by Heide Goody
The noticeboard as a whole presented an image of middle-class, socially acceptable alcoholism besieged by the forces of totalitarianism and hardcore bondage. For all Ella knew, that was probably an accurate description of her father and future step-mother’s personal relationship. What it was slowly turning into was a map of Ella’s own increasingly deranged mind. With this evidence, Ella could probably take up her trowel on a murderous rampage through “Diggers and Dreams” garden centre and expect a verdict of not guilty by way of insanity.
Of course, what the board was meant to represent was a seating plan for the wedding reception after the marriage of her dad to one Myra Whuppie. And it didn’t work.
Ella’s phone rang.
She speculatively moved an obscure aunt on Myra’s side from one position to another and back again. She looked at her trowel (currently serving as a paperweight for a stack of invoices) and considered the relative attractiveness of a murderous rampage followed by a long quiet stretch at Her Majesty’s pleasure.
She turned to pick up her phone and saw, for the first time, that two garden gnomes had been deposited by the door of her office.
“Just because this place looks like a shed, doesn’t mean you can use it like one,” she said to no one and then answered the phone. “Green Dwellings, eco-buildings, general insanity and gnome depository.”
“Do you answer your phone like that all the time?” said Myra disapprovingly.
“Um. Hi Myra.”
“Ella, I assume you’ve worked through the seating plan by now."
“I’m finalising it right now,” she lied.
“I haven’t seen it ticked off yet on the group to-do list.”
“No, but…” Ella was unable to finish.
“The wedding is only eleven days away, you know.”
“I do know,” said Ella. “I’m working on it, or at least I was trying to.”
“Well what could possibly be stopping you?”
“Well, nothing. I mean someone’s stuck a pair of garden gnomes in my office and —”
Ella choked mid-sentence as one of the gnomes, the one in the bright red hat, moved. It stood with its hands on its hips, cleared its throat and growled at her in a voice that seemed too big for a two-foot gnome.
“We’re dwarfs, bab.”
Ella wasn’t sure whether to be amused or horrified. This was an enormously clever piece of kit, no doubt about it, but who decided that gnomes needed a voice? It was consumerism gone mad, and one of the things about the garden centre that slightly depressed her. You could walk a considerable way through it before you found a plant. She’d pointed this out to Roy on more than one occasion but Roy, garden centre owner and heir to the Avenant fortune, remained unabashed and told her he was simply giving people what they wanted.
“No. I can’t believe people want talking gnomes,” she said out loud, shaking her head.
“Who wants gnomes?” said Myra.
“Not gnomes. Dwarfs,” the little bearded fellow on the floor said. “Hate fucking fishing for a start. Now, we’ve got a bastard warning for you, duck.”
Ella stared in horror as the other one, who wore a hat of unpleasantly stain-like yellow raised his head and gave her a brief unfocused look — a small but oh so sincere expression of apology in his eyes — before his head went forward again and he vomited copiously on the floor.
“That’s not the warning,” said the red-capped one. “Ignore Shitfaced.”
“Shitfaced?”
“I beg your pardon!” said Myra on the line.
Ella cupped her hand over the phone and stared at the tiny man.
“She’s gonna try to kill you,” the dwarf informed her.
“Shitfaced?” said Ella. “That’s his name?”
The very sorry looking Shitfaced tried to shake the vomit off his boots, mumbled something and pointed at his companion.
“Pardon?” said Ella.
“Fuck’s sake. He said I’m Psycho,” huffed the red-hatted one.
“Psycho?”
“Yes,” said Psycho and head-butted a solar panel display to make his point.
Ella’s brain was still in the utterly-bewildered stage and had not yet moved onto the freaked-out-and-terrified stage. These were dwarfs. Pointy little hats. Stout little boots. Fat little belts. Little white beards (which one of them was using to wipe sick off his tunic).
“Shitfaced and Psycho? Seriously?” she said.
“Thought you’d be quicker on the uptake than this, if I’m honest,” said Psycho. “Anyway, I’d better go and get some brekkie down this lad, and you’ll be wanting to get a mop I’m sure.”
Ella put the phone back to her ear, dazed.
“Sure… I don’t understand,” said Myra, most put out. “I don’t see why you would be going on about gnomes and getting shi— drunk when there are important matters to discuss. Which is why I popped down even though I have far too much to do as it is.”
“Popped down?”
“Regard the fences if you would.”
Still utterly baffled by what was happening, Ella looked out of the office window towards the fencing display. A figure waved at her from behind a lattice-work fence.
“Stay there,” she said to the dwarfs. And before they could stop her, she was out of the door and striding toward where her future step-mother lurked. Myra Whuppie wasn’t one of life’s lurkers. She was about as demure and subtle as a rhinoceros. And as thick-skinned.
“What are you doing, Myra?” said Ella.
“Keeping a low profile,” said the fifty-something bride-to-be, as she emerged cautiously onto the path, glaring at the world around her and daring it to comment.
“Please make sense.”
“Says the woman wittering on about gnomes and wotnot.”
“Dwarfs,” said Ella. “Not gnomes.”
“Ah I see!” there was an abrupt change in Myra’s tone. “A little non-PC treat for the hen do tonight! Well in that case carry on. Can’t have anything spoiling our girly evening.”
“Girly evening. Can’t wait.”
“Which is why I want you to check that Petunia has booked the limo for tonight.”
“Couldn’t you ask her yourself?”
Myra tutted. “What? Do I want to look like a helicopter parent, checking up on my little girl all the time?”
“Um.”
There were any number of points in that sentence Ella could have disagreed with. Myra was less a helicopter parent than a helicopter gunship parent. And Petunia was far from little, either age-wise or width-wise, although in the mental capacity stakes, one might argue Petunia was a tad undersized…
“That’s why I’m keeping the low profile,” said Myra. “Can’t have my little girl thinking I’m dropping in on her place of work snooping on her. Besides, if you tell her, it saves me a phone call.”
“You phoned me, didn’t you?” said Ella. “That was the phone call you would have made to Petunia.”
“So very smart,” said Myra. “You should have been a barrister instead of a hippy hut constructor —”
“Eco builder. One whose services are very much sought-after.”
“Oh, I can see that by the way you’re taking a stroll round the garden centre rather than eco-building,” smirked Myra.
Ella knew she shouldn’t rise to it. Knew she should stick to the moral high ground. She considered steering Myra towards the hothouse where the cactuses were displayed, just in case she needed an environmentally friendly weapon.
“But, fear not. I’m going to stretch your thinking muscles by giving you some of your father’s wedding tasks,” said Myra.
“What? Why?” asked Ella.
“Because he’s off gallivanting again with work,” said Myra. “At the beck and call of that shifty European chap.”
“Mr Dainty.”
“Whatever he calls himself. New money. No manners. No taste.”
“I’ll have a word with dad later. He’s got to stop.”
Myra humphed.
“He doesn’t listen to me,” she said, silently challenging Ella to suggest that Gavin Hannaford paid more attention to his daughter than to his bride-to-be.
“Well, I’ll try,” said Ella.
“Good. And when you do, try to get him to make a final decision on the cake.”
Myra dipped into her capacious handbag and produced three laminated sheets. Ella looked from image to image.
“Yes, they’re all wedding cakes,” said Ella.
“But which one?” said Myra.
Ella looked at them again. They all had three tiers. Each of the layers in all of them was wrapped in silk. Stylised bride and groom figures stood atop each cake. It was like looking at a spot the difference competition.
“They’re all the same,” she said.
Myra snorted. “I would have thought someone in the building trade would have a finer appreciation of the details. Just show your father.”
“What kind of cakes are they?” asked Ella.
“Wedding cakes,” said Myra, as though Ella was somehow mentally deficient.
“I meant, what’s in them.”
“I’m not bothered with what’s inside them,” said Myra shirtily. “Which looks the best? It’s all about appearances, Ella.”
Ella sighed. “A cake’s a cake.”
“Well, my girl, at least your father understands the importance of creating a magical fairy tale wedding, even if he is too preoccupied to actually pull his weight on the tasks in hand.”
Ella heard the click of the Green Dwellings office door swinging closed. She looked round in time to see a booted foot disappear behind a display of potted plants.
“Fine,” said Ella, snatching the photos from Myra. “I will show them to dad. He will pick one. And, yes, I’ll ask Petunia about the limo. But a cake is just a cake. And a wedding day is just another day. In the long run, it really doesn’t matter, Myra.”
“Oh, that’s the attitude you’re taking, is it?”
“Speaking as ‘someone in the building trade’ I’d say it’s all about the foundations and the bricks and mortar. This…” — She waved the cake pictures violently. — “is window dressing. And I’m sorry but I just don’t see why you’re getting worked up about it. Now I must go. I need to catch up with things. Two things in particular.”
She turned and left Myra among the trellises while she went off through Diggers and Dreams garden centre in pursuit of dwarfs or gnomes or whatever they were. It shouldn’t be too hard to catch up, her own legs were at least twice the length of theirs.
“Maybe I am going mad,” she told herself.
Whether it was her subconscious telling her to take a break, or actually some freaky animatronic toy, she was unimpressed. She did not need this right now. Or ever. Maybe this was all just a prelude to the trowel-themed murder rampage.
“The dwarfs told me to do it, your honour,” she said and went inside the main building.
Petunia, her soon-to-be stepsister, was at her post at the Natural Beauty counter, which was enveloped, as always, in an aromatic fog of scent. Ella had long suspected that it would be possible to find your way there blindfolded, which was handy as the overpowering clouds of perfume that hung over the place weren’t just gagging but occasionally blinding.
“There’s my big sis,” shouted Petunia.
Lily, Petunia’s assistant, ‘bestie’ and all-round partner in crimes against cosmetics waved at her but did not speak, sat back as she was, mouth closed, her face slick with oil.
“Come to get dolled up for the big night out?” asked Petunia.
Ella forced a smile. She wasn’t happy with the ‘big sister’ label. Ella’s dad and Petunia’s mum weren’t even married yet. And, yes, they were both only children but Ella wasn’t ready to sign up to sisterhood — particularly if, as she feared, it involved doing each other’s nails and spending quality time waxing God knows where, quaffing chardonnay and generally acting like footballers’ wives. Having said that, Ella was a few years older than Petunia (and both of them on the wrong side of thirty), and whenever Ella was around Petunia and Lily, who acted like a pair of vain pre-teens hyped up on sugar, she always seemed to drop into the role of embittered babysitter.
“We were just discussing wardrobes.” Petunia looked Ella up and down. “What are you wearing tonight?”
“Clothes?” said Ella.
Lily looked surprised at Ella’s sarcastic response although that might have been because her hair was tied back so tight that her face was as taut as stretched rubber.
“What are you two up to?” said Ella.
“We’ve had a delivery,” said Petunia.
Ella looked at the opened boxes that surrounded the pair.
“We’re trying Tincture of Himalayan Rose so that we glow with spiritual beauty for the hen do.” mumbled Lily through closed lips. “Want a go?”
Ella picked up a box. “This is pretty concentrated stuff.”
“It’s organic,” said Petunia, “and the — er — monks or eunuchs or whatever gather the petals in the first hour of daylight so that the oils are more concentrated. Lily did me first and now I’m doing her.”
“Did you have that rash before Lily did yours?” Ella asked, pointing to the livid eruptions on Petunia’s face.
“Rash?” Petunia, grabbed a mirror. “Oh!”
“Ah, and it’s coming up on Lily now.”
“What is it? What is it?” warbled Lily, panicked.
“Chemical burns I should think,” said Ella.
Petunia and Lily howled in unison and grabbed tissues to wipe their rapidly reddening faces.
“I’m disfigured,” Petunia howled.
“Just wash your faces and don’t put any make-up on,” said Ella.
She helped Lily as she flailed for the face wipes below the counter.
“Call an ambulance!” cried Petunia.
“You’ll be fine,” said Ella. “But that reminds me. Taxi tonight?”
“What?”
“Did you book it?”
Petunia was apparently in no fit state to answer and was now blotting E45 cream all over her red face and turning it into a passable facsimile of a raspberry pavlova.
A considerable crowd of shoppers had drawn around and Ella was about to do a spot of “move along, nothing to see here,” when Buster, the tireless pet dog of Roy, the owner, came bounding by. Ella was aghast to see a dwarf — the red hatted one, Psycho — was riding on Buster’s back, holding onto his floppy spaniel ears. To make matters worse, Buster was frolicking merrily, his tail wagging, as if he were enjoying the attention.
“Go on, go faster you furry bastaaaaard!” came the vanishing cry of the dwarf.
Ella stared. She looked to the crowd. “Did any of you see that?”
“Yes, love.” An old dear with a handbag pointed at the two hysterical beauty consultants. “Do they do children’s parties?”
“No, I meant the dwarf on the…” She trailed off. Had no one else seen the red-hatted miniature jockey?
“Fine,” she said and stomped off in pursuit.
“No makeup? Does she mean like nude shades only?” she heard before she stepped outside once more.
She heard the distant sound of barking again and hurried on. Dwarves. Jesus. When this wedding was finally over, she might need to get away from work and family for a bit. It was obvious that the stress was taking its toll on her. What was she even doing? If nothing else, she wanted to catch up with Buster and, dwarf or no dwarf, check that Roy’s hunting buddy was okay.
She slowed her pace, spotting a coloured hat between the fronds of a potted fern.
“Stay there, you foul mouthed pest!” she muttered and crept around the fern to get a better view.
She sighed.
It was a display of garden gnomes. Each wore the same outfit and the same expression of idiotic glee while frozen in the inane acts of pushing wheelbarrows, sitting on toadstools, even those sticking their heads in buckets proba
bly had the same expression.
“You’re mad, Ella,” she told herself, irritated on every level that she had clearly hallucinated the whole dwarf thing after seeing these ridiculous ornaments at some point — “Wait. Head in a bucket? Shitfaced?” she said, advancing.
“Well, it’s a little early in the day but I could do with a sherry now you come to mention it,” said a voice from behind her.
“Roy!” She turned quickly, but not so quickly that she didn’t spot a gnome with a wheelbarrow barging forward and scooping up his friend with the bucket. “I was just looking for Buster. Have you seen him?”
Roy, handsomely bespectacled and allegedly four-hundred-and-something-th in line to the English throne, was wearing his tweediest tweeds. Both Roy and Ella appreciated a fine tweed, she principally because it was handmade in Britain and used natural materials and dyes making it a locally-sourced, carbon-friendly and all round environmentally amicable product. She knew, however, that when Roy was kitted out with his tweed hat, his tweed jacket, his Hunter wellies and whatever those ridiculous trousers were then he’d probably been shooting, which wasn’t quite so good for the environment, at least the parts of it that sported fur or feather.
“Seen him? He’s helping me carry my things,” said Roy.
Buster appeared holding a pheasant in his mouth.
Had she earlier mistaken the pheasant for a brightly coloured dwarf? Perhaps. She once mistook a black plastic bag for an injured kitten (which she’d insisted her dad turn the car around to rescue). The mind did play such tricks.
But a dwarf who came with monosyllabic threats and a nauseated companion? That would be an impressive feat of impersonation for any dead pheasant.
“Are you walking up to The Bumbles,” asked Ella.
“Care to join me?” said Roy.
“Mmm. I could do with a change of scene.”
