In The Valley of the Treaclers
“There! Do you see it? Some three hundred metres or so to the southwest?”
I looked across the valley to where Verhasia was pointing, at a temple on a hillside swathed with wispily-stalked, lilac-and-indigo, three-headed plants. These were known as Treaclers. They were immensely rare in our kingdom and could only ever be found in the most remote valleys, if you were very very fortunate. The plants were usually picked, their thousands of lissom, wafty stamens dried up and crumbled, and the powder used as a cure-all for known diseases, injuries, afflictions and ailments.
A few years before, as a sixteen year old, I had stood outside the town hall and seen a skinny, long haired young traveller of around 18 with the whole world at his feet, just back from a trip to some far-flung shores, who was standing on the steps of the main bank with his bowl of ground-up Treacler Stamens and sprinkling it on a number of patients. Each paid him 50 pounds for his treatment, which was really very simple. I watched in wonder as a stump grew back into a hand, as a seriously nasty case of leprosy vanished like the early morning mist at rush hour, as a veteran with only one surviving limb was suddenly sprouting like a tree and leaping around like an acrobat. I had so much admiration for him, the wonder he had brought upon our society with his discoveries, and my lustrous teenage soul desired greatly to be his lover, as handsome as he looked then, although I cared not for his newfound wealth.
For a short time, he became famous, rich and popular. He made so much money from his miracle powder that he was able to make any social connections that he required. In the end, he became a rather sad shadow of what he had been. I remember seeing him one day several years later, grown bloated and still dining out on what he had achieved in the past. Where once his kudos and influence had been nation-wide, now he was a sad joke surrounded only by hangers-on and wealth-seekers, his paunch grown beyond all previous memory, his face bloated and reddened by drugs, booze and success. His early vigour had inspired me to seek to become an adventurer when I got older, just as his later plight was a constant reminder to strive to always keep walking onwards, never stand still.
For years people from our lands have subsequently been trying to find more Treaclers. For the most part, the powder was found very very occasionally on the black market. A dose suitable for re-growing an amputated arm could be bought from the scumbag Varhars (a truly ugly and vicious race, part human, part donkey, who ran most of the drug, sex and pornography trade in my town) on Keraddi Street, on very rare occasions, for around 50,000 pounds.
Verhasia was my old school friend and fellow human. She had grown up in the tropical south and moved to my more temperate town at the age of eleven. While adventuring, scouting for herbs and treasures, slaying Vicious Creatures and so on were all mostly still seen as the provenance of men, well, Verhasia and I, we were so famous that everyone knew us, everyone wanted to be our friend. The men all wanted us, and so frequently failed in their drunken attempts to charm us that they frequently assumed that we were lovers, which was generally either a flight of fantasy or a sad explanation for their own failure, but in truth a lack of understanding of the fact that we were simply too preoccupied with our only love, which was adventuring, travel and the road.
“Well,” Verhasia said, “I make it your turn.”
I looked at her, the way she so often managed to smile in a manner which was at once mischevious and accusatory.
“I went into the caves of Alp-You to retrieve the harp of golamander,” she said, “That paid for our house on the seafront. I got the treasure of King Hil the Fifth from the snatches of the evil metal maze which protected it. All you did was guard the entrance. I’m in credit, my dear. You go and get the plants.”
The truth was, as much as people thought we were inseparable, near-sisters or even lovers, we tended to argue a lot, bicker, and had come close to fractious separation on innumerable occasions. We needed each other; it was a friendship of convenience more than anything. Each of us would be nothing without the other, and we both knew it.
“OK,” I said, “You stay here and watch the hillside, I’ll go and collect the stamens. It looks a very impressive haul. Honey, we’re going to be even richer than before. Who do you reckon is guarding them?”
She smiled, nodding knowingly, saying nothing
I made my way through the clutter of dead Jilandertree stumps that lined the hillside. They were the most valued and precious trees in our kingdom, and I noted the way they had been brutally hacked down, cleared without a second’s thought; clearly the Treacler farmer had been planning a huge, ambitious expansion of his little empire.
But the latter point irked me so. From the expanses of the plants I had seen from up high, this was no ordinary operation, and it might well involve some very sketchy people.
I marched through the decapitated forest carefully checking left to right as I did so, my eyes peeled for Sythian horsemen gangsters, who I knew roamed these parts freely, or for Elvan assassins, distinctive in their red and black cloaks. None emerged, and all was silence.
And then I heard it as I got nearer… a sound as which very few people had ever even heard, that of thousands and thousands of Treacler plants blowing gently in the wind. The plants, you see, in many ways resemble musical instruments than any conventional member of the plant kingdom. The stamens of a single plant are like thousands of finely tuned violin strings, each producing a unique, individually incredible sound which when blended with the millions of others all around it, resembles aural paradise.
I stopped, dead in my tracks, a few metres from the purply-blue hill I had been approaching, forgetting my purpose, why I was there… the only thing which mattered any more was the music. I sat down, crossing my legs, placing my backpack on the ground and casting my belt to one side.
“Entrancing, isn’t it?” a voice came to my right as I leant back, propping myself up by my arms and gently swaying.
I looked up to see who had spoken. Standing before me was the largest, darkest Scythian Horse I had ever seen, its eyes sunken and pale, its six legs shoed in the most elegant manner in gold and lithantium-embossed spirals, although lacking a rider. That was unusual. The Horses and their Riders were almost never separated. Individually, one was always just an ordinary six-legged talking horse, while the other was just a bog standard human. But when the Scythans were riding their horses, they combined into something quite awe-inspiring, terrifying even. Ten Scythan horseback riders had, in the past, taken down entire mechanical armies from the North Western continent, destroying machines which only wizardry or an act of god could reasonably be expected to combat.
“You here alone?” the horse asked, snarling now.
“Yeah,” I said, “Why?”
“She’s not gonna like it, mate,” he replied, “You thinking of stealing our crops?”
My mind was already entranced, and it was becoming ever more truthful.
“To be honest with you,” I replied, “I had been…”
The horse eyed me, gathering its top right hand hoof up slowly, as if pondering its next move, but then it looked over its left hand shoulder. I was too entranced by the music to see a large angloid male, his skin metallic and grey from the living metal he was formed out of, his four arms clutching two pairs of semi automatic crossbows, which were loaded with black azamus darts. I’d been shot with those before.
He walked towards me, the darts aimed carefully at my head. When he reached his horse’s side, his six legs went through a familiar insectoid motion, arching downwards and then propelling him atop his horse. From there, he continued to aim the black pointed darts at me.
I knew there would be no escape, even if I had managed to escape the bewitching entrancement of the music, but I had to try to fight, try to break out of it. I reached for my sword, but as I did so, he pressed the metallic trigger on his crossbow, and I felt nothing more.
Being under the spell of an azamus dart is horrendous. Your body freezes up and goes numb, but after twenty minutes your mind reawakens, except that it no longer remembers quite who or what you are.
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
It’s great on the estate, yeah!
I live in a towerblock, one of seven on the estate. I'm on the tenth floor, so I get a good view across town. I like it when it rains– the droplets hit the windows and the city is blanketed by this leaden pall. Sometimes I feel like God looking down on his creation– all scurry-scurrying out of the wet. On the mad days it rains like thunder, and the leaves swirl up off the trees, like being in a snowshaker. The cars swish through the rain, and sometimes there are sirens.
It’s strange living here. Nothing is explained, you just hear what happened. Some guy got kneecapped outside the neighbouring block a year ago. I heard the shots, but never found out more. Just some guy got shot, probably a turf war over drugs. Another time, I go out and there’s a body, covered by a clear plastic tent. Lots of dibble around. A jumper– I don’t know who or why. Somebody jumped.
A woman jumped from my flat ten years ago. A friend didn’t like her nailvarnish, and she went off out the window.
Sometimes life is as hard as nails.
*****
My neighbour comes out of his flat– and there’s a SWAT team there, assault rifles raised, with the head guy banging on the door next to his. He quickly jumps back in, and shouts to them, ‘hey, I need to get to work now. In three seconds I’m coming out, ok?’. They let him go and wait for the lift while they hold their rifles pointed squarely at the door.
Like I say, you get to hear what happened, but you have no idea why it did.
*****
Billy and Steve
They came round unannounced with the crack and h. We did them together; me for the first time; learning how to chase the h around the foil, how near to hold the lighter, and Billy showing me how you make a crack-pipe out of an empty can of Tennants. I also learned that cigarette ash, not usually highly prized, becomes a valuable commodity when smoking crack. All-in-all, it was very educational.
And then they drove me crazy– both talking at me at the same time, for a full hour. It was like Crack-rant Hour on Junkie FM. I am cursed to be a listener. On my left was Billy, (mad man), who was frantically informing me about a secret weapon that the military were developing that would melt all the metal in the world, including the fillings in your teeth. On my right, Steve spoke more slowly and philosophically, though no less passionately, about the need for a fairer society.
Later though, they came down; we all went out for a walk and ended up sat under a tree in a small park, talking gently, almost reverently, about life, the universe and everything. A silvery plane flew high overhead, sharp against the azure sky. The Evening Star appeared slowly as the daylight dimmed, and it was beautiful. It was perfect.
*****
yeah, I'm getting closer, he said, I know I don't have enough pills right now, and I'm too scared to jump- can't slash my wrists- it's too painful, and anyway, you have to keep re-opening the wound- I can't do that…
I stopped taking my methodone– I’m gonna save it all up and when I’ve got enough I’m gonna down the lot
if I drink a bottle of vod plus the meth, that'll do it…
*****
He come round for the first time, and proceeded to try and rip out my bathroom plumbing. “Look at this, man, it’s worth money! That’s copper that is!”
*****
The Gift
Billy sez to me, “I knew this guy, Cal, in one a the homes. E was tryna kill ‘imself wi pills. E sez to me, “Billy, I feel bad, I wanna die.” I looked at what e ’ad, an I sez to ’im– “that won’t do it mate– y’need more pills than that. What y’wanna do mate, is string yrself up, that’ll fix it”
So next day, e comes to me, an e sez– “Billy, come ere, I wanna show yer sumfin’”… an so I follow im, an e goes behind 'is bedroom door an sez “wait here, I got sumfin I wanna show yer”
So I waits there in the corridor, an e goes in ‘is room, and then I hear this kickin’– e’s doin the Tyburn jig agenst the door… y’know, kickin it an that. E ‘ung imself from the A-shape metl frame above… y’know the bit of metl that closes the door?– e ‘ung imself from that, kickin agenst the door as e died
That was ‘is gift to me…”
An me, listnin, I sat an I sed nuffin’. “You ‘eartless fuckin cunt” I thought…
******
“Quick, close Heaven– Paddy’s coming!”
This morning I went out on the estate- had a chat with the old Irish Christian guy with the thick white beard, who sits drinking on a bench. It might sound like I’m using a lazy stereotype, but his name really is Paddy. 'I'm livin on Faith' he says, in his thick brogue, an I think, 'nah mate, you're clearly livin on Special Brew'
I like Paddy- he's always goin on about The End Times, it’s funny. He’s got a proper hard-on for the Book of Revelation.
He gets real boring after about ten minutes though- he just never shuts up. He’s one of those people who are well into their monologues, and skillfully stonewall any attempts at a conversation by not leaving any natural pauses in their speech whatsoever. A cunning trick. Like I say, I am cursed to be a listener.
If there truly is a Heaven, Jesus and the Saints will soon be sorry that they let bigmouth Paddy in!
*****
Notice on the messageboard-
"good loving homes wanted for 3 gorgeous golden labrador pups. Very playful, free to caring owners. Tel- 0795----------
PS- remove my notice again and i'll break your legs”
*****
What she said
“They phone me and they phone me– why? I have nothing to offer. It’s like the heroin lure, the bait; the trap is set. I wonder if I’ll ever get off it now. When I stopped, it was for Luke, and I stayed off for him. Now I’m just another of the lost souls, sucking, sucking…”
He died; her only child bleeding to death in her arms. So many years ago now, but the grief never leaves.
She sucks on the pipe, and chases the small brown blob across the tinfoil, catching the blue-grey smoke that rises off it like a comet’s tail.
“They phone me and they phone me… more rarely now. I think they’re giving up. Everyone tells me that I should get out more, that it’s not good to lock myself away, not speaking to anyone. Who would I speak to? All I can think about is the past…”
*****
The sunrise is beautiful over the estate, viewed from here on the tenth floor. It comes in, shining yellow, or orange and pink in high Summer, rising over the Pennines, blasting the angular grey concrete with magical light.
This is a work of fiction; any similarity between characters alive or dead is purely accidental.
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
In the Neighbourhood
You alight at a stop you haven't visited in almost twenty years. You immediately notice the changes; the wooden bus shelter is gone, replaced by an ugly perspex oblong box. The trees have grown, they're saplings in your memory but now they are almost full grown. Physically the small shopping precinct remains the same; a quadrangle of single storey red brick shops with benches and shrubbery in the centre and a covered walkway on each side to protect shoppers from the rain.
You're reassured the Co-Op is still there, though its smaller than you remember, but many of the other shops have changed hands. The florist is gone, the video shop has become a take-away and the Ironmongers one of those pound shops festooned with cheap plastic goods from the Far East. The chippy is still in business under a new name and the hairdressers remains. You can’t help but look through the window as you pass half hoping one of the girls is still working there, but you don’t recognise any of the faces.
You cross the car park heading for the estate where you spent the best part of your teenage years. From a distance it is exactly as you remember it, modern townhouses clustered closely together, each home one of half a dozen slightly different designs. They were brand new when you first came here a quarter of a century ago, but as you get nearer you see the changes, an extension here, a new fence there. They look lived in now, weathered.
You weave your way through the blocks. You still remember each alley and shortcut, strange what stays with you. You stand before your old home, it hasn’t changed except for the addition of a satellite dish and a double glazed front door. Back in the day everyone still had the blue wooden doors put in by the Development Corporation. Your heart misses a beat when you realise the trellis you and Dad put up beneath the kitchen windows one summer Sunday afternoon is still there. Mum never did get round to planting the roses to grow up it.
Mum and Dad. They had broken up just a few weeks after you had left for Uni. You had been shocked. All those years they'd been keeping it together just for you, and you had no idea. You had never noticed their unhappiness, you'd never heard a cross word between them. You wonder if you could ever be so selfless.
With the house gone there had been little reason to come home, you kept in touch with your mates for a year or so, kept promising to come and visit but you'd got so caught up in your new life in the City; and the truth was you couldn’t wait to get out of here, couldn’t wait to get away. You didn’t have an unhappy time here, but it wasn't the best days of your life either. Mostly it had been a bore, a waiting room for adulthood and real life.
It's difficult to understand the nostalgia you've been feeling for this place over the past year, so strong it sometimes keeps you awake at nights. You hardly thought about the place for so long. Yet there you'd be, a couple of bottles of chardonnay the worst for wear, watching old pop videos on YouTube and fighting back tears for what once had been. Perhaps it's ageing, you reason. Looking at forty, you can feel youth ebbing away; and your impelled to grasp for a time and place forever out of reach now.
You stare up at your old window, wondering whose bedroom it was now. You remember how you had painted it brilliant white with a black blind and black duvet and that black ash furniture that was so fashionable back then. You'd thought it was so cool. You see a face peering out of next doors window. You wonder if Rosie still lives there but turn and walk away, you don’t want to see people, just places.
You walk on through the estate. You were in your twenties and far away from here when you realised each block was named after a Kent Village; Cranbrook, Davington, Halstead... the more idyllic the name the rougher the block it seemed. You come out on to a cycle path and follow it past the converted barn which had held the youth club. You remember the Discos, the highlight of the month. The excitement building as the day approached, all pooling your money to buy cider and cheap cigarettes. They had been a laugh though they invariably ended with the girls in tears as the boys fought or one of the younger kids was rushed to hospital to have their stomach pumped.
Eventually you reach the school. It’s much as you remember it, the leafy red brick campus and the large library and sports centre shared with the community. Rather a decent school looking back, you'd been happy enough . You’re curious whether any of the staff are still here from those days, perhaps one or two of the younger might still teaching. You walk up to the library and gaze in through the plate glass; you'd spent so much time here. No one had heard of the internet in those days and if you wanted to know about something you had to look it up, and you'd been one curious kid, obsessed with science. You hadn’t been a swot though; you’d managed to combine your interest in physics and chemistry with being one of the boys, a bit of a jack the lad.
You resist the temptation to go in and wander across the playing fields, remembering the sports days and the games lessons when they'd make you play rugby in the rain. You're pleased to discover the gap in the hedge is still there, kept open by generations of dog walkers. You clamber through and walk down a gap between two houses into a street of thirties semis. You’re coming into the old village now, over a thousand years old but swamped by the suburban red brick estates of the eighties development. You wonder if the bitter division between the estate and the village kids still exists. It had ended in punch up's on more than one occasion back then.
You walk to the village green, fiercely preserved in the face of urban sprawl. You cross to the Three Horseshoes. It had been a real old mans pub back in the day, stinking of stale tobacco and beer. It was very different now. The inside had been gutted; the old division between the saloon bar and lounge was gone, replaced by a big open space with dark hardwood floors and pricey designer furniture. It’s early for lunch, only just gone midday and you’re the first customer. You take a table by the window and ask for a menu.
You enjoy a light lunch of salad and a glass of very good Pinot Noir. You gaze at the whitewashed thatched cottages that surround the green and the Norman Church at one end and wonder if there were any working families left in the Village, properties must cost a fortune. It's picture-postcard pretty, Claire would love it here.
You know she was hurt when you told her this morning that you wanted come here alone, despite her protestations that she understood. Coming back had been her idea, she talked a lot about the future and you suspect she thinks the past is holding you back. You'd resisted the idea at first, you had never been one for revisiting old ghosts, but eventually you agreed. Telling yourself it would be good to see some of the old places, see how things had changed.
You stroll down through the village and across the main road to the lakes. A chain of large man made pools in parkland, they had featured heavily in the advertising when the new suburb was first built. If you grew up anywhere it was here. Memories cascade out of the past; the long summer days lying beneath the trees, the chilly autumnal nights when you’d light a fire until the Police would come and chase you away. You remember the winter the Lakes had frozen and you’d dared each other to walk out further and further on to the ice until you’d all scrambled off in panic as it began to shift and crack around you, Danny C nearly drowning after diving in off one of the small bridges and smashing his head on a rock, Stephie Jones, her black hair swept back and her dark eyes twinkling in the moonlight.
You sit down on a bench. It's almost painful to be here, all those memories, all those years ago... You wonder for the hundredth time where everyone is now, what they're doing, what they look like. Probably married with wives and kids, working in the building trade or the engineering plants. Sometimes the urge to start googling their names, or to join one of those sites for reuniting lost friends is almost overwhelming, but you never do in the end. It wasn't them, it was you. You had changed so much, how would you even begin to explain your life now to them?
'You've changed' had been a bad thing to say when you were growing up, a charge uttered in anger, almost an insult. You'd never understood that attitude, wasn't life about change? growing, evolving, moving on? They were good people here, your people you think as you head back to the precinct, decent people. But you could never have been yourself in a place like this. Too small, too insular. They would never have understood, you'd have forever been a talking point, a freak. And you'd have been so alone.
You walk back to the precinct and wait for the bus back into the city centre. It's full of kids on their lunch break running and shouting and generally running amok. You feel such an identification with them, for a moment at least you are one of them, half expecting Nathan or Jonesy to come screeching around the corner on a stolen mountain bike or Fat Phil to wander nonchalantly out of the chippy munching on a saveloy.
Your reverie is ended with the growing realisation that a couple of boys are sniggering at you. Hardly a new experience but it's always unpleasant. You're relieved when the number twelve pulls up. You think you look fairly good, tall and slim and you’re meticulous about your clothes, hair and make up. But sometimes people catch on, something in the set of your features, or the timbre of your voice or the way you move gives it away. You are so much more at ease with yourself than you were in your twenties, when you first started living as a woman. It’s been over six years now since the final operation and you feel comfortable with yourself in a way you never had before. You’re happy now.
Claire is waiting for you at the hotel surrounded by the detritus of a boozy lunch; she’s sipping on a gin and tonic and flirting with the outrageously handsome East European cleaning the tables. You sit opposite her and order a drink. She looks at you expectantly.
"How did it go?" she asks. You take her hand in yours and stare into her big grey eyes.
"Good” you tell her, squeezing her hand. “It was interesting to go back”. She smiles, waiting for you to elaborate
“I've come to a decision" you tell her "There's nothing I want more than for us to have a baby”
You're reassured the Co-Op is still there, though its smaller than you remember, but many of the other shops have changed hands. The florist is gone, the video shop has become a take-away and the Ironmongers one of those pound shops festooned with cheap plastic goods from the Far East. The chippy is still in business under a new name and the hairdressers remains. You can’t help but look through the window as you pass half hoping one of the girls is still working there, but you don’t recognise any of the faces.
You cross the car park heading for the estate where you spent the best part of your teenage years. From a distance it is exactly as you remember it, modern townhouses clustered closely together, each home one of half a dozen slightly different designs. They were brand new when you first came here a quarter of a century ago, but as you get nearer you see the changes, an extension here, a new fence there. They look lived in now, weathered.
You weave your way through the blocks. You still remember each alley and shortcut, strange what stays with you. You stand before your old home, it hasn’t changed except for the addition of a satellite dish and a double glazed front door. Back in the day everyone still had the blue wooden doors put in by the Development Corporation. Your heart misses a beat when you realise the trellis you and Dad put up beneath the kitchen windows one summer Sunday afternoon is still there. Mum never did get round to planting the roses to grow up it.
Mum and Dad. They had broken up just a few weeks after you had left for Uni. You had been shocked. All those years they'd been keeping it together just for you, and you had no idea. You had never noticed their unhappiness, you'd never heard a cross word between them. You wonder if you could ever be so selfless.
With the house gone there had been little reason to come home, you kept in touch with your mates for a year or so, kept promising to come and visit but you'd got so caught up in your new life in the City; and the truth was you couldn’t wait to get out of here, couldn’t wait to get away. You didn’t have an unhappy time here, but it wasn't the best days of your life either. Mostly it had been a bore, a waiting room for adulthood and real life.
It's difficult to understand the nostalgia you've been feeling for this place over the past year, so strong it sometimes keeps you awake at nights. You hardly thought about the place for so long. Yet there you'd be, a couple of bottles of chardonnay the worst for wear, watching old pop videos on YouTube and fighting back tears for what once had been. Perhaps it's ageing, you reason. Looking at forty, you can feel youth ebbing away; and your impelled to grasp for a time and place forever out of reach now.
You stare up at your old window, wondering whose bedroom it was now. You remember how you had painted it brilliant white with a black blind and black duvet and that black ash furniture that was so fashionable back then. You'd thought it was so cool. You see a face peering out of next doors window. You wonder if Rosie still lives there but turn and walk away, you don’t want to see people, just places.
You walk on through the estate. You were in your twenties and far away from here when you realised each block was named after a Kent Village; Cranbrook, Davington, Halstead... the more idyllic the name the rougher the block it seemed. You come out on to a cycle path and follow it past the converted barn which had held the youth club. You remember the Discos, the highlight of the month. The excitement building as the day approached, all pooling your money to buy cider and cheap cigarettes. They had been a laugh though they invariably ended with the girls in tears as the boys fought or one of the younger kids was rushed to hospital to have their stomach pumped.
Eventually you reach the school. It’s much as you remember it, the leafy red brick campus and the large library and sports centre shared with the community. Rather a decent school looking back, you'd been happy enough . You’re curious whether any of the staff are still here from those days, perhaps one or two of the younger might still teaching. You walk up to the library and gaze in through the plate glass; you'd spent so much time here. No one had heard of the internet in those days and if you wanted to know about something you had to look it up, and you'd been one curious kid, obsessed with science. You hadn’t been a swot though; you’d managed to combine your interest in physics and chemistry with being one of the boys, a bit of a jack the lad.
You resist the temptation to go in and wander across the playing fields, remembering the sports days and the games lessons when they'd make you play rugby in the rain. You're pleased to discover the gap in the hedge is still there, kept open by generations of dog walkers. You clamber through and walk down a gap between two houses into a street of thirties semis. You’re coming into the old village now, over a thousand years old but swamped by the suburban red brick estates of the eighties development. You wonder if the bitter division between the estate and the village kids still exists. It had ended in punch up's on more than one occasion back then.
You walk to the village green, fiercely preserved in the face of urban sprawl. You cross to the Three Horseshoes. It had been a real old mans pub back in the day, stinking of stale tobacco and beer. It was very different now. The inside had been gutted; the old division between the saloon bar and lounge was gone, replaced by a big open space with dark hardwood floors and pricey designer furniture. It’s early for lunch, only just gone midday and you’re the first customer. You take a table by the window and ask for a menu.
You enjoy a light lunch of salad and a glass of very good Pinot Noir. You gaze at the whitewashed thatched cottages that surround the green and the Norman Church at one end and wonder if there were any working families left in the Village, properties must cost a fortune. It's picture-postcard pretty, Claire would love it here.
You know she was hurt when you told her this morning that you wanted come here alone, despite her protestations that she understood. Coming back had been her idea, she talked a lot about the future and you suspect she thinks the past is holding you back. You'd resisted the idea at first, you had never been one for revisiting old ghosts, but eventually you agreed. Telling yourself it would be good to see some of the old places, see how things had changed.
You stroll down through the village and across the main road to the lakes. A chain of large man made pools in parkland, they had featured heavily in the advertising when the new suburb was first built. If you grew up anywhere it was here. Memories cascade out of the past; the long summer days lying beneath the trees, the chilly autumnal nights when you’d light a fire until the Police would come and chase you away. You remember the winter the Lakes had frozen and you’d dared each other to walk out further and further on to the ice until you’d all scrambled off in panic as it began to shift and crack around you, Danny C nearly drowning after diving in off one of the small bridges and smashing his head on a rock, Stephie Jones, her black hair swept back and her dark eyes twinkling in the moonlight.
You sit down on a bench. It's almost painful to be here, all those memories, all those years ago... You wonder for the hundredth time where everyone is now, what they're doing, what they look like. Probably married with wives and kids, working in the building trade or the engineering plants. Sometimes the urge to start googling their names, or to join one of those sites for reuniting lost friends is almost overwhelming, but you never do in the end. It wasn't them, it was you. You had changed so much, how would you even begin to explain your life now to them?
'You've changed' had been a bad thing to say when you were growing up, a charge uttered in anger, almost an insult. You'd never understood that attitude, wasn't life about change? growing, evolving, moving on? They were good people here, your people you think as you head back to the precinct, decent people. But you could never have been yourself in a place like this. Too small, too insular. They would never have understood, you'd have forever been a talking point, a freak. And you'd have been so alone.
You walk back to the precinct and wait for the bus back into the city centre. It's full of kids on their lunch break running and shouting and generally running amok. You feel such an identification with them, for a moment at least you are one of them, half expecting Nathan or Jonesy to come screeching around the corner on a stolen mountain bike or Fat Phil to wander nonchalantly out of the chippy munching on a saveloy.
Your reverie is ended with the growing realisation that a couple of boys are sniggering at you. Hardly a new experience but it's always unpleasant. You're relieved when the number twelve pulls up. You think you look fairly good, tall and slim and you’re meticulous about your clothes, hair and make up. But sometimes people catch on, something in the set of your features, or the timbre of your voice or the way you move gives it away. You are so much more at ease with yourself than you were in your twenties, when you first started living as a woman. It’s been over six years now since the final operation and you feel comfortable with yourself in a way you never had before. You’re happy now.
Claire is waiting for you at the hotel surrounded by the detritus of a boozy lunch; she’s sipping on a gin and tonic and flirting with the outrageously handsome East European cleaning the tables. You sit opposite her and order a drink. She looks at you expectantly.
"How did it go?" she asks. You take her hand in yours and stare into her big grey eyes.
"Good” you tell her, squeezing her hand. “It was interesting to go back”. She smiles, waiting for you to elaborate
“I've come to a decision" you tell her "There's nothing I want more than for us to have a baby”
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Green, Black, Red
Little towns breed stories. There aren’t enough people in these places to come up with a consistent idea of what makes sense and what doesn’t, so people tend to simply watch what happens and call that normality. They don’t ignore the important bits like other people do. Our town is a bit further away than most from the troublesome influence of civilisation, in fact it is the only town on a little spit of an island twenty miles or so off the coast. Still part of Britain of course, in the same way that the moon is part of the Earth.
Here to illustrate my point are three stories from a single year in our town, the year 1985. A birth (or two, or maybe not) a marriage and a death. We’ll start with the green ink, and the marriage of Jonah and Wilma.
Jonah was a boat captain, provided you can be a captain when you’re the only person on the crew. Naval technicalities aren’t my strong point. Wilma was the chef at the local pub, Cthulhu’s Arms. Foolish romantics to the soles of their boots, the two of them decided to marry on the spot where they had first met. They had first met shortly after a shipwreck, or rather during it. Some of the boat was probably still showing at the time. This was before Jonah became a boat captain of course, in fact it was that very shipwreck which created the vacancy for a new boat captain, and indeed a new boat.
Jonah and Wilma had been the only two survivors of the wreck, the latter having hauled the unconscious former ashore with biceps she’d honed through years of dragging barrels up from the harbour. The place where their eyes first met (Jonah’s eyes were somewhat unfocussed at the time, largely because he’d only just started breathing again after a break of a couple of minutes) was Satan’s Toe, an uninviting pinnacle of silverish-green rock trailing out in the wake of the narrow, slithering peninsula which pointed back towards the mainland. Satan’s Toe could be reached on foot once every six months, for a period of roughly four minutes, during the very lowest tides of the year. Could is an important word here.
The day and the hour of the ceremony were chosen by the sun and moon rather than the bride and groom, but happily they selected half past eleven on what turned out to be a very pleasant May morning. The man from the coastguard did a briefing beforehand for the assembled guests. Attention was drawn to the slippery nature of the rocks which had to be traversed to get down to the waterline, as well as to the highly temporary nature of the causeway which led out to the Toe itself. The priest was doing press ups on the beach and muttering to himself as quickly as he could in rehersal for what would have to be a very rapid service.
The outward journey passed without incident, save for several nice dresses becoming shredded by barnacles and a number of top hats being swept away on the wind. One of these was later spotted adorning a rather dapper-looking seal. The causeway appeared exactly when it was supposed to, presented like a wedding gift by the parting sea. The ceremony itself was beautiful. History records that it was rather too beautiful in fact, and the guests stood so long sharing the blissful tears of the newlyweds that everyone forgot all about the sea. Until, that is, the sea reminded them. Jonah and Wilma were once again the only survivors, washed ashore with smiles on their faces. It seemed they didn’t even realise they were wet, and they hadn’t noticed the screams at all.
It was a beautiful ceremony. Everyone on the island says so, even though nobody who is still alive was actually there. They know because they’ve all seen the photographs of the event framed and hanging in the dining room of Cthulhu’s Arms. Nobody is quite sure how the photographs succeeded in remaining extant while the photographer himself did not.
Now we come to death. As my grandfather used to say, we all have to go some time. Better to make it count. If you’ve got any soft tissue left then you’ve not tried hard enough, he was often heard to insist. Recognisable bone fragments are understandable but still best avoided. There’s nothing much to be done about the teeth though, all you can really do is try and ensure that each of them is as far from the others as possible.
Dear old grandad got his wish. An artillery shell removed him from this plane of existence as comprehensively as he could ever have hoped for. He wasn’t in a war or anything, the shell had landed next to him in Normandy some decades earlier. He had taken it home hidden in a bundle of looted fur coats and kept it ever since, a reminder of the litle bubble of good luck in which he had drawn every single breath for forty years. An admirable gesture from a certain point of view; a nod of recognition, if not thanks, to such fates as might be passing.
The only regrettable thing was Grandad’s insistence on keeping the bloody thing on top of his drinks cabinet. Never a man to let that last drop of whisky linger on the nozzle of the optic when it could be in his glass, it was grandad’s overenthusiastic jiggling of a spent bottle that finally roused the shell from its slumber and burst the bubble, settling the score at last. You may well ask me how I know all this. Well, in the crumbling wreckage of his house they found a glass tumbler, unbroken and containing a generous measure of Tallisker and a single human tooth.
Finally to birth, to red ink. The birth of a force of nature, the birth of a Valkyrie. Apparently it never even occurred to her parents. Looking at the two of them I could well believe that. Valerie Kerry, her name was. And from day one they were calling her Val. If they’d tried to think up something like that they’d never have been able to. Serendipity runs in her family. That might seem like a good thing but she’d be sure to tell you that a happy accident is still an accident. Depending on the nature of the mishap you may only be happy about it because of the lingering concussion.
Valerie Kerry carved a little hole in the world and tumbled into it one summer’s day in that already eventful 1985. I wasn’t there at the time, but it’s one of those things you can picture in your head knowing that what you see is prety close to what happened. She would have been born with the flowing red hair, that much is certain. A little tangled, unavoidably, but pro-vitamin glossy and glowing like a glitterball made of grass snakes. I expect she probably opted for a simple, loose dress of some sort. White wouldn’t really be appropriate in the circumstances, dark green is more her anyway. I doubt she’d have bothered with a speech. There was probably little more than a yawn, a cursory wave of the hand and a murmured request for some comfort or other, a blanket or a brandy and babycham.
Young Valerie spent the next three weeks killing time, but she did so in the grip of a certain sense of unease that she’d have been unable to put her finger on even if she had learned to control her fingers properly by that point. She wouldn’t have known it yet, but the world was incomplete with only her in it. The parents, sundry relatives and harried medical professionals that swarmed around her were a tiresome irrelevance. Like ghosts but without the advantage of novelty value. I couldn’t bring myself to look on at this dreadful situation and not do something to help. When three weeks were up I finally came to join her. Arriving naked, bald, slime-soaked and with a lamentable lack of grandeur, I squared my shoulders and began to prepare myself for what lay ahead.
Naturally I don’t remember the details of those first few months of our lives, I only know the broad narrative structure of it all, the bit left intact in between the islanders’ collective memories. It doesn’t really matter how we first met. It’s safe to assume that the conversation wouldn’t have sparkled. Passers-by would not have felt that they could see history being made. Two babies in two prams, pausing opposite one another for a minute or so while their mothers talked. No angelic choirs, no scurrying thunderbolts, no line-dancing lepers. There would have been something though, a cloud briefly obscuring the sun like a little cosmic wink. A pigeon flying away for no reason. A car swerving into a barrier two hundred miles away. Something.
Because in amongst the stories and lurking gently beyond the reach of words there’s one thing that really stretches credulity; one thing that alludes to real magic. Even out here nobody can see it. Against all logic, three weeks late and via a completely separate family, an only child was given her twin brother.
Here to illustrate my point are three stories from a single year in our town, the year 1985. A birth (or two, or maybe not) a marriage and a death. We’ll start with the green ink, and the marriage of Jonah and Wilma.
Jonah was a boat captain, provided you can be a captain when you’re the only person on the crew. Naval technicalities aren’t my strong point. Wilma was the chef at the local pub, Cthulhu’s Arms. Foolish romantics to the soles of their boots, the two of them decided to marry on the spot where they had first met. They had first met shortly after a shipwreck, or rather during it. Some of the boat was probably still showing at the time. This was before Jonah became a boat captain of course, in fact it was that very shipwreck which created the vacancy for a new boat captain, and indeed a new boat.
Jonah and Wilma had been the only two survivors of the wreck, the latter having hauled the unconscious former ashore with biceps she’d honed through years of dragging barrels up from the harbour. The place where their eyes first met (Jonah’s eyes were somewhat unfocussed at the time, largely because he’d only just started breathing again after a break of a couple of minutes) was Satan’s Toe, an uninviting pinnacle of silverish-green rock trailing out in the wake of the narrow, slithering peninsula which pointed back towards the mainland. Satan’s Toe could be reached on foot once every six months, for a period of roughly four minutes, during the very lowest tides of the year. Could is an important word here.
The day and the hour of the ceremony were chosen by the sun and moon rather than the bride and groom, but happily they selected half past eleven on what turned out to be a very pleasant May morning. The man from the coastguard did a briefing beforehand for the assembled guests. Attention was drawn to the slippery nature of the rocks which had to be traversed to get down to the waterline, as well as to the highly temporary nature of the causeway which led out to the Toe itself. The priest was doing press ups on the beach and muttering to himself as quickly as he could in rehersal for what would have to be a very rapid service.
The outward journey passed without incident, save for several nice dresses becoming shredded by barnacles and a number of top hats being swept away on the wind. One of these was later spotted adorning a rather dapper-looking seal. The causeway appeared exactly when it was supposed to, presented like a wedding gift by the parting sea. The ceremony itself was beautiful. History records that it was rather too beautiful in fact, and the guests stood so long sharing the blissful tears of the newlyweds that everyone forgot all about the sea. Until, that is, the sea reminded them. Jonah and Wilma were once again the only survivors, washed ashore with smiles on their faces. It seemed they didn’t even realise they were wet, and they hadn’t noticed the screams at all.
It was a beautiful ceremony. Everyone on the island says so, even though nobody who is still alive was actually there. They know because they’ve all seen the photographs of the event framed and hanging in the dining room of Cthulhu’s Arms. Nobody is quite sure how the photographs succeeded in remaining extant while the photographer himself did not.
Now we come to death. As my grandfather used to say, we all have to go some time. Better to make it count. If you’ve got any soft tissue left then you’ve not tried hard enough, he was often heard to insist. Recognisable bone fragments are understandable but still best avoided. There’s nothing much to be done about the teeth though, all you can really do is try and ensure that each of them is as far from the others as possible.
Dear old grandad got his wish. An artillery shell removed him from this plane of existence as comprehensively as he could ever have hoped for. He wasn’t in a war or anything, the shell had landed next to him in Normandy some decades earlier. He had taken it home hidden in a bundle of looted fur coats and kept it ever since, a reminder of the litle bubble of good luck in which he had drawn every single breath for forty years. An admirable gesture from a certain point of view; a nod of recognition, if not thanks, to such fates as might be passing.
The only regrettable thing was Grandad’s insistence on keeping the bloody thing on top of his drinks cabinet. Never a man to let that last drop of whisky linger on the nozzle of the optic when it could be in his glass, it was grandad’s overenthusiastic jiggling of a spent bottle that finally roused the shell from its slumber and burst the bubble, settling the score at last. You may well ask me how I know all this. Well, in the crumbling wreckage of his house they found a glass tumbler, unbroken and containing a generous measure of Tallisker and a single human tooth.
Finally to birth, to red ink. The birth of a force of nature, the birth of a Valkyrie. Apparently it never even occurred to her parents. Looking at the two of them I could well believe that. Valerie Kerry, her name was. And from day one they were calling her Val. If they’d tried to think up something like that they’d never have been able to. Serendipity runs in her family. That might seem like a good thing but she’d be sure to tell you that a happy accident is still an accident. Depending on the nature of the mishap you may only be happy about it because of the lingering concussion.
Valerie Kerry carved a little hole in the world and tumbled into it one summer’s day in that already eventful 1985. I wasn’t there at the time, but it’s one of those things you can picture in your head knowing that what you see is prety close to what happened. She would have been born with the flowing red hair, that much is certain. A little tangled, unavoidably, but pro-vitamin glossy and glowing like a glitterball made of grass snakes. I expect she probably opted for a simple, loose dress of some sort. White wouldn’t really be appropriate in the circumstances, dark green is more her anyway. I doubt she’d have bothered with a speech. There was probably little more than a yawn, a cursory wave of the hand and a murmured request for some comfort or other, a blanket or a brandy and babycham.
Young Valerie spent the next three weeks killing time, but she did so in the grip of a certain sense of unease that she’d have been unable to put her finger on even if she had learned to control her fingers properly by that point. She wouldn’t have known it yet, but the world was incomplete with only her in it. The parents, sundry relatives and harried medical professionals that swarmed around her were a tiresome irrelevance. Like ghosts but without the advantage of novelty value. I couldn’t bring myself to look on at this dreadful situation and not do something to help. When three weeks were up I finally came to join her. Arriving naked, bald, slime-soaked and with a lamentable lack of grandeur, I squared my shoulders and began to prepare myself for what lay ahead.
Naturally I don’t remember the details of those first few months of our lives, I only know the broad narrative structure of it all, the bit left intact in between the islanders’ collective memories. It doesn’t really matter how we first met. It’s safe to assume that the conversation wouldn’t have sparkled. Passers-by would not have felt that they could see history being made. Two babies in two prams, pausing opposite one another for a minute or so while their mothers talked. No angelic choirs, no scurrying thunderbolts, no line-dancing lepers. There would have been something though, a cloud briefly obscuring the sun like a little cosmic wink. A pigeon flying away for no reason. A car swerving into a barrier two hundred miles away. Something.
Because in amongst the stories and lurking gently beyond the reach of words there’s one thing that really stretches credulity; one thing that alludes to real magic. Even out here nobody can see it. Against all logic, three weeks late and via a completely separate family, an only child was given her twin brother.
Chat Eau
Dressed in his finest neatly pressed black suit, Thierry Duchain kissed the hand of the ageing lady standing at the door of his restaurant. It had only been open for six months and had already established a fine reputation as one of the most prestigious eateries in London.
"Please, sit down, messieurs," Thierry said, in an accent that only the most astute observers would have noticed was put-on for effect - Terry Datchet, as his real name was, being born and bred on a council estate in Watford. Why did my parents give me the name Terry? he would ask himself repeatedly during his childhood years, after yet another day of moronic bullying over his name. Why not Tom or Tim or even - he thought amusedly, having grown up in a largely Muslim area - Tariq?
Painstakingly, he folded the silken napkin over Mrs Stonesmith's lap. Her husband, the esteemed architect Norman Stonesmith - not that esteemed, though, or he would surely be a Sir by now - would arrive shortly to accompany the party. Lord Felix Bufton. Henry and Emma de Montfort. And so on. How perfectly ghastly, to use a phrase he had already heard ten times too often.
"Tonight, there is a special addition to the menu, as I am sure you are aware," Thierry said, clearing his throat in a very "French" manner.
"Oh, yes," Mrs Stonesmith said. "By invitation only, if I am to understand?"
Thierry nodded. "Why, of course, madame!" Limited edition. By invitation only. He prevented himself from saying, "there is not a chance that the riff-raff would appreciate this fine bouquet". It was fine for them to think it, of course, and walking with Henry de Montfort yesterday, while he gazed disparagingly at a group of teenagers not unlike himself twenty years ago, he knew that Henry believed they had an "entente cordiale". A mutual understanding. But saying it aloud would be too ... crude. Too unseemly.
He presented the dinner party with elaborately bound menus which he balanced on his elbow, prompting gasps of "Wow" and "Incredible". Nothing on the menu was priced below a hundred pounds, including the re-packaged Sprite lemonade that he had sprinkled with a few herbs, pressed lemon juice into from Asda and claimed as a "secret recipe". Authentically made in the same way for hundreds of years - thousands even.
His guests saw him disappear for a moment, only to reappear with a wicker basket of ciabatta bread and a jug of balsamic vinegar. Balsamic vinegar, he laughed inwardly. I thought that was too common these days? Perhaps it would spoil the unique flavour of the centuries-old recipes he was about to give his distinguished guests the opportunity to savour.
"Thank you," Norman Stonesmith said. Norman Stonesmith had just arrived.
"Oh, monsieur, I do apologise," Thierry said. "I did not welcome you personally. Please, forgive me."
Norman Stonesmith looked at Thierry in a way suggesting that he did not forgive him. He nodded at him and turned back to the ciabatta and their excruciating conversation.
"So what is this ... vintage, may I ask?" Henry de Montfort asked. Emma sat silently beside him.
"We in France call it ... Chat Eau," Thierry said, flourishing his hand a little. "Eet eez...a traditional recipe from ze Loire Valley. Made for hundreds of years in ze same...way..."
"Chateau? Chateau what, may I ask?"
"Ah, it is only...Chat Eau," Thierry said. "That is all. The famous Chateau in the Loire Valley. Un moment, I will show you. It was near my grandmozzer's house." He advanced towards a painting on the wall; being from John Lewis, it had cost him rather a lot of money. These days, that wasn't a problem for him, but back when he frequented filthy drinking hovels with the members of Class War...
"No, no, that ... won't be necessary, thank you," Norman said. Thierry was starting to dislike him intensely, unreasonably, even more than the other guests. It would be necessary to mettre him en place.
"So," Henry said. "Two bottles of your finest Chat Eau, please."
"Finest" really wasn't a word which should be used in the same sentence as "Chat Eau", Thierry thought, but anyway.
He nodded to them and gave a slight Gallic smile, before disappearing out of sight and into the wine cellar, ignoring the smell of gone-off cheese which he would serve to his guests if anyone ordered it. He took out a key from his pocket and walked towards a stainless steel door which would have shocked his clientele due to the fact that it was not in keeping with the decor of the restaurant. Fortunately, they would never come down here. He would never let them.
He unlocked the door and walked over to a large plastic container full of various kinds of cheap red and white plonk which he'd emptied into it. Thierry hated wine; as well as the fact that it was a preserve of the hated bourgeoisie, which if he thought about enough he couldn't really care less about, not having been a member of Class War for five years after they threw him out - but because of the fact that it tasted fucking rank.
He cracked open a can of Beck's to steel himself for what was coming next and downed most of it in one go. He looked into the tub of wine, and then, stroking his chin thoughtfully, he walked over to the area of the room where the secret ingredient, his crowning glory, was kept. Taking out his keys again, he opened the door to a small metal cupboard, and was met with sharp claws against his hand.
"Sorry, mate," he said, grabbing the secret ingredient of Chat Eau by the scruff of the neck - he didn't want to get too attached - and walked over to the tub full of wine. Ignoring the screeches, splashes and cries, or at least attempting to, he opened another cupboard and took out a truly terrifying contraption with a very sharp blade which turned around when it was turned on at rapid speeds, almost like a propellor. If anyone ever sees this, he thought, tell them that it's for meat. Which it was. Sort of.
He plugged the device into the wall and lowered the blade into the barrel of wine, where the secret ingredient was thrashing about wildly. "Sorry," he said again. If God existed, he would surely reserve a special place in Hell for him, Thierry thought, before he turned his contraption on, ran out of the door and waited.
Forty-five minutes later, Thierry emerged from the cellar with 6 glasses of Chat Eau. It was an adequate amount of time, giving enough time for his guests to think they were actually being prepared something, while still fast enough for it to be good service. He brought the glasses to the table on a stone slab which could have been from Rural Italy, but was actually from his back garden.
Now for the best part. He placed the glasses on the table and waited for his guests' reactions. If anyone ever found out he'd go to jail, he thought, so he might as well charge full whack. He smiled knowingly as Mrs Stonesmith put the glass to her lips. She couldn't possibly send it back. Not when it cost over a thousand pounds.
As predicted, she coughed, spluttered and put the glass down; her face turned white, and she couldn't breathe.
"It's ... how you say it? An acquired taste. Not everyone can appreciate it," Thierry said, smiling, as her husband and friends put the glasses to their lips. This was quite a special moment, and the fun never got old.
But what was this? What the hell was her husband doing?
Horrified, Thierry watched as Norman Stonesmith took a long sip from the Chat Eau, without complaint. When finished, he put it down on the table rather normally. How could he - how ... could ... he ...
Thierry had to restrain himself from gagging as Stonesmith finished the entire glass of Chat Eau, set it on the table, and smiled. "I don't know what's wrong with everyone else at this table," he muttered in his recieved-pronunciation accent.
And then he opened his mouth -
And then ...
No. No. Thierry would have nightmares about this for the rest of his life -
The other people round the table - how could they? showed little or no reaction. And then he realised that they were staring at him, at his white face, at his rigid hands. As though he'd seen a ghost ...
"What's wrong?" Norman Stonesmith said. "I only wondered whether I could buy another bottle."
"Please, sit down, messieurs," Thierry said, in an accent that only the most astute observers would have noticed was put-on for effect - Terry Datchet, as his real name was, being born and bred on a council estate in Watford. Why did my parents give me the name Terry? he would ask himself repeatedly during his childhood years, after yet another day of moronic bullying over his name. Why not Tom or Tim or even - he thought amusedly, having grown up in a largely Muslim area - Tariq?
Painstakingly, he folded the silken napkin over Mrs Stonesmith's lap. Her husband, the esteemed architect Norman Stonesmith - not that esteemed, though, or he would surely be a Sir by now - would arrive shortly to accompany the party. Lord Felix Bufton. Henry and Emma de Montfort. And so on. How perfectly ghastly, to use a phrase he had already heard ten times too often.
"Tonight, there is a special addition to the menu, as I am sure you are aware," Thierry said, clearing his throat in a very "French" manner.
"Oh, yes," Mrs Stonesmith said. "By invitation only, if I am to understand?"
Thierry nodded. "Why, of course, madame!" Limited edition. By invitation only. He prevented himself from saying, "there is not a chance that the riff-raff would appreciate this fine bouquet". It was fine for them to think it, of course, and walking with Henry de Montfort yesterday, while he gazed disparagingly at a group of teenagers not unlike himself twenty years ago, he knew that Henry believed they had an "entente cordiale". A mutual understanding. But saying it aloud would be too ... crude. Too unseemly.
He presented the dinner party with elaborately bound menus which he balanced on his elbow, prompting gasps of "Wow" and "Incredible". Nothing on the menu was priced below a hundred pounds, including the re-packaged Sprite lemonade that he had sprinkled with a few herbs, pressed lemon juice into from Asda and claimed as a "secret recipe". Authentically made in the same way for hundreds of years - thousands even.
His guests saw him disappear for a moment, only to reappear with a wicker basket of ciabatta bread and a jug of balsamic vinegar. Balsamic vinegar, he laughed inwardly. I thought that was too common these days? Perhaps it would spoil the unique flavour of the centuries-old recipes he was about to give his distinguished guests the opportunity to savour.
"Thank you," Norman Stonesmith said. Norman Stonesmith had just arrived.
"Oh, monsieur, I do apologise," Thierry said. "I did not welcome you personally. Please, forgive me."
Norman Stonesmith looked at Thierry in a way suggesting that he did not forgive him. He nodded at him and turned back to the ciabatta and their excruciating conversation.
"So what is this ... vintage, may I ask?" Henry de Montfort asked. Emma sat silently beside him.
"We in France call it ... Chat Eau," Thierry said, flourishing his hand a little. "Eet eez...a traditional recipe from ze Loire Valley. Made for hundreds of years in ze same...way..."
"Chateau? Chateau what, may I ask?"
"Ah, it is only...Chat Eau," Thierry said. "That is all. The famous Chateau in the Loire Valley. Un moment, I will show you. It was near my grandmozzer's house." He advanced towards a painting on the wall; being from John Lewis, it had cost him rather a lot of money. These days, that wasn't a problem for him, but back when he frequented filthy drinking hovels with the members of Class War...
"No, no, that ... won't be necessary, thank you," Norman said. Thierry was starting to dislike him intensely, unreasonably, even more than the other guests. It would be necessary to mettre him en place.
"So," Henry said. "Two bottles of your finest Chat Eau, please."
"Finest" really wasn't a word which should be used in the same sentence as "Chat Eau", Thierry thought, but anyway.
He nodded to them and gave a slight Gallic smile, before disappearing out of sight and into the wine cellar, ignoring the smell of gone-off cheese which he would serve to his guests if anyone ordered it. He took out a key from his pocket and walked towards a stainless steel door which would have shocked his clientele due to the fact that it was not in keeping with the decor of the restaurant. Fortunately, they would never come down here. He would never let them.
He unlocked the door and walked over to a large plastic container full of various kinds of cheap red and white plonk which he'd emptied into it. Thierry hated wine; as well as the fact that it was a preserve of the hated bourgeoisie, which if he thought about enough he couldn't really care less about, not having been a member of Class War for five years after they threw him out - but because of the fact that it tasted fucking rank.
He cracked open a can of Beck's to steel himself for what was coming next and downed most of it in one go. He looked into the tub of wine, and then, stroking his chin thoughtfully, he walked over to the area of the room where the secret ingredient, his crowning glory, was kept. Taking out his keys again, he opened the door to a small metal cupboard, and was met with sharp claws against his hand.
"Sorry, mate," he said, grabbing the secret ingredient of Chat Eau by the scruff of the neck - he didn't want to get too attached - and walked over to the tub full of wine. Ignoring the screeches, splashes and cries, or at least attempting to, he opened another cupboard and took out a truly terrifying contraption with a very sharp blade which turned around when it was turned on at rapid speeds, almost like a propellor. If anyone ever sees this, he thought, tell them that it's for meat. Which it was. Sort of.
He plugged the device into the wall and lowered the blade into the barrel of wine, where the secret ingredient was thrashing about wildly. "Sorry," he said again. If God existed, he would surely reserve a special place in Hell for him, Thierry thought, before he turned his contraption on, ran out of the door and waited.
Forty-five minutes later, Thierry emerged from the cellar with 6 glasses of Chat Eau. It was an adequate amount of time, giving enough time for his guests to think they were actually being prepared something, while still fast enough for it to be good service. He brought the glasses to the table on a stone slab which could have been from Rural Italy, but was actually from his back garden.
Now for the best part. He placed the glasses on the table and waited for his guests' reactions. If anyone ever found out he'd go to jail, he thought, so he might as well charge full whack. He smiled knowingly as Mrs Stonesmith put the glass to her lips. She couldn't possibly send it back. Not when it cost over a thousand pounds.
As predicted, she coughed, spluttered and put the glass down; her face turned white, and she couldn't breathe.
"It's ... how you say it? An acquired taste. Not everyone can appreciate it," Thierry said, smiling, as her husband and friends put the glasses to their lips. This was quite a special moment, and the fun never got old.
But what was this? What the hell was her husband doing?
Horrified, Thierry watched as Norman Stonesmith took a long sip from the Chat Eau, without complaint. When finished, he put it down on the table rather normally. How could he - how ... could ... he ...
Thierry had to restrain himself from gagging as Stonesmith finished the entire glass of Chat Eau, set it on the table, and smiled. "I don't know what's wrong with everyone else at this table," he muttered in his recieved-pronunciation accent.
And then he opened his mouth -
And then ...
No. No. Thierry would have nightmares about this for the rest of his life -
The other people round the table - how could they? showed little or no reaction. And then he realised that they were staring at him, at his white face, at his rigid hands. As though he'd seen a ghost ...
"What's wrong?" Norman Stonesmith said. "I only wondered whether I could buy another bottle."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)