“And when you have done all that Mrs Travers prick those sloes with a cocktail stick and see if you might make something of those pears the Colonel gave us and the last of the brambles, we must not neglect nature’s bounty especially when there are so many less fortunate than ourselves.”
“Certainly Mrs Wylie, anything to do yoose an obligement . And would you like me to put the sloes in the gin with the sugar?”
“While an obliging woman what does but not a lot, is a welcome turn up for the books, I think not Mrs T. I seem to recall that the making of last year’s Raspberry Gin took you about an hour to make and nearly 3 days to recover from.”
“Aye I could’nae but hale heartedly agree with yoose Mrs Wylie; ah said at the time that they rasps were pure deid aff, so they were.”
“There was certainly something wrong or why else would I have got a telephone call from the manager of MacFisheries at ten to four in the afternoon asking me to come and collect you as you were lying in the centre of his ‘Catch of The Day’ Display shouting ‘Anyone for a winkle?’ It was a least a mercy that you had given some thought to the positioning of those scallop shells and that lobster. Good job his claws were tied together. Now I shouldn’t be too long. I just want go and post some letters. By the way have you seen Mr Wylie?”
“Not since he popped in for the racing pages I mean The Spectator and said he had to go to casualty as the barber had nicked his ear with his new clippers and he felt it should be checked out by a doctor.”
“That sounds very suspicious to me Mrs T. If I find out that you two have been betting on the gee-gees again there will be trouble. Honestly! The minute my back is turned you are under starters orders at Kempton.”
“Haydock actually.”
“What was that?”
“Nothing really; I was just thinking haddock for suppa.”
“Not sure about that; it is Monday after all. Very fishy…. sometimes I think I am happier when he is in that wretched shed fiddling with his fossils or whatever he does in there. At least one knows where he is. It is never a good idea to give men a free reign Mrs T, having them roam about town is a recipe for trouble. ”
“Well I should know Mrs Wylie just look at my man. His roaming took him into the arms of Busty Betty at ‘The Unnecessary Lingerie Shop’ down by the canal and then on a slow boat to China. What did I get out of it? A stuffed lizard table lamp and I even had to buy the shade myself. Not only that but it’s a dust trap. No Mrs Wylie ‘nae use nor ornament’ is my view of men. Though I have to say I would’nae mind mov’in’ it wi’ yon Cliff Richard.”
“That’s quite enough Mrs T. Yesterday was Sunday and the temporary minister spoke about idols and I am sure that includes teen idols. No doubt he will be a flash in the pan; I give him 6 months. Anyway I am more of a Mantovani woman myself. Now I really must go or it will be lunchtime.”
Out and About in the Rural Bolthole
“Good day Mrs Wylie”
“Good day Mr Mactavish”
“Still some warmth in the air.”
“There certainly is, mind you bit of a nip first thing, but good for the sloes though mind you someone seems to have got there first. My hands were fair ripped to pieces trying to get the only ones left, but that’s blackthorn for you; wicked thorns.”
“Well you know what my father used to say, half a loaf is better than no loaf. How is Mrs Mactavish?”
“ Och cannae complain. Lumbago keeps her in bed, frozen shoulder keeps her in her chair and trapped wind keeps us all awake, but apart frae that we are all weel. Maybe see you at the whist drive?”
“I am donating prizes – a crystal decanter with only a slight chip on the stopper and a Toby jug that has been at the back of my chiffonier since 1948 and a Teasmade that Jasper bought in one of his errors of good taste, which thankfully he has me to correct.”
“Well Mrs Wylie at least we all have something to live for now; bye.”
News from a Broom Cupboard
“Yoohoo! Mrs Wylie, is that you?”
“Well it was when I left the house Mrs Wymess-Ware”
“Oh Mrs Wylie you are too killing, such wit you bring to us all from your sophisticated and simply marvellous Glasgow World, you must think us all such rustics.”
“Not all Mrs Wymess-Ware, but I am sure with a little guidance you can be helped along the way. Tell me, have you always managed to dress down with such attention to detail?”
“Oh Mrs Wylie you are a one! Now do tell me dear, is true that at Friday’s concert Lady Pentland-Firth was found in the interval in a broom cupboard with a trumpet player?”
“Now really Mrs Wymess-Ware, that could go a number of ways.”
“I heard it did and that he was out of puff in the second half! And they say his embouchure may never be the same again at least not without surgery.”
“I really couldn’t say, I was helping with the teas although Marjorie Maltravers – you know, first husband fell off a cliff and she married that baker from Bathgate, big in sausage rolls – well she said she will never see a trumpet slide in the same light again. I felt for the conductor.”
“By all accounts you were not the only one, anyway are you going to the whist drive? I hear there are the most awful prizes still such a good cause……… toodle ooh.”
“Next please. Good Morning Mrs Wylie. How nice to see you. Still a bit of warmth in the air. What can I do for you today?”
“Indeed. Good morning Mr McClusky. Could I have a postal order for 10 shillings please, half a dozen savings stamps and I would like to send this letter to my nephew Sebastian in America please.”
“If you could just give it to me it will need to weighed.”
“How is Mrs McClusky?”
“Oh alive to moan as usual.”
“Oh dear anything in particular?”
“No just sciatica, the jumble sale takings, usual things; takes after her mother – she was a moaner. In fact the whole family were moaners. How are you and yours?”
“Oh bashing on as ever, being simply marvellous means one does not weary.”
“How is your Sebastian getting on, met any nice American girls yet?”
“Not as far as I know, his friend Dimitri is staying with him at the moment so he’s showing him the sights in New York. You know the Empire State Building, Central Park, frightfully gay cocktail bars in the village, buying fabric in Macy’s; just the usual sort of things boys get up to.”
“Well that will be 13shillings and sixpence to you Mrs Wylie, thank you”.
“Much obliged, my regards to your wife.”
“Hello Muriel”
“Oh Hello Lotttie. I didn’t know you were going to be in the country this weekend.”
“Well in truth Muriel I had not planned to come down. It was Ladies’ Night at the Lodge on Friday and Mr Macaulay likes me to go. At least with it being a dance and suppa I didn’t have to witness them all with their aprons on and their trousers down while they point trowels at each other.”
“Oh Lottie, how tiresome! At least mine just stays in his shed, however, I don’t think they take their trousers down.”
“I think mine does Muriel. We had to have that awfully common secretary of his at our table, I am sure she holds his trowel. You know her; her mother lives in the same tenement as your woman what does, but not a lot. The girl has legs like a Clydeside slipway on launch day and a bosom that arrives three days before the rest of her. She says it’s a balcony bra – the brazen hussy; more like the first circle at the Alhambra if you ask me.”
“You don’t mean Abattoir Annie?”
“Who?”
“The mother in the same block as Mrs Travers?”
“No you must be thinking of someone else, no his secretary’s mother was in adhesives.”
“Not Gluey Gloria from the bone works?”
“The very same”
“She had sticky fingers.”
“Well her daughter’s just the same only hers are sticking all over my husband I’ll be bound. They’re all the same in the building trade, I am sure it’s the cement dust you know makes them fruity.”
“Well I am sorry to hear about that. Lottie what are you going to do?”
“Spend his money Muriel. Spend his money! Oh before I forget, did you hear about Lady Pentland-Firth in the broom cupboard with the trumpet player and the first violinist who broke his fiddle. The pianist couldn’t get in.”
“I think I got the drift of it; anyway I must dash.”
“So must I, I need sugar for sloes, some so-and-so has taken most of them. Oh I am feeling rather warm. Is it my age or is there still some heat in that sun?”
“Yes rather warm for the time of year…. sloes do seem a little thin on the ground this year.”
“Muriel cooeee, I am over here by the library bus; just picking up the latest Mazo de La Roche and checking up to see if they have any of my books in stock.”
“Hello Bunty I can’t be too long. I want to order some rat poison for Mrs Travers.”
“Oh Muriel if she were my woman what does I would want to order some rat poison too.”
“Bunty dear just because you write detective fiction of a ‘bolt hole noir genre’ does not mean that every rural purchase is to be seen as a murder weapon.”
“Perhaps Muriel, but you have given me an idea for a plot. And how is that lovely husband of yours? I hear he had to be carried out laughing at the Olde Tyme Music Hall night in aid of The Society for the Orphans of Department Store Lift Operators.”
“What do you mean Bunty?”
“Of course you were not there you were at the Pentland-Firth Hall do, which reminds me has anyone told you about Lady Pentland-Firth? My dear she was discovered in a broom cupboard with two trumpet players with damaged embouchures, a violinist with a broken fiddle and an organist who pulled out all the stops.”
“Yes I have heard this, but what of my husband?”
“Oh don’t worry Muriel he wasn’t in the broom cupboard, he was with Winnie who was on the Colonel’s knee at the Old Thyme Music Hall”
“Yes Bunty I know where he was, I sent him as we couldn’t both be in two places at once.”
“Unlike, Lady Pentland-Firth!”
“Oh really, is there something in the air?”
“There is certainly some warmth still. No I mean poor Jasper you know what a naughty sense of humour he has. Well his shoulders started to heave during the singing of Winnie get off the Colonel’s knee, because she was and then he was almost completely ruined when they began singing All Down Piccadilly. When they got to the line, “You’ll See ladies running after Little Willie”, he had to be helped out through the back passage by two committee members from the Lift Operators’ Charity pretending he had a coughing fit due to inadvertently sucking too vigorously on a Fishermans Friend. Quite frankly Muriel when the two operators shouted out their motto I thought Jasper was going to have a stroke.”
“What is their motto?”
“Going Down.”
“Oh there you are Muriel, such a wait in casualty. Have you ordered tea? I could murder a toasted tea cake. Could you murder something?”
“Oh yes…”
“Which – scone or teacake?”
“One, how is the going at Haydock? Two, does ‘Little Willie’ ring any bells?”
“That’s me Mrs Wylie I think I must have picked and pricked every sloe in the county. There cannot be many left for anyone else thinking of entering the Winter Pantry Competition at the S.W.R.I.”
“Possibly not, Mrs T. Possibly not.”
à bientôt
Muriel Wylie
September 1958
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