Wild, wild horses

“Wild Horses”

Childhood living is easy to do
The things you wanted I bought them for you
Graceless lady you know who I am
You know I can’t let you slide through my hands
Wild horses couldn’t drag me away
Wild, wild horses, couldn’t drag me away
I watched you suffer a dull aching pain
Now you decided to show me the same
No sweeping exits or offstage lines
Could make me feel bitter or treat you unkind
Wild horses couldn’t drag me away
Wild, wild horses, couldn’t drag me away
I know I dreamed you a sin and a lie
I have my freedom but I don’t have much time
Faith has been broken, tears must be cried
Let’s do some living after we die
Wild horses couldn’t drag me away
Wild, wild horses, we’ll ride them some day
Wild horses couldn’t drag me away
Wild, wild horses, we’ll ride them some day

We probably picked the shittest week of the summer to go camping. Pitching up in the rain at Holland’s Wood campsite in the New Forest this half term, I’d turned deaf ears upon Tom’s foreboding weather proclamations, only to have them confirmed by inclement downpours in what turned out to be a three and a half hour journey to get there. Lush and green Hampshire may have been, but under canvas when it’s cold, it is always just a bit miserable.

The kids didn’t seem to notice, preoccupying themselves with den building and tree climbing, “goodminton” matches, as Jonah termed the only racquet sport he’s managed to return a shot in; or toasting marshmallows on disposable barbecue embers – wood fires – it being forest – not being allowed. And really that’s all that matters- despite it being the final week of freedom – or penury – whatever you might call this year’s unemployment following last year’s dismissal- which ceased today on what was probably the hottest day of it so far.

Naturally, it’s hard to keep your chin up entirely when your hoped for plans turn out rather soggier than you’d imagined. But what precipitated this morning’s tearful downpour was not so much the disappointment of a rained on last hurrah, but rather the storm that completed it: a row with my father, at my big sister’s this weekend, who couldn’t understand why it was so triggering to see my ten year old little sister in a padded bra when he’d insisted on taking mine away at 13 – a miserable summer in which I would not take off my jumper for fear I would be laughed at by the overdeveloped girls at school for wearing  a vest. It’s hardly surprising I later took my clothes off for living.

She wears makeup too, and has her ears pierced – the half sister who is the same age as my son. Neither of which I would have been allowed, having been snarled at that I looked like tart from Tovil, when, at 15, I pierced my own – followed swiftly by my navel, nose, tongue and later, clitoris. Nor, probably would I allow my kids, though neither of them has expressed the slightest interest in facial adornment- yet. Perhaps I should. Rebellion works like that – you find your parents’ triggers and pull them. I guess my little sister has nothing to rebel against and so will remain forever the apple of my father’s eye, while I remain a bitter, poisoned hag, or so he makes me feel.

Of course, when I climbed out of my bedroom window at 16 to see my boyfriend, it was me being ‘a monster’ – not just a girl on the cusp of womanhood escaping an enforced childhood which I’d long since outgrown. It’s a lesson of which I guess I should take note. The time for trees and den building will soon grow short. This is the high summer of my children’s childhoods and all too soon I will need to let them go. Which makes this summer, locked up in an office, all the more stifling, for all I have enjoyed them for most of this year.

There aren’t so many summers left, and to pay for someone else to spend it with my children feels like the worse kind of torture. Worse, perhaps than not being allowed to grow up, or to watch your father’s favourite daughter have her every wish granted out of guilt for  what he put me through – or perhaps to rub my nose in it. It’s easier to blame the victim for your own bad behaviour, I always find.

Which is why, yelling at Jonah this morning for not helping me get breakfast ready on my first day of work, I ended up in so many, many tears. The push and pull between wanting them to grow up and not is in an eternal conflict until, suddenly, it’s too late and they never speak to you again. At least, that’s what I decided, at the age of 35, it’s finally come to with my dad. I hope my own kids never feel the same way about me.

But what about the holidays, he said. We always went on nice holidays. I remember them, expensive, painfully awkward, argumentative: all of us jetlagged in some strange timezone and starched get-up. Yes, we had holidays. Unsuitable bragfests of holidays that got me disliked at school, spent in posh hotels filled with old people and china cups and salt water swimming pools, or saccharine, all-you-can-eat affairs replete with two hour tropical queues for roller coasters afterwards. I hope my children appreciate that soggy camping trips, a break from screens and a gentle awareness of their everyday needs is better than all the five star hotels in the world.

And for all I may have got the grumps in the cold – the peevishness of a childhood spoilt by expensive holidays – there were moments of pure delight: from fudge and paddling in icy seaweed waters and ponies standing brazen in rivers. So many ponies. Little, fluffy foals still feeding from their barrel bellied mothers. Because what really got me wasn’t the bra in fact. Or the puppy she’s just been given when I was never allowed a dog. Or the fact I was bundled to my mother’s with my things in a bin liner and not spoken to for a year. It’s that my father can not understand that we might all have been better off with a wet camping trip; and that there’s nothing I can do about it, even on the sunniest day, when the rain starts tumbling down.