Downtrodden Abbey: The Interminable Saga of an Insufferable Family (10 page)

“Would you be willing to grant me the divorce if I clean the garage?” Brace asks.

Mrs. Used overhears this conversation by crawling into an convenient air vent, and Tyresom watches her overhear it through a secret peephole, as Lord Crawfish happens by and sees Tyresom doing so. Lord Crawfish demands an explanation, and is especially annoyed that with everyone listening in on and spying on one another, the laundry just isn’t getting done.

“You do realise that I’ve been wearing the same hole-ridden left sock for three days,” he scoffs.

“Darn it!” groans Tyresom, embarrassed by his lack of attention to detail.

“Good suggestion,” Lord Crawfish admits. “Unfortunately, I cannot sew a stitch.”

Lady Supple decides that she would like to join the war effort as a nurse, in hopes of helping sponge-bathe injured soldiers and other servicemen. Though bitterly disappointed that Supple is willing to throw the best years of her life away on such nonsense, Flora sends her off with her blessing.

In a trench in northern France, Atchew runs into Tomaine, who had enlisted as a nurse as well, but secretly harboured hopes of working as an entertainer. He complains endlessly that wind, rain, and shrapnel is playing havoc with his hair, and asks Atchew to help him with it. But as he works to style Tomaine’s mane, Atchew is shot and wounded. Tomaine panics. He is scheduled to perform for the soldiers in less than an hour and his hair “will just not sit down.”

That’s
gotta
hurt.

The year is 1917. Prime Minister H. H. Asskiche resigns his position following a scandal in which he sent drawings of himself in the nude to an intern. He is replaced by Lloyd George David George Lloyd.

Meanwhile, in the Abbey, Lord Crawfish must deal with the consequences of Brace’s exit. His new valet, Clang, is a war veteran who has survived not just the bites of giant trench rats, but attacks of poison gas, chlorine gas, phosgene gas, and mustard gas.

Rumours abound that Clang is also suffering from a little gas problem of his own, as well as consequences of the inhalation of toxins, in addition to shellshock. All of this is evidenced by the complete butchering of his duties. In particular, the regular raising of Lord Crawfish’s window sash seems to be an issue, and once or twice Clang’s master finds the servant actually
wearing
the sash, in the absence of trousers.

“Are you all right, Clang?” Lord Crawfish asks one evening, in a candid moment. “I’m a little concerned, as you are to assist me in shaving tomorrow morning.”

“
Flammenwerfer! Flammenwerfer
s!” Clang yells.

“I beg your pardon?” scoffs Lord Crawfish, his temperature rising. “There are no flamethrowers here, I assure you. Nor are there any Germans. Nor German flamethrowers. I do believe you may be suffering from some kind of post-battle trauma.”

“It would be my pleasure, Milord, to assist your shaving in the morning. Once I get rid of these goddamned Krauts!”

Men spent weeks waxing their mustaches, often missing the event they were scheduled to attend.

Lord Crawfish’s nerves are hardly calmed. “And by the way,” he tells Clang, “For the third time, I am instructing you to
fold
the trousers and
polish
the shoes. Not the other way around.”

Tomaine returns from the front line, distraught over his split ends and the general distress of his coiffure. O’Grotten smokes two cigarettes simultaneously as she listens. But her curiosity gets the best of her.

“I’ve heard tell of the effects of battle—everything from psychological blindness to facial twitches, uncontrollable night sweats, diarrhoea, tremors, and the inability to eat or sleep. Not to mention anal leakage, itching and swelling, dry mouth, rashes, severe constipation, herpes, and erections lasting more than four hours. But now you’re telling me—”

“—I’m telling you that I had
fantastic
hair before I shipped out. It had shine, manageability, and body. I’ve been brushing it continuously since my return. It’s hopeless, I tell you. I’m a broken man, O’Grotten.”

Isabich hears of Tomaine’s troubles, and it seems to dovetail perfectly with her plan to turn Downtrodden into a hair treatment centre and salon. Vile continues to object vehemently, but shampoos and conditioners are ordered, and chairs and dryers, fueled by coal, are installed.

“Let’s give Isabich a chance,” Roderick tells his mother. “The importance of clean, healthy hair during wartime cannot be overestimated.”

IX

About Smutt

Somehow, Atchew receives a promotion, which will take him back to England earlier than planned. Upon hearing this, Lady Marry summons Dick Calamine back to the great house in an effort to stir jealousy in Atchew.

Frustrated with Clang’s work as an interim valet for Lord Crawfish, Tyresom moves him into the position of footmasseur, where he proceeds to further gum up the works. When Clang mistakes Lady Crawfish for an intruder, pins her down, and repeatedly calls her a “no good Kraut,” Tyresom takes to his bed, claiming that the ensuing havoc has activated his angina.

Meanwhile, Marry grows closer to Slovenia Swine, and becomes intrigued by her irrational, inexplicable affection for Atchew.

Calamine, motivated by hostility, desperation, and greed, proposes to Lady Marry, claiming that they would form a powerful aristocratic alliance. Marry meets with Nana secretly in the drawing room late at night, confiding in her and desperate for advice.

Proposals of marriage often led to stress-induced hallucinations.

“What do you see in Brace?” she asks. “I mean, on paper it’s a complete mismatch—a young, naïve waif and a middle-aged, married, been-through-the-mill personal valet.”

“I like it,” says Nana, thinking.

“What do you mean, you like it?” asks Marry.

“Well, it’s a meet cute. I’ve been looking for something I could develop as a story for—”

Marry moans. “Please don’t say what I think you’re going to.”

Nana confesses that she, too, has been working on a screenplay, but a dearth of marketable ideas has stopped her cold.

“I tried the whole ‘fish out of water’ thing, with a character based on Clang—you know, the dunderheaded valet. But it just seemed like a series of unconnected incidents.

“Then there’s the sad story of Tomaine, and his latent sexual identity issues. Wasn’t sure that would sell. I mean, does anyone actually
read
Gertrude Stein, or does everyone just buy the book and sit around in cafés pretending to care whether she’s getting it from a bloke or a lass?

“I noodled around a little with Lady Crawfish’s pregnancy, and the entail, and how one affected the other, and the this whole thing with you and Atchew, and that Calamine fellow.…”

How dare she turn my family’s life into fodder for a gossipy melodrama,
Marry thinks. But against her better judgement and despite this accelerating ire, Lady Marry finds herself becoming curious.

“And where did that go?”

Nana shrugs. “It just felt more like a theatrical drama, not a full cinematic experience—”

“I am appalled. Firstly, that you have joined the ranks of what appears to be half the inhabitants of this house—delusional screenwriters. And secondly, that you have reduced the goings-on at Downtrodden Abbey to the level of insipid entertainment of the type one would find broadcast on the radio as a source of prurient popular entertainment.”

“What’s a ‘radio’?” asks Countess Vile, overhearing the conversation.

Lady Marry explains to her grandmother the intricate matrix of vacuum tubes, wiring, and electronic signals that mesh to form radio, one of the more important advances in communication of the nineteenth century.

“Sounds like a lot of poppycock to me,” Vile snorts. “Next you’ll be telling me that a system of receptors in the sky can beam down driving directions for motorcars, both visually and spoken, on small screens in the vehicles themselves.”

Marry listens to Vile gas on for several minutes prior to suggesting that such wild thoughts are undoubtedly the product of sleep deprivation. When the dowager countess leaves the drawing room, Marry shakes her head sadly.

“Honestly, that woman is madder than a snake,” she says.

“There is something wonderful about her imagination,” says Nana. “I mean, that whole thing about the interconnected system of receptors—I must give her credit—that is really inventive.”

A passel of returning soldiers file into Downtrodden Abbey, whose rooms are converted into stations to shampoo, rinse, cut, and blow-dry the men’s hair before determinations are made regarding the larger issues of scalp treatment, hairpieces, and surgical follical replacement.

Under Isabich’s direction, Tomaine takes over as a consultant, conducting intakes on each of the officers and diagnosing his individual styling needs.

Handsom takes a walk with Supple, and reveals his plans to claim his right to refuse to perform military service as a conscientious objector.

“Have you got a strategy?” Supple asks.

“I’m thinking of fleeing up to Scotland,” Handsom says. “Did you know they don’t pay for health insurance there? And everyone has guns, but no one uses them?”

On furlough, Atchew visits Downtrodden in the middle of one of Tomaine’s hissy fits, but is still impressed with the high level of hair care being offered. Marry, meanwhile, discovers through Dick Calamine that Brace did not actually return to his house in South London—he has been spotted daily in a village tearoom, where word has it that he sits for hours on end with a notebook and fountain pen.

Marry shares this information with Nana, who travels to the village on her day off, scouring each and every tearoom for her beloved. Finally, she locates Brace, who is scribbling away feverishly.

“Brace—Brace, it’s I,” says Nana.

“Hang on a second,” he responds, making another entry in his book.

“Brace, what are you doing? I was under the impression that you were cleaning your garage, and now I hear that you’re spending your days sitting in this tearoom.”

Brace realizes that this is an opportunity to be completely honest, as Nana is the one woman with whom he feels emotionally safe.

“Promise me you won’t tell anyone,” he pleads, his eyes welling with tears.

“I promise,” Nana says.

“No, seriously—pinkie swear.”

Nana rolls her pale blue eyes. “Come on, Brace, I only have a few hours off. I’m supposed to go muck out the horse stalls.”

“That’s as a good a segue as any, I suppose,” says Mr. Brace. “I’m actually working on a—”

“—Oh, God, not another—”

“It’s a novel,” Brace explains. “A big, sprawling epic set in an estate in England, concerning a group of downstairs servants and the upstairs family they work for. Oops, ended that sentence with a preposition. Trust me, I’m a better writer than that, heh-heh. Anyway, it’s from the point of view of a valet who’s handsome, hobbled, and haunted.”

“Is it autobiographical?”

“Why would you say that?”

Nana wipes her brow. “I’m just relieved that you’re not working on a screenplay,” she says. “I mean, it’s like bubonic plague—everyone I talk to thinks they have a good idea for a motion picture. Crikey, when I started working on mine, there was very little competition. But coupled with the transformation of Downtrodden Abbey into some kind of palatial beauty parlour for war veterans, I just feel like we’re losing our identity.”