relinquish it. Past and future become one—what has been said, what will be said, the silent witness of this place.
Gina sits in a television studio, waiting for her moment, and for no reason at all Paul speaks, his voice invades the present, comes swimming up from another day, another world: “Eat a spider,” he orders.
The cellar is not a cellar at all. It is, variously, the Pacific Ocean, the Antarctic, the open prairie, and much else. When they go down there it undergoes a metamorphosis—the damp Edwardian brick walls dissolve, the cindery floor melts away. The packing cases, the broken Ping-Pong table, the doorless cupboard all become habitations; the old lawn mower is a sled, a horse, a ship. They are adrift on a raft, they sled to the South Pole, they fight off Indians from their covered wagon—for this is 1979, cowboys and Indians are still around. As are other things. The far end of the cellar, the dark end, the end that the light from the windows does not penetrate, that end is Dalek country, the Daleks are there, lurking invisible in the gloom; they may come out, if provoked. James Bond owns the stone stairway; from the top step he guns down the enemy, and then leaps to safety with one practiced bound.
Paul is always James Bond. Until . . . until the day Sandra says, “I’m going to be James Bond this time.”
“You can’t. You’re a girl.”
Sandra retorts, “If we can pretend someone’s James Bond, then we can pretend I’m a boy.”
Paul is silenced, trying to ferret a way around the logic of this. At last he says, grudgingly, “All right. Just this time.” He is struck by a dismaying thought. “But I’m not being James Bond’s girl.”
There can be arguments, there can be dissent, but at the moment they all pile down the steps to play the game there is united purpose. Somehow, a collective decision has been made: today it is the cowboys and Indians game, today it is the ship game.
And there is another game. This is a more low-key game, but it is an abiding game, they come back to it time and again. It does not have a name, it is simply an arrangement into which they slip, almost without discussion. The packing case becomes a house, the home. Paul is always the father. Gina, usually, is the mother but sometimes Sandra wants the role. More often, Sandra prefers to be a child—one of the children, and usually a subversive child, who answers back, who disobeys. It is Sandra, more often than not, who has to pay a forfeit. Clare is the baby; sometimes she has to submit to being wrapped up in a piece of damp sacking and placed in the orange-box cot. Actually, she does not too much mind; she lies there smiling peacefully, even sucking her thumb. Katie and Roger are simply children, they bulk out the family.
Family life is not particularly tranquil. Paul is a Victorian paterfamilias. He demands absolute obedience, absolute compliance. There is a draconian education system in force: people have to learn bits of a tattered telephone directory by heart, they have to add up columns of figures. But there is a certain tacit agreement here; protest is ritual, it is stylized. Children sigh and groan and roll their eyes. Only when things go too far—Sandra—is a price exacted.
Gina is a peculiar sort of mother. She does not cook; meals are conjured from the air, and eaten with relish—it is always bangers and mash with tomato ketchup. She is interested in storytelling; people have to sit in a circle and now the story will begin, and it will go on at some length, sometimes incorporating themselves—themselves in that other, aboveground, Allersmead life—so that things become interestingly confused, they do not know quite who or where they are.
It is Gina, on the whole, who devises the cellar games, whether it is home life in the packing case or a bout on the high seas. She directs the narrative, such as it is, and proposes who does what and when, though others have an input here. Paul requires
Gina sits in a television studio, waiting for her moment, and for no reason at all Paul speaks, his voice invades the present, comes swimming up from another day, another world: “Eat a spider,” he orders.
The cellar is not a cellar at all. It is, variously, the Pacific Ocean, the Antarctic, the open prairie, and much else. When they go down there it undergoes a metamorphosis—the damp Edwardian brick walls dissolve, the cindery floor melts away. The packing cases, the broken Ping-Pong table, the doorless cupboard all become habitations; the old lawn mower is a sled, a horse, a ship. They are adrift on a raft, they sled to the South Pole, they fight off Indians from their covered wagon—for this is 1979, cowboys and Indians are still around. As are other things. The far end of the cellar, the dark end, the end that the light from the windows does not penetrate, that end is Dalek country, the Daleks are there, lurking invisible in the gloom; they may come out, if provoked. James Bond owns the stone stairway; from the top step he guns down the enemy, and then leaps to safety with one practiced bound.
Paul is always James Bond. Until . . . until the day Sandra says, “I’m going to be James Bond this time.”
“You can’t. You’re a girl.”
Sandra retorts, “If we can pretend someone’s James Bond, then we can pretend I’m a boy.”
Paul is silenced, trying to ferret a way around the logic of this. At last he says, grudgingly, “All right. Just this time.” He is struck by a dismaying thought. “But I’m not being James Bond’s girl.”
There can be arguments, there can be dissent, but at the moment they all pile down the steps to play the game there is united purpose. Somehow, a collective decision has been made: today it is the cowboys and Indians game, today it is the ship game.
And there is another game. This is a more low-key game, but it is an abiding game, they come back to it time and again. It does not have a name, it is simply an arrangement into which they slip, almost without discussion. The packing case becomes a house, the home. Paul is always the father. Gina, usually, is the mother but sometimes Sandra wants the role. More often, Sandra prefers to be a child—one of the children, and usually a subversive child, who answers back, who disobeys. It is Sandra, more often than not, who has to pay a forfeit. Clare is the baby; sometimes she has to submit to being wrapped up in a piece of damp sacking and placed in the orange-box cot. Actually, she does not too much mind; she lies there smiling peacefully, even sucking her thumb. Katie and Roger are simply children, they bulk out the family.
Family life is not particularly tranquil. Paul is a Victorian paterfamilias. He demands absolute obedience, absolute compliance. There is a draconian education system in force: people have to learn bits of a tattered telephone directory by heart, they have to add up columns of figures. But there is a certain tacit agreement here; protest is ritual, it is stylized. Children sigh and groan and roll their eyes. Only when things go too far—Sandra—is a price exacted.
Gina is a peculiar sort of mother. She does not cook; meals are conjured from the air, and eaten with relish—it is always bangers and mash with tomato ketchup. She is interested in storytelling; people have to sit in a circle and now the story will begin, and it will go on at some length, sometimes incorporating themselves—themselves in that other, aboveground, Allersmead life—so that things become interestingly confused, they do not know quite who or where they are.
It is Gina, on the whole, who devises the cellar games, whether it is home life in the packing case or a bout on the high seas. She directs the narrative, such as it is, and proposes who does what and when, though others have an input here. Paul requires
Similar Books
