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Elizabeth suddenly felt overwhelmed with loving kindness, and hugged everyone. “I am so sorry I’m a sourpuss at times, I love you all.”

While everyone was speechless, she continued: “This is indeed a trying and difficult season at times, despite our best efforts to eradicate it from our calendars. The social constructs of cheer and goodwill must never be confused with acquiescing to the pressures of the needy, if the needy resort to emotional blackmail and bullying. Indeed, it is a kindness to all concerned, not least ones own self, to refuse to kowtow simply because of the date on the calendar!”

“Hear! ……Hear!” said Norbert slowly.

“Blimey,” muttered Finnley, while Arona Haki whistled and said “Bloody heel!”

“Waaaahh wahhhha!” cried the cold baby shivering on the patio.

“Oh my god, the fucking baby!” Elizabeth shouted, leaping up and running outside, and accidentally tipping over the sherry bottle and the plate of mince pies.

“Christmas! You’re kidding me! Is that why the plaza was full of donkeys and goat cheese and that dreadful jingly singly stuff? Bolt the doors quickly! Haki! Lock the gate! We don’t want anyone here full of good cheer or god forbid, bringing mince pies!”

“Oh-my-god-oh-my-god-oh-my-god-oh-my-god-oh-my-god-oh-my-god-oh-my-god-oh-my-god,” mumbled Finnley, head in hands and rocking strangely.

Elizabeth was startled by this strange behaviour from the normally quiescent Finnley.

“What on earth is wrong with you?” she asked irritably.

Finnley raised her head from her hands and regarded Elizabeth with tired, bloodshot eyes.

“What’s wrong with me?” she snarled. “I will tell you what is wrong with me. All these fucking batshit crazy characters making mess and expecting conversation is what is wrong with me. What’s going on? It’s not fucking Christmas is it?”

”Don’t worry, Lady Elizabeth, Your Royal High Goddess, you go and take an aspirin. I will keep an eye on him for you,” smirked Finnley.

”What exactly are you still doing here, Finnley? I have Haki to do the cleaning and look after the baby and Sonia. And what a beautiful job she does too. Without any unnecessary complaining,” Elizabeth added pointedly.

Finnley rolled her eyes. “And I suppose you expect her to do your proofreading as well?

“Oh yes,” Elizabeth conceded gratefully, always amazed at Finnley’s perspicacity.

”By the way,” said Finnley, ”I know you miss Godfrey but you might want to stop with all the comfort eating. Your bum is starting to look obese.”

’Okay, bye, gotta go,” said Finnley, already walking quickly away.

After a few steps she stopped, paused reflectively for a moment, sighed deeply and turned back to Godfrey.

”She misses you. She is back into reading her friggin’ ‘Lemon Juice for the Soul‘ rubbish again. She always was a nutcase of course, but yesterday she was walking around shouting ‘We are like Tolkiens of the nonsense and marvelous!’”

”And that’s another thing,” she continued. ”Why do all your characters have to be in some form of servitude to you?”

She looked accusingly at Elizabeth.

“I’m a lowly cleaner and Godfrey’s sole purpose in life seems to be to agree with everything you say and now poor old Norbert is a gardener! From New Zealand! Of all the godforsaken places you could have chosen.”

“Steady on, Finnley …” began Godfrey

Finnley ignored him.

“You could have made the poor man anything and yet you made him another slave to carry out your every warped whim. Granted, that was rather an obscure comment I made about him liking smelly old fish. Perhaps that did narrow your options somewhat.”

Exhausted, Finnley lapsed into a thoughtful silence.

Elizabeth gazed at her in awed admiration. ”Finnley, your perceptiveness has rendered me speechless.”

“Norrrrbert, here, Norby Norby Norby!” called Godfrey.

“You called, sir?” asked the gardener.

Finnley got a book out of her bag and started reading, rather rudely, Elizabeth thought.

Liz leaned over so that she could read over Finnley’s shoulder, in the absence of anyone to talk to as all the characters had been written out of the script.

“…full of misinformation and wrong opinions.” she read.

“Then sir, you may say so. The ruder you are, the more the editors will be delighted.”

(A point worth bearing in mind, Liz thought)

“But it is my own opinions which I wish to make better known, not other people’s.”

“Ah, but, sir, it is precisely by passing judgements upon other people’s work and pointing out their errors that readers can be made to understand your own opinions better. It is the easiest thing in the world to turn a review to one’s own ends. One only need mention the book once or twice and for the rest of the article one may develop one’s theme just as one chuses. It is, I assure you, what every body else does.”

“Hmm, you may be right. But, no. It would seem as if I were lending support to what ought never to have been published in the first place.”

When Elizabeth had had enough of reading, she wrote Godfrey back into the script.

“The law is an ass, Godfrey,” Elizabeth said, extricating a bit of sag paneer from between her teeth that he had drawn her attention to. “I have no intention of wasting my time in court. As a matter of fact, I’ve written the critic out of the story. And the court. Waste of fecking time, fecking gobshites, the fecking lot of them.”

“You seem to be developing an Irish accent, Liz,” he replied, signalling the waiter for the bill.

“What did you do that for? There was no bill to pay until you introduced the fecking waiter into the script!”

“If you don’t pay the bill or turn up in court, the police will come and arrest you, Liz, have you considered that?”

“What fecking police?” she replied.

“Who are you talking to?” asked Finnley. “I wrote Godfrey out of the story this morning.”

“Whatever for?” Liz asked in surprise.

“He kept talking. I hate talking.”

Wisely, Elizabeth said nothing.

“What I really love about this, Godfrey,” Liz said, “Is that it really is complete rubbish. I mean, it’s not cleverly pretending to be rubbish, it really IS rubbish. But I am feeling the energy, and I feel that I enjoy such utter rubbish, and that’s the feeling that counts.”

When I left the Inn this morning, Mater seemed upset. I regularly kisses her on her forehead before going to the gas station, as I know it pisses her off, but today she seemed lost in her thoughts and she called me Fred. I don’t like it when she does that, it gives me the impression she’s losing it. I wonder who’s going to hold that crumbling place when she’s gone. Certainly not Dido, she can’t focus her mind on a project for more than a few minutes, and it usually does not pass the stage of smokey ideas. I see clearly her game, she’s messing around with Mater for God knows what twisted reasons. They never seemed to appreciate each others much, and I’ve only known them for eighteen years. Looking at how it didn’t evolve much during that time, I bet it had been like that for quite some time. Family relationships are boring, and usually quite messy.

Take Joe for example, he’s crazy. His father is crazy, and his grand-father well he spent so much time in the mines that his family didn’t really miss him when one of the tunnels collapsed while he was inside. They never found the body. The Mining company gave the family a ridiculously small amount of money as an indemnification. Joe’s father lost it in some fracking wallaby race. Bad luck had stuck to him his whole life. Jasper once told me to avoid him. I would have, even if it was not for my dead brother’s warning.

Joe’s working at the gas station with me. He had been working there since he was sixteen when the school told his parents it was a waste of time [for them] to try and teach him anything valuable. His father beat him to keep up the appearances, but they were glad they could put him to work to bring in some more money.

Joe is nuts, but he’s not dumb. He just likes to experiment. He must have a good star watching upon him, unlike his father, because each time he manages to make something explode or break in a real bad way, but he always gets out without a scratch. He’s excited, he’s finished working on his last project. He wants us to borrow a gas tank and go to his place after work. I’ve rarely seen him so excited. We’ll have to put off the hockey with Callum.

Bugger caution, thought Finnley. “My cousin Finly has a new job,” she said impulsively to Godfrey, while they waited for Elizabeth to return from the loo.

Godfrey jumped.

“Finnley, I didn’t realise you were there. How very interesting. Where is your cousin working?”

Finnley sighed loudly and decided impulsive conversation was overrated. Why do people always want to know more? She had given him the bloody gist of it hadn’t she?

“Don’t make me talk. I hate talking,” she said, rudely rolling her eyes.