II
Dorset, July 1975
The Children’s Book of British Wilde Flowers
Sunday, 9.15 p.m.
I have done something bad.
The Wildflowers left the book out on the porch last year when they went. It’s a book for children. It has pictures in it of the wild flowers you get in the countryside. And an elastic thread with a wallet inside it and another exercise book. For drawing in. Cord has drawn in it. Then you put the elastic round to keep the whole book shut.
I stole it. I am good at writing, they told me I am at school. I will write in it things that I have Noticed about the whole family. It will be useful.
There is a loose floorboard on the porch of the Bosky. I found it yesterday before they arrived. I will leave the book in a tin there at the end of summer. I will make the tin secure so that water cannot get in. I will wrap it in plastic sheeting & put the board back. I will go away & they will go away & it will be safe there, all year. Then I can write what I’ve Noticed about them next year.
They have been here a week, Althea & the 2 children. He came last night, just for a night, he is in a play. I watched them arrive and I have been watching them all week, last night I watched most of the night. I don’t have anything else to do.
My stomach hurts all the time. I tried eating grass. It’s disgusting but perhaps that’s because a dog peed on it. I will try blackberries again only they make it hurt more. But Daddy’s not back till tomorrow & I’m too scared of the ghost in the kitchen to go in there and the food is in there. I miss Aunt Jules in summer, I miss her so much it hurts my stomach even more. That’s why I like thinking about other things to not think about being on my own & the ghost making noises & being hungry.
Cordelia: new Osh Kosh dungarees, pale orange-pink stripes. She had blue stripes last year. An apple-green T-shirt, canvas T-bar shoes, same as last year. She doesn’t remember me. I want to say, I remember playing with you on the beach two years ago, don’t you? She’s very loud. They call her Cord.
Benedick: red & yellow striped towelling T-shirt, blue cotton shorts to the knee, rubber-soled plimsolls, yellow socks. Wore the shorts and socks last year. He hasn’t grown as much as Cordelia. He was carrying a book on ships. SHIPS and BOATS it said across the front. They call him Ben.
Mr Wilde (Anthony): suit, some sort of check, pale grey-green with black squares on it, very faint. Wore it last year. ‘He’s very dashing,’ Aunt Jules said to me once when she would still talk about him. ‘Oh, Ant was very dashing.’ **Use this word.** Brown shoes, a yellow shirt, red tie, a felt hat, yellow ribbon trim. Wore that last year. He has sunglasses. I don’t ever remember seeing a man in sunglasses. He left today to go back to London to the theatre, I heard him say it this morning at 11.46 a.m. He dropped them off and now has to go back to be in Tony & Cleopatra, a play.
Mrs Wilde (Althea): beautiful shirt-dress, in silk, deep royal blue, rippling & sort of black when it hits the sun. Espidrilse, or some kind of shoe like that, the soles were cork. A lovely string belt. All new. She’s very slim. I am very slim. Dad calls me String or String Bean. She had sunglasses on too.
Althea looks kind. Like a mother should be. Her hair is waved, but I think it’s like that naturally. It is beautiful & thick, red-gold coloured & swept up into a huge bun & her eyes are dark green & hooded & sparkling. Her cheeks are like apples. She’s beautiful (but she looks in the mirror too often & she shouldn’t, Daddy says it is vain). They all seem so jolly. We should all be friends together. But they don’t need anyone else as they are the Wildflowers and they are not lonely.
I don’t really remember being a four, or at least I remember Mummy a very little bit but not the baby, as it wasn’t here for long enough. So sometimes I think what it would be like to be part of a four. Or be in their family and be a five. I like the number five, even more than four. Five is a prime number.
It would be nice to all sit together when the sun goes over the cliffs & have cocoa in different coloured mugs. They have their own mugs. But I could bring my own one too if they asked me.
Mr W – white with a message on it
Mrs W – blue
B – plastic beaker, blue
Last night they had a special meal but I couldn’t quite see in to see what it was but it smelled delicious, crusted meat & onions & baking. I think a pie, or shepherd’s pie. My tummy hurt smelling it & watching them. Then they listened to some music. They have a record player on the porch & a tape cassette player in the kitchen playing songs. **Get the tape of the musical Oklahoma from the library and listen to it as it kept saying Oklahoma & I think that must be what it was.** I heard the children talking in bed. I listened outside their bedroom because it’s on the lane.
Cordelia: likes someone at school called Jane, likes Wonder Woman & ABBA.
Benedick: likes the Rolling Stones and Jennings. And ships.
Both like: the film the Jungle Book & It Ain’t Half Hot Mum.
Then it was silent & they went to sleep. I didn’t realise until I looked at my watch that it was eight-thirty. At school, we’re asleep at eight. In the holidays I do what I like. When I tell the girls at school they’re so jealous of me staying up late. I don’t tell them I really hate it or about Daddy leaving me alone.
I wonder what I could do to be part of them.
Mrs Wilde: leave her a present, some flowers perhaps. Last year she smelled some honeysuckle outside our house & told me it was lovely. **Nothing to do as honeysuckle is already there.**
Mr Wilde: ask him a question about Shakespeare because he is an actor. He has been in Macbeth this year.
Cordelia: show my Sindy that I got from Aunt Jules. She has a tennis skirt on and sneakers and a woollen cardigan with blue and red stripes on the cuffs and the edges. The Sindy I mean.
All of a sudden I think something important as I watch them eating and the smell of good food & Althea stroking her son’s head like she loves him. I am determined to go inside the house this summer. This summer will be a great summer. It will be the summer I become one of their family. Aunt Jules will be amazed when I tell her. Aunt Jules has come back from Astraylia to look after me. The summers here are my time with Daddy but I hate it because he leaves me on my own and hits me, it hurts & he is so nasty when he is cross. So if I can be friends with the Wildes I won’t have to see him. I will tape this book over at the end of summer so no one reads if they find it.
These are all very well organised plans. But I do get very tired of being me sometimes & I’m glad to write it all down. I am tired now.