Handle With Care and Other Stories

by Ann MacLaren

  I won’t go out tomorrow. I’ve got enough food in the fridge to last till Thursday; by then I’ll be back to my old self. If Annie comes to the door I’ll tell her I’ve got flu. And when I pass her door on Thursday it’ll be as if nothing has happened. If she does ask about that bottle, I’ll just say it was my own, that I’d bought juice because I was thirsty and drank it on the way home. I won’t get annoyed. I always try to give people their due respect, even old women who are off their trolley.

  And it’s important to act as if everything is normal.

  Suburban Myth

  There was nothing effeminate about Peregrine Prendergast. It was just that he liked sewing. Pen, as his friends called him, was excellent with a needle and thread. In fact, he was so often asked to run up a pair of curtains on his mother’s old Singer, or make a dress or alter a jacket, that he wondered if he ought to give up his day job and go into business as a seamster, if that’s what a male seamstress is called.

  “You’ll never make a living with that sewing malarkey,” said his friend Andy, who was lead guitar in a group called Omega. “Come and join our band. We’re looking for a drummer. You’d be good at that.”

  But Pen wasn’t convinced.

  “The sewing machine’s my instrument,” he said. And he thought about the steady rhythmic rumpety-thump, rumpety-thump of his old treadle. That was his kind of music.

  What Pen needed was a bit of money to set himself up, to keep the wolf from the door until the orders began to roll in, but he didn’t earn much as a window cleaner. He had no savings, and being an only child, now orphaned, he had no relatives from whom he could expect an inheritance. So, short of a win on the Lottery, the Pools, or the 3.30 at Market Rasen, all of which he subscribed to on a regular basis, there was very little chance of him swapping his ladder and bucket for a digital sewing machine.

  As luck would have it, Pen was cleaning the inside windows of the town hall one afternoon in preparation for a charity fashion show when one of the models, Ursula Flitt, arrived. He heard Ursula before he saw her because she was standing in the car park surrounded by cases, screaming at one of her entourage who had forgotten to pack the most important piece of luggage – the principal gown for the finale that evening.

  Pen looked at the tall, slim blonde then at the midnight blue velvet curtains surrounding his now gleaming window. He ripped the curtains from their hooks, ran outside and draped the material over Ursula’s neck.

  “You’re going to look stunning,” he assured her.

  Pen persuaded her to go back to his place so that he could “run her up something special”. The afternoon passed in a flurry of cutting, pinning, fitting and finishing. For Pen, that is. While he made his Singer sing, the beautiful model lounged on the settee in her underwear, flicking round the TV channels. It was very distracting. At each fitting Pen tried to keep his distance, tried to avoid touching her satin-soft flesh, but Ursula pressed ever closer until, at the last fitting, she grasped his hand and slid it inside the top of the dress to demonstrate how comfortably she could breathe. He was lost.

  “Does this mean we’re engaged?” asked Ursula afterwards as she lounged once more on the settee.

  Pen stared at her lying there, at the beautiful drape of her folds. She had obviously been seduced by the music of his machinery. He shook himself. He mustn’t look or he’d never get the dress finished. He went back to work.

  Ursula, although Pen would never have guessed it, was also working. She was calculating how much more money she could make in the modelling business if she had her very own, live-in dressmaker. As it was she was at the mercy of the fashion houses, who would phone her agent if they wanted her to model their clothes, then a contract would be drawn up, and fittings would begin. It all took such ages, and she wasn’t getting any younger. Still, it was great what make-up could do, and she’d had no complaints about her figure. If she had someone like Pen at her beck and call she could design her own clothes, give her own shows, walk her own catwalk. And she could do it where and when she liked. Her well-paid career would become even more lucrative.

  Ursula smiled lovingly at Pen and Pen smiled lovingly back. The future looked rosy.

  Ursula, in her new blue velvet gown, was the star of the charity fashion show. She and Pen announced their engagement that night and they were married within the month. They rented a large empty shop and filled it with bales of cottons, velvets, silks and satins, a state-of-the-art digital sewing machine and all the other paraphernalia necessary to an up-and-coming seamster’s business. Pen began by running up some new summer clothes for his lovely wife – a few dresses, skirts and slacks, a couple of light jackets – all to her own design. She looked stunning in them, which wasn’t surprising, thought Pen, since she looked stunning in anything. Even in nothing at all.

  Ursula persuaded Pen that the best way to advertise his services was not through the Yellow Pages as he’d suggested, but through their very own fashion show. She would design a collection and he could produce it, in her size only. She would then model the clothes, in some smart hotel full of rich ladies, and the orders would start rolling in. It would be a great success for both of them.

  And a great success it was. It led to other shows in other venues, and the larger stores got to hear about them, and sent in big orders. Soon they had to buy larger premises, employ people to help with the sewing. In no time at all Pen had twelve girls working for him. The whirr of the electric machines, the rustle of silks and satins, the murmur of the girls voices were all music to his ears. A symphony of seamstresses, sewing in harmony, thought Pen. Ursula also had to employ help – a tall, tanned bodyguard called Hector who drove her around the countryside and kept the crowds of admirers at bay. Ursula told Pen he was gay.

  Pen and Ursula soon became very wealthy. They bought a huge house in the best part of London that had everything they would ever need, including an enormous dressing room off the bedroom for Ursula’s clothes. Pen decided that now was the time for his lovely wife to retire and drape herself elegantly once more across the sofa. He could work from home, and they could spend their days gazing longingly at one another.

  Ursula wasn’t really up for all that togetherness. It was all right for Pen, at least he had someone beautiful to gaze longingly at, but he didn’t really have a lot going for him in the looks department. Still, she had to admit, he was clever with his hands. That’s why she’d married him after all.

  “If I’m going to retire,” she told Pen, “I’ll have to do a farewell tour.”

  And so it was that a tour was planned. Ursula was to take four large collections – spring, summer, autumn and winter – around America, showing the clothes each season in as many different venues as she could.

  “I’ll miss you my pet,” Pen told her dreamily as he nuzzled into her neck, the night before she left. “Would you like me to make you something pretty while you’re away? Just tell me. I can make anything you want. Anything. I could make you the moon.”

  Ursula thought hard. She was going to be away for quite a while, longer than Pen realised, so she’d have to keep him busy till she got back. She didn’t want him getting bored and going back to his old ways, running up curtains for all and sundry. Still, the moon was a bit much.

  “I’d like you to weave me a carpet for my dressing room,” she replied at last. “A woollen carpet. A tartan, woollen carpet.”

  Pen hadn’t realised that America, for Ursula, meant South as well as North. A year passed. Pen kept himself busy. He had installed a loom in the dressing room so that he wouldn’t have to carry Ursula’s carpet around as it became heavier, and there he worked, amongst his beloved’s most treasured possessions, weaving a little each day. As the shuttle shifted backwards and forwards click-clack, click-clack, and his body swayed in time to the rhythm set by his foot on the pedals, he would hum along to whatever tune came into his head. It was always a love song.

/>   It had taken him a while to get started on the carpet because he couldn’t decide which tartan would be appropriate. There was no Clan Flitt or even Prendergast, so eventually he chose the Hunting Stewart, the tartan of royalty. It was well under way before it occurred to him that he knew nothing about Ursula’s opinions on hunting. Maybe killing animals for sport wasn’t quite her thing, he thought, and ripped the whole thing out. He decided the Dress Gordon might be more suitable. Hadn’t she loved dancing the Gay Gordons at their wedding ceilidh. Pen sent off for wool in other colours and had completed nearly four yards before he realised that the gay connotation might be considered offensive. Pen wasn’t convinced about the bronzed bodyguard’s leanings, but he thought he’d better play safe. He ripped it out and started again. He had plenty of time in hand. Ursula had phoned to say that she wanted to say her farewells to Europe. Then Africa, and Asia, and Australia.

  The years passed. Every so often, Ursula sent an order for new clothes or for replacements for those that had become too worn looking. Once she sent a request for some smart trousers for Hector. Pen wondered if Ursula had taken the inside leg measurement. He passed these orders on to the girls in the sewing shop, who were getting a little bored with not much work to occupy them. Pen offered to buy them some material so that they could design and make outfits for each other. They were delighted and each in turn threw her arms around him and gave him a big thank you kiss. He promised to help out with the fittings.

  Meanwhile he continued to weave the carpet. He’d had to discard various tartans after he had completed a few yards – the Barclay (too yellow), the hunting and the dress Ramsay (one too red, one too blue) and the MacSporran (just too tartan) – but then he had discovered the Balnagown, the inoffensive brown-beige tartan that Mohammed al Fayed had commissioned for Harrods. Ursula loved shopping in Harrods, so it was very fitting, thought Pen.

  Time passed. The girls from the workshop took to coming to the house to keep Pen company. Sometimes one, or even two, would stay to cook him lunch or dinner. Or breakfast. It was a happy time all things considered.

  Pen couldn’t remember how long Ursula had been gone, but the carpet wasn’t even half finished when she finally, unexpectedly, came home. It was unfortunate that she arrived when all twelve of his employees were in the house, helping him celebrate his birthday. The scantily clad girls were dancing around the bedroom, belting out I Will Survive while Pen accompanied them on the loom, click-clack! click-clack-clack! click-click-clack! The noise was deafening: Ursula had to scream very loudly to get their attention. She ordered them all out of the house, and they good-naturedly danced down the stairs and out of the front door in conga fashion. Ursula thought she might sack them all in the morning.

  “You should have told me you were coming,” Pen told Ursula. “I could have picked you up at the airport. I suppose Hector drove you home.”

  “Hector’s history. I had to get rid of him. He was refusing to comply.” Ursula took off her coat. Pen thought she looked very smart in the dark blue shift dress he’d recently sent her. Ursula, misinterpreting his appraising look, and remembering their first meeting, slowly undressed and draped herself once again over the sofa. Except that the pose was now more of a droop, or a dangle.

  Pen gazed at her in wonder. He could hardly believe that gravity could exert such a pull on a woman. Those bingo wings, where did they come from? And the chicken skin? And the crow’s feet?

  Ursula gazed at her husband, also in wonder. The years had been good to him, she thought. He’d obviously been taking good care of himself. He looked very trim.

  “Is it time for bed?” asked Ursula.

  “You go on ahead,” replied Pen. And humming a little ditty, off he went to work on the carpet.

  Nice Work

  I hate parties. All that pretentiousness, the false pleasantries, the blatant networking. But I’d just moved to the town and didn’t know anybody, so my new neighbour’s birthday bash seemed as good a place as any to meet people. It’s difficult for me, you see, being in a wheelchair, I don’t get out as much as I’d like to. I came here to get away from my parents. They smother me. I like being independent, and I suppose I’m lucky I can hold down a job, but it’s not easy. I’m not looking for sympathy though. I just want to be treated like everyone else, but that never seems to happen at parties. I’m easy prey for other lone partygoers who see me as a sitting target. If I don’t get landed with somebody who spends the evening patronising me, I get somebody who takes an unhealthy interest in my disability. I’ve even been asked how I get onto the toilet, for God’s sake! All I ask for is an intelligent conversation, but usually I’m treated as if non-working legs equal non-working brain. Still, I live in hope.

  Anyway, there I was, alone, inviting “come and annoy me”, when I saw an anxious looking woman heading towards me with that familiar pitying gleam in her eyes. I knew I wasn’t in for a fun evening.

  “Are you here on your own too?” was her opening gambit.

  Useless to deny it, she was home and dry. She relaxed visibly when I confirmed her assumption.

  My host had thoughtfully parked me next to an empty armchair which my new friend now settled into, making sure that she was sitting comfortably before she began. She was Elspeth, from Edinburgh, had attended a well-known private girls’ school there, was unmarried but had a dog, enjoyed walking and visiting art galleries and museums, didn’t know anyone at this party.

  I had been plotting my escape since the girls’ school, but Plan A (down drink, head off for refill) had been thwarted by the attentive host who appeared before me with a bottle of Cava even as I upended my glass). Plan B (impending migraine, leave) was beginning to shape up nicely when my new acquaintance suddenly seemed to remember that a conversation ought to be a two way process.

  “And how do you pass your time?”

  She gave me a condescending smile. I knew she didn’t entertain any expectation that I might actually work, far less have a successful professional career. I toyed with the idea of telling her I was a prostitute specialising in men with unusual needs, but she didn’t look the type to be shocked at that. I’d have to bore her into leaving.

  “I’m a writer.”

  Now, it no longer surprises me that whenever I tell anyone I’m a writer they invariably come out with the “I’ve always wanted to write a book, I just never seem to have the time” line; but I never cease to be amazed at the lack of originality of the conversation that is sure to follow. I ask them what their book, if they had the time to write it, would be about, and after about ten seconds of shocked surprise (because they had never seriously entertained the idea in the first place) they tell me it would be a novel based on the true events of their life so far. I summarise of course. These are not the actual words used, but I’m sure you get my drift. They then begin to expound on the horrors/happiness of their childhood in some inner city/idyllic countryside (no-one admits to the mundane suburbs), the fascinating people they have met and the hilarious anecdotes they’d like to share with the British reading public (no murders confessed, you understand, no torrid love affairs, no sadomasochistic erotic fantasies revealed).

  “Of course,” they usually conclude, “I’d have to disguise the characters a bit, but I’m sure it would make a great story. What do you think?”

  I usually think a smile and a platitude. They don’t really want an answer, just agreement.

  Elspeth was no different. She prattled on until she practically glowed with the thrill of contemplating her tastefully jacketed hardback displayed invitingly on the shelves of Waterstones, until something, and it may well have been my glazed expression, brought her to a halt with the words:

  “So, you’re a writer.”

  I could tell by the slight grimace playing around her lips that she was playing for time. She was struggling to remember my name but was obviously losing the battle, and she was hoping that her statement wo
uld be interpreted as a question, accepted by me as an invitation to talk about myself. The fact that the polite preliminaries to her self-absorbed monologue hadn’t included mutual introductions seemed to have escaped her.

  I gave her an affirmative smile and a nod, and tossed the ball back into her court.

  “What is it that you write?” she asked, inclining her question towards the general rather than the particular, not wanting to ask me directly, especially if I was a famous author, what I had actually written, because then she might have had to admit that she had never read any of my books.

  Other people have used this ploy. I usually reply that I’m a general writer, and since they don’t know what this is, and are too embarrassed to say so, the conversation then tails off into more mundane matters until one or other of us finds an excuse to terminate the encounter. But I had misjudged Elspeth.

  “What sort of a general writer?”

  This was not to be seen as an admission of ignorance on her part, only a request for elucidation. She had me cornered.

  “I compose Titles,” I replied.

  “Titles?” Her eyebrows shot up like two question marks. I could see I wasn’t going to get rid of her easily.

  “Contrary to what many people believe,” I said, trying not to look pointedly at her, “aspiring writers rarely make a fortune from pouring out their own autobiographical life stories. Many, of course, do it as a first work. Some astute ones even drag it out into a trilogy. But once it’s written, it’s written. They can’t do it a second time. For subsequent books they have to become more adventurous, explore other avenues, open up their horizons if they don’t want to sink into oblivion. This is where I come in. Whether they want to write romantic novels or academic textbooks, science fiction or historical drama, or even just a short story, I furnish writers with titles that they can weave their stories around.”