Before and After (28 page)

My Dear Woman,

Are
you completely insane? I have never been so astounded in all my life! I eventually hear from you and instead of opening a letter that contains my money – what do I get ? a bill! NINE pages of barely legible scrawl in green ink! Green, I ask you! Let me tell you right now that this will never stand up in a court of law, any court, as I see from your post box address that you are hiding in that most craven of countries – namely Switzerland. Even the secret gnomes of Zurich won’t come to your aid Flora, let me assure you! That money is rightfully mine – and as for this trumped up bill – the whole thing is ridiculous.

£100,000
for ‘
re
-
awakening
my
wife’s
sexuality’

£200,000
for ‘
making
me
aware
of
how
much
I
loathed
my
job
and
Sir
George’

£500
for ‘
making
me
breakfast
when
I
was
still
under
the
influence’

£100,000
for ‘
making
Hal
a
man
instead
of
an
awkward
boy’

£100,000
for ‘
introducing
Bella
to
happiness’

What
?? Incredible!

I
could go on and on but I fear my temper will not allow me to. The whole thing is ludicrous. Ridiculous. And,
illegal
. As for the preposterous idea that you can claim £500,000 for the commission on the sale of the house – well! Common decency prevents me from continuing. With your absurd reckoning I see that the final amount that I am due is £122.95.

I
am speechless with horror.

I
shall expect my money within seven days. The
full
amount. Or you shall be hearing from my lawyers.

Archibald
Amble

Hotel Paradiso

Fariba
Islands

Mexico

Dear Flora,

Archie
is unable to write as he is laid low with a cold (would you believe it possible to have a cold in temperatures like this?) Well, he
says
it’s a cold, but he really is behaving very strangely, but I put that down to being a man, you
know
how they get when they are a little unwell. He’s probably got a slight chill from all that midnight bathing he does! (Not to mention the tequila cocktails!) So he’s sulking in his room with the shutters closed and a jug of iced water – on a lovely day like this, too!

Anyway,
he’s most anxious about some sort of cheque or something and asked me to write – I honestly don’t really know what he’s fussing about as I seem to have
much
more money in my account (I took your advice after all and quite agree with your views about joint accounts!) that we really need.

So
don’t worry about it Flora, I hope you’re having a simply marvellous time, wherever you are. Don’t completely forget us, will you?

Yours
fondly,

Sylvia
Amble.

P.S.
John Taylor and Anthony send their love, we’re having a lobster BBQ tonight – how I wish you were here!

P.P.S.
I do wish you’d write Flora, I never really know if you get these letters, and to that end I shall communicate no more till I hear from you. But please remember you will always be welcome here.

Agenelli’s

Ponte
Vecchio

Fiorenze

Dearest Mrs Tate,

A
million thanks for your order.

We
are happy to be sending you the fine, most marvellous, superb gold and onyx marble of our entire collection. He has no flaws and is most opulent. We think he is from the 17th century and will be most treasured by you.

We
await to see your face in our shop with pleasurable anticipation.

Safe
journeying and happy life.

S,
Angnelli.

If you enjoyed reading
Before and After
you may be interested in
The Cornish Affair
by Laura Lockington also published by Endeavour Press.

Extract from
The Cornish Affair
by Laura Lockington

Chapter One

I think I’d better get the explanation of my name over and done with now. It can lead to false impressions. People do tend to jump to the conclusion that I’m Irish. I freely admit that my name has a Gaelic aroma to it, a whiff of windy beaches and stormy seas, but, it isn’t. I am called Finisterre because I was conceived,
very
unromantically, in my opinion, whilst my parents were listening to the BBC shipping forecast. I also am very fair skinned, prone to freckles in the summer and have unruly curly hair. Chestnut coloured, not auburn, as I insist on saying.

It
would have been cold comfort to both of them had they known that many years later Finisterre had been summarily dismissed and was re-named FitzRoy. I suppose I should just be thankful that I wasn’t christened Doggerbank or Viking.

Most
people call me Fin.

When
I reached an age to discuss sex with my parents, if indeed any of us actually ever
do
reach that stage, and ask them how they knew this, it was too late. They both died in a very untimely car crash whilst motoring through a thick fog on the M5.

It
was too bad. I had a trunkful of unanswered questions. Like, how
exactly
did they know when I was conceived? Was it because they made love so seldom? Or was it such a spectacular climax? My mother had admitted that she felt a ‘ping’ deep inside her, but she was prone to terrible exaggeration and it had crossed her mind that it had in fact been a snapped suspender. Oh, and the big question of course, like, how the hell was I meant to carry on without them?

I
inherited my father’s green eyes, determination, and Penmorah House, perched on the top of a cliff at about the furthest west you can get in England without toppling into the sea. A collection of pre-war silk stockings from my mother who along with an almost theatrical inclination to embroider day to day life had an obsession with vintage underwear. My father’s cellar full of claret (undrinkable) and a simply terrifyingly large debt. Oh, yes, and Nelson, of course.

Luckily,
very
luckily I had climbed out of the hell which is financial chaos and was beginning to reap the rewards of some hard work. There were very few things that I was talented with – but the marrying of flavours was one of, well, my
only
if I’m going to be strictly honest, talents.

I
invent soup. I am England’s leading soupologist.

What
on earth do you mean you’ve never heard of it?

Do
you really think that the carton of Thai spinach and lemongrass soup sitting in your fridge just sort of
evolved
overnight? No. It didn’t. And, I am happy to tell you, there wasn’t a committee of little men in white coats bubbling things up in test tubes in a factory either.

Of
course I didn’t just do soups. What’s your favourite sarnie from the huge chain of shops that we all are meant to buy our knickers from? Well, that was probably one of mine, too. Sauces, pies, pasta dishes, practically anything that you grab from a chill cabinet in your local supermarket is mine.

And
please, I beg you, don’t get me started on junk food. My job or calling if you like, is only tenable here in England or possibly America by the seeming inability of
anyone
to throw together a simple meal. That and the death of markets such as every tiny European town could, and thank the Lord, still does have. Most towns in England now don’t even have a fishmonger, let alone a delicatessen. Oh, I know, I know, if you live in the heart of Soho or are lucky enough to
personally
know a fisherman you might get the goods, but otherwise, at any one time of your life, you’ll be eating one of my concoctions.

It
was all down to me.

Me
and the boys, of course.

I
lifted my head slightly from where I’m sitting and I saw one of them puttering up the lane and into the drive in a disgracefully dilapidated 2CV van, you know, the ones that really do look like a squashed sardine tin on wheels, it has a sticker on the back that proclaimed ‘Windsurfers Do It Standing Up’. This particular boy is Jason Patrick Rasheed Rampersaud, known by all locally as Jace the Onion. He’s passing through the steeply banked, damp, lane that soon will be sprouting purple foxgloves and are studded with wild garlic and vetch. He swung the van round on the gravel to the side of the house, and gave a toot to let me know he’s here.

I
pushed open the kitchen door for him letting in a whoosh of salty air and he swaggered in with a crate of his namesake. He’s a breathtakingly beautiful boy with a skin the colour of a good Colombian roast coffee and a gleaming head of shoulder length blackberry coloured hair. I know it’s blackberry, because he enthusiastically pointed the packet out to me in his shopping basket once when I bumped into him in Boots in Truro. “Because you’re worth it,” I’d said to him.

Today
his hair is tied back with a piece of red nylon that on closer inspection is a coloured pop sock, undoubtedly still warm from one of his many conquests.

He
casually slid the crate of onions onto the table, and leant back, with folded arms.

“
Mornin’ Fin, where’s the little bastard then?”

I
glanced over to Nelson, who is watching morosely from his perch in the corner of the kitchen, his red and green feathers huddled around him like a ruffled fur coat. I’m slightly nervous, because even the name of the dog, can give Nelson the jitters. And no, before you should ask, the dog’s name was in fact Baxter. But Nelson hates him. I thought that it was a fleeting thing, but oh no. I’d had the dog for eighteen months now and they did
not
get on. It was like trying to live with two rival delinquent football supporters.

“
Jace, please don’t call him that. You
know
what Nelson’s like,” I said.

We
both glanced over to him, but Nelson shuffled his feet around for a bit and then tucked his head under his wing.

“Anyway,
Nancy’s taken him for a walk.”

I
went over to the crate and poked the onions. They were pearly white, and individually wrapped in straw.

Jace
lolled over to the kettle and switched it on.

“Thirsty
work, humpin’ onions,” he remarked.

If
I knew Jace, that wasn’t the only thing he’d been humping. But I kept the thought to myself. I made some tea and we chatted for a while about the surf at Newquay, the beach picnic that was planned, and all the usual local gossip, including the thrilling topic of the moment which was a lorry which had overturned on a narrow bridge down in Dunmere that was carrying full consignment of men’s shoes. By the time the lorry driver had climbed out of his cab and hiked to a call box and returned, the lorry was empty. According to Jace every Tom Dick and Harry was to be seen sporting gleaming new footwear, swearing that they had picked them up for a song at Trego Mills.

This
was definitely a county that still had wreckers in the blood.

What
had puzzled the poor lorry driver was that the stretch of road had been deserted, and he couldn’t figure out where the looters had come from.

“But
then, he was from up country,” Jace said dismissively, with a lazy smile.

Up
country could of course mean anything, but just not Cornish. It could even mean from (Lord preserve us) Devon. I smiled and looked down. Sure enough, a very snazzy pair of what looked like Italian loafers were on his feet.

“Oh,
before I forget, mum said she’s got the curry leaves in, and the kaffir lime leaves. She wants to bring ‘em over herself if that’s alright?” Jace slurped through a mouthful of thick brown PG tips.

I
always wanted to give Jace a delicate china tea, or a scented brew to match his complexion, but he insisted on what he called a ‘proper workman’s brew’. So PG tips it was, served in one of Nancy’s thick lumpy home made efforts. I’d tried, over the years to accidentally smash as many mugs of Nancy’s as I could, but this one proved utterly impervious to knocks and bangs.

“What
are ‘em for, then?” Jace enquired, nodding towards the onions.

I
wasn’t really sure yet. I’d been asked to come up with some roasted, stuffed vegetables for a new ‘home café’ range that a leading supermarket wanted to start. They had employed one of the leading TV chefs of the moment for their TV ad campaign, and to my horror he’d actually had some ideas of his own. I like working on my own, and really didn’t want some London trendy sort poking around with my recipes, or God forbid, coming up with his own ideas. That sort of thing had to be firmly nipped in the bud. I’d encountered it before, but had seen them off – they were all usually much too busy anyway, being interviewed for magazines and turning up on their friends TV chat shows enthusing about a new way to cook polenta with sun dried olives.

“
Me mum does ‘em lovely in the oven, with herbs and stuff, you should ask her,” Jace said, wiping his tea moustache away with the back of his hand.

“I
will, thanks.”

Jace
went over to look out of the window that faced the sea. I could tell that he was trying to gauge the rollers, to see if it was worthwhile taking the afternoon off and rolling on his wet suit. He sucked his teeth, and sighed. I joined him at the window and looked out, the sea was the colour of gooseberries, dappled with sunshine and had quite a few white horses. The waves looked quite high to me, but obviously Jace didn’t think so. With a look of regret he went to sit down at the table, and took out a battered tobacco tin.

“Don’t
worry, I’ll roll it in here, but smoke it outside,” he smiled at me, giving me the ritualistic speech.

I
rolled my eyes at him, and pushed an ashtray towards him to catch the stray bits of tobacco and grass that would fall onto my table.

I
found it best never to talk to Jace, or any of the boys about their dope smoking. Their feeble minded rants about the medicinal and or political properties of ‘the weed’ made me lose the will to live. The only thing that I knew for sure was that it made anyone who smoked it very, very boring. It also, for some strange reason, made them slip into a black worm hole of ancient vocabulary. ‘Man’, ‘Crash’, and ‘Dude’, seemed to go hand in hand with it. Very worrying.

“Any
more news than, Jace?” I asked. I loved the gossip that all the boys bought with them, but Jace usually had a certain pithy style to the telling of it, which always had me weak with laughter.

He
narrowed his eyes in consideration. “Well, you know about Breadpuddin’?” he asked.

Indeed
I did. She was a newcomer to the village. Why she had been nicknamed Breadpudding, I really don’t know, but most people had a nick name here, and the roots to most of them were lost over time. She caused a near riot when she had hired a fork lift to remove an ancient standing stone from her front garden. All the locals were so up in arms about it they had got together a petition, and when that hadn’t worked they had simply used their own farm machinery and plonked it right back where it belonged. Then they had all formed a circle at midnight (just after chucking out time at The Ram) and had circled the stone, chanting ‘A curse on all who touch the stone.’ It had sounded great fun, and apparently a good time was had by all, ending up back at The Ram for an official lock in.

“What’s
she done now?” I asked eagerly.

“She’s
only tried it on with Will, that’s what.” Jace sat back to watch my reaction with a look of smug satisfaction on his face.

“What?”
I screeched, obligingly.

“Yep,
proper scared, he was. Came out of her front door lookin’ like a dog’s dinner, all done up in some see through night dress or somethin’ and asked if he would help move her bed. Fair jumped on him. He said he wouldn’t mind that so much, but he’d only gone there to see if he could flog ‘er some dodgy duck eggs!”

I
snorted with laughter. The image was irresistible. Will was a strapping boy, but very shy. He got tongue tied in the presence of any female, God knows what he’d been like in the face of naked lust on Breadpudding. Who, I must tell you, resembled the original hennaed lady, with a simply enormous shelf like bust. Her poor little husband quivered behind her, looking very like one of those husbands depicted on seaside postcards, a tiny pale excuse for a man, permanently living in dread of her awful temper.

“I
do hope Will didn’t oblige,” I said, spluttering with giggles.

“Nah…
although he did wonder, ‘cos of the eggs, see.” Jace said confidentially.

“Yes,
I see.” I said, straightening my face.

It
was easy to forget just how poor some of us are here. Cornwall is deceptive. Everyone associates it with clotted cream, childhood holidays spent on glorious sandy beaches, gingham curtains blowing in the breeze and well kept fishing ports, servicing the wealthy tourists. But it’s really not like that. It’s the poorest county in England. Nearly everyone has two, or even three jobs to try and keep the wolf from the door. The tin mines are gone, and tourism has stayed. Sort of.