While Pip at I are breakfasting and taliking a friend of hers turns up to pick up Bruce, the enormous dog. Turns out they have a dog share. Dogshare? Basically, the dog belongs to Pip, but goes to work with this friend. And they share evening care too, this is the dog's babysitter. Pip and I talk some more. It's a beautiful day and she heads off to walk to work through Oxford. How bad can things be? It is such a beautiful day, it's unreal for April, and I can’t help but think this will be it for summer this year. It’s great to be in my sun clothes and my feet are getting tanned – my feet, for crying out loud.
I manage to do a bit of work before Bartelt heaves himself out of his pit. There are no recriminations about the duvet and we both know something has changed: we are the kind of collaborators who can share a duvet. Where will this end? At which point will one of us cry ‘mercy’ (or ‘peanuts’, the cry we used when I was a kid – no idea why)?
We walk into Oxford, around Oxford a bit. Basically, we're lost, but we’re enjoying the walk. Much to our surprises We manage to find the theatre, which surely means we were not lost at all, and have another lovely, easy tech. The show is close to selling out. Because I'm a scum bag I then have to walk the half our or so back to Pip's to wash my hair. Disgusting.
Pip comes to the show and afterwards there are quite few people in the nearby pub, including police officers I work with and some strangers who came to the show and with whom I talk for a very long time. Finally I sit down with William and Meg for some food, to which I suspect they are going to treat us, and when I say us not only Bartelt and me, but our hostess, Pip, as well.
I grew up with William. Well, he is a bit older than Kate. Actually, now he is considerably older than Kate but that is because Kate has petulently stopped ageing. There are many, many things I could tell you about William and his family, I know them all pretty well, but the story I choose is about playing both tennis and, that most brutal of sports, croquet.
I think I've mentioned that my brother and sister were not at all a fan of mine when we were growing up. Theirs was a deep-seated irritation, not without its justification looking back, but as a small child at the time I found it... utterly devastating, not to mention disorientating: as the youngest I couldn't see why they didn't want me there as much as I wanted to be there, All The Time. Oh, horribly craven and eager to please, yet mouthy and an utter show-off. Delightful.
We had, though, come to an interesting point where I was FINALLY allowed to join them at William's family home to play tennis. It was an extraordinary break-though after a very long, cold war of attrition. I was older than six, mabye seven or eight, and, at the beginning my best friend Katie came with me. This makes the others ten and upwards. I started playing tennis at school when I was nine. So, I had not yet reached the pinnacle in my tennis career which was exemplified by my mate M and me knocking all our balls over the wall into the woods while our teacher was looking the other way. The afternoon was then spent lying under the trees talking about music and boys.... Clearly, the problem with playing with my siblings and their friends was that I was far to young – and crap – to be playing against people approaching their teens.
So they had devised a fantastic contribution for me to make, exploiting my desperation to please, help and be part of things as well as my love of Wimbledon: I was their Ball Girl. I seem to remember I did this for hours on end and for at least a couple of summers. Katie didn't last very long. We are still good friends and she has many qualities, but she's never been anybody's ball girl. I suppose they just thought they'd exploit it until I got bored of it. For me it was fun and it was a way in which Kate and Charles would play with me.
Croquet was quite another matter, however. If you've neither played croquet nor read Machiavelli's The Prince, don't waste your time with both: do one or the other. Croquet will teach you everything you want to know about human nature but didn't ask because you were terrified of the answer. It's a relentless, conniving, tactical game with added violence and ridicule to keep things interesting. I spent a lot of time taking about seven turns to get my ball back from the WBY (Wide Blue Yonder) and the rest of it being laughed at. But I was at least playing the same game as the others and it was clear to everyone that I was a lot weaker, which was not, technically, my fault. Because of the scheming going on I was as likely as anyone else to be persuaded into some kind of deal to stop whoever was winning from hitting the final post first. And how quickly I learnt not to trust anyone, seeing the legion betrayals coursing over the lawn: in croquet there is no loyalty or mercy and ridicule is a rite of passage.
I wasn't THAT much worse than my sister, anyway. She may have been 14 or so but she had delicate little feet and was never as strong as me, or as physically daring, and she certainly didn't have the over-long arms which I possess to this day. And it was fun turning against her and Charles, taking sides with William or his brother James, to bring down the older Peytons. I don't recall winning, but then neither do I recall the sting of losing, I just remember being included.
So William and Meg have made the effort to come to the show, had, in fact, offered us accommodation too. It was so lovely to spend time with them, telling stories of Beyton where we grew up, of the characters, the long summers and, of course, of Kate. He hadn't seen her much in recent years and so remembered a much younger version of her than do I. I had not spent that much time with him in.... I don't know how long. He and Meg are lovely and so easy to talk to, the five of us laugh and chat... and I'm so grateful to see them, and I miss Kate, not with a dull ache, but with the shock of her disappearance, seen here in the inappropriateness of her absence.
I resented Kate's tennis abilities all my life - she wasn't even that good, though still managed to utterly outclass me - playing catch-up as I was and naturally ungifted. I was jealous of her in recent years playing in south London with her friend Penny as I would have been a risible addition to the party. How I wish now I could see her heading off to meet Penny today, feel the sting of jealousy and resentment at my sister and behaving in a slightly petty way when she got home again. The simple fact of her deadness does not change the petty truths of our relationship, in fact, it makes even those tiny little nastinesses poignant. Oh, let me wake up and realise these more-than-six-years have been a dream.
No comments:
Post a Comment