Living Upside Down. John Hickman

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      Edward relights his pipe. Zelda’s smoke joins his. Both seemingly hang from a single cloud of cigarette smoke. He continues puffing rhythmically.

      “Your pipe reeks of burning leaves and vet dog, Edvard.”

      Don’t sugar coat it, Zelda. Give it to him straight! thinks June.

      Edward refuses to rise to the bait, instead he ponders as he puffs.

      “Roger mustered well after the death of his Mum, I’ll give him that much,” Edward tells Zelda, “he did everything I required of him.”

      “Ja ja, fiddle faddle,” Zelda exclaims. She blames Roger and his wife Sue for the failure of The Harewood Hotel. If they had been decent and appreciated all she had done for them, she and Edward would not be where they are now.

      “Give him his dues, Zelda, it was remarkable he found a hotel I could buy without any money. That in itself was a master stroke.”

      “Vee all vorked, Edvard.”

      It is well known to the whole family that Zelda did nothing. She mostly upset staff with her Teutonic attitude and avoided front of house contact with customers by hiding in the office with Edward.

      “Nevertheless, Zelda, I do feel that after I went bankrupt, Roger and my own parents should have been a lot more understanding of my plight.”

      “Roger vas a director mit you, Edvard; he should not have got off scot free. It vas you who vent bankrupt, Edvard. Roger hasn’t suffered as you ‘ave.”

      Edward nods slowly.

      Zelda continues. “Den dere is Roger’s wife, Sue, mit deir two offspring from that union — Jayne and James.”

      “I don’t fancy much being a grandfather,” Edward glares at Zelda, “not any more than you wanted to be a Granny.”

      “Edvard,” Zelda’s firm voice has all the warning signs.

      “Sorry, Sweetheart, I meant Nanny,” Edward smiles inwardly at his dig.

      Zelda works normal shop hours at a local office while Edward manages a small chain of sex shops requiring his presence at odd hours. Edward detests his job and all the people associated with it.

      Edward cannot help but think about the highlight of this week’s news.

      “Word is Roger, Sue and their two children are migrating to Australia as participants in a ten pound assisted passage scheme.”

      “I feel no anguish at their departure from the UK, Zelda. Those in charge here are only sponging toadies ready to receive any favour and give nothing in return.”

      “Ve are to be left behind mit a rising pile of debts,” Zelda adds crushing out her cigarette and lighting another.

      Zelda needs to relax. Talking about Roger and Sue has left a foul taste in her mouth.

      She runs her bath and lays in it with one leg hooked over the other. She knows that they are good legs. The hot water takes the chill off her bones. With trembling hands, she reaches out to light a cigarette, and smokes it with her nerves all a-jangle.

      The bathroom is dark; she likes it that way. Edward will stay away from her. She has a lot of thinking to do. Their finances are in poor shape. Edward is not a stayer in any job, probably never has been, even when Alice was alive. Zelda enjoyed her relatively high life at both hotels, but that was too short-lived. Now a new variable into the mix. This recent news of Roger, his wife Sue, and their two rug rats going down under to Australia. Good riddance, she thinks. Her face turns into what is loosely considered a smile as the bathwater finally works its magic.

      Her thoughts are interrupted when Edward appears in the doorway dressed in a smart yachting jacket, white turtleneck and beige slacks. He steps over the threshold hesitantly, like a well-trained dog that knows better.

      “Zelda, I’ll have to leave for work soon, Sweetheart.”

      She ignores him.

      “Zelda, Sweetheart.”

      When she speaks, her strident tone is not one of warmth and sweetness. “Vhat do you van’t, Edvard?”

      He smiles thinly, “Would you like to cook, or should I get some fish and chips, take-away?”

      “Cook! Mein Gott. I’ve not long finished vork Edvard and you vant me to, to, to prepare a meal?” Zelda waves her hands in the air, exasperated, her point clear.

      Edward swallows nervously. “I’ll send out then.” He is complicit. His head cast down as he leaves her quietly alone, content to wage an inner debate with himself.

      He smiles sideways at June and Charlotte and June catches herself smiling back.

      If only they could have their life back but without Zelda. June thinks that often.

      How much she misses her Mum, and why, oh why did she have to leave her. She misses her more each day becoming an icy heaviness in her heart threatening to topple her over.

      If June was subjected to a natural disaster, it could not have come in a worse form than Zelda. A death in the family that broke their biological bond was tragic. She now feels as if flung aside like a piece of seaweed.

      Zelda clears her bath, takes a large fluffy wrap around towel, and dresses.

      The rain has eased and night is upon them. Edward returns from work with dinner. Back in the drawing room, she can see both her reflection and Edward’s in the window glass. He never takes his eyes off her but she doubts his interest is romantic. No. His interest, she knows, is the now fast failing light and not wanting to be alone.

      Later that evening Edward struggles to fall asleep. Outside has returned to being wet and windy. What use are expansive sea views if you can rarely see the sea? he thinks.

      His mind continually needs to unfold the day’s events and his dreams often return to the 1940s when he struggles to survive his bombing missions. Often he relives his Lancaster holed by flak and he is without controls. His flaps and hydraulics shot away, oxygen tanks exploding, flames spreading throughout his plane. As the plane begins its rapid decent, he leaves what controls he has to his co-pilot, unhooks himself from his seat and squeezes through the hatch into the belly of the flaming beast. There he goes looking for his crew crawling on bended knees but he cannot find them. In his dream he watches through a gaping hole in the fuselage another Lancaster go down. He feels another shockwave from a direct hit; beneath him a larger hole appears from a ground to air canon. The air rushes past him then turns and sucks him from his platform. He falls from the plane into the abyss. Edward awakes in a cold sweat.

       Fuck!

      He lays afraid to sleep should his demons revisit him. He feels as if he has been connected to an improperly calibrated drip of adrenalin as seemingly every ounce of belly bile begins to incinerate his throat. He draws long, grateful breaths.

      As 57,000 RAF aircrew perished, Edward’s concerns were indeed very real. He knows how fortunate he was to survive that madness.

      As he lays in the darkness next СКАЧАТЬ