Beverley's Birthday.

Norman wakes up before me and tells me he needs to use the garden, so I stretch and yawn, reach for my glasses and see that it is already seven thirty. When I open the garden room doors it is onto a fair, bright day, high cloud obscures the sun but it is mild and quite pleasant out. After breakfast I phone Felicity to see if she is going to the Poppy Seed, but she says she doesn't feel up to it and that her son Stuart is coming to varnish her doors later. Stuart lives in Lancashire and I suspect the painting is a pretext, which allows him to keep an eye on his mum, while Melissa, her daughter, recovers from an operation on her foot. After a shower, I decide to dress and take Normy to market anyway, as he loves the fuss and attention he gets from everyone on a Saturday. I park down Norwood, having forgotten to turn off earlier and park near the railway crossing near Tesco's, which has no time limit, unlike here, where I am limited to two hours. As we walk past the Girls High School, I notice a missed call from Beverley's brother, my cousin Steven, enquiring if I will be bringing anyone to the birthday party. He leaves a voice mail explaining this in his soft east Essex burr, he left Yorkshire when he was ten, when Uncle Benny got a job in Braintree and remained down there, as he was apprenticed as a draughtsman, when they returned north some seven years later. I text back that I will be coming alone, presuming he will have enough on his plate helping to prepare the party. It is packed in town for market day and we wander round to the Poppy Seed anyway, to see if Hanne, Barbara or any of the others has shown up, but no, our table by the window is empty. They are all grandmothers and great grandmothers, and this being half term, probably tied up with familial duties. Normy and I walk through town towards Wednesday Market, a little square in front of Boyes' department store. There are various cafes, restaurants and the Queen's Head pub, all of which have tables and chairs outside, where people sit and chat in the spring sunshine, that is starting to break through the clouds. There are also about a half dozen market stalls, selling vegetables, flowers and clothes. I stick my head into Peck's delicatessen, in order to enquire if they have any buttermilk, rather than carrying Norman inside, but no they don't. I have found a recipe for schwarzbrot in my German recipe book and intend to try to reproduce it, the buttermilk is an essential ingredient and the only thing I don't already have. We return to the car via Butcher Row and Toll Gavel, before stopping to buy a light rye bread, from the Ukrainian bakery stall. All the fruit and vegetable stalls have fresh asparagus, but it is weedy and green, not at all like the strapping, phallic giants we enjoyed on the continent. On the off chance, I pop into Tesco's as we pass, tying Norman to the railings outside and enquire of an assistant if they stock buttermilk? They do, and a moment later I , emerge with my purchase, collect Normy and walk back to the car down Norwood. Once home, I make a pot of tea and a cheese and salami sandwich, with sliced tomatoes, on my new rye bread. The Ukranian bread is a light rye and not nearly so heavy and butch as its Germanic counterpart, so after lunch In the garden, I return indoors to the kitchen and assemble all the ingredients for my schwarzbrot. The recipe book, written by an American, but of German descent, recommends a food processor using a dough hook, which I don't have, but I am experienced at making bread and used to working dough anyway, so proceed by hand and feel. I adjust the ingredients by half as I don't really need a kilo of bread and more or less follow the instructions to the letter, until she tells me to form the dough into a ball, cover it with a moist cloth and leave it to rise. The dough seems far to wet to me and is still sticking to my hands and the bowl, rather than coming away clean, as it should for any other bread I have made successfully. So I overrule the recipe book and add more white flour to the rye and whole meal, in order to get the right feel, adding it almost a pinch at a time, until the dough feels springy and light. Satisfied now, I cover it and then return to the garden to read some more of Geza Vermes, while it rises. I check after half an hour, but it has not yet increased in size by half, so I cover it over again and return to my book. Eventually, around four, I decide it has risen all that it is going to and although it feels dense, pop it in the oven, where it may yet rise more, before the heat kills off the yeast. After the prescribed forty minutes in a moderate oven, it still feels uncooked, so I give it a further ten, after which the crust looks right and sounds almost right, having formed a firm hollow barrier, when I tap it. I set the bread to cool and realise that I have only an hour left in which to give Norman his dinner, walk him round the village and change before driving to Scarborough. I accomplish this on time, write Beverley's card and pack her blue necklace into its presentation bag and leave the Garden Room door open, in case I am late back and Normy needs the loo. Before I leave, I check my schwarzbrot, going off piste with the recipe hasn't been a resounding success, my loaf is as dense and heavy as a cannonball, the Austrian artillery could have used it to breach Napoleon's Barricade at the Franzosenschanze, near St Gilgen. The drive to Scarborough is accomplished without problem, as I am travelling in the opposite direction to the returning seaside traffic and I park in the Crescent, not far from Florio's Italian Restaurant, where the party is being held and arrive there, like the good soldier that I used to be, five minutes before parade time. Inside the noise is deafening, the place is jam packed with diners, but I find Aunty Dorothy and Steven's wife sat in the bar area and join them. Within a few minutes we are taken to our table, which is in a cellar room, by the far wall, passing at least four other birthday party groups en route. I take a seat next to Aunty Dorothy, who I last saw in Saint James' hospital in Leeds about six weeks ago, having had a secondary tumour removed from her kidney. She tells me she has made a good recovery and quips that much of her body is dispersed around the country, her tonsils in Dewsbury in West Yorkshire, her womb in Chipping Norton, half her bowel in Hull, a bit off lung in Scarborough and now a chunk of kidney in Leeds. Declining the offer of beer or wine from Liam, Beverley's son who lives in Tunbridge Wells and is paying for the shindig. Dorothy, whispers in my ear, barely audible above the celebratory racket, that alcohol plays havoc with her stoma bag. She is eighty three, and a superb example of her generation, indomitable in the face of difficulty, and always, but always, cheerful and positive. Beverley arrives with her husband Trevor, wearing a blue dress that almost exactly matches the lapis lazuli necklace I have brought for her, and expresses delight when she opens her card and present. Like most of the Oldroyds, she is slim, and fair with lovely blue eyes. The last time I saw her sons, was at Sarah's wedding, twenty one years ago, Kevin fell in love with her on the spot and wanted to marry her himself. He was sixteen at the time and more than a little drunk, later that evening he also fell in love with Bertand's sister, Emanuelle, and eventually put his seal of approval on the festivities by being sick. No good wedding ever passes without someone throwing up, or usually throwing a punch! Kevin has lived in the USA for the past ten years and has flown in from Connecticut, where he lives, for his mum's birthday. We laugh about Sarah's wedding and he tells me he will have to leave before ten to catch the train to London for his flight the next day. Opposite me is Michael, who I have never met, the son of my cousin Michael, Beverley's oldest brother, who died at the age of forty, over twenty five years ago. He has a pony tail and a baseball cap and looks not unlike Bob Dylan, when Dylan was in his forties. His mother, Cheryl, had an American dad from Arkansaw and he tells me she is now living in a sort of hippy retirement on the Isle of Skye, growing organic vegetables for market and selling artworks. It is difficult to talk above the din, Beverley's other son, whose name escapes me, is the only one that is married and is sat to my right, he lives in Whitley Bay and has two children, the youngest, is only four and looks like a frail angel, she has adopted uncle Kevin and spends most of the evening sat on his knee. The service is fairly slow, but the food freshly cooked and quite acceptable. I choose a spaghetti marinara, which is made with local seafood and limit myself to two bottles of Peroni through the course of the evening, no one else seeming inclined towards white wine. The meal passes in a buzz of noise, frequently punctuated, by the strains of "Happy Birthday To You", and the passing of a birthday cake. Steven tells me that his brother, Mark, is due to bring a cake at nine, but not to hold my breath, as Mark has issues with alcohol dependency. And reliably unreliable as ever, he fails to show. A tiny Italian waitress appears to take our order for desserts, just as Kevin prepares to say goodbye to his Mum and Dad, before setting off back to America. I place an order for a lemon sorbet and the waitress asks me what is happening. I tell her that Kevin lives in America and is just saying goodbye to his Mum and Dad. He emerges from a hug, his brown eyes awash with tears, and the little waitress, who looks like a pigmy version of Mairisa Tomei, breaks down and has to be given a hug by my cousin Steven, before she recovers and then runs off to fetch our puddings. The party is moving on to the casino, after dinner but Aunty Dorothy has had enough, and is going to go home.  She lives just a short walk from the restaurant and all of Steven's extended family have been camping in her house for the last week. It is now half past ten and it will be almost midnight by the time I get home to Norman, so I also call it a night, saying goodbye to everyone and then making my way back to the car. When I arrive home in Tickton, Normy has already moved into the bedroom, the draught from the open door driving him to seek warmth. I let him out into the garden, move his basket into the bedroom and then turn in, just after twelve o'clock.