Time to Go by Guy Kennaway

Author:Guy Kennaway
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Mensch Publishing

NINETEEN

Swansongs

In accordance with my earlier plan, I had made up my mind to make the time go as happily as possible. In addition to my adopted role of butler, I also became sommelier, skivvy and chauffeur to the household. And I went about my duties with enthusiasm. I arrived in the house every morning, and after clearing up the kitchen and putting the washing out to dry, I nipped out to buy the wine and food for dinner.

Susie preferred to cook, though sometimes she just issued instructions from the sofa. I would announce dinner, and with elaborate courteousness hold the back of Stanley’s chair and smoothly slide it in as he undertook the complex, time-consuming and painful manoeuvre of sitting down. Then I laid the napkins across their laps, bowed and shimmied off for the wine.

‘Red or white, sir?’ I shouted.

‘I think we’ll have white. Is that all right darling?’

Susie nodded. I went to the fridge, removed the bottle and cradled it in two hands to present the label to Stanley.

‘Very nice,’ he said. I knew that, as I had paid for it.

‘Bien choisi,’ I said, laying the accent on with a trowel. ‘May I compliment you on your choice? Parfait avec le tart du cottage.’

‘Marvellous, very good. Carry on,’ said Stan – I couldn’t tell if he was playing or had enjoyably slipped out of reality, as he loved to do with his model making.

I threw in another bow for fun. I then drew the cork, sniffed it, and returned to pour the wine with an extravagant twist of the wrist.

With them seated and yelling at each other, I darted about the room, and brought the cottage pie to the table. I served from their right-hand side and later removed the empty plates from the same side with an ostentatious flourish.

When I sat down to eat, Stanley asked ‘Is there any salt?’

‘My sincerest apologies,’ I said, and leapt up and reached for the condiment, also picking up pepper, mustard and HP sauce (which I knew he had a soft spot for) as if it were the most pleasurable thing to be asked to do.

After dinner they sat on the sofa and watched the English weather forecast with just a corner of France at the bottom of the screen, and not the corner they lived anywhere near, and stared at the English news, open mouthed at the distant political storms of Brexit and the election, while I silently placed the dirty dishes in the machine and wiped the surfaces.

My services as a butler allowed Susie to throw some drinks parties, which I, drunk on my own idiocy, enthusiastically encouraged.

‘Would you do the honours?’ Stanley would say to me when the doorbell buzzed with the first guests and he dragged himself away from a six-hour stint on the Sopwith Camel.

‘By all means, mon plaisir,’ I said and clicked my heels. I had plenty of time before any of them made it up the stairs. I was thinking I should get an

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