Clive
found the door to the Bar was locked, so he tried the next door, it
opened and he walked in. There was a kettle just beginning to shriek on
an AGA stove and he lifted it from the heat.
Her
shoes made a purposeful clumping sound as she descended the three steps
from the Bar to the kitchen. Then in a single, sweeping movement she;
deposited dirty linen in a basket, a pile of ashtrays on the table,
sliced lemons in the fridge finally her empty coffee mug in the sink.
This dance-like routine took her from one end of the kitchen to the
other. She’d passed Clive about halfway.
He
was standing with his back to the AGA, her steaming kettle in his hand.
The peddle bin lid clanged shut as she turned her back on it and him, to
rinse her cup at the sink by the window at the end of the large kitchen.
‘That’s
why I didn’t hear it boil.’ She said to the rain-streaked window, or
perhaps to the puddle filled garden beyond it. In a neutral confident
way.
Clive
looked at her back then focussed on the kettle in case she was watching
him in the window glass. She was not a small woman, easily as tall as
Clive's 5’10’’, in her 1’’ heels. Whilst she wasn’t as
rotund as her distorted image
in the kettle, she was clearly not a thin woman, not even nearly slim.
However Clive decided most of her estimated 11 or 12 stones were in
approximately in the right places. Voluptuous or Hourglass was how she
looked, confident and disinterested was how Clive thought she felt.
She
turned around and their eyes met, she studied him for a moment in a
bored superior manner, the way an invigilator might regard a student who
sneezes or drops a pencil in a silent examination hall.
She
strode towards him purposefully, depositing her cup on the refectory
table between them as she swept by.
‘I’ll
have coffee’. She said, ‘since you’ve already started’. Then
over her shoulder as she climbed the stairs back into the bar;
‘don’t use the milk on the table, today’s milk is in the
fridge.’ And before he could say a word she disappeared into the empty
bar.
Clive
felt stunned, why hadn’t she asked him who he was, why he was there,
what he wanted? She was a cool customer he decided, well he could be
cool too, Clive thought as he glanced around for a jar of coffee and
wandered which drawer concealed the teaspoons.
Three
minutes later the distant sound of a slamming door and footsteps in the
empty bar announced her imminent return. Her smart, sensible, low heeled
shoes were as neutral and practical
as her plain navy skirt and her white long sleeved blouse. The
snug fit of the skirt over her full hips reassured Clive that she would
not want sugar in her coffee. Anyway he was quite sure she’d have
included it in her instructions.
This
time she was carrying a large tortoise-shell cat, clutched to her chest.
Clive studied them both; ‘definitely voluptuous’ he thought.
She
allowed the cat to leap to the floor, and they both stood still and
looked at Clive ‘He isn’t allowed in the kitchen while we’re open;
hygiene rules, you know. You’re not a Public Health inspector, are
you?’ She paused, and surveyed his boots and jeans and T shirt
ensemble.
‘He’s
a beauty.’ Said Clive, returning the cat’s suspicious stare,
ignoring her blatant invitation to introduce himself. ‘I can play it
cool too’, Clive thought. He smiled, ‘what’s his name?’ he
asked.
‘Balls’
she told him levelly; ‘the cricket team named him. We had a neutered
Tom as well, they called him No-Balls. He disappeared’ she said with a
downward glance as she reached for a mug. ‘this one mine?’ she
asked.
‘Either
one’ said Clive.
‘Probably
got run over’ she mused, as she lifted the mug with both hands to her
full, pale-pink glossed lips.
‘My
names Clive’ he said. ‘I’m sorry to turn up in your kitchen
unannounced.’ She said
nothing as she regarded him across the rim of her coffee mug, her eyes
inviting, even instructing him to ‘go-on’. Then she lowered her gaze
as she tilted her mug to take a second silent sip of her coffee. Clive
noticed she had long dark eyelashes.
‘I
was hungry’ he said, ‘I was hoping to get some lunch, I tried the
Bar, but it was locked.’
‘We
close at three in the week, she told him as Balls rubbed himself
proprietarily against her nylon clad calves’
‘I
was confused.’ he said ‘I thought today was Saturday, and then the
kettle was whistling so I came in here to turn it off.’
‘Which
Saturday?’ she asked, catching Clive unprepared, he’d been about to
ask if a late lunch was out of the question, he wasn’t planning on
abandoning his original quest, just yet.
‘Uh?’
was all he managed to blurt out in response; how cool was that?
He thought.
‘Which
Saturday did you think it was Clive ?’ She asked, ‘last Saturday or
next Saturday?’
Clive
looked confused, ‘I….I don’t know, next Saturday I suppose’ he
mumbled.
‘Ah,
an optimist,’ beamed the woman, ‘I thought so’ she said with an
air of great satisfaction. ‘You’re probably a Gemini then’
she continued; a statement rather than a question.
‘I
wouldn’t know’ Clive put in dismisively, ‘I think horoscopes are
nonsense.’
‘Yes,’
nodded the woman, smiling smugly, ‘Gemini’s usually do.’
While
she smiled at him with her full pink lips, Clive read the message in her
eyes; ‘game, set and match’ they said. Little wonder no-balls moved
on, thought Clive, his stomach rumbling.
--------------------oOo--------------------
Clive
lifted his coffee cup and the plate with his sandwich and climbed
the three steps which lead out of the kitchen. He emerged behind
the beer pumps in the deserted lounge bar. Opposite him was a heavy oak
door, stained dark by the years and the smoke rather than paint. It
matched the beams in the low ceiling and the panels around the walls.
The bar was long and narrow. Low round wooden tables surrounded by
wooden stools with purple upholstered seats, filled the available floor
space. To his left they all but disappeared into the gloomy premature
twilight on this rainy autumn afternoon. To his right they extended
right up to the flagged hearth of the huge stone fireplace, which
occupied the entire end wall.
A
few glowing embers remained of the lunchtime log fire, their smouldering
smell mingled with the aromas of tobacco, beer and food. The smell
conjured up images in Clive's mind of groups of customers bent over
steaming plates. He could almost hear the low murmur of their
conversation, punctuated by the chinking of cutlery and china, the dull
thuds of glasses on wood. He visualised individual customers standing at
the wooden bar, polished smooth by years of elbows.
It
was an inviting room, cosy. Clive thought how relaxed he felt now, on
the other side of the same door he’d found to be locked, just ten
minutes ago. Even empty, or perhaps because it was, the room was
welcoming, it seemed to invite him in, entice him to forget the outside
world and stay; just for a little while.
His
eyes like his ears gradually became accustomed to the room. He saw tiny
flickers of firelight reflected in the brass ornaments on the walls and
the shadows of raindrops, trickling across the polished table tops. He heard
the occasional cracks and pops from the embers in the hearth. The fire
gave the room a kind of life, perhaps even a soul.
Balls
judged his moment just right. He’d patiently watched Clive slip into
his reverie from the top step just behind him. With two powerful but
elegant bounds he leapt within an inch of Clive's eye onto the bar at
his elbow and down to land on carpeted floor, with a deep double thud.
Clive let out a startled yelp partly in surprise and partly in pain as
scalding coffee splashed onto his hand. The cat appeared gratified by
this reaction and strolled, tail-high to the fireside where he sat and
began to groom himself in a manner that justified his name.
Jay
clumped up the stairs behind Clive, a calm, enquiring look on her face;
eyebrows raised. Clive was still alternately shaking his stinging hand
and trying to lick the hot sweet coffee from his fingers.
‘Balls!’
He said in reply to her unspoken enquiry.
‘Oh,
the cat.’ She said, matter of factly ‘He does that. Try not to let
him get behind you.’ She eased past him, her hip brushing briefly
against his buttocks, into the bar and took her coffee cup to the table
nearest the fire. ‘The locals think he’s a ‘Familiar?’ You know,
a witches cat? I’m supposed to be the witch.’
--------------------oOo--------------------
She
escaped from Africa alone and destitute. She’d gone to a friend in
Harare after the murder of her husband and baby. She’d saved her fare
home to England working as a whore, as a white woman she was always busy
and it took her just 3 months. It wasn’t hard for her, she wasn’t
actually there anyway, she’d been adrift from her body since the
morning she woke up a widow. Her real self was far away down a deep,
dark hole, alone in the cold, spinning round and round in agony as the
same questions invariably resulted in the same torturous answers;
reality. She could not accept it, and would ask the same questions again
and again. ‘Where’s my beautiful Marty? When’s his Dadda coming
back for us?’
She’d
left everything behind, the farm; gone to seed, the snipers had stopped
them planting two years running, the livestock; what couldn’t be
stolen had been poisoned, even her handsome Ridgebacks; Fred and Barney,
hacked to death, slowly, their chain lunges meant they couldn’t fight
or flee, just bleed .
She
got a job in a beautiful, traditional, English Country Inn, near Swindon
in Wiltshire. Just about 25 years from London. The Owners were 20
something newlyweds and needed a live-in assistant. Someone to be on
hand 24 hours a day, to help with the Bar, the Restaurant, the bed and
breakfast. With the Kitchen and cleaning as well it was perfect for Jay.
She had food and accommodation thrown in, and so much work she’d no
time to think, no time to torture herself with questions whose answers
tore at her mind like savage beasts. There were other staff sometimes,
but only Jay was always there, only she had nowhere else to go.
The
Lady of the house inherited the grand old thatched pile in the middle of
the village, on the occasion of her marriage. It was gifted from her
father who, whilst being the Duke of some Scottish grouse moor, lived in
his old family seat on the outskirts of the same village; East
Warnborough. His grief at his loss when his daughter committed suicide
before her first wedding anniversary was exceeded only by his grief at
the loss of the valuable Inn from his family portfolio, as his good for
nothing step son inherited sole ownership. The suicide was covered up
easy enough, because, after all, that’s what friends are for.
After
the tragic death Jay worked even harder. On the day of the funeral for
instance, when everyone was indulging their grief , making military
scale exercises out of a trip to the church then a trip to the Family
graveyard and a few sandwiches and a lot of free Scotch back at the Inn.
She’d done everything they’d done. And as well as that, she’d
served them all day and she’d still done the weekly laundry and still
served customers till 11:00 o’clock at night. Long after the
‘mourners’ had either collapsed or staggered off together; still
trying to out-do each others familiarity with the deceased or grief
at their loss.
Actually
oblivious to the thoughts of the people in the world around her, Jay was
surrounded night and day by pain and sadness. And so she never noticed
as the bereaved young husband’s confused attention began to settle on
her. For six months he built her up to his epitome of womanhood. Rather
than face his loss and any blame that might come with it, he substituted
Jay for his bride. He’d never let himself believe his infidelity and
the resultant disease were the reason for his wife’s death. All he
could want and need now Jay could supply and he’d be the most loving
and loyal husband ever, he promised himself. In his damaged mind he
wooed her, in his twisted reality she encouraged him. So he decided to
put his case to Jay. When she didn’t fall into his arms as he’d
convinced himself she would, he shot himself with the 12 bore shotgun
that leant against the wall behind the kitchen door, by the Aga cooker.
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