‘I don’t winder worry you, mate,’ coughs the driver and peering dramatically into the mirror, ‘like we’re being followed.’
Good to be home for the End of the World Party.
Persephones Knees leads her gone-to-seed weeded father past the For Sale sign, past the duck pond, up the garden path to high oak doors and the Gothic splendour of the castle. Persephones with the skill of a jailer turns the big key with two hands into the black hole, the fog swirling around their knees, creaking and crossing the barrier of a darker dimension.
They amble arm in arm through the smash-bang-have-it evidence of the rozzers’ search — rare library books ripp’d, floorboards flipped, Chinese vases crack’d, family portraits and the billiards table slashed, tapestries tugged from their trestles and trashed, chandeliers smashed, suits of armour lie abashed, model trains and racing cars crashed, and the Professor’s extended family of potted plants uprooted, trodden and mashed.
(The bloated insurance policy awaiting to be cashed.)
Down in the kitchens they peer into the biscuit tin: empty. The gas bill offering payment terms over twenty-five years by mortgage, Granny Pol-Pot’s gin bill, tobacco bill, bookies’ bills, local rates bill accepting slavery of souls, a bill for the mending of the television screen, water bill, television license bill threatening Life imprisonment, and Persephones’ massive university bill for her first-year online lectures and single group tutorial.
Screwing their courage to the slurping place, they amble arm in arm to the morning room and confront the perpetrator of the gin bill, tobacco bill and bookies’ bills. Enthroned on an enormous commode with high-back mock-Jacobean scrolling, motorised with racing wheels, and thick mahogany arms fitted with electronic controls, Granny Pol-Pot shovelling prunes from a big tin with a silver ladle down an unladylike black hole. Holding court like a revamped Miss Haversham. Raving about the injustice of Life and prospects for the day’s racing before a giant television screen.
And Professor Knees with the patience of a Pip learns he has let the family down, he has let the neighbourhood down, he has let the town down, and yes, the nation down. Until he produces from the mauve smoking jacket a two-litre bottle of gin and tin of tobacco. Whereupon he is transformed into a, ‘Good boy! You’ve always looked after me, you’re a good boy.'
Persephones and Professor Knees squatting on stools at the base of the high-backed mahogany commode to formulate a Great Escape but entranced by a silver sliver of ceiling plaster helicoptering to earth like a presager from the gods. Like the season’s last flight of the sycamore seed. Like the winter’s first snowflake.
*****