The Colonel's Cottage

8

The Colonel’s Cottage

May 11 Not. (Still August.) Colonel Raice was discovered upstairs in bed, looking foolish.

    “Hullo, Margot,” he said with a silly smile as Mrs O. bustled over to him. “You really shouldn’t have bothered.”

    “Nonsense!” she replied cheerfully, dropping a kiss on his forehead just as if he was Bean Minor’s age, though unlike the tiny sibling he didn’t squirm on receipt of it. “Anyway I haven’t, really: Mel and Tommy are going to look after you.”

    He protested feebly but as Bean Minor informed him importantly that he was going to liaise (new word, QED) between him and downstairs, he smiled feebly and thanked us, adding that he wasn’t helpless.

    He looked pretty helpless to us. Mrs O. obviously thought so too: she snorted and reminded him that he was supposed to be keeping off the leg and not to dare to do more than hop to the loo and back with “those silly crutch things.”

    “They’re modern ones,” Bean Minor ascertained. “Trelawney Minor had crutches like that when he broke his leg. Mark Two said if his parents weren’t on the other side of the world he’d have been sent home to recuperate, and he was lucky not to get the sack, Marbledown doesn’t need reckless idiots like him, and if he saw him playing silly asses again he’d be for it.”

    “Uh—mm. Who’s Mark Two, again? A prefect, is he?” asked the Colonel.

    “No! ’Course not!”

    “He’s the second Mr Robinson they’ve got at Marbledown. The first one’s name is Mark, so he had to be— Well, you get it,” I ended heavily.

    “Almost,” he said with a grin. “Where are his parents, Bean Minor?”

    “I forget. He said it was hot there. I think Mum’s been there.”

    “Sort of,” I admitted. “A stop-off on her way to the orangutans. Poor old Josh was almost smothered by a great big fierce-looking female one that took a fancy to him.”

    “Er—Indonesia?” the Colonel ventured foggily.

    “What, the Trelawneys? No, Malaysia. High Commish. –You do know that, Bean Minor,” I said heavily.

    “Bean said it was something with K in it,” he groped.

    I didn’t quote Grannie on the subject of modern children being taught no géographie, though I felt bally well like it. “Yes. That’s the city: Kuala Lumpur, known to the old colonial hands as KL.”

     “Er… I thought the orangutans were in Borneo,” groped the Colonel.

    “Yes, but they’ve got some in Malaysia, too, and Mum made that the excuse to stop off there and do a personal appearance at some swanky hotel.”

    “Was that the time she was on that cookery show?” asked Bean Minor.

    “Yes. You remember: the man did all the cooking and she just pointed and pretended to taste stuff.”

    “That’s right; it looked putrid. But I don’t think it was there that the female orangutan fell in love with Josh.”

    “No,” I agreed, “that was definitely in Borneo. –They were wandering around loose, you see,” I explained. “It’s some sort of conservation park, and the tourists were walking down this path and Josh was trying to get some shots without tourists in them so he kind of lagged behind, and she came out of the bushes and tried to put her arms round him.”

    Colonel Raice and Mrs O. both laughed so I added: “It wasn’t really funny, they’re very strong.”

    “Did your mother actually go to Borneo?” asked Mrs Ovenden on a weak note.

    “Sort of,” Bean Minor admitted. “I think.”

    “Yes: it was the place she said was too impossibly primitive for words,” I reminded him.

    “She’s always saying that.”

    This was true. “Um, yes. Well, I think Josh said she got as far as the place where the orangutans are, took one look at it, ordered them to fix her make-up and take a shot of her leaning on the safari-type vehicle, and went back to the hotel. Though on the other hand that’s happened more than once, too.”

    Bean Minor nodded seriously. “Yes, all the time.”

    At this point Colonel Raice broke down in helpless sniggers and had recourse to the box of tissues on his bedside cabinet. –Pink. Mrs Blake, had to be.

    Mrs Ovenden sighed. “It’s not really funny, John.”

    “Rats! It’s hilarious!”

    “The woman barely sees her own children from one year’s end to the next! And when she is home all she seems to do is make them watch her last frightful telly thing and drag them to unsuitable parties. Poor Michael was practically assaulted at the last one she took them to.”

    “He was okay: he kneed the frightful bounder in the goolies, Colonel,” Bean Minor explained.

    “Jesus,” said the Colonel, all traces of hilarity abruptly vanishing.

    I sighed. “It wasn’t really that bad. He was a silly fat man and all he did was put his hand on Bean’s bum.”

    “Mel, dear, that’s disgusting!” cried Mrs O. “Can’t you see that? –There you are, John, she’s corrupting the children!”

    “Yes; I’d have done more than knee the bastard,” he noted grimly. “Well, good for Michael. I hope you were all right, Mel.”

    I shrugged. “I’m used to it.”

    “Used to what, for Heaven’s sake?” cried Mrs O.

    “Um, well that time—was it? I think so. Two ladies and a man offered me snorts of coke—”

    “What?” she screamed.

    “That’s cocaine, Mrs Ovenden,” said Bean Minor helpfully. “Not Coke to drink.”

    “Oh my God!” she cried. “Not even twelve!”

    “I’m nearly twelve!” he protested.

    “He wasn’t there, Mrs Ovenden, it’s all right,” I said quickly.

    “Mel, darling, it isn’t all right!”

    “No it bloody isn’t,” the Colonel agreed, looking very grim. “Just what else happened?”

    “Nothing much. One man put his arm round me and asked me if I’d like to go back to his place, so I said no, I wasn’t into ageing playboys and his wrinkles were starting to show, he’d better get a few nips and tucks if he didn’t want to look ridiculous in that gear he was wearing, so he went very red and went away, and another man tried to get me up against the passage wall and kiss me but he was so drunk that he fell over when I gave him a good shove, and the hostess tried to introduce me to her dear friend only Mum told her I didn’t swing that way and pointed out she’d let the bloody gin run out again, so we went back to the flat.”

    “I’ll write to your grandmother,” said Mrs O. grimly.

    “It won’t do any good, because she hasn’t got legal custody of us. And Dad hates her, he won’t support her.”

    “Oh, won’t he, just? I’ll contact him,” said the Colonel.

    Help, he looked really furious!

    “John, it’ll be water off a duck’s,” warned Mrs Ovenden heavily.

    “She’s right, actually,” I admitted. “Don’t worry about it, I don’t think Mum’ll take us to any more parties: that ageing playboy type’s an important publisher and he turned down her new Nature book so she said she’d never take us anywhere again and if Grannie couldn’t have us we could stay at School over the breaks.”

    “Yes, she said Mel should’ve had more tact,” Bean Minor agreed. “It’s a pity, really, because if I stay at School I’ll have to listen to Trelawney Minor playing his putrid ukelele.”

    “His parents bought it in Hawaii, they had a holiday there,” I explained.

    “Yes; and I won’t be able to borrow Jason’s white mouse,” he added sadly.

    “She won’t let you have it in the flat anyway, Bean Minor.”

    “No, but I could sort of borrow it when I’m down there.”

    “Down where, old son?” asked the Colonel somewhat feebly.

    “In the basement, of course.”

    “Clear as mud, you silly chump,” I sighed. “Jason’s grandfather’s the caretaker in Mum’s block of flats, Colonel. His flat’s in the basement.”

    “Yes. And it’s not a wild animal!” said Bean Major crossly.

    “No, but never mind, there’s always Clarence,” I said kindly, forbearing to tell him to stop brooding over old wounds.

    “He’s only a cat, though,” he said sadly.

    “His House’s cat at Marbledown,” I explained.

    “Right; got it,” said the Colonel in a faint, faraway voice.

    “That’ll do, John,” ordered Mrs O., obviously trying not to laugh. “Now, why don’t you go and choose where you want to sleep, Tommy, dear?”

    He frowned horribly and warned me: “I’m having the room with the Biggles books!”

    “It’s all yours, I’ve read them all.”

    “Good. You can have the one with the putrid girly wallpaper!” He marched out looking horribly pleased.

    “When did you read them all, Mel?” asked Mrs O. on a weak note.

    “The Biggles books? Whenever we were over this way, really. –Has that other room still got the girly wallpaper, Colonel?” I asked glumly.

    “Yes, ’fraid so!” he said with a laugh.

    “Go on, dear, go and put your things in there,” prompted Mrs O.

    “Then shall I make a cup of tea?”

    “That’d be nice,” she agreed.

    As I went out I heard her saying in in this significant voice: “You see what I mean?”

    And the Colonel replying: “They’ve got their heads screwed on okay, Margot, I wouldn’t worry too much. And it sounds as if the bloody woman’s completely lost interest in them anyway.”

    —Mum, clearly. Let’s hope so. Not that there was much to lose in the first place. And even School over the breaks would be better than being dragged to her boring friends’ boring parties. And I must say it was pretty much the last straw when she screamed at poor little Bean Minor: “I won’t have wild animals in my flat! Get that creature out of here!” Considering she makes a jolly good thing out of posing for the camera with real wild animals, and white mice are specially bred, they’re not wild at all.

    “It’s quite big for a cottage, really,” said Bean Minor, coming up behind me just as I was about to insert the teabags into the pot.

    I shrieked and hurled them into the sink.

    “Sorry.”

    “Don’t creep,” I sighed.

    “I wasn’t! I can’t help it if my Sneakers creep.”

    They were creepy enough, this was true. Putrid modern things with Soles and Tongues and Flashes and general ugh. Enormous laces fifteen times longer than was necessary, or they had been until Sid had spotted them trailing, removed large parts surgically with his giant pocketknife, and told the silly sibling forcefully that anyone that went round with trailing shoelaces was asking to go arse over tip, and how silly was he? Rather unfortunately this didn’t have quite the intended effect and since then the expression “arse over tip” has been heard more than once to proceed from the Lesser Beanly cherubic lips, but never mind, it was a good effort.

    “Something like that,” I said heavily. “You want tea?”

    “Not really. Is there any Coke?”

    “In the Colonel’s cottage? Do me a favour!”

May 17 Not. Continuing straight on: Of course not believing me, he investigated the fridge. Anything edible in there was undoubtedly from Mrs Blake. Colonel Raice’s idea of food is to stroll down to the pub in his village—he’s on the outskirts of it, but it’s still an easy stroll—have one or two and then opt for whatever’s going. This depends entirely on whether the publican, not your cheery rubicund stout village identity but a small, perky man characterised by more than one lady in my hearing as “doggy”, has a current girlfriend who can cook. They come and go like anything. If not it’d be ploughman’s, whether for lunch or dinner. And its quality would depend entirely on whether Mr Vivian Richards Twomey (named after the great West Indian cricketer, his father being a huge cricket fan, though he’s White, not Black, which possibly demonstrates that for some Sport overrides racism), as I say, on whether he’d remembered to get round to the baker’s early to buy some of their fabulous wholemeal bread before the trendy lady retirees from the over-restored cottages grabbed it all.

    Bean Minor removed his small person from the unnecessarily giant refrigerator. “There’s this,” he said dubiously, holding it up.

    Tonic. One of those small bottles, G&Ts for the use of. “It’s very bitter as well as a bit sweet.”

    “I don’t see how it can be both.”

    I eyed him tolerantly. “Try it.”

    He strained over the screw-top cap, gasping, his eyes watering.

    “This requires science.” I searched in the drawers. “Mrs Blake must have been having a go at these,” l said dazedly. “They’re logical.”

    “He told me that he operated on the ‘keep it handy’ principle,” offered Bean Minor uncertainly.

    “Yes. That means nobody else in the entire world can find anything,” I explained, triumphantly producing a nutcracker of the just-squeeze or simple variety from the drawer now containing other such openers, e.g. things for taking the tops off beer bottles, corkscrews, tin-openers, et al.

    I grabbed the bottle off him, squeezed the top with the nutcrackers, and turned. Bingo.

    “Oh,” he said limply as I handed it back to him. “Thanks, Sister Bean. I’ll remember that.”

    Quite probably until his dying day, he’s like that.

    He tried it. He choked and his eyes watered. “Ugh!”

    “Exactly.”

    He looked helplessly at the bottle. “What’ll I do?” he gasped. “I’ve opened it now!”

    I took a deep breath. “Bean Minor, this is Colonel Raice. Colonel Raice,” I stressed. “Not—Mum. He won’t give a damn.”

    “Oh! No, ’course not!” he beamed. “Isn’t this what she puts in gin?”

    Like when she’s not knocking it back neat? “Yes, that’s right,” I agreed kindly.

    “Well maybe he’d like one of those, then it wouldn’t be wasted!”

    Oh dear. His tiny face had lit up, all pleased with his great idea.

    “Good notion in theory, old chap, but the sun isn’t over the yardarm in the maternal terms of such as Mrs O., it won’t be acceptable.”

    “Real mothers, you mean?”

    I winced slightly but agreed: “Exactly.”

    “Bean said Mrs Hutchinson’s just the same. But she doesn’t like the boat, she wouldn’t go this year so Bean and Flossie said I couldn’t come, they weren’t going to be responsible for me.”

    “What? Bean and Flossie?” –I’d have expected it from dashed Bean, but Flossie?

    “Yes. Not Crumpy, though, he’s okay. He said to let me but they voted him down.”

    “Well Crumpy’s a very decent sort. But I must say dashed Flossie Nightingale’s a real broken reed, at one stage I’d have thought better of him.”

    “Trelawney Minor says he’s the sort that doesn’t want to be bothered.”

    Out of the mouths of babes and— No, well, poor little Trelawney Minor ought to know, admittedly. T. Major, in his time,—he left at the end of the term—was reportedly definitely that sort and the parents, of course, are even worse.

    “Good for T. Minor. Spot-on,” I said grimly. “Any spring water in there?”

    “Um…” He inserted his person into the white monster again. “Ooh!” He emerged, beaming. “Look!”

    Lucozade. God. There was already an almost full bottle of it by the Colonel’s bedside; how much of the putrid stuff did Mrs Blake imagine the unfortunate fellow was going to pour into himself?

    “Why not?” I said cheerfully. …Um, did their Matron give them the stuff as a sort of invalids-only treat? I wondered as he happily fetched himself a glass. Er, strictly speaking a whisky tumbler, but too bad, those who put their good crystal tumblers in convenient kitchen cupboards reachable by short persons on the “keep it handy” principle deserved to have them used for unsuitable liquids.

    A certain amount of obligatory gasping then ensued, and lowering the doubtless irreplaceable drinking vessel (the set had belonged to the Colonel’s late grandfather), Bean Minor noted: “It is quite big for a cottage—don’t you think?”

    “Uh—what?”

    “You weren’t listening. Only I think this is quite big for a cottage.”

    Er… Possibly he had mentioned the point earli— Oh, yes. As he crept up on me.

    “If you mean I wasn’t listening because you gave me the fright of my life, correct. Um, I think he once said it was two cottages—semidetached.”

    “It’s a strange way of putting it,” he said musingly. “’Cos in fact they are attached, aren’t they?”

    “Exactly. I’ve always thought that. Um, but anyway that would explain why it’s got three bedrooms and two bathrooms upstairs. Well I mean of course they wouldn’t have had upstairs bathrooms orig—”

    “Gosh! Really?” His eyes lit up.

    “Yes. In the Old Days people who could only afford cottages had to bathe in big tin baths that they had to lug into the kitchen and fill by hand from the kettle.”

    “Like boiling it up on the Aga?” he ventured.

    “Mm. And earlier than that over the fire, I think. Well I don’t think they did wash very much.”

    “No, one wouldn’t.”

    “Um, though the tin baths weren’t actually huge: less than half the size of modern baths, I think. You’d have to sit with your knees drawn up to your chin.”

    “It must have been hard for very tall people.”

    “Yes. I read somewhere that the Welsh coalminers used to come home black as anything and their wives would have the bath all ready for them and scrub their backs for them.”

    “Like black all over?”

    “Pretty much. It was a very hard life, poor things. But at least it was work.”

    “Um, yes… We saw on the Antiques Roadshow where this family, I think they were Welsh, anyway they had quite a small cottage, they had a tea-set that the old Queen, it wasn’t our Queen, it was in the Old Days, she’d sent it to them because she’d grabbed something off them when she did a Royal Visit. Mr Holier-Than-Thou said it was the only valuable thing that poor family could ever hope to own and their prized possession and she made them give it to her. And the man, he said the tea-set they got for it wasn’t worth very much at all. Wasn’t that rotten?”

    “I’ll say! What a mean old thing she must have been. –So does Mr Holyoake actually let you chaps watch that?”

    “I wouldn’t say let. More makes us. He says it’s broadening our minds. You see lots of keen dogs on it when they have it outside, like on the lawn,” he said wistfully.

    “Dogs?” I groped.

    “Yes, people come to see the show, you see, it’s not just ones bringing antique stuff for the experts to look at, and they usually bring their dogs if it’s outside. Sometimes they have it in a big building, though.”

    I looked at him dazedly. Certainly Mr Holyoake teaches art, but crumbs! Oh, well, good for him. Marbledown was quite possibly going to do Bean Minor a lot more good than it had ever done his dratted brother.

    “It sounds really good value. But all the Seniors at putrid Merrifield have free choice of telly programs, and the bimbos would never watch something with actual informational content.”

    “No,” he agreed. “Not to mention all those great dogs.”

    Oh, dear. But there was no way Grannie would let him have a dog at Château LeBec, she hates them, and to Mum of course it’d be a wild animal, and she’d let it die anyway if it was her responsibility while he was at School. And Dad would, as usual, make living in college the excuse.

    “Well, if it’s on, maybe we could watch it here. And you never know: we might find a programme actually about dogs: this is England, after all.”

    “That’d be great! But will he let us?”

    The telly was downstairs and the Colonel was incarcerated upstairs courtesy of the helpful ambulance men and Mrs B.’s orders. But I didn’t bother to make the point, I just said: “Any chap who’ll let you watch that doolally Xena thing will let you watch anything, don’t worry.”

    “It was putrid. The chaps at School said it was good…” he reported sadly.

    Er—yes. If this was the verging-on-Lezzie show that I rather think it was, the Merrifield bimbos also admire it. Not realising that it possibly isn’t a likely rôle model for those whose avowed aim in life is to marry a suitable male provider.

    “Nevertheless he let you watch it. Just see if there are any biscuits, would you?”

    The subsequent report was an astonished: “Gosh! There’s millions!”

    Mrs B. again, of course. Jolly good. I put some on a plate on the tin tray with, alas, the Royal Corgis on it—Colonel Raice’s idea of a huge joke, but which Bean Minor, bless his little fallen-down cotton socks, genuinely admires—and took everything upstairs, the tiny sibling following behind carefully cradling his replenished whisky tumbler of Lucozade.

    Once Mrs O. had finally pushed off, noting that if she wasn’t there to get the lunch Ian and Alan would just have bread and jam (no mention of all those vague fabric-y fits, please note), Colonel Raice said kindly to the tiny leguminous one: “You don’t have to drink that Lucozade muck, old chap.”

    “I like it!” he replied fervently, gripping the now empty whisky tumbler very tight.

    The Colonel looked at him weakly. “Do you?” he croaked. “Then it’s all yours, but for God’s sake don’t let on to assorted female well-wishers that I said so.”

    “No, I won’t, Junior Drones’ honour!” he replied proudly. –His own swear, he’d made it up, it wasn’t the sort of thing the Egg and Flossie would have deemed Wodehousean, by any means.

    “Jolly good. Er—that’s a whisky glass, y’know,” he ventured, eyeing it not for the first time with a certain unease.

    “It was in the cupboard,” said Bean Minor simply.

    “Yes. On the ‘keep it handy’ principle, no doubt,” I put in, giving the Colonel a hard look. “Whereas the water glasses are so high up that even I can’t reach them.”

    “I’d have said they were handy, too.”

    “She’s not very tall,” the tiny pin-headed sibling explained helpfully. “Maybe that’s why she’s scared of sitting on a horse. Though when you come to think of it, almost anybody’s head is miles further off the ground than hers would be.”

    “Good grief!” I said nastily, getting up. “Almost maths and physics! It’ll be vectors and—and cosines next!”

    “What is a vector, Mel?” asked the Colonel, poker-face.

    “No idea, thank God.” I grabbed the tray. “Any idea what you want for lunch?”

    “Er… Do you know how to make anything?”

    “Not really. I think Mrs O. overlooked that in her zeal to rush to the invalid’s bedside.”

    Bean Minor fixed him with an unwinking stare from those weirdly light hazelish-greyish eyes that like me he got from Dad. “Have you got a toaster oven?”

    “No. Don’t even know what it is, actually.”

    “It’s a little bench-top oven like a microwave only it toasts things,” the infant brain produced brilliantly.

    “Yes: spot-on,” I had to agree.

    “She can’t do Agas,” Bean Minor added helpfully.

    “Haven’t got one of those either, actually. The stove’s electric. Er… has anyone shown you how to turn the generator on if we get a power cut, Mel?”

    “No, but it’s summer, fingers crossed.”

    “Er—mm. Well—er—cheese sandwiches? Is there any cheese?”

    “Yes, lots! And there’s some ham in the fridge, too!” offered Bean Minor.

    “Oh, is there? Well, ham and cheese, then.”

    “Do you mean,” I asked, frowning over it, “mixed, like in the sandwich together, or separate?”

    “Separate. Choice of ham or cheese for all. That settle it?”

    I eyed him drily. That sounded as if he’d gone into his colonelling mode. Which an idiot that went riding with the frightful Ellen Wetherby and then fell off the horse and broke his leg resulting in Invalidism and Helplessness had no right to, in my opinion.

    “More or less. Perhaps if you were to run it by me again, Colonel, sir, I might grasp it fully.”

    “Get out of here,” he sighed, leaning back and closing his eyes.

    “A hint is as good as a nod to a blind man,” I replied, going over to the door. I paused. “Want coffee?”

    Crumbs. The man was galvanised. He sat bolt upright, the eyes open, and shouted:

    “Don’t you dare to touch my coffee-pot!”

    I shrugged. “Keep your hair on. No skin off my nose.” And exited in good order.

May 23 Not. Continuing: The first afternoon in the Colonel’s cottage passed fairly peacefully, that is, after Bean Minor had been forced to dry the lunch dishes. At least, mine was peaceful, but the small sibling went into feverish activity trying to devise a sure-fire method of room-to-room contact, after the Colonel had incautiously mentioned such concepts as Speaking Tubes and Walkie-Talkies, none of which the cottage contained, not to say the dread word “Comms,” and all parties had ascertained that we two didn’t have mobile phones and in any case he’d let his one’s battery run down. What if he fell out of bed during the night and needed to call an ambulance? asked Bean Minor darkly. All the dratted man said was: “I won’t.”

    The final solution to the Comms problem was sourced in the room with the Biggles books and other boyhood memorabilia: an antique tin filled with antique marbles which the Colonel winced at the sight and sound of, serve him right. It worked jolly well, so good for the minor Bean!

    At a fairly advanced hour, just when I was reading an old Arthur Ransome scavenged from the said room and trying not to wonder guiltily what on earth to make for dinner given that cheese or ham sandwiches were my best shot to date without a toaster oven (in which case they’d have been toasted ditto or grilled cheese on toast, QED), there was what sounded like an agitated rattling. Odd: it wasn’t like Colonel Raice to get agitated over anything, much, except as recently demonstrated putrid coffee-pots. It’s just like Grannie’s and Tante Élisabeth’s in any case and I can make coffee in them perfectly well. On the other hand, would an Anglais want pitch-black French coffee? A pertinent Thort.

    The rattling sounded again, worse, and I went to the foot of the stairs and shouted: “WHAT?”

    At which an agitated Bean Minor appeared at the top of the flight, gasping: “Mel, his head’s awfully hot and he won’t wake up! I think he’s got a fever!”

    Oh, shit.

    I shot up there.

    The Colonel’s face was awfully red under the tan. I felt his forehead cautiously. Ugh!

    I was about to panic horribly but then I noticed the empty tumbler on the bedside cabinet. A hundred to one it had not contained Lucozade. I sniffed it cautiously. Ugh.

    “He’s been drinking whisky,” I said grimly, “so if he’s hot it’s his own stupid fault. Added to which,”—I investigated the bedclothes—“how many eiderdowns has the silly man got on, anyway?”

    I began peeling them back.

    “Three,” said Bean Minor weakly.

    “Yes. How daft can you get? In midsummer? –Open the windows, for God’s sake, Bean Minor! He’s full of whisky and he’s been under fifteen inches of eiderdowns, no wonder he’s hot!”

    Obediently he hurried over to the windows and began fighting with the ancient casements. And some rather new paint injudiciously applied to the frames thereof.

    “There!” he panted at last.

    “Well done, Bean Minor,” I said kindly as actual fresh air began filtering in and I realised that the room had been super-overheated. “Uh… just add to your goodness by feeling that wall heater very carefully, would you, old chum?”

    Bean Minor approached it cautiously. “Ow!” he gasped, snatching his little paw back.

    “Yes,” I said grimly. “Thought so. Grab that redundant cloth off the dressing-table, would you, there’s a good chap, and I’ll turn the bally thing off.”

    “There’s stuff on it. I think these are his grandfather’s brushes, Mel.”

    “I dare say. Shove them aside, and hurry up.”

    He duly handed me the fancy embroidered white cloth with the decorative bumps round the edges, the whole vaguely oval in shape—Mrs Blake’s doing, without any doubt whatsoever—and I wadded it up well and used it to pad my hand as I turned the bally heater right off.

    “Maybe he was cold last night and Mrs Blake turned it on for him,” the sibling ventured.

    Grimly I replied: “Yeah, or the bally idiot hopped out of bed and did it himself.”

    He bit his lip. “Mm.”

    “Anyway,” I said with a sigh, “he’ll be all right. But you did good, Bean Minor, it was the right thing to alert me.”

    “Oh good!” he beamed. “I was afraid it might be his malaria coming back, to tell you the truth.”

    Omigod. I had completely forgotten that small point. I stared at him in horror.

    “It—it isn’t, is it?” he quavered.

    “Not going by the evidence, no,” I replied, trying to pull myself together.

    “He hasn’t woken up even tho we’ve been talking.”

    And in spite of that awful rattling racket—quite.

    “Don’t think chaps that are full of whisky tend to wake up easily, old chum.” Trying to look frightfully casual, I felt his forehead. It did feel a bit cooler and didn’t seem as red, phew! “I think he’s cooling down. Come on, we’ll give it half an hour and if he’s fiery hot and sweating like a pig or shivering all over we’ll get hold of the doc.”

    “But his phone isn’t working!”

    “I’ve plugged it in downstairs. Come on, you can have a belt of Lucozade.”

    “Ooh, great! Thanks awfully, Sister Bean!”

    And we retreated downstairs.

    Half an hour later the Colonel was a lot cooler and snoring so as neither of us had ever heard that malaria induces loud snoring we left him to it.

    Well it solved the problem of dinner, didn’t it? So ignoring the succession of casseroles left by Mrs B. in both the fridge and the freezer, which lives in the laundry—a strange bare-board-floored space like a large cupboard which was probably created when the two cottages were thrown into one, which I have an idea might have been in the Thirties—Bean Minor and I settled down to a sustaining meal of bread, cheese, ham, and three yummy varieties of chutney slash pickle. Plus a big pot of tea, well all that milk in the fridge had to be got through somehow. And neither of us was volunteering to drink it neat, thanks, like good little English children.

    … How did one make a white sauce? Or even a sauce Mornay to use up some of that cheese mountain, courtesy of both Mrs B. and Mrs O., didn’t that also incorporate milk? Oh well!

    The Colonel was still snoring at bedtime so I shut one of his windows and left the other open a crack for fresh air and put a light blanket over him and remembering at the last moment to remove the nearly-empty whisky bottle from the cupboard in his bedside cabinet, closed the door on the silly idiot.

    Honestly! Bean Minor’s got more sense!

Next chapter:

https://theeggandfriends-anovel.blogspot.com/2025/12/casserole-days.html