Don’t we just love the school holidays?
Short fiction by Heather Allen
Hooray, they squeal, hooray! It’s the summer holiday!
Hooray, I growl. Hooray. Now make it go away.
Six summer weeks feel like forever. One hot, horrible day after another, another, another. Hot outside, hot inside, hot inside me. Hot flushes, hot washes, washed all over with sweat dripping, red-faced skin burning, mind melting, blood boiling torture!
Summer! Oh, how we British love it, don’t we just love it? Squeezed into clothing to burn ourselves in, showing way too much skin, slathered in slime to stop that melanoma – mela no, ma’am! This hat is meant to keep my brain from liquefying, perched on my sweating head like a slab of fruit on a knickerbocker glory. Nobody ever looks good in the sun. Nobody with my DNA.
Candles in a jar on her windowsill, melted to a twisted mass. That’s my bones, I think. It’s funny, daughter says, but I’m not laughing, nothing is funny (it is, but) nothing will ever be funny again. Or so it feels to me. At least, not until the beautiful, cool schooldays of September. Summer will roll on, like a mass of molten wax. Thick, slow, hot.
Here we go, then. First day trip. The conservation park. Oh to be a meerkat, they’re made for this weather. They stare as we go past, up on their hind legs, their beady black eyes seeming to judge us. Yes, I think, we may well be idiots, but we are out here and you are locked in there.
Around us, black and yellow warriors circle like fighter pilots, buzzing the bins and the sticky puddles, buzzing our heads. Children run from stinging peril, screaming and flapping. I hold my head. Too much noise.
I stop the rampage with a damp hand, and hunker down, all adult-like. ‘Do you want to get stung? Those wasps, they’ve spent their lives feeding and guarding their young, so now they just want to find some sugar and eat it before they die.’ (Which, sotto voce, is just how I feel). ‘Don’t hurt them and they won’t hurt you. But if you flap your hands at me again, Heaven help me, I will sting you and then we’ll all be bloody sorry.’
In the wire enclosure, the lynx paces, back and forth, up and down. Shouty kids point grimy fingers and squeal. I watch the beast for a while, pacing, pacing, trapped, bored, hot. For a brief second, I catch the creature’s eye. I know you, I think. I am you. Blink, turn, pace.
Pace, pace.
Another bright idea, another bright and burning day. Hey, Mum, let’s go to the farm. Fabulous, I say, I cannot think of anything I’d rather do on a day hot enough to melt your eyebrows off than catch a bus to that grimy West Midlands town, then stroll through its picturesque delights to the urban farm. More miserable animals. Great idea. I’ll make the sandwiches. No, we’re not going to Greggs.
Baggy old town brings me down, whatever the weather guaranteed, holding the heat like a firebowl, the pavements and buildings covered in brown dust, radiating back the furnace heat. I want to tear off my skin. Been here too often but I always get lost. This way, that way, don’t know, it’s over there, keep going, stop arguing, leave your sister alone. I know you’re hot, we’re all flaming HOT.
Finally, out to the green space, and the farm. In the shop, the lady takes the money and her weary eyes meet mine. ‘Three weeks,’ she says. I nod. ‘Yes.’ Solidarity.
In the farmyard, the usual collection of local families, cheap-tats dads and legging-trousered mums yawping at their spawn to ‘Get here!’ Cute kids, not yet fully conditioned, giggle and gawp at the listless beasts. We three trudge around the yard, peer over the wooden gates into the darkened stalls. I marvel at the unique, separate stinks of alpaca, goat, horse, pig, duck, chicken, rabbit and sheep. Parfum de Farmyard, with mid-notes of armpit and vape smoke, and a redolence of nappy and sick. My two stand and coo over disconsolate sheep, while I sway in a six-inch strip of shade, praying, please God, just a little breeze? A drop of cool rain? Is this my penalty for not going to church, this putrid personalised hell?
And so it drags on. A barbecue – what, now? What fresh hell is this? Kill me, so I may be spared this torture. I said that last time, he reminds me. I promised I’d go this time. You like these people! Yes, I argue, but I hate the heat. But…sigh.
Lo, just like yesterday, it’s going to be the hottest day of the year. A short walk, but a long way with the sun burning. No shade, no cover en route. Yes, this is an umbrella, but today it is a parasol. Thank you for noticing that it is yellow, like a banana. Do not judge me. I must not melt.
Arrive, exhausted already. Take stock, assess survival strategy: I grab a large glass of iced water, place my seat in the shadiest corner of the garden and stay there, listening to other people’s conversations, until I can reasonably sneak away. Only then am I forced to speak, my price for leaving early: ‘Thanks for inviting me,’ (pause for exaggerated yawn), ‘I’m a bit tired, the kids will come home with their dad.’ It’s lovely walking alone in the post-sunset cool. I have half a bottle of wine in the fridge at home, a book to finish, and zero guilt. I’m too old for guilt.
Another day, a home day, even bloody hotter. I am hiding in my office, the coolest room in the house. My brain is cheese. I have done, am doing and intend to do NOTHING which involves me moving from this seat. But hark, here are my darlings! They barge in. This is my sanctuary, my sanctum sanctorum, my sanitarium – yet they are definitely very much in here, and I can’t pretend they are not. Loud voices, eager faces, sweaty bodies standing far too close to me. Right in my face. I can smell them. I feel sick.
‘WHAT?’ Hoping my voice is carrying an adequate measure of menace.
‘We’re hungry! What are we having for dinner?’
I spin round in my chair – it squeaks – and give them the death glare.
‘I’M BUSY.’
They look at the screen. I’m Googling ‘murder in a heatwave’. They glance at each other.
I turn back to the screen and adopt a sing-song, mistress-of-the-orphanage voice.
‘Did you know, children, that more murders are committed at 92 degrees Fahrenheit, than at any other temperature?’
‘N…no…’ says daughter, her eyes sliding across to the thermometer on the wall.
I snap my head round, look her in the eye, and smile with my teeth only. My throat burns with bile.
‘Do not expect me to cook. I am already cooking. There is ample food in the fridge, the freezer, the cupboards, the fruit bowl, and the breadbin. There is a microwave, which I know you can operate.’
I turn my empty eyes to the boy child, who squirms under my gaze.
‘You are intelligent and resourceful children. You know where the crisps are, and you know where your father is. Now go.’
The door bangs as they leave, and I pick up my pen.
Bank holiday Monday. They said it would be cooler today, but they are idiots. It is 7am and my brain is melting. What to do today? Not another day out. Think. Think. Idea.
I should have bought it in July, when I first thought of it, but he said, don’t get one, we’ve got nowhere to put it when we’re not using it, it’s a waste of money, blah blah and what do I get for listening to him? What?
HOT.
Decision. Click, in the basket, reserve, thanks very much, sweaty trudge down to Argos, sweaty trudge back up the hill, lay out the tarp and open the box.
Bigger than I thought. Oo-er missus. Too hot even for mental innuendo.
Pump it up, pouring with sweat – blimey I’m hot! – never mind, it will be worth it. Wow, it is big. Nearly takes up the whole patio. Not bad for thirty quid. Splendid. Get the hose, turn on the water.
Tell the kids. Screams of delight.
Cold drink, sit in the shade and watch it fill up. Out they come, cossies on, clutching pool noodles and plastic toys. Climbing in. Squeals. Fun. Job done.
Set the hose to dribble, grab a gin and ice, sit in the pool with the nozzle balanced on my head, water dripping down my face. Coolest I’ve been in weeks.
Lie back and think of Svalbard. And breathe.