Gilliflowers, Bonds of Affection, Memoirs of a Houseboy 2008

Gilliflowers

Bonds of Affection

Memoirs of a Houseboy

Book 4

Copyright © Gillibran Brown 2012

Smashwords Edition

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Houseboy Works/Gillibran Brown - 2012

Cover designed by Gillibran Brown

Other Books by Gillibran Brown:

Fun with Dick and Shane

More Fun with Dick and Shane

Achilles and the Houseboy

http://www.Gillibran-brown.com

Table of contents:

Thursday 10th January 2008

Frail Daffodils for the Ancient Dead

Fish Tale

Friday 11th January 2008

Sunday 13th January 2008

Monday 14th January 2008

Friday 18th January 2008

Saturday 19th January 2008

Tuesday 22ndJanuary 2008

Shane’s Birthday Dinner Report

Post Scriptum

Friday 25th January 2008

Monday 28th January 2008

Wednesday 30th January 2008

Monday 4th February 2008

Tuesday 5th February 2008

Wednesday 6th February 2008

Friday 8th February 2008

Sunday 10th February 2008

Jottings on a Saturday Afternoon in February

Saturday 16th February 2008

Saturday 15th March 2008

Sunday 16th March 2008

Thursday 20th March 2008

Monday 31st March 2008

Saturday 3rd May 2008

Easter Bleatings

Gilliflowers

Fall Out Boy

Dance Dance

Tuesday 6th May 2008

Sunday 11th May 2008

Wednesday 14th May 2008

Monday 19th May 2008

Friday June 13th 2008

Not the Man from Del Monte

Hard Limits

It’s Lee’s Party and I’ll Cry If I Want to

Captain Pugwash and the Bank Holiday Mutineer

Birthday Annotation

Saturday 28th June 2008

Wednesday 16th July 2008

Saturday 19th July 2008

Saturday 26th July 2008

Sunday 27th July 2008

Wednesday 30th July 2008

A Summer Bridge

Who Knows Where the Time Goes

Monday 1st September 2008

Thursday 4th September 2008

Friday 12th September 2008

Sunday 14th September 2008

Friday 19th September 2008

Saturday 25th October 2008

Gooseberry Fool

Autumn Fall

Your Sins Will Find You Out

Waking the Chihuahua

Day of Reckoning

Sunday 26th October 2008

Friday 31st October 2008

Sunday 2nd November 2008

Thursday 13th November 2008

Glass Beads

Monday 17th November 2008

Wednesday 19th November 2008

Friday 21st November 2008

Sunday 21st December 2008

The Winter Houseboy

Monday 22nd December 2008

Thursday 10th January 2008

It’s too easy to fall out of the habit of writing and journaling. Over the past couple of weeks I’ve thought about doing it, but not acted on it. I sometimes think this automated ‘blog’ business isn’t conducive to the real art of keeping a diary. There’s a disheartening aspect to it that you don’t get when you keep a private diary, especially an old fashioned one involving pen to paper. The latter is simply you in conversation with your confessor the diary. It’s a strictly limited interaction with no expectation of a response. It’s satisfying insofar as it gives you an opportunity to chart the mundane, as well as intimate aspects of your daily life without worrying whether it sounds boring or whether it's going to piss off some unpleasant stranger who will then dash off a vitriolic email viciously castigating you for your thoughts and feelings.

Part of the appeal of electronic writing as opposed to the paper and ink variety is to do with laziness, certainly in my case. It’s much easier to type than it is to take the time to write script properly. I can type several pages on the computer in the time it would take me to write a fluent paragraph by hand, which is great in one respect, and yet there’s something, some element about writing by hand that’s lost when using an electronic medium. I think the missing element is creative intimacy, a warm link between you and the words you craft, and that’s why I often like to sit with a notebook and pencil scribbling down thoughts and ideas in preference to the cold efficiency of the computer keyboard.

Anyway I finally decided to get to take the plunge and resume the business of being a diarist. I find it facilitates the process of making sense of things, and heaven knows I need a way of making sense out of the spaghetti junction of thought lanes in my head. I can take an incident or a thought and write it on the page and immediately I have a way of examining it from a less involved perspective.

Come on, Gilli, I hear you say, shut up chewing and mulling and just get on with writing the fucking diary. Okay, okay, calm down. Sheesh, I get nothing but nagging.

Here we go then. Fasten your seatbelts for another round of domestic adventures with YT. Think of me as a gay male version of Flora Thompson writing not so much about Larkrise to Candleford as Arsehole to Breakfast Time. The BBC will never commission it as a series, but there you go, it’s their loss. I had an email not so long ago, which said ‘Gilli, one rather likes your books even though they have no plot to them.’ Well, Your Majesty (bobs a curtsy) that’s because none of us common folk are born with a solid plot to our lives. Life for most of us is plotless perhaps even clueless. It unfolds as a series of incidents as we wend our way through our allotted days. (Lie detector says please make clear the Queen did NOT write to you.) Okay I lied about the mailer’s identity. It wasn’t from royal Lizzie, but I bet she’d prefer reading my stuff to the boring official documents she normally has to plough her way through while using the royal facility.

The weather has been horrible for the past few days, wet, cold and windy. I can cope with each element on its own but in combination they really piss me off. I take it as a personal affront. Running is virtually impossible when it’s blowing a gale that drives sleet and rain through your body like steel rods. I fell over yesterday when a particularly strong gust of wind buffeted me and I lost my footing on the wet pavement. You don’t half feel a pranny when you fall onto your fanny, as the Americans call the unisex arse area. English fannies are something altogether more frontal and feminine, but we won’t go into them now, maybe later when I’m feeling braver and more up to exploring uncharted territory.

I ripped the seat of my running shorts in the fall. I got scant sympathy from the boyfriends. They said it was stupid to be out running in such vile conditions anyway. Shane suggested I join him in the gym, but I declined. I detest running on a treadmill. I don’t like being surrounded by a load of other people doing exactly the same thing. It makes me feel like a cog in a machine. I enjoy exercising in the fresh air, well relatively fresh air barring traffic pollution and the pong from any dog shit bins I pass. I enjoy seeing trees and houses, gardens and different people doing different things as they go about the process of living. I like imparting greetings, a nod and a smile to someone I recognise, but don’t know in any deep sense. They’re just a familiar face from around the locality. There’s a possibility of friendship there, but in all likelihood it will come to nothing.

Getting back to weather. We lost a couple of roof tiles on Monday night when it really stormed, but they’re fixed now and we’ve had the entire roof checked over and made sound. I wanted to get up there and have a go at doing it myself. I love trying my hand at different things. Shane just about popped out a haemorrhoid when I suggested it. He did not want a houseboy prone to fits clambering over his roof, thank you very much. Much chuntering about common sense accompanied by finger jabbing followed. I did consider pulling him up over his use of the word ‘fit’ instead of my preferred ‘episode,’ but one look at his mush convinced me it would be akin to skateboarding off a cliff without a safety helmet and knee pads. All in all I wish I'd never mentioned it. He can be a very grumpy man if you push the wrong button and God knows I sometimes feel my finger is permanently glued to his wrong button.

Christmas was a bit of a mixed bag in its way. We hosted a lot this year, which meant piles of work for me, but then Christmas is one of the busiest times for those of us in the domestic and catering industry. On the whole I pulled things off pretty well, though at one point I felt it was all going to go pear shaped after I got myself in what Shane calls one of my states of ‘mindless fucking hysteria.’ It’s not a description I particularly like. My brain conjures up a rather disturbing image of a vacant eyed houseboy on a frenzied rutting spree attempting to shag anything and everything in sight. Granted, my brain does have a rather strange way of working. I reckon my skull was accidentally fitted with an early prototype whose wiring was found to be erratic and subsequently abandoned.

What Sir Shane means in his own inimitable fashion is that I often lapse into moods of introspection whereby the rational sensible me, and yes, mock ye not, there is one, is replaced by what sounds like the title of a Tim Minchin song - ‘Irrational Emotional Me.’ I might write to him and suggest it as a song title, though I’ll want a cut of the royalties and a mention in the credits.

Anyway, he says, taking a moment to draw breath, IEM got in a stew over this and that. I ended up clashing with Penny, no surprises there then. She and the Muppet spent a week with us over the festive period, arriving on the Saturday before Christmas. He’s okay, I can handle him, but she’s a moo. If I were a cheerleader I’d shake my pom-poms to the tune of B-I-T-C-H every time she put in an appearance. She gives me no quarter at all. Dick says I give her no quarter either, but I’m sure I’d be more clement to her if she showed even a modicum of tolerance for me.

I lost my rag. I told her to go fuck herself as it might put a smile on her miserable face. I also slung wine in her direction. I regretted my behaviour. I don’t like the woman, but there was no need to be crude and bad mannered. I’m not proud of it. She just winds my key in the wrong direction. I’ve written up the details in two chapters named Frail Daffodils for the Ancient Dead and Fish Tale. Read them now if you wish, or come back to them later. It’s your choice.

I’m beginning to feel quite nauseous and gut achy. Dick’s had this stomach bug that’s been sweeping the nation. I suspect it’s now about to sweep my way. I can feel wind of a non-weather variety beginning to build in the vicinity of my rear porch. I’d better go before it blows like a tornado and sends this friend of Dorothy spinning off to Oz on a computer chair, though if I could guarantee landing on a certain wicked witch it might be worth the experience.

Frail Daffodils for the Ancient Dead

I awoke in the early hours of Saturday morning with the remnants of a weird dream flitting through my mind. I’d been trying to stuff a goose, but it refused to be stuffed, with sage and onion I hasten to add. I wasn’t trying to have ‘unnatural relations’ with it. I’m not into gooseophilia. I don’t know anyone who is, but they’d be easy to spot in a police line-up. They’d be the only suspects covered with peck marks. Geese are vicious, they’d soon fight off any would be assailant

The reason the goose refused to be stuffed was apparent to my waking mind. It was still alive, something that hadn’t seemed to compute with my dream self. If I’d had sleeping pills handy I’d have swallowed a couple in order to travel back to slumber land to give the dream me a good slap for being glaikit enough to try and stuff a un-dead bird.

I didn’t have pills though and my mind was too active to return to a state of natural sleep. It was hardly surprising. I had a lot to think about. I lay wakeful going over recipes, dining and party plans. I was nervous about the amount of entertaining to be done over the festive period. Yeah, I’d hosted parties and dinners, but I’d never done the Christmas thing. It was my first real festive responsibility. I spent my first Christmas in the men folks employ alone. It was before we were sexually and emotionally involved. They went to visit Dick’s parents and I claimed to be going to spend the festivities with my mother. I didn’t. I wasn’t invited for a start, though to be fair she didn’t know where I was at that point in time. I hadn’t given her a forwarding address. I doubt she would have asked even if she did know, because she knew I’d refuse. Things were still raw between us then.

I was hoping for an invite to spend the day with my mate Lee’s family, but sadly Christmas was cancelled for them that year because Lee’s maternal grandmother died suddenly the day before Christmas Eve. Understandably festivity was the last thing on their minds. They migrated to her home in Plymouth to help make funeral arrangements and offer comfort to relatives. The following Christmas was spent at Leo’s place and the one after that at Penny’s. This year it was all my show. So it was no wonder my mind was buzzing.

Abandoning the notion of returning to the land of nod I slipped out of bed leaving the men folk to sleep on in peace, or relative peace. Dick was starting a cold and was lightly snoring because his nose was blocked.

Going downstairs I made myself a cup of hot chocolate and took it into the lounge. It was cold and a peek outside revealed a garden robed in garments of sparkling frost. The night sky was breathtaking, studded with twinkling stars enhanced by ice crystal auras.

I put the fire on and switched on the Christmas tree lights, opening the curtains and blinds so I could enjoy the fairy lights reflecting in the dark windowpanes. It looked pretty. I curled up on the sofa sipping my chocolate while admiring the scene. It felt special and kind of magical to be sitting alone in the quiet of a night illuminated only by fire and tree light. Red Alert: the houseboy is about to enter preach mode.

Christmastime, regardless of whether or not you believe in the Nativity has an air of spirituality about it that transcends all organised religions. It’s soaked with history, steeped in the creation of the world itself, the light formed in deepest darkness and all the life that came from that light. Christians hijacked the ancient origins of the midwinter festivals, stifling and reshaping them so as to give them a single meaning and focus. I believe it was wrong to do so.

Christmas, or Yule, or whatever you want to call the winter solstice, is so much bigger than that and it belongs to everyone. It shouldn’t only be for those belonging to an exclusive club. We came from nothing and for all we really know we return to nothing. Like stars a human life consists of an expansion of energy followed by an implosion. While we yet glow there exists within us a desire to maintain the light, to keep the darkness and its unknown fears at bay and that’s what the midwinter festivals are about.

Anyway, he said, abandoning his Christmas sermon, before he revealed the depth of his total ignorance about theology and the origins of man, I drank my chocolate and went over plans for the day. Penny (B-I-T-C-H) and the Muppet were scheduled to land. I had their room all made ready. There’d been talk of Shane’s dad also coming to spend the holiday with us, but thankfully he declined, opting to spend the day with an old pal and his family. The old pal’s days were numbered due to having bladder cancer. Time grows more precious the closer it comes to running out.

Being close to Christmas every restaurant and eatery in the land would be booked up and packed out so Shane decreed Saturday’s evening meal would be at home. I had it all prepared. I was making chicken in a tarragon and white wine sauce. I’d browned the chicken breast pieces the night before and added the sauce. It was in a casserole dish in the fridge ready to pop in the oven. The jars I’d poured the sauce from had been washed and safely stashed in the recycling bin so no one would know it was ready made and not homemade. A sprinkling of fresh tarragon leaves lent credence to the lie. I was going to serve it with wild rice and vegetables. Easy peasy.

A sherry trifle also resided ready and resplendent in the fridge for dessert. It was compiled from bought Madeira cake soaked in best sherry and covered with layers of tinned fruit, ready-made custard from Sainsbury’s and cream squirted from a can. I’d decorated it with toasted almonds and glace cherries. It looked great. The houseboy was organised. I had no qualms about Saturday’s meal being composed of ready-made ingredients. I was saving my energies for the days ahead. We were hosting a party on Sunday evening for work and office colleagues of Dick and Shane. Monday, Christmas Eve, was to be a quiet affair before the big splash on Christmas Day. Boxing Day was reserved for entertaining business associates.

There would be ten of us sitting down to Christmas dinner. As well as Penny and the Muppet, we had Howard, Rob and Mike joining us as well as a married couple called David and Sheila. They were pals of Dick from his golf club and would have been spending the day alone if he hadn’t invited them. Their twin sons were on a gap year backpacking around the world and wouldn’t be home for Christmas. Leo was spending the holiday with his elderly mother and some of his family. I was glad I wouldn’t have him comparing my fair efforts at presenting Christmas lunch with his own impeccable history of producing a festive feed up fit for kings.

By the time dawn broke properly a spitty snow was falling, adding to the building festive ambience. I was delighted. A white Christmas looked a possibility. Shane came downstairs at half past eight to inform me Dick was feeling unwell and was staying in bed a while longer. I was to take him some tea and a couple of paracetamol. I did so and then returned to the kitchen to make Shane’s breakfast. He looked at me critically as I set coffee before him. How long have you been up?

Since about four. I couldn’t sleep.

What are you worrying about?

Nothing. My mind was a bit overactive that’s all.

Your mind is always overactive. He took a sip of black coffee. Listen, Gilli. Don’t get yourself in a state about Christmas arrangements. Let Penny help you with the preparations.

I don’t need help. I’ve got everything planned and in hand. I know what I’m doing. I changed the subject. Have you remembered I’m going to visit my mum today, to take her presents?

He nodded. What have you bought her?

Posh perfume and some gold earrings, proper ones not costume.

Go much over budget?

A bit, but not too bad. It’s not like I have a big family to splash out on, Shane, and it’s not like I spend a lot on you and Dick. I’m not allowed to.

Stop pouting. He stretched out a hand to pat my face. Do you need a lift to your mother’s?

The traffic will be hell this close to Christmas. I’ll get the train. It’ll be quicker.

If you have any problems getting back give me a ring and I’ll pick you up.

Before I set off he gave me thirty pounds telling me to buy mum some flowers from us all. It was a nice gesture. I thanked and hugged him.

When I got off the train I detoured to a florist before heading to mum’s house, opting to buy a pretty plant arrangement of blue and pink hyacinths in a hand painted ceramic bowl. They had a beautiful scent. Mum seemed pleased with them. She made tea and we chatted for a while. I told her about all the preps I was making for Christmas and she shook her head in wonderment.

You wouldn’t so much as pour milk on your own breakfast cereal when you were a kid and now here you are catering for all these people. You’ve done well for yourself, Gilli.

I asked what she was doing for Christmas and she said she and Frank were going to his brothers for Christmas dinner and then having a few friends over for Boxing Day along with Frank’s stepdaughter Kelly and her boyfriend.

Stepdaughter? I raised my eyebrows. It was news to me. How come and where the hell from?

From his first marriage. He hasn’t seen her since she was a kid. She moved to the Isle of Wight with her mother after the split. Her boyfriend has got a job in this area and she’s moved here with him. She got in touch with Frank a few weeks ago.

Why? I couldn’t keep the incredulity out of my voice.

They got on well when she was little and she remembered him and thought it would be nice to meet up again. I suppose it must be hard for her and her boyfriend coming to a place where they don’t know anyone.

What is she like?

I don’t know. I haven’t met her yet. Boxing Day will be the first time. I’ve spoken to her on the phone once, she sounds nice enough.

Probably because she hasn’t got any of his blood in her veins.

Don’t be like that, Gilli. Frank’s all right. He’s been good to me.

Sorry. I decided to steer away from contentious waters. Do you feel up to going out for a sandwich and a drink, my treat, seeing as I won’t be seeing you over Christmas?

She said she’d love to and we took a walk out, ending up in her local pub that served food. It was busy, but we managed to get a table. A few of the patrons recognised mum and called out greetings, one woman asked who her toy boy was and mum dutifully laughed and owned me as her son.

The food was typical pub fodder, chips with everything, even the sandwiches. I ordered a hot sausage sarnie while mum went for more seasonal turkey and stuffing. I bought her a glass of wine and myself a pint of Stella. The sandwiches took an age to come. I was almost three quarters of the way down my pint before they were set on the table.

Nature called and I headed for the facilities. I was washing my hands when a bloke came in. I glanced at him, as you do, and he said a beery ‘all right son.’ I recognised him as one of those who had called a greeting to mum. I didn’t know him from Adam, but he seemed to know me. His next words sent ripples of shock through me.

You have to be Geoff Brown’s boy. You’re a dead ringer for him.

You knew my dad?

I lived in the flat next to him and your mam when they first got married, before they got a council house. He was killed not long after. Must only have been about the age you are now, poor little sod.

I returned to the table to find mum had bought me another pint. I didn’t really want it, but I could hardly say so without hurting her feelings. I finished my first pint, ate what remained of my sandwich and made a start on the second pint startling both of us with a question. What was he like, my dad. You say Frank’s good to you, was my dad good to you? Her face took on a look I remembered well from my childhood whenever I asked questions about my dad, closed, secretive.

He was good. Why ask?

That bloke you said hello to came in the loo. He said I look like my dad. Do I?

She nodded, but didn’t elaborate. She never did.

I was Geoff’s boy. The words came to mind, but who was Geoff? I wanted to know. Old questions tumbled out. What was he like, mum, tell me. Why have you never talked about him? Why don’t you have any photos of him to show me?

We weren’t photo kind of people, son. If you want to see what he looked like then look in the mirror. You’re his image. It’s no good dwelling in the past, Gilli. He died and I moved on.

She looked uncomfortable, but I persisted. I want to know about him. He was my dad.

Sometimes I don’t think I really knew him. He was young, we both were, and we never really had time to get to know each other properly. I don’t want to talk about him, Gilli. It’s painful.

She was beginning to look upset and I decided to back off, asking one last question. Are his parents still alive, do you think they’d mind if I got in touch?

They’re dead and he had no brothers or sisters.

I must have looked as stricken as I felt because she touched her hand to my face. Your dad made me laugh. He wasn’t really ready to be a parent, but he loved you when you came along and he did his best. There’s not much else to tell. You can’t build a relationship with a dead man, love.

Silence fell between us. My curiosity had nudged her back to a place she obviously didn’t want to be. She looked sad and anxious and I felt bad. Sorry, mum. I didn’t mean to upset you. Shane always says I want to know too much including the unknowable.

She smiled. I wasn’t sure of him at first. I was a bit scared of him to be honest, but he seems to care about you, Gilli. They both do. I know they’ll look after you. Enjoy what you have with them.

I smiled and nodded and we returned to conversing about surface things. To my dismay the loo man came over to the table, bringing mum a small sherry and me a shot of whisky, wishing us both a happy Christmas. It was seasonal generosity kindly meant and as such I felt obliged to accept and drink the whisky. Shane would have my balls on a platter if he found out I’d had two pints and a whisky in the middle of the day. Spirits were off limits.

I felt decidedly squiffy as I took my leave of my mother and headed homewards. I dwelled as I sat on the train, staring through the dark windows at a dark landscape seeing my own face reflected in the panes - Geoff’s boy. Of course I’d known my dad’s name was Geoffrey, but I didn’t think of him in terms of it, and my mother seldom referred to him at all so hearing it had given me a jolt. It somehow made him more real than he’d ever been and yet more elusive. I tried to detach myself from my reflection, to stand back from it and pretend it was my dad looking back at me. It was impossible. The eyes remained mine.

Mum had said he wasn’t ready to be a parent, the implication being I was an accident or more wanted by her than him. He’d been in his teens when he fathered me. Mum had been in her early twenties. They’d both been kids really, he more than her, so it was understandable he wasn’t ready to be a father. Men mature at a different rate to women, they’re younger for longer in an emotional sense. How would we have got on if he’d lived? How would he have coped with me being gay? How different would my life have been?

As ever I was asking questions that couldn’t be answered. Our lives had converged only briefly. He was dust while I remained solid flesh. I’d wanted to ask mum if he was buried and if so where, but it seemed an insensitive question to address to a woman who was terminally ill. I had a notion he’d been cremated. I couldn’t ever recall my mother visiting a cemetery to lay flowers on a grave, as surely she would have done.

It’s said most people have an urge and a need to know where they came from. It looked pretty much like I’d come from a place called Anonymous. My father’s life and origins were literally a dead end. I knew nothing of mum’s origins either. She was a closed book. Just as she seldom discussed my father so she seldom discussed her parents. Fucking hell! I felt a wave of despondency. My entrance into the world had hardly been greeted with fanfares. You’d think at least one grandparent out of four would have shown an interest in their grandson. No wonder I’d been possessive of my mother. She was the only close person in my childhood.

I walked home from the station hoping the cold air would clear my head, which had begun to ache. Penny and the Muppet were in residence when I got back. Their car was on the drive. Marking the ground with a ring of salt to ward off evil was obviously a myth and a load of old bollocks. What a waste of Saxa. Still it had killed a few slugs. (Lie detector says it didn’t happen)

The house was quiet when I entered. I called a greeting, hearing Dick return it from the lounge. I took off my shoes and coat and put them away and then pushed open the lounge door, surprised to find only Dick and the Muppet. I spoke a greeting to the latter and then addressed Dick.

Where’s Shane?

Dropping gifts at Leo’s before he goes away. Penny’s gone with him. Have you had a nice day, honey? How is your mother? He held out an arm inviting me to come hither and be hugged.

I stayed by the door, not wanting him to get a whiff of the whisky on my breath. Fine thanks, Dick. I’m going to make coffee, do you want one? I included the Muppet in the invitation, which both he and Dick accepted. I headed for the kitchen. I felt like shit. My early start to the day compounded by lunchtime boozing was taking a toll. I was hoping a caffeine boost would help chase away my dull headache and kill the desire I had to lie down and go to sleep.

There was a big tin on the table in the kitchen. I knew it would contain a Christmas cake baked by Penny. She does one every year. Prising open the lid I had a peek, but the cake was wrapped in foil, even so I could smell its fruity richness. It made me feel peckish for something sweet. I didn’t dare disturb it though. I made three coffees and put them on a tray along with a plate of iced Christmas cake slices as baked by Mr Kipling, or the factory that churns out goods in his name.

Shane and Penny returned home as we were finishing our coffee and cake. They brought an atmosphere with them. The Muppet seemed oblivious, but Dick caught it and gave Shane a quizzical look when Penny shortly announced she was going for a bath. Shane replied with a shake of his head and a murmured ‘later.’

The atmosphere disappeared with Penny and then returned with her, persisting through dinner. She was unusually cool with Dick and Shane. I was blatantly cold-shouldered. She’s hardly warmly effusive at the best of times where I’m concerned, but there was no doubt I was getting some sort of treatment. I was treated to several icy looks. She also picked at her food with a look on her face suggestive of being force fed live slugs. It annoyed me, but I kept stum. I had a suspicion she would welcome an opportunity to spat with me. I usually come off worst in such encounters because she keeps her temper better than I do, and she swears less. Once dinner was done I washed up and then announced I was having an early night. I was tired. I had a lot to do the next day and I wanted to be fresh.

I slept heavily and awoke later than I intended next morning feeling anything but fresh. Sunday is generally a sleep in day and I don’t set the alarm. I’d been relying on my inner alarm clock to wake me up and it hadn’t. It was gone half past eight and I had a ton of stuff to do for the party alongside my usual chores.

My mood didn’t lighten any when I discovered Penny was up ahead of me. I couldn’t believe it. She usually doesn’t surface until ten or thereabouts. She was in the kitchen sitting at the table sipping tea. She glanced up as I walked in, a look of disdain on her face. I felt my hackles rise as she took first strike and dug her claws into me.

Don’t you think you should get dressed instead of wandering around half naked when you have guests in the house. It’s uncouth.

I was wearing pyjama shorts and a top so I was hardly indecent. It wasn’t like my pole pal was poking through my fly leering at her from its one eye. I didn’t know you’d be up, Pen, I abbreviated her name in the way she detested, and anyway it’s my house I’m entitled to wander around wearing whatever I want.

It is not your house. You have no claim on it whatsoever, though I’m sure you’d like to. It belongs to my brother and his legally recognised partner.

Her words hit me like a slap to the face. I felt a surge of anger. I’m well aware of who the house belongs to, but it’s still my home. I then rashly imparted a nugget of information that should have remained private. In the aftermath of the CP I’d been made a promise. I would in my turn have legal status. In the event of either Dick or Shane dying I would marry the surviving partner. Penny’s reaction was cold and calmly vicious. She didn’t even raise her voice.

Let’s hope you die first then. She stood up. Besides, she looked me up and down as if measuring a pile of shit, it’s a ridiculous notion. They probably only said it to keep you quiet. Thanks to you my brother and Dick had to have a shabby secret hole in the wall ceremony with no family members present. They’ll come to their senses one of these days and see you for what you are, a leech. Your novelty value will wear off and you’ll end up grating on them as much as you grate on me and then they’ll kick you out of this house. I hope I’m around to see it. She swept out of the room.

I sat down at the table, shaken by the encounter. I regretted telling her what I’d told her with all my heart. They were words shared between the three of us and they should have remained private among the three of us. Not only had I dispelled their magic by speaking them, I’d offered my belly and a sharp knife to an enemy. She had gutted me.

Going upstairs I flopped back into bed and indulged in a bout of what I’m often accused of, childishness. Giving way to tears I announced everyone hated me so I was staying in bed all day. Shane naturally demanded to know why I was ruining his Sunday lie in with a deluge of saline, snot and self-pity. I gave a brief account, basically along the lines of Penny being mean to me. I discovered why.

When she and Shane had gone to Leo’s house she had spotted the photo he had taken of them on the day of their Civil Partnership. He’d had one framed. It stood on the mantel in his lounge along with other favourite photos of friends, family and his cat and of course she had a nose at them. She asked about it, wanting to know where it had been taken, the large floral arrangement suggesting it was a wedding.

Leo, the blabbermouth, had told her. Discovering it was Dick and Shane’s CP ceremony had shocked her. She was furious and demanded to know why she hadn’t been told about it or invited to attend.

Shane explained there had been no slight intended. They had not wanted a public declaration. It was legal paperwork and no big deal.

Leo, in what Shane described as a cack-handed attempt at pouring oil on troubled waters told her they’d also done it on the quick and quiet so as not to upset me. It was like pouring petrol on an open fire. She was even more furious.

Shane told me to keep calm and carry on. Penny would get over it. He would have a quiet word with her. He spoke truth about having a quiet word, too quiet. I couldn’t hear a syllable through the closed lounge door, not even with my ear pressed up against it. I was considering getting a drinking glass to try and magnify sound when Dick appeared and used my free ear as a handy lever to detach me from the door and lead me away from it, admonishing me for being a snoopy houseboy.

After a hearty breakfast Penny commandeered the Muppet and dragged him out shopping with her when it was clear he’d rather stay in cosily tucked up by the fire. I got on with washing up, but without enthusiasm. I felt depressed and thoroughly out of kilter. Bits and pieces of the conversations I’d had with my mother and Penny flitted through my mind.

I lifted a plate from the water to put on the drainer. I’d overdone the Fairy Liquid and it was covered in soapsuds. Thin winter sunshine poked through the kitchen window making the soapy bubbles coruscate. I blinked and then froze as a silken thread trailed my cheek. Oh thank you Father Christmas! Most people got visits from the Christmas elf at this time of year while I was lumbered with a drop in by an invisible spider.

Paralysis passed and the hand holding the plate began to tremble causing the soapsuds to slide from it faster. If I lost my job as housekeeper I could hire myself out as a novel and environmentally friendly dish dryer. The tremors receded leaving waves of unfounded fear in their wake. Comfort lay close at hand. I needed only to call and Dick and Shane would come to me, but with comfort would come questions about the origins of the episode. I wasn’t in the mood for them and nor did I want to be packed off to bed to sleep the day away leaving Penny to take over my duties. I wouldn’t give her the satisfaction.

Opening the back door I walked outside willing the cold air to chase away all vestiges of the episode and keep me alert. On some odd impulse I kept on walking, down the side path to the front of the house, across the drive and out through the gates onto the avenue. I felt locked inside my head, trapped with a whirl of jumbled thoughts and sharp emotions. The world around me moved into soft focus. From a distance I could hear footsteps, but they didn’t feel as if they belonged to me.

A flash of yellow penetrated my foggy brain, bringing me to a stop. I found myself standing outside a greengrocer, one of a small row of individual shops some distance from where I live. I sometimes go there to buy fresh eggs and vegetables instead of patronising the bigger supermarkets. The yellow was daffodils, bunches of them in a black plastic bucket standing on the chill pavement. Stooping I picked a posy from the bucket. The flowers were tiny, the stems short, thin and delicate, a hint of spring forced for the Christmas market. I had an idea they’d make a pretty decoration for the party buffet table. The jaunty yellow would be a contrast to festive greens and reds. I had enough change in my pocket to buy some.

I took them inside to pay for them, standing in the short queue. There was a radio playing behind the counter. Don McLean’s beautiful but melancholy Vincent haunted the shop interior. In my heightened state of emotion the song was as painful as salt in a wound. It made me want to cry. I felt I knew the subject personally, tapping into the sorrow and loneliness that had marred his life. There’s a theory that Vincent Van Gogh suffered from temporal lobe epilepsy and some of his strange behaviours and visions were in fact seizures, but no one really knows.

Clutching the frail flowers I resumed walking. IEM was in full ascendancy so it perhaps wasn’t surprising I ended up in a churchyard, the one where Eileen’s parents, husband and child lay buried. When Eileen’s time came she too would be interred there.

It was eerily quiet within the cemetery walls. Even the birds were hushed. I walked towards the oldest and most deserted part of the churchyard where the ancient graves were lichen stained, lopsided and barren of tributes. Those who had once mourned these dead