Party House

I thought that if we held the eighteenth birthday party in a church hall, there would be no need to clean our house.  But friends from a CYFA Christian summer holiday are coming by train and sleeping over.  The prelude to many a party has been the series of phone calls informing us where they are in their journey, including traditionally, a lament over a missed connection which means they will only arrive half way through the party.

The upshot is that the house still has to be respectable, even the bedrooms.  I tell the twins they must help as it is their party.  Or rather, I tell Perran.

“Where is Carenza? She’s not working today is she?”

“Dunno.  She went out.”

Probably she has nipped out to get party shoes.  Two hours later she is still not back and I am building up a cloud of resentment, like a saint’s aura, only black.  My hoovering makes a cross, bumpy sound.    Perran is being “the good twin”, and is dusting the heck out of the bookshelves, appearing every so often with a prize spider in an inverted glass.

Eventually I hear the door and stomp through to the hall.  Carenza is already explaining to her Dad. 

“I was in the supermarket, packing bags for charity –I did tell you.”

We exchange guilty glances: we’d forgotten.  How could we have mistrusted Carenza?

“Is it okay if I go into town now and get some shoes?”

“No!”