Chapter Nine
Coarse language must not ever cross the lips of a well-bred Good Woman! ‘Gosh, darn it’ may occasionally be acceptable at times of high frustration.
Matilda Beam’sGuide to Love and Romance, 1955
‘You must be Jessica.’
I recognize the timid voice from the intercom as a heavy-set girl with a shy, slightly buck-toothed smile and a dusting of freckles across her nose opens the door. She’s in her mid-twenties and pretty in a scrubbed, wholesome, countryside kind of a way. She’s wearing a cream-coloured apron over her long skirt and huge navy T-shirt, and her frizzy, mousy brown hair is tied back into a thick plait.
‘I’m Peach.’ She doesn’t quite make eye contact but offers a chubby hand, the nails short and painted with clear varnish.
‘Nice to meet you,’ I say, taking her hand. ‘Though I’m not feeling quite so peachy, I’m afraid.’ I indicate the now almost fully ripped bin bag.
‘No, no. Um, mynameis Peach,’ she says quietly, rounded cheeks turning blotchy red. ‘Um, Peach Carmichael. I’m Mrs Beam’s assistant.’
‘Oh! Cool name.’
Grandma has staff!
‘Mrs Beam will receive y’all in the parlour.’
She’ll receive me in the parlour? I snort and look around, half expecting Cousin Matthew to pop out from under the stairs. I’d totally do Cousin Matthew.
We head into the flat and the beautiful, magnificent dwelling I was expecting to see, based on the outside appearance of the building, does not materialize. At all. The entrance way is grand and wide, of course, but it’s really dingy too. I peer at the ceiling and see a huge, extravagant crystal chandelier, but only one of the bulbs is lit up – the other eight are busted. We turn a corner and walk down a dimly lit hallway. Wow. There’s clutter everywhere. It’s absolutely chockablock with stuff. Loads and loads of stuff. I bump into a stone bust of some dude’s head, and then stumble backwards into a clunky old vacuum cleaner, finally tripping up on a tall stack of newspapers. It’s like playing hallway Mousetrap. I topple over and land on my bum, my face squashed up against a misshapen tennis racket.
‘Hallllp.’
Peach spins round in horror. ‘Oh my.’
‘I thought I was messy!’ I yelp, peeling my face off the racket and pressing on my ankle to check for damage. Peach holds out a hand to pull me up.
‘Are you hurt? I’m ever so sorry. I’m so used to weavin’ and dodgin’ about this hallway, I forget it’s an obstacle course for guests.’ She shrugs slightly. ‘Not that we have many guests, mind you, besides Gavin the postman.’
‘I’m all right.’ I scramble back up and brush down my skinny jeans.
Stepping carefully over an intricate mother-of-pearl grandfather clock face, I look around me in astonishment. This hallway is David Dickinson’s wet dream. Which might be the grossest thought I’ve ever had.
‘Wow, you guys should do aCash in the Attic.’
Peach looks serious. ‘We can’t even get the attic door open. Mrs Beam … well, Mrs Beam likes her belongings around her.’
‘Yeah, I can see that.’ I negotiate a side table with two old, unplugged telephones on it. What the actual fuck?
And then Peach opens another big door and ushers me into a large, grand room. The ceilings are just as high as in the hallway, and one claret-coloured wall is festooned with a gallery of gilt-framed oil paintings. The other three walls are taken up with crammed-to-the-brim bookcases. I hear the wails of that creepy 1950s Bobby Helms song ‘My Special Angel’echoing out from an old-fashioned record player by the huge sash window. And there in the far corner of the room, sitting primly on a stiff-looking duck-egg-blue chair, head buried in a book, is my grandma. She’s thin, and although she’s sitting down, I can tell that she’s tall. Her silvery white hair is styled in what I reckon is supposed to be a Grace Kelly-style chignon, but there’s a mass of frizzy tendrils escaping at the temples, creating a kind of wild halo effect. Grandma peers curiously up from her book and I see that, like me, she’s wearing glasses. Only hers aren’t cool tortoiseshell ones but big red ones that are winged at the corners with those super-thick lenses that make eyes look cartoon-massive. She looks a bit like a Tim Burton creation. And not in the good way.
‘Um, Mrs Beam, Jessica Beam is here to see you.’
The old woman gasps.
Eek.
A grandma.Mygrandma.
This is bizarre.
This is too freaking bizarre.
What am I bloody doing here?
