ILLUMINATION BOOK CHAPTERS (UPDATED LIST OF CHAPTERS HERE).. ROMANTIC COMEDY — QUIRKY ROMP — CO-STARS MOOCHER THE DOG

‘White Lies and Custard Creams’ — Chapter Seventeen

The aftermath

The morning dawned bright and clear and invigorating. Despite it, Liz decided she was going to stay in bed all day and the following day too and probably the next week as well. After all, no one would notice. No one would care. However, Moocher had other ideas. He wanted his breakfast.

Liz slogged downstairs and hurled herself to the floor to crawl under the level of the breakfast room window. Not that Lydia needed to look this way anymore. She had a life of her own now.

Melanie, it turned out, had been as good as her word and her electric oven stood there in solitary splendour on a table someone had dragged in from somewhere. Someone or several someones had cleaned and scrubbed the kitchen as much as possible. It made her feel quite teary. How lovely. Perhaps someone did care after all.

There was also a huge bouquet on the floor from Hugh. The card said: ‘Fancy some dinner tonight?’

Liz’s heart jumped. She’d love to go out with Hugh. She could pretend they were on a date. She’d have to be very careful he didn’t realise that was what she was doing of course. But it seemed jolly odd. What would the sainted Charity think? Ooh — what if she was there too? He didn’t say she wouldn’t be, but the note didn’t say she would be either. She must be. This must be his way of them getting to know each other. What other reason could he have for inviting her out for dinner?

Liz wasn’t sure she could handle that just yet. Her feelings for Hugh were too new to her even if they had been around forever, and she had enough hassle and mystery in her life without deliberately rubbing her face in that particular mess she’d got herself into.

Perhaps she would refuse the invitation. On the other hand, she ought to check Charity out. Make sure Hugh wasn’t making too bad a mistake. She’d accept. That sorted out her nutritional requirements for the day, too.

Moocher settled for an oven-baked omelette. She cut it up for him after he’d grabbed one edge of it and slapped his face a few times shaking it around his head. Funny dog. He was very happy with his new style breakfast — food and toy rolled into one. Given all those eggs, though, she would have to make sure she didn’t find herself enclosed in a small space with him for the rest of the day.

Something would have to be done about the kitchen. There wasn’t even a kettle. To hell with it, she would get someone in to sort it and simply adjust her spreadsheet. That’s what she would do.

In fact, she’d adjust her spreadsheet now for an exorbitant amount and then she’d be used to the idea when the bill came in. She went up to the attic to do just that and, joy of joys found a custard doughnut she hadn’t got round to eating whenever it was. She surveyed it with pleasure. She held it up to the light and the sun struck little rays of gold from each speckle of sugar.

The phone rang. Damn! She picked it up anyway. “AccountsRUs, Good Morning!”

It was Angela. Oh, happy day. She was ringing her up before even the birds realised the day had started, to give her the latest news-break on potty training.

“Okay, so it’s not exactly business hours,” Liz said. “But you still wouldn’t have rung me when I was going out to work in an office and was breaking my neck to get ready to go to work, would you?” If Angela had ever rung her when she was hopping around trying to find a matching stocking without reducing her drying nail varnish to the consistency of weeks old rice pudding and trying not to let melted peanut butter drip onto her just-ironed blouse she would have torn her limb from limb. Verbally. That must be it! Since her redundancy she must have been far too patient. That was her problem — too patient.

“What’s the magic about working in an office, Angela? I’m still working you know, just at home instead, and I think you should respect that.” In her heart Liz knew this was wasted effort. Also, the doughnut was calling out and her mouth watered in response. She just wanted Angela to go away so she could sink her teeth into it.

“Since I was kicked out, Angela, I’ve been trying really hard to set up this business from home — constant interruptions are not helping.” Rising temper tightened her grip on the phone and on the doughnut. She tried to relax a little, unsuccessfully.

“No! I don’t want to hear about little Johnny using his little potty.” Liz took a swipe with her tongue at the custard oozing out of her doughnut before it fell on to the sales ledger wide open on her desk. It was difficult to stop Angela in full flow especially when one’s mouth was crammed with custard doughnut at the time. The worst thing was when someone made you laugh and you had a mouth full. Cleaning sprayed custard off the monitor and out of the keyboard was not easy. At least with Angela, there was no danger of that.

“I am interested, but it could wait until this evening. No, I don’t want to hear about the little darling missing a little, quite accidentally, of course, and it squashing out of the…” Ohmigod, she was seeing her doughnut in a whole new light now. She put it down. Her stomach had turned against it.

“No! I don’t want to know! I refuse to hear! Don’t ring me again during the working day!” Liz slammed the phone down and dropped her head onto her arms on the desk, sighing heavily. This meant she didn’t have to look for her doughnut again when she wanted it because she unexpectedly found it. It had now spread its contents all over the sales ledger, and her face, and somehow insinuated custard all through her hair. Aargh, the day was not shaping up well and it had barely started. Perhaps she should go back to bed and get up again in the hope of a new day. As she considered this option the phone rang again. This was seriously asking for trouble!

She snatched up the phone and gulping in plenty of air and temper mixture she released it down the receiver. “You can take your poo and stuff it back where it came from,” she shouted. That would teach her. It would also teach Liz. She should have learned by now — whatever the provocation — to never answer the phone assuming she knew who it was. Dohh!

“Um, yes — I have finished your accounts and would like to set up a meeting with you to discuss the tax implications — poo — did I say poo? No, not really. But I did say, tax implications. No, I really didn’t say poo — no, no, it was ‘pool’ — with an ‘l’ on the end. ‘L’. Poollll. No! Not tool — oh, God — you’re right it was poo — I thought it was my sister on the phone and her bear — I wasn’t shouting at you. Tuesday all right — 11am? See you then. You have a bear? Bring it with you — erm, yes, feel free. He’s good at accounts and understands them better than you do — oh really? He’s paying the fee?”

She put down the phone and groaned long and loud. Moocher lifted his head attentively. Sometimes life just seemed to go on and on.

The phone rang again. With great restraint she answered: “AccountsRUs, good morning!”

“Mrs Elizabeth Houston?”

“Yes. Who’s speaking please?”

“My name’s James Conway. Sergeant. Police. I’ve been standing on your doorstep for the last ten minutes trying to get an answer from you. It would appear that your door bell isn’t working.”

“Oh. Right. How can I help you?”

“Would you be kind enough to let me in?”

“Well, um… I dunno…”

“It’s in your best interests to do so.”

She was too tired to argue about whose idea of her best interests they were interested in here. “Okay.”

She didn’t hurry down the stairs. She wondered what source of amusement had brought them around now. She also stopped off in the bathroom and attempted to lose the custard she was wearing. When she finally made it to the lobby she was just too weary to lift the door. It shrieked piercingly. Sergeant James Conway winced. Behind him was another PC. He hadn’t mentioned two of them, but maybe they went around in pairs for protection from ravening finger-snatching hounds. Liz stood back and let them in. They went straight into the front room almost as though they’d been here before which they hadn’t. Perhaps there was a floor plan pinned next to the list on their entertainment board.

He got straight down to it. “We’re here because we ran that note from the brick past our hand writing expert and we’re pretty certain that we are, in fact, dealing with a dangerous criminal. We need more information from you Mrs Houston, than you’re giving us.”

Well, well, well. What had they got here then?

Of course, she couldn’t give them any more information than she already had. Not only that, but the fridge-finger episode had lost its legendary appeal. In an effort to distract them she regaled them with the incident in the hope of raising a laugh and knew what it must feel like to bomb as a stand-up comic. She’d knock that off her list of potential careers, then. It was odd, but for the first time, she really felt as though she was impeding the law. It didn’t seem right to let them go on thinking they were dealing with a dangerous criminal when in fact they were dealing with a bunch of part time amateurs, but whatever she said they wouldn’t believe her. They even refused her offer of squash.

Nothing she said would shake them from their conviction that she was living in deep waters and about to drown. No doubt her water logged and purpled body would float to the surface at some point. Still, it was nice to know they were concerned. Sergeant James Conway was quite cute really. Not ohmigod-I’ve-lost-my-breath-cute, but cute, nevertheless.

It was only after they’d gone she realised that if they hadn’t been real policeman, she wouldn’t have known. She must find out how to check. Her house was becoming more and more reminiscent of the town centre on the Saturday before Christmas, except that around Malvern Road you could usually park fairly easily and people seldom indulged in trolley rage. It was all getting too silly for words. Come to that she supposed it was possible that the firemen who’d been all over her house could also have been fake firemen. Any of them might have been the criminals trying to scare her for some reason. But then again, they might not.

She was fed up with staring at her spreadsheet. Nothing ever changed on it except the deficit. Instead, she thought she’d check her e-mails. She hadn’t looked at them for some time. There were a few from friends that she’d have to answer, one or two about business, one enquiry about a room. That was encouraging. Perhaps things would pick up a bit. She worked her way through them. It was so satisfying to deal with them in order and see the pile diminish. She reached the last one which was apparently from MrNoName — not someone she knew. It bore the enigmatic title of ‘Moocher accessories’. It had only just come in judging by the time clocked up on it. She clicked her cursor on it and the email opened up on her screen in big red letters. And then what she read sank in and she froze.

It said: ‘Remember when people had a rabbit’s foot on their key ring for luck? We’re offering you a Once in a Lifetime Chance to have a dog’s paw on yours. Or Two. Dogs can be okay on three legs, but they fall over with only two. You’d better give us what we want. We’ll be in touch. Don’t call anyone in or it’ll go bad for him.’ It wasn’t signed.

Moocher. Liz’s heart stopped. Her lungs turned to glass. But she made herself print out the email before closing down the computer.

As she stumbled down the stairs she knew she wouldn’t find him. It was a sunny day. The kind of day when he would sleep in the long grass. A tired-out lion. She just knew he wouldn’t be there.

He wasn’t.

She searched the whole garden, shouting his name all the while, her voice wobbling with fear. The garden wasn’t that big, but it was a cross between the Serengeti on the lawn bit and a rain forest around the edges. She forced her body between overgrown bushes to check under their lower branches and around the back of the pampas grass that had well over grown its welcome. She even lifted great flat leaves off the pond to stare in to its black depths, knowing all the time that he wasn’t there. She checked in places impossible for him to get into. She checked in places impossible for a newt to get into. He was not outside. She slowly walked back into the house. Her eyes felt as though they were so wide open they would never be able to close again. He would be in his basket. He had to be in his basket.

His basket under the stairs had never been so empty. It was located under the coat pegs which meant that if anyone left their coat unused on a peg for more than a couple of days it would develop a hem of Moocher-hair which would have to be wrestled off with every trick known to humankind, including the wet cloths that Shorty-Brian recommended for cat fur. Moocher would lie in his king-sized basket with his head resting at a seemingly impossible angle on the edge of it in order to keep an eye on everyone going by. From that basket he could also check up on happenings in the breakfast room.

She checked under the blanket. He wasn’t there.

They would leave the breakfast room door open so he could see them, despite the howling gale that swept from the dog flap in the back door, through the kitchen where it gathered extra momentum, before pouncing into the breakfast room to freezingly stab at the unprotected flesh of unwary diners. The jubilant stream of cold air, unimpeded, would yowl straight down the hall and slam shut the lobby door if anyone had left it open, before blasting into the front door and escaping through the gaps around the door frame. This was an exceedingly well-ventilated house.

If when the weather got really cold, they shut the breakfast room door in self-defence, that dog would be out of his basket in a flash, immediately scratching at the door to come in, upset that they would shut him out. He would then collapse with a great groaning sigh under the table and they would know how uncomfortable it was for him to have to give up his basket to lie on the cold, cold floor. In that draught.

They might sit it out in strained silence for a few seconds, but then someone’s nerve would break and they would leap up and open the door again. He would drag himself out from under the table, give the door-opener a pathetic lick on their hand and, suddenly revived, he would trot out of the breakfast room and hop into his basket. He would hurl himself down into his blankets and, propping his head up into a suitable position, his supervision of them would resume, accompanied by a slow thumping of his tail. He’d got what he wanted.

Again.

But perhaps never again.

Chapter Sixteen of ‘White Lies and Custard Creams’ is here!

Chapter Eighteen of ‘White Lies and Custard Creams’ will be here next week!

All ‘White Lies and Custard Creams’ chapters to read are here.

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