Bronze

By Colin Kirk

The only grandson of a Scots Banker and Milanese Mafia boss, brought up in Edinburgh by the house keeper, has absorbed her values. Shes devout, from a Tuscany hilltop village where most folk are communists. He spends the long vacation 1973 in Italy, where his mind set and belief system are jeopardized by powerful personal encounters that are not entirely sexual.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris UK
• Release date: Sep 21, 2016
• ISBN: 9781524594398

Colin Kirk

Colin Kirk has published poetry, classical history and philosophy. This is the umpteenth rewriting of his first novel. www.colinkirkworks.com

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Copyright © 2016 by Colin Kirk.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 10/17/2016

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Contents

1     Model

2     Cast

3     Finish

For Jill

1

Model

Abnormal natural phenomenon perplex everybody from scientists to the incredulous. The water cannon on the Water of Leith were an amazing sight, unexpected on an insignificant stream that flowed along gently both up and downstream from where the water cannon occurred.

On a bend through rocky outcrops the surface of the water suddenly hurried along and then took to flight. A huge mass of spurts of water, as high as a man, hurtled along in a hazy mist as if over a waterfall. There was no waterfall. And where did all this extra water come from?

Waterfalls fall vertically but here the water cannon shot along horizontally, before the water dropped down into the stream again a little further along and behaved itself normally.

There was no noticeable change in the level or shape of the stream bed. The phenomenon usually happened when there was little or no wind but, according to measurements taken on site, when the humidity was exceptionally high.

High humidity caused mists all along the Water: phantoms, white ladies and white witches. Only at this one point were there water cannon as well.

In some lights the spurts of water shimmered and flashed like crystal, with miniature rainbows appearing and disappearing in the spray.

As a youngster Giorgio encouraged visitors to come out to the hills to see the water cannon. He’d put his swimmers on under his clothes in advance. By the Water he’d sneak off and then emerge, bronzed, laughing and beautiful out of the spray.

He’d raced on ahead, slipped his clothes off without being seen and taken to the water upstream from the bend. Surprised observers feared for his safety, he’d drown, catch his death of cold or both. In truth there was hardly depth enough to swim in and after the water had meandered through the Pentlands in hot sun it was refreshing, rather than icy.

Our hero knew the whole of the Water of Leith from following it up stream to the sources in the Pentland Hills and downstream to the docks at Leith. Since he was eight, walks along side and swimming in the Water had been his favorite occupations.

Giorgio and Henry were twins. Ever since they could remember they had played down from their home in the woodland and amongst the rocks of the banks of the Water that separated New Town from Auld Reekie.

The pleasure of being there had the extra frisson of it being forbidden by anxious parents, who claimed the area was dangerous. In truth they didn’t want their precious children to mix with the kids from the other side.

All the children who played down by the weir found the area exciting. It was a wild place in the middle of the city. For Giorgio and Henry there was much more to do than at home in the garden, where everything was tame and controlled and worse still, they were spied on from the house. Life was wild and wonderful down by the Water.

Hen, the tomboy of the pair was leader in mischief, the heavier built and the less attractive. Hen was always the one who got the blame for leading Giorgio astray. Their mother doted on Giorgio, could not believe she had given birth to Henrietta.

Mother was the only one who gave Hen her full name. To most folk she was Henry and thought to be a boy. Giorgio had always called her Hen, at least his name for her properly indicated her sex. That was not why two year old Giorgio had chosen it. Brevity made it attractive. She called him Jo.

Hen and Jo were late arrivals in the family home. The only children of George Rothschilde, the banker and his beautiful but supposedly frivolous partner Mimi. She had started her career in the chorus at La Scala Milan but soon tired of grand opera. Offenbach was more to her taste.

George fell in love with her body and intellect whilst watching her can-can at the Folies Berger. They shared the same birthday. They married on the twenty-fifth anniversaries of it. The twins arrived nearly five years later to continue the dynasty. Hen and Jo were not allowed to disturb their parents’ social life.

The Scots scion of the ramifying banking clan had broken off early in the nineteenth century, when Chide Harold acquired an unnecessary ‘e’ too. The first baron had founded the Guid Auld Bank, of impeccable probity, more commonly known these days as the Rothschilde Bank of Scotland or simply Scots Rothschildes.

George was the sixth of the dynasty. Not that he was the senior, as his father still ruled Castle Rothschilde, an immodest load of turrets and mullioned windows upstream on the Water. The old man was failing fast.

Apart from when doing his party piece, the public performance of his secret wild life, Giorgio and his sister were usually out of sight and out of mind of…well most everybody. They amused and intrigued each other. They were not rivals as they had nothing in common. They were moderately successful at their respective private schools, both academically and at sports but made few friends amongst their tedious fellow pupils. They preferred the kids down by the Water, who played, fought, even relaxed, with an enthusiasm for life Hen and Jo’s classmates lacked.

The reason for this preference was Nana’s influence on their lives and outlook. Nana ran the house and their home life. Nana was an adjunct of Mimi’s. She’d been brought over from Italy within days of Mimi’s arrival in Edinburgh. She couldn’t have been less like Mimi, who treated her correctly but without affection, not a strong attribute of Mimi’s.

Nana got all the affection she could cope with from the twins. They were never out of her mind and she was rarely out of theirs. Effectively she was their nurse, teacher, role model and represented the world of adults to them. She was always there for them when they wanted her to be. Pa and Mimi were there for their children each day, for the few moments convenient to Pa and Mimi, whether or not the twins needed them at the time. That’s the way things were.

Naturally, the twins loved Nana dearly, hung on her every word, which was usually an Italian word, spoken in a rural Tuscan dialect. They both spoke Italian from being toddlers but had a limited vocabulary. Nana didn’t believe in waste of any kind. She didn’t waste her words. She had a disregard, not contempt, for anything unnecessary in word, deed or possessions.

She cleaned the house and prepared the meals. She wasn’t employed to look after the twins but as no else did and she was always there she regarded it as her prime responsibility. As a result the twins picked up her values, her likes and her dislikes.

Nana’s dislikes included unnecessary gadgets. Everything with wires trailing was treated with suspicion. She didn’t like vacuum cleaners. They were noisy dirty things that weren’t selective in what they picked up, half the carpet would be in there in no time.

Floor scrubbers were out. Down on her knees she could scrub, dry and polish a floor to perfection, right into the corners and see to the skirting boards at the same time.

She preferred her gas cooker, you knew where you were with flames. She cooked simple Italian meals, toast and made coffee.

In the kitchen there was an enormous electric cooker and an Aga. They were reserved for weekends when Mrs. Parker cooked, if necessary. Nana had the weekends off, when the family were usually away anyway, out at the Castle.

Parker was chauffeur and personal assistant to Pa. He and Mrs. Parker had the mews, which housed them and the Daimler. They were distant adults, similar to Pa and Mimi. Nana was always here and now when the twins were at home. She lived there, had the attic rooms where the twins spent most of their indoor life when they were little.

She knew the twins played down in their wonderland with local kids from across the Water. She thought that was healthy, good for them.

She remained an essential part of their lives until they went to their posh schools. Even then her influence was stronger than any other, even the Jesuits in Giorgio’s case. She wasn’t critical of some of the nonsenses the twins picked up. They simply knew they were being treated with disdain. They couldn’t cope with distance between them and Nana. They reverted back to her way of thinking as soon as they picked up the vibes.

One day when he was out walking alone, Giorgio followed the Water downstream to Leith docks. He liked the area: the teaming life, rough cut stone, rusting iron and endless movements of ships and squawking of seagulls. A gang of lads, much his age, walked towards him along the dock side, hands in pockets, whistling. Their approach seemed odd but he thought nothing about it until they were upon him, all round him. They picked him up bodily swung him back and forth and hurled him into the dock.

He swam to a slipway, clambered out and stood there dripping wet and cold. His assailants were across the dock but only a little way off. They were roaring with laughter and hurling abuse, inaudible at the distance above the general noise of hustle and bustle of dockland. Feeling very cold, miserable and stupid Giorgio made his way home by back streets hoping not to meet anyone who knew him. He went to the bathroom to shower and to his bedroom for dry clothes.

He didn’t want anyone to know so he put his wet clothes in the dustbin.

Next morning his wet clothes were on the kitchen table, where Nana had put them. She confronted him with accusations of waste, deception and secrecy. He told her all about how his clothes came to be wet and in the dustbin. She was for once furious with him and accused him of cowardice as well.

What did you do to defend yourself? Why not? You’re fit and healthy, fitter and healthier than any of them I’ll be bound. So what? If you’d made a stand against the biggest of them the rest would have drifted away. Pathetic. I thought better of you than that.

Giorgio was mortified. He joined the Martial Arts group at school, decided on karate and worked his way up the belts to green. He stopped there on the grounds that he could defend himself now and that was all he wanted to be able to do. He’d no intention of initiating a fight or becoming a karate champion.

Giorgio, even more than Hen, out-did Nana’s Diogenes approach to life when he started to lay down the foundation of his own belief system. He was minimalist from an early age. Nana approved. She said nothing. But the mutual regard was the mainstay of both their lives throughout his time at home. The upset over his clothes in the dustbin was a brief aberration in a childhood and youth spent in mutual admiration with the housekeeper.

Nana’s mother had died in childbirth. Nana, the eldest of three girls cared for and brought up her brothers, who’d stayed with them after she’d married. Her husband had been killed in the War. Nana’s views on war and the pity of war became the twins’ views.

What has any war ever achieved except death and destruction?

This was at variance with what Giorgio gleaned from his Jesuit education. From an early age he’d known all the requirements for a Just War. Spread of Christianity worldwide to bring barbarians, ignorant natives, followers of Mohammad and Buddha, Bolsheviks and Communists and any other benighted non-Catholics into the fold. Winning the souls of any of these justified warfare. Indeed, it was a duty to make war to achieve such ends in order to achieve salvation for all nations.

Nana gave him her views on war in response to Giorgio telling her what they had been told at school. He couldn’t understand her response:

Better dead than Red, indeed! Teachers always teach that. Faced with the choice they’d go Red.

Giorgio puzzled over this. He asked at school next day.

I explained about Just War at home and was told: Better dead than Red. What does it mean? I was told that faced with the choice being Red’s better than being dead.

Father Charles, who’d fought in the First World War, explained the difference between wars of offense and wars of defense.

Just Wars of offense were started because they are essential to the spread of Christianity. Example, if in a neighboring country those in power made life intolerable for their fellow countrymen, things could get so bad that Christians would have a moral duty to invade to bring the benefits of Christianity to all.

However, if atheistic Communists, known as Reds because of their Red flag, attacked us, we would need to fight a defensive war to defend ourselves. For those who lost their lives in defense of their Christian country it would be true that it’s better dead than Red. It would be a battle cry to all, to prefer martyrdom than life under an atheistic Communist regime.

Were you fighting the Reds, Father? Was the Second World War against the Reds as well?

No, both Wars were fought against the Germans, who had bad leaders at the time but not atheistic Communist ones.

We won them both, didn’t we?

If by ‘We’ you mean us and our Allies, yes we did. In the Second World War one of our allies was the Soviet Union. The Red Army was essential to the allies’ victory. If we fought a Just War the Red Army must have fought a Just War too, don’t you think? Do you understand what I’m saying? Nothing is as clear and straight forward as we may wish it to be. We’ll take the subject further next time.

Father Charles was respected by his pupils because he never avoided difficult subjects. Rather he led the boys into them and then met the problems involved head on. The boys went along with what they were told about wars of defense being just but not that those who started wars had justice on their side. Father Charles listened and made no attempt to change their minds on the point.

He was also extraordinary in that he taught them about their bodies and how to look after them. As he was well into his seventies by the time he taught Giorgio he was clearly knowledgeable on the subject. He believed in healthy minds in healthy bodies, then the soul would look after itself. Stretch exercises and isometrics could be practiced anywhere, out of doors swimming was the activity of preference. He taught a junior version of The Spiritual Exercises too but Giorgio concentrated on his body.

His role model was Cellini’s Perseus. He had begged his mother to buy him a large poster of the Perseus statue when she took the twins to see Florence. Back home he mounted it behind his bedroom door next to the full length mirror on the back of the door. As he didn’t let anyone into his bedroom no one saw either as they spoke to him in the doorway.

He exercised his isometrics in front of the mirror and compared his development with Perseus. Apart from helmet, sword, winged sandals and Medusa’s head he was determined to look exactly like Perseus. Progress was slow.

Weekends were often spent at Castle Rothschilde, a turreted horror upstream with a frontage onto the Water. There Grandpa lived in solitary isolation after the death of his celebrated wife, the previous Henrietta. She was a well-known literary critic, who wrote for the weeklies and spoke on radio. Because he was there alone the family often joined him for the weekend.

The old man was still Chairman of the Bank but Pa had succeeded as Chief Executive Officer. Part of the men’s weekends were taken up with business matters: recent transactions, target setting, the usual monitoring and study of legal documents relevant to current business.

The old man did not trust lawyers. He read all their productions with care and queried all ambiguities. He could spot a deviation from what he’d requested a mile off. He regarded this ability as key to success in business.

Never let yourself be defrauded by lawyers, my boy.

During the previous week Jo had celebrated their sixteenth birthday with Hen, and several trendy friends of theirs from over the Water, at Leith Jazz Club, where they had their first taste of beer and jived with some crazy exhibitionists. It was on this occasion that Jo first realized Hen was turning into a young woman, a good looking one at that. The boys were flirting with her more than any of the other girls. Hen seemed pleased with event. She engineered several subsequent visits.

Grandfather had decided another initiation was called for. Giorgio was to join in the weekly meetings on the bank’s affairs. Most of the discussion went over his head. The adults seemed to be content to let it but when it came to studying legal documents Grandpa was insistent that Giorgio sat between them as they poured over the detail.

Does he really mean that? If he does he’s either a crook or a fool.

I don’t think he’s either but there must be a simple way in which it can be clarified.

What do you think boy? What do those clever Jesuits teach you about legal logic?

Much of the time Giorgio was completely out of his depth. But as time passed he began to treat these sessions as a game of wits with his Pa and Grandpa. Occasionally, very occasionally he came up with some observation or idea for improvement that they both approved of.

His Grandpa treated him quite differently in these meetings than he did at table. The only place they’d ever met before. Giorgio always had to sit at the head of the table alongside Grandpa whatever the occasion, whoever was there. They had developed a line of repartee that became more sophisticated as Giorgio aged. They usually spent meal times together deep in talk as if the rest of the folk around the table simply weren’t there. Pa and Mimi played substitute host and hostess.

University was straight forward for Henrietta, she did what she wanted to do, read Medicine at the local University. Once the most prestigious Medical School on the planet, Edinburgh’s laurels had slipped a bit, were a touch tarnished by the time Henrietta entered the New Quad. She loved it, prospered and ceased being a twin.

That was because Giorgio had his future prescribed for him. A tailor made mix of economics, management and accountancy took him to different parts of Edinburgh’s other center of academic excellence.

Fortunately Giorgio was neither work-shy, nor capable of discipline. In spite of his complicated time table he managed to indulge his taste for Fine Arts and sculpture. He gate crashed Fine Arts lectures at the University at the time when Talbot Rice was an internationally known Byzantine expert.

The Department was also renowned for Turner studies. Eighteenth century French art was its other main stay. The Auld Alliance had resulted in many paintings ending up in the National Gallery in Edinburgh. The guy who lectured on this forgotten period always lectured in the National Gallery for that reason. His party piece was to be as lachrymose as some of the pictures. He almost fell to his knees in despair in front of his bête noire:

Jean-Baptiste Greuze with his dead birds and tearful girls caused the French Revolution!

Experience of sculpture was easy to get into of an evening or two a week. Giorgio volunteered as a model and earned his first few pounds from his complete exposure, alongside a solid fuel stove, Mondays and Thursdays seven thirty to ten, for a pound a week. Money suddenly gained a value for him.

The sculptors observed him and he observed them. All art, from the model’s view point, is a study in human nature and self-preservation. He singled out the one sculptor, whom Giorgio thought saw him as form, rather than flesh.

Greg was ancient, at least forty, dedicated to what he was doing, absorbed to the point of abstraction. Hands and brain functioned in harmony. He looked at the model far less frequently than the others, never tried to catch his eye, took the image he wanted and was back into concentration on the wax. What he produced bore no obvious relationship to any part of Giorgio’s body. Explanation was needed but Giorgio was not in a position to ask.

Apart from the diligent Mr. McGregor, Giorgio found being a model reminiscent of his wild boy performances as he leapt out of the water cannon of the Water of Leith. Static though modelling was, this too was a performance, me on show. Only, whereas he was star turn as he emerged from the Water, here he was decidedly subservient. He felt he was regarded as being available to be preyed upon by the highest bidder. At the end the evening he took his ten shilling note and fled.

He kept the notes in a box by his bedside. His earnings. The courses his father had prescribed for the future banker taught him all he’d ever need to know about money, except how precious it is to those who earn it.

Mr. McGregor became Greg over coffee one morning.

An early morning lecture on Turner in the National Gallery had Giorgio up, about and out without breakfast. Turner’s watercolors were exhibited only in January. Even then they were draped until someone asked to see them. Further, he had to be lectured on at first light, which was before the dairies opened.

After the lecture, desperate for sustenance, Giorgio dived into a bar that advertised croissants. He hadn’t been there before. Cup and croissant in hand he looked for somewhere to sit and collapsed into a chair at the nearest crowded table.

You look different dressed…..but I guess everybody does.

Too occupied with food and drink to answer, Giorgio’s response was a nod and a facial plea for understanding and patience.

Two others at the same table eyed them both suspiciously and moved. Giorgio half choked, spluttered, regained composure, laughed and proffered a hand.

Mr. McGregor! Early morning lecture, missed breakfast.

What are you reading?

Boring stuff about money management but I gate crash the Fine Arts lectures. It was Turner this morning but I’m also getting quite fond of Watteau, would you believe?

No, I wouldn’t.

He’s colorful and theatrical.

So are harlequins but would you get up early to hear somebody talk about one.

That’s the point isn’t it? The guy who talks about eighteenth century French art is an enthusiast. He makes us see things we hadn’t seen before, see them in the way he sees them. The paintings stop being dead pigment and take on the life the artist saw. You stand where Watteau stood and get inside his mind.

Giorgio paused for a response that was not forthcoming.

What do you see when you look at me as a model? All the others see me. You don’t.

O.K if I must I’ll tell you…. I see an animal dignity, calm repose with a touch of anxiety, alert, ready for self-protection. I have to intuit form that conveys that. Form is always conveyed by the play of light and shade. Sculpture requires creation of surfaces that act on the viewer’s eye and mind in the way the sculptor intended. Sculptors rely on the effects of multifaceted, subtly colored surfaces. I aim to reflect your mind into the viewer’s eye.

Why mine?

You’re the model.

You don’t need a model, surely?

Yes, I do. What I produce is an abstraction but it has to be an abstraction of something real. You don’t understand! Anyway, you asked and that’s the way I work. With nuance of color I can accommodate your every mood.

In monochrome?

No surface is monochrome. Surfaces are always a range of colors. The range may be limited to what light and shade can reflect from the material at one moment of time, sure. It’s complex because the finished sculpture has to convey what the artist intended. I work in wax but cast in bronze. I have to see into the wax what the observer will experience from a bronze surface, which has far less stable color than wax. Next time, after you’ve modeled for us, I’ll show you my work. It’s easier to explain from an example.

Must go now. Economics summons. Thanks for that, Mr. McGregor. See you tomorrow night.

Call me Greg.

Throughout the next session the model was less in repose than previously. To occupy his mind, he recalled the Adam Smith lecture of earlier, which he’d found interesting, would you believe? However, that was increasingly interrupted by speculation on Greg’s thought processes as he modeled his wax.

Did he really need a naked young man in front of him to produce the smooth planes and jagged edges he appeared to be working on at the moment? All the others needed him to keep the pose they’d put him into originally, weeks back. It couldn’t possibly matter to Greg if he moved or if, indeed, he wasn’t there.

It turned out that it mattered a great deal. Back in his shirt and pants Giorgio, alongside Greg and his work, had it explained to him that he’d been a disturbing influence this evening. The calm repose built into the early stages of the work had been disrupted by a model transmitting different vibes: agitation and unease predominated.

Sorry! I didn’t feel calm this evening.

No, don’t apologize. The fixed pose that’s needed by the others gives them security. With me the variety of mood you convey is helpful. I don’t want static sculpture. Stasis is inhuman, real life is like running water.

They talked on until ejected from the studio by the janitor.

Come back to my place. It’s only a couple of minutes.

Thanks but I’m late already. Hen will be waiting up for me.

The twins had gone their separate ways but still lived at home.

Home was by far the cheapest accommodation on offer. It was free. They both needed creature comforts unavailable elsewhere: constant hot water, showers on demand, a fridge full of food, Nana’s apron strings that kind of thing. They’d been used to these essentials all their lives. They had not appreciated that very few others had access to them.

On the odd occasions either of them had visited student digs or squats they’d been appalled. Both claimed the urgent need to leave home but neither of them had done anything about it until now, half way through the first term of their second year at college.

Hen had had an offer of a flat, was reconnoitering it that very evening, getting all the details to discuss with her brother, who’d agreed to be her future flat mate.

The flat was a non-starter. One look and she knew it wasn’t for them. She didn’t even accept the proffered particulars. Thanked the agent and fled back to her books.

She’d passed the first year of Medicine: Physics, Chemistry and Biology with flying colors. That had been an easy year, much of it repeated what she’d done in her last year at school. Now she was into the hard slog of Anatomy, Physiology and Biochemistry.

Both twins were minimalists, a trait inculcated by Nana. Henrietta wore the minimum of clothes, basic, traditional, excellent quality, last a life time. Her shoes would have suited most men. She wore her hair in a chignon, brushed almost savagely first thing every morning and then put up for the day. She had a slender boyish figure and a beautiful face. Mimi’s ugly duckling was turning into a swan. She appeared to wear no makeup but in fact did, minimally.

Her books were minimal too. She took no notes at Anatomy and Physiology lectures. She had Gray’s Anatomy, of course, and Houssay’s Physiology, less likely but the recommended text. She read up each evening what had been taught during the day. Anatomy was a tread mill, not only lectures every morning but dissection of the human body every afternoon.

There was a cadaver between two students, a limb a piece, trunk and head shared. Henrietta was meticulous at dissection. She’d already decided she wanted to be a trauma surgeon.

This decision was taken the previous summer in Chicago, where Mimi’s elder sister, a doctor from Milan, ministered to the needs of the poor in the Italian neighborhood.

Aunt Monica had founded a health trust that provided day centers and domiciliary services. Her set up had been replicated elsewhere but she was the innovator. She’d invited her niece over to help. Henrietta would be able to gain hands on experience of medicine. Aunt Monica had suggested it as a mutually beneficial arrangement.

Henrietta wasn’t sure she was all that much help. On the other hand she’d learned a great deal about alternative medicine that she wasn’t taught at Medical School.

She’d also spent a few days in the local hospital Casualty Department because the younger son of an Italian family she’d got to know had a motorbike accident. She’d rushed round when she heard and was appalled and enthralled. His lower leg was fractured badly. The Surgeon turned it at right angles to sort out the bone fragments, realign and dress them and then put the leg back straight again. Paulo was walking with crutches and making great progress by the time Henrietta left Chicago. She wanted to be able to do quickly curative things like that.

Biochemistry was less easily catered for than Anatomy and Physiology. There was no up to date text on a rapidly developing subject. Henrietta had to take notes. In effect she was compiling her own text book from her notes in order to bring Biochemistry into line with the other two subjects.

She spent an hour an evening on each subject. This evening, because of inspecting the flat, she was behind time when her brother burst into her room to find out about the flat. She waved him away. He knew there was no point hanging around and went down to raid the fridge. She joined him in the kitchen some time later.

I expect, as flats go, it’s good. First floor of a terrace house at the edge of New Town. Big kitchen-diner, three other rooms, a little bathroom. Clean but sparse, essential furniture only. It’d be no good for us. Space enough but we’ve been spoiled all our lives.

We’re capable of roughing it when we go camping.

The call of the wild’s different: warm summer evenings, barbecue cooking, weather proof tents and snug sleeping bags. Cold January in Edinburgh with no creature comforts! We’d be back here in less than a week. I’m completely off the idea.

That’s it then! Have you told Pa and Mimi?

I didn’t tell them we were looking for a flat, so I don’t need to tell them we haven’t found one.

You said you had told them.

No I didn’t. I said I would. I didn’t get the chance. I went in with that intention but Pa was reading some papers and herself didn’t stop talking.

Usual situation.

They both laughed.

This is our house you know. We occupy all of it except their bedroom, his study and the breakfast room where Mimi holds court constantly and Dad appears occasionally to serve her G &Ts with ice and slice. Most of the place would be completely wasted if we weren’t here, with Nana up in the attic. Perhaps we should find them a two room apartment and put this on the market.

Or we could let rooms.

I don’t think they’d notice.

You smell of formaldehyde.

Only Monday to Friday. It scrubs