Gilliflowers (39 page)

In an effort to help soothe his symptoms further I enrolled in the university of Google and did some research. I found an article that claimed swallowing a large spoonful of fresh lime or lemon juice would kill off the microorganisms responsible for the infection. I persuaded Dick to give it a go and got to work squeezing a fine fat lime. I don’t recommend it as a remedy, as a form of torture yes, as a remedy no. I thought Dick’s eyeballs were going to explode from their sockets as acid hit his raw throat. The poor bugger nearly hit the ceiling. I felt terrible as he clutched at his throat emitting rasping croaks of agony. He forgave me, after making me promise not to help him by looking up any more ‘remedies’ on the net. He felt he stood a better chance of survival that way. He’s fine now and returned to work today.

I managed to flood the ensuite bathroom this morning. I was washing around the sink, which as per usual was spattered with toothpaste spittings (it looked like a seagull with the trots had passed overhead) when the phone rang. I went off to answer it after putting the cloth I was using on the side of the sink and turning off the tap.

The phone caller was a bloke from my bank giving me one of those annoying ‘courtesy calls.’ By the time I’d convinced him I was more than happy with my overdraft limit, etc, all thought of sink cleaning had fled from my mind. I wandered off to the kitchen to make a cup of coffee. From the kitchen I wandered into the garden and sat in the summerhouse to enjoy my coffee, taking advantage of a brief splurge of sunshine before it disappeared and the rain returned.

I read for a while and then returned indoors to resume my duties, going upstairs to collect the dirty laundry from our bedroom and used towels from the bathroom. That’s when I discovered the cloth I thought I’d put on the side of the sink had slipped back into it and blocked the plughole. The tap I thought I’d turned off properly, but hadn’t, had filled the sink with water, which then overflowed. Water is so damn selfish like that. It just flows where it wants to. What a bloody mess. It took ages to mop up.

Fortunately it was contained in the bathroom and hadn’t leaked into the bedroom. I’ve a good mind to phone the bank and demand compensation seeing as it was their unsolicited call that distracted me.

I’ve signed up for two courses at my local FE Centre this autumn. I’ve gone for Tai Chi for beginners on Tuesday afternoons and Cookery with Flair on Thursday mornings. Dot and a couple of my other lit lady friends have also signed up for the Tai class, so it should be fun. I haven’t got a clue what
flair
means in relation to the cookery course. I’m hoping it doesn’t involve the Coastguard being called out on a search and rescue mission.

Shane sarcastically asked if I planned on fitting in some work at home in between leisure courses. I told him that having a Tai Chi stress free houseboy who could cook with flair would be to his and Dick’s advantage and really they ought to give me a pay rise for services to hearth and home. He claimed I got paid more than enough, and said if my duties got neglected as a result of my out of house activities he’d be docking my wages not increasing them. He’s a mean old Daddy sometimes. The courses start later this month. I’m looking forward to them.

The men folk will be home late this evening, how late I don’t know. They’ll arrive when they arrive. Dick is catching up with work missed while he was ill and Shane is attending an emergency board meeting. I have no idea what an emergency board is in relation to his work. In my line of work it would relate to an ironing board with metal fatigue or a torn cover. I suspect his emergency board is a graver affair. I’ve prepared a Lancashire hotpot for dinner so nothing will spoil. The longer it cooks the better.

I didn’t go to see my mother today. She started a short course of chemo last weekend and her system is frail. I was worried I might be a carrier of germs from Dick so thought it best to stay away. I sent her a big basket of flowers instead. Her cancer is too aggressive for the chemo to do anything other than give it a punch to its nose and hopefully knock it back a step or two to buy her more time.

It’s been a low-key kind of weekend. We haven’t been far or done much. Shane worked again on Saturday so we stayed home for dinner. Leo was supposed to come for lunch today, but called to cancel because he had to go away on business at short notice, some kind of troubleshooting mission. He’s going to be away most of the week. He issued an invite for us to join him for dinner next Saturday night. He said he has a new recipe he’s itching to try out. I asked if it involved fleas seeing as he was itching. Dick grabbed me in a headlock and did the hand to hair thing I hate for being a sarcastic little sod.

Talking of Dick, he’s in the doghouse with Shane at the moment and I don’t mean that as a euphemism for a kinky sex game. They’re not chewing on each other’s boners in a custom built kennel. I mean he’s in serious bother for getting home before Shane on Friday night. It wasn’t the fact he got home first that pissed Shane off. It was the method.

Shane was wending his way homewards, driving in his usual responsible way, obeying all relevant speed limits, when some reckless idiot roared past him and other road users like a bat out of hell leaving a vapour trail in his wake. That reckless idiot was Dick. He may have been going fast, but not fast enough that Shane didn’t recognise his Aston Martin as it burned past him.

I knew something was amiss as soon as I clocked Shane’s face when he got home.

Dick was already in the shower. I was told to stay in the kitchen as he had something he wished to discuss with ‘Richard.’

Ominous sounds from upstairs soon indicated a heavy paddle was playing an

active part in whatever discussion they were having. I could hear it spanking skin even through the closed kitchen door. My own arse cheeks clenched in sympathy.

Shane came downstairs first. He didn’t offer any information as to why he’d punished Dick and I didn’t ask, knowing I’d get a crisp reprimand if I did so. Dick told me after dinner, with hardly any pressing from me. He’d had a disagreement with Reny before leaving the office and had let it influence his driving. He said Daddy had been quite right to discipline him for it.

Shane is intolerant of people who speed on public highways. He regards it as an act of monumental selfishness that endangers innocent lives. I think in his younger days Dick was a bit of a speed demon and it was an area that was quickly brought under Shane’s jurisdiction. He won’t let his boy get away with risking his own life or someone else’s.

Dick accepted the hiding as well deserved. He was less philosophical when told golf was off the agenda on Saturday morning. He didn’t say anything, but some heavy nail buffing ensued.

I’m feeling a bit
off
tonight. I’ve got a headache coming on. I’m going to go in search of a sympathetic cuddle.

I spent last Monday in bed holding a big warm Dick, which wasn’t nearly as much fun as it sounds. My Sunday headache developed into a vomit inducing migraine. It knocked me off my feet. Dick worked from home on Monday to look after me, not that he got a lot of work done. He spent most of his time reassuring me I wasn’t dying. The pain was so bad and I felt so ill I didn’t believe him. All the same it was nice to have his arms around me, at least I wouldn’t die alone. I hate having a severe headache. It panics me, which is understandable given my medical history.

I wasn’t much better by Tuesday. Dick and Shane both had heavy work commitments so Eileen came over for the day. I curled up on the couch and we watched DVD’s. I didn’t feel like eating, but she kept me supplied with plenty of fluids. It was nice to have her company.

I asked her how things were going with Reginald. She declared him to be a nice man, but said she wasn’t sure about getting into the dating game at her time of life.

She also said it felt disloyal to her departed husband. I offered the opinion that romance didn’t have an age limit and that her husband would probably have wanted her to find love and companionship again.

Shane presented her with a beautiful spray of flowers by way of thanks for staying with me. She made my day and Dick’s by roundly scolding him. Friends, she said, did not require payment. She was pleased though. It’s always nice to be appreciated.

On Tuesday night I broached a subject that had been on my mind for a few days, asking Dick whether he and Shane were planning anything special for their forthcoming first wedding anniversary (which is tomorrow.) Taking my face between his hands he said, ‘listen, honey. We didn’t want a fuss on the actual day so why on earth would we want it a year later?’ He also pointed out it wasn’t their first anniversary because they’d been together for years.

I felt obliged to say it was their first
official
anniversary. He crisply stated I wasn’t to make an issue of it. It was just another day. Fair enough. I let the subject drop, secretly relieved by his blasé attitude to the date. I still haven’t come comfortably to terms with their civil partnership, not at a root level. With the best will in the world having them joyously and publicly celebrate their union would bring all my latent insecurities and ugly jealousy bubbling to the surface.

Dick played a joke on Shane on Wednesday night. It was an absolute beaut. He persuaded a variety of friends and colleagues to call Shane’s mobile and ask about the ad he’d supposedly placed in Car Mart advertising his car for sale at a bargain price and claiming it as being owned by ‘one careful lady driver.’

Shane’s reaction was hysterical as phone call followed phone call. He went from astonished puzzlement to apoplectic outrage. I wasn’t in on the joke at first, so I was as confused as him. Dick played innocence to perfection, pulling faces of sympathetic outrage and astonishment. I caught on when after one call Dick gave a wicked grin and winked at me.

Rob gave the game away when it was his turn to enquire about the bargain car owned by the careful lady. Shane lost his cool and roared he wasn’t a lady with a car for sale and he was going to sue Car Mart for printing his private phone number. Rob cracked up. I could hear him cackling from across the room. Shane twigged he was the victim of a practical joke. Dick collapsed into laughter and so did I.

Shane turned the tables. He said the
joke
proved Dick hadn’t accepted he was in the wrong over the speeding incident, not if he felt he had to exact revenge, and maybe he needed another discipline session with a paddle if not a cane to get the message across.

Poor Dick stopped laughing and started pleading, it had only been a bit of fun.

Shane relented, gave him an almighty whack across his
cheeky backside
and told him if he did anything like it again he’d make him have vanilla sex for a month - lights out and no toys. It was a threat and a half to our kinky Dick.

Time to stop scribbling and go do something about dinner. Something simple I think.

Dear Diary,

I thought it time to take up the quill again and pen a few lines if only to prove I’m still alive. Sad to say but the houseboy has been a bad and foolish boy of late. Hangs head in shame. I never intend to get into bother. My personality lends itself to the courtship of trouble. I have a free wheeling mind with dodgy brakes. Once I start going downhill I find it hard to stop and usually end up going over the handlebars.

The weather has been awful today. It’s freezing cold with gale force winds, not a day for outdoor pursuits. Dick even gave up golfing in favour of cosying up with Shane on the couch to laze some time away. I’d have cosied up too, but I had stuff to do, such as making my very first Christmas cake (picture my proud look) Eileen inspired me. I popped over to see her the other evening and there was a gorgeous smell garlanding her house. It made my mouth water. It was her Christmas cake baking. She makes one every year using a recipe handed down from her mother’s mother. In fact she makes quite a few to sell at her church’s annual festive fundraiser.

Shane is partial to a slab of rich fruitcake partnered with a bit of Stilton and a glass of single malt. Penny usually makes him and Dick a Christmas cake every year (she just sends me a poisoned apple) I decided this year I would present cake to the Household Gods and get the glory. It was harder work than I thought it would be. It took me ages to weigh and measure all the stuff, never mind mix it together. By the time I got the mixture in the lined tin and the tin in the oven I was knackered. The kitchen looked like a bombsite and I looked like I’d been caught in the blast. The cake took almost three hours to bake. I’ve not long since got it out of the oven. It smells delicious. When it’s cooled I shall store it away for Christmas.

Shane’s dulcet tones are bawling for me to get my cute arse up off the computer chair or they’ll go out to dinner without me. He’s demanding my presence with his usual caveman eloquence.

“GILLI! CAR!”

I’ll leave you with some chapters regarding recent doings in this boy’s life.

On the evening prior to their first anniversary Shane called me to say he had a meeting and he’d be home late. He said for Dick and I to go ahead and have dinner.

He’d get something when he came in.

It was gone nine when he landed home looking absolutely knackered. He shed his jacket and tie and undid his collar button, flopping down on the couch. Dick poured him a glass of the wine that had been opened at dinner. He took a sip, heaved a sigh and leaned back into the upholstery, closing his eyes. “I’m hungry, Gilli. Get me something to eat please.”

I’d made a smoked salmon and crab salad for dinner and it had been easy enough to save a portion for him. I got it out of the fridge and buttered some wholemeal bread to go with it, adding a small dish of his favourite stuffed olives to the tray along with a slice of the lime cheesecake we’d had for dessert. By the time I got back in the lounge he was discussing details of his meeting with Dick.