to do, as well as having a few new thoughts on that particular experiment, and how to go about it if you feel the urge again, to test the sharpness of knives. Mum is a very cool person, and has special ways.
I am pretty keen to get to Zetland’s and Jude is going to be happy when we bring binoculars home, it is a favourite comestible of Jude’s and mine. A stranger might not be able to tell Jude is happy, watching him open up a paper bag with Zetland’s written across it and containing binoculars, a stranger thinks you ought to crease up in a big smile and say how happy you are, etc., but you do not, not always, not if you are Jude who will go ‘hmmm’ in a slow and quiet manner, and raise one, maybe two eyebrows, and push out his lower lip, that is to say, he is happy about the binoculars, even though he may not want one straight off. When you know a really fine thing is around, such as a binocular in a bag, you don’t need it straight off, sometimes it is better saving it for later, and just knowing it is there.
A binocular is a roll with a crunchy crust in two parts and a crease in the middle but connected, therefore resembling binoculars. They do not call them that at the shop. They look confused if you say, Whoa! binoculars, and point to the big wicker basket they are heaped in, they won’t know what you mean, although it is pretty easy to work out. Never mind. There is a lady there who never smiles and is a bit scary. I decide she is Mrs Zetland because she seems in command, the way a teacher does, or an officer in a war film. She wears a white ribbon around her head like a bandage, and most of her hair is on top, sort of growing up out of the bandage, so her hair reminds me of candyfloss on a stick at the fair except hers is grey not pink. I look at her and I kind of want to get the scissors out and do some trimming. Topiary work.
Mrs Zetland is OK and does not scare me any more ever since Mum sent Jude and me in once, on our own, to pay the bill and collect some rolls, whereupon Mrs Zetland slipped us each a lemon tart. Jude and I have been in a few times now. Two lemon tarts, every time, slipped to us like she is a World War II spy and we are two other spies on the same side. I don’t like lemon tarts much or any kind of tarts and just about two bites is all I need to be sure of this, and then I pass it on to Jude who likes a lot more stuff than I do, adventurous is what Mum calls him. I would never tell Mrs Zetland though, or she might be hurt, and I think she has a thing for Jude and me, something probably Mum knew all along, which is why she sent us on the solo mission with no fear in the first place.
After the bus ride, we walk. Mum is a great type to go out walking with. Here is why. Sometimes you will see a little kid out walking with a grown-up and you can tell right away he is having a hard time. He is reaching up high to squeeze his hand into the big grown-up hand and he is getting a bad shoulder ache, plus he is stumbling along with loose crazy legs like a drunk, just trying to keep the pace, and carry the flag, and not let anyone down. He is sending a few frantic looks upwards at the grown-up as if to say, Whoa, can’t you see what’s going on here? I’m in trouble. And each time he sends that frantic look skywards, he nearly trips himself up and sometimes there is no choice but to tip right over in a messy sprawl in an effort to put the brakes on the grown-up, which is when you might see the little kid dangling like a stuffed animal, his limbs making no contact with earth at all, just swinging there pointy-toed and skimming the surface in a desperate and foolish manner. This can happen when the grown-up is mad about something, I believe, which is why he is barrelling along at high speed with scanty regard for the kid, and nothing can stop him. Or else he does not know that a regular pace for a long-legged person is racing speed for a kid. You have to explain some things to grownups you would not think necessary. It’s disappointing, but those are the facts.
My dad walks slow. He does a lot of thinking when he walks, requiring a slow pace, which is perfect for our Gus, who is new at being upright and walking to and fro in the earth, but it is too slow for me at times, so I find myself drifting ahead of my dad, I can’t help it, and I do this until I get a wrenching feeling in my wrist and have to pause and hang back a little, and go at my dad’s pace, looking all around, and staring at the pavement, and doing some deep thinking. You can learn a lot from the different walks of people, the speed they move along at, and the way they hold your hand, and all of this is interesting and surprising if you are crazy about a person and want to fit in with their pace and way of doing things when you are together and out for a stroll, instead of struggling and trying to do everything your own way which is already familiar and not very educational or surprising at all.
When I walk with my dad, I do not say, ‘Dad, do you mind holding my hand the way Mum does? You are mashing all my fingers and my thumb is trapped and it feels bad.’ No, I don’t. I don’t even wiggle my fingers to restore the blood flow, or just so I can recall how they are separate digits and not one single clump of fingers like that crazy feeling I get if I have to wear mittens for school regulations, a feeling of being impaired and suffering from leprosy or something, only having a thumb available for active duty. I try to steer clear of mittens in life, and when my dad holds my hand, I get a mitten feeling and it is pretty terrible, but the thing is, I don’t mind, because it is cool to be with him, and to see how he is so different from Mum, and everything on our walk is different, and newish, even if I have walked the same ground with her, and this is what I mean by not struggling against a person you are crazy about. I get busy thinking about my dad, and wondering what he is thinking, and other matters. Will there be an ice-cream cone at the end of this walk, or a packet of crisps? He doesn’t talk much at all. Has he forgotten I’m here? No. He gives me a big hand squeeze, a torture-type squeeze, and I yell out, and this creases him up with mirth. He knows I’m here, yes.
Mum walks at kid pace, no matter which kid she is out with, and she does it without making you feel bad, like she has to make this big adjustment just for you. No. She acts as if this is the very pace she had her heart set on when she decided to go out strolling with you. Why, thanks, Mum! Also, I notice things I would not normally pay a lot of attention to. Let’s say there is woodland roundabout, I will notice what stage the buds and leaves are at, what type of tree it is, and whether or not it is healthy and so on. If there is birdlife, I will think about the birds hanging out in the trees, and muse on bird varieties and the ins and outs of general bird activity. In town, now, on our way to Zetland’s, walking past buildings I have seen many times before, Mum has me noticing nice gates and windows, carvings and decorations, angels and lions and mythic things, and I wonder how I missed them every time. I wonder if topography changes according to the person walking about in it, like in the theatre, especially in ballet, with scenery shifting in the blink of an eye almost, I love that, how you are in a whole new place suddenly, according to good swans or bad swans. When the nice swans are out, the scenery is pretty cheery. When the bad swans dance in, quick sticks there are big waves and stormy lighting and the music is noisy and makes my heart pound. In my opinion, they go a bit overboard in ballet, as if they cannot trust the audience to tell the difference between good and bad behaviour in a swan, which is why they dress them in two colours for extra emphasis, and the two colours, of course, are black (bad) and white (good). Heavens to Betsy. If one swan with stary eyes is casting evil spells and committing felonies right there in the spotlights, a person will not require all those big hints in scenery and costume to be sure that swan is on the wrong track and in sore need of reform. Never mind.
I look up, I look down, I hold her hand. We walk, my Clarks Commandos just breezing alongside Mum’s fine and marvellous shoes. I do not know many people yet, but I do not expect to see finer or more marvellous shoes looking so natural on a human being, as if they were made just for her, one pair with little scales on it like a snake but not scary, and another pair of dusty-pink suede with a fine bow, and all of them long and narrow with heels of various heights and widths and pointy fronts, like sailing boats. We sail along.
Hands. I think if you are an artist and want to go all out for Art, then you have to practise eyes and hands a lot. Eyes need to be seeing things and hands need to look as though they can feel. I take note of eyes in old paintings on gallery outings and most of them have a zombie look, which is quite disturbing, so I cannot concentrate on the rest of the painting. Statue eyes are the worst. All the details are nicely carved out, the lids and eyeball separate and everything, with sometimes even a tiny bump where the pupil and iris go, but it is still plain naked white stone, and worse than a blind person staring at you and making you feel terrible for having vision and not being able to help the blind person in the vision department. In the Tintin