Repeating History

Tags

agapanthus, Bosphorous, Bradford on Avon, Caracas, City of Eternal Spring, dianthus, Dux, emporium, entomology, flying carpet, grandiflora, Istanbul, Iznik tile, Jesse Tree, kelim, National Trust, Panama, Simon Bolivar, Turkish Delight

Great-Aunt Augusta unwrapped the Turkish Delight as she sat

in her velours recliner in the private area of the Recreational

Room of her Care Home.

Now, are you sitting comfortably? she addressed her great-niece,

Drusilla Fotheringay.

The exophoric reference wasn’t entirely lost on Dru, so she nodded

and gave the signal for the old bag to commence on the veritable

Jesse Tree of the family genealogy.

(Jesse Tree Chartres: Wikipaedia)

Now, your great-grandmother-also Augusta-was a bit of a goer, or

a flibbertigibbet, as I told you before.  She bounced around the

Bosphorous with her rug seller for a number of years, before settling

down in Istanbul and establishing a kitten sanctuary, once her partner

had flown off on his flying carpet, to that large emporium in the sky.

Your great-aunt Berenice, my elder sister (God Rest Her Soul!), was a

bit of a gadabout too.  In the genes, clearly.

She used to go to parties almost every weekend, in big, country

houses.

In Turkey?  Dru looked confused.

No.  We had both been sent to boarding schools over here.  She used

to frequent the Wyvern Estate and that was her downfall.  She GOT

INTO TROUBLE.

Difficult in these days, no doubt.  Dru sympathised, as well she

might, given her own personal history.

Not difficult at all.  It happened all too easily. They were pressurising

Berenice to get rid of the ‘problem’.  They offered her a lot of money and

a contact in Knightsbridge.

‘They’?

The family of the alleged father, of course.  Augusta looked at

Dru as if she was somewhat dense.  But I persuaded her to have

it- your father, I mean.

But who was..?

No proof, but someone with an interest in entomology.

Ent..?

Yes, Berenice was a social butterfly and he netted her.  But he couldn’t

pin her down!  None of us could.  She wanted her freedom and so our

mother took the baby for a while, but she felt her own style was being

cramped, so eventually I arranged for your father to start prep school over

here as a full boarder, at St Birinus.

So, Father has spent his whole life at St Birinus?

Except for when he was at University- yes!  He’s completely

institutionalised.

What happened to Berenice?

We don’t know.  She’s one of the disappeared.  The last we heard

of her she was in Caracas, City of Eternal Spring.  El Libertador

was one of her heroes.

El..?

Simon Bolivar.

Ah. Dru’s South American historical knowledge was rather

vague. Who paid Dad’s fees?

The Wyvern Estate and, once my mother passed on, her demise

hastened by an infected feline scratch, I inherited all the antique

kelims and sold them off, as and when, along with some Iznik tiles,

to cover his ‘extras’.

Fascinating.  Did Berenice ever reveal the paternity of her son?

Not exactly, but she did take Gus to the estate very early on,

before she ran off, to meet some gardener or other.

Gardener?!

He lived in a converted stable block at Wyvern Mote.

But that’s National Trust, surely?

Ah, yes, but I suspect that it was grace and favour ‘accommodation’,

in both senses of the word.  He wasn’t much of a horticulturalist; didn’t

know his dianthus from his agapanthus, from all accounts.

Maybe he was a natural son of the old duke?! Dru’s eyes burned with

revelatory fire.

Peut-etre, surmised her great-aunt, who now looked more favourably

at her visitor.  Look, she said, rummaging in a shoe box.  Oh no,

that’s your father aged six months, lying on a sheepskin in his birthday suit.

Dru averted her gaze.

No, here it is!  Augusta produced a faded sepia image of a man remarkably

like Gus.  He was reclining in a striped deckchair, wearing a Panama hat and

he had a glass in his right hand.  There was a large mansion behind him.

So this is possibly my grandfather?  Dru scrutinised the photo. I wonder what

his name was.

Oh, I call him Eamonn Teabag Grandiflora, Aunt Augusta scoffed wickedly.

All these men in Panama hats look the same- ie/ better when they wear

one.  Compare that Kermit MacDulloch who presented a ‘History of

Christianity’ and then the latest posho who is following him around,

probably with the same camera crew.  They visit the same graffiti and

make identical comments. They are all clones!

Grandiflora?

Well, Seaweed Millefiore, or Hymen Montezuma.  Whatever.  Anyway, your

possible ancestor, whom I call Grandiflora, almost certainly spread his seed

around.  Perhaps like the old duke himself.

So perhaps I have links to aristocracy?

Well, Miss Grandiose, I’d let bygones be bygones, if I were you.

But may I ask you one final question?  Dru was conscious that a storm

was predicted and that she had a long journey back to Bradford-on-Avon.

Fire away! replied the elderly one, nibbling on a cube of Turkish delight and

not offering to share any from the box.

What boarding school did you and Berenice attend? Dru asked.

St Vitus’ School for the Academically-Gifted Girl, of course.  But in those days

it was just St Vitus’ for anyone who could pay the fees.  My name is on the

Dux Board over the main stairwell.  Surely you have seen it?

Strange.  ‘Augusta Snodbury’.  Why had she never noticed it? And was there

something in her own genes that constrained her to repeat history?  She

hoped not.

And the way things were going, there may be a future titular amendment

to the establishment at which she earned her crust:  St Vitus’ School might

end up as an Academy for the Academically-Challenged.  Qui sait!

If The Hat Fits

Tags

Augustus Snodbury, avocado bathroom suite, Bradford on Avon, Carmen, Drusilla, Katherine Jenkins, Kathleen Ferrier, Monteverdi, Nigel, Panama, papier mache, Shanks, Sully sur Loire, Toreador song, UVA, UVB

Nigel Milford-Haven sighed as he painted the bathroom ceiling of his mother’s

Cornish bungalow.  He supposed that White With a Hint of Asparagus

complemented her Seventies avocado bath ensemble. Probably retro lovers

would die for a suite like that, but he preferred a clean white Shanks.

Sweat was dripping into his eyes as he used the roller, so he had utilised

the battered Panama which Augustus Snodbury had carelessly left behind

at the seemingly interminable Monteverdi concert he had attended the

previous week.

Nigel intended to produce it with a flourish to the ageing schoolmaster on

their return to St Birinus Middle School at the start of term, but now he had

managed to decorate it with a few paint drips and he wasn’t sure whether

turps would remove them, or would turn the whole item of headgear into a

sort of mushy papier mache mould, redolent of some rare rainforest bird’s

nest.

His wretched mother came in from time to time to inspect the progress.  She

gave him a running commentary on how well other members of their family

were doing and subjected him to lengthy panegyrics concerning the academic

success of his nieces and nephews.  He counted the seconds until she would

commence on her eternal theme as to why he did not have a girlfriend.

This focussed his thoughts on Drusilla.  He wondered if she was

experiencing a similar trial, in that she had been burdened with two parents

this summer.  Would Snod still be hanging around, or would he have moved

on? Not in any transcendental fashion, he corrected himself.  For indeed, Mr

Augustus Snodbury had never been concerned by the vagaries of style and

la mode.  Some men would sport a Panama with a degree of loucheness,

affecting the pose of a lounge lizard who finds himself inadvertently thrust

like a mad dog into the midday sun. But Gus merely donned his particular

straw hat as a shade against contracting any of these nasty scabs which

seemed to irritate his pate and which his GP said were caused by too much

exposure to UVB rays- or was it UVA?  In any case, he wasn’t taking the risk.

Nigel climbed down the ladder, anticipating a cup of tea.  As he stepped off the

final rung, he noticed that the post had arrived and stooped to pick up one or

two letters-mostly junk mail.  To his surprise, he recognised the handwriting of

the school secretary, who had re-directed a postcard which had been

addressed to him. His heart leapt when he saw that it was from Drusilla.  It

featured a chateau- Sully-sur-Loire- and in French was printed the phrase:

Jumelee Avec Bradford-on-Avon, which might explain why they were there.

Dear Nigel,

Having a wonderful time and the parents both in good form.  Something to do

with the house wines?!

Unfortunately Daddy- (!)-has had some sort of sunstroke, so wondered if you

could retrieve his favourite hat and bring it back to school?  He was so

absorbed in the lovely music that he left it on his seat at the interval and,

as you know, we had to rush off as we had left something in the oven.

Thank you so much,

Drusilla Fotheringay.

Hmm, analysed Nigel.  No ‘wish you were here’.

Then he took off the hat and panicked.  How could he return it in that state?

I told you to wear my shower cap, Nige.  Oh, who sent you the postcard?

I do hope it is from a girlfriend..and his mother handed him a china mug, while

simultaneously inspecting his day’s oeuvre.

I doubt it, said Nigel ruefully.  How all things do conspire against me.

Nonsense, retorted his mother.  It’s just a matter of making a bit more effort.

That’s what your school reports always used to say, didn’t they? You just

need to get out and about a bit more.  I’ve got us two tickets for that opera

you were banging on about.  You might meet a nice girl like that Katherine

Jenkins there.

What-Carmen? Nigel was really surprised.  But I’ve got nothing to wear!

He wasn’t entirely sure that Katherine Jenkins was all that his mother

supposed.  Sometimes the mater was not such a good judge of character

as she thought.  Probably she was getting the singer mixed up with

Kathleen Ferrier. More her era.

As to character analysis, Snod usually nailed a miscreant in one damning

report.

Nigel tried to rein in his wandering thoughts.

You can wear your father’s linen jacket.  It was a bit crumpled when you

brought it down from the attic in that old suitcase I asked you to carry, but I

ironed it and the smell of mothballs is not too bad now that I’ve aired it. You

can throw that old thing out, she said, snatching the flattened mess on his

head and putting it in the kitchen bin.  Dismissing his protestation, as if it

was an irritating boy who had finished a rather late detention, she added:

There’s a practically unused hat of your father’s, identical to that one, in the

black sack.  I was going to give it to the charity shop, but you might as well

have it.

And no one was more surprised than Mrs Milford-Haven when her somewhat

reserved son hugged her and danced her round the ladder, humming the

Toreador song.