Sex, Lies & Crazy People. John Hickman

to doubt how uniform those slices will be.”

      Dad recovered well. “John’s right. Irregular shaped wedges may pose a challenge in our new high-class world, Mother. Added to the difficulty of them getting stuck in the automatic toaster.”

      “Not easily disguised by mood lighting,” I quipped.

      “At home we toasted our bread under the grill or by the fire,” Gran retaliated, “we’ve never had a toaster. No time for them.”

      “What if I draw lines for you, Gramps, with my school ruler?” Pandy suggested.

      “Splendid idea, Sweetheart,” replied Gramps with a huge wink at Pandy.

      This is like the blind leading the blind, I thought.

      After much coaxing, it was decided to use sliced bread and not whole loaves.

      Dad smiled his rally to the flag smile. “Come, come, family. The job, without

      sentimentality or favour, is to entice patrons to eat here. To achieve that we’ll need to

      prepare nothing but the freshest of ingredients for consumption. Anything that walks, hops, runs, crawls, swims or flies, and more besides if that’s what diners want.”

      Gran went into meltdown, again.

      Dad took a deep breath. “Relax, Mother, we don’t need to be an abattoir ourselves.”

      “Do you mean dead animals, as in really dead?” Beau asked, who’d overheard our

      conversation in part, while struggling with a sack of spuds nearly as large as himself and his cane.

      Dad glared. “Is there any other kind of dead?”

      Beau looked confused. Dad continued, “Only fresh dead as in their pulses recently petered out,” he reinforced, and then as an afterthought, “and only fresh squeezed fruit juices will be served at breakfast, nothing that’s been preserved.”

      “Wow! Aren’t we the fucking Windsors,” Gramps exclaimed.

      Beau was impressed too. “You know, Gov, in all the years I’ve been here I’ve not seen anything that moved outside of what came in an A10 sized tin.”

      When he realised animals, alive or dead, may threaten his quiet basement existence he added, “But beware, kind sirs, should there be a full moon on the wane.”

      “Or any other supernatural crap,” Gramps muttered, in a stage whisper that could be clearly heard twenty yards away.

      Beau looked hurt. “I’ll have you know that frequencies are external sources. They’re like vibrating radio bands.”

      “You’d best go off and have a vibration with yourself then,” Gramps glared at him.

      Beau shrugged and continued with the spuds.

      “We need to get on. Next on our agenda is tea bags,” Dad announced from his notes.

      Gran shifted uncomfortably. “I refuse to use them.”

      We all looked at Gran. This time I stayed quiet. But someone had to ask.

      It was Pandy. “Why, Gran?”

      “Because they’re not proper tea, Sweetheart. They’re sweepings from the floor, and mark my words, they’ll never catch on. Not here. English people expect a decent cuppa not a new-fangled useless bag full of rubbish.” Her voice rose, “Next you’ll be adding milk and sugar last.”

      Pandy frowned.

      “Do you know how Moses makes his tea?” Gramps asked.

      Dad sighed.

      “Hebrews it.”

      Dad ignored Gramps and explained for my sister’s benefit. “What your Gran means, Pandy, is only foreigners and English royalty put milk and sugar in last. We always put milk and sugar on the bottom, the tea is on the top, when poured English style.”

      “That’s because English royalty are foreigners,” Gramps scowled, “they’re related to that German bastard—Kaiser Wilhelm. When England entered the First World War they changed their name from the house of Hanover to Windsor to promote their English

      heritage.”

      “Quite right, Dad. Just as the Battenburgs became the Mountbatten’s. Few Britons

      realise our Royal family’s first language was German.”

      Gran sighed, it was another of her deepest sighs. “Not exactly a case of Rule

      Britannia then.”

      Gramps brightened. “I love our Queen. I always take my time when licking her stamps.”

      “Next you’ll be saying that’s why Liz is always smiling,” Gran smirked.

      The conversation turned to Gran needing assistance in the kitchen.

      “I can’t be expected to look after Pandy and three grown men, and run a hotel kitchen at my age,” Gran said.

      “Quite right, Mother, and I shouldn’t have to cook because I have a penis.”

      “Good,” I snapped back. “I’ve got one of them. So the same rule applies to me.”

      Dad paused. He fumbled about before he spoke. “John, you’re assigned to the kitchen to assist your Gran. And that includes buying the food and preparation of the menus as well.”

      I was horrified. Dad resumed, “Surely you can see, Son, that your Gran can’t possibly take on all of this alone.”

      “But, Dad, I’m incapable of successfully cracking an egg, let alone preparing a meal.”

      Dad delivered a smirk that fluttered short of a smile. “We’ve a less than assured start then.”

      With a half-laugh, he added. “You’d better get cracking.”

      Dad chuckled as he saw the humour in his comment, “Get it?”

      I was unhappy and it showed. “I get it, but I’m not amused. And as for being relegated to the kitchens. I’m dumbfounded.”

      Dad held his hands out sideways in a gesture. “I’ve made my decision based on the only plausible alternative. Who else if not you?”

      “Why not you?”

      “You’re younger than me, you can better adapt.”

      Hopeful that sanity might return after he’d given his decision further thought,

      I succumbed. “All right, then. But be warned. I’ll approach my new role with…” I tried to think of a suitable response…

      “The enthusiasm of a condemned man being sent to the gallows,” Dad offered with a grimace.

      “I fear my effort will be likened to an unaided blind man throwing darts at a board.”

      “You’ve plenty of time, Son. If life begins at forty you’re only half-way.”

      Chapter 10

      Hitting the Fan

      Admittedly, it didn’t take me long to learn how to knock up a pretty fair Knickerbocker

      Glory. That’s an ice cream sundae intended to harden your arteries at ten paces. I wasn’t too bad at Rum Babas either. No, that’s not a queer sheep, it’s a dessert sodden like a bath time sponge with rum, which was why I enjoyed making them. Gramps enjoyed eating them, too. He became my food taster, like in the old days of the Royal Court.

      “They’re a pivotal role in you becoming a fully-fledged alcoholic before your

      twentieth birthday,” Gramps said, with a mouthful, and a sardonic half-smile. He shook his head. “But your dad putting