Dolls' Packing

Every year my family and I went camping, invariably to Cornwall or Devon. Once we ventured to Norfolk but on discovering ‘nothing but flat wurzel fields’ we drove franticly all night back to Cornwall.

Every year the build up to the holiday began in the same way. Weeks before the intended departure my sister and I would throw ourselves into ‘dolls’ packing’. We would be playing on unturned furniture in the living room pretending to be at sea avoiding danger when suddenly one of us would proffer, ‘Shall we do dolls’ packing’? or ‘Let’s do dolls’ packing’. They say anticipation is the sweetest part of a journey and the prospect of an afternoon sorting through mounds of creamy yellow coloured miniature dresses, skirts, capes and petticoats filled us always with delicious expectancy. There was also the important consideration of finance, when to withdraw the diligently hoarded savings amassed through the year by the purchase of ten pence saving stamps. (Although my sister being a dreadful spendthrift never had any savings to mull over.) And how much was to be withdrawn? Such thorny dilemmas immersed me in a state of thrilling uncertainty. I needed careful planning and my entreaties to my mother over such difficulties provided the first signs of pre-holiday angst.

Invariably at the first mention of the holiday my mother’s mouth would tighten and set into a bitter straight line. She would shrug, flash her eyes angrily and then evade determinedly. From this moment on the tension gained pace and increased. She refused to discuss the holiday and resisted marvelously any temptation to catch on to our childish enthusiasm. Still we would persevere with dolls packing. Sometimes we would discuss our mother’s hostility and my sister, being two years older, proved scathing and sullen, her mouth a trying echo of my mother’s. I longed bewilderingly for concord and sub-consciously searched for the source of, as I saw it, my mother’s misunderstanding and errant behaviour. Two weeks in Cornwall, camping, no school or routine, sweets possibly every day and colouring books. I could not understand her inability to bask in sure-fire joy over our annual holiday.

My father said nothing during this period. Like us he faced it every year but I suppose being an adult he knew it was futile to rail, question or challenge. It was as natural and expected a part of the holiday as the packing of the trailer with the accoutrements of camping.

Two or three days before the departure my mother would declare, ‘I’m not going’ or ‘I’m not going on your stinking holiday.’ My heart would plunge. Coldness clad me and I would steal away up the stairs silently as if by evacuating myself the scene might perhaps right itself and when I returned all would be normal and buzzing with pre-camping felicity. I thought if I clung to the walls of my bedroom I might somehow help her downstairs get to grips with her mistaken view of the holiday; somehow I could telepathically communicate my joy for what was to be and I could right her mind which was so bafflingly errored on this topic. But her words hung powerfully in the house for those days and gradually the prospect of the holiday began to sink and die. We weren’t to go after all; all was hopeless. It was not the absence of the holiday that I minded the most but the perverseness of my mother’s attitude. I just couldn’t understand it and I searched desperately through my own mind looking for the key, the word, the sentence, the missing piece to right her miserable state. I wanted an Enid Blyton family.

The day before the intended departure my sister and I moped disconsolately and fearfully close to my mother communicating clandestine panic. Then, desperately we blatantly beseeched her, ‘Why can’t we go? Why can’t we go?’ Her mouth set harder, twisting with tension and fancied justification, her hands busied furiously at laundry, washing, cooking, tidying, all those bewildering employments which occupied so much of her time. My sister and I traded disdainful and curious glances; a topsy-turvy seesaw of emotions moving back and forth.

Then, just when all hope seemed to be gone, my mother would turn around. ‘Why are you two still here? Better go and draw your money out before the Post Office closes. We’re going on holiday tomorrow’. With these words a signal surged high and bright. The holiday was on! My spirits, long anchored under worry and sadness, now soared like a helium balloon released into the sky and I was weightless with joy and giddy with pleasure. The warmth of life restored to me once again, I fled outside and raced to the parade of shops to cash my reckless one pound fifty. I now felt curiously silly and confused. Why hadn’t I withdrawn my savings earlier? What HAD I been thinking? Relief now quelled me and the customary burden of tension and bewilderment subsided.

The dolls’ packing never made it to the holiday. But it had fulfilled a need, sustaining us with hope and legitimacy throughout the hostile weeks leading up to the camping holiday.