Just slightly less brilliant than it had been outside, the weather suddenly became ordinary again: the heavens giving the correct salute to everything returning to routine. It had been a perfect long weekend. I can’t remember a nicer one. All thoughts of destination, deadline and doubt disappearing in the long and certain kiss of summertime, all present utterly content to do little beyond nothing whatsoever. Water pistols, cookery, dawdling and finally learning how to play C# diminished seventh on the guitar was about the size of it.
But now the bouncy castle had been packed away — a bit like putting a genie back in a bottle, that: both a struggle and a shame; the blow-up mattresses and sleeping bags from the night in the tent rolled into neat sausages. There was still a gigantic train track going all round the lounge but my wife had begun to pack her case for the early train to London and that was the end of that. A wonderful timeless pause it had been, but gradually our lives clunked back towards first gear.
It was as if everyone was smoking big, invisible cigars at teatime, uncharacteristically calm, especially all the children. ‘Is it ever worth making lamb stock?’ I wondered out loud. I rarely get a word in at the table, so hearing myself for once, I continued: ‘I mean it’s very lamby, isn’t it? I seem to have created essence of lamb all right, but is that what we want? Eating this is like standing in the barn when they are giving birth.’ No one was really listening, all dog tired, content and reflective. Well, these were rhetorical questions anyway. I watched my wife take a thoughtful mouthful and she was about to say something, when Tony arrived.
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