Three Dont Tango 23

It is nearly six a.m. The sun is now well above the trees on the other side of the valley. I get up and look out through the bedroom window. The lawn is doing well, I shall soon have to cut it.
Nearly six a.m., and although the sun is blessing us all with light and real heat Annabel has turned over, complaining that it is the middle of the night and she needs her kip.
Up in the wood behind the house the time is still nearly six a.m., but the sun seems higher now because I am halfway up the side of the valley. The early morning air is like the bright sparkle of a Chablis or a Muscadet. The shafts of sunlight fall in columns through the tall trees, and the silence is emphasised by the rattling rumble of a solitary truck on the top road going down to the quarry.
Behind me is a rustle of leaves as if someone is walking down some October street. I turn, startled, and a blackbird, startled, turns, and flutters through the overgrowth giving a piercing staccato screech. If you listen carefully you can hear the ticking of the new dawn earth. I stand under the tall columns of the beech trees, watching through the leaves the scattering of the sunlight into tiny checker boards of light.
It is shortly after six a.m, and there is a large flat stone at the top of a set of steps by the entrance to where the old iron-works were. I am standing, my arms akimbo, my back to the warm sun which is easing itself gradually into my body with healthy massaging fingers, melting all obstacles.
The clock says a little after eight a.m., and the table is outside the kitchen window on the flagstones. The chairs are out there as well, and the bacon is frying on the stove, and the sun is shining on the new red floor. Annabel is wearing short white socks, and a new short skirt made of blue corduroy. Breakfast is to be eaten in the garden.
This is no ordinary breakfast. We are outside on our patio. The sun is shining. Spring is here at last. All is well. I have no building to do. Annabel is wearing a new blue skirt. The kids are laughing. I can feel an almost imperceptible breeze on the back of my hand. The smell of bacon, so enticing that it smells like a new magical world, pours out through the kitchen window. Every dull repeated action has an incandescence haloing it.
There is an Albertine rose which Prudence gave us. Soon it will begin to climb the front wall of the house and reach up to the bedrooms, and a stray spray of roses will try to climb in through a window. There are bees crawling in and out of the wall. They have burrowed holes in the soft lime. The wall is a warm golden stone with crumbling lime mix between the stones. Inside the tunnels are small factories for making honey. Each hole is filled with a solitary bee, and our walls have honey insulation.
The lupins are beginning to grow. A retaining dry stone wall holds back the now flattened vegetable plot. Beyond that another small retaining wall holds back the still sloping area of grass where I have planted my apple trees.
At the end of the vegetable plot I am starting to build a greenhouse. Below that is an uncertain area. I have badly organised this part of the garden. I should have had the digger make a big hole for my swimming pool. Now I cant get the digger in without bulldozing my shrubbery which is taking shape along the driveway. I shall have to get out my spade and dig the thing myself.
This time I am not going to destroy my body. I will limit myself to shifting ten barrow-loads of earth a day. I start with the shallow end, and gradually dig my way down.
Summer is coming on. Annabel is training aubretia along the rockery, and planting new pockets into the retaining walls I've just built.
At lunch-time there is a rug on the lawn, bowls of salad with lots of nuts, and glasses of orange juice. For once I don't have to spend half an hour cleaning myself, removing sawdust, dried cement, or blackened cobwebs before I sit down. I look at my clean hands, and notice they no longer ache.
At tea-time the school taxi leaves Cephren at the gate. We have tea on the lawn. The children kick off their shoes and run around. Cephren plays on his bike, winding his way up and down the driveway. He is manufacturing an exciting world inside his head. Mini is playing with bits of wood, and some of Cephren's toys on the lawn. Annabel is stretched out on a rug, tea things to one side of her. She is reading a book. She is wearing another new skirt; it is a pale green and blue tartan. The breeze catches the edge and it flaps up over her bottom. Grandma is pottering about in her garden, wheelbarrow half filled with weeds. The sun is edging towards the beech tree on the other side of the road. The shadows are lengthening across the grass, but the weather is still gorgeously warm.
The day begins to head towards evening and Mini is in bed. She has put her coat over the light bulb that is fixed to the wall above her head. She switches on the light and watches the glow through the material.
There is a funny smell in the kitchen; a smell of burning. The coat of course is a write-off. It takes me five minutes to wash off the burnt remnants that have glued themselves to the light bulb. Mini finds the whole operation a little confusing, but definitely interesting. I am not at all certain that I have got through her thick skull that she is not to mess about with the lights any more. I sit down to read her a bedtime story.
Cephren goes to bed, and Annabel sits reading him a story. He is probably listening, although maybe not. He is busy drawing while she reads. The ritual is important. It is part of what his small brain expects. If the routine is in any way altered, he is upset, and problems rise up in his world. He asks mummy all sorts of abstruse questions, and mummy carefully answers them, telling him what books he ought to read to get more information. She promises to get him some more books from the library, and goes downstairs to make herself a cup of coffee. Cephren tries to get to sleep, but something is missing from that all important routine. He suddenly realises what is wrong.
"Dad," he calls out.
I come to the bottom of the stairs. "What's the problem?"
"I cant get to sleep."
"Well, what am I supposed to do about it?"
"Cant you do some typing?"
"Typing?" I mutter in astonishment. Is the child going off his head? How can me typing help him get to sleep?
"You usually type in the evenings. I cant get to sleep unless you do your book."
"Oh." I stand at the bottom of the stairs amazed at this revelation. "Okay, I'll do some more of my book. I thought my typing kept you awake."
"No, it sends me to sleep."
I don't feel in the mood but I do have a couple of letters to write. In five minutes Cephren is fast asleep.
Annabel leans out of the window. It is now quite late. A crescent moon glints with a brilliant silver shine above the trees. Immediately below the crescent is the bright sparkle of Venus. The sky is a midnight blue, like a velvet cape. The moon and the star are like jewels resting on the velvet.
Annabel is looking out at the wonder of the night and dreaming. Above her is a magic painting created by the Great Artist, the great creator. Annabel stares hard at the painting trying to discover the secrets of structure that are revealed. She is certain that if she looks carefully enough she will be able to find the secret, crack the code, and create something as wonderful herself.
Annabel is looking out of the window, and dreaming. In her mind she is standing under an orange tree somewhere south of Valencia. All around her are the dark green leaves and the white blossom with its fabulous scent, and the orange globes reflecting back the moonlight in their own individual way. The sound of a dog barking somewhere up on the hill a couple of miles away is as sharp as the moonlight; otherwise nothing moves. The moon is hung like a pendent upon the neck of the night, shining towards the orange globes, shining along the leaves, flashing a magic code to Annabel standing in amongst the trees, her blouse and skirt a chessboard of moonlight.
Annabel leans out of her bedroom window. Behind her I am lifting her skirt and stroking her bottom. I lean towards her, reach round and hug her breasts, and we both lean over the sill into the warm silent night-time.
In bed Annabel is still dreaming. She fondles a small bud, watching it grow like a flower unfolding. She leans down to kiss the opening flower, which is soft yet strong. How innocently it lies there along a thigh, seemingly asleep, maybe even dreaming. Perhaps there are dreams of past conquests, but laying there is only another of God's harmless creatures, sent perhaps as a plaything, a toy for some girl to cuddle and kiss, playful at times, perhaps as a kitten. Maybe when roused it will behave differently. Annabel is seeking to rouse it into playful fury.
Suddenly she jumps out of bed and skips downstairs, her shirt barely covering her loins as she skitters down the hallway.
She is soon back, and kneels on the bed, scooping honey from the jar, and smearing it across her favourite toy. Her eyes are bright, and she licks her lips. He fondles her small breasts as she leans forward and licks the honey from the taut skin.
"Yum yum. I think I'm going to put golden syrup on it tomorrow, and sprinkle some cinnamon on top. That should be nice."
She gets astride him and they lay, the eiderdown on the floor, with the silver moon edging its way towards the pine trees by the front gate. The moon is watching. The moon is stroking all down Annabel's bundle of hair. The silver fingers slide down the long golden strands as she tosses her head, and kisses him. The silver fingers reach down her sides, and stroke her bottom. You can just see the soft pale hands as they caress all down her right leg. And as Annabel is seducing her man the moon is reaching in through the window to touch her breast, her hair, and cup its silver fingers round her sexy little bottom.
The moon goes behind the pines, and the room goes fades into darkness. Annabel's silver lover has left to touch another's sleeping body.
The moon goes down and the garden grows dark. The bright stars still shine, but Annabel is deeply asleep.
A night jar calls with an ugly screech. The high-pitched yelp of a fox down the valley reminds us the world is busy under the cover of darkness. The stage has revolved. Somewhere under the shades something else is now in control.

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