793. My Garden

A GARDEN is a lovesome thing, God wot!

Rose plot,

Fringed pool,

Fern'd grot—

The veriest school

Of peace; and yet the fool

Contends that God is not—

Not God! In gardens! When the eve is cool?

Nay, but I have a sign;

'Tis very sure God walks in mine.

Today, yesterday when the jasmine and the roses were washed with summer rain and Buddy killed a pigeon, scattering downy white breast feathers and iridescent flight feathers over the daisy studded grass. I was quite sure.

We are much better.

Later, Ellis comes over for Chip Night. He brings Hetty, Hannah and His Youngest.

Ellis’s Youngest and Maisie rush outside. They call over the wall to Billie and whoop across the gardens to Archie and Morag.

The children climb across the boundary walls and vault fences, they drop down through Elder Trees and push through Ceonothus Hedges until they all end up in The Perfect Doctors’s garden where they play in the Giant Pit that the Doctor’s have dug to remove the roots of the felled sycamore next to their house.

The Giant Pit is a real draw for children.

Ellis and me go to buy chips from the Chinese Chip Shop Man. and My Mother makes Salad Niciose with Tilapia instead of Tuna because we think it’s greener. We adults can’t eat chips because we have to drink wine and to do both would be sartorial suicide.

Ellis tells us that he is still in love with the Artist With the Tiny Feet.

He says, ‘I fell asleep on the sofa next to the Artist and at no point did he make a move. What shall I do?’

And he says, ‘Did you know that we are the most observed nation in the whole world, that we are all under surveillance all the time?’ Ellis is good at non-sequitors.

Then he says ‘Have you seen that Banksy next to Waterstones in Russell Square? It’s brilliant ‘One Nation Under CCTV’ It says. Who is watching us and why?’

‘What shall I do about the Artist?’ he says.

My mother says that Ellis is very attractive and that frankly some men are hopeless at picking up subtle hints like falling asleep next to them on the sofa and that Ellis should bite the bullet and ask the artist to sleep with him.

Ellis agrees but says he simply hasn’t the courage.

John comes home and he says he thinks CCTV is a waste of money and that Banksy is ‘So over.’

Sometimes I think John spends too much time talking to very young PRs.

Friday 23rd May 2008. Wedding !!

Ellie’s parents are getting married today. This is very exciting. We haven’t been to a wedding for ages.

A few days ago, Ellie’s mother, Melinda, rang.

‘Hi,’ she said ‘Ross and I are getting married. Will you and John be able to come? It’s on Friday. Will John be able to get the day off?’

‘Wow!’ I said ‘Why?’ I said ‘Of course we’ll come.’ I said.

Melinda said it was purely financial. Then she said it wasn’t really. Then she said that she had found a beautiful dress in Islington and that she needed to find some shoes to match and that did I eat fish because afterwards everyone was going to Morgan M for lunch and could we come to a party in the evening as well? She also said that she and Ross hadn’t told Ellie yet because they thought it might freak her out a bit.

This is such fun, but I am worried about Ellie.

Abigail tells me that Ellie has worked out that her parents are getting married and that she is very confused that they haven’t told her. She found a few e-mails and caught the tail-end of a few conversations and worked the whole thing out.

‘She is feeling a bit upset, frankly.’ says Abigail.

I phone Ellie.

‘Ellie’ I say ‘They will tell you, they will want you to come. They are just being protective that’s all. Don’t be cross. Parents are always making mistakes. The Road to Hell is Paved with Good Intentions’. I say. I am not sure that was the right thing to say.

Ellie’s not sure either.

Later in the week Abigail tells me that Ellie’s parents have told her and that she was cross and now she isn’t at all cross and is going to take lots of photographs.

The wedding is in the Town Hall. I am wearing my Royal Garden Party Outfit with a Black Straw Hat from Fenwicks with feathers in it and orange shoes. I might be overdressed but I think, if in doubt... overdress. There is nothing quite so Dull as looking Understated.

At the Town Hall, John and I realise that we are almost the only friends that have been asked and that almost everyone else is Family and we feel quite shy.

Ellie rushes up looking sparklingly beautiful and welcomes us.

Ross and Melinda arrive. Melinda wears a silver dress and looks very gorgeous.

Ross and Melinda get married.

Ross’s mother recites from memory...

Had I the heaven’s embroidered cloths,

Enwrought with golden and silver light,

The blue and the dim and the dark cloths

Of night and light and the half light,

I would spread the cloths under your feet:

But I being poor, I have only my dreams;

I have spread my dreams under your feet,

Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

Ross’s mother speaks in the softest Irish accent which is one of the very best accents for poetry and I am very moved and I look at John. He is very moved too.

We go to Morgan M.

I sit opposite John and between Ellie’s stepbrother and a slender Brazilian girl.

Morgan M is a Very Posh French restaurant. Ross and Melinda have hired the whole thing.

All Ross’s brothers are here. One is a Cardiologist with 8 children. His wife is a Gynacologist so she probably was quite good at dealing with tha Awful After-Effects of having 8.

Melinda’s father is here and her twin brother. John and I have a very nice time talking to the Brazilian girl who is married to Ross’s cousin. I have fun talking to Ellie’s Step Brother. He is very sweet and funny and he tells me that he is glad Ellie has a new boyfriend because he had to sit on his hands to stop himself punching the last one.

The food is amazing and we drink too much wine.

Later john and I fall asleep on our bed. We are not very good at drinking during the day. We have to go to the Wedding Party this evening and we are glad of the rest. Luckily my mother is still with us and she feeds Maisie and rolls her eyes at us. She is coming to the Party too.

The Party is heaving.

Everyone is here. Fran and Bill have come from Hampstead. Claire has come alone as Paul has gone to Australia to sort out a complex part of his father’s estate. Abigail and Ellie and their friend, Abigail R. are here too and Bella comes but she goes home quite soon because it’s all Too Much. Claire does some Karaoke with Abigail R’s mother. Maisie talks to Bill, she loves Bill. Abigail falls asleep in a heap. One of Ross’s brothers says he can’t remember who he is.

Melinda stands still and serene, talking to people, she looks very beautiful and happy.

Ross and Melinda have gone to Paris on Honeymoon. They will live happily ever after.

Insomnia. April / May 2008.

I worry, just before I get out of bed in the morning, that John will turn to me, do a double take, and say:

‘Oh my God! What’s happened to your face?’ because unlike Dorian Grey I do not have a picture corrupting in the attic and like Macbeth I feel I have a face like ‘a book where men may read strange matters’ - liberal doses of Botox notwithstanding.

The ‘strange matters’ concerned are copious quantities of wine coupled with absolutely no sleep, and don’t tell me that’s not going to become apparent at some point.

Last night I awoke at 5, and the night before and before and the one before that, spiralling backwards all through May and April.

Once or twice I think I slept til 7.30 or 8 but mostly I didn’t.

Sometimes, if it is warm enough, I get up at 5 and empty the dishwasher make Zac a cooked breakfast and do all the ironing, but, normally, because it is cold, I lie in the gathering light listening to the birds shouting and the milkman crashing about. I just lie there with my eyes shut telling myself elaborate stories and pretending that they are dreams.

My best story is that I have lunch with my Publisher and my Agent at Bibendum and that my Agent talks about a Bidding War and thrashes out a Deal, but as I have never met a Publisher or an Agent or been to Bibendum this is quite a labour intensive dream and I sometimes lose momentum.... If that happens, I end up thinking about why the drainpipe from the roof always overflows in heavy rain and pours water down the side of the house and how much I should think that matters and whether it might be the cause of the damp patch on the sitting room wall and whether I really ought to get up right now and see if I can push the hosepipe down the drain pipe and unblock it - if it is, indeed, blocked.

That story is very unhelpful and usually wakes me up properly, at which point I realise that Buddy is sitting on my head, purring, and that John is snoring, a bit, and that there is a funny creeping noise downstairs and that actually it’s nearly 6 and I might as well go and shove a hose pipe about the place as lie here and worry about damp bricks.

All this is very inconvenient and I am sure will begin to ruin my looks and turn a Brain, already compromised, to Mush and that John will indeed, wake one day to see that there is absolutely nothing going on behind my bloodshot eyes.

But, as I believe to the pits of my heart ‘One crowded hour of life is worth an age without a name,’ - even at 5 in the morning - there is very little that can done about it.

O why do you walk through the fields in gloves,

Missing so much and so much?

O, fat white woman whom nobody loves,

Why do you walk through the fields in gloves,

When the grass is as soft as the breasts of doves

And shivering sweet to the touch?

O, why do you walk through the fields in gloves,

Missing so much and so much?

Down the road she went between high granite hedges splashed fuschia with fuschia and orange with mombretia. Loud as a kingcup, big as a bull, yellow clad, undulating like a great perambulating duvet.

She didn’t know where she was going. She had never walked so far as an adult but she hoped in her heart that the road would take her down to the sea.

Down to a little rocky cove she would go, where she would take off her big yellow dress and step naked into the pellucid water, light as a feather Caressed for the very first time, she would slide on the green slimy rocks, popping seaweed beneath her feet, watching the anemones wave their rusty tentacles in the glimmering depths.

‘Goodbye, goodbye’.... they would wave as she sank beneath the oil dark swell and the water would close over her head. Safe.

‘Goodbye.’

It was hot and soon her thighs began to chafe, she adjusted her gait slightly, rocking as she walked. Sweat stood out on her brow and her lungs wheezed like a pair of leaky bellows.

Wrens whistled excitedly in the scented, stunted gorse. The road twisted up and to the left ahead of her.

Up, was surely not the way to the sea and she feared someone would come and take her back soon. The thought was unnerving, she increased her pace looking left and right for a gateway to duck into should she hear a car. She needed the sea. There must be no going back now. She must not be stopped.

A trickle of sweat ran between her breasts and the sun thumped down on the narrow grey road creating mirages - cool pools of water that vanished as she passed. A flight of crows roared overhead and she cowered instinctively. There were spies everywhere. Perhaps it was time to leave the road, to cut across country. She could squeeze through gaps in bramble hedges, clamber over a granite stile, pick pink campions to scatter on the cool cleansing waves.

Goodbye.

At the top of the hill she stood to catch her breath for a minute gazing down across the fields. The land unfurled at her feet and the thin grey ribbon of road twisted on and down. The sea glittered beyond, just a thin silver line, but it beckoned. She couldn’t remember when she had last seen the sea. She bent and took off her shoes. They were sensible, beige and laced. Wide fitting. Her feet were slashed with red, not wide fitting enough it seemed. Most things weren’t.

A woman like her had to wear sensible shoes they’d said and they had chosen these for her. She regarded them for a minute with acute dislike and suddenly reckless, threw them with a little gasp over the hedge behind her. She had chosen the dress herself, not prettily cut but, Oh, what a colour!

Downhill was easier, a passing car made her heart leap in her throat, but the driver, German and bespectacled, waved cheerily, thanking her for cramming her bulk against a bramble bush that hung from the hedge like a curtain, red studded with unripe berries. The car passed, missing her bare toes by inches.

Out from under the trees she came, bold as a sunflower, rocking from side to side and blowing heavily.She passed some small granite cottages with salt blasted doors their gardens festooned with fishing nets.

A black quay cut the sea in half. Near to, it was turbulent, dark, crashing, beyond, green and still and the sky above filled the heart and the eye from the top of the world to the horizon like gauze.

The yellow dress billowed and snapped like a sail in the breeze that blew off the water. Her hair, cut sensibly short, whipped off her forehead. She breathed deep.

To the sea she would go. Out there, past the fishing boats she would climb round and down. There would be a way,she would find it, down to a rocky cove.

She would put her feet in the cool water. She would take off her dress and unhook her great grey bra with it’s biting straps, she would strip off her knickers, grey too..and heavy and hurl them high in the sky.

‘Goodbye!’

John drove me, Evil and Maisie to Paddington. This is always a Bad Idea.

John tried to avoid the Congestion Charging zone. King’s Cross snarled up like you wouldn’t beleive, and we hit the Red Wave on Marylebone Road. As we approached, each set of traffic lights turned red in perfect time, one following another. Dispatch riders carved us up on their Hondas, their Moto Guzzis and their BMWs. . Evil began to whimper. John said,

‘There’s plenty of time.’

I went off Boris Johnson as a Bendy Bus got stuck on a corner and took up three lanes. A Black cab driver leaned on his horn. Road Works sporting orange plastic bunting lay abandoned near Madame Taussauds.

‘ Never ever drive me anywhere ever again.’ I said.

‘It’ll be fine.’ said John.

In the back of the car, Maisie rolled her eyes and hugged Evil close to her chest.

We arrived at Paddington with seconds to spare. John got in the wrong lane and drove right past. ‘No U Turns’ said a sign angrily.

‘Do a U Turn ! I yelped as we roared up Praed Street and swerved into the Congestion Charging Zone.

‘If you were going to do that, you might as well have done it half an hour ago and given me an outside chance of catching a train today !’ I shouted. ‘Look, let me and Maisie get out. We can walk from here.’ I said. Blood was pumping in my ears and I kept forgetting to breath.

‘You do realise that people like me are constitutionally unable to be late don’t you?’ I shrieked.

‘What do you mean “People Like You” said John ‘There are no other “People Like You.” John hauled the car round in a U Turn. A Black Cab Driver leaned on his horn. I think it was the same one.

‘She means People Who Are Really Fussy.’ said Maisie, helpfully from the back seat.

John drove the car down the ramp to the station in the Taxis Only lane.

Maisie and I leaped out. We hauled our suitcase. Luckily it has wheels. Evil gets tangled in her lead. Luckily I already have a ticket. The train is leaving in two minutes.

‘You’ll be fine.’ said John ‘Bye.’ He drove away trying to look like a Mini Cab Driver who has forgotten his Private Hire sticker.

Maisie and me run for the train. The guard is shutting the doors beginning at the front. Suddenly Evil stops on the clean shiny platform and does a giant pooh.

I really hate dogs.

I am...

Friday 14th May 2008.

Police State. Carer.

Boris Johnson has put 13,000,000 police onto the London buses.

Where did he find them all ?

I am beginning to feel very uneasy about Boris Johnson’s Mayoral Reign.

Zac is on study leave.

I take Zac to Islington to change his Building Society details. Zac is 16 and he has to sign things to say he doesn’t have to pay tax on any interest accrued on his account.

The whole of Islington Green is crawling with police waving scanners about and shouting into their radios.

Zac says it’s a good thing because Hoody Gangs, armed to the teeth, are a big issue on London’s buses. Then he says,

‘It’s quite scary actually. Where have they all come from?’

Hoodies are scarce in today. On the way to Islington, we see a few, in the upper reaches. They lurk in the entrances to estates and scuttle furtively along the broad tree-lined avenues of Highbury.

We don’t have Hoodies around us, because the Turkish Gangters run our area and they are intolerant of interlopers and opportunists. But there are a lot in Islington.....or there were. Where will they go?

We change Zac’s Building Society details and come home.

There are no police around our area because the Turks have got it all covered and sewn up.

When we come home I check my e-mails. There is an insane one from a man saying he is coming to fit some railings in our back garden on Thursday. That the cost will be £980 and that these railings will keep our rabbit safe from foxes.

I only asked him for an estimate.

This e-mail freaks me out a bit. Is he completely mad?

I reply, that actually we have decided against putting up fox proof railings and have bought Oliver a fox proof hutch instead which is much more cost effective.

My next e-mail os from an Eminent Specialist in Eating Disorders at the Maudsley Hospital.

She will see Abigail on Tuesday.

Hurray!

She has e mailed Tests and Questionnaires for me and Abigail to fill in and bring with us to the appointment. This is a bit stressy and I am not sure I want to be examined in relation to Abigail’s Eating Disorder. I don’t want any of the focus off Abigail and on to me. The Specialist refers to me in the e-mail as Abigail’s ‘Carer’. I will have to clear up this confusion on Tuesday and tell her that I am infact her ‘Mother.’

I phone my Doctor and tell him that I am very fed up with their lack of response to our problems. The Doctor is very nice and says that he will make me an appointment with the Doctor who saw Abigail initially. He says that I should go to the appointment with Abigail so as to overcome any privacy issues which may arise because she is 18.

‘Does our area not have any provision for Adult Eating Disorders?’ I ask.

‘No.’ he says.

I will go to the Doctor on Tuesday with Abigail. this is getting more and more complicated.

I am very stressed.

Ellis comes over and says he will sort the whole thing out because he is a Psychiatrist and knows People Who Know People.

We drink tea and I tell him how stressed I am about Abigail.

Ellis is very stressed because Hannah didn’t get a scholarship to the Hogwarts School in Wales and that now Hannah will not be able to lie around under trees reading poetry but will have to spend the next two years working like a fiend in her Selective State School.

I can’t help Ellis or sort the whole thing out. I don’t know any People Who Know People.

Ellis is also very stressed about his builders who are failing to understand the concept of a non-fitted kitchen, because they are Australian.

Ellis says he wants a Pale Pink Rubber Floor and Gorgeous French Free Standing cupboards. His builders think he is mad.

I tell him to get Jan to do the painting, because Jan is a brilliant painter and will understand Ellis’s design concept perfectly and that Farrow and Ball do some lovely Pale Greys.

I just know Jan and Ellis will get on like a house on fire.

After Ellis goes, Sylvie’s mother comes over to drop Sylvie off to stay the night.

Sylvie’s mother is a very successful Professor of Sociology. She has spent the last few weeks working on pitching for a grant for an entirely new Sociological Discipline which she is having to invent.

I may be an IQ Genius but my brain begins to hurt.

‘How can you invent a new Sociological Discipline? I ask. ‘’What have you come up with?’

‘The Interface Between Design and Sociology.’ says Syvie’s mother.

Sylvie’s mother is a Real Genius.

Later I get an e-mail from the Rabbit Fence man. ‘I have made the fence and the paint is drying.’ it says.

I am not going to reply....he is clearly bonkers.

Sunday 18th May 2008

Not Going To See The Willard Grant Conspiracy.

Tallulah.

We are not going to see The Willard Grant Conspiracy. This is a very good thing because, although I have never seen The Willard Grant Conspiracy live, I have seen their support act, Howe Gelb, and although there are, I understand, parts of Bristol where Howe Gelb is thought to be quite Attractive and Off Beat Groovy, frankly when I saw him performing in Blackheath with a Gospel Choir, he was very shy-making and the Gospel Choir were predictably the better act.

If he has hooked up with The Willard Grant Conspiracy to make himself look good, outside of Bristol, then I really couldn’t hold out much hope for the evening.

Luckily we are not going.

Because Digby Ogg has a very ill father.

Digby Ogg is John’s Gig Buddy and is married to my cousin Betty.

We were all going out on Sunday night to see The Willard Grant Conspiracy at the Bloomsbury theatre and Ellis was coming too.

I wasn’t very keen, for the aforementioned reasons with the added issue that sitting down in a theatre whilst watching a band, rather than standing in a venue such as The Brixton Academy for example, always results in certain members of the audience nodding their heads or tapping their knees knowledgably to the music whilst wearing rectangular glasses.

I am liberal but to a degree which means I find aforementioned tapping and nodding deeply irritating. I was, however, prepared to overlook it for the opportunity of spending an evening with Betty because I never see her as she is a very high-powered artist who is commissioned by the Arts Council to do unfeasibly complicated things relating to Regneration on the Olympic Site coupled with the Displacement of Resident Gypsies from said Site and Sand Castles.

Anyway Digby and Betty came back from looking after Digby’s father in Bournemouth to find that their baby-sitter had disappeared and was entirely unavailable.

John was very upset because he just loves Howe Gelb whom he believes named his daughter after him* and he loves The Willard Grant Conspiracy.

I phoned Ellis to see if he was coming but he said he couldn’t because he had written off a BMW with his Camper Van. As excuses go I think that was quite a good one. So we didn’t go so, because although I like to please John, there are limits and this was one of them.

* John thinks that Howe Gelb named his daughter after John because John noticed ages ago that Howe only answered questions from girls on his Q&A Webchat.

He noticed that signing himself ‘John’ meant that he never got an answer to any of his questions.

Being an innovative type John signed a question ‘Tallulah’ and received an immediate response confirming his suspicions. John continued his online relationship with Howe as ‘Tallulah’ and was very happy.

Months later, Howe announnced his first daughter was to be called Tallulah.

Coincidence?

Who knows.

Tuesday 20th May 2008

Pychiatric Assessment.

Abigail has an appointment at Guys and Barts to see The Eminent Specialist.

Abigail does not want to go.

I don’t want to go.

We go anyway.

We catch a bus and we go into oddbins at the bus station to ask wher exactly Guys and Barts is. We follow a path and we cross a footbridge and arrive on the second floor. This is the cleanest emptiest hospital I have ever seen. Abigail is very stressed.

‘I really hate hospitals.’ she says ‘I hate people wanting me to talk to them. I won’t know what to say.’ she says. ‘I’m not even thin. I’m not thin enough. They’ll think you’re mad for bringing me.’ she says.

‘I’ll take you shopping later in the week.’ I say. ‘We will buy lots and lots of nice things in Oxford Street. It will be fun.’

We still haven’t found the Department of Academic Psychiatry on The Fifth Floor and we walk through deserted glass atriums and admire the architectural planting schemes in the courtyard below. We spot a man assiduously mopping a floor and ask directions.

The Department of Academic Psychiatry is through a door with a telephone and a code. ‘Do not let anyone tailgate you through this door.’ says a Notice, bossily. I pick up the phone and we are buzzed in. No one tries to ‘tailgate’ us, which is a good thing.

The Eminent Specialist meets us. She is very nice and Abigail goes off with her, while I go off with a Researcher to see if the whole thing is My Fault.

Actually she doesn’t want to see if the whole thing is My Fault she wants to see if I can spend an hour doing puzzles on a computer.

I am very bad at computer puzzles.

The first computer puzzle checks if I can put cards on the correct pile according to an undisclosed rule. I worlk out the rule and put the card on the pile but then the rule changes and I have to worlk out the new rule. I am very bad at this.

The computer says ‘Wrong’ in an American accent lots of times.

Next, I have to see if a picture of a chair with a green background or a yellow one is more threatning than a green cross or sad face. I have to say ‘Green’ or ‘Yellow’ without minding that the face is cross or that the chair’s legs are too long. I am very bad at this too.

Then, I have to recognise a shape in another shape that has obscured it. I am Brilliant at this.

After that, I have to copy a diagram with lots of different coloured pencils that are all slightly blunt while The Researcher videos my hands. I have very bitten nails which worries me a bit.

Bitten nails will not look good on film.

I am very good at this too.

Then The Researcher leaves me alone for a bit and I notice that the office I am in is very messy. The books on the shelves are not organised properly and some books are lying horizontally across other books. This makes me feel very uneasy and I have to resist stacking them properly.

The rug is rucked up at one corner under the desk where I am sitting and I pull it flat and the Researcher comes back.

‘I’d really like you to fill in a few forms.’ she says ‘I’d like to include you in my study.’ she says.

She gives me a Questionaire which says things like ‘Do you feel uneasy if some books are not properly stacked?’ Or a rug is rucked up?’ and ‘Do find yourself double-checking locks and having counting rituals?’ I deny everything. I am just tidier than her, that’s all.

Later I meet Abigail and we sit at a desk and talk to The Eminent Specialist in her office.

In the corner of the office is a large tub of yoghurt with granola on top of it. it’s just sitting there out of a fridge with no explaination. It’s a catering sized tub. I am worried it will go off. The carpet in the corner of the office is all rucked up and threadbare, The Eminent Specialist’s mug has ‘Tea, Coffee, Chocolate, Biscuits and Cake’ written in Romanesque letters around the top of it.

Abigail and me exchange glances.

‘The thing is,’ I say trying to ignore our environment ‘that Abigail doesn’t fit the profile of a classic anorexic. She doesn’t sit in her bedroom obsessing. She has lots of friends. Abigail is very socially able. Abigail is mostly happy and she’s not angry or alienated. She’s very nice.’

‘Abigail did the same tests as you.’ says The Specialist. Let’s compare and contrast the results.’ She compares them and explains that the test results reveal that Abigail has a very over-developed sense of Detail and that sometimes her concentration on Detail may be to the detriment of her understanding of the whole picture.

She says that both Abigail and I fall into the Eating Disorder Spectrum because of our focus on Detail and that actually I am much more typical of an Eating Disorder Sufferer than Abigail. and that I am off the scale in several of the tests, whereas Abigail is borderline normal.

‘Ha!’ says Abigail ‘I knew it.’

On the bus on the way to Oxford Street Abigail says ‘Did you notice that tub of granola? Did you see the state of the carpet? Do you think that was deliberate to challenge people like you with OCD?’

‘I need some new tops.’ I say ‘I think we should go to American Apparel.’

‘OK.’ says Abigail.

We buy tops. We buy loafers in Russell and Bromley because they are very fashionable. Abigail has black patent ones and I have classic brown.

We buy leggings and a dear little skirt for Maisie.

‘I need a belt.’ says Abigail.

‘Shall we go to Gap Kids then?’ I say.

Very bloody funny.’ says Abigail.

We come home in a Black Cab.

We have such I nice time.

I really love spending time with Abigail.

Wednesday 21st May 2008.

Jason Spaceman at Koko. The Nineties.

We are going to see Spiritualised at Koko in Camden. We are on the Guest List so we don’t have to queue.

I hate to queue.

We are also going to the Aftershow Party which will be an Exercise In Pointlessness. I will try to get John to let me give our wrist bands to a Keen Sober Fan so we can go home instead.

John really wants me to come with him to see Spiritualised because we missed seeing The Willard Grant Conspiracy and because he doesn’t want to go by himself wearing his work suit.

John thinks that taking a Middle-Aged Housewife with a Rod Stewart haircut to a rather Edgy Gig in Camden will lend him a bit of Edge by Association and render him almost invisible. This I doubt, because he is actually the wrong side of 17 stone and I have no Edge but I agree to go anyway because I like Koko very much.

Koko doesn’t smell of sweat and massed humanity, like most venues do since the Smoking Ban, because no one takes any notice of The Ban and it smells of Marlborough and Majuana as it should.

The singer in Spiritualised is called Jason Spaceman and they were all very Big in the Nineties. He will sing with a Gospel Choir and I hope he makes a better job of it than Howe Gelb.

I have never actually heard of Spiritualised or Jason Spaceman before because my life in The Ninties was Rather Busy.

In the Ninties I lived in Cumberthorpe Road.

I had two children in nappies at the same time.

I had a Double Buggy and it did not fit into Corner Shops. I couldn’t leave my children outside Corner Shops in their buggy because in those days this area was Very Rough.

I couldn’t drive and my Double Buggy was unmanageable on a Routemaster Bus so I stayed at home.

I listened to Radio 4 which has no music.

I painted our slummy house and stripped the floors.

I made friends with Athena next door.

I wore baggy jumpers and worn out jeans and I was very tired.

‘Why you always dressed like that ?’ Athena would ask ‘You a very pretty girl. You should go shopping.’

I had absolutely no other friends because all my friends had left London for University Towns the very moment they became pregnant.

John and Me were the last ones left.

John worked every night on The Opposition Newspaper and he was very tired too.

I didn’t join Mum’s and Toddlers or Music and Movement because the very thought made me feel entirely ill so when I wasn’t stripping floors and painting walls I walked round and round The Park by myself pushing the Double Buggy and bemoaning my fate.

I got Pneumonia then Suspected Meningitis then I got better.

The children went to the Local School and I made friends.

The only music that loomed large was The Spice Girls catalogue and I felt rather ambivilant about Abigail and Ellie aged 6 standing in the back garden singing:

‘If you wanna be my luvva,

You betta get wiv my friends!’ at the top of their sweet little voices.

Also, I was not sure that ‘Girl Power’ although a laudable idea, was best secured by dressing like a tart and shouting agressively in the manner of Gerry, Sporty, Baby, Posh and Scary.

Anyway, we made our house very unslummy and it put on £200, 000.

I had Maisie

John and me began to have fun with our new friends but it was Far Too Late for Jason Spaceman to have been on our radar.

I am quite looking forward to seeing him perform tonight.

Jason Spaceman was excellent. He was very loud like the White Stripes. The Gospel Choir were very very loud too.

The Audience was made up of Students and people who are Thirty-Eight and people who liked Oasis in the Ninties and were still sporting the Haircut and a few bald Gay Men with Piercings. John’s suit made him look quite radical.

The Thirty Eight Year Olds must all have had to get babysitters.

Me and John had a really fun time and my ears rang for ages afterwards. We went to The Aftershow party which was Completely Pointless and we went to a Turkish Restaurant in the middle of the night.

I do like Koko.

Thursday 22nd May

My Mother, May. Chip Night.

Ellis is coming for Chip Night.

My Mother is coming for lunch with her sister, May. My Mother and May have been on a Greek island together and they swam every day.

My Mother and May are a very powerful combination. We have courgette soup for lunch. Abigail sits down and eats lunch with Zac, me, May and my Mother. This is the first time she has sat down to eat at the table with other people since Christmas.

I think Abigail will get better soon.

It is lovely to see May. May is a Painter and she is one of my very favourite people. She has a very beautiful speaking voice and a quiet but formidable intelligence.

She talks to Abigail about her Eating Disorder. Her daughter, Betty had an Eating Disorder too and hasn’t eaten a chip since 1978 but it hasn’t stopped her becoming a very High-Powered Artist or prevented her from having children.

I think talking to May is good for Abigail.

My Mother asks about our visit to the Specialist and Abigail says that after exhaustive tests The Eminent Specialist had decided that it was probably all the Grandmother’s fault.

My mother nearly believes her.