My Room

Right. That above is actually a good likeness.

Up the stairs. Then my room. I would change and then Angelika would clean my new suit.

Across from my chamber lived another gardener. We will call him "Gaz".

Gaz was a trainspotter. No, not the kind in that horrid film (I think they were referring to heroin tracks, not the railroad). Instead, he was a young man who would spend his free days at the local train-station. Binoculars in hand and a notebook, he would record every train he saw. He had memorized schedules - this habit was actually quite handy for everyone in the Convent.

"Gaz, when is the next one to Flexmore-End?"

"12:43"

"Bristol?"

"7:18"

Always right. He had a massive toy train layout in his room that he would play with. Sometimes, I would walk past his door and I would hear "Choo-Choo," and then agonizingly later in broad Yorkshire, "Choo". More about him later, since he would become a champion for me, of sorts.

My room. I opened the door. Nothing like the Oriel Chamber in the Manor. No. This was a closet - a very tiny room. Instead of stained glass, I had a narrow arrow slit that barely held back the rain. Sometimes I was dripped on, despite the fact that thing (the leaded glass) was wedged behind three feet of stone. No light at all. The one saving grace was a fireplace (no central heating there, reader). I also had a desk and an armoire.

The bed. Mattress concave and uncomfortable (perhaps from many previous poundings, I supposed). A crucifix with a bleeding Jesus stamped firmly above.

Sometimes that crucifix needed to be covered with a towel. When I did this, I was always reminded of my grandmother. She turned around that portrait of the Kaiser in her kitchen during the entirety of the Great War. There are just some things you don't want the Guy to see, and sometimes you don't want to see the Guy.

So I changed. I would bathe. My clothes would soon be clean.

S.D.G.

Priest's Cottage Part 2 of 2

Right.

My room in the Priest's Cottage. I needed clean (I hate that - why are the definite articles so often dropped, as in "He's in hospital," or "I'm going up to University"). And I needed changed.

Not really a "cottage" - at least what I would imagine. It was actually part of an ancient defensive outer-work for the Manor: a gothic fortress. It remained, I suppose, after the dark days, because it was handy for housing servants. Now it housed priests and gardeners.

Right in front were what once were the stables. Now, it housed my tractor and a priest's silver lake-blue Bentley. Yes, a Bentley. Have you ever sat in one, reader? I have. It's true. That thing represented the sum total of all the money I would ever make in a lifetime. Every piece hand-made, glorious to ride. Especially that time when I was allowed to - oh, more about that later.

Right. I opened the door and headed to the 2nd floor to my room. Below me lived John, the priest and owner of the Bentley. John - not the real name, reader. Middle-aged. Handsome, very troubled, and from an extremely wealthy family (they owned half of Scotland once, it was whispered). He had, I suspected, a very rakish past. The 70s, London, clubs, too much money, perhaps a bit of the white stuff. Something happened (more on that later) and he abandoned his fortune and his family and entered the priesthood. He left it all behind. Except for that Bentley.

Occasionally, there would be people from his past who would visit the Cottage. These visits would invariably end with a scream from John like, "You traitor!". Door slamming. Yes, I could hear it.

I could also hear something else.

You see, John subscribed to that medieval Catholic tradition of Flagellation. Look it up, it's true. He whipped himself to atone for his sins. Mortification of the Flesh.

It was awful - and very awkward when I had a guest. This self-abuse would usually start during the Shipping Forecast, on BBC, just after midnight. So, "Sailing By" would begin, and then shortly:

"Humber. Southeast. Variable at 5 or 6."

Loud slap. "Uhh!"

"German Bight. Northwest. Backing southeast later. 5 or 6."

Crack. "Ohh!"

"Dogger. Gale warning. 7 or 8. East."

The worst was always Trafalgar. Loud smack and whimper. Something must have happened there once.

It was if John was sailing himself - as if he was trying to find forgiveness for all the sins he committed by circumnavigating the entire isle of his past. Perfidious Albion. Perfidious Patmos.


http://www.victorianlondon.org/publications2/gaslight-15.htm


I simply turned up the volume. And so, that is how my evenings often ended.

Next, a bit about my room there on the second floor. And, oh, that Bentley (S1 Continental):

And this is an example of the entire broadcast. It would put me asleep every night for 2 years. Hypnotizing.

(Ed. that sentence needs fixed).

The Priest's Cottage 1 of 2

Right.

So Angelika would clean my clothes. We had a deal.

She stood up, and walked away, saying nothing more, crunching on the lawn of the West Garden, and back to the Manor in the distant mist.

Well then. I stood up and clapped, wrung my hands a bit,  put on the wellies. I needed to go back to my room and get changed.

My room. Ah. The first few days at the Convent I was allowed to stay in the majestic "Oriel Chamber". Look up there, reader. It was just above the main gate. The other image below is a map of the Manor, and no, you are not "here", but I was "there". Not a good map I admit, but the best I could find. Ha! "Car park"? That was the tennis court, where I had matched another once - so fateful -  on the court. Now, now it is a "car park".

Yes. My first room. The Oriel Chamber. Resplendent stained-glass windows (which are still a subject of scholarship to some) that would wake me in the morning with a splash of prismatic colors (more on that glass later, since it told a story of poor Lady Gage and her three dead lovers - she evidently, it is written, witnessed their successive suicides from that same window). Wood-paneled walls, and a leather-padded door. A portrait of Charles II embedded, staring at me. It was next to the "Queen Elizabeth Chamber" - so called because she was rumored to have visited the Manor once. It was not a nice visit. Her strategy was to bankrupt Catholic land-owners with the cost of her huge retinue. It's true.

Even though I was a gardener, I was allowed at first to stay there. I was a Yank, after all, and from an unusual and interesting religious persuasion the nuns were ignorant of (take that Swedenborgians and you Quakers). I felt privileged.

Unfortunately, there was soon an abnormal "incident" involving myself and Angelika during a Catholic foot-washing ceremony (John 13:14-17). Not my fault, mind you, reader. Those long legs stretched, a deep sigh, and those toenails before me and above the basin were painted bright red and I...oh, nevermind. I had a wash-cloth. The ceremonial cleaning was supposed to take a minute. We took at least 30. In the Chapel. Impatient nuns observing. What did I know? Gimme a break. I was a Protestant.

After that, I was politely informed by the nuns that I would from now on be staying at the Priest's Cottage.

Next, a description of the Priest's Cottage. And then the laundry chamber in the main Manor.

Payment in Kind Part 2 of 2

Right. My first falsehood. Those roses above are not the actual roses at the Convent. Those were long since removed after an unfortunate "incident". More about that later.

So.

Angelika would clean my suit? Never possible, and I would not be able to repay her. I was broke and I knew the nuns wouldn't approve of it, not those sort of personal transactions between the "Help".

"Angelika. Thank you, but I can't really give you anything in return."

She looked around, past the Yew, past me, and gazed at the garden.

"I want flowers. Every day for my room, for a...a fortnight, I think is said."

I looked around and saw the beautiful beds I tended. The very reason my back aches in middle-age today. Brilliant! Thousands of roses, flowers of all kind  everywhere.

As a bankrupt gardener it was now my only resource. It was perfect payment in kind.

"Shit sure! No problemo!"

She tilted her head as if in utter incomprehension. So many misfires of my English that day.

"I mean yes. We can do that. But your room, I can't really go..."

"Yes. I speak to Sister Aquinas. We have an understanding. Men are not normally allowed to visit those quarters for..."

"But I'm not very normal! Common, I suppose, but not very normal."

"Good. Yes. I know that. I work something out now. Get changed. Clean. Meet me in the laundry chamber."

Next, a description of my "chamber". Getting changed, and the trip to the laundry-room.

Payment in Kind Part 1 of 2

Right.

So there I sat head in hands on the mossy stone (just up there on the right), the massive Yew aft and the Hungarian laundry-maid fore.

She was wearing an odd gingham skirt. Red and white checkered, like it had been torn from a picnic table. A fuzzy wool sweater of Prussian blue. Long black locks on both sides of her face, and an immaculate white apron that obscured                 .

I was filthy. My cheek was burning. I just discovered a quickly swelling bump on my head.

She sat down beside me on the stone, her hair spilled down and and then was swept up from the wind. She spoke in that wonderful husky low tone Central European women have which originates from the diaphragm:

"What has happened?"

I really didn't want to talk about it. I figured her English wasn't so good anyway, and at the time I knew nothing of her native tongue.

"Well there was this thing at this place and then another thing over there, my bike, oh I don't know."

"You need to be clean."

"Well, I'm a gardener. I can be dirty sometimes."

"Your clothes are dirty." (She pronounced "clothes" with two syllables - "clothes-ez")

"I fell into a ditch."

"Your clothes needs to be clean. We clean them."



More on this later. The linen room, the laundry chamber, and the environs of the Manor.

Common Part 3 of 3

Right.

I had just been slapped, labelled "common" despite buying a hand-tailored suit, and utterly humiliated.

I needed to go back to the Convent and sort this thing out. I needed time with my Galehaut.

I had that rickety old black bike the nuns had provided for me. But trust me reader, it ain't easy biking in Wellies with a waistcoat, with an aching cheek, and the windy East Anglian rural lanes. Plus, it had started to rain.

It would be a 5 mile trip from the nearby Abbey town, and I was still uncomfortable navigating rural English roads. They are so small. The people drive in a different direction. But worst of all are the "roundabouts".

I have never mastered them, and never will.

So with the rain, my wellies, and my cheek (needed to get ice on that soon), I pedaled furiously back to the Manor. And then there it was - the one roundabout that always would haunt me.

I really didn't know where to go. Clockwise? Counter-clockwise? How do I get out of this thing? The rain was soaking me and misting my glasses. I went around a few times confusedly when a large lorry muscled it's way into the procession. With the slippery pavement, my anxiety, and the large looming machine bullying it's way past me, I instantly careened into a muddy ditch. I was inches away from death.

The lorry stopped. I was in the ditch, soaked, filthy. The driver looked out of his window and yelled, "I'd walk if I was you, laddie" and sped off.

Dazed, I looked around. The rims were bent and a tire had popped. Worst of all, my new suit was covered in mud. Stains on my pants and coat. Impossible stains. It would cost a fortune to clean, if anyone on earth could even clean it.

I lifted the remains of my bike and started the walk back. Another 2 miles. At least the rain had stopped and the sky had cleared. I'd be at the Convent in a bit, I thought, and then spend some time reveling in self-pity.

Finally, passing the gatehouse, I decided to discreetly ditch my bike under a bush. The nuns wouldn't notice, and that would give me a bit of time to repair it. More about that later.

I went to the West Garden and found a secluded Yew with some mossy stone nearby I could lie on (oh yes! I remember that stone so clearly!). I spread out a bit, took off my Wellies, and grabbed Galehaut from my coat. I'd scribble soon but for now I needed to rest and nurse my cheek, look at the widening sky and scattering clouds.

Christ, I was a mess.

Dozing a bit, perhaps even sobbing at times, I heard some crunching on the lawn. An approach. The smell of detergent. It was the Hungarian laundry-maid I wrote about before. Henceforth, "Angelika" - not the real name, reader.

I looked up. Her head blocked the sun which somehow produced a halo-like effect.

She bent down and looked at me, a tilt of the head which made the long black hair cascade on one side. She said in that unmistakable Magyar way of blurring vowels:

"You are dirty."

"Yes.Yes I am."

More on this later.

Fantastically appropriate soundtrack for what happened to me on that roundabout, my furious pedaling on that bike, and what would happen soon.

Common Part 2 of 3

Right.

This is my second installment of the story wherein I was labelled "common" and slapped in the face. Right up there, in the "Nutmeg". It would not be the last time, oh no.

I had just purchased a hand-tailored suit (see Part 1), and was staring into the mirror with those wily tailors. I knew immediately I made a terrible, terrible mistake. I could never afford it. It was sinful.

You see, the nuns paid me a nominal amount of 2 Pounds a day - barely enough for the occasional pint or case of Altoids. Room and board was provided, but that was it. I had just wiped out all of the tiny savings I had for my stay in the UK. What would I do? I might have to stay at the Convent forever. I was frozen in fear and had to get out of that Suffolkating shop.

I paid them, thanked them, why is my left eye twitching, I left.

I wandered around those Abbey town streets aimlessly for a while, and then, thinking a cup of tea and a smoke might clear my head and rest my shaky hands I went into a small cafe.

I stumbled down into a chair (it isn't easy walking with Wellies, you know), and ordered a cup.

There sitting next to me, was a stunning middle-aged woman who clearly belonged to an upper class I could not and would never comprehend. But I was always attracted to anything in a skirt with an accent (that does not include Scotsmen, reader), and I was confused and lonely. And perhaps this new costume might provide benefits after all. Who knows? Maybe my money problems would be over. I could be her bronzed gardener during the day, and then that debonair guy with a smoking jacket at night. Problems solved. Everything completely normal.

I stood up and walked over. Coughed and said,

"Hey...um...do you know the way to the bank?"

She looked up from her paper and inspected me over her glasses.

"Right through Shambles, just off Butcher Square," she said plainly.

"Oh...ok...gee, thanks."

Well that worked out great, I thought. I was very pleased. After my smoke, I would ask her where Pizza Hut was and invite her to share lunch. I couldn't believe my newly found confidence.

Now smoking is a filthy, filthy habit and I blame that Jesuit Ceasar for introducing me to it. I have long since given it up (model citizen now and all that, reader), but at the time I enjoyed it considerably and there was no social judgement, at least for the fancy brands.

Ah, I even recall a ditty I composed to the tune of "Rule Britannia":

"Rule Tobacco! Tobacco rules the world! My hand-made cigarettes are always rolled!"

I started my smoking career in the UK with Dunhills. These proved to be too expensive, so I switched to Woodbines. I even tried Silk Cut until a friendly shopkeeper quietly informed me, "Those are not for gents, love." Finally, due to my meager resources, I spiraled down to a bag of Old Holborn and rolling papers. My rolling technique became so skilled I could do it one-handed on my tractor (not always a good idea considering that accident I had and toppled a wall, more on that later). The only problem my habit presented before this story was when my parents from the states called, and were informed by a Cockney nun that:

 "Oh, he's outside suckin' on a fag."

That required some explanation.

I took the bag of Old Holborn from my new suit and started packing the paper with some smelly, dark tobacco. I looked over to the woman, she looked at me.

She said:

"Oh. Hmm. I didn't think you were common," sniffed, shook her paper and dismissively returned to reading.

Common? Common? What the hell? Did you getta load of this suit? What does it take?

Despite all of my sartorial efforts, despite my best attempt at politeness and diplomacy, I made one mistake - the mistake of rolling my own - and was labelled common. And I always would be. Later (more on this in time), I would embrace the label, but in that cafe I was crushed and bewildered.

"Common? Hey lady, c'mon, I was gonna to invite you to Pizza Hut. Stuff like that. I thought we could share a slice."

Poorly chosen words. In retrospect, I know now she completely misinterpreted my invitation.

Slamming the paper on the table, she stood up (a lot taller than I expected), angrily walked over to my table, and slapped me firmly on the cheek.

Wow. I had seen men slapped in movies before, but in 3D it really hurts, I assure you.

"Get out! Leave NOW!," she said.

Utterly humiliated, I fumbled for my last remaining Pounds and tossed them on the table, overturning my cup of tea. I ran out the door.

What had just happened? I needed to go back to the Convent and scribble in Galehaut about it - make some sense of that scene. It would be a 5 mile trip on a bike with Wellies and a weird suit.

I was almost killed.

More on this soon.