Search Results for 'finn'

Liz left her bed at 8:30am, wearing only her pink and blue doubled cotton night gown, a perfect hair and her fluffy pink blue mules. She had been thinking about her characters while the sun was trying to rise with great difficulty. Liz couldn’t blame the Sun as temperatures had dropped dramatically since the beginning of winter and the air outside was really cold.

When Liz was thinking about her writings and her characters, she usually felt hungry. Someone had told her once that the brain was a hungry organ and that you needed fuel to make it work properly. She didn’t have a sweet tooth, but she wouldn’t say no to some cheesy toast, any time of the day.

She had heard some noise coming from the kitchen, certainly Finnley doing who knows what, although certainly not cleaning. It might be the association between thinking about her characters and the noise in the kitchen that triggered her sudden craving for a melted slice of cheese on top of a perfectly burnished toast. The idea sufficed to make her stomach growl.

She chuckled as she thought of inventing a new genre, the toast opera. Or was it a cackle?

As she was lost in her morning musings, her mules gave that muffled slippery sound on the floor that Finnley found so unladylike. Liz didn’t care, she even deliberately slowed her pace. The slippery sound took on another dimension, extended and stretched to the limit of what was bearable even for herself. Liz grinned, thinking about Finnley’s slight twitching right eye as she certainly was trying to keep her composure in the kitchen.

Liz, all cheerful, was testing the differences between a chuckle and a cackle when she entered the kitchen. She was about to ask Finnley what she thought about it when she saw a small person in a yellow tunic and green pants, washing the dishes.

Liz stopped right there, forgetting all about chuckles and cackles and even toasts.

“Where is Finnley?” she asked, not wanting to appear the least surprised. The small person turned her head toward Liz, still managing to keep on washing the dishes. It was a girl, obviously from India.

“Good morning, Ma’am. I’m Anna, the new maid only.”

“The new… maid?”

Liz suddenly felt panic crawling behind her perfectly still face. She didn’t want to think about the implications.

“Why don’t you use the dishwasher?” she asked, proud that she could keep the control of her voice despite her hunger, her questions about chuckles and cackles, and…

“The dirty dishes are very less, there is no need to use the dishwasher only.”

Liz looked at her bobbing her head sideways as if the spring had been mounted the wrong way.

“Are you alright?” asked Anna with a worried look.

“Of course, dear. Make me a toast with a slice of cheese will you?”

“How do I do that?”

“Well you take the toaster and you put the slice of bread inside and pushed the lever down… Have you never prepared toasts before?”

“No, but yes, but I need to know how you like it only. I want to make it perfect for your liking, otherwise you won’t be satisfied.” The maid suddenly looked lost and anxious.

“Just do as you usually do,” said Liz. “Goddfrey?” she called, leaving the kitchen before the maid could ask anymore questions.

Where was Goddfrey when she needed him to explain everything?

“You need me?” asked a voice behind her. He had appeared from nowhere, as if he could walk through the walls or teleport. Anyway, she never thought she would be so relieved to see him.

“What’s that in the kitchen?”

“What’s what? Oh! You mean her. The new maid.”

He knew! Liz felt a strange blend of frustration, despair and anger. She took mental note to remember it for her next chapter, and came back to her emotional turmoil. Was she the only one unaware of such a bit change in her home?

“Well, she followed us when we were in India. We don’t know how, but she managed to find a place in one of your trunks. Finnley found her as she had the porter unpacked the load. It seems she wants to help.”

“Charter,” said Finnley popping back into the room.

“What we all need now”, Liz was thinking out loud, “Is a more relaxed approach. We should stop trying to be proper clever writers and just blather.”

“If it’s supposed to be relaxed blather, why did you just fix three typo’s?” asked Finnley, the annoying maid, who had once again been peering over Elizabeth’s shoulder, looking for something to find fault with.

“Oh come on, that’s a bit much, Liz!” Finnley retorted, accidentally on purpose slopping Liz’s tea into her ashtray, knowing a pet hate of hers was a wet ashtray.

“Do be careful, Finnely! snapped Liz.

“Just taking a relaxed approach to being a maid, Ma’am,” she replied rudely with a flamboyant gesture with her feather duster, which whacked Liz smartly across the back of the head as she swanned out of the room with her nose in the air.

Liz’s smile melted away when Roberto entered the living room, he was covered in dust and spider webs. What flustered her most wasn’t the trail of dirt and insects the gardener was leaving behind him, but that he was not in India.

Liz threw knives at Godfrey with her eyes, a useful skill she had developed during her (long) spare time, but he dodged them easily and they sank straight into the wall with a thud.
Finnley rolled her eyes and ordered one of the guy from the TV crew to take the knives off the wall. “Don’t forget to repaint afterward”, she said with a satisfied smile.

Godfrey leaned closer to the door. Liz felt words of frustration gather at her lips.

“I think I slept too much long,” Roberto said with his charming latino accent. At that time, Liz could almost forgive him not to be in India. “Funny thing is I dreamt I was doing yoga in India, near Colombo.”

Godfrey raised his eyebrows and gave Liz a meaningful look, telling he had been almost right all along. He relaxed and smirked. She hated it.

“Well, that must be a clue”, Liz said with a look at the butler. “Godfrey, Roberto needs to be in India, and we need to go with him. Book the plane tickets.”

“Well, technically, Colombo is in Sri Lanka, not India,” said Finnley.
“Small detail,” countered Liz.

“What do I do with the knives?” said the TV crew man.
Liz looked at the knives, then at Godfrey.
“I’ll take them back, they can always be useful where we are going.”

“What about the interview?” asked the woman from the TV.
“We’ll need a charter,” said Finnley who liked very much to give orders.

“The mansion to yourself?” snorted Liz. “You, Godfrey, will be going on ahead to make sure everything is ready for us. We’d like a nice leafy garden and a balcony, and do make sure we have a really good cook.”

“And we want first class tickets,” added Finnley. “Because we are worth it,” she added defiantly, noticing the various raised eyebrows. “I’ll go and find Roberto then shall I?”

“That’s a very good question, Finnley. Where the devil is he anyway? Godfrey, perhaps you should go and find him, and lay the law down a bit about wandering off the thread while on duty.”

“Funnily enough,” said Godfrey, clearing his throat, “Roberto appears to have fetched up in Mumbai. He was spotted a few days ago chasing chickens and trying to stuff them into a story thread. I was, ahem, going to mention it…”

Liz was just about to start complaining about always being the last to know what was going on, when a thought struck her about how marvelously fortuitous it was that she wanted Godfrey to go on ahead to India, and to also look for Roberto ~ who was conveniently in India!

“… the mansion to yourself? Don’t forget the journalists and the documentary movie, Godfrey,” said Finnley with a smirk.

“I am so tired of my “Remember Your Dreams’ group, Finnley. Shall we go to India instead?” remarked Liz.

Finnley fervantly hoped that Liz tired of her new ‘Remember Your Dreams’ group soon.

“Oh, I almost forgot to give you this,” added Finnley, presenting Liz with a packet of cotton wool. “It’s to put in your ear while you’re in the foetal position, like the statue.”

“How did such a large statue come out of such a small packet?” Liz asked, wonderingly.

“Never question the mystical wonders of the great ascended master. Just place the cotton wool in your ear as instructed by the Great Lord of Kale.”

The door bell rang and Finnley left Liz confused by the present the maid had brought her from Bali. It was the statue of a man in a strange position. Liz had no clue what he was doing, but the statue was so big she could imaging using it as a stool with small silk cushion to make it more comfortable. It was made of wood. Liz touched the head of the statue and felt a momentary lapse.

“hum!”
Liz started. “Oh you’re back”, she said to Finnley with a smile. Finnley looked at her suspiciously.

“Did you take something while I was answering at the door?”

“Oh! right the door. Who was that?”

“Journalists. They are here for the documentary movie.”

The fleeting state of bliss was gone. “Journalists? For me?”

“For who else?” asked Finnley, raising her eyes. “Godfrey?”

“I brought you a present Liz,” said Finnley, looking relaxed and sun kissed. “From my holidays. I hope you like it!” she added, proffering a small gaudily wrapped gift.

“Where have you been?” asked Liz, with a beady glare of suspicion. “Why am I the last to know?”

“Jingle, where are you?” asked Finnley grumpily, peering into the darkness of the attic.

“Here”, hissed Jingle from behind some boxes. “Has that dreadful man gone yet?”

“Nope, still here. Drooling over Liz no doubt.”

“I won’t go back to my mother! That awful woman!”

“Well you can’t stay here so you had better go out the window.”

“What window? There is no window!” whimpered Jingle.

Oh for Flove’s sake! thought Finnley. No imagination. That’s her trouble.

Adroitly, she whipped out some power tools and cut a hole in the roof.

“There!” she said, taking a step back to survey her work. “A window. Now, off you go. And don’t come back.”

“Oh thank you, Finnley. You are wonderful!”

“I am, aren’t I,” smirked Finnley.

And after all, Liz didn’t even know she had an attic so she certainly won’t notice a window.

“You incredibly rude fuckers after we were obliged to listen to yours for years,” Elizabeth’s fingers tapped loudly on the keyboard. “It would be at the very least polite to show a little interest, even if it is feigned, but no! Stuck up your own arseholes as usual!”

“You can’t say that, Liz!” Finnley gasped, looking over Liz’s shoulder.

“Fuck ‘em!” replied Liz, thrusting her keyboard to the back of the desk with a satisfied smile. “You just can’t get the crowd fillers these days. Now then, were is that tasty gardener?”

“Pepe pulled his truck up at the polling station,” Liz wrote, suddenly seized with an idea, “And voted for the nice man with the straggly beard. He knew that he would win, and wanted to add his voice to the collective choice.”

“That’s outrageous, Liz!” spluttered Finnley. “You can’t tamper with elections by writing the outcome into the story!”

“Can’t? I just did!” she replied grimly.

“Who’s been chucking stuff in the urn!?” grumbled Finnley. “Always someone messing things up round this place.”

She took the parcel and dumped it in the overflowing garbage bin.

Just in time for the rubbish collector, she thought with satisfaction.

“Finnley, go and tell Roberto to bring the ladder. I can’t possibly climb up through that trap door with those rickety steps, I want a proper ladder. And proper gardener to hold it steady. I wouldn’t trust any of you lot,” she said, glaring at them each in turn.

Finnley made a rude sign behind Elizabeth’s back, and clumped back down the stairs. Increasingly heated bickering between Liz and the Inspector ensued. Godfrey wandered off down the hallway tutting and shaking his head, and then darted into a spare bedroom and fell sound asleep on the bed.

Expecting a tongue lashing from Liz for being so long, Finnley was surprised that nobody noticed her return. She cleared her throat a few times trying to get their attention.

“Go and get yourself a spoonful of honey and stop making that ghastly croaking noise, Finnley!”

“The thing is, Liz,” replied the maid, “He’s gone.”

“Who?”

Exasperated, Finnley’s voice rose to an alarming falsetto. “The gardener! Roberto! He’s gone, and what’s more, he’s taken the sack with him!”

“Do get a grip, Finnley, he’s probably just taking the rubbish out. Now then, Walter, if you think I’ve forgiven you for that day when you….he’s taken what? What did you say?”

Elizabeth blanched, waving her arms around wildly as if she was drowning.

“I know a good gardener who’s looking for a job,” the Inspector said helpfully.

“You utter fool!” Elizabeth rounded on him. “My babies have been stolen and you talk about gardening! Never mind that German, or whatever it was you said you’re doing here, go and catch that thief!”

Raising an eyebrow, Finnley wondered if this was just another fiasco, or was it really a cleverly engineered plot?