in factsand oddments of truth when and as convenient, but not allowing such items to take over too much and spoil the total effect.
Yes, she would admit, with perhaps a little yawn, to show how blasé she was about the whole thing, yes, it is a bit of a responsibility being a stepdaughter. You know what
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