Plot Thickening Without the Aid of Cornflour

Sorry, sorry...it's late, I know, but I was very busy yesterday. Sorry! I decided to re-pot all my houseplants and it took longer than anticipated. The Mummy Aloe Vera plant had eight babies! Eight! I am going to have to explore how to make some sort of health/beauty potion using aloe vera as a main ingredient or Damson Cottage will look like 'The Day of The Triffids' by the end of summer. I also did some writing, sewing, made leek and potato soup, a quiche, did laundry because the sun was shining and it could dry on the line rather than in the energy guzzling tumble drier, fed the sour dough starter I've started in lieu of there still being NO yeast to be had out there, and went for a walk which exhausted me beyond belief.

Anyway, in recompense, what you will get this week is TWO (count 'em!) episodes of 'Clive and Min.' How exciting is THAT? Here we go, then. A bit more plot thickening to get your heads around. I hope everyone is well and keeping themselves safe. xxx

Sylvia Path was not a happy woman. Quite frankly she was appalled that the C.O.P.S had agreed to a six month hiatus in their operatic activities. It was an unnecessary move, she thought. They could at least have put on a small Christmas show, even if it was something simple like songs from the musicals. Or a basic pantomime, perhaps, although she thought the genre was beneath their collective skills. All those stock characters and predictable lines. She rolled her eyes. And the smut. Cheap and tasteless, that’s what pantomime was, like chandelier earrings, fake tan and tattoos. She sighed and reached for her diary that was lying on the desk before her. There was the element of personal loss, too. Performance was her life. What would she do for six months without her fix of meetings and rehearsals? How would she occupy her time without a script and libretto to learn, without costumes to design, scenery to organise?

 Sylvia flicked through the pages of the diary, noting the big gaps that were evident now the entries for the next six months had been erased. Thinking about it now, she hadn’t fully realised the extent to which the C.O.P.S filled her life. This was a personal tragedy on a par with Cruella De Ville discovering the Dalmation puppies weren’t for sale and her dreams of a black and white spotty fur coat were dashed. Sylvia sat back in her office chair and steepled her fingers together in thought. She would not be beaten by this. There had to be something she could do.

 And then a small smile twitched at the edges of her mouth.

 ‘Yes,’ she said, quietly to herself. ‘Yes, Sylvia. What an excellent and creative idea. That is what I shall do.’

She picked up the leaflet she had found in the town hall reception area and smiled again before reaching for her phone and dialling the number…

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The phone rang, sending an soft echo rolling around the hallway of Satis House. Connie happened to be passing, bringing a load of washing down to put into the machine, and she answered, listening carefully and scribbling a message on the notepad next to the phone. As she replaced the receiver, Min appeared in the hallway along with Willow and Amazing.

 ‘You’ve got your first booking for the community room!’ said Connie, waving the notepad at Min. ‘And it’s a regular one, not just a one off.’

 ‘We’re going to a séance,’ said Amazing, excitedly.

 ‘Don’t let Florence hear you calling it that,’ said Min. ‘She says calling it a séance smacks of fairground fortune telling. Connie, tell me about the booking.’

‘A séance?’ said Connie, instantly distracted. ‘Can I come?’

 ‘If you like,’ said Min, reaching for her coat from the stand by the front door, for the days were cooling fast now, the Autumn air changing in both temperature and light intensity as the days drew into themselves, preparing for darker colder days. ‘The booking?’

 ‘Ah yes,’ said Connie. ‘It’s a small events company. Called Cluedon’t. I’ve never heard of them. But they’d  like to book the room on a weekly basis as a planning and rehearsal space for the events they run. They do themed dinner parties, you know, where they dress up as the cast of Fawlty Towers or a 1920s manor house, and do murder mysteries and the suchlike.’

 ‘I know what you mean,’ said Willow, when Min pulled a face that showed confusion. ‘My brother had one for his 30^th birthday. It was a whodunnit dinner party. We arrived to find a ‘dead’ body on the dining room floor and then the actors played various roles like a detective and a house maid. We had to come in character, too. A bit like The Mousetrap.’

 ‘Sounds hideous,’ said Min who wasn’t a huge fan of audience participation herself. ‘But if they want to pay me to use the community room, then that’s fine. When do they want to start?’

 ‘Late October,’ said Connie. ‘Three hours every Thursday afternoon between 2 and 5,’

 ‘It will coincide with the opening of the tea rooms!’ said Amazing, excitedly. ‘I will have customers to cater for! I will call them back and ask if they require refreshments.’

 ‘And a quiet Satis House will become a busy Satis House,’ sighed Min. She looked around the hall at the space she had known all her life, a private space about to be made public. Inside, she felt a  quivering flutter of uncertainty.

 ‘It’s what you wanted,’ said Connie, who was sensitive to the subtle changes in the faces of people dealing with the new and uncertain. ‘A new business. A new life. For you and Satis House.’

 ‘Don’t just wait. Do,’ said Min, reminding herself of the words Connie had said to her on the morning of Clive’s death. Connie smiled, remembering, too.

 Min shrugged on her coat, briskly. ‘Yes, Connie, you are right, of course. The days of peace and quiet must come to an end, of course they must. I shall make the most of the few weeks of them that I have left.’

 She stood in the hallway of the house and let its energy sink into her for a few seconds. It’ll be fine, said the house. Change is progress. Progress is energy. Energy is life. Min nodded. Her companions stood quietly, in peace and in understanding. This is it, thought Min. We are on the brink of all things new. The planning, the preparation, that safe period of time when one can tread water and enjoy the status of no change is coming to an end. Gird your loins, girl – the rollercoaster is about to let loose its brake.

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Florence Bell was twelve years older than Minerva Thing, and they had been friends for years. They’d met in the days when Min was employed at the library, in the good old days, as she called them, before it transmogrified to become the monster that was the ‘living museum.’ Min had been charged with organising an exhibition based on textiles to be entitled, ‘Weave Your Way Through History.’ Min thought the title most uninspiring. She also thought the idea of an exhibition in a library was avant garde, but looking back at it now, she recognised the event as a precursor for the changes to come that would cause her anguish enough to leave a job she loved and consign her to a life of misery working for the local housing association.

 Anyway, when she had voiced her opinion to her line manager about the wisdom of introducing exhibitions to libraries, exhibitions suggesting noise which went against the traditional grain of ‘sssshhhhhh’ in libraries, she had been asked perhaps she could suggest something more interesting to draw in more customers? In order to keep the service running for the community?  Disgruntled, Min withdrew her comment because she really didn’t see why she should give up her own creative genius to a place she was hating being a part of more and more as the months went by.

 Instead, she had taken the list of contacts she was given and had phoned one Florence Bell, who had a Masters Certificate in Knitted Textiles. Who knew such a thing existed, thought Min, but from the first meeting she and Florence had clicked, and they had remained friends ever since. Min appreciated Florence’s calm demeanour and common sense; Florence, Min’s ability to say it as it was and take aggravation from no one.  Min had joined Florence’s Knitting Knowledge group and they met once a week to sit and knit and chatter and get to grips with all things woolly. Min had learned how to knit socks on double pointed needles from Florence, a triumph that was testament to  both women’s patience. How long ago was that now? Min frowned. Must be 25 years or so. She still had the socks.  

 Florence was an interesting character. She lived alone, save for when she was visited by her niece, Leah, whom Min had seen grow from a tiny baby to a surly pre-teen. As far as Min could ascertain, Florence was almost a surrogate mother to Leah, the daughter of Florence’s sister who, Florence declared, was not the maternal type. ‘Why she had a baby, I do not know,’ she said. ‘All she wants to do is travel, and so when she gets ants in her pants, she leaves the child with me. But I don’t mind,’ she added fondly, looking at the little girl who was absorbed in a dollies’ tea party using her ‘A Gift From Woolacoombe’ miniature tea set as props. ‘She’s a dear little thing. No trouble at all.’

 As the niece grew, her visits to her aunt became less frequent until they all but disappeared. The last time Min could remember seeing Leah, the girl must have been 14 or 15 years old. ‘Too busy to visit her old aunt,’ sighed Florence. ‘Although she phones sometimes and she always sends me a lovely present on my birthday and at Christmas.’ Min thought the gradual disconnection was sad, given how much time and energy Florence had devoted to the care and well-being of her niece over the years, but that was the youth of today for you – ungrateful, self-interested and egotistical until they had reason to learn, and know, better.

 And sometimes, at Knitting Knowledge, Florence would tell Min of an unexpected visit from Leah during the previous week, and that they’d gone out for a drive to have a pub meal somewhere in the countryside, or been on a shopping trip. Min would notice how her friend’s face would animate with light, and she was glad for her that Leah had thought to drop by.

 ‘So when did you find out that your friend, Florence, had the gift of psychic ability?’ said Amazing.

 Min seemed to be attempting some mental calculation in her head, before giving up. ‘Oh, years and years ago,’ she said. ‘I never really got involved, but she’d talk about it sometimes at Knitting Knowledge. She might be able to help with this…Clive problem.’

 The four women were in Connie’s car, heading for Florence’s house in order to seek wisdom for Willow’s problem. Connie was driving, of course, and Min was in the passenger seat. Willow and Amazing were stationed in the back seat, from where Willow could feel the heat of excitement emanating from Amazing, who fidgeted and squirmed with anticipation like a four year old on their first trip to the seaside. Clive had hitched a ride on the roof of the car. Although Hector was trying hard to induct his son into the benefits and glories of astral plane travel, Clive had yet to get the hang of it completely and had experienced a couple of embarrassing moments, the worst of which was when he thought he’d go to the local Argos to see if that woman he fancied still worked there, and he’d ended up sitting next to the 100 eyed giant of Greek mythology, also called Argos. If I still had a body, thought Clive, shuddering at the memory, I’d have jumped straight out of it.

 Safer to travel this way, then. He didn’t know where they were going, but on seeing the four women emerge en masse from the front door of Satis House, he knew instinctively they must be up to something and was determined to see exactly what.  Especially when Min picked up that dratted cat, Halliwell, and piled him into the car as well, where he’d taken up residence on the parcel shelf and promptly fallen asleep.

 Like cats do.