by Sara Crowe
‘Oh, right,’ said Joe, and he smiled before getting badly distracted by some froth.
Back in Titford, if someone like Joe had asked me out I would have jumped at the chance, but Icarus has changed all that in just three and a half short weeks, and without barely a word. But, as they say in the classics, the language of love is speechless. How he can say so much to me, without saying anything at all, is a bewitching justaposition.
It was therefore some sort of miracle when, half an hour later, as I was in the kitchen buttering up the bread as usual, Icarus walked up behind me and said: ‘My brother Sandy is having a party on Saturday night, Sue, I was wondering if you fancied coming?’ The temperature in the kitchen rocketed and my knees knocked together. I held on to the counter without turning to face him because of my runaway cheeks. It was the most he had ever said to me. More than a word, more than a sentence, and so much more than a question. This was life, and it can suddenly happen.
‘I’d love to,’ I said, perhaps too willingly.
‘Great,’ he said. ‘See you Saturday, 6.30 till midnight,’ and he handed me a napkin with the address of a bar on it, and within a nanasecond he was gone. It said: ‘Saturday 14th Feb, Sandy’s birthday at Christine’s’. The 14th of Feb! That’s Valentine’s Day! Asking me out in the first place is a sure sign that Icarus likes me, but asking me out on Valentine’s Day, is just so bold. I feel so giddy that I could run through a fountain with my clothes on!
As I walked home from the Toastie, every tree, every flower, even the seeds in the earth were singing my name. ‘Sue Bowl,’ they sang, ‘Look there goes Sue’, and all the builders wolf whistled. The February buds thrust their way up through the soil, threatening every minute to burst into flower under a sky as radiant as the sun. There was only one small problem. What would I say to Joe?
Back home I went straight to my wardrobe and flung open the door. Pinafores, pinafores, nothing but pinafores. It is just my luck to be in a pinafore phase with a date with Icarus Fry in the diary. I began to feel the strong temptation to blow all my savings on a devastating dress, but I lay on my bed in the Grey Room instead and gazed into his eye. I could have stayed like that for ever, but then I heard the Admiral calling me.
‘Sue, Sue, it’s your father on the phone.’
I ran down to the hall and took up the receiver, still in heavy thought about love’s sudden beginnings. I could hear Ivana’s heels in the background clacking on the floor, yet another in the catalogue of complaints I have against that awful woman.
‘Hi darling.’ Dad’s voice was clear and familiar. ‘How are you?’
‘Great,’ I said.
‘Good, listen darling, Ivana and I are coming through on Saturday to take you out for dinner.’
In Keeper’s Care
A SKETCH
By Sue Bowl
Cara fell to her knees and cradled her Keeper to her. He howled at the moon as she cried out in sorrow and steeped his damp fur with her tears.
‘What is this whimsy!’ she screamed with abominable confusion.
And though the night was dark and starless, Keeper kept the shadows at bay. Not afar off in the pantry below, the maid was still in labour.
‘Fuck me!’ said Fiona, ‘I ain’t never bin so fuckin’ tired in me ’ole fuckin’ life.’
Friday 13 February
I had a dream last night that made me red, for the dream starred Icarus Fry. After my concerns over the double booking, it was a relief to wake from a dream which I believe to be erotic. In my dream, I was sitting, almost lying, in a basket which was attached to the handlebars of Icarus’s bicycle. We were freewheeling down a country road and for dream reasons, Icarus was dressed as a Frenchman, with berret and stripy T-shirt, and his bicycle had strings of onions around the frames of the wheels. We rolled at speed past dream pastures, sparkling brooks, random sheep, he with his legs out, abandoned from the pedals, and I delicately balanced across the basket, in a floaty dress with my legs off to the side, and light as a feather. But we whizzed down the lane so fast that we crash-landed in a heap in a meadow. Unfortunately at that point I woke up.
After recovering for some minutes I got myself dressed and went down to breakfast. When I had finished, Aunt Coral sent me up to her bathroom to fetch a cotton tip for her ear, I think in a helpful attempt to distract me from my worries about the double-booking. It was the first time that I had been in her suite alone and I couldn’t help but have a little look. There were some specialist pieces of furniture in there, including a highboy and a lowboy. The highboy is a chest upon a chest, and the lowboy is Aunt C’s dressing table. There’s also a Robert Manwaring chair which is inlaid with her favourite satinwood. Aunt C told me he was a competitor of Mr Chippendale, and a fan of the Five Orders of Architecture. (NB, I looked this up, The Five Orders of Architecture is one of the most successful architectural text books of all time. It was written in 1562 by Giacomo Barozzi da Vignola who was an assistant to Michelangelo and was a surprising hit as it’s full of drawings and doesn’t contain any text.)
Her bed cover is of quilted pink satin with tassels of olive and gold, and over the beheaded hangs a monogrammed panel with the letters ‘C E G’ on it. The pillows have a monogram too, but bear the initials ‘B R G’ (Mum). It made me catch my breath, because of course she was not just my mother, Aunt Coral has lost a dear sister too. I tend to forget sometimes, because in life they were somewhat distant due to their ages. Aunt C had already left home by the time my mother was born.
There was an old wooden desk in the window, sewn with papers. A typewriter, with Mr O’Carroll’s book open next to it, stood in the centre of the desk. The notes beside it were a mad dog’s breakfast of changes and crossings out. I also saw a To Do list sitting on her diary which read:
I must admit that the thought of Aunt Coral dying caused me to waver in myself. She is my saviour and there is little on earth as magic as her devotion. She also makes me feel like the most fascinating person ever born – she even remarks on my handwriting, eulogising the way I form my ‘y’s and ‘g’s, noticing my specialist swish under the line and back up through the side of the letter to create my trademark Spanish ovals. By the time she finishes noticing things, I feel like a million dollars, as though I could build a career around my ‘y’s and ‘g’s alone.
To shake myself out of any morbid thoughts of the loss of her, I went into her bathroom to find her cotton buds. There’s a commode in there made by the Brothers Adam for the Countess of Derby. It’s not plumbed into the mains but does as well for a fancy flower pot. I opened up her font, (the name she uses for her cabinet), and there along with all the usual digestive aids and private creams you’d expect for a woman of her age, I discovered the secret to her dazzling hair in boxes of specialist hair colour. No. 353, Arctic Silver Vixen. On the box was a picture of a foxy old lady stopping traffic on her scooter. It was such an intimate insight into Aunt Coral’s private thoughts that my heart broke for her. But unlike the lady on the box, whose hair was cut in a jazzy bob, Aunt Coral’s lightning locks are tidied in a bun which is often held up by a pencil, because she is mostly at a loss for a hair grip.
When I delivered the cotton tip she was on her own in the conservatory revising for that evening’s group.
‘Thank you,’ she said, as she relieved the pressure in her ear. She put the cotton tip in a clean tissue and clipped it inside her handbag, and ran her hands round the bottom of her chin as though she was stroking a beard. She seemed to want to express something, something that was visibly difficult, but before she could say anything we were interrupted by the arrival of group members. She took up her notes at once, her action one of the utter professional, but her expression was a hundred stories. I must remember to ask her what’s on her mind.
Egham Hirsute Group
On passion
‘In my opinion Cinderella is the greatest story ever told,’ said Aunt Coral, once the entire group was finally sitting earlier on this evening. ‘So in this m
eeting of the Egham Hirsute Group, Benjamin O’Carroll and I will begin by asking you to think about, A, Myth, and B, Genre.’ (As you can see, we have settled on calling ourselves the ‘Egham Hirsute Group’. It started as a joke, but it seems to be sticking!)
‘How can a myth like Cinderella translate into the everyday?’ continued Aunt Coral. ‘And how do myths fit into genres? For example, Cinderella could be said to fit into the genre of romantic fiction.’ She tapped a finger against her notes. ‘We, as authors, should think carefully about genres. Although we must also remember that whatever our genre, whether we write thrillers or crime novels or travel books, the point is to write books that sell.’
‘Or dirty books,’ said Delia. ‘Sex is the best seller of all time.’
The Admiral chuntered into his pipe.
‘Yes, Avery, you may well laugh,’ said Aunt C, ‘but Delia’s made an interesting point – sex is the best seller of all time.’
This was not good news for me being so out of the loop on it. It’s a horrible truth, but I haven’t even been properly kissed, as yet.
‘But writing good books,’ Aunt C continued, ‘isn’t all in the genre or even in the story. There are other factors.’ She was in full swing, and I was furiously typing. ‘I don’t think Charlotte Brontë would have sold nearly so many books if on the back sleeve it had said she was born in Bognor. Not that she was born in Bognor, but what I mean is that a writer has to create for her or himself a character that’s marketable too. A certain panache to attract the reader. So even at this early stage, it’s worth considering what you might say about yourself, should you get that far.’
‘Sue Bowl was born in Titford and studied under Benjamin O’Carroll in Egham,’ I offered.
‘That won’t attract many readers,’ said Delia, ‘how about something snappier . . . how about Hampshire-born Sue?’
‘Hampshire-born Sue’ – I liked that. I could see myself in years to come, tending quietly a few pet sheep, wearing wellies, before returning to my typewriter by the Aga, with the hint of husbands in the photos on the wall, and a monogrammed table cloth, perfect for the writer of romantic fiction.
‘Malaysian-born Delia Shoot,’ said Delia, ‘has been having sex every night for the past sixty two yea—’
‘Good, good’, said Aunt Coral, ‘you’re getting the idea.’ But then suddenly she threw down her notes. ‘Departing spontaneously from my plan, as Benjamin O’Carroll encourages gurus to do, why don’t we use sex as our exercise for this session, and write a few lines inspired by our passions?’
I had the strong inkling that Aunt Coral was seizing the unprecedented opportunity to get the Admiral to do sex exercises, using the Egham Hirsute Group for her purpose. Clever girl.
Just then Mrs Bunion came into the conservatory with a tray of nibbles. ‘I’ve put you up a tray, Miss Coral, would you like me to ring the gong before I go?’
A small bow followed her question. She’s the only one who calls Aunt Coral, ‘Miss Coral’. It’s because she thinks it’s the correct way to refer to the mistress in this size of a house. Though they have known each other since 1968, and Aunt Coral wouldn’t mind being called Aunt Coral.
‘Thank you, Pat, we’ll have it on our knees,’ said Aunt Coral. She is the only one who calls Mrs Bunion ‘Pat’. As far as the rest of us are concerned, Mrs Bunion was born Mrs Bunion.
Mrs B laid out the nibbles on the table, and gave a finale bow as she closed the conservatory door behind her, taking great care to avoid the creaks. I wondered whether to own up to the fact that my ideas about passion were only imagined and how unqualified I was to write about it. Delia and the Admiral were both engrossed, but I felt like a fraud.
‘Sue?’ said Aunt Coral, with uncanny telepathy, ‘Have you a problem?’
‘I’m not very clued up on it,’ I said.
The other members of the group stopped writing and stared, but Aunt Coral salvaged me.
‘What about your imagination Sue? I’m sure you must have felt passion, if only the yearning.’
It is true I have been feeling the yearning over Icarus. Perhaps passion isn’t just the end result and the communion of two people, but the bits before as well. I’d never thought of it like that. Aunt Coral was brilliant to see it.
‘And,’ she continued, ‘I believe that imagination is actually far superior to real life, an opinion that I am sure Benjamin O’Carroll would concur with. Perhaps you might write to him direct and get his reassurance on the matter? For example, I have heard you describe the Pacific Ocean as blue and yet you’ve probably never seen it. It’s the same thing with the intangible emotion: you know, even when you don’t know.’ She took a swig of her Bombay Sapphire.
I must admit she lost me a little, but maybe Mr O’Carroll’s thoughts would be helpful, that is, if he ever corresponds with his fans.
Suddenly and without any warning the Admiral stood up and scraped back his chair and, without even being asked to, prepared to read aloud his passion. Aunt Coral had to really gather herself together because she was so shocked and delighted.
‘On yearning,’ he said, and took a deep breath. ‘I stand at your gate and there do I wait, for the moment you bid me draw nearer. Oh! Come let me lead you through woods cool and shady, thou pearl amongst corals, thou dear tiny lady.’
Well! Aunt Coral nearly fell off her chair and her cheeks boiled, exactly as mine did when Icarus asked me out. But was his use of the word ‘coral’ deliberate? Or was it a cruel, cruel flewk? But Aunt Coral is only five foot two so, surely not.
Aunt C was for the first time ever rendered speechless. I thought she might even collapse. What a dark horse he is!
‘That was beautiful, Avery,’ said Delia, salvaging Aunt C. ‘And here is mine, which I have been longing to do since our group’s beginnings.’ She cleared her throat and stood up, holding her handbag for security.
Dear Ralph,
You are such an outrageous bastard I don’t know where to begin. From one end of the day to the other my rage knows no end. You loathsome wastrel, I rail against the injustices you have caused me to suffer.
Leaving me for a twenty-five-year-old is a kick in the teeth, but leaving me with insufficient funds is the meanest, lowest, dirtiest trick in the book. On the former it would be less of an insult if she were a raving beauty and not such a great lump. Obviously the fact that she is young makes you feel young too, but you look shameful next to her with your new tattoo and your cut-off jean trousers. You don’t fool anybody you ugly, smelly, rancid old bastard.
You could make some amends by sending me more money, so that I can at least get my knees done and keep Loudolle in nice dresses.
Miserable conceited wretch that you are, I hate you with all my heart.
D.
Delia was shaking when she had finished and Aunt Coral had to step in.
‘There is real passion in Delia’s letter, and it is so much better out than in,’ she said, as she offered Delia some humus and carrots for comfort.
‘I’m fine thank you,’ she said. ‘In fact I feel much better.’
Once again shock and silence rained on the Egham Hirsutists, so we all leapt into the humus as it seemed the natural thing to do.
Then I decided to read out my assignment, even if it did sound stupid. After all, I was amongst friends, two of whom had already exposed themselves.
They met at four and went to the hotel. He ordered champagne and they had sex for thirty-six hours and then went shopping. He took her relentlessly, telling her off on the floor. She had always wanted a dress in a box and he gave it to her, though it was a terrible price, and then they went back to the hotel and ordered more champagne from the room people and had sex again without stopping.
It was in parting that the pain of being without him even for a single instant got to her, and they had to have sex one more time.
What was it with the silences at our group this evening? If I hadn’t known Aunt Coral better I’d have sworn she was crying. O
bviously my writing had affected her. It was a huge compliment. That’s why I want to do it.
‘Excellent Sue, really excellent,’ she said. ‘Well done, and so full of longing, oh, how they go hand in hand, the yearning and the passion, it’s practically mathematical. Sometimes as writers we must share the things we’d rather imagine in private. Excellent, really excellent, well done.’
I knew her praise was a little biast, though my piece was not without punch.
‘What about yours?’ asked Delia.
‘Gurus don’t do the exercises but oversee them and make remarks,’ Aunt C said, her eyes full of warning.
‘But I saw you writing—’
‘Right, I think that’s enough for this evening, I’m sure we’ve all got a thousand things to do. If anyone would like to join me in the drawing room later, Pat has laid a fire, excuse me I must go and telephone Dean Martin.’
We all filtered out of the conservatory and off to our respective rooms, all contained in that gargantuan house, with so much yearning beneath its bludgeoning roof. So it seems that it never stops, it would appear that you never grow out of it. Oh, love, love, I am so ready to know you. Come to my aid and let me live in your sunshine.
Saturday 14 Feb (St. Valentine’s Day!)
3.45pm
Mum and I always sent Valentines to each other, in case we didn’t get any. I’ve never had one from anyone else. (Although one year I received two. That was the year she eventually confessed she got carried away.)
I have spent hours going over and over my plans for tonight, and today has seemed to last weeks. Funny how being in love can alter your time frame.
In order to escape dinner early enough to have any kind of quality time with Icarus, I have persuaded Dad and Ivana to book the dinner table much earlier than they wanted, at five o’clock. They couldn’t rearrange coming for another night because they are flying to Venice early tomorrow morning. So Aunt C suggested that I tell them that I had a ‘prior engagement’, which they eventually accepted after a telephone battle.