‘What’s the matter Charlene.’
‘Nothing’s the matter.’
‘You’re angry.’
‘I’m not.’
‘You are.’
‘What if I am. Why should you want to know. When you’ve ignored me over all these weeks. I’m only a servant. Ordered around by everyone in this place. I’m fed up with it. And I’m leaving. I only waited till you got back to tell you so. It’s not that I’m not content to keep my place. But you let the gang of them sponge, steal, cheat you and nearly burn the place down. The shenanigans that went on here after you were gone would make the devil himself blush. Every night the same. I was chased in fear of my life. If they weren’t pestering me in the kitchen they were one after the other pounding on my bedroom door drunk to get in. Percival lugging the wine non stop to them. The first course wouldn’t be down before half of them would be up fighting. The plates of food flung all over the place. I’m not saying I didn’t have a good laugh now and again. When Mrs L K L went after that Gloria off with her husband. The two of them sacrilegiously in behind the organ pipes of the chapel. Have your tea before it gets cold.’
Swallows zooming out across the sky. Scooping up midges, moths and butterflies. A honk from pigs Tim is rearing in a barn. Grinding down everything they get their mouths to. Crunching apples, crushing berries and tearing through cabbage leaves. Tails tightly curled up on their backs. Eating with such purity of demeanour. To get fat.
‘I’m sorry you had difficulties Charlene.’
‘It was nothing as to what some others had. One afternoon didn’t a pleasant lady and gentleman real swank with walking sticks arrive just asking about the historic site. And they themselves were a sight soon enough. It started with just a comment on a painting. One of them ones on the dining room wall. I wouldn’t know what he meant but Franz called them cultural impostors. Seated to dinner they were. And this L K L takes down the two paintings and calmly as you please he crashes one over the man’s head and another over the lady. Leaving the two of them speechless sitting with their faces sticking out from the portraits. Can you imagine. Your property. Wrecked on a pair of strangers you didn’t even invite by a gang of spongers you can’t get rid of. Then didn’t the visitors lift off the paintings and go on eating their food as if not a thing had happened. That’s the thing with this place, you can do what you like to anyone but not one of them will get up and leave. Except Percival. And he’s taken leave of his senses. Referring to you as his royal highness and to himself as maître d’hôtel. An hour he was teaching me pronounce it. Waltzing into the kitchens. Standing up on an old crate like he was directing an army of slaves. Calling me the sauce cook. As if we had a fish cook, meat cook and a veg cook. I gave him the back side of a ladle as the soup cook. It missed him because when I swung he was falling off the crate drunk. You’re just too good hearted. Everyone is taking advantage of you. I was saving some nice little bits of ham for your return. Had it ready to hide away. I went to relieve myself and got back and it was gone every scrap. But tonight I have hidden a nice bit of fish. Not one of them will find. Swimming it is in the rain barrel in the courtyard. Would you like it fried in a bit of butter.’
Percival setting a table for dinner in the octagonal room. Wine coasters, decanters and candelabra. The turf fire blazing in the grate dancing on his monocle. He said he’d been delving into science in the library. And that the milky way was the road by which the dead travel to heaven. Stepping from star to star.
‘Sure sir I know more than any one of them. Gave that Franz a dose of scientific data that had him gasping in his tracks. So desperate was he I let him have the definition of an amputon. He didn’t have the faintest idea it was an electron without armpits. There he was standing dumbfounded in his sandals in the great hall ready to go down in history as an eegit. I told him I didn’t like his aeronautics one bit. The likes of him are still paying their respects to the flat earth society. I am myself of course a member of the society for the prevention of clocks recording time. What I wouldn’t do to him in the glare of public opinion. I’d mesmerize him first with the facts and then reduce him to academic nudity in his socks.’
‘Have we any clean napkins.’
‘Ah there’s been such a call lately on the linen sir. Before it can be washed I find it’s got to be re-used first.’
‘The wine.’
‘Ah the wine. There’s been a call on that too sir. You’ve never seen the likes of the capacity of this crowd for madeira, hock and claret.’
‘I want locks put on the linen, the silver, the wine, the larder.’
‘Your highness go no further. Haven’t I been wanting to do that all the while. But there isn’t a lock in the place.’
‘Use nails.’
‘Nails sir wouldn’t stop this bunch. Even before their appetites get the better of them they’re wielding crow bars to get their hands on things. Haven’t I caught them L K Ls time and again trying to get off with an heirloom. Sir it’s the bad manners. If it wasn’t for that Erconwald the lack of manners would send the lot of us jumping out the monk’s tunnel into the jaws of the great conger. A light is badly needed in the moral darkness. Castle ghosts are hiding in shame. But now sir listen. I have it in a nutshell. Introduce expertise to the running of the castle. Of a morning collect a tariff from the occupants of every room. Why not look forward rather than backward sir. It’s a hotel we’re running.’
A steaming tureen. Charlene’s fish in sauce. Served by Percival assisted by Oscar wearing a cap because he was jumping up hitting his head with fright. Along the servants’ passages. And now a white wine poured. Good moments like this. Warmed by flames and tastiness. As the night begins. Out on a wild coast. Where the sheep shelter against the stone walls. Sea swells hissing up cliff sides. And exploding in caves to send overland bubbles of creamy white spray. Long necked birds perched on the rocks. Black feathers washed by the sad grey waves. Touch a golden wine to the lips. Ease down the buttery fish. Surrounded by all these choosy little courtesies.
Clementine eating his sweet of cream smothered butterscotch pudding. With news that the mob had descended again from the pub and were braying outside the walls. Percival telling them to go away. That the master was at vespers and could not be disturbed.
‘Sir it’s that one with the roulette wheel. Said he’d give you some of the rake off.’
‘Tell him to come back tomorrow. There’s going to be a ball.’
‘You don’t mean to say sir.’
‘I want the ballroom opened. And lashings of everything laid on.’
‘Sir I knew all the time you’d strike the right note. But that bunch when finished emptying the bottles would drink the darkness out of a cave.’
‘I want you to get an invitation to the Macfuggers.’
‘It’s action stations sir. I could get the Novena flying flags and have it moored with lights out in the bay.’
‘Just the ballroom.’
‘Aye aye. Would we care to get some publicity sir. You’d want to be pretty nippy now to keep up a proper image. With the likes of the sort prancing in the limelight these days. Ah I’m telling you the enchantment is going to be to your liking. Leave it to me. The priest to hear confessions in the chapel ahead of time. Start off spiritually fresh. Nothing like a new sin committed when you’re forgiven of the old. Have you ever confessed sir.’
‘No.’
‘Do you a power of good. You’ve been in a pessimistic state. A confession clears up the past in one go. Lays the future at your feet flat as a pancake you’d dance over and roll up and eat. I’ve never been happier in me life before. Even with this bunch we’ve got beating the daylights out of one another. But hasn’t it always cleared the air and led to a meeting of the minds as soon as they could lift their heads up off the carpet. I’ll admit sometimes you’d ask for a bit of solitude to move the bowels in peace. Which is no longer the case in any field up there beyond where every one of them poisonous snakes has got away below the p
ub.’
Percival brings port. Lain quietly waiting for lips for forty years. Stretch out in the chair bathed with red fire glow. The slowly pounding sea. Cold draughts blowing up between the floor boards. Grand aunt must have planned to freeze me out of the world. When they couldn’t kill me in the hospital. Good to sit for a change in one’s own castle eating the lion’s share. Swallowing this purple sweet sustenance. When summer comes can lie out on the grass. Let the ticks suck my blood. After all the mambas are killed. The world will explode in green again. If only I can be there waiting. Having over the years abided by my little commandments. Thou shalt not pick nose, nor fart loudly in another’s proximity, nor within another’s sight play too robustly with the privates. Nor stick the prick where it is not wanted. Just a little belching is to be allowed. Not to end up being the man folk show their children. To say don’t grow up dilapidated like him. Bloodmourn knows some secret. Keeps him undaunted. Franz has his water clock. A buoyant brass bowl with a tiny hole in the bottom. Floats in a pail of liquid. Gauge the aqueous atoms passing through the hole as it sinks. None of the three trust the modern watch. Erconwald a stickler for the column sundial. Putlog for wheatstone’s solar chronometer. Rose said they once beat the shit out of each other over the right time. Wielding their various clocks. On a street corner of the park near their laboratory in the capital. Franz flinging his portable pail of water in Erconwald and Putlog’s faces. When the argument was settled another fight commenced a block later as to the nature of the earth’s core. A random substance suggested brought colour to the cheeks of some onlookers. As the other two shouted and gesticulated at a silent Erconwald. None of them ever without a pocket sundial with polar pin to adjust to suit any latitude. Know the time and direction in which to follow a theory. And Erconwald that evening attired in boots pushing a wheelbarrow with a lantern illuminating a geographical graph of semi-precious minerals. The three engrossed in experiment were melancholic. But before they were finished they would be selling daylight to the world.
Charlene collecting tray. Stands with her moist sparkling eyes. Arms held out. Sleeves of a green sweater pushed up on her pale strong wrists. Her nose a neat white rudder on her face. Steer her near. With flattery and affection. Before one more heavy hearted day has landed.
‘The fish was excellent and the pudding a delight.’
‘It’s just the work of a nobody.’
‘Put the tray down.’
‘Why. What’s the use of me getting upset thinking you might have something to do with me when you could be gone tomorrow and I’d be left mumbling to myself.’
‘Put down the tray. Please.’
‘I’ll do as I’m told. But that won’t change a thing.’
‘We’re having a ball. I want you to come as a guest.’
‘I’d be jeered out of the kitchens and sent cowering down into the dungeons by the rest of them. They’d be striped purple in the face with jealousy. It isn’t that I wouldn’t like to come as a guest but I could be there anyway.’
‘It’s going to be a house warming.’
‘You’d hardly need that after the burnings and blastings.’
Charlene lowering the tray to the table. And scraping up a finger full of whipped cream and butterscotch pudding. Sucking it into her mouth. Sits on the edge of the bed as she licks her lips. Curls on her head glistening in the candlelight. The whiteness of her wrists where it fades into the red of her hands. Muscle across the smooth corner of her jaw twitching. And a vein below on her throat throbbing. The blue eyed strength of her with a body like a bird.
‘Your highness would you ever lower the iron door. It’s not that I’m suspicious but you just never know in this place whose ears are getting a mindful. And to tell you the truth there’s never a time I pass that coffin room down the steps there when I’m not thinking something might come out at me dead or alive and either worse than the other.’
Clementine lowering the portal. With squeaks and the clank of chain. Lifting across iron bars. Turning bolts. To step back through the ante room. Bolt the servants’ door. Fortified against the world. To see her sitting in the light. Of one candle on the table. The wax smoke smell of the others blown out. Her sweater in her lap. Two more at her feet on the floor. One yellow one pink. A garment draped from her waist over her hips. Her breast silhouetted in the light. Count the thin shadows of three ribs below. Her fists clenched tight. Her knees knocking. Who dat dere. The west’s awake tonight.’
‘Wow.’
‘In case you’ve seen a lot of women. I thought I’d show you what I had.’
Clayton Claw Cleaver slowly rising on tiptoe. To see what one could see flat footed. Swallowing saliva by the bucket. Her shoulders arched forward. Always thought they were so big. Now they’re small. Without the sweaters. Folded wings. Tips of breasts dipping and tipping. As she leans. And bows her head. Which she chopped off a chicken. In one almighty swipe. When I retreated some paces backwards from the splashing blood. Relieved by her smile. Death all over the place. Rats fuming under floorboards. Hear night cries from seagulls perched on the ramparts. Bloodmourn said on the trip cross country that he frequently needed a change of human beings. To vary the flavour of the treacheries. Charlene can milk forty cows at a sitting. Sinewy muscles flex in her arms. Sits waiting her hands atremble. Biting her lips. If Elmer had a mate I could breed more of him and live surrounded by faithful man eating dogs. No one likes a growling monster breathing heavily rushing at you in the dark. Teeth flashing if there’s moonlight. Sound of fangs gnashing if there isn’t. Descend now upon one of my loyal staff. Like that man with his prow of a ship crossing the waters down Rose’s flooded flat. A moment remembered by mariners everywhere. With jib booms jutting. This is what I look like under sail. As she sits there ready for my vessel sailing into port.
‘Charlene why are you shaking.’
‘Because I’m scared. Because you might throw me out when you’ve finished with me. And I don’t want to go. I kissed you the time of the blast when I had your head in my hands. I was thrilled the first moment you came into the kitchens. I was at me wits’ end with despair. Not knowing where to find this or that. Or what was expected of me. Thought there’d be some mad old red nosed landowner with a big stick and gaiters ready to jump out at me and beat me within an inch of my life.’
Clementine standing trousers dropped around the ankles. In last month’s underwear. Never know I had a haberdasher once. Just up the concrete street from aunt’s big corporation. All the drawers, shirts and socks spread out tied up in ribbons behind two shiny windows. Always met with a smile of devastating courtesy. When stepping in out of the lunch time window watchers. Ah Mr Clementine, how are you for socks. Fine. But just now I’m in a bad way with castles. I liked that man. Fervently selling shirts. There when needed. To comfort me. With his confidential whisper, this is what they’re wearing now. I’d try to be calm. And not shout out for god’s sake give me some. To stun the guys at the office. Who had no mercy if they caught you a fraction out of style. Passing me with side glances at the water cooler. Where I’d have a think over a paper cup. About why the clock had such a slow struggle to move the hands around to quitting time. When I could go thronging with thousands of others to the train. That never stopped at a crossroads. Where there’s nothing but night and day. Of winds, mist and rain. And another gull’s cry. As Charlene charges. Tugging at my clothes. Tearing off her own. Hands digging in my hair. Teeth sinking in my neck. A randy hearted tigress roaring up from the kitchens. Hold tight to her hard handy bumps of arse. Spin together down on the bed. Crawling up on me pushing a breast smothering on my face. Where goes a mariner. On this stormy sailing. Avoiding ship wreck in wet dreams. Grab tendons stretched under her armpits. Flourishing with hair. Musty and steamy scented. Chewing at my ears. Biting down along my throat. Feel I’ve been dug up out of last winter’s leaves. A root shining ripe and white. Get it into her. Veins and all. Between the soft liquids swelling. As the words rush out of her mouth. You
r highness I would give up God for you. Not that he’s ever given me anything but a kick in the teeth. But wherever you look there’s some kind of trouble. You’d wonder how does a mother’s love last that a child takes away. Mine’s been just a little knot tied up in me ready to burst. Like tonight. When I can’t control or help myself. And it would be no relief to know that everyone has these worries. That have denied me beautiful fingernails. Chewed as they’ve been with distress. That thing of yours up me is like a blessing from on high. The light of a sacred candle I’m telling you. Scares away all me mountainous horrors. You were struck with that Lady Macfugger. The thought of it gives me heartburn. Maybe I’m not socially up to scratch. But I defy her to enjoy your tool more. They’ll never make me marry a dirty old man with his hands all over me. And not one of his own teeth to keep his jaw from shutting up over his nose. That’s what they do with us here in the country. They farrow you fat every year like a pig. Till you get swept away with the sorrow. Of the screaming children growing up around your knees. Ah there in your eyes. I see soft things. Doves and the like of that flying. I’m a woman but the contemplation of babies in my belly makes me vomit. Unless it had a father like you. I was the smartest young girl in the district. With just a lot of hard calluses on my hands and heels to show for it. And if you had nothing further to do with me. You’d be right. I could go away content with your juice up inside. But what you need is a wife. That shook you. Forget I mentioned it. It’s not a safe subject. Like the lady visitor in the town who made an observation in the pub about the weather thinking it harmless enough among the touchy customers. Said it was a rainy day and had her nose broken for it. That’s all it is, cantankerousness.