Ashford’s Version
Years ago, someone gave me a book called The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook.
As the title suggests, it provides concise instructions on how to escape from the most diverse emergencies, from defusing a bomb to landing a plane or delivering someone’s baby in a taxi, but none of the chapters contemplated this kind of scenario: control freak mother meets feral daughter-in-law after hasty marriage.
I really wish I had instructions. If there were a chapter on this topic, the solution would certainly be ‘run as far away as you can’.
Jemma and my mother met two hours ago and there has been the same relaxed atmosphere one would expect on the Gaza strip in the house: ground to air missiles and men armed to the teeth. Lance and I, specifically.
I am confused. I’m usually pretty sure of myself but recent events have disorientated me: too much chaos, too many threats, too many ultimatums. If I were asked how I feel, I wouldn’t know what to answer.
Relieved: I no longer have insurmountable debts with the banks.
A hostage: I’m married to the human equivalent of an armed nuclear weapon.
Freed: women will no longer compete to sit next to me at dinners.
A moving target: my mother will torment me with her complaints about Jemma.
Avenged: with Jemma as her daughter-in-law, my mother is on her way to a perforating ulcer.
Deprived of my rights: I hardly have a say in my own house. I’m the duke but apparently nobody cares.
How did I get to complicate my life like this?
What’s more, in a mansion of two thousand square metres, there’s nothing more than a single wall to separate Jemma and me.
Oh, and my mother is no longer going to Bath.
This is all I can think about while we’re waiting for Jemma to join us for dinner.
I’m sitting at one end of the long table and my mother is at the other end, as usual.
Between us, there are seven empty seats.
She should sit on my right, but this is a pretty clear signal that she isn’t willing to give up a shred of her authority in this house, even though she’s nothing more than my father’s widow, now that I’m the duke.
Jemma’s place is set exactly halfway between me and my mother, with three empty chairs on each side, a balanced compromise which puts her at the same distance from us both. If nothing else, there will be no danger of conversation.
“Listen up, you people, you must give me a map, a guide, a drawing with arrows, or whatever else you like, because I can’t find my way around in this place. Thank God I have a personal bathroom, otherwise I’d have had to pee in a vase!”
Jemma is finally here. Her opening lines are always effective. I’m pretty used to it now, but my mother is rather taken aback.
“You’re late, Jemma. We sit down for dinner on the stroke of 6:30 p.m.,” she points out.
“Well, what time do you have breakfast? If I sleep under the table, I will be on time tomorrow morning. I see there’s plenty of room, at least!”
I decide to intervene and pre-empt my mother’s reply, as she’s already frothing at the mouth. “Jemma, we’ll come down for breakfast together tomorrow morning, so you won’t get lost.” Yes, I mean, we’re married, what would everyone think if we had breakfast separately after our first night in Denby?
Jemma is about to sit on the first empty chair, the one next to my mother, who stiffens against her backrest, horrified.
“Lady Jemma, we’ve prepared your place over here, if you please,” Lance invites her, pulling out her chair.
“Wow,” says Jemma. “You placed me at a safe distance! I did have a shower this morning, though!”
“I’m not interested in the details of your ablutions, provided that they are regular. As far as meals are concerned, this is the customary arrangement.” There goes my mother, trying to expand her authority like wildfire.
“With three empty seats between one person and the other? What do you do when you have guests, rent the Wembley stadium?”
“The protocol is different in such cases. Now, if you’re done with your questions, I will have the courses served. Lance, you may proceed,” my mother directs.
As I’m about to eat my aspic, I see Jemma staring at her plate from the corner of my eye.
“Doesn’t it suit your taste?” I ask, without looking at her. If I did, she might think that I’m seriously interested in her appetite.
“I don’t know, should it?”
Here we go again, she answers a question with another question, as if she were programmed to start an argument.
“The most proper answer would be ‘Yes, it does’,” I reproach her.
“It would help if I knew what’s on my plate,” she says, poking the jelly cylinder in front of her sceptically.
“It’s an aspic. It’s made with veal, eggs and artichokes in jelly.”
“If I move the plate, it trembles like my aunt Jean’s arse as she goes up the stairs,” Jemma comments, less and less attracted to the entrée.
My mother puts her fork down on the plate noisily, shocked. “My God, what kind of obscenity am I forced to hear.”
“But it’s true!” Jemma objects.
I decide to cut in and provide a diplomatic solution. “Please serve the next course to my wife. She doesn’t like the aspic.”
When they put the main course in front of her, she claps enthusiastically. “Chicken wings! Brilliant!”
“It’s quail,” I correct her.
Jemma grabs one with her hand and looks at it sceptically. “They looked like chicken wings from a distance.”
And she bites. Yes. She holds the quail firmly in her hand and takes a big bite.
My mother almost faints, so much so that she asks to have some lemon squeezed into her water.
“Jemma,” I call her, swinging my fork in an attempt to draw her attention and suggest that she uses the cutlery.
I can only think of one word: Neanderthal.
Jemma struggles with the cutlery and I hear her mumble: ‘Sodding little bones.’ Then, she gives up, puts the cutlery on the table and pushes her plate away.
“Serve the dessert,” I order sharply, but I’m partly relieved because this will put an end to this disastrous dinner. Thank God for that.
Jemma sinks her spoon into the white foam inside her dessert cup, she sniffs it and drops the spoon back in it. “Where’s the real dessert?”
“That’s the real dessert, Jemma,” I hiss, irritated.
“Listen, I played the shaving cream prank myself, but I was four years old!”
“This is syllabub. It’s been popular since Tudor times and this particular version is from the Parker family’s recipe book,” my mother replies icily.
“Is there anything with chocolate in your family’s recipe book?”
My mother breathes slowly in order to keep calm. “Not this evening.”
I start peeling an apple, wanting the dining room floor to swallow them up.
“What’s for tomorrow evening? Biscuits stuffed with toothpaste? Or dish soap ice cream?”
My mother loses her temper: “I can’t tolerate our culinary tradition being ridiculed by a fried chicken eater!”
“Well, fried chicken is far better than a bony little bird!”
My mother’s face is contracted in disgust. “Miss, before you can decide what is to be served, you need to learn some table manners. I’m not used to having savages at dinner!”
“Ladies,” I cut in, standing up. “I’ll be at the club.”
*
I’m out! Out! Out! Away from that madhouse. For the whole journey I hold the steering wheel of my car as tightly as a prisoner holds a sheet to escape.
I thought it was impossible to find a woman whose character is worse than my mother’s, but I have changed my mind. And now, these two women live in the same house: mine.
They are never quiet, they have an opinion on every single thing, and they feel the uncontrollable need to share them all with me. Half a day like this, and I’m already exhausted.
I had never thought that I would have to hide in my own house, but I’ll have to invent all sorts of tricks in order to avoid them.
Anyway, I fooled them both tonight. I grabbed my jacket, my keys and I said goodbye. I’m going to the club, which is strictly reserved for gentlemen.
“Duke of Burlingham,” says Furber, the butler at the club, greeting me with a bow as I give him my raincoat and umbrella.
“How’s life, Furber? Are there many people tonight?” I ask, taking a look at the half empty rooms on the first floor.
“Not too many, for now.”
“Is Harring here already?”
“The viscount has not arrived yet. Are you waiting for him?”
“Yes, we had an appointment. That’s quite strange. Anyway, I think I’ll go upstairs, to the billiard room. When he arrives, tell him I’m waiting for him.”
“I will, Your Grace.”
I take the steps of the spiral staircase three at a time, until I get to the long corridor with white doors. I open that of the billiard room and, when the handle clicks, I’m taken by surprise: there are people standing on the billiard table, while others are raising glasses of cognac in the bar corner; their voices are covered by Just a Gigolo/I Ain’t Got Nobody playing out loud. Those standing on the table are improvising a grotesque dance.
A heavy slap on my back startles me. “Ashford Parker! You bugger! You get married and don’t say a word!”
“Harring!” I utter, amazed, as my friend gives me a strong hug.
“What’s this all about? You paid a flying visit to London without telling anyone, you found love and forty-eight hours later you’re married?”
Bloody newspapers. “Actually, Harring—”
“We should never speak to you again!”
“I know, I should have invited you to the ceremony—” I anticipate him.
Harring interrupts me. “Fuck the ceremony! I’m talking about your stag night. If we had known, we would have thrown one hell of a party. But we’re gonna make up for it tonight,” then he pulls me up on the billiard table with the others. “Furber! Champagne!” He orders, nonchalantly.
“So… what about Portia, then? Did you dump her? You know what, friend? You did well!” Then he turns towards the others: “More babes for us!” And a deafening roar bursts from the wild bunch.
Let me explain how this delicate mechanism works: in public, at social events and official evenings, the men in this room are perfect examples of composure and good manners. However, within the four walls of the gentlemen’s club, they turn into a horde of vandals who indulge in the foulest deeds, just like tonight. Yes, ‘gentlemen’s club’ is just a euphemism.
They drag me from one group to another, pour me large glasses of cognac, shove Havana cigars into my mouth and keep patting me on my back as if I were a punchbag.
“So?” Harring keeps asking, completely caught up in the excitement. “When will you show us your bride? Do you keep her hidden?”
To be honest, I do. “Um, Harring, you’ll meet her when the time comes.”
“Why are you always so mysterious? How reserved is this lad! Guys, make him drink more, so he loosens up a little! Champagne, cognac, brandy, petrol… anything!”
“Harring—” I try to stop him.
“Don’t keep your marital joys from us. If someone like you has decided to get married out of the blue, then something exceptional must have happened! An event!”
Of course, bankruptcy! I wish I could drown him in such moments. “Some things just happen, you can’t do much to avoid them.”
“Guys! Our good old Ashford is in love, did you hear that?”
The group around me lifts me and throws me in the air, accompanying the scene with vulgar jokes.
“Hey Ash, you don’t know what you missed. Private flight to Paris for a night at the Crazy Horse with wild and beautiful naked Frenchies, then off to Rio de Janeiro by Concorde and, before coming back to London, one last stop in Thailand. You little prick, if you had told us before getting married, you would have had a stag party to be remembered after your own death!”
Harring has been obsessed with Rio de Janeiro ever since we finished University. In fact, I knew that he would say the words ‘Rio De Janeiro’ within half an hour, at most. There’s just one thing in his mind all the time.
I pat my friend on his back. “What can I tell you, Harring? We’ll keep these plans for you!”
“No, man, that woman has yet to be born!”
“Do you have a picture?” Asks Samuel Coulsen.
“Of whom?” I ask.
“Of your wife, who else?” He replies, slapping me on my neck.
“Oh, no, I’m sorry,” I admit, raising my hands.
“Come on, let us see her!”
“Let us see her! Let us see her! Let us see her!” Samuel and Harring start a stadium chant.
“Guys, I don’t have any picture,” I repeat.
Samuel turns towards the bunch behind him. “Guys! He doesn’t have any picture.”
“Nooo!” Their disappointment rises as loud as a roar.
“Punishment! Punishment! Punishment!” Everyone shouts.
“Let’s soak him in the Thames!” Harring suggests.
“Boys, calm down! What do you mean soak me in the Thames?”
“What sort of stag party would it be, without an arrest for forbidden bathing?”
So, led by Samuel and Harring, these supposed gentlemen lift me up by the legs and shoulders, and take me outside the club, down the whole Strand, while shouting: ‘Ash the newly-wed takes a dip’.
I have to say that I don’t remember much else.