This blogger encourages Mother Nature to continue taking a leak over Northern California; I am all about female empowerment.
Let it flow, so to speak.
Enough of drought.
I envisioned an afternoon of lurking in sheltered doorways with my pipe. Because my apartment mate comes home around seven on Friday, the place needs to start airing out at around two o'clock, so I cannot smoke while plonking on the computer in the afternoon. It's sad, but these days a pipe-habit is not considered über-cool anymore. Serious intellectuals and charming celebrities do not have pipes in their mouths.
Somebody's long-dead grandpa still does.
But he's out in the rain.
I blame armpit deodorant; it made us neurotic about smells.
THE TRAIN TO BATH
Mathilde had the railway carriage all to herself. Outside, the summer downpour cast a grey hue over the green of England, obscuring fields and copses of trees where there were flickering lights despite the time of day. It was not even teatime! But it seemed dark, dark and gloomy.
What a pity Rupert wasn't with her. His unit was somewhere in France, fighting the Beastly Hun, and while she hoped he would be home again soon it didn't look like it. It would have been so nice to sit down with him over porcelain cups, the clink of China and soft happy conversation in her ears instead of the drub of the downpour and the rumble-rumble of the train.
England was such a gloomy place without his company.
And he looked so very dashing in his uniform!
With a pipe jauntily sticking out.
She missed his stench.
Indeed, she would give anything in the world for a whisp of his Golden Virginia and grubby tweeds. Familiar smells gave great comfort.
The train simply whiffed of coal and armpits.
Bath, where she was going, was not a pleasant city. Bad buns, and dry crackers with Stilton. There was a reek of sulfur about the place. She supposed that was due to the elderly military men who had retired there. Too old to go to the front, not old enough to keep their hands to themselves.
Claret-sodden cigar smokers, with fits of groping.
Wolves amid the splendour.
Her Maiden aunt had requested that she come. There would be no gaiety while she stayed, as the woman disapproved of dances, dinner parties, smoking, and all manner of intemperance.
Her man Rupert was such a great dancer!
She hoped he didn't loose a leg.
That would be awful.
○
THOSE WICKED FRENCH AUTHORS!
Amelia didn't really like cocktail parties, the company was always so superficial! But the library of the Jambonne's country cottage was utterly splendid, and because it was on the third floor of the mansion, it would be a lovely place to hide while her parents socialized.
Far from the frenetic rowdiness.
And horrid noise.
She looked forward to reading some of the risqué French novels that old man Jambonne collected, while chainsmoking cigarettes. Lucy Jambonne was a college classmate, and so very very considerate. While the adults were downstairs jollifying over gin and vermouth, the two of them could quietly roam the library, not talking, just reading and systematically emptying the contents of the cigarette caskets filled with Khedive and Kyriazi Frères (both were Turkish ovals) that Lucy's grandpa liked to have scattered about. There would be tea and scones, possibly even sweet buns, and perhaps later a bottle of Port or Bordeaux, sent up with some cheese and Bath Olivers to snack on.
Time would pass so quickly!
If she were a man, Amelia supposed she'd probably like Lucy even more. She always looked so dashing with her tight sweaters and plaid skirts. And always, always, those cigarettes. Very modern!
She envied Lucy's self-possession.
As well as her slimness.
Luscious!
Later both of them would fell asleep in armchairs near the fire, each covered with a throw rug. The housekeeper would discover them the next morning, snoring gently and still reeking of the cigarettes.
That, in all ways, would be a perfect party.
No Martinis or music, just books.
And enough to smoke.
Plus cheese.
○
WE SHOULD DO COCKTAILS!
Something about Thai cuisine always put her to sleep. Her coworkers would discover her slumped over her keyboard, drooling, and wonder if she had been up all night again. But no, it was merely a physiological reaction to dreary office luncheons, and the impossibility of juggling chili peppers in vinegar, coconut curries, and various oily red and green preparations while listening to them yacking over exercise clubs and stock-options. And whether Cindibelle had lost any weight, or Jennifer was seeing that hot hunk in Marketing. Such pedestrian subjects, and such glibly jejune commentary!
She actually enjoyed spicy curries, but she preferred places where there were fewer people like her colleagues. They were nice, well okay, sort of, but their mundane lives and interests did not in any way strike chords.
Healthnuts, wine drinkers, shopaholics, and sportsfiends.
Not a single one of them read anything at all!
They hadn't done so since college.
Textbooks only then.
She herself really liked trashy fiction. There was nothing better, Jennifer felt, than expecting some sweet young thing to be seduced by a leering rapscallion in a boîte. Or reading about a butchly named private eye sipping cheap Bourbon while waiting for a psychopathic stevedore in an alley near the docks. Her preferences ran towards gritty detective fiction.
Unfortunately every woman she knew at work was more fascinated by reality shows and the shopping channel, and all the men talked incessantly about sports.
She supposed that she did stay up late too often. It was easy to do, once she got home. The retired podiatrist downstairs played his collection of opera records on his 1970's turntable till the wee hours, his pipe-smoke would drift up through the airwell and suggest an earlier era when the smells of asphalt, machine oil, and hot tar were more common and less objectionable. She had never complained to the landlord; she didn't really know her neighbor, but she liked his smoky macho fragrance.
It suggested things; mysterious, delicious, and nicely wicked.
One of these days she'd compliment him on his tobacco.
Perhaps gift him an ashtray, to show sincerity.
She hoped he would still be around.
When she had the courage.
To talk to him.
○
The weather cleared up by tea-time. The apartment had already gotten over two hours of fresh air by then, and I resolved to open the windows wide again when I got back. Just to be on the safe side.
After an egg-tart and a steamed chicken bun.
Plus a hot cup of HK milk-tea.
And a pipe.
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