EPISODE 5 Curtains, My Dear, Curtains

Contact Tracing Leads To An Unexpected Find

'Randall's Haberdashery, how can I help?'

'Hello, could I speak to Margot Randall please?'

'Yes, I'll go and find her, who am I speaking to, what is it concerning?'

'This is the police in Compton Norton, it's about your delivery driver Rogerio Marsden'

Ms Treadwell dashed to the back of the stockroom, where Margot was deeply absorbed, carefully checking off of a delivery of expensive handmade shawls and throws. Wondering if she'd ordered too many.

'It's the police.... something to do with Rogerio' 

Thrusting the phone towards Margot, as though it were burning a hole in her hand.

'Margot Randall speaking'

The Police had been summoned to Compton Norton Cottage Hospital to deal with a highly distraught young man. Desperately looking for an A&E department they did not have. Covered from head to toe in swollen purple lesions. He was In a state of panic, flailing and shouting crazily about plague infected curtains  The hospital was immediately closed and cordoned off. The man was taken by air ambulance to Whittlechurch Trust Hospital, isolated in a sealed ICU unit where he remained in a critical condition. 

PC Monica Dawson's job was now to piece together the man's movements. Rogerio Marsden, where had he been that day? Gradually pulling together a list of people he may have been in close contact with. Asking them to self isolate until an ambulance could get to them. All quickly leading to this call to Randall's, and to Margot.

'Do you hire Mr Marsden on regular basis Mrs Randall?.'

'Yes, we use his services, have done for the last two or three years.'

'Where was he delivering for you recently'

'Oh, only the one delivery today, a very local one in Brimmingham. Is Rogerio all right?'

'No, I'm afraid he isn't Mrs Randall. Mr Marsden is seriously I'll in hospital I am afraid. Could you tell me what he was delivering and to whom, please?'

'It was some rather unusual curtains to a Ms Julia Goodall-Smillie'

'Unusual, in what way?'

Margot attempted to abbreviate for the police the whole elaborate back story of the curtains. But found herself incapable of the task, instead adding great dollops of dramatic relish, the strange heat, the purple staining, her uneasy alarmed concerns about them. Going on and on. Even as she spoke she had this surge of panic, maybe she shouldn't overdo the melodrama. But failed to stop herself, she was like this dam that once burst had to release every last drop of pent up water. 

'This might have serious repercussions for your business Marge. Tone it down, sound more sombre, more caring and professional. Maybe I could sue that dratted fabric company for loss of business, for recklessly endangering the health and lives of me and my staff, for selling faulty merchandise. Legal vengence will be mine.'

How her mind raced ahead of her.

As Margot spoke, Monica at the other end of the phone she became excitedly alarmed by what she heard. Here was the source of it all. Taking down the details of the fabric manufacturer, the address of Randall's and Ms Goodall-Smillie's.  Telling her to close the shop immediately. Stop any customers from leaving the premises. To wait with Ms Treadwell until the police and ambulance arrived.

An hour later the whole of Brimmingham was caught up in the housebound equivalent of a whirl of alarm. A police cordon had been erected around Randall's, and Francine's little cottage. The normally peaceful little Georgian cul-d-sac where Ms Julia Goodall-Smillie lived, had become a hive of CSI and TV news activity. A barrier blocked off the entrance to the road. No one, not even residents, allowed out, nor in. Grumbles of outrage, stirred up by cockeyed theories, were passed around in great measure. Telephoned from house to house. Semaphored along each picturesque side street. Settling like dust around the collision of old codgers, informally gathered on their mobility scooters beneath the medieval market cross. 

Meanwhile, the number of masked individuals appearing, blue gloved and dressed in white hazmat suits, seemed ever increasing. Once all necessary back up was in place, there was a move towards the house. A police team ascended the doorsteps, knocking loudly on Julia's front door.

'Its the police, Ms Goodall-Smillie'

With all the noise and kerfuffle that had been going on outside, if Julia had still been conscious the door would have opened long before now. She'd have stood looking disdainful, and with all her customary flair for heightened syntax and foul language, would have bellowed.

'Could you inform me what the fucking hell is going on? Which person is in charge here ? I want to speak to that numbskull right now!.'

But there was no such appearance, no such response, no such imperious voice to be heard echoing along this elegant rural street.

After a couple more hails, the team, with hand held enforcer battering rams unceremoniously shattered the door off its hinges. The fact that the door was eighteenth century and part of a grade two listed Georgian terrace, caused a collective sharp intake of breath. Mainly amongst the residents locked away behind their own ancient doors. They looked on in abject horror, whilst phoning the County Council's conservation department to check whether such behaviour was quite the done thing. The Facebook page for Enjoy Brimmingham More rose up into a state of apoplexy. Never had so few had so much to complain about.

On the threshold, the heavy duty police grunts hovered briefly before backing away to let the onsite forensic pathology team thoroughly,. One look inside made everyone exclaim. 

Shiiiit!

'Hello.......Ms Goodall-Smillie.... are you there?....are you OK?

No response. 

Cautiously they stepped into a once elegant hallway now completely infested with a network of vivid purple veins and glittering winking eye shapes. Running across walls, around light fittings, stairwells and newel posts. A mouldy rancid aroma assaulted nasal passages. A two person group split off upstairs, the main group turned left into the front room. Stepping whenever possible over or around the veins, which spread like fan vaulted peacock feathers across the floor and ceiling. In the middle of the front room lay a disquieting spongy foetus like mound. 

The lead forensic investigator spoke via com link.

'We've found a body..a body form. It's moving, well, its making breathing like movements, but I cannot be sure its actually alive. Everything in this room weirdly pulses. If this is her she could be comatose. The body form has purple skin lesions similar to the guy in hospital. But much more advanced. There are several major tendrils spreading out from the curtains that are enveloping this.... form.  It appears to have become woven into them. I really don't understand what it is we are dealing with here. 

I suggest we exit the building and consider what our next move should be. This doesn't feel at all safe to me. All units vacate the premises ASAP follow the established exit protocols, to the letter please!'

From then on over the following days the forensic team moved with extraordinary care, slowly moving through the house. Whilst efforts to discover a way to contain 'the purple plague' as it had become known, progressed.  It had taken a while for Retinal Hemorrhage, the rather recalcitrant fabric manufacturer, to relay the information that they might try a common mordant dye fixing agent, in a high concentration. This might at least neutralise it. Which it did. The house and those in the surrounding area evacuated whilst a thorough fumigation was done. The mordant agent sprayed everywhere, outside and in, to prevent any likelihood of resurgence. 

What was left of the body of Ms Julia Goodall-Smillie, once released from its cocoon, partly liquified, could then be pronounced officially dead. 

Rogerio Marsden having struggled to keep a hold on life in ICU for several weeks, suddenly pulled through and was now on the way to a full recovery. Making a life changing decision to live in Thailand, to join an eco village,to join a Buddhist monastery, or find a wife there. He'd not yet decided which. 

Everyone else connected via Randall's, including their fortunately very cautious seamstress Francine, were relieved to be found clear of infection. What with prolonged, direct skin contact with the fabric being apparently the primary vector of transmission. 

Retinal Hemorrhage ended up being litigated or investigated on so many fronts. All their fabrics impounded, tested and then destroyed. So in the end they did a runner. Before their links to a Swiss based Dark Material Arts Commune emerged. Funded, on the surface at least, by a perfectly respectable Hedge Fund, also now suspended whilst other links were checked out.

Randall's itself never quite got over it. In the febrile imaginations of Margot and all her staff, simply handling any curtain fabric made their skin crawl for a long long time afterwards. The hardest thing was tolerating and keeping patient, with having to politely accommodate the heightened level of wariness and bizzare apparel of their customers. Sporting a range of improvised liberty silk scarves with holes cut through for eyes, ski goggles. truly grubby tweed face masks and badly adapted gardening or motorbike gloves. The Covid pandemic and half baked recollections of the war, both had a lot to answer for.

But then a strange epilogue to the weird tale of Ms J Goodall-Smillie and her infectious 'devil' curtains surfaced. Disturbing and enigmatic in equal measure.

Compton Norton Chronicle & Advertiser - Another Plague House Discovery

After weeks of increasingly odd revelations coming from the Brimmingham 'plague house', you might be forgiven for thinking things could not get anymore baffling or alarming. Recently the police stumbled across another body in the house. This time the death was not a result of the strange infection. It was the murdered body of a woman in her thirties, found in an old chest freezer in the house cellar. 

DNA samples and dental records have both confirmed that these were the remains of a woman, who went missing from her cottage in Lower Pullingham  six years ago.  Early indications, as yet unconfirmed, are that she had been held captive for some time, before being killed. Her death being probably two years ago. Police are appealing to people in the Brimmingham to Compton Norton area for any information regarding past sightings of this woman near the house or local vicinity. She was quite distinctive as she was an unusually tall person, well over six foot five inches. The police have released a photo of the woman and her chosen name at time of death  - Simone Calvin.

Appendix

If you would like to read all five episodes of Curtains My Dear, Curtains again, in one complete sequence, click the link in Labels for Curtains My Dear Curtains or The Friday Serial. This should pull up all the previous episodes, hopefully in the right order. Blogger can sometimes act a bit contrary.

Thanks for reading. Hope you enjoyed it. 

There will be another The Friday Serial, once I've thought of an idea to write about. 

EPISODE 4 Curtains My Dear, Curtains

The Handsome Delivery Man Helps With The Hanging Up

Though Julia went into Randall's to pay for the curtains in person, she had no intention of personally lugging them home. She wanted them delivered.....to her door. She had her reasons, she'd need a hand putting them up, for one. Margot required only two things; that those bally curtains and Ms Goodall-Smillie be dispatched fully understanding what was not negotiable and not refundable.

So once she'd put one foot through the door of Randall's Margot began laying out to Julia mostly what their liabilities were not. Julia simply nodded her head and automatically mouthed a 'Yes' whenever she thought it called for. That these also slightly resembled yawns did not deter Margot, she'd dealt with her type many times before. Instinctively understanding the rules of Julia's game,

she concluded with, 

'if it is easier for you we will deliver at no extra cost. ' 

Having finally heard what she'd come to hear, Julia said

'Thank You!' 

followed by a coda of affected sincerity

'you're so kind' 

then abruptly headed out in the direction of home.

When it dawned on her there'd been no mention of a day or time of delivery. She swung quickly back into Randall's, stuck her neck and head through the doorway and barked 

'When?' 

Margot started, reclaimed her unflappable poise and replied

' Oh I expect it will be in the next hour or two, Rogerio's last local delivery is never later than 3pm'. 

Julia, noted the name, suddenly felt the siren call of her second home - the corner off licence. It was not even a detour.

Rogerio Marsden did small local deliveries just in the Brimmingham to Whittlechurch area, for local and national companies. Mostly, but not exclusively Randall's. Everyone appreciating his flexibility and van for hire at short notice. Not on theirs, nor anyone else's pay roll, the call today was a blessed relief. It had been really quiet for a couple of weeks. Things were finally picking up, hopefully.

He tootled his freshly washed and waxed white van round to Randall's. Picked up the package from the always expressionless Ms Treadwell in order dispatch. Placing the boxes in the back of the van, puzzled that this curtain delivery was barely a few streets away.  Like everyone he knew of Julia Goodall-Smillie by gossipy reputation. A few minutes later, about to meet her for the first time, he straightened his crumpled trousers and livery jacket and stepped up to her door. 

The door opened a fraction of a second before he'd completed the move to grasp the knocker. Causing him to stumble, then losing balance through trying not to drop the boxes, tipped over onto the entrance floor.  Julia stood there in what she thought her 'Queen Bey' pose. From the perspective of the coir doormat she appeared remarkably lofty in stature, with artfully bedraggled hair. Her person confidently armoured in a turquoise leather jacket, sculpted scarlet dress, heavy industrial bangle earrings and multiple asymmetric necklaces made of large angular bones. One hand firmly rested on the door jamb. whilst the other limply grasped an empty flute glass like a sceptre. None of this casually thrown together. As Rogerio recovered and straightened himself up he caught a whiff of her perfume - the recognisably astringent burp of mid afternoon alcohol.

Julia stood there for a while too long, giving the half prone Rogerio the once over. Mid twenties, tight wavy hair, as unruly as his clothing ( hopefully ) five-six ish, slight wiry body form, face of a dark haired bloody angel. God she'd eat him for lunch, if only she had the cutlery - however - already far far far too drunk. Maybe she could just playfully tinker with him, like a car engine.

Rogerio, for one moment completely forgot his purpose. Mangled himself back into his delivery man role, standing up straight.

'Curtain delivery from Randall's..... could you sign here please. Lovely day'

'Depends, doesn't it? Could you bring them through into my front room.'

Alarm rattled through his diminutive form, warning - do not enter - even as he actually did. He followed Julia into the front room, which so startled him he exclaimed  -

'Blimey, thats.....bright'

He looked around trying to take it all in. Completely at a loss what to make of it. This was amazingly garish, a lavish mess. The person who put this together must be unspeakably wealthy, but, as was so often the case, not a single ounce of good taste to go with it. The vulgarity of the decor was unhinged.  

He jumped out of his skin.  Julia stood right behind him, was speaking into his ear.

'These curtains you're delivering are to replace those abominations'

Pointing up at the swollen swags of Waffled Apricot. Rogerio wondered what was so wrong with them, considering the rest of the room.

'Could I request, half an hour, half an hour or so to just help me out a bit here. I'll make it worth your while. Just to hang these new curtains. Another strong able pair of hands, so so much better' 

Julia hoped that was being pleasant and charming enough. When it came to her persuasive abilities her performance had often proved  misjudged. What Rogerio saw was her manner slipping from overly assertive to overly flirtatious and unnervingly nearer to physical contact.

'Well, I do have another job in a hour. '

Rogerio immediately realised what a monumental mistake that was. Now he had no wriggle room at all should he need to make a quick exit.

'Well we'd better crack on then - Rogerio'

'She knows my name!'

The existing curtains had jupiter rings, so once the curtain rail supports were loosened, they easily slid off.  Julia unpacked the new curtains, proffering them to Rogerio. The fabric cradled in his arms was heavy and instantly made his skin crawl. His hands dusted with purple as he took them out from their plastic bags. It took a long while, with Rogerio, single-handedly fiddling clumsily with the cumbersome weight of the curtains, at the top of a high rickety ladder.

Julia, meanwhile, enjoyed 'scaring the bejeezus' out of the young man. This was a new game, faking uncontrollable lust. She thought of it as calculated revenge for all the times she'd been leered and pawed over. Standing on the bottom rung objectifying his bottom, holding not the ladder but his ankles, then the shins. Eventually ending with both hands buttressing those peachy buttocks. By the time he came down Rogerio's face was bright red. So flushed that he failed, at first, to notice that a purple pink staining was now creeping up his arms, in the direction of his neck. When he did he squealed in Portuguese -

'Merda!'

then

' What the hell is this?  Look at my arms! I've caught some disease off these fucking curtains. An allergic reaction or something. I have to get out of here. Go to A& E. I'm leaving, right now......its unbearably itchy.....Agh!'

Rushing out of the room, the front door, then driving off speedily and erratically. Julia shouting after him -

'Oh don't worry my dear baby boy, that's nothing a bit of Aloe Vera Sanitiser and a deep rub of Germoline wont deal with'

Taking an admiring look up at her new curtains, she felt triumphant -

'Well, that was a lot of fun'

Next Week - The Final Episode of

Curtains My Dear, Curtains
EPISODE 5 - Contact Tracing Leads To An Unexpected Find

Will be posted Friday 4th February 2022

EPISODE 3 Curtains My Dear, Curtains

The Way of Ordering Gets A Bit Tricky

Julia had tried to clean up the samples, but they'd just turned into warped dish clothes. With a whiff of stomach reformulated prosecco still lingering over them. On returning to Randall's to place her fabric order she came holding her singular choice. The purpled bruise one - Malevolent Punch. Intending to blank anyone who dared ask where the other samples were. When she recollected Simone's less than wholehearted endorsement, her silicon enhanced boobs shivered.  No, she reproved herself, this was the fabric she wanted. The oracle, on this occasion was simply wrong. Renewing her resolve, she crossed the portal into the other worldly realm that was Randall's.

The bell tinged with its usual genteel elegance. Though as she entered. Julia was met by the strangest sensation, reminiscent of an abandoned shipwreck. Even the echoes appeared lost.  She called out. 

'Hello, anyone here?' 

No answer. Proceeding to bang the counter bell severely, almost to breaking point. in reprimand. She detected soft rustling noises and hushed voices in the back room. A young shop assistant was then propelled forth out of the back office and store room, as though being thrown to the lions. This was a new Saturday girl, and serving the lion that was Julia Goodall-Smillie would be her initiation ritual. The haberdashery equivalent of having your head forced down a flushed loo. Poor, poor Emily Louise, serving Ms Julia on your very first day. 

Julia herself was bewildered - this was a petite child, not a grown up. Where was the emaciated stuck up adult she'd spoken to before?

'Who are you? What were you doing out there, making a three course lunch? Where's the usual woman I deal with here?

'Er yes, no... em... Emily.......I was checking.... stock, em, who do you mean? I mean what was their name?

'I don"t know - expressionless pasty face,late thirty ish, fair haired, tight bob, twice your height, very very lean, like a stick. Look, is there a manager or owner I can talk to? An adult, basically. 

'Until midday there is just me and Bethany. Its Ms Treadwell's day off and Mrs Randall's gone into town to pick up her son from the station?

'And Bethany is?'

'The other girl who works Saturday's. She's been here a bit longer than me. I've just started....... today'

Julia's eyebrows tensed. Her mouth crinkling with irritation. This was going to be hard. Was she up for coming back this afternoon? No, that was something she was not inclined to do. Oh fuck it, let's give the children from kindergarten a go.

'Do you think Bethany could come out too?'

Emily Louise shuffled in her court shoes quickly through to the back. Reemerging with a taller willowy girl, with the deportment of someone well trained in maintaining that floaty upright walk and poise a ballet dancer has. Creating the impression of self possession with vast amounts of confidence, largely unwarranted. Public schooled - obviously. 

'You're Bethany I take it, I need you to order this fabric. Are you capable of doing that.?

Yes, What fabric would you like to order?'

'It's this one here, I've brought the sample. It has everything on the back you need to know. Here are my notes and measurements on the window size and the drop I require. Could I just leave it and when Mrs Randall returns she could phone with the estimate and likely completion date later'

'I can take your order if you don't mind waiting' 

Julia, became quietly fascinated in observing Bethany slowly filling out the order form. Heavily pressing down in the clearly composed rounded printing that was her writing. It was taking far too long. But Julia was taken aback by her own level of patience. There was something mesmeric about watching the girl write with such neat precision. There ought to be an award for it. Bethany let out her held breath, a sharp exhalation signaling completion. Handing the biro written original to Julia as if it were a literary triumphe, and filed the carbons in the 'To Order' lever arche., saying:-

'Mrs Randall will be in touch should there be anything else required, about the deposit, total cost and estimated time for making them. Is that OK.?

Yes, that's fine. You know who I am, my address and contact details?'

'Oh yes, Ms Goodall-Smillie  - we know'

The 'we know' came out wrapped in a little too much cockiness, so Bethany smiled, with all the beatification she could summon. Hoping this might effectively camouflage or at least soften the backlash.  Luckily the customer barely noticed. She was halfway out the door.

As Julia left she caught in her peripheral, the two girls doing high fives. Conspiratorially giggling together, hiding their wired teeth behind their small doll like hands. She smirked. - Youth!

Margot returned to her shop with her nerves like tense runways, torn to absolute shreds. Picking up her son had turned into one enormous nightmare, the traffic, the difficulty parking, delayed trains, changes in platform. Compounded by her bad tempered unappreciative conceited little pig of an offspring. A chip off her former husband, he was the son. who took for granted all her good hearted motherly services. When she heard Julia Goodall-Smillie had been in, her heart sank further. Exclaiming exasperated -

'Oh, that's enough !

She grilled the two girls extensively about exactly what they'd said, done and agreed to. Luckily Bethany had had the experience and wherewithal to handle it. The curtain order was at least very legible. What a relief.

The fabric company, Retinal Hemorrhage, when she phoned to place the order, seemed frankly to be off their tits on drugs. Far too droll and lackadaisical for her liking. Interspersed with a lot of very knowing metro-sexual sniggering. Maybe it was her generation, but whenever she a spoke on the phone to such self amused London men, it was invariably hard to ascertain their gender. Even if they sounded gay, they might well be as straight as a poplar tree.

She decided to pay up front in order to obtain a speedy delivery.  The fabric arriving by the end of the week. This gave plenty of time for the curtains to be made up. As she handed the job over to her seamstress Francine, she apologised for the distastefulness of the fabric's subject matter. Urging her to do the best she can, because it was for Ms Goodall-Smillie. Francine bit her bottom lip.

What Margot wanted was no cause for complaint from that quarter. A cascading litany of other words - that cow, bitch, trollop, harridan, angrily stomped across her mind without being given voice. Decorous language in front of staff was so important to maintain. Her cat, an Egyptian Maus called Ozymandias, was accustomed to absorbing all her pissy vitriol. It was, needless to say, highly strung.

Francine had made up curtain orders for Randall's for decades. They used her constantly, were decent with her, paid on time and well. Self employed, she worked entirely from her cute stone faced cottage. Investing over the years in a modern half underground sewing room built out the back. Ideal for the cutting and running up of curtain fabrics. The first thing with any new fabric was to familiarise herself with it. Check it over for printing faults, misalignments, wayward or unusual patterning. Basically areas that she'd need to avoid or work carefully around. It was hard to tell with this one. This fabric was just weird in every way possible.

The impressionistic nature of the design, meant it appeared to visually shift. Shuddering on first handling. It felt alive in her hands, with its blue bruised veining, the sulphurous yellow halos on its skin like textured surface, all very unnerving. The filigree gold lines spread out like delicate slug trails, suggesting the outlines of eyes. As she did the preliminary measuring, these appeared to be checking her out.

Trimming the fabric to size turned into major surgery.  Once cut, it started to literally bleed colour onto anything it lay upon. The heavy dye load required to obtain the rich deep indigoes and purples in the fabric was unstable. It probably wasn't fixed much, or at all. The colour transferred so easily, even on light handling. Already she'd had to scrub surfaces and her hands several times. In the end. resorting to covering her table with plastic sheeting and wearing silicone gloves on her hands. Not great to do anything in, let alone sew. But she didn't want fingerprints cropping up all over the place, especially transferring onto other customers fabrics. What an expensive disaster that would be.

She phoned Mrs Randall to inform her. What should she do? Margot had the tricky task of ringing Julia to inform her. Expecting a huge eruption, she wasn't taken aback when Julia did explode, though she appeared to be not at all concerned. What she said was:-

'Fucking hell woman, once they're hanging up who the bloody well will care. Just do what I'm ruddy well paying you for. Don't come bleating to me about a minor pernickerty detai

Francine completed the job with her trademark efficiency. Continuing to take an extraordinary amount of care with the handling. Keeping the curtains wrapped in plastic at all times when not working on them. Once finished and left on the Customer Order shelf in Randall's stockroom, Margot noticed how warm the curtains felt to the touch. Even as they lay there you could see a heat haze rising off them. She'd be overjoyed the day she could hand them over to Ms J Goodall-Smillie.

These curtains had the potential to be big trouble, she just knew it.

Curtains My Dear, Curtains
EPISODE 4 - A Handsome Delivery Man Helps With The Hanging Up

Will be posted Friday 28th January 2022

. 

EPISODE 2 Curtains My Dear, Curtains

There Is An Art To Choosing When You're Drunk

Rarely did she resist the temptation to be extremely rude to shop assistants. It was her default mode of engagement.  If anything, being confronted by a passive aggressive woman provoked Julia far more than any amount of male condescension. 'Mansplaining' was easily dealt with, you corrected very loudly and publicly humiliated him. That the strength of her reactions was mostly uncalled for, never crossed her mind. On this occasion, she'd been distracted by the allure coming off the folder of fabric designs, they were so temptingly......delectable.

Each design was an uber clever patternated repetition of eyes, coming in a variety of colour-ways, sourced from photos, paintings or carvings. There were open or closed eyes - celebrity eyes, surrealist eyes, eyes with macular degeneration, bloody eyes undergoing surgery, Turkish eyes, the eye of Horus, alchemical eyes, masonic eyes, stone cut eyes, the eyes of pigs, sheep or birds. Anything with bulbous bulging orbs from an ebony faced Spanish Madonna to Bette Davis and really mad looking dolls. An eclectic collection then. 

She felt unexpectedly spoilt at being in receipt of so many quality designed fabrics. Turning to Ms Treadwell she spoke curtly, more by way of instruction than request.

'I'll be taking these home, and return them.... probably....whenever. Something here may do, but I need to consider at my leisure. If I do want one, how long until you'll have the fabric in?

' As its a new company for us, that can sometimes take up to a couple of weeks. Are you going to make them up yourself, or commission us to do that for you?

Julia had a brief flashback of herself sewing. All the painful previous attempts having been unmitigated disasters, reducing her to ripping up or burning the fabric ritually in an out door brazier. So she said:-

'Oh, God no, you can do all that' 

A flick of the hand conveying the depth of her disdain for manual work. She turned exiting the shop with all the brisk she could summon. Glancing at the fabric folder gripped tightly in her lace gloved hands. One of these beauties.........may be - The One.

'This will certainly require a deep communion with Simone'

Accompanied by a glass of prosecco, or two.  A quick nip to the off-licence. Essential.

By the time she reached home, the paper bag containing the four large bottles of La Marca was on the point of rupture. Having carefully clutched them to her breasts all the way back. Fumbling in the pockets of her scarlet culottes for the door key almost caused a major catastrophe. On bending down to rest the bottles and bag on the door step, the side gusset of the bag tore. Bottles tinkled out.  One, bounced off the top step miraculously remaining intact. Had it not been for a nifty piece of footwork by Julia, effectively blocking any further forward rolling, a waterfall of prosecco froth would have cascaded down the front steps. Alerting every neighbour's 'twitch and tut' to the advanced state if her alcoholism.

Nerves rattled, a visibly strained Julia shuffled through her classically proportioned eighteenth century entrance hallway. Ungainly wobbling in the general direction of the front room. The bottles still cradled like new born puppies in constant peril. Once the fabric folder, held in her claw like grip, was released to the armchair, then the bottles could be safely deposited. Deftly arranged in a skittle formation on the rectangular solid block of glass that was her coffee table.

'Oh. Simone, I'm home, I need your advice my love, come on down please.'

Furniture roughly pushed aside. The hefty folder opened. Contents fanned across the carpet. The A4 samples failed to show them off to their best. More fertile imaginative skills would be required. 

'Simone dear, hurry up, I need some advice from my oracle and goddess'

Stomping around the marble floor in her retro platforms. She frustratedly riffled in the sideboard cupboard. The 'champerz' glasses were in there somewhere. Having excavated two, she put them on the blood red mantelpiece. These would be the lure, the invitation for 'a divine visitation'.  Julia enjoyed elaborating rituals to lead up to role playing, in this case it was - let's pretend we have a friend at home. All part of the 'mise en scene' whenever major aesthetic decisions were to take place. Her 'aesthetic consultant' she'd named Simone, long ago forgetting why, or who. Was it Nina? De Beaviour? Did she care? No!

Open a bottle, fill the glass to the brim, knock it back as though it were tonic water. Then another and another in rapid succession. Once she was actually fully in the vicinity of rat arsed, only then could she begin channelling Simone. A deeper husky voice emerging from her freshly slackened larynx.

'So, what do you want my sweet sweet bitch?'

The character of Simone had developed over time, till now she was this larger than life, spirited being, unashamedly speaking truth to Julia's stern dominatrix.  The persona somewhat resembled a drag version of Julia. Instability in the vocal delivery department, meant it veered back and forth between Danny La Rue and Mama Ru.

' Hello Simone. Well, what do you think of these? Funky eh?

'Great visually.  Quite powerful. These could dominate your life, let alone a room. Don't mess with these babies, leave them well alone, hun'

'You're sounding a bit freaked my dearest doom eyed one. Aren't you just a little taken with this one, the iridescent teal, it would zing next to the yellow cabinet. Not sure whose eye it is. A zombie Mother Theresa? It follows you around the room like a predator...or maybe thats the prozzo ?'

'Those eyes remind me of Damian le Ronde, that wallpaper designer you had the randy hots for a while back. Leary, far too willing to cross personal boundaries. Basically eyes, hands, everywhere. Didn't understand no' 

'How could I have ever lived with that. Those eyes soooo penetrating .......undressing you. Such a mean stare ......as if jealously scanning you for illegal substances at Gatwick. He was a close call you saved me from, my love'

'Thank you....so maybe consider this rouge red one, the heavy bagged bloodshot eyes..... dramatic.......Argento....ish.  Art shlock, its a current sub trend, so I hear'

' Is that what it is? I don't know.....Goth.... its a bit prepubescent teenager... for contrived Instagram depressives only.  I prefer graphic expressionistic splodges, wildly thrown dots and dashes..... Oh, what about this one, as a comprise?'

Julia held up a sheet that looked velvety, with dappled sour yellows and blue veined purples. Slarts of filigree gold, glinted calligraphically in rough suggestion of an eye, surrounded by the cosmic swirl of a deeply bruised eye socket. The after effect of being hit by a fist.  Now woozy and unsteady on her feet, Julia started to prance and circle intensively round and round, dervish like. Until she wanted, and then did vomit. Bar the purple one in her hand, none of the other fabric samples remained untouched. Upon falling into a nearby armchair, she muttered:

'Well, I think that's the selection process finished. We've decided Simone.  Its this one. Whatever it's called'

Julia peered at the label with one eye closed, as if that would sharpen her drunken focus. No 679 -  Malevolent Punch

'You can do better than that. Julia, pu..leese, don't be this trivial'

'I've puked, what more do you want?

Curtains My Dear, Curtains
EPISODE 3 - The Way Of Ordering Gets A Bit Tricky

Will be posted Friday 21st January 2022

EPISODE 1 Curtains My Dear, Curtains

A Fabric Project Prompts A Visit To A Haberdashers

When Julia woke up at the crack of dawn, she already had her mind set on one aim for this bright, as yet unsullied, day - new curtains. Mentally punching the air - Yes! - a brilliant fabric for the front room. It wasn't that the present occupants were worn or in need of a quick dry clean. She was just bored by them. They'd been installed for six months or so and all the novelty had really worn off. They should be gone, and gone soon. What was wrong with them? Unclear. But it was somewhere in the area of Waffled Apricot not really making a sufficiently notable enough design statement.

Now she'd envisaged this tantalising prospect, the hunt needed planning for. Where to source that soon to be delicious fabric? She imagined she'd start off at Randall's, because you had to begin somewhere. But she preferred to shop local anyway, because of the greater opportunities to cause outrage it provided. So much easier in a village than in a town, where everyone professed not to care what you did. Her surname in Brimmingham, however, had become a rude word on the street. Notorious enough for all local shop assistants to know where she lived, and be able to recite the address off by heart.  

'Lets give the family run haberdashers a chance before casting the net wider, or to the 'net', shall we?'

However, she held out little or no hope of finding anything suitable. It had never happened before. Randall's staid fabric range she'd once described to their face as - 'a capital IT prefaced by a large SH.' Of course they knew their local market; ultra conventional and conservative. The type of people to whom a boldly sculpted damask was as racy as it got. Even if this were to be executed with a degree of heightened irony, it was simply not the emphasis she was seeking to embolden here.

One look at her front room would tell you why. She'd not deign to line even her knicker drawer with a twee chintz. To say the senses were challenged by her interiors would be to downplay the effect. Provoked, assaulted or blinded were nearer. Colours and patterns did not so much riot, but raged. Crudely mustered in a fully fledged war. Explosions of expressionistic splashes spreading artfully across a sofa, fought a battle for supremacy with a wallpaper marshalled with stripes, and the jazzed up rectilinear design of the carpet.  The constant visual jitterbug,  generating an optical disturbance worthy of Bridget Riley.

Julia absolutely loved it, so certain was she that it was unique. No one else could pull off such a bravura use of ocular excess. She was very surprised no one had contacted her to do a Sunday magazine photo shoot on it yet. Having sent  pictures and info to a old school acquaintance at the The Telegraph.... several times. 

'Note to self - you'll have to badger the bugger - phone them!

There were no places of peace and serenity to contrast against the actively strident surroundings. Julia thought those served no useful aesthetic purpose at all. That was the source of her discontent with the existing curtains, they were far too meek. Just not working hard enough. Without needing to read anything on the subject, she'd instinctively grasped the ethos of 'maximalist' design, and gone way way beyond.

Minimalism, not without some justification she believed, had become too all pervasive these days. It was up there with flock wallpaper as an interior design tragedy. Stripped of character, individuality or soul, it was now the default choice for every empty headed, clueless thirty something who wanted to appear effortlessly modern. With the emphasis being on effortless. It was lazy. Any propensity to be cutting edge well and truly blunted by being over a century too late.  

Julia preferred totemic collisions to tastefully coordinated beige, off white or tonal grey ensembles. As she sat pertly in bed planning the splendid day ahead, emblazoned across Julia's baggy Day Glo Orange night shirt, and picked out in blobby sequined letters for added emphasis, was the phrase - 

' Kelly Hoppen, can go fuck herself'!' - 

Once up and dressed she hurriedly left her house and turned the corner. Two streets further down she swiveled left. Half way up, the flaking Sanderson's paintwork of the late Georgian bay windows of Randall's came into view. Her expectations remained low. The assistant Ms Treadwell stood impassive behind the polished mahogany counter. Greeting Julia with the practiced blank visage of understated politeness. She smiled weakly, whilst inwardly her heart was sinking 

'Why did it have to be me? Why her, today of all days?'

She knew of Julia, oh yes, everyone knew of Julia. Goodness, what a pain this woman could be. She didn't understand why Julia even bothered asking. When had they ever had what she wanted? Nevertheless, she'd make you go through their banks of fabric sample binders, searching for a distinctive fabric, that would not be found.

'Good Morning, Ms Goodall-Smillie, how are you today?'

'Fine, fine. This morning..... I'm looking for curtain fabric, no brocades, velvets, or damasks, non or your Laura Ashley style nostalgic tat, or derivatives thereof. I know this might be a bit, just a bit, of a forlorn hope. But do you have anything bold, and I do mean bold, either in colour, design or concept. This would be highly highly preferable. Had anything, anything, new in, lately.....ever?'

If Julia's conversation became peppered with repeated words, she was usually  teetering on the edge of her very worst behaviour. The emphasis infusing every sentence with a sarcasm, not lost at all on Ms Treadwell.  Particularly as Julia leaned in towards the hapless shop assistant and practically spit her request at the poor woman's spectacles. Ms Treadwell flickered her eyelids, startled, intimidated, the too close proximity triggering her phobia and hence flustering her.

She was used to a refined, but distant civility, often concealing its sense of superior entitlement beneath a sharply pleated skirt. Brimmingham was the sort of village that kept quiet about its spiteful authoritarian leanings, preferring to conceal them underneath the highly polished walnut veneer of homely gentility. Ms Treadwell's eyes popped wide open at Julia's head-on confrontational manner. Then she took a step back, recomposed her expression, hardening it to the best pinched withering look she could currently muster. Today, today  maybe she did have something to stop Ms Julia Goodall-Smillie's train in its tracks. 

'Actually, I may have I believe the very thing. If you'll just excuse me for one moment'

Randall's like most haberdashers received unsolicited fabric promotion folders, almost on a daily basis. And likewise, almost daily they were quickly passed on to Beryl, who, as a local person with a charitable disposition and the time to indulge it, made shoulder bags or rucksacks out of them. Donating her recycled creations to the homeless refuge in Compton Norton, the nearest town. As a consequence many a drug addled war veteran, lodged temporarily in a defunct Debenham's doorway, also sported a bag made from a patchwork melange of high end fabrics. Snuggled up alongside a smelly wet dog.

In yesterday's delivery had arrived a folder from a new company, London based. Very trendy and hence distasteful in its unhinged desire to offend, called Retinal Hemorrhage. She'd quickly skimmed it quietly confident there was nothing suitable for a Randall's customer. Then threw it into the bin for offcuts and end of roll fabrics. From where she now fished it out. Perhaps this would be a god send for her confrontational customer. The one with that fake hyphenated name and less than savoury origins - Wolverhampton, so she'd heard. The designs, bold yet disturbing, she presented with tentative triumphalism to Ms Julia Goodall-Smillie. 

'How about these?'

Julia's eyebrows arched very high. 

Ms Treadwell looked alarmed, unable to read whether that was a good sign or not.

Curtains My Dear, Curtains
EPISODE 2 - There Is An Art To Choosing When You're Drunk

Will be posted Friday 14th January 2022

THE FRIDAY SERIAL - Coming Soon

CURTAINS MY DEAR, CURTAINS

Over the first five Fridays of 2022 I will be posting five short episodes of a story I've recently completed. I've decided to adopt a more Dickensian strategy and to serialise it. Rather than posting it in one humongous blog, so long you could never scroll to its end without getting repetitive strain. 

This way it will be easy to read over your first coffee of the day. A brief bit of mischievous delight to look forward to on these dark Winter mornings. At the very least it might cheer your cockles up at the end of your working week, ready to make the most of your upcoming weekend.

This upcoming serial is call;ed - Curtains My Dear, Curtains - its a gothic tinged story about the travails of a strong characterful woman who decides one morning that she needs new curtains. 

The first episode, will be coming your way on Friday 7th January 2022

THE FRIDAY SERIAL
Curtains My Dear, Curtains 

Friday 7th January -Episode One 
A Fabric Project Prompts A Visit To A Haberdashers

Friday 14th January - Episode Two
There's An Art To Choosing When You're Drunk

Friday 21st January - Episode Three
The Way Of Ordering Gets A Bit Tricky

Friday 28th January - Episode Four
A Handsome Delivery Man Helps With The Hanging Up

Friday 4th February - Episode Five
Contact Tracing Leads To An Unexpected Find