Part XI

"The Spider Chronicles" - Living with Ed and Frances

by Michael Eldridge

On being clear

You ask me to be clear about what's going on.
You know that being clear is not one of my stronger attributes.
I must tell you I find it difficult to be clear about something, which isn't clear.
OK OK !! The facts without embroidery!
The facts about Ed and Frances without the slightest exaggeration.
I'll try. I will.

So!
Ask the questions!

Are you imagining all this?
Yes and no
Not good enough, explain!
For some time now the line between the real and the imagined has blurred then dissolved.
Hmmm! Useful! Then let's be more direct and to the point.
OK
What do Ed and Frances want?
Wish I knew
Are you being your usual evasive self?
That's rich coming from you. I've never known you once give a straight answer.
There! You see! Being evasive! This is exactly how you do it.
Let's drop it drop it before it gets heavy. I have an idea!
What?
I'll really think about E&F and come to some conclusions for you and we'll try again tomorrow.
OK
Good night then?
Good night. Are you cross with me?
No I'm not. It's OK, really. Goodnight
Goodnight.

And goodnight to you both.

Bills To Pay

I drive in to town in the morning after the storm, and the earth is steaming already at this early hour.

I have to pay a whacking amount to The Electricity Co for installing electricity at my new house.
I belong to the oldest and the worst bank in Italy…where the bank tellers, the few of them ever there, deliberately slow down every transaction to make the queue longer. My teller, a slob of a guy who has served me dozens of times before, tells me I can pay the bill only at the branch I have my account with in Montenero (same bank). We have zero eye contact. I say wrong information and he says again can't be done and I say I do it all the time here. He calls to one of the dozens of busy people sitting around upstairs chatting, answering their private emails, sorting out the self induced computer problems, and he says there's a foreigner here wants to pay a bill with an unusual cheque. I say pardon me. I don't like being called a foreigner, that's very rude! And it's not an unusual cheque. And so it goes on until he sees the queue has reached satisfyingly unmanageable proportions allowing him to sigh and later tonight bemoan his lot to his wife, if he has one. Poor thing her.

I've long given up suggesting to such imbeciles that they might try thinking in future before opening their mouths, or maybe trying the application of their limited intelligence to their work. There are too many of them, these many too many. So very many of them. It would take ninety percent of my days to put right this part of life, a crusade it would be that would end in wretched dread. I smile bitterly and say grazie to the fool of a bank teller and squeeze my way through the queue. The queue I created by being a foreigner.

Next stop the Vet to have Bess's stitches out and pay the bill. Via the chemists (equally rude) and the stationery shop, brainless idiots. Maybe nobody likes the humidity and the sudden heat. The vet's waiting room is a furnace and we wait with our dogs whilst the assistant in the office chats for half an hour to a pretty young lady with a pit bull terrier about flea powders. She is also doing the build up trick.

Now there are ten of us, five humans, five dogs. Each far too hot to talk, growl, sniff or smile.
One guy lets out a sigh and leaves.

Another cheats his turn and dives into the office as the young lady with the pit bull terrier struggles on out smiling radiantly at me as her dog attempts to rip the ear off the dog nearest the exit, bites the pot plant instead and sends it rolling towards me and Bess.

It's that sort of day.
That sort of people.
For me it's an anti-Italy day.
A day I hate Italy day.

One thing though! I don't like being called a foreigner.
Can't let that one go.

On the way home I take Bess for a walk to give her some exercise and to take her mind of pit bull terriers and vets.

We are both too hot in the car and she jumps into the spring overflow from the old Abbey pond as the dogs always do. It's their personal pool. She yelps and zooms out tossing her head wildly. I find a bee sting in her ear and pull it out. A dog day for Bess from then on as she chases her ear in circles and won't let me near it again. But it takes her mind off operations, pit bull terriers and vets and she plays prima donna and walks around with her stung ear down at 52 degrees. This she does for five days afterwards for full effect.

Ed and Frances are quiet.

Yes I know they're always quiet. But this is a quiet quiet. Like they've done something naughty.
We've been back from the terror of the outside world for four hours now and this quietness is hanging in the hot breathless air around my head like a baking roof. The baking roof. This house was never insulated. In the winter the heat pours out. In summer it pounds in. It has a beat, a rhythm, this interchange of heat. And we hang in it, suspended in it, motionless. And I don't know where my head ends and the roof begins. Tuscany in August. Head in the roof. Somewhere.

Bess and I slide our way down the staircase to the cool of the porch way. She drops down with a heavy sigh and is asleep immediately.

The Chat Room

Hey you're up already?
Just about
Jesus it's hot here, how's it with you?
It's foggy, might clear though.
One little thing… last night.
Yeah I'm sorry if I sounded cross. Just tired.
No I mean what did you mean when you wrote 'good night to you both'.
Lost me there, not with you.
You wrote 'And goodnight to you both'
No I didn't.
You really didn't?
No I really didn't.
Can I get back to you?
OK I'll cook up some breakfast.
Ciao.
Bye bye.

Tales from the Garden