“And a large tub of green olives.” Glandice comes to the end of her shopping list. “
"Stuffed or unstuffed?” says Jason, with a facial expression that makes his chin ruckle up like a peach stone beneath his lower lip.
Glandice gives a big, fleshy laugh. “Oh definitely stuffed.”
Jason fills a polystyrene tub. “So - you having a bit of a soirée?” The peach stone disappears and the neck tendons take over.
“Just a couple of friends over for supper.” Glandice says, but she is slightly distracted by a tweed elbow that is agitating in her peripheral vision. She turns.
“Oh hello Eric.” She smiles warmly. She is aware of Eric's keen interest in the festival and he is rather on her guilt list.
“Ah, Glandice. How are you? How are you?” Professor Briding says, clutching the handle of a willow shopping basket awkwardly with one hand, and waving a jar of capers around with the other.
“I’m good, thank you, Eric. Although”, she rolls her eyes upwards, “horribly busy as usual.”
“Ah yes, of course. How are the festival plans coming along?”
“Oh lord, I haven’t even had time to think about that, I’m so busy with recitals right now.”
“Ah, I see, I see.” The reply subdues Eric somewhat and he is able to finish placing the capers into his basket.
“Although actually, I’m glad you've mentioned it. There’s something I want to ask you.”
“Of course. Fire away! Fire Away!”
Glandice pays Jason and guides Eric over to the chutneys. “You’re pretty involved with the local Am Dram scene, I gather.”
“I am indeed. President of TADS no less!” He laughs self-consciously.
“Oh, well that’s just great! Because I’ve been thinking…” she drops her head to one side thoughtfully, “it would be really terrific if you guys could dress up in Tudor costumes and hand out the programmes.”
Eric blinks as though Glandice has just tapped him on the nose quite hard. He would like to say ‘my book on membrane proteins has been translated into 17 languages’, Instead, he adopts an air of wry bafflement and says “Well, I’ll certainly put it to the committee…”
Glandice is impervious. “Well, that would be just terrific.” She says enthusiastically. “We really want local people to feel involved.” She looks at her watch. “Oh, Good Lord, I have to dash! Great to see you though, Eric.”
“Well, yes, you too Glandice.”
Eric maintains his expression of quizzical amusement until Glandice has left the shop then scissors up to the counter as though he’s been pinched on the arse. He waves a dismissive hand in the general direction of the cheeses. “Oh the Brie will do, I suppose."
Jason sucks in his cheeks. “de Meaux or de Melun?”
Eric adopts the facial expression of a man who has just been asked whether he'd prefer a free holiday or a slap round the face. “The de Melun , of course."
Tuesday, August 22, 2006
Saturday, August 05, 2006
TT - 30 Mrs Green's system
To understand Mrs Green's casting system for the Tendringhoe JMI nativity play you will neeed a ruler, a pencil and a blank sheet of paper. Draw two twenty-centimetre lines at right angles to make a graph. On the horizontal axis, subdivide the line into twenty and plot all the parts of the play. Start with the back-end of the donkey, work up through the sheep, the inn-keeper's wife and sundry messangers, then Gabriel and the narrator until you arrive at Mary and Joseph. Now subdivide the vertical axis into twenty and plot the professions of the children's parents according to the Registrar General's Scale. Remember this is a Church of England school so Vicar comes above Doctor. Finally, plot the twenty children in Miss Green's class between these two axes and you should have a nice left to right rising diagonal.
Only this year Mrs Green is running into difficulties at both ends of the scale. According to her system Basil, the son of a university professor and a GP, must be Joseph, but Basil's parents are not like other group 'A' professionals. Last summer, when Eric was away teaching in America, Eleanor took her two children to Glastonbury for their annual holiday. Basil's vivid and fully illustrated account in his News and Story Book of camping in mud, having his face painted, and singing along to Keane on the main stage received a tart 'adequate' from Mrs Green. Not surprisingly, Basil is 'not like other boys' and his disgusting theatricality is hardly something his teacher wants to encourage. Val Green comes up with a clever solution and casts Basil as the black Magus, a part she normally reserves for any child who in her opinion has had 'a slap from the tar-brush' at some point in their genetic history: which in a village like Tendringhoe usually means divining some ancient Spanishy genes in a child with a Welsh surname. It amuses her that the Bridings will be too 'left wing' to complain.
The other problem child is little Rita Magma. Her parents, a clinically depressed single mother with two other children by different fathers and an alocoholic unskilled father who smells, fall so far outside the usual social parameters of the village school that Mrs Green has had to toy with the possibility of inventing an entirely new part just for her. But whilst the role of 'stable door' is perfectly coherent in terms of the Christams narrative even Mrs Green realises that she cannot simply duck-tape a child between two pallettes and leave her standing in the middle of a stage for 40 minutes. Instead she has introduced the equally inanimate role of the Star of Bethlehem. Rita doesn't get to actually sing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, she just gets to stand on the side of the stage whilst little Bethany Tidwell of Tidwell Farm Pork Products sings it.
Rita's grandmother says Rita is the 'star' of the show, and then she repeats it in case the sutlety of the pun has been lost: "Rita is the 'STAR' of the show!" Rita is pelased that Granny thinks its lovely and has started to make her a pretty sparkly costume, because Rita understands only too well her place in Tendringhoe JMI's Great Chain of Being: objects, even celestial ones, come below animals come below people come below angels come below Holy Family. Mrs Green's place in the great scheme of things is not yet something that she is able to articulate to herself.
Mrs Green is delighted with the casting of Suzie Carduggan in the lead role. Such a bright and creative child and a pretty little thing, too! She'll make such a sweet little Mary. Suzie, outraged that Basil, by far the best actor in the school, has been relegated to a non-speaking bit-part, has other plans.
Only this year Mrs Green is running into difficulties at both ends of the scale. According to her system Basil, the son of a university professor and a GP, must be Joseph, but Basil's parents are not like other group 'A' professionals. Last summer, when Eric was away teaching in America, Eleanor took her two children to Glastonbury for their annual holiday. Basil's vivid and fully illustrated account in his News and Story Book of camping in mud, having his face painted, and singing along to Keane on the main stage received a tart 'adequate' from Mrs Green. Not surprisingly, Basil is 'not like other boys' and his disgusting theatricality is hardly something his teacher wants to encourage. Val Green comes up with a clever solution and casts Basil as the black Magus, a part she normally reserves for any child who in her opinion has had 'a slap from the tar-brush' at some point in their genetic history: which in a village like Tendringhoe usually means divining some ancient Spanishy genes in a child with a Welsh surname. It amuses her that the Bridings will be too 'left wing' to complain.
The other problem child is little Rita Magma. Her parents, a clinically depressed single mother with two other children by different fathers and an alocoholic unskilled father who smells, fall so far outside the usual social parameters of the village school that Mrs Green has had to toy with the possibility of inventing an entirely new part just for her. But whilst the role of 'stable door' is perfectly coherent in terms of the Christams narrative even Mrs Green realises that she cannot simply duck-tape a child between two pallettes and leave her standing in the middle of a stage for 40 minutes. Instead she has introduced the equally inanimate role of the Star of Bethlehem. Rita doesn't get to actually sing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, she just gets to stand on the side of the stage whilst little Bethany Tidwell of Tidwell Farm Pork Products sings it.
Rita's grandmother says Rita is the 'star' of the show, and then she repeats it in case the sutlety of the pun has been lost: "Rita is the 'STAR' of the show!" Rita is pelased that Granny thinks its lovely and has started to make her a pretty sparkly costume, because Rita understands only too well her place in Tendringhoe JMI's Great Chain of Being: objects, even celestial ones, come below animals come below people come below angels come below Holy Family. Mrs Green's place in the great scheme of things is not yet something that she is able to articulate to herself.
Mrs Green is delighted with the casting of Suzie Carduggan in the lead role. Such a bright and creative child and a pretty little thing, too! She'll make such a sweet little Mary. Suzie, outraged that Basil, by far the best actor in the school, has been relegated to a non-speaking bit-part, has other plans.
Tuesday, August 01, 2006
TT - 29 Alison Holds Back
When Eric and Eleanor moved into Anchor House they were so besotted with the place they hardly dared furnish it. Objects were not so much chosen for their new home as offered up to it for its approval: if they fell in with the rhythms of the time-worn interior they stayed, if not, they went back to the antique shop or were returned to the ever rotating stock of Briding family heirlooms. Conversely, the temporary items that were bought from junk shops to stop the gaps in this long organic process received no thought or care whatsoever. Inevitably, some of these items grafted themselves onto the house by default, eventually becoming as much a part of its personality as the 'beautiful pieces'. The Bridings, encountering the familiar contours and surfaces of their home on a daily basis, have gradually ceased to distinguish between the two classes of furnishing. It is only the visitor who is surprised to find that the Victorian brass light switch in the hallway illuminates a red plastic light shade, or that the walnut escritoire on the upper landing is complimented, or rather insulted, by an old school chair.
Today it is Alison Carduggan who sits in the Briding's kitchen and enjoys the unconventional relationship between a splay-legged Formica-top table and a beautifully restored fireplace with working bread oven. She is less bothered by the aesthetic shortcomings of the table, however, than by an almost perfect circle of jammy clag that sits just centimetres from her right elbow. Alison knows she has the self-control not to grab a damp dishcloth from the draining-board but she doesn't trust herself not to set about the offending smirch with a spit-dampened tissue. To lessen the temptation she turns her chair slightly to the left.
"I'll give them another shout." Eleanor says.
Alison has popped round to collect Suzie who has not returned home at the agreed time. This is because Suzie is busy upstairs playing the lead role of Mrs Green in Basil's latest musical extravaganza and is quite properly reluctant to interupt the artistic process for something as prosaic as 'tea'.
"Just five more minutes then." Alison hears Eleanor call up the stairs.
The shuffles and thumps that can be heard on the ceiling are the sounds of Suzie and Basil perfecting the choreography to their big show-stopping number 'Oh Dem Tartan Cardies!' in which Valishiana Green, the colonial plantation owner, is tied up with her own Pringle cardigan by her angry slaves, led by Lame Gordy but much aided by lil' Sue and Blind Boy Bridie.
Eleanor comes back into the kitchen. "Glass of wine? I've got a nice white already opened in the fridge."
"Oh that's kind of you..." Alison is prepaing to decline the offer but then changes her mind. "Oh go on then, why not!"
Alison feels quite devil-may-care as she sips the cold Vouvray and simply pushes aside the mental image of her cassoulet drying out in the oven at home.
"God, I need this." Eleanor says with a sigh.
"Bad day?"
"Well, just the usual really, although I can't say being bollocked by an octogenarian for being five minutes late whilst I've got my finger up his rectum is my ideal way to end the day."
"Oh dear!" says Alison.
"How about you?"
"Oh, quite busy. Drove Douglas's mother to her hospital appointment this morning. Then picked up Mr Dudly's pension. Cleared out the under-stairs cupboard." She casts around for more things that she has done that day. "Oh, and made Suzie's costume for the nativity play."
"Oh God, have you done that already!" Eleanor says. "You're so organised. I'll be doing it the night before the dress rehearsal."
"Well, yes, but I don't have a career..."
"Well, I should think full-time mum and vicar's wife is demanding enough."
Eleanor pours some more wine and both women manage to feel inadequate for exactly converse reasons.
"How's Douglas? Haven't seen him for ages." Eleanor says, then gives an embarrassed laugh. "Oh dear, that's not a very good admission to make to the vicar's wife is it?"
"Well, you're out ministering to the sick. I'm sure that's a much better way of expressing your love for the way of the Lord than droning though a few hymns on a Sunday morning."
"Mmmm, that's a nice way of putting it." Says Eleanor. The truth is, since Basil left the church choir she's been enjoying her Sunday morning lie-ins again.
"Douglas is fine, by the way." Alison says.
"Good."
"Well, I say fine." Alison frowns slightly and turns her wine glass in her hand. She takes a breath as though she's about to say something but doesn't. She looks Eleanor in the eye, opens her mouth, but still nothing. She looks down again and smiles.
"Is something worrying you, Alison?"
"Oh it's nothing, really."
Eleanor tops up her glass. "Come on, what is it?"
"I don't want to bore you with it."
"You won't bore me."
Alison drinks some more wine. She can hear the children still romping around upstairs.
"This is absolutely between you and me."
"Of course."
"Well, Douglas and I. We're not...We've stopped... How can I put it..."
"You've stopped having sex."
"That's about the long and short of it." Alison laughs nervously. "I mean, I know we're not love's young dream, anymore, but still..."
"But still, you miss the intimacy."
"Yes. Yes, I do."
"Listen, Alison, I have people coming to me all the time with exactly the same problem."
"Really?"
"Of course. Work demands, tiredness, children, it all takes its toll. I mean, when was the last time you both got into bed together when you weren't completely exhausted. I know there are times when Eric and I hardly get to speak to each other let alone make love."
"Yes, you're right. And Douglas has been so busy lately." She pauses. "It's just that...sometimes...it's as though we've stopped connecting on some level."
"It sounds to me as though you need to make some time to be with each other. Pack the kids off and have a romantic meal or something."
Alison laughs. "Douglas would wolf it down, say thanks, that was delicious darling, then be back in his study working on his play, or his sermon, or engrossed in one of his books!"
"Well, take him out somewhere then. Look, I know it can't be easy with Douglas's work schedule, but if you could manage to get a couple of days away you know I can always have Suzie."
"That's kind." Alison fiddles with the clasp on her bracelet. "Yes, perhaps you're right. Perhaps we just need some 'quality time' together.
"It's amazing how just making some time to be a couple again can really 'rekindle the spark'."
"It's such a relief to have someone to talk to, Eleanor. Thank you for listening."
"Of course. What are friends for. But look, if it doesn't resolve itself, I can recommend a really good marriage guidance councillor."
"Oh goodness, it's not that serious!”
"People always think of Marriage Guidance as the last resort, but all marriages have their ups and downs and a good councillor can really help."
"Maybe."
Alison can't see Douglas agreeing to discuss their sex life with a third party. There are good reasons why he won't discuss it with her, his own wife. Alison suppresses a sigh and drains the last of her wine
"Is there something else?" Eleanor says.
"No, no." Says Alison, quickly. "Just what I've told you."
They hear children’s voices followed by the thump of boisterous feet down the stairs.
"I'm sure it'll be fine." Eleanor rubs Alison's arm reassuringly.
"Of course." Says Alison brightly. "I mean, that's the wonderful thing about Douglas and me. First and foremost we're the best of friends."
Today it is Alison Carduggan who sits in the Briding's kitchen and enjoys the unconventional relationship between a splay-legged Formica-top table and a beautifully restored fireplace with working bread oven. She is less bothered by the aesthetic shortcomings of the table, however, than by an almost perfect circle of jammy clag that sits just centimetres from her right elbow. Alison knows she has the self-control not to grab a damp dishcloth from the draining-board but she doesn't trust herself not to set about the offending smirch with a spit-dampened tissue. To lessen the temptation she turns her chair slightly to the left.
"I'll give them another shout." Eleanor says.
Alison has popped round to collect Suzie who has not returned home at the agreed time. This is because Suzie is busy upstairs playing the lead role of Mrs Green in Basil's latest musical extravaganza and is quite properly reluctant to interupt the artistic process for something as prosaic as 'tea'.
"Just five more minutes then." Alison hears Eleanor call up the stairs.
The shuffles and thumps that can be heard on the ceiling are the sounds of Suzie and Basil perfecting the choreography to their big show-stopping number 'Oh Dem Tartan Cardies!' in which Valishiana Green, the colonial plantation owner, is tied up with her own Pringle cardigan by her angry slaves, led by Lame Gordy but much aided by lil' Sue and Blind Boy Bridie.
Eleanor comes back into the kitchen. "Glass of wine? I've got a nice white already opened in the fridge."
"Oh that's kind of you..." Alison is prepaing to decline the offer but then changes her mind. "Oh go on then, why not!"
Alison feels quite devil-may-care as she sips the cold Vouvray and simply pushes aside the mental image of her cassoulet drying out in the oven at home.
"God, I need this." Eleanor says with a sigh.
"Bad day?"
"Well, just the usual really, although I can't say being bollocked by an octogenarian for being five minutes late whilst I've got my finger up his rectum is my ideal way to end the day."
"Oh dear!" says Alison.
"How about you?"
"Oh, quite busy. Drove Douglas's mother to her hospital appointment this morning. Then picked up Mr Dudly's pension. Cleared out the under-stairs cupboard." She casts around for more things that she has done that day. "Oh, and made Suzie's costume for the nativity play."
"Oh God, have you done that already!" Eleanor says. "You're so organised. I'll be doing it the night before the dress rehearsal."
"Well, yes, but I don't have a career..."
"Well, I should think full-time mum and vicar's wife is demanding enough."
Eleanor pours some more wine and both women manage to feel inadequate for exactly converse reasons.
"How's Douglas? Haven't seen him for ages." Eleanor says, then gives an embarrassed laugh. "Oh dear, that's not a very good admission to make to the vicar's wife is it?"
"Well, you're out ministering to the sick. I'm sure that's a much better way of expressing your love for the way of the Lord than droning though a few hymns on a Sunday morning."
"Mmmm, that's a nice way of putting it." Says Eleanor. The truth is, since Basil left the church choir she's been enjoying her Sunday morning lie-ins again.
"Douglas is fine, by the way." Alison says.
"Good."
"Well, I say fine." Alison frowns slightly and turns her wine glass in her hand. She takes a breath as though she's about to say something but doesn't. She looks Eleanor in the eye, opens her mouth, but still nothing. She looks down again and smiles.
"Is something worrying you, Alison?"
"Oh it's nothing, really."
Eleanor tops up her glass. "Come on, what is it?"
"I don't want to bore you with it."
"You won't bore me."
Alison drinks some more wine. She can hear the children still romping around upstairs.
"This is absolutely between you and me."
"Of course."
"Well, Douglas and I. We're not...We've stopped... How can I put it..."
"You've stopped having sex."
"That's about the long and short of it." Alison laughs nervously. "I mean, I know we're not love's young dream, anymore, but still..."
"But still, you miss the intimacy."
"Yes. Yes, I do."
"Listen, Alison, I have people coming to me all the time with exactly the same problem."
"Really?"
"Of course. Work demands, tiredness, children, it all takes its toll. I mean, when was the last time you both got into bed together when you weren't completely exhausted. I know there are times when Eric and I hardly get to speak to each other let alone make love."
"Yes, you're right. And Douglas has been so busy lately." She pauses. "It's just that...sometimes...it's as though we've stopped connecting on some level."
"It sounds to me as though you need to make some time to be with each other. Pack the kids off and have a romantic meal or something."
Alison laughs. "Douglas would wolf it down, say thanks, that was delicious darling, then be back in his study working on his play, or his sermon, or engrossed in one of his books!"
"Well, take him out somewhere then. Look, I know it can't be easy with Douglas's work schedule, but if you could manage to get a couple of days away you know I can always have Suzie."
"That's kind." Alison fiddles with the clasp on her bracelet. "Yes, perhaps you're right. Perhaps we just need some 'quality time' together.
"It's amazing how just making some time to be a couple again can really 'rekindle the spark'."
"It's such a relief to have someone to talk to, Eleanor. Thank you for listening."
"Of course. What are friends for. But look, if it doesn't resolve itself, I can recommend a really good marriage guidance councillor."
"Oh goodness, it's not that serious!”
"People always think of Marriage Guidance as the last resort, but all marriages have their ups and downs and a good councillor can really help."
"Maybe."
Alison can't see Douglas agreeing to discuss their sex life with a third party. There are good reasons why he won't discuss it with her, his own wife. Alison suppresses a sigh and drains the last of her wine
"Is there something else?" Eleanor says.
"No, no." Says Alison, quickly. "Just what I've told you."
They hear children’s voices followed by the thump of boisterous feet down the stairs.
"I'm sure it'll be fine." Eleanor rubs Alison's arm reassuringly.
"Of course." Says Alison brightly. "I mean, that's the wonderful thing about Douglas and me. First and foremost we're the best of friends."
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