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“Do you think I should go back and get those dolls?” Dillie asked.

Lucinda hadn’t hesitated.  “Yes. Go back and get them.” She nearly said, and look inside.  “And look for more dolls.”

Then she changed the subject, not wanting to sound too pushy or eager. Or desperate, god forbid. It was important to ensure that Dilly didn’t give the dolls away on impulse or something, she was like that. Somehow Lucinda had to make sure Dillie would keep them safe and well hidden until such time as she could travel again, but without her having to spill the beans entirely. She decided to play it by ear.

Then she realized she didn’t remember what the beans were anyway.

Board 2, Story 2

Lucinda,  worried about what Maeve would think when she found that the magic parrot had turned Fabio into a unicorn, prayed to the blue diamond. The doll behind her kept interrupting.

Becky was having a strong word with the dragon about turning up in green wearing a waistcoat when she’d specifically ordered a sand dragon, and failed to notice the fox.

Roberto decided it was time to talk to Godfrey about his piglets, after finding one of them hobnobbing with a suspicious looking character from another story.

“Adaptability and improvisation are the names of the game now,” said Liz, beaming with satisfaction. Her impulse had been a success. A quick call to the local dog shelter and the delivery of two dogs within the hour had solved the problem nicely. As anyone who’d ever had dogs knew, cleaning up spilled food was simply never a problem.  “You won’t have to wash the dishes anymore now!”

“What do you mean?”  Finnley asked suspiciously.  “Surely you can’t mean…”

“Why, yes!  Just put them all on the kitchen floor and the dogs will do it for you.  They’re ever so good, they won’t miss a single morsel. Which is more than can be said for your washing up. Now don’t pout! Be glad you have one less job to do.”

Godfrey patted the black poodle’s head, which had a funny sort of spring loaded feel.  “We’re keeping the dogs, then?” he asked, failing to keep the hopeful note out of his voice. He was rather taken with the funny little dog.  Without waiting for an answer from Liz he said to the expectant little face peering up at him, “What shall we call you, then?”

The shadow of a frown creased Liz’s brow momentarily as she wondered if she’d done the right thing. Would she be able to stomach seeing Godfrey fawning over a poodle?  Why on earth had the dogs home sent her a poodle? Did she sound like a poodle person?  But then, they’d sent her a lurcher as well.  Liz contemplated taking umbrage at that, did she honestly sound like a lurcher person?  A lurcher poodle person? Or a poodle lurcher person?

“Are we keeping both of them, then?” asked Roberto. “What shall we call you, big boy?”  he asked, addressing the dog.

Finnley and Liz exchanged glances.   “I best be getting on, then, and leave you lot to it. I’m going to the shops to buy some dog food.”

“On the way back call in at the dogs home and pick two more dogs up, Finnley. We may as well have one each. I’ll ring them now.”

Dear Diary

Bella says to me, I want to see the whales. She keeps going on about it, tugging at my skirts while I’m trying to get things done. What do you mean you want to see the whales I asks her. Took me a time to know she means the stories I used to tell about the place where my Mam lives with the legend of the whales there. The place we be going but how can she know that?

 First it is Jimmy and his dreams and now Bella. It be so many years since I told her these tales and now she is remembering them. Cook is here I must leave off writing for now for she is asking after the hens. I won’t have her killing my Esther for her pot. God knows what will happen to them once we’ve gone. I will set them free before then. At least they have a chance.

Shaking, Liz wiped the egg yolk out of the corner of her eye. The beer that was gluing her hair into sticky clumps would have to wait. She flicked a half sausage off the corner of her desk with a tremulous sigh and sat down. Her noble features creased into a momentary visage of despair when she saw the bacon, but her natural stoicism corrected her expression as she picked the rasher up between her thumb and finger, removed if from her keyboard and blithely flicked it over her shoulder.

Roberto, standing silently behind her, ducked nimbly as the greasy slab flew past.  It stuck to the French window briefly and then slithered down, leaving a snail trail of lard.

Liz cleared her throat and looked sternly at each of them in turn.

“What,” she said, her voice cracking, “What next? Whatever next?”

“A whale, maybe?” asked Godfrey with a lop sided smirk.

Dear Diary

Cousin Lisa came calling yesterday morning and she tells us there’s some in the Village have come down with sickness. Of course it would be Lisa being the bearer of such news, her face lit up when I tell her I have heard nothing. Cook, over hearing our conversation, which was private but Cook is always sticking her great nose in where it is not required, she’s hung braids of garlic at the front door. I caught her telling the children it was to keep away the evil spirits that brought death. Poor little Jimmy couldn’t sleep last night he was that afraid of the spirits bringing death in the night. He asked endless questions,  how will the garlic stop them? Can the spirits get in through a window instead? He got his sister afraid also and the pair of them wouldn’t sleep then for crying in fear. I told Cook off roundly this morning for speaking to them thus.

The master came home filled with drink, crashing around like the damned drunken fool he is nowadays. He shouted at the children for their crying and shouted at me for not keeping them quiet. At least he did not raise his fists for he wanted to lie with me and I nearly retched with his stinking breath coming close and thank God for His mercies that the fool passed out before he could do the deed. I may have done harm if he’d tried for the brass bell was sitting there on the table (and it is a heavy thing) and I was seeing at it as he came close and there was a moment I could have picked it up and crashed it to his skull. May God forgive me. 

He makes my skin crawl for I know what he has done that he thinks I don’t know. But all will come to light if not in this world then the next. I am more sure than ever I must get away and the children with me.

11:11. If that’s not a good time to start a new journal, I don’t know what is. Four Ones.

It’s a good job I hid all my old journals before all those scavengers looted all my stuff. Downsizing they called it. De cluttering.  As if a lifelong collection of mementos and treasures was clutter.  No finesse, this lot, no imagination.  Clean sweep, bare white, sanitary, efficient. God help us.

They didn’t get their hands on all of it though. I hid things.  Don’t ask me where though! ha ha. They’ll turn up when they need to.  At least some of it didn’t end up on the trash heap.

No room to swing a cat in here. No pets allowed. Inhuman, I tell you. They don’t know about the mouse I’ve been feeding.  They call it sheltered accommodation, and it’s a downright lie, I tell you.  I get the full brunt of the westerly wind right through that pokey window because they keep trimming the bushes flat outside.  Flat topped bushes, I ask you. Those young gardener fellows cut the flower buds right off, just to get the flat top.

I’ll be hiding this journal, I don’t want any of them reading it.  It won’t be easy, they snoop around everything with their incessant cleaning.  They don’t even give the dust a chance to settle before they wipe, wipe, wipe with their rubber gloves and disposable cloths.  I have to cover my nose with my hanky after they’ve been, stinking the place out with air fresheners that make me sneeze.  Not what I call fresh air. Maybe that draught through the window isn’t so bad after all.

Anyway, I won’t be staying here, but they don’t know that. Just as soon as my hip stops playing up and I can make a run for it.

“Why are you looking guilty?”  It was impossible for Godfrey to hide anything from Liz. She noticed at once the nervous tic in his left eye, and the way he was shuffling his feet around.  He was clearly rattled about something.

“I’ve g g g ot a confession to m m make,” he stuttered. Liz had never heard Godfrey stutter before, and it was unheard of for him to make confessions.  Something was troubling her old friend greatly, and she was concerned.

Liz sighed.  If only Finnley were here.  God knows where she was, gallivanting around and leaving Liz to deal with a demented Godfrey on her own, when she had so much writing to do.

Moving the bowl of peanuts out of Godfrey’s reach, in case he choked on them in his stuttering condition, Liz gently suggested that he spill the beans and tell her all about it.

“I put two of your characters in jail.”

Liz gasped and her hand flew to her mouth.

“And now,” Godfrey’s voice caught on a little sob,  “And now, I have to pay the bail money to get them out.”

“Why not just get Mr August to talk Mellie Noma into paying it? She got the kid back ~ mysteriously, I must say, quite a gap in the tale there..”

“Well it’s your book, so it’s your gap,” Godfrey retorted, reverting back to his old self.

“Then what were you doing in it, putting my characters in jail?” Liz snapped back. “Go and get that bail paid so they can go to Australia. Otherwise you’re going to muck up another book.”

“I thought you said we were going to Australia,  April? This doesn’t look like Australia to me,” she said casting a despondent eye around the dismal cell. “Why do they always paint them grey?”

“To make you suffer. You’re not supposed to enjoy it.”

“Barbaric,” sniffed June. “And inefficient. I refuse to be rehabilitated unless they improve the accommodation.”

“Fat chance of that” April snorted. “We’ll be sewing mailbags or being a guinea pig for the latest bolonavirus vaccine.”

“What? No art classes and gym and choice of menu?” June was aghast. “You had better get us out of here! That latest scam was all your idea, anyway.”

“Actually, no, it wasn’t.  It was that guy, what was his name? Godfrey? The one that comes to see Mr August sometimes. I was in the elevator with him one day and right out of the blue, I mean, I don’t know him personally, but he planted all these crazy ideas in my head telling me about how fool proof this credit card trick was…”

“He can pay the bail money then.”

“Now there’s an idea.”

With her pink glove on and her lips apart, Liz passed her finger on the bookshelf. Making the most of the opportunity of Finnley’s excursion outside, Liz had pretexted she wanted to show Roberto how to check for dust. In truth, but she would never confess to it, except to Godfrey after a few drink and some cashew nuts later that day, in truth she had bought a new pink uniform for the gardener/handyman and wanted to see how it fitted him. Of course, she had ordered a few sizes under, so Roberto’s muscles bulged quite nicely under the fabric of the short sleeves, stretching the seam in a dangerously exciting way.

“What’s this book?” asked Roberto.

“What?” asked Liz who had been lost in one of the worst case scenario. Why would Roberto talk about something as undersexying as a book? Nonetheless, without wanting to, her eyes followed the gardener’s sexy arm down to his sexy finger pointing at the book spine and her brain froze on the title: “An Aesthetic of the Night Mare“, by Vanina Vain.

“What’s this book doing among my personal work?” she asked, all sexying forgotten.

“Don’t you remember?” asked Godfrey who happened to pass behind her. “Years ago when you still read your fanmail you answered one from a young girl wanting to follow in your footsteps. You sent her a handwritten copy of Rilke’s letter to a young poet. I wrote it myself and Finnley signed it for you. She’s so good at imitating your signature. Well anyway a few years later that girl finally published her first book and sent you a copy to thank you.”

“Have I read it?” Liz asked.

“You might have. But I’m not sure. It’s quite Gothic. The girl takes advantage of her sleep paralysis at night to do some crazy experiences.”

Liz had no recollection whatsoever of it, but that was not the point.

“Tsk. What’s it doing among my personal work bookshelves? Don’t we have somewhere else to put that kind of…”

“The trash you mean?” asked Finnley.

“Oh! You’re back”, said Liz.

“Tsk, tsk. Such disappointment in your voice. But I’m never far away, and luckily for some”, she added with a look at Roberto who was trying to stretch the sleeve without breaking the seam.

Finnley had a feeling that May down in the kitchen knew something about the baby girl imposter.  On impulse, she pushed her cleaning cart over to the service lift.  Luckily the baby was still sleeping soundly.

May was in the lavatory, a young woman informed Finnley as she entered the kitchen.

“Are you Finnley?” Fanella pushed her chair back and stood up. “I ‘ave come to ‘elp you with the bedding.”

The familiar voice roused the baby, whose cry was at once recognized by her mother. Fanella knocked her chair over a she dived into the pile of dusters and seized the child.  “My baby!” she cried.

“Thank god for that,” said Finnley under her breath.

“I have nothing against outrageous clothes,” Liz said, feeling the unspoken murmurs of “we noticed” from the others. She smoothed down the voluminous pink satin of her floor length gown, batting her false eyelashes.  “Life is one long fancy dress party, and one should dress accordingly. Today I am Barbara Tartland,” Liz flashed her long pink nails. “Otherwise known as the Pink Thing.”

Godfrey replied with some alarm, “You’re not planning on writing soppy romances are you, all with identical plots and predictable characters?”

“Why Godfrey, I thought you’d be pleased,” Liz said. “You know how they fly off the shelves.”

“That’s because the characters are trying to commit suicide,” said Finnley.

“Nobody else can see him, Liz. Or her. Whatever.”

Liz shoved her glasses back up her nose and peered at Finnley. “What are you on about now?”

“Trebuchet. Nobody else can see it. I’ve asked Godfrey. I’ve asked Roberto. I asked all your ex-husbands. I even skyped that maid we sent packing  in a suitcase—she’s fine by the way—and she said she had a doubt too.”

“Those fools! What would they know!”

“I’m many things but I’m no fool!” said Godfrey emerging from behind the curtains.

“Why on earth are you wearing a pith helmet, Godfrey?”

Godfrey beamed. “Glad you noticed. What do you think? Alessandro told me it was all the rage.”

“I’m very uncomfortable with fashion, Godfrey. As you well know. One of the reasons I hired you was for your obvious lack of any fashion sense. And as for you, Finnley, if you don’t exchange those wide-legged pants for something less à la mode, I will have to re-instate a uniform.”

Finnley

Finding the baby makes me believe there might be a god after all.

The maid was playing it cool but I could tell she’d been quaking in her beaded slippers. The baby was not so happy to be found, screaming fit to bust.

I have to shout over the racket. “Where can I find Mr August?”

She looks down her long nose at me. “Mr August does not see you without an appointment.”

You would think that, seeing as I had found the baby and all, she could be a little more accommodating. I resist an urge to grab the brat from her and chuck it out on the street again. I console myself with the thought that, if I get the job, I am going to be Miss Fancy-Slipper’s boss, so it’s no wonder she’s a little frosty.

What am I saying? If?

Acutally, I’m feeling pretty confident. I’m wearing my lucky knickers and I’ve got enough faked references to fill a suitcase. You could say I am oozing confidence. I probably need to tone it down a notch; that’s one thing I learned at my last job working for a crazy romance writer with delusions of grandeur: People don’t like competition.

And I’m competition.

“Thanks,” I say when she finally deigns to point me in the right direction. “Oh, and I think you’ll find his nappies need changing.”

Mater

There’s no two ways about it: I’ve let myself go. There’s never any excuse for that, even if you are turning one hundred. I’ve always tried to impress this on Dodo, but will she listen? That hair of hers! God knows what’s hiding in it. And those nasty dungarees she likes so much; they’d stand on their own if she ever got out of them.

Not that I am one for fashion, mind. Last thing I bought was a few decades ago. Some striped pants that one of the twins helped me buy on the internet, on the line, as they say. The legs were that wide I was scared some critter might crawl up to my privates. Don’t want that going on at my age! When Bert said he had a pair like it once, well, that was the last straw.

One hundred!  Wonder if I’ll get one of those letters from the King. That’s about all the monarchy are good for now. After that debacle back in the 20’s, thought they’d do away with them. But old big ears is hanging in there; reckon he must be nearing his hundredth soon.

Anyway, the mirror doesn’t lie and what it’s telling me ain’t so fancy. My hair looks like something the moths have had a chew at and I’ve put on that much flab the only thing will fit me is a potato sack. And now Prune’s planning some big birthday bash…I’ve got my work cut out! She thinks I don’t know but there’s not much gets by me. If people think you’ve lost your marbles, they’ll say all sorts in front of you. And since those magic pills the aboriginal fellow gave me, my marbles are all back where they should be, thank you very much! Now I just need some pills for my boobs.