Before and After (20 page)

“Oh
no, we’ve tried everything. Besides, we dislike the hot weather very much indeed.” Sylvia said with a horrid finality.

I
mentally pulled my hair and gnashed my choppers. If only the damn notes hadn’t gone flying from the window, I would have
known
all of this. District nurses old men’s toenails and bishops. And
gristle
.

The telephone ringing interrupted my thoughts and Sylvia looked around crossly for Maria to answer it. As Maria didn’t instantly pop out of her room, the phone continued to shrill its double tone noise into the room. It didn’t occur to me to answer it as I believe picking up another’s phone to be very rude indeed, and it certainly didn’t occur to Sylvia, who sat mutely beside me, glaring around the room as if by narrowing her eyes she could make Maria appear. Soon enough the ringing stopped and the answer machine took over.

“But
where is Maria?” I asked, suspecting, but not knowing that she had done a moonlight flit.

“Not
in her room, not in the garden, not at the shops. I have simply no idea,” Sylvia said with a distracted, defeated air. (Really, staff were impossible these days.)

“I’m
sure that if she has gone she will have left a semi literate note lurking somewhere around the house, have you seen one?” I asked.

“No,
do you think we should look?”

I
found the crumpled bit of paper on the wrecked floorboards by the front door within a minute and handed it to Sylvia.

“Oh
dear.
What
a bother. What gets into these women? Do you think she’s OK? I mean, should I call the police or something?”

Sylvia
bravely said, steeling herself as if for a blow to the head. Such fortitude displayed by her over such a domestic disaster would surely require her retiring to her bed for a few hours at the very least.

Rule Number Twenty

“
Home
Comforts
:
the
comfort
must
fit
the
home
.
There
is
no
point
serving
yourself
kedgeree
on
a
council
estate
.
Equally
,
turkey
twizzlers
will
get
short
shrift
in
a
country
seat
.
Therefore
ensure
a
match
is
made
.
Only
provide
for
oneself
–
any
other
form
of
comfort
food
is
known
as
cooking
and
not
acceptable
.”

That Saturday evening, which should have been a familial, cosy sort of time of the day, ripe for rare-steak sandwiches garnished perhaps with peppery watercress followed by a gentle and undemanding sort of film –
Bringing
up
Baby
, perhaps? - was without question the nadir of my allotted time with the Ambles. The house was in disarray, Archie was too. His head hurt more than his liver, which in turn hurt more than his kidneys. Even his teeth hurt, which was inexplicable to him (although not to the more horribly advanced self-medicaters amongst you who will know that the severe tooth grinding of cocaine produces a raw, shrill ache in the molars.)

Sylvia
had retired to her bed armed with an interior design book, for which I don’t blame her for one second as there was simply nowhere warm and comfortable to sit in the house at all. Indeed, to my joy and surprise it now seemed quite normal for the entire family to hunch round the kitchen table, fighting with tense elbows for some sort of personal space. They were all starting to become accustomed to jostling with one another, living cheek by jowl, as they had never done in the past. Bella was in bed too. The agony of sitting on a suppurating tattoo without wincing was too much for her, and the horizontal position was demanded. She had trailed behind her mother up the treacherous stairs carrying a plate of toasted teacakes heavily spread with butter and Maria’s cherry jam, muttering that she was going to spend the evening with Don Juan.

Maria,
as we now knew was AWOL, so it was only me that Archie found on that cold Saturday evening in his kitchen. Marmaduke was guarding my feet under the table whilst I peeled a rosy cheeked apple with a sharp knife, letting the peel form a perfect spiral as I did so.

I
greeted him as pleasantly as I could, noting the dishevelled hair, the bloodshot eyes and the furrowed, bewildered look of a man who craves sleep, and has had not a wink. He was wearing dark blue, and red-striped pyjamas and a plaid dressing gown that had fresh toothpaste stains scattered on the lapels, like the very messy buttonhole of a guest at a country wedding.

He
slumped down opposite me and stared around him, as if unfamiliar with his surroundings. Indeed, he could well have been unfamiliar with them, never spent an inordinate amount of time in this particular room. I glanced sympathetically at him as he groaned softly to himself, massaging his temples with shaky hands.

“I
expect you’re hungry,” I said at last, knowing full well that his body was begging for the dubious benefits of what I believe is called a Full English Breakfast, or, as a café I saw in Soho advertised it so charmingly – a Gutbuster. Eggsbaconsausagesbeansmushroomsblackpuddingtomatosand aslice. A slice of what I simply don’t know. I assume that it meant a slice of fried bread. It is extraordinary isn’t it, what the body craves? If there were some logic to it, we might all be right in thinking that the body knows what it’s doing and is sending us messages of the right sort. Like pregnant women craving coal or something equally revolting and nutritionally unsound which then turns out to be just the sort of minerals that’s needed. But in my experience the craving for carbs (fried at that) is simply the pathetic attempt of the body to regain some sort of control over the idiocies of the host in charge. Archie would be much better off with a piece of fruit and some water – but that was
not
what was being called for.

A
loaded plate of cooked breakfast danced tantalisingly in Archie’s mind. So real was the image for a moment that he even groped wildly at the air in front of him for the bottle of HP sauce that he felt sure, if there was any justice in the world, would be there. He began to smell the bacon, and opened his eyes to the stark reality: the aromatic remains of my rapidly browning apple peel. His heart sank. He looked pleadingly at me, as I crunched the last quarter if my apple between my teeth.

“Where’s
Maria?” Archie croaked, his throat sounding like sandpaper.

“Gone,”
I said neutrally.

“Where?
To the shops?” Archie asked hopefully his mouth watering at the prospect of a loaded shopping basket brimming with the ingredients of a gut buster.

“No,
gone as in gone away. Left.
Skedaddled
.”

“Oh.”

He sunk his head in his hands and sighed. Life really couldn’t get any worse.

I
stood up and pushed my chair away from the table. I decided that he would have to ask me, nicely, before I did anything for him, and even then I wasn’t sure that I would comply.

Archie
cleared his throat in a heroic prelude to the favour he had to ask.

“I
say, Flora, you couldn’t, no, no, of course you couldn’t, too much. Sorry.”

“What?”

“Nothing. Well, the thing is, I don’t feel too clever-“

I
turned away from him to hide my smile. Really, English school boys and their euphemisms. I fleetingly wondered what Archie called having sex?
Doing
the
naughties
,
getting
a
leg
over
, perhaps? Revolting.

“-
and I was possibly wondering if you could perhaps make me some breakfast and then be kind enough to talk to me about last night. All a bit hazy somehow, yet crystal clear at the same time. Damned odd. But would welcome your input. Wise to call Sir George, d’you think? Or best not? You’ll know. You always seem to know what’s what.”

This
was more like it. A surge of hope filled my mind and I willingly wielded a frying pan.

“Certainly
Archie. One or two eggs? Or two or three? And how do you feel about your bacon? I like it crisp enough to shatter, myself. Tea or coffee? And I don’t think that it would be beyond the realms of the gluttonous to introduce a sausage or two, do you?”

Archie
groaned greedily and slumped forwards onto the table, cradling his poor head in his hands again.

As
I busied myself cooking this most uncomplicated and quintessentially English repast, I pondered the fate of Archie.

It
was in my hands. How merciful was I feeling? I turned the bacon and pressed it flat to the hot pan with a palette knife, feeling it sizzle. Perhaps I could persuade them to go away anyway, if not to the ambiguous charms of Thailand then maybe to the distinctly clammy shores of Lake Windermere? Or would Archie benefit from a dose of hard reality by staying in the blitzed house and dealing with his daughter? I prodded the bursting sausages delicately with the tip of my knife, nudging them around in the frying pan to colour evenly. Sausages
have
to be slightly burnt. I think that there should be a law passed to that effect. I cracked the eggs into the pan and turned the heat down so that they gently turned opaque. The toaster popped and I slid the toast onto a plate and slathered them with butter. I then poured hot water over strong coffee and stirred in copious amounts of sugar and cream before handing it to Archie. I even went against all my aesthetic principals by making it in his favourite mug – a revolting specimen of fired clay of a particularly nasty custard yellow hue – and it had slogans scrawled all over it, too. Something about
Is
yours
Doric
or
Ionic
? As I placed the plate of food in front of Archie, I heard his fervently muttered thanks, and he shakily took up a knife and fork. My work done, I allowed myself a slice of dry toast, and a cup of green tea enlivened with a slug of the plum brandy that I’d noticed lurking at the back of the cupboard. No doubt Maria’s.

I
watched Archie for a while as he slowly and greedily ate his way past the pain barrier.

As
he was gratefully wiping a slice of bread around the remains of egg yolk and HP sauce that smeared his plate, he lifted his eyes to me with the look of a man whose life had been recently saved.

“Think
nothing of it, Archie,” I said forestalling the embarrassing flow of gratitude that would come pouring from his mouth if I gave him but half a chance.

“Now
then,” I continued, knowing that the bossy head-prefect voice was perfect for Archie when he was feeling this vulnerable, “On to more pressing matters. I really think, Archie dear, that we’d better cut our losses with Sir George, don’t you? And really, after last night I think we have very little option, but no matter. Onwards and upwards. How do you feel about thatched cottages?”

Archie
looked blankly at me.

“What?”

“Thatched cottages,” I repeated as if to a backward child.

“Umm,
I don’t know. I suppose they’re OK,” Archie said, as if unwilling to commit himself to a binding verbal contract.

“Well,
that’s a relief. At least you don’t actively hate them. There’s an awful lot of thatching in Cumbria.”

“Yes,
I believe so too,” Archie said politely.

There
was a comfortable enough silence between us as Archie’s abused digestive system made ominous rumbles.

He
cleared his throat again, but I pre-empted him.

“I’d
cut along to bed again Archie, if I were you. Leave Sir George and your letter of resignation to me –“

“
Resignation
?”

“Oh,
I think so. Far the best thing. You were never really happy there, were you?”

“Umm,
well no, but –“

“No
buts. Off you go. Take a sleeping pill and you’ll feel as right as rain in the morning. Oh, and don’t disturb Sylvia, there’s a good chap.” I put my head on one side and gave a smile of dismissal.

Archie
was reminded of being hauled in front of a starchy matron at prep school, and really, if I’d had a teddy bear I swear I would have placed it in his arms as he left the kitchen.

I
surveyed the remains of the greasy cooking detritus and gave a small
moue
of distaste. Lucky for Bella that there would be a little job for her first thing in the morning I decided, as I too left the room a moment later, clicking the light off behind me. I called Marmaduke to me, and fastened his lead to his collar.

“A
night time stroll in the park, I think, don’t you boy? “ I whispered in his ears as I caressed his loyal and trusting face. Marmaduke wagged his tail as an answer. I wound a black cashmere scarf around my head and pulled on my elbow-length kid gloves. It was cold enough inside the house but no doubt freezing outside.

I
was right.

The
air was frosty and the night clear and bright with silver moonlight. I quickened my pace and soon felt the rush of blood warming my body as we stepped smartly down the road and so through to the park. It was silent outside, apart from the gentle roar of discreet traffic coming from beyond the park. I slipped Marmaduke off his lead and watched as he joyfully bounded away from me in a delight of freedom. He was soon lost to the night, the golden shape of him becoming blurred against the darkness.

The
darkness suits me in more ways than one. Have you noticed how some people are naturally drawn to sunlight and convince themselves that they are suffering from SAD? Then, when November comes inexorably around they start whining on about dark days and having to put the lights on at three in the afternoon? Ridiculous. Go and live on the equator and stop bothering the rest of us, that’s my advice. Then there are those people who simply adore the harsh light of mornings – up with the lark and all that hearty palaver. Equally as annoying. No, all my best ideas come to me in the dark. I love it. The shadows provide shelter and inspiration to creatures like myself. The sun is far too harsh, it bares all in front of it leaving no secrets, nothing to interpret.