A Barrow Boy's Cadenza

Chapter 3

THREE

Mandy had come to relish her post coital reverie after making love with Jack; he slept, and she savoured the subsequent quiet. The buzzer intruded and she continued to drift but did respond to “Coooeeeh Mr Shifter” from the hallway. Mandy registered her daughter’s attempt at Jack’s, PG Tips tea, TV monkey adverts, and the rejoinder from Carly, “Light refreshments” ensured she was truly alert. Jack startled her when he shouted, “Don’t give up the day job, Curly”. Jack rarely called anyone by their given name, he created nicknames, and people were noticeably fed-up if they didn’t get one. He called Carly, Curly, and Liz and Carly, infuriatingly, liked it.

‘Are you decent?’ Liz called as she poked her head into the bedroom. Jack and Mandy scrambled the quilt around them. Liz giggled, and Jack could see the likeness of her mother and knew if he had met a younger Mandy, he would have been equally as attracted.

‘Thank you, Jack, that’s a lovely thing to say,’ daughter and mother said in unison.

‘Did I say that out loud…?’ Mandy and Liz smiled, in unison.

Jack spoke his thoughts. Mandy thought it was endearing, though often wondered where she would put him when Alzheimer’s had really got a hold. Still the Tourette’s was under control. Jack, Liz, and Carly sniggered, ‘Please don’t tell me I said that out loud?’

‘You did, Mum, and tolerably well.’ Both young women now true proficients in bastardised Pride and Prejudice.

‘We will meet you in the kitchen directly,’ Mandy replied, and the girls left, to noises of frenetic action that suggested running around the bedroom, picking up clothes with the occasional bit of slap and tickle. Mandy excused herself to take a shower whilst Jack entertained in his boxer shorts and shirt. This was not just making sure the girls had refreshments, it meant light entertainment, jokes, singing and whistling. Mandy could hear the girls groaning as she slipped into the bathroom, smiling and calling out, ‘Welcome to my world, girls.’

‘What?’ Jack’s reaction, and he apologised, he couldn’t get Curly any of his coffee as Mandy had broken his mocha pot. So, he got them monkey tea, which in the context of the morning's greeting was quite appropriate, and he told them so. They laughed and Mandy groaned as she appeared refreshed and dressed. It always amazed him how quickly she could get ready, though it helped he liked her with little make up, hair wet and drying naturally. It was hair that was nicely thin and swung as she moved her head, like in the shampoo adverts, and had a wonderful lustre and depth; he loved it.

‘Thank you, I know you do, I like it too.’

He rolled his eye as he made his own way to the bathroom, with Mandy calling out for him to leave the extractor fan on supersonic; guffaws from the kitchen and the groan this time from Jack in the bathroom. He reappeared twenty minutes later with an inscrutable look; it was his enema look, also not inappropriate in context.

‘That was quick, and why the enema look?’ Mandy knew Jack well, even the dozy Mr Malacopperism, enema look.

He replied, whilst also demonstrating he could count fingers, ‘One, you have not got the new Cosmopolitan and there is only so many times a man can read about the female o****m, so clearly I would be quicker, and two, I can’t go to work…’ he paused for dramatic effect and remembered, this is what he was thinking of this morning, effect, not irony, though coincidentally he had also thought about the female o****m; how ironic was that? He waited for the response. It didn’t come, so he continued, ‘…I’ve no round the houses, and my tutu is in the washing machine.’ He sat at the kitchen table and applied an appropriately smug grin, crossing his spindly Day-Glo legs. ‘Day off, I think…’ and he tapped the table top, an erratic beat with his fingers which he made rhythmic, ‘What’s this tune, girls?’

They replied in sighing unison, ‘Doctor Who, it’s always Doctor Who.’

He laughed. ‘Douze points,’ and looked to see if they were impressed with his French.

Liz spoke, ‘Mum told us about your school arts festival, Milk’O, Alexander Petrov, and Fee DePrune, such a lovely thing. We’ll watch it on catch-up telly.’

They’d not noticed the French, he would have to try it another time, filed it away and forgot. ‘Did she also tell you we had to bounce some terrorists and some cretin kids playing out their computer games of Crusaders and Saracens, and, I had to do all this in my tutu?’ He folded his arms, determined to justify a day off, how could they miss the signs?

Mandy pricked his balloon. ‘I did, Jack, as well as I didn’t break your coffee pot, and we do have to go into work. I’ve phoned Jo and had the briefing put back to eleven. She didn’t seem surprised, said she had enough to be getting on with, and Father Mike is out of hospital and back at the Rookery…’ she looked perplexed, ‘…the Rectory,’ and smiled. He shuffled his chair closer to the table and almost conspiratorially, leaning into the contact, he joined the women, his smug grin reinforced; it was his Botox smile that Mandy called his Shitebox grin, but she did wonder what was going through his mind. The finger tapping was not Dr Who but nerves, she thought, he’s not confident of his argument, ‘Jack, the grin?’

He wobbled his head to assure everyone he was confident. ‘I’ve no trousers, hmmm, hmmm.’ Sure he had mentioned this before, he stood and gestured with his hands along his skinny and extremely long, varicose vein infested legs, marvelling at them as if they were a spectacle to behold, which they were, just not as Jack imagined; the three women made retching noises. Mandy told him to sit down and give their stomachs a rest while he pointed out that, of course Liz and Curly would not like his legs, they were from the Isle of Lesbos, received by the girls with additional convulsive laughter.

Mandy disappeared, returning with a huge pair of khaki shorts, ‘Me Morecombe and Wise shorts. You found them.’ Jack kissed Mandy gratefully, excitedly, genuinely believing she had indeed just found them, not even beginning to think she had found them so readily because she had hidden them. He disappeared to complete his dressing while Mandy briefed the girls on his ridiculous shorts, with huge leg holes that flapped around as he walked, and when he sat, presented all and sundry with more than a glimpse of his bits and pieces.

Carly and Liz were in hysterics as he came back and paraded like a supermodel, the irony being they were laughing at how stupid he looked and he actually imagined he could have been a super model, and not one of those skinny frights either. He rubbed his hands together, ‘Lubbly jubbly, let’s get to work,’ and they continued giggling as they took in the full ensemble: baggy shirt, the eejit shorts, legs looking like they were hanging out of a nest in a vine of black grapes, socks with dogs and penguins, and size twelve tan brogues; giant’s shoes with a lot of juice, apparently.

Mandy turned to Liz and Carly, ‘Make yourself at home, sorry I haven’t made the bed nor tidied up, can I leave that for you?’

‘Of course, Mandy,’ Carly replied, taking control.

Mandy had noticed before Carly was the dominant one in the partnership, probably why her daughter was the pregnant one, and admonished herself for the stinking thinking and looked to make sure she had not said this aloud. She hadn’t, but Jack had read her thoughts, he was good at that and she liked this about him as well. She kissed and hugged her daughter, two European pecks for Carly. She noticed Jack still did one, stubbornly clinging to the English reserve he never had in the first place.

He smoothed Liz’s belly, ‘Is this a bump I see before me?’

Liz giggled and ran her hands over the slight tell-tale sign of a pregnant woman. Mandy shed all of her actual English reserve and hugged her daughter, rubbed her belly. Jack had shown her the way again, and did it all without thinking; did he ever think she thought?