Chapter Nineteen
The boys continued to be absolutely angelic, but also a tiny bit exhausting over a sustained period.
On Sunday Joe and I took them to the trampoline park in town, where Hugo ended up sitting on the edge of the ball pit in deep conversation with an older woman (an eight-year-old girl) about the merits of friendship bracelets, while Lawrence bounced uncertainly on his own in a corner until I offered to join him.
This was something I regretted almost as soon as I set foot on the sprung runway, small children cannonballing into me from every direction.
I gamely attempted to stride between them without losing my footing or the contents of my bladder, which was no mean feat, although from what I could see from the expressions of the other accompanying mums, I wasn’t alone on that score.
There is a sort of universal panicky ‘pelvic-clenching’ grimace that we share when faced with gravitational challenges to our continence – the last time I’d seen it was at Farah’s fortieth birthday party when all the women at our table had got up to dance to House of Pain’s ‘Jump Around’ after consuming half a dozen bottles of the complimentary house white.
I had anticipated Sunday evening being quite calm, given the energy expended at Mega Power Bounce and the excitement of the subsequent McDonald’s, but I hadn’t banked on the inordinate amount of organisation required to get two small boys with multiple scheduled activities ready for school on Monday.
The itinerary informed me that they both had breakfast club starting at eight, which meant walking out of the house at seven on the dot, which, in turn, meant having absolutely everything prepared and ready to go the night before.
There was still enough residual mummy memory tucked away in my brain for me to know this as an essential truth, even if you are dealing with the most helpful and organised little boys the world has ever beheld.
Thus, bookbags were checked twice; PE kit for tag rugby (Hugo) and judo (Lawrence) was checked thrice; duffle coats, scarves, hats, gloves and outdoor shoes were laid out in the kitchen like two small people who’d had an altercation with a steam-roller; indoor shoes were placed in the Liberty fabric bags provided by Jaqueline; and water bottles were prepped and refrigerated along with the specified apple, blueberries and mango chunks for snack time.
‘They need to go in separate containers,’ said Hugo very seriously as he offered up various small Tupperware pots that had tumbled out of the chaos cupboard. ‘Otherwise it all goes mushy and purple.’
‘It’s okay Hugo,’ I said, confidently tipping a small portion of blueberries into an old (and thoroughly rinsed) houmous container. ‘This is not my first rodeo.’
He looked confused. ‘They don’t do rodeos at my school Aunty Hattie.
I think I would like it if they did but I might not be very good at staying on a horse if it was jumping up and down.
Also there aren’t any horses or ponies at Warminster House, not until you get to senior school, which is called Warminster Upper, when bigger children can bring their horses and ponies from home if they are living in the boarding house.
Maman says we might be allowed to live in the boarding house if we are really good boys, but we don’t have a horse at home because me and Lawrence haven’t got time to learn riding horses as we are quite busy – so it wouldn’t make much difference at the moment. ’
It took me a moment to unpick this sentence. ‘Do you want to live in the boarding house?’ I asked.
‘With a horse?’
‘Not necessarily,’ I said, tipping the mango into an old margarine tub and forcing what now appeared to be the wrong lid on top.
He contemplated this for a moment. ‘Maman says it will be like Harry Potter,’ he said eventually. ‘Which sounds nice. Although I don’t think there are any trolls living in the dungeons. In fact, I don’t think there are any dungeons even though the building is from the very olden days.’
‘Unlikely,’ I agreed.
‘And it would be easier for Maman and Daddy to do their work if we were at school more.’ He paused.
‘But I might not like to share my bedroom with lots of people in case they are extremely noisy or messy. And I do like my bedroom at home. And I would miss Magdalena because she makes nice churros, which are like dusty donut sticks but extremely tasty, and she sings songs with us. The songs sometimes have funny words in, some words are Spanish, which means from Spain, and some are Mandarin, which is from China to help us with homework and some words are just completely made up!’ He looked at me wide-eyed at such renegade behaviour.
‘And she helps when Lawrence falls over or if we get stung by nettles, or bees, or wasps, or ants, or any other things, maybe even if there was a snake.’ He shrugged.
‘And she is quite good at cuddling but not as good as Daddy. Daddy gives us enormous cuddles.’
‘Hmmm.’ I nodded seriously. ‘Well, enormous cuddles do run in our family,’ I said. ‘Because I’m Daddy’s sister, and I know that we can’t do teeny weeny stingy cuddles, it’s physically impossible. It means you and Lawrence will grow up and do enormous cuddles too. In fact, you probably do them now.’
‘We do!’ said Hugo, stunned by this revelation.
I contemplated him. ‘Let’s see,’ I said holding my arms out wide.
‘I don’t know, Aunty Hattie,’ he said, worried. ‘I don’t want to squeeze you too hard. Maman says we mustn’t be rough.’
‘That’s a good point,’ I said, crouching down to his level. ‘Let’s just do a medium cuddle then.’ I scooped him into my arms and breathed in the appley smell of the shampoo we’d used last night.
‘That was a good one,’ I said, a moment later as we broke apart. ‘Not too squeezy but not too stingy either. Just right. Now, do we have absolutely everything we need for tomorrow?’
We looked at the pile of bags on the kitchen table, the gathered outerwear draped over the chairs, the boots and kit, the stacked snacks, and the muffins I’d just baked (more to assuage my guilt about the McDonald’s than anything else) for us to have in the car on the way to school.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I think so.’
‘So, time for music practice?’ I said and he nodded.
‘Aunty Hattie,’ he said, sliding his hand into mine as we went to get his violin. ‘I like staying here.’
‘And I really like having you both here to stay,’ I said, feeling a little lump forming in my throat. ‘Now, where have Uncle Joe and Lawrence got to?’
Uncle Joe and Lawrence, it turned out, had both fallen asleep on the sofa.
Joe had taken on more than his share of trampolining duties and had even braved the viral hellscape of the ball-pit to retrieve his youngest nephew earlier today so he deserved a rest. I felt that Lawrence probably deserved a rest too, being only four and all, but Jaqueline’s itinerary loomed in my mind, accompanied by the nagging guilt of having rejected it completely on their first night with us.
I had to get the boys to practise their instruments, even if just for a few moments.
Luckily Hugo was on the case. I imagined that he had done similar in the past as he nudged his brother awake and presented him with the miniature clarinet.
Lawrence looked for a moment as if he would dearly love to shove that clarinet somewhere unmentionable but he rubbed his eyes, struggled to his feet, and Uncle Joe and I were treated to a screechy rendition of ‘Baa Baa Black Sheep’ while Hugo took his violin upstairs to practise Beethoven’s ‘Ninth Sonata’ (I jest, but it did sound very classical and accomplished).
The extensive planning and preparedness for Monday morning was only really hampered by the fact that I forgot the sodding muffins, so we were all starving by the time we were half an hour into our journey the next day.
It was too late to turn back so for the second time in twenty-four hours the boys were treated to a McDonald’s, this time of the breakfast variety, and we all agreed that it was probably best if we didn’t mention this to Maman and Daddy when they called this evening.
I walked them into school five minutes later than planned but the improbably named Miss Squirrel gave me a reassuring smile as she gently led them away to their second breakfast of the morning.
I watched their backs retreating from me, both boys laden like pack mules.
They had insisted on carrying their own things – ‘Maman says we should be self-reliant and not expect others to do meany jobs for us,’ Hugo had informed me as we hauled their bags out of the car.
I didn’t have the heart to ask if he meant menial (although I suppose one shouldn’t expect others to do ‘meany’ jobs on one’s behalf either).
But then I looked at my watch and realised I was going to be late if I dawdled around pretending I was still a school mummy for a moment longer.
‘I’ve got my nephews staying this week,’ I said to David as he handed me the keys to open up. ‘That’s why I asked to do the extra day in exchange for the earlier finish time.’
‘It’s fine, Hattie.’ David winced as he lifted a box of new hardbacks that had come from central office on Saturday.
‘We try to be as flexible as we can around childcare commitments. I’m just glad to have staff who are prepared to put in the extra hours and replace like for like.
We’ve had people in the past, naming no names, who have pretty much assumed they could come and go as they pleased. ’
‘He means Vanessa,’ said Ren, taking the box from David and placing it down on the counter. ‘She was awful. Breezed in mid-morning, took two hours for lunch and then left early. Sometimes she just didn’t turn up. And then after she’d been signed off sick for about four years, she…’