Free Cards of Identity by Nigel Dennis Page A

getting the big carpet up the stairs that’s holding me back. It’s fifty feet long, sir. But I’ve managed the under-felt.’
    ‘Well, that’s the easy part, isn’t it? Couldn’t you rig up some sort of pulley?’
    ‘Or a slide of some kind, Jellicoe?’ suggested Mrs Mallet.
    ‘I could try a slide, madam. But it’s up, not down.’
    ‘The principle remains the same, Jellicoe.’
    *
    Mrs Paradise slowly descended the back stairs, grasping on each step to intensify her feeling of self-sacrifice. She had just reached a corner and given vent to a loud ‘A-a-ah!’ when Beaufort sprang out on her with a loud ‘Boo!’ Seeing her scream and stagger, he caught her lightly round the waist, gave her a wet kiss, and said: ‘Got you that time Florrie!’
    ‘Don’t you ever do that again!’ she gasped.
    ‘Why, Florrie, from the way you talk one would think I’d never done it to you before!’
    ‘You’re a man now, not a little boy.’
    ‘But you still think I’m a little boy, don’t you, Florrie? You still look at my ears and knees as if they needed washing, just as you always did. Where are you going now? Come and talk to me. Tell me storiesabout when I was a child. Or are you going to flirt with wicked old Jellicoe?’
    ‘That’s quite enough, Master Beau. I’m going to work, and it would much improve you to do the same.’
    ‘D’you know there are secrets in Jellicoe’s past, Florrie? I know all about them. Before he came here he used to seduce women under a fake name and embezzle their money. I’m still trying to find out his alias. But one of the women ran away with all his savings, so he decided to reform.’
    ‘What a terrible way to talk! I would be ashamed to let such an accusation pass my lips.’
    ‘Why are you always so good, Florrie?’ he asked, escorting her down the stairs in gigantic jumps. ‘Do naughty memories suddenly come into your head and make you say: “Surely that was never me ?” I’m watching you, too, you know. I pick up all sorts of things. For instance, when Mrs Finch, or Miss Chirk, or whatever her name is, came yesterday to apply for housemaid, she said you used to look a treat long ago, walking the fields with ribbons in your hair, singing: “There’s nae luck aboot the hoose wi’ Jellicoe awa’.”’
    ‘I remember no such rubbish,’ said Mrs Paradise, seizing the brilliant memory and tucking it away. ‘Nor do I remember any Mrs Chinch.’
    ‘Chirk or Finch, Florrie, I said.’
    ‘Not them either.’
    ‘Well, you’ll have to interview one or both of them, whichever they are, this morning, because I’m going to fetch her in the car.’
    ‘There’s a car coming now, I hear.’
    ‘That’s the doctor’s measured tread.’
    ‘What doctor?’
    ‘How do I know, Florrie? You know I never bother with names. He’s coming to see Mama. Papa’s agog.’
    ‘What’s the matter with your poor stepmother?’
    ‘Only a mushroom growth at the base of the spine. We hope it’s not malignant. If it’s benign, Mama’s going to have a little green collar made for it and take it with her everywhere.’
    ‘Oh, dear, what rubbish you do talk! And to jest even about a stepmother’s health! And to a widow! What’s that roaring noise?’
    ‘Only the doctor mounting the front stairs like the wind on the heath. I say, what a bonzer car he’s got! Look, you can see through theloop-hole. I wish we had one like that. How we’d show off at the big June house-party! Oh, do you know we’re getting a brand-new gardener? They’ve just come off the ration. The old one wore out. When we took him to pieces we felt it was a miracle he’d stayed together at all – his shins were down to the thinness of pencil leads and the whole pelvic basin was crumbled to bone-meal. It’s pretty good, you know; we bought him at twenty-two and six a week in 1889. The new one has a beard, but no one has dared to lift it yet and see what Nature meant. He’s bringing a Land Girl with him.