The Trouble with Polly Brown (16 page)

“James, we will never, ever forget Thomas—no, not even for one minute will he be out of our prayers. I promise you, hand on heart, that we will be reunited with him, and that wonderful day will be filled with great joy. This I promise,” she stated with great authority, mingled with immense tenderness.

As she talked on, Polly suddenly witnessed the first signs of hope in James, for she saw a lone tear race unchecked down his left cheek before pausing to momentarily dangle beneath his chin. She quickly moved forward, and with her hand she gently wiped it away.

“Look, James, maybe we can talk again later this evening if by some unforeseen miracle I can get through my chores early,” she tenderly whispered in his ear.

James once more buried his head in his hands, but eventually he reached out just enough to place a hand on hers as if to say that even though he was furious with her, he was still touched that she had made the effort to sit down with him and at least try to explain herself. True, it had not changed much, but even so, it had momentarily formed a bridge between them. Polly gave his hand another friendly squeeze and then stood up to leave.

“Look, as usual I'm very late starting my chores, James, and if I don't hurry up and start the tea soon, I will be in even deeper trouble.” James looked up and nodded, and as he did Polly could have sworn she saw even more tears welling up in his eyes. “See you later,” she said, giving him a long and lingering smile before heading off toward the kitchen to begin the evening duties.

As she walked, she thought about the tasks at hand. “Right, I've got to clean the bathrooms, wash the kitchen floor, cook tea, followed by a mountain of ironing, and then before I go to bed I must polish the shoes all by myself as surprise, surprise Cecilia is off sick again! Oh, great! Nothing new, but just as I suspected, there will be no time to catch up on my homework, which is now beginning to seriously mount up.”

Polly was still deciding the best order in which to tackle the mountain of tasks when Miss Scrimp perkily marched through the open kitchen door and sidled right up her. She gave Polly a quick elbow in the ribs and then turned to face her, eyeball to eyeball.

“Polly, as you can see, I have once more been left in charge, and even though I have only been in this new post a number of months, I fully intend to stay and make my mark. So, understand me when I categorically state that there will be no slacking whatsoever,” she loudly and curtly muttered.

“Yes, Miss Scrimp,” Polly wearily muttered.

Suddenly one of the boys entered the kitchen and informed Miss Scrimp that there was a tramp at the door asking for a cup of tea and something to eat. “He also asked to see Polly,” the boy breathlessly stated.

“Sorry, Polly. You know the rules as well as I do. Uncle Boritz has clearly specified that you are no longer allowed any form of communication with the transients and vagrants who ring the doorbell, and this means you are forbidden from taking mugs of tea or any food out to them. With that said, you can make the tea and cheese sandwich, but then I will have to order one of the other children to take it out. Have I made myself clear?”

“Perfectly, Miss Scrimp.”

“Good, because may I remind you that it will be my neck on the chopping block if they discover otherwise!”

“Yes, Miss Scrimp. I will not disobey your orders.”

“Oh good, and please don't think that while the cat's away, the mice can be allowed to play, for I assure you I will be standing over you to make sure that every task is done to dear Mildred's highest standards. So chop, chop! There's no time left for loitering. After putting the kettle on, you will need to head over to the sink, for there are a large number of potatoes in the sink that require peeling,” the old battle-ax snorted as once more she sunk one of her razor-sharp elbows directly into Polly's arm. “When you're on ROPE, don't expect life to be a bundle of fun. Oh, and before you start on the potatoes, this large tin of jam needs the furry green-and-gray mold scraped off the surface. Just get as much off the top as you can, and then stir in the rest,” she brusquely ordered.

“Oh, please, Miss Scrimp. As my guardians are away, can't you just turn a blind eye and allow me to throw it away? It looks really disgusting.”

“Girl, stop your insolence now, and just do as I say, for if I say scrape, then that's what you'll do. We're here to save money, not throw it away. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Miss Scrimp.”

“Well, then repeat after me: ‘It's my duty to be thrifty at all times; therefore, I will always seek to save whatever can be saved.'”

“Yes, Miss Scrimp.”

“It's called being cost effective, I'll have you know.”

Polly grimaced as she considered what she was being asked to do.

“Well, what are you waiting for, child? Or do you need reminding that mold is, in fact, very good for you. Rest assured it's considered by many to be good, wholesome bacteria that will serve nicely to protect you from all sorts of detestable illnesses. Joseph Lister was, after all…”

Polly gave a resigned smile as she glumly thought how odd it was that everybody she knew had such blind faith in Uncle Boritz and his profound words of wisdom that they all happily recited them verbatim at every opportune moment. Yes, if Uncle Boritz stated with much authority that eating serious amounts of gray fungi and festering mold was not only good for you but could actually save your life as it medicinally acted to ward off all horrid, ghastly germs, well then, it was the best thing for you, end of story. And so Polly grew to understand that his word on every imaginable subject was not only supreme but actually precedent and therefore not open to reason, unable to be changed, tampered with, or violated in any shape or form, unless, of course, you desired to challenge his supreme lordship and thereby land up on trial in one of his man-made court-martials.

Polly made tea and sandwiches, and then she went on to successfully scrape off what she deemed to be a reasonably decent amount of gray mold from the surface area of the jam. She then dutifully went to a drawer in search of a wooden spoon to do as she had been ordered, and this was to stir the residual spunky-looking mold into the rest of the jam. Miss Scrimp stood watching on, her severely wrinkled and withered arms folded as her never-blinking, cold, beady eyes bore into the nape of Polly's neck. Polly imagined her mind was in constant overdrive as she continued to scheme all sorts of extra mealy-minded ways to make Polly work harder and thus more efficiently.

Miss Scrimp was a waspish sort of woman with grayish, paper-thin skin and severely slit eyes, which truly resembled the narrow windows of some bygone fortress tower. And, I might add, when this fearsome woman was on the war path, it would be no lie to suggest that many a fiery arrow seemed to shoot from them. Her misshapen beak was long and narrow, as were her yellowing, razor-sharp teeth, which appeared as though with one bite they could easily crunch straight through to the bone of her unsuspecting victim like a hungry-bellied barracuda. The remainder of her slight torso appeared like a cardboard cut-out, for it was minus even an ounce of unwanted flesh, and the bones of her rib cage were so clearly visible that they could easily be counted, and often were by the children as she stood, hand on hip, officiously screaming out her orders.

She had thinning, wiry hair scraped into a very formidable-looking bun and equally thin and permanently pursed lips that no longer bore testimony to a mustache, as quite recently Aunt Mildred had seen it as her duty to introduce the woman to the art of clinical waxing. However, any further feminist acts were to be considered an absolute no-no. She wore sensible, flat shoes all the time and equally sensible long-hemmed skirts that did a painfully poor job in hiding her excessively saggy knees.

But this hauntingly fragile image was one of pure deceit, for not only did this woman have the masculine hands of a carpenter—large, rough, and extensively cracked—but her record for accurately hitting her target, mainly that of a child's ear as he or she passed by, was, to say the least, impeccable! Perhaps much of this precision had been honed when as a young adult she had been something of a champion log thrower. At least, this was among much of the salacious gossip that was now regularly being bandied around the castle.

In the weeks and months since this woman had taken up the appointment, she had more than delighted the Scumberrys with her absolute professionalism. “I have the ideals of Hitler and the barbaric determination of Mussolini,” she would bark at the terrified children if they dared to sass her. Of course, most of the children had little to no idea as to quite whom she was referring to, as they were not the least familiar with Hitler or Mussolini. All the same, they could not fail to get a very clear picture of where she was coming from.

Her excuse for having such unsightly, blemished hands was the long length of time they were subjected to chemically based detergents as she scrubbed away from dawn to dusk in the washroom. Sadly, this sanctimonious woman's tongue was also believed to have been accidentally dipped in a large bowl of caustic soda, for every word that spewed forth from her lips carried with it the harshest and meanest criticism and judgments. They never failed to chill each and every child down to the very marrow of his or her bones.

As if all this wasn't enough, she had also been blessed with obscenely large feet, and many a child's trouser pant bore testimony to her specialist skills as they raced down the corridors trying very hard to stay well out of reach of her boot.

Polly noted that there was not a single item of jewelry adorning her heavily lined turkey neck, for such self-indulgence was deemed absolutely unnecessary. Neither was there the faintest whiff of anything womanly or sweet-smelling, as this might cause a certain amount of confusion to the few hand-picked visitors who were occasionally allowed past the main gate of the castle. Yes, visitors who might mistakenly presume that on the quiet she had a man in her life might otherwise just as incorrectly assume that she led a life of pure wanton excess. Therefore, the one and only odor that emanated from her many skin follicles to follow this painfully practical woman around the castle was the all-too-familiar smell that came from the excessive use of carbolic soap. Indeed, Polly conceded that there was not a frivolous bone to be found anywhere in this woman's odious body, and that was official!

Having found a suitably sharp knife in the drawer, Polly headed over toward the sink, which was filled with the potatoes that required her immediate attention. She carefully removed her precious ring from her finger and gently placed it down on the drainer for safety before picking up a knife to start peeling.

Polly found it hard to complete her tasks with Miss Scrimp, otherwise known to all as “Dragon's Breath,” presiding over her like a fixated hawk anxious to swoop down on its prey. She could almost feel the woman's hot and foul-smelling breath on the nape of her neck, as well as the strong, stale whiff from sweaty armpits mixed with carbolic soap as she stood over Polly as she attempted to mop the floors before going on to polish a whole household of shoes.

“Go easy on the shoe polish, Polly. Do not use frivolous amounts. Remember, we're here to save when and wherever we can.”

Finally, old Dragon's Breath left the room to check that the younger children were doing as they had been ordered and so were getting ready for bed.

As Polly continued on with her kitchen chores, she had one little pleasure that truly helped to keep her going, and this was when she was given the opportunity of listening to the radio, which sat on a high shelf, well out of reach of all the children. Polly loved listening in so much that it took much of the hardship out of the tasks as she sang along to all the new hits that made their way into the charts. It could be said that she knew the words to every hit song, and if she didn't, then she would not rest until she learned the words by heart.

That night she was really enjoying herself as she sang along to hit record after hit record while peeling an insurmountably large basinful of potatoes. The humorous disc jockeys always interspersed the music with personal witty stories, as well as many touching letters from listeners writing in to the show and other frivolous chitchat that never failed to make her tedious jobs feel lighter and more bearable. This night, like every other Friday night, disc jockey Tony Tictac had promised his best ever show.

“We even have a rare interview with Superstar Freddie Fruitless coming up in just five minutes, and we will be inviting you, the listeners, to phone in and express your feelings concerning his latest, very controversial single,” the DJ excitedly told his audience of listeners. “I promise all of you out there listening in on my show that this is one interview you will surely not want to miss, because Freddie has agreed to come on the show to discuss his choice of lyrics on his latest released single, as well as his last album, which is causing quite a storm nationwide. So, mums and dads, you've just got time to put the kids to bed or pop the kettle on and make a quick cuppa while we play his latest single, ‘Why Does Bad Feel So Good?' followed up by his last number one, ‘I'm Real Wicked to the Core.'”

Polly's ears pricked up when she heard Freddie's name mentioned, and immediately her thoughts went back to their last awful meeting, when not only had he refused to help her and her seriously ill friend Toby, but he had taken things further by forcing her to kneel on the ground and beg forgiveness before pushing her face down into a muddy pool.

As those sad memories came flooding back, she had the distinct feeling that nothing much had changed in Freddie's notably narcissistic life. However, Polly felt compelled by a morbid fascination to listen in on the interview, which the DJ said would be taking place in just over five minutes. Polly had finished all the kitchen chores and knew the only way she would get to listen in on the interview was if she borrowed the radio while she was doing her shoe-cleaning chores. Having climbed onto a chair, she was able to grab hold of the radio and sneak it into the cold room, where normally with Cecilia's help she nightly polished all the shoes.