The Party

I wore the yellow party dress, because my sister Jennifer wasn't going to this party.
The dress had been given to Jennifer by our step-grandmother, when she had once taken her to high tea at the Grand Hotel.  It was much more beautiful than my own party dress, (which was quite plain, blue satin, with hardly any gathers.) The yellow party dress had layers of fine tulle over the skirt, and very full gathers.  It was covered in sequins, with a lovely yellow sash that tied in a bow at the back.  It was like the dress of a princess in my Grimm's Fairy Story book.
My mother bought me new ribbons - yellow, with tiny flowers all over them.
​The party was in a large bungalow in Trentham.  My mother always used to say she wished she lived in a bungalow instead of a semi detached.  We didn't know anybody in Trentham, people with money lived there; but we often used to walk to Trentham Gardens for picnics.  My mother would look at the lovely houses on the way, with their mock Tudor gables and big glassed in porches.  Their gardens trailed prettily over little stone walls next to the pavement, and my mother would nip little pieces off as we walked past.  'It needed pruning anyway,' she'd say, tucking the little green piece into her basket.
On this occasion, we didn't walk; my mother drove me to the party in the car, and left me on the doorstep.
​I didn't know another child there.  I didn't even know who the party girl was.  Perhaps her mother was some distant acquaintance of my mother, and was just trying to get the numbers up.
There were a lot of boys running everywhere. colliding with things, just like in the playground at school.  The girls stood fluffing up the skirts of their party dresses - most of them had layers of tulle like mine.
​We played Musical Chairs.  A tall lady with bright red lipstick arranged the dining room chairs in a row, then sat down to play the piano.    The boys stayed really close to the chairs, which wasn't fair, but the grown ups didn't stop them.  The girls squealed when the music stopped.  I was the first to be out, and I watched the rest of the game wishing I was still in it.
​Then we played Pin the Tail on the Donkey.  When it was my turn, it seemed as if the world dissolved and all the noise retreated behind the dark, soft scarf.  'Can you still see?' said the lady with the lipstick suspiciously, tugging the scarf tighter.  I didn't want to see.  I felt invisible, stepping forwards blindly, guided by strange hands.  I was very sure I knew exactly where to pin the tail, but then I heard the laughter, and the hands pulled off the scarf, and I saw that I had pinned it ludicrously far away, on the donkey's neck.  I stood about again then - there was a lot of standing about, watching. It was all part of having a lovely time.  
​When it was finally time to eat, we were all called together and trooped into the dining room.  We sat at a very large, long table, that was spread with an embroidered cloth, and laid with silver dishes and paper doilies and thick white serviettes.  There were tiny sandwiches with the crusts cut off, and little sausages rolls, and jam tarts, and a Victoria sponge.  The grown ups passed the food around, and everyone was suddenly quiet and remembered their manners.  If you didn't like something, you left it on the side of your plate tidily and didn't complain.
​The birthday cake was a Battenberg cake, that I had only ever had before at the Maypole Café on special occasions.  When we sang Happy Birthday, I wished that it was my birthday, my cake, and my party.  I wished it was my house.  My own life seemed suddenly dull.  What single thing did I have that could compare to this?
​There was one final game before the party finished - Pass the Parcel.  We sat cross legged in a circle, and the lipsticked lady sat at the piano again.  But how could you have a turn at unwrapping the parcel if the boy sitting next to you wouldn't let it go?  And when you finally had it in your hands, the piano continued relentlessly.  I watched the paper being torn off again and again, and still it came round and I still had a chance. Then, to my astonishment, it was in my lap, where the boy next to me had furiously hurled it, and the music had stopped.  I pulled off the paper, and there was no more paper left.  There in my hands was a large box of oranges and lemons - the sugar coated jellies, I should add, but they did not need explanation then.  They were really grown up sweets.  They had a rind, in a slightly firmer jelly and a slightly darker colour, and they tasted - well, how jellies used to taste, utterly delicious, soft, melt in the mouth, sweet and citrusy. and NOT chewy.  This box had a cellophane cover. I could see the sweets arranged in overlapping layers, circles of lemon and orange, dozens and dozens of them.
The children's coats were being fetched, the parents were arriving.  I stood holding my box of oranges and lemons, my dress, the house, and everything else forgotten, disbelieving, lost in the wonder of it.  I'd never had such luck before.  I'd never had a box of sweets like this before.
​I remember nothing of leaving the party.  But there is a clear flash of memory, of sitting in the back of the car, the box of oranges and lemons on my knee.  We are driving home, and I am anxious that this too-good-to-be-true moment will end, that my mother will say, 'Put those away until after dinner,' or 'you'll have to share with Jennifer,' or 'give them to me, they're not suitable for a child.'  But she doesn't say any of these things, and I carefully open the box and wonder whether to have an orange or a lemon first.  I choose an orange, and it's just as delicious as I knew it would be, and then I choose a lemon.
​When we get home, my mother does not take the box off me.  She smiles at me, and says, 'Aren't you a lucky girl?'  Perhaps she is distracted, perhaps she doesn't realise that there are quite so many sweets in the box.  I take it up to my bedroom, and put it in my drawer, and over the next few days, I eat every single one.
​We never went to the bungalow in Trentham again, and if I ever saw the little girl whose party it was again, it made no impression at all.