Campari for Breakfast

by Sara Crowe

  In fact I am beginning to think she can keep him, that it is time for me to let go. I’ve spent the whole of the spring and summer being disappointed by Icarus, and I need to try and move on. Indeed the only significant time I have spent alone with him is when I have been in bed with his eye. It isn’t exactly the love affair of the century, it’s more of a crumb from his plate.

  Friday 21 August

  This evening Aunt Coral hosted a special dinner and Mrs Bunion came in to cook: gamey pâté to start and venison sausages to follow, with the Admirals taking charge of a pudding called ‘Officer’s Mess’ so that Mrs B could knock off early. One of the dinner guests was Daphne Podger, a very old friend of Aunt Coral’s and the sister of a former beau, who is extremely rich, so Aunt Coral was going to ask for a loan. It is not something I approve of, but we do have great need.

  I offered to waitress, as it was a swanky affair. Loudolle of course stuck her oar in and offered to waitress as well, but I think that was only because Icarus was away so she didn’t have a date. I was not looking forward to working with her, and I made it plain from the start I would not be engaging with her as a woman.

  By four o’clock the kitchen was a hive of activity, Mrs Bunion whizzing the pâté and the Admirals dipping their fingers into the pudding cream to check up on the flavours. Loudolle was assisting the Admirals by glorifying in herself, which they seemed to enjoy. The Nanas, Delia and I were out by the pool helping Aunt Coral lay the grand table. She had brought out the silver and some of her most valuable china, to try and impress her guests.

  In 1774 the Empress of all the Russians, Catherine the Second, commissioned England’s greatest potter, the late Josiah Wedgwood, to make her some crockery. This beautiful china was known as ‘The Imperial Russian Dinner Service’. The collection was painted with views of various castles, ruins and streets, presumably so the late Catherine could get an idea of England. But there were three or four pieces made by the great potter that he did not consider good enough for shipping to Russia, one, because there was an imperfection in one of the trees, and two, because of a chip, and these pieces he bequeathed to his friend Lady De Mallet Simpson who is a distant relative of Great Grand Nana Pearl. This is how the extraordinary items came to reside here at Green Place, surviving every auction and car boot sale because they’re so very precious.

  ‘The pieces are important,’ explained Aunt C, laying out a soup plate showing a view of Hampstead Heath, ‘because they depict an England that is gone for ever and London as it was two hundred years ago. The shape and proportions are exquisite and the mulberry colour unrivalled …’ She had just drawn a breath to continue when suddenly we were interrupted by a shout from inside the kitchen.

  ‘The sausages!’ screamed Mrs Bunion.

  We all ran into the kitchen where there was a rumpus.

  ‘I put them on the table here under the net to sweat,’ said Mrs Bunion. ‘Which one of you took them? I need to get them started, or they won’t be ready.’

  She became increasingly agitated as we all denied any knowledge as to the whereabouts of the sausages.

  ‘Let’s calm down and think about this rationally for a second,’ said Admiral Ted, taking a notebook from his pocket to write down salient points. ‘When you arrived at Green Place earlier, Mrs Bunion, what did you do with the sausages?’

  ‘I put them in the fridge with the butter, and then at half past three I took them out and put them on the table, under the net to sweat. I know I did, because I always do. I sweat them at room temperature for an hour before I cook them. It’s the correct way with a sausage.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ said Admiral Gordon.

  ‘Of course I’m sure! Why would I lie over such a thing?’ She was by now in a terrible state and had been placed on a chair and given tea.

  Then Loudolle, who’d been giving me bad eyes all day, stepped up and said: ‘Look, I really don’t like to say this, but I’m going to have to, because Mrs Bunion’s so upset …’ Everyone was silent, riveted, waiting, held in the palm of her hand. ‘I saw Sue drop the sausages in the swimming pool. Sorry Sue, but I can’t stand by and see an old lady in distress. You want me to go get some more Mom? I could take the car and be back in twenty minutes.’

  You can imagine how shocked I was. It was a total made-up story.

  ‘That’s not true,’ I said. ‘I never touched the sausages, let alone dropped them in the pool.’

  ‘Why are you lying?’ said Loudolle.

  I took a step up towards her to give her a piece of my mind, but Delia held me away.

  ‘Come now,’ she said. ‘There’s no harm done here. Loudolle will go and get some more sausages. We all have mishaps; it’s not your fault Sue. At least we know what happened.’

  ‘But, I—’ I looked around me, and words faltered. ‘Check the swimming pool if you don’t believe me, there’s no sausages in there.’

  But judging by everyone’s faces the only person who believed me was Aunt Coral. Loudolle swalked off to get the car keys, with a terrible conceited face on.

  It is a bitter pill to swallow, being blamed for something I didn’t do. The only way to clear my name is to find the real culprit. Someone obviously sabotaged the sausages, but who? It can’t be the Admirals, for why would they bother, and it can’t be Aunt Coral, for why would she sabotage Daphne’s enjoyment of the meal, and it can’t be Delia for the same reason, and it can’t be Mr Tsunawa, for he is away. Which leaves Loudolle herself. But why, why, why would she want to? She already is the favourite of almost everyone we know, so of course everyone will believe her. As long as Aunt Coral believes I am telling the truth, I didn’t mind too much about the others. But from now on I will be keeping my eye on Loudolle Shoot.

  We went back to laying the grand table outside, but all the stuffing had gone out of the day and I asked if I could be excused from waitressing, as I couldn’t promise I’d be able to work with Loudolle without stepping up to her.

  Brackencliffe

  By Sue Bowl

  ‘Ha hah!’ said Pretafer viciously, tossing her flaming curls to one side. For there she spied in front of her, cowering in the thicket, the maids to whom she gave chase.

  ‘There you are, I knew I would find you! Seize them!’ she cried to her man guards, and Cara and hu mble Fiona were captured and taken unto the Brackencliffe dungeon by the bodies of six fullsome men.

  Pretafer laughed and she laughed till her mouth frothed and her eyes shrivelled and the Spinster Nurse had to be called to come and take the Missie home.

  Egham Hirsute Group

  On reinventing the cliché

  ‘The Brontës wouldn’t give two brass fittings for structure,’ Aunt Coral began at the next group of the season last night. Joe had returned to the group after his attempted kiss and was concentrating hard on his jotter.

  ‘What we need to do to enthral the reader is reinvent the cliché. Consider, does being a spinster make you any less of a person? No. For example Sue’s character, Spinster Nurse Chopin, is an example of the reinvention of a cliché. We’ve all come across spinsters and nurses, but not quite in the context we see here. Similarly,’ she said, fixing her eyes on the Admiral, ‘in a descriptive sense, we are used to hearing about heavy and pendulous breasts. But to say someone’s got a heavy and pendulous face would be reinventing a cliché.’

  ‘And also very insulting,’ said Delia.

  ‘Perhaps the desired effect is to be insulting?’ said Aunt C, trying to throw it open. But no one put their hands up for fear she might bring up breasts again.

  ‘Likewise in Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, we see Mr Rochester and Jane’s love flourishing, and we make assumptions. But no, he has an insane wife he is hiding. Charlotte Brontë, like Sue, is reinventing a cliché,’ said Aunt Coral.

  ‘Can any of you think of any other examples?’ she said, moving forward with the session.

  We all put our hands up.

  ‘Sue,’ said Aunt Coral.

  ‘In Wuther
ing Heights, Emily Brontë puts the ghost outside the window instead of inside the house like most ghosts,’ I said.

  ‘Excellent Sue, really excellent, you’ve got the idea. Now I want you to quickly each call out a “type” of character for me . . . anyone?’

  We all put our hands up.

  ‘Sue,’ said Aunt Coral.

  ‘A bachelor.’

  ‘A bachelor, good,’ said Aunt Coral. ‘Delia?’

  ‘A gardener,’ said Delia.

  ‘Good,’ said Aunt Coral. ‘Avery?’

  ‘A princess,’ said Avery.

  ‘Good, Avery,’ said Aunt Coral ‘And Joe?’

  ‘A boyfriend.’

  ‘Good,’ said Aunt Coral. ‘So, to recap, we have a bachelor, a gardener, a princess, and a boyfriend. Now, I want you to each select one character from the list and create a reason for them to be in some way unexpected, thereby liberating yourselves from convention. Then we will share and discuss them.’

  The conservatory was hot and the evening was light and easy. I remembered so many groups where I’d sat in my hat and coat, with my fingers freezing round my pen. As nice as the summer is, I do hope we can raise enough money to see another winter at Green Place.

  ‘Ready? Who’s going to go first?’ said Aunt Coral, with her eyes magnified behind her gin glass. We all put our hands up, for we were inspired.

  ‘Sue?’ said Aunt Coral.

  ‘I’ve chosen a boyfriend,’ I said, and I read aloud, not looking at Joe. ‘“Her boyfriend was the sort of person who ignored her and treated her like a rag and looked at other women all the time,”’ I said.

  ‘Good,’ said Aunt Coral. ‘Not the sort of boyfriend I’d want. And Avery?’

  ‘A princess,’ he said. ‘“Princess Melanie was so beautiful that no gentleman in the kingdom was safe from losing his heart. But Princess Melanie could neither sing nor sew, neither read nor write – Princess Melanie was a halfwit.”’

  ‘Excellent Avery, really excellent, well done,’ said Aunt Coral. ‘It’s totally unexpected to think of royalty in terms of being, ahem, halfwitted. And Delia?’

  ‘I’ve chosen a bachelor,’ she said. ‘“He had never married and this was not because he had not had offers, but rather because he was more in love with himself than with any woman he’d ever known.”’

  ‘Excellent Delia, yes, a bachelor who is vain,’ said Aunt Coral, her eyes flickering towards the Admiral. ‘And Joe?’

  ‘A gardener,’ he said. ‘“She would not be a gardener for ever; it was only to pay the rent, and the garden provided a good place to bury the bodies.”’

  ‘Oh Joe!’ said Aunt Coral, ‘a psychotic lady gardener! Excellent. And well done everybody, you’ve really got the idea. Of course the same theory applies to the story or “plot” as we call it, so always be aware of twists and turns and possibilities, and – just as in life – anything can happen!

  ‘Now, I’d like to set you some homework, which is a confidence-building exercise, designed to enhance your creativity. I want you to write a letter to yourself from someone who you long to hear from, for example, Mr O’Carroll, Sue, or Marlon Brando, Delia. Perhaps you’d like to hear from Kate Bush, Joe, or Bette Davis, Avery. I’m not suggesting you choose the above, but the idea is that it should be someone positive, exciting, beneficial; not Ralph, Delia, or the council, Avery. Everyone understand?’

  We all nodded and the session ended, Aunt Coral tottering out of the conservatory followed by the Admiral on his way to join the other Admirals in the drawing room. Delia had a dinner appointment in Egham, although I think she actually just went up to her room and wrote letters to herself. (Which she has adopted as a healing habit ever since Group began.)

  I walked a little way down the drive with Joe freewheeling along on his bike. I wanted to try and reconnect with him, but he was curiously distracted by my feet.

  ‘The sound of summer,’ he said, involuntarily flirting with my flip flops.

  I passed him his helmet and put the visor down for him, which he seemed to enjoy very much. As I said goodbye I had a curious feeling, a strange sort of longing for him to ask me out again, which of course he didn’t. But I felt something a kin to disappointment after he had left. It had been nice, flattering, I suppose, when he had wanted to spend all his time with me, I have missed it. That is to say, I have missed that he made me feel a bit special. But I am still angry with him for making Icarus ask me out and sending me on a wild goose chase with my feelings. And I am guessing that he is still angry about that unwanted attempt of a kiss.

  But as usual after one of Aunt Coral’s groups, I was inspired and raced back upstairs to Brackencliffe, where I fell asleep over my notebook.

  Tuesday 25 August

  At 3am, I woke once again to the ‘Fuck, squeak, thud,’ and a few seconds later there was a step on the gravel, and then another, so I froze. I’m not sure how long I sat there, possibly four, maybe five minutes, but eventually I plucked up the courage to go on to the balcony and look outside. All the night was quiet, lit by a purple moon. There was nothing there, no badger, no ghoul. I reassured myself that old houses make noises and young animals scurry and I went back to sleep singing from the logical explanation school of thought.

  I have noticed that sometimes life can throw you a pleasant event to balance a scary one, and later on this morning Delia found a tortoise that was staying in an East Wing bathroom! She has christened it Bertie, though she is not sure if it might be a Betty. It is amazing to see how something so small can be the cause of so much delight to someone. Life never ceases to amaze me in that respect; there really is a lot of pleasure to be got out of small things, and no one better than an old girl to make you see it.

  Anyway, after going to the bathroom to have a look at Bertie, I got back to my room and found Loudolle there. It was quite a shock. She was standing by my bed in her airline pyjamas with a nasty look on her face, the sort of look that will eventually swallow up her beauty and leave its print instead. So I hope.

  ‘What are you doing in here?’ I asked her.

  ‘Just looking for something,’ she said.

  ‘What? What can you possibly be looking for in my room?’ I said, itching to give her a bitch slap.

  ‘Oh, nothing,’ said Loudolle, ‘… or this,’ she said. She was holding Icarus’s eye. The world seemed to float for a moment as I thought of all the things she could do with it. She could show it to Icarus. She could tell Mrs Fry about it. She could steal it.

  ‘How much would you give me to keep this a secret?’

  ‘Five pounds,’ I said. ‘It’s all I’ve got.’

  ‘That’ll do,’ she said, ‘for now . . . I’ll hang on to this for you, shall I? We wouldn’t want anyone to find it.’ Then she left my room, taking the eye with her, and I was left alone, like a small sheep on a hill who has been separated from its mother.

  Why, why did I play into her hands? What does it matter if she tells Icarus I kept a piece of his eye? (Apart from the obvious humiliation and embarrassment, which might indeed cause my disintegration.) There should be no shame in having liked someone enough to have kept their eye under my pillow; the classics are full of such passion. But if I’m honest I think the reason is that exposure of the eye would be certain to make me look an idiot. And part of me still wants Icarus to love me, as hard as I am trying to forget him.

  But these emotional things take time, and I calm myself with the notion. After all, the Cistern Chapel wasn’t painted in a week.

  Brackencliffe

  Pretafer was recovering under the Spinster Nurse Chopin.

  ‘Get off me, woman!’ cried she. ‘I want to make mischief with the maidens. Lah hah! Hah, hah, hah, hah hah, hah.’

  ‘Missie, come back, you’re not well,’ cried the spinster, preparing her syringe.

  ‘Funny smell,’ said a footman, as Pretafer passed him by, for she had soiled herself in all her excitement, cruelty and cunning.

  Coral’s Commonplace: Volume 3 />
  Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, July 3 1940

  (Aged 18 but pass for 21)

  The whole of the south coast has been evacuated and occupied by our troops. There’s barbed wire on the beaches and oil in the sea, and they are going to set the sea on fire if anyone tries to come.

  Green Place has been requisitioned, so Mother, Father and Cameo had to leave. They have gone to stay with Aunt Fern in Somerset, and I will have to stay here and go and join them in the holidays. Giving up one’s home bears with it a strange feeling of detachment. The day-to-day inconvenience is accompanied by a deep knowledge that to do right we must. I miss silly things, such as the tin cupboard. I asked Cameo to pack my pyjama case, but she couldn’t find it in all the hurry. If I were to go into my bedroom now I would find twenty soldiers billeted.

  We had a long phone call during which Cameo told me that they’ve had to shoot Alto, her adopted horse. He had sweet itch, which was getting harder and harder to treat. They can go on and on with sweet itch, so it was a terrible decision. Cameo had been bathing his blisters with geranium oil which she crushed herself. And only a couple of weeks ago she had asked Sayler to drain the pond, so the midges that lived there would head off and leave Alto alone. The vet told her an injection would be too slow on a horse of his size, and that he wouldn’t know a thing of the bullet. I’ll miss the thud of his hooves in the morning when he suddenly decided to canter, and the way he took sugar from our hands and then flashed his teeth in something between a smile and a bite.

  They wouldn’t have killed him yet if the soldiers hadn’t come according to Cameo. They are coming to Green Place for the greater good but, oh God, what of the smaller?

  I also heard that Daniel-the-Useless applied for a job with the railways in order to escape being called up, but he was turned down, so now he’s got to go. I don’t think it makes him any less brave because he shows he’s afraid. He’s one of those transparent people who can’t hide his emotions.

  They reckon on the requisitioning of our house and land for a term of up to twelve months, initially, for the purpose of billeting fresh forces and for food production, as we expect three million Americans to feed on our shores. They are also recruiting for some ‘classified training’ which Father says means that they get candidates drunk and practise interrogating them to see if they give over secrets. He says that most of them succumb to the loosening effects of alcohol, but the ones that don’t become the crème de la crème of special operations.