Chapter 41

Ian wriggled ecstatically on his chair and ran his sleeve under his nose. ‘Dad, I don’t want a banana.’

‘That’s OK, I haven’t offered you one.’

‘Yes, we have no bananas. We have no bananas today.’

‘So what have we got, Piers?’

‘We’ve got a nice juicy TOMARTO and a nice roasting POTARTO.’

‘But?’

‘We have no bananas today.’

‘Can we have a little bit of television?’

‘Yes, Lars, what would you like?’

‘Bob Builder.’

Ian:- ‘I want ‘Kipper’.’

Piers:- ‘Percy the Goal Keeper.’

‘OK, we’ll have one of each. We’ll even have ‘Percy the Park Keeper’, shall we?’

‘Then can we go outside for a little bit?’

‘Yes. Lars.’

‘It isn’t snowing.’

‘Quite right. There’s a clear blue sky, so it’s not likely to be snowing. But what’s the weather like then?’

‘It’s not raining.’

‘Can I have my wobbly ball?’

‘Yes. Lars, you can have your rugby ball.’

Outside, the boys looked critically at their paired wellington boots.

‘Where’s ‘puh’ for Piers? Let me put them on Daddy.’

Each had memorised the first letter of his name from above his cot. Piers peeled the velcro from his slippers and squeezed each foot into the waiting Bob The Builder boot. He broke wind loudly as he contorted his small frame.

‘Sorry, Daddy. Farted.’

He noticed Pandora, the cat, lurking in the undergrowth, lilac fur conspicuous against the green, belly flattened, orange eyes on the lookout for something to kill. The previous day one of her victims had been presented to us in the kitchen, head dangling from a shelf; floor carpeted with feathers; wrenched off wing smeared across the table.

‘Bird’s sad,’ Lars had observed. It was consigned to the incinerator. ‘Is the bird hot now?’

Piers looked around for signs of the cat’s ravages of the bird population.

‘Nothing dead today,’ he observed matter-of-factly.

‘Can we have our baby buggies, pleeease?’

‘Yes, Ian. Bring baby - all right Muck - and we’ll put it in.’

Babies - and Muck - were pressed behind the straps. The buggies were whizzed up the drive and parked by the fountain.

‘Wanna go to the playhouse,’ Ian demanded.

‘What’s the little word, you’ve forgotten?’

‘Pleeease!’

Lars had already climbed the ladder to the playhouse in the trees.

‘No. No!’ Piers was yelling. Lars stood on the platform at the top of the ladder ready to apply a gentle boot to the climber.

‘Get back, Lars.’

Lars retreated along the walkway to the top of the small stable door, tugging the handle. It remained shut. Only Piers could open it.

‘Now you need him, Lars, don’t you?’

Aware of his importance, Piers walked slowly to the door impervious to his brother’s impatience. Two firm kicks to the lower section and the top door sprang open.

‘Come up here, Daddy. It’s lunchtime.’

Dried leaves, pine cones, twigs and one of last season’s conkers appeared in Ian’s cupped hands.

‘It’s pasta. With tuna.’

A piece of branch appeared.

‘And this is pudding. Banana.’

‘Are we going to have nicies for dinner, Daddy?’

‘No, darling, the cats have nicies.’

The small table and chairs were dismantled and taken along another walkway to the castle.

‘We’re having a picnic.’

A gentle drizzle was falling.

‘No, we’re not.’

Sixteen chair legs, four table legs and the rest of the furniture made their way back. Piers inspected the dining set when it had been reassembled, placing the four chairs symmetrically and equidistant from the edge of the table, making sure that red faced red and green faced green. His brothers had long since descended and taken to their tricycles. He closed the two doors and shot down the slide, catapulting onto the lawn.

‘My tricycle. Ian’s got my tricycle!’

Three of the tricycles were the Noddy variety. One was a Chad Valley, bought earlier for Piers by his Godparents. How he had cried when Daddy had bought two red tricycles for Ian and Lars. So much so that Daddy had immediately gone back to buy a third. The following day, it was the tricycle that was different that was in demand. The third red trike gathered dust in a corner of the garage. Up and down the paved drive two of the boys thundered, legs a blur. The third, pedals flailing the air, had not yet discovered their use and was scuffling the tricycle along. In the rear carrier of each was the day’s favourite. Piers had his ‘cooking’ - a plastic saucepan and spoon; in Ian’s was the ancient conker from lunch; Lars had Pooh Bear. The bear had been a frequent visitor to nursery school for some time, back when his owner’s lavatorial habits had been a topic of discussion. It had given another interpretation to the nursery assistant’s comment: ‘And he’s been pushing his pooh about in a wheelbarrow all day.'

Children pick up quickly on parental quirks and adopt them as their own. With my own background as an English graduate, it came as second nature to introduce my children to poetry at an early stage. I went straight into assonance, alliteration and metre. Out came the more than slightly foxed copy of the 1939 Oxford Book of English Verse that my father had read to me as a child and from whence came my love of words.

For most children, ‘Q’ is for ‘Queen’, but for the boys, ‘Q’ is for ‘Quinquireme’. My arm swung gently as if holding an oar as I read ‘Quinquireme of Nineveh from distant Ophir, Rowing home to haven in sunny Palestine, With a cargo of ivory, And apes and peacocks, Sandalwood, cedarwood, and sweet white wine.’

They were captivated by the rich, full vowels and sibilants; words that brought on salivation by their very voluptuousness. My hand made soft round movements to simulate rippling waves as I continued,

‘Stately Spanish galleon coming from the Isthmus, Dipping through the Tropics by the palm-green shores, With a cargo of diamonds, Emeralds, amethysts, Topazes, and cinnamon, and, pausing to let the richness of the sounds take effect, gold moidores.’

Their eyes widened. Then the tempo raced with staccato syllables spitting out at speed. The boys giggled and clapped their hands in surprise and delight at the change. ‘Dirty British coaster with a salt-caked smoke stack, Butting through the Channel in the mad March days, With a cargo of Tyne coal, Road-rails, pig-lead, Firewood, iron-ware, and cheap tin trays.’ By the end, they were laughing out of control. ‘Read ‘Queen of Nivea’!’ is the constant refrain at bedtime.

John Masefield’s ‘Cargoes’ would pave the way for other linguistic delights. One reading of Edward Gorey’s Gashlycrumb Tinies was enough to consign the large, colourful book that began ‘A is for Apple’ to the back of the cupboard. For the boys ‘A is for Amy, who fell down the stairs; B is for Basil, assaulted by bears; C is for Clara, who wasted away; D is for Desmond, thrown out of a sleigh’.