shrivelling and they were there for simply ages so I went after them to find out what they were doing and as soon as she saw me, Mum gave Aunt Jilly this warning glance and they both stopped talking, but not before I’d heard what they were saying. Well, what Mum was saying. She was saying, “Yes, I know, I’m really going to have to pluck up the courage and tell her.”
It doesn’t sound good.
141 Arethusa Road
London W5
9 October
Dear Carol,
Many thanks for your lovely long letter! I’m afraid this is going to be another shortish one as we’ve been out walking all day on Hampstead Heath and I am whacked. Getting too old and fat!!!
The answer to your question, which I know you’re going to ask, is no … I haven’t yet broken the news to Cherry. Yes, yes, I accept that I’m a total coward, but I am going to do it tomorrow afternoon when she gets in from school. Roly has to go away for the night – he is doing a talk to some mixed infants way up in the north of England – and so it will be a good opportunity. Just Cherry and me on our own. I think she might take it better that way.
We all really enjoyed ourselves today. It was a lovely family outing, the sort of thing we ought to do more often. We took our food with us and had a good old-fashioned picnic! It was Roly’s idea, and he prepared all the goodies. He was really imaginative – and it was all vegetarian! Vegetable samosas, sausage rolls made with vegebangers, vegetable kebabs, soya desserts. I am quite being won over, and I think Cherry is, too. At any rate, she gobbled everything up. I don’t believe she even realised that the sausage rolls weren’t made with real sausages!
Altogether it was an absolutely super day. It gives me hope that Cherry is coming round at last. I am just keeping my fingers crossed that hearing about you-know-what doesn’t set her back.
Jilly and Ivo came over yesterday with little Sammy, and at first Cherry was very cool, very aloof, refused even to look at him. But then we left them alone together for a few minutes, just to see what would happen, and she couldn’t resist! Roly reports that she was nattering away nineteen to the dozen. So I think when she gets used to the idea she’ll be fine.
She has been asked to take the part of an angel in the school nativity play, if you can believe it. An angel! Cherry! She is also going to sing. I don’t know if you have ever heard your god-daughter sing? It is not an experience I would recommend! She has a voice rather like a hyena. I only hope they don’t discover their error and give the part to someone else because she is terribly puffed up and looking forward to it. I wouldn’t like her little bubble to be burst.
Her friend Melanie came to tea the other day. She is a nice child; steady and reliable. Cherry occasionally tries bossing her but fortunately Melanie can hold her own. I think that’s why the friendship has lasted. Melanie won’t stand for any nonsense! Roly was there and kept everyone in stitches, clowning around and generally playing the fool. He is absolutely, instinctively marvellous with kids. I think Cherry was quite proud of him. She certainly ought to have been.
There! This letter hasn’t turned out so short after all. Next time I will report how she takes the news about Mum’s big secret …
All my love,
Sunday
Today we all trailed half-way across London to go for a picnic on Hampstead Heath. On account of Slimey Roland refusing to pollute the environment, we had to go by tube. That meant taking the Central line to Tottenham Court Road, which is 13 stops, and then hanging about for ever waiting for a northern line to Hampstead, which was another seven. What a pathetic way to travel! We must have looked ridiculous. Slimey was wearing a T-shirt and shorts (shorts! With his legs!) and Mum was wearing a horrible sort of boiler suit and looking really dumpy. Definitely middle-age spread. In addition to the shorts, Slime was humping an enormous backpack. You’d have thought he was going on a round-the-world hike. I wore jeans and was the only one who looked half-way normal.
It was a really draggy sort of day because all we did was walk on the Heath and occasionally sit down and eat stuff and then get up again and do more walking and then sit down again to have a drink, and then they wanted to read their Sunday papers, which actually was the best bit because it meant I could go off on my own, which I did, and met this girl throwing sticks for her dog. She let me join in, which was fun. It was a really good dog, a German shepherd, which I would love, but some hopes.
Anyway, after all that we got on the tube and came home again, and what was supposed to be the point of it is what I want to know? If they wanted to go for a walk and sit on the grass and eat things why not just go up the road to the Common? Why trail all the way to Hampstead Heath? Mum says it’s because Slimey used to live there before he married Mum and moved in with us and made my life a misery. Well, she didn’t say that bit. I said that bit. I will never accept him as a second dad.
Dad was supposed to ring me this evening but he must have been too busy. Mum has said I can go and stay with him at half term. A whole week! Hooray!
The food today was pretty horrific, incidentally, for a true carnivore such as myself. Vegetarian sausages, for heaven’s sake! I just munched in glum silence, not saying anything, as I could tell that Mum was really enjoying herself and I didn’t want to spoil things for her, but she needn’t think I didn’t notice because I most certainly did. And if she thinks I am going to become a cranky veggie, she has another thing coming!
I’m really looking forward to tomorrow because HE is going to be away. He’s going to go and bore some poor little kids at a school in Newcastle, showing them pictures of elves. That means Mum and I will be on our own! Double hooray!
Monday
It’s just as well I made things up with Skinny Melon today because it turns out she was 100% right. My worst fears have come true. Mum is going to have a baby.
She broke it to me after tea, just as I was thinking we could settle down to have a lovely evening all to ourselves like we used to before HE came. She said, “I know I should have told you months ago—” and then she didn’t get any further because I said, “Months? You mean it’s been going on for months?” and she admitted that it had. She said that she is going to have it, “Some time in the New Year … on or about St Valentine’s Day.” That is the 14th of February! No wonder she looks bulgy round the middle.
I hate Slimey Roland worse than ever now. Doing this to my mum! I bet it was his stupid idea. He’s all gooey about babies. Mum would never have thought of it for herself. She and Dad were going to have another one once only she decided against it, so if she decided against it with Dad why would she go for it with Slime? She surely can’t want to have a baby that’s going to be all gingery and freckled and look like a fungus?
She kept trying to butter me up. Trying to make me feel better about it.
