Letting Go

Tags

Bath stone, Cavalier, clairvoyance, dv, engagement ring, foreknowledge, foreordination, lacrosse, Memory: Cats, Mother Shipton, noun phrase, poltergeist, Tarot, wedding band, Zen

Diana Fotheringay had removed her rings and was having the stone

in her engagement ring re-set and her wedding band was in

meltdown.  She was now seeing herself as a Free Woman.

In fact, she had made the New Year Resolution to sell her cottage

in Bradford-on-Avon and to move much closer to her daughter and

erstwhile lover.  Consequently her home was now on the market

and had been appraised by a rather posh, but dim representative

from an estate agency.

She could have written the schedule herself and could see immediately

that the description of her home was off-beam and would be guaranteed

to deter any prospective purchaser.  She had to proofread a document

which she was paying someone else to generate.  A sign of the times,

she sighed.  I mean, what is it with the breed that they have to construct

inordinately long noun phrases?!

She read: An absolutely charming, exceptional, sought after, deceptively

spacious, smartly-appointed, versatile, detached Bath Stone, character

cottage…

Could this be her property?  She hardly recognised it.  The lenses of

the camera had made it seem as if it had curved walls- which, in all

honesty, it had.

The vase of lilies on the dining room table looked good and covered the

redcurrant sauce stain which simply would not wash out of her antique

tablecloth.  Really, Augustus was a very messy eater.  It must be that his

table manners were being corrupted by his professional habit of dining

with children.

At least Dru’s harp was no longer in the way and the alcove in the hall

could just about justify its description as an additional study/bedroom.

Anyway, there was no turning back.  It was a good time to sell and she

could put her hand on her heart, like all sellers, and swear that she had

the most wonderfully quiet neighbours and that she had never had a

single altercation with them, not even when their son was learning

the drums.

Now that his pupils came to the house, it was remarkable how there was

always an available parking space.

If the cottage sold in one open weekend, as was being suggested, she

would simply put everything into storage and would go and see her ex-

colleague, Sonia Peascod, in Suttonford.  They’d exchanged Christmas

cards religiously since Sonia’s retirement as Deputy Head at St Vitus’,

which had also been the year of Diana’s confinement.

Sonia was Diana’s daughter’s godmother.  Our vendor felt that

she would be welcome to stay for a week or two until she got on her feet

in a new county.  Sonia was rattling around in that huge Royalist House,

so she would probably welcome some company.  She was getting on and

maybe Diana could take her shopping, or help with the housework.  If

the legalities took longer, she could always offer her some rent.

Sonia had once reminded Diana:  I always foresaw trouble when you

married that picture framer chap.

Diana had snapped:  You didn’t need to be Mother Shipton to see it

coming!

But they hadn’t fallen out over it.  And, in retirement, Sonia had

progressed in her skills of clairvoyance.  At least she thought so.

She even took up Tarot reading.

Diana opened her address book and, just as she was about to contact

Sonia, her phone rang and she nearly knocked over the vase of lilies in

her rush to answer it.  Maybe it was the estate agent!

Sonia here!  Happy New Year!  Long time; no speak.

You must be telepathic, Diana began, before realising that she, of course,

was, in her own opinion, at least.

Of course I am, Sonia laughed. Listen, I haven’t seen you for ages, so why

don’t you come and spend a few days with me? We could go to the new cafe

we have in the town.  That is, weather permitting and DV.

Oh, it’s okay,  Diana reassured her.  I haven’t had that bug.

What bug?

The diarrhoea and vomiting one.

I didn’t suggest that you had.

I thought you said ‘d and v’?

No, replied Sonia, puzzled.  Oh, no.  I meant DV -deo volente.

As a lacrosse teacher, Diana hadn’t required a qualification in

Latin.

I think there was interference on the line, Diana excused herself.

I couldn’t hear you.

Well, can you hear me now?  If you can make it through all the floods

and fords, drive up and stay.  I’ve always got the attic room free

because people are too pathetic to cohabit with the ghost.  But I know

you don’t mind sharing a bed.  You’ve met our resident Cavalier before,

haven’t you?

Diana was not phased by occult presences.  After all, she had coached

a team of weapon-wielding teenagers who were capable of behaviour

which would have made the activity of your average poltegeist seem like

a single Zen hand clap.

There was only one drawback: Diana may have been accustomed to

Sonia’s foreknowledge over the years, but she didn’t want to be the

subject of her fore-ordination.

As for the phantom fugitive from The Battle of Suttonford, sleeping with

him couldn’t be much worse than having to share a bed with Murgatroyd

Syylk.

She replaced the handset and started humming Memory from Cats.  Yes, a

new day had begun.

The Medium is the Message

Tags

Artem, Beverley Sisters, Headington shark, Medium is Message, Ntingwe Kwazalu, Pasha, Pippa Middleton, Sergei toy, Stig, Tarot, UKIP, Warhol's Orange Car Crash, Yu Luo White tea

Tiger-Lily’s Diary

3^rd January, 2013

Dad has been going ballisitic as he had told Grandma not to have her

cronies round for what she calls Post-Hogmanay Lunchtime Wrinkly Drinkies

until Magda, her carer, returned from Normandy.  Ginevra needs monitoring.

It’s all her fault that Sonia drove back home like a drunken Stig.

Clammie, Sherry’s mum, said that it had taken her in excess of five

minutes to get Sonia a cup of basic English Breakfast in

Costamuchamoulah to calm her nerves.  The girl behind the counter

insisted on running through a list of all the speciality beverages until

Clammie had just snapped and shouted:

Never mind the Yu Luo White Tea from Hunan Province, nor the

Ntingwe Kwazulu from Fantasy Land.  Just get the old lady a mug of

regular navvy’s with two spoonfuls of sugar before she keels over!

The girl gave her a funny look and now Clammie is convinced that

she will be persona non grata for evermore.

(To whom shall she then go, for they have the beans of eternal life?)

Still, Sherry said that she was proud of her mater as she would rather

have a subversive parent than an Establishment Clone.

Candia said that Clammie had kindly waited with Sonia until the nice

young policeman had breathalysed the old dear and checked her

insurance particulars.

She couldn’t remember if her premium was with the glamorous,

pink-sequinned, singing Aussie triplets who look so like Antipodeal

Beverley Sisters, whoever they are.

She then thought that she might have changed over to the meerkat

one, as she thought she would have received a free Sergei toy.  She

liked Russians, especially Artem and Pasha, though she knew they

weren’t in the indemnification business.  She expressed her anger at new EU

directives regarding gender equity and insurance policies.  She was even more

inclined to vote UKIP, she asserted.

But in your case, madam, the policeman told her, it is not so much a

sex issue as an age-related one.  You see, the over-eighties have just

as many accidents as teenagers.

I certainly hope you don’t…

But Clammie had restrained her, especially when the pc had asked

her to consider giving up driving and opting for the Community Bus.

She consented to consult her Tarot Cards on the matter and agreed

that there were some things that she could not foresee.  Like the

brick wall, I suppose!  Then she let Clammie take her cribwards to

await Her Majesty’s Pleasure.

Candia says that Costamuchamoulah are going to keep the car in situ

if they can get planning permission. It should draw the crowds as

much as Pippa Middleton’s random appearances in town. Candia

said that if the people in Headington, Oxford, could receive

government blessing 26 years ago for a shark embedded in a

terraced house’s roof, then what dreaming spires can have, day-

dreaming shires should readily be permitted to retain.

(I like Candia’s turns of phrase!)

So, Untitled 2 may be here to stay.  Crash Art is very Postmodern

and so I am going to file my photos under Warhol and his 1963

silkscreen prints of the Orange Car Crash Fourteen Times.  If I can get

a bit of pastiche, parody and cross-reference going in my Art History project,

I won’t have to be a clairvoyant to see an A* coming my way.

The medium is the message!

A Damp Squib?

Tags

Brassica, Brassie, Carrie, Casanova, Cosmo, Magda, Mary Tudor, Philip of Spain, Predictor, Sonia, Spain, Squib (explosive), Tarot

Once we had established that if there was a sprog, amazingly it would be Cosmo’s, we calmed Brassie’s fears that she might have twins again. The nuit de passion must have happened on the evening that she did not attend the choir rehearsal.

Lightning doesn’t strike in the same place twice, Carrie assured her.

But Cosmo isn’t so much a bolt of lightning as a bolt from the blue, or even a damp squib, protested Brassie.

Too much information, I commented.

Here, Brassie, eat some of this chocolate marshmallow slice for me, said Carrie.  You’ll be eating for two- or three now. Only joking!

Don’t, expostulated Brassie.  I haven’t even bought a ‘Predictor’ kit yet.

Sonia came in at this point and I quipped,

Well, here is a perambulant one entering the premises, even as we speak.

We were just talking about boa constrictors, said Carrie and we nearly choked.

Actually, confessed Brassie, we were just debating whether I was pregnant or not.

Not the ghost of a chance, said Sonia.  I can tell.

How? we all said simultaneously.

Because- brace yourself, Brassica- I have seen Cosmo visiting Magda for the last month, when you thought he was sleeping in the observatory.

But I thought he was a damp squib!

Be that as it may, your symptoms are just a phantom pregnancy- like Mary Tudor’s. It will disappear, and I dare say, so will Cosmo, just like Philip of Spain did.

Brassie was ashen.  But I don’t want him to disappear.  I don’t want him to visit Magda.  What has she got that I don’t?

Oysters from ‘Know Your Plaice’ in North Street.  They’re aphrodisiacs you know.  He simply wouldn’t have been able to resist, said Sonia authoritatively.

So all the time I thought he was looking at the stars…

..he was lying in a moral gutter.  Upsetting, I know, but Sonia will disenchant them. She took out a cigarette and then pocketed it again, having remembered that there was legislation against smoking inside.

How are you going to split them up?  we asked, in admiration.

At Clammie and Tristram’s Fireworks party.  I think we are all going to be invited. I will set up a tent in the garden and do some Tarot readings.  I will serve her the Fool.

I’m sure Clammie will agree, if we tell her about the plan, I agreed. It’s so appropriate. Casanova’s Russian mistress was into divination, so it’s very romantic.  The Lovers and Greater Secrets feature in the Major Arcana, don’t they?

Don’t get carried away, warned Sonia. It’s all about presenting querants with their choices.  I’ll give him something nasty about wands!

Thank you so much, said Brassie.  I won’t need to go to the chemist’s now. But I’m still going to treat myself to those drainpipe jeans.  I’m worth it.

Of course you are, we all soothed her.