'Clive and Min' - continued

I present you with the second chapter of 'Clive and Min.' I forgot to mention last chapter that the writing is my copyright, of course. I shall NOT be happy if I find someone else passing it off as their own. Heaven knows what I shall do, but I am Scorpio of birth. And post-menopausal, so all my forgiving hormones have left the building. Just saying!

            Min - and Clive until his unfortunate demise - lived in a substantial, detached house in a leafy avenue in the suburbs of the indistinct town of Chelwood. The house was neither compact nor rambling, historic nor modern. It was one those places that often found itself transformed into a multi-partner dental clinic, or purchased by developers and chopped up to make tiny student bedsits. The house had belonged to their parents; a family home for half a century which Clive and Min had both tried to leave but had returned to through no choice of their own. Clive, the youngest, had left to marry, but had returned within five years, the failure of the union leaving him financially awkward and his parents agreeing he could come home on a temporary basis whilst he sorted himself out. The temporary basis had lasted first one year, then five, then almost a decade until Clive's death, aged forty six, on the road just outside.

            Min had left home, too, rather successfully she had thought. On completing a solid, yet uninspiring school career, she found herself working for the local newspaper, The Chelwood Comet, drumming up business advertising. The pressure to meet what she considered to be unrealistic targets encouraged her to take up a less pressurised job in the town’s combined library and museum where quietness and calm were actively encouraged, a welcome change after the noise of a busy media office. This suited Min as she had discovered from a young age that she was a social introvert and therefore sensitive to noise. And people.

However, twelve years of faithful service had ended when the library museum closed and was moved to a regenerated brewery building, rebranded in the process as a 'Living History Experience with Research Facilities.' Min was offered a transfer to the new premises which she initially took, but after steadfastly refusing to dress up as, variously, a Viking wench, the Wife of Bath and a World War II munitions worker complete with unflattering overalls, headscarf and rollers, she grabbed the first opportunity to take voluntary redundancy, planning to take the money, rent out her little terrace house and go travelling, probably in northern Europe.

            Unfortunately, her parents had other ideas and within three weeks of Min finding herself a woman of leisure, Pa suffered a stroke which soon proved fatal, and Mother took to her bed, refusing to leave and declaring she was so stricken with grief that she had become afflicted with paralysis. Clive flatly refused to nurse his Mother because of having to deal with 'women's things,' so Min had no choice but travel to Satis House on a daily basis to entice her mother from bed to armchair with a glass of sherry and a moist slice of Madeira cake. She tried to encourage her to stay mobile to avoid the development of bed sores and incontinence. She delivered her nursing service  with reluctance and resentment, bitter at the realisation her dreams of foreign travel were not to be. 

            The back and forth travelling from her own terraced home to Satis House soon became tiresome to Min, and she ended up renting out her home according to her original plan and moving back to her childhood bedroom, to be 'on hand for Mother' as Clive put it. More like 'for Clive's convenience' thought Min, noting that his life had continued onwards and unaffected through all the upheaval.

            Barely two years after Pa's demise, Mother died; romantically, Clive suggested, of a broken heart. The truth ran closer to an encounter with some stairs and a bottle of sherry. Clive, Min now reflected, must have inherited his clumsy, accident-prone nature from Mother. Sadly, the time spent back home nursing her mother had proved long enough for Min to feel her independence drain from her, replaced mostly by the vitriol she felt towards her brother for being a useless, draining lump of good-for-nothingness.

            And now he was gone too, and life consisted of a frustratingly thankless job as a local housing officer and Satis House.

The taxi dropped Min at the gate; she paid the driver the exact fare because he had taken two unnecessary detours adding ten unnecessary minutes to the journey and the driver had, in her opinion, received his tip through the inflated fare. She told him as much. His reply was unsavoury. Min, to her shame, said that her brother had been killed that very morning and the driver had re-joined that if she was hoping for sympathy, he reserved that courtesy for good tippers. He drove off, leaving Min standing on the pavement staring at the police tape and barriers that surrounded the remains of Clive's blood stains on the road. She hoped, as she walked up the path, that the cordon would be removed by tomorrow because it was bin collection day.

            Once inside the house, Min flung open the windows. The stench of Clive's tobacco lingered as strongly as if he was there now, puffing away his life the slow way. Min hated cigarette smoke. She hated the smell and the fug, the waste of money, the selfishness that for the last two years her atmosphere had been stained by her brother's vile habit which he resolutely refused to take out-doors. Yet even with the windows open and a brisk breeze blowing through, the air remained persistently stale.

            Remembering Connie’s words to do and not wait, Min declared aloud, 'Decorators! I shall get the decorators in. That'll get rid of the smell.'

            She found a many years old copy of the Yellow Pages, opened it at 'Painters and Decorators' and ran her finger down the list. So many from which to choose. Local firms, national companies, family businesses trading since 1973. Immediately, Min rejected ones that used abbreviations in their company name like Decor8 4 U. If you couldn't be bothered to write in full, she reasoned, then the service provided was bound to be equally slipshod. She also discounted Terry Page and Sons because they came out two years ago to revamp Mother's bedroom and the effort had been very second rate.

            Eventually, she settled for 'W.D Reginald Family Home Decorating Consultant – No Job Too Small - Free Quotation.' She knew she should get quotations from at least three companies, for purpose of fair comparison, but she thought she would rely on her impeccable judge of character instead. She wasn't an idiot. The idiot of the family was Clive, who had engaged the services of Terry Page and Sons.

            Phone call made, appointment scheduled, Min sat down for a cup of tea and a think. And then she was drawn to taking a tour of the house, because it suddenly occurred to her that it would help her to think about what to do if she actually examined the house carefully, now that it was wholly and truly her own. Armed with a slice of marmalade cake for sustenance, she marched upstairs because, as with all things, one should always start at the top and work one's way down. That way, she reasoned, one could never be disappointed. Whereas if one started at the bottom and worked one’s way upwards…well, who knew the disappointment to be found?

            The upper floor of Satis House contained four large, square bedrooms, a bathroom and a smaller box room  which Clive had claimed for his hobbies, whatever they were because Min had never seen him gainfully employed in any useful activity. When they were children it had been a storage room, confining the tat of the family to a single space but since returning as an adult, Min had not seen inside the room.

            'How ridiculous,' she said. ‘To be excluded from part of one’s own home.’ Her hand paused on the brass door knob, dulled with patina around the edges but with a sinister shine in its centre, polished through regular contact with Clive's hand. It winked at her brightly, like the one-eyed yellow idol to the north of Kathmandu. Maybe, thought Min, Clive was Mad Carew? She wasn't sure she wanted to see what lay beyond the door; Lord knows what she'd find. But it had to be done. She'd have to clear the room out eventually.

            She turned the knob, but it jarred against her palm. Locked. She pondered taking her shoulder to the door, but took a bite of her cake instead. There must be a key somewhere. Perhaps on that collection on Clive's key ring that the hospital had returned to her in a sturdy brown envelope, along with the rest of the contents of his pockets – some loose change, a half packet of mints, his wallet containing £25 in cash, various plastic cards, a lighter, an appointment for the optician next week. Min made a mental note to cancel the appointment. She was efficient like that. 

            Four bedrooms were a lot for a single person found suddenly on their own. Of course, she could sell the house and return to her little terrace, but the terrace was currently on a long lease to a young couple with a new baby and pug. And...

            'This house is talking to me,' said Min, suddenly surprised. She could hear it, Satis House, telling her most definitely to stay. Stay home. Stay here. Work with me. She popped the remaining piece of cake into her mouth and chewed, and stared through the landing window that overlooked the back garden, still listening hard to the house.

            In estate agent parlance, the back garden would be 'ripe for development,' that is, Min could achieve a goodly sum of money by selling off the majority of it to a developer who would cram in two sets of semi-detached houses with pocket handkerchief gardens, leaving the owner of the house, i.e herself, within close proximity of neighbours who would most likely be both noisy and anti-social. The larch trees would be cut down, the two apple trees felled, and Mother's herb garden tarmacked over in favour of an access road. This was no good, Min decided. It was a beautiful, if unwieldy piece of land and thus it would remain as long as she was its guardian. She should do more gardening, she decided. Grow vegetables. Install raspberry canes. Maybe even get some chickens. Or she could employ a gardener. She looked down at her small, neat hands, her shiny oval nails. The hands of a gardener? Probably not.

            The bathroom was small, given the size and number of bedrooms. I wonder, thought Min, how much it would cost to convert one of the bedrooms into one of those luxurious bathrooms one sees in glossy magazines, with a freestanding roll top bath and separate walk-in shower. She'd ask W.D Reginald if he could recommend a reliable plumber.

‘You have possibilities,’ said Min to the house.

‘I do,’ agreed the house.

‘In that case, house,’ said Min, ‘I shall stay.’  

            Turning from the window, Min took a sudden run at Clive's hobby room door in the spirit of taking it by surprise on a day built for surprises. She collided, full force, with the door. It hurt her shoulder, but the force was enough to break the lock, and the door swung open...