[2003] LOSS & PORPHYRY the novels  

0064 – Part 17 - Socializing

Gerry's house was only two doors away from our own. It too was very much a developer built house, part of the same large estate, but its design was different. Not least, it was also larger, which was fortunate since - at the time I describe - it was overrun by three full, and very boisterous, families of friends. Gerry and his wife Judith, together with their two children Peter and Diana, were the hosts. We and our two children, formed one of the other families; where the third comprised Mark and Jenny, with their children Paul and Emma. The three families had been good friends ever since the children had been small. Indeed, as is so often the case, it was the children playing together who had brought the adults to their friendship.

The house was no longer quite the bedlam that it had once been; when these regular evening get-togethers had, by force of necessity, to include young children. Even so, despite now being that much older, with claims to near adulthood, the children still pervaded the rooms with a frenetic bustle of activity. The adults, on the other hand, were settled in the living-room, enjoying a modicum of peace, though this was still disturbed at random intervals by an invasion of their offspring. The children had learnt that they would undoubtedly be bored with the adults' trivialities, but they still would not tolerate any organised exclusion from adult matters. Nothing drew their attention more quickly than the forbidden. But such incursions were now almost perfunctory. They had long since realised that their own activities were far more important and fascinating. The brief forays into the adult world were, thus, only demonstrations of their cherished rights of access.

The adults continued their private conversations undeterred by the chaos that occasionally erupted around them. By considerable practice they had learned to make their children invisible, much as the aristocracy of an earlier age had not seen the armies of servants that surrounded them.

The adults split, from custom, into groups at either end of the room. Even though sexism was frowned, on that was how the groups always divided. The women conjured with the future of their children. They endlessly analysed the teaching standards of the schools their charges attended, and fretted about the dangers of a member of that charmed brood not going to university. Failure to obtain a university place was, even though their children were barely teenagers, already seen as a potential ignominy for the children. It was almost worse than 'having to get married' had been for their own generation. None of them saw the irony that they themselves had never attended university, where they were setting that achievement as a mark of success or failure just as much for their daughters as for their sons.

'Sarah's' poem has just been chosen as winner in the Kingston parish magazine competition.' Pat was diffident in putting forward this item of news. It was an unwritten law of the group that, while discretely praising your children's progress, major achievements were offered almost apologetically since there was no need to emphasise them if their worth was obvious. The problem now was that she didn't know whether her news did represent a significant achievement. It was true that there had been great excitement amongst their daughters, though not amongst the sons who disdained such girlish pursuits, when the competition was announced. It had almost assumed the stature of a junior Booker prize for the group. Yet, as she listened to her own statement echoing around the room, it seemed a remarkably trivial event.

There was a momentary lull in the conversation, while her friends obviously sought for suitably soothing replies, before they pressed on again with the more urgent topics at hand. The conversation, broken by this interjection, switched to gossip about one of their friends, not present. Such gossip was the standby when news of their children failed them.

Their husbands, at the other end of the room, were, so they liked to believe, considering weightier matters. The tumblers of Glenlivet malt whisky cradled in their palms added fluency to their discussion, adding to that injected by the several tumblersful that had already been consumed. The topic was politics, a change from that of their business activities which otherwise tended to dominate their conversations. I was a local, borough, councillor. As I was wont to point out, though, I was not a political nominee. I had been elected as an independent 'Residents Association' candidate and was inordinately proud of that achievement. Now I was, perhaps not unexpectedly, fulminating against the new Tory government's campaign against local government: 'That woman will destroy everything we hold dear!' Margaret Thatcher, 'that woman' who could not because of the anger be named, had at first been seen by many conservatives, and by some of those present though they would not have admitted so in public, as the bulwark needed to preserve their precious heritage. The residents association too was conservationist; though the subtle distinction, from simple conservative, held many important overtones.

In the event, as my own tirade demonstrated, we all felt we had been betrayed by 'that woman'. Margaret Thatcher's conservative priorities had turned out to be not those, based on heritage, of the upper middle classes but those, based on wealth, of the lower middle classes.

The atmosphere started to heat up perceptibly, for Mark was a staunch conservative. He was indeed of the right wing, and had been heard to criticise Margaret Thatcher for her left wing views. But, when put to the test, he believed in 'my party right or wrong.' As the various hackles started to rise, I was looking for a diversion when the whole horde of children exploded into the room, with an unusually determined air about them. It was Peter, Gerry's son, who delivered their ultimatum: 'We're bored with just sitting around. Besides, Sarah and Miles can do telepathy with their father.'

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