Free The Room Beyond by Stephanie Elmas

answered me out loud just then? I tried to recall
the act of him opening his mouth and forming those words, but got nothing.
    ‘I thought you’d like them,’ said Gladys, as a plate of noodles
suddenly materialized in front of me. ‘Considering your recent Asian tour.’
    ‘Which gave her a dodgy tummy, didn’t you know?’ came Eva’s voice. She
was picking away at a small plate of canapés.
    The colour drained out of Gladys’s face. ‘Oh I’m so sorry.’
    ‘No please don’t be! I’m fine now. I love Thai food.’
    I peered back again at the dainty plate of canapés.
    ‘She had to come home in the end Grandpa, because of her stomach. Didn’t
you?’ added Beth.
    ‘Yes, but I really am fine now.’
    A plate of fish and chips landed in front of Beth as Edward regarded
me, hawk-eyed, from the head of the table.
    ‘Some kind of worm in the gut perhaps? Happens abroad,’ he said.
    I turned to Seb, hoping that he might change the subject of my
intestine, but he seemed to be too absorbed by the arrival of his soup.
    ‘Delicious, thank you so much.’
    ‘It’s a pleasure my boy, there’s freshly baked bread as well,’
Gladys murmured back.
    ‘Robert now Gladys, give my son his food!’ Edward bellowed, finally
discarding his newspaper. ‘Feed the children first, that’s what I always say.’
    Robert didn’t look very much like a child, but he did seem like
someone who needed feeding up.
    ‘Now you didn’t add salt did you?’ he stammered, poking at a bowl of
what looked like brown mushy peas.
    ‘No, I’ve done your lentils just the way you like them.’
    A different meal for everyone. So, that explained all those pots and
pans I’d seen bubbling in the kitchen earlier.
    ‘And now for me!’ Edward grasped his knife and fork in anticipation
as Gladys wheeled the trolley round.
    ‘Roast beef with all the trimmings just the way you like it,’ she
said.
    ‘Exactly what I was hoping for. Delicious!’
    The door flew open again and Arabella floated into the room. She was
wearing an electric blue kimono style dress that made her look remarkably like
an exotic bird.
    ‘Darlings! And we have Serena with us tonight I see.’
    She enveloped me in a long, searching gaze and then smiled briefly. But
by the time I managed to smile back she’d flourished around the table,
enveloping us all with the heady scent of patchouli whilst brandishing
something in her hand.
    ‘You must all listen to this, it’s hysterically funny!’
    It was an old cassette tape and she slid it into an ancient looking
tape recorder on the sideboard. There was something so fluid about the way she
moved. One action simply seemed to retune itself into the next and before I
knew it she’d clicked a button and was meandering back towards the door.
    ‘I’ll have my chicken salad upstairs Gladys. Africa work to be
done!’
    The tape made a loud belching sound and then exploded into brass
band music.
    ‘Enjoy!’
    And she disappeared with a chiffony flourish and a final whiff of
patchouli.
    We raised our knives and forks to the reverberations of the brass
band music. But before I’d swallowed my first mouthful of noodles, the music
came to an abrupt halt and two men started to talk to each other - in German. Immediately
the faces of everyone around me, including Beth, began to crease up with
hilarity. Edward exploded into raucous laughter every time one of the men made
a joke, Seb and Eva exchanged mirthful glances and even Robert spluttered out
some of his lentils mid-snigger, which made everyone laugh even louder.
    I swallowed hard. Why had I given German up at school in favour of
dance and drama? Peering round at the sniggering faces I felt a stab of
loneliness. I hadn’t been that bad at the drama though... I’d actually pulled
off a pretty mean Lady Macbeth at the end of year show.
    The German men were singing a comic song now and Edward was actually
guffawing into his roast dinner. Seb was gripping his sides. There was