Chapter 1
What a wicked world it is when we do not get what we deserve. Life is the edible whom we do not like to be. Life surrounds us when we first glimpse it then slowly as if our eyes have dimmed we have the best of the world.
"We did not upset you, did we?"
"No of course not trying to bump me off and then trying to silence me was never enough."
"How we always were in envy of you."
"Me?"
"Yes, you are always headstrong and gullible almost guileless."
"You mean you envied me because I was clueless?"
"We are not vampires we do eat occasionally. But always in the public eye makes us them the people who move in shadows".
"Like the Dracula?"
"Most of the time we are well intentional."
"When you get not well intentional?"
"When our house is in danger. We live through them."
The many years of mansions and states of graceless romance have made them the huge appetites that they are. Not now Doris is the key and then they compare me to Felicity something. Somehow I am not these women. I am a woman walking in woe and humbleness.
"Don't make us laugh you have a huge ego."
"I inherited it from them who do not care for me."
"You were a bastard?"
"It is not polite to say such things ladyship." Said the politically correct corresponding body.
"Who said you can speak?" She demanded.
He was crushed into silence and then went his way towards documents and stuffy nonsense he wished he had become another butler they at least served the alcohol that always put them in a good mood.
The thing was there was nothing to hold onto but the documents. As she glared at him and he sat down deeper into the armchair he fell asleep.
"Good that is the reason we employ him."
The ten commandments are this. Then she rolled into activity. She was going to tell me what to do added to the luster of the whole deal.
We are always nice to rotters like you because we learn from them. We are always learning that is what makes us great.
"Unintentionally I asked the right way to the toilet."
"Do it where you are." She roared and then sat looking if I did. Her mother was more obliging and she did.
There was a roar of laughter and she did not make sense to me. When my mother skipped the toilet and did it in the knickers I never did it like that. I would be embarrassed with twenty guests in the waiting while the woman smelt heavily of the perfume.
The thing was everybody who came was so used to the stench they did not even melt their handkerchief but obliged to eat. They did not miss the grand lamb or the first course or the dessert they lavished the cook with praise. Their wholesome attitude was dismissed by the growing farts and such as it became too much for me.
"I have to leave now."
"Not staying for the port?"
"Never drink the stuff in the old days they got the ulcers from the port. I am sorry I have this issue with port."
"Give her sherry?"
"Sherry?"
"Yes, sherry it is in the decanter where William has been polishing the stuff."
"He drunk the lot did he?"
The smallish elegant room was furnished with the full antiques and the embroidery of the damned who did the work in less than two years or twenty. They depended on their women friends who helped them to shut their doors and not be involved with their husbands who did nothing to help them with their good work.
The daintiest of stitching they worked their knickers off. I knew they must have. They could not have been able needlewomen because in Cyprus to do such work it takes them about six weeks.
As I wondered if this was a great piece of cake or artwork. The expensive furnishings settled me into a state of awe.
I had no idea who it came from the Renoirs and stuff.
"My mother owns them." Said the middle-aged woman.
Her mother was looking very joyful. It must have been all that crapping.
The male servant was there and here always putting the decanter back where it came from.
"I daresay he filled the decanter again with some port."
"Never touch the stuff." I almost yelped I was in the open university and was supposed to have arrived in order to see the aristocratic manner of life. I did not thank them enough for the right to socialize but did.
"Why must you leave it is only eight or something dire?"
"Worried my mother would be worried she expects me to do the things she can't. Disabled the poor love."
"She must grow up. " Eyebrows went higher with the crosswords nearly coming out. I did not want to stay and my mother was my excuse. The smell made me sick.
"She has done something again Mother you may stop it now."
"Well see you tomorrow."
"Yes lovely to have seen the house and all that."
The mother did a wapper and then did it again she even bleached while she did it. The general laughter continued until they were left alone. The mother then when I looked around got up and left the scene as if not an invalid but something more agile.
A practical joke?
Is that a crime?
No crime back then.
But the stuff of these jokes when they accumulate can become less enviable. I am left seeking the life and soul of the party.
I went home and then went home again there was not much on my mind what did happen?
I lost a friend because it was never the same again every time she laughed every time she said a word. It was somehow inflicted as painful remembrance of that night.
"I went out of my way to make her feel welcome." She said in the manner of the woman who has been hard done.
I thought there may be trouble with the whole thing getting out of hand. I did not ask to be known anymore as her friend and she sat down and did that too. We separated quite amicably.
I did not like the do and there was too much laughter as if the whole thing was a drawl. That made me wonder what type of a house it was not an alehouse.
Something seedy was going on there and it was not the good woman doing in her underpants. So what was wrong with affairs of the heart or somehow the mind?
I shrugged and said nothing there was nothing to say. There was no reason to suspect how deep the wounds would be.
The long memories and such and the stuff of woods and mortar built in the tank and there was no water to drink only liqueur. What happened to the friendly show of hands?
The aftertaste was bitter but did not have any coffee the Irish coffee promised.
How grand the entrance had been then the livery in the cloakroom. I had a sneak preview. I had a foreboding. This is too much of it all? Why because began to sense it was not that simple.
My heart is already broken and I broke will go mad if it happened again.
Too many of them and every time they did not want to know me but were obsessed with my naivety. I did not like that I thought I was more than that.
I went to the door and closed the door on them before she threw her coat on her shoulders.
"Tell us to be .."
Then laughter. More laughter than at any time in the life of our house. The laughing did not stop as soon as the door closed there was more laughter.
What was it?
A joke what is a joke what was it?
I did nothing wrong and was not robbed yet felt rattled.
