Free Downtrodden Abbey: The Interminable Saga of an Insufferable Family by Gillian Fetlocks

psychological blindness to facial twitches, uncontrollable night sweats, diarrhoea, tremors, and the inability to eat or sleep. Not to mention anal leakage, itching and swelling, dry mouth, rashes, severe constipation, herpes, and erections lasting more than four hours. But now you’re telling me—”
    “—I’m telling you that I had fantastic hair before I shipped out. It had shine, manageability, and body. I’ve been brushing it continuously since my return. It’s hopeless, I tell you. I’m a broken man, O’Grotten.”
    Isabich hears of Tomaine’s troubles, and it seems to dovetail perfectly with her plan to turn Downtrodden into a hair treatment centre and salon. Vile continues to object vehemently, but shampoos and conditioners are ordered, and chairs and dryers, fueled by coal, are installed.
    “Let’s give Isabich a chance,” Roderick tells his mother. “The importance of clean, healthy hair during wartime cannot be overestimated.”

 
    IX
    About Smutt
     
    Somehow, Atchew receives a promotion, which will take him back to England earlier than planned. Upon hearing this, Lady Marry summons Dick Calamine back to the great house in an effort to stir jealousy in Atchew.
    Frustrated with Clang’s work as an interim valet for Lord Crawfish, Tyresom moves him into the position of footmasseur, where he proceeds to further gum up the works. When Clang mistakes Lady Crawfish for an intruder, pins her down, and repeatedly calls her a “no good Kraut,” Tyresom takes to his bed, claiming that the ensuing havoc has activated his angina.
    Meanwhile, Marry grows closer to Slovenia Swine, and becomes intrigued by her irrational, inexplicable affection for Atchew.
    Calamine, motivated by hostility, desperation, and greed, proposes to Lady Marry, claiming that they would form a powerful aristocratic alliance. Marry meets with Nana secretly in the drawing room late at night, confiding in her and desperate for advice.

    Proposals of marriage often led to stress-induced hallucinations.
    “What do you see in Brace?” she asks. “I mean, on paper it’s a complete mismatch—a young, naïve waif and a middle-aged, married, been-through-the-mill personal valet.”
    “I like it,” says Nana, thinking.
    “What do you mean, you like it?” asks Marry.
    “Well, it’s a meet cute. I’ve been looking for something I could develop as a story for—”
    Marry moans. “Please don’t say what I think you’re going to.”
    Nana confesses that she, too, has been working on a screenplay, but a dearth of marketable ideas has stopped her cold.
    “I tried the whole ‘fish out of water’ thing, with a character based on Clang—you know, the dunderheaded valet. But it just seemed like a series of unconnected incidents.
    “Then there’s the sad story of Tomaine, and his latent sexual identity issues. Wasn’t sure that would sell. I mean, does anyone actually read Gertrude Stein, or does everyone just buy the book and sit around in cafés pretending to care whether she’s getting it from a bloke or a lass?
    “I noodled around a little with Lady Crawfish’s pregnancy, and the entail, and how one affected the other, and the this whole thing with you and Atchew, and that Calamine fellow.…”
    How dare she turn my family’s life into fodder for a gossipy melodrama, Marry thinks. But against her better judgement and despite this accelerating ire, Lady Marry finds herself becoming curious.
    “And where did that go?”
    Nana shrugs. “It just felt more like a theatrical drama, not a full cinematic experience—”
    “I am appalled. Firstly, that you have joined the ranks of what appears to be half the inhabitants of this house—delusional screenwriters. And secondly, that you have reduced the goings-on at Downtrodden Abbey to the level of insipid entertainment of the type one would find broadcast on the radio as a source of prurient popular entertainment.”
    “What’s a ‘radio’?” asks Countess Vile, overhearing the