Search Results for 'mater'

Aunt Idle:

Bert came with me. Usually one of us always stayed home to keep an eye on Mater and the kids, but now we had that capable girl, Finly, to keep an eye on things.

It was good to get away from the place for a few hours, and head off on a different route to the usual shopping and errand trips. The nearest sizable town was in the opposite direction; it was years since I’d been to Ninetown. I asked Bert about the place on the other side of the river, what was it that intrigued him so. I’ll be honest, I wondered if he was losing his marbles when he said it was the medieval ruins over there.

“Don’t be daft, Bert, how can there be medieval ruins over there?” I asked.

“I didn’t say they were medieval, Idle, I said that’s what they looked like,” he replied.

“But …but history, Bert! There’s no history here of medieval towns! Who could have built it?”

“That’s why I found it so fucking interesting, but if it doesn’t fit the picture, nobody wants to hear anything about it!”

“Well I’m interested Bert. Yes, yes, I know I wasn’t interested before, but I am now.”

Bert grunted and lit a cigarette.

We stopped at a roadside restaurant just outside Ninetown for lunch. The midday heat was enervating, but inside the restaurant was a pleasant few degrees cooler. Bert wasn’t one for small talk, so I picked up a local paper to peruse while I ate my sandwich and Bert tucked into a greasy heap of chips and meat. I flicked through it without much interest in the mundane goings on of the town, that is, until I saw those names: Tattler, Trout and Trueman.

It was an article about a ghost town on the other side of Ninetown that had been bought up by a consortium of doctors. Apparently they’d acquired it for pennies as it had been completely deserted for decades, with the intention of developing it into an exclusive clinic.

“There’s something fishy about that!” I exclaimed, a bit too loudly. Several of the locals turned to look at me. I lowered my voice, not wanting to attract any more attention while I tried to make sense of it.

“Read this!” I passed the paper over the Bert.

“So what?” he asked. “Who cares?”

“Look!” I said, jabbing my finger on the names Tattler, Trout and Trueman. Bert looked puzzled, understandably enough. “Allow me to explain” I said, and I told him about the business card that Flora had left on the porch table.

“What does Flora have to do with this consortium of doctors? And what the hell is the point in setting up a clinic there, in the middle of nowhere?”

“That,” I replied, “Is the question!”

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.

Mater:

I am beginning to think the Inn may be riddled with ghosts. Or is it me who needs to go to mental health services? Perhaps I really am losing my marbles?

Yogi’s teleporting classes in Camden Town had been going on for about 6 months, a small group of people determined to master the art, each member dedicated to the pursuit for particular reasons of their own.

Freya wanted to be able to travel, but was restricted because of her dogs and cats. He aim was to “lunch travel” and have lunch in a different country every day, being home in the mornings and evenings to look after her pets. John wanted to retire to the south of France, but keep an eye on his book shop in London, without the tedium and expense of airline flights. Justin, however, was a black bloc anarchist, and wanted to be able to teleport to protests all over the world, and be able to evade police kettles, and escape from Jail should he ever find himself in that position. Samantha was writing an exposé on the nefarious goings on of government ministers, but was for obvious reasons denied access to the places and documents that she needed to see. Fred missed his children and wanted to visit them, an impossibility in his current homeless destitute situation. Luckily for Fred, Yogi didn’t charge a fee for the classes, more interested in determination and commitment than monetary rewards.

Fred had managed on several occasions to project his awareness to the Flying Fish Inn, but had not yet achieved a full physical materialization. He had blinked in and out a couple of times, but had become nervous of frightening the children when he’d unintentionally startled Mater.

Prune’s journal

The quarantine wasn’t as long as expected, we’ll be on Mars tomorrow. The Indian guy didn’t explain much of what happened. Maybe it was just a drill.
Anyhow, Hans has kept his promise, and the guinea pig is fine. Somehow, it seems to have grown stronger in space. Maybe the lesser gravity?
Mater would have liked it.
Speaking of Mater, I got that strange feeling she’s with me somehow. Funny, come to think of it, she was always the one talking about the spirit world. Was never really sure if she was well in her head when she finally opened to me about it (everything else showed that yes, she was nowhere near senility, even before death struck).
If someone should chose to play poltergeist after all, who else than Mater. Way to go Ma!

Mater:

I showed Finly to her room. I have put her in room 10 — opposite Mr What’s-his-name, the guest — which is the nicest guest room in the house and one of the few which Fred got round to doing up before he left.

On the spur of the moment I asked her if she believed in ghosts. She looked at me intently and said “There’s a lot we don’t understand. I can’t say I believe or disbelieve.” And that was it. I didn’t press it further. She is a serious girl but her references were excellent and I think she will be a hard worker. Not one to take nonsense from anyone.

I asked her if she would like the day off tomorrow to settle in and suggested she could start her duties on Wednesday.

“I can see I have my work cut out here,” she said. “The sooner I get started the better.”

And dear God we need some help around here, I thought.

The other day I caught Dido throwing gin all over herself and laughing. I am concerned I will need to call mental health services soon. I didn’t say anything at the time — I don’t think she saw me. I have been annoyed with her in the past for her lackadaisical attitude towards caring for the kids, but when I saw the poor demented thing throwing gin at herself, well, for the first time I felt really sorry for her.

Aunt Idle:

Well I’m not one to complain, as you know, and I’m not the competitive sort at all, but I did have to raise an eyebrow when everyone agreed to Mater’s suggestion of getting some help with the cleaning. It’s a wonderful idea, but it wasn’t her idea, I’d been planting the seeds for ages. She never would have suggested if I’d carried on doing it all myself, I had to let it go a bit, get in a mess. When they started talking behind my back about me drinking, I played along with it, splashing gin on my hair and leaving an empty bottle laying around. I had to keep retrieving the same bottle from the bin, so I could pretend it was another bottle I’d drunk. They were all easily fooled, and I started to enjoy it.

It was Mater who decided they needed to get some cleaning help. She commandeered Clove to do some research on the internet and eventually found a woman from New Zealand, Finly, who was offering her cleaning services in exchange for room and board.

“Bloody kiwis,” said Bert when he heard. “The place is riddled with them. Bloody come and take our jobs. Haven’t we got more than enough of them here already? I am having a hard enough time avoiding that Flora, going on about her spiritual bloody awakening.”

“If you can find anyone local who would be willing to do the cleaning in exchange for a place to stay, I will be glad to consider them,” retorted Mater sternly. “But in the meantime this place is fast becoming a pig-sty and Dido is too busy smoking and drinking to see it.”

Naturally Mater got her way and a few days later Bert, still grumbling, agreed to go and pick Finly up from the airport. Mater assembled the family in the main living room.

“Now remember, the main thing is to be courteous. God only knows why she agreed to come to this backwater of a place, but we don’t want to put her off.”

”Don’t we indeed?” smirked Aunt Idle.

“Yeah exactly, it is friggin’ weird I reckon. Why would she come here?” asked Clove, privately deciding she had better run a more thorough background check on Finly.

“I thought Finly was a boy’s name,” said Coriander. “That would be cool. A boy cleaner. I hope he’s hot. He can clean topless”

Aunt Idle, who had already been into the gin even though it wasn’t yet 10am, put her hand over her mouth and started to giggle.

“It can be a girl or a boy’s name and someone called Coriander is in no position to throw stones. And mind your language, Clove.” responded Mater tartly.

Clove rolled her eyes and sighed dramatically. “Well as long as she doesn’t try and boss me around, it might be quite fun to have a slave to clean up after me.”

Prune had been keeping an eye on the window. “Shush, she’s here!” she shouted excitedly.

Prune had only just managed to get 157 — Mater had liked to call all the guinea pigs by numbers; she said it helped her keep track — safely back inside her jacket when a loud screeching alarm went off. The next moment Finnley’s smooth voice, programmed to convey anxiety, reverberated around the ship

“Code Red, Code Red. Leave whatever you are doing and assemble in Area 12. I repeat leave whatever you are doing and assemble in Area 12.”

Prune and Hans looked at each other uneasily and began to run.

“Oh there you are Bert!” Mater said, trying to push aside the odd feeling that Bert had materialized in front of her, rather than walking into the room in the usual way. “Flora wants to spend a penny.”

“One moment I was on my way to get coffee; the next I was up there on the ceiling. I looked down and saw a lady lying on the ground with blood oozing from her head and I was thinking ‘someone should help her!’ and then I realised with some surprise it was me laying down there on the ground. ‘How could that be?’ I asked myself. I realised that I must have died. And, do you know what? I didn’t care. I felt amazing. For the first time in my life I felt truly free. I felt no more attachment to the body on the ground than I do to this … “

Flora paused to look around and her gaze finally settled on one of the sofa cushions — a dirty looking thing which was decorated with an embroidered kangaroo.

“… this cushion here.”

She hit it to emphasise her point and a cascade of dust rose in the air. She looked at Mater sadly and continued softly:

“Then I heard a voice telling me it was not my time and next thing I knew I was back in my body with this pounding great headache.”

Flora paused reflectively for a moment while she sipped on the cup of tea Prune had bought her.

“Mater, this experience has changed me. I thought I had it all before: good looks, a fantastic figure—especially my butt—a successful career, but now I realise I was in penury. Trapped by my own brilliance into a shallow empty existence.”

“What’s that you say?” asked Mater, struggling to follow Flora’s very thick New Zealand accent. “And who the devil is Penny?”

She wondered where Bert had got to. One moment he was there and the next he just seemed to disappear.

Flora came to her senses muttering something about a coachload of American tourists in Italy. Bert had been the first to arrive at the scene of the accident. Not one to flap in a crisis, he calmly picked up the injured woman and carried her to the sofa in the living room, instructing Prune to fetch the mop and clean the blood off the floor. By the time Bert had seen to the wound on Flora’s head, she was starting to come round, muttering gibberish and apparently confused.

“Where am I? Is this Florence or Rome? Am I late?” she asked, telling Bert she was perfectly alright now thank you, although she clearly wasn’t.

“No, you aint late, dear, it’s still quite early,” Bert replied soothingly.

“But I must get to the Vatican Library, I must be getting on now,” she said, trying to stand up.

Bert gently but firmly pushed her back down, saying, “Have a nice cup of tea first, plenty of time for that later.”

“What the dickens is going on now?” asked Mater. “What’s all this about Rome? Anyone seen my reading glasses?” she asked, peering around the room from the doorway.

Bert explained briefly, and asked Mater to sit with Flora while he went to make the tea.

Mater:

I am picking some grass for the guinea pigs. Delicate wee things; they don’t handle the heat well and I have moved them to the shelter of the shed. The wind has come up strong and I am enjoying the cooling it brings with it. The long grass bends away from me as though seeking safety from the scissors I hold in my hand. For a moment the wind subsides and I can feel how the sun is burning my neck so I take refuge in the shade of a tree.

Thinking time.

I heard Prune crying out last night in her sleep. She had already fallen back asleep when I went to check on her. It crossed my mind when she cried out that she may have seen the ghost too. I asked her about it in the morning but she did not seem to recall her nightmare.

“I slept liketh a log but I thanketh thou for thy kindness in asking dearest Mater,” she said to me.

”Enough of that cheek!” I told her, but was privately relieved she was okay.

Anyway, It has been twice now. I wake and there he is, over by the antique oak chest in the corner of my room. At first I can’t move or call out. And by the time I can he has gone. When I say “gone”, I don’t mean he walks out the door. He just sort of fades away. He has his back to me so I can’t tell you what his face is like. All I can tell you is that he is tall and he has on a blue robe, in a silky fabric, almost like a dressing gown with a tie in the middle.

There, I have told you now. You may be thinking it is just a silly old woman’s dream. But you don’t get to my age without having plenty of dreams, and this was nothing like any dream I have ever had.

“I heard Mater calling Aunty a trollop,” announced Clove ceremoniously.

“What’s a trollop when its at home?” Corrie looked up with interest.

“A tart I think. Prune! get away from the door. I might not be able to see you but I can smell your stinky feet. Go have a bath or something.”

“Ye are the stinky tarty trollops” said Prune, feigning stately dignity as she poked her head around the door. “Dunna yer spake that way to her whose feet yer not fit to touch or nothing! Ye tarty trollops,” she added for good measure.

Mater:

I am concerned about Dido. The silly trollop has taken up drinking again—in front of the kids too. Mark my words, she will end up back in rehab if it goes on. Like last time. And then where will we all be? Those poor little mites without a father or mother and their Aunt fast turning into a crazy slush. There’s no telling her though. God knows I have tried in the past.

I can only hope she will settle down when that kiwi friend arrives—Flora someone. Though I don’t hold out much hope really. I have not met a kiwi with a half a brain in their head yet. And that awful accent! I don’t need this aggravation at my age.

Calm down, remember what Jiemba told you.

I have not told you yet about my visit to Jiemba, have I? There has been so much going on here, what with the fish going missing and that odd guest staying in Room 8 and Dido’s antics, it nearly slipped my mind.

It was Prune who hid the fish, of course. Sensitive wee thing — she has always had a particularly strong dislike of the awful old relic and I can’t say I blame her. Dido went ape when Prune eventually confessed, but secretly I found it rather amusing.

I digress, yet again.

In the end it was Bert who helped me more than Jiemba. The dear man waited out in the truck for me while I kept my appointment with Jiemba. And he held my secret safe from the others. I am grateful to him for that. It felt nice to have someone who would do that for me. On the trip back home he opened up and told me stories about the town. Apparently in its heyday it even had an ice-cream factory; I hadn’t heard that before. Nor some of the other stories he told me. There are not many left around here with the knowledge Bert has. I feel I may even pluck up courage to tell him what I have seen at the Inn. Perhaps he may have some thoughts on it.

But not just yet.

Jiemba gave me some salve made from native bush bark for my aches and pains. It seems he is more modern than his father—things change I guess. I wanted to ask him about the ghost, but what with the dogs and kids running around outside and the heat and the baby screaming in the house somewhere, I could not bring myself to do it. But one thing he said to me has stuck.

“Live from your heart”.

It was the way he said it. Very intense. He went quiet and stared at the floor for a long time while I tried not to fidget. As though he was communing with some spirit world I could not see. Though I would dearly love to. I have thought about those words since then, trying to figure out what they mean.

I’m not sure I can even find my heart, let alone live from it.

Bert crept past room 8 again, listening. There it was again, the voice of a woman. How the heck did the dusty old geezer manage to smuggle a woman into his room? It didn’t make sense, there were so few people in the town that a strange woman would have been noticed, someone would have mentioned it. And the woman had a strange accent, Bert couldn’t place it, but it wasn’t an accent he was familiar with. Sounded almost old fashioned, although he couldn’t be sure. His hearing wasn’t so good these days. A foreign woman in town, and not a mention anywhere? No, it didn’t make sense.

Bert had a few jobs to do, but wanted to keep an eye on the door of room 8. Whoever was in there would need to come out to use the bathroom sooner or later. He decided to ask Prune to keep watch while he fed the chickens, Prune would enjoy keeping a secret, and he wanted to keep quiet about his suspicions until he knew a bit more. Nobody would find it odd to see Prune lurking around in a dark corridor.

“Do you not see that satchel o’er yon upon that fine stout table? Do but hand it this way, noble sir.”

Prune pressed her ear to the door and frowned. It was a woman’s voice, but what was she on about?

“Your Grace, I would sit with thee and spake…”.

Her name must be Grace, deduced Prune, wondering why the old dusty bugger was speaking funny as well.

“…..whence I have received from thee the artefact. Get to it, you lay about excuse for a man, I do ha’e me most urgent and important things to apply my considerable value upon.”

What a rude tart, thought Prune, and she hadn’t even paid for a room. She heard no more from inside the room because at that moment Aunt Idle came roaring and crashing down the corridor with the hoover. Prune scuttled off past her and went to find Bert.

Prune had just started to explain to Bert about Grace when Mater came beetling across the yard to join them.

“Bert, where’s the fish gone?”

Bert and Prune looked at each other. “What fish?”

“The flying fish that’s been hanging on the wall all these years, it’s gone,” she said, pointing towards the house with her walking stick.

Open mouthed in astonishment, Prune raced back to the house to check for herself.

Aunt Idle:

After all the fuss had died down about the missing Mater, I lost interest in the map and the strange note. It was as if the distraction interrupted my train of thought (some might say another of Idle’s hamster wheels, or another ludicrous tangent), so I gave the maps back to the girls and the mysterious note was mostly forgotten. If it meant anything, well, sooner or later it would become clear.

Truth be told, it wasn’t just the fuss about Mater that distracted me, it was the phone call from my old friend in New Zealand. Flora Fenwick was making another of her arty party videos, wanted to come over to check out some of the empty properties for filming. I’d seen all her arty farty party videos online, and we’d been friends for years via Spacenook, but we’d never met in person.

The timing was perfect.

Corrie:

“Why have you locked your door, Aunt Idle?” I asked, after waiting rather a long time for her to open it. She looked a bit flushed, so I looked around to see if she had another feller in there but she didn’t, not unless he was hiding in the closet. She didn’t usually hide her lovers from us though, and anyway, I had more important things on my mind.

“Mater’s still missing and it’s been dark for an hour already, what should we do?”

Aunt Idle just stared at me with her mouth open and didn’t say anything.

“We can’t just go to bed, what if something’s happened to her? Nobody even knows where she went!”

“Mater’s missing, is that what you’re telling me?” she asked, just as if it was the first she’d heard about it. “Have you checked her room? Did she leave a note or a clue or anything? For heaven’s sake, Corrie, why on earth didn’t you tell me sooner! Go and fetch Prune, well wake her up then!” she added as I protested that she’d gone to bed ages ago. “Prune always seems to know things. And where’s Bert? Has he seen her?”

“I’m trying to tell you, Auntie, that nobody knows!”