The Birthday

Presents can be prophetic..!

THE BIRTHDAY

 

They call me Dizzy here. At home only Charlie called me that. He couldn’t quite get his tongue round Dierdre when he was little, and I loved the name for that. It suits me I think. Better than Mrs Plowden, anyhow. I’ve never quite had my feet on the ground. Least of all now.

There’s a lot in a name I think. Robert only ever called me ‘dear.’ Funny term of affection, that. If you say it twice it means there’s a problem. ‘Dear, dear.’ Or three times, there’s a disaster. ‘dear, dear, DEAR!’  Well there was a problem. I suppose you could even call it a disaster. But I’m going to take care of it now.

When I met Robert I was shy. Hard to believe isn’t it? He was as bad as me.  We met at the Baptist Church fete in Lidden Green. My mum dragged me along and he was there with his aunt. Mum knew her slightly and introduced us. They left us to go off to the tea tent so Robert sort of had to break the ice. I loved him for that.

He was quiet but he had a wicked sense of humour. Said his aunt was like an elephant on an outing. It was unkind but it was funny. She was a big woman and she had a flowery dress on that made her look enormous �" and little pointy shoes…  I can see her now, graceful as a battleship!

He went to university and I went to work for Lowdens the solicitors, on the front desk. I liked it actually. I was shy but I knew just what to say to the customers who came through the front door, because Mr Lowden told me. So I was never at a loss, and I am tidy. When it was quiet I put all the letters into files in alphabetical order �" just the enquiries, not the case files you understand, and Mr Lowden was ever so pleased. But Robert and I kept in touch and I knew.

I knew if I was ever going to marry it would be him, a man not given to shouting and carrying on but with a mind of his own. I remember I used to pray for him to come back and ask me.

Well he did one day. Come back I mean. He didn’t ask me to marry him straight away. But we started going out, sort of. He was a bit erratic but I soon got used to it. I decided that was just his way.  Sometimes he would disappear for days. No change there then. But the mystery about him kind of kept me on my toes. I liked being the only one who knew anything about him.

He was worried about getting a job of course. Things hadn’t gone so well for him in Hull and I think he was glad to be back down south. He had some sort of a degree in engineering. But he said he didn’t want to be an engineer.

As it happened I was able to help him. Mr Lowden was very friendly to me by this time. I’d been working there three years, and he needed a clerk. I said what did you have to know to be a clerk, and he said, not too much. A bright boy could learn the job in six months, he said. So I suggested Robert.

And that was how he got started in the law.

And then things kind of took off. After six months he qualified as a clerk and once he had a secure job, he asked me to marry him. My dad would have loved him.

But then it wasn’t my dad who married him. 

Robert didn’t change. I can’t complain about that. But I did. When we had the children I had my hands full all the time and he spent longer and longer at work.  He used to disappear sometimes. He said he couldn’t live without his fishing, so I let him go. He worked hard, and we were never short of money, He took all his law exams and ended up a partner in the firm. Who would have thought it? Me, married to a senior partner at Lowdens! My mum would have been ever so pleased, but she died when he was still a junior clerk, bless her,

We never wanted for anything but the children missed having their dad around. At least my dad had always been there for the big occasions �" the life and soul of the party when I was growing up!

Robert was almost like a stranger at home. I really noticed it when it came to birthdays. He never knew what to get us so it was always me who chose the presents. If we threw a party and he came, he didn’t know any of the kids, or their mums and dads, so he used to hide. I’d find him in the bedroom watching telly. Just like I did when I was seventeen.

But we rubbed along. I made lots of new friends when we had the children, through school and their social clubs. And I developed a taste for adventure for the first time in my life. I used to take the children off sailing to the Isle of Wight. Robert never wanted to come. Said he was too busy with work. So we used to go alone. Then there were the ponies. I even had my own horse for a while. It was a lovely life. I didn’t really notice I  was married to Robert until the children all left home.

One by one they got to the ‘university age’. Robert was always dead keen they should go. We both were. I’d never been to university and it was a good opportunity for them. But the universities were all so far away! And it was always me who helped them load the car with all their essential belongings. I made the long drive out to their new ‘home’ and helped them settle in to a room somewhere too fuzzy with excitement even to say goodbye properly. I hated those long drives home, alone.

The worst drive was the one back from Hull. Who would have thought Charlie would end up at the same university as his father? And studying engineering too. Only he made a better fist of it since he has a job in engineering. A very good job too, even if it is in Sydney.

So before I knew it, it was just me and Robert. Or just me, most of the time. Robert would still stay away for days at a time. I used to say I didn’t think there were that many fish in the sea to be fished. How naïve I was!

I managed to keep myself busy, looking after the house and talking to the children. I even bought a computer and went to classes so I could talk to them on Skype. Charlie and Jennie in Sydney; Jane in Spain and Sally and Geoff in Argentina. I planned to visit them all. We discussed it a lot. I think that was when I got interested in flying. They all led such outdoor lives and did so many exciting things. Charlie had a glider in Sydney. Sally had been bungee jumping in New Zealand in her year off and she and Geoff used to go diving every year.

It opened my eyes to the possibilities in the world. I wanted to experience some of them so I could understand my children’s adventures. I didn’t think bungee jumping or diving were quite my thing, but I loved the idea of taking off from the ground. So when Robert first suggested a balloon ride for my birthday I was really touched. I think it was the first time he had given me something that he clearly thought I really wanted.

It took a little time to organize the ride. The weather conditions have to be just right. Clear and fine and still. You can’t take off if it’s at all windy, and when the weather’s right you just have to drop everything and go for it. So, as it happened, there was no one there to see me take off in a balloon. But I didn’t care. I was wedged into the basket right up to my chest, with the roar of the flame behind me, and this great span of orange filled out above me, lifting us up like we were being carried along by our very own sun.

The world went quiet as we floated over the ground. It was utterly peaceful drifting over what looked like God’s little acre. You could see into people’s gardens, hear their dogs running around and barking, and even hear the children calling to each other, but you couldn’t hear any noise. No cars, no trains, no trucks. Now I know it’s a matter of vibration, because this is how I always see the world now, in peace and perfect silence. Up there in the sky you can’t hear the grumbling roar which is part of all the machines people have for getting around and working. You can only hear voices.

So for the first time then I saw how lovely the world was, how rich and happy people are in their pretty houses and farmyards. They looked like toys in a farmyard set like the one Sally had when she was little and I loved looking at them.  I felt like I wanted to drift with the wind for ever. Well, as they say, be careful what you wish for.

I tried to tell Robert how it felt. He was pleased I think, and I was really fired up about the experience. I sent the picture the balloonists took to the children and they were really impressed to see me drifting through the sky.

So the next year Robert went one better. This time he gave me a test lesson flying a plane. A little two-seater it was, and I went up with the instructor for an hour. It was easier to organize this time and Robert sat in the control room while I took off.  I didn’t do that bit actually. But I did take over when we were up in the sky. I turned the plane around and dipped her up and down. I can’t say I enjoyed that so much. It was noisy, for one thing, and I was shaking like a leaf! I was terrified! I felt sick by the time we got down and frankly, I think it put me off flying for good. I didn’t like to say so to Robert though. After all it was a birthday present, and he seemed unusually jovial and enthusiastic when I got back to the flying hut. He was laughing and chatting like someone I’d never seen before.

Still I sent of the photos to the kids and I liked all their congratulations and encouragement. Charlie suggested I go all out and get my pilot’s licence, so I could fly when I came to visit him in Australia. I think that was why I went along with Robert’s next birthday present to me when that time came around.

I sort of knew it would be something scary, and you don’t get much scarier than jumping out of a plane with a parachute at the age of 50. Sally and Geoff and Jane were home at the time, because 50 is a big birthday, and everybody made such a fuss when I opened the envelope that I didn’t like to say what I was feeling. Geoff said, ‘They don’t call you Dizzy for nothing. What a great idea!.’ Sally said, ‘You’ll be a parachuting Granny!.” And that just wiped the idea out of my mind because I didn’t even know she was pregnant.

So I almost forgot about the jump �" I would have if Robert hadn’t kept reminding me. I couldn’t understand why he was so keen. It wasn’t like him to be interested in anything I did. But he mentioned it three or four times, and then I checked and saw that the voucher was about to run out. I still didn’t want to do it. Sally was coming up to term then, and I wanted her to have the baby at home with us. I was busy organizing that and I really didn’t care about being known as the parachuting Granny. But I phoned the company and they booked me in and before I knew it I was standing out on the airfield practising rolling up the chute. They get you really fired up. Everyone wants to know what will happen if the chute doesn’t open and how you will hit the ground if it does, and the instructor says, ‘I’ve done this a thousand times and that’s never happened. Stick to these safety procedures and you’ll be fine.’ And we’d go back to jumping and rolling and learning how to land.

 I just didn’t think about the jump itself. I knew I didn’t want to do it. But Robert took a day off work to come and see me jump. I must have been white round the gills because he gave me a funny little look when I got into the plane and he said, “Go on Dizzy. You’ll be alright.” He never called me that.

The plane sounded like it was screaming when it went up. That was how I felt inside. I didn’t say anything. Nobody spoke. Even the young ones were just staring in front of them. It was like we were all going up for execution or something. I was the last to jump and they kept urging me to go, and the plane kept circling and circling. I just wanted to get out of there and be back on the ground so much that I think that was what made me jump in the end. It seemed like the quickest way back to safety.

And it was. Too quick.  No-one had fallen so fast in over a thousand jumps. The chute just didn’t open. I think I was supposed to pull something but I just froze in the air. I must have passed out before I hit the ground. I don’t remember any pain. It was black and then it was as though I was floating in the balloon again. I could see them all running towards the person that was me, bending over, clustering around. I saw the ambulance come, and I saw Robert run over and crouch down over my body, looking as though grief and worry had crumpled his face.

But perhaps he always looked like that. Because it certainly wasn’t grief that was going through his mind. It was the most amazing feeling to find that I suddenly knew �" everything! I could see what people thought as well as hear what they said. I could see that sneaky triumph in his mind so clearly that I couldn’t believe than no one else could hear him jumping up and down saying ‘I did it! It worked!’ They were all thinking, ‘Poor grieving husband. He must be protected.’ They were offering him help, and cups of tea, as if that would compensate you for losing your wife, and he was bravely brushing them off, saying he wanted to go home and be alone.

I watched him go home. Only it wasn’t our house. It was this other place in Ditchley twenty miles away. And she was there, the other Mrs Plowden. I think I vaguely remember her face from the Lowdens’ Christmas party. And their children. Very posh. Paul and Joanna. About ten or twelve I think. Proper little students. And they all clustered around him like he was the best father in the world.

He did have the grace to go back to our house and call the children from there. He explained to Mrs Plowden that he had a very important business deal to take care of, but once this was done then he would come into a lot of money and he would be able to spend a lot more time at home. So then he went and telephoned our children and told them there’d been a terrible accident. He managed to sound really cut up about it but he blamed it all on me, the lying devil. He said I had such a taste for daring that at least I had died doing what I loved.

Bless them, they cried and cried. Sally was devastated that her baby would never know her granny. She says she’ll call her Dizzy after me if it’s a girl, and it is.

It’s funny the view from up here. It’s like the view from the balloon but it’s bittersweet. You see into people’s worlds but this time you know everything. You even know the person you used to be, and I can see how I must have enraged Robert. I was so focused on my home and my little family that I didn’t even notice he had another wife, that he’s had a string of other wives or girlfriends as it turned out. I underestimated him. I never thought he had it in him. But quite a few of them met an early death like me. I’ve met a couple of them here actually. So I may have been stupid, but at least I wasn’t the only one he fooled.

This one he’s with now is a sweet little thing. Wants all the same things I did �" the best schools for the children, ponies, holidays. Robert’s quite happy to go along with it for now but she needs to watch out. There’s nothing in his bank accounts, though he lives like a big shot. I don’t know what he does with it but too much pressure is a danger point. Murder seems to be his way out of a muddle, and he thinks he’s very good at it. He should be. He’s had enough practice.

So I’ve made a decision. I’ve had mixed feelings until now �" wondering whether I should make her pay for taking Robert from me. Then I thought I should make Robert suffer for what he did. Watch him lose everything.

But they’re big on forgiveness here. They keep saying, “Dizzy, that’s the only way you’re going to move on.”  So I’ve decided on a different approach. I’m going to let the second Mrs Plowden live in peace, though she may mot know how lucky she is to start with. In fact she’s going to be part of what I have in mind. Robert has a birthday coming up. He’s going to be 60. And I know just what she’s going to give him!