Home Truths by Freya North Page A

realized with some relief that he needn't attempt to juice the pumpkin. And he realized with some disappointment that he did not own the bottled cordial to which his step-grandson-thing-or-other alluded. Good job, really, because he hadn't a clue what a centimetre was anyway. A dash he knew intrinsically, a dollop too; he could do a smidgeon blindfolded and had always denounced the pinch as miserly. Feet and inches he was fine with, metric however was another matter; one he staunchly felt did not matter. ‘I have some cherry syrup,’ he said quietly to Zac. ‘Do you think that might do?’
    ‘I'm sure it will,’ Zac said, laying an affectionate hand on Django's shoulder. ‘But what on earth do you use cherry syrup for?’ he asked as they walked on up the path and into the house.
    Django stopped. ‘Do you know, I don't think I've used it for anything. I think It's unopened. I've had it ages.’
    In the event, Django couldn't find the cherry syrup but he did have cherry brandy and decided that a smidgeon watered down excessively with flat R White's lemonade wouldn't do the boy any harm at all. He was right. Tom acquired a liking for it and asked for more.
    ‘I hope you left the beds for the blokes to do,’ Pip said, all stern, ‘like I suggested in my letter and on the phone.’
    ‘Yes, I have,’ Django sighed, ‘but only because You're so bossy I didn't dare do otherwise.’ He didn't confess to certain relief at Pip's directive; that he didn't actually feel like shunting and shifting divans about any more, didn't feel he could. ‘there's a zed-bed out in the shed,’ he added, ‘though I've used its mattress to lag the water tank.’
    ‘can't I sleep in the shed?’ Tom sighed, looking imploringly to Zac before winking beguilingly at Django.
    ‘Have you been incorrigible?’ Django asked him.
    ‘No, actually, I've been exemplary ,’ Tom said. ‘MissBalcombe told me That's what I am in some things – like maths. It's just that Pip told me all about the shed.’
    Django's contrived haughty expression softened. ‘In the summer,’ he said, ‘if you promise to be as incorrigible as Pip was when she was young, before she was bossy, I promise to banish you to the shed for a night. Now come along, troops, we have a party to plan. There's only two months to go.’
    No one would hear of Django sleeping on the sofa; they were reluctant enough to let him give up his bed but the deal was settled on Django sleeping in Fen's bed and Tom sleeping in Fen's room on the zed-bed plumped up with two sun-lounger mattresses, Fen and Matt in Django's bed with Cosima in her pop-up travel cot, Zac and Pip in her old room with Cat's bed dragged through, Cat and Ben on various cushions and beanbags in her room. ‘You're the youngsters,’ Django had told them, ‘you won't have the spinal issues of those over a certain age.’
    ‘Shall I point out that I'm older than Matt?’ Ben joshed.
    ‘No, don't do that,’ Django replied. ‘You know how I enjoy my theories.’
    At the crack of dawn, Django came across Fen boiling a kettle in the kitchen.
    ‘Did Cosima wake you?’ she asked, alarmed.
    ‘No darling,’ Django said, ‘just the infernal need to pee. Not that you'd want to know the finer details of my water-works. It's an age thing.’
    ‘And a pregnancy thing – I remember it well,’ Fen groaned. She took the kettle from the hob. ‘Can we buy you an electric kettle for your birthday?’
    ‘No thank you,’ Django said, ‘far too dull.’
    ‘I don't suppose you'd like a microwave then?’
    ‘Absolutely not. What would a seventy-five-year-old want with one of those?’ Django said.
    Fen poured boiling water into a Pyrex jug and immersed a baby bottle to heat through. ‘I'm trying to reclaim my boobs,’ Fen explained, with a tone of regret and a look of guilt, ‘not that you'd want to know the finer details of my lactation.’
    ‘Quite,’ said Django. He paused. ‘Matt must love it – the bottle feeding –