The Last To Know

Tags

commissario, cushion cut diamonds, euphemism, Genoa, Henry vacuum, Lower Wraxall, Pantagruel, Rabbie Burns, Rochester, Romeo and Juliet, tasting menu, The Longs Arms, The Nurse, The Young Montelbano

Snod, Senior Master at St Birinus Middle School, exited his final

lesson  before the weekend.  He was in an unusually good mood,

but then he always enjoyed Shakespeare, as playing the part of

The Nurse in Romeo and Juliet was right up his street.

(He always skipped the bit about being a wet nurse, however.

He also omitted the bit about Susan.  Thankfully she was with

the Almighty, according to the Bard.)

He breezed into The School Office and managed to find Virginia

alone.

Gus had booked a table a deux for Valentine’s Night at Pantagruel &

Gourmand’s.

Little did he suspect that Virginia had been on the brink of issuing

an ultimatum concerning her perception of the lack of direction in

their relationship.  She managed to adjust her expression from what

she was worried was becoming something that was commonly referred

to as ‘Resting Bitch Face‘ and softened her PA mien.

She had planned to say that she was going to hop on a bus to Genoa

at Easter, if things didn’t hot up.  That was a euphemism.

She had rehearsed the conversation.

Snod: Why Genoa?

Yes, why had Genoa sprung to mind?

She reflected further and realised that she had been watching

too much  of ‘The Young Montelbano‘. Genoa was where his enamorata

Livia had headed when the Commissario hadn’t come up to the required

commitment level.

She would have felt even more humbled had she known that Snod had

been to Bunbury, Quincunx and Quatrefoil, the lawyers in Rochester, to

collect a ring from the depository at their associated bank.

It had all been discussed with his daughter, Drusilla, who had relinquished

her rights to the jewellery stash she might have inherited from Lady Wivern,

his mother.

The Tindall Jewel was being lent in perpetuity to The National Trust for display

at Wyvern Mote, in lieu of some death duties and Dru had accepted that Nigel

would never be able to afford a decent ring on his salary.

She had been the one to suggest that if her father gave Nige –Nige??!– the

original heart-shaped diamond ring that Snod had once intended for her

mother, Diana, and which had had such a checkered existence- namely being

shut in his filing cabinet for approximately thirty years, she would accept it as

an engagement ring.  No matter that it had been bought with her mother in

mind.

After all, if Kate Middleton was not fussed, why should she be?  Her mother

had a cracker of an old bluish cushion cut eighteenth century diamond solitaire

from Murgatroyd, so why should she, Diana, mind if Gus then gave Virginia the

Burmese ruby which, frankly she, Drusilla, thought a tad vulgar?

She laughed as she remembered them all having to suck up the heart-shaped

ring from under the floorboards in The Longs Arms, after Snod’s clumsy attempt

at the re-kindling of his romance of yesteryear.  Yes, Henry the vacuum cleaner

had proved most effective.  Mum had been so embarrassed, however.

Nigel had been told what was currently happening and had gone along with

his instructions.

Now the extended family was waiting to see the outcome of Snod’s coming

proposal.

Virginia was the last to know what was going on.  And that was a very unusual

position for Virginia.  And Virginia was not the kind of woman who was interested

in unusual positions, I can assure you.  That, indeed, was one of her major

attractions for our worthy schoolmaster, in spite of his penchant for a slim ankle

in a stiletto.  But that is by the by…

To our tale, as Rabbie Burns said on at least one occasion…

Pantagruel & Gourmand?  Oh, Gus! she exclaimed.  How did you know that I’ve

always wanted to go there?  Ever since Mrs Boothroyd-Smythe told me about it,

I have longed to sample their tasting menu.

Whoever said that the way to a man’s heart was through his stomach might

as well have included both sexes.

 

(If any reader wants to refresh their memory as to what originally happened

when Snod bungled his proposal to Dru’s mother and dropped the

aforementioned heart-shaped ring down the floorboards of The Longs Arms,

Lower Wraxall, then you can refer back to February 2013 for revision purposes.)

 

Delayed Gratification

Tags

Agen, Armagnac, Bradford on Avon, Camembert, Dali clock, Fleury, FT Weekend, Lake Isle Innisfree, Screwpull, Shrink and Sage, tarte aux pruneaux, The Longs Arms, Winnie-the-Pooh, Yeats

Augustus Snodbury was cherishing his final few Saturdays before term

resumed. It had been an eventful summer, but he was a little concerned that

he might outstay his welcome at his erstwhile lover’s cottage in Bradford-on-

Avon.  References to guests and fish past their sell-by dates and the impact of

more than three day visits loomed on the horizon of that giant of a mind.

Ablutions had to be curtailed in the mornings as there was only one bathroom

and their daughter, Drusilla, seemed to spend an inordinate amount of time on

waxing her moustache.

Snod had brought back several packets of his favourite Agen prunes from their

French foray. (I think he had also secreted some bottles of Armagnac, but to

our tale!)  Though an aid to digestion, not to mention that other bodily

function, whose initial letter is also ‘d’, the wizened fruit meant that, at times,

there was a degree of urgency as to access to the ablutional premises.  The ‘c’

word did not even come into it.  The efficacy of these little time bombs could

be cataclysmic, nay apocalyptic.

In spite of all that, Drusilla and her mother, Diana, had become increasingly

relaxed in his company and he had learned to resist asking them a series of

questions which he then mentally scored and graded.

The weather had been superb in England and they had taken to sitting outside

in the evening in the small courtyard at the rear of the cottage, surrounded by

tubs of lavender and Diana’s carefully dead-headed roses.

The French cheeses which they thought they had smuggled onto the coach,

but whose presence was fairly obvious to anyone with a normal olfactory

function, ripened in the kitchen, once they had been taken out of the fridge

and the bottle of red was breathing freely after Diana’s Screwpull had

performed its act of liberation.

A bee-endangered species?-landed on the lavender and took only what its

hive required and no more.  Snod began to silently word lines from The Lake

Isle of Innisfree by Yeats.  But one bee did not produce a glade, nor an

individual pot of honey.

Honey!  Wasn’t it Winnie the Poof- oops, a typo!-Pooh who had said that

although eating honey was a very good thing to do, there was a moment

just before you began which was even better than the activity itself?

Snod leant back on his chair.  It was HIS chair now, he felt  He picked up

Diana’s FT Weekend magazine and flicked through its pages in reverse.

There was her favourite article by The Shrink and The Sage.  He must read it

to discover what it was that so charmed her.  He could not believe what he

was reading.  It coincided with his interior monologue.

Snod had had time to reflect on his life, when he had stayed in the monastery

guest house at Fleury. He realised that he did not have to grab happiness in

the clumsy fashion he had attempted at The Longs Arms, earlier in the year.

After all, he had waited thirty odd years for moments such as this.  Why should

he become messily entangled in the lives of others?  Relationships could slowly

ripen like the Camembert which was dripping over the cheeseboard like a Dali

clock.

He took his first sip of wine, not having noticed its arrival on the cast iron

table. Diana came out of the back door, carrying a interesting looking flan.

I hope you don’t mind, Gus, but I made a tarte aux pruneaux with those Agens

that you left in the kitchen.

He resisted his initial irritation and decided to optimise his enjoyment:

Servez-vous, he replied and corrected himself by using the tu form almost

immediately.  Toi, he said.  Toi.  And it sounded very good.

And it tasted very good too.

Cabinet of Curiosities

Tags

cabinet of curiosities, Calypso Carol, Carmen, Daily Mail, Easter Island, Financial Times, Hawaiian shirt, huzun, Istanbul, Moai, Monteverdi, Nobel Prize, Orhan Pamuk, oxymoron, Panama hat, Rolls Royce, Royal Yacht, Simon Schama, Singer sewing machine, The Longs Arms, Weekend Magazine

I always feel guilty when I destroy the barista’s carefully created fern on the

top of my coffee, but, then, one has to drink the frothy arrangement.

Goodness knows, one has paid enough for it, especially at Costamuchamoulah

must-seen cafe.   At least The Financial Times Weekend magazine can be

appropriated from the public wall rack, to compensate.  The Yummies always

go for The Daily Mail, I find.

Oh, the ecstasy of finding Simon Schama and Orhan Pamuk in the same article.

I loved the novel Istanbul and was fascinated by the concept of huzun, a state

of collective memory.

Pamuk has gathered a series of objects which he stores and displays in

cabinets and these items resonate with memory traces of significant moments

in his characters’ lives.  Once these memories are categorised, they can be

stored and owned.

I wondered if I could rent or purchase a building in Suttonford where I could

collect objects connected with the narrative of my characters’ lives?

Re-winding some of my posts, I could imagine the first vitrines exhibiting a

crystal ball which belonged to Sonia, the medium who lives in Royalist House.

An empty bottle of Dewlap’s Gin for the Discerning Grandmother would

represent Sonia’s neighbour, Ginevra.  The latter’s e-novel based on a meeting

of geriatric hearts and minds could be referred to by a mobility scooter, which,

of course, would take up a large glass box on its own- something like the one

which protected HM’s Rolls Royce on The Royal Yacht, Britannia.

Doomed romance would be conveyed by the original Valentine, complete with

its proposal of marriage (never received) which the youthful Augustus

Snodbury slid under the nubile lax mistress, Diana Fotheringay’s door all those

troubled years ago.  The diamond ring which fell down the cracks in the

floorboards at The Longs Arms, but which was recovered, though not without

embarrassment, would also speak volumes to the tender-hearted.

Perhaps there could be an unmade bed which still belongs to Tiger-Lily and a

string of knitted women bishops which was removed from the cathedral

railings in Wintoncester, having been yarn-bombed there by Juniper, the

increasingly famous, gender-fluid, street graffiti artist.

The town’s canine lovers might donate a diamante pug collar belonging to

Pooh-Bah and the ever-present risk of animal vandalism might be portrayed

by the photograph of the priceless Pre-Moai figure from Easter Island, which

Andy, the Border Terrier so thoroughly digested.

Academic life could be shown by the Hawaiian shirt which one of the

Willoughby twins wore when he played the solo marimba in The Calypso Carol

at the end of term concert at St Birinus, and which provoked a caution

regarding the upholding of school rules regarding uniform.

Staying on a musical theme, the programme notes for the Monteverdi concert

in Bath which so riveted Drusilla, Diana and Gus would be interesting to study

in future years, as the cast list so clearly displayed Geoffrey Poskett and Nigel

Milford- Haven, of whom much more has to be said in future posts.

Snod’s battered Panama hat, which he sat on inadvertently at the

aforementioned concert and which Nigel effectively ruined by wearing it

when painting his mother’s bathroom ceiling, should be juxtaposed to set

up a dialogue with the alternative headgear which Nigel’s mother fished out

of her black sack and gave to him to wear to the opera, Carmen.  Placed side

by side, the museum-goer should be able to detect that this hat which Nigel,

or Caligula as he is affectionately called by the children in his care, is going to

return duplicitously to his older colleague in lieu of the original- oh, drat, I’ve

given away the plot..- will be seen to be a size seven and a quarter, and not

the seven and three quarters which Snod has always sported on his rather

large dome of a head.

History, and family history at that, will be brought to life by the inclusion of a

Singer sewing machine which belonged to Jean Waddell, Carrie’s maternal

grandmother.

I am excited by the prospect of making the intangible tangible.  Oxymoron

creates such dynamic tension!

Thank you for the idea, Orhan.  I won’t expect a Nobel Prize for it as it would

be akin to plagiarism, but imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

(To understand the exophoric references and intertextuality of this entry,

please refer to previous posts!)

Transfiguration

Tags

Balaam, Birinus, Bradford on Avon, compassion, Damascene, David Cameron, epiphany, Feast of the Transfiguration, Financial Times, Fleury Abbey, lax, Loiret, Paul Gilbert, Snodbury, St Paul, Sully sur Loire, The Carpenters, The Longs Arms, The Shrink and The Sage, Weekend Magazine

Diana Fotheringay-Syylk, prematurely retired ‘Lax‘ Mistress from St Vitus’ School

For The Academically-Gifted Girl, had been trying to read The Weekend

Magazine from The Financial Times while she was being transported around the

Loiret by her local coach firm from Bradford-on-Avon.  She was staying in a 2*

hotel near Sully-sur-Loire, along with other members of her town’s Twinning

Association.

She had been allowed to bring along a ‘friend‘ and her daughter, since two

people had dropped out at the last minute and there had been seats left

vacant.

Behind Diana was her erstwhile lover, Augustus Snodbury, who was still in

educational harness, so to speak, at St Birinus Middle School.  Their daughter

Drusilla had closed her eyes, but this did not shut out the low, burring sound

which emanated from her father’s rather hairy nostrils.

And what exactly is a Lax Mistress? I hear you question, Dear Reader.

It was a trainer for a particularly vicious outdoor team game played by

innocent-looking maidens, armed with strong lobster nets on poles.

Innocent-looking, in general, but the goalies were of a different, scary

order.

Diana was trying to concentrate on her favourite The Shrink and the

Sage article.

This guide to modern dilemmas by a psychotherapist and philosopher

duo fascinated her.  Diana was looking forward to being a member of the

congregation at The Feast of the Transfiguration in Fleury Abbey and the

rhetorical question which headed the columns struck her with a force as

convincing as the Damascene beam of light which had struck St Paul and

floored him.

It read: Are we compassionate enough?

Diana had been seeking a spiritually significant experience by venturing

on this trip.  Nothing less than an epiphany would satisfy her.  She had

opened her mind and heart to receive any messages that might be

forthcoming.  But could the divine voice speak through The Financial

Times?  She then remembered Balaam’s ass and thought that all things

might be possible.

A psychologist called Paul Gilbert was being quoted as having stressed that

one must be kind to oneself, as well as to others.  He warned against two

evolution-shaped drives-firstly, the detection and subsequent escape from

danger and, secondly, the drive to acquire things we want, such as food

and sexual partners.

The article recommended a David Cameron-like state of sensing that we are

all..on this journey together.

Here Snod’s snoring seemed to rise in volume and objection.  Already she

was in danger of lapsing into compassion fatigue.

When we are irritated by others, Gilbert said, we should remember that

they are mere humans, like ourselves, who cannot help getting things

wrong sometimes.

But she didn’t snore, did she?  She would check with Drusilla later on,

since they were sharing a room.  Come to think of it, she remembered Dru

buying some ear plugs in Boots, before they set off.

Gilbert mentioned something called compassion under the duvet, which

fortunately was only a practice of reminding ourselves to be kind to others

before we climbed out of bed in the morning.

Suddenly, the scales fell from Diana’s eyes and she realised that she could

now forgive Gus for his appalling ineptitude, if not for his snoring.

He had been clumsy at their attempted reunion at The Longs Arms, but maybe

it had been down to nerves and possibly they could travel hopefully together

and arrive at the same destination one day- so long as it did not involve any

sharing of duvets, other than of the moral variety.

The Sage explained the etymology of the abstract noun, compassion.  It came

from com and pati, meaning to suffer together.

Having both taught for a number of years, they could empathise with each

others’ pain.  She determined to avail herself of any lessons that she might

be offered during the service, but she could sense that her transformation

had only just begun.  Pity that it sounded like a song from The Carpenters.

Just Good Friends

Tags

Acis and Galatea, Beatus Vir, Fourth Book of Madrigals, Full Monteverdi, I Fagiolini, Iford Manor, John La Bouchardière, Lower Wraxall, Monteverdi, Panama hat, Peto Gardens, The Full Monty, The Longs Arms

Augustus Snodbury, Senior Master at St Birinus’ School, near Suttonford,

shuffled his fundament in the uncomfortable chairs of the music school

concert.  Actually there was nothing unergonomic about the seating; he had

regrettably sat down on his Panama hat.

Monteverdi wasn’t really his milieu, but Drusilla, his daughter, had been

very keen to attend the Saturday night, end-of-course, culminatory

celebration of this weekly workshop, ever since she had discovered the

crumpled flyer in her handbag.  You will recall, Dear Reader, that Nigel

Milford-haven had given it to her when he had assisted with her luggage,

when they had left the school grounds at the end of term.

Gus’ surprise visit to the mother of his child had been a sudden whim of

Drusilla’s and, over all, the shock hadn’t killed Diana.  She had arranged a

mattress on the floor in her spare room and the disastrous previous

planned reconciliation in Lower Wraxall had been largely forgotten.  In fact,

Snod had treated both females to some rather tasty lunches in The Longs

Arms, in recompence for hospitality received.  They had enjoyed visiting the

Peto gardens at Iford Manor, but Snod’s holiday budget did not run to three

al fresco tickets for Acis and Galatea at £81 a throw.  Anyway, Diana would

have been more interested in a musical on aphids, followed by a cup of tea.

At the interval, a somewhat refreshed-looking Nigel Milford-Haven, Junior

Master, bounced up to the party of three and asked if they had enjoyed the

Beatus Vir. 

His tutelary cobwebs had been blown away in the rehearsals throughout the

week and he had forged a deeper association with Geoffrey Poskett, the school

choirmaster,who had picked up some very useful tips on conducting during the

workshops.

Nigel was so glad that Geoffrey had invited him to take part.  It prevented

him from having to devote too much of his precious school holidays to visiting

his elderly and rather demanding mother in Cornwall.

Nigel was keen to impress Drusilla, so he solicitously brought her a rather

dispiriting glass of unchilled rose and left her mother to the ministrations

of her erstwhile lover.

You are going to adore the second half of the evening, he enthused.  We

have managed to erect-he blushed slightly and flushed a slightly darker

tone than the wine he had just produced –a screen.  We can show part of The

Full Monteverdi film by John La Bouchardiere.

Oh, Drusilla brightened.  Is that the jolly one where the hunky guys strip off?

Eh, no.. I think you are confusing it with a rather more downmarket

production.

He could read her disappointment.  No, it is based on the Fourth Book of

Madrigals.  It is sung by I Fagiolini..

I might have known, thought Dru. He seems over-friendly with that Geoffrey

chap.  She had spotted them sharing a score.  Her Italian wasn’t up to much,

but she could hazard an educated guess as to the meaning of the group’s title

and she didn’t think it had anything to do with beef olives, or a type of haricot.

Each singer is paired with an actor, Nigel explained, and the film reveals their

intense failing relationships.  At the end, all they can do is to contemplate

their lonely lives. He felt that the entire teaching profession would be able to

relate to this juxtaposition of high art and real life.

A pity, decided Drusilla.  He isn’t too bad-looking.  It’s always the same.

Excuse me, she said, handing Nigel the empty glass. I must find my mother.  I

think we may have left something in the oven.

It was one of the least creative excuses he had heard and, believe me, he

had heard quite a few over the years-mostly over non-produced prep.  He took

it that his own non-existent love life was set to continue.

Can I take that glass for you? Suddenly Poskett was at his side.  The film is

about to start.

The three empty chairs-empty except for a battered Panama- hinted at a

failed courtship ritual.  The singers began to weave the mournful agonies of

their complicated webs of interaction.

 

A Googly in the Goolies

Tags

Balm of Gilead, googly, goolies, Leavers' barbecue, Lower Wraxall, Mentholatum, Michael Jackson, Moonwalk, street art, The Longs Arms, Woodworm Cricket Box

Drusilla had managed to reach the A&E Department of Suttonford’s nearest

hospital.  She suspected that she had badly sprained her ankle by tripping

over that wretched girl Juniper Boothroyd-Smythe’s street art installation.

It would have to have happened on the very first day of Dru’s holidays- before

she had even had time to vacate her flat and head off to her mother’s house

in Bradford-upon-Avon.

She was sitting very uncomfortably on the metal seating, which was obviously

meant to be indestructible, but which was the most excruciating furniture to

accommodate any injured person.  There was a queue for X-rays and she had

read all the magazines, which dated from 2008.

There was a diversion as an older man entered, completely doubled up and

clutching himself in a Michael Jackson manner, without doing a Moonwalk.

Heavens to Murgatroyd!  It was her father, the prep schoolmaster, Augustus

Snodbury.  Relations had been cool between them since an unsuccessful family

reunion at The Longs Arms in Lower Wraxall.

She couldn’t prevent herself from hobbling over and clutching his arm.

What on earth has happened to you?  she asked solicitously.

I was bowled a googly by that wretched John Boothroyd-Smythe at our final

cricket practice, he groaned.  It got me in the goolies.

(Drusilla blanched.  It was not an expression that was in common parlance

at St Vitus’ School for the Academically Gifted Girl.  That was not to say that

its meaning was not fully understood.  Indeed, English Language studies

encouraged the tracing of lexical etymology, so she fancied that she recalled

that this particular word evolved from the Hindi: a small ball or bullet.)

It was the only time that I was not wearing my Woodworm Cricket Box, he

continued.  I’d packed it away as it is the start of the holidays tomorrow.

Drusilla did not know whether to feel concerned, or merely glad that this

ailing organ of generation had fulfilled its destiny many years ago, when

she had been conceived.  She did not think that the accident was of any

life-shattering import now.

However, in the next few hours, once two ice packs had been applied-

actually three, as Drusilla had one applied to her foot also-they managed to

raise the emotional temperature in a positive way and applied their new-

found goodwill as a Balm of Gilead, or Mentholatum Deep-Heat salve, to

the emotional scars which had been mutually inflicted on their last meeting.

They deliberated on a plan to break the ice that had formed since Easter

between Gus and Diana, Drusilla’s mother.

By the time that they had been confirmed as Walking Wounded, but not on

Heightened Alert, nor suffering from Aggravated Mayhem, they had hit on

Plan B.  They shared a taxi to St Birinus Middle School, where Bursary staff

had enough fuel for gossip to last them the duration of the holidays and to

ignite a bigger conflagration than had had to be extinguished at The Head’s

Leavers’ barbecue.

A woman going up to Snod’s room!  What could be going on?

The Transfiguration of the Ordinary

Tags

Antinomianism, Bradford on Avon, Cockney Rhyming slang, Lent, Quinquagesima, sat nav, South Wraxall, The Longs Arms, Windsor knot

Snod had felt unwell and listless since Quinquagesima, or the Sunday

before Lent.  He always felt depressed at the thought that someone-

God?-might expect him to deny himself in the edible line.

Most of the boys were at home, or in San, with streaming colds.  He

felt that all he could do was to recline on his battered sofa for a

couple of hours till some epiphany would dazzle him with a

personally delivered illuminated manuscript announcing what

he should do next to facilitate the Transfiguration of the Ordinary.

Meanwhile, he read and re-read the letter from Diana. No, that

wasn’t the divine set of instructions, but it was miraculous all the

same.

He placed the heart-shaped diamond ring in its plush-lined shagreen

box into his holdall and, notifying the Headmaster’s Secretary that he

was going to a relative in Bradford-on-Avon to recuperate, he

opened the door of his ancient vehicle and drove out of the school

grounds, telling himself that he wasn’t lying, since he really did have

a blood relation there: namely his newly-discovered daughter,

Drusilla.

How fortuitous that he had booked that advanced calligraphy course

in Bath for half term.  He could simply extend the number of nights

that he required accommodation and would create a longer break. It

was the perfect alibi.  Mind you, why should he need an alibi when

he wasn’t doing anything wrong?

This Catholic guilt is getting to me, he thought.  I prefer Low Church.

They don’t deny themselves so much.

He had texted Diana and they had arranged to have lunch at The

Longs Arms, South Wraxall, just outside Bradford-on-Avon.  Thank

goodness he wasn’t an abstainer in the Lenten tradition, for the

menu looked mouth-wateringly enticing.

That was the plan, if only he could find his way there.  Diana had said

that Drusilla would stay at home, in order to give them privacy to talk

about the intervening years since they had last met.

He loved the name and thought about the semantic fun he could

have had with the boys, teasing them as to whether Long should

have a final ‘s’ or not, or whether an apostrophe came into it.

He was suddenly aware that he had driven over the narrow bridge

in Bradford three times and had still not seen a sign for South Wraxall.

He might have to twist the long-longs-ha!arm of the law to direct him.

But there was never a constable around when you wanted him.

(It didn’t even occur to Snod that he restricted his thoughts to a generic

masculine.)

Or if you did see one, you had probably taught him in 1976 and

knew his intellectual limitations.

He was going to be late. What if she thought that he had stood her

up?  He had driven a very circuitous route and stumbled upon Lower

Wraxall.  Stopping and winding down his window, for there was no

electric system in his jalopy, he addressed a tractor driver politely

and asked if he was near his destination.

The farmer looked puzzled and said that he had never heard of it.

Snod was beginning to panic.  He had no satellite navigation system

either, usually trusting to a map, but, for some reason, there wasn’t

one in the driver’s door.  He must have removed it when he had the

car valeted at Christmas. He would never purchase anything so

vulgar as a sat nav.  It sounded like a Cockney Rhyming slang for

the abbreviation of a water closet.

Thanking the man nevertheless, he set off down a very

narrow lane, hoping against hope that he would arrive there

serendipitously, or would encounter a signed junction.

Yes, he was actually there in a few minutes.  How could the farmer

not have recognised the name of a village about a mile away? Surely

nowadays they go on package holidays all over the globe and get a

neighbour to cover the lambing or harvest, or whatever.  Mind you,

that particular example had looked a little, how could he say this and

remain PC?-  inbred.  He felt he should deny himself for such a sinful

thought but decided that the penalty should definitely not be related

to anything comestible.

He would wear that scratchy jumper later in the week- the one that

his great-aunt had knitted him for Christmas.  It could double as a

hair shirt.  Nothing too punishing- he wasn’t a Roman, after all.  He

preferred to adapt the Pauline concept to his own agenda: sin a little

bit more to avail himself of free grace!  And if that was

Antinomianism, well, it was a lot cheerier.

He parked behind the pub and, smoothing what was left of his once

wiry curls, he checked his Windsor knot and rubbed his sweaty palms

on his corduroys.  He licked his wrist and smelled his saliva and

entered by the rear door, as if he hadn’t the self-esteem to use

anything other than the tradesmen’s entrance.

She was standing in the narrow corridor, down from the Ladies’

Room, affecting to study the sepia photos of Wraxall in days gone by.

Diana!

She turned round.  He’d have known her anywhere.

Drat!  He’d left the roses in the flat.