Keeping Abreast

Tags

Angelina Jolie, breast screening, cupcakes, Gossard wonderbra, Mammary gland, mammogram, mastectomy, Monte Carlo, Papua New Guinea, Suttonford

It was that week which rolled around with surprising speed every three

years.

Yes, every female of a certain age received the summons to come on down

to Suttonford’s nearest town hospital in order to have their mammary glands

squeezed so hard that it couldn’t have been more painful if they had been

trapped in a bank vault’s door.  It was called Breast Screening.

However, it was quite a social occasion and neighbours who hadn’t seen

hide nor hair of each other in as much time gone by, greeted one another,

either with false bonhomie, or with deep embarrassment.

Then they were subjected to unknown levels of radioactivity.

Carrie was telling me that she met Brassica and Chlamydia there and then

they all went for coffee afterwards and burst out laughing when they had

cupcakes with raspberries on top.

It was an expression of relief, no doubt.

They also started talking about my poem, which was entirely fictional, but

had been written about a woman who might have come to terms with

necessary surgery which saved her life, but disfigured her body.  Everyone

else was embarrassed, but she was just relieved and wanted to get on with

her life.

Like I imagine that brave Angelina Jolie behaving? suggested Brassie.

Maybe, replied Clammie.  How did the poem go?

Carrie recited it.  She has a better memory than I do.  But who has the better

mammaries?  Ah, that’s debatable.  We don’t flaunt them much nowadays, but

like that Gossard Wonderbra model who gained the older woman respect and even

admiration, it might surprise everyone how shapely we still are!

KEEPING ABREAST

After my mastectomy, I was duly asked,

‘one lump or two?’…and then a pregnant pause ensued.

Swollen with deep embarrassment, glibness unmasked,

The hostess halted her outpouring; the tea stewed.

‘Actually, I have none.’ – Discomfiture again.

(my voice as brittle as her porcelain cup and plate).

And one misguided ‘friend’ tried to conceal my pain –

‘she’s on a diet and has lost a lot of weight’.

‘Yes, I’ve just been picking up a new bikini.

I’ve thought of Monte Carlo for my autumn week’.

‘Or bust!’ said a girl whose breasts were like zucchini.

(My silicon implants provoke a good deal of pique).

‘Well, Papua New Guinea sounds like fun,’ I quipped.

My wit was rising like some vast protuberance.

‘Let’s say I keep my cards close to my chest’. Tight-lipped,

my hostess said, ‘we usually go to France’.

Buzz off!

Tags

apiculturist, bee colony, centrifugal extractor, hive, Royal Jelly, St Birinus Middle School, Suttonford

 

SWEET TALK AT THE APICULTURIST ASSOCIATION’S AGM

He combed the colony for Deborah,

until his social antennae quivered.

He thought a centrifugal extractor

lacked the pulling power he manifested.

Having made a bee-line for her, he droned

on and on in his rather bumbling way,

waxing lyrical under the codlin trees,

thinking at last he might be in clover;

certain he was the proverbial knees.

She didn’t find his voice mellifluous,

though he employed trite honeyed endearments.

She wished he would not swarm all over her,

so her responses were rather barbed.

He almost made her want to take the veil.

She became disaffected by stamens.

And that stingy little drink he’d bought her!

How was it she felt so pistillated?

It would be super if he would buzz off-

then she could go and forage for some grub,

or go and hide in the larvatory.

Didn’t he know she couldn’t stand smoking,

or his pungent ambrosial aftershave?

Oh, Melissa’s got some Royal Jelly,

she said, making for the alighting board.

Must fly!  What an e-skep!  She could smell rape.

The mere thought of him brought her out in hives.

At least she didn’t have to dance with him.

It would be nectar right, nor propolis:

no success for his sting operation.

Candia, you’ve got to stop these awful punning poems!

Brassie was being candid with me and that was usually my take

on everything.

For goodness sake, hurry up and tell me what is going on at St Birinus

Middle School.  It will be half term before we know it and everything has

gone quiet regarding Snodbury & Co. If I ask Castor and Pollux what the

latest is at school, they just say, ‘Nothing much.’  It is most frustrating

being the only female in an otherwise all-male household.  They don’t do

gossip.  Even the dog is male and since the op, doesn’t do bitching either.

Well, have a care, I soothed her.  I will tap into the Suttonford grapevine

and, once I have rightly interpreted a few Chinese whispers, I will let you

know the truth, varnished or unvarnished, according to my sources.    

That will be largely highly augmented and over-polished then, laughed

Brassie.

As the philosopher said, the best poets are the best liars, I parried.

Ooh, you are awful..

..but I like you.  I finished the quote- an annoying habit of mine, I must

admit.

Is this the way to Amarillo?

Tags

Amaretto, Amarillo, Amontillado, Anne Boleyn, aperro, armadillo, Asterix, Barbara Cartland, Big issue, Bridge over River Kwai, Depardieu, Fanny Cradock, GPS, intelligent traffic lights, Mr Blobby, Peter Kay, Pompeii, Richter scale, River Roach, Rochefort, sink hole, Suttonford, tachograph, tachycardia, Tony Christie, Ville Fleurie

Chlamydia, to give her full title, and I were counting out our lives in

coffee spoons, as is our wont, outside Costamuchamoulah must-seen

cafe.

That’s the umpteenth lorry to pass in under two minutes, Clammie

expostulated.  This village is being ruined with congestion; is being shaken

by tremors which would register as peak on the Richter scale and is being

buried under a  thick coating of diesel dust which is beginning to settle on us

like the petrified victims of Pompeii.

She put her cappucino down and the spoon rattled and reverberated for

a couple of seconds on the saucer.

Yes, I agreed.  We will probably disappear down a sink hole in the middle of

High Street at any minute.  I’m fed up breathing and filtering dangerous levels

of particulate matter.  Maybe I could buy a mask like the Japanese wear when

there is smog.

Suddenly there was a violent shudder and we observed a particularly serious

case of Pantechnicon HGV coitus fixatus: ie/ two lorries had wedged

themselves together in a surreal parody of that legendary locked together

syndrome which allegedly is presented at A&E departments the world over.

Bonne fin de matinee, mesdames!  I am in Suttonford-no?

The voice emanated from the cabin of the nearside lorry whose window was

down. The driver looked a little bit like Tony Christie.

Yes, we replied, but we sincerely wish that you weren’t!  Nothing personal.

Desole, but I am seeking the bridge over the River Roach, he continued.

Well, said Carrie, rather sarcastically, you are nearly as far from

it as from The Bridge over the River Kwai.

Quoi? he said.

Kwai, she replied.

It was like that question so popularised by Peter Kay: Is this the way to

Amarillo? Someone could have asked if he meant ‘armadillo’, or Amontillado

and so on.  Once I had thought of that fortified liqueur, my mind crossed over

to wondering if Ginevra had any in store and whether she would mind me

dropping by for an aperro.

Roach!  We did not recognise le sujet de sa parlance.

Oui, he insisted.  Suttonford-a village which is bisected by the River Roach.

It said that it was once called Rochefort.

This was becoming even more bizarre.

Non, stressed Clammie.  Suttonford was once called Newtown, or

something comme ca.  Are you pas certain que vous n’ avez pas lu

la carte sans vos lunettes?  And Rochefort is in your neck of the EU,

I’d have said.

The traffic was backing up High Street.  This was turning out to be no

brief encounter of any ordinal numero.  The savvy locals sipped their coffees

and proclaimed that this was another example of how necessary the new

breed of Intelligent Traffic Lights was to the general well-being of their

community.

Clammie put on her spectacles.  Now she could see that the driver actually

resembled Mr Blobby rather than the other perambulant pilgrim in the song.

Mais, I used my GPS, he shook his head.  I looked for Suttonford Bridge, as

I was warned that there is a double chicane- tres dangereux.

Clammie referred to her phone.  She had Googled ‘Suttonford’.

Someone tooted impatiently at Monsieur Le Perdu, pas Depardieu,

malheureusement.

Then my friend raised her voice as only the linguistically challenged can,

and do. This is Suttonford, she explained.  But not in Essex.  Not once

called Rochford.

She turned to me: Rochford – that’s where Anne Boleyn was born.  She

volunteered this pearl of wisdom while a suite of hoots, or a cacophony of

klaxons that might have characterised a Modernist symphony let rip.

She looked directly at the driver and credited him with not knowing combien

flageolets fait cinq.

Try using a carte and a soupcon de savoir faire, she advised.  Tournez and

depechez-vous tout de suite. Immediatement! she shouted and stamped her

designer kitten heel in a fashion that any Gaul, including Asterix, would

fully comprehend.

Les autres Suttonfords are in Illinois, imbecile, she warmed to her theme,

Waikerie-South Australia-Texas and Tennessee, but c’est impossible to

conduire la.

The driver was now looking rather mouton-like.

Volte-face! screamed Clammie.

Bystanders applauded and started to film the 180 degree about-

face as I think this translated.

Two cracked paving slabs and an uprooted bollard later, he proceeded up

High Street, with a hanging basket like a Barbara Cartland or Fanny Cradock

millinery marvel on the roof of his cab.  He had narrowly missed committing

manslaughter by his lack of observation of the jaywalking Big Issue seller.

Ville Fleurie, but not for long, I commented.

He’ll have to keep an eye on his tachograph, said Clammie calmly, now that the

situation had returned to whatever was regarded as normal.

And on his tachycardia, I added.

What about ours? she queried.

I know.  Let’s go and see Ginevra.  She can show us the way to a glass of

Amaretto, or whatever she has in her wine cupboard.  Sha la la la la la.

Lifestyle Choice

Tags

Ari Seth Cohen, Gin Blog, Gin Foundry, Ian Duncan-Smith, idioms, Jenny joseph: When I am an Old Woman, Karen Walker Eyewear, Madonna, silver fashionista, suspended coffee, Suttonford, Yarn bombing

Juniper Boothroyd-Smythe, l’enfant terrible of St Vitus’ School for the

Academically Gifted Girl, had tired of yarn bombing and so she decided

to concentrate on street photography for her art project.

Having been impressed by Ari Seth Cohen’s blog which celebrates silver

fashionistas, she saw her photo opportunity as Magda wheeled her

nonagenarian charge, Ginevra Brewer-Mead down High Street,

Suttonford.

You look amazing! Would you give me permission to include you in my

portfolio of Living National Sartorial Treasures? Juniper enquired.

Ginevra nodded vigorously, the egret feather on her hat swaying in

the breeze.  She pouted at the lens.

Where do you source your fantastic outfits? Juniper asked, getting her pencil

out.

‘Fantastic’ was a fairly just adjective, but Ginevra detected no ambiguity.

I always have a sneak preview of Help the Ancient’s biennial Designer Sales,

she confessed.  But don’t tell anyone else.  They would be jealous.

The interview continued.

What has inspired your signature style, would you say?

Well, I’ve always approved of that poem: When I am an old woman, I shall

wear purple, Ginevra stated confidently. She didn’t admit that it was the

only poem that she could remember.

Oh, we studied that one in our GCSE anthology, Juniper enthused, noting

down phrases such as ‘exophorically-referenced style statement.’

And what is your name, dear? asked Ginevra.  She was sure that she had

seen this girl before- perhaps in grand-daughter Tiger-Lily’s school

photograph.

It’s the same as yours, actually, Juniper smiled.  Juniper and Ginevra are

from the same root.

Really?  And do you have a passion for gin too? asked the bibulous one.

Well, I’m not supposed to drink alcohol at my age..

Neither am I! laughed Ginevra.  It doesn’t stop me, though.

It was at that precise moment that a meeting of two rebellious minds

took place.

I have read The Gin Blog, Juniper confessed.

Oh, they are replacing that with The Gin Foundry in June,

Ginevra informed her.

Magda was worrying that they were obstructing the pavement.

She parked Ginevra outside Costamuchamoulah must-seen cafe.

Would you like a coffee while we finish the interview, Juniper?

asked Ginevra.

Juniper looked faintly abashed.  She hadn’t any cash on her.

Don’t worry- you can have a suspended coffee, Ginevra informed her.

Sorry?

It’s a scheme where people such as my neighbour, Sonia, pay for two

lattes and then only consume one.  You could have the freebie that the local

vagrant usually claims.

But the people who own the cafe don’t mind ?

Not if he drinks it outside, Ginevra stated firmly.

Magda returned with three beverages.

Question Three then, persisted Juniper: is it difficult to maintain your style

on a pension?

Ginevra placed her lipstick-crescented cup on the street table. It will be nigh

on impossible if that-pardon my French!- Ian Duncan Smith creature

persuades us all to return our winter fuel allowance, she exploded.

Persuades-hah!  At present, it just about keeps me in mascara…

..and gin, added Magda.  It was astounding how much progress she

had recently made in aural comprehension.

The sun came out briefly and Ginevra replaced her spectacles with a pair

of retro Karen Walker Eyewear sunglasses.

And what would you say is the colour of these cool shades? continued Juniper.

Well, they are on the same tone continuum as Prince Philip’s black eye,

I’d say, Ginevra reflected.

Damson, Juniper scribbled.

Yes, the over-fifties, living relics though they were, certainly knew how to

put things together, she considered.  All except Madonna, who should know

better than to dress in competition with her daughter, Lourdes, Juniper

mused.

She addressed Magda suddenly: Do you know the idiom about mutton and

lamb?

We do idioms next week, Magda said gravely.

Okay. Thanks, guys, Juniper said, preparing to put her camera back

into its case.

Suddenly the local mendicant appeared, no doubt seeking his fix of caffeine.

Juniper beat a hasty retreat.

There was no decrying it, though.  His flak jacket was really cool.  She took

a surreptitious shot of his back view as he entered the cafe.  He could really

carry off Grunge.  She supposed it was a lifestyle choice.

Staff Appraisals

Tags

Bourbon biscuit, Custard Cream, G Wilson Knight, PC language, Shakespeare in Titchfield, staff appraisal, Suttonford, Swan Of Avon, Swan of Tuonela, value added

Augustus Snodbury, Master at St Birinus Middle School, sighed deeply at the

very thought of the next round of staff appraisals.

Unlucky in love? teased Nigel Milford-Haven, setting his huge pile of exercise

books onto an already overloaded table.  He was unaware of how near the

mark he had hit.  He sank into a saggy armchair which had several burns and

questionable stains in the sun-faded chintz.  For, aetiolated members of staff,

over the years, had hauled it near the bay window, in an attempt to derive

some vitamins from the sunshine which always seemed to radiate outside their

timetables.  Indeed, some of the old timers walked with a curious curvature,

like plants gravitating towards the light.

Did you read that stuff about Shakespeare being a schoolmaster in Hampshire?

Nigel began. They say that he only had about 12 pupils, so his report writing

wouldn’t have taken him as long as ours, lucky s-

Snod cut him short in that time-honoured way that old dogs of the staffroom

have perfected over the centuries.

They?  They?  And who pray are these experts?  It is alleged, Mr Milford-

Haven, merely alleged.  No doubt someone is trying to fill in the

missing years.  As if G Wilson Knight would not have uncovered some

such information. 

Or Dover Wilson, he added, showing his age.  He permitted himself a tight-

lipped smile, which he had perfected and which communicated his resistance

to the merest tincture of fantasy.

No, gullible was not an adjective to pin on Augustus Snodbury.

But Snod- I mean Gus, eh, Mr Snodbury, sir, stuttered Nigel, whose BA

paled against his better’s MA in the prospectus.  Actually, it annoyed

him when he deferred like this.  His results were 5% better than the old

crock’s, if you weighted certain subjects favourably and manipulated other

factors to do with value added and certain aptitude scores from prep

school projections, but he controlled his rambling thoughts and

continued, The exciting thing is that The Bard might have ridden through

Suttonford and may even have tutored the ancestors of some of our boys.

En cet cas, he didn’t transmit much in the way of genius to the descending

gene pool, remarked Snodbury, exhibiting his facility with Modern

Languages at the same time as expressing his cynicism which had been

fuelled by last week’s universally vapid responses to what he considered

a fairly straightforward prep.

Nigel privately concurred, but was somewhat stunned at Snod’s intemperate

and overt non-PC language.  Should he comment on this feature in next week’s

inter-departmental appraisal?  The old boy wasn’t long for the scholastic world,

when all was said and done, so maybe he should draw a veil over some issues.

However, enthused by the concept of The Swan of Tuonela (or was it The

Swan of Avon?) marking the aimless scribbles of a progenitor of -say-John

Boothroyd- Smythe, he picked up the querulous baton and ran with it.

Tea, gentlemen?  The trolley with the wonky wheel was being parked against

the pigeon holes.  They both eyed the same Custard Cream.  It was a matter

of hierarchy.  Nigel took the Bourbon instead.

As he crunched, his imagination soared with the sugar rush….

Remembrance of Things Past

Tags

Argentinian tango, Carcassone, Carrie, Don Giovanni, Duncan Bannatyne, extra vergine, Glasgow, Leporello, Liguria, Montalbano, Olive, Petruchio, Pino Grigio, Proust, Salva, Souleiado, Suttonford, Tesco

Carrie settled back on the sofa in the snug.  The kids were in bed and her husband, Gyles, was upstairs on the computer.  Bliss!  She was going to watch Montalbano, which she had recorded for such a moment.  It was so helpful for her conversational Italian, though she was picking up a Sicilian accent, she had been told.  All her girlfriends had noticed, though they were speaking in the same way.

It was Tuesday.  She was just about to reach for her Pino Grigio when she had a Proustian moment.  She remembered that she hadn’t seen Salvatore for a couple of weeks.  He used to come to the town markets regularly and had a stall shaded, or sheltered, depending on the weather, by a bright gazebo-type canopy, under which he spread out his wares- olives and suchlike.

Buon giorno!  Carrie would say in her Sicilian accent, re-discovering her Italian roots.  (Her full maiden name had been Carissima Pomodoro, but she had been brought up in Glasgow, where her great-grandfather had opened one of the first ice-cream parlours, long before Duncan Bannatyne had been a glint in his father’s eye.  Ginevra, her mother-in-law, had also been brought up in Glasgow by her parents, the Piccolalivernas.  The Glasgow connection was how Carrie had come to meet her husband, Gyles, but that is another story..)

Yes, Tuesday was Suttonford’s market day, but the stalls tended to deflect business from the regular shops. Frankly, they did not offer anything very enticing that was an obvious bonus to the town, nor did they compensate for the loss of parking spaces on High street.

Vans filled with house clearance detritus or car boot leftovers mingled with vehicles of suspect exhausts and noisy generators that spewed forth olagineous fumes and dealt in butterless baps with slabs of indeterminate material squidged with a squelch of pseudo-ketchup from an array of plastic dispensers.  All of this was profferred to townspeople who largely monitored their own chlorestrol levels and ordered their organic veggie boxes bi-monthly.

Once or twice, Carrie had dared to interrupt a stall-holder who wore fingerless gloves and who was demolishing a pasty whilst talking to the neighbouring vendor.  They’d be discussing grandchildren, golf handicaps or ferry crossings.  Having broken in with a discreet cough, Carrie would point to some ceramic item and enquire:

Excuse me, what is it?

(She was referring to its make, age, composition or provenance and she felt sure that the misunderstanding could not be attributed to her Sicilian accent, since that was restricted to her alternative linguistic mode.)

The stall holder would take a deliberate additional bite and, with her mouth full of pastry, would look her up and down, assessing her status and then pronounce:

What is it?  It’s fifty quid, innit.

Carrie, unsure as to whether this tag was an interrogative or a statement, would immediately slink away, completely ignored by the original addressee.

Off she’d go, past the stall which displayed Mediterranean tat-ie/ 100% polyester tablecloths and napkins in fake Souleiado patterns, whose sunny colours looked entirely out of place in the cold, relatively northern light of Suttonford, but which might have glowed jewel-like in the inner sanctum of Carcassone’s shopping fortress.  She would pass the Spanish ceramic house number plates (so useless in Suttonford, where each house has a name, darling,) and would walk beyond the abandoned trestle tables, where one had to look around for a keeper who had given up hope and had scarpered to Tesco’s for a pack of sandwiches.  No haggle margin, as nobody with which to haggle.

And then there was the effulgent aura coming from the final stall which was like the clichéd candle flame to moths and that was manned- and oh, so manly- by Salvatore, the olive seller. He was not only a babe magnet, but he drew in all the female phagocytes (cells which are capable of absorbing foreign matter) with complexions like sun-dried tomatoes and natures to match, ie/ who would give you the pip, but who giggled like pre-teens, even after half a century, when Salvatore greeted them like long-abandoned exes.

Salvatore’s alluring success owed itself to the fact that he dealt in hope, misplaced meteorological optimism and remembrance of things very far back in the past.  Never mind that he traded in over-salty olives and his stall was probably a Mafia franchise.  (Hey, Carrie had noticed two empty violin cases on the adjacent stall.  Maybe they were for the machine guns.)  For, it was possible that he was being subsidised to create addiction in the way Brits had engendered craving for opium in China, in order to gain trade control.

Carrie could observe his modus operandi- oily flattery, overt grooming, courtship and finally, seduction.  Yet, she was not immune.

First there was the fore-play of the inviting sample, temptingly waved in front of the customer on the end of an olive wood ladle.  Then there was the caring concern shown in the provision of a clean polystyrene cup to contain the poubelles and the sensitive handing over of a paper napkin to wipe the excess oil which dribbled down most matrons’ chins.

Each lucky lady had been selected to taste a particular flavour which was skilfully matched with her character and personality: the reserved and shy could try green olives with mild almonds cheekily protruding, perhaps in a basilica or coriander dressing.

The more fiery characters were tamed by this Petruchio via glistening orbs, coated in chili, or jalapeno-flavoured oils.

Those who considered themselves cosmopolitan- such as the members of Carrie’s Italian group-had plenty of garlic garnish and the acerbic and twisted had citrus zest on black globes.

Salvatore- she had subliminally taken to calling him Salva after the detective- would lick his fingers while maintaining eye contact and then she and others in his fan club would come away laden with little tubs and paper carriers and a determination to lobby the local council for an Argentinian tango class for beginners.  Ciao and prego crept into Suttonford vocabulary, especially when the besotted customers  met up in Costamuchamoulah.

Buon giorno, Carrie!  He raised an expressive eyebrow, in lieu of a question.

She tried to maintain a certain froideur.

Commissario!

Try some with lemon, rosemary and thyme, he suggested.  (100% on the oleometer.)

No, I’ll just have some foccacio, she resisted.  Maybe that was the wrong word?

Extra vergine? he persisted, lubriciously.

A little flutter like a breeze playing lightly over the strings of an Aeolian harp reminded her of her hormones.  I’m not frigid after all, she thought.

By the time he had finished with her, she had a till receipt the length of the list of Leporello’s conquests in Don Giovanni.

She heard a tread on the stair, which brought her back to the present.  Salva was probably basking on a verandah in Liguria- sounds a bit like a ligature, but let’s not go there.  Or, subsidised by Carrie and other victims, he was, in all likelihood, wining and dining some Loren-lookalike on his balcony over the sea, canoodling in Calabria, like Montalbano, only with hair.

Gyles popped his head round the snug door:

I thought you were watching your programme? he said mildly. Do you want some olives with your Pino Grigio?  He placed a tub of Tesco’s best on the nest of tables.

But somehow the little love grenades had lost their charm.

No thanks, love.  I’m just coming up to bed.  I’ll watch it another night.

Gyles went ahead.

Hello, wall!  she said to herself.

Tuesdays were never going to be the same. 

Arrivederci, Salva. Adieu, adieu.

The Phantom Cavalier

Tags

Carrie, Cavalier, Chlamydia, Clammie, Classic FM, Costamuchamullah, ghosts, Harry Potter, Haunted house, Laughing Cavalier, Madam Blavatsky, Pipesof Pan, Sonia, Suttonford

Clammie passed the well-coiffed woman she privately called Madame Blavatsky almost every morning, after she had deposited the children at school. The woman sat outside Costamuchamullah café in High Street in all weathers, because she was one of the last addicts who smoked openly in Suttonford.

Often Clammie would reckon that she was due some me-time, which usually spread itself over most of the week, so, after indulging herself with- say- an alpaca purchase from Pipes of Pan, the Andean boutique, she would pursue her own addiction, namely a caffeine fix.

So it was that one morning, Clammie came to be sitting opposite the mysterious lady who had graciously removed her shopping bag so that a tired yummy mummy could have a spare seat at her aluminium table.

Normally Clammie wouldn’t have been able to tolerate smoke wafting over, but there were no seats vacant indoors and there was a slight breeze, which was blowing the offensive miasma in someone else’s direction.

I’m sorry. I know that I’ve seen you sitting here for a number of years, but I don’t know your name.  I’m Chlamydia, she volunteered, removing her Mocha out of contamination’s reach.

Madame Blavatsky flicked the ash from the end of her cigarette, perilously close to Clammie’s cup and saucer:

Oh, my name’s Sonia and I’ve been living in Suttonford for aeons.

Clammie asked where exactly in the town she lived.

In the haunted house, darling, – the one with the resident Cavalier.  Not laughing, you understand, but rather fleeing from capture in The Battle of Suttonford. He hid in our attic.

A haunted house?  I don’t know if I believe in ghosts, countered Clammie.

Well, you should, stated Sonia firmly.  I’ve experienced many over the years and, like more corporeal members of the opposite sex, you have to talk nicely to them if you are to co-habit peaceably.  For example, I have to ignore the fact that my resident often plays my instrument.  And no, it’s definitely not a pianola.

What! The Cavalier takes liberties with your instrument?  How very-eh-cavalier.

No, darling.  Pianos weren’t invented when he was around.  He prefers to tinkle my harpsichord.  He is considerably quieter and more mannerly than your modern day Jools Holland, for example.

How do you know that he is responsible and not someone next door, listening to Classic FM?  The wattle and daub is thin and there is no cavity to speak of between the walls in High Street.

I see the keys being depressed, said Sonia with utmost conviction.  Look, I’m a clairvoyant.  Can you come round next Wednesday for afternoon tea, and I’ll prove it?  I’d read your leaves now, but I see that you are having a Mocha.

Privately Clammie thought that if Sonoa was a bit of a soothsayer she should have known the answer, but publicly she replied:

Would you be able to tell me if I will ever live in High Street?

That depends on the leaves.  We can look into that later. But perhaps you will hear the harpsichord.  Sonia laughed at Clammie’s widening eyes.  Royalist House.  Three and three quarters High Street. Don’t fail me. Three o’clock.

She blew a smoke ring around Clammie, so that she had to close her eyes to prevent them from stinging from the ectoplasm.  When she opened them, Sonia had disappeared.  There was only a smouldering butt on the table, from which emanated a curling plume .

Like the feather from a Cavalier’s hat, Carrie mused.  I think I’ve been reading too much ‘Harry Potter’.

 

 

 

I Heard it through the Grapevine

Tags

Buckfast, Charente, cirrhosis, Co-Op, cognac, grapevine, Jancis Robinson, Jane Austen, Liebfraumilch, Mateus Rose, Pinocchio, Roaring Forties, Suttonford, Wedding at Cana, Wine, Wine tasting

Carissima’s nose had developed.  Not in a Pinocchio sense, but as a metaphorical wine calibre detection proboscis.  No more Jacob’s Creek for Carrie and her family, though it had served Gyles and herself well, as upwardly mobile thirtysomethings.  Now that she was moving inexorably towards the Roaring Forties, she wanted all her neighbours to note that she was a customer of Pop My Cork! which was the Suttonford wine merchant of choice for Yummies who followed Jancis Robinson.  That was not to say that she didn’t sometimes backslide and buy in bulk in the Co-op, hastily transferring the bottles into her all-concealing jute shopper with its slogan:  Suttonford- no plastic here!  Yes, Carrie was very concerned to re-use her husband’s plastic card as much as possible and she congratulated herself on her eco-friendliness.

Every month or so there would be a wine-tasting at Pop My Cork! and rare roast beef rectangles the size of postage stamps would be arranged on metal platters alongside Matzo crackers and, if one was lucky, a local trout which had been cooked in a fish kettle.  Everyone would gather round the sawdust-filled spittoons, looking knowledgeable, even though it hadn’t been so long since they were draining the old Mateus Rose, Buckfast and Asti Spumante, not to mention Liebfraumilch, as if their student days would never end.  It was amazing what a few package holidays to the Med. had inspired.  Now they were frowning and ticking every third variety on the comment sheet provided.

The local red-beaked vicar strode in, still wearing his collar, like an appellation endorsement, rather than a vocational symbol.

Saving the best for last, I trust! he guffawed, helping himself to the largest piece of roast beef he could spot and temporarily stationing himself beside the door where the plonk was placed for the non-aficiandos. I suppose I might be asked to come up higher, he laughed, rapidly working his way along the trestles to the rare spirits and expensive liqueurs and forking a generous portion of trout onto his paper plate. It’s the Wedding at Cana all over again.

Just like the viticulteurs in deepest Charente, Carrie intoned, polishing off a VSOP cognac.  When we visit Gyles’ sister, we take an empty plastic container and have it filled up via a siphon by a relative of the Hennessey family who is practically her next door neighbour.  It’s what the locals do and it only costs eight euros.

Yes, and six for the locals, muttered Gyles.  Sometimes he found his spouse a tad pretentious. How much is this one, Carrie? He swirled the nectar round and swallowed it, instead of expectorating it as he should.

Twenty pounds a bottle- thirty eight if you buy two or more.

Put me down for a dozen, he said, nodding at the sales staff and moved on to the harder stuff. Christmas is coming, so maybe we should stock up on some of the less usual post-prandials.

What about your mother?  Carrie asked.  Look at this: ‘Jane Austen’s Secret Tipple.’

Rather tame for the old bird.  Probably too old-maidish and somewhat acidic. And I’m not talking about the booze!  Anyway, you know she favours ‘Dewlap Gin- for Grandmothers with Attitude.’  But I’m not keen on encouraging her, ever since she called out the paramedics because she couldn’t get the top off a bottle.  She was reprimanded and told that she shouldn’t be calling the services out, unless it was an emergency.  She replied that it had been and, anyway, if she had fallen while struggling to open the bottle, she might have broken her hip, which would have cost the NHS an awful lot more.

She’s evil, said Carrie, running her finger lingeringly round the neck of a fine claret. But at ninety three, she’s probably entitled..

..to what?  Cirrhosis of the liver?

Well, she doesn’t need a spare one now, does she?

Oh, okay.  I’ll take a case of ‘Dewlap’ too, Gyles said, indicating that it should be added to his growing cache.  Who knows?  It might finish her off.

I’ll drink to that!  Carrie slurred her words a little.

 

Protected Species

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Noel Coward, Suttonford

Yes, the nights are drawing in and I am reminded of my encounter with a Suttonford grande dame who had experienced the days of the Raj first hand.  She measured out her widowhood in coffee spoons and cigarettes at the precursor to Costamuchamullah, ie/ The Peal o’ Bells. 

One lunchtime – (cloth: on; dinner:cloth off)- she sat in a cloud of smoke, like mist rising from the Ganges, and I admired her leopard skin coat.  She minimally acknowledged my obeisance.

A few evenings later, she was leaving a drinks party which was in the very house that Clammie has coveted recently.  By way of something to say, I asked her where her fur coat was, as she was being solicitously wrapped in a stole by a favoured minion who was to see her safely across the road.  She gave me a withering look and corrected my social solecism, resulting in this poem:

He placed the mink stole round her neck –

not the fur coat she’d worn on deck.

She saw my look and then observed

the riposte which I had deserved:

“You don’t wear leopard after dark!”

“Never? Not even for a lark?”

“Precisely. It’s not the done thing.”

“What about ocelot?”

“Too bling.

It’s like cloth for luncheon, but NOT

for dinner? One just never ought.”

“Is there any jurisdiction

on camel? Is there restriction

on beaver lamb, cashmere, fox-fur? –

shibboleths on which They concur? –

a consensus aimed at non-U?”

“The proles took to fake kangaroo.

In crepuscular hours of dusk,

outrageously they sported musk

and, as far as Guatemala,

riff-raff lounged in capybara.

Minxes out in the Sahara

had bikinis of impala.

One can pose as La Giocanda

in a thong of rare red panda,

but animal right protesters

wanted bobbies to arrest us.

They showed chagrin; I owned shagreen:

clutch purses, belts in wolverine,

tortoiseshell compacts – what’s the fuss?

Darling, they’re just not one of us.

In Sikkim some said, “That’s Betty.

She’s the one who’s wearing yeti”

I would sip a margarita,

naked, on a rug of cheetah.

(I was pretty well devoured

by a rampant Noel Coward.)

He quipped, ‘Little looks much snazzier

Than zebra pants and brassiere.’

In the mountains of Bhutan,

my tippet was orang-utan

and my favourite windcheater

was two hides of tanned anteater.

(At altitude on Everest,

one needs an extra tiger vest.)

At a barbeque in Goa,

I singed my flamingo boa.

To meet the Queen, I wore a hat

and had it trimmed with a fruit bat.

There was a tiny rigmarole

when footmen took my corgi stole.

She said archly, ‘Is that dodo?’

I looked at my heel: ‘Ma’am, no, no.

I’m sure your carpets are quite clean.’

She glared: ‘Your headgear’s what we mean.

Though denied my decoration,

I still caused a huge sensation.

I’m a seasoned old globetrotter.

I wear stoat and I wear otter,

I wore porpoise, whale and shark –

But NEVER leopard after dark.”

No Mansion Tax

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Deborah Meaden, drovers' inn, Duncan Bannatyne, George Osborne, Hilary Devey, Kate Moss, Kirstie Allsopp, mobile phone mast, Phil Spencer, Prosecco, Ready Brek, Suttonford, Vladivostok

Clammie has had to hop over to Well-Shod, the Suttonford cobbler, rather a lot recently.  She has the heel of her Coltsfoot nude patent court shoe re-glued every few days.  Well, she will stand on the metal grille over the log chute outside Shelley’s Estate Agency, gawping at their revolving carousel of desirable properties, which are actually well out of her reach.

She has kept her eye fixed on the housing market ever since the recession, as keenly as she used to follow the ball in Under-15 lacrosse championships in her schooldays.  Should some old biddy pop her clogs, thus vacating a property, Clammie will strike as efficiently as a cobra.

Unfortunately, she has not yet sold her own house.

Basically, she is after a double-fronted, Georgian town house in the best street in Suttonford.  Garaging would be essential, so should one with an attached carriage house come up, it would be a-ma-zing, darling.

When her husband, Tristram, drags himself in from work and sets to in the kitchen, she offers to lay the table and, pouring him a Prosecco,  she begins her assault, as carefully planned as the logistics for an Everest expedition.  The only difference is that he has no Sherpa support to aid him with familial burdens.

But, Clammie,..he expostulates, we can only just cover the mortgage and the school fees for our beloved bratlets.

Don’t call them that, she counters swiftly.  Look, I can always do a couple of days in “A la Mode” to help out.

But you’d just spend everything you earned on their stock.

Yes, but I’d get a staff discount, so think what that would save you.

I don’t get your logic, her husband sighed.

Well, if I worked there, a scout might see me modelling the designer gear and may just see my suitability as a Kate Moss stand-in.  Then think what I could earn. You know I enjoy spending, so I could derive gratification from seeing other people spend their husbands’ salaries.

Ah, but if you are going to be out all day, then why do you need a bigger house?

To store all my clothes, silly.  It’s a false economy to have to stuff all my outfits into wardrobes that I can’t easily access and have everything creased to kingdom come.  I can never find what I actually possess, and so I end up buying last minute alternatives.

Tristram sliced his finger while chopping an onion:

Ouch!  Will you get me a plaster, please?

You’re just not listening and probably cut yourself deliberately, whinged Clammie.

She burst into tears.  She didn’t know if it was the onion that had precipitated the flow, or her own thespian tendencies.

Look, said Tristram, sucking the bleeding digit, stop crying.  You don’t even know if anything on the High Street has come on the market at the moment.

Oh yes, I do!  Clammie was triumphant. The eight-bedroomed house in the middle of High Street- the one that was a seventeenth century drovers’ inn- was in “Shelley’s” window this morning.  It’s cheap because it sits on a geological seam which has something to do with radon.

I’m not having the bratlets develop a “Ready-Brek” glow, Tristram shouted, waving the knife rather dangerously.

It’s no worse than the mobile phone mast in their school playing fields, Clammie countered.  And it is a small price to pay for social cachet.

Then she realised that the au pair was in the adjoining study, Skype-ing her friends in some Eastern European city.

Please to keep quiet. Alyona glared through the open doorway.

Clammie backed down immediately.  Sorry.

Then, turning to Tristram, she continued, but in a more subdued tone:

But will you at least consider it?  After all, I have asked Kirstie and Phil to meet us there tomorrow, at seven, after you get back from work.

What!  Tristram forgot Alyona for once. I’m not having that Allsopp woman patronise me and expose my lack of compromise on prime time tv.

No, you are perfectly capable of exposing your own lack of compromise, Tristram.  Actually, Kirstie and Phil have been really helpful and even have a first time buyer in mind for our place.

Oh yeah, he was becoming sarcastic and hypoglaecemic.  You mean, a ninety year old who has had a lifetime to save up a deposit.  Don’t be naïve, Chlamydia- ( he always used her full name when he was annoyed)- we haven’t even had a survey done.

Oh, suit yourself, but Duncan Bannatyne didn’t get to where he is by missing opportunities.

No, his trip to the top of the greasy pole has given him the ultimate reward of a cardiac arrest and the chance to spend a lot of time with Hilary Devey and Deborah Meaden.  Lucky man.  But at least he had the sense to start small and kicked off his entrepreneurial activities with the purchase of a clapped out ice cream van.

Ooh, you are so bitter, Tristram. By the way, the risotto’s burning!  Take it off the heat.

Well, will you take me off the heat, if I just go along for peace’s sake?

Okay.  But you’ll be on my back burner if you don’t and Alyona says if we don’t go for the house, she will ask her syndicate to buy it and then I will probably end up looking after her kids.

Simples, mouthed Alyona, without even removing the headset .  But I let you rent the carriage house. Boyfriend with Mercedes has deposit. He say me not just pretty meerkat.

Tristram knew the battle was already lost.  He’d be working till he was seventy five, or would have to emigrate to Vladivostok.  George Osborne had a lot to answer for by not pursuing mansion tax, as a husband’s ultimate get-out clause with over-aspiring wives.