Chapter 28

'Now you take your fork like this. And then you put it in your mouth like this.'

It was a warm summer's afternoon. The children were having lunch on the lawn at a small wooden table with built-in benches at each side. Ian had been idly poking his Bob the Builder knife and fork through the central hole where the parasol goes. Small crumbs of corned beef were glissading from these. The cat, Cresta, was sitting underneath, her nose almost touching the tantalising cutlery, the source of these unexpected morsels.

Having finished his own salad, Lars had stood up and leaned across the table, spearing fragments of Ian's rocket leaf and carrot.

'Look, I'm showing you. This is what you do. ' He stretched a little more towards his brother's firmly closed mouth. 'Oh!'

Ian carried on carving the table. Piers glanced at the object that had just fallen from Lars's shorts, wrinkled his nose and then giggled, delighted that his brother's attempt to usurp his own accustomed role as teacher had come to such an unexpected conclusion.

'Oh. It's pooh.'

It was said without surprise, embarrassment or disgust. It had just happened as bodily functions happen at the age of two and a half. One moment you would be playing and then pooh would be there. Maybe there was the slightest hint of disappointment.

'Daddy. The pooh's come.'

Daddy made it go.

'I don't like it.' Piers observed in the same way the freshly pureed apple topping the yoghurt that was for pudding.

'Just try it to please Daddy.'

'I tried it yesterday when I was a baby.'

'I wanted bespetti, not a nic-nic.'

'Sorry, Ian, no spaghetti today. Just a picnic.'

'Can I have some, Daddy?' Lars was keen to know if his faux pas disqualified him from pudding. He glanced at the three potties lined up behind the table, their colours the same as their mugs. 'Cuddle?' His lower lip protruded, the corners of his mouth turned down and his eyes averted, he held his arms straight out in front of him. His pressed his face and chest into mine. 'Sorry, Daddy. It just came out.'

'I know it did, darling. Never mind.'

'Can we go up to the playhouse?' Lars pointed to the hut on stilts by the trees. 'But we need Piers to open the door.'

'Can you go to the playhouse, Piers?'

'No.' For once he had power over his brothers. 'Hiccups people don't go up to playhouses.'

'But you haven't got hiccups. You know you're the only one strong enough to open the door. If you don't, Daddy will have to go up.'

'You might fall down. All right then. It's going to be a farm today. Can we take horsey up?'

Through the trapdoor in the floor of the castle that was connected to the playhouse by a walkway, using the rope ladder that was suspended from it, the three of them laboriously, but collaboratively, pulled a white plastic horse on wheels.

'It's a barn now,' Piers pulled open the playhouse door using two hands. The plastic furniture had been dismantled and formed an ersatz manger in the corner. Somehow they had squeezed the horse through the narrow door. 'Can we put grass in here?'

'No, Piers, we want the pirate boat.' Ian was pulling at the steel-framed green-mesh cradle that hung from the walkway. Piers shot down the slide and jumped up and down by the boat.

'Lift me. Lift me.'

Now that they were no longer babies, it was a squeeze.

'Daddy, he's pushing me.'

'Daddy, he's kicking me.'

'Daddy, he won't let me sit down.'

The boat left the harbour.

'It's a lovely clear day. We're gently bobbing on a calm sea. Oh no. Is that a grey cloud I can see?'

'There's a storm coming! Storm! Storm!' This is what they had been waiting for. Up went the boat until it touched the underside of the playhouse. 'Higher! More waves!' They shrieked as their world turned on its side and threatened to deposit them in the sea. Like the clapper in a bell, they and the boat described arc upon arc. The hawsers grated in protest, but held firm. 'More! More!' The sides crashed into the wooden structure sending shudders through the framework. 'Cloud's gone. Blue sky again. Boat's coming into harbour.' Three tear-streaked faces looked in horror. 'No, there's another one just come into view.' Now the boat went side to side, twisting against the hooks. Just as well they're boys, I thought. But no, I would probably have played the same had they been girls. I hadn't had so much fun for ages. Down they climbed.

'Daddy.'

'Yes, Piers?'

'Lars's tongue's come off.'

I swung round to see him holding his plush green snake in one hand and red cloth forked tongue in the other.

'And Daddy.'

Yes, Ian?'

'My wee's turned into a pooh.'