Fish 2 - POLLACKS! Chapter 1
By Albert-W
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Fish 2
POLLACKS!
Chapter 1
Major Forbuoys handed Mrs. Kaufman an election leaflet then started fidgeting, most uneasy in the woman’s presence and eager to move on, impatiently fiddling with the twisted tips of his grey moustache.
"Wos iss?" the gaunt and uncultured creature frowned, speaking from the side of her mouth that was not occupied with hanging on to a Silk Cut, its concertina-like inch of ash drooping precariously.
"Spot of gen on our man Mugford," explained the plummy-voiced retired officer, at the same time fishing a poster out of his holdall. "Get this stuck up in ya window," he ordered militarily, not even considering the fact that he held no effective rank at all over anybody these days, and certainly not Widow Kaufman.
She studied it. "Ere!" she exclaimed, propelling a blizzard of ash across Forbuoys’ tweed lapels, allowing the remainder of her cigarette to escape its niche, roll down her paisley pinafore and drop, unnoticed, into one of his turn ups. "I’ve seen this geezer. Done dinner for ‘im an’ ‘is old lady when I worked at Newlands Park."
"Dare say," said the Major, whose economy of words frequently left everybody wondering who dared say, what they dared say and to whom they were daring to say it. "Popular local figure. You'll be rootin' for him on Thursday week, of course."
The arrogant presumption was ignored. "Mudfoot, did ya call 'im?"
"Hmm," mumbled the Major, not paying the slightest attention. "He's your man; anti-homos and passionate advocate of the death penalty, like the rest of us. Never bin offered a ministerial post, ya know. Damn poor show's what it is.”
"'E ain’t 'alf a noisy eater," Mrs. Kaufman pointed out.
"Beg pardon?"
"'Im; ya Mudfoot bloke."
"Mugford," Forbuoys corrected her, now sufficiently intrigued to listen. “And how, may I ask, would you know?”
"You deaf? Just told ya; ‘E come to the big ‘ouse for nosh wiv ‘is stuck-up wife. Wouldn't credit it would ya; an 'oity-toity 'erbert like that wot can't drink soup wivout sounding like someone on the bog wiv the squits. An’ one of ‘em dropped their guts when I was dishin’ up the rhubarb crumble. I fink it was ‘er. Made me eyes water. Gawd knows what she’d been eatin’."
The ex-Catering Corps Major froze, eyelids fluttering, then backed towards the gate. "Quite, quite," he spluttered, desperate to avoid any further colourful enlargement on the matter. It was the thing he disliked most about campaigning; having to canvass the dross in Station Road. He often wondered why they bothered at all when they had such an overwhelming majority in the Higham ward. Campaign strategy; infiltrating the enemy camp, unnerving the opposition he supposed, and was telling himself as he made a tactical retreat, oblivious to the wisps of pre-full ignition smoke funnelling upwards from the lower left leg of his cavalry twills.
"'Ere we are Fluff," said Mrs. Kaufman, lifting her cat's basket from the bare floorboards in the hall and slipping candidate Mugford’s cheesily grinning portrait uppermost underneath it. "This’ll keep the draught off the starfish."
It was Tuesday; washing day for the redundant housekeeper. She detested doing the laundry that she now had to take in for a living, particularly when prevented from getting it over with by constant interruptions. Major Forbuoys had been the third caller this morning. If anybody else came, she decided, they could bugger off. She'd not answer the doorbell again.
The doorbell rang.
"Arseholes!" she slammed down her washboard.
Fluffy, a feline of particularly nervous disposition, levitated bug-eyed in panic at the noise and took off like a rocket across a pile of soiled underwear to shelter under the sink.
The bell rang again.
"All right, all right," grumbled Mrs. Kaufman, her determination to ignore the thing having fought its battle with her curiosity and lost. "'Old ya bleedin' 'orses!" Once again, she wrenched open the sticking door from its damp swollen frame. "Oh iss you," she said. "Whaddy’a want?"
The dapper middle-aged man with a briefcase and brolly in one hand, tapped the rim of his bowler hat with the other. "Hello Mrs. Kaufman," he gave a polite, insincere smile. "I don't know if you remember me, but I used to act on behalf of your late employer."
"You're Mister 'ayward, aren't ya?"
"Hay... ward. That's right."
"Well, whaddy’a want? Ain’t come into some lolly, 'ave I?"
Claude Hayward, senior partner of local solicitors Hayward and Mugliston, nodded in the negative. "Not exactly;" he said, "but I'd rather like to have a few words with you about possibly making some. Might we talk inside?"
"S'pose so," she shrugged.
He deposited his hat and umbrella on one of the mountains of junk-filled cardboard boxes in the dingy hall and followed her into the kitchen, wincing visibly. The room was a pit, strewn with smelly clothing and befogged with steam from the washing copper.
"Fag?" Mrs. Kaufman proffered a near-empty packet.
"Thank you no," Hayward declined. "Now, I expect you're wondering why I’ve called."
"Not about the brass light fittin’s from the big ‘ouse, is it?" she looked sheepish all of a sudden.
"No;" said the solicitor, "though I know all about those. I trust you've not sold them?"
"Not me;" she frowned, "but I can’t speak for Perce."
"Perce?"
"Swannin; Percy Swannin’, wot they called their 'andyman gardener."
"Ah, Mr. Swanning of course. No Mrs. Kaufman, what I'm here to talk about is the question of your employment."
"You wot?"
"Your old job at Newlands Park. We were wondering if you'd like it back."
"'Oo's we?"
"That doesn't matter for the moment. The question is whether you wish to take up where you left off. Same pay and conditions, naturally; only there’s room for you to live-in now should you so wish – an added bonus."
"I dun’no," said the somewhat surprised woman, knowing that she did know. "I'd need to fink about it. “Ere, ya wanna cuppa char?"
Hayward looked around at the piles of unwashed crockery, the worktops bespattered with marmalade and Whiskas cat food, the well-overpopulated flypapers and overflowing slops bin. "Er, not for me," he excused himself, convinced that the general stickiness and festering slime around the place, coupled with the palling humidity, must constitute a perfect culture medium for some diabolical bacillus strain. Why his principles should want to employ this insanitary woman and a thieving odd-job man was beyond him, but that was up to them.
"Suit yaself," Mrs. Kaufman proceeded to put on the kettle anyway.
This was a turn-up for the books, she thought, now spreading bread for an elevenses snack. Fifteen years she’d been the Maxwell family’s housekeeper, right up until the old man sold the place. He was the only decent one among them in her book; though even he had his peculiarities. "Wot about Miss Moira?" she asked, forgetting that she already had a cigarette burning on a saucer, lighting another from the gas ring under the kettle then talking through a coughing fit. "Any news of 'er, lately?"
"Nothing more than you may have read in the papers," said Hayward whilst accidentally, and to the accompaniment of an ear-piercing yowl, stepping on the cat’s tail. "Except,” he went on as the startled animal shot out into the hallway, “that she's doing a spot of solitary at the moment. I gather she bit a wardress’s breast."
"Typical of the bitch," wheezed Mrs. Kaufman, recalling the countless times that her former employer’s psychopathic daughter had launched unprovoked and wholly vicious attacks on herself and other members of the household; more often than not Ashley, Moira's drip of a brother. “Anyway,” she wanted to know, “‘Oo as got the ‘ouse?”
"You’ll be told in due course. As you know, before he shuffled off, Mr. Maxwell sold Newlands Park to the Chief Constable, but he didn't keep it for long. Now it’s owned by my clients and that's why I've come to you. They don't anticipate being able to move in for a while, so have asked me to hire staff and see to it that the place gets a good airing. Then there's the grounds, of course. I shall be putting a similar proposition to Mr. Swanning this afternoon. I'd imagine he'll be keen to get back to his garden."
"No doubt," said Mrs. Kaufman, straining to suppress a snort, well aware of the extraordinary lengths to which the shirker would go to avoid stirring out of his pit, let alone the door. "Tell ya what;" she decided to test the water, "I'll work up there if ya bung in a moped. Can't face 'avin’ to get the bus into town for the shoppin’. There's only two a day, an' that's if ya lucky."
Hayward's response was immediate. "Done;" he said, “though second hand, obviously.”
"Oh," she paused, taking stock, realising that she did actually have some bargaining power in the deal. "Then there's the washin'," she quickly added while the going was good, selecting a suitable specimen from a pile and flapping it about right under Hayward’s nose. "I ain't prepared to do it by 'and any more – ‘specially shit-caked drawers like these. There's got to be a washin' machine."
"Yes yes," Hayward readily agreed, almost gagging, desperate to get out of the wretched hovel.
This was all too good to be true, she thought. One more for luck, perhaps? "An’ the dosh; don't ya fink the job's worf two ‘undred a week?"
"No I don’t," said the solicitor with conviction. It's one-fifty all found. Take it or leave it."
"When do I start?"
"Monday morning."
Failing to tempt the visitor to one of her fish paste and pickled gherkin sandwiches, Mrs. Kaufman saw him out and returned to her chores.
The doorbell rang. "Christ’s sake, now what?" she ranted, almost tearing the door off its hinges.
"Might I use your bathroom?" asked the rigidly upright and shell-shocked Hayward, upturned bowler held out at arm’s length, the smaller of the two freshly deposited gifts from the cat still perched on the shiny expanse of his bald patch.
* * * *
© Albert Woods (2014)
The full prequel novel to this yarn is available for Kindle or PC on Amazon
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