The Trouble with Polly Brown (31 page)

“Well, I for one have never heard of them, Boritz, so where on heaven's earth are they situated?”

“Just off Argentina, my dearest.”

“Oh, forgive me for asking, Boritz dearest, but before you go on to give me every historical fact dating back to Columbus, I fear that I have only one immediate concern.”

“Oh, and what is that, my dearest chubby cheeks?”

“Do these so-called Fortlamb Islands have a nice stretch of sandy white beach for me to pitch my stripy deck chair and sun umbrella?”

“Well, I'm fairly sure we could find you a sandy beach, my dearest, and as these small islands are just off Argentina, I should imagine the weather would be extremely favorable.”

“Wonderful. Wonderful!” Mildred cried, clapping her hands loudly, for she was finding it almost impossible to contain her newfound excitement. “So can I pack our bathing suits, dearest?” she perkily asked.

“Yes, my little pickled onion. Pack as many swimsuits as you care to,” he replied.

“By the way, Boritz, where on God's precious earth is Argentina?”

“Well, I'm not too sure, my little cauliflower floret, but if you really want to know, then I will leave you for a moment to go in search of a book so that together we can take a quick peek,” he chuckled as he quickly vacated the room to race toward his private library.

He returned minutes later with a large book that he had pulled down from a neatly arrayed line of books from off one of his very impressive library shelves. Back in the kitchen he hurried over to where Mildred was still crouched in the corner. As he opened the book, a small but thick piece of printed cardboard fluttered to the floor. Boritz hurriedly stooped down to pick it up. He then tore the ticket into tiny pieces before discreetly placing the bits in his breast pocket. If the truth be known, that small and seemingly insignificant piece of cardboard was indeed a library ticket, and so the book in question should rightfully have been returned to the school library some five years previous.

“Oh, dear, dear. As you can see, Mildred, it is much too far away for us to consider paying even the smallest of visits, given the short amount of time I have allocated for this entire trip. But never mind, dearest; I am sure you will be thrilled by Buckingham Palace, enraptured by Windsor Castle, enthralled by Warwick Castle, utterly captivated by Belvoir Castle, and suitably enamored by just about every other castle and palatial residence your sparkly little eyes get to feast upon.”

Mildred took this rare opportunity to grab hold and tenderly squeeze his fat, sweaty hand, her eyes instantly glazing over, as filled with fresh wonderment she looked him directly in the eye. “Boritz, this trip sounds like heaven on earth, my dear. But with us gone, pray, have you taken into serious consideration the problem of the children?”

“Children? Problem? Quite what do you mean, Mildred?”

“Well, Boritz, who on earth could possibly take charge of such a large bunch of wild, out-of-control paupers as those we are so blessed to be raising?” Mildred very tongue in cheek snapped as she immediately came to her full senses.

Boritz shrugged his shoulders, for sadly she was right. He had not given even a moment's thought to this seemingly trivial problem. However, minutes later saw his mind in overload as he seriously began computing every imaginable possibility.

Mildred saw this sudden and most miraculous oratory abstinence as an opportunity to offer both her input and guidance. “Oh, Boritz dear, at this moment there appears to be no suitable answer, so it really looks pretty hopeless. I, for one, know of no suitably mature adult who could even begin to look after so many difficult children, for none have the years of experience that we have so faithfully racked up. And surely we can't leave the pitiful little mites alone to fend for themselves, can we? I mean, that would surely be considered by most to be disgracefully unconscionable!”

“Yes, if news of such a thing were to leak out, we might find ourselves being pilloried or, worse still, strapped into the ducking chair,” a now sorely depressed Boritz muttered.

“Darling, don't be stupid! Ducking chairs haven't been used to punish people for many a year, in fact, if I'm correct, since the last century,” she felt the need to remind him.

“Well, if we were to be caught out leaving them to fend for themselves, the courts of this land might well be forced into reinstating this intolerably inhumane punishment,” he miserably sniffed.

“Yes, it really would be asking way too much to ask poor Miss Scrimp to single-handedly take care of the mischievous little blighters, for you know full well just how difficult they can at times be,” she continued to spout.

“Hmm,” Boritz continued to mutter as he gave careful thought to all these annoying little concerns that his dear wife was spouting on about.

“So tell me, my dear, have you really thought this one through? And if, my dearest, you have as usual taken all things into consideration, then it is time for you to share with me precisely what you have in mind if we are to successfully overcome this latest obstacle.”

“Well, Mildred, as you've asked me so nicely, I will rise to the occasion and confer by sharing with you my exact intentions. Tomorrow before the sun rises I shall telephone both Mrs. Gumball and Mrs. Grimespot and request that both ladies do us a great kindness by stepping into our shoes for the duration of our proposed absence. You see, Mildred dear, it is imperative that we grab this opportunity while we can, for as you are well aware, the Christmas holidays are almost upon us.”

“Quite what are you getting at, Boritz dearest?”

“Please do me the courtesy of paying attention, Mildred, and for once in your profoundly humdrum life, stop interrupting me. If we were to leave it until the holidays, we would find ourselves having to shell out more money, for as the children would be home from school, they would therefore require far more supervision. And without appearing brutally callous, dearest one, more supervision equals more pay for the ladies.”

Mildred nodded her head. Boritz took this to mean that she fully understood and therefore now completely appreciated where he was coming from. “You're quite right, dear, for if our trip coincided with the school holidays, well, then it could easily become ridiculously expensive.”

“Yes, but this way, if we time it just right, not only do the children spend a healthy amount of each day attending school, but add to this the tediously lengthy amount of time taken up with the traveling to and fro, and this leaves only the bare minimum of hours when the ladies will be required to be on hand and thus supervise the children.”

“Keep going, my precious one, for I do believe you are now on the right track,” cried a once more very excited Mildred, who was now clasping her hands tightly.

Needless to say, Boritz needed no further encouragement to continue sharing his latest rather ingenious plan. “Yes, they will only have to organize breakfast and supper, and what's more, the older children can get stuck in with helping when it comes to getting the younger ones ready for bed. Obviously the weekends will be a slightly different story, but I do believe that I have even those sorted out to my complete satisfaction.”

“Well, go on, go on,” Mildred encouraged.

“For starters, on both Saturdays the ladies can place all the younger children in front of the television after breakfast, and they will surely be very happy and content to remain glued to the box until bedtime, for they will certainly see it as something of a rare treat. If they need to use the loo, then the older ones will be on hand to take them up to the bathroom. And if the youngsters even begin to get grizzly, well then, the older ones can throw them packets of crisps and chocolate fingers in a manner similar to that of feeding chimps at the zoo.”

“Oh, Boritz, my most magnificent star of the universe, you really do have such a perfectly wicked sense of humor,” Mildred stated as she failed hopelessly to stifle an unexpectedly girlish giggle.

“Thank you, dearest. Now allow me the grace to continue. As for Sundays, the majority of the morning is usually taken up with getting ready for and then attending church. So I will take it upon myself to ask dear Father Constantinople to obligingly extend his already ridiculously overextended Bible readings, followed by an extra lengthy sermon. This will indeed go a long way to keeping their tender bottoms stuck to the wooden pews, and therefore out of trouble, until well into the afternoon. Once home from church, the ladies will be on standby to feed the little mites a small but satisfying lunchtime sandwich.”

“Wonderful. Simply wonderful!” Mildred gleefully cried.

“Then with lunch over, they can once again all be plonked down in front of the television until teatime, when baked beans on toast, washed down with a milky cup of tea, will be served up at precisely 6:00 p.m. So before you can say, ‘Bob's your uncle,' it will be time for bed and then up for school on Monday morning. How does all this sit with you, Mildred dearest?”

“Oh, my darling, you are indeed the brightest spangled star in the cosmos, for you, my wonderful dearest one, certainly think up an answer for everything,” Mildred gasped as her upper lip involuntary curled upward into an extremely large smile. This was indeed a feat so radical that it was both hard and odd for her usually very downtrodden facial features to respond, as they were now using muscles that had rarely been called upon in the past.

“And as for the older children, we all know they are extraordinarily easy to bargain with,” he sniffed, his brow holding a permanent furrowed state as he continued on with his attempts to work things out. “If they are promised that they will be allowed to stay up and watch some highly unsuitable and frightfully gory film undisturbed, helped on only by a succession of highly desirable snack treats, well then, they will cheerfully volunteer their services in helping get the younger children up the stairs and into bed as fast as you can say, ‘Jack Robinson.' So, Mildred, my precious little petal, how am I doing so far?”

“You, my sweet jewel of the Nile, are doing rather splendidly,” Mildred perkily encouraged.

Boritz instantaneously began to glow from ear to ear.

“So you see, Mildred dearest, with a bit of proper organization and the help of our old cleaning ladies, this venture is back on the table, as once again it becomes most viable.”

Mildred began to clap her hands as an expression of her overwhelming feelings of joy, but then suddenly and without notice she once more stopped in her tracks, the elusive radiant smile slowly ebbing from her face until like the flame of a candle it was entirely snuffed out.

“Boritz, that's all well and good,” Mildred sniffed as her overturned smile turned to a deep frown of great concern. She began to shake her head in pure disbelief, biting down on her trembling bottom lip at the same time. “Oh, Boritz dear, captain of my heart, this is positively ghastly; however, I feel you have failed to remember one very and most important factor—that it has only been a few months since
you
, dearest one, chose to dismiss not one but both ladies from our good service. And if you care to cast your mind back to that historic moment in time, you might well remember that both ladies were quite shocked and distraught to be dismissed from their humble posts with no formal notice whatsoever! So you see, dearest, we—or rather, you— were not exactly bountiful toward either party.”

“Goodness gracious me! This most grievous situation had entirely slipped my memory,” he mournfully gasped.

“Perhaps it is also good to also remember that we gave them no financial compensation whatsoever.”

“Oh, good grief,” was all Boritz was capable of muttering as sadly he realized that for once his beloved really did have a point of concern.

With her conniving husband surprisingly clean out of words, Mildred took this as a most excellent opportunity to stand in the gap and use his convenient lack of dialogue to continue her own monologue, much to his utter annoyance.

“Yes, Boritz dear. Normal practice would have required us to give at least a week, if not a whole month's notice—indeed, time enough to allow them both to seek out other employment. So taking all of this into consideration, why on earth would either lady ever consider helping us out in our time of need?” Mildred took it upon herself to ask, as she continued to search his face.

“Enough! Shut it, dear!” he abrasively demanded. “Your constant and most pedantic drones are indeed most tiresome. I need time alone to think, and your unworthy, pitiful babblings are not only very unhelpful, but they will indeed drive me to the edge of a high precipice if you do not hold in abeyance that over-exercised muscle contained in your facial orifice,” he reminded in a most unpleasant, scornful tone of voice.

“You mean my tongue, dearest, don't you?” she sniffed, yet again feeling most hurt and offended.

A lengthy “hmm” was all that Boritz cared to comment regarding his latest mean and harsh communication toward his ever dutiful wife.

Even so, Mildred was right. He therefore secretly wished that in hindsight he had shown both ladies his more charitable side, but back then how was he to know that there would come a time when the tables would be turned, and he would need some charity shown him as he stooped as low as he felt capable to ask these lesser mortals for their help?

“Oh, dear Boritz, at the end of the day one is inclined to feel most tired and distraught, as one is left to debate as to whether there is really an acceptable solution to this fresh and most wearisome problem,” she reassured in little more than a whisper.

Boritz was deep in thought and was therefore in no hurry to give her the immediate response that she required.

Mildred, having once more found her tongue, took his failure to reply as an excuse to continue on with yet more thought-provoking concerns that out of nowhere had just popped into her mind. “My very precious star of the universe, you must surely agree that the likelihood that one, if not both, women will by now have found themselves new positions remains well within the bounds of possibility. As both women have large families of their own to provide for, one might well imagine that they will have been forced to accept any position offered to them, if only out of sheer desperation and necessity. If this turns out to be the case, they would surely be most unwilling to turn their backs on their new employers to come back here and work for the mere pittance we considered ourselves so generous to bestow on them,” she hastily reminded him.