Ms. Phyllis Featherington-Smythe was quite mad. Not in the modern day, diagnosable-medically-treatable-mental-illness sense. Ms Featherington-Smythe was a batty old woman of the old-school variety. Lost her marbles and the little sack they came in. Mothballs in her pockets, large grubby hat-with-plastic-fruit-on, two odd shoes, ranting at strangers at bus stops, ‘kids-of-today!’, imaginary friends over for tea, taxidermied spaniels in the drawing room et al. She had relatives but she had long forgotten who they were (although little Clement and Anthea Smythe lived in perpetual fear of being sent to stay with ‘Mad Aunt Philly’). She dwelled in a fusty old house full of the miscellaneous items she had hoarded over the years. It had the air of an antique shop in which nothing much was of any value but which gave the overall impression of a sort of frowsty Edwardian Aladdin’s cave. Chintzy glasswear and china and knick-knacks; soiled porcelain dolls like miniature Miss Havishams; the aforementioned taxidermied spaniels - forming only a fraction of her entire zombified menagerie, mind – all draped in dirty lace and velvet and cobwebs. Dingy and delicate in equal measure. Hell for claustrophobics, asthmatics, OCD sufferers; a haven for Ms. Featherington-Smythe. She lived alone, although she believed she still had a Puerto-Rican maid named Estrella. She did not. What she did have were those infamous spaniels in the drawing room (both grinning maniacally as only a stuffed spaniel can), a large bear in the hall (stuffed, ex-circus, wearing a threadbare fez), two squirrels in the guest bedroom (stuffed, dressed as bride and groom), a monkey on the landing (stuffed, horrifically badly), a fox, a badger, and two pheasants in the lounge (all stuffed , all slightly damp), and finally, an elderly grey parrot named Mr. Biscuits and an old brown ferret named Hermes (both alive, though only just). Her house, as you can imagine, was permeated with a rank odour somewhere between a geriatric ward and a dirty rabbit hutch: base notes of urine and the musky scent of animals alive, dead or dying, with high notes of mothballs, talcum powder and mould. Ms. Featherington-Smythe herself exuded the same odour, although she covered it slightly by spritzing herself frequently with an old bottle of perfume called Eau de Chevrefeuille. It didn’t help much as it had been empty since the late seventies.
Every morning, Ms. Featherington-Smythe would get up, brush her teeth with Brylcream, powder her face with Maizena, put on her favourite dress (a violet monstrosity from an unidentifiable decade) have a spritz of Eau de Chevrefeuille and wither her way downstairs for breakfast. She would water the plants in her conservatory (mostly geraniums), put some jellied eels out for Mr. Biscuits and fill Hermes’s bowl with birdseed (the old creatures, long used to her foibles, knew to switch bowls). She would then call Estrella for her own breakfast.
‘Esstreeeellla! Estreeelllllllllaaaaa!’
‘Si Senora?’ Mr Biscuits would squawk in reply.
‘I’m reaaady for my morning victuals!’
‘Si, Senora.’
It is difficult to imagine what kind of mental processes were malfunctioning here in the mysterious mind of Ms Featherington-Smythe, but in any case, every morning she would pay little heed to Estrella’s failure to appear with breakfast. After several minutes, she would let out a sigh and fetch herself her usual crumpets with crab paste and a cup of Earl Grey. Then she would scoop Hermes up into her arms, oblivious of his vile stench, and caress him lovingly whilst she carried on with some old lady hobby or other. Embroidery, perhaps.
One morning, Ms. Featherington-Smythe, seated for breakfast as per her usual routine, was dismayed to hear no response from Estrella. She called her again but was greeted, once more, with silence. She got up from the table and went into the conservatory. ‘Estrella! Where has that woman gotten to!?’ Estrella was nowhere to be seen (of course) but what Ms. Featherington-Smythe saw instead was much more distressing: Mr. Biscuits, fallen from his perch, stone dead. As dead as the squirrels in the guest bedroom. Hermes scuttled over to have a sniff; the verdict was conclusive. ‘Oh!’ Exclaimed Ms. Featherington-Smythe. ‘Oh.’ Whilst she was much too mad to notice her maid had not returned from her summer holiday to Bognor Regis in ’84 (‘Bognor Regis’ being the Spanish for Puerto Rico and ‘summer holiday’ being the Spanish for ‘running away with £5000 worth of Ms. Featherington-Smythe’s old jewellery), she was sane enough to know a dead parrot when she saw one. It made her deeply sad, and her yellowy old eyes glassed over with tears. She had loved Mr. Biscuits, if in a rather absent-minded way. ‘Come on, Hermes.’ She croaked, grabbing the poor ferret by his ragged tail and wrapping him around her neck. ‘We’re going to see Mr. Fishwick.’
(To be continued…)
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