The Artist's Daughter

She has been excited all day. Before she left for school with her brother, before she had even dressed, it was written across her poetic face. She was having a friend round later, a slightly older girlfriend, another child of an artist, two artists in fact. (And there is an element of artistic pride in her take on friendship.) Anyway, I manage to get back before them. I have bought a guaranteed succulent medium Oakham chicken, some broccoli florets and full flavoured fluffy Maris Piper potatoes, plus some fruit - apples and bananas - from the open-air fruit store. The artist's daughter is beaming when she comes in the door and presents her friend like a trophy. We have met but I go through a kind of ceremonial greeting procedure. (The artist's son, I notice, will have nothing to do with it: he is on his own agenda and swerves past everyone and parks himself with single-minded strategy in the middle of the bright red sofa.) The artist's daughter meanwhile manoeuvres herself into the kitchen, which of course is suddenly hers, and climbs atop one of the two stools - as if her father had never fallen off a stool himself and snapped his arm like a match. But there is good reason for her climbing because parked behind culinary dullards such as flour and bicarbonate of soda are some secreted sweets, strangers to me, which she pulls out with a kind of heroic flourish and presents to her guest. (I cannot knock the inherent generosity, even if I have no idea how they got there.) The artist's son meanwhile watches Sportacus, one of his superheroes, contriving acrobatic loop-the-loops in a wonderfully fictitious, almost confectionery, landscape. At one point during cooking I hear voices and go out into the darkness of the garden to examine. The artist's daughter and her friend are skipping fearlessly in circles while singing a medley of songs in preparation for an upcoming concert. I switch the back light on and they laugh. Inside, the artist's son turns to the artist, also on the bright red sofa now, and tells her that he loves her. I elect to write it all down before the chicken burns.