Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness - Alexandra Fuller [57]
Dad found what work he could in town. Mum bred rabbits, fattened chickens, fed pigs and drank a half pint of Guinness each day, paid for by the National Health. “In those days, they used to say that half a pint of Guinness a day was very good for pregnant women,” Mum says.
“Are you sure?”
“Of course I’m sure. They even advertised it: ‘Guinness is Good for You.’” Mum sighs. “Mind you, it didn’t do much to guarantee beautiful babies. I got such a fright when they gave you to me. Black hair, yellow skin and the most impressively disagreeable expression you can possibly imagine on a brand-new baby.” She narrows in on me. “Don’t you sometimes feel you must have been switched at birth?”
NEWS OF MY ARRIVAL REACHED my father very early on the morning of March 29, 1969. Dad fed the animals and dropped Vanessa off with a neighbor, whose husband, Kevin, was in the process of selling Dad a car number–plate business. The business came complete with a very hot-tempered Spanish exprisoner of war who both made the number plates and contributed some bona fide authority to the name, Continental Car Plates.
“Where’s Kevin?” Dad asked the neighbor’s wife.
“Down pub.”
Dad looked at his watch. His admiration for Kevin grew exponentially. “That’s very heroic of him.”
Dad went down pub himself and found Kevin having a quick prebreakfast hair of the dog, but upon hearing the news that Mum had produced an offspring, Kevin slammed his pint on the bar. “Champagne!” he shouted. The workday was canceled, friends were rounded up and morning visiting hours were missed. It wasn’t until two in the afternoon that Dad suddenly came to and remembered that he hadn’t yet bought a present for my post-delivery Mum.
“Swift thinking,” Kevin said.
So Kevin and my father had a quick one for the road and then drove around Glossop looking for a gift of some sort.
“What does Nicola go in for?” Kevin asked.
“Dogs,” Dad said. “She likes dogs a lot more than she likes most people.”
“So what about a puppy?”
Dad rubbed his chin. “Better not,” he said. “She’s likely to ignore the baby if we do that.”
“Fair enough,” Kevin said.
“Also culture—she’s very keen on books, opera, art, that sort of thing.”
Kevin looked out the window doubtfully. “Oh bollocks,” he said.
Dad sank into a thoughtful reverie. “I think I’d be better able to concentrate if I had a drink in front of me,” he said at last.
“Me too,” Kevin said, so they swerved into the nearest pub, where they discussed further possibilities over a brandy: a horse was dismissed as too big; a China tea set was rejected as too mundane; and they both felt a night at the Proms would be expensive and noisy. “All that hollering in the Albert Hall,” Kevin said. He downed his brandy and put his glass upside down on his head. Dad stared at Kevin for a moment and then he jumped to his feet. “That’s it! A hat! She loves hats! How about a hat?”
“A hat?” Kevin repeated uncertainly.
“Hat and dress then,” Dad said.
So the two men drove up and down the high street until they found a suitably posh women’s boutique. “Top of the afternoon to you,” Dad said to the woman behind the counter. “Cash customer! Do we get a discount for good behavior?”
Kevin collapsed in an armchair by the changing rooms.
“Don’t worry about him,” Dad told the shop assistant. “It’s been a tiring day. Now what do you have in the . . .”—Dad whistled and swiveled his hips a few times—“department?”
Dad tried on several outfits, but at last the shop assistant and Kevin agreed on a short, scalloped pink mini with a matching satin pillbox hat. Then both men felt strongly that it would be a criminal waste not to give the dress a proper outing before it had to be folded up neatly in a gift box. Accordingly, they crawled around a few more pubs, picking up champagne, flowers and cigars along the way, until at last they calculated it must be getting close to afternoon visiting hours. “And don’t spare