A Catalogue of Catastrophe, page 37
part #13 of Chronicles of St. Mary's Series
Nothing happened.
What else could I do? Boiling water. Boiling water can unblock sinks. I poured in an entire kettleful of boiling water.
Nothing happened. Except now I had a sink full of grey, greasy, bleach-smelling water. Refusing to be beaten, I poked about a bit with some sort of skewer.
Nothing happened.
I toyed briefly with the idea of unscrewing the U-bend but given the quality of my performance so far, that didn’t seem the wisest course of action. I could picture some grey, amorphous mass crouching in the bend just waiting to hurl itself at my face. In the end, I decided to leave it. There was an excellent chance the stuff would seep away on its own.
The saucepan couldn’t be saved. No more need be said. And anyway, I couldn’t waste any more time because Leon would be home any moment now.
Toast was well within my repertoire. I was Mrs Mack-trained. And I could make it special by sticking some cheese on it. Cheese on toast would be lovely on this chilly day. Leon would open the door to a smiling wife and the delicious smell of toasted cheese. I switched on the grill, grated every piece of cheese in the house and lightly toasted a couple of slices of bread.
Very carefully, I arranged the cheese on the bread – right up to the corners so there would be no burnt bits – and shoved it all under the grill. A few minutes later it dawned on me there was no appetising smell of toasted cheese. Or sound of bubbling. Or any signs of life at all. I sighed. Culinarily speaking, I was not having a good morning.
I eased out the grill to ascertain why nothing seemed to be happening. Except I pulled it out too far and it came off the runners and it and the cheese on toast fell all over the floor.
Bollocks.
There was a hell of a lot more cheese on the floor than there had been on the toast. Some sort of scientific principle coming into play, I suspected. Bloody science.
I’d used up all the cheese. I studied what was on the floor – which seemed perfectly clean – so I very carefully scraped up the best bits and sprinkled it back over the toast. Sadly, there was a hell of a lot less cheese on the bread this time round.
I shoved it all under the grill again and looked for a sweeping brush because I had grated cheese between my toes and it’s not a pleasant sensation. And, by this time, the kitchen wasn’t looking quite as Leon had left it that morning.
I swept up what cheese I could find and contemplated topping up the toast again but there was a fair bit of fluff and dust mixed in so, sadly, I tossed it all in the bin. It could talk to the saucepan. And then I had a Brilliant Idea. I could combine the two slices into a toasted sandwich. One sandwich with lots of cheese inside was much better than two slices with a tiny sprinkling of cheese every two inches or so. Impressed at my brilliance, I pulled out the grill – a lot more carefully this time – and once again nothing had happened. There was heat. I could hear the fan going round. And I had two slices of slightly sparse but mostly uncooked cheese on toast. Bloody bollocking hell. Had the grill packed up?
No. I’d switched on the oven by mistake. In my defence, the two symbols are very similar and I wasn’t wearing my specs. The ones that make me look both intelligent and sexy – although I suspected they’d have an uphill struggle today. I was actually baking the cheese on toast.
Unfortunately, the whole thing was bloody hot, including the handle, and I dropped the tray – again – and the hot cheese on toast fell on my feet. Obviously it wasn’t hot enough to be appetising in any sort of way but hot enough to burn. Bloody cheese. Bloody oven. Bloody hell.
I threw the grill down one end of the kitchen and the toast down the other and hopped to the sink to splash cold water on my poor, burned feet.
The sink was full of grey greasy bleachy water. Still.
And at that moment the front door opened. Oh God, the man of the house was home – cold, hungry, wet, and wanting his lunch, no doubt. And he had a big bunch of yellow roses in his hand. My heart melted because the woman of the house had wrecked the kitchen and had cheese-related injuries to her feet. I honestly didn’t know what to say to him.
I met him in the kitchen doorway. ‘Seriously,’ I said. ‘Divorce me. Divorce me now.’
‘Well, all right,’ he said amenably, ‘if you say so. But can you tell me why? For the paperwork. I feel my solicitor will want something more than just my wife told me to.’
Wordlessly I stepped aside so he could benefit from the full impact.
There was a long silence and then he said – quite mildly, I thought – ‘Did it look like this when I left this morning?’
Miserably I shook my head.
‘You’ve been cooking, haven’t you?’
Miserably I nodded.
There was a bit more silence.
‘How did it go?’
Miserably I gestured.
Leon stood in the doorway, surveyed the kitchen, surveyed me – a trifle tousled – and turned away.
‘What?’ I said, defensively, because we can’t all be at home in the culinary world.
Still with his back to me, he shook his head.
I hobbled towards him – all right, slightly exaggerating my injuries, but I was going for sympathy here. Still without looking, he reached out and put his arms around me.
‘I’m fine,’ I said bravely. ‘Absolutely fine.’
I could feel him shaking. Was he perhaps grieving for his lost saucepan? The one with its handle poking out of the bin? Quite honestly, I wouldn’t have thought he’d had them long enough to bond in any meaningful sort of way.
Pulling himself together, he said, somewhat unsteadily, ‘One morning. I leave you for one morning.’
‘I burned my feet making cheese on toast,’ I said, piteously, shamelessly going for sympathy and understanding.
He enquired what was happening with the sink.
‘Soup,’ I said.
He shook his head. ‘Sometimes my heart just overflows with love for you.’ Which wasn’t at all the response I’d been expecting.
He picked his way across the kitchen floor, rummaged in a cupboard and found some sort of plunger the landlord had provided. I hadn’t thought to look.
A couple of vigorous thrusts – he’s very good at those – and the sink uttered a slimy sort of exhalation and there was the smell of a three-day-dead goat giving up its final fart.
All credit to Leon, he stood his ground, merely enquiring what had been in the soup.
‘Green leaves, purple leaves, something knobbly with frondy bits, something aniseedy, something red and a potato.’
‘Ah,’ he said. ‘That would be the problem.’
‘The potato?’
He nodded gravely. ‘Not the easiest vegetable in the rack.’
‘Oh. Well, I’ll know for the future, I suppose.’
He froze. ‘You’re going to do this again?’
‘Well, not immediately, obviously. We’ve run out of vegetables, bread and cheese. I think there are some eggs somewhere. Would you like a . . . ?’
‘No,’ he said quickly. ‘I’ll take you to lunch somewhere. Go and have a quick shower.’
‘I’ve had one.’
‘Sweetheart, you have cheese in your hair.’
When I came down, the kitchen looked more or less normal and the goat fart smell had taken advantage of the wide-open windows and pushed off.
We had lunch at the pub. Leon insisted on soup and a toasted cheese sandwich – to give me something to aspire to, he said.
The good thing that came out of all that was that we sat down and divided up the housework between us. I was banned from entering the kitchen unaccompanied. He would do the cooking and washing-up. I would do the laundry and ironing. He’d keep downstairs tidy – because that’s where the kitchen was. I’d keep upstairs tidy – because that’s where Matthew’s room was. He reckoned he’d got the best of the deal. We’d both do the shopping and the gardening.
Euphoric at being released from kitchen duties for possibly the rest of my life, I agreed and we both enjoyed our lunch. Although I should say that while his heart might have been overflowing with love for me, he still stuck me with the bill.
Weeks turned into months. Every afternoon, weather permitting, I’d walk through the courtyard and open the gate into the little wood. There was always something new to see. Fat, sticky buds, a nest under construction, dark shapes in the rock pools, a shy flower every now and then. I walked along the banks of the stream or meandered down new paths. The weather grew warmer, the snow melted and the snowdrops faded. Long woolly catkins appeared. Trees burst into new life. Birds fluttered in the bushes and trees.
This was a very neat woodland. The canopy was light enough to allow grass to grow rather than scrubby undergrowth. Hence the snowdrops, I suppose. I discovered a little path that led to a dilapidated structure overlooking one of the larger pools. An old summerhouse of some kind.
Spring began to ooze into summer. Sunlight dappled the ground, highlighting new and vivid colours and the wood captivated me all over again because – most magical of all – the bluebells came out.
I’ve been all over the place and seen many beautiful sights, but this one . . .
They were everywhere. The ground was covered in a thick carpet of every shade of blue imaginable. Almost as if a part of the sky had fallen down. Don’t tell Chicken Licken.
Great clumps of rhododendrons had been planted at some point. Not the usual deep pink or purple – these flowers were cream, yellow and gold, because nothing must be allowed to detract from the beauty of the bluebells. With the soft golden light shafting through the trees, the brilliant green of new growth and the gentle blues – I thought it was the most beautiful place I’d ever seen.
I was lost in it, walking around and around, drinking in the colours, the sights, the smells of spring and early summer. I couldn’t stay away. I think I was terrified I’d wake up one morning and it would have disappeared and I’d never see it again.
I dragged out my easel. Leon had brought all my stuff from St Mary’s, including my painting gear, even though I hadn’t painted for ages. I set it all up, filled a jar of water from the stream and got stuck in.
I painted like a madwoman. I couldn’t stop. I painted the bluebells in bright sunshine. And the dark rushing stream frothing white as it swirled around the moss-clad rocks, iridescent green in the sunshine. And the trees, thick with lichen and leaves. I even painted the dimly remembered snowdrops, green and white and ethereal in the snowstorm.
I flung colour around like no one’s business. And not just blues, greens and golds but scarlets, crimsons, magentas and oranges as well. I couldn’t seem to put a brushstroke wrong. I don’t know if it was the speed at which I felt compelled to work, but my style was much looser than usual – a lot of it just shapes and colours on the canvas, but there was a tremendous energy – a frenzy, almost – that translated itself into my work. Even I was pleased with the results. Leon was delighted, wrenching them from me almost the moment they were completed and hanging them up around the house.
I was busy translating sunshine into paint one day when I suddenly realised I was happy. I looked forward to each day and what it might hold for me. I had no worries. No responsibilities. I hadn’t felt this carefree for a long time. There wasn’t actually anywhere else I wanted to be. I loved where I was, who I was with and what I was doing. It was the most idyllic time of my life – better even than time spent on Skaxos, now sadly out of my reach.
The next big event was Matthew’s exams. I asked him if he had everything he needed.
He sighed patiently. ‘They’re not till next week, Mum.’
‘I daresay, but I am familiar with the teenage tendency to leave everything to the very last moment.’
He shook his head. ‘It’s all good.’
I stopped nagging.
First thing Monday morning we were all at the gate, bright and early. Leon and Matthew would drive to St Mary’s to pick up Professor Penrose, who was about to discover if the last year or so had been in vain. I wouldn’t be going with them. There was still some doubt as to whether I could safely be transported from A to B and Leon had expressed concerns over his upholstery.
Leon came to kiss me goodbye. ‘You’ll be all right on your own?’
I sighed in exaggerated exasperation. ‘Yes. Obviously life is always a struggle without you but I usually manage not to burn the house down. I think a more pertinent question is whether you can manage without me.’
He smiled. ‘I pray I never have to find out.’
I smiled back and Matthew groaned and rolled his eyes.
‘We’ll be back at the weekend, Max. When you’ll probably have forgotten who we are.’
‘Almost certainly. You’d better call every night just to remind me.’
His smile faded. ‘I can come back every evening, you know. It’s really not that far.’
‘I’ll be fine. You concentrate on Matthew. And keeping Professor Penrose out of trouble.’
It was his turn to groan.
‘Good luck,’ I said, putting my hand on Matthew’s shoulder. ‘Although I don’t think you’ll have many problems.’
He nodded, pulled open the car door, went to climb in and then stopped.
‘There you are,’ I said, triumphantly. ‘I knew you’d forget something.’
His eyes were very bright. ‘In the woodshed.’
I felt my stomach turn over. ‘What is?’
‘What?’
‘What’s in the woodshed?’
He looked at me blankly. ‘I don’t know. See you Friday. Can we have sausages?’
I nodded. ‘We’ll have a barbecue if the weather holds. Good luck.’
They came in the afternoon. No warning. No nothing.
It was yet another scorching day. We’d had no rain for ages. There was no wind and the air hung hot and heavy. I spared a thought for Matthew in his airless classroom wrestling with . . . what was today? . . . Thursday. I consulted his exam schedule pinned up on the pantry door. Thursday was English Language Paper 3 in the morning and Computer Sciences 2 in the afternoon.
I stepped out into the baking backyard. The heat bounced off the buildings around me. We’d bought big pots, stuffed them full of brightly coloured flowers and placed them around the walls. Scarlets, oranges, purples, blues. The effect was rather nice. I thought again how happy I was. Not head-burstingly, deliriously happy, but a kind of quiet contentment. Whatever happened to me next, I knew I would never forget this time.
I’d fully intended a morning’s painting but it was just too hot. I was working in acrylics and the paint would dry too fast to be workable. Better to leave it for another time. This wasn’t a day to do anything energetic on. Or, if you were Matthew, currently working his way through the grammar section of his paper – a day on which to do anything energetic.
Whatever.
I opened the gate into the wood. Perhaps it would be cooler . . . Nope – just as hot here. Stifling, even.
I wandered over to the stream and looked down at the splashing water. The level was quite low. I was just thinking what a contrast to the damp and foggy London I’d known recently, when something rumbled in the distance. I looked behind me. A huge anvil-shaped black cloud was massing threateningly on the horizon. I’ll swear it hadn’t been there a moment ago. Thunder rumbled again. We were due a storm. A really big one, by the looks of things.
A sudden cool wind rustled the leaves in the trees. Yep – a nasty weather front was coming through.
I folded up my easel, picked up my canvas and headed for the summerhouse. It should keep everything dry since Leon had fixed the roof. I scooted around, grabbing all the cushions, blankets and books that we’d left scattered around the place, and stacked them inside.
The temperature was dropping almost by the minute. Thunder stopped rumbling in the distance and had an overhead crash instead. Yes, this was going to be a spectacular storm. Something to be watched from the comfort of inside with a nice mug of tea.
I folded the last rug and threw it into the summerhouse, firmly fastening the door. The wind was really beginning to get up now, tossing the smaller branches around. The sun had disappeared completely, leaving just a sharp golden fringe around one of the blackest clouds I’d ever seen.
I stared. I could paint that. A whole canvas of apocalyptic sky with just a tiny, brilliant golden frill at the very edge. I could lay in an underpainting of magenta. And orange. For warmth. And the cloud wouldn’t be just grey or black. It would be shades of crimson, purple, dark blue. And there would be tiny mountains on the horizon, just to give it some scale. The horizon would be very low down – in the bottom third of the canvas with just a fringe of plain, neutral foreground. Nothing should detract from the sky . . .
Something wet plopped on my head. Concentrate, Maxwell.
I closed the gate firmly against the wind and spent a few minutes pushing the tubs and pots against the walls to protect them from being blown over. There were a lot of them and it took me some time. Finally, I put my shoulder to the half-open, rickety old workshop door. It put up a fight. Quite a lot of a fight, actually, refusing to budge, so I left it to take its chances.
Something plopped heavily on the ground beside me. And then again.
I reached up to unhook the last hanging basket, which was swaying around like Poe’s pendulum, and laid it gently on the ground. That was it – nothing left that could be blown away, topple over or be spoiled by the rain. Everything was either put away or made safe. Just the windows to close now.
With that, the real rain came down. Like stair rods. Even just running across the yard to the kitchen door was enough to soak me nearly to the skin. I hadn’t been in a downpour like this since the Cretaceous. This was biblical. I crashed into the kitchen, closed the windows over the sink, the windows in the front room and ran – or squelched – upstairs to Matthew’s room. Then into our bedroom.
That was when I heard it.
Yes, I know there was a giant storm happening outside. Almost continual thunder, the occasional crack of lightning, drumming rain – and the wind was strengthening all the time – but despite all that, I heard a sound and it wasn’t right.
