Gold By Gemini

CHAPTER XIX

Contents - Prev/Next

'WHAT IF Edward Rink's come over after us?' I said. I'd got fed up sulking.

'Don't argue. You need the rest. You're a wreck.'

'And what if -?'

'Rest.' Janie was painting her toenails reddish. 'A normal day's what you need, Lovejoy.'

I was reading. 'Look how much good it'll do us. You get too involved in antiques.'

'I could have it by now.' I nearly dropped my drink just thinking of it.

'Rink's man's stupid. You said he couldn't follow a brass band. No sugar for me, please.'

I brewed up and carried her cup over. She was on the couch by the window. We could see Algernon stalking some innocent sparrow across the field. I sat watching her doing her nails. They blow on their fingers but not their toes. I suppose toes are too far down even with knees bent. She has a little enamelled case full of small tools for things like this.

French women used to have small cased sets of hooks and needles for unpicking gold-fringed decorations and embroidery. It's called drizzling, or parfilage. Women to the last, they'd collect the gold thread in a bag and sell it back to the goldsmith-embroiderer, who'd then make a lovely gold-fringed item, such as a bookcover, with an appropriate expression of devotion woven in. Then he'd sell it to a suitor, who'd give it to his ladylove, who'd take it to the theatre and unpick the gold thread and put it in a bag and sell it back… Women may be very funny creatures but I never said they were daft. The unpicking sets are now valuable antiques and not uncommon. Gold fringe embroidery of the eighteenth century is, as you've guessed, very rarely found.

Incidentally, this pernicious fashion was ended at a stroke and we actually know who stopped it. The writer Madame de Genlis condemned the habit in her novel Adele et Theodore in 1782 and it vanished like snow off a duck. That saved a few rare pieces, now naturally worth a fortune. Light a candle for her, like I do occasionally.

'We go shopping.' Janie spoke emphatically.

'Er, great.' I tried to sound straining at the leash. 'Me too?'

'You especially.'

'Well, great.'

'Then we have a lovely quiet meal together.' She fanned her toes with her hand.

'Algernon can eat alone. Elsewhere.'

'Where do you cut your toenails?'

'In the bath.'

Funny that. We know the most intimate secrets about everyone throughout history except for toenail cutting. There's no really accepted etiquette. So you do it in the bath.

Well, well.

'Couldn't we go past Isabella?'

'No.'

I gave in, but there'd be no half-measures. I decided I'd make the meal, a really posh one complete with garnish. I stood watching Algernon in the distance, thinking, what's garnish? It sounds some sort of mushroom.

In the town we had a great time shopping. I mean, really breathtaking.

It's great. You trudge along a row of shops, then trudge back. Then you trudge between two or three shops which all have the same stuff. Then you trudge about searching for a fourth, also identical. Then you trudge back and forth among all four.

Then you find a fifth. You keep it up for hours. As I say, it's really trudging great. We got Janie some shoes. It only took a couple of months or so.

I cut loose and bought the stuff for our meal, following the advice of a booklet which told me about the teasing of my taste-buds by tournedos bordelaise. It sounded really gruesome but I persevered. It seemed to be some sort of meat with gravy. I met Janie under my mound of vegetables. She fell about laughing, but I replied coldly that I was working to a plan. We went shopping for a few more years before returning to the bungalow where I crippled myself cooking for the rest of the day. I learned my least favourite occupation. It's cooking. Janie sent Algernon out to eat.

By evening the kitchen looked like Iwo Jima. We started our meal elegantly, holding hands now and again over the tablecloth. Well, so far so good. But it'd be touch and go making love later on.

I was knackered.

That evening Algernon came in and said he'd have used a little more thyme and possibly a shade less garlic. Janie pulled me off before I could reach the cleaver. Then he made me feel quite fond of him by eating everything left over.