by Jodi Taylor
I couldn’t believe my ears. ‘You ... named a ... chicken after Francesca? The one with ... hairy legs? How ... much trouble are you in when she ... finds out?’
‘She’ll see the joke.’
I said nothing.
‘You don’t think she’ll see the joke?’
Franny’s a lot better these days. She is at least aware of the existence of jokes. She’s just not aware of them in relation to herself. The news that she’d given her name to a hairy-legged chicken would not go down well.
I let the silence linger.
‘You don’t think she’ll see the joke.’
‘I know she won’t see the ... joke.’
‘Oh. OK then. Well, I don’t want to upset her. How about Fifi la Foo?’
I closed my eyes.
‘And for the cockerel – what do you think of Cogburn?’
I opened my eyes. ‘Cogburn?’
‘As in Rooster Cogburn. Clever, eh?’
‘I’ve ... married ... an idiot.’
‘You have indeed, but you knew that anyway, and at least now the idiot can see that his wife no longer looks as if she’s seen a ghost.’
This is typical Russell. People think he’s just a noisy idiot who can paint, and he is. He breezes along, apparently blind to everything around him and only later do you realise that, sometimes inconveniently, he doesn’t miss a thing.
‘Sorry about ... that,’ I mumbled. ‘I was ... so upset at dropping that ... cup. Sometimes I’m so ... clumsy.’
He looked at me thoughtfully for a while. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘Shall we go and scrounge a cup of tea and I’ll tell Mrs Crisp about the chickens.’
‘Rather ... you than me.
‘I’m the man of the house, Jenny. Responsibility for the welfare and well-being of everyone under my roof devolves upon me. An onerous burden, but I shoulder it with courage and resolution.’
We entered the kitchen where Mrs Crisp was just pouring the tea. She looked up suspiciously. ‘What’s going on up there?’
‘Jenny’s keeping chickens in the bath,’ said Russell, helping himself to the biggest piece of cake.
Chapter Three
Kevin did his best, but it was over a week before the hen house was completed, even though he was being urged on with word and gesture by Mrs Crisp, who had received the news that seven chickens now lived in the family bathroom in complete silence, much to Russell’s relief. I think he genuinely believed he’d got away with it until we sat down to dinner that night. A steaming plate of her special lamb and apricot stew was gently placed in front of me, with instructions to eat it all up. Russell was presented with a piece of toast.
‘Hey!’ he said, indignantly, looking up.
She remained unmoved. ‘I said nothing when your snake escaped...’
‘I was six. Let it go.’
‘I hardly said anything when your gerbils ate each other.’
‘That wasn’t my fault.’
‘I barely even remonstrated when I discovered you had a rat in your top drawer.’
‘I never understood why you were in my top drawer anyway. Who does that sort of thing?’
‘I was putting your socks away.’
Their voices were beginning to rise.
‘If you had just left them on my bed I would have put them away for myself. A useful life lesson for me, and you’d never have come face to face with Boris. You frightened the wits out of him. His tail nearly fell off with shock. That happens you know.’
‘When have you ever put your socks away?’
I nodded.
‘Or your shoes?’
I nodded again and reached for a bread roll. Russell never puts anything away. Apparently, it’s the artistic temperament. After his first sale – says Russell – he’d had to sign up to The Code of Professional Artists. None of us have ever actually seen this famous Code, but it definitely exists – says Russell – and he quotes great lumps of it when faced with doing anything he doesn’t particularly want to do. Like putting his socks away. Picking up his shoes would, apparently, put paid to his artistic creativity for all time and we wouldn’t want that, would we? No real artist would ever pick up his own shoes – says Russell.
Now he became cunning. ‘If I’m reduced to just toast then I’ll never have the strength to finish their house and they’ll have to live in the bathroom for ever, slowly pining away for the feel of sunshine on their backs and the gentle breeze on their little faces. Spending their declining years mournful, imprisoned and eggless. Really, you know, keeping them in the bath like that is little better than factory farming. And you – you, Mrs Crisp – possessed the means to save them, to give their lives purpose and meaning, and you withheld it. Fortunately, it’s not too late. A really big bowl of stew, a bread roll or two – if Jenny leaves any – and I’m set up for tomorrow. House completed. Chickens gone. Happy ending. And only you, Mrs Crisp, can make this happen.’
‘Chickens! In the bathroom! It’s not safe!’
‘Oh, come on. They’re not going to get out and eat you in your sleep, you know. That hardly ever happens these days.’
I thought he was lucky he wasn’t pulling bits of lamb and apricot out of his hair, although she did smack down the bowl with some force.
He smirked, looked up to find us both watching him, and rearranged his features. ‘Mm-mm. Delicious.’
*
From the very first, it became apparent that performing chicken ablutions every morning wasn’t anything like as easy as Russell had thought it would be. Despite all his efforts, the routine was as unchanging as it was exciting, noisy and unsuccessful.
Outraged screaming would announce their removal from the bath.
A succession of anonymous sounds and bad language would indicate he was sweeping the bath, considerably impeded by young female chickens, who were vociferously indignant at being removed from their home and straining every sinew to get back in there. We would hear the shower being turned on and then, for Russell, everything would really go downhill.
I was emptying the washing machine one day. Joy was in her high chair, playing with her bricks, and Mrs Crisp was getting lunch ready. By mutual consent, we were ignoring the outraged shrieks, the cries of pain and the crash as the bucket went over. Whatever was going on up there, the man of the house could manage for himself.
Ten minutes later, he strolled into the kitchen, pulling feathers out of his hair and wearing some very interesting stains on his T-shirt.
‘Well,’ he said cheerfully, investigating the contents of the pantry and pulling out an enormous slice of date and walnut cake. ‘Now we know the origin of the phrase, “Madder than a wet hen”.’
‘How much longer?’ said Mrs Crisp in the tones of one pushed beyond endurance.
‘Tomorrow,’ he said soothingly. ‘They’ll be gone tomorrow and you’ll never have another chicken in the house again.’
‘I should never have had a chicken in the house in the first place,’ she said, peeling potatoes with terrifying vigour and hurling them into the saucepan. ‘I wouldn’t be at all surprised if we haven’t all gone down with bird flu by next Tuesday.’
He patted her shoulder with one hand and lifted another piece of cake from behind her back with the other. ‘You never used to be this timid. I blame the influence of the insurance industry. When I think back to the laughing carefree Lizzie Crisp, running barefoot through the meadows ... What has he done to you?’
She heaved a martyred sigh. ‘What do you want Russell? Why are you in my kitchen?’
‘Oh. Yes. Good point. I’d forgotten. We’ve had a bit of a thing upstairs. Not a big thing – more a kind of accidentette. A bijou catastrophe.’ He stuck his head in the pantry again. ‘Where do you keep the mop?’
‘Where it’s always been.’ She stamped off.
I watched it dawn on him that he had no idea where that was and, before he could involve me, I seized the linen basket and went to hang out the washing. As I left, I could hear him banging
around the kitchen. There was a faint cry as something fell on his head.
Ten minutes later, he reappeared in clean clothes, helped himself to another slice of cake, kissed me crumbily, and said he was going out.
‘Did you ... find the mop?’
‘What? What mop? Oh. No. Doesn’t matter. I used the bath towels. Did the job just as well. See you later, Jenny.’
*
The construction of the hen house was achieved in typical Frogmorton fashion. Boxer peered over the gate, snorting at the noise, while Marilyn, carefully observing through the bars, shouted advice and comments. The cat, awoken from what Russell always swore was a coma, strolled outside to see what was going on and somehow managed to get himself built inside. He was subsequently discovered in one of the nesting boxes.
Mrs Crisp, bringing tea and biscuits said, ‘I thought it was going over in the corner by the stables.’
‘It is,’ said Kevin, helping himself to a big handful of biscuits. His excuse is always that he’s a growing lad, which he certainly is: if he doesn’t stop soon, he’s going to be entitled to his own postcode. Looking at the rather good-looking and confident young man he is today, it’s hard to believe this was the skinny, sickly boy who so inexpertly tried to mug Russell and me in the alley behind the post office. What a long time ago that seemed now.
‘But you’ve built it here,’ she said, ‘in the middle of the yard.’
‘Yes?’
‘How will you move it?’
It takes more than an awkward question to faze Russell.
‘Successfully,’ he said, sipping his tea and daring her to argue.
She nodded, and went to sit on the old seat by the back door. I joined her a moment later with Joy. We waited patiently for events to unfold.
Of course they couldn’t move it. It was far too big and heavy. They strained unsuccessfully for about ten minutes and, in the end, they had to take the roof off again.
Mrs Crisp and I said nothing.
They moved it to its new location, put the roof back on, and stood back admiringly.
‘Aren’t you ... going to paint it?’
‘I thought you might like to do that.’
‘OK,’ I said. ‘Yes, I would.’
‘There’s some dark brown paint in the outhouse. Top shelf. I bought three tins. Can you do it tomorrow while I’m out?’
I nodded obediently.
*
Following instructions, I painted it brown and it looked dreadful. Brown is not a good colour for anything, especially a hen house. According to Russell’s many books on the subject, hen houses should be light and airy. This one looked like a Dickensian workhouse. I looked at it for a while and then wandered back into the shed and rummaged around among the old paint tins on the shelf. I found some nice pastel shades, blue, green, yellow, and a bright orange. It was so orange it was almost neon. I had no idea why on earth Russell would have a can of neon orange paint. Kevin, stacking the remainder of the wood neatly, turned to look at me.
‘There’s not enough there to repaint the whole thing,’ he said.
‘No,’ I said thoughtfully, my mind wandering towards Sharon’s shop, ‘but I could do stripes.’
‘Stripes are difficult,’ he said. ‘You should have heard Russell’s language when he did Sharon’s.’
Everyone had heard Russell’s language when he did Sharon’s stripes.
He frowned. ‘What about spots?’
‘Spots?’
‘Yeah. Dead funky. In different sizes and different colours.’
We grinned at each other and trailed into the kitchen. Mrs Crisp was just retiring to her own room with a cup of tea. And it was tea, these days. The cooking sherry was safe. The reforming influence of the insurance industry.
‘We need cornflake packets,’ said Kevin, rummaging through the cupboards.
‘You’ve just had lunch,’ she said, indignantly.
‘For stencils. Any packets will do. We can have different-sized spots. Mrs Crisp...?’
‘I have to put up with this from Russell. I’m not paid enough to put up with it from you two as well.’ She left the room, muttering.
We sat at the kitchen table and drew around dinner plates, saucers and egg cups making stencils of differing sizes.
‘This is going to be so cool,’ said Kevin. ‘The girls will love it.’
I could hear Joy stirring upstairs. ‘You get everything ready. I’ll get Joy.’
Leaving the kitchen, I ran through the lounge. The French doors were open into the garden and I could hear the sound of birds and insects. The curtains billowed gently into the room, bringing the smell of cut grass and roses. I loved this room. This was where Russell and I sat in the evenings, watching TV or just reading. The fireplace was empty because it was summer, but in winter, with the logs blazing away and the lights down low, you couldn’t see the shabby furniture, or the worn carpet, or even the stains on the rugs. Most of these had their origins in the time Andrew had lived here with Russell. Heaven knows what the two of them had been up to.
The big table under the window was cluttered with unpaid bills (there always seemed to be rather a lot of those, the sooner we got the bookshop contract signed the better), paint catalogues, Russell’s sketches and notes, my laptop, a few paperbacks, a tape measure, a spare mouse, an assortment of pens and pencils, and Mr Edward, Joy’s teddy. The bookcases around the walls were stuffed with paperbacks and one of Russell’s wonderfully colourful abstracts hung over the fireplace. I never entered this room without counting a blessing or two.
The staircase was at the far end, disappearing up into the gloom. As a safety measure, we’d had it carpeted. I’d once fallen from top to bottom and that wasn’t something I ever wanted to do again. During my pregnancy, Russell, displaying the calm, sensible good judgement for which he was famous, had insisted on escorting me personally up and down the wretched thing, claiming I had form. He became particularly paranoid towards the end, wanting to install one of those stairlift things. You know the one I mean – they used to be advertised by that famous actress. Sadly, Ms Hird is no longer with us, but Russell claims to have had an enormous crush on her as a young boy and wanted to install one in her memory. I steadfastly refused to have any such thing. One night he became so insistent that I was forced to telephone Andrew for help. He turned up an hour later, scooped up Russell and took him to the pub.
Alas, for all his good intentions, Andrew’s capacity is nowhere near as great as Russell’s, and he had to be brought back to Frogmorton to stay the night. He was still considerably unwell the next morning, so Russell offered to drive him home, unfortunately clipping the water trough on the way out, although, since it wasn’t his own vehicle, he said it didn’t count. Andrew, surveying the damage to his car and suffering the mother of all headaches, maintained that it very much did count. Happily for me, in the subsequent torrent of cousinly abuse, the idea of the stairlift had been quietly forgotten.
There’s a dogleg at the top of the stairs. Turn left for our bedroom at the end of the corridor and Joy’s room is next door. The right-hand landing leads to the family bathroom, the spare bedrooms, and right at the very end, Russell’s studio, where he hides the pizza boxes he doesn’t want Mrs Crisp to see. Mrs Crisp, of course, is perfectly aware of their presence and sometimes, in a spirit of revenge for the ‘lovers chained to her headboard’ comments, offers to go in and dust, and then, with the air of a connoisseur, sits back and watches him panic.
I raced up the stairs, shouting, ‘Not long ... now, ladies,’ to the chickens in the bathroom and into Joy’s room. This had been my room once upon a time. The bed still stood between the two windows, but pride of place now went to her cot, up against the wall, with the little chest of drawers nearby for her bits and pieces, and her Shaun the Sheep mobile overhead. She was awake and shouting at her feet. Sometimes she reminded me of Russell so much. I lifted her from her cot, held her up high, sniffed her bottom, recoiled, whipped on a clean nappy, and
took her back downstairs where she could watch the proceedings.
We sat her in her playpen in a shady corner of the yard with a selection of her favourite bricks, toys and teddies and she immediately rolled onto her back and began to play with her feet again.
‘She does that a lot,’ said Kevin, assembling brushes and pouring paint.
‘It’s a sign of great intelligence,’ I said loyally, and then ruined my argument by saying that apparently Russell had done it too.
There was a thoughtful silence and then we changed the subject.
Kevin held up the stencils. ‘We just paint the holes,’ he said. ‘It’s easy. And I’ve mixed some blue and green together so we have turquoise as well. I think one of us should hold the stencil steady while the other one paints.’
‘Agreed.’
As anyone who has ever done this sort of thing will know, restraint flies straight out of the window. People say less is more. They don’t know what they’re talking about. We soon had different-sized blue, green, lemon, and turquoise spots all over the hen house. We had quite a few over ourselves, as well.
‘Ready?’ said Kevin, picking up the fluorescent orange. I nodded.
‘Not too much,’ he warned. ‘A little of this goes a long way.’
And it did. But it looked so good we thought we’d add a bit more. And then there was a gap over there. And maybe we had room for another few spots just there...
We ran out of paint.
‘Wow,’ said Kevin, stepping back to admire the effect.
I blinked. ‘I think it ... might be a hazard to low ... flying aircraft.’
‘Never mind that. I think it might be a hazard to shipping. What’s Russell going to say? He wanted brown.’
I had no idea what Russell might say. He might regard it as a work of art. And then again, he might not.
‘Not important,’ I said firmly. ‘If he feels that strongly then he should have painted it himself. And anyway, you know what he’s like. He probably won’t even notice.’
We surveyed the multi-coloured structure reflecting the sun’s rays.