off we go

I know I always say this, and I must sound like the most drea­ry layabout, but I can hard­ly get my mind around the indis­putable fact that by this time tomor­row, I will be in my house in Con­necti­cut (or at least in a smelly hot car ser­vice from the air­port on the WAY there), and not in my house in London.

I must not get around enough! It always strikes me with a hor­ri­ble lurch, and then a day or so of ner­vous stom­ach, and not sleep­ing, to pic­ture not being here, and being there. And then of course I’ll repeat it all in Sep­tem­ber with the thought of not being there, but being HERE. It’s part­ly to do with leav­ing the cats, which I hate, and leav­ing my new house, which seems hard, and now leav­ing my per­fect­ly good hus­band. Would you believe that after a year and a half of being hap­pi­ly unem­ployed, the per­fect job began… last week? So he may join us in August. Five or more weeks apart? I don’t groove to that. But it is not in my hands to con­trol. I also wor­ry about his not being here when I’m not here: if he’s gal­li­vant­i­ng off in India this com­ing week and Qatar the next…

Yes, he’s been made Gen­er­al Part­ner in a pri­vate equi­ty firm. In the­o­ry I know what this means, or at least I’ve explained it in a min­i­mal way: “he’ll find peo­ple to invest their mon­ey, and then find projects to invest it in.” John rolls his eyes over the intense­ly ellip­ti­cal nature of this expla­na­tion, but allows as how it’s “sort of OK.” Avery wor­ries, “That sounds risky.” I say, “Yes, but only with oth­er peo­ple’s mon­ey, so that’s all right.” In truth, no one could be more risk-averse than my hus­band, and yet adven­ture­some. Don’t get me start­ed on all his good qual­i­ties, when I won’t be with any of them for the fore­see­able future. Today we were invit­ed to lunch by the sin­gle moth­er of one of Avery’s upcom­ing school­mates, and as we part­ed at the door she said to John, “If you feel lone­ly, give me a call and we’ll get togeth­er.” Then sud­den­ly she turned to me. “Not like that sound­ed!” Oh dear.

Sigh. It is very odd to con­tem­plate all the changes in our lives: a new home, a new school, a new job. Only I remain, as usu­al, JUST THE SAME. I sup­pose that’s my role: remain the same so that all the plan­ets that orbit around can orbit to their hearts’ con­tent and there will be still, clean laun­dry and some­thing to eat when they come back.

I do think we could all use a vaca­tion from the last week of may­hem. It’s so fun­ny: I start­ed out with a very gen­er­al list of “Mon­day: do such and such. Tues­day: do such and such.” I even typed it out. Then as the hours went by the lists got more and more com­pli­cat­ed, involv­ing actu­al timed moments to find a cab, gro­cery lists, squeez­ing in a trip to the sta­tion­ers’ for wrap­ping paper for a last-minute gift. At any rate, Mon­day last found me roast­ing a chick­en at 10 am., not a nor­mal thing for me to do. This was in prepa­ra­tion for my lun­cheon guests while John and his moth­er were at Wim­ble­don (Roger Fed­er­er, Cen­tre Court, thanks to my bril­liant and gen­er­ous sis­ter Jill). My lunch was such a treat: my friend Sue, who is film and stage addict­ed, and our mutu­al friend Car­o­line who is sim­i­lar­ly obsessed. No oth­er friends in my life would agree to come to my house and nat­ter on about Richard Armitage and Matthew Mac­fadyen all after­noon. I raced around dur­ing the morn­ing Avery was at school, con­coct­ing my chick­en sal­ad, which relies on a chick­en roast­ed JUST for the pur­pose: plus green onions sliced, pine nuts toast­ed, plen­ty of cel­ery, lemon zest and red onion diced, and JUST enough lemon-juiced may­on­naise to hold it togeth­er. That with a nice cheese board and a bit of baguette… then I raced off to get Avery and her beloved Anna at school, and brought them home to throw some lunch to them and leave me with my friends! Cal­lous, but true. In the patchy sun­light of the gar­den, after lunch we had tea and gos­sip and the fun of girl­friends. Irre­place­able, really.

From there it was a race to get the girls to the pre-play cos­tume checks on time. And the play was LOVE­LY. To hear the songs from “Alice in Won­der­land” not just in a sin­gle voice in the bath, but from the throats of many on stage, was a rev­e­la­tion. How hard they had all worked! The surly cater­pil­lar played by Ami, the aggres­sive “Mock Tur­tle” played by Sophia, the won­der­ful music… and Avery had noth­ing much do to but wait until the next night when she would take over the nar­ra­tor from her friend Julia. The mem­o­riza­tion of the lines was deemed too much for a girl to do two nights in a row, so they split it up. She was fair­ly champ­ing at the bit!

Tues­day was more of the same: a nice car­pool­ing moth­er brought Avery and Anna home and we whisked them off for a cel­e­bra­to­ry lunch at Cafe Rouge, where we all told hor­ren­dous jokes and shared all each oth­er’s food, and gen­er­al­ly wished that times like that could go on for­ev­er: when Avery and her beloved Anna could be togeth­er, laugh­ing at each oth­er’s awful punch lines, walk­ing along with arms around each oth­er’s necks, uni­form dress­es pulling all over the place, young and inno­cent in the sun­shine. A beau­ti­ful afternoon.

Then it was onto gath­er­ing them up with all their belong­ings and get­ting them to the school ear­ly enough for make­up, and John’s mom, John and I to Lib­er­ty to try to order the fab­ric FINAL­LY for our uphol­stery over the sum­mer. I know it sounds cal­lous, but the only thing more incon­ve­nient than dis­con­tin­ued fab­ric sam­ples is… a dis­con­tin­ued uphol­ster­er. Mr Frost is much mourned, and his love­ly appren­tice says sad­ly, “This is what we always planned, my tak­ing over, but not this sud­den­ly. No one was ready.” And so in the mid­dle stand our sofa and bench, wait­ing sad­ly in un-uphol­stered un-glo­ry. But John chose just what he want­ed, and ordered it hap­pi­ly as I spent some unex­pect­ed shop­ping time with his moth­er. She is the ONLY per­son who makes shop­ping for clothes any fun, and I should always remem­ber this and squeeze in some time with her to do so, since nor­mal­ly I’d rather have hot nee­dles stuck in my eyes than try on clothes. But her “I can total­ly see this on you,” always man­ages to get me out of my neg­a­tive funk in which I am all huge shoul­ders in the mir­ror and messy hair and no makeup.

And Avery in the play… can I kvell? Sim­ply superb. She stood per­fect­ly still, no unnec­es­sary ges­tures, no fid­dling about. Her eyes sparkled like stars and her voice hit all the right notes, and she ACT­ED. She com­mand­ed the stage when she was in the right, and when she need­ed to fade she did so, but she was always in char­ac­ter, watch­ing the action and jump­ing in when it was her time. We were so PROUD of her! Just glo­ri­ous. Lat­er one of her fel­low lit­tle actress­es said to me, “When Avery played the part, I could under­stand why I was meant to say what I said. It made sense.” Some­how she invest­ed in the part a total under­stand­ing of who she was meant to be. Good girl.

At din­ner in the high street after, while John strug­gled with his new job via iPhone and Avery opened the gor­geous lit­tle paper­weight that was her present from her Non­na, Anna’s fam­i­ly came ambling by and invit­ed Avery to spend the fol­low­ing night at their house for a farewell sleep­over. Oh dear, I felt myself approach­ing the awful real­iza­tion that as Anna’s friend­ship with Avery came to a close (at least on that dear, dai­ly sort of basis that is so for­get­tably pre­cious), so was my friend­ship with her mom­my Becky. No more col­laps­ing at Beck­y’s kitchen table with some tale or oth­er of woe and need of sup­port. No more meet­ing up after read-aloud morn­ings for lux­u­ri­ous cof­fees togeth­er, full of unchar­i­ta­ble gos­sip from me and help­ful mur­mur­ings from Becky. No more hear­ing the door­bell ring and it was Becky either drop­ping off her own child, or chil­dren, or mine, or pick­ing hers up, or mine. No more per­fect lis­ten­ing ear to the inevitable crises that come with mar­riage and school­child­ren, mov­ing, set­tling in, friend­ship quar­rels, gro­cery lists, advice, LISTENING.

As if we need­ed any more emo­tion, the next day was Speech Day, oth­er­wise known as Prize Day to the girls. I took Avery in the dread­ed tube, so her new­ly-employed father could sur­vive some cri­sis phone calls in the morn­ing, and end­ed up killing time in Star­bucks with sev­er­al moth­er friends, and a drop-in from our beloved Miss Leslie, the form teacher. Again, I found myself think­ing, “How can I leave these peo­ple? Our shared jokes, our gos­sipy quips about some­one’s high­light job or bad­ly-behaved child or run­away nan­ny or shop­ping spree…” And Miss Leslie’s dark sparkling naughty laugh­ter, shy­ing away from how she knows she will miss our lit­tle dar­lings… And then I remem­bered: it was not so long ago that I just arrived at the school and spent a lot of whingey time feel­ing sor­ry for what I had left behind THAT TIME. So sure­ly all will be well. One can nev­er replace the dear friends, the dear mem­o­ries and times, but more good ones will come. I HOPE.

Still, it was on to Prize Day and what a glo­ry it was! The speech­es hon­or­ing the depart­ing love­ly, love­ly head­mistress. The chron­i­cles from a tear­ful Chair­man of the Board, telling of her invent­ing the school from whole cloth five years ago, his wor­ry­ing that the school would nev­er come off. “But I did not reck­on on the Pied Piper that is our head­mistress…” At the end of his speech the par­ents sim­ply BURST onto their feet for the longest stand­ing ova­tion, and the most tears, you can imag­ine. I thought to myself how the school, and the head, and the teach­ers, and the gulls, had changed Avery’s life for­ev­er. They had turned her from a girl who tend­ed to hide in the class­room and avoid any­one’s atten­tion, into a girl who was hap­py to push her­self to do her best, to take one of the leads on the school play! To feel con­fi­dent and win prizes and be hap­py. We were all in floods of emo­tion. To have John’s mom next to me was an unbe­liev­able treat, wit­ness­ing such a cul­tur­al divide, such a for­eign and won­der­ful cer­e­mo­ny: “My Lords and Ladies, and Gen­tle­men, may I offer my Report of the School on its Fifth Anniversary…”

Avery won her prizes and was hap­py. And I took her to Anna’s birth­day par­ty, while John’s mom brave­ly took her­self off in the spit­ty rain to shop all on her own. And well she did, because the din at Anna’s par­ty was unbe­liev­able! Think what effect CAF­FEINE will have on these chil­dren, even­tu­al­ly! I can’t. I helped Becky arrange the pil­low­cas­es on which they were all writ­ing mes­sages to each oth­er, and then pass out pieces of piz­za, and then may­hem as they decid­ed to dance to super-loud “Wicked” sound­track. Again, though, as crazy as it all was, I saw it pass through our lives as the “last” again, of a beloved rit­u­al. The girls, so young in their uni­forms, danc­ing and singing, eat­ing cup­cakes and sign­ing good­bye cards for each oth­er, falling down hug­ging each oth­er: the last of an end­less round of pre-grownup up par­ties. Sweet young things.

I base­ly aban­doned Becky to race home and pick up my ordered scal­lops at Shep­herd’s Bush Mar­ket and take them home to clean them. Nev­er let it be said that I fall down on pick­ing up a scal­lop order even though the job of prepar­ing them between Prize Day and the head­’s good­bye par­ty put the chore some­where behind a Botox ses­sion in terms of pri­or­i­ties. No, off I went. And brought them home. And dumped them in the sink and began to open them… EEEWWW!! Sim­ply the most dis­gust­ing, revolt­ing, appetite-sup­press­ing job I have ever per­formed. What delud­ed per­son first looked at these things and thought, “With a lit­tle pars­ley, gar­lic and spaghet­ti, these would be divine”? Hor­ri­ble! Yet I per­se­vered, and left the bowl of pris­tine lit­tle hock­ey pucks in the fridge, with my minced gar­lic and pars­ley in lit­tle bowls on the counter, to go meet John’s mom to buy Avery a bathing suit.

And buy it we did. With exhaust­ed feet and cred­it cards with num­bers worn off from all the spend­ing I had been doing late­ly, we got that *&^^ bathing suit, at Deben­ham’s. Then we repaired to Anna’s house to retrieve Avery and take her to school for the Senior Choir’s ser­e­nade of the retir­ing head­mistress. Can I just say: it does­n’t get any more sen­ti­men­tal than the gulls singing, “Fly­ing Free” all about spread­ing their wings and reach­ing for the skies… except… the head was wear­ing a strap­less, elec­tric blue silk gown embroi­dered with but­ter­flies in sequin form, stilet­to heels and… a tiara? Or did I imag­ine the tiara? Nev­er mind, it felt like she was wear­ing a tiara. And the girls sang like lit­tle angels. I was so busy bit­ing onto my tongue to keep from cry­ing that I did­n’t even get to lis­ten prop­er­ly. And then we came home to our scal­lops. And I’m sor­ry to say: they were so BEYOND fresh and deli­cious that I may find myself clean­ing them AGAIN some­day. I don’t look for­ward to it, but they were SUB­LIME. John and his mom and I sat back in the twi­light gath­er­ing over the gar­den and looked at the light reflect­ed off Avery’s sil­ver cups and felt… John’s dad smil­ing over it all.

Thurs­day was the crown­ing sob­bing event of it all. I had thought I would be fine, with all the run-up of emo­tion to the end of every­thing. But say­ing good­bye to Becky, and watch­ing Avery, Anna and Ellie cling to each oth­er, mute but tear­ful in their dis­tress, was sim­ply heart-wrench­ing. The end of a glo­ri­ous two-and-a-half year odyssey of dis­cov­ery, friend­ship, trust, love and fun. Good­bye to that love­ly bit of our lives.

But from pathos to bathos: Fri­day we took Avery to her lit­tle class­mate’s house for a Fourth of July birth­day par­ty com­plete with a gar­den full of water slides and tram­po­lines, while I scoured Kens­ing­ton for a food my neu­rot­ic cat can eat while I’m away. Yes, it turns out Wim­sey is aller­gic to wheat, rice, soy and… wait for it… peanuts. “I’m afraid it’s lights out for all those Japan­ese crack­ers he’s been enjoy­ing with his cock­tails,” the vet said, and well he can laugh because it’s not his lit­tle dar­ling who’s suf­fer­ing. But no, the food must be bought by pre­scrip­tion at the VET. Of course it must. Sigh. Home to prep our OWN Fourth of July par­ty: dozens of steamed Dublin Bay Prawns with gar­lic may­on­naise, the bor­lot­ti bean sal­ad, pota­to sal­ad, and an ulti­mate­ly rather unnec­es­sary grilled rump steak, but a love­ly sal­sa verde along­side. And John’s mom con­coct­ed an Eton Mess for Avery. And our love­ly friends Vin­cent and Peter arrived and we all repaired to the gar­den for a can­dlelit par­ty… glorious.

Now… John’s mom has cal­lous­ly aban­doned us for her own life in Amer­i­ca. We miss her des­per­ate­ly, and the cel­e­bra­to­ry glim­mer she casts over our insane lives. And we are about to go off too. The next you hear from me… Con­necti­cut! A whole ‘nother cast of char­ac­ters and events and par­ties and dish­es and… well, you know. My life. See you there.