Clive's Breakthrough!

Hello everyone! I hope you are all keeping safe and well, with chins up, chests forward and buttocks clenched in determination against these testing times? Here is the next (belated) episode of 'Clive and Min.' It's a complicated thing, writing. Hugely enjoyable, but full of endless edits, frustrating rewrites, finding oneself up cul-de-sacs with no escape, fretful plot unscramblings and sometimes completely forgetting where you are and why. And then things like a week of sunshine calls one into the garden, and one becomes involved in one's embroidery course and...well, you know...

Therefore, I hope this episode doesn't feel too unpolished, but I wanted to get something out there, as you've all been so understanding and patient. Forgive me, then, if this falls beneath the usual standard. Here we go...

Min and Willow were standing side by side in the garage of Satis House, staring at Clive’s taxidermy collection which was staring back in a manner that made them feel most uneasy.

 ‘An offer for the wild boar?’ said Min.

 ‘Yes,’ said Willow. ‘Strange as that might seem.’

 ‘No accounting for taste,’ said Min, who had long ago decided that of all the creatures unfortunate enough to have been submitted to the ministrations of the amateur taxidermy attempts of her brother, the wild boar had come off worst. In life they weren’t the most attractive of creatures, but in death…well, this one was something else.

 ‘I’ve just been out to do a quote for a new pub opening just outside Chelwood. ‘The Wild and Woolly…’ said Willow. She was using her phone to take photos of the offending creature, just to make sure her potential client knew exactly what they were buying.

 ‘Stupid name for a pub,’ sniffed Min, who much preferred her inns to be called The Red Lion or The Crown. You knew where you were with a name like that. ‘The Wild and Woolly indeed.’

 ‘Anyway,’ continued Willow, who knew by now that the best way to communicate with Minerva Thing was to plough on in a fixed and determined manner, ‘whilst I was pricing up the painting job they want, I heard the owners discussing getting in some ornaments of a wild and woolly nature. You know, as signature pieces for their brand. So I suggested taxidermy. They are interested, especially when I mentioned the wild boar.’

‘My collection is NOT to be disbanded!’ shouted Clive, who had discovered that although he could not gain access to any part of Satis House, he could make himself heard from doorways if they were left open.

 Willow startled and winced. Not him again. In her head, she started to sing the little song she’d made up in an attempt to block out Clive’s voice when it appeared. It was a simple song which ran along the lines of, ‘Leave me alone, you weirdo, because I know you don’t exist,’ only with considerably more swearing. The tune manifested itself as hum of increasing persistence.

 ‘I know you can hear me!’ shouted Clive. ‘Singing and humming won’t switch me off, you know. Turn around and talk to me. That collection is NOT to be sold off, do you understand?’

 ‘Sold?’ said Willow, her patience breaking with the ear-splitting ‘thwang’ of a violin string snapping. ‘You think people will actually want to pay good money for that tat? We’ll be lucky if we can PAY people to take it away.’

 ‘Rude!’ shouted Clive. ‘Okay, the first efforts might be a bit…rustic…but that boar is a work of art!’

 ‘Ha!’ said Willow. ‘It’s worthless, moth-eaten, rubbish!’

 Min started at the sudden outburst. ‘Well yes, probably,’ she agreed. ‘Although it would be nice to get a few pounds if we could. Do you think your pub people would pay a little bit for it? If only to cover the cost of transport?’

 ‘Sorry?’ said Willow, and then realised Min was talking. ‘Oh, yes – yes, maybe…’

 ‘Tell Min you can hear me,’ demanded Clive. ‘Tell her I am here and I need to talk to her.’ In life he had been a mild and introverted sort of person. In death he had discovered boldness and belligerence and wished he’d had the skills as his weaponry when he was being bullied at school.

 ‘I will not,’ hissed Willow, making a sterling effort to moderate her volume.

 ‘Will not what?’ said Min.

 ‘Sorry, not you,’ said Willow. ‘Just…you know, talking to myself…’

 ‘First sign of madness,’ said Min.

 ‘Ahahahahahaha!’ said Willow.

 Minerva tilted her head to one side and looked at Willow with mild concern. ‘I think you should take a break before you start your next job of work,’ she said, not unkindly. ‘You’ve been working relentlessly here, transforming Satis House…’

 ‘I am fine!’ snapped Willow. ‘It’s just HIM. He needs to stop getting in my head and pestering me…’

 ‘Who?’ said Min, startled. ‘Who has been pestering you?’

 ‘Me!’ shouted Clive.

 ‘Him!’ said Willow, turning and pointing at the garage door where Clive stood, waving his arms in the air and being watched with disdain by Halliwell.

 ‘Halliwell?’ said Min. Really, the girl had taken leave of her senses.

 ‘No, not the cat. HIM!’ said Willow. ‘Your brother.’

 Min allowed her eyes to boggle for a moment whilst she took in the announcement. ‘Clive?’ she said.

 ‘YES!’ shouted Willow and Clive in unison.

 ‘But he’s dead…’ said Min.

 ‘I KNOW!’ shouted Willow and Clive. The shouting proved too much for the delicate sensibilities of Halliwell, who stood, stretched and walked away with controlled nonchalance.

 Willow was standing with her hands pressed firmly against her ears and her eyes screwed shut. ‘Just SHUT UP!’ she shouted.

 ‘NO!’ shouted Clive. At last, he thought, we are getting somewhere. ‘You shut up! Tell Min I am here and I need to speak to her.’

 ‘GO AWAY!’ shouted Willow, and Min watched in amazement as the young woman ran from the garage, making a sudden swerving movement as she reached the door as if she was avoiding something, or someone, standing there. Min folded her arms and allowed her right foot to tap against the garage floor.

 ‘Well,’ she said. ‘And still you continue to cause trouble, Clive Neville Chamberlain Thing. That poor girl…’

 ‘You can see me, Min?’ said Clive.

 But of course Min couldn’t. She took a deep breath and marched from the garage, straight through the space in which Clive stood, which made him feel most peculiar – a sort of nauseous feeling one experiences after eating one too many doughnuts. He took a moment to recover himself and then  looked at the wild boar.

 ‘What now?’ he said.

 The wild boar rolled its eyes and yawned. 

                                                          *                   *                      *

 Min found Willow sitting at the table in the kitchen of Satis House. She looked pale and shaky and was being administered healing in the form of a mug of tea and an unhealthily large cheese scone by Amazing.

Amazing looked at Min with a face that was glowing with warmth, light and the magic of belief. ‘This child has the gift,’ she said, reverentially.

 ‘The what?’ said Min.

 ‘The gift,’ said Amazing. ‘She can converse with the Other Side…’

 ‘Nope,’ said Minerva. ‘You’ve lost me.’

 Amazing sighed and sat down next to Willow, enveloping the girl’s hand in both her own. ‘Willow has been talking with your dead brother Clive.’

 ‘I haven’t really been talking with him,’ said Willow. ‘He has been talking at me and I’ve been trying to ignore him.’

 Min snorted. ‘I don’t understand. I talk to Clive all the time. Swearing mostly, but there’s rarely a day goes by when I haven’t muttered at him for some reason or another. Honestly, he’s been more trouble since he died than when he was still here…’

 Amazing held up one hand. ‘No, no, no. You are not understanding. Willow can talk to Clive, and hear him, too. She has the ability to communicate through the spiritual veil that divides our world from the next. It is a wonderful thing! A gift!’

 ‘It doesn’t feel like a gift,’ said Willow. ‘It feels like I am going bonkers.’ But quietly she was glad she had finally told someone.

 Min sat down at the kitchen table. ‘Please pour me a tea, Amazing,’ she said. ‘And butter me a scone.’ She turned to Willow. ‘Right, I am willing to suspend my disbelief.  Tell me everything. Because, to be quite honest, I am finding that nothing surprises me at the moment.’

 And so Minerva and Amazing sat with ever-widening eyes as Willow re-told the events of the past few days – how she found Clive sitting on top of her van, how he followed her home, waited at the gate of Satis House, chatted away about all sorts of seemingly inane things, and now, just now, had told her that the wild boar was not to be taken from the collection, that Clive was determined the collection was to stay together.

 ‘Did he say why?’ said Min, taking a cautious sip of tea and not noticing that Amazing had added extra sugar.

 Willow shook her head. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t ask. Just sort of snapped instead. And I know this all sounds very weird. But I promise you I can see him and hear him. I’m not making this up.’

 ‘Of course you can, dear Willow,’ said Amazing, whose eyes had shone throughout the whole recapping of events because she was a firm believer of all things spiritual and to be cast into the middle of these events was beyond excitement for her.

 ‘Can you hear him now?’ said Min, still erring on the side of sceptical, even though she had no reason to believe Willow would be fabricating this whole story. Why would she? ‘Ask him what I said when he forgot to get the turkey out to defrost the Christmas before last…’

 ‘I can’t hear him at this moment in time,’ said Willow.

 ‘Aaah,’ said Min. ‘Selective hearing, eh?’

 ‘No,’ said Willow. ‘I can’t hear him at this moment in time because, for some reason, Satis House isn’t letting him inside. It’s the only place I ever get any peace and quiet from him.’ And she gazed around the kitchen, a look of grateful thanks on her face.

 ‘So where is he now?’ said Min, looking around too, as if she expected Clive to suddenly manifest himself like Marley’s Ghost, rattling chains of cigarettes and waving jars of formaldehyde.

 Willow stood up and looked through the kitchen window. Clive waved at her from where he was sitting on the low wall that edged the herb bed. ‘There,’ she said. ‘On the wall by the herbs. He’s waving at me.’

 Min stood up and peered through the window. Clive waved at Min.

 ‘And now he’s waving at you,’ said Willow.

 ‘One finger or two?’ said Min.

 Willow allowed herself a laugh. She could feel small waves of relief rippling through her now she’d spoken out about this weirdness, especially as Amazing seemed to believe in her unconditionally, even if Min wasn’t yet convinced.

 Min turned her back on the window. ‘I know what we’ll do,’ she said. ‘We’ll go and see my friend Florence. She has experience of these things. She’ll know what to do.’