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“Warts and All”
(Part 1) By Perry Estelle © 2003
Marriage never works, divorce always does. Gina had heard that one out of three marriages work. She was just waiting for the third one. She took the guilt and avoided an acrimonious separation. To Genevieve it was like taking a tight shoe off. He always called her Genevieve when they were in company. She hated her name, it sounded like the usual pet names meteorologists give to hurricanes threatening the Florida coast. She left a note saying that he was the perfect husband but clearly it was all her fault and that she could not settle down to another marriage. It was not loves thirty something's dream. She forced herself not to write a P.S telling the truth. That he was a idle egomaniac with the brains of a mongoose.
Her new home was over one hundred miles from her Lewisham roots. A quaint coaching house that she decided to rent in the Norfolk border village of Hockwold. One thousand pounds a month of unmolested rustic history with no dishwasher, a barn owl in the larder and two feet of mud and Triffids passing itself off as a garden. Gina dropped her suitcases at the crumbling step and let herself in which was not easy as the door had practically rotted away.
The dimensions were awesome. The property was a veritable castle compared to the townhouse she had sold for a song to get her 'quickie' settlement. But property out in the sticks proved to be a lot of bricks and mortar for the cash. The living room was the magnitude of the Tundra alone. A giant flint and shale inglenook, beams and eleven inch floorboards. A wrought iron grate that looked too heavy to clear. The fireplace was the only feature that was not sold into utter neglect. It stood like a tombstone to the house that was. Fourteen rooms made home to bantams and woodworm. Chunks of lime plaster hung onto the ceiling as if by magic. It seemed only the thick cobwebs must have stopped the entire roof falling in. Gina blew upwards moving her hair out of vision (a nervous mannerism since youth) as she brushed the flaking walls and dusted her palms. The less than enthusiastic removal men with expressions of uncompromising indifference hoiked her boxes of belongings under protest for lack of a kettle or worse.
Still no electricity.
She called her cat 'China' to her arms. A natural reaction when you are unable to make a cup of tea. The tortoise shell companion meowed for food. Her master emptied three tea-chests until she found a tin of the gloop-like substance that only cats would eat. Was it a can opener or a needle in a haystack she needed next? The cats cries were now fraying her nerves as she hunted on all fours for the simplest form of kitchen ware. Plunging her fingers into a bucketful of cutlery she sliced her palm on a bread knife that was left at the perfect angle to produce the most effective injury.
"Ow, the bastard!" She lamented.
She sprung back onto her feet gripping her wrist. Clumsily falling backwards over strategically placed items that were more reinforcements to personal harm, completely surprising a small hen that had made its home on one of her army of pillows.
Gina liked pillows. Her last husband said that the only reason she bought them was to avoid brain damage when having the floor come up and hit her in the face. Usually when refusing to re-cork tequila. She loved his wit. Everything else about him was pretty repulsive. That is what Gordon did. Made her laugh. She was in hysterics when he first disrobed to attempt lovemaking with her. What he lacked in stature he made up for in speed. Having big feet or giant noses was not an acid test in his case. His shoes were like rowing boats and his nose so big he could never sport a mustache as nothing grew in the shade. If his 'hydraulics' were based on these parts of the anatomy he would of been built like a stud bullock instead of a mere mountain goat.
Gina had her needs but he knew nothing of her affairs. She was not so much discreet but her husband blissfully unaware that other men might find her remotely attractive. She had a male aupair on the backburner of her reinstalled Aga on more than one occasion and Gordon suspected nothing. She chose men like others hail a taxi. She drank too much and she loved sex and she never ruled out chocolate either. So, what was the point of living with people who thought that doing the Observer crossword and listening to cricket scores was the height of a thinking man's masturbation. She could not give him a hard on like his airfix models. She would pick men like flowers. She cut them off at their feet swept them up and liberally soaked them with her sex. When they dried up and shriveled to nothing she would bin them. His mobile phone was the only thing he boasted about. Gordon found gratification in his new Nokia. He would go into raptures about it. Imagine men boasting about how tiny something was. The trouble was that he did not know how to press the right buttons for her. He had lost the signal about a day into there marriage. Poor Gordon. He was conceited but it was natures way of disguising the pathetic bit of knotted string between his legs.
"Shit,shit, shit, shit," she said with emphasis. The tradesmen looking at each other and shrugged.
One said. "Is this what you're looking for Missus?"
A man had appeared from behind the scullery door. Obviously a local. He thrust out his hand holding the offending object. He was tall and probably a farmer. His clothes looked like a sheepherder's, brown corduroy trousers with Wellingtons. She thought how very Catherine Cookson he looked as a main character. He was forty-ish and had a Pyrex number nine haircut. A black thick shiny fringe that flopped across one eye. He had traces of blue stubble and fixed blue eyes. Lean and broad he ambled towards her smiling even teeth and dimples. Gina thought the last time she saw a specimen like him was in a T.V commercial for jeans or soft drinks. Tyrone Power had been dead for years but there he was, or at least his double in the flesh, to the rescue.
" 'ere, let me 'ave a look at that, is it giving you jip?"
He came closer and took her shredded hand that immediately got lost in his giant palms. His forearms were bustling muscle. She gaped at the tanned deep chest in an open vest held at bay by thick braces. He was tattooed. She usually hated such clumsy etchings. She thought they made the body look like an R.A.C. roadmap. She would make an exception in this case as he was almost a god. He tore his red paisley neckerchief off, Chippendale style and dressed her spilling wound.
"Oh, sorry, I feel extremely foolish, but I suppose if you are going to live in a war-zone you expect casualties. I think its not as bad as it looks…oww!" She flinched with pain that was more for effect than physical trauma. She was enjoying the attention.
"Come on, grab your coat and jump in the truck and we'll get a couple of stitches in that… carn't 'ave you bleedin' all over moi chickens, can we?" His petrol coloured eyes twinkled and matched the smell of his jacket.
As the Shogun rattled off at speed through very winding uncharted territory in Thetford forest she noticed his large fists wrestling the wheel with unequaled skill. He had another tattoo that intrigued her. On his left upper arm which rippled magnificently was a exquisite Golden Pheasant that she could not take her eyes off.
His name was Jodie and he did " a bit of "this'n'that", apparently. His head flicked back his heavy forelock that kept falling back over his face to its original position as she found herself thrown around inside the rusting crate like a rag doll. He told her he was looking for work and so she offered him cash to tend to some urgent repairs that she would agree with the Landlord. His gorgeous eyes gratefully accepted. After all, her hand was out of commission and this would hamper her plans. She hoped it would be just a matter of time before she could offer him a permanent place. Preferably her bed.
Jodie dropped her off back at her ramshackle domicile promising to be there "seven sharp". She waved her good hand and turned to hack her way to her front door. She jumped with surprise to find a chubby faced man in a dog-collar wearing an expression like he had already made a mistake in his trousers.
" Forgive me, I am the Reverend Albert Sturgeon, I have an urgent request, may I step inside?" He winced with discomfort.
"Of course, the toilet is down the hall, let me see if we can get this damn, oh excuse me Father, this blessed, I mean, this door open." She fumbled for the large key on her bunch to get it in the door and refraining from more blasphemy found the exercise in bandages more impossible. Making the task like threading a needle in boxing gloves.
"Let me help you." The tubby verger leaning across to assist. A strong smell off whisky met her nostrils as he gasped with effort to push the stubborn 'one hinge only' door open. Florid and panting he allowed the invalid in. Gina was not dependent on any man but so far she had enlisted two of them inside an hour, merely to exist. She felt as useful as the proverbial one legged idiot at an arse-kicking party.
"The loo doesn't flush properly but I will fill a bucket, to do it later." She said pointing the way with a degree of personal embarrassment."
"No Mrs Blythe, you misunderstand, its not that kind of request I wish to ask." The priest slurring slightly sat on sack full of her clothes and took his wide-brim off to mop his beaded brow that continued over the rest of his head, hairless and blotchy. He took half focals off and polished the steamed up specs with his knee until he got his breath back.
"Sorry, but I thought, anyway, how do you know me, and what is it you want?"
Gina was curt. God-sent or not, he was clearly inebriated. She hated people obviously drunk when she was not.
The hapless figure composed himself and explained his ungainly visit swigging from a hip-flask at intervals.
"I know all about you from the parishioners down the "Tinker" err…that's the local hostelry, you understand?"
He was past redemption on the reference to his obvious drink problem. Gina was not too judgmental as she had spent three weeks drying out at a clinic in London when her husband had won custody of the children.
He babbled and sweated, clearly full of anxiety and about to deliver some sorry tidings of such enormity that he fidgeted like a fat poodle with pinworm.
Gina sat down changing her expression dramatically as she realised the import of his message. Listening intently she slid down another unidentifiable sack of clothes in the same manner as honey off a spoon.
"You know, it's not my duty to warn you away, but I feel I must strongly advise you to seek alternative accommodation…this place is hardly fit for human habitation," he spluttered, wriggling from side to side precariously. He reeled off a dozen reasons why the new resident ought to leave for health and safety reasons.
Gina was puzzled, as it became glaringly apparent that this clergyman was quite inept at being economical with the truth for the best altruistic reasons.
She was now a little indignant and stood up to pronounce her speech on human rights and how the Catholic church had robbed the poor for long enough in order to get world domination. Particularly annoyed that a church could have some sort of jurisdiction over her living space. Her agnosticism spewed out unchecked in the crudest form. She pounced on the priest with a torrent of outrage.
"How dare you come around to my door with your incriminations. Now, if you don't mind 'Cleanliness is next to Godliness' and as you can see, you are keeping me from my work. So if you will excuse me." She feigned flicking a duster along a picture rail, as theatre for his interruption.
"Let me say this one thing to you Mrs Blythe. Forgive me for the intrusion. I do hope we can keep talking as I have no wish to offend you after my awkward introduction. Please bear with me for a few moments." The rotund figure stood up with some difficulty and composed himself holding his hat at chest height, like he was about to perform the last rites."
Gina stood inches away with an air of defiance and threat, daring the little man to breathe.
"This wood has history. Its called the King's wood because medieval kings hunted in this forest. Mostly quail or pheasant. Henry the eighth even took sport on these very bridle-ways. Yet, there was an evil that took place here that is an abomination in God's eyes. An atrocity in any man's. The bait being the fittest men for the gallows." The anxious messenger choked on his fear and swigged a hard slug from the whisky flask. He paused and looked hard into Gina's unconvinced expression.
"Go on, I can check this on the Net so best you keep to Bible stories from the pulpit Father, because I don't scare very easily." She goaded. She had run up her flag already.
" I understand your cynicism but spare me this one thought before I go." He stepped out onto the cracked doorstep with a low sun lighting the back of his head giving him a less than deserved halo appearance. His ears sticking out like a Chinese lantern.
He put his hat on his head, making his face silhouette strangely.
"This house has history too. Every family that have lived here, have left or disappeared under the most unholy circumstances. Some have gone mysteriously only after a few days. The last family were God-fearing and fine examples of faith and still this house drove them away. This house holds a dastardly secret." His jowls jiggling anxiously.
"What secret for crying out loud? You mean the bogie man? Or maybe the living dead? Well, Father, with respect, I have seen much mystery in my time and I have never shit myself. Excuse me, but from a religion that propagates stigmata and faith-healing pilgrimages to Lourdes you should chill out a lot more than you do."
Gina was more than flippant and openly derisory.
" God will not be mocked and that which a man sows he shall also reap…ahem…Galatians six verse seven…I will not detain you any further Mrs Blythe except on this note and that is…" He paused and screwed the cap on his bottle with an extra twist.
"Four hundred years ago a child was murdered in this house, barely eight years old and as bright as a button. Before this bairn met her end, she watched her Father and Mother die at the hands of a hunted fugitive. The bodies of the parents were found, but the little missy vanished. For one hundred years this once thriving coaching inn was sealed as Satan's abode. The villagers and their fathers and their fathers, fathers, have seen the legacy of this place destroy peoples lives. Something from Hell dwells here. Mark my words. I will pray for you and hope you make the right decision before its too late. Now, I hope to see you at Church. Take with you His grace and God bless. Goodbye."
"No hard feelings and thanks, but God gave me a tongue so I can pray for myself, and unless you want to give me a hand decorating, I would prefer you keep your doom and gloom for next week's sermon."
Gina dragged the demolished door shut on the stunned onlooker and fell with her back to it staring at the hours of drudgery ahead.
"Bloody Godbotherers! Ghosts and Ghoulies, yea, right. Well at least I won't be lost for some stimulating company…..cooeee…..is there anybody there? Don't be shy, we've got a lot of work to do. Somebody has got to clear up the mess you made." She jeered at the returning echoes and laughed."
She worked with gathering speed and managed a small impression of order and system out of Hiroshima's aftermath. After three hours of blood sweat and tears there was some semblance of a bedroom to sleep in which no longer looked like cardboard city. She tried the light switch to no avail and lit a candle with her good hand, the trickiest task to date. A partial success, spreading the contents of the rest of the box of matches evenly over her eiderdown.
With no chance of a shower or a bath, she thought she would grab some well deserved slumber and for hygiene reasons take a trip later to the swimming baths in town until the plumber arrived. Typically, in the black hole of the plumbing trade, universally, she hoped it would be within the next two days before she went through ten pounds worth of 'Hakles' and running hot and cold water could be taken for-granted again. At this rate she was fast losing the will to live while waiting for the very basics for survival. Her hair was a mass of matted dead plaster. She was practically disabled. She had the ever present threat of typhoid or possibly scurvy and to cap it all, she had the body odour of a vultures crutch. Apart from suicide or voluntary admission to a mission refuge with all the other dregs of human society, she was happy to take the softer option and catch some zeds on her mattress. Seeking out the duvet in a box marked "more bedroom things" had been a welcome find. She had forgotten to eat. Her bulimia would have to wait until she was really hungry.
She fell out of fatigue into the deepest of sleep. Half peeved about the Catholic pastor. Half starved for a plate of garlic pasta. Her dreams were rampant. Usually disjointed and climbing over each other like a demented swarm. There was no way the boozy brethren was going to frighten her off the premises. Phantom or no phantom she had watched Straw Dogs with Dustin Hoffman and Susan George so she had all the credentials for staying, thank you very much. These village folk had better be told setting badgers was the nearest they would get to burning witches and shooting fleeing criminals had evolved now into hare-coursing. Apart from religion, country life was spent by feeding stupid superstition and too much time shagging their own relatives.
Praying to God for a good night's sleep and the hope of electricity tomorrow she would hook up the computer and get back on line e-mailing to the rest of her managers at the N.E.C at Birmingham. She had to coordinate the "Alternative Science Exhibition" from her laptop. The opening date was a month to go, with no pitches left. Now she could create her home from chicken-poo and from the depths of Norfolk, raise Atlantis, if the folk stopped pestering her with a wet death on a ducking stool.
She looked forward to seeing Dustin Hoffman a little less Jewish and a few inches taller at seven in the morning. Her thoughts continued to reproduce at an astounding rate.
She dreamt that she lived in the same house a century ago. It was a vivid dream in cinema scope and sepia. It was Christmas and the whole room was heaving with well-wishers and a giant wild boar bled copious fat onto a log fire in the decorated fireplace. Kids played on pipe clad oldsters laps, in rocking chairs. A fiddler fiddled. Plates full of bread-stuffing and bacon. Cheese and loaf served to customers and coachmen alike. A liberal smattering of ale sloshed from tankard to tankard leaving Santa type froth on their beards. Dumplings and gingerbread. Jugged hare and plum duff. Baked Apple pie and chestnuts. Combings of snow at the bulls-eye windows and a large cake of heavy trench-coats draped over a groaning hat-stand. All is fine festive fun and then there is a hammering on the door. Suddenly, a man bursts in stripped to the waist and falls to the floor facedown. The partygoers fight back the flurry of snow and stop the proceedings to come to the mans aid. His body is covered in blood.
Gina wakes up. She curses the Reverend Sturgeon for playing his dumb mind-games on her, when she was too exhausted to fight it. He did not have to paint a rosy picture. Her avid imagination had produced a life-like bundle of images that proved to menace her at the point of unconsciousness.
"Bugger it, where's the cat."
Gina groped for her dressing gown taking the candle with her down a steep set of bare splintered stairs. She called out.
"China, China, here darling, where are you?" She clung with her good hand to the winding wall and held on gingerly, inching her way earthward. She faltered and promptly dropped the candle which spilled hot wax onto her toes, bouncing to freedom, down two more steps, extinguishing itself on the way.
"Bloody wars, its darker than a lorry load of arseholes down here, where in the black hole Calcutta is that wretched, sodding cat?
Halfway down she listened intently.
She heard a whimpering noise and then it stopped and then a sound of rushing wind. Yet, it was still and only a slight breath of breeze outside, looking at the gentle swing of the jasmine through the porch top window. Like the wind she held her breath too, and with a puzzled frown reached the bottom of the stairs craning her head and stopped again. The shushing sound was a little like the sound of fire consuming dry autumn leaves. Their was a smell of cooking and the sounds and smells got louder and stronger. There was laughter and music now. She started to run down the dusty hall towards the giant lounge which she had closed to thwart the chickens nesting in her wealth of sundries. She cleared her right eardrum. She pinched herself. Gina picked up a broom for self defence purposes. Swallowing hard, she shut her eyes and shouted.
" Who is there?" Her voice crackled with apprehension. Addressing, what sounded more and more like a large boisterous and oblivious crowd the other side of the door. Gina lifted the broom in a threatening pose. Not exactly her chosen artillery, but if it was a bunch of squatters to deal with, she would have to force eviction with a clean sweep. She pointed her jaw and her under-bite held her top lip. If she was to protect her property from drugged up yobs, she better use the element of surprise. Or perhaps, to politely tell whoever was trespassing, to piss off. As she blew upward her fringe (nerves again) she inched towards the echoing bedlum with less trepidation and more vim. As she turned the door handle a smell of cooking cabbages (or was it brussel sprouts?) reached through as lasers of light hit her frame. The temperature had dropped and her breath was frosting. The noises were distorted and the door was vibrating violently. These intruders were either having sex up against the other side of the door with such gusto the hinges were shaking off, or something else had given it a life of its own. The door resisted of its own volition and jammed shut throwing Gina into a tumbled heap.
" So you want to play silly buggers do you? I'll teach you to make yourself at bloody home, you bunch of low life shits." Shit was Gina's favourite example of the English language as it summed up her life until now both as an adjective and pro noun. It was a very good one word answer, requiring no explanation or expanding on issues it referred to. She had enough of the substance but could not resist it as part of her vocabulary. "Shit", rolled off the tongue.
In typical Inspector Clouseau fashion, she charged the door and yelped like a puppy outside a pub as she made contact with three solid inches of pine that gave way under her now crumpled shoulder. The door had stopped shaking and rattling . The noise like a full blown party in the back of a lorry being driven with a squealing gearbox, had stopped. She was face down in a pile of shoes and had rendered one entire side of her body without feelings, other than raw pain.
to be continued (bookmark [CTRL+D] this page)
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