A Girl’s Guide to Kissing Frogs. Victoria Clayton

same bed and even shared bath water. At the time this had puzzled me.

      A knock interrupted these reminiscences. Dimpsie came in.

      ‘Just wanted to see how you were getting on. Hello, Siegfried poppet.’ Siggy, who had been lying with every appearance of content on the rug beside my bed, dashed into the wardrobe as though in terror. I did not believe this for a moment. Fear was an emotion unknown to Siggy, but he liked to be interesting.

      I stood up, threw off the blanket and twirled, or rather, stomped in a circle, so she could see how I looked.

      ‘Fabulous, darling! I love that dress! The sock does detract rather …’

      ‘Perhaps bare toes would be better. But my nails are still growing out their bruises.’

      Dancers feet are always ugly, with bunions, calluses, crooked toes, peeling bloody skin and discoloured nails.

      ‘I’ll paint them for you.’ Dimpsie went away and reappeared a minute later with a box of acrylic paints. She sat on the carpet and worked away with dedication. On four nails she drew glittering stripes of gold and silver. On my big toe she managed a just recognizable Mona Lisa.

      ‘You are clever!’ I examined my foot approvingly.

      ‘What a pity Tom’s had to go out again. Poor Vanessa Trumball is worried about her blood pressure. You look so stunning. He’d be proud of you.’

      My mother liked to maintain the fiction that my father entertained paternal feelings towards his daughters. He and I had met at breakfast that morning, not a good time for either of us. I was still tired after the journey and had slept badly. My bed was a converted paddle steamer from a derelict merry-go-round that Dimpsie had discovered long ago in a salvage yard. She had bought a little wooden bus for Kate and had converted them into beds by replacing the seats with boards and mattresses. She had painted them in bright colours and decorated our rooms to match. I had blue waves below the dado, sky and seagulls above. Kate had hedges and houses and Belisha beacons on her walls. These unusual sleeping quarters had been the envy of all our friends, but now the boat was too short and the high wooden sides delivered agonizing blows to my knees whenever I turned over. The plaster cast made things worse. A further cause of discomfort had been the turbulence caused by the gaseous vegetables. I had gone down to breakfast feeling tense and exhausted.

      My father had looked up from the newspaper he was reading. ‘Hello, Marigold. To what do we owe this unlooked-for condescension? If it’s money I’m sorry to tell you that there’s none to spare.’

      I felt a violent return of all the old feelings.

      ‘Don’t be silly, Tom,’ Dimpsie said before I could reply. ‘I told you she’d broken her foot.’

      My father glanced down at my leg. His hair, the exact colour of mine, was grizzled at the temples. Mine was straight as a pencil but his was curly and stood up in a shock above his white face, which now had a faint blush across the cheekbones where veins had broken. His once dramatic red and whiteness was merging to a generalized pink. His eyes, sharp with intelligence, looked at me through rimless hexagonally framed spectacles. ‘What sort of fracture is it?’

      ‘Comminuted.’

      ‘I suppose you continued to walk on it after you broke it?’

      ‘I didn’t know I had. Broken it, I mean.’

      He snorted and returned his eye to the page.

      ‘What are you going to do today, darling?’ Dimpsie had plopped two poached eggs on top of the wholemeal brick on my plate. ‘Perhaps you ought to have a nap this afternoon so as to be sparkling for dinner with Evelyn. You can ring me when you’re ready to come home. I shan’t mind waiting up. I’ve some paperwork to do for the craft shop.’

      ‘Aren’t you coming?’

      ‘Oh no. Evelyn said I’d find her guests too stuffy and conventional. She said they bore her to tears but she feels she has a duty to entertain the county and, besides, Kingsley likes them. She’s always so unselfish.’

      ‘Rubbish!’ My father folded his paper neatly as he spoke, matching the edges precisely. ‘The county could get on perfectly well without being patronized by Evelyn. What she means is, you aren’t smart enough. Evelyn’s a snob, but in this case I can hardly blame her. A fat, middle-aged hippy clinging to her Bohemian past, babbling about astrology and runes … you look and sound ridiculous.’

      Though I ought to have known better, I was unable to suppress my indignation. ‘How can you be so unkind—’

      ‘Of course we all know what a kind daughter you are.’ My father stood up, brushing toast crumbs from his trousers. ‘When did you last visit? Was it at Christmas when your mother went down with flu? Oh, no, you were too busy. When was it? Let me see … perhaps two years ago when your grandmother was dying and your mother had to drive fifty miles each way to the hospital to see her? And of course the funeral wasn’t sufficiently important to stop you going to New York—’

      ‘I admit I’m a selfish beast. But that’s no reason why you should be so nasty—’

      ‘Please!’ Dimpsie clasped a slotted spoon to her bosom and looked agitated. ‘Don’t let’s quarrel on Marigold’s first morning home. Love and peace, that’s what matters.’

      ‘I’m going to make a couple of house calls.’ Tom went to the back door, took his scarf from a peg and wound it round his neck, smoothing the ends across his chest before putting on his overcoat. ‘Surgery’s at ten. Don’t be late.’

      ‘Oh!’ Dimpsie looked anxious. ‘But I made an appointment for Mrs Giddy at half-past nine. And Mr Honeybun at a quarter to. Yesterday you said you were starting at nine thirty—’

      ‘They can wait.’ Tom checked his appearance in the mirror, pulling back his lips to examine his teeth. I knew that women found my father peculiarly attractive, though he was not handsome, not to my eyes anyway. Perhaps it was his unassailable confidence they liked. ‘There’s nothing wrong with that ghastly woman that a little less gin won’t cure. As for Honeybun, he’s a ridiculous creature, puffed up with self-importance. And last week he refused to increase my overdraft. It’ll serve him right to have to kick his heels in the waiting room and be coughed over by the pestilence-ridden until I’m ready to see him.’ He grinned at his own reflection and went out, allowing the door to bang behind him.

      I looked at Dimpsie. ‘I’m sorry. I ought to have come home more. I ought to have been more help to you.’

      ‘Nonsense, darling. You’ve got your own life. Your father likes to tease. He’s devoted to all of us, really.’

      I frowned, finding this impossible to believe.

      ‘Tell you what, ‘Dimpsie’s face brightened. ‘Let’s have some hot chocolate. That was always your favourite, wasn’t it?’ I nodded to please her, though in fact I was already feeling full from the eggs and toast. ‘And I know! Let’s see how this evening’s going to turn out.’ From the shelf by the Aga she fetched a book and three two-pence pieces. ‘We’ll cast the I Ching.’

      ‘Made it!’ breathed Dimpsie.

      It was our third attempt to get up the hill. The lights of Shottestone Manor glittered on the thick ice resulting from the falling temperature. Someone opened the passenger door.

      ‘Marigold! You’re an angel to come!’ I recognized Isobel’s voice, though in the darkness I had only an impression of a pale face and an arm half inside the car. ‘Hello, Dimpsie. Sweet of you to bring her. I’ll get someone to drive her home.’

      ‘Oh, it’s all right. I don’t mind turning out—’

      ‘Don’t argue. I’m freezing to death.’ She laughed, a sound I hadn’t heard for years. But it was so familiar that my skin tingled faintly with the pleasure of recognition. ‘I’m practically naked to the waist. Buck up, Marigold, or I’ll shatter into a thousand pieces.’