by Heide Goody
“Shabby chic,” said Terence, tapping the side of his nose. “All the rage. My wife will love it.”
I stared doubtfully at the swan. If his wife was casting for a horror film that featured a dead-eyed zombie swan then he’d found just the thing. “When it’s painted, you mean?” I asked.
“God no. Just as it is. Wouldn’t be shabby chic otherwise.”
What sort of relationship did Terence have with his wife? I’d seen films where a gift of a horse’s head was considered a threat, and this seemed as if it might fulfil a similar role. I felt for the woman.
I maintained silence on the subject, but as we continued the lesson, the zombie swan rolled noisily in the back to remind me of its presence. As we neared a small run of shops, I remembered something else I needed to do. I indicated to pull in.
“What are you doing?” Terence said.
“Another quick errand, won’t be a tick.”
I ran into the off-licence and went to the counter. “Can I have some miniatures of whiskey please?”
The assistant took four different brands from a shelf behind him and put them in front of me. I wasn’t sure which ones Ashbert might need.
“I’ll take them all,” I said, reaching into my pocket for the cash.
On the way back to the car, I passed a Polish supermarket. Dad always tells me that they’re great places for picking up a bargain and I wondered if they might have some whiskey to add to Ashbert’s taste experience. I went in and gazed at the shelves. It would have been handy if they’d included some translations on some of these things. There was the time Dad brought some chickpeas, thinking they were potatoes from the picture on the tin. Mom served them up with fish fingers, now that was a peculiar meal. There were some miniatures, very much like the ones I’d just bought from the off-licence. I couldn’t discern anything much from what was written on the label, but the liquid inside was very much the colour of whiskey. There was another bottle nearby that looked as if it might be vodka or gin. I grabbed the whiskey coloured one - Migdalowy, it said. Perfect!
I paid and popped it into the bag with the others. When I got back into the car Terence seemed unhappy.
“You do know that this is supposed to be a driving lesson, don’t you?” he asked.
“I do,” I said.
“Arabella is not your personal runabout.”
“I know.”
“I’m a human being with feelings, don’t forget.”
“Of course, I won’t.”
Terence went on to ensure that I couldn’t forget he was a human being by talking incessantly about his feelings on a wide range of issues for the rest of the lesson. But I was almost sorry when the lesson ended and Terence drove off with the awful swan. I would have really enjoyed being a fly on the wall when he presented his wife with such an unforgettable gift.
Ashbert was in a state of high excitement when I got back inside. He’d been shopping. I’d given up asking him how he did this when he had no income as far as I knew.
“Check this out!” he said. “I got some clothes.”
He picked up a jacket.
“Tweed!” he declared happily.
It made me smile as I thought of James, but I pushed that thought away. This was about Ashbert. He had some corduroy trousers as well, in a lovely shade of biscuity brown. Certainly, a mature choice in clothing. He pulled out a much smaller garment. My eyebrows shot up.
“Speedos?” I said.
“Speedos,” he said.
I looked at the tiny budgie-smugglers. “Not exactly class British clothing.”
“Ah, no,” he said, “but if I’m going to be more like James Bond then I need to perfect that scene where he comes out of the sea,” he said. “Also, there’s a load of camping equipment downstairs in the tool shed so I can get back to nature and learn how to survive. And I got a massive knife and a replica pistol so that I can look the part as well. I’m sure they’ll come in handy when I’m practising my dangerous animal skills on the trilobites.”
I gave him a stern look. “You weren’t thinking of using weapons on the trilobites, surely?”
“No, I wasn’t. I just think I might get a bit more respect from them if they know I mean business.”
I was about to query this idea. Surely it was ridiculous to imagine that the trilobites would be intimidated by guns or knives? Then I remembered something Adam told me ages ago. Apparently, a crow can tell the difference between a man with a gun and a man without a gun. Was it possible that a trilobite had similar skills? Given their only relatively recent contact with mankind it seemed unlikely. (But, then again, I’d seen Jurassic Park and those velociraptors could work out how to use door handles so, who knew?)
“You’ve been very busy,” I said.
“That’s not all,” he declared with a large grin. “I’ve read an entire book about whiskey and also started to learn a foreign language. Wyt ti’n dod fan hyn yn aml?”
The exotic guttural tones made me quite weak at the knees. I took him by the hand and looked him squarely in the eye as I led him towards the bedroom. “I don’t know what you just asked me, but to be honest, you had me at Speedos.”
Chapter 25
I spent the afternoon drawing and blogging. My devoted readers, however few they were, deserved a bit of fresh content.
I decided that I simply had to have Florrie learning to become an expert. Florrie’s a can-do girl and she mostly tends to wing it if she’s up against a fearsome challenge, but it was so obvious now that she should become an expert in a few things. It would come in handy for future stories as well. I thought carefully about what she should learn. The current series of strips was about adulting, so she must learn a key adult skill. I thought back to Lexi’s list and knowing the price of eggs. Money would be a good thing. I had her talking with a friend about how they might stretch their finances, so Lori researches everything that they spend money on and finds cheaper alternatives. From there, she helps some other friends do the same, reads a couple of books and she’s an accountant three days later. As an accountant, she helps people invest their savings and she realises that understanding stocks and shares would be useful, so she spends time with a stockbroker (I did this. I don’t recommend it; he was very boring) who tells her all she needs to know to begin stockbroking. The final part of the strip showed Lori rolling a wheelbarrow from the doors of the bank with all of the cash she’d got for her friends. I looked it over, pleased with my work and uploaded it to the blog.
I also spent some time getting ready for the evening. We had tickets for a posh theatre show and I wrestled with the question of what I should wear for an evening of culture. As an adult, should I wear something a little bit more formal? I didn’t have a posh frock, but I hit upon the idea of creating something like a Grecian goddess look using one of Adam’s bedsheets. If I wound it around myself in attractive drapes, then I would look every inch the sophisticated theatre-goer. Securing the sheet proved to be tricky, but I managed it with a selection of bulldog clips from Adam’s desk and some button badges he’d picked up on a student protest during a visit to Thailand. A few ‘Power to the People’s and ‘Smash the System’s were enough to keep my sheet in place.
Ashbert had no problem as he dressed in his new tweed and corduroy. He kept pulling at the edges of the jacket, complaining that it was scratchy, but I told him that part of the lesson was to learn to put up with some minor discomfort, a bit like wearing high heels. He looked momentarily terrified at that, but I assured him that I wasn’t asking him to wear high heels.
As we walked into the city centre, I couldn’t work out if the tweedy look suited Ashbert. On James, it had a certain worldly and reassuring charm. On Ashbert? I couldn’t work out if he looked like a geography teacher or some sort of Jeremy Corbyn stripogram. What did it matter? The pair of us were off out for a classy and adult night of culture.
The Hippodrome was a big swanky venue, just on the edge of Chinatown. I think my parents had taken me there to see
a couple of pantomimes when we were kids but, in recent years, it was only something I walked by on the way to the retro eighties nightclub in Chinatown or the big music venue up on the dual carriageway. We joined the queue inside. I wondered if there was some other show on, as the audience really didn’t look as if they were dressed for a night at the theatre. Black t-shirts and denim jackets seemed to be the favourite outfit for the men, and the women were wearing what my mom would have called ‘mutton dressed up as lamb’. I tapped the shoulder of the man in front of me who had a grizzled beard and a beer gut, sort of like Santa’s younger, slobbier brother.
“Which show are you queueing for?” I asked him.
“Stiff Upper Lip,” he replied, in a far softer voice than the rough and ready look would have suggested. “Seen it twice already.”
I nodded. “So, er, what’s it about?”
He looked at me then, and took in my Grecian goddess dress and Ashbert’s tweed and corduroy. “It’s the AC/DC musical.”
“Yes?” I said, none the wiser.
“All their greatest hits. I can tell you the plot, but I don’t want to spoil it for you. Which is your favourite song and I’ll tell you if it’s in the show.”
I scoured my mind for anything that I might know about AC/DC. The mention of their greatest hits suggested it was a band, which was odd because I thought AC/DC was slang for being bisexual.
I took a chance on the show’s title. “Stiff Upper Lip?” I said.
He nodded, approving. “A classic, and not one of the mainstream hits either. Good on you. That’s cosplay, yeah?” He flicked a finger up and down my sheet dress. “From the asylum scene?”
I nodded dumbly.
“Yeah, yeah, I get it, and your boyfriend’s the dorky doctor. Genius!” He turned to explain our outfits to his friends who, like him looked like Hell’s Angels but acted more like middle-aged IT managers allowed out for the night by their wives. The group of friends gave our “costumes” a cheesy thumbs up.
Ashbert and I looked at each other as we moved forward into the auditorium. It was a huge space. Plaster cherubs gazed down on us from the heights. There were people in the boxes high up on each side. I wondered if there was any AC/DC-loving royalty in attendance. I felt mature and cultured just being in the place. We had seats midway down a row and we squeezed past several other people to get in.
“There’s nobody here under fifty!” hissed Ashbert to me.
“Well, that’s because culture is something you embrace as an adult. We might be punching above our weight here, but let’s go with it,” I said.
We settled down in our chairs while middle-aged rockers and their underdressed partners found their seats. For a classy venue, the seats weren’t as big as I’d have expected. You get plumper seats, wider armrests and far more leg room at the local multiplex.
“Did you notice that they didn’t have a popcorn and hotdog stand out there?” I whispered to Ashbert.
“Maybe you don’t get popcorn at the theatre,” he said. “I mean it’s a live performance. You don’t want to put the actors off with crunching noises.”
“But what about hotdogs?” I countered. “That’s almost silent food.”
“True.”
“Cookie does this party trick where she opens up her throat and just swallows a hotdog sausage straight down in one go, no chewing.”
“That’s impressive.”
“It goes down a storm with blokes at parties.”
“I think we all like food-based talents,” he said.
Look at us, I thought. Having an intellectual conversation about food and theatre while on a classy evening out together. I was impressed with us.
“They weren’t even selling big cups of coke,” I said.
“I like those,” Ashbert agreed.
“I like to get a really, really big one,” I said. “Then I can pretend I’m a Borrower, drinking from a human cup.”
“You’re just making me thirsty, thinking about it.”
“Well,” I said, doing a little rummage in my bag, “I haven’t got a tub of coke but I do have…”
I pulled out a bunch of whiskey miniatures.
“Nice,” he said. “Time to put my research to the test.”
“It’ll make the evening more fun, yeah?”
He inspected the labels before cracking the seal on one of the tiny bottles. He sniffed at the bottle gently.
“Hmmm.” He wafted it under my nose. “What are you getting?”
“Strong alcohol,” I said. “A hint of turps.”
“The nose of a good whiskey is a subtle thing,” he informed me. God, he sounded knowledgeable and, yes, it was sexy. “You have to let memory and instinct be your guide.” He sniffed. “Yes, I’m getting a scent of evening beach.”
“Evening beach?”
“Mmmm. Salt, wood smoke, sandy notes.” He sniffed again. “Just a hint of old man’s pockets.”
“Um.”
“A dustiness. A mere suggestion of humbug. Copper coins and –”
I elbowed him as the lights went down and the audience fell silent. Ashbert took a swig and coughed at the spirit.
“Yes. Good stuff,” he squeaked.
In the darkness, a drum and high hat began beating and then a deep, pounding guitar started up. I was surprised to recognise the riff.
I leaned over to Ashbert. “I know this. It’s the music from Iron Man.”
“Cool,” he whispered back. “You reckon Iron Man will be in it?”
“Here’s hoping,” I said and took a swig of his whiskey. Screw evening beaches and old men’s pockets. It tasted of fire and warmed my throat.
It was hard to describe what we saw over the following hour. The steady consumption of whiskey miniatures probably didn’t help.
Stiff Upper Lip, it became clear, was a jukebox musical of AC/DC’s greatest hits (I recognised bits of about four of them). It had a bizarrely convoluted plot that seemed to exist solely to squeeze in as many of those hits as possible. I could see no other reason for such an exhausting journey for the hero who must become a rock star, visit a sexual health clinic and be in a train crash with a dream sequence involving him paddling a coracle through a river of blood. All that in the first half.
After the interval – during which we joined the massive queue at the bar, failed to get served in time and decided to stick to the whiskeys – the second act just got weirder and more complicated. I gave up on trying to understand any of it – culture is hard! – and decided to just watch it all unfold.
“What do you think?” I asked Ashbert.
He swigged from one of the whiskey miniatures and made a curious lip-smacking sound. “Most of them are way too strong,” he said. “They might be better mixed with something else. This one is nice though.”
He offered to me the one I’d got from the Polish shop, the Migdalowy. I took a sip. He was right. It was completely different to the others I had sampled. It tasted strongly of marzipan and left my mouth feeling scoured in a different way to the other whiskeys.
Ashbert took several more sips from the Migdalowy. He was coughing a bit and wore a doubtful look on his face.
“Are you all right?” I said, cupping my hand to his ear, as the audience were joining in with a loud song that might have been about a card game, but seemed to be set in the sexual health clinic.
“I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe I’ve drunk too many of them. I feel a bit off.”
He pulled at the collar of his shirt and tugged at his tweed jacket as though it was too warm.
A niggling, shapeless suspicion crept into my mind.
I texted Cookie. What tastes like marzipan?
She texted straight back. Marzipan.
I know Cookie. She wasn’t even being sarcastic, it’s her thought process.
Apart from marzipan? I texted.
Cyanide and Semtex both taste / smell like marzipan, she replied.
I looked at Ashbert in horror. Cyanide poisoning! Was it i
ntended for Ashbert or me? We’d both drunk some. Who could possibly want us dead? The suspects instantly queued up in my mind. Bernadette Brampton, for our flagrant disregard for rubbish disposal etiquette? Driving instructor Terence, for abusing his car and his good nature? Rex at the museum, for unforgiveable lateness? Adam, in far off Turtley Dago or wherever he said he was, for wanton condom buying? Or was it Ashbert’s new gambling pals in the park, this being vengeance for some undisclosed gambling debt?
Or maybe this was accidental and all my fault. How was I supposed to know that the Polish shop sold dangerous substances in little bottles? Maybe it was for killing mice or something. Didn’t they have laws in Poland to mark it with a skull and crossbones?
I texted Cookie. What should you do if you swallowed cyanide?
Die, she replied.
Not helpful, I typed.
She came back with Induce vomiting. Before you die.
Right. Induce vomiting.
I turned to Ashbert. “I need to make you sick.”
“What?”
“Put your fingers down the back of your throat until you gag.”
“What?” The noise from the crowd was louder. There was some sort of chanting about someone called Jack.
“PUT YOUR FINGERS DOWN YOUR THROAT!” I bellowed at the top of my voice.
“What?”
I had no choice. It was a medical emergency, so I grabbed Ashbert by the back of the head and pushed my fingers into his mouth. He immediately bit down hard, and so I brought my other hand round to smack him on the side of his head. I couldn’t honestly tell you if it was a pain reflex or if I was genuinely cross with him because he hadn’t understood the urgency of what I was doing. The next thing that happened was that he released my fingers from between his teeth, so I pushed them further into his mouth. Still not understanding, he shoved me away, hard. I toppled over the seats behind us where I knocked a ginger woman over and several big men in denim gave me really angry looks.
I had no time for that, I really needed to get the message across to Ashbert about induced vomiting. A flash of inspiration came to me. I would demonstrate what was needed. I waved at him to get his attention and pushed my fingers down my own throat, as far as I could manage. I pushed a bit further and it kicked in properly. I threw up everything that I’d eaten that day, straight on top of the ginger woman who was just getting up from the floor. I signalled to Ashbert that he should do the same and he stared at me, dumbfounded. I jumped up and down and gave him my strictest arm-waving and, with a compliant shrug, he reluctantly put his fingers into his mouth. I didn’t see what happened to Ashbert after that because the woman I’d knocked over thumped me violently in the face. She packed quite a punch for a tiny little thing, and I was about to explain and apologise for the mishap that she’d suffered when she drew back her fist and hit me again.
