Ethelbert's Sunday Morning

by Marcus Freestone

reminder of what I was left with. I just couldn't stand the atmosphere of this room anymore. I didn't want to do a degree -1 mean, what use is my English Degree going to be, I can teach English or do another course. Shit, mum! - I've spent the last ten years trying not to be like him. I think now I've finally succeeded. He still keeps that damn school photo of me, it's from when you were alive and we were all a happy family... hmph! - you were as bored by him as I was. He's in for a bit of a shock - as of next month, photos is all he'll have left of any of us. It never was... shit, here he comes. Bye, mum." She sniffed and took a deep breath. "Right; let battle commence."

  Norman opened the door, and shuffled arthritically over to the coffee table. Curiously, his legs seemed to have developed new degrees of pain and immobility in the twenty five minutes since her arrival.

  "Here we are." he said, stating the mindfuckinglyobvious for the billionth time in his life. "Aha, looking at the photographs."

  Oh shit! "Yes, dad." she said quickly. "Is that a chocolate..."

  To be fair, she never had a chance in hell. She never had a chance of diverting her father from this, and hell is absolutely where she was.

  "Isn't that a nice photograph of you, Clare?"

  "Yes very nice." She clenched her teeth; she even clenched her mind.

  "It's a pity you had to grow up."

  Alert!!! Interior monologue imminent!!!

  "Jesus Christ! He's still trotting out the same old shit. The way he potters around and his bloody clothes you'd swear he was my grandfather. Hang on, I'm talking to myself again. Mind you, talking to yourself is the least frustrating conversation you get round here - no wonder I'm so introspective, he makes me want to crawl into the corner in a foetal position and I haven't been back half an hour. Oh now, he's talking to me. Is it worth listening? I've heard everything he has to say a thousand times. Oh God!!! Roll on bed time!"

  As he poured the tea, Clare mimicked in her own head his next sentence, in micro-second perfect synchronicity: "Ay, you can't go wrong with a nice cup of tea."

  The effort of restraining herself from jumping out of the window was so intense that her hands were starting to shake so she put them under her thighs and pressed down with all her weight. Her thighs began to shake.

  "Am I really going to have to listen to this liturgy of patheticness all over again. Oh no, he'; gone to draw the curtains - no, please! The single most annoying thing he can ever say..."

  "The nights are drawing in."

  In Clare's mouth, a scream was stifled just in time, and a small chip of enamel fell away from a tooth. "Every year he says the same thing, every day for six weeks - of course the nights are drawing in it's October, that's what nights do when it's winter! Can't you remember saying it to me every year since I was born! Where's your memory, are you a goldfish! Shit, I'm letting him get to me - calm down."

  Alert!!! Conversation approaching!!!

  "Why did you leave, Clare?"

  "That was a non sequ... do we have to go through..."

  "Don't you have a sense of loyalty to Burnley?"

  She gazed incredulously up at the ceiling. Anywhere but at him. "No, why the hell should I?"

  "You were born and brought up ere."

  "So what? Doesn't mean I owe it anything, what's Burnley ever done for me?"

  "It's made you what you are today."

  "It certainly hasn't! Three years in London made me what I am today, Burnley made me a miserable, self-deprecating eighteen year old with no future!"

  "Then why did you bother coming back?"

  Clare floundered momentarily.

  "I couldn't tell you..." she faltered.

  "What?"

  "...I couldn't tell you, offhand."

  "No, you younguns don't know much do you, despite your fancy degrees?"

  "Will you stop referring to anything you don't understand as fancy! You've no idea what a degree involves, have you? It's about broadening your intellectual horizons, your social experience, your thought processes, igniting your ambitions, enriching your life.."

  "And what use is all that for a girl?"

  "Clare's mind almost achieved Nuclear fusion.

  "What!?" she screamed quietly, a stilted scream through grinding teeth.

  "What use is intellectual development to you, it's no good for raising a family, is it?"

  "Do you honestly believe all that shit?!"

  "I'll thank you not to use obscene language in my house, and what do you mean?"

  "I mean all these opinions from fifty years ago that you constantly spout as if they're not offensive."

  Norman was genuinely puzzled, the poor old bastard: "What do you mean offensive?"

  "You really don't get it, do you, you actually believe all this rubbish." She got up and stormed her way to the door.

  "I'm going for a walk!"

  "But it's still raining, you'll catch your death!" Going outside in the rain without an all-in one thermonuclear garment was an inconceivable folly to him.

  For the first time in twenty one years, she looked her father in the eye and held his gaze for a few seconds, before launching a piercing scream at him: "That would be a blessing!!!"

  She walked along kicking at the puddles and looked up to the sky, inviting the rain to wash away the first eighteen years of her life.

  Trudging onwards relentlessly Clare Braithwaite contemplated the next six weeks.

  "No way," she grimaced to herself, "no fucking way am I putting up with this any longer.”

  She accelerated up to a high speed trudge and resolved, in a glorious moment of will and with an existential shiver, to tell her father the very instant she got back that was leaving in the morning. She would ring her boyfriend and stay with him; she'd visited his parents often enough, they'd love to have her there for a few weeks. As ever, no danger of bumping into her father - he'd never venture as far as Rottenstawl, even with a team of huskies and an oxygen mask.

  "It's no good." she muttered, "It just has to be done like this. He'll never change, and I have. I've tried my hardest and put up with him for years longer than I can stand, the only thing to do is just cut him out of my life completely. There: simple! No guilt, no problem - no going back."

  She paused at the door of the pub. She'd have to get wrecked before telling him though, obviously, as he was bound to kick up such a fuss.

  And into the pub she went, taking the biggest step towards her new life; an adult life.

  She'd lost one parent, now all she had to do was lose the other one.

  BUDGET

  The House of Commons, June 7th 2093

  The Chancellor waited patiently for the booing to subside.

  “In view of these latest pollution statistics from the National Institute for Pollution Statistics, or N.I.P.S. for short, it has been decided by the European Agency for Common Medical Assessment and Implementation of Fiscal and Clinical Practise Regulations and Associated Teaching, or E.A.C.M.A.I.F.C.P.R.A.T. for short, that all residents of mainland Britain living more than five miles from the coast now have one hundred percent risk of respiratory failure should they spend more than ten minutes a day out of doors.

  “As a result the government is making available, from tomorrow, one portable oxygen unit, or P.O. for short, per registered UK tax payer, which can extend time outdoors to a maximum of four hours per day. These portable units will be refilled at Centralised Unit Nitration Tanks, or Centers for short, which will be located in convenient high street locations.

  “The cost of maintaining and staffing these centers will of course have to be met by the taxpayer.”

  The Chancellor waited patiently for the booing to subside.

  “The weekly cost to the end user of refilling their unit will be a very reasonable two hundred and twenty five pounds per week, a mere third of the current minimum wage.”

  The Chancellor waited patiently for the booing to subside.

  “I give way to my opposite number.”

  The shadow chancellor rose a
nd fixed the opposition front bench with a crimson glare.

  “Could the right-honourable...” The Shadow Chancellor waited patiently for the booing to subside. “...could he confirm that the treasury is charging V.A.T. on this refilling operation?”

  “I can confirm that, in line with V.A.T. on all other utilities, the refilling process will be charged V.A.T. at the standard forty three percent.”

  The Shadow Chancellor leapt from his seat.

  “So this government is introducing an air tax of £96.75 per person per week?!”

  The Chancellor waited patiently for the booing to subside.

  TOO MANY COOKS SPOIL THE GRAVY

  Jo sighed inwardly. One grandmother interfering in the Sunday lunch was annoying, but two were unbearable.

  “I'm nearly thirty, I shouldn't still be treated like a child,” she thought as she tried once again to prevent one of them from opening the oven.

  “That'll never be cooked in time,” said Jean, “these newfangled electric ovens are no good for cooking a joint.”

  “It'll be fine,” said Jo, “I've had this oven for years.”

  “Nonsense,” said Jean, “I have tea towels older than you. Speaking of which, when did you last wash these?”

  “They're clean, Gran.”

  “Did you boil them overnight?”

  “No, Gran, because it's not nineteen forty.”

  Jean tutted audibly, and disdainfully replaced the tea towel on its hook.

  Meanwhile, Cynthia was hovering over the gravy.

  “This needs stirring, Jean, you're good at that.”

  “I do make excellent gravy,” said Jean, ignoring the obvious slight.

  “The gravy is fine, leave it.” said Jo irritably.

  “Not even thirty and she thinks she can